Ren

by Starr Huntress

“Fine, he’s suspicious as fuck.”

  “Random guy shows up and happens to have enough money to solve all our problems? Yeah, that’s suspicious as fuck,” Emry said. “You don’t trust randos offering favors. That’s how we got into this mess.”

  Gemma pressed her lips together. “Not cool. It wasn’t some random dude off the street. I knew—”

  “You knew a guy who knew a guy.” Emry sighed and massaged the bridge of her nose. Everything had to be a scheme with Gemma. She was always looking for shortcuts and trying to beat the system. It was a long-standing complaint. “I don’t want to argue about the past. What’s done is done.”

  “You blame me. What do you think would happen if I submitted to testing? You think we’d be together, running a bakery, or would I be on some radioactive planet playing baby maker for an alien?”

  “Nothing! I think nothing would happen.” Emry threw her hands in the air and stepped back two paces. “You weren’t matched. The probability is like being struck by lightning.”

  “We’re twins. If you were matched, then I would be too. I’d be on the other side of the universe.” Gemma paused, gulping air before she continued. “And you’d be alone.”

  Dammit. How could she hold a grudge against that?

  Gemma wasn’t just her twin, but also her best friend. They hadn’t gone more than a few days without seeing each other. The idea of Gemma not being there was terrifying, like a worst-case scenario you said would never happen but secretly planned for.

  “That’s a dirty trick, playing the codependent card,” Emry muttered.

  “Womb mates,” Gemma said with a grin.

  “Ugh. No.”

  “Mom should have named me Kate. Then you could be—”

  “No. Please don’t say it.” Emry closed her eyes, as if that could stop the bad puns.

  “Dupli-Kate.” Gemma splayed out her hands and shook them theatrically. Then she sighed, her shoulders slouching. “Listen, I know I’ve messed up in the past, but this is an opportunity. That guy is a Mahdfel. I think we can trust him.”

  “You have terrible judgment.” Fact. Gemma had a rogue’s gallery of terrible ex-boyfriends.

  Gemma huffed out a breath. “What’s the worst that can happen? I get abducted by human traffickers who send me to an off-planet auction, where I’m purchased by some sleazy alien who wants to either eat me or use me as a sex toy? And then I’m rescued by an honorable alien warrior who, maybe, is gruff and not so good with words, but I just know I can trust him? And the sex is amazing?”

  Emry blinked in surprise. “First, eww. No talking about your sex life. Second, what kind of books have you been reading?”

  Gemma laughed. “The good kind. So, let’s take this opportunity, yeah? Listen to the gal who got her face beat in yesterday. Don’t be too proud to take the alien’s money.”

  Emry rolled her eyes and really wanted a cigarette. Or a taco. Solid yes on the tacos.

  The harsh overhead lighting didn’t do Gemma any favors. Mottled green and yellow bruises bloomed across her face.

  “Fine,” Emry said. “But no promises. I’ll hear him out. If anything is shady, we’re out.”

  “Fine,” Gemma agreed.

  “And we’re getting tacos and a pitcher of beer tonight.”

  “Deal.” Gemma swept her into a hug. She smelled like sugar and butter and home. “I knew it’d work out.”

  “We are such a pair of disaster twins.” She didn’t know where this too-good-to-be-true job was located, or even the alien’s name.

  Opening the door, she found the alien waiting with a smug expression on his face.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Caldar.”

  “Fine. Let’s talk details over tacos. You’re buying.”

  Chapter 3

  Ren

  Present

  Ren worked quickly. He had minutes to deploy the devices and ensure they connected to the building’s internal network.

  He surveyed the well-appointed office and selected his targets: the painting, the plant, the communication hub.

  The Sangrin Council spared no expense for their comfort. Not that he had a basis for comparison. His home planet had no Council, for a variety of reasons that mostly came down to tradition and stubbornness.

  Ren unrolled his toolkit and set to work.

