The bliss felt so good I almost came. I staggered to my feet, high, swaying. My arm wouldn’t do what it was supposed to – dislocated. Wasn’t the first time, and probably wouldn’t be the last. I pulled my useless left arm up and slowly rotated and pushed until the shoulder popped back into socket. The grinding pressure of my shoulder slapped me with another splash of euphoria and put a huge grin on my face. I checked my ankle where the warrior had sliced into me. The bleeding had stopped, and it was already healing. As long as I took it easy for a couple hours I’d be fine.
I trotted off down the corridor, happy enough to whistle. “I rule this fucking station. Cats think they can take me. Whatever!”
I’d never let them corner me.
* * * *
As a precaution, I took the time to hit a thorough sonic shower and changed into a light blue jumpsuit borrowed from one of the janitor’s work lockers. I couldn’t risk the Gran picking up my scent again.
Clean and refreshed, I slipped into Carver’s office and snagged his tab. He had most functions of the station available on his tablet, but I needed to be near him so his ident would activate all the security stuff. Without Carver close by, I had limited access on his tab but I was able to turn on the hallway motion sensors. Immediately, blinking indicators popped up by the laboratories. I struggled with the lockout sequence on the hallway cameras.
Every person born Earthside or Colonial had an ident implant – except me. I was never officially born. I was created. According to Earthside and Colonial systems, I didn’t even exist. The only way I could access Earthside media was via Carver or D’Anton, when they gave me permission, or when they didn’t know I was using their tabs within a ten meter radius of them.
I couldn’t get past the limits on Carvers tab, so I raced down the ducts to the lab, where I knew he was locked away. I just needed to get close enough for his ident to register. After a few minutes of quietly working my way across the lab, Carver’s tab lit up with authorization and I activated all the hall cams to find the Gran marching down the corridor to the docking bay. All of them, the entire security force, and the Captain himself.
I could hardly believe what I was seeing. I had only killed one warrior. I hadn’t even tried to kill him, not really. It was dumb luck. Why would they give up and leave so easily? I thought these creatures were predatory hunters, I thought they prided themselves on their rituals of glorified combat.
One dead kitty and it was over? Maybe the Gran weren’t so badass after all.
It could be a trap … they knew I was watching and wanted me to come to the docking bay to see them go. No way. Not this Angel. I was staying hidden until I could make certain all the Gran had shipped out.
* * * *
After watching them leave the station, I returned Carver’s tab to his office and made my way to my special hiding spot. I waited two hours for the idiot to find me in our secret place – a cabin near the hub, once a maintenance room. A year ago he’d set the room up with a mattress and cot, then shut down general access codes to the door. Only I knew the code. Only I had ever slept on this mattress. The bed still smelled of the last time we were together, a few hours before the Gran had arrived and turned our lives upside down.
Carver let himself into the room and latched the door closed behind him. Tired and weary, he leaned his forehead against the wall. “I knew you’d be here.”
My lover wasn’t exactly a genius, but I knew he’d figure it out … eventually.
“Where else would I be?” I came to him and ran my hands over his strong back and shoulders. I loved the feel of his well-muscled shoulders when he was on top of me, inside me. I kissed the back of his neck.
He turned to me, and instead of a grin, his face was somber, deadly serious. “When they returned to their ship they took several doctors. They have Chianen, Rogers, and Christoph. Captain Cronin promised to kill one prisoner every six hours until you are delivered to them. We have four hours before he kills the first hostage.”
Horror struck me silent. My heart squeezed with the vice grip of Carver’s words. His face was dark, brooding and dangerous. “I don’t know how to fix this, Angel.”
Tears ran down his dark skin, and my own vision blurred with the hot tears in my eyes.
I never had reason to cry apart from physical pain – a fleeting experience. This pain was like nothing I’d felt before. A twisting agony clawed at my heart and guts, like a powerful hand squeezed the life out of me. I could hardly speak. “What … how can they do this? What about the treaty?”
He came at me and slammed me against the wall. His arms pinned me with his strong grip on my shoulders. “The Treaty was our only salvation from slavery! The Gran adhere to the agreement as long as we keep them supplied with what they want. If not for this godforsaken cloning installation, the Gran would be parked in Earth orbit right now, stealing every man, woman and child to ship off to their slave labor mines across the galaxy.”
“But we won the war! They were the ones who offered us the treaty.”
His eyes dropped away from me, and he laughed, a dark mocking sound. “Did you ever ask yourself why Earth would agree to sell the Gran human clones for slave labor, if we won the war?”
I had wondered about that.
“Angel, you can’t believe everything people tell you. We are liars. We lie even to ourselves.”
“The treaty keeps the Gran from attacking Earth?”
He nodded. “You have angered the Captain. You killed one of his soldiers. They are vicious warriors. They want blood for blood. It’s their way.”
I tried to interrupt him. “He was trying to kill me –”
“It doesn’t matter, Angel. The Gran hold all the cards in this deal. Our operation exists to serve their demands. If we don’t…”
The fear of losing everything I had ever known gripped my chest. The fear of losing Carver hit me harder still. I had imagined several distinct futures where Carver and I were together, in a real relationship, not this secretive half-life we shared. All my hopes and dreams fell away in the face of a torturous existence beneath the whip of the Gran.
