Freeforce: The Gryphon Saga

by L. E. Horn

  Michael. The room contained only women. No men, no Michael. Lianndra’s heart ached. “Where the hell are we?” Andrea managed a semi-vertical pose resembling a sprawling puppy. Lianndra observed her friend’s dazed, dark eyes and mussed short, black, crimpy hair.

  Wait. Hair? Lianndra raised a hand to her head. She felt the softness of about a half-inch crew cut all over her scalp. But we were bald. Bewildered, she looked around noticing the other women featured similar crew cuts. How fast does hair grow? How long were we drugged? Her eyes dropped to the body lying so still. Was it too long for some?

  The women were naked, which fit with the state they’d last been in after the horrible sterilization procedure.

  “I wonder how long we were out of it? They must have drugged us,” she said to Andrea.

  She didn’t recognize the bare, featureless metal room. Lianndra noticed two shallow indentations on opposite walls. When she squinted, she thought they might house sliding doors.

  Beth stood, and Lianndra decided she’d been down for long enough. Grabbing Beth’s proffered arm, she got to her feet, swaying before bending to help Andrea up as well.

  As if in response to their movement, an opening appeared in the wall. The doorway filled with light from without while the lights in their room dipped into darkness. An invitation to exit. Leaning on each other for support, the women stumbled their way through.

  After leaving the room in which they’d awakened, they found themselves in a narrow, lit corridor lined with multiple closed doors. The women followed the lights. The corridor behind them darkened as they passed, discouraging them from turning back. Thinking about the dead woman they left behind, Lianndra wasn’t inclined to retreat.

  The corridor opened into a group of rooms where food and clothing awaited them. Exhausted, the women dressed, ate, and drank before collapsing onto the beds.

  There was no sign of their captors.

  The last coherent thought running through Lianndra’s mind before sleep claimed her involved the fact her bed didn’t seem to have any feet attaching it to the floor.

  “I THINK THEY DRUGGED US for weeks.” Andrea grimaced as she talked, rotating one shoulder followed by the other.

  Her friend stretched out on a peculiar couch. Strange, in that it lacked visible legs and hovered a few inches above the polished metal floor. It emitted no sound, and the fine hairs on Lianndra’s hand stood on end when she waved it underneath.

  All the furniture hovered. The seats moved in response to a person’s weight, and the tables adjusted their height to stay consistent with the nearest seat.

  “It wasn’t just the drug that made us sick,” Lianndra pointed out. “Whoever it was treated us like feral animals—they sanitized us, inside and out. My guts are still recovering.”

  The two of them sat in a small area forming the central hub of a circle of rooms. With the exception of the foyer, the area around the hub consisted of twelve doorways opening into tiny private quarters. Each room offered a bed, a compact lavatory, and a storage console.

  “I wonder when we get to meet them?” Andrea asked for what must have been the tenth time, her tone indicating impatience rather than a request for an answer.

  They’d been cooped up in the circle of rooms since their arrival. The lights had dimmed and brightened twice which Lianndra assumed meant the passage of two days. Simple foods such as fruit, unleavened bread, and something resembling meat materialized at regular intervals from a square, waist-high box in the central area. A spout lower down on the device provided water with an unpleasant, slightly metallic taste. The fruit appeared familiar but didn’t taste quite right. In fact, they all pretty much tasted the same. Lianndra also noticed fruit of the same type lacked any variation in shape.

  They’re mass-produced, somehow. Do they have a mold for apples? How do they make the skin? Are they cloned? She tried to quiet the student within. I’m a geek at heart.

  Even after two days of waiting for something to happen, Lianndra dreaded the inevitable introduction to their captors. Memories of the dark face in the hood haunted her. I’d rather be enslaved by some sicko, third world country drug dealer than by what I glimpsed beneath that hood.

  While she hoped they were still on Earth, everything from the hovering furniture, to the unit dispensing their food confirmed her worst fears. The very air of the place smelled alien, like a sterilant, although there was also an odd odor, one she remembered all too well from her brief brush with the cloaked figure.

