by Jade Alters
I wake breathing hard, and I concentrate on controlling it. Melkot cannot learn we've taken a mate. He would rip away her autonomy and subject her to constant tests in the name of "national security," and we could not allow it. Each of my team suffered the casual cruelties of Melkot's experiments.
As soon as we were on the raft, Melkot, that bastard, shot us with tranq darts in rapid shots that took us all by surprise. As a result, I woke up groggy and disoriented in this room, pissed as hell and with nothing I could do about it. The past couple days passed with no contract from Melkot and only food pushed through a narrow slot in the door at regular intervals.
This was Melkot's way to wear us down. He did it often enough when we were teens, but we were grown men now, and graduates of the SEAL torture techniques class. I could withstand this even if my cat growled for its freedom. I pitied the man that opened that door because when you cage my cat, you take your life into your own hands.
The clock on the wall in my room told me it was too early in the morning to be up, at least for here. Still, I woke and used the small bathroom to shower and do the usual stuff. I don't hurry because the day would be long enough as it is.
The only easy day was yesterday. That's a SEAL truism, and we've survived hellish conditions to earn our trident, the hardware we wear on our uniforms which identified us as SEALs. The badge depicted an Eagle perched atop an anchor, a trident in one claw. The other clutches a flintlock pistol representing the sea, land, and air that makes up the environments SEALs operate in. It is the only mark that tells you someone is a SEAL when in uniform. We don’t wear patches or any other badges announcing what we are.
Our code weds us to anonymity. We SEALs don't discuss our status or our missions, not even among friends and family. It's part of the reason the divorce rate among SEALs is ninety percent. How can you keep a relationship going when you can't share a huge portion of your life with your significant other?
What right did I have to claim Jeanine as my mate? What kind of life can I give her? I can't do it in uniform. Damon was right. We had to leave the service if we wanted to claim our mate permanently. And that bastard Melkot won't let us.
I paced my cell. Pitted and painted white cement walls marked the four corners of my world. They reminded me of the barracks at the Marine training base Parris Island when I went there as an instructor for a short time. The barracks were sparkling clean but carried a worn look, despite new paint on the walls, as if the despair of men training hard seeped into the walls. My room here featured a single bunk, a dented metal locker, and a simple desk and chair. A thin mattress and pillow, old sheets, a rough blanket covered the bunk and sported the same world-weariness as Parris Island.
Navy gray paint colored the cement floor. A ceiling light with a cage over the bulb or a recessed light inset in the ceiling providing the only illumination in the room. The small bathroom carried only basic toiletries—toothpaste, a comb, soap, and toilet paper. For reading material, a few worn military strategy books and a porn mag sat on the desk. Only the best for our troops. I didn't bother to look at the porn mag. Jeanine in my dreams is what makes my blood run hot.
Yeah, I was in a cage, and not a nice one.
That bastard Melkot cut off my contact with my CO. He's not supposed to, but then why would Melkot allow his prized lab rats to go? Sometimes I think we are his only reason he gets such generous funding from the government. But he performed plenty of testing on us before they sent us to SEAL training. Why is he so interested in us now?
Worse yet, he's cut off access to the rest of my team. He knows how that will go. We're bonded in a way other cats are not. Melton taught us all about cat behaviors so we could track how they manifested. We found out we had a few niggles that may result from our human DNA mixing with Jaguar. When kept apart too long, we get aggressive. The bond between us made an effective team and worked against anyone who attempted to separate us. Melkot knew this, so I have to wonder what game he's playing.
My extra-sharp hearing catches the stamp of boots coming at me. The door lock buzzed and the metal door opened.
"Chief Hardin," said the young guard. He couldn't be more than eighteen and no match for me if I took him. "Dr. Melkot wants to talk with you."
I thought briefly about refusing, but that wouldn't get my team or me anywhere. It was time to do a little recon, so I followed the guard down the halls, memorizing the twists and turns as they taught me in special ops school. This was not the research facility I initially stayed at, and I wondered what that meant. Did Melkot get some promotion or demotion? It was hard to tell.
The guard led me to a standard office. He opened the door, and I spotted Melkot sitting behind a desk with his back to me while he looked at his cell phone. Two windows sat on opposite ends of the wall, but something glazed the glass so I could not see outside to get an idea of where I was. The guard shut the door behind me.
"I perceive what you're thinking, Ryker," said Melkot. "You are working every sense you have to divine your location. But I've planned things so you can't, so just sit down and relax. I'd like to have a little chat with you."
I stood with my hands behind my back at parade rest.
"I'll stand." I left off the "sir." He did not deserve that honorific.
He shrugged. "Please yourself."
Melkot twisted his desk chair to face me. His face carried more age lines the last time I saw him, and his dirty blond hair had thinned. His eyes were less bright as if something washed the light from them. Melkot was a dispirited man.
"So, I've been reviewing our files on you and your team. You have the highest mission success rate of any SEAL team. Do you realize that?"
"I guessed, yes."
"And you appreciate that you and your team are the only four jaguar shifters in the service?"
"I suspected."
"The brass would want more."
This time it was my turn to shrug.
