Читать книгу Her Cyborg Warriors - Grace Goodwin - Страница 8

Doctor Surnen Syrzon, Science Bay, Medical Unit, The Colony

The organism moving beneath the microscope twisted and stretched, completely engulfing the healthy Prillon cell floating in the growth medium next to it. Something so tiny, so fascinating, was making warriors sick. It wasn’t killing my patients, but the infection was incapacitating strong fighters in their prime. It was my job to identify it, understand it and eradicate it. Not just for here on The Colony, but throughout the Coalition. I was almost there.

“Dr. Surnen? You’re needed in transport two.” Captain Trax stood at the entrance to my laboratory. He was my chosen second—should I ever be lucky enough to be matched to a female of my own—and a trusted friend. He was also prone to overreaction, his warrior instincts making every matter urgent. He’d grown up on a battleship, been fighting since he was old enough to hold a blaster, and he made decisions in seconds that I preferred to contemplate for a bit longer.

I was a doctor, a researcher. We both followed protocol to the letter—I, as a scientist, he as a ruthless fighter—believing that regulations were what kept us all safe. But the frequent trips I’d been taking to Transport Two to check incoming medical supplies were growing tiresome. I was busy and too close to finalizing the treatment serum that would end this latest sickness to divert my time.

My gaze locked to the infectious cell as it continued devouring the now weakened Prillon cell, I didn’t bother lifting my head to respond to Trax. Adding a drop of fluid to the slide, I watched as my serum sample killed the bacteria. I grinned. “Send one of the techs. I’m busy.”

His deep exhale was the only indication of his frustration with me. “Surnen, don’t be an ass.” And his tone. And word choice. “Now. Now would be good.”

“Still busy.” I had two Prillon warriors in ReGen pods and half a dozen more quarantined in their quarters. Someone else could check off inventory lists.

I expected Trax to leave, to do as I’d requested and drag one of the medical officers down to inspect the new shipment. Instead he stepped farther into the room. “Are you refusing to accompany me to Transport Two?”

“Yes, I fucking am,” I snapped. “Go away. I’ve got eight warriors down with this gods’ damned infection already, and I’m finalizing the treatment. As I said, I’m busy. I have more important things to do than inspect the latest shipment to come in.”

“Excellent.” His happiness stirred my curiosity, and I lifted my chin to look at him over the medical equipment.

“I’m glad you are pleased.” I cocked my head toward the door. “Now get out.”

“Dr. Surnen of Prillon Prime, as you have refused to arrive at transport to greet your new mate, I officially request the rights and privileges of Primary Male be transferred to me. Computer, please make note of the date and time of this request.”

A smooth, feminine voice emanated from a speaker near the door. “Confirmed, Captain Trax. Your request has been processed and sent to Prillon Prime for formal consideration.”

“What?” What the fuck had he just said?

“Let me know when you are finished playing with your toys, Surnen. You can be my second. I’ll be taking care of our female while you work. Don’t worry about her safety or happiness. I will make sure she is claimed and protected by a Prillon collar and tend to all her needs while you save the universe.”

With those final words, he bowed formally, turned on his heel and left me behind my workbench, jaw slack.

What?

My mind stirred slowly. When I worked, every thought, feeling and emotion I had came into sharp focus on the task at hand. The serum sample I’d made could eliminate the need to use ReGen pods to cure the warriors. A single dose of the serum should act as a preventative to further infections. The information and the treatment I would perfect would be uploaded to the Coalition Fleet’s medical database and disseminated to the Fleet to assist other warriors who may have human females for brides. As Earth was the only planet that appeared to have females willing to accept the damaged males on The Colony as mates, finding a cure was of paramount importance as the bacteria was a human disease that had adapted to its new environment: nonhumans on The Colony.

With so many planets constantly interacting, the struggle to contain new strains of disease kept me well occupied and was a constant battle within the Coalition Fleet, one I excelled at winning.

I battled what I could fight, using my intellect and ability to focus to cure diseases from all over the galaxy. Other worlds often sent me samples of new organisms and diseases, seeking assistance in understanding and treating them. I would not rot away on this planet feeling sorry for myself. I refused.

I’d spent enough time mourning the deaths of my parents due to my mother’s rebellious nature and my two fathers’ lack of desire to control her. She’d been fun. I would admit that. My mother had lived life like there was no tomorrow and thrown caution—and regulation—to the stars. They’d all died for it, for my fathers had given in to her every whim.

