Daegan

by Veronica Scott

  Stopping in awe, he drank in the sight until the clouds became nothing but colorful wisps and he resumed his run.

  As he went, he pondered whether the cloud display had been a sign or portent from the Great Mother. But signifying what? Not much ever changed here at the lab and certainly nothing ever became easier for the Badari.

  He could only go as far as the force barrier marking the end of the Preserve, where the Khagrish allowed his kind to live in between deployments or experiments. Usually he made the circuit three or four times to get enough of a workout but today he dove into the waves for a brief swim before seating himself on his favorite boulder, where he could get an excellent view out to sea. The wide open emptiness appealed to him, called to him.

  But I’m unlikely to ever get the chance to explore any further than I ran today, which is as far as I could go yesterday or any of the thousands of days.

  Daegan hated the Khagrish with every fiber of his body but he had to admit they’d perfected the art of keeping their dangerous experimental ‘animals’ like him under tight control. Doesn’t mean I won’t keep my eyes open for a chance, no matter how slight, for us to win our freedom.

  He made the same vow to the goddess in one form or another each day.

  Now it was time for him to check in telepathically with his man in each pod and get a feel for how things were going, had anyone heard rumors about what the Khagrish might impose next, was anyone having difficulties, were the youngest Badari all right. Could he help with anything? Letting the Khagrish figure out he was unusually respected by the other Badari would be an instant death sentence for him so it all had to be done carefully but Daegan’s driving motivation, aside from taking revenge on the scientists, was to take care of his brothers.

  When the task was done, with nothing new reported and no major problems, he regretfully climbed from the rock and jogged toward the huts where he and the others lived. Time to shower and change, eat the breakfast the men on cooking duty had prepared from the bounty of the island and the ocean, and get ready for whatever the day ahead might bring.

  Flo was curious to see as much of the island from above as she could when the flyer circled in for a landing. It seemed to be a huge place, maybe one in a chain of islands. She hoped MARL’s implant was working and Aydarr knew where she was. This whole mission would be a write off if the insert failed but Flo as always had backup plans and the ability to fly these Khagrish craft was a big factor in her favor. She also planned to take Jill Garrison’s example and allow the Khagrish to underestimate her abilities as a soldier until it was too late.

  Still, it was disheartening to leave the flyer which was her last connection to her comrades and what passed for home right now. The women were herded into a tight group and marched into a holding area. The air was hot and humid and Flo could tell she was a bit dehydrated. Her normal style would have been to demand water but in her current circumstances she held off. The girl next to her was in danger of fainting and Flo and another woman supported her because the guards wouldn’t allow them to sit.

  A Khagrish scientist strode into the room, ascending a small platform at the front. He was trailed by the usual phalanx of lab techs in their plain green coats. His jacket was practically misshapen from all the special pins and badges he wore and his hair was deep red, not a hint of any other color, which Flo knew meant he was high caste indeed.

  Fingers steepled, he surveyed the group. “They certainly didn’t bestir themselves to send me the best quality females, did they?” he said to the nearest tech with a sniff. “But these humans will do for the initial experiment. The Badari in my care have no expectations.” Raising his voice and switching to Basic, he said, “I’m Dr. Nyddfalorr and you’ve been transferred to my authority for a special experiment. Nothing too taxing, merely to meet and form attachments with certain uh soldiers based here on the island. My expectation is for you to form pair bonds with at least one male each breeding season and produce offspring to keep my program supplied with new subjects.”

  Clearly Nyddfalorr was unacquainted with the way the Badari mated for life with one woman. Or else these Badari have strayed a long way from their goddess’s commandments. Flo maintained a blank face, as if she hadn’t known any of this beforehand.

  Others weren’t so reserved.

  “I’ll die first,” yelled a woman on the edge of the crowd.

  “I’m not going to be knocked up by some stranger and then give you the baby,” screamed another.

  The other women shouted and catcalled in agreement.

  The guards raised their neurocontrollers and the next minute the prisoners were on the floor screaming in pain. Flo did her best to ride it out and keep her wits about her as she fell to the floor, contorting in a vain effort to lessen the agony but it took every ounce of her training to stay focused.

  “A mild dose of the form of encouragement we use here,” the scientist said as the pain cut off. “Currently I’m committed to conducting this experiment in the most humane manner and have allotted time for you to meet the men in question and choose your first partner of your own free will. No coercion. Resist me, however, or repeat the scene you created a few moments ago and things can go much more harshly.”

  As if any of what he’d said made the whole situation better. Typical Khagrish horror show. The only thing making it bearable was knowing Aydarr was committed to taking this place down. Flo staggered to her feet and helped other women rise. The girl who’d been close to fainting was passed out so Flo made sure she had a pulse and then raised her hand.

  Scowling, Nyddfalorr pointed at her. “Yes?”

  “She’s unconscious. I think she’s dehydrated. Sir. We could all use some water.” She kept her voice soft and almost apologetic, her head lowered and her shoulders hunched.

