by Golden Angel
Prologue
"I'm not ready to mate!" Tarrik insisted, crossing his arms over his chest and practically pouting at his mother. He knew it would make him sound and look immature, which was the point. After all, he was trying to demonstrate his youth and unsuitability as a mate at this time. Eventually he knew he would have to, but why now? He was only thirty one cycles old.
"You're thirty one cycles old," his mother retorted, glaring at him. "Do you know how many of my friends have children younger than you, and they already have grandbabies. I want grandbabies." She was practically stamping her tentacles in impatience to have them.
Sitting between them, Tarrik's father did his best to ignore both of them, concentrating on his breakfast instead. Unfortunately for him, his wife wasn't going to let him get away that easily.
"Tobik, tell your son it's time to mate and settle down," she said, nudging her husband with one of her many tentacles. While the upper half of her body resembled her husband and son's in almost every way except skin color, rather than arms she had two large tentacles, as well as a mass of them from the waist down rather than legs.
Immediately, Tobik reached out and grasped her tentacle in a firm hand, holding it the way he would have if it had been a hand. Tarrik had always thought himself incredibly lucky to have a Podelian mother; her addition to his father's genetic line meant that Tarrik possessed his own tentacle, although on him it looked more like a tail. It was very useful however, prehensile and almost like an extra limb when it came to combat... or pleasure.
Hadesians, like Tarrik and his father, always had to look off-world for their mates. Their history told them that they'd always genetically been a male dominated society - originally mating in groups, which ended when they joined other space faring races and began to find that they easily created interspecies offspring with just about everything in the galaxy. A fluke in their genes, which not only mixed well with others but tended to dominate in their offspring.
Other than his tail, Tarrik had no discernible traits inherited from his mother's people, but he, like the vast majority of the Hadesian population, had the wings which had come from interbreeding with the Illuri, an avian race. He also had a nice set of horns that curled slightly on either side of his head, which came from his grandmother's Umber blood, and had made head-butting his friends a lot of fun growing up.
Every Hadesian was bipedal and had red skin, the majority of them had wings, but after that their characteristics differentiated depending on their ancestry. Some recessive genes would pop up after several generations of being absent, others were present in every generation, and each Hadesian was expected to mate and create a new, better, more genetically advanced generation of little Hadesians. As many as they could, since they weren't a prolific race, even if they could breed easily with just about any other race. Most families had one child, two were a surprise and a blessing, three was considered nearly miraculous.
Sighing, Tarrik's father finally looked up from his meal and met his gaze. Dammit. Tarrik immediately knew his father was going to side with his mother, as he often (but not always) did.
"Offspring," said Tobik, his gaze gentle but firm. "I understand the urge to wander, to search out adventure, and to see new places. Your mother and I share it. We'd like to do the same, which means we need you here to run things."
Gark it, he silently cursed. Guilt rose as Tarrik realized his parents wanted some of the life he was currently living, running a transport for his father's business rather than involving himself in the actual business.
But he wasn't ready to mate yet. He really wasn't. Tarrik couldn't imagine being tied down to just one female, not to mention giving up being in space entirely.
"Fine," he said, reaching for a desperate straw, one that would allow him to keep traveling and making the commercial runs for a little while longer, but still placate his mother. Her eyes had already lit up. "What's that mating agency you mentioned last time? I'll sign up for that and when they find me a mate, then I'll come back and settle down."
His parents exchanged a look. The light in his mother's eyes had dimmed just a tiny bit, but not much. They'd been mated long enough that they didn't even need to speak to each other to tell what the other was thinking. Tarrik did want that kind of relationship... eventually... in the future...
Finally his father turned back to him and nodded. "That seems like a good compromise."
Perfect.
All Tarrik had to do was fill out the application and make sure he sounded so unpalatable that they couldn't possibly find him a match. Another year or two in space and surely he'd be ready to settle down by then, on his own terms.
Watching his parents turn their attention back on each other, his mother practically cooing at his father as one of her tentacles stroked through his father's black hair, which had more red flecks in it than the last time Tarrik had visited, he quickly excused himself. While he appreciated that his parents were still deeply in love, that didn't mean he needed to sit around and watch them work towards the inevitable outcome of his mother's current happy state.
Besides, he had a ship and crew to get back to.
******
"Rob from the rich, give to the poor," Jules muttered under her breath, tapping away at her keyboard.
She liked to consider herself a modern day Robin Hood. After all, the government didn't need all that lovely money, whereas the hospitals certainly did. Once the anonymous donation was made, from an untraceable bank account, the government definitely wouldn't risk the bad publicity of trying to take it away. Likewise, the corrupt and filthy rich leeches who sucked their workers dry while living the high life and hoarding their wealth didn't need bank accounts vast enough to mortgage the entire planet ten times over. Charities, on the other hand, could definitely make good use of all that money.
Basically everyone who was greedy and immoral hated her and everyone who was good and trying to make the world a better place loved her, even if none of them knew her name. Jules knew it was better to stay anonymous. Both the government and the bad guys were becoming desperate to figure out who she was and it was a race to see who could catch on to her real identity first.
