Sahvin's Mate

by Clarissa Lake

“Do you think they are mated?” Scarlet asked.

  “I think it’s a pretty good bet. Solmatu is nearly as hard to resist as meomee. I think the feline pheromones are stronger.” I said.

  “Considering you were fucking him ten minutes after you met, I would say so,” Scarlet whispered then laughed.

  “Are you implying I’m a slut?” I demanded in mock indignation.

  “Only for Sahvin,” Scarlet chuckled. “From the way you talked on the ship, you were practically a nun before him.”

  “I made a couple painful mistakes. I decided the next guy could have to be goddamned Prince Charming or he was getting none.” I quipped.

  “Sahvin sure looks the part, smoking hot, that man is,“ she said. “Almost as good is Pyrr.”

  “Of course, you have to say that since he’s your mate. But then most of the guys around here are gorgeous,” I added.

  “Pyrr knows people who know Argen he’s kind of a hotshot,” Scarlet said. “What we might call a black sheep. He’s been in some trouble---likes to bend the rules. But if Zoe is solmatu, he will defend her with his life.”

  “If she is happy with him, that’s all that matters,” I said. “As we took our seats at the conference table, Zoe walked into the room and sat across from us.”

  “Hey, Zoe. Where have you been hiding? We’ve barely seen you since Argen got here,” Scarlet asked.

  Zoe rolled her eyes. “As if you didn’t know. Wait till Harper gets here---oh here she is.”

  Harper strolled in and sat down beside Zoe. “Hi ladies, what’s new?

  “That’s what I was just asking Zoe,” said Scarlet.

  “Argen and I are officially mated,” Zoe announced. “We have been bonding.”

  “Fucking each other senseless, you mean,” Scarlet giggled. She was always straight to the point.

  “Scarlet,” Harper said. “Must you be so crass. Of course, she’s fucking him. She’s fallen in love with him.”

  “Will you both shut up!” Zoe admonished. “He is solmatu, and we have said the mating vows. It’s way more than fucking, and you know it. So, stop with the slutty girl talk.”

  “I’m sorry, Zoe,” Scarlet said. “It still gets me that it’s so simple and straightforward. No guessing whether he loves you and want full spectrum relationship or he just wants to stick his cock in you a few times until someone better comes along.”

  “Right, they just know by your scent, then they exude pheromones to make you want them and bam you’re mated for life,” I said. “With felines like Sahvin, it’s even faster.”

  “I’ll say,” Scarlet said. “But, I think I knew Pyrr was it when he picked up my hand and kissed it, never taking his eyes from mine. It was like I saw my future there.”

  “I will be glad when we can go Farseek for good,” Harper said. “Sometimes, I get scared it’s never going to happen. That we’re going to get in over our heads and either be killed or captured.”

  “I think that’s in the back of all our minds,” I said. “But what choice did we have? We could be sex slaves in some brothel to creepy aliens, or forced into hard labor somewhere.”

  “Just because bad things could happen, doesn’t mean they will,” Zoe said. “Back on Earth, there were no guarantees that some third world country wouldn’t get nukes and blow us all up.”

  “Or we could get run over by a truck crossing the street,” Harper said.

  “No, we had to do it up right,” Scarlet said, “We got kidnapped by alien slavers and taken so far from Earth no one knows how to get there from here.”

  We all laughed just as Commander Maktu strode into the room. He frowned slightly. I think he was wondering if the joke was on him.

  Harper grinned up at him. “Hey, Zare. We were just laughing about how things could have turned out so much worse than being kidnapped by aliens.”

  He gave her a look that said so much more than words. I think we all knew exactly what he meant. What seemed like the worst thing that ever happened to us brought us to them---our soul mates.

  A few minutes later several more from the ship’s crew entered. With so many people already on the ship, we needed help getting to everyone before the shuttles started coming up from the planet with more rescues.

