by Kayla Stonor
“Not a problem,” Ahnna murmured.
Harrington must have heard them. “Okay, good.” He waved down the director. “Let’s try again. I think we have an understanding.”
“Fine. Ahnna, move back, please. Where you were at the start,” the director ordered.
Harrington repeated his question to Tierc with no discernible difference in its delivery. He added, “I hear Octiron found you butt naked in Ahnna’s arms with a knife to your throat.”
This time, Tierc played ball.
“Yeah. Uncomfortable. I was investigating Ahnna, a suspect in a terrorist plot. She offered sex services for submissives and,” Tierc glanced Ahnna’s way, “she lived up to her reputation. Until she turned on me, nearly… slit my throat.”
Harrington’s eyes waggled at her. “So which are you, Ahnna? A Domme, or a terrorist? A Domme and a terrorist?” He glanced to a vid drone blazing a green light. “I can honestly say we’ve never had a contestant like that before!”
Ahnna’s jaw hardened. “Neither. I’m a soldier, fighting for the survival of the human species.” Her intense denial hinted at the full depth of her hatred for the Qui.
Harrington threw his hands up in mock horror. “Now that is a worthy cause. I think half our audience can get behind human rights. The other half? Not so sure.” He paused for a burst of canned laughter. “Now we know what you’re fighting for, tell me, Ahnna, what are you fighting against, exactly?”
Ahnna nearly missed the question, distracted by the fake laughter. Hysteria bubbled inside her, and bare inches separated her from Tierc. His alluring scent surrounded her. “Um, Human Defense-X is fighting against dilution of the human genome.”
“Human Defense-X?”
“The sole opposition to the United Regions Alliance and the last true resistance on Earth.”
“Who’s diluting the human genome?”
“Alien human hybrids like me,” Tierc inserted smoothly with a mocking laugh.
Ahnna flushed, hysteria vanquished. “Qui-human hybrids. The Qui,” she spelled the name out, “are an alien humanoid species with reptilian characteristics. Your universe is blessed, you don’t have any Qui!” She sent a sly look Tierc’s way. “Except for him…”
Harrington looked intrigued and side-whispered to a camera. “Reptilian?” He returned to Ahnna even as he gestured to Tierc. “Now, Tierc here looks human, but we have analyzed his genetics and I can confirm Tierc isn’t what he appears to be. His DNA is very different. Ahnna, perhaps you can enlighten us. What makes Tierc different? Is he a secret dragon shifter?” He winked.
Ahnna swallowed the taste of spice-soaked pheromone. Her nerves tingled, her breasts ached, and her silk shift top tortured her hardened nipples. She dared not look at the bastard lizard tormenting her.
“Ahnna?” Harrington pressed.
She rallied her composure. Couldn’t Harrington smell him? She ignored his reference to shifting. Don’t even go there. Harrington was referring to another contestant, Luc Amaveo with his dark skin of purple-tinted scales. “The Qui have superior senses and physical strength. They move incredibly fast. Human Qui hybrids inherit these advantages.”
“What’s not to like about that?” Harrington asked.
“Yeah, what’s not to like?” Tierc challenged her.
Ahnna slammed up against a wall in her head, trapped in a deceit of her own making. Her body felt on fire. The leather seat pressed against her sex, her focus splintered by salacious thoughts of straddling the man beside her and grinding her wet pussy on rock hard muscle.
She glared at him. “Stop it.”
Tierc chuckled. “She means I turn her on.” He shrugged. “Qui pheromones. I can’t help it. I find her attractive, so sue me. I mean, look at her. Ahnna’s a beautiful sexy woman and she pulls a very convincing Domme. I scent her body’s unwanted reaction to me and that turns me on even more. She scents my mating pheromone, and suddenly, we have a mutual problem.”
He twisted around, in her face. Gold shot through his eyes, his pupils contracting to a diamond shape and back again. With Tierc looking directly at her, the hovering holovid drones missed the subtle shift. A furrowing of his brow signaled his cuffs had punished his DNA’s shift towards Qui and Ahnna’s stomach clenched.
Tierc’s eyes resumed their normal dark brown. “Must be torture for you.”
