Unknown Origins Read online

  Upgraded to defend her world, Haru-vel is unsurprised to find herself fighting alongside the Kek. She’s shocked when she’s handed to them... permanently.

  When they faced an incoming invading force, the Myvik turned to the Kek—mercenaries who travelled the stars and fought your enemy... for a price. The arrival date was ten days after the invaders were due to arrive, so they needed to buy themselves time.

  Thirty years earlier, the Myvik had hired the Kek, and the defenders had left something behind. Children.

  Haru-vel was named for the father she had never met, and her mother was the planet’s greatest biologist, and she made sure that her daughter was trained and ready to defend her world, along with nineteen others who were treated to a genetic cocktail of unknown origin, except it wasn’t. Her mother knew very well where the material had come from. It had been left after a memorable night thirty years earlier.

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  Unknown Origins

  Copyright © 2022 Viola Grace

  ISBN: 978-1-4874-3609-4

  Cover art by Angela Waters

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

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  Unknown Origins

  Paying the Warband

  By

  Viola Grace

  Chapter One

  Haru-vel and her boss General Renfor met with the council.

  “The Vanuthic are coming and will not be deterred. Are there any options for extracting personnel from the surface?” Haru asked.

  The prefect ran her hand through her hair. “They aren’t coming. They are here. They are just staging and waiting for the rest of their invasion fleet. We can’t leave. We have to defend, and we don’t have a surface-to-air defence set up.”

  The general ran his hand through his hair. “What about calling the warband?”

  The prefect looked to Haru-vel. “No. That isn’t a good idea at this stage. I am sure that our scientists have something to help. Doctor Jenok?”

  Haru-vel looked at her mother, and she cleared her throat. “We have gone through the archives and found a substance of unknown origin that has the potential to create some of the defence warriors that we need. We have twenty doses of transformative serum and very specific criteria.”

  The prefect frowned. “What will the result of the injection be?”

  “We don’t know. There are forty-two candidates for the injection registered, so we just need to take on the volunteers from those in the best physical condition and conscript the rest.”

  Haru-vel raised her hand. “I volunteer.”

  Her mother looked sad. “I knew you would. Fine. We have nineteen doses. We need to mix genders because the results aren’t predictable.”

  The general stared at Haru-vel. “You are volunteering for a civilian project?”

  “I am volunteering for a planetary project. We don’t have time to mess around. We have maybe a few weeks, likely a few days. Dr. Jenok, where do I report?”

  “My lab, right after this meeting. The sooner you start, the sooner we can rule out side-effects for those who follow.”

  Peacekeeper Commander Haru-vel looked at her mother as they waited. Her mother looked nervous, and they both understood what was about to happen. Anyone with the same genetic stamp was going to be asked to volunteer. Where half of her genes came from her mother wouldn’t say, but since the others were all the same age, it had to trace back to the last time the warband had been summoned. Her mom was intelligent, graceful, and stoic. No matter how many times she was asked, she never divulged the name of Haru-vel’s father.

  The prefect tapped the table. “Doctor, are you sure you don’t know the origin of that material?”

  “It wasn’t labelled, but it does have binding agents and enough energy in it to boost those with the correct genetic signature.”

  “Like your daughter.”

  She inclined her head. “Just so.”

  “Right. There are forty-two of them?”

  “There are.”

  “Gather them and choose your best twe—nineteen.” The prefect rapped her gavel. “Council concluded. We will meet again in the morning. Jenok, we want daily updates.”

  “Of course, Prefect.”

  Haru-vel got to her feet, and the general grabbed her arm. “Don’t you fucking dare. It’s suicide.”

  “She wouldn’t have raised me as an experiment. She’s not like that.”

  “Really? She’s the coldest bitch on the continent. What is she like?”

  Haru clapped him on the arm. “She’s a helluva dancer.”

  She went to follow her mom to the lab, and her long legs caught up with her. “So, we are going to use it?”

  “Yeah, this is the time. The warband is weeks away, and if we don’t want them coming to rescue an empty world, we need to do this.”

  “I know. I will help you, and I will guide the others through this.”

  Her mother grinned. “You think you will be able?”

  “Of course. A little adrenaline and a few more inches won’t knock me down. I might scream and curse, but I am going to go through with this.” She sighed. “Start the recruiting the moment I get the injection. Do the girls first.”

  “Thank you, Haru-vel. I will.”

  Ten minutes after they reached the lab, she had been scanned, recorded, and then injection administered.

