Heart of the Agraak

by S. J. Sanders

  He glanced around but knew there would be nothing of note this far back in the hall. It would be further ahead, where the males would capture the females, that he would find evidence of the transgressions that went on there. Forcing out a rattling shriek and hoping that it sounded somewhat convincing, Kaede raced down the corridor, turning his attention from left to right from time to time to capture a wider view.

  He could hear her pants of breath, smell the scent of sweat and her femininity. She was just ahead. Some instinctive part of him whispered that it would take little effort to capture her and entangle their bodies in a clutch hold as he sated his voracious sexual appetite to breed her. With a sneer of disgust, he squashed the impulse. He refused to act on it.

  He would never clutch with an unwilling female, and certainly not in this dismal hall.

  He let out another loud snarl for the benefit of anyone listening as he drew closer. She whimpered in fear in response. When he caught sight of her pale form darting away in front of him, he sprinted forward within arm’s reach of her. Mindful of his claws, he plucked her from her feet and slowed his pace, ignoring the frantic scratch of her thin, weak claws as she fought his hold.

  He tightened his embrace on her struggling body, and walked forward at a fast clip, examining the walls and floor. Blood stained nearly every surface with its gruesome paint. He could see the smear of handprints where human hands had attempted to claw at the walls. It was obvious that no one came in to do more than minimal cleaning, the scent of blood and semen so thick that he gagged. Every couple of feet, he slammed his fist or forearm into a wall, making more frenzied noises that he felt was an approximation to what he’d heard earlier. The female slowed her struggles and gaped up at him after several minutes.

  He gave her a look. He needed her to do her part and hated to have to stoke her fear to get her to scream again. To his relief, she nodded and screamed so loud that he nearly dropped her in fear that his hold was hurting her. With one last snarl from him and a series of whimpering cries from her, he lowered her to her feet. His gaze never left hers as he leaned forward and whispered to her.

  “My apologies. I am going to have to cut you a little to make this convincing, but it won’t be much. Just scratches.”

  She narrowed her eyes on him.

  “What’s your game?”

  “I am documenting. I require your cooperation so we can end this as quickly and painlessly as possible. I don’t like this, but I don’t wish for them to suspect that this is different than any other hunt.”

  “So you don’t want to breed me?”

  “No.”

  She nodded, a relieved look crossing her face, and she gave him a shaky smile before lifting her arms to give him better access to her torso.

  “It’s okay. It’s a better offer by a damn sight than I’ve gotten in here. If your documentation helps close this shit down, then I’m okay with it.”

  With a whisper of thanks, he leaned forward to lightly clutch her nape between his sharp teeth, putting just enough pressure until he tasted blood as he swiped her sides with his claws. He didn’t bother to use his hind claws like some of the more savage males.

  Reaching into the curled tip of his tail, he retrieved a tube of lubricants and artificial semen and pressed it into her hand. She stared at it until he explained its purpose to make it appear that their breeding had completed. He’d discovered the vial among the household supplies for the droids and pocketed it without further examination until he arrived at his room. It turned out to be a synthetic ejaculate used in sex droids for females who wanted to enjoy the full breeding experience. He’d meant to return it but forgot about it until he spied the tube in his drawer as he was getting ready to leave for the facility.

  He lowered her to the ground as gently as possible and turned his back to give her some semblance of privacy. The moment she whispered that she was done he turned to face her again. She’d reclined on the floor in a heap as if dropped there, fluids shining on her bare thighs. He leaned down and retrieved the tube she handed back to him.

  He stood straight, tucking the tube into the coiled tip of his tail as a shaft of bright light penetrated the room. The nearest door slid open allowing several males to enter the corridor. Kaede gripped his dupar as if adjusting it when the males turned in his direction. The director examined them with a satisfied smile. Several males followed close behind. They swooped in and picked up the female effortlessly before carrying her out of the breeding corridor.

  Voga beamed up at him.

  “You obviously showed restraint with the female. A male your size could have easily done much worse. We appreciate it and hope that the hunt was satisfactory.”

  “It was,” Kaede said, working to attempt to keep his expression neutral.

  The director fidgeted again with his datapad.

  “We will contact you within two weeks if fertilization was successful and the female tests as gravid. If it doesn’t take, we can try again. Unfortunately, we don’t have luck with artificial fertilization, so we have few other options. It had been quite disappointing for female clients who’d hoped to be implanted with the eggs. In any case, we will have an answer for you one way or the other by then.”

  Kaede inclined his head in understanding and returned to the changing room. He said nothing as he joined his mother and Ayaa. He went as far as to completely ignore the females the entire way back home, sickened by the entire process they’d insisted on dragging him to. Upon arriving, he left them to their own devices to seek his own sanctuary that he might find some peace to quiet his inner turmoil.

  He sent his correspondence along the secret channels to his network of contacts within the dome-city. The responses had been expected and gratifying. The horror and anger generated by the images he’d captured, and the depravity allowed on captive beings gained momentum equal to the protests against Arobi captivity.

