Prohibit (3 page)

“It was part of the preparation to become a Familiar. We were taught how to care for your physical being as well as train you.”

“That is peculiar. Why not let you learn as you go?”

“Because we would make mistakes and mistakes break trust. Trusting your Familiar is all important. Many of our population would jump at the chance to get their genes into the next generation without authorization.”

She tensed under his touch. “You mean rape.”

“Yes. And though it would mean death for any man who tried it, for many, it would be worth the risk to see their genes carried on into the next generation.”

“Why would they risk death for such a little thing?” She grunted as he worked at her shoulder.

“It isn’t little. We may live as clones, but we see other species. We know how they mate and how their children grow. Sometimes, we save the children and sometimes they are targets.”

She sighed. “Answer me one thing.”

“Name it.”

“What happened to the women? The Lrrko women. There were some. The records mention them in passing, but they only say that the females dwindled. Why?”

He paused for a moment, and then, he stroked his hands down her lower back and butt. “The women were targeted. Those species who held resentments against the Lrrko identified the women as our weak point and targeted them. As they were the better agents, they were in the field when the wave of attacks came. By the time the Lrrko reacted to the danger, the female population had been reduced by ninety percent. It was decided that the ladies should donate their eggs and the children would all be gestated in the tanks. At that point, no one knew that the women who were off world had been poisoned and they only had six months before they began to die.” He worked on her legs.

“That sounds unpleasant.”

“It was. There are memorials to many of the women around Lrrko.”

“I would like to see them.”

“Then you shall. The first day that travel is authorized, you shall see at least one of the memorials.”

She smiled and relaxed under his hands. “So, that is why the Familiars have been drafted. You are to keep us safe.”

“We are. There were more volunteers than the Elders could handle, but we were the final choices, and the honour of the duty is not lost on us.”

He patted her butt. “Turn over.”

She rolled to her back, and he worked on her abs, her thighs and massaged her breasts.

“What kind of tension am I holding there?”

He chuckled. “There are lymph nodes at the top and sides of your breasts that can hold tension. If I can release that...”

Salt rushed the back of her throat. “Holy heck. That actually worked.”

“We are similar enough in biology that it was easy to learn how Terrans work.”

He shifted his hands to the balls of her shoulders, and he massaged while lifting her until she was hanging from his hands. When he set her down again, he slid his hands under her hair and worked on the tension at the back of her skull. She fought the urge to nod off as the scalp massage took her over.

He slowly settled her back on the table and covered her with a sheet.

All of her muscles were humming gently, down to her toes. She lay back and dozed, waking up abruptly when she tried to roll over. The bed was extremely narrow.

“Shit!”

She grabbed the edge and sat up quickly. Her heart was pounding and the sheet hit the floor.

Helbri was at her side in a moment. “Is something wrong?”

“No. Sorry. Just a sudden wakeup and I wasn’t in a proper bed.”

Helbri nodded and lifted her off the med bed. “I shouldn’t have left you, but we just did our final jump. We will be home on Lrrko within the next six hours.”

“Wonderful. Where are you putting me?”

“You are obviously tired. You are going to be tucked into bed for the next three hours. Then, you will have a meal and we will watch the world grow bigger as we approach.” He set her down in her bed and tucked her in.

“I thought it was supposed to take weeks.”

He chuckled. “That is just what I told the Alliance. We have been through magnetic storms, hidden jump sites and a number of other impassable fields. No one knows where the Lrrko live. We had a planet mover hide us after the women were eradicated. We all are given paths to take and no two are the same. It makes for difficult timing when we need to make a group briefing after a mission.”

She nodded and pulled the blankets up over herself. “Oh, goody. More to learn. I thought I would have more time to learn to fight.”

He smoothed her hair from her forehead. “There is time for that, Cleo.”

Cleo nodded and let her fatigue and the warmth that she was feeling pull her into sleep.

A warm cup of tea was being waved under her nose. She opened her eyes to look into the lenses she had become used to. “For me? How thoughtful.”

He waited until she sat up, and then, he handed her the tea. “You slept longer than I anticipated.”

“I suppose I am not taking well to space travel.”

“On the contrary. Sleeping and functioning normally are very good signs that you are able to manage it without difficulty.” He patted her on the knee. “I would recommend that you get dressed.”

She sipped at the tea. “Why the rush?”

“Well, we landed ten minutes ago, and the medical staff is eager for the baseline scans.”

She looked at him. “What?”

“Yes. The Elders have already sent their welcome messages and our riot runner is waiting for us. You just have to put your clothing on.”

She pushed him aside and lunged for the drawer set into the wall. She pulled on the shirt and wiggled into the footed leggings with minimal fuss. Practice made perfect.

“Ready.”

He slid his hands around her neck and pulled her tumble of hair out of her top, setting it neatly down her back. “There. Much better. Well, if you are ready, here we go.”

He took her hand and led her out of the hatch. She watched as he punched in a code that opened the door.

There was a crowd of men, and a cheer went up as she left the shade of the shuttle and stepped into the light.

The crowd surged toward them, and Helbri pulled weapons.

Cleo realized that she must have been tired if she hadn’t noticed that Helbri had armed himself.

The crowd took the hint and backed off, leaving the clear path to the motorcycle-looking thingy. It looked like a Harley had mated with a hover car.

She walked next to him and settled in front of him on the bike. At this point, it was natural for her to lean back against him as his arms came around her and gripped the controls. The vehicle hummed to life, and they lifted off.

Cleo took in the city below, and she realized that it was surprisingly normal looking. Either looks could be deceiving, or she might even grow to like it here.

It wasn’t an enthusiastic thought, but it was one of the more positive moments she had had that didn’t revolve around weaponry. She would take it.

“No. Absolutely freaking no.” She crossed her arms.

