by Viola Grace
He sighed. “Are you sure?”
“This is an assessment. I am sure. This is why we exist. They should know what will be coming through that portal when it opens again.”
Tomos nodded. “Fair enough. You can take Arrow.”
“Good. Now, we just have to wait for the assessor.” She went over to her brothers and explained what they were going to do. The other two were disappointed that Arrow was going to be on her side.
Ari scowled, but Arel said, “I want to be on your team.”
Tomos sighed. “Me, too, but she has to go up against someone, and so, we are it.”
“I will take it easy on you.” She murmured it.
Tomos looked at her in surprise. “You will not. We will play to win, and you will play to win. To do anything else would be disrespectful to our parents.”
She nodded. “Right. Well, he has arrived, so we had better get into our places.”
Remi and Arrow walked to the edge of the game area. Sarah met her and handed her the tablet that she had asked for in the shuttle.
A few keystrokes brought up the projection of the ball court with the elongated hoop to throw the ball through. She linked it to the arena, and the projection took form.
Sarah blinked at her. “How did you know how to do that?”
“I have grown up with this tech. I was trained to use it.”
They waited for the examiner, and when he entered the space, Remi felt like all the air had just left the room.
Arrow whispered, “What is the problem?”
She answered in another whisper. “No problem. I just thought that I dreamed him, but nope, he was up in the sky near my quarters.”
Her brother growled. “He was looking at you.”
She smiled and elbowed her brother. “Not for long. Now, are you ready?”
He nodded. “I am. No holds barred?”
“Nope, but stay ready to throw me if I need it.”
“Aye, aye.”
They stood ready and waited for the examiner to take a seat with the overseer and the Saya. It was time to make their family proud.
Chapter Four
Remi faced her brothers, and she asked, “Do you want the ball, or do we flip for it?”
Ari bent, and he did a standing backflip, landing nearly where he had started.
Remi grinned and gave his team the ball. “Nice flip.”
She called out, “Overseer, will you give the order to begin?”
“Begin!”
Ari went forward, and Remi jumped back and to the side, blocking him and getting the ball in her control, slamming it repeatedly onto the ground as she moved. She saw Arrow making his run for the hoop, and when she sensed the other three at her back, she jumped forward, was caught by Arrow’s hands, and he flung her up toward the fourteen-foot hoop. She slammed the ball through the hoop and fell to the ground a moment later. The ball dropped a few seconds later, and she tossed it to Tomos.
He gripped the ball, turned, and the chase was on to the other end of the court.
Remi ran full out and went invisible in front of the audience to an audible gasp. Arrow did the same, and with a quick move, she was able to get the ball, throw it to her partner, and he took it back toward their hoop. The other three disappeared, and she regained her appearance as her feet slammed onto the surface of the court. She let out a sharp whistle, and the ball was hurled upward.
Remi sensed that Ari was making a move toward it, so she swatted his legs and knocked him sideways. Arlen was next to her, and she nudged him to one side, but he moved to block her.
Tomos was behind her, and there was only one thing to do. She stopped, dropped, and Tomos ran over her. She bounded back to her feet as her brothers became visible in their collision, and she got up just in time to watch Arrow catching the descending ball in midair and slamming it into the hoop.
He landed lightly and walked over to her. Touching her cheek. “He stepped on you.”
Remi grinned with a wince. “I know. You don’t even want to know how big his foot is in comparison with my ribs.”
There was a sharp sound, and they turned to the watchers. Remi walked over, and Tomos was next to her. He winced. “Sorry.”
“I knew where you were. I will heal.”
The examiner walked up to them and looked them over. Remi kept her gaze just beyond his shoulder. She didn’t want to look into those copper eyes again.
“So, you are all from the same pairing?” He was standing in front of her. His chest was taking up her entire field of vision.
She looked up, and her body heated. She had no idea why she was acting in such a stupid way, but her body was waking nerves that had been dormant. “We are.”
He smiled. “You are the eldest?”
“I am, by two months. This is my eldest brother.”
“The other three?”
“All from one collection. We are the first of our parents’ twenty.”
He nodded. “Right, well as interesting as this display has been, I have set up five projection suites for you to work through. You will all be on your own, and we will see what your instincts lead you to. So, if you will follow me?”
Remi inclined her head, and the others nodded. “Please, lead us.”
He paused and then nodded.
Remi and her brothers followed the glossy black feathers as he took them out of the main area, down a hall, a pair of steps, and around a corner.
The guards outside each of the suites gave a hint to the nature of their tests.
“Battle simulations. Ah.” Remi nodded. When he stopped in front of the first one, she stepped toward the door.
He shook his head. “I have read your file, this one is not yours.”
One by one, her brothers were assigned to their testing chambers. She was finally standing next to the last door, and she raised her brows. “Is this one mine?”
“It is.” He raised his voice toward the others. “You can enter your tests now.”