A smart hacker would bunker down and disappear for a while, and Jules sometimes tried to... but when she had access to any kind of technology she always found herself drawn to checking on things... and once she checked on things and saw something wrong, she couldn't stop herself from changing them.
Her best friend, another do-gooder hacker whom she only knew by the username "CxyLaw01" and who had a much better survival instinct than Jules herself did, was getting worried about her. Jules knew it and knew CxyLaw01 was right... But it was like an addiction.
As if thinking about her online bestie had summoned her, a message from CxyLaw01 appeared on Jules' main screen.
CxyLaw01 - You have to get out of here.
It was a familiar refrain.
JoulesMV - I know, I know.
CxyLaw01 - No, seriously - now. I heard chatter. The Masters Group have sent The Representative after you. What the hell were you thinking stealing from them?
The same thing she usually thought - they had stolen their way to incredible wealth, stepping on the backs of others as they did so, and so it was only right to steal from them. Okay, maybe not 'right,' but she wasn't exactly regretful either.
Except...
JoulesMV - The Representative is a myth.
CxyLaw01 - No, he's real. I've met him before and trust me, you don't ever want to. They've put him on the job. I'm telling you, I saw the order. They don't have your name or location, but it's only a matter of time now.
A cold chill went through Jules' entire body. Holy motherboards she was so royally fucked... There was a reason no
one else had gone after The Masters Group. They were shady as all hell, ruling from their roost with threats, underhanded dealings, and running their competition out of business.
And if there was someone they couldn't bully, couldn't threaten, who refused to cave in, when there was someone they couldn't find... they called in The Representative. At least, those were the rumors. Hitman, assassin, criminal genius, whatever they wanted to call him, they said he always got the job done. He didn't work exclusively for The Masters Group, because he was expensive as hell.
They said he couldn't be bought. Couldn't be paid off. Once he accepted a job, he finished it.
Jules had always thought of him like the boogie monster; a scary story to frighten off anyone would might deny the rich and powerful what they wanted... but not actually real.
She believed CxyLaw01 though. Her friend was taking a risk by even warning Jules, by admitting that she'd met The Representative. That was definitely a story Jules wanted to hear... sometime later when she was safe.
For now, she had a tiny bit of a head start if The Representative didn't know who she was yet... she intended to use it.
JoulesMV - Thank you. I'll find somewhere to lie low until this blows over. Thank you for being my friend.
She signed off before CxyLaw01 could respond, tears pricking in the back of her eyes. The best way to keep her friend - and herself - safe was to cut off contact immediately, even though it hurt to do so. Jules didn't have family and she didn't have many people she called friends. Even so, the only one out of those people that she really trusted was CxyLaw01. It didn't matter that they had never met - in fact it was probably better that way.
Jules had found that people liked her more online than they did in person.
Pretty much all of her interactions were online, although that wasn't a terrible thing right now. Not with The Representative after her. The only person he could hurt that would hurt her was CxyLaw01, and so the best way to protect her friend was to cut off communication entirely.
Now she needed to protect herself too.
Looking dispassionately around her small apartment, which was packed to the brim with all the computers and tech she'd picked up over the years - gadgets she liked to fiddle with, processors, alien tech - she knew it was going to be a wrench to leave it, but it was all replaceable. Even if it took her a while to do so.
She went to her dresser, yanking open the drawer to start sorting out what clothes would blend best on the run. And she needed to figure out where to go.
As she began to pile her clothes on the bed, she happened to glance out the window and see one of the many sky ads that flashed during daylight hours.
Celestial Mates - We'll Find Your Mate and Send You to Them - Mates Anywhere and Everywhere in all Known Galaxies!
Huh. Jules had heard of them. They were usually used by women desperate to leave Earth and find love.
Well, she was one out of two of those.
Pack, go buy a new laptop somewhere so she could fill out an application, and just stay alive long enough for them to send her somewhere. She was sure she could fake a dating application well enough to look palatable to someone, somewhere out there. It was a big universe after all.
Chapter 1
"What?!" Tarrik was practically sputtering, because the words his mother was saying made no sense - although he could feel her joy over the vidcall even though his ship was several galaxies away from Hades.
"They found your mate! They're going to bring her here and she should arrive the day after you do," his mother said, her tentacles all writhing and twining around her body in happiness.
Behind Tarrik, he could hear his bridge crew trying to stifle their laughter.
Gark it, if he'd realized this was a personal call he would have taken it in his cabin, not on the bridge where everyone could see. Tarrik gritted his teeth, because even though he was frustrated, annoyed, and embarrassed, he was also not about to yell at his mother in front of everyone either.
Especially not when she was literally quivering with joy.
"They can't have found her," he protested, quickly remembering to tack on - "So quickly, I mean. They can't have found her so quickly, it's barely been six months!"
Six months, three uninterrupted trade runs through the cosmos. Definitely not enough time to get used to the idea of being ground-bound.
