Jazon had prepared for his mission for a week during the journey to Aurilius. The two inquisitors serving as his crew also served under Eli Beck. The two Parvac soldiers were eager to assist in the investigation of Felix Jiri’s clones. Felix, who had been disowned by House Jiri, had become the most reviled male in the history of the Parvac Empire. Jazon needed to stop associating the name Jiri with the male. House Jiri had renounced all familial ties with him. Had Felix been a Laconian, there could have been no worse punishment for him. Yukihyo, Teagan’s first husband, would know. He had managed to survive after having his empathic bonds severed. Jazon knew that in Yukihyo’s place, he would have put a blaster barrel in his mouth and ended it. Not even the thought of revenge would have been enough to save him.
Even with the stability he got through his bonds with his brothers and their wives, Jazon had been struggling lately. His feelings for Teagan had left him raw. One moment, he had believed himself to be in love with the gorgeous blonde. In the next, Sara Eos, the identity she had assumed for a mission, had captivated and enthralled him with her exotic sexuality. He continued to awaken painfully hard from his dreams of her. However, in the instant when the missile had struck Zared, and he and his brothers had feared Zared was lost to them, clarity had ensued.
The brilliant but torturous love he had felt for Teagan had been phantom love, residual traces of the love Teagan and Zared shared. Once it had vanished, he was left with his own love, and it was tender and sweet. His true feelings for Teagan were very similar to the ones he felt for her children, protective, grateful, and pure. He wasn’t in love with her. He had never been in love with anyone.
Jazon had used his time away from Parvac to study for his mission, train, and spar with a virtual opponent. By identifying and tracking a small delivery of a medical grade cell proliferation serum to a private entity on Aurilius, Jazon had been able to narrow his search. At great expense, a tracking agent had been added into the next shipment of the serum which had led him to the underground lab. He pondered how such brilliant scientists could be so stupid.
He had bypassed the simple door code that had numerically spelled out the word clone based upon the human alphabet. He had snickered to himself at that stupidity alone. However, with that human code, a clear path led back to Felix’s Earth Loyalists. Inside the lab, the idiot female scientist hadn’t even had any guards for him to kill. Jazon felt disgruntled and cheated by the entire operation. Where was the challenge? Where was the danger?
He stood across from her confinement cell onboard his ship and waited for her to snap out of the sleep he had sent her into. Captain Agata had taken them from Aurilius’ surface and set their course for Epopeus. Jazon and his crew were supposed to give the impression that they were merchants, so they were adhering to a standard star route for the duration of their investigation. Jazon sighed. He had only just returned to the Laconian Sector and had already completed half of his mission.
Angry that she hadn’t posed a challenge, Jazon gave her mind a nudge to wake her. The containment cell had a plasti-berth attached to the wall, a waste unit, and a sink. She was sleeping on her side on the berth where he had left her. He watched as she opened big, solid black eyes. It took her a moment to realize where she was and that her restraints were off. Then, when she noticed him watching her from the other side of the cell’s shielding, she sat up, pushed herself back into the farthest corner of the berth, covered her head with her arms, and cried.
Jazon started laughing. “You think covering your head with your arms will keep me out of it? You’re more stupid than I thought.”
Tracy removed her arms from her head and wrapped them around her legs.
“Where is the rest of your research?” Jazon asked.
“You shouldn’t exist,” Tracy said with a shaking voice.
“Don’t give me that crap, you little hypocrite. Tell me what I want to know, or I will tear it from your mind piece by piece.”
Tracy stared at the hybrid soldier. Like the cloned arms in the lab, he was a nightmare given life. He was huge. She thought he must be six feet tall. His muscular arms were as big around as her thighs. He had blasters holstered at his sides. Her gazed traveled up to his clenched jaw, angry mouth, and short brown hair. She tried to avoid looking into the solid black eyes that he could use to steal her thoughts. She imagined she could feel him trying to steal her soul with his Enyo abilities.
“Where is the research?” Jazon yelled. The deep boom of his voice made Tracy jump where she sat huddled in on herself.
“I put it in my bag! It doesn’t belong to you!” Tracy screamed back at him while tears inspired by her terror streamed down her face.
“This?” Jazon asked as he held up her father’s vid-pad. “Where is your cloning research facility located? The one where I found you is nothing but a relay station.”