  Naturally, he wasn’t the least bit surprised when two weeks later, his mother barged into his private rooms, tears streaming down her face as she showed him the results from the breeding facility. He barely glanced up from trimming his potted hemal bush. Her news hardly warranted more than half his attention. He knew the result.

  Negative conception.

  He barely listened, his expression stony, as she ranted and wailed over the results. Not only that but the results had been accompanied by a comm stating that the breeding facility was being shut down by government order until the issue of the missing human could be resolved. News that the escaped female was still out of the reach of Agraak authorities lightened his mood. It worried those in power, and nothing could please him more. It almost made his mother’s fussing tolerable as she worried about what else they could use to attract Ayaa.

  He didn’t care. He returned his attention to his meditative care of his plants, allowing everything else to flow off him like water. Change was coming.

  Chapter 4

  Frankie took a drag on the hollow lit root, her lips tingling from the sensation. The smoke eased through her lungs like a healing balm. Minskit root was the only good thing she could think of that ever came from Agraadax. There was certainly nothing good about the Agraak themselves as far as she was concerned.

  She stared out the port window of her quarters aboard the starship as she puffed on the root. It was her third root and her lungs still felt like they were on fire. Her unit had been sent to get information from a renegade Tajii ship. She’d been caught unaware when the male in their custody suddenly exuded a vapor that had seared her lungs horribly even through the thick mask of her facial armor. Most species had some kind of reaction to it. Humans were horribly allergic to it.

  The overhead comm chimed.

  “Hey Martins. This is Rodriguez. Are you alive in there?”

  Rolling her eyes, one hand running up to scratch the stubble of blonde hair over her head. She’d cut off her long braid before signing on, shaving it down to only an inch of hair, terrified that someone would discover she
was female. She’d kept it that way ever since. No one on board knew she was a woman, and she had to keep it that way. Without an exit visa provided through the Mate Index program or a family visa applied for by her spouse, women were forbidden from leaving the planet.

  Many species couldn’t seem to tell the difference between juvenile males and adult female humans if she bound her breasts and covered her scent with an expensive spray that she’d paid out the ass for. Sometimes she got confused looks, especially from the Arobi. If she didn’t freshen her spray quick enough before the eight-hour active time elapsed, they sniffed around her like dogs circling a platter of steak. She liked her Arobi crewmates but wasn’t interested in signing on to be their mate—or anyone’s mate, for that matter.

  What she hadn’t anticipated was another human joining their crew. Rodriguez had enjoyed working with them so much when they did a retrieval from Vora that he’d elected to transfer. She felt the constant pressure of slipping up in front of him, worried that something would give her away and he’d report her.

  She pushed to her feet with a sigh and ambled to her door. Pressing her hand against the panel beside the door, she waited as it slid open to reveal her personal menace.

  Rodriguez was, truth be told, an extremely attractive man. His close-cropped dark hair had just enough length to have a slight curl to it and the shadow of his beard that he refused to keep clean-shaven once leaving Earth’s galactic navy, gave him a roguish appearance. Even his hazel eyes that crinkled with humor as he looked down at her were a temptation.

  Not that much of a temptation. He was good looking, but he was also a complete ass.

  “Hey kid. Looking a bit worse for wear there. Bad luck getting a mouthful of Tajii fumes. How are you feeling?”

  “Just... fine,” she croaked. At least she didn’t have to do much to disguise her voice for the time being. The Tajii smoke had done a number on her throat.

  Rodriguez winced. “Good, good. Me and the guys wanted to know if you were up to a game of cards.”

  Frankie frowned. The guys had been gambling most nights since Rodriguez had taken it upon himself to introduce them to poker. She was terrible at cards, and everyone knew it. Still...

  “Who’s ‘the guys?’”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “You, me, Emagul, Borth, Grish, and Mi’yar. The guys.”

  “Right.”

  Emagul was the Itashvanda on the team. He tended to be the quiet member of the team and often served as a scout on planetside missions. He was both incredibly smart and almost ruthless at times, especially when it came to winning. When Frankie first met him, she’d been terribly intimidated, until she discovered that despite his massive height and “don’t fuck with me” vibe, he was the least volatile among her crewmates. He’d been patient with her excessive fumbling in her first weeks aboard.

  Borth and Grish were brothers, large brutes, even for Terils, from Telif Prime. They were loud, abrasive, had a crude sense of humor, but were as loyal as they came and honorable once one got pass their mouths.

  Mi’yar was an Edoka. The only surviving hatchling born of his clutch, he’d decided to explore the stars since he didn’t have the pressing obligations of a clannid. He was a bit unnerving to look at, and she could never tell what he was thinking with his ink-dark eyes. He was deadly as hell and yet perhaps the most personable among her crewmates. He was always available to lend a hand, or get his friends into trouble, whichever the case may be.

  She would depend on any of them to have her back at a moment’s notice—and all four males happily fleeced her of her wages whenever she tried to play with them.

  Frankie shook her head as she chuckled.

  “That’s okay. I think I’m just going to take a bath. You guys have fun.”

  Rodriguez’s brow knitted in confusion.

