The Breeding Experiment (Veslor Mates Book 3) Read online

  “Why?” Gnaw looked confused.

  “The original founders were highly religious. Bad words weren’t allowed.” Darla’s temper sparked. “They kept the law in place for women, but not the men. They don’t consider us morally superior. It’s a sham. They do a lot of bad things to women.”

  “Darla!” Her sister sounded horrified.

  She shrugged. “No one can arrest me anymore for telling the truth. Women aren’t seen as equals on Radison. Men can curse. Women can’t. We also have to abide certain dress codes that the men don’t, or we get punished.”

  Gnaw stared at her in surprise. “Like what?”

  “Our long hair, as an example. Short hair isn’t permitted on a woman. Unless there was an accident, like it caught fire. Even then, an official will inspect us for burn marks. We can trim it when it gets long enough to sit on, but that’s about it. Having hair less than waist-length as an adult will get a woman in trouble. We’re also allowed to wear pants at work or while traveling, but otherwise, we must be in a dress. All of our clothing has to be a certain length and cover most of our skin.”

  “Why?” Now he looked confused.

  “To remind us of who is in charge,” Darla admitted. “Of course, they deny that. They say it’s to help tell the difference between men and women from afar, which is ludicrous. Women who show too much skin are immediately arrested. It’s utter shat. If seeing a knee or elbow makes men attack us, they should be the ones in trouble with our law keepers.”

  “That’s confusing.” He shook his head.

  “The founders and first wave of colonists were from the same church. Really, they were a cult.” At his questioning expression, she explained, “That means they made up their own religion. Not that they’d admit that, either. It’s why they’d left Earth a long time ago. They lived by their own strict beliefs until making a profit got in the way.”

  He opened his mouth, probably to ask another question. That didn’t happen.

  Instead, there was a sudden boom in the shuttle and the lights went out.

  The engines died.

  Gnaw hadn’t warned anything like that could happen! Terrified, Darla blindly reached out and clutched at the big alien male yet again. She was pretty sure her fingers were on his thigh once more, but he didn’t jerk away. Thank god. Touching his huge, sturdy body made her feel safe.

  “What the fuck?” a man hissed.

  A woman yelled, “What is going on?”

  “Someone tell me we’re in orbit and we aren’t about to burn up if we start to fall back toward the planet’s gravity?”

  A couple of screams sounded. A few men cursed loudly.

  “Remain calm,” a man shouted. “The pilots will have everything under control soon.”

  “How do you know? Did you hear that boom? What was that?”

  Passengers began to argue. Some woman sobbed loudly. Darla kept hold of her sister—who pressed against her side—and held on tighter to Gnaw’s leg. He didn’t try to soothe her fears. That began to scare her even more as the arguing in the cabin grew worse, people afraid and panicking.

  “Goddamn it,” a man bellowed. “I’m ordering all of you to shut the hell up. I’m Adam Cook, first-shift pilot on Defcon Red. Is anyone of higher rank on this transport?”

  Everyone grew quiet, except for the woman crying.

  The man spoke again, still bellowing. “We’re all trained fleet members. Get yourselves together. And stop making that racket, woman!”

  The sobbing woman muffled her cries until they ceased. The sudden silence on the shuttle had gooseflesh rising on Darla’s arms.

  “I’m going to make my way to the pilots,” Adam Cook announced. “Remain strapped in and don’t panic. I’m sure it’s nothing. No gravity means we’ve reached orbit. There will be no burning-up-in-the-atmosphere bullshit.”

  “What about life support? Power seems to be completely down.” That question came from a man.

  “We’ll be fine,” Adam snapped. “Defcon Red will be tracking this transport since we’re heading their way and will send a rescue shuttle if the pilots can’t fix whatever went wrong.”

  A tiny light came on, and Darla fixed on it as it floated toward the front of the shuttle. It had to be Adam Cook. He’d unbuckled and was maneuvering his body toward the cockpit. He stopped at the front, and then cursed.