I had no way to imagine what my life would be like with the Cats, or why I should go on living. I was an experiment, a subject, a biotech investment in human evolution. I was a thing to be studied.
The experiment was over.
What purpose could I serve to mankind working in slave labor for these inhumane Cats?
Here in this moment, as my world reached the end of its cycle, all that mattered anymore was the feel of Carver’s powerful body beneath my fingers resting against his chest. I needed to feel him one last time before it was over. I needed him now. I kissed him and melted into his body. He responded and slipped his wonderful, warm tongue into my mouth. His hands found their way around my ass and squeezed.
He broke away from our kiss, that darkness still in his eyes. “There’s no time. You must go to them.”
“Make love to me, Carver. Show me what might have been.”
His eyes flicked to the bed, and back to me. I took away his ability to say no when I unzipped his pants and slipped my hand inside. He tried to pull away, but I held onto his hardening cock and he could not escape me. When I dropped to my knees and suckled gently on the soft, beautiful head of his erection, he stood still in my mouth.
I unzipped the front of my jumpsuit all the way past my crotch and revealed that I wore nothing underneath. His eyes glazed with desire as I wet his cock again. He was so large that he simply couldn’t fit inside me without lubrication. Once more I pushed him back onto our bed and straddled his legs as I guided all that hardness inside me. My vision blurred with tears and I sank all the way down, little by little, stretching to accommodate him inside me one last time.
“Oh god, Angel, I think I love you.” More of his beautiful tears ran down his perfectly sculpted dark skin.
His tears and his final admission of the truth left me speechless. I rode him, slowly, grinding him deeper and deep
er inside me, my head buried in the soft curls of black hair on his chest. I sobbed with an outpouring of love, joy and emotions I had never experienced before.
Here in the end I loved him more, I loved him with such powerful intensity. My love for him consumed me. When I convulsed around his wonderful erection, feeling his seed spilling inside me, his hands clawing at my back once more, I knew this was the height of my life. This one moment made it all worthwhile.
I could go to the Gran, to an untimely death, to whatever fate awaited me in the cold darkness of space. I knew love. Real love. I was not just a thing to be studied. I was more than the subject of an experiment, more than the sum of my DNA.
Carver loved me, and I loved him in return.
* * * *
Chapter 4
Dazed, and barely able to see past my tears, Carver led me through the hallways and access corridors towards the docking bay. The station was strangely silent. I assumed people must have returned to their cabins to rest after the ordeal I had put them through trying to escape the inescapable. We passed D’Anton’s personal lab and I caught a glimpse of him through the window. He stood in front of his desk, a brooding look on his face. Our eyes locked and his look flipped to rage.
I wished he wouldn’t be angry. There was nothing he could do to change my fate. No point in getting angry. But it warmed me inside to know that D’Anton cared enough to be upset. To most people on the station I was a thing. A thing to be watched. An object to be studied. An oddity to be wary of. A problem to be worried about. To D’Anton and Carver, I was a person.
I waved goodbye to D’Anton through the window, and tried to impart my wish for him to accept this, to be at peace. As he slammed into the door of his lab and rattled the handle, it struck me funny. Why would he still be locked inside?
If the Gran were gone …
Strange ideas began to seep into my dazed mind, and I slowed down. Carver pulled me along to the entrance of the docking bay. “We are running out of time, Angel.”
A crackling-burning noise drew my attention to the door of D’Anton’s lab. The man I considered a father and one of my only friends kicked through his door and stepped into the hallway with his plasma pistol in hand. He looked enraged beyond all reason.
“Carver! Traitor to humanity! You’re giving away our most prized possession! She’s worth every drop of your imbecile blood. Don’t you dare take her to them!”
Carver yanked hard and pulled me into the docking bay doors. He immediately set the doors to lock out D’Anton in the hallway.
“What’s he saying? Why is he so angry?”
Carver looked at me with eyes full of desperation. I had never seen this look on his face. I knew then he was capable of things I had never thought he would do, to me, to anyone. This was not the man I loved. A sharp pain stung my left arm. Carver emptied a syringe of clear fluid into me.
“I don’t understand…” My tongue turned to a hunk of lead in my mouth and I lost the ability to speak. Heavy weights draped my entire body and my limbs grew numb. I could no longer hold my weight on my feet.
Carver caught me as I fell. His teary, intense, desperate eyes pierced my soul. “I’m so sorry, Angel. They’ll kill me if I don’t deliver you to them.”
He carried me cradled in his arms, as if he loved me. How could he do this if he loved me? My drug-hazed mind could not piece together the meaning of it all.
He never looked away from my face as he carried me to the waiting shuttle. “We can make more of you, Angel. I promise to treat you better next time, you have my word. I’m not replaceable like you.”
Swimming through the thick gooey drugs, I finally understood what he was saying. An apology.
