“Do you think they give a flying fuck, Ken-so?” In any case, they’d know by now. The sons-bitches-had probably observed the collision—or whatever had caused it—before they were halfway to their destination if the calculations were right, since their home system was roughly that many light-annums from the target system.
The question shut him up, thankfully. He was a good officer, just too damned fresh faced and eager as far as Galen was concerned—and at that he was a sight more mature and level headed than the majority of the men under his command.
It was a motley crew of soldiers and colonists he was leading. About half of them were like Ken-so. Young, eager, and stupid, buoyed by dreams of glory, they honestly saw this as a grand adventure that would earn them a place in the history books. There hadn’t been an attempt at colonization in centuries. Once all the prime real estate in the closest systems had been settled, the government had been content to reap the benefits and ignore the more distant systems as too costly to bother with, whatever they might have of value. The war had changed that and the eager young recruits that had volunteered to man the colonization mission to the new star system they were entering would be the first colonists in generations. They were going to conquer the universe and all that rot.
Another quarter were blatant undesirables, men who’d already proven they were virtually useless to society. He strongly suspected they had been rounded up from the prisons and workhouses, and probably from the streets, from the look of some of them.
The mission was a good way to take out the trash.
The rest were screw-ups.
And he fell into that category.
Not that he actually had screwed up his mission. He’d done exactly as he’d been ordered by his senior officers. Where he’d screwed up was in failing to consider that, as the youngest admiral in the entire armada, he was going to end up being the scapegoat when the shit hit the fan—particularly since he already had one strike against him—his birth.
It galled the hell out of him that the others had not only dismissed his input when they’d been planning their battle strategy, but then they’d closed ranks afterwards and set him up to fall for their piss poor planning.
And that had left him in the unenviable position of accepting the leadership of the colony armada or rotting in prison.
Staring at the preliminary data, he almost wished he’d opted for prison. Ten annums wasn’t that much now that he thought about it. He would’ve still been young enough when he’d gotten out to start over, train for a different career.
The five annums he’d already spent in prison had been pure hell, though. When they’d offered to let him lead the expedition, to reinstate his rank, he’d been ready to jump at the chance. Anything, he’d thought then, would be better than staring at four walls all day long—when he wasn’t beating the other inmates off his food—and his body.
He should have known they wouldn’t have offered it if it hadn’t been worse than what he was already enduring.
Fucking bureaucrats and politicians and their gods damned wars!
They were always hot to send someone else in to die for the ‘greater good’, meaning them and their credits.
He wondered if the rest of the crew and colonists realized those brides the government had promised were never going to materialize. Short of shipping them out in chains, that is, because no female in her right mind was going to actually volunteer to be shipped out to the frontier to co-habit with the dregs of society the government had rounded up to colonize the distant system.
They’d be damned lucky if they got more pleasure bots.
“The scout craft that was to have set down on the fifth planet has diverted to the fourth.”
Galen didn’t glance at Ken-so that time although his lips tightened in irritation. “I haven’t forgotten how to read, Ken-so,” Galen muttered. “It’s probably just as well,” he added after a moment, though more to himself than to his first officer. “Wonder of wonders it didn’t fare well after the collision that took out the fifth planet—no plant life, very little air or atmosphere. It’s going to take a hell of a lot to bring it up to livable.”
“The third planet still looks good.”
Galen got up. “The scout ship hasn’t landed yet,” he pointed out.
“Preliminary readings, though ….”
Galen shook his head. “We’ll know when we know. It looks like we’re going to be setting down on the third planet, though. Best-case scenario, it looks like it’ll take a couple of annums to make the fourth planet even tolerable. Run some figures for me, Ken-so and see if we’ve got the resources to set up a base there.”
* * * *
The sound was like nothing Breanna Denton had ever heard in her life. Her heart contracted in her chest in response, squeezing the breath from her lungs. Instantaneously, adrenaline began to surge through her in waves of hot and cold. Paralyzed, for many moments, Bree could do nothing but absorb the chaos that suddenly surrounded her.
Deafening noise; an intense vibration that seemed to emanate from deep within the earth to rattle the house on its foundation and everything in it; and electronics gone suddenly berserk—her microwave, TV, radio—every light and piece of electronics in the house winked on and then off, over and over—screaming silence one moment and deafening noise the next.
She couldn’t assimilate the source of the chaos. Her mind simply fastened on the one thing it could interpret—danger. Neither the word nor the concept actually formulated in her mind. Her brain simply ordered her body into motion. Without any clear idea of what the threat was or what direction it was coming from, Bree dashed out of her kitchen and raced toward the front door. She was out the door and halfway across her front lawn before she actually realized that she’d instinctively headed away from the noise that represented the threat, which almost seemed omnipresent once she’d left the house.
Halting when she realized she had no idea where to go to find safety, she lifted her head and looked around.
Her gaze was snagged almost instantly by the thing that filled the sky above her house. She stared at it blankly, in disbelief, unable to grasp that it could possibly be what it seemed to be.