  “The doors aren’t opening,” he called out. “Communications seem to be down. There’s no power at all on this panel.” The light moved. “It must be a total power failure. Backups are down too. Just remain calm.”

  “What’s the time limit on oxygen reserves if life support is down?” It was a male who called the question out. “Does anyone know?”

  “Don’t cause more panic,” a woman ordered. “Defcon Red will reach us before then.”

  A clank sounded from the front.

  “Please, sir,” the same woman yelled. “Don’t try to open that panel!”

  “Who’s talking?” That was Adam Cook. “State your rank, woman.”

  “Bailey Edward, sir. I’m a supply shuttle pilot. Don’t attempt to break open the panel to override the controls for that door. With all power down, you have no idea what’s happening on the other side. Full-system failure tells me it might be catastrophic.”

  “What do you mean?” Adam sounded more irritated than concerned.

  “The backup systems are clearly out. That indicates there might be massive damage to the cockpit. Otherwise, the backups would have automatically kicked on. You open those doors and there’s no telling what will happen.”

  “It’s just a power failure,” Adam Cook argued.

  “Sir, no disrespect, but I disagree. We could have hit an asteroid chunk or space debris. Sensors aren’t reliable during transition. Even a tiny rock could have destroyed the cockpit window, taken out all systems, and killed the pilots from rapid air decompression. That section could now be exposed to space.”

  “Fuck!” Adam Cook sounded pissed.

  Darla’s fear doubled.

  The big Veslor put his warm hand over hers, pinning it against his leg. “It will be fine, female. I have this handled.” He released her…then something on his wrist lit up. Darla saw blue wiggly lines on a tiny screen.

  “What’s that?” She’d never seen anything like it.

  “I’ve just alerted my grouping that I need help. They will come.”

  “Do they have a shuttle?”

  He snorted. “No, but they’ll get one. Veslors are loyal. Whatever it takes, they will come.”

  Oddly, that comforted her.

  Chapter Two

  The humans had stopped their panicked bickering for the most part. Gnaw ignored them, instead focusing on soft, metallic scraping noises. It sounded like something was repeatedly rubbing against the back of the shuttle, just behind them. He couldn’t think of the cause, though.

  He braced his feet wider on the floor, closed his eyes against the darkness, and concentrated.

  They were moving. It was hard to detect but his senses were that good.

  With one arm, he reached up, placing his palm on the wall behind his head, and stretched his fingers wide. It confirmed his conclusion. He could feel a slight vibration, metal scraping, and—

  “Um, Gnaw?”

  The low female voice on his side distracted him, and he reached down, finding the female’s hand still resting on his thigh. He gave her hand a gentle pat. “It will be fine.”

  “It’s getting colder in here, isn’t it?”

  He debated on lying but that wasn’t his way. “Yes. Life support is down.”

  “Are we going to freeze to death before we run out of air?”

  “No.” That was also the truth. Their air would run out before the temperatures dropped low enough to cause death if a rescue shuttle didn’t arrive soon.

  “Thanks.”

  She sounded relieved, obviously unaware of the immediate danger they were in. He excused her ignorance, since she’d admitted it was her fi
rst time leaving her planet.

  He calculated they probably had twenty minutes of good air quality left, at best. Then it would thin enough that they’d lose consciousness long before the cold grew uncomfortable.

  He released the female and tapped on his wrist coms to tell his grouping to hurry, but the signal was gone.

  He scowled. How was that possible? It shouldn’t be. Even with the power on the shuttle down, he wasn’t far enough from his grouping not to be able to reach them. They’d tested it when he’d been on the planet buying his grouping new clothing. They all hated the materials that were available on Defcon Red.

  They’d believed it would be a short job, working for the fleet, but it had stretched into months…and now they had been asked to remain for another mission coming up soon.

  He didn’t like the options his mind came up with for why the signal wasn’t there.

  He closed his eyes and tried to use the implant inside his head. It was very faint, but the link remained active. He had no extra power source to draw from to amplify the signal with the shuttle down.

