by Cynthia Sax
Sisters. Mayhem studied his female’s beautiful face. Her expression was sincere. She was claiming the Retrievers as family.
“We may have come from different planets, may not share the same blood, but we are and will always be joined by our experiences. That is a stronger bond than genetics.” Imee paused. “A wise warrior showed me that.” She glanced at Mayhem.
He dipped his head, suppressing his inappropriate urge to grin during the solemn conversation.
“They slaughtered our families.” Nikaalate, unlike Imee, didn’t try to hide her pain.
“Yes, every being on this transmission, including myself, has lost loved ones.” Imee gazed directly at the images on the main viewscreen. “We’ve all been betrayed by the Humanoid Alliance, tricked into doing despicable tasks, manipulated by our honorable desire to keep the beings we care about safe.”
“We all want vengeance!” Kutta raised her sword.
The Retrievers cheered.
Mayhem stifled another smile. They were as bloodthirsty as his cyborg brethren.
“We all want vengeance,” his female agreed. “We’re the fiercest females in the galaxy. That’s why the Humanoid Alliance chose us. That also connects us, makes us strong. We can’t retrieve everything we’ve lost but we can take back as much as possible.”
“I want to take back the contents of my container.” Sikara, a large purple-horned female, spoke up. “My grandsire had an orb that belonged to my ancestors. It’s sacred to my kind. It never left the chain around his neck and he would have worn that chain when he died.” The purple pigment in her face intensified in color. “I won’t allow those Humanoid Alliance flatheads to keep it.”
“We won’t allow that either.” Imee nodded. “We all have containers on board the station. That’s why my male and I didn’t destroy it.”
My male. Mayhem’s heart squeezed. His female was claiming him in front of others.
“I retrieved the contents of mine.” Imee tapped the translucent repository holding her mom’s hand. “You deserve to retrieve the contents of yours.”
The transmission line buzzed with chatter and excitement. Many Retrievers planned to retrieve their containers immediately. Several had already removed their tracking devices.
“Voyaging to the station individually isn’t logical.” His female spoke more and more like he did and that pleased Mayhem. “We’ll put together a team of our best and bravest Retrievers to commandeer the station, killing all of the beings on board.”
Almost every female volunteered. Many of them claimed to be the best, as confident as his female. Some of the Retrievers relished the task of killing Humanoid Alliance warriors, discussing the best ways to end their enemies’ lifespans. All of them involved extreme pain. A few were very creative and had doubtful feasibility within a station, like Sikara’s heating-the-enemy-to-the-point-of-combustion suggestion.
“Once that team has piloted the station into safe space.” Imee shared the plan they’d crafted. “All of us can access our containers.”
“And what happens to the station?” Dolch, a multi-pigmented, gilled female, asked. “Do we blow it up?” The gleam in her eyes told Mayhem she liked that idea.
He liked the idea too. Explosions, the ultimate in chaos, were always very satisfying.
“The station is too valuable to blow up.” His female was more practical. “It will be used in the battle against the Humanoid Alliance.”
Many of the Retrievers liked the idea of using the Humanoid Alliance’s own station against them.
“What should the rest of us do?” Loa, the Tau Cetian female, nibbled on her bottom lip. She didn’t have the confidence that the others had. “While we’re waiting to access our containers?”
“That’s your decision.” His female turned her palms upward, toward the ceiling. “Once you remove your tracking devices, you can go anywhere you want, do anything you wish, hunt anyone you desire. You’re free.”
“Oh.” The worry lines between Loa’s eyebrows deepened. “What will you be doing?”
Imee’s eyes gleamed. “My male and I will be hunting the Humanoid Alliance warriors who killed my family.”
Judging by the enthusiastic response from the Retrievers, they wouldn’t be the only beings hunting the Humanoid Alliance warriors.
The station would serve as a base, a place to coordinate hunts and larger-scaled attacks, ensuring no duplication in targets.