Because my parents broke Coalition Fleet protocols, I’d become an orphan at twelve. Determined not to allow any others to make the same mistakes or suffer the same consequences, I’d joined the medical job training system on Prillon Prime to learn how to save others. I had no family, few friends, and once I’d been captured and contaminated by the Hive, I knew I never would.

Routine. Purpose. Training. Rules. Regulations. Order. Everything my mother had hated with a fiery passion had been the only things capable of saving me.

I had work to do. Important work. Except…

Surely Trax had been joking about the arrival of a mate.

The arrival of a female match for me was impossible. Fucking impossible. I had taken the matching test, so there was a statistical chance, yet I’d given up hope of having an Interstellar Bride years ago. Years.

Still…

“Comms,” I called out. “This is Medical. Connect me to Transport Two.”

“Connected, Doctor,” the comm system replied. Through the speaker I could hear voices. Too many voices for a standard medical supply transport.

“This is Dr. Surnen.”

“Surnen? This is Rachel. What the hell are you doing? Why aren’t you down here? Hurry up!” The human female was mated to the governor of Base 3 and his second, Captain Ryston. We had not been friendly when she’d first arrived on The Colony. Far from it. But the delivery of her child had earned me her forgiveness for following protocol upon her arrival and insisting on medical exams that she had not wanted.

“Oh my God, this is so exciting. I can’t wait to meet her!”

That voice belonged to another human female, Lindsey, if I weren’t mistaken. She’d arrived and brought her mother and young son to The Colony and taken an Everian Hunter as her mate. I had delivered her new child as well. I was becoming an obstetrician as much as a bacteriologist.

“What is going on down there?” I asked. My heart began to pound in my chest, but I pushed all excitement back. Surely this was a trick. My mind engaged with difficulty, still fully engrossed in genetic analysis. The switch in thinking was extreme, and hard to accept. A mate. Could it be true?

“Get your ass down here, Doc. We received word of your match and your mate’s imminent arrival. Trax looks like he’s about to lose his shit.”

Those blunt, crass words could only have come from Kristin—mated to Tyran and Hunt—who had been a law enforcement officer on Earth and still worked with the scouting teams here on the planet. How those two males allowed their mate to place her life in danger on a daily basis, I could neither understand nor condone, but she was not my female to protect. Not my problem, at least until she got herself hurt.

If my female spoke to me in such a tone, I would turn her ass red right before I filled her with my cock.

“Doc? You there?” Kristin asked.

“Yes.”

“Your mate. Did you hear those two words come out of my mouth?”

“Yes.” I had, but I still didn’t believe them. I didn’t dare. The only thing that had kept me sane all these years on this wasteland of a planet was resignation. I would serve my purpose and die on this rock. That was my fate.

A mate meant hope. And hope would fucking kill me.

I stood, but my feet remained frozen in place as an explosion of noise, of voices and excited females became a jumble of sound through the comm.

“Dr. Surnen, this is Maxim.”

My entire body flooded with relief at the deep, authoritative voice. Finally, an end to this madness. “Yes, Governor.”

“This is not a joke,” he snapped. “Your mate, Umiki Tanaka from Earth, is listed as being the next inbound transport. Trax is standing here with a blue blanket awaiting her arrival.”

Fuck.

Blue was Trax’s family color, not mine. Not fucking mine. He’d been serious.

“I received notification, Doctor, that Trax sent a request to Prillon Prime to be assigned Primary Male. Do you wish me to support his claim?”

Fuck that.

“He is my chosen second, and she’s mine,” I said, walking toward the door… and closer to my mate.

His chuckle would have made me furious if I hadn’t been such a stupid ass for the last few minutes. “I thought you might say that.”

Mikki, Interstellar Brides Processing Center, Earth

The corner of Warden Bisset’s mouth tipped up at my question. “All it means, Ms. Tanaka, is that the testing took twice as long as usual. I had to initiate a second simulation, one you would accept, but the data was finally gathered. You have been successfully matched.”

I frowned. “I have?” I tried to raise my hand to scratch my head, but I was restrained. “Can you open these up?”

“No. Per protocol, all felons are to remain confined for the duration of the testing and transport. I’m sorry, Ms. Tanaka.”

“Call me Mikki. And I’m not going to hurt you.” I tipped my chin up. “I’m an environmental biologist. I’m sure that tablet has all my information in it.” Sighing, I went on. “Fine, I was sent to prison, but for destruction of property, not murder.”

I’d blown huge holes in a couple of boats. Empty boats. Commercial whaling ships that were breaking the international ban. Scientific research, my ass. They gave real scientists like me a bad name. Yet that was the excuse they’d used. So what? It was okay for them to go out and kill whales, but putting a hole in the side of an empty boat was worse?

