Unembarrassed, Flo took off her boots and stripped to the skin, laying her black tee shirt and camouflage pants aside. She saw one of the beige jumpsuits the Khagrish made their prisoners wear stacked on the room’s chair, and a set of the utilitarian white underwear peeked out from under the garment. A pair of prison issue flip-flops waited. “Can I keep my own underwear for now?”
“It would be best if you were completely undressed,” MARL said.
With a shrug, Flo removed her panties and bra, took the gown from the chair where she’d set it, put it on and stretched out on the bed on her stomach as instructed. “Tell me this isn’t going to hurt. I won’t believe you but it’d be nice to hear.”
“There will be no pain,” MARL said.
Megan was thorough in her scan and made MARL explain in great detail where he planned to insert the implant and what its purpose was. “And we can remove it when the mission is complete?”
Now the AI hesitated. “I should be able to do so but in any case there’s no danger in it remaining permanently embedded.”
“Let me go on the record to say I want it out when I’m finished with this,” Flo said. “Since we all know we’re going to do this, can we get it over with? I need every minute to get my briefing on the island and the key personnel from Kierce.”
“Of course.” Megan stepped aside and MARL floated to the bedside.
He projected a blue light, which skimmed over Flo’s body, producing a mild tingling and causing her to sneeze. “It’s advisable to hold still,” he said.
“Then don’t make me laugh or sneeze.” Flo centered her mind and detached from the situation, not wanting to tense up.
“I’ll insert my manifestation here.” MARL shot a narrowly focused green beam at the back of Flo’s head, creating pressure but no pain.
“I thought you said this was going into her spine?” Jill asked.
“After scanning, I’ve determined the odds of success are higher if I do the insert here.”
“Flo?” Jill’s voice was concerned. “Okay with you?”
MARL created a three dimensional image of a silver circle, etched or inscribed with symbols. “Here is the insert, magnified many million times. Neither you nor the Khagrish has the technology to detect it once I’ve set the actual transmitter into your tissues.”
Flo thought it was a little odd the AI possessed this technology, almost like chipping an animal but she decided the topic was a discussion for another day. Or maybe above her rank in the scheme of things. Immaterial to the mission at hand. “Thanks for the visual but just get it over with.”
Metallic skin flashing red-violet, the AI wasted no more time. “Inserting now.”
She didn’t feel a thing, nor did she feel any different. “Is it working?”
“Yes, I’m getting location data,” MARL said. “You are here.”
“Did you just make a joke?” Jill asked with a laugh.
Flo sat up, told a solicitous Megan she felt fine and asked for a moment alone to get dressed. The room cleared and she hopped off the bed to put on the Khagrish prisoner uniform. Ironically, she’d never actually been in a Khagrish cell. When she was captured, along with Gabe and Brent, the third member of their crew, they’d been forced into stasis envelopes and Jill Garrison rescued them during her own escape. Luckily the Khagrish were fairly disorganized about how they managed the lives of their prisoners and her lack of familiarity with specific prison protocols shouldn’t cause any problems. She knew a lot of other things about the Khagrish all right.
There was a knock on the door and she fastened the jumpsuit. “I’m decent.”
Aydarr walked in. “I wanted a chance to speak alone with you to tell you how much I appreciate this and how much I regret I can’t figure out any other way to find and rescue these Badari. The necessity to leave a large group of humans as prisoners in this lab we’re going to infiltrate tonight is unfortunate. I also regret having to allow twenty or so women to be sent off to the other lab for breeding purposes without rescuing them but I have to locate these other Badari.”
“The end justifies the means?” she asked gently, sliding her feet into the flip-flops and grimacing. She always hated having anything between her toes.
“We’re spread so thin on the ground, it’s a miracle we can rescue anyone at all. We’ve been incredibly lucky and I know it, “Aydarr said. “Adding another hundred or so Badari soldiers to my forces will be a game changer as you humans like to say. I have to make the tradeoffs with an eye toward winning the damn war not any one individual battle.”