  Fathers were strange. Specifically—because Ren loved specificities—the relationship between a Mahdfel warrior and his son always struck him as strange. What legacy could a father bestow beyond that of an endless battle against the Suhlik? As his father did before him, as his father did and as his father did, stretching all the way back in a complicated tangle to the original warriors who liberated themselves from Suhlik rule.

  Carrying such a legacy was exhausting, but what else did a warrior have to offer? Their typically long lifespans were often cut short due to the brutal nature of their legacy. Cultural traditions came with their mothers, as did physical characteristics.

  A mated male could expect to be matched to a female from another planet. Their sons would have a different physical appearance. What did a male have to give his son beyond the knowledge of how to be a good and honorable warrior?

  Ren had pondered that question for years.

  The last device scuttled along the ventilation shaft.

  Task complete, Ren waited in the sun-filled room. He ignored the luxurious furnishings and focused on the view from the window. Vehicles zipped between tall towers in the sky, guided by precise AI navigation to avoid collision. Sangrin was a welcoming, soft planet made for easy, soft living. Even the cities were lush and green.

  Spoiled, he thought. Spoiled like the smug, arrogant fool who called this planet home, always ready with a quip or a joke and never serious.

  His contact with Lorran had been limited to a handful of missions, but it was enough to dislike the male, though he only voiced that opinion to Havik. His friend said that was because Lorran reminded Ren too much of himself.

  Ridiculous.

  They were nothing alike, even if Ren noted the strange parallels that ran between Lorran’s relationship with his father and the one Ren shared with his father. Lorran claimed his father to have been distant and cool, but he had brothers and the unwavering love and support of his mother.

  Ren’s father had been very present in his formative years, almost suffocatingly so. For all of his father’s involvement, Ren never felt support. Only criticism and disappointment. Every aspect of Ren’s person and conduct was critiqued because Ren was a reflection of his father, who was the second-in-command to the warlord, and thus a reflection on the warlord.

  The warlord had no tolerance for weakness. Rolusdreus was a harsh world. A warrior could not be soft or weak, much less defective.

  Ren shifted in the chair, his fingers digging into the polished wood of the arms. Being small was not a defect. He had proven that time and again, yet he could never quite shake the shame of being defective. He had flaws—several, to accompany his regret—but they stemmed from past actions, not genetics and physical characteristics.

  Lorran had grown up being told he was good and valued. So what if his father hardly spoke to him? In Ren’s experience, fathers rarely had anything to contribute beyond criticism.

  That was the crux of Ren’s dislike of the male. Lorran had all the luxuries Ren lacked as a youth. The males were not similar at all. And now, because the male was soft, Ren had to clean up this mess.

  A conflict of interests.

  A warrior should be able to separate his personal feelings from his duty. His father had taught him that lesson. Harshly. His skin may have healed, but he bore the scars.

  Aware of the time trickling by, Ren flipped through the notes on his tablet. When the warlord assigned him this task, he approached it with the same thorough research he brought to every project. Rebuilding a hyperdrive, installing recording devices, or gathering intelligence on Sangrin Council members, ranking them regarding their vulnerabili
ty to blackmail and likelihood to be extorted. It was all the same.

  Ren had read the file enough to commit the information to memory. Still, he swiped through the pages, pausing at the profile for one councilor in particular. It listed staff and known associates. A familiar face stared back at him with hostile eyes.

  The door opened. An older male with white hair and gray horns stepped through. Ren recognized Oran Rhew, elder member of the Sangrin Council and father of the impossible Lorran, immediately.

  “Apologies for the wait,” Oran said, moving to the overstuffed chair near the window. He sat with a heavy sigh, as if his bones ached. “I cannot traverse a corridor without being stopped by at least three people.” The male’s brow furrowed. “You do not look like a Mahdfel.”

  “This is a formality,” Ren said, ignoring the slight. His entire life he had been too short, too slim, called a runt, and worse. Words regarding his appearance could no longer injure him, even if those words did occasionally rub sand in his tail.