Medic Alveck looked a little surprised. “I know that you would prefer to be with your Familiar, but he has an assignment that cannot be delayed. The moment he is back in his body and ready for travel, he is leaving.”

“I am not getting into that tube.”

“It isn’t a tube; it is a tank. It is for your safety.”

He was trying to be reasonable, but she wasn’t having any of it.

She crossed her arms and prepared to go another round with him, but he moved more quickly than she was anticipating. A small cylinder hit her shoulder, and a cool jet of something entered her bloodstream.

“You son of a bitch.” She was furious as she tilted toward the floor.

The hand pressed against her tank was familiar by description. She looked up and scowled at Helbri’s flesh and blood face.

He grinned, the white teeth the only bright point in the otherwise shadowy body. He pressed his forehead against the domed tank and mouthed the word,
Soon.

She crossed her arms as well as she could with the wires in her limbs, and she waited until he waved farewell before she looked around.

A medic took readings from the side of the tank, and he smiled politely at her before he left.

Well, if they don’t want me running around loose, they bet on the wrong girl.

She braced her legs against the back of the tank and her arms against the front, and she pushed. The tank was larger than the one she had been in on the moon, but she managed the reach and pressed hard. It cracked but didn’t break.

She stopped and looked upward, seeing the opening of the tank, recognizing an easier target when she saw one. She surged upward and broke through the grill that covered the top of the cylinder. The wires were harder to remove on her own, but she pulled them out while she coughed and sputtered.

Removing the connections was not a memory she would treasure, but it got her loose enough to take the ladder down and find a large medical robe that covered her from neck to knees.

The halls were sparsely populated, and she was small compared to a Lrrko male. No one was looking for someone of her size.

Soon, someone was going to notice the puddle she was leaving behind. She didn’t know how many floors there were below, but she could go up.

The stairs were silent, and she ran as quickly as she could up the steps to the roof. The guards were speaking with someone who had either just landed or was taking off, so Cleo crept around and got on the nearest riot runner, starting it up and taking off.

The controls were more complicated than she imagined, but as she got the hang of it, she was able to put the med centre behind her.

There was only one place she wanted to be, and that was next to Helbri. She gunned the runner and headed directly to the airfield. Helbri’s preflight checks would take him some time. The ship had to be refuelled, so Cleo had a few minutes.

She didn’t know if Helbri had made it out of the med centre, but she wasn’t going to wait. She knew where to hide on the ship, and hopefully, he wouldn’t notice her as a stowaway until it was too late.

* * * *

“Well, Helbri, you have come through your projection all right. Your Bride seems particularly volatile.”

Helbri checked his weapon belt and continued dressing for his journey. “She has a dislike of confinement. It is understandable. She did not precisely come on her own volition.”

Medic Alveck stared at him. “You are not joking.”

“I am not. The Elders’ threat to go to Terra looking for the last of our Brides was treated seriously. They drugged and abducted her. She woke in a tank and nearly broke it. We opted to have her sedated and out of the tank while she completed her alterations.”

“Well, well. None of the other Brides were escape artists.”

Helbri finished with lacing his boots, and he smiled at Alveck. “Take good care of her, Alveck.”

“I will, Helbri. I promise, when you are back, she will be in the same shape she is now.”

Helbri nodded. “Excellent. Well, see you in a week.”

Helbri remembered Cleo’s face when she woke. Alveck was going to have his hands full. Cleo did not like the tank, and she was not going to be shy about letting them know.

He got on his riot runner and flew to the airfield. It felt good to be in his own skin again, but what he really wanted was to feel Cleo with his own hands. The sensory input from the bot was just a little too clinical.

He checked with the ground crew, and they gave him confirmation that the ship was ready to fly. His weapons were still on the ship. It would be a fast mission. All he had to do was take out a cult leader who was kidnapping women and men from nearby worlds for his own public displays of sexual aggression and Helbri could return to Cleo.

He entered his shuttle, and he could swear he could still smell Cleo. With a sigh of frustration, he ignored the sudden throb in his groin and closed the hatch.

He swung into the command seat and entered the destination, lifting off while the nav computer plotted his course.

The familiar pathway through the asteroid belt forced him to concentrate until the computer could take over.

When the shuttle was on its way to Ytheera, he stretched and stood, heading to the galley to get something to eat. He wished that Cleo was with him, but this mission would be far too dangerous to have her along.

He smiled as the computer took control of the route, and he got up, heading to the rear of the shuttle to check on his weaponry.

Cleo had gotten honey on two of his weapons while he was training her, and he didn’t need anything sticky interfering with his concentration while taking aim at his target. With nothing else to do on the journey, he opened his arsenal and did routine maintenance on the tools of his trade.

* * * *

Cleo could hear movement on the other side of the cargo hold. She shifted slightly, but the confined space was doing a number on her self-control.

How long was she going to have to hang out in the equipment locker before it was too late to take her back?

She winced and shifted again.

Cleo didn’t hear a thing, but the lid of the storage container flipped open and she was facing the muzzle of a weapon that she had met before.

The weapon was holstered in a moment, and she blinked at the sudden influx of light.

“Cleo, what are you doing here?” The growled words were in a familiar voice.

“I don’t like the tank. I am not staying there.” She muttered it and cuddled against him, relieved to be out of her confinement.

He held her to him, and as the bright spots faded in her vision, she noted that he hadn’t been kidding. He was sculpted shadow brought to life.

“Wow. You were not kidding.”

She reached up and touched his face with careful fingers. She whispered, “This is so weird.”

He smiled, and then, the smile froze on his lips. “You are bleeding.”

“Still? I thought that the wounds from the tank wiring would have closed already.”

He got to his feet without a word, and he walked her through the ship to put her down on the med bed. He stripped her while the scanner moved over her, and he hissed.