A shiver shot through Ahnna. Her throat closed and she struggled to swallow. Two vid drones moved in, covering every angle of her reaction.
Anger, hate, arousal and fear congealed.
Compelled her to expose the danger Tierc Marcel represented.
She wanted to warn Paragon that they toyed with a winged reptilian alien wearing human disguise; that a full-fledged Qui possessed phenomenal strength and speed, super senses, and more—self-healing abilities, an internal bio-weapons factory, and the ability to shift into any creature he touched, not like a dragon or cat shifter. The Qui had the ability to adapt to any DNA they contacted. They were dangerous—ruthless—a superior race that employed lesser minions to consolidate their grip on their empire and beyond. The Qui had spread beyond the Milky Way, would eventually discover Paragon, but they would find no Central Alliance or Octiron Entertainment to check the advance of their empire’s reach. The Qui had stunted human space exploration in its infancy.
In her universe, humans survived at the Qui’s pleasure. Reduced to the status of sex toy and rented womb.
An entertainment company like Octiron would give anything to unveil such a creature to their viewing audience. Maybe the Central Alliance would move swiftly to contain the threat, assuming they recognized the danger, but she didn’t trust anyone to contain a Qui in time.
“So how did you overpower such an impressive opponent, Ahnna?”
She started, remembered Tierc’s threat.
Maintaining the status quo was in both their interests, if for very different reasons.
This is what she needed to do. Use the race to lull Tierc into a false sense of security. Strike the moment their contract ended. She had one Qui to worry about. What better way to complete her HD-X mission than to end the Qui in Paragon, for good.
Then start a new life.
Free of the Qui. Free of HD-X. Free to mourn the life she’d left behind, those she had loved and lost.
She leaned back with a confident grin. “I’m good at what I do. I stayed true to my cover.”
“A Dominatrix? What? You expect us to believe you stripped this super-Qui naked, cuffed him, and then beat him stupid? Tierc Marcel did not arrive in Paragon in good condition.”
Ahnna glimpsed images of Tierc’s condition on arrival, his manacled hands secured behind him. Tierc looked at her. His jaw twitched. The vid drones zoomed in on his wrists.
“I had advance Intel he was Qui. As I seduced him, I drugged him. He never saw me coming…”
“Lucky for you we stepped in,” Harrington said, speaking to Tierc. “You refused Octiron’s offer to remove the cuffs surgically.”
“The procedure isn’t without risk,” Tierc replied.
Because he’d have to shift to full Qui before reconstruction.
“For the benefit of our audience,” Harrington spoke to the green-lit drone, “these titanium bands are welded into Tierc’s skeletal structure, truly nasty devices. And Ahnna claims she cannot remove them.”
The studio fell silent as Tierc’s low growl sent dual spikes of fear and arousal warring across Ahnna’s body. Her heart rate soared and then gradually came under control as her nanos kicked in. Sweat touched her temples as she fought the hot flash of her conflicting emotions. She turned to face the man she had entrapped in her torturous device. “Well, unfortunately, I don’t have a key with me.”
“Oh my.” Harrington’s faux shock couldn’t hide his pleasure at the dramatic conflict brewing between his wild card contestants. He bestowed a look of utter sympathy on Tierc. “The permanent cuffs don’t worry you?”
“Amputation and molecular reconstructi
on versus a pair of harmless bracelets…” Tierc mused. He shrugged. “I admit, I was undecided for a while, but since your random pairing forced us together, I’m keeping them. They’ll remind me how dangerous this gorgeous woman can really be.” His sarcasm was as smooth as his lie.
Chapter Four
T ierc plotted a path through the attacking ships, forcing them to fire on both him and each other. He shot out the far side unscathed, ducked into a passing asteroid and landed on a target marked X on his navigation chart. He felt a brief jolt as he secured landing gear and checked for incoming threats.
“A passable attempt, Tierc Marcel. Despite your bullish tactics, you acquired the target with ship undamaged and are designated ship’s captain.”
Tierc removed the virtual simulator, stood up and faced a holographic simile of a young girl with serious eyes and a mouth that didn’t know how to smile. “Why a child, Axo?”