Flo studied him, astonished the Alpha had revealed so much of his thinking to her. “I have immense respect for you, sir, or I wouldn’t be going on this mission. I’m glad this kind of decision is above my pay grade as it’s obviously a heavy load to bear. If I may say so, I think we’re all lucky you and Jill are here to run the war. You both have the guts and the vision required. It’s an honor to serve under you both.”
He extended his hand. “Thank you and good luck.”
Badari weren’t big on skin to skin contact with humans, except with their mates, so Flo took it as a high honor and shook his hand. “We should probably get going.”
He opened the door to the hall and allowed her to walk out first. There was a small circle of people waiting for them, plus MARL, floating serenely and displaying a soothing set of pink tones washing over his surface.
He’s happy he got to shove his toy in my brain. With an effort Flo kept herself from putting her hand to the spot on the back of her head where the implant had been inserted. Oh yeah, I’ll be glad when this comes out again. Military tech was one thing, unknown tech in her head from a ten thousand year old alien AI was another.
Mateer handed Aydarr his weapons and the Alpha led the way from the admin building to the landing field. Badari soldiers guarded the path and there were no humans in sight. Flo knew the Alpha didn’t hesitate to shut down portions of the valley when he was conducting secret operations and applauded his discretion. The recent problem with a few bad apples among the humans was fresh in everyone’s mind and the last thing she wanted to risk was someone betraying her once she was in the middle of the Khagrish lab on a desolate island in the southern ocean.
Knowing Gabe was the pilot gave her confidence. Aydarr, Jill and MARL were accompanied by three senior Badari soldiers, all of whom Flo trusted to watch her six. Kierce was also in the group and would take part in the operation but the two of them sat at the front of the flyer’s passenger compartment and he immediately commenced his briefing to her about the island and what life was like there, even before the craft took off.
She absorbed the data as fast as he explained it, using a special memory module the Sectors military had given her back in the day when she was active duty. “So, no pack structure?”
“No, although there is a man we all respect and obey but of necessity he plays the part of a lowly soldier, not even a senior soldier, to stay below the Khagrish scanners. I think our lab was begun at some time after the original labs on this continent which may be why the Khagrish there deliberately deviated from the pack model our DNA pushes us toward adopting.” Kierce frowned. “Aydarr and I think even at the earlier time the Khagrish were beginning to realize the military benefits of Badari organizing themselves into a hierarchy might be outweighed by the existence of an Alpha the soldiers swore blood oaths to. Until I joined this pack, I’d never sworn a blood oath to anyone.”
Leaning closer, Flo tried to imagine an Alpha concealing his essential nature. “Tell me about this guy, because he’s my target. He’s the one Aydarr wants me to get in touch with and persuade to join us.”
“His name is Daegan.” Jaw clenched, Kierce stopped speaking. “Even now it’s hard for me to expose him as the commander he truly is.”
“Distinguishing marks? I gotta pick him out pretty fast once I get there, assuming the damn scientists give us any opportunity to pair off on our own.” Flo grinned. “I hope this guy’s
true mate isn’t going to be on the flight or I might have a problem. You guys don’t do threesomes.”
“I wish I could give you his image telepathically,” Kierce said, crossing his arms and frowning. “To me, he’s just another Badari. You know what we look like.” Gesturing at himself with a laugh, he said, “Big, muscles, talons, fangs—”
Biting her lip not to laugh at his attempts to adequately describe the man in question, Flo tried to be helpful. “Handsome, yeah I’ve got the basic description down. Hair color? Eye color? Any scars?”
“Black hair, which he prefers to wear long when we aren’t doing deployments offworld. His eyes are the usual amber. Maybe they show his Alpha nature more than anything else because his gaze can be intense. A little taller than I am, more heavily muscled actually. No scars or at least none I remember.”
“Not too much help but I’m sure I can find him.” Flo studied Kierce. “Tell me the truth, how likely is it this guy Daegan will want to join Aydarr and the rest of us in fighting the Khagrish?”