Neither Imee nor Mayhem wanted to be the one coordinating the Retrievers or commanding that station. That responsibility didn’t appeal to them and, with the cyborg warriors hunting them, it wouldn’t be a prudent role for them to take. They had to be mobile, have the ability to swap ships, move quickly. A station would slow them down.
But finding a leader amongst the females shouldn’t be a challenge. Many of them were eager to take ownership of the missions, to shape the future of their group.
The Retrievers expressed their thoughts and asked questions. His Imee answered some of them, deferred others. One by one, the females ended their transmissions, their images fading from the main viewscreen.
Eventually only Loa, the Tau Cetian female offspring, was left on the transmission, her image enlarged to fill more of the main viewscreen. She was very small, even for a humanoid, and she appeared bewildered.
Mayhem had seen similar reactions from his cyborg brethren when they were told they were free. They didn’t know what to do, what to think, what their roles in the galaxy were. Not every being treasured liberation as he did.
Silence stretched. Loa didn’t say anything.
“Do you have a question?” Imee finally asked.
“Ummm…” The female didn’t meet her gaze, wiggling in her chair.
“How many solar cycles do you have, Loa?” His female tried again.
“Eight,” she whispered.
Imee glanced at Mayhem.
“Eight” He repeated the answer at human auditory levels.
“Eight solar cycles.” His female stared at the Tau Cetian offspring.
And that was what she was—offspring. A cyborg was fully functional after one solar cycle. Tau Cetians took eighteen solar cycles to reach that stage.
“She’s so young,” Imee murmured. “And she has no family.”
“She has no home planet either.” Although Mayhem enjoyed being free, transversing the galaxy with his female, he knew had a planet, the cyborg Homeland, if he ever desired to return to it. This offspring didn’t have that option. “The Humanoid Alliance blew up Tau Ceti.”
The female whimpered.
“Those bastards.” Imee’s face darkened. “Loa, have you stolen a ship yet?”
“I tried but…” The offspring held up her right arm. Bloodstained fabric was wrapped around her tiny biceps.
Mayhem tracked the source of Loa’s transmission. “She’s utilizing a private viewscreen.”
“A private viewscreen.” His female plunked her ass in her seat and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Did the Humanoid Alliance at least give you a gun before they dropped you off?”
Loa shook her head. “They were supposed to do that but the biggest warrior laughed and said I wouldn’t last long enough to use it. I crafted this.” She showed them a piece of metal shaped in the form of a dagger.
It served no functionality. The edges were dull. The Tau Cetian offspring didn’t have the strength to kill any being with that weapon.
Anger coiled around Mayhem’s stomach. The Humanoid Alliance had tortured and tormented him and his fellow cyborgs but at least they had been given the tools to complete their missions.
The Retrievers, including his Imee, had been assigned tasks that seasoned warriors would have found daunting and they had been given no training, no weapons, no ships, no protective body armor.
His female had faced that challenge at twelve solar cycles. Loa had even less solar cycles.
“You are the best warrior, my female,” he conceded, his respect for his Imee growing even more.
Sh
e cast a questioning glance at him.
“She is the best.” Loa enthusiastically agreed with his declaration. “Every Retriever knows about RET56927. They told me how she has only missed quota once in the many, many solar cycles she’s been retrieving, that she hunts the most violent rebels, beings no other Retriever would dare to approach. The entire Galaxy fears her.”
“Great.” His female’s lips twisted. “Everyone, including my Retriever sisters, fears me.”
“The entire Galaxy respects her,” Mayhem amended. He didn’t fear her and he doubted her Retriever sisters found her terrifying. “I saw her kill two Humanoid Alliance warriors at the same time.” He fed Loa’s hero worship of his female.
“Be silent.” Imee was adorably embarrassed.
“I would have liked to have seen that.” Loa’s eyes shone. “That must have taken extreme skill.”
Pink pigment crept up his female’s neck. “I had a good mentor.”
“I wish I had a mentor.” The Tau Cetian offspring sighed.