  The first two hours were fine, and then, she felt the pain of growing six inches overnight. She told her mother, and supplements were added as her growth continued. The second day, muscles increased, and she stopped looking so terrifying. The third day, her curves returned over the increased muscle and bone. A bodysuit was designed for her, and the other nineteen were under way. Girls first.

  The ladies had immediately improved cognition, physical strength, and stamina. Yer-ai was busy making weapons that suited each of the ladies.

  The guys were getting mad. Unfocused and raging, they needed to be controlled, but the only ones close to their size were the ladies, and they were still too small to manage brute force against brutes. The men also started sniffing them. Frequently. They did better when the ladies weren’t around.

  When she was with finished her change, she went to Yer-ai and leaned on the workbench. “Having fun?”

  “This is a fucking blast. My fingers are clumsy, but my brain is going crazy with ideas and designs. I can’t keep up.”

  “What kind of designs?”

  “Everybody needs something else. For the guys, it is easy. They want hammers and big guns. The armed forces are taking care of the guns, and the hammers are on their way. The guys are going to try and bring the ships down; the ladies are going to need to go in and wipe them out. I have watched your workouts, so I am covering you with energy blades. Brax-el will get scatter guns; Yah-dith will get a broadsword and dagger. I am going to be restocking with drop drones and using them as my weapons with a control halo.”

  “What about Yel-nata and the others?”

  Yer-ai grinned. “Grenade launcher.”

  Haru-vel snorted. “Did your mother ever tell you who your father was?”

  “Nope. She gave a general description and laughed. The naming pattern is a big clue. All forty-two of us have the hyphens. It was like the moms all got together and discussed it.” She paused. “You speaking to the council today?”

  “Yup. In my new fancy clothing. Thanks for that.”

  “No problem. It gives you a striking silhouette, and no one will doubt that you are a lady.”

  “At least we got scaled up. I would hate it if just one part of us grew. The cleavage is a bit much.” Haru-vel looked down. “I mean, I am keeping all my passes in there, but it is a bit much.”

  “I am keeping tools in mine.” She chuckled and kept working.

  They laughed, and Haru-vel left for her meeting with the council. They wanted to see what her mother had been up to.

  The gasps were audible when her mother called her in. She stood in the centre of the arch in front of the curved table. On a screen above her, her training and exercise recordings were being played.

  When they were over, the prefect asked her, “What do you think you will do when this is over?”

  “If I survive, I might take up construction or private security or make ceilings look really low.” She crossed her arms.

  “You doubt you will survive?”

  Haru-vel pinched the bridge of her nose. “Each day I wake up and leave home, I could die crossing the street or catch a virus or just be on the wrong side of a fist in a
bar brawl. I would rather die holding back an invasion and saving one other citizen than cowering in an office or just giving up. Giving up isn’t in my DNA. Mom checked. Twice.”

  The folks gathered chuckled.

  “Has there been any word from the warband?” she asked the prefect.

  “They will be here in fourteen days. The invasion looks to begin within forty-eight hours.”

  “So, we just have to hold them off for fourteen days. I know the tech and med teams are getting healing pods in our size, so I hope they are quick. We aren’t really used to these bodies, and they move differently. The first few days are going to be rough until we get the hang of it. Even with training, none of us have actually done this before.”

  The general asked, “What colour are your battle suits?”

  “Black. That way, when we bleed, it won’t show.”

  The prefect looked a little pale. This was the crux of the matter. They were not being allowed to run, and extinction was all they faced. Holding out until the actual fighters arrived was all they could do.

  She bowed and left the room by doing backflips until she reached the door.

  That bit of whimsy might be the last she had. She was going to get it in.

  In two days, she was going to war.

  Haru-vel sprinted to the crash site and started to slash through the outpouring of warriors. She leaped, landed, and hacked her way through with blades that cut through anything. Another ship had been brought down nearby, and another of her team was working on it. By the timed explosions, it was one of the ladies with grenades.

  Ten days of fighting for her life and the lives of her people, she was getting tired.

  The light dimmed as the sun was obscured. Her new eyesight kicked in, and she ran toward one of the high-ranking invaders, stuck both blades in, and swung around to kick the man behind him. She felt the cracking in her blades and cursed. She tapped her com twice and got a click in return.

  The crimson bodies were pressing in tight, and she kept hacking and slashing until her blades gave way. She pulled her daggers and saw one attacker coming head-on and one on either side. She was fucked.

  She braced for incoming pain, and instead, two huge warhammers slammed down on either side of her. She drove one blade into the eyes of the incoming attacker and whirled to see what had saved her.

