Chapter One

Zaya White

I woke up in my cell alone. A distant klaxon sounded, and I started shaking. Its blare signaled for shift change at this Mesaarkan base. That meant the alien Gar'hako, a Mesaarkan, would come to torment me as he did after every shift.

I whimpered, pulling my blanket tighter around me and staring at the restraining wheel across the room. The routine hadn't changed since those men brought me here and handed me over to the aliens. They awarded me to Gar'hako to use as he pleased.

It pleased him to hurt me and make me scream. If I didn't yell loud enough, he hit me harder until I did. The pain he would inflict would be bad enough, but I hated how he could make me feel pleasure afterward. He always pushed both to the limit until I screamed, whether in ecstasy or agony.

I couldn't even guess how many days or weeks it had been since some humans kidnapped me. I was at my ranch planting my kitchen garden when a craft landed nearby. Two men approached, and one shot me with some kind of stun gun. I woke up in this cage. Gar'hako said I was his, and the real nightmare began. I just wanted this all to end and go home.

It had been a year since that cyborg Dagger and his mate came by and recorded my DNA for the Cyborg Mating Project database before I was taken. If I ever got matched, how would he ever find me here? I didn't even know where I was.

Sometimes, I would daydream that my cyborg would come and rescue me. At first, I dreamed he would come to the ranch and tell me he was mine. We would fall in love and run the place together. Later on, we could start a family. But since I had been held captive here, I wished he would somehow find me and get me out of there. I didn't want to die, but I was starting to think it was the only way to end my daily torment.

The door slid open, and Gar'hako strode into the room. I shrugged off the blanket, standing naked in front of the cage door. I knew what would happen if I didn't obey. Mesaarkan pets didn't wear clothes, Gar'hako told me as he ripped my clothes to shreds that first day. He hadn't given me any clothes to replace those he had ripped off me. His sadistic smile told me he was looking forward to hitting me more than usual.

He opened the cage and grabbed my wrist before I could scramble to the back of the cage. Pulling me over to the restraining wheel, he strapped me to it spread-eagled. Trying to fight him was an exercise in futility because Mesaarkans were way stronger than human men.

Then, he went to a display on the wall and took down a flexible rod that was a little longer than a riding crop. He ran it over my body, poking my nipples and between my legs. I shuddered, knowing the blows would soon come. I yelped with the first one and each one after that.

Gar'hako would cover me with welts before he stopped. When it was all over, he'd apply a healing spray that made them disappear by the next day. He'd hit me about ten times when a big male human broke through the door and shot Gar'hako dead.

I screamed, thinking I was next.

"No, it's okay, female. I won't hurt you. I've come to get you out of here." He shouldered his rifle by its strap and strode to me.

He was tall and well-muscled, with sandy blond hair and midnight blue eyes. "Damn! I wish I'd had time to kill him slowly and painfully for what he has done to you." He ripped the restraints from the frame without unfastening them.

"Do you have some clothing here?" he asked.

"He didn't give me any after he took mine away." I gripped the frame to steady myself. The whipping left me feeling weak, a little nauseous, and in pain. As I looked up at his handsome face, I saw the small piece of tech attached to his head. "You're a cyborg."

"I am." He looked around the room and strode to the Mesaarkan's nest, grabbing a blanket from it. The cyborg quickly wrapped it around me. "We have to leave fast. Will you let me carry you?"

"Okay," I nodded. I could barely stand. There was no way I could run, and I had no shoes.

The big cyborg scooped me up, one arm behind my back and one behind my knees, pivoted, and jogged out of Gar'hako's quarters.

A voice on the interior sound system announced the autodestruct countdown in Mesaarkan, and the cyborg began to run super-fast. "What is your name, female?"

"Zaya White."

"I'm Steele Nova," he said without ever breaking stride. As he ran down the corridor of the underground alien base, more cyborgs joined us.

I later learned that the cyborgs had forced all of the Mesaarkans into their spaceship hanger and locked them inside. Now that the cyborgs had discovered them, the aliens had no choice but to leave Earth because they had no right to be here. It was no surprise that they had activated their auto-destruct.

Soon, we reached the mouth of the tunnel, where there was a fleet of hovercrafts parked for a quick escape. Steele took us to a large transport, climbed inside, and sat down with me on his lap. Only then did I realize that I had been clinging to him with my arms around his neck, and his arms tightened around me. Instinctively, I knew I was safe with this cyborg.

Steele

As soon as we were inside, I signaled the driver through our Cyborg Network, and the hovercraft lifted off. Only then did it hit me that I had just found my genetic mate. I wrapped her in my arms and held her preciously close as she hugged my neck. I'd scented her as soon as I had entered the room where the Mesaarkan had been torturing her. I certainly never expected to find her—damaged emotionally and physically as Zaya was. She would require treatment for both. The best place for that was New Chicago, and that's where I was taking her.

