by V. K. Ludwig
With a flick of his hand, the collar hissed and opened. Mine came next, and he neatly rolled them up before he put them into his pocket.
I ran my hand over my neck, rubbed it, scratched it, the sensation making my hairs stand on end all along my arm.
“Is there somewhere we can talk?” he asked.
Melek pointed back at the habitat. “The patio is nice, especially now that the sun isn’t blasting right at it.”
“Yes, Earth’s sun is very bright,” the Captain said as we walked back to the patio.
We all gathered in the shade around the glass table, and Captain Balgiz pulled up some holographic notes from his com.
“Now that the Department of Interspecies Relations has the proof it requires, you are officially found not guilty of the murder of warrior Kidan. Also, the High Court dismissed any and all charges against you, healer Melek, in regard to the laws you broke after the incident.”
Melek’s hand reach for mine, and he placed a kiss onto the back. “Guess that makes us free people?”
“Free, yes, but…” The Captain shifted in his chair, his full beard an uncommon sight on a Vetusian. “The Empire would appreciate if you could remain at this habitat for a while longer. Only until order has been restored, since we’re currently dealing with a lot of demonstrations.”
“What do you think, anam ghail,” he asked with a boyish grin. “Can we stay at this place a little longer?”
My smile bunched against my eyes. “I think we could manage. If it helps the Empire…”
“Healer Melek,” the Captain continued. “You’ve applied for training to become a substance abuse counselor several times during your time as a healer. Given your personal experience, and perhaps to make up for the prejudice you might have faced during this ordeal, the healer corp is eager to offer you a training opportunity.”
Melek’s eyes widened, and a gleam came over his eyes. “Seriously? That would be fantastic. What else can we squeeze out of this?”
The Captain laughed a deep, husky chuckle vibrating his chair. “I’m afraid that’s it for now. But I would appreciate if you could answer a few questions.”
“Go ahead.”
He activated the hologram of a young woman, probably mid-twenties. Long blonde hair framed blue eyes and a wide smile, but the radiating happiness of the projection didn’t last long.
“We were wondering if you could confirm if this is the same female you’ve seen at the docks.”
“Without a doubt,” Melek said. “Her hair was messy back then, but she’s got that mole there behind her ear. That’s her. I’m sure of it.”
My heart sank at his words. She was so young, her smile too radiant to be extinguished by whatever waited for her on Odheim.
“Did scholar Fehan mention her name?”
“Sophie.”
Captain Balgiz let out a deep sigh. “Sophie Morris. From what we know, she was abducted from her work, and smuggled to Odheim. Do you happen to remember anything else that might help us in finding her?”
Melek took a deep breath. “He said he tried to sell her link, but nobody wanted her since she’s infertile.”
“Yes, unfortunately. We thought the crime ring concentrates on abducting females without a link. As it turns out, they are also seeking out females who are infertile, or less likely to have someone search for them.”
“Surely their families are searching for them,” I blurted.
The Captain nodded and leaned back, folding an ankle over his thigh. “Some lost their family during phase one. But even if they didn’t Vetusians and human males alike are very eager to track down their fated mates. If they don’t have one, it makes them slightly more vulnerable to abductions.”
“That’s awful,” I said. “Just because she can’t have children doesn’t make her any less valuable.”
“It makes her even more valuable on Odheim, though,” Melek said. “Pregnancies are bad for business among pleasure workers, which is why most Jal’zar females try to avoid them with their own kind.”
At that I leaned slightly forward. “What happened to K’nema? The Jal’zar who gave the statement?” When the Captain shoved in his chair, I asked, “Is she dead?”
“We found her in the park underneath a bridge, with a deep puncture wound at her right temple.”
“Someone killed her?”
Melek tightened his fingers around mine, his brow furrowed. “I doubt she would have allowed a Vetusian to take her life. Jal’zar are known to take their own life by stabbing themselves into the brain with their tail claw. Since she didn’t have hers anymore, I assume she asked another to do it for her.”
My stomach turned upside down at that, but I wouldn’t allow it to distract me from the fact that Melek was alive because of her death. A life for a life. The Vetusian’s rule never held as much truth as it did at that moment.
“I’m sorry that I can’t be of more help,” Melek said. “What are your next steps?”
“Sophie is one of three Earth females we are certain have been brought to Odheim. Finding them will prove difficult, since underground brothels operate based on decades of membership and referrals. It’s hard to get in. As of right now, we are concentrating our efforts on tracing databank inconsistencies.”
Melek smacked his tongue. “So you’re trying to go after the hacker? It’s hard to believe such a young Vetusian is a criminal mastermind.”
“He isn’t,” the Captain said. “We found proof that he is linked to the late Warden Maris, but he’s not the one who pulls the strings. Solely the one creating a digital curtain around the crime ring, in order to make it as invisible as possible. It’s my job to track him down.”
He swiped over his com and tapped his finger against Melek’s. “That’s my personal information in case you ever remember anything that might help, no matter how small.”
