AllFreeNovel
Share Us
By the time she returned, I was dressed.
She frowned at her clothes. “I don’t have anything else.”
“You will be given basic necessities today. If there’s anything else you want, I will be happy to provide for you. Just ask, and it is yours.”
She nibbled at her lips as if she wanted to say something but didn’t.
“Say it.”
“I have a brother back at the colony. He’s the only family I have left. Is there a safe way I can contact him?”
Safebecause she didn’t trust her own colony.
“You can use my comm. All the comms in the stronghold can contact your colony’s numbers.”
She looked hesitant.
“They won’t be able to listen in on your conversation,” I assured her. “We are technically not a part of your colony’s network.”
“Would they know he got a call?”
“If someone was checking on him right as you called, they would know. But they wouldn't know who or where it's coming from.”
“Alright. Thanks for letting me contact Chris. It means a lot to me.”
Clara entered her brother’s contact information and waited. She chewed her lip nervously as our system hacked into the colony communication network. After a while, a prerecorded message played.
“Hey brat, I know it’s you. No one else calls me. I’ll call you back.” There was a beep, followed by, “This mailbox is full,” said in a robotic female voice.
“Perhaps he is busy. You can try again later. There’s a comm in the female dormitory.”
“Maybe.” But the worry didn't leave her face.
“Let's get you to that training session so you can make this coffee drink you females seem so excited about.”
That had her smiling again. I couldn’t resist kissing those smiling lips, so I did until she was clinging onto me and panting.
What a way to start a day. I wanted to start every day like this for the rest of my life.
When I left her with the other females, she looked happy and calm. Clara was taking this very well compared to many of the females, who had come in crying and certain they’d been sent to their deaths.
I headed to my first task. First thing first; with my workload spread among my captains, I now had the time to hunt for treasures to fill the nest.
I pulled up Clara’s file. Along with their health reports, we’d asked each of the females to fill out a questionnaire when she signed up to join us. The survey was meant to determine the females’ preferences and make our job of keeping them happy easier.
According to the file, her grandparents and parents had been laborers in food production. She’d lost her parents to a burning field during the hot season years ago. By then, Clara was already grown and working on her own. The step up from laborer to designer had been considered an upwardly mobile step, and they’d put a note in her file to monitor her.
Curious, I peeked into her health history. Just as she’d mentioned yesterday, she’d been taxed three years in a row for being vitamin B12 deficient. What she hadn’t mentioned was that they’d recommended she eat more to prevent deficiencies. This last year she’d been taxed twice, once for the vitamin deficiency and again for excessive weight gain. They’d also blocked her from purchasing many types of food, including red meat, which would have gone a long way toward solving the deficiency.
Red filled my vision. There was nothing wrong with her weight; she was lush and beautiful, a perfect armful. As for the deficiency, if the food they provided for their colonists weren’t complete trash, this would never have happened. This planet was fertile and full of prey. I wasn’t too worried though; she’d be a shining beacon of health after a few months under my care.
Aside from that, she was healthy unlike the females they’d sent last year.
Last year, the colony sent almost two hundred females, but most of them had been extremely sick. They’d all told the same story; they had cancer or some other form of illness but did not have money for medicine. They were dying, and the colony was getting rid of them.
The most frustrating thing was that cancer was easily treatable, and humans already had the cure; they simply chose to withhold it. We healed a few females during our rut, but many passed in our arms, too far along in their illness to be saved.
My males had mourned those we’d come to care for. Luckily, none of my males had bonded to the females that year, or else we would have needed more graves.