I’d do it again. That was why my parents had let me rot in jail and forced me to make do with a public defender when they had more than enough money to hire an attorney who could have gotten me out on probation.

My parents were big on the law. On rules. Protocol. Duty and family honor. I’d had that lecture so many times I could recite every word both parents would say before they even opened their mouths. They’d been immigrants, afraid to do anything that might rock the boat until they became full citizens. Even after that, the culture they’d grown up in did not approve of rebellious behavior. Family. Honor. Duty. That was everything to them.

I’d refused to back down. In that one way I was very much my father’s daughter. What the whaling ships were doing was wrong. The animals they were harming, defenseless. The ocean needed to remain in balance. Even before I got my degree, I’d fought the water itself in surfing competitions, the waves my ultimate competitor. I respected the ocean and everything living in it. Others didn’t. Others were destroying our planet, and I was the one in jail for crimes against humanity? What a joke.

Yes, I’d been called every name in the book from tree hugger to hippie to freak. I wasn’t any of those things. The corporations dumping chemicals and trash into the ocean, the illegal fishing and whaling operations had done their best to turn my love of the ocean and everything in it into something shameful.

“Regardless of the crime, she must follow protocol, Umiko. My apologies.” Warden Egara interjected on the other warden’s behalf, as if apologizing was going to make this all right somehow. Again, why was she using my proper name? I wasn’t sure if she was purposely being obtuse or just so uptight she didn’t know how to talk to people. Judging by the tight bun on her head and the severe expression, I was betting on the latter.

Umiko. Child of the sea.

I sighed. “Mikki.”

“All right, Ms. Tanaka,” Warden Egara agreed but still didn’t use my nickname. Cue the eye roll. This woman needed to get a mate of her own and have some hot, freaky, sweaty sex. Speaking of…

“You said I’ve been matched?” I asked.

Warden Bisset nodded with enthusiasm. “You’ve been matched to a warrior on The Colony. A male from Prillon Prime. It explains your dream and your sexual preference for two males.”

My mouth fell open, and I could feel my cheeks heat. I assumed they knew about the test since she’d been observing, but I thought maybe they were just staring at me lying in the chair. They’d seen me having an orgasm at the end, but having her say it aloud only proved everything I’d done in the dream, everything I thought I’d hate, had been witnessed. “How do you know there were two of them? Could you see the dream?” Because that felt like a massive invasion of privacy.

“No. Of course not.” Was the lovely Miss Yvonne embarrassed now? Good. “It’s simply that to be matched to a warrior from Prillon Prime, you would need to show a desire and a psychological preference for having two mates to protect and care for you.”

Okay. This was hard enough. “So, Prillon Prime? That’s where I’m going?”

“Brides are matched to a planet first. Then to a specific male. Yours is on The Colony.”

“I thought you said two.”

She folded her hands in front of her on the table. “You are matched to one, but the Prillon custom of taking a second means you will have two mates. One matched to you, one chosen by your match. Does that make sense?”

So, I was getting one match and his BFF. I could deal with that. I nodded.

She swiped her finger over the tablet. “As I said, your Prillon warrior is living on The Colony. That is where you will transport as soon as the testing is complete.”

My eyes widened. “My testing isn’t complete? Do I have to do that dream thing again?”

“No. I have a few standard questions to ask, and then we will send you on your way.” Warden Bisset looked to Warden Egara for approval, and the other woman nodded.

“Yes. Perfect. Proceed.”

“This place, The Colony? What’s it like?” I wondered.

Warden Bisset glanced at her tablet and began to read. “The Colony is made of eight sector bases ranging in population from several hundred to several thousand. Residents of each base elect their own governor. The governor of your base, Base 3, is Governor Maxim Rone, a Prillon warrior. At this time Base 3 has seven hundred eighty-three Prillon warriors, twenty-seven Atlans, and three hundred and four fighters from the various other Coalition planets.”

No. That wasn’t what I meant. “Please, stop. I meant, what is the planet like? Actually, not the planet. If I’m going to Base 3, is it like Earth?”

Warden Bisset tilted her head and flipped her fingers over some images, turning the screen to face me. What I saw looked like Utah, or worse, Arizona. Red. Dry. Nothing but desert and rocks. Zero water.

“Obviously I have not been there, so my geography for that planet is minimal. According to this report, that area is arid. Barren. Desertlike. Rocky. The atmosphere will not sustain human life for long, so you will be required to remain within the base structure unless you wear protective gear.”

