Her Cyborg Warriors. Grace Goodwin
I was going to space. Leaving everything I knew behind. No more ocean. No more fish, whales, waves. No more surfing.
The chair slid backward into an opening in the wall I hadn’t even noticed before. Soft blue light engulfed me.
The older warden, Warden Egara, who had been watching and nodding in approval as though Warden Bisset was doing everything right, moved out of the way as the younger woman came to stand beside the opening. “Please remain still for any preparation or body modifications that might be required prior to transfer.”
“What?” I began to fight the restraints.
“Ms. Tanaka, please do not resist. You will only hurt yourself.”
“Resist what? What body modifications? Aren’t two mates enough? Two bossy mates?”
“Your testing pulled your deepest desires and wants from your subconscious.”
“Those weren’t my deepest desires!”
Warden Bisset looked over her shoulder with a helpless smile, and Warden Egara came forward and placed a hand on my forearm, the action oddly calming.
“Weren’t they?” she asked. She gave me a soft smile. “Sometimes it is extremely difficult for women as strong as you are to find a mate dominant enough to handle your… umm… needs. Two Prillon warriors as mates will be perfect for you.” She gave a little laugh and looked down at her tablet. “Well, ninety-eight percent perfect.”
A large needle came out of the wall on a long, metallic arm, and I tried to avoid it until Warden Egara squeezed her hand hard enough that I looked up at her.
The needle stung as it entered my skin, behind the base of my ear, but the process was over as fast as a flu shot.
“We have implanted a very small device into your temporal bone. The device is no larger than a grain of rice. It is called an NPU, or Neural Processing Unit. The device will allow you to understand all languages. Do not be afraid. When you wake, Mikki Tanaka, you will be on The Colony and your mate will be waiting for you.”
“Wait!” I called, but the warden just smiled like everything was right as rain and the chair was lowered into a warm, blue bath. My thoughts quieted, but I fought the lethargy stealing over me, realizing this was the last bit of water I’d have on Earth.
“Your processing will begin in three… two… one.”
3
Mikki, The Colony, Transport Two
I awoke naked. Why was I naked? I mean, really? What was the point in that? The hospital gown thing I’d been wearing for the testing wasn’t anything to write home about, but at least it had covered me.
The warden had said my mate would be waiting for me. Well, if I was supposed to be mated to three overly excited women, I’d really missed the memo. They didn’t look like aliens, although I wasn’t sure what alien females looked like, so I guessed them to be from Earth.
They hugged me when I pushed up off the hard floor of the transport pad. They introduced themselves so quickly I had trouble keeping track. Rachel and Lindsey, I heard. Crystal or Christy? Kristin… was the third one? Something like that. At least it appeared I would have some friends out here. Very perky, eager friends. That was good news, because the idea of being claimed by the giant aliens standing around the edges of the room checking me out made me want to curl into a nervous ball, sink to the floor and vomit what little I’d eaten for breakfast all the way across the universe back on Earth.
The alien males were all huge. Epically huge. Like The Mountain on Game Of Thrones but handsome and in better clothes. Seven feet tall with sharp features and oddly colored eyes. Their skin tones varied from gold, brown and copper, like they’d been made of earthen elements and metal. They were, to be honest, hot as hell, but I had no idea which one was mine, and no chance to ask questions because the women surrounding me were talking faster than a gaggle of high school cheerleaders at a pep rally.
“Hi! I’m Rachel. My mate is the governor here, and I work in medical, so anything you need, you just find me. Okay?” Rachel hugged me, even though I was naked, which was weird and sweet and, well, weird. She wore a dark green tunic and pants that looked extremely comfortable, a pair of comfy green shoes, and her dark hair was pulled up in some kind of twist. She wore an odd, copper-colored collar around her neck, but she didn’t seem to mind it, so I assumed it was the fashion around here.
Rachel seemed kind, and her brown eyes held nothing to make me doubt her. Up close, it was obvious she was human. They all were. Thank God.
The next woman had pixie-cut blonde hair and wore armor, like she was a soldier or police officer of some kind. I didn’t think the space gun attached to her hip and thigh was for show. Was she police? Military? She had on one of the strange collars as well, but hers was dark green. I didn’t know how this planet worked yet, but she smiled and yanked a blue blanket from the hands of one of the tall, sexy aliens standing near the edge of the platform. She draped it around me, and I thanked her, tugging the ends of it close in front of me. Obviously Rachel was kind, but this woman was sensible. I’d remember that.
“Welcome to the Twilight Zone. I’m Kristin,” she said. “I figured you might want to cover up.”
“Mikki. Mikki Tanaka. And thanks.” I said, gripping the blanket closed.
“Where are you from?” she asked.
“Hawaii.”
“Awesome.” Kristin raised a brow. “You surf then? Or just love working out? Yeah, sorry, couldn’t mistake all those muscles.”
Definitely some kind of cop. They were the type to size people up. Threat assessment and all that. She wasn’t wrong, but I’d made it easier for her since she’d looked at me bare-assed naked. “Yes to surfing. Two-time world champion, but a long time ago. Now I just do it because I love it. Well… did.”
“North Shore? Oahu?” Her eyes grew wide.
“Yes.”
“Big waves there.”
Again, not wrong. I liked her more every second. “The biggest.”
“Nice.” Her face looked as if I were describing the most delicious bite of chocolate. A mixture of pleasure and envy. “A fellow adrenaline junkie. I worked for the FBI before I came here. Now I run scouting missions with some of the guys.” She tipped her head toward the males in the room.
“Nice,” I repeated. We shared a moment of understanding before the pretty blonde standing behind her interrupted. I actually recognized her from some of the videos I’d watched before deciding that being an Interstellar Bride would probably be better than spending a decade in a prison cell.
“Hi. I’m Lindsey.” Sweet, blonde, gorgeous with a softness about her that made one want to tell her all their secrets. No collar. So there went the fashion accessory theory.
“I recognize you.”
She grinned. “I was a blogger back home. Now I do special interest pieces and handle PR for the guys here. We send videos and interviews back to Earth trying to get more women to volunteer for the Brides Program.”
“Yeah, I watched some of those. They were really good.”
“Thanks.” She blushed, which was endearing. She seemed too nice to be real, but then I was used to working in a lab with a bunch of nerds who spent most of their free time gaming. Or hanging with radicals, hippies that rarely bathed and environmental activists that were just as comfortable tracking wild animals through the woods as they were sitting across from their mothers at the dinner table. Kind, upstanding citizens weren’t my usual cup of tea.
Since I hadn’t exactly volunteered to leave Hawaii,