Eye of the Cyborg

By Tom Kropp

Tom Kropp's novels all started as short stories he wrote that were published in well-known magazines such as Chiron Review, Churches Children and Daddies, Down in the Dirt, Horror Zine, Listening Eye, Evening Street Review, Freedom Fiction, Dark Harbor, Blood Moon Rising, Phantomania, J Journal, Lowlife Lit, Conceit, Muscle and Fitness, Outdoor Life and many other magazines.

 This is a very action-packed novel with both thrills and romance.

Joshua Cain is a futuristic warrior and explorer with his human genetics enhanced by some unknown alien life forms. He's badly injured during a space battle, and an unknown species saves his life by implanting him with unknown robotics. His cyborg eye contains a strange intelligence that can take control over most modern computers and electronics. The eye is programmed with Intel on how to stop a new race of savage space explorers coming into the human occupied systems.

  The Rondors and Titans are two highly advanced species that greatly resemble highly evolved bears and rhinos. These aliens are being guided by an alien entity of energy that claims to be their god of war and is gifting them with weapons technology far beyond human means. The entity is guiding its worshippers to conquer all the human occupied territories and wipe out the humans while enslaving the worlds. They are on a holy way.

  Cain's eye contains the knowledge to stop them, if he can survive to use it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tom Kropp
• Release date: Sep 12, 2025
• ISBN: 9798232925741

Tom Kropp

Tom Kropp's work has appeared in The Horror Zine, Dark Harbor, Churches, Children and Daddies, Chiron Review, Listening Eye, Evening Street Review, J Journal, Freedom Fiction, Conceit, Lowlife Lit, Muscle and Fitness, Outdoor Life and many other magazines.He's had numerous novels published and you can read more of his writings at tomkropp.wordpress.com

Book preview

Eye of the Cyborg

Tom Kropp

Published by Tom Kropp, 2025.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

EYE OF THE CYBORG

First edition. September 12, 2025.

Copyright © 2025 Tom Kropp.

ISBN: 979-8232925741

Written by Tom Kropp.

Also by Tom Kropp

Blood Count

Ferocious Foxy

Poetic Violence

Astral Vampires

C.I. Deal

Murderous Malevolence

Eye of the Cyborg

Predators Made Prey

Temerity

Mayhem

Fierce Frontiers

NY to Africa

Violent Crimes

Homicide Crimes

Murders in Magazines

Watch for more at Tom Kropp’s site.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Also By Tom Kropp

Dedication

Eye of the Cyborg

Sign up for Tom Kropp's Mailing List

About the Author

For Shannon and my mom. Thanks for all the help in life.

Tom Kropp’s work has appeared in Chiron Review, Churches, Children and Daddies, Down in the Dirt, The Listening Eye, Evening Street Review, J Journal, Freedom Fiction, Lowlife Lit, Conceit, Spontaneous Spirit, Spotlight on Recovery, Muscle and Fitness, Outdoor Life, Woodworker’s Journal and many other magazines. His play Jailhouse Confessions was performed at the Kennedy Center in 2019. He has many published novels. You can read more of his work at tomkropp.wordpress.com.

This book is dedicated to my mom and Shannon.

Eye of the Cyborg

By Tom Kropp

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Fierce winds whipped across the blood red desert of Dumar and it stormy scarlet skies were filled with soaring starships. A large city sparkled in the hellish light, safe from the storm behind flickering photonic forcefields. It was a volatile planet prone to storms and volcanoes. In a crowded bar in the domed city’s speedy side, humanoids and aliens from dozens of different worlds drank and talked. Most of them sat on hovering gel cushions while life sized voluptuous

3-d holograms of nude females danced above the crowd. The exotic music and verbal clamor was chaotic. But it quieted down in a sudden hush as a lone figure entered the establishment.

It was an Earth woman of captivating beauty that radiated an aura of danger in the doorway. Long golden hair fell in shimmering coils to her waist. The thick hair framing her face was accented by high cheekbones, bright blue eyes and pouting, thick lips. Clad all in skin hugging black, none could fail to note the perfection of her busty-bosomed, waspish-waisted, long-legged figure. But the low slung plasma pistol at her hip and some body armor marked her as a fighter. Her name was Valeria Zimdars and her ship called the Condor was well known among smugglers of the sectors.

