The Game Warden's Mate

by A. M. Griffin

  Xrez let out a sigh.

  “I know this is a lot to cover in one setting, Sir,” Bradliix said. True to his species, Bradliix wore as much jewelry as he could fit onto his tiny frame.

  Xrez peered at Bradliix with a hint of jealousy that he couldn’t hide. Bradliix’s chair appeared more comfortable than the one Xrez sat in.

  Xrez shifted yet again. He weighed more than his father. The size and weight of his species often meant their seats had to be specially crafted. Xrez was sure the chair might’ve been comfortable to Osazo, but to him it was torture.

  “I wouldn’t have such a hard time getting through the agenda if this seat wasn’t biting me in my butt.”

  Bradliix’s dark brown face scrunched in concentration, causing his age lines to become more pronounced. He leaned over to type furiously on the flexible, see-through rectangular computer pad that set on his lap. Xrez had rarely seen Bradliix without it or some variation of it. When he finished, Bradliix would deactivate his pad and store it as a small file that fit in his comlink. Xrez guessed he was ordering a new seat to his custom specifications.

  Bradliix could’ve retired after Osazo’s death, but he’d opted to stay on to help Xrez get acclimated to his new position as head of the family business. While Xrez had expected to take the helm at some point, he hadn’t expected it to be so soon and without his father to help with the transition.

  Xrez ran a claw across the worn keyboard. He imagined Osazo sitting in this very spot, typing so hard that he’d left marks in the keys. Xrez had been on the receiving end of those angry messages more times than he could count. Thinking about all the times he’d intentionally riled his father up brought a smile to his lips. One topic that could easily send his father over the edge was Xrez’s mining company and his plans for the future.

  “You’ll have to give up your business when you take over The Hunt,” Osazo would often remind him.

  “No, I plan to keep the company that I’ve worked hard to make a thriving business, and I’ll run The Hunt as my side project.”

  Even though Osazo knew that Xrez would never shirk his family duties, the messages that followed were often incoherent. He imagined Osazo typing furiously and the reason he often missed characters was because he couldn’t see straight through his anger.

  Xrez chuckled to himself. He missed his father already.

  Bradliix arched a midnight blue eyebrow. “Shall I order a new keyboard as well?”

  Xrez did another pass of his claw across the keyboard. “No. Leave it for now.”

  Bradliix gave a short nod, causing the multitude of gold and silver bands around his slender, long neck to clink. While Xrez’s species, the Dar’E, were tall, bulky with muscle and covered from head to toes in hair, the Nami were complete opposites. Bradliix was willowy and four heads shorter than Xrez and unlike Xrez, Bradliix came from a peaceful species.

  Bradliix had initially come to Turolois as a game attendant; explicitly attending to the underground transport system and making sure it worked correctly. But before long Osazo had recognized where Bradliix’s true gifts lay and promoted him as his personal assistant. Osazo had often bragged how Bradliix knew what was on his mind before he could finish the thought.

  Bradliix settled into his seat. “As you wish. Now, back to what I was telling you.”

  Xrez shifted again. He didn’t know how much longer he could stay in this seat before his butt went completely numb. “About the current hunt.”

  Bradliix nodded again. “All the prey in this hunt are human. Osazo selected them from the trackers himself.”

  Xrez cringed. He’d always hated that the participants were called “prey.” He guessed calling them “participants” wasn’t correct either since most of the volunteers in The Hunt were the hunters. The prey were the unfortunates who’d happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and had caught the eyes of the trackers who supplied for The Hunt.

  For that very reason The Hunt wasn’t legal or sanctioned by the governing body of the AC-141 XM3 sector, but the credits made from the business was more than enough to pay off the greedy bureaucrats. With ample credits in their accounts to look the other way, they didn’t involve themselves in whatever happened on Turolois.

  “When did Osazo make them all human? In the past, we haven’t had more than one human in a group.” From what Xrez remembered about that species, they were soft and weak. “They made for very poor prey and usually were captured in Level One.”

  “You’re correct. Humans were never successful and always seemed to be more trouble than they were worth.”

  Xrez ran his claws down his cheek and through the short coarse hair that covered his face. “Then why devote an entire hunt to them? If they can’t progress through the levels, not only would we lose profits, but we’d also have extremely angry hunters on our hands.” Xrez raised an eyebrow. “Is this something my father put together while he was…?”

  Xrez couldn’t bring himself to say the words, “enthralled in the depths of confusion” which was how sufferers of the virus spent the last years of their life.

  Bradliix shook his head. “Luckily Osazo never experienced the significant decline from the pertinax virus. He was fully aware of his actions.” He stared at Xrez and tilted his head. “You do know that I would have called you or Chaeya if I thought an intervention was needed?”

  “You were my father’s most trusted confidant. I know you wouldn’t let Osazo do anything that would’ve jeopardized The Hunt. Of course, you would’ve informed us.”

  While Xrez went wherever the mining opportunities were profitable, his younger sister Chaeya had remained on their home planet with her mate and watched over their father.

  “I have committed the rules and regulations to memory.” Bradliix raised his chin. “He has never done anything to compromise the validity of a past or current hunt.”

