Booty Hunter (Harem Station 1)
When I look around I realize that everyone else is listening to ALCOR too. Jimmy and Xyla have come out of the cockpit, leaning on either side of the hatch. Xyla’s long hair floats snake-like around her face in the low gravity. Valor and Luck are both staring at me across the room. Beauty has secured herself into a bot hold like she needs the solid walls for reassurance.
“Did you know about this?” I ask them, looking at Jimmy and Xyla first, then Valor and Luck.
“No,” Jimmy says. “Not until we got here for the service.”
“So Draden and Ceres,” I say. “Back on Cetus Station when I just happened to bump into the Cygnian queen—”
“They set you up, Serpint,” Jimmy says.
“And I fell for it.”
“You couldn’t have known,” ALCOR says.
“Why the fuck did I steal that queen?”
“Why do you steal any of them?” ALCOR asks. “Why does Crux collect them in a harem? Why do any of you do what you do?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Because you can’t help it,” ALCOR says. “You have a genetic need to procreate.”
“But we could procreate with anyone,” I say. “Doesn’t even matter if our partners are Cygnian.”
“Yes, and if you get a male child, he’s Akeelian. But what happens to the girls?”
Crux’s question from last night. Almost word for word. “I… don’t know. I guess I never thought about it.”
“They are hybrids, Serpint. That’s why you cannot have a second-generation Akeelian female.”
“Unless we mate with a Cygnian,” I say, fitting another piece in this puzzle. “But wait,” I say. “They have kings. Lyra’s father—”
“All genetically engineered,” ALCOR says. “There are no male Cygnians. Only hybrids who cannot procreate without a lot of laboratory manipulation.”
“So what the fuck are we doing?” I ask. “Why the hell are we here?”
“We need Nyleena,” ALCOR says. “The same way we need Lyra.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, getting a very bad feeling about where this is going.
“You can breed with her,” ALCOR says. “She is a higher-order princess. The pinks and silvers are pure—”
“I’m sorry,” I say, stopping him by putting up a hand. “Did you just say breed with her?”
“Come on,” Jimmy says. “Don’t get hung up on terms, Serpint. You’re already thinking about how she’s your soul-mate. Well, congratulations, brother. You’re right. And now the two of you need to make babies. How fun will that be? And if we get Nyleena back, one of us lucky fuckers will make babies with her too.” Then he mutters under his breath, “Please don’t let it be me.”
“And if we can wake up Corla,” ALCOR adds, “we will be able to rebuild the species.”
“This is why we’ve been collecting Cygnian princesses for twenty years?” I ask. “We’re trying to make babies?”
“We’re trying to make babies,” ALCOR answers. “Purebreds are powerful. And now that we know they’ve successfully created the soul mates we have to start our own genetic engineering program. They cannot get this technology first.”
Did he just call babies… technology?
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR – LYRA
“Strap in!” Booty blares through the com system.
I’m already hustling to snap into the pilot’s seat when she takes off, but her acceleration is so abrupt, my head bangs against the head rest.
“Booty!” I yell.
“Sorry,” she purrs.
But I don’t think she’s sorry. And we’re not even through the first gate yet and I’m regretting this trip. “This is a bad idea,” I say. “How do I know you’re not still infected with that virus and you’re really taking me back to the Cygnians?”
“Because giving you back would feed right into the Cygnian plan.”
“Which is?”
“You can create true offspring. The Cygnians do not yet realize who the Harem Station boys are, but when they do they will want you back—them too. They’ll want Crux the most, but they will take Serpint once they hear about your little light show yesterday at Draden’s funeral. I’d like to think Harem Station is filled with nothing but loyal people on our side, but you can’t screen everyone. So all the brothers are now in danger.”
“You’re blaming me?” I ask. The nerve of this thing!
“They want to breed you, Lyra. That’s not your fault, it’s just who and what you are. It’s just your place in the universe. And if someone’s going to breed you, it will be us. Not them. So you can trust me, because I am on Serpint’s side and even though I don’t want to admit it, we need you.”
I think about that for a few moments. Not he needs you. But we need you. Also… I’m not sure how to interpret that whole ‘it will be us’ statement. Is she implying I’m now part of some genetic engineering program on Harem? Because that’s just a big old, Fuck you, Lyra from the Universe, isn’t it?
“If you have a god,” Booty says, “pray to it now.”