“I’m not mentoring you,” Imee muttered.
Mayhem’s grin widened. He didn’t believe his female. “If we continue at our ship’s current velocity, it will take us less than a planet rotation to reach Loa’s transmission location.”
Imee glowered at him. “What part of ‘I’m not mentoring her’ didn’t you understand, warrior?”
“My processors are functioning.” He changed their ship’s course to the Tau Cetian offspring’s current coordinates. “I understood all of it. We’ll arrive shortly after sunrise.”
“She’s your responsibility.” His female said that like it was a bad thing.
And normally he would consider responsibility in that light but he’d share this one with his female. Imee would relent, train Loa as Kralj trained her.
“I’ll try to keep this Tau Cetian alive,” he joked.
Loa made a small hurting sound and guilt swept over Mayhem. He hadn’t meant to cause her more emotional damage.
Imee blew out her breath, expressing her aggravation with him. “My male was teasing, Loa.” She glared at him. “He won’t hurt you.” Her gaze returned to the small female. “Stay near your present location. We’re arriving shortly after sunrise. Don’t get yourself killed before then.”
Loa’s face lit up. She opened her mouth.
Imee ended the transmission.
“She was going to thank you, my female.” Mayhem chuckled. “If she thought you were the best being in the galaxy previously, she really--”
“Be silent.” Imee slid onto his lap, her loving actions belying her harsh command. “I should dump her at the Refuge, make Kralj take care of her.”
“But you won’t.” Mayhem dragged his mouth over her neck, tasting salt and female.
“But I won’t.” She angled her head so he could reach more of her skin. “Eight solar cycles. Can you believe it?”
“There’s no reason to question that spec.”
“She must be scared.” Imee’s grip on his shoulders tightened. “Sad, lost, lonely.”
His female was expressing the emotions she’d once felt. “We’ll be with her soon.” He sucked on her chin. “She’ll learn from the best warrior in the galaxy.”
“She’s learning from you.”
“Exactly.” He laughed.
“You’re not the best warrior.” Imee smacked his body armor. “You admitted that I was. I heard you.”
“Did you?” Mayhem pulled on her dainty little earlobes. “Is your auditory system functioning properly?” He kissed first one, then the other. “Can you hear me, my female?”
“Can I not?” Her eyes sparkled with humor. “She’ll discover you’re a cyborg.”
That didn’t concern him. “She won’t get the opportunity to tell any beings. I don’t plan to allow her out of my sight.”
“You shouldn’t allow her out of your sight. Did you see that dagger she made?” Imee snorted. “She has even fewer survival skills than I had that first solar cycle.”
“You were inept.” He couldn’t resist taunting his female.
“I was.” To his surprise, she agreed with him. “I don’t know what I would have done if Kralj hadn’t mentored me.”
He owed the male warrior his gratitude. Kralj had kept Imee alive and that had allowed Mayhem to meet her, to love her. “Solar cycles from now, Loa will make the same statement about you.”
“Yeah.” Imee didn’t deny that. She must have accepted that she would be mentoring the female offspring.
Mayhem held his female, stroking her lush form while he gazed through the main viewscreen at the distant suns, specks of bright color breaking up the blackness of space.
Imee snuggled into his muscles, her faraway expression telling him that she was lost in her thoughts and in her memories. He couldn’t process what they were. His female was a being of mystery. It would take a long cyborg lifespan to learn all of her secrets.
“Hunting the Commander will have to wait.” Imee finally broke the silence. “It looks like our first target will be a Tau Cetian female.”
“We’ll apprehend her at sunrise.”
“Our first target isn’t Loa.” His female rolled her eyes. “That’s a straightforward pickup, not a hunt. We have to hunt the other one.”
“The other one?” He couldn’t follow his female’s logic.
“We overheard those two Humanoid Alliance warriors talking in the station,” she explained. “They said they added two Tau Cetians Retrievers to our ranks.”
And his female worried about this second Tau Cetian Retriever, a being she had never met, had never spoken to.