We all rose and went inside, guiding Captain Balgiz back to the door. He climbed back onto that hover bike of his, the fusion panels rattling before they powered up with a loud hum.
With a dip of his head, he was gone, hanging one arm off his side as he steered into the street lined with palm trees.
“Why do I feel as if I haven’t seen the last of him?” Melek asked.
I sunk myself against that strong chest of his, allowing myself to be a woman with a woman’s need for a male in her life. Even if, sometimes, that need was simply to be weak. To be broken. To rest in his arms until I could put myself back together again.
“I don’t know, anam ghail,” I breathed. “But no matter what happens, we’ll be in it together.”
This concludes Matched. Do you have 5 minutes to spare? If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review. They mean a lot to us indie authors.
* * *
Now it’s time for me to tell you Balgiz’s story. The CAT officer matched to a 93-year-old female, desperate to bust a crime ring. I have included the first few chapters for you on the following pages.
You know your Gaia link is broken when your match is 93.
Read MATED now.
Chapter 1
Balgiz
“Captain.”
The female secretary greeted me with a nod the moment I stepped into the headquarters. She hoisted herself from the hover chair, her swollen stomach brushing against interactive holograms. One after another, she sent them to the ground with a static hiss.
“I’m sorry,” she said, voice thin, stroking the child underneath her chest with one hand as she grabbed for the holograms on the ground with the other.
The grunt at the back of my throat had her stop. “Don’t bother.”
I stepped around and squatted down, placing the holograms back onto the desk. My eyes flicked to her belly fat with child, my guts roiling with unease.
“That youngling of yours needs to come out,” I said, my voice harsh enough to have her avert her gaze. “Those holograms are fragile technology, you know. Just because we received more funding doesn’t mean we can star
t tossing them around.”
She forced a smile onto her face. “He’ll come any day now. My mate and I went to the holographic imaging yesterday, and the healer said —”
I snorted, got up, and walked away.
How was I supposed to run this department if they kept assigning pregnant females? Sure, Earth women wanted to work. But why by the heat of Heliar did they always end up in my unit?
“You’re an ass,” Pertho said, leaning in the door to my office.
I didn’t bother responding.
He wasn’t the one leading this investigation surrounded by pregnant females. The moment I got used to my new secretary, she left to squeeze a hybrid out. And in her place sat a new one, blasting my ears with excuses about why she, too, had to visit the cleaning chamber five times an argos. It simply wasn’t efficient.
“How solid are those new reports?” I asked, and threw myself into my chair, shoving through mounds of files and holographic notes on my desk in search of some space to rest my feet on.
Pertho let out a huff and closed the office door, arms crossed in front of his chest. “They’re very sensitive, Balgiz.”
“The reports?”
“Pregnant females.”
By the Three Suns… as if I gave a shit about the mental unsoundness of women with child while a crime ring abducted five of them each lunar cycle.
Pertho sat down on the chair across from me, long legs stretched out, arms still crossed over his chest. “This is the third time this week you’ve made her cry.”
I grunted and shifted my weight sideways so I could get a glimpse through the window. Behind the reception, human females huddled together to pat my assistant’s shoulder. And as if that wasn’t silly enough already, they threw me hard glances.
“I’m doing my fucking job here,” I said. “Doesn’t our unit have the highest success rate for raids?”
“Yes, but —”
“What’s your damn problem then?”
“Assimilation,” he said, rubbing a hand over his forehead. “Balgiz, you can’t run this unit like before. We’ve got humans working with us.”
“Don’t you dare tell me I’m treating them differently, because I’m taking this Workplace Equality Act very serious.”
He let out an exasperated sigh. “Perhaps too serious. You know what I think?”
“Don’t care.”
He flung his head back, curses rising toward the ceiling. “You hate seeing what you can’t have. And I get it. I really do. But that doesn’t justify being an ass half the time.”
“Are you done?”
He shook his head and got up, activating the holograms on the lead board at the wall beside us.
Finally.
“A Jal’zar merchant reported traces of illegal activities after they unloaded his ship at the cargo dock of sector seven,” he said.
“Traces?”
“Excrements, urine, and the less obvious DNA such as hair and skin flakes.”
I worked my bulk out of the chair and stepped over to the board. “Please tell me it matches his DNA.”
A smirk worked itself onto his features. “Sure does. The lab sent over the results an argos ago. There’s no doubt scholar Fehan skipped planets, only to smuggle himself to Earth.”
“Which makes sense, considering the current turmoil. There’s no better hiding than at the core of chaos.”
Pertho gave me a wary eye. “He’ll be hard to track down with all the unrest.”
“It’ll save budget. Whatever we won’t have to spend on deploying troops to Cultum or whatever other fucking planet out there, we can spend on paying out informants.”
Excited claps had us both turn around.
On the other side of the glass, the entire damn unit assembled at the center of the floor. They all stared at a hologram a Vetusian threw up. His mate was with child. Good for him.
“Just let him have that moment.”
I ignored Pertho, ripped the door open, and barreled down the aisle. “What’s going on here?”