  The connection grew fainter as the seconds passed.

  His eyes snapped open and a growl tore from his throat.

  The little female next to him startled, her hand on his thigh tightening. “Are you alright?”

  “Either we’re moving farther away from Defcon Red, or they are leaving us.”

  “What?” She sounded stunned and fearful.

  “What is that you’re saying?” It was the annoying human male who had put himself in charge.

  Gnaw sealed his lips, his mind going over any reasons why Defcon Red would be farther away from them. And if the large vessel wasn’t traveling away, it had to mean the shuttle was. Had something happened that had sent the shuttle floating deeper into space in the opposite direction of the fleet vessel? Defcon Red should be following, if that were the case, coming after them.

  “Gnaw?” The female pressed her smaller body against his side.

  “Quiet, Darla. I am thinking,” he whispered.

  Something loudly bumped the shuttle.

  “It’s the rescue!” a female shouted from across the cabin.

  Gravity was brutally returned less than a minute later. Someone hit the floor inside the shuttle hard. The power didn’t come back on—but then a loud boom came from the roof.

  Gnaw reached for his safety belt, unbuckled it, and shook off Darla’s hand as he stood. He grabbed the hidden dagger he kept sheathed in his pants.

  Something was seriously wrong. Danger! His instincts were screaming at him. He never ignored them.

  Suddenly, metal screeched from above and part of the ceiling was ripped open.

  Bright lights blinded Gnaw. He threw up his other hand just as something dropped inside the shuttle. He blinked, his eyesight adjusting, and a snarl tore from his throat.

  It was some type of canister device.

  He turned, throwing his body toward the female who’d been kind to him, as well as her sister. He tried to shield them both with his body as a loud pop sounded and thick white gas poured inside the shuttle.

  Screams and shouts filled the transport. He held his breath but his skin tingled.

  Fuck. It isn’t just a lung irritant.

  The screaming stopped. The two females he continued to shield went limp under him.

  Gnaw turned his head and watched as two aliens dropped inside the shuttle where the roof used to be. Unfortunately, they were a race he recognized on sight.

  The Elth had elongated upper bodies, with tentacles under their bellies that acted as arms and legs.

  They met his gaze—all three eyes on each of their long faces flashed with fear.

  He now understood why the aliens had stolen their shuttle and kidnapped them. The Elth liked to perform medical experiments on other races, turning them into docile slaves when they were finished.

  Gnaw wasn’t going down without a fight. He’d kill them all.

  The humans were unconscious and hopefully unhurt. He didn’t have time to check on them. His first priority was killing the threat.

  Their weaknesses were their heads and bellies.

  In one movement, he rose to his full height and lunged at the closest Elth, unleashing his claws. Without pause, he slashed the alien across the midsection. White goo gushed out and the Elth fell to the floor.

  Gnaw turned on another, his lungs burning for air, but he didn’t breathe. The gas was still present, a light fog visible inside the shuttle.

  He stabbed the second one in the rounded top of the head with his dagger and slashed at its stomach with his clawed hand. It used at least five tentacles to shove him away, but it was too late. It dropped, dying quickly.

  He shut his eyes and let his rage take hold, his body transforming into battle mode. The dagger clattered to the shuttle floor as he released it.

  He leapt through the ripped-open ceiling and landed on the roof on four paws.

  More of the aliens waited in the shuttle bay of whatever ship they’d been brought to. There were over a dozen—clearly surprised to see him. He evaluated his attack plan even as he wiggled out of the torn clothing still attached to his body.

  Once free, he sprang off the roof of the shuttle. When he landed in their docking bay, his body almost buckled, his body betraying him, but he refused to pass out. His rage helped him push the weakness back. He was also able to suck in fresh air to fill his lungs.

  He attacked the closest Elth, pounced on it and tore it open with his claws. It cried out in pain but quickly stilled under him. He went for another one, listening as his translator interpreted their language.