  The meeting was short. Our duty assignments were the same as with the other rescues, identify them and register them in the AI census with their family lines if they were Uatu. Those who were not would be given a choice to settle on Farseek or be transported to one of the Consortium worlds to settle somewhere else.

  First, they had to capture the ship. But we weren’t worried. The Farseek Brigade may have been new to piracy, but they were getting good at it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  SAHVIN

  During the briefing for boarding, the Rered Rauner Commander Maktu told us they were calling in four more Dreads for the raid on Nadoo. It would take days for us to round up all or the people we wanted to liberate. As I said, earlier the boarding teams from Dread One would remain on the ship.

  Dread One went into orbit in a parallel orbit with the slave ship and AI jammed their scanners so they wouldn’t discover us before we could sneak our shuttle aboard. Our pilot slid the shuttle into their shuttle bay as the iris was closing so they could repressurize it.

  There was a look of pure horror on the bay technician’s face as we poured from the shuttle in full combat armor with our stun guns drawn. He was a Pican, just like the fish-faced humanoids that Nora and her friends had described on their slave ship. He threw up his arms and surrendered immediately.

  Facing armed combat specialists was far different than managing unarmed slaves with pain sticks. They were a gutless bunch, easily subdued. As we rounded them up, we secured them into an empty barracks compartment until one of our shuttles arrived to take them down to the planet. We had no need to harm them, although I considered it. They were likely associated with the same Picans that kidnapped me from Earth.

  They would be marooned on Nadoo until another ship came to collect supplies from the planet. The would survive if they worked for it or they would starve, but we would not harm them.

  Rered Rauner was far inferior to the Kurellis. It was divided into numerous large compartments that housed the slaves’ barracks with up to a hundred in each compartment. There was no privacy for anyone. Many of the five hundred modules were empty, and the smell of unwashed bodies hung in the air.

  Commander Maktu called for engineers to come look at the air and water purification systems to see if they could improve the efficiency. They only had to last until we got to Farseek.

  With the Pican’s secured in three rooms of the slave barracks, Admiral Degatu sent one of our piloting teams to run the ship, while we accompanied the non-combatants to take a complete census of the slaves. Most of the ones left on board the vessel were females and included three from Earth and two from Narova.

  The mercenaries were thrilled to find many Uatu females among them. One of them was solmatu to Gerj Victu, a member of my team. The women in her barracks cheered when we came in and announced that we were there to free them take them back to Farseek. It made us feel rewarded.

  I felt good that we were helping to free them to go back and rebuild their homeworld, and that Nora and I were going there to make a place for ourselves there.

  The AI tech with the pilot team discovered that the names and origin of all the captives on the ship and those that were just shuttled down to the planet were recorded in their AI system along with all of the slaves they had delivered in the last five years.

  They also discovered star charts in the system with specific coordinates for Earth, Narova, and the whole Alliance. Both Commander Maktu and Pyrr looked worried as they heard the news. The navigator was quick to add that it was at least six months journey past the far side of the Sargus Empire, farther than anyone from Farseek had ever been.

  “It would be wrong not to tell them, sir,” I said respectfully. “I don’t believe they will want to go back.
If solmatu is like meomee, only death will break the bond. Now that we have the information, we may be able to get word back to their families. Before I was kidnapped, the Alliance was on the verge of opening relations with Earth. It may have already happened.”

  “Not a word to your mates until we figure this out. I need to discuss this with Admiral Degatu and the rest of command before we tell the women anything. Is that clear Lieutenant Mazza?”

  “Yes, sir,” I replied. Although I didn’t like it, I would comply. I hoped Nora would understand when she learned the truth. I couldn’t help feeling elated that we would finally know where we were in relation to our home world.

  It was ironic that I had taken a position at the Alliance Earth base, hoping to find meomee while I was there. I had exhausted my options with the matchmaking service. They had hadn’t located a mate for me on Narova, and there was no match among those registered for ancestor DNA evaluations.