  Discreetly, he closed the file on the tablet. The aging male who sat opposite him was not the cagey politician Lorran had led him to expect.

  Oran tilted his head. “Do you begin every investigation by assuring the subject they are of no consequence?”

  Ah. There was the cagey politician.

  Ren understood politicians, or at least how to navigate the shifting sands around him. His father had been more concerned about clan politics than Ren’s well-being.

  Another similarity he shared with Lorran.

  “Yes. It puts them at ease to believe I am ticking off an item on a list, rather than delving into their affairs,” Ren answered, sidestepping the impulse to play games with carefully coded words and half-truths.

  He understood politicians. That did not mean he liked them.

  “So, this is an investigation and you have already delved into my affairs,” the older male said.

  “The Judgment answered a distress call to a research vessel, SRV-P11.” Ren called up the relevant information on the tablet and projected the holo above. Images of the two-person crew, a Sangrin Mahdfel male and his mate, flickered in the air. “Only their son survived.”

  “I recall the status update from your warlord,” Oran said, his tone calm and controlled.

  “Then there is no reason to mince words. Ulrik and his mate conducted illegal, immoral research, funded by the Council. My warlord wishes to locate the source of that funding.”

  “Because it is Paax’s responsibility to police the Council?”

  “Do not misunderstand me. The Council, or a rogue member, funded an atrocity. The Suhlik do not care for fine distinctions. We are all the same to them. The Council’s actions put the entire sector at risk when the Suhlik come for their revenge.”

  Oran watched Ren, the older male’s face impassive and unreadable. “You are from Rolusdreus,” he said at length.

  “Correct, and I know enough history to understand that when the Suhlik return, they will bring enough firepower and soldiers to reduce the planet to a radioactive wasteland.”

  In all fairness, his home planet had done a fair amount of damage to their environment before the Suhlik arrived. The Mahdfel had arrived to repel the Invasion but infighting and a lack of unified leadership led to devastation when the Suhlik returned. The planet of his birth had not always had so little arable land. Nor had the cities always needed to be contained in environmental domes.

  “Then we should be prepared, and vital research,” Oran waved a hand to the holo images, “should not be prohibited.”

  Ren leaned back in the chair, turning the male’s words over in his mind. “You do not believe that.”

  “No, but my colleagues do.” Oran leaned back, mirroring Ren’s posture. “I am not surprised that the research project happened. I am only surprised that my colleagues ceased bloviating long enough to actually accomplish something.”

  A huff of amusement escaped Ren. “Do you know who funded it?”

  “No.”

  “Who do you believe to be capable of this?”

  “Ah. I know who is sympathetic, I know who has access to the budget, and I know who has the talent to obfuscate the trail.” Oran produced a folded tablet and tapped out a list before sending it to Ren.

  He reviewed the list, already familiar with the background details of every Council member. “They are not Mahdfel.”

  “No. Us Mahdfel do not have a good concept of credit or money, I find. I think the complexities of the financials point to a Sangrin agent.”

  Ren found the male’s logic short-sighted. Dangerously so. An even mix of Mahdfel and civilians comprised the Sangrin Council. To exonerate half the suspects based on faulty logic was careless. “You have a blind spot. We are trained to maximize resources, and credit is just another resource.”

  Oran gazed out the window. “Incorrect. A prudent warrior will maximize the resources on hand, but how often is the cost of furnishing an endless supply of weapons, armor, and vehicles discussed? Food? Fuel? We do not consider this.”

  “When I left my father’s clan, I learned the value of things.” Repairing the junkyard ship. Equipment. Tools. Food. Clean water. Everything cost credits. He had never considered the credits in his account until they stopped replenishing themselves. Ren continued, “I am not the only one. Now, among those names you excluded, who is sympathetic?”

  “They would not. Such research was dishonorable,” Oran said with bluster.

  “Oh, dishonorable. Surely, no warrior has ever behaved dishonorably,” Ren said in a dry tone.

  “Yes, you have some experience with that,” Oran replied slowly.