Everyone turned around and stared at me wide-eyed, while some immediately scrambled back to their work stations.
“My mate is with child,” the Vetusian officer said with a grin so wide I fucking wanted to punch it. “Two, actually.”
Fucking prick.
Others couldn’t even have one, and the Three Suns blessed him with two? At once?
“Congratulations,” I said, my chest constricting at those blobs of cells hovering between us. “The risk of your mate being a victim of abduction has now officially increased by sixty-four percent because even the underground scum has figured out by now that pregnant females bring in more credits.” I went into full-blown asshole mode, keeping that reputation of mine in shape, and stepped up to him, crossing my thick arms in front of my chest. “How about you get back to your work station, and help prevent it? Because that’s your damn job.”
The hologram disappeared at the same speed his head dipped down. “Yes, Captain.”
Officers of my unit scurried back behind their interactive screens, those plants between them serving no purpose, but Earth females had insisted on their cruciality.
Behind my back, those very females failed to muffle the words jerk and asshole. Just to piss them off, I turned and waved my hand, shooed them back to their desks. At least until their water broke. Or they went into false labor. Or had to pee.
I strode down the narrow hallway and into the break room. Another human innovation sucking efficiency right out of this unit, but at least it had coffee. Something I’d acquired a taste for. It turned bitter on my tongue the moment Pertho leaned in the doorframe. Again.
“Let me guess… I made someone cry?”
He pushed himself off the frame and grabbed for one of the mugs above this thing called coffee maker. “Are you still going to meet up with that human female?”
“Why are you asking?”
“I just thought that it might do you good,” he said, pouring the black brew into his mug. “Get your mind off the case.”
“My mind’s never off the case.”
Pertho smacked his tongue, his eyes flicking my way before he reconsidered and stared out the window instead. “Some females need several lunar cycles to accept our seed. If that’s the case with her, you will get to spend a whole lot of time together.”
“Six suns each lunar cycle?” My snort blew over the surface of my steaming coffee. “Where are you going with this?”
“Just saying.” And he did so with a limp shrug. “You might like her. She might like you back.”
“It’s a breeding contract, and you know full well I’ve got a match,” I said and pivoted on my heel before that tick on my left eyelid would return. “Liking someone just won’t cut it to form an unbreakable bond.”
Chapter 2
Balgiz
I hit the accelerator hard and sped off the parking lot in front of the CAT building, the fusion panels vibrating underneath my bike. Thirty clicks of air space were reserved for hover vehicles, but I ran the tires over the newly constructed streets instead.
Aside from the pedestrians coming off their shifts to the left and right, the stone underneath me was empty — just how I liked it. My reality didn’t rotate with tiny limbs for everyone to clap at, but instead, lay right in the dirt underneath the traction.
A family wasn’t something the Three Suns had granted me. All I had was this mission, and I fully intended to bust this crime ring. Distractions weren’t an option, especially not if they came in the form of self-pity.
I followed along the row of buildings, pretending I didn’t see all those couples, interracial or otherwise, who enjoyed a meal together. What I couldn’t ignore were those stomachs growing Vetusian seed. Wasn’t there a single human female not pregnant? It was like a damn plague.
In the distance, the streets turned from neat squares to curves winding around forests, and up those hillsides to the west. Even with the evening settling onto Earth, the planet was
beautiful beyond measure, those last rays of the single sun still warming my back.
The ride to Oak Valley was only a short trip from the headquarters. One reason why I had chosen this location, which allowed me to drive out there every couple of suns like that good mate I’d intended to be. Back when I was all pumped-up for Garrison Earth until it punched the air right out of my lungs.
Nestled inside a clearing of trees, the lights emanating from the large windows led the way. I parked my bike in the same spot I always did and made my way toward the entrance, tugging on my uniform to make myself look put together.
“Captain Balgiz,” one of the female care droids said with a standard smile. “Isn’t it a bit late for a visit?”
“Got carried away at work. Is she asleep?”
She waved her hand toward one of the main rooms. “Miss Betsy is with her companion.”
Droids cared little for niceties, but that didn’t keep me from dipping my head before I stepped away. Inside the main room, a mix of tea and cookies masked the underlying smell of bodies reaching the end of their life cycles. Not dirty, just… stagnant. Depleted.
Elderly humans sat in chairs or walked about, each of them accompanied by their personal companion. Nothing but care droids, their personality chips top of the line technology. Not only could they detect and distinguish between forty different moods, but mimic human behavior with such accuracy, someone had to look hard to identify them as machines.
“Captain,” an old human male called out.
Supported by palathium and flosteel, his brain-wired exoskeleton allowed his brittle legs to stroll over to me.
I offered him that salute that always had his eyes gleam. “Sergeant Major Chen. How’s life at the front?”
“Food’s still crappy,” he grumbled, a chest that thrust out still speaking of former strength and glory. “That synthesized shit’s got no taste to it. I keep telling them those biscuits need more butter. But would anybody listen?”