“We hate the Khagrish,” Kierce said. “But until I met this pack, I had no idea of the existence of other Badari, or the humans, much less the war for survival Aydarr and Jill now lead. We’re well insulated on the island from seeing any bigger picture. I’m sure Daegan wants us to be free as much as the next Badari but whether he’ll be easy to recruit to the cause?” As if to give himself a chance to gather his thoughts, Kierce stared at the flyer’s ceiling while Flo waited. “You’ll be asking him to absorb a lot of new information in a short time. Uncertainty comes with it as well, learning we’re only a relatively small part of a much bigger war. I’d say tread carefully but it’d be reasonable to expect him to offer an alliance at least, in return for freeing his men.”
“All right, fair enough. Sometimes those of us in the valley forget what’s obvious to us might not be to others without our specific experiences. Tell me more about the set up on the island.” Flo thought to herself based on Kierce’s honest assessment, Aydarr’s mission might not be as straight forward as the Alpha hoped. And his pack sure didn’t have the resources to round up and contain over a hundred other Badari. Even here, on the northern continent, the Tzibir contingent of reptile-DNA Badari hadn’t thrown in with Aydarr, preferring to go their own road and co-operate with the Khagrish to some extent.
Kierce seemed relieved to switch topics and launched into an explanation of how the island complex was organized.
The flyer arrived at the lab late at night and Gabe set the ship down well away from the installation, so there was a certain amount of hiking involved. Flo regretted giving up her boots for the flip-flops and she hated not carrying a weapon.
When the team arrived at the outer boundary of the force field protecting the lab, MARL created a small gap in the energy field and one by one the team slipped through. MARL was capable of throwing up a distortion field to render them basically invisible to Khagrish scanners and with Aydarr in the lead, the group reached the lab buildings undetected.
Nerves on edge, Flo crouched in the darkness with the others as MARL did his bag of tricks, scanning the complex, identifying where the twenty human women were being held. He hacked into the artificial intelligence system running the lab, using secret back doors and passwords Jill set up a long time ago. The Khagrish might be absolute masters at genetic manipulation but they weren’t too adept with computers and artificial intelligence.
A small door to the right of her hissed open and MARL led the way. Flo stayed in the center of the tight bunch of Badari, knowing they were protected under his distortion field. Kierce remained outside to act as sentry. The lab was basically like all the others Flo had seen, and MARL brought them inside the facility in the middle of the cell block. The Khagrish had vids but MARL was giving them a false readout and the aliens’ security guards rarely patrolled at night.
As long as we’re efficient, we’ll pull this off undetected. Flo’s nerves were tightly wound nevertheless as she and her companions proceeded down the corridor.
When they arrived at the proper cell, MARL stopped, floating in midair, bobbing slightly, with violet and chartreuse running over him in a gaudy display. Aydarr sent a small dissolving canister of sleep gas through the tiny opening MARL created in the force field barrier in front of the cell and the group waited while the highly localized, concentrated gas did its work and dissipated. At the Alpha’s hand signal, MARL opened the cell entirely and the squad rushed inside. Aydarr swept up one of the unconscious women from a bunk at the rear of the cell, wordlessly pointing out her elaborately colored hair with a grin for Flo. Darik quickly removed the unconscious woman’s neurocontroller bracelet before she was carried out of the cell. He then placed the black bracelet on Flo’s wrist setting off a brief flare of heat against her skin and pain along her arm as the device adjusted to her.
Biting her lip and muttering curses to herself, Flo lay on the cot and watched as her teammates left the cell. When MARL put the force barrier back up there was a sizzle and then she could no longer see the squad as the AI reinstated his distortion shield. Flo laced her fingers behind her head and stared at the ceiling. I’m in for it now. She hoped the woman who’d been rescued wasn’t close friends with any of the others in the cell but was prepared to spin a story about how the Khagrish had entered in the night and made the substitution for their own inscrutable reasons. Frankly she doubted anyone was going to care. Most humans in the Khagrish lab system were pretty beaten down and frightened, unlikely to make a fuss or take the risk of bringing the aliens’ attention onto themselves.
Flo moved her arm to where she could study the bracelet in the subdued light. She’d never had to endure one of these either but it’d been made clear to her they could be used to inflict severe pain, at times enough to kill. She planned to be a model prisoner, obedient to a fault.