“Give that back! It isn’t yours! You have no right to his research. It wasn’t meant for you or your sick, twisted corruptions of nature!” This was the man Duran had hired to murder her father. Tracy was sure of it. He looked like he enjoyed destroying what was good and pure.
Jazon had had enough of the self-righteous little Eriopis slut. He dropped the worthless vid-pad and the cell’s shielding. Enough time had been wasted exchanging insults, and he was sick of her ignorant act. Tracy rose shakily to her feet to stand on top of the berth. She still wore her thick-soled boots, but her sonic blaster was gone, not that it could have harmed the ruthless monster in front of her. He charged into the cell with such speed that she almost missed her opportunity to kick him. She threw up hasty mental shields, the ones girls were taught in the unlikely event of a rape attempt. Tracy managed to deliver a solid kick to his jaw before he grabbed her ankle and dragged her down to the berth. Her butt hit right before the back of her head hit the wall. Her ponytail had slipped from her tangled hair. With the heel of her shoe, she directed a hard kick to his crotch.
He pivoted out of harm’s way and trapped her. Jazon was furious that she was able to keep the information hidden. Normally, when he or his brothers asked a question, a person would think the answer first and attempt to hide it second. Perhaps, this female was a skilled liar. With the female locked into a tight hold, he asked her his question again.
“Where is the cloning facility?”
Tracy couldn’t look away from the solid black eyes. She fell into them and became one with them. “In Fig Forest,” she answered.
“Where is the cloning research?”
“In the lab.”
“Where is the lab?”
“In Fig Forest.”
“Where is the other cloning lab?” Jazon asked. This surely must be the most annoying female to have ever existed.
“I don’t know.”
“Why were you in the lab?” Maybe, changing his line of questioning would help.
“I went to take back my father’s notes to prove Duran killed him, or maybe he had you do it.”
Her answer surprised him. Jazon released his hold on the female and moved away to think. Shit. Had he arrested the wrong scientist?
Tracy sprang from the plasti-berth and ran at Jazon’s back. She pummeled her fists into him with all of her strength. They had killed her father, the man she had loved with all of her heart and respected with all of her mind.
“You killed my father! I hate you! You’re a filthy experiment who is living while my father is gone!”
Jazon was doused by the female’s confusion and pain. He had made a mistake. As penance, he remained still and allowed the female to hit and kick him until she exhausted herself and crumpled into a heap on the floor to weep. Bending down, Jazon picked her up and stepped from the cell. Stooping down with her in his arms, he picked up her father’s vid-pad and carried her to his quarters. He put the hysterical female on the bed, removed her shoes, handed her the vid-pad which she clutched to her chest, and went into the bathroom. He returned with waste paper.
Taking it from him, she blew her nose. When she had regained enough composure to draw in shuddering breaths, he said, “My name is Jazon Ponidi. I am a member of the Imperial Guard in service to Princess Probus of Parvac. I am on a mission to discover those responsible for creating dangerous clones that threaten the lives of the Imperial family. Who are you?”
“Did you kill my father?”
“I’m not sure. Do you have a picture?”
“Do you kill so many?” Tracy asked appalled at his response.
“Well, I am a filthy experiment,” Jazon said with a smirk.
“I can’t show you a picture of him. My vid-screen is gone.”
“Tell me his name,” Jazon ordered.
“Dr. Nathan Heintz was my father’s name,” Tracy said quietly.
Her sorrow tore at Jazon. Walking over to his vid-screen, he pulled up files on the man. He had black hair and a kindly face. Reading quickly, Jazon said, “Dr. Heintz has one daughter, Tracy. That must be you.”
She nodded her head.
Dr. Heintz wasn’t nefarious. The man had been studying star fish, and his daughter was an oceanographer, following in her father’s footsteps. Handing her more waste paper, he said, “Why don’t you start at the beginning and tell me what happened?”
“I don’t have to tell you anything! You have to let me go!” Tracy said.
“I’d be happy to. Which airlock would you prefer?” Jazon asked with an unnerving smile.