  “Take the unconscious one to the medlab,” the scientist said to his tech. “She can rejoin the others when she’s been revived.”

  Two techs carried the woman out and Flo hoped she’d done the right thing but it had to be better than allowing the girl to lie on the floor. It was never good to come to the particular attention of the Khagrish, however.

  Nyddfalorr waited until the door closed behind the techs and their unconscious burden. He rapped sharply on the table in front of him with his knuckles and cleared his throat. The group of women fell silent immediately. “To continue, next you’ll be fed, given a chance to bathe and put on clean clothes, there’ll be a medical exam to determine your fitness for this experiment and then this afternoon there’ll be a first encounter with the potential male subjects in the protocol.” He smiled and Flo thought the expression was worse than the usual Khagrish poker face.

  Like a predator with sharp teeth grinning at you before he takes a big bite.

  “As I was saying before you rudely interrupted me, this is meant to be as positive a situation as I can make it. Today will only be a meeting under controlled conditions to allow you to form opinions of the available males. There are more of them than there are of you so you’ll have quite a bit of free choice. You and the selected males will be placed into a special portion of the Preserve and the experiment will proceed from there.” He obviously wasn’t going to ask if there were questions and left the dais.

  Brisk and efficient, the lead tech took his place. “Form a single line and let’s get this process going. The guards will take you to a holding cell and food will be brought.”

  Flo took her place in the middle of the line and marched with the others to a big outdoor pen, with table and benches in the middle. Robos brought trays but instead of the usual mush and moldy bread alone, there was an assortment of fairly decent fruit. She wolfed down a bowl of the unappetizing mush, grabbed two bright red fruits and walked over to the force barrier, munching the delicious, sweet pulp, spitting out seeds and staring at the ocean in the distance. Really a different situation from the labs on the continent but no less dangerous. She had to stay frosty no matter what got thrown at her.

  Sh
e doubted Nyddfalorr had any understanding of the way women in the Sectors typically utilized yearly contraceptive injects. For sure he’d have no idea a Badari man could only have children with his bonded human mate and even then only if there had been a medically supervised blood transfusion between the two. The Khagrishi’s allegedly ‘benign’ experiment was doomed to failure and she had a feeling he wouldn’t react well to the lack of results. Damn good thing they weren’t going to be here long. Unless these Badari are different from the ones I know. After all Kierce is from here and he can actually transform into the alien feline predator. Too many unknowns for Flo’s comfort.

  No longer hungry, she stuck the remaining piece of fruit into a pocket and shivered a bit in the breeze from the ocean.

  The promised chance to freshen up involved a walk naked in front of the Khagrish security guards and a complete dunking in the disinfectant solution the alien scientists preferred, followed by a trip to the medlab for invasive poking and prodding and a lot of scanning. Flo tried to relax and not be nervous the scanners would find her tiny implant from MARL. The things the Sectors military had given her over the years of service were a different kind of implant altogether, mental software as it were, not detectable hardware. The techs doing the mass scanning acted content Flo met whatever qualifications Nyddfalorr had set for participating in his experiment and she was passed along to a room where stacks of the hideous, nearly shapeless prison jumpsuits, practical white underwear and flip-flops waited.

  “Well,” Flo said as she dressed, “At least the damn flip-flops are kinda practical on a tropical island.” Reaching a decision, she extended a hand. “I’m Flo Michetti from the ship Solar Queen Two.”

  “Lacey Soames, from the Archangel Drifter.”

  They shook hands and then finished dressing. The guards waited until everyone was dressed and then yelled for quiet. “We’re taking you to meet the soldiers now, as Dr. Nyddfalorr explained earlier. He’ll be observing so I’d suggest staying on your best behavior.”

  “Yeah, we’ll behave,” said one woman quietly, “But will these men?”

  The door opened and the girl who’d fainted earlier was escorted in by a tech. She was pale but much steadier on her feet. Flo and Lacey moved to support her and received muttered thanks.

  The walk to the outdoor gathering place was actually pleasant, except for being a prisoner of a mad alien scientist. The weather was pretty, the sky was bright blue and there was a soft breeze. Flo reviewed what Kierce had told her about the Alpha who was strictly undercover. Her intent was to identify him and attach herself to his side, and then proceed from there as far as evaluating what to tell him and when.

  The room was like a pavilion, open on three sides under a rustic-looking thatched roof, with benches scattered here and there. Flo paused, taking in the chaotic scene. There were easily sixty Badari already gathered in the space and the men were an overwhelming presence. Quickly she scanned the crowd but didn’t see anyone she thought fit the description of the Alpha. A few men were sitting on benches along the sides and her gaze kept returning to one man, all by himself. His long black hair blew in the breeze and his face was a blank mask as he watched the women.

  That’s an Alpha.

  She couldn’t have said exactly why she was so sure except this one soldier reminded her of Aydarr. There was a sensation of immense power contained for the moment but ready to be unleashed.

  “You will get to know the soldiers and begin to form an opinion of who you might choose for your first pair bond,” said the senior lab tech. He stepped away and the guards took up positions, their wary stance and weapons held at the ready making it clear the human and the Badari prisoners needed to be on their best behavior.