The ship’s AI tilted her—its—head. “A child engenders nurturing instincts.”
Damn. Axo wanted to win Ahnna’s approval. She’d taken against the Artificial Intelligence on sight, her usual HD-X mistrust and paranoia. Busy testing the ship’s capabilities in the flight simulator, Tierc had paid little attention to the brewing problem between his teammate and the ship’s AI. Tierc and Ahnna had slept on the Orion Nebula overnight, preferring to settle into their respective cabins than take rooms on the space station orbiting Primaera. Plus Tierc needed to pass the simulator tests before Axo allowed him to pilot the ship.
A second hologram strode across the Orion Nebula’s bridge and swung a holovid drone to a new angle that better captured the ship’s Artificial Intelligence. Zeke’s holo-image effected force-fields that allowed him to direct the holovid drones remotely. Tierc shifted out the way. Interfering with Octiron’s crew could throw them out the race. At least, Zeke was real, albeit physically absent. Tierc wasn’t entirely alone with a xenophobic human nutcase and an AI with security issues, although Tierc had to admit Axo made a cute four-year-old.
“Are you feeling threatened or ignored?” Tierc asked Orion Nebula’s AI.
Axo’s expression didn’t alter. “Ahnna barely acknowledges my existence.”
“She’s scared of you. Has she seen you today?”
“She ordered I stay out of her quarters.”
“So?”
“She does not appear intimidated by me. She said she would never deliberately harm Octiron property. She then tipped her coffee down the solid waste dispenser. Liquid should not enter the solid waste dispenser. Her meaning was plain.”
Tierc scratched his head. “You think she means to sabotage you?”
“I have calculated a forty-seven percent possibility of accidental sabotage.”
“Log your suspicions with Octiron, inform Ahnna, and then recalculate.”
A second later, Axo rose from the floor and reformed in its android holograph—a see-through exoskeletal form, packed with colored veins and flashing fake neurons… and distinctly male.
“You do know you’re not real?” Tierc said, disturbed by the AI’s personality quirks. “Your avatar suggests an identity crisis.” Axo could assume full control of the ship. The AI could not be ignored.
Ahnna burst onto the bridge. “I’m not taking fucking orders from you!”
Tierc raised an eyebrow at another problem he couldn’t ignore. Obviously Ahnna had just learned he’d been named ship’s captain. “Didn’t imagine you would for a second.”
She stood glaring at him, hands on hips and primed for battle. Tierc quashed a desire to kiss the living fight out of her and rolled his eyes to the ceiling, an action guaranteed to rile, but not incite total carnage. He noticed Zeke step back into the wall, effectively disappearing. The holovid moved discreetly up to the ceiling.
“I can fly this ship, too!” she snapped.
“Not as well as Captain Marcel,” Axo interjected. “You failed advanced training.”
Ahnna turned on the avatar and snarled. “Go crawl into your box.”
Axo blinked and vanished.
Tierc watched her smirk. “Ahnna, you are a bitch. Axo, do you have an emotion receptor?”
Axo’s android-like voice responded. “Yes, Captain.”
“Well switch it off and get back here, Captain’s orders.” Tierc watched Ahnna scowl as Axo reappeared, all lights flashing.
“Yes, Captain,” Axo stated, his pronouncement smug in ways Tierc couldn’t explain.
Ahnna swung to face Tierc, open mouth and agitated hands expressing WTF in action.
Tierc fielded her indignant fury with a wave and pulled up the race challenges available to them. The list spread above the cockpit console on virtual screens. “Axo. Talk us through the rules.” He glanced at Ahnna. “We should agree our first destination before tomorrow. I don’t want to be the last one out simply because we haven’t a clue where we’re headed.”
Ahnna shrugged, unimpressed, but did drop into the copilot’s seat. She seemed a little listless, and her eyes were shadowed, like she hadn’t slept well.
“Fine.”
“Axo?”
