Right of Refusal (Terran Reset Book 7)
Trapped in her body, she is given a chance at a new life as a caretaker, but guarding horny superheroes loses its appeal quickly.
Beatrix’s world has been shrinking as her body slowly locks up into immobility and constant pain. A strange woman arrives at her door and offers her a chance for a body without pain and the form she had in her early twenties. The price of this miracle? Just her life and moving to an alien world as caretaker for a group of superheroes.
The charm of the men wore thin fast, and she put her foot down after she overheard some hurtful remarks. She activated her one caveat from the contract, her right of refusal. Bea quit.
She ends up with the avatar, pregnant, friendless, and alone on a world where everyone but her has scales and a forked tongue. The one refrain in her mind is simple... she should have read the contract.
Resetting a life twice is hard enough, but doing it as the only one of her kind on an entire world is definitely trickier than she had imagined. At least she could dance now.
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Right of Refusal
Copyright © 2021 Viola Grace
ISBN: 978-1-4874-3393-2
Cover art by Angela Waters
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Right of Refusal
Terran Reset, Book 7
By
Viola Grace
Chapter One
Bea wheeled over to her front door and opened it, carefully backing up. The woman standing there in the tailored suit did not look like someone who should be in her neighbourhood.
“Hello?”
“Beatrix Henderson?”
“Yes. Whatever you are selling, I don’t need it.” She used her control and whirred back to the kitchen. “Please, see yourself out.”
“You applied for the Volunteer Project.”
Bea paused and slowly turned her chair. “I did. Nearly thirty years ago. Let me guess. Santa finally delivered my documents?”
The woman grinned. “No, but your application and genetics suit a new project that we have going.”
Bea drove up to the woman who radiated power. “Are you shitting me?”
“I am not. May we sit and discuss the project? I assure you it has some very interesting aspects.”
“I am already sitting, but shoot.” She whirled her chair to the sitting area and parked up. She flexed her fingers as much as the crippling arthritis would allow. Her body was twisted up into a seated position, her hip burning from the weight pressing down on enflamed bone. Her carer would switch her carefully to her other hip. There would be tears, cursing, and screaming, but the medical gel pads and fleeces could only do so much when her body was wadded up with pain. No joint had been left untouched, and now that her eating was impaired, it would be a stomach tube or a slow death. Good times.
“We have begun a program with some success that resets your biology to that of when you were fittest, but the price is that you are shipped off-world to a planet who is willing to bear the cost of your reshaping.”
Bea snorted. “Right. This sounds fun. The problem is that the osteoarthritis was already firmly in place by the time I was in my mid-twenties. So, thanks, but no thanks. Knowing what was coming, I am not sure I would face it again. I hope that I would, but I am really not sure.”
“Well, this isn’t a free handout, and there are a few details that might change your mind. You always wanted a family, right?”
Bea was wary. “Yeah. It wasn’t possible. The drugs to manage this were toxic, even when I was mobile.”
“Well, having four kids would be a requirement. In fact, you would be pregnant when you landed and started your job as housemother to four guardians.”
“What’s a guardian?”
The woman took out a tablet and brought an image of a heavily muscled man, scales, burning gold and orange eyes, and a fitted suit that showed every strangely aligned muscle and... other attributes.
The image of the man moved, lifted a vehicle, and threw it offscreen.
“Oh. That’s... different. He’s a lizard?”
“Oh, he’s warm-blooded, just scales to protect against the rays of the sun. Your skin would be thickened to manage the same effect, but scales may manifest over time.”
Bea laughed. “So, you are saying that I will be a surrogate to that guy’s kids?”
“Not just him. This is the team. They all need heirs, and they aren’t set up for compatibility with anyone on their world. The mutation that activates their powers also alters the way they connect with the world around them. To sum it up, they are jerks. They expect women to flop on their backs, and the women that do, do not repeat the experience. They are throwbacks, and their genitals are a little... difficult to match. So, since we are rebuilding you, we thought we would just add a little extra adaptability to you to help you out.”
Bea laughed. “Sure. Why not? I don’t even know if I have a vag anymore. Pain has twisted me up.” She looked at the woman through narrowed eyes. “Is my ability to take pain a factor?”
“Yes. It will be like living with bulls who only deal with other bulls.”
Bea moved her pinky in a tapping motion. It was one of her only free joints. “I want to be able to quit.”
The woman blinked. “What?”
“I will still carry the babies—I love babies—but I want the right to find a new job if they are as bad as you say.”