With a quick intake of breath and wide eyes, Tracy scooted off of the bed, walked around Jazon, giving him plenty of distance, and darted from the room and into the small habitation area. Across from his quarters was a small sitting area. She ran in her socks across it to the hull and the open viewport. Tracy pressed her hands to the thick plasti-glass and stared out at stars. Jazon walked to stand behind her. He was curious about the female. Her tangled black hair brushed her shoulders. She jumped when she noticed the reflection of his solid black eyes on the plasti-glass.
Tracy turned. Outraged, she said, “You took me from the surface?” She had almost told him how much trouble he would be in with her father, but she stopped herself. Her father wouldn’t be coming to get her. He couldn’t make things all better anymore. Her mother was lost to her.
Jazon felt Tracy’s emotions as she did. Noticing a small bit of torn fig leaf in her hair, he reached up to pull it free. It made Tracy furious, and she slapped at his hand repeatedly.
“Don’t touch me! How dare you take me from Aurilius without my permission?”
Jazon flicked the leaf away. “How about I take you back and leave you right where I found you?” Jazon yelled back.
Remembering where she had been, with the arms that had floated within fluid-filled canisters, Tracy shuddered. “I suppose it would be okay if you let me out on Epopeus.”
Jazon crowded Tracy against the viewport and put his hands against it to either side of her head. Tracy closed her eyes, turned her face away from him, and clutched her father’s vid-pad closer to her chest for comfort. “What were you doing in that bunker” Jazon asked menacingly.
“I already told you. What? Are you stupid? I went to get my father’s notes. They were stolen.”
“How did you know where to find them?”
Tracy told him about her father’s stylus. She wanted to go home where she could feel safe, but it had been sold, and everything was gone.
“Who do you think stole your father’s notes?”
“Duran Jarreau, my new stepfather. I remembered a fight I had overheard between them while I was searching Jarreau’s home office for information for an application. He had some of father’s files. They should have been at the academy, not in Duran’s desk. I searched for father’s vid-pad to see if it was at the academy or in storage. Those were the only places it should have been.”
“But, you found it in a forested area all by yourself?”
“Yes! What’s it to you?” Angry at his tone, Tracy shoved at the hybrid’s chest.
She wanted to get away from him before he either stole her mind and soul and made her his slave, or went into a mad rage and tore her limb from limb to feast upon her flesh. A disturbing thought occurred to her. What if he was really the one in charge of that lab? The hybrid could be controlling Duran’s mind. He could be forcing the scientists to grow the clones to satisfy his hunger for humanoid flesh. It was like a movie she and Jaimie had snuck out to see. Horrified, Tracy screamed.
“Would you shut up? I don’t eat humanoid flesh and neither do my brothers. I’ve never created mindless hordes to do my bidding. You are a stupid little girl, and I find your thoughts offensive,” Jazon said.
“Then, stay out of them!”
“Fine!” Jazon took Tracy by the arm and led her back to her confinement cell. He shoved her into it and raised the shield.
“What are you doing? You can’t leave me in here! I’m not a criminal!”
“Yes, you are,” Jazon said with his hands on his hips.
“No, I am not!”
“I caught you after you had broken into a private bunker.”
Outraged, Tracy said, “You broke in, too! I locked the door behind me!”
“I’m an Imperial Guard on a sanctified mission from the Parvac Empire with Galaxic Militia approval.”
Tracy didn’t know what to say, and it didn’t matter anyway. The hybrid walked away.
As the hours passed and no one came to check on her, Tracy’s bladder couldn’t take anymore. Around the waste unit, there was no privacy screen. No one had been by her cell, so she hurried to pull down her pants and sit on the waste unit, pulling her shirt down as far as possible. Feeling better physically, even though she had been forgotten, Tracy tried to find a comfortable position on the berth where she began reading through her father’s last notes. Most of it was beyond her, but what she did gather from it was that he had figured out how sea stars were able to program their stem cells to differentiate into the cells they needed to regrow limbs. He had begun studying how to apply that knowledge to help people who had suffered from traumatic injuries.
“Oh, father. All you wanted to do was help others.”
Her father hadn’t been after a profit. He wanted to learn from nature how it healed itself and apply that knowledge.
“If the serum I tracked with nanite technology and your father’s research were combined, it would triple the speeds of current tissue regeneration therapies,” Jazon said.