  The odds I would find my mate on Earth by chance were slim. But I was within a hundred-mile radius of people descended from people who had contact with my ancestors. They were among Nora’s ancestors. The odds that I would find Nora as I did were genuinely astronomical.

  I believed Nora, and I had made peace with the probability that we would never be able to return to our home worlds. My only wish would be to let our families know that we were alive and happy. I also wanted to let the Alliance know about the Picans preying on pre-space faring races in addition to the Tenzari.

  The Picans knew of our race, but we had never captured any of their slavers. I felt avenged for what they did to my life before the Farseek Mercenaries rescued me. Now, these Picans would be marooned on a backwater planet with no way to get back home at least until another Pican ship comes to Nadoo with a new shipment.

  There is no sense in telling our mates about this until we figured out the ramifications. Would it even be possible to contact the Alliance? I knew the channels we used, but I had no idea if they were compatible with the Farseek systems.

  At that point, it was not that difficult to keep the information to myself. I didn’t just want to blurt it out in passing. We were far too busy with the mission to sit down and discuss it. It would wait.

  My perspective on the situation was a bit different than Pyrr’s or the Commander’s. I had spent a couple years on Earth, and I was prepared to go wherever I needed until I found meomee.

  But now I had, and we are mated for life. Nora was my home. I had no home without her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  NORA

  I found the air aboard the Rered Rauner a bit oppressive as I set up my tablet to record the information of each of the captives in the fourth barracks room that day. I sure hoped that the engineers could service the air purification system to filter out some of the unpleasant smells.

  I looked up as the next person in line approached. There was something familiar about the middle-aged woman standing in front of me. “Good day, ma’am. Could you please state your name and place of origin including your homeworld?”

  “Asania Maktu. Waysatu Farseek.”

  “Did you say Maktu?” I asked as a frisson of excitement shimmered through me.

  “Yes, and my daughter Bethar is with me,” she replied.

  “Thank you, I am pleased to meet you. There is someone here I believe who will want to see you. Wait right here please.” I touched the comlink in my ear. “Commander, do you have time to come up to Room B Eleven. I think I’ve found someone you know.”

  “Who is it?” he demanded with a touch of impatience. I didn’t take it personally. I knew he was very busy.

  “Asania Maktu and Bethar,” I replied.

  “Are you sure?” he asked as though he hardly dared to hope.

  “That’s the name she gave, sir,” I assured him.

  “I’ll be right there.” He merely closed the connection.

  “Do you understand what’s happening here?” I asked Asania.

  “Someone said we are going home,” she said. “But our world was destroyed.”

  “It was, but it’s being rebuilt. The Farseek Brigade terminated their contract with the Consortium to rescue the Farseekans abducted after the attacks.” I explained. “I am actually from Earth a planet somewhere outside Consortium sectors. I was taken by slavers too, and they rescued me with a bunch of others.”

  I saw Commander Maktu as soon as he strode in through the open doorway. He gazed around the room and found the woman standing beside my table right away. He moved quickly until he was a few feet away then stopped.

  “Mother?”

  The woman turned and gasped, “Zared?”

  He took the last two steps to her and swept her into his arms. He held her tight and rested his cheek against the top of her head. Though his eyes were tightly closed, I saw a tear slide down his cheek.

  The next thing I knew I was crying, partly from the poignant reunions and because I knew how I would feel if I could hug my mother one more time. Bethar, who I was pretty sure was his sister, stood by for a moment, then went over to be drawn into their embrace.

  Once I saw them together, I realized why she looked so familiar---because Zared was a masculine version of her and they shared the same teal colored hair. His sister’s hair was almost a sky blue.

  I was thrilled for them yet sad for myself. I hadn’t seen my parents for two years before I was abducted. They had moved to Florida to retire, and I had stayed in the town where I grew up to take a job at the local hospital after nursing school.