A six legged, green, reptilian alien bumped into her, distracting her while another alien plucked her pistol from her holster. A pair of tall, pointy eared, albino skinned humanoids pulled electromagnetic stun guns on her. Valeria’s right leg lashed out in a snap kick, sending one foe’s weapon flying from his fingers. She slapped aside a stun gun that fired and accidentally hit an android that fell kicking. She was wearing an elegant bracelet that strobed out a ruby colored blazing bolt that sheared through the reptilian’s skull in a shower of scarlet gore that spattered the floor. She fired again, flinging another foe off his feet to drop kicking with a charred chest where her plasma beam drilled through his armor.

A zipping bolt bashed her back and she collapsed. The plasma lanced through her shoulder like a hot knife through butter with her flesh sizzling and smoking after the blaster shriek. Valeria cursed, trying to move. Her first three foes were on the floor, dead or hurt, but now three red scaled, humanoids stood over her, pointing pistols with big smiles on their fang filled faces. They looked like demons out of hell with their short scarlet horns that bristled from their heads like bull horns.

Let her go. A deep voice ordered cutting sharply through the club. The aliens glanced at the speaker. He was a short human male with a lot of muscle and a black patch over his left eye with a thick old scar visible chiseled down his cheek. He wore a low-slung plasma pistol.

We’re bounty hunters and she’s wanted by Thieme. This is our job. Go away or get hurt. The nearest scarlet scaled demonic entity ordered while shifting his stance.

Your job is gonna get you killed. What’s Thieme paying? I can match it. the pirate looking man offered.

The aliens were impatient and tried to divide attention between Valeria and the man. They failed when they tried to point pistols his way. They were cut down instantly by the gunslinger’s blazing barrage of blaster bolts that butchered their bodies. The trio’s torsos were torched through. It hurtled the hunters helter-skelter into oblivion. They collapsed close to each other in bloody bundles, harshly hissing as their lacerated lungs cooked like flesh in a fryer. They couldn’t fight further, but the pirate pistoleer took no chances. His plasma pistol puffed in swift streaking strobes charring holes through the heads of all three fallen foes.

Wordlessly the pirate looking pistoleer walked across the room and helped Valeria up and handed her a fallen foe’s pistol. She moved with him, not questioning his actions yet. They dodged through the doorway out into the packed street full of pushing pedestrians and vehicles honking horns.

Here. He pulled a can of biofoam from his shoulder-pack and sprayed it on to her wound. The biofoam went to work, instantly feeding her pain medication while regenerating the damaged tissues.

Thanks. What’s your angle? Valeria asked wearily.

I need a ride to Angola space base. Can you give me a ride quickly? he questioned her back.

Sure. If we can escape. I just found out a former employer put a price on my head. she explained.

Lead the way. He encouraged her.

Valeria moved through the mob and within a few blocks she discreetly studied the docking area where her ship stood. She was surprised to find no one waiting around it. Out of the sky, four robot police droids dropped down on their jet packs. They had humanoid forms, like seven foot tall bulky wrestlers with big police stars on their chests. They shouted her name, ordering her to surrender immediately. Ghostly forcefields shimmered in front of the droids upper bodies and heads for their protection. They robots hovered in mid-air in good crossfire positions.

The man didn’t hesitate. He pulled his pistol, broadcasting blaster bolts that flew low below the personal forcefields the droids flickered on. With uncanny accuracy and celerity, the gunslinger’s enfilade amputated two ankles of the nearer pair. The sudden shots spun the droids around and their own jet packs catapulted them through the window across the street in a crash of smashed glass.

The remaining pair returned fire with their rifles spewing a stream of beams that flashed past the gunslinger’s sudden prone position. He once again aimed low and his bolts banged into their ankles, amputating them, making their forcefields flicker on and off from the damage done. Mercilessly the man fired in both their faces, slinging shrapnel from their gravitonic brains all over the street. All that occurred in a couple of eye blinks.

Run! The pirate ordered and they dashed down into the docking area. Where’s your ship? He asked, looking worried.

