Authors: Cynthia Sax
She was fierce. She was also, at the moment, extremely nervous. Worry lines furrowed her forehead.
“You’ll excel at this, my female.”
“Of course I will.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “I excel at everything.”
He lifted his eyebrows but didn’t say anything.
She walked across the bridge, back and forth, back and forth, her boot heels ringing on the floor, her hands gripped behind her back.
His female was agitated and he didn’t know why.
“I’ll be here to protect you. There’s no need to be scared.” Mayhem deliberately provoked her, seeking to find the source of her emotional damage.
Imee glared at him.
He grinned back at her.
“I didn’t say I was scared.” His female didn’t say she wasn’t scared either. “But words aren’t weapons I’ve been trained to wield.”
She stopped and gazed at the main viewscreen.
Thousands of images of females were displayed there, human and humanoid, originating from Humanoid Alliance-controlled planets across the galaxy. Each image had the Retriever’s sequence number and her name below it, identifying her.
Mouths moved but the bridge was quiet, the only noise being the sound of Imee’s breathing. The auditory system wasn’t yet functional. It would be activated once the transmission to started.
Any communications he had with his female would be private.
Mayhem waited for Imee to share her damage.
“They must have seen the footage,” she finally said, waving her hands at the Retrievers’ images. “We sent it last planet rotation.” That footage had been altered to ensure his cyborg status remained secret. “They know they’ve lost their families, the only beings they have. What do I say to them? How do I ease their pain?”
Ah. His softhearted female worried for the other Retrievers. “You tell them they’re not alone.”
“But they
are
alone, Mayhem.” Imee gazed at him, her beautiful brown eyes bright with emotion. “I have you. They have no one.”
Her claiming of him warmed his heart. “They have you and they have each other.”
“Why would they care that I’m here for them? They don’t know me and I don’t know them. We’ve never spoken, never met.” His female didn’t understand.
“You know them better than their families ever would have.”
She blinked once, twice as she absorbed his words. “As you know me.”
“They’ll never know you as I know you, my female.” Mayhem winked at her, seeking to lighten the mood, return a smile to his Imee’s face.
Her lips twitched. “Stop thinking about your cock for a moment.”
He breathed deeply, inhaling the musk of her arousal. “I’ll stop thinking about it if you do.”
She scowled at him.
She didn’t deny she was thinking about his cock and she didn’t vow to stop.
“We’ll breed after this communication, my female.” Mayhem reached under his seat and removed the translucent repository holding her mom’s hand. “If they question your grief, if they believe you don’t know pain as they do, show them this.”
He held it out to her, his fingers shaking.
“Why was this under your chair?” Imee snatched it from him. “It isn’t to leave our chamber. If something had happened to it, I vow. I would--”
She stopped talking, staring at her mom’s hand with widening eyes.
His stomach twisted. Was she angry with him? Did he make her emotional damage greater? “I studied your culture. Some females, when they’re manufacturing offspring, wear the armlet on their wrists.”
When he’d opened the translucent repository and slipped the armlet on what was left of her mom’s wrist, Mayhem had been extremely careful. The contents hadn’t been disturbed more than was necessary. All of her mom’s fragile flesh remained intact.
“Oh, Mayhem.” Imee flung herself into his arms, hugging him so vigorously; for a moment he thought she was attempting to strangle him. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” His female scattered kisses over his neck and face. “That you did this for me, for my mom, my dad…”
She didn’t have to finish her sentence. Mayhem felt the dampness on her cheeks, the way her body shuddered against his. His little Retriever didn’t show her softer emotions readily. He knew what his actions meant to her. “Your mom is now wearing her armlet. According to your beliefs, your mom and your dad will be together for all eternity.”
That belief defied logic but it seemed to give his female comfort.
“They will have each other. Always.” His Imee sniffled. “The Humanoid Alliance might have separated them in life but they didn’t part my mom and dad forever. ”
“No, they didn’t.” Mayhem rubbed his thumbs over her cheeks, wiping the moisture off her skin. His female wouldn’t want the other Retrievers to see her tears. He was the sole being she trusted to view them. “We ensured that didn’t happen.”
