Forbidden Mates

Chapter 1

Jane

The shimmering aurora borealis dances in the sky like a magnificently painted diaphanous curtain stirred by the wind’s invisible fingers. Stars twinkle beyond it, their brightness dimmed and yet enhanced by the opposing magnetic and radioactive forces battling for dominance in the air over Novaria.

These days, no one who’s anyone visits the capital of this pinnacle of Alliance tech and commerce. The trend-forward sapients all make their way to the distant northern city of Sikaris, where the night can last for three months in the wintertime and temperatures outside of atmospheric control zones can plummet to sixty below on the Fahrenheit scale, and that’s before one factors in the wind chill. But the biggest companies have set up new offices here—Advanced Munitions Dynamics, Durzacorp, even the fledgling Armstrong Industries of the Soldiers of Hope all have a strong presence in Sikaris.

You don’t hear many complaints about gentrification in Sikaris because it sprang up from the bones of a nigh abandoned mining colony. Everything is shiny and new, and since the architects and designers didn’t have to contend with a historical society or nostalgia buffs, the city is a paradigm of efficiency.

Hover traffic has been greatly reduced because of the skyrail system, which can take you anywhere in the city in a matter of minutes. No hover traffic union in place means that it was actually built and utilized, unlike other major metropolises across the galaxy.

I posit to you the theory that Sikaris is THE place to live and work in the known galaxy, and I have a ton of evidence to support it. Why am I going on and on about Sikaris? It’s important, so be patient and you’ll understand in a bit, hmm?

Where was I? Oh, yes, Sikaris is the most exclusive place to live, and I am, putting all modesty aside, the most exclusive fashion designer in all the known galaxy. Jane Pearson. Yes, the same Pearson whose label is now proudly worn by the Alzhon Pontiff. If you’re a traditionalist who misses the old baggy, unflattering floor length ensemble, I’m tired of apologizing or justifying. Trends change. Deal with it.

The dress I’m wearing isn’t my own design—I’d never be gauche enough to do such a thing; it’s one of my best friend’s collections, Majo Bara—but it costs more than some sapients earn in an entire year of salary. Shimmering, sleek, with a fold over bodice that conceals and yet invites the eyes to speculate on flinging it wide open, I’m the envy of the restaurant hostess when she takes my Novarian sealskin coat.

Of course my shoes and accessories are no less elegant. I’m planning to drink tonight, so I didn’t wear towering heels—a mere three inches is all this dinner date rates.

And this restaurant? The one which rotates atop Sikaris’s largest skyscraper, the Bixter Building, which serves seafood in the Alzhon manner? Five star all the way.

I’m not bragging about how great my life is, you must understand. At the age of twenty four I’ve achieved most of my life’s goals with thunderous success, and I should be happy.

Should be.

But I’m not. I’m just not happy. My friends tell me I’m just lonely, that I should date more often, blah blah blah. I finally agreed to this date tonight with Sam the Durzacorp Jr. Exec after he’s been hounding me for months at the coffee café we both frequent just to shut him and those friends up. I fully expect I won’t be showing the sexy underwear beneath my dress tonight.

The problem with success early on is that there’s no where else to go. It’s like when Brax and Unconquered won the PFL championship in his first year. After that, it felt like he was going through the motions when he eviscerated foes. No wonder he retired and now works as a special agent for the Ataxian government.

I’m in the same fix. I still haven’t finished my spring collection and it’s midwinter. It’s hard to find motivation when you feel like the only way to go from here is down.

I should point out that Sam the Durzacorp Jr. Exec is six foot four, built like a champion swimmer and has adorable dimples. He’s rich, successful, and unlike a lot of Terran men with those attributes he’s not xenophobic or racist. That’s a big plus in my book, because even though I’m from Earth I haven’t found one solid reason to hate anyone just because they were born on a different planet. Or have scales. Or horns. Or two…but I’m getting distracted.

Sam stands up as the hostess shows me to our table, a big grin spreading across his face. The poor boy, he really has been looking forward to this, hasn’t he? Grinning like the cat that ate the canary. I try to smile for his sake, but he’s just so…boring.