As one, all of her brothers went into their chambers, and Remi turned to enter hers.
The examiner held out his arm to bar her. “You do not need to take this test. It is for the warriors.”
She nodded and smiled, ducking past his arm. “My mother did not raise anyone who wasn’t.”
She entered the room before he could stop her, and she closed the door behind her. There was no light, no sound, nothing.
Remi walked forward, and a dim light came on in the distance. A voice murmured, “You are to rescue one of the humans without suffering crippling injury yourself.”
Remi nodded, looking around. A scent came to her, and she recognized it as Voboth. She shivered but took another step forward before walking along in a slight crouch, her senses on high alert.
When she heard the screams and shrieks, she stepped up her pace.
The building she was in was made of metal and could have been a spacecraft. The air tasted strange, but she didn’t have a basis for comparison.
The light got brighter, and she finally could see the humans. They were gathered in a pit and were shrieking in panic, male and female. The reason for their panic was the partially dismembered corpses pinned and hanging from the upper gallery that overlooked the pit. Bodies from twenty different species were dangling there, and to the side was a Voboth, shouting an ultimatum.
“One of you must become part of our collection. It is up to you to choose. Once we have our prize, we will release the rest of you.”
Remi was sickened, but she knew what she had to do. She went invisible, lowered herself over the edge of the gallery and down into the pit. Once there, she used her camouflage to make her into a human woman. She couldn’t help her height, but she looked the part.
The humans were shoving at each other. Some were protecting their friends and others were sobbing. Remi stood up straight and raised her hand.
“I will go. I will do it.”
Heads turned toward her and confusion rippled through them.
“You would become part of my collection?”
She hung from the claw, the arms of it digging in around her waist until she could barely breathe. “I would.”
She was pulled toward it, and the heat rippling off its body had a sickening dampness that made her wince. She held her human seeming.
“We plucked these screaming creatures off their world, and they are wailing like children. What makes you different?”
She glanced over at the crowd, and she paused. She recognized the faces in the panicked throng. Sarah, Lianne, Megan, women that her mother had shown her images of since she had wondered why her parents were different. All of those humans were here.
“I like to look around.” She reached out and gripped one of the claws, pushing it back until it snapped. She dropped to the platform in front of the Voboth. “I like to pay attention.”
She used the claw as a scythe and embedded it into the Voboth. It didn’t put up much of a fight, and that was wrong as well. Killing the Voboth was not the point of the test.
Remi looked around, and the humans were cheering, some were looking at her in shock. Suddenly, a cry came up from the pit. “Take us home!”
The humans in the pit took up the chant, and Remi was left looking for the controls. She had to get them back where they belonged.
The controls were against one wall, and she moved as quickly as she could, unlocking the history of the ship and finding where they had picked up their cargo.
She froze. According to the logs, all the humans had come from the same place. She looked at their position relative to the Earth, and she turned them around. She aimed the ship for the surface of the moon, set the engines at full, and locked the controls.
She stood and watched the ship approach the moon, and when there was no going back, she turned to the humans in the pit.
She leaned over the railing, and she said, “You are going back to your own space.”
One of the women smiled and said, “Thank you, hybrid.”
She inclined her head, and the ship buried itself in the moon that circled the Earth. Remi stayed with them as the ship collapsed and the impact killed them all.
Remi woke on a med-bed. She cleared her throat. “So, how badly did we fail?”
The assessor was standing at the foot of her bed, and her brothers surrounded her. “You all passed, but you were the only one to identify the complete threat. I would recommend that you use the escape pod the next time you want to crash a ship.”
She shrugged. “They were scared; I had to keep them together.”
“Well done, Remi Bree-Arix. Your parents are an excellent pairing. You and all of your brethren are fit for duty.”
She tried to sit up and winced as she felt a few bruises. “Great.”
Tomos frowned. “What was your simulation?”
The assessor quirked his lips. “She was given the same situation as you were. She simply saw more of it than you did.”
Tomos chuckled. “Of course, she did. How many did you save?”
The assessor checked his records. “Nine billion.”
Her brothers closed their eyes, and Ari opened them with a groan. “They weren’t human.”
The assessor nodded. “Correct, but you used excellent retrieval tactics. All of you managed to retrieve a minimum of thirty of the beings on the ship, with the exception of Remi. That will qualify you as Hunters in the Rrassic forces.”
Remi got herself upright and was thankful that the safeties had triggered in the simulation. She only felt lightly crushed.
Arrow cocked his head. “What about Remi?”
The assessor looked at her with his copper eyes hot. “There are other plans for Remi Bree-Arix.”
Remi didn’t shiver at his look, but it was only determination that held her still. She really hoped he was referring to her skill as an analytical tracker but had a suspicion that she was going to end up in the Breeder compound. It was hard to keep a bright outlook for her brothers when her heart was sinking at the thought of a fate surrounded by children... again.