  Ren fought to keep his expression neutral while his tail tightened around his leg. Oran did not know what he had done. No one knew. Surely the male spoke of his previous warlord, the one who lied and sent Havik’s mate away, then sent all the perceived inferior mates away. The warlord had corrupted the entire clan. He was glad to have escaped the toxic environment.

  “What does Paax hope to accomplish with this? He will turn the Council against him completely. The clans are already divided over him,” Oran said.

  Ren knew of the warlord’s rise to power, how he poisoned his brother—Omas, the previous warlord—with a serum that made him unstable and defeated him in combat. Some whispered that Paax poisoned the blade that ended Omas. Others claimed Paax injected himself with a serum to give him additional strength and stamina. How else could a scrawny scientist defeat the fiercest warrior in the clan? Trickery.

  Or guile, which Ren preferred. He saw nothing wrong in using one’s wits to triumph over brawn. “It is not my place to question the warlord’s reasons,” he said.

  Oran leaned forward, delight sparking in his eyes. “Interesting. That was a lie, but your heart was steady. You are a very practiced liar.”

  Ren bit back his natural impulse to quip that if Oran grew up on Rolusdreus, he’d be a good liar, too, but he refused to be distracted by the politician. He said, “It is not unreasonable to want answers. The warlord endangered his crew answering the distress call. A warrior and his mate are dead. A child is orphaned. Does the child not deserve answers?”

  “Tell Paax that the Council will handle the matter. His investigation is unnecessary.”

  “I expect he will disagree.”

  “Stubborn male,” Oran said.

  Unsure if the older male referred to Paax or himself, Ren continued. “I find it perplexing that I continue to explain to you that the Council’s action, sanctioned or not, put all clans, every male and their mates, their sons, at risk. Why do you refuse to answer my one question? Who is sympathetic to the research conducted on SRV-P11?”

  Oran narrowed his eyes, pinning Ren in place, and he felt a stab of sympathy for Lorran. “A new invasion is coming. Paax’s meddling will divide the Council and our clans. Without a unified fleet, we will fail to repeal the Suhlik. They will be unified. They will not squabble among themselves about sanctioned research.”

>   “So we throw sand in the eyes of our opponent because they would do the same?” Ren recalled the countless hours he spent under the unforgiving Rolusdreus sun, sparring with males larger and stronger than himself. He had used every advantage at his disposal, including tossing sand at his opponents. They cried foul, but the Suhlik would not fight with honor.

  “We are of the same mind. I do believe that we should prepare ourselves, but I will not compromise on principles,” Oran said. “You should consider Wrex, though I do not think the male capable of subterfuge.”

  Ren knew. His research uncovered Oran’s unpopular standing in the Council. The male was upright and righteous to the point of being insufferable, at least in the session recordings.

  “Are you mated?” Oran asked.

  “My mate returned to Earth,” Ren answered. He had been matched. That was easy information to uncover, and he assumed the male had done his research. He felt no need to explain further.

  Oran waited, as if Ren would divulge his secrets in the silence. He knew that trick and he could outwait the politician.

  “I am resigning my position,” Oran said. “My grandsons, you see. I joined the Council to shape a better world for my sons, but it took all my time. I missed their adolescence, and now they are all mated with sons of their own.”

  “Many congratulations. A family is a gift,” Ren replied. “Do you know the male named Caldar?”

  Recognition flickered across Oran’s face. He must have realized because he did not try to deny a connection. “A clan-less male. Useful in his way. Has he returned to the system?”

  Ren folded his tablet and slipped it into a pocket. “Thank you for your time. Our conversation has been productive.”

  “Do not waste too much time appeasing Paax’s sense of righteous indignation. He is not one to enforce moral standards in others.”

  “I will share your sentiments,” Ren answered.

  When the sands turn green and flower.

  Oran turned to look at the corner of his desk, as if alerted to a threat. In two strides, he was at the desk and pulled a small electronic device out from the underside. He held it up with a sneer.