"Since we can't find more like you, the brass wants to breed more of you."
It takes a lot to horrify me. I'd seen and done terrible things, the kind which can shrivel a man's soul. But this? This idea sent a shiver of disgust through me. One does not breed soldiers.
"We've lined up female volunteers—"
"No."
"Your participation would be minimal. The military will take superb care of the women and the children."
"And I said 'no.'"
"You'll receive a hefty bonus for each child. If you just wish to give your contribution in a cup, we'll take that, but conception is easier if—"
Was this man insane? What caused him to assume I would go along with a bizarre plan like this? Breed Jaguar shifters to spin them into soldiers?
"More than one child is optimal. And if the bonding you share with your teammates works the same as with the children, then we need four from each man—"
"Does 'hell, no' convey the depth of my feelings in this matter?"
Melkot looked up at me with disbelief.
"I don't understand your reluctance. Neither you nor your team is monks."
"That's different. That's recreation. You're talking about taking my child and making it into a weapon from birth."
"I still don't see the problem. The military has given you a home, a purpose, and a way to contribute to your country. You should be proud if your progeny serves."
I leaned over his desk and growled which startled him. I had never displayed aggression against him until now.
"Fuck, no. Does that cover it?"
"You can run the gamut all the swear words in the dictionary. Hell, you can add the Urban Dictionary too, but you are not leaving this facility until we get your compliance. Consider it an order from the highest levels."
I stood again at parade rest.
"That would be an illegal order. You cannot compel me or any of my team to take part in this crazy scheme. Go ahead. Keep us locked up. Keep us away from each other. You know what will happen if you do."
"Yes
. That's why I ordered that you four take mess together. Go ahead, talk over the situation. Either you cooperate or grow old here."
I found it hard to believe that the brass gave us up for Melkot's crazy project. And if Melkot thought that he'd wear us down, he was dead wrong. The doctor didn't know one thing. That afternoon in the cave bonded not just me but all of us to her. In no way could I share another woman's bed. And I'm sure Damon, Gunner, and Kane felt exactly the same.
Gunner
"He's a fucking idiot," said Kane.
I was glad to see my teammates. It felt like Melkot locked us up forever, though, in reality, it was a few days. Still, my inner cat coiled with nervousness. You can't keep a jungle cat locked up without serious consequences. Why do you think there are instances of zoo cats escaping and attacking people? They can't help it because their brains propel them to exercise their prey drive. And this plan of Melkot's was ridiculous.
"What made him think," I said, "that'd we'd go through with it? We couldn't—"
Ryker made a hand sign to tell me to shut it, and I got it. I wouldn't put it past Melkot to keep surveillance on us.
"I won't make soldiers for the military," Ryker said. "And I made it plain that none of us would."
"That's a given," said Damon.
"Damn straight," echoed Kane.
"Let's see if they'll let us out to play a game of basketball," said Ryker.
He wasn't talking about getting time in the yard. Over the years we developed a code. Coupled with different covert hand signs, we could develop a strategy without our opponent's knowledge.
The code ran like this. Basketball, because of the speed of the game meant looking for the quickest option. Football was about taking the enemy head on but also meant, because football strategy mixed long and short plays for territory, timing. Baseball was about "waiting for our pitch," waiting for the right opportunity. It also meant taking our time. Hockey meant a full-out assault, and golf signaled taking the mulligan and walking away.
"What about a game of football?" said Damon. He was best versed in tactical skills, so he was asking for Ryker's strategy.
"Nah," said Ryker. "I don't feel like twisting my knee again."
No go on "football." Ryker worried we'd get hurt or worse.
"I could go for a round of baseball," I said. "I love hitting balls out of the park."
That's me—always thinking ordinance. I told them I wanted to collect weapons first since "bat" was our code word for weapons.
"Nah," said Ryker. "I just want a quick game to work off this nervous energy."
"I don't think Dr. Meltdown will go for it," said Damon. "He's acting like a total dick toward us."
I had forgotten that Damon coined that moniker for Melkot. He did in the first few months we became a team under Melkot's supervision because Melkot would lose it when we disobeyed him. That's when we learned how sadistic the prick was. Damon winked at us to let us and Melkot know he purposefully poked him.
"Now who is into psy-ops?" I said under my breath.
Melkot would hear that because he documented our subvocalization abilities and made sure all surveillance could pick them up.
"I'm just saying that there is no way he'll let us play basketball because he is a prick. How does he expect that we'd cooperate when he treats us like prisoners? Our instructors trained us in all torture-resistance techniques. Is he a dumbass or what? Does he really think he can overcome all the training we went through since we left the facility?"
I wanted to laugh. Damon was purposefully goading Melkot into giving us access to the outside.
Shortly after, our guards showed up at the table. We ignored them because resistance was the first tactic of all prisoners. Melkot's voice came over the intercom.
"Nice try, Damon, but I'm not a dumbass, as you succinctly put it. Back to your rooms."
"You know what?" said Ryker. "I've changed my mind. A nice game of hockey seems like a great idea right now. Suit up and play this three on one."
The look of shock and horror on the guards' faces satisfied my cat as Damon, Kane, and I shifted to our jaguars. Ryker kept his human form to explain things to our guards.