Running one daycare was enough for a lifetime.
Chapter Five
She sighed in relief when the medic pushed through the men surrounding her and gave her the pain medication that would help break down the lactic acid in her muscles.
Tomos scowled. “I thought she was treated already.”
The assessor scowled. “As did I.”
The medic growled. “I was waiting for her to wake up and demand assistance, but she was dealing with you, and that didn’t happen. We haven’t treated the hybrids yet, and they need to be awake and alert during treatment.”
Remi remained still while the drugs did their work and her body moved more rapidly to recovery.
The medic checked the readout, and he nodded. “Good. A little regenerative therapy for the bruising and you will be out of here in six hours.”
Ari hissed. “Six?”
The medic nodded. “She took the brunt of the simulator’s force. From what I have been told, the computer thought she would move. She didn’t. It nearly crushed her before the safeties kicked in.”
The assessor scowled. “That is unacceptable. Everyone out. Medic, I will return in a few minutes with a Saya. I would recommend you not be here.”
Remi frowned. “If my brothers are not needed elsewhere, I would like them here.”
He looked at her, and he raised the small handheld unit that he had. “They are being scheduled for body armor and weaponry fitting.”
Her brothers’ bands chimed, and she gave the assessor a dark look. “Sneaky.”
He shrugged.
One by one, her brothers left the room, and the assessor was the last. “Hey, Assessor.”
“It is examiner.”
“Fine. Examiner. What is your name?”
He blinked slowly and smiled. “Examiner Kromir.”
“Thank you. It is frustrating to not know the name of the person you want to call a jackass.” She smiled sweetly, and the medic spluttered next to her.
Kromir’s wings snapped tight to his back, and he left her room.
“You shouldn’t have said that, but it was funny.” The Nool medic grinned.
“I know. But I hate being bossed around. I am the bossiest one in my family.”
The medic nodded. “How are you even speaking? You have four broken ribs.”
“Practice. Having a lot of brothers means that I play rough. You can’t show the pain, but the more I hurt, the snarkier I get.”
“You must be in agony because I have never heard of anyone insulting an examiner before.” He settled the regeneration lights over the bed, and the radiation spilled into her system, triggering healing.
He left her, and in a few minutes, Kromir returned with Lekorh behind him.
She nodded to Lekorh and glared at Kromir. The Saya was obviously startled that her hostility was written on her features.
“Saya Lekorh, I would like you to examine the mind of this hybrid to determine her state when she knew that the targets were false in the simulation.”
Lekorh nodded, and Remi let him touch her thoughts and winced when he staggered back.
Kromir looked at him with concern. “What is wrong?”
“She is in incredible pain.”
“What?”
“Her ribs are broken, she has bruises down her spine and back. There is intense pain around her scalp, and one of her hands is swollen, her knuckles are damaged.”
Remi looked at her left hand, and he was right. It was purple.
Kromir stared at her and asked Lekorh, “Can you get past the pain?”
Remi smiled. “I will pull it aside for you.”
She tamped it down and sat there while Lekorh went through her mind.
“
She determined that she was going to die with those who could not live because if she left, they would panic, and there was a chance they could make it off the ship.”
Kromir nodded. “Is she aware that one of her kind is not asked to self-sacrifice?”
Lekorh asked the question she was thinking. “A hybrid?”
“A female.”
She rolled her eyes and felt the laughter in her mind contributed by Lekorh.
“My sex does not restrict my capabilities or my responsibilities to my society and the purpose of the Rrassic. I was not born because I am female, I was born because my parents created me. No matter what sex I am, I would still be here. My purpose was decided before my body shape was known.”
Kromir blinked slowly. He sighed, and she watched the movement of his chest as he breathed deeply. The suit he was wearing wasn’t quite tight enough for her taste.
Lekorh gave her a shocked look, and she shrugged slightly. Hormones would be hormones, even if the target of her lust were looking at her with a suspicious glare.
“What was that? What passed between you?”
Lekorh paused. “I do not feel it is in my purview to tell you, Examiner.”
Remi sighed. “Just so he doesn’t get into trouble, my biological systems are coming online, and my hormones seem to be fascinated by you.”
Kromir took a step back. “What?”
The whisper was as close to a shout as she imagined he could manage.
“Don’t worry. I am sure it will fade.” She waved it off with her right hand. The left was the focus of the healing rays.
“Unacceptable.” He stepped toward her, and then, he paused and stepped back before he turned and stalked out of the room.
Lekorh turned back to her, and he grinned. “The attraction is mutual, but he has no idea what to do about it.”
She grinned. “I have a few ideas, but the wings add a bit of a challenge to some of the moves.”
He put his hands over his ears. “I am not listening.”
She laughed, winced at the pain, and lay back. “I am just going to lie here until the light is finished with me. After that, I will head to my quarters to get some rest.”