Viken Command. Grace Goodwin
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or something. It’s not like they can just grow new fallopian tubes. Or what if she doesn’t want them?”
She sighed. Weren’t other women who came in to be tested as curious as me?
“The Interstellar Brides Program is about finding love and happiness. For many—human and alien—that has nothing to do with children, Miss Mason. The system matches you to your perfect mate, Whitney. Not the other way around. The testing doesn’t find a female for a male, but a male for a female.”
Warden Egara took a breath, then continued. “The match is a good one because the male who is chosen to be yours is the most highly compatible with your needs and desires. The focus is on making the female happy and content. The Coalition figured out, long ago, that females are the heart and soul of a strong community and, for many dominant warriors who long for someone to protect and care for, a contented life.”
Well, that was a lot of information that I hadn’t counted on, but it did make me feel better. Not that I didn’t want children. Frankly, I hadn’t thought about it that much with all the insanity going on around my family, and politics, racism, climate change, and just the expense of raising a child these days. But maybe, if I met the right man—or alien—I would be inspired.
“What about the rest of it?”
“You mean if someone has had a tubal ligation? Will a ReGen pod fix that?”
I didn’t know what a ReGen pod was, so I just nodded.
“A tubal isn’t something that’s broken, Whitney. It doesn’t need to be fixed. Also, unless the surgery was recent, and the body not yet recovered, the ReGen pod would’ve considered the site inactive and already healed.”
That, I guessed, was true.
“And, before you ask, if you were missing an arm, it wouldn’t grow it back. ReGen pods can’t heal everything. And even things it can heal might not be achievable if delayed too long.”
Now I was on a roll, so why not go for broke? I was nothing if not curious. One of my biggest weaknesses, my mother had often told me. I never could just mind my own damn business. “What about gay aliens? Alternate lifestyles? What about lesbians? Are there female fighters who want brides?”
“Are you telling me that you are a lesbian, Miss Mason?”
I shook my head. “No. But my cousin is. She’s single and just as miserable as I was trying to date these days.”
Warden Egara lifted her brows, but there was a twinkle in her eye as if she were enjoying the strange turn of the conversation. I would imagine that saying the same thing over and over every day would get a bit boring. Protocol this and protocol that.
“Yes, we have processed some lesbian brides. For now, the Brides testing is primarily female. However, there are several races which request gay males for matings. I just processed a gay match two days ago. It was my third.”
“What?” Holy shit, I’d been kidding. Mostly.
“What if the gay guy is a volunteer fighter, and he just meets another hot alien guy in a bar?”
She actually laughed, and the happiness on her face transformed her from a severe-looking woman to, well, beautiful. And she wasn’t as old as I’d first thought, either. Probably not even thirty. “Well, they’d have to wait to settle down together until their two years of service was up, but yes, I’m sure that happens as well.” She waggled her eyebrows at me. “Except in space, the bars are normally called canteens.”
Weird choice of word, but whatever. I had visions of uber-hot, gay aliens getting all up in each other’s business, and it wasn’t helping me cool off. I knew I was a bit of a kinky woman, so what the hell. Hot men were hot men. I didn’t mind watching…
The warden cleared her throat and got back to the business at hand—sending me into space.
“I’m going to stop your questioning there and get back to you. I am pleased to tell you that the system has made a successful match and you will be sent to a member planet. As a bride, you might never return to Earth, as all travel will be determined and controlled by your new planet’s laws and customs. You will surrender your citizenship of Earth and become an official citizen of your new world.”
Tears came to my eyes. I hadn’t cried in months, not since I’d first learned about what my father and brother had done. I’d used my tears up. But now? Knowing I wasn’t coming back to Earth, that I had a fresh start somewhere else? Where I could be me and maybe learn to trust again, to find people who weren’t sociopaths who had zero empathy or morals.
I blinked them away.
“Works for me.”
“There is no coming back, Miss Mason. Per Protocol 6.2.7a, we can’t force you to remain with someone incompatible, regardless of how accurate your test. You will have thirty days to decide if the primary candidate is acceptable. If you are not satisfied with your mate, you will be assigned another mate on that world and transferred. You will have thirty days to accept or reject each candidate until you settle down with a mate from your matched planet.”
A return policy. “As long as I’m not coming back here, I’m totally fine with that.”
She stood and held out her arm. “Good. Then if you’ll settle back into the testing chair once again.”
I glanced at the dentist-chair lookalike. Was I going to get that orgasm I so desperately wanted? I did as she requested, and with a swipe of her finger across her tablet, the restraints were back in place.
“For your safety,” she explained. Once I settled, she continued. “For the record, Miss Mason, you have been assigned to a mate per testing protocols and will be transported off-planet, never to return to Earth. Do you understand this and accept the match?”
Why was she confirming this three times? Did other women freak out at this point? Did they not realize why they’d walked through the center’s doors? “Yes.”
The chair tipped back then, and I looked up and saw the wall behind me open. The testing chair slid, as if on a track, right into the newly revealed space on the other side of the wall. The tiny room was small and glowing with a series of bright blue lights. The chair lurched to a stop, and a robotic arm with a large needle slid silently up to my neck.
“Don’t be alarmed. It is the NPU that will allow you to process other languages.”
I winced as the oversized needle pierced my skin, then all I felt was a slight tingling at the injection site. A sense of lethargy and contentment made my body go limp as I was lowered into a bath of warm blue liquid. I was so warm, so numb…
“Just try to relax, Miss Mason.” Her finger swiped her tablet, and her voice drifted to me as if from far, far away. “Your processing will begin in three… two… one…”
2
Captain Alarr, Trixon Pleasure Resort, Planet Viken
I watched the other two pace and crack their knuckles in anger just outside of Doctor Helion’s view. His face filled my comm screen, and his scowl was ever-present, even from thousands of light-years away. I’d contacted him the moment I’d received word of my match, and we’d been speaking in circles for the past few minutes. Doctor Helion was our commander on this mission and our only I.C. contact. He also had absolutely no sympathy and no respect for the sacred right of a male to protect his mate and family.
None.
Fuck.
“Listen, Helion—” I began, trying to get it through his hard head that I wasn’t going to risk my mate, and she hadn’t even arrived yet. But she would. Soon. My perfect, matched mate would arrive at this remote