Was this for real? “Any oceans on the planet? Anywhere?”

“None according to this report.”

I was going to a place with no ocean, where I couldn’t even go outside without wearing a special space suit? “God is punishing me twice,” I mumbled to myself. It was one thing to be trapped in a seven-by-ten-foot concrete cell for the next ten years, unable to touch water more than from a sink or shower, but to go to a planet where there was none? No chance to surf or swim, to see fish again?

“Can I change my mind?” Ten years wasn’t that long? Right?

But then what? I’d get out, but I’d be a convicted felon. I would be so out of touch with the industry I wouldn’t be able to get another job, despite the fact that I’d worked my ass off to get my master’s in environmental science at one of the top programs in the world. I had years of expertise and experience running impact studies, applying for grants. All of it would be for nothing. I’d be an ex-con. Nothing more.

I’d be ten years older and still alone. Always alone.

“For the record, state your name.” Warden Bisset hadn’t answered my question.

The memories of the dream rushed over me. The gentle touches from my mates. The feeling of contentment and belonging. Of home. The orgasm. The blinding pleasure.

I had to go. I’d figure things out after I got there. They were offering me a happily ever after with two alien warriors who would respect and adore me. Right? Who would make love to me like I was their dream woman. Who would never cheat on me or leave me. I’d be a damn fool to turn that down.

“Mikki Tanaka.” It was starting to sink in that this was real. That I was choosing space over Earth. Choosing a barren, desertlike planet over a jail term. I didn’t think I could make it ten years without freedom. Would I have it on The Colony with two bossy Prillons?

“Do you have any biological offspring or children for which you are legally responsible?”

“What?” My mind was adrift, thinking about those two aliens and what they’d done to me—her. “No. I don’t have kids.”

“Are you currently married?”

“No.”

“I am required to inform you, Miss Tanaka, that you have thirty days to accept or reject the mate chosen for you by our matching protocols. Remember, there is no returning to Earth. Once you accept the match, you will relinquish your citizenship to Earth and become a citizen of Prillon Prime, subject to their laws and regulations. If you are not satisfied with the match, you may request a new primary mate within thirty days. You may continue this process until you find a mate who is acceptable.”

She swiped the tablet a few more times.

“Your prison sentence is reduced to time served in exchange for your new bride status. As of this moment, you are no longer a citizen of Earth but of Prillon Prime. Do you understand everything I’ve said?”

“I do,” I replied, my voice lacking all the usual intensity.

Holy shit, this was happening. I was going to space. Leaving everything I knew behind. No more ocean. No more fish, whales, waves. No more surfing.

The chair slid backward into an opening in the wall I hadn’t even noticed before. Soft blue light engulfed me.

The older warden, Warden Egara, who had been watching and nodding in approval as though Warden Bisset was doing everything right, moved out of the way as the younger woman came to stand beside the opening. “Please remain still for any preparation or body modifications that might be required prior to transfer.”

“What?” I began to fight the restraints.

“Ms. Tanaka, please do not resist. You will only hurt yourself.”

“Resist what? What body modifications? Aren’t two mates enough? Two bossy mates?”

“Your testing pulled your deepest desires and wants from your subconscious.”

“Those weren’t my deepest desires!”

Warden Bisset looked over her shoulder with a helpless smile, and Warden Egara came forward and placed a hand on my forearm, the action oddly calming.

“Weren’t they?” she asked. She gave me a soft smile. “Sometimes it is extremely difficult for women as strong as you are to find a mate dominant enough to handle your… umm… needs. Two Prillon warriors as mates will be perfect for you.” She gave a little laugh and looked down at her tablet. “Well, ninety-eight percent perfect.”

A large needle came out of the wall on a long, metallic arm, and I tried to avoid it until Warden Egara squeezed her hand hard enough that I looked up at her.

The needle stung as it entered my skin, behind the base of my ear, but the process was over as fast as a flu shot.

“We have implanted a very small device into your temporal bone. The device is no larger than a grain of rice. It is called an NPU, or Neural Processing Unit. The device will allow you to understand all languages. Do not be afraid. When you wake, Mikki Tanaka, you will be on The Colony and your mate will be waiting for you.”

“Wait!” I called, but the warden just smiled like everything was right as rain and the chair was lowered into a warm, blue bath. My thoughts quieted, but I fought the lethargy stealing over me, realizing this was the last bit of water I’d have on Earth.

“Your processing will begin in three… two… one.”