As we wait for the release day for Doc’s Orders (Friday, July 10th), I’m sharing the first chapter.
Read the first scene here: http://tasteofcyn.com/?p=6869
Today, I’m sharing the fourth and final scene.
“Leave us alone.” He communicated to the beasts in their language, issuing a barrage of short barks. “And we’ll cause you no damage.”
They won’t believe you. Dissent relayed that projection through a transmission. We were manufactured to inflict damage on others.
The parameters of this mission restrict the damage we can cause. Doc reminded the J Model.
Captain had authorized them to match yet not exceed the aggression levels of the locals. They could inflict damage only if beings attempted to inflict damage on them first.
The beasts don’t know our parameters. Truth’s eyes shone with anticipation. They won’t believe us when we say we won’t damage them and they will attack us. Then we can fight back.
“Smell good.” One of the beasts raised his muzzle. “Nourishment.”
“We are not nourishment.” Doc slashed the air with his hands, seeking to dissuade their opponents. “You cannot consume us.”
“Eat.” Another beast bared its teeth. “Eat.”
The entire pack repeated that word. Doc stifled a sigh. The beasts didn’t have the processing power to view them as anything other than prey.
Distract them as I analyze the vegetation. He gave that instruction to his two brethren. Don’t end their lifespans.
Yes. Truth grinned. The warrior was eager to fight.
Even the normally solemn Dissent appeared pleased with those orders, the J Model repositioning to protect Doc’s back.
The beasts attacked. Dissent and Truth fended most of them off, happily knocking them in the direction from which they came.
Doc crouched, took a soil reading. The ground was as toxic as the rest of the planet. Its temperature was high.
A beast approached him from the side. It lowered, coiling its body, and leaped. Without looking up from his handheld, Doc punched it in the nose.
It flew backward and smacked into a tree, then fell to the ground whimpering.
Doc stored the genetic information he’d taken from the brief contact in his databases. Toxins were incorporated into the beasts’ fur.
Have you sampled their saliva? He asked his brethren.
I haven’t sampled it yet. Truth, that malfunctioning warrior, shed his body armor. Come and get me. He waved his arms.
A beast took the bait, pouncing. Its jaws clamped around the D Model’s right arm.
Got it. Truth grinned. Relaying the information.
He shook the beast loose. Blood spurted from the warrior’s wounds.
It was minor damage, would repair on its own. Doc concentrated on the data. The saliva is extremely venomous, would kill a human.
I’m taking a blood sample. Dissent extracted daggers from sheaths on his body armor.
The beasts attacked, were pushed back, recovered, attacked, were pushed back, recovered. The constant assault slowed Doc’s evaluation of the terrain.
Even a human would have processed the futility of their actions by now. He grumbled as he took a sample of a tree’s bark.
Humans aren’t nearly as much fun as these creatures. Truth caught two beasts by the scruff of their necks, slammed their skulls together and tossed them over his shoulders.
“Lava pocket.” Dissent shoved Doc forward.
Heat blazed over his back as molten rock shot into the air. The lava pockets were one of the reasons why the ship transporting them hadn’t landed.
Are you feeling any aftereffects of being bitten? Doc scanned Truth.
The warrior’s specs were within range. His nanocybotics had neutralized the venom in the beast’s saliva.
My processors say I’m not experiencing any aftereffects. Truth swatted a beast away from him. But they must be malfunctioning. I’ve never felt this strong.
The male might merely be buzzed on the beasts’ venom or he could be affected by the toxins in the air or impacted by a number of other inputs.
Needing his hands free, Doc hung his medic pack on a limb of a tree. The trees grew on the most stable ground, terrain unaffected by lava pockets.
A beast attacked him. He punched it harder than he had hit its previous pack member.
The creature slammed against a boulder and went limp. It continued to breathe, would live, but it wouldn’t bother him for a longer duration.
That was a good thing for the mission and for Doc. With each violent confrontation, his organic side emerged more and more, seeking to take complete control, to eliminate all threats.
He didn’t have his white jacket to combat the turbulent emotions inside him, to remind him why he needed his machine side to be in command. That symbol of his medic role was too visible to wear on a hostile planet, could draw prospective enemies to him and his small team.
But without his white jacket, he resembled the warrior he’d once been. Clad in black body armor and boots, the sheaths and holsters on his protective garment filled with weapons, he was outfitted to hurt, to kill.
To release the primitive part of himself.
Seeking to prevent that from happening, Doc scanned the nearby tree, focused on those findings, those specs. He derived formulas in his processors, performed calculations, determined probabilities.
That pleased his machine, bored his organics.
This approach is illogical. Dissent swiped at the circling beasts with his daggers. If we kill the beasts, they won’t return. We could—
“Danger.” One of the beasts on the edge of the pack yelped that warning.
The rest of the four-legged creatures ran at full speed in the opposite direction, their tails tucked between their hind legs, their heads down.
Doc, Dissent, and Truth looked at each other.
What could be more dangerous than lava pockets and venomous beasts? Dissent frowned.
We’ll soon find out. Truth’s grin spread as he donned his body armor. I love this planet.
Doc felt no love for Khambalia 5.
He wanted to focus on their mission, on scientific discovery, not on threats and not on situations that provoked the unstable, emotional part of himself.
Deal with the new danger. Doc delegated that task to Truth and Dissent. I’m gathering the information we require.
He would ignore everything and everyone else.
***
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Doc’s Orders
She wants both sides of her cyborg—the medic AND the beast.
A fully functional cyborg is balanced. His machine half and his organic half work together to produce the perfect warrior.
Doc isn’t fully functional.
The G Model operates at the two extremes. When his machine is in complete control, he’s the logic-driven medic, saving lifespans. Once his organics take charge, he becomes the savage beast…and beings die.
Both sides of Doc want to be the first to claim his female.
Allinen is one of the few beings in her small settlement who wasn’t born with a fated mate. Determined to belong somewhere, she has crafted a plan to leave the planet.
That plan doesn’t involve a huge stormy-eyed male who alternates between cool seduction and out-of-control ravishment. Doc isn’t her fated mate. Allinen knows that. But his dual nature and forbidden embraces tempt her to forget forever and indulge in more immediate delights.
Neither side of Doc views their relationship as being temporary. Her conflicted cyborg is prepared to battle her family, her planet and death itself to keep her.
Pre-order Now:
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https://www.amazon.com/Docs-Orders-Cyborg-Space-Exploration-ebook/dp/B07RML2WG1
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https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/doc-s-orders
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https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/938342