“We did.” Imee’s lips lifted into a satisfied smile and the weight on Mayhem’s chest lightened. Returning the armlet to her mom’s wrist had repaired some of his female’s damage, granted her some peace. “We should release her into space above my home planet.”
We
should
. By the way his female gazed at the translucent repository, she didn’t want to take that step, not yet.
“There’s no urgency to that action. We’ll release her when you’re ready.” If keeping her mom’s severed hand brought his female happiness, he would ensure that there was always a place for it on their ship.
She rested her head on his shoulder, tilted the translucent repository to the left and then to right, making the light reflect off the armlet. Mayhem petted her long black hair, skimmed his fingers over her shoulders and back.
“My mom and dad loved each other.” His female gazed at her mom’s hand, her eyes soft with memories.
“I love you.” Mayhem hadn’t fully understood that emotion before he met Imee.
“I--”
She snapped her mouth shut and glanced at the main viewscreen. The other Retrievers couldn’t hear them but his female always leaned toward caution, while he leaned toward chaos.
“You don’t have to say the words, my female.” He bent his head and kissed one of her shoulders. “I know how you feel.”
“You don’t know.” She shook her head. “You have no concept of the depth of my feelings for you, what I would do to keep you safe.”
He
did
know. He’d seen what she’d sacrificed for her family. Mayhem’s chest heated. All of that love, that passion was now directed at him.
He was the most fortunate warrior in the galaxy.
“Imee.” Should he give her the other objects he’d crafted for her? Was it the right moment? Or should he wait until--
“The contents of my container allowed us to reunite my mom and my dad after their deaths.” Imee bounced off his lap and Mayhem’s opportunity to give her the gifts was gone. “We might be able to give the families of the other Retrievers the same peace. That’s something.”
“It
is
something.” He watched her.
She
was something, something rare, something special, fierce and gorgeous and kind, although she tried to hide her soft heart.
Imee plunked her mom’s hand down on the console. “Let’s do this.” She straightened to her full height. Which wasn’t very high. “Open the frequency.”
He grinned and did as she commanded.
“My fellow Retrievers.” His female braced herself as though she was facing an attack, her booted feet set solidly on the floor, her hands clutched behind her back. “We can speak freely. This is a secured line. The Humanoid Alliance doesn’t have access to it.”
One of the females signaled that she wished to speak. Mayhem opened her frequency.
“The Humanoid Alliance can sit on a dagger and rotate,” Kutta yelled, her lips curled into a snarl, showing her pointed teeth.
Mayhem closed that frequency, opened another.
“They tricked us, manipulated us, took away everything we had,” Nikaalate, another female, added, waving her tiny fist in the air.
“I have no one left.” Tears streamed down Loa’s brown and green striped face. The Tau Cetian female was barely grown, her cheeks round and her chest flat.
“You have beings left.” Imee’s voice was brusque. “You have thousands of your Retriever sisters.”
Sisters. Mayhem studied his female’s beautiful face. Her expression was sincere. She was claiming the Retrievers as family.
“We may have come from different planets, may not share the same blood, but we are and will always be joined by our experiences. That is a stronger bond than genetics.” Imee paused. “A wise warrior showed me that.” She glanced at Mayhem.
He dipped his head, suppressing his inappropriate urge to grin during the solemn conversation.
“They slaughtered our families.” Nikaalate, unlike Imee, didn’t try to hide her pain.
“Yes, every being on this transmission, including myself, has lost loved ones.” Imee gazed directly at the images on the main viewscreen. “We’ve all been betrayed by the Humanoid Alliance, tricked into doing despicable tasks, manipulated by our honorable desire to keep the beings we care about safe.”
“We all want vengeance!” Kutta raised her sword.
The Retrievers cheered.
Mayhem stifled another smile. They were as bloodthirsty as his cyborg brethren.
“We all want vengeance,” his female agreed. “We’re the fiercest females in the galaxy. That’s why the Humanoid Alliance chose us. That also connects us, makes us strong. We can’t retrieve everything we’ve lost but we can take back as much as possible.”