It wasn’t an airliner, although she realized, dimly, that, in the back of her mind, she’d been certain the screaming noise of something huge bearing down on her must be a plane going down.
It wasn’t a meteor, although the thing still glowed from the heat of its entry and swift flight through the atmosphere.
It wasn’t the space shuttle.
As it passed over her house and settled in her backyard, however, she realized that she wasn’t hallucinating, and it wasn’t a crash of anything that had originated on earth.
In point of fact, although the thing settled heavily enough the ground beneath her feet shook, it wasn’t a crash at all.
It was the sound of jets overhead that finally penetrated Bree’s stupor of stunned amazement. Her head jerked upwards automatically to survey the crafts that shot over her head, low enough she could read the numbers painted on the underside of the crafts. In the distance, she could hear the blaring horns and sirens of emergency vehicles.
Maybe she had been mistaken, she thought?
Something had gone down.
She didn’t consciously make the decision to move closer for a better look. Her mind wasn’t actually functioning on a level of conscious thought. Shock still gripped her. Her heart was pounding like a trip hammer. She had to remind herself to breathe.
As she inched around the side of her house to look behind it, more than half expecting any moment to hear a tremendous explosion, she saw that the thing had taken out at least a quarter of her peach orchard. A great cloud of dust still lingered in the air, obscuring much of the craft, but there was no smoke as she would’ve expected to see if the thing had actually crashed.
She stared at the thing in consternation, wondering what she should do. Call 911? Run?
She looked down at herself, rea
lizing she was standing in her front yard in her panties and the t-shirt she usually slept in.
The wail of the sirens was getting closer.
As she stood indecisively, the jets that had flown by before, or two more, passed overhead again and it finally dawned her that she was going to have people swarming over her yard at any minute and she was barefoot and half-naked.
She’d already started toward the house with the intention of running in to grab a pair of jeans and shoes when she saw movement on the craft. Halting in her tracks, she peered toward the ship, feeling Goosebumps ripple along her arms and then run down her spine as an opening appeared in the side of the thing. As she watched, a ramp descended toward the ground. Before it had even settled completely, a trail of metal monsters began to emerge like ants out of a stirred anthill, moving away from the ship in a wave.
Curiosity flickered through her, but she had no trouble squelching it. She’d stop to see what was going on when she was a safe distance away.
Galvanized by the realization that she was going to have to do her running on foot, and barefoot, if she didn’t at least grab her keys from the house, she whirled and ran toward her front door, trying to remember where she’d left her car keys. Thankfully, they were lying on the hall table just inside the front door. Grabbing them up, she raced into her bedroom, grabbed the jeans and shoes she’d discarded by her bed the night before, and ran back outside. She skidded to a halt, however, when she rounded the side of the house and discovered that the machines she’d seen emerging from the ship were swarming all over her backyard.
One of the things stopped, almost seemed to stare at her, and then headed straight towards her. Uttering a shriek, Bree threw everything she was holding into the air, whirled, and ran. Relief flooded her briefly, for even as she turned to run, she saw trucks pulling into her front yard.
She hadn’t managed to cover even half the distance between the machines and the soldiers piling out of the trucks when something snaked around her waist and jerked her to a halt. The metal tentacle tightened, coiling around her as it lifted her off of her feet. Dizzy and disoriented beyond the shock and terror, she hadn’t even managed to assimilate what was happening when she found herself staring at the mechanical monster face to face.
Mindlessly, she began shoving at the tentacle, trying to pry it loose. It didn’t yield at all, but, fortunately, the tentacle didn’t tighten either. She was nearing blackout from her panicked breaths before it dawned on her the robot hadn’t done anything else, that it was merely holding her captive.
Studying her?
* * * *
“We have a preliminary feed from scout ship one. It has successfully landed on the third planet and deployed the constructors.”
Galen lifted a brow but he felt a lessening of tension. The scout ship wouldn’t have deployed the construction bots if the planet weren’t within the preset parameters, which meant that it was livable.
“Excellent!” he said. “Bring up the data on the forward vid.”
He narrowed his eyes when the data began to scroll across the screen, studying the components of the atmosphere critically and then the land mass/water ratio. The land mass to water ratio was a little daunting. Great to have water and all that, but they needed land to develop a colony. The next readings were more promising.
Despite the ratio, the planet was big enough to have some fairly extensive landmasses. Temperature good. Air quality not so good, but bearable. They were going to have to figure out what was causing the high levels of methane and carbon dioxide and clean it up a bit but … it was certainly closer to the mark than the first planet they’d surveyed.
Methane levels certainly indicated a planet lush with life forms they were familiar with … unless it was from some other source altogether.
“Any vids yet on our new home?”
A ragged hurrah went up from the men on the bridge.
Galen decided to ignore the breach in protocol. They had reason to celebrate. They’d been on the fucking ship for nigh four annums now—in status more than half that time, granted, but still long enough to be going stir crazy from being on the fucking ship and he hadn’t been thrilled with the idea that they might have to look for another star system to settle.