“Uh, I will have to run that past their representatives. If they agree, you will sign it?”
Bea chuckled. “As best I can. I might have to get Marley to help me.”
“I can assist you. Let me make the alterations to the contract to include a right of refusal. You will have to remain there, and when the birth occurs, you will have medical care until you recover. Then, you will be able to find your way on that world, or if you can get a ship to another world, you can explore the sector.”
The woman’s hands blurred, and she smiled. “Message is sent, so I will let you know if they accept the alteration to the contract.”
“Didn’t you say that the process to reset me was expensive?”
“Oh, it is, and it requires genetic materials from the host world, and with this world, those genes are in high demand. They arrived under guard.”
The woman stepped up. “If you will extend your hand, I can help you sign.”
Bea nodded and huffed as she lifted her arm and twisted her body toward the tablet. The woman touched her hand, and the pain and swelling fled, leaving it a standard hand for a fifty-five-year-old woman. She held up her shaking hand, and she looked at the woman. “How did you do that?”
“Practice. Sign please.”
> Bea signed and pressed her thumb into the box, and then, she sat for the ocular scan.
“How long will it take to learn if they accept the condition?”
“Well, I sent the message via the avatar network, so it should be... yes. The terms are acceptable, and the contract will be ratified on their end.”
Bea chuckled. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.” The woman took her hand and held it, removing the pain. “That will last until you are in the tank. I like you, Bea. You have a spark that will not go out, no matter what hell comes to visit.”
“Yeah, well, once it happens, you either fight to move forward, or you fight to die. I am still not sure which one I am doing.”
The woman took the tablet. “A car with a wheelchair lift will come in three hours. A medical team will attend you, and you will be brought to the Lunar Station. The treatment will start, and your journey will begin. You will be attended by Ssran medics in our tech. They will administer the genetic material and start the pregnancy.”
Bea nodded. “Right, well, I will call my lawyer and cancel my home care. Everything else is set.”
The woman nodded. “That is the nice thing about resets; they are ready to go. I may not see you again, Bea, but I wish you only the best.”
“What is your name?”
“Oh, how silly. I am Minerva-Gaia, avatar of the world that birthed you. This project is to get more of my wonderful children out into the furthest reaches of the stars.”
“By changing our genes?”
“By showing that even the most damaged of my children can flourish given a bit of care and attention.” She smiled, her eyes glowing and swirling. “I hope you find it, but I also know you are in for a fight. Ssran is not an easy world, and he has raised defiant sons. Dealing with them will be difficult.”
Bea lifted her head and grinned. “I look forward to the challenge.”
She wheeled herself in a circle and got to the phone, using the autodial to make her calls. When the transport came, she was ready. They were efficient, polite, and carried her carefully to a pod filled with gel in the back of the transport. They drove carefully and began scanning her as they travelled.
Beatrix looked at the men, realized they were definitely alien, and she started to try to recall all the details of the contract. She really wished she had actually read it first.
The Ssran looked her over and snorted, hissing and growling. Bea realized soon that it was their language. She was in the tank, and after a day, she had been able to straighten her limbs, and her pain was a soft ache.
She knew that tone. She had been mocked all her adult life, and it didn’t seem that it was going to stop now. Fanfuckingtastic.
She felt the scheduled sedative hit her, and she wished she had enough muscle power to flip them off.
The screen fastened to the tank told her that fifteen days had passed, and she looked down, her skin pale and pearly, brown hair floated by where it had been short and brittle before. Her hands flexed, and she looked out of the tank. One of the medics called out, and a man who looked like his mom fucked a cobra walked up and looked at her with a strange mix of gold and silver in his eyes. He was dressed in strangely soft silks trimmed with metallic embroideries.
“Ah, you are awake, child. Your mother was right. You do bounce back under the right conditions.”
The words were spoken in her head, and there was tremendous weight behind them.
She couldn’t speak, so she gathered a single thought. “You mean Minerva-Gaia.”
“Gaia. Yes. Newly woken, she is ambitious.”
“Is that what this is? I know she is proud of us. That comes out in every word. Who are you?”
“Ssran-Lianic, or Lianic-Ssran when he speaks. You are to be the new hope of our people, and you have arrived at a very opportune time. I have many sons, and they are aggressive and stubborn, but they are strong and brave. I cannot find a female on my world who can take one of their offspring to term. They don’t even quicken. I have intervened in the past, but it is a stopgap measure. When Gaia began offering her children to us, we didn’t know what she meant, but I have seen your scans, and you are about to begin internal transformation into a Ssran, so I believe that Gaia deserves accolades for her boldness.”