Before we’ve even finished the second course he’s already told me everything I never wanted to know about commode design in the event of artificial gravity failure. I try to subtly nudge him toward a different subject, commenting that bathroom furnishings on Kilgar tend to be made entirely of precious metals and sculpted with the utmost design.

“That’s just plain stupid,” he says dismissively. “At Durza, our last consideration is aesthetics, if we consider it at all. Function is always  more important than aesthetics.”

“You do realize you’re speaking to a fashion designer, yes?” I ask icily, swirling my wine around in its glass.

“Of course,” he says, brow furrowing in confusion. “I know exactly who you are.”

I sigh and roll my eyes.

“Apparently not. I think I’m not all that hungry. Excuse me.”

I dab at my mouth with a cloth napkin and rise to leave. Sam’s hand snaps out and clamps down on my wrist. Tight, though not painfully so.

“Now hold on a minute. You’ve kept me dangling for months, the least you can do is finish dinner when I’m paying six thousand creds a course.”

“I’m afraid you can’t buy me with a mere twenty four thousand credits, my dear,” I say. “Let me go, please.”

Now his hand does tighten painfully.

“I don’t think so—“

He lets go of me pretty quick when I douse him with what’s left of my drink. While Sam blinks and sputters invectives, I add a slap for good measure.

I take my coat from the hostess and smile at her befuddled face as I make my way outside. Ugh, typical terran man. Thinks he’s entitled to everything he sees just because he’s financially affluent. This is the last time I let my friends cajole or harass me into any damn thing.

My driver is off for the weekend, because it’s his anniversary and I’m not a bitch. Fortunately, outside a ritzy place like this restaurant you can walk out onto a terrace and find dozens of hover taxis and limos waiting to take you wherever you want. There’s that much money flying around Sikaris at the moment.

I spot an ivory stretched limo with a stylized golden flame motif and just climb into the rear seat. Obviously he’s open for business.

As soon as I get settled and shut the door, the driver turns his huge, shaggy, pointed eared head around to look at me. My eyes widen when I realize it’s an Odex, a fur covered, massive sapient race who normally give fealty to the Ataxian Coalition. I’m not racist enough to say that all Odex in Alliance space are spies, but that’s the general consensus prejudiced though it may be.

“Are you the VIP?” he asks in a gruff voice, brow knitting in confusion.

“Of course I’m the VIP,” I say angrily, believing him to be condescending to me. I’m wealthy enough to pay for this ride, you cretin. “That’s a stupid question.”

He blanches, flinching physically, and a bit of fear creeps into his orange eyed gaze. The driver nods quickly and flips a switch, drawing up the privacy barrier between us. Then the car lurches forward and joins the top tier of hover traffic.

“Well, that’s more like it,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest and nodding in triumph. It takes me several minutes to realize an important aspect of this transaction  has been skipped over. “Wait, I didn’t tell you where I was going.”

I reach up and knock on the privacy screen, but there’s no response. Oh no. I slink back onto the seat, heart pounding in my chest. What’s going on? Am I being kidnapped?

I reject that notion quickly, because it’s leaving a lot up to chance that I would just happen to get mad at my date and then just happen to get into this particular hover limo out of the twenty or so out front of the restaurant.

This does little to allay my anxiety as the hover limo breaks from the accepted traffic tiers and arcs out over the frozen tundra to the east of Sikaris. The northern lights are more beautiful once you leave the bright lights of the city behind, and I’m struck by the irony that I could be heading into terrible danger even as this soul soothing display arcs about in the skies overhead.

I shouldn’t have told him I was the VIP. But now, I’m afraid if I don’t play along I might be executed. An Odex this deep in Alliance space is rare, if not unheard of. One driving a hover limo and taking said hover limo out over the tundra is mighty suspicious.

We travel for over an  hour, until we reach the edge of a broken limbed, slowly creeping glacier on the verge of swallowing up a lake which is frozen for all but a few months per year. In a hundred years or so the lake will be gone.