He felt a rise in exhilaration himself. Whatever was down there, it still beat the hell out of canned air and metal decking beneath his feet.
Sky overhead—solid ground beneath his feet—real gravity—natural air ….
A view of bright blue sky suddenly filled the screen. Galen felt his stomach go weightless at the sight.
A collective gasp of appreciation went up from the men.
Galen frowned. Before he could direct their minds to the somberness of the situation, something flashed across the screen, too swiftly to actually identify the objects.
“What in the fuck was that?” Galen growled.
Ken-so turned a pale face toward him. “Unknown, Sir! The droids are still accumulating data.”
The blue sky with its fluffy white clouds and the strange objects vanished. Flashes of scrubby green and brown vegetation filled the screen that had small pink globes hanging from them.
“Vegetation,” Ken-so announced unnecessarily. “It would nice if we discovered the fruit was edible. There seems to be quite a bit of it in the area.”
Galen was just about to comment on the unlikelihood that the scout ship had settled in the middle of edible, native vegetation when Ken-so exclaimed again.
“A biological specimen! Sir! One of the constructs has captured a creature.”
“Let’s hope it’s edible,” Galen growled instead of informing Ken-so that he didn’t need a fucking play by play. He could see the gods damned vid as well as Ken-so could. “I’ve had about all the space rations I can handle.”
“Bringing it up now, Sir.”
The pinkish white blob that filled the screen was out of focus due to the proximity of it to the vid. Galen felt a jolt of shock run through him. Everyone on the bridge reacted much as he had.
The vid lens adjusted, bringing the features into focus—two eyes opened so wide he could see white all the way around irises that were nearly the color of the vegetation they’d glimpsed. Thick black lashes on the upper and lower lid of the eyes. Short black crescents of hair above that, forming eyebrows. The nose was a long, straight bridge in the center of the face that formed flaring nostrils on either side of the rounded tip. Pinkish-brown lips surrounding an ‘o’ of a mouth that displayed a vibrating pink tongue, white flat-edged teeth. Long, reddish brown hair, whipped around the face by the wind. Tiny brownish marks dotted the skin across the high cheekbones and the narrow bridge of its nose.
Galen finally found his voice. “Tell the gods damned construct to pull back so we can have a look at the rest of it,” he said in a hoarse voice.
When the image zoomed out, they saw two flailing, hairless arms and two hands, balled into fists. Mammary globes, tipped with dark pink points they could see through the thin material that covered the body—and when the vid panned down, two hairless, completely bare legs—also flailing.
“It’s a… it’s a … it’s a … female!” Ken-so finally managed to get out.
A sense, almost of panic, swept over Galen when he heard the other men mumbling. Possessiveness swelled behind it. “It’s mine, gods damn it!” Galen growled. “That’s what it is!”
Chapter Two
“But … but … but, Sir!” Tale Ken-so exclaimed.
Galen bolted from his seat and strode closer to the vid, examining his prize with a heady sense of exhilaration. “I, Admiral Galen of the royal house of Drako hereby claim this star system in the name of the Royal Confederation of Star Systems! And that female as mine!”
“You think there’s more?” someone on the bridge murmured, sounding as stunned as he was.
It penetrated the heated fog of Galen’s mind, however. “Of course there’s more! There are bound to be more—but this one’s mine.” He returned hi
s attention to the vid, admiring the beauty of the creature. It looked almost like them!
He couldn’t believe his luck! After all this time—a living, breathing—female-being!
He frowned, trying to recall if the scouting ship had the facilities to examine the specimen to discover just how compatible it was, physiologically, with their species—or, more importantly, him.
He couldn’t seem to direct his mind into any sort of order. “Ken-so! Are there facilities on the scouting ship to analyze the being?”
When Ken-so didn’t answer immediately, he turned to look at him, glaring when he saw his second in command was still white faced. His mouth was working, but he couldn’t seem to form words. “Well?” he barked.
“You mean … dissect, Sir?”
Galen gaped at him. “Are you out of your fucking mind, man! What good is my bride going to be to me in fucking pieces!”
Ken-so gaped at him. “Bride?” he repeated as if he’d never heard the word.
Galen sent him a look. “We’re colonists. Brides? We didn’t bring any, if you’ll recall.” As if any of them could forget that little detail!
“Yes … but … It’s alien, Sir! We don’t even know if it is a female—or warm blooded!”
“It has mammary glands, dolt! Of course it’s female and warm blooded!” Not that he was sure he’d object if it wasn’t warm-blooded. The pleasure droids certainly weren’t—weren’t even living, and he hadn’t seen anybody objecting to cozying up to them. In point of fact, their pool of available sex droids seemed to be showing some distressing signs of overuse and it occurred to him abruptly that it probably hadn’t been the best idea to send Onyx back to the pool. But then he’d completely forgotten, at the time, that more than half their sex droids had gotten caught up in the last riot and hadn’t weathered the brawl that well.
Ken-so shrugged uncomfortably. “It seems to be a specimen of an intelligent alien species, Admiral Drako. It may already be taken.”
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