Over here! she urged, up and running with him on her heels. Her DNA on the hand analyzer and retinal scan opened the hatch for them to rush into the saucer shaped ship called the Condor. They hopped in the cockpit and Valeria went to work adjusting the neural band on her brow for telepathic contact with her ships AI identity. The Condor raised deflector shields. She plotted in their hyperspace wormhole to the Angola system.

The ship streaked skyward like a flung Frisbee and rocked under a battery of proton torpedoes tapping the aft shields. Valeria spun in 180, evading another torrent of torpedoes with a looping spiral drive and jettisoning drones that the torpedoes were fooled into impacting against. Valeria launched off a plasma cannonade and twister of torpedoes that slammed into the police ship. The Condor’s pulse turbolasers promptly picked off volleys of vectored missiles arching at them.

From space, the planet’s defensive satellite network shifted attention down at the oncoming Condor. Brilliant beams shrieked from space and crisscrossing fusillades of fire flared on the Condor’s shields. Two more police ships swooped in at her. The Condor cut through the explosive maelstrom stream of beams and bombs battering at it. The Condor’s dark energy fusion core and dark matter hull was more advanced than the enemy armada after it. The Condor’s sudden salvo of dark matter missiles spiraled away, punching into two police ships in their path. The enemies’ shields’ buckled under the bombings, ballooning into a bubble of expanding energy. The explosion blossomed wide, sending the ships’ shards plunging into the planet in fireballs. The Condor’s dark energy thrusters engaged, making the vessel’s rear rockets become a distant dot disappearing into a swirling wormhole, leaving the planet far behind in an eye blink.

Well, all the things you’ll do to impress a girl are really something. Valeria admitted as they shot through hyperspace. Thanks for the assist. If you don’t mind me asking, what’s so important in the Angola system?

Have you heard of that new species called the Titans? He asked.

Yes. Strange new beings that resemble evolved grizzly bears. Their ships are killing everything and everyone they encounter. Supposedly they’re gradually going towards Earth. Rumors say their ships possess powers never seen before and a lot of fear is spreading. Valeria repeated what she’d heard.

The gunslinger peeled back his eyepatch to reveal a silvery glowing artificial eye. My eye has downloaded schematics that should be able to corrupt the Titans’ weaponry technology, if we get there fast enough to prepare. The Titans’ armada is massing about to cruise through our cosmos killing the Earth aligned worlds before reaching ours. The schematics in my eye could save trillions of sentient species. But only if we arrived in time.

Well, you’re on the right ship. Within eight hours we’ll be there. Valeria bragged a bit.

The cyborg just nodded, preoccupied with worry over the Intel in his eye that could save trillions.

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Eye of Cyborg. 2

Valeria turned her attention to the console briefly before once again studying her passenger. From his back pack he pulled out a strange object. Suspiciously she watched him because the item could be a weapon. It was a two foot long silvery crystal club with an ivory sphere on the end. It resembled a medieval mace made of crystal. If her passenger made any aggressive moves her ship Al defense system would stun him and erect force fields around him

What's your name? She inquired.

Victor Cain. I'm an agent with the Earth Interstellar Alliance.

What's that thing?

"It's part of a key that will activate an ancient station grid that can help us fight our new foes. The titans aren’t actually our worst threat. There's not a lot of titan’s left because their worlds were destroyed. But these surviving titans have reached an alliance with a species caller the Rondors. There's billions of Rondors waiting to invade our space-time continuum. The titans are helping build a dimensional wormhole that will open a doorway between dimensions.

If the Rondors come through and join the titans they'll conquer every world they encounter. Both species are worshipping an alien entity claiming to be their God. In reality, this entity is a false Deity. She a lone survivor of an ancient race that destroyed each other. She functions as an entity of pure energy with incredible power. She makes herself appear as a cross between the titans and Rondors. Both species believe she created them. She instills their minds with highly advanced technologies and energy source converters better than our technologies. That's why their ships shields and weaponry are so much more powerful than ours. These creatures believe they are on a holy war and to die in battle is a glorious cause. They believe the worlds in our dimension will someday soon destroy all their worlds. There's no reasoning with them."