  “Osazo was lucky to have you, and I’m lucky to have you guiding me as well.”

  Talking about his father made guilt and sadness surface. He should’ve spoken to and visited him more, but Xrez had been so busy trying to forge his own path before his identity was reduced to the game warden. A title Xrez would have until he passed the business to another family member.

  Xrez cleared his throat and tapped the desk. “So explain why my father invested an entire hunt to humans.”

  “One of the trackers brought a human female. Osazo rejected her as prey and the tracker planned to sell her on the P59-RT slave market.”

  Xrez curled his fist. The P59-RT slave market was one of the most inhumane places in the galaxy. Anyone who ended up there had only a quick death to look forward to. The hunters who captured prey by the rules of The Hunt and paid all gaming fees were free and clear to do what they pleased with their prey except one thing. Take their prey to the slave market for any reason at all. That was one of the first rules his father had enacted when he’d taken over. “Naturally, Osazo wouldn’t let that happen. So he bought her.”

  “Which the tracker knew he would do. It’s a well-known fact that father wouldn’t allow prey to step foot in that place.”

  Bradliix acknowledged him with a nod. “Osazo saved her and added her as an extra to the very next round.”

  Xrez wasn’t sure if the female would’ve known she’d been saved from a fate worse than the one she had woken up in. All she would’ve known was that she’d been taken to an unknown planet and forced to test her survival skills along with other species. She probably never knew how close she’d come to becoming a slave who worked until the day she died. At least in The Hunt she had a fighting chance for a better life. She wouldn’t have fared that well on the open slave market.

  “Let me guess what happened next. The tracker came back with an entire lot of humans, and Osazo had been suckered into buying them all to save them from the slave market?” Xrez cursed to himself. “I want the name of the tracker, and I want him banned from ever docking on our space station again. Ban all incoming communication
from him. We aren’t dealing with him anymore.”

  Xrez took a deep breath, trying his best to calm his anger. His father had a group of trusted trackers that he did business with. But every now and again he would open his roster in hopes to acquire new and interesting prey. Most times that worked out in his favor and sometimes it hadn’t. He made a mental note to review Osazo’s roster and have the attendants perform a thorough background check on each tracker. He wanted them all to go through the certification process again.

  “We’ll get through this hunt. Fast,” he continued. “But I want a new group of prey on the ready. After this round is over offer the hunters their credits back or free entrance to the next hunt. We can’t have them complaining to the bureaucrats. The Hunt only works because we have happy hunters.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that tracker anymore. Your father banned him after that little stunt.”

  “So what happened? Why did he devote an entire hunt to humans then?”

  “That human he added as an extra? Well, she’s currently in Level Three. The only prey in her group who has reached the highest level.” Bradliix couldn’t hide his excitement any longer. The smile he’d been suppressing stretched across his face, revealing small blunt teeth. “If she isn’t caught at the end of this current hunt she’ll have beaten the game and will be set free.”

  Xrez frowned. Surely he’d heard wrong. “Are you mistaken?”

  Bradliix bristled. For someone who thought they were always right the question was an insult. “Sir.”

  “Please accept my apologies, Bradliix.” Xrez let out a small sigh and leaned forward against the desk. “Hm. We haven't had anyone win since before my father took over the business from his father.” Xrez thrummed his fingers against the desk’s surface again. His mind jumped from one thought to the other, piecing everything together. “Every hunter in this sector must be teeming with excitement.”

  Bradliix beamed, brimming with delight. “We’re solidly booked for the next fourteen hunts!”

  Xrez punched in the secure access codes Bradliix had given him into the keypad in front of him. A hologram of the prey camp came into view.

  “The Hunt is still in the introductory phase?” The question was rhetorical. The humans remained grouped together, and while they appeared confused about their situation, they weren’t fearful. They still had no clue of what was to come.

  “The sedative wore off just before daybreak.”

  “Have the humans learned to use the personal escape pods yet?”

  The best minds of the sector had worked on the design and brought the elaborate underground construction to fruition. That addition had been the first time in the history of the company where the business accounts were overdrawn. The gamble had paid off. The personal escape pods added a level of urgency The Hunt had missed previously. At the touch of the button, the prey could drop into a pod and escape. Because of that endeavor business had picked up tenfold.

  If a hunter wanted to pursue their prey that had dropped into a pod, they were forced to purchase a map. The map provided an estimate of where the prey would re-surface. It was up to the hunter to make it to the destination in time to track and pursue their prey. Of course, this all added to an increased profit as nothing was free.

  “No. Today is a day of acclimation to their surroundings.”

  While Xrez hadn’t had anything to do with The Hunt for many years, he remembered the logistics. He’d spent his childhood between Pi Vesna and Turolois, his father training him for a job that eventually would be his.

  The prey had three full days to learn how to use the comlink and to prepare for what was ahead. All this without contact from the hunters. At this stage of The Hunt, they wouldn’t be aware of the hunters at all.

  The hunters who’d secured a spot in this round would be waiting out their time from the comforts of the lodge located directly below the business offices. It was adjacent to the landing bay that housed the transport craft. For security reasons, the company spacecraft was the only transport allowed to breach the planet’s atmosphere. The hunters had to leave their vessels in the space station hovering the planet.