The hybrid had set Tracy’s heart to pounding in fear. “Do you have to sneak up on me like that? And, stay out of my head!” Tracy lifted her knees up to her chest defensively.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I came to ask if you are calm enough to eat at the table, or if I should bring food to you in here.”
His smug, arrogant tone pissed Tracy off. If her father’s vid-pad wasn’t so important to her, she would throw it at his stupid face. “Well, are you letting me out or not?” she asked.
“We can see how it goes. Behave, or I will turn you over to the Enforcers on Epopeus. Follow me.” Jazon walked off.
Tracy followed the hybrid to the habitation area. As they walked past the sitting area to a kitchen and dining section, hope filled Tracy at the sight of two males who were sitting at the table. Then, after looking at their eyes and the sheer size of them, she realized they were both Parvacs.
“Oh, stars. I’m trapped on a ship with a hybrid and Parvacs,” Tracy mumbled under her breath.
Hearing her, Jazon smiled sweetly at her and said, “Remember, Tracy. There is always an airlock available for your convenience.” Then, he pulled out a chair for her.
Warily, Tracy sat. The Parvacs were even bigger than the hybrid. She knew about the Peace Treaty of Amphictyon, but she had heard just as many horror stories about Parvacs stealing women as she had heard about hybrid monsters. Jazon grinned and slid a heated meal across the table to her. Not having eaten anything since the previous day, she was starving. Her mouth watered at the sight of the steak and baked potato. She remembered having skipped dinner but wasn’t sure how many other meals she had missed.
“Breakfast,” Jazon said around a mouthful of steak.
Tracy glared at him. “Stay out of my mind.”
“I can’t. It’s what we filthy hybrids do.”
The Parvac to her right laughed. “I take it your Laconian women don’t find you as fascinating as our women do?” Captain Agata asked.
“No. This one thinks I’d rather eat her legs than what’s between them,” Jazon said.
The Parvacs laughed with him. Tracy turned red. She knew about what they were talking. Jaimie had told her. Strass had never done something so embarrassing to her. Their times together had always been quick, and they had always remained partially clothed for fear of being caught. Jazon winked a solid black eye at her. Tracy ate quickly, hoping she would be taken back to her confinement cell.
Instead, Jazon said, “You can use my shower. I’ll put some clothes out for you. Make yourself useful. Clean and store these,” he said of the dishes.
The two Parvacs looked at him askew and did their own dishes. Tracy sighed. Even captured by aliens, it seemed her destiny was to do dishes. She had spent more time doing dishes than anything else in her life. At least there weren’t hardly any to do. Her little brothers could dirty a dozen different things in a blink. She forced herself not to worry about them. Angelica was a trained nanny from a prominent facility. The boys probably didn’t even realize their older sister had been kidnapped by a blood-thirsty hybrid and deadly Parvac soldiers.
“Boo,” Jazon whispered beside her ear.
The word, along with the way his breath moved her hair, made Tracy scream and jump. The container she was holding fell from her fingers. Jazon caught it before it hit the floor and stowed it. Loud male laughter followed.
“I didn’t realize that Laconian females were so timid. Reports of Isidora Montgomery had led me to believe quite the opposite.”
Tracy stared at the soldier. He grinned back at her.
“This one is going to be trouble. I can feel my hybrid senses tingling in warning,” Jazon said to Lieutenant Vasco.
“Don’t think to jeopardize our mission, young lady. This isn’t some frivolous whim for us. Innocent lives and our fragile peace are at risk,” Captain Agata said.
“Go shower. I’ll make up the couch for you,” Jazon said. He walked away from her with his arms full of blankets and a pillow.
“You don’t have to sleep on the couch. I will share my bed with you, Lady Tracy,” Lieutenant Vasco offered.
The Captain had already taken the lift up to the bridge. Tracy assumed his quarters were near it.
“Correct,” Jazon verified.
Tracy frowned at his back, narrowed her eyes at Lieutenant Vasco, and went into Jazon’s quarters. She locked his door. She felt more herself once she was clean. After drying her hair as best she could, she used the hybrid’s comb. Why anyone would go to the trouble to create such an annoying sentient, she didn’t know. He was rude, temperamental, bossy, and terrifying.
She picked up his toothbrush and was about to give it a dip in the waste unit when he said into her thoughts, “Don’t even think about it.”
With a snap of sound, she placed it back where she had found it.