"We're leaving. Melkot tried to issue illegal orders which we will not execute. Try to stop us, and we'll treat you like any hostile force. Toss your weapons now or my team will separate you from various body parts."
The guards looked at each other, and one did not learn the SEAL truism "do not walk into your own death." He drew his weapon and fired at Ryker.
Several things happened at once. Ryker spun as the bullet hit his shoulder and Kane sprang at the shooter knocking him to the ground, and an alarm went off. Two other guards ran, which is a dangerous thing to do from a prey-driven jungle cat, and Damon ran after them. I stood my ground growling at the last guard, and he tossed his weapon then put his hands over his head. With a swipe of my dinner-dish-sized paw, I knocked him to the ground, and he stared at me in shock. I stalked toward Ryker to find him shifted into his jaguar. His shoulder bled, but his cat would heal super fast. He hissed at me, and I saw he was in shock from the gunshot. I swiped at his head, a dangerous thing to do, but it was all I could think of to snap him out of it.
No, go. Ryker lunged at me as if I were the threat. We tumbled, and I shifted—another dangerous thing, but I needed my words.
"Ryker!" I yelled. "Snap out of it! We're losing our escape window!"
Kane shifted his attention from the man he injured who was squirming on the ground in pain and leaped at Ryker. This got Ryker's attention, and he released his claws gripping into my skin and jumped back.
"You clear, Ryker?" I said. "We've got to go!"
Ryker stared at me, chuffed, and then ran in the direction Damon took off in. The wound in his shoulder didn't seem to hold him back, so I figured the jaguar healing abilities had kicked in. Kane glanced at me over his shoulder then followed Ryker.
I looked at the men on the floor.
"If you try to follow us, we will kill you, understand?"
The uninjured one nodded while the other moaned and groaned. I hoped Doc Melkot had someone good with stitches here because the unlucky guard would need them.
I shifted and sped out of the mess hall toward the scent of my teammates. Several guards laid passed out on the floor, and some had visible wounds. But it struck me that for a facility this size there was a dearth of personnel. This wasn't right, and I wondered what was up.
I found Ryker, Kane, and Damon at a locked double door at the end of the hall. Kane had shifted and worked at pulling the keypad apart. I growled, and he gave me a surprised glance. I lunged at the pad and swiped it with my claws shredding it off the wall.
"So much for finesse," said Kane. He crossed some wires, and since in cat form I couldn't see the colors, I didn't know which ones. But the door clicked open.
"The last one over the fence buys dinner," said Kane.
The klaxon continued to blare, but I saw or heard no evidence of a response. Running down another hallway brought us to another, but unlocked, double door. We pushed through it to find ourselves in an aircraft hangar, but there was no aircraft. Sun streamed in from the roof that missed several panels. We sniffed around, each of us taking a different section. I only picked up faint traces of aircraft fuel, diesel and oil, and barely any human scent. We glanced at each other. There was something very wrong here.
Ryker padded to the side door beside the hangar door and inspected the controls for the large hydraulic door. I walked to it too and shifted. This set-up was decades old and not the current equipment in use by the military.
"What do you think?"
He sat on his haunches and gazed up at me. We both knew that tactically we couldn't stay here, but we didn't know what was out there either. Melkot could have a bunch of men out there with guns ready to take us down.
Except for a handful of guards, we had not encountered a tactical threat.
He jerked his head to the door.
&nb
sp; "All of us out?"
He shook his head.
"Just you?"
"Yes."
"Not the best idea."
He growled, but Damon came up beside him and head-butted Ryker in the shoulder. Ryker hissed, but Damon did too. He wouldn't let Ryker go out there alone.
"All or none of us," I said. I twisted the door handle and pushed the door open, and Ryker glided out the door. Damon followed, and then Kane. I shifted one more time and followed them out even though I didn't know what we would find.
Kane
Fucking Ryker. He should have let one of us do recon, but no, he had to go out that door.
It was an eerie quiet, and as I looked around the heat, the scent of tropical vegetation and the slant of the sun in the sky told me that we did not go far.
What the hell was going on?
The tarmac was not that large, but there was no aircraft here, and a twenty-foot-high chain link fence curiously cut off the tarmac from the hangar area. Something was very, very wrong. I smelled something I didn't recognize, a scent that seemed unthinking and dangerous.
Ryker roared and broke out into a run toward a section of fence that seemed shorter than the others. We got closer to the fence, but I saw it was still too high for us to jump. A normal jaguar can leap ten feet, and this was fifteen, beyond what we could do.
Ryker shifted and scowled.
"I don't know where the hell we are, or what this place is."
"It sure isn't an official installation."
"No, it's not, but this is our chance. No one is coming after us, so we climb."
"I don't relish the barbs at the top of that fence," I said. "And the ground appears to slope down sharply. We can't see what's below us."
"Just for that you go first and do recon." He tore off his t-shirt. "Use that."
"And mine," said Damon.
"Oh hell," said Gunner. "Take mine."
"Go," said Ryker. "That fucker Melkot is still here, and he probably has his tranq gun ready."