  Xrez watched the hologram and vividly remembered how prey reacted during the introductory phase. It didn’t matter the species, at some point, they would go into survival mode and divide into the groups they thought would give them the best advantage of surviving.

  “One of them has a beast,” Xrez noted.

  It was small, oddly shaped and quadrupedal. It kept close to the pale female, protectively. Its fur wasn’t much different than his hair, short, but where the beast’s fur appeared smooth, Xrez and other Dar’E had wiry, coarse hair.

  “Oh, yes! This should prove interesting. We’ve never had one of those in The Hunt before. The human called it a dog. The universal translator has input it as a companion, animal, protector.”

  When the female got up to walk across the camp, the dog followed dutifully by her side. Xrez thought the description fit. As time went on the translator would input other information about the dog.

  The female and her beast walked past another female. She appeared smaller than the first. She had skin as dark as the coarse hair covering his body. But his coloring was dull compared to the radiance of her. Her skin was vibrant under the sun, glowing with energy.

  He’d only seen humans on holograms, none in the flesh. He’d always thought they appeared soft and mushy. Those weren’t attributes he wanted in a companion or mate. Instead of turning him off, this one made his belly stir.

  Xrez reached out. His hand hovered over the hologram. Of course, he couldn’t feel anything, but that didn’t stop his longing. How would his fingers and claws feel against her skin? Would he scratch her? He balled his fingers and brought back his hand. She was too soft for him to touch. Her skin was much too thin to withstand his claws.

  She lifted her hair off her neck and used her other hand to fan her back. Her hair was dark, almost black, but under the sun’s light, he saw shimmers of gold. It appeared soft and wavy, thick and long.

  He decided then that he would run his fingers through it.

  The female turned toward the camera. She wasn’t aware of it nestled in one of the trees and out of sight. It sat at a high vantage point. He could see that her eyes were dark and framed by a multitude of lashes. Her features were small and delicate, like the rest of her. She leaned down and whispered something to the bundle she held in her arms.

  Xrez blinked in surprise. He must not be seeing clearly.

  He leaned closer to the hologram, thinking his eyes were deceiving him. Unfortunately what he saw was true. Xrez inhaled a sharp breath. “Since when did we capture children as prey?”

  Chapter Four

  “It’s in the guidelines, Sir. We bring the prey and anything they carry at the time of capture. We have always found that their personal items help in the acclimation process. Sometimes they have weapons as well. Those hunts are exciting to watch.”

  “This is no place for children,” Xrez growled.

  Bradliix was unmoved by the display of aggression.

  “I don’t expect the mother and her children to make it out of Level One, but the price to acquire her is set high as it will be a three for one capture. The children are still very young. Whoever captures the family will have many years to assimilate them into—”

  Xrez stopped him with a hand, not needing to hear any more. “I want the guidelines amended. Effective immediately no children. Ever again.”

  Bradliix typed onto his pad, and Xrez continued to watch the live feed. Another female came to sit next to the mother, helping her with the child. Xrez tsked. Both would most likely be captured in the very beginning. Then another child ran forward.

  Xrez glanced over to Bradliix. “There are two mothers with children this round? And you said Osazo personally selected them?” Xrez shook his head. Not wanting to believe his father had become that heartless.

  “Oh, no.” Bradliix scooted
to the edge of his seat. “There’s only one mother.” He pointed to the female who had joined the one with the swaddled babe. “This one is the mother. She has two children. And this one,” he pointed to the female Xrez had salivated over just moments before. “She has been helping the mother.”

  He should’ve been happy his female wouldn’t be so easily caught, but even without a child, she didn’t stand much of a chance. If she felt the need to help the mother, she would end up with the same fate. Now instead of two humans gone in Level One, there would most likely be four. Xrez sighed. This hunt was going to be a mess.

  It was called The Hunt for a reason. Hunters expected to best other hunters to stalk and ambush prey that were smart, cunning and equal both physically and intellectually. They wouldn’t want easy, useless, prey. Bradliix was excited about the profits they’d garnered so far, but once word spread that humans weren’t adequate adversaries, the hunters would pull out in droves.

  “How certain are you that we have a good batch of humans? What if the lone female in Level Three is a fluke and these humans are proven to be as weak as we’ve always known them to be? The hunters who’ve come to secure only Level Two or Level Three prey will demand their entrance fee returned and we’ll possibly lose the reservations secured for the next hunts.”

  Xrez pushed away from the desk and leaned back in his chair, almost forgetting how uncomfortable it was. He continued to watch the screen. The two women fed the children something from one of the bags and talked amongst themselves.

  “Does my father have a failsafe plan in place to ensure that at least a few of the humans’ progress through the levels?” he continued.

  Bradliix inhaled sharply. His round yellow eyes opened wide. “We cannot interfere. It’s—”

  “Against the rules. I know. I know.” Xrez groaned and scratched the top of his head where he’d allowed his hair to grow longer. “This is a huge risk, Bradliix. We’ll either make more credits than this business has ever seen before, or we’ll fail miserably.”