  “A bath. You’d rather... bathe.” His face suddenly relaxed and he smiled. “Oh, I get it. That last tussle got you all stiff, huh? You should have gone with us to Pleasure Palace.”

  “It was an interstellar brothel,” Frankie stated.

  “True, but it also has some of the best massages in the quadrant. You’d probably be relaxed in more than one way by now.” He eyed her speculatively. “No offense, but, when’s the last time you got laid?”

  That was so like a guy. She was serious and focused, and his recommendation was that getting laid would be the insta-fix she needed. It wasn’t like she never fucked. She enjoyed it as much as the next person, but while she was on the crew that part of her life had to be put on hold. She had to rely on her trusty rabbit vibrator that she’d smuggled in her tote. Rubbing one out while she bit down on her pillow was a small price to pay to avoid blowing her cover.

  “Very funny, Rodriguez.”

  He shrugged with an unrepentant smile.

  “Suit yourself. I’ll let the guys know that you needed to wash your hair,” he said with a snort of laughter.

  She stared at him, wondering if he’d guessed, until she realized that he was being a complete dick. She curled her lip at him in a friendly sneer and shoved him out her door.

  “You do that. I’m sure they’ll be relieved to know that at least one human on this ship bathes,” she quipped just before the door slid shut between them.

  She could barely make out his muffled, “Hey, what the fuck does that mean?”

  Shaking her head at the door, she popped her root back into her mouth and relit the end, taking another drag as she tottered toward the cleansing unit. Many starships only had basic units, but their ship was equipped for a crew that would be traveling for long durations with soldiers who would need to soak sore muscles. Therefore, every private cleansing unit was equipped with a basin that rose out of the floor on command.

  Although she’d just been making shit up at the time to get rid of Rodriguez, a bath sounded pretty nice. At her command, the basin rose from the water containment square and she ran her hand along the dials, selecting the perfect heat setting as it began to automatically fill with water. Thankfully, because several species did enjoy scented baths to help them relax there was an assortment of programmed oils that made a delectable foam in the water.

  It wasn’t quite a bubble bath, but it was pretty damn close.

  Reclining in the hot water, she picked up her datapad and pulled up information on their new assignment. At last, they were finally en route to Agraadax. Their ship with a crew of five hundred souls was going to land in a strike formation with ten other intergalactic ships on Agraadax. Her ship had been assigned to Aminae with instructions to remove human females from Agraak households, and then make their way into the swamps to recover all information they could find from Vereik Breeding Facility.

  This was the chance she’d been waiting for.

  Alisha had to be there somewhere, either in a household or in the facility itself. Wherever she was being held, Frankie would find her twin.

  Sucking in a deeper drag on the root clenched between her teeth, she narrowed her eyes on the schematic of the city. The facility was surprisingly far outside the dome-city. She let out a puff of smoke onto the screen. She wondered why that was. Wouldn’t the Agraak want it somewhere easy to access if they were routinely using human women as rent-a-wombs?

  The human they’d recovered, Jenn Stacey, said that they were terminating human women, but Frankie had convinced herself that there was a possibility that she’d exaggerated. Maybe Jenn had been an exception and she’d believed that all human women were under the same risk due to her own traumatic experience.

  Frankie didn’t want to believe her own twin had faced a death sentence. She had to believe that Alisha was alive, waiting somewhere to be rescued. She had been telling herself for weeks that, with the strict intergalactic laws, it was more likely that every human would be found safe.

  So she’d thought. Now she wasn’t so sure.

  Swiping right, she studied the diagram of Agraak anatomy. The Agraak were nearly as lethal as the Edoka, lacking only the tail a
nd the arm blades. Though they lacked the armored scales of the Edoka, they made up for it with their venomous saliva. When cornered, they could bite or spit venom into the eyes of their attacker.

  Frankie felt grateful for the thick armor and face shield that would protect her while she was on Agraadax.

  They were certainly an odd-looking species. With their green skin, lank, dark hair, and toxin-filled spines they looked like some sort of primeval monster. The spine that males had descending from their chin made them look harder and more aggressive.

  Curious, she swiped again to read the description of Agraak society.

  Once prized as a species of formidable warriors, most of their society had, in recent eras, become largely mercantile due to discoveries of certain resources on Agraadax. Redirecting their society to commerce didn’t take away their naturally aggressive dispositions. The abrupt change proved to be to the detriment of the species. By redirecting the flow of their society, they set aside their traditions and created new ones, including a rigid class system which divided their society into numerous assigned classes of duties called raniks. Only those born into the warrior ranik became warriors and, as a result, many males in the lower and noble raniks, who lacked the combat training that was once a prerequisite for reaching adulthood, struggled to control their instincts.

  Frankie set aside her datapad and sank further into the water, a knuckle pressed to her lips. History had shown that contact with other civilizations could have devastating consequences on societies not ready for it. Drastic reformulation of society to benefit the greed of the few to acquire what they desired from outsiders was not new.

  She wondered what the Agraak people had been like so many generations ago.

  Frankie laughed to herself. She needed to relax while she could. According to her datapad, she had approximately two days before they’d be on Agraadax.

  Chapter 5