  Flo cut through the crowd and walked along the edge of the pavilion. The Badari attention was focused on the group of women clustered together and no one paid her much heed. She sat on the bench beside the man she’d focused on and leaned back with an easy air. “Probably not the best idea this Khagrish scientist ever had.” She made sure to speak Basic, not Badari, which would be a dead giveaway.

  He stared at her, his expression revealing nothing of his thoughts.

  Gesturing at the crowd, with three Badari for every woman, she said, “Too unwieldy, too intimidating for the women having all these musclebound guys try to talk to them at the same time.”

  She thought he wasn’t going to answer her.

  When he did, his voice was matter of fact, although he watched her with narrowed eyes. “Yet you don’t appear to be intimidated.”

  Satisfied he was intrigued, she adopted a light tone and gestured at the crowd. “Well, I took myself out of the melee.”

  Head tilted, he glanced at the men and women and refocused on Flo. “You disapprove of all this?”

  She sat up straight, hands on her hips and adopted a belligerent tone now. “Well seven hells, of course I do. It’s a fucking experiment and none of us signed up for it. We’re not brood mares and we like to pick our own bed partners. Did your guys volunteer for this?”

  “No. Although I think, as you can see, some of the men are excited by the idea.” He turned slightly away from her and watched the interaction in the center of the room.

  “And they’re terrifying the women.”

  After making her flat pronouncement, Flo was silent, watching alongside him. Slowly she began to notice a few of the men each making comments to two or three others, getting some to back off, ratcheting down the intensity and she wondered if this unacknowledged Alpha beside her had sent out a telepathic command. Better make more of a connection while I have his attention. “What do you guys do for a living anyway, lift weights? Or do you spend all your time lolling around on the beach waiting for women to be flown in?”

  “We’re soldiers,” he said, folding his arms and leaning back. “We just completed a deployment on a planet at war, which we were sent to in order to be disruptors. I—we lost three good men. We’re also every bit as much the subject of Khagrish experiments as your people are meant to be. Several more good men were taken away when we were removed from cryo sleep and from past experience I know we’ll never see them again. Nyddfalorr and his ilk created us to be experimented on.” Brow furrowed, he studied her. “What did he tell you about why you’re here?”

  “Like I said, low tech brood mares to grow more of you. Seems pretty inefficient to me.”

  “Up until now the Badari have been formed in labs since we’re genetic constructs. This new development is odd. From time to time the scientists bring in professional sex workers to provide what they term training of a different sort, but thankfully those ships depart. Never has there been talk of pair bonding.” Rubbing his jaw, he contemplated the guards and lab techs and then turned back to Flo. “I wonder what lies behind this change. It’s never anything good with the Khagrish, as you’ll come to learn if you survive long enough.”

  Flo could have explained it all to him, probably even more than Nyddfalorr himself knew but it was much too soon for that. “I’m Flo by the way.” She offered her hand.

  He stared at it for a moment and then raised his gaze to her face. “Daegan.”

  Concealing her excitement at having her educated guess confirmed, Flo reached out and curled her fingers around his much bigger fist. “This is how we humans greet each other.” She shook his hand firmly and then dropped her grip on him. “You’re my camouflage.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Dr. Nyddfalorr said we were supposed to start thinking about pairing up and he’s supposedly watching this little get together from somewhere. When I saw you hanging back, I figured probably neither one of us wants to be on board with this repulsive plan, so my proposal is we stick together to avoid being pressured.” She smiled, which was easy to do, because even among the already exceptionally handsome Badari Daegan was a standout.

  Raised voices caught her attention before Daegan could respond and she was on the move without thinking, her reflexes kicking in at the sou
nd of a woman in distress. Three Badari were surrounding the woman who’d been ill, who was covering her face and weeping. The men loomed over her and Flo didn’t wait to see what was going on. She shoved one out of her way, which she admitted she could only do because he was off guard, not expecting any resistance. “Leave her alone.”

  Flo sat on the bench next to the woman and put one arm around her. “They won’t be bothering you any more today.” Glaring at the men towering over her, she said, “What happened to the idea the Badari protect those smaller and weaker than themselves?”

  “This is none of your business,” said the man she’d shoved. “We were told you women were here to become pair bonded and it’s our right to decide if we’re interested or not.”

  “It’s not your right,” she said with scathing anger. “We’re free women and we didn’t consent to any of this.” Rising to her feet again, she stared the ringleader directly in the eyes, well aware he’d take it as a dominance challenge but it wasn’t her nature to back down.

  “I think the situation has taken an unfortunate turn,” Daegan said mildly. “The humans are obviously upset and no further pressure should be placed on them today.”

  Two of the Badari stepped away, mumbling apologies and walked off immediately, further proof to Flo if she’d needed it of Daegan’s place in the actual hierarchy. The third man hesitated as if he wanted to argue with Daegan but retreated, head bowed as if he’d lost face.