  “Not talking much, huh?” Andrea sat on the couch, swinging her legs over the edge. She grabbed Lianndra’s arm to pull her down beside her. Underneath them, the couch sank before returning to its previous hovering level.

  Lianndra let her head drop back against her friend’s arm to stare up. The perforated metal ceiling contained dark, discoid shapes she could see through the holes. Their purpose was a total mystery. She shuddered, her thoughts veering away from the obvious—alien.

  Her body still ached, but the last two days permitted her to regain some of her strength. Stretching her arms out in front of her, Lianndra sighed. “I don’t know what to say. You saw him too. If that thing is what owns us now, heaven help us.”

  Andrea grunted. “Well, we can’t sit here forever. At least I doubt they’ve done all this just to put us on their dinner plate.”

  “Maybe we’re in a weird zoo.” Muriel walked up behind them to lean on the back of the couch, making it bob down and then back up.

  A zoo? Lianndra supposed it made as much sense as anything else. Before she could contemplate any further, the door suddenly opened, making them all jump.

  Lianndra relaxed a little when she saw the two creatures entering were human females. They seemed to be in their late forties, trim and fit, with grim expressions on their faces. Lianndra noted that even though the women exuded the air of someone in charge, they each wore collars identical to her own.

  The taller one examined them as the door slid shut. Her face featured permanent frown lines as though she’d lived a life without joy. Gray strands invaded dark hair at the temples. “My name is Marnie,” the woman said. “I’m a ward supervisor on this ship. This is Kath. She is also a ward supervisor. I’m here to welcome you to your new life on the Fang Mothership Gikndia.”

  The word had a strange glottal stop in the middle of it. Glancing around, Lianndra noticed ten pairs of eyes staring at the women in astonishment. Kath seemed to examine each of them from the inside out, staring at them one at a time. Marnie also watched them after her opening salvo, noticing where each stood in the room as if assessing them.

  Andrea gave way to her impatience. “Nice to meet you, Marnie. I have a few questions, like, what is a ward supervisor?”

  “And what the heck is a Fang Mothership?” Lianndra surprised herself by speaking. Even though the dour women intimidated her, it seemed that a bigger part of her wanted answers.

  Marnie’s eyes flared for a moment. “Your ward supervisor is the one who organizes your sorry asses. These quarters are temporary. You will all be assigned permanent quarters under the supervision of either Kath or me. As your ward supervisors, we call all the shots for your new lives, including where you live, what you eat, when you train. You will listen and obey.”

  They paused again. Out of the corner of her eye, Lianndra saw Andrea roll her eyes. “All right, I must know—or what?” her friend asked.

  Kath grinned. Lianndra thought she’d never seen a less cheerful sight. “For many reasons, the one-year survival rate for new recruits is less than thirty percent. One cause of death is a lack of obedience.”

  Andrea frowned but didn’t respond. She looked concerned. Lianndra’s heart accelerated. Thirty percent is pretty low.

  Another woman asked with a slight tremor to her voice, “What exactly have we been recruited for?”

  Instead of answering, Marnie stepped forward to place a small round object on the table in front of them. She pressed something on the side and an image mater
ialized above it.

  Lianndra pressed herself deeper into the couch cushions. She didn’t have to look at Andrea to know she tensed up as well.

  The alien towered over them, only the faintest of flickers betraying it as a holographic image. Lianndra felt a shiver pass through her as she gazed upon the dreadful visage for the second time. The holograph made it impossible to judge the creature’s real size. The leathery skin seemed lighter than Lianndra remembered, more lilac than violet-black. The huge eyes appeared more orange than red, and the broad, elongated jaws beneath the nostrils seemed narrower. The creature’s head appeared hairless, with large scales coming to thick pointed crests.

  “The purpose of this recording is to orient new arrivals to their lives on the Tlok’mk Motherships.” The raspy voice slurred some consonants, but it was English, and Lianndra understood the alien. Surprised, she realized the voice sounded female. Squinting at the image, she saw how the thin skin around the pointed teeth puckered and the tongue contorted as it spoke. The alien had difficulty speaking the human language.

  “I am a Tlok’mk.” The word was almost indecipherable. “I am female or Fara. The males of my species are known as Farr.” The image changed to show a male.