  “Take it down!” one of them shrieked.

  “Throw more canisters,” another screeched.

  Gnaw ignored them, attacking as many of them as he could. They had defenseless bodies that were easy to kill—but the Elth were smart. Whatever gas they’d tossed into the shuttle had not only been an inhalant, it had done something to his skin. It was slowly weakening him, making him drowsy.

  They deployed more canisters into the large shuttle bay, white smoke billowing from the devices. He tried to avoid it, killing more of the Elth. They couldn’t move fast enough to escape him as he took them out one by one…

  The smoke was spreading swiftly, and Gnaw glanced around, trying to find an exit. He needed to get out of the bay, find a way to wash his skin if he stood any chance of fighting against whatever chemical they were using.

  There was a door near him, and he ran for it. It didn’t auto-open. He ran so fast, he slid into the metal barrier—hard. It stunned him but he rose, using his claws to tear at the panel. The metal gave way under his sharp tips and sparks flew. The door began to open, and he dropped to all fours.

  On the other side wasn’t fresh air, though, or freedom.

  The opening was filled with more white smoke.

  Trying not to breath, he rushed forward. There was nowhere else to go.

  “Deploy gas on all levels!” one of the Elth squealed.

  Gnaw ran but the smoke blinded him. His lungs burned, and he slammed into a wall he couldn’t see. The smoke grew too thick and the drowsiness increased. His skin itched badly. But he kept moving, kept looking for an escape.

  Until his front paws gave out on him, and he went down. Darkness filled his mind.

  They’d caught him.

  * * * * *

  The scary aliens stared back at Darla through the glass wall that separated them.

  She’d woken up in the room with her sister and nine other women from the shuttle, but there was no sign of Gnaw or any of the men. She had no idea if they were dead or just being held somewhere else.

  “What do you think they want?” Becky whispered.

  Darla wished she had an answer for her baby sister. “The fleet will come for us,” she whispered back.

  “They grabbed us right in front of the fleet! How could this happen?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, keeping her sister behind
her.

  “You’re going to pay for this, you freaks!” It was the loudmouth blonde from the shuttle. She walked up to the glass wall and made obscene gestures at their captors. “The fleet will hunt your ugly squid asses down and we’ll have a fish fry! Calamari, asshole. Look that up!”

  Darla inwardly winced. She remembered the woman’s name from their transport. “Maybe you shouldn’t agitate them, Barbara,” she whispered.

  The blonde snarled at her. “Fuck off, animal lover.”

  Darla clamped her lips together as Barbara turned her anger back to the glass wall and the aliens standing on the other side.

  Their upper bodies reminded Darla of a ghost. They looked as if someone had thrown a fleshy sheet of white over their elongated, blob-like upper halves, with thick tentacles holding them up from below. They each had ten of them. Where their faces should have been were only three round, dark eyes, and a harsh slit for a mouth centered about five inches beneath them.

  “The fleet is coming for us,” Barbara yelled. “They will fry your asses. You fucked with the wrong shuttle!”

  “Why is she trying to anger them? It’s just going to make things worse, right?”

  “Yes,” Darla whispered back to her sister. “I hope they can’t understand her.”

  “What do you think they want?”

  “I don’t know, Becky. Just keep calm.”

  “What if they want to eat us?” Her sister pressed closer. “Are those Ke’ters?”

  “No. Ke’ters are reptilian. Those are…” Darla didn’t have any idea. “Not reptiles.”

  “Fish people who can breathe air…or maybe not air, since we don’t know what’s on the other side of that glass wall. It’s solid. I don’t see any holes in it, do you?”

  “No but it looks like air on the other side.” Darla was glad her sister wasn’t totally panicking. “The fleet will be looking for us. We just need to remain calm and give them time. I’m pretty sure their shuttles have trackers.”

  Barbara kept screaming at the aliens, making threats. It was causing Darla’s headache to worsen. She’d woken with it, probably from the gas that had knocked them out.