  Even though I didn’t see them often, we skyped every week. Then I disappeared off the face of the Earth. I can’t imagine what they thought had happened to me. By then, I’d given up the hopes of seeing or even contacting them again. So, maybe I was crying a little for myself, but also because I could imagine thinking someone I loved was dead then finding them alive.

  On the other hand, I wondered how Harper would feel suddenly having a mother-in-law. But since she and Zared were solmatu, his mother should accept Harper as his mate.

  Commander Maktu came over and thanked me before he took them away. I imagined he had gone to find Harper who was working one of the other barracks rooms.

  I had to get back to work. We had ten rooms of around one hundred people each to identify and record before the shuttles started arriving with the liberated slaves from Nadoo.

  Word had traveled through the settlements that the Farseek Brigade had come for their people. Once the ground teams had moved in the overseers surrendered their claim on the slaves.

  Even though I had a long line of people to register, I made sure I greeted every one of them and looked into their eyes as we spoke. There were two young women in my line from Earth. One named Carrie Robin asked if there was a way back to Earth. I briefly explained the situation to her, as I hadn’t talked to Sahvin at that point.

  Carrie started to cry. Like the rest of the fabulous four, she had been taken right off the street where she lived. She had gone out to pick up the newspaper from the driveway for her father. She was only nineteen and still lived with her parents while she attended community college.

  I got up from my chair and went to give her a hug. “I know, honey. I felt exactly the same way when I got that news. But it hasn’t been so bad since we were rescued from the slavers. We’ve made new friends and the other three Earth women, and I have found mates---think husbands.

  “It’s not the life we had, but it’s good. You’ll find your place here, too,” I assured her. “They are good people.”

  She seemed like she wanted to pull away, so I released her, and she brushed the tears from her face with her hands. She sighed and said, “I’ll be okay.”

  “You will. The Farseekans will sponsor anyone who wishes to settle on Farseek. They have a shortage of females in fact.”

  She smiled faintly and shrugged. “It’s not like I have anywhere else to go.” She moved on and waited off to the side for her friend Ronnie Brandon to register.

  We
went on like this for days, trying to comfort and reassure the influx of humanoids in every color one could imagine. Probably seventy-five percent were from Farseek. Aside from a few Earthers, the rest were from Consortium. Those who wanted to return to their worlds would get the opportunity once they got to Farseek.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  SAHVIN

  “Hey, Sahvin, wait up,” Pyrr called as I left the docking bay.

  I stopped and turned to see him jogging toward me.

  “Where you headed?”

  “I was just going up to deck C to get Nora, so we can be ready when the shuttle is ready to take us back to Dread One,” I said.

  “That’s been canceled. Two Sargan battlecruisers blinked in, and the Dreads are holding them off while we get the last of the shuttles aboard,” he explained, “Then we are blinking out and heading toward Farseek.”

  “They are leaving us behind?” I wondered.

  Pyrr shook his head. “It’s only temporarily---because of the Sargan battlecruisers. It’s too dangerous for us to wait for the Dread to take care of them, risking all the people we just rescued,” he said. “We’re going to meet the Kurellis on its way back from Farseek and transfer to it.”

  “Ah, I see. Will we then meet the dreads at the next rescue target?”

  “Exactly. And we are in luck, we will have private accommodations on deck A. They make our quarters on Dread One look like luxury suites, but you get a private bed. Forget about sex in the shower though---hardly enough room to turn around.”

  “Those Pican’s are small compared to Farseek humanoids,” I said.

  “I think they must have fixed the air filtration system. The air seems better than when we got here,” Pyrr said. “Come on, I’ll walk with you. Scarlet and Nora are on the same deck.”

  “Sure.” We started walking. “I’m glad we will not be separated this time. It could be weeks before we catch up with the dreads.”

  “It will be at least three. Command didn’t want to risk these people in a skirmish with the battlecruisers. We’ve got Admiral Degatu’s only grandchildren aboard, not to mention Commander Maktu’s mother and sister.”