  “Whoa. They did not describe you accurately.” She looked up and up at the warband warrior. Golden-green skin, tusks, a thick black braid, pointed ears. He was wearing a sleeveless bodysuit, and his arms were banded with gold. He had a strange circle on his belt and grinned at her.

  He took the circle, opened it, and clipped it around her neck. “You are a wild, pretty thing, and now, you are mine.”

  She opened her mouth to curse him out, but he grinned as she was covered in glowing light.

  She staggered as the light faded and hands caught her. She blinked and looked up at the grinning huge men who carefully took her by the arms. “Wow. She is definitely not Myvik spec. Get her to medical for a full workup.”

  “Wait. What’s going on? Why am I up here? I was in the middle of a fight.”

  One of the men holding her said, “Our fight now, sweet. You are part of our five percent. And what a lovely percentage you are.”

  She blinked. She had been told they would take five percent. Last time it had been minerals and the power crystals that made Myvik so desirable.

  “I thought you took minerals and power crystals.”

  He chuckled. “That was the first warband. We are the Lyrik Warband. We have different requirements.”

  “What do you need?”

  He chuckled. “Mates, and the Myvik women are compatible. There weren’t any children born to the Kek, but we are willing to put in the extra effort.”

  She blinked as she realized that they didn’t know. Myvik women were stimulated ovulators. They didn’t go into season; they simply got pregnant three days after good sex.

  At least forty-two women got pregnant the last night the warband was on Myvik, and the visiting army had no clue.

  She was escorted without option to the medical bay. She thought of it as escorted because the men were precise and didn’t pinch or grip her arm uncomfortably. It was as if they had practice.

  “Do you abduct women often?” She kept herself calm.

  “Not often, no, but we need a new generation. Our warriors can collect up to a thousand women, and our mothership can house them. You will be scanned, analyzed, and it will be determined whether the male who captured you is best suited for you.”

  “What if he isn’t?”

  “Matching suitors will be found, and the original suitor will have the opportunity to fight them.”

  “Great. Who the hell found me?”

  They looked at her collar and paused. “Right, you are fine.”

  She didn’t know whose name was on her collar, but he had just called dibs.

  * * * *

  The warband ship got into position above the planet, their fighter ships dispatching to clear the skies around Myvik.

  Commander Nyik-Yosh looked at the vids and checked the satellite feeds. Small battles were going on all over the planet, but the larger ones had figures in black hacking away at the invading forces.

  The heady curves of a woman wielding energy blades caught his attention, but then, he noticed the ship pouring out wave after wave of enemy.

  “Get me to the surface.” He put his clubs in either hand and checked to make sure he had the collar he planned to use on that woman. “I am about to claim the first of our five percent. Drop me behind her. It looks like an excellent view.”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  The cascade formed around him, and he flexed his fingers on his clubs. This was going to be fun. A fight and a mate in less than a minute.

  He landed on the surface in the shadow of the ship. He took the half dozen steps to guard her back and crushed the two charging her, blinding her from the sides. She stabbed the third in the eye and whirled to stare up at him.

  She was a tall lass, with dark purple hair, and eyes so pale they were nearly white with black rings around the iris.

  She spoke. He clicked the collar around her throat and called a cascade to take her to the mothership. His pretty little pet had caused surges in all his systems. He looked forward to finishing this skirmish and getting back to greet her properly.

  He started to crush the enemy and grinned. He had had twelve chances to take a mate, but this little fighter would be his.

  Chapter Two

  “They are religious icons, and I don’t want to part with them.” Haru-vel smiled at the medics calmly.

  The scans had identified the weapons she kept in her suit tucked under each breast.

  The medics paused and then said, “Which deity?”

  “The god of war. If other women dressed like me are snagged, they are also carrying icons. God of intelligence, speed, and even projectiles. Those you might want to verify.”

  The medic looked at her wryly. “Really?” His tusks were banded.

  She looked at him and crossed her arms. “Prove me wrong.”

  “You seem very calm. Normally, the young ladies are weeping or cursing.”

  “This is not the first time that the Myvik have had to call the warband.”

  He started making notes. “Really? When was the last time?”

  “Thirty years ago.”

  He paused. “How old did you say you were?”

  “Twenty-nine years old.”

  He dropped his tablet. “Grunting hells. Don’t tell me that you...”

  “Forty-one others mixed genders. Average height of a Myvik female is about here.” She put her hand under her breasts, and he blinked.

  “That is what our records stated. We thought you were immigrants who were helping.”

  “You have been watching?”

  “You will have to talk to the commanders to get details, but we always watch the worlds we arrive at.”

  Blood was drawn, and machines started whirring.