“She didn’t join the transmission.” Mayhem hoped, for Imee’s sake, she wasn’t dead.
“She likely didn’t know how to use a private viewscreen. That means she’s even more useless than Loa is. I suspect she has fewer solar cycles too,” his female grumbled. “I suppose you’ll want us to train this missing Retriever also.”
His female wanted to train both Tau Cetian offspring. Mayhem considered the logistics of acquiring additional passengers. There was one sleeping chamber and three females. He’d be sharing Imee’s chamber. “We require a larger ship.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Eventually, we’ll exchange this ship for a larger one. Switching ships might throw the cyborgs off our trail.” Imee had already planned for that future. “A Humanoid Alliance battle station would be a great place to do that. The ships would be more advanced and, if your brethren track us there, they might kill every being on board.” She liked that violent and bloody possibility.
“It would cause chaos.” Mayhem nodded. “That’s the future. We add an extra passenger at sunrise.”
They would add one scared little girl. Loa didn’t have any family, any skills, any home to return to. Those Humanoid Alliance bastards hadn’t even given her a gun. If she were left on her own, she’d die.
Imee wouldn’t allow that to happen.
“We’ll convert the holding chambers into sleeping chambers.” It wouldn’t be comfortable, not at first, but she doubted the females were enjoying luxurious chambers now.
At least, they would be safe and they wouldn’t be alone.
“Those chambers are small, if I recall correctly, and I always recall correctly.” Mayhem rose to his feet, cradling Imee in his arms. “We should test how suitable they are for the females’ accommodations.”
“The holding chambers require sleeping supports.” She kicked her feet, offering a token protest, as he carried her off the bridge, through the corridors.
“And not as many restraints.” His eyes gleamed.
She became more nervous and more excited, her pussy wetting in anticipation. “You’ll be the warrior wearing those restraints. Not I.”
“No restraints can hold me.” He flexed his muscles, his biceps bulging. “Nothing will ever keep me from you, my female.”
He was a brute, wild, powerful, dominant, and he was hers. They entered the largest hold
ing chamber, the space she’d assigned to him many planet rotations ago.
The doors shut behind them. The locks automatically slid into place.
Mayhem could unlock them. He was a cyborg, skilled with the system.
Imee couldn’t open the doors. She was trapped, at the mercy of her male.
Her nipples tightened, pressing against her leather breast covering.
“You like this game.” Mayhem grinned, setting her on her feet.
“No.” She lied out of habit. She liked all the games he played.
Her foolish warrior laughed as he stripped, flinging his body armor to the floor, revealing tanned skin and defined muscle, broad shoulders, and his hard cock.
Imee shamelessly gawked at her male, savoring the ripple of his abs, the definition in his thighs. “What are the rules?” She touched the hilts of her daggers. Were they battling with weapons or with their bare hands?
“Restrain me and you can make the rules.” He removed his boots and stood before her, proudly naked and fully erect.
She glanced at the restraints attached to the far wall. All she had to do was slip his hands into them. That task didn’t seem very difficult but she’d learned that appearances were often deceiving, especially when her cyborg was involved.
His physical form was proof of that. He resembled a human male yet he was much, much more.
Mayhem leaned against that wall, positioning his arms near the restraints. He was taunting her, making the challenge look easy to accomplish, like something a child could do.
She wasn’t a child and she also wasn’t lacking in intelligence.
Imee sensed a trap.
“Are you scared?” He lifted his eyebrows.
He was deliberately provoking her, pushing her to rush at him, to make a mistake.
She knew that yet she couldn’t ignore him.
“I’m not scared.” Not of him. She didn’t want to lose and that’s what she’d do if she rushed in.
“Ah.” He nodded. “You don’t believe you can restrain me. I must have been wrong when I said you were the best warrior in the galaxy.”
“I am the best warrior in the galaxy.”
“Yet here I am.” Mayhem waved his arms. “Unrestrained.”