Right up to the moment when she wasn’t.
When the lights came up to signify morning and an annoying buzzer sounded to make sure the prisoners were awake, the other women rose groggily and milled around, using the limited bathroom facilities and straightening their clothing and hair as much as it was possible to do so. Flo joined the group at the muster line toward the front of the cell and although a few looked at her with mildly puzzled expressions, no one asked where the other woman had gone. Actually no one spoke at all, which suited Flo fine.
The Khagrish guards brought the breakfast mush in bowls, carried on trays by robo servers and again no one blinked or said anything about Flo. The guards only seemed to care whether they had the same count of human women as they’d had the night before.
“We’ll be loading you onto the flyer in an hour,” the security captain said as the robos deposited the food trays on the tables and left the cell. “It’s a long flight to your next destination but the location will be the end of your journey.” He gave them a leer. “You should be grateful you were selected for this experiment, believe me.”
The guards marched away and the women headed for the tables.
“What do you suppose he meant by his last remark?” someone asked. “Has anyone heard anything about the reason the Khagrish gathered us up?”
Apparently the room full of women hadn’t been told anything about the purpose for which they’d been chosen, so Flo held her tongue as well while idle speculation buzzed in the air. Wild as some of the guesses were, no one came close to the true purpose behind the Khagrishi actions.
She wasn’t here to get to know the other women although she was mildly curious where they’d been in the Sectors when they were kidnapped, but not enough to ask questions when no one else was making any effort to become acquainted.
As promised, the guards returned all too soon and escorted the prisoners outside, to the landing field and onto a big, rear-loading cargo style flyer, which was the first one Flo had seen on the planet. We could sure use one of these. She amused herself by contemplating how she’d go about hijacking this craft if she had a different mission than the one sh
e was actually assigned to. The women weren’t shackled or restrained in any way, merely told to stay in their seats. The guards seated fore and aft didn’t even pay much attention to them. Clearly they didn’t regard the women as any threat.
The flyer took off smoothly and flew south as far as Flo could tell from the limited view she had on the overhead vids.
“Where exactly are we going?” one guard asked the other in Khagrish, offering him a pack of feelgood sticks. “Have you ever heard of this island lab?”
His friend selected a purple-tipped feelgood and lit up. “Nah, but this whole planet is full of secrets of one kind or another. Probably soft duty for some lucky bastards.”
“Not if they’re guarding a pack of Badari.” The first man also lit up, inhaling the colored smoke with obvious pleasure. “I did two tours in the lab where the animals were kept on this continent and they were scary, let me tell you. Give them an inch and you’re likely to be dead. Glad I wasn’t there when they broke out.”
Checking to see where the officer was, the second guard said in a low voice, “I heard the authorities handled things smarter at this island facility. Didn’t let the Badari form packs, killed off any alphas at a young age. Easier to handle when they don’t have a leader.”
Flo wondered if the Khagrishi was right. If these new Badari were too tame, or too collaborative with the Khagrish, they’d be no help at all to Aydarr. They could even prove to be a hindrance. Of course Kierce was a fierce warrior and joined Aydarr’s pack willingly so that was a good sign. She leaned her head against the bulkhead and let herself drift into a light sleep. Better to arrive rested and ready for anything than to force herself to stay awake during a long and boring flight.
CHAPTER TWO
It was Daegan’s favorite time of the day – dawn. The day was full of new promise and possibilities, at least until the Khagrish did something to ruin it. He stretched and went for a run on the hard packed sand of the beach where the tide had gone out. The little brown birds on their long legs skittered out of his path as he pounded along and he gave a wide berth to the small red-and-black crustaceans scuttling here and there in search of morsels to eat. The creatures were no real threat to a man his size but their pinch hurt. The sky was amazing this morning, all pinks and purples as the sun came up. For a few heartbeats of time the clouds resembled the massive trees of the goddess’s shrine, not that he’d ever seen it with his own eyes but he’d dreamt of walking there and heard her voice once or twice.
Daegan Page 2