I heard their growls and yips as they stepped down off the shuttle craft. The Gran were waiting for me. Waiting for Carver to do whatever it took to survive. Humanity’s greatest asset as a species, and yet our greatest weakness.
The crackle-burn noise came from the docking bay doors and another smashing-kick sounded. My heart leapt, my father was coming to save me.
“Put her down or I’ll burn your face off.” D’Anton aimed his pistol at Carver’s head and approached.
The yip-growling noises of the Gran hit a sharp pitch. The partial translation floated in my mind. Stop him.
That electric whining sound buzzed and I caught flashes of light in my peripheral vision as three warriors flew past me with their gauntlet blades activated. They surrounded D’Anton menacingly, and I knew there was no way he could shoot them all and survive. They were too strong, too fast, had too long a reach on him. They were trained warriors, he was only a doctor.
The glowing light spun in a downward arc as one of the Cats severed D’Anton’s gun hand from his body. He looked down at the stump of his right forearm in shock. Strange gibbering noises issued from him as he cradled his bloody-roasted arm to his body.
He swayed on his feet as he looked up at me and Carver. “She is the untapped potential of the human genome. You’ve bartered our Angel for a moment of peace. How will you placate them the next time they come for their pound of flesh?”
Carver had no words for the doctor or me, and he could no longer look me in the eyes. I read it in his face, in everything about him – a deep shame. When he handed me off into the waiting arms of Captain Cronin, I understood that Carver could live with his shame. He was planning to make it up to the next generation Angel. I was Angelina 6.0. My fuzzy mind reached for a strange idea – had Carver been intimate with previous Angelina generations before me?
The truth hit me then. There were no hostages to exchange for my life. Listening to his lies, the lies he’d warned me of, I had given myself over to save the pathetic life of Carver Liddell.
The Captain hefted my limp weight in his arms. Numbed as I was, I could still feel the short, soft fur of his muscular arms and the sharp pinch of his claws digging into my leg and arm. His vertically slit eyes assessed me with an unmistakable look of satisfaction. He growled orders to his crew. “Kill them both.”
One of the three warriors surrounding D’Anton swiped his glowing hot gauntlet down the front of the doctor’s torso and cut him wide open. D’Anton fell to the floor screaming in agony. The warrior standing near Carver activated his gauntlet in mid swing. His blade lit up with white-hot energy and sliced all the way through Carver’s throat and out the other side.
Carver’s head flew through the air and rolled to a stop on the floor. His beautifully sculpted face stared at me with a look of surprise. He’d given up his chance of happiness with the woman he loved, and gained nothing in return.
I was so numb with paralysis from the drug, I could hardly sob as tears of grief streamed down my face. Though he’d lied and betrayed me to save himself, I could never stop loving him.
* * * *
I had no sense of time as I lay numb in the Captain’s arms, cradled close like a hard-won prize, a valuable new pet to be used and exploited. The shuttle docked with the Gran ship and I tasted strange scents and chemicals in the air. The Gran breathed the same oxygen-rich air we did, mostly, but their homeworld must have other trace elements in its atmosphere. The harsh reality hit me: I was trapped in an alien jumpship bound for the far reaches of the galaxy, to be bought and sold as property.
D’Anton had once explained that thousands of years ago, the Gran, in their cycle of evolution on their homeworld, had enslaved their primates and used them for hard labor, like trained monkeys. Their primates never evolved past a fraction of human intelligence. The Gran, much like the long-extinct large predator cats of Earth, were a dominant species, and had found ways to develop higher intelligence and use it against their primate competitors.
Fifty years ago, when the Gran encountered our first jumpship explorations across the galaxy and boarded our ships, they immediately recognized an advanced race of primates. To them, we were nothing more than high grade slaves to be put to work. Their attack on our solar system came quick and devastating. We fought them off
for two decades, until the treaty was signed, and Nugene Corporation went into business servicing the treaty by supplying the human slaves the Gran wanted.
I had become the Gran’s newest model of high grade slave.
This was not my purpose in the universe. I was so much better. I deserved better. A cold anger flooded me with adrenaline. I could feel the numbness receding as my roaring metabolism burned away the effects of the drug. Tingling sensations ushered in a flame of fury that spread across my body.
I had known love, but it was taken from me. Now I knew only misery and a blazing hatred of the creatures that had ruined my life.
Strength filled my limbs and I felt my knuckles crack as I balled up my fists. I let the fury consume me as my muscles and tendons vibrated with the adrenaline screaming through me. The Captain noticed me then, as I shoved my knee hard into his face. His head snapped back in a surprised yowl of pain and I leaped up out of his arms.
In the .75 low G environment, I flew so high I bounced off the ceiling of the corridor. Falling through the air, I managed to align myself with another warrior and smashed my right fist through his face. I landed on him and sent another fistful of rage across his bloodied lips.
A warrior grabbed me from behind and I shoved up into him – the back of my head a battering ram to his face. As I fell back into his arms, I reached down between his legs, past the skirt of loose cloth hanging from his waist, and found a large, furry scrotum.
With all the strength of my hand I crushed Cat balls. He felt my fury in full measure. I gave him all the pain of the loss of everyone I loved.