“To fulfill your contract with Octiron,” the AI began, “and complete the race, you need to accumulate one hundred points across four challenges. These include a mandated challenge on the planet Altaira located in the Allermo system.” A holographic light map of Paragon sprung out of the navigation console. Altaira flashed on and off in red, displayed in real-time. If they watched long enough they’d see planets rotating around their suns. “Once contestants acquire one hundred points, they can wait out the rest of the race on Primaera until winter solstice.” Paragon’s capital planet lit up. “Rewards accumulated during the challenges may be exchanged on Primaera for credit or divided between you.”
“Do contestants get the same pick of challenges?” Tierc asked. He’d been studying the challenges on offer, few close to what he’d imagined.
“There are common tasks accessible to all contestants, but many are tailored to individual contestant’s abilities. Octiron guarantees contestants a level playing field. Tasks considered too easy or dangerous are replaced with a more suitable challenge.”
Tierc glanced at Ahnna. “Got any opinions worth hearing?” He winced as her eyes flashed with irritation, he hadn’t intended to be so snarky, but she’d been prickly since their boarding… since day one.
“I want to free Xecara, the High Priestess of Sorsei.” Ahnna gestured an item on the list. “She’s being held in House Verdon Territory. Axo, light up Verdon.”
“The whole sector or the planet?”
“The planet.” A third planet began to flash, east of the Central Alliance Sector from their current viewpoint.
“The challenge is eighty points, and it’s damn near impossible!” Tierc pointed out. The higher the points the more challenging the task.
“Xecara’s a child and a hostage to fortune. House Verdon is using her to subjugate the Sorsei.”
Defiance sharpened her voice and Tierc scratched the back of his neck. “It’s a political minefield. In what universe could we sweet talk a dynasty controlling numerous star systems into releasing a key political prisoner?”
“You’ve obviously checked it out.”
“And I discounted it, with good reason. For starters, how do you propose we get in?”
“Disguised as traders. Break her out.”
Tierc laughed. “If only life were so simple. I thought HD-X trained their operatives better.” He shook his head. “Our faces are all over the galaxy! We can only use our weapons in self-defense. A recipe for failure.”
Ahnna launched out of her chair, her fists clenched, a spitfire waiting for the right spark. “House Verdon is an insular society. Octiron doesn’t broadcast there. And they won’t broadcast information that will deliberately sabotage a challenge!”
“Axo, is that true?” Tierc asked.
Ahnna’s eyebrows shot up. “Because you can’t trust that I might know what I’m talking about?”
Axo reappeared, lights firing throughout his body. “Octiron refuses to censor its content and therefore has no license to broadcast in House Verdon territories, however it does have a black market following.”
Ahnna cussed.
Axo visibly brightened. “However, an analysis of previous races confirms viewers argue and often gamble over the outcomes and purposes behind contestants’ actions. The mysterious nature of the challenges entices viewers. I find no evidence that Octiron sabotages challenges by revealing compromising information in advance.”
Ahnna nodded, her expression smug.
“So we need to monitor the other contestants and any wager odds against these challenges,” Tierc responded. “Axo can do that. We should also identify tasks with a reasonable probability of success but unlikely to attract competition. Let others fight over the easy targets while we concentrate on harder tasks, fifty pointers, challenges within our capabilities.”
“Fifty pointers? Like ‘find the lost archives of Orca’? A goddamn treasure hunt?”
“What’s wrong with a treasure hunt?”
“It’s a book! Bits of parchment!” She stalked the limited space, shoulders stiff, jolted when Zeke emerged and retook possession of the holovid. “Xecara is a sentient creature held against her will. House Verdon is dictating terms on Sorsei, imposing its laws on a free planet!”
“I get you’ve looked into this,” a late night would explain her ratty mood, “but getting involved in planet politics is not our business here.”
“It was your business when the K’lahn invaded Earth!”
Tierc smacked his forehead. “Skal! The invasion’s done. Over three hundred years ago! Only goddamn fanatics like you even remember what happened back then!”
Ahnna glanced at the holovid, returned her gaze to Tierc. “You think what you did was right?”
“What I did?” Tierc growled. He lurched forward, incensed beyond measure.
Ahnna stood her ground. Her fists clenched, her muscles contorted, defiance hardening her features. “What your kind did… the Qui. They invaded Earth. They may have used the K’lahn, but you gave the orders. You enslaved humans.”