I don’t see the s hip at first, or at least I don’t recognize it as a star craft upon first glance. It appears as a shimmering on the frozen lake, perhaps a bit of exposed liquid water. Then it resolves itself into the scoops and flanges of a medium sized cruiser. Ominous weapons batteries thrust out from the camouflaged hull, making me shiver involuntarily.

The hover taxi lands near the ship and a flexible polymer tube extends from the lowered gangplank. I’m grateful for that, because out here on the tundra the wind c hill can make it feel like a hundred below zero.

The tunnel stops right at my door, meaning I only get a tiny gust of chill air from the edges as I make my exit. It’s hard to walk when I’m trembling with fear, and it grows harder when I actually enter the ship’s rear bay.

Green scaled, three eyed soldiers rush about in Coalition blue uniforms. Shorcu. It’s all I can do not to faint when one of them looms over me and stares with that three eyed gaze. They have a nasty reputation for unmitigated violence even amongst their own government.

“Come with me,” he says in stilted Galactic Standard. Rather than an implant, he’s learned to speak it the old fashioned way. His back is huge, and as I fall in behind him it strikes me that at any moment I might be crushed with those huge hands.

Please, he wouldn’t have to bother. He could just chuck me out in the snow and I’d be dead in minutes. I’d like to avoid either eventuality if I could.

Fortunately we don’t have to go far. Like most star ships, the gangplank opens up directly into the cargo bay, which on this vessel doubles as a tidy, small hangar. Several Coalition Rippers hang from magnetic moorings, and it’s under one of those that I meet my—that is, the VIP’s—appointment.

He’s a grolgath, I can tell right away. Darker green and somewhat slimmer than Shorcu, with the usual amount of eyes. But there’s just something inherently sinister about this man, whose crisp posture and unwavering gaze scream self discipline.

“Welcome to the Souja,” he says with stiff formality. His eyes narrow as he regards me. “I see that you’ve still not mastered your genetic condition.”

I guess my blank, confused stare prompts him to explain further, because I have no idea what he’s talking about.

“You have yet to adopt your true form, and still wear a human face,” he says, looming over me.

“Yes, that’s right. I’m sorry, it’s so tricky.” My voice sounds so fake, so brimming with falsehood, but the Grolgath seems to accept my explanation.

“Very well. I will have to accommodate myself to your disgusting scaleless form. We were able to obtain the Key, though it required….” His face twists into a grimace. “…sacrifice.”

“I’m so sorry for the loss of your son, General Kartok,” says the Shorcu who escorted me. Even I can tell he’s being sycophantic. It distracts me for the most part from the fact that I’m duping an Ataxian general.

Kartok’s face goes blank, but his eyes smolder with the fires of a thousand exploding suns. Faster than a striking snake—so fast that I can’t even see the movement—Kartok’s hand lashes out and encircles the Shorcu’s throat. Even though the Shorcu seems so much larger and more powerful, he seems helpless to resist Kartoks’ grasp.

“Sergeant, bring the Key,” Kartok says, staring intently into the eyes of the Shorcu as he strangles the life out of him. I cover my mouth with my hand, watching in wide eyed  horror as Kartok slowly kills the Shorcu right in front of  me.

The apparent Sergeant, an Shorcu who seems terrified as he opens a metal box with trembling hands, approaches me and shows the interior.

A metal bracelet, neutral silver and without much adornment. It’s sort of sexy, I guess, if a tad plain for my tastes but the color would go with almost any ensemble.

I’m so scared I’m relying on my idiom to keep my calm.

“Put it on,” Kartok says, tilting his head to the side and watching the Shorcu’s dying struggles as one might examine an exquisite work of art. I’ve only known the general for less than three minutes and I’m already scared shitless of him.

I hastily snap the bracelet onto my wrist, and Kartok, still not looking away from his victim, speaks to me once more.

“You were able to locate Ruva, I trust?” he asks.

Fuck. No bluffing my way out of it this time. I need a miracle or I’m not getting off this ship alive.

But miracles are in short supply in this galaxy.