We stopped temporarily to regroup just as the mountain imploded, shaking the ground under our crafts. When the shaking stopped, I shifted Zaya on my lap to get out a bolus of nanites. "I just need to squirt this up your nose. It will repair some of your damage. Once we get everyone to safety, I will take you to the medical center in New Chicago for rest and repair."

"Will I see you again?" She looked at me uncertainly.

"I won't leave you. I will be right there with you as much as you'll let me."

Zaya looked up into my eyes. "Are you mine?"

I nodded. I hadn't wanted to put that burden on her after what she had been through. But when she asked me a direct question, I couldn't lie. Cyborgs cannot lie.

She pressed her face into my shoulder, clinging to me, and she started to cry. "I dreamed you would come, but I thought it was a silly fantasy—just a silly fantasy because he made my life so miserable. I thought I would die there, and no one would ever know."

Her tears unnerved me a bit.

"And I wish I could kill him again, slowly and painfully, for everything he did to you, my female. It's over now. You will heal, and we will get to know each other and go from there."

It hurt to hear the sobs of my newly found mate, but I knew Zaya needed to cry it out to purge some of the pain and suffering she had endured. So, I rubbed her back and stroked her hair. "It's okay. Let it out. I've got you now."

After several minutes, her sobs faded to hiccups, and then, after a long sigh, she drifted to sleep as we rode the transport. I also let out a sigh, looking down at her sleeping face, hoping her tears had washed away some of the pain.

It was a two-hour flight to Chicago, but I was still reveling in the fact that I was holding my genetic mate in my arms. I was happy to hold Zaya and watch her sleep. I hated that she had suffered at the hands of a Mesaarkan, and I berated myself that I might have prevented it had I come for her sooner. It started way before I arrived in Gretchen, Montana.

Gretchen was a small town of 286 at the foot of a mountain. It was a charming little town that looked like it had been taken from a centuries-old painting. One row of businesses lined the main street paved with crumbling macadam. Instead of parking spots in front of the shops, there were hitching posts, usually with horses tied to a few. It was like a different world from Chicago.

It had been some time since I had been back. I was created there and born in a secret facility just south of Chicago. I remember feeling angry and frustrated because no one had awakened me for the war. It was over, and the population of Earth was decimated by the Mesaarkans' bombing of every major city in the world.

I don't understand why they did not awaken us cyborgs who were still here in stasis so we could help restore order and rebuild civilization while the war was going on. Instead, they left people to fend for themselves who were unprepared to do so. Many more died than had to. Still, they had made a lot of progress since Vyken Dark returned to Earth and awakened the cyborgs in stasis.

For the first two years, we rebuilt Chicago and Farringay Starport. When we finished, teams of cyborgs went from town to town, helping people to regain their independence and rebuild their communities. Eventually, I joined the Cyborg Protectors. We are part enforcers and part mentors, helping the people who were left learn to take care of themselves. In that respect, cyborgs became guardians of civilization.

We thought we had made a great deal of progress. Once we started moving to remote locations such as Montana, where the population was sparse, Cyborg Ranger Shadow Hawk never expected to find a remote Mesaarkan base in the Rocky Mountains. Those weren't the first Mesaarkans on Earth, but we'd never discovered so many in one place. Now, we wondered how many other bases might be hidden away in hollowed-out mountains or underground caverns around the world.

They weren't satisfied with decimating the population of Earth. Now, they were kidnapping the people left to torment them. How much revenge was enough? A contingent of Earthers murdered 260 Mesaarkans on a distant world, thinking of erasing their prior claim. One survived to report back. The Mesaarkans attacked many Federation worlds a few months later, killing billions. The crime against the Mesaarkans was indeed heinous, but the Earth and its people were punished many times over.

Most of the people killed and injured had nothing to do with the crime of a few.

At the moment, I am more concerned about the woman sleeping in my arms. I spent a minute or two fantasizing about how I could have made the Mesaarkan suffer for hurting Zaya. Of course, it is moot because I already killed him.

When we arrived in Chicago, the transport pilot took us directly to the hospital. I carried Zaya into the emergency suite. She woke up as I placed her on an awaiting stretcher. As the android attendant wheeled her away, she called out.

"Steele, please come with me," she pleaded. I didn't hesitate to accompany Zaya and discovered she was taken to be scanned. While they were doing that, I related to the android what had happened to her at the Mesaarkan stronghold. When the scan was finished, a female cyborg Medic came in to assess Zaya.

"Hello, Zaya. I'm Dr. Moon Star. Can you tell me what happened? Would you like Protector Nova to step out?"

"No, he might as well know what happened. I was kidnapped by the aliens and used as a toy. I was beaten and molested repeatedly. The food they gave me was disgusting, but I ate it because they didn't give me any choice." Tears ran down her face, but she wasn't actively crying. They kept me in a cage naked like an animal."

"I am sorry that happened to you. We're going to help you recover from that with nanite therapy. It will recede those memories so that they will seem to have happened in your distant past. None of your injuries are life-threatening, and the nanite therapy will easily heal them. When you're all finished here, you should be able to go on with your life."