Can they be stopped? She questioned.

If we move and succeed swift enough. Cain replied wishfully.

Valeria found him quite attractive, despite his scars and cyborg eye and limbs. He had blond hair and a blue eye off-setting the crystal cyborg eye in a scarred, but handsome face. He was about her height with a lean waist and major muscles. His speed and shooting accuracy beat anything she'd ever seen. He had saved her life.

If Thiemes had caught her he would have had her brain wiped and reprogrammed into a devoted whore of his. Thiemes had always desired her and she'd always kept it strictly business. But her last smuggling run resulted in her being forced to abandon the cargo halfway through loading due to an attack on her ship sitting there. She'd made it in the air and destroyed the trio of ships attacking her. Unfortunately one of those ships had Thiemes little brother aboard and he died. Themes couldn't believe his little brother would be trying to betray and rob him that way. He chose to believe that Valeria had tried to steal the rich illegal drugs shipment and killed his brother and the others when they offered to escort her where the shipment was headed.

She was sure Thiemes wanted revenge for his slain brother and small fortune lost in drugs. But he also hungered for Valeria and he would dearly love to brain wipe her mind and program her into his whore. Being brain wiped was a loss of self and slavery into what someone wanted you to be. Like the law often did with criminals of nonviolent offenses.

The Condor's alarm rang as the ship was jarred hard and slowed in the hold of something else. We're being yanked out of hyperspace! Valeria shouted.

Suddenly the shaking ship was pulled from hyperspace into normal space where a huge goldfish shaped titan battle cruiser waited. An incandescent blast shook the ship, partially punching past the raised shields. The strange tractor beam was sucking their energy away at an incredible speed.

No! Valeria shouted and launched a tempest of torpedoes that impacted against the cruiser's shields in a brilliant burst. The force made her ship shudder and her shields drain faster. Her cannons clashed and smashed the enemy shields in surgical slices aimed at the tractor beam emitters. The cannons couldn't carve through the titan shields. She just lost more power.

It's pointless for now. Cain told her grimly. The more you fight the quicker you drain your power. Shut down for now and try to conceal the energy you have left so we can make a break for it. If we get pulled into their prisoner bay I'll be close to the cruiser's tractor beam array. My eye can overload it. Then we can make a break for it with the concealed energy you hide.

Surrender? No way! Valeria shouted furiously and frantically fought her foes, flooding them in frenzied flurries or fire from her cannons and torpedoes.

Abruptly Cain's artificial eye streamed a beam of energy resembling a ray of sunlight with dust mites dancing in it. The Condor computers and Al system obeyed the eye's commands and shut down all systems while secretly sToxing some from detection. Valeria went from scared and shocked to full fury as she ordered her Al to stun and secure Cain. Nothing happened.

She was quite quickly pulling her pistol. His artificial arm snatched it from her grasp so fast she didn't even see it. His hand bent the barrel like bread dough.

Valeria, stop. I'm on your side. I believe my eye can save us once we're actually inside their ship by the tractor beam. Look how I just controlled the Condor. I can likely save us, but only if we work together. Please work with me. He pleaded and pointed out, There’s obviously no way for you to escape by fighting your way. Try mine and I can succeed.

Valeria was enraged still, but she realized that she couldn't fight free her way. Hell, she'd never heard of a tractor beam that could snatch a ship from hyperspace. She was in over her head at the moment.

OK. Your way. What do we do now? She barked at him tensely.

'I’ve hidden the stored energy in your pattern buffers. Then we get pulled in their bay we'll be engulfed in their shields helpless. But they'll open a small window through their shields for some soldiers to board your ship. I'll stop them and get past their shield to the nearby tractor beam array and my eye will put it out of use. I'll be right back here and we fly away free. OK?" He pitched his plan as the mouth of the titan ships bay sucked them in.

I hope you're right. She agreed and pulled out another gun from a wall panel.

I need this, he said apologetically and grabbed the blast shield that could be used to cut the cockpit off from the other areas. In a squeal of protesting steel the blast shield welds were peeled apart as if he was picking up a piece of sliced cheese from a cut block. It was a strength beyond belief,