“I want to take back the contents of my container.” Sikara, a large purple-horned female, spoke up. “My grandsire had an orb that belonged to my ancestors. It’s sacred to my kind. It never left the chain around his neck and he would have worn that chain when he died.” The purple pigment in her face intensified in color. “I won’t allow those Humanoid Alliance flatheads to keep it.”
“We won’t allow that either.” Imee nodded. “We all have containers on board the station. That’s why my male and I didn’t destroy it.”
My male. Mayhem’s heart squeezed. His female was claiming him in front of others.
“I retrieved the contents of mine.” Imee tapped the translucent repository holding her mom’s hand. “You deserve to retrieve the contents of yours.”
The transmission line buzzed with chatter and excitement. Many Retrievers planned to retrieve their containers immediately. Several had already removed their tracking devices.
“Voyaging to the station individually isn’t logical.” His female spoke more and more like he did and that pleased Mayhem. “We’ll put together a team of our best and bravest Retrievers to commandeer the station, killing all of the beings on board.”
Almost every female volunteered. Many of them claimed to be the best, as confident as his female. Some of the Retrievers relished the task of killing Humanoid Alliance warriors, discussing the best ways to end their enemies’ lifespans. All of them involved extreme pain. A few were very creative and had doubtful feasibility within a station, like Sikara’s heating-the-enemy-to-the-point-of-combustion suggestion.
“Once that team has piloted the station into safe space.” Imee shared the plan they’d crafted. “All of us can access our containers.”
“And what happens to the station?” Dolch, a multi-pigmented, gilled female, asked. “Do we blow it up?” The gleam in her eyes told Mayhem she liked that idea.
He liked the idea too. Explosions, the ultimate in chaos, were always very satisfying.
“The station is too valuable to blow up.” His female was more practical. “It will be used in the battle against the Humanoid Alliance.”
Many of the Retrievers liked the idea of using the Humanoid Alliance’s own station against them.
“What should the rest of us do?” Loa, the Tau Cetian female, nibbled on her bottom lip. She didn’t have the confidence that the others had. “While we’re waiting to access our containers?”
“That’s your decision.” His female turned her palms upward, toward the ceiling. “Once you remove your tracking devices, you can go anywhere you want, do anything you wish, hunt anyone you desire. You’re free.”
“Oh.” The worry lines between Loa’s eyebrows deepened. “What will
you
be doing?”
Imee’s eyes gleamed. “My male and I will be hunting the Humanoid Alliance warriors who killed my family.”
Judging by the enthusiastic response from the Retrievers, they wouldn’t be the only beings hunting the Humanoid Alliance warriors.
The station would serve as a base, a place to coordinate hunts and larger-scaled attacks, ensuring no duplication in targets.
Neither Imee nor Mayhem wanted to be the one coordinating the Retrievers or commanding that station. That responsibility didn’t appeal to them and, with the cyborg warriors hunting them, it wouldn’t be a prudent role for them to take. They had to be mobile, have the ability to swap ships, move quickly. A station would slow them down.
But finding a leader amongst the females shouldn’t be a challenge. Many of them were eager to take ownership of the missions, to shape the future of their group.
The Retrievers expressed their thoughts and asked questions. His Imee answered some of them, deferred others. One by one, the females ended their transmissions, their images fading from the main viewscreen.
Eventually only Loa, the Tau Cetian female offspring, was left on the transmission, her image enlarged to fill more of the main viewscreen. She was very small, even for a humanoid, and she appeared bewildered.
Mayhem had seen similar reactions from his cyborg brethren when they were told they were free. They didn’t know what to do, what to think, what their roles in the galaxy were. Not every being treasured liberation as he did.
Silence stretched. Loa didn’t say anything.
“Do you have a question?” Imee finally asked.
“Ummm…” The female didn’t meet her gaze, wiggling in her chair.
“How many solar cycles do you have, Loa?” His female tried again.
“Eight,” she whispered.
Imee glanced at Mayhem.
“Eight” He repeated the answer at human auditory levels.
“Eight solar cycles.” His female stared at the Tau Cetian offspring.
And that was what she was—offspring. A cyborg was fully functional after one solar cycle. Tau Cetians took eighteen solar cycles to reach that stage.