Tarrik also shuddered to think exactly what kind of female the agency could have found that would actually match to the abysmal application he'd filled out. He'd mostly just exaggerated or embellished, but he had flat-out lied in a few places to make himself look as terrible as possible.
"They are very good at what they do," his mother said happily, and he could practically see the visions of grandbabies dancing in her head. Having born one son herself - unusual for her people although typical for Hadesians - she was still hopeful for multiple grandchildren. "They always manage to find the right match!"
That was their slogan. Tarrik gritted his teeth into something resembling a smile. "Apparently."
His negativity softened slightly as his mother beamed back at him, her eyes flashing from lavender to dark indigo, indicating her deep emotions. It wasn't her fault, after all, she just wanted what all Hadesian mothers wanted from their offspring. He would just have to meet this so-called mate... and if she truly was a match for the application he'd filled out she'd probably be so awful that his mother would support him sending her back to wherever she came from.
Plus, then he could pretend to be heartbroken it hadn't worked out and get some leeway for at least another six months.
This might not be so bad after all.
Smiling a little more genuinely now, he nodded at his mom. "Thanks for calling, mother. I'll be home in another ten-cycle and I'll see you and my mate then."
"I'm so excited!" The ends of her tentacles waved, her eyes still darkly indigo with her emotions. "I'll send you the information they provided. I can't wait to meet my son's mate!"
The vid switched off and Tarrik groaned.
A heavy hand clapped his shoulder and he turned to glare at his first mate and best friend, Mrik grinning at him like a Vizii drunk on panchi fruit. Tarrik glared back.
"Congratulations!" Mrik crowed, obviously finding this turn of events hilarious. He'd already been amused when Tarrik had first told him about his plan, now he was definitely enjoying himself at Tarrik's expense. Snickers sounded around the bridge. "Our illustrious leader, leading the way as always."
"Don't get too used to the idea," Tarrik growled.
His com beeped, alerting him to the incoming file message. Jerking it away from his belt, just so he could look at something other than Mrik's smirk or the rest of the crew's poorly hidden entertainment, Tarrik looked down at the screen and clicked on the file.
Mrik's howl of laughter was nearly as loud as Tarrik's cry of outrage. "A garking useless human?!"
******
Swallowing hard, Jules looked out of the shuttle's window at her first view of her new home. Of course, how long it would be her new home remained to be seen. Hopefully long enough for things to die down on Earth. After all, with her complete disappearance, even The Representative would have to give up eventually, right?
All she had to do was get along with her new mate until then.
People skills weren't her thing so hopefully she wouldn't antagonize or annoy him too quickly.
"Are you ready?"
The melodic voice made her turn and look over her shoulder at the golden-skinned Latherian who had first greeted her when she'd come on board. She still wasn't sure what its name was - none of the crew introduced themselves, no matter how much she'd talked to them.
"I think so," she said, looking dubiously out the window. "It's very different from Earth."
The sky was a brilliant reddish orange that reminded her of sunsets on earth, but the color covered the entire sky and she knew it was midday here. The ground was a dark grey with dark red vegetation, although she also
saw bright yellow flowers sprinkled throughout as they came closer to the planet.
"You'll do well here," the Latherian said, patting her shoulder. "You have a great many skills and I'm sure you will put them to good use. Speaking of, thank you for your assistance with the main frame."
The shipboard computer had recently undergone an update which had needed a little bit of fine tuning to run at optimum capacity. Netherian crystals, which were what almost everyone was using to power their ships these days, could be more than a little finicky about the programming used to run them. Jules had overheard two of the maintenance crew arguing about it and had stepped in with a third solution - one which had streamlined the entire system and made the captain, and therefore the rest of the crew, very happy with her. She'd ended up helping out the entire trip to Hades, teaching the crew her own tricks and picking up some new ones along the way.
"It was no problem," she said with a smile. Truthfully it hadn't been. It had been nice to have something to do and keep her mind off of things and to talk to others who were at least nominally like her. A little anti-social, a little too into tech...
The shuttle shook as they landed and the Latharian's smile widened, showing off wickedly sharp teeth. Eep.
"Come," it said, giving her shoulder one last pat. "Time to meet your mate."
Feeling slightly sick, Jules stood, grabbing her bag, and followed the Latharian to the shuttle entrance. Her mate, right. At least until he realized she was no fun to live with and decided to get rid of her.
It's not like you're actually here for love, she reminded herself. Jules knew better than to ever hope for that. Still, the prospect of yet again setting herself up for more rejection pretty much sucked too. She'd learned to stop doing that years ago. Expect nothing from anyone and they'll never be able to disappoint you. Dune had it all wrong - fear wasn't the mind-killer, hope was.
Following the Latharian down the gangway, the first thing that Jules noticed was the way the planet smelled. The air was hot but not humid and the scent of it smelled like fire - it wasn't hugely strong, but after the tinny smells of the spaceship it was definitely noticeable.