  Lianndra instantly recognized the darker skin, broader body, and blockier face. Whereas the female had a noticeable neck, the male’s head flowed via bulky muscles into his massive shoulders. She noticed the hands of both sexes consisted of three thick fingers and a stubby opposable thumb, all terminating in hooked claws.

  When the image changed back to the Fara, the alien continued her speech in her hoarse voice. “You have joined the large population of slaves now calling this ship their home. The Tlok’mk collect many species as slaves. We sell most acquisitions to other markets, and we breed and genetically alter some to suit specialized purposes. Female slaves of your species, however, are to fulfill a specific task aboard this Mothership. We will train you to perform for our Farr in a competition. Only the best of you will be successful in this endeavor.”

  The image changed, panning across the expanse of a large room outfitted with platforms suspended in midair. A woman swung between platforms from a cable, while a bulky form moved deceptively fast to intercept her, dropping down on a cable of its own.

  It was a male—a Farr—and as they watched, the woman vaulted clear over him, landing on a platform above his head. Her leap appeared astonishing and impossibly high, but the alien moved just as deftly after her. A series of incredible acrobatic feats by the human followed, mirrored by impressive gymnastics on the part of the alien.

  “I introduce you,” the female rasped, “to the Blooddance.”

  Chapter Six

  BLOODDANCER LIANNDRA SWUNG DOWN TO the platform floor, reeling in the skrin attached to her wrist. Stationary for a microsecond, Lianndra called on the full length of her skrin to snatch a spar far above her and reel her to the next platform.

  The skrin responded to Lianndra’s every command. The device looked like a bulky metal cuff encircling her wrist, extending across the back of her hand to her thumb. It contained sensors that responded to nerve signals, extending a whiplike coil acting much like a prehensile tail. It facilitated navigation of the ever-changing landscape.

  The room’s dimensions gave it a palatial quality equaled only by the ancient cathedrals on Earth. Even the farthest corners received illumination. Hovering platforms of various sizes and shapes occupied the entire space, linked to each other as well as to the roof or floor by long narrow vertical spars. The spars glowed from within.

  Named the Coliseum, it reminded Lianndra of the famous sports arenas of ancient times on Earth. The Coliseum provided a home to the Blooddance. There were only two means of access to it: one slave entrance, and if all went well, exit. The creatures the humans called Fang used the other.

  Lianndra familiarized herself with the layout in the few seconds granted to her before the Blooddance began. With the skill acquired through experience, she cataloged the location of the platforms and spars with a single, sweeping glance. She would need every advantage available to her.

  With a blast of noise counting as alien music, her Fang opponent appeared in a doorway. Lianndra recognized him. The human derivative of his name was Hak’rsk. Like humans, the Fang were bipedal. The similarity between the two species stopped there. Much of Hak’rsk’s muscled bulk wore armor made of interwoven metal, leaving only his head and hands exposed. Like most Fang males, he stood less than six feet in height but possessed twice the width of a human. His limbs were wide in girth and his neck almost nonexistent, with big shoulder muscles flowing up into his jaw. The points of his teeth showed through the thin-skinned lips.

  Like many of the males of his species, Hak’rsk was ill-tempered and powerful. He possessed a particular weakness for human females with pale coloring, and she could use it to distract him during the Blooddance.

  Blooddance the humans called it: a good name. Half-fight, half-dance—it was all brutal. The Fang desired blood while the human wished only to survive. The longest recorded was seven hours. Many humans died in much shorter Dances. In the eight months since her enslavement by the Fang, Lianndra had developed a reputation as an accomplished Dancer.

  She crouched on her platform. Hak’rsk’s almost pupilless eyes locked with hers, their orange hue swirling with hints of deep red.

  Hak’rsk bared the sharp teeth earning his species the human nickname: Fang. Their real species name, the Tlok’mk, contained strange double glottal stops almost unpronounceable by humans, an indication of the difficulty inherent in humans speaking Fang. In the time Lianndra had Danced for them, she’d only been able to pick up a few words, and most were profane.

  The better I Dance, the more they swear, she thought.