“Yeah, I will send her a Mother’s Day gift.” She snorted and watched the bubbles float by.
Ssran grinned. “You are angry at the world around you.”
“It keeps me moving. Rage is an excellent motivator.”
“Interesting. Do you sing? Dance?”
“No. I never had a chance to learn. My body was trying to become stone, so it hampered my movement.”
“Ah, we will give you dance and song. It is the least I can do for this opportunity. Three more weeks and seventeen jump gates, and we will be in our home system.”
“Sounds like fun. There are more alterations?”
“More like adaptations. Ssran genitalia is more aggressive than what you are designed to take, so you will be adapted to accept without damage. This will also be useful when you are carrying, but you will not begin your pregnancy until we are in the home system.”
She had the cognizance to ask, “How long is a Ssran pregnancy?”
“For the egg layers, six months. For you, fourteen months.”
She stared at him in shock. “Fourteen months? How long is a month?”
“Thirty-five days. Ah, she did not tell you.”
“No, she fucking did not. That is nearly five years just being pregnant.”
“Of course not. You will have all four whelped at the same time. Our medics will care for you, and the children will only be four pounds each at birth. You are strong; you will manage.”
She felt the darkness floating in on her again. Fucking hell.
Chapter Two
She closed the baggy bodysuit, which was her favourite thing on this whole ship right now. Being goaded into ovulating was in the contract. Being artificially inseminated was in the contract.
“So, the team doesn’t know that I am pregnant.”
Ssran shook his head. “They do not. They are more than willing to keep trying throughout the population, but they will not be successful. The power has tipped the balance, and they are too strong to carry their genes within our populace.”
“So, why can a little squishy like me carry them?”
He winced. “You heard someone say that?”
“The day I first woke up. The observers called me a pale squishy who would be torn apart.”
“Ah. Well, you are no longer inwardly a squishy. When is the last time you had a lover?”
She paused. “A while. A few decades. I was barely mature.”
“Ah, well, this will be different.”
“Wait. I am already pregnant. Why would I need a lover?”
Ssran chuckled. “You will have an increased sex drive. It will be commensurate with the hormone load in your system, so I imagine it will be rather... ravenous.”
“Does it have to be them?”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, can I fuck anyone, or does it have to be reflective of the genetics I am carrying?”
“That is not a question I was expecting.”
She shrugged. “Do you know the answer?”
“I suppose that it would not necessarily need to be one of the paternal donors.” He frowned. “In fact, if they were not around, you would be seeking out protection for your young rather aggressively if you were a Ssran.”
“Which my vag apparently is.”
He paused. “Huh. This is going to be interesting. So, you are going to go in for scans every two weeks to start and then every four for the last trimester.”
“Yes. I have the coordinates for the research centre.”
“You know what role you are to play?”
“Housekeeper, cook, scheduler, laundress. Basically, do what needs doin
g to keep them fit and healthy.”
“I am not going to screw them if there isn’t a mutual attraction, and I know there won’t be. I am way too soft for a Ssran to find interesting.”
He laughed. “What makes you think so?”
“Uh, the guys here talk a lot. They say it is a shame that I am soft and weak.”
He cocked his head. “What word for shame?”
“Ssrenthu?”
He chuckled. “Sex-shame. They want to touch you, and it makes them want, but you are off-limits.”
She blinked, and her mouth opened in an O of understanding. She looked down. “I am just me. I mean, in better shape and younger than I would have guessed but just average for a human.”
Ssran laughed. “It isn’t the way you look; it is the way you smell.”
She sniffed her shoulder and couldn’t detect a scent.
The shuttle they were on was approaching a land mass, and the cities of Ssran were delicate and beautiful. Spires and open area edging the jungle back.
Ssran chuckled. “You can’t detect your own scent, it is for others to determine if you are desirable or not based on scent, and then, they will go to touch and then taste.”
“Uh, not if I have anything to say about it.”
“You might want a lover or two.”
She thought about the massive man she had seen in that little image on the tablet in her house. “One would probably be enough.”
Ssran grinned as if he had made a crack in her resolve. “One will be an excellent start.”
She rubbed her temples. “Cross the stars and get whored out by a planet.”
“Not a whore, just a valued new citizen. My people do not breed easily, so sex is a social norm. A slightly more intimate manner of shaking hands, if you will.”
“Nothing I have read or researched has shown me that.”
Ssran chuckled. “We do not put that in the documentaries.”