  Lianndra drew on the strength of her experience to force an inner calm as she focused on Hak’rsk. She stared down at him and Hak’rsk grinned, pulling his lips back from his short, sharp incisors. He wouldn’t use those teeth on her. The feeding fangs—three long, wicked, piercing teeth—descended from his gums once he had her in his grasp. In one three-fingered, taloned hand he held the only accessory allowed: his skrin. He unfurled it with a smooth flick of his thick wrist, sending it soaring to the spar above her.

  The Dance was on.

  Blooddance was an accurate description. The Dancers trained to perform athletic leaps, twists, and spins in midair assisted by the skrins attached to their wrists. They trained in the equivalent of Earth’s gravity, which was more than that in the Fang part of the ship. Thus, when the humans moved to the Coliseum, they could perform with a swiftness that challenged their opponents. Without this advantage, they would be easy prey. Although heavily muscled, the Fang were able to move with surprising balance and grace through the air.

  Half an hour in, Lianndra panted in the hot, dry Fang atmosphere. She spun in the air, releasing her skrin midway to seize another spar. Hak’rsk seemed committed to a platform above her, but he unexpectedly released his skrin. She saw him plummet toward her and desperately twisted her torso away. His talons still managed to rake her shoulder, drawing first blood.

  Hak’rsk landed with a heavy thud on the floor, a move that would have broken human bones but didn’t faze the Fang in the slightest. Lianndra, panting in pain, finished her swing to an overhead spar. She felt the blood flowing down her back. She gritted her teeth and kept moving, flinging herself to yet another spar as Hak’rsk pressed his advantage by coming after her.

  Dammit, that’s an early tag. Lianndra clenched her jaw before swinging away.

  The Farr’s claws whistled through the air just past her right thigh. As Fang males went, Hak’rsk was an able warrior, although in their previous matches she went over an hour before he tagged her. Lucky shot on his part or apathy on mine? She didn’t have time to ponder the issue. Hak’rsk’s eyes reddened with bloodlust as he performed a swift change in direction to come at her from below, releasing his skrin in mid-swing.

  Once the
Fang injured the human, however minor, the Dance usually ended. Few Fang could resist the scent of human blood for long. Even as Lianndra contorted her body to miss his lethal talons, she saw him clench the fist of his free hand, activating the captive mode.

  In response, her skrin turned against her, releasing its hold on the spar above to whip itself around her body, binding her to the nearest narrow platform. Blood dripped from her shoulder. Her body tensed as the platform shuddered under Hak’rsk’s weight. The watching crowd of male Fang began to chant to a primitive beat not so different from that of ancient music back on Earth.

  He dropped to all fours behind her, climbing her prone body. Lianndra suppressed a shudder and closed her eyes. No matter how many times she went through this, she could not get used to it. I suppose the day I get used to it will be the day I no longer care. Then I’m as good as dead.

  Hak’rsk did not lie down on her since his greater weight would have crushed her. He hovered on all fours, letting his body brush against hers. His heavy breathing tugged at her hair, and she winced at the rancid smell. A long, dark purple tongue snaked out of his mouth to lap at the blood dripping from her shoulder. This time, Lianndra shuddered. The feel of his hot tongue repulsed her, and as it moved up the blood trail to the raked wounds on her shoulder, the revulsion turned to pain.

  Lianndra used her knowledge of Fang profanity, mentally cursing the Fang licking the blood from her body. She then cursed Fang in general. She particularly cursed the Fang culture that created the Blooddance as a means of keeping their males entertained while the females engaged in more intellectual pursuits.

  Hak’rsk gave a low moan before pushing off her. The chanting changed to cheering as he straightened and used his skrin to lower himself to the floor. He shook his fists in the air. The crowd roared.

  Lianndra regained control over her skrin once the Fang left the Coliseum. In pain and trembling with rage, Lianndra used it to drop down before exiting the arena through a different door than Hak’rsk. As always, emotions flooded her. All the Blooddances ended this way, but she could not get used to the feelings of anger and violation. She always left the Coliseum wishing she could kill all the Fang, the entire Mothership full of them.