Page 30 of Reaper
“Can you ask Brees, Grol, and Jeop to come down, please?” Janelle suddenly asked me. “I cannot reach them.”
I nodded, more curious than ever and mentally reached for the modified Creckels. With her low psychic rank, my mate had a fairly limited range, further impeded by the disrupting material used to build the base.
Seconds later, an odd but rather pleasant and soothing scent started tickling my nose. It took me a moment to realize it emanated from Stran.
“It’s one of the Creckel’s three pheromones,” Janelle explained at the sight of our confusion. “They have a mating one to help entice a potential mate. There’s a defensive one to both warn the others of an impending danger and make their enemies feel uneasy. And this one, is their healing pheromone. It doesn’t actually heal,” she amended with a shy smile. “But it soothes and calms. It is used to signal that the danger is passed, to calm someone who is agitated, angry, or injured.”
“He’s essentially signaling to them that they can wake up,” I said pensively. “But can they even smell it in their current state?”
She shook her head with a sad expression. “Right now, no. But this is a large room. Between Stran, Brees, Grol, and Jeop, they will be able to permeate the room with the pheromone. As the Creckels rehydrate, their higher functions will resume. This should help draw them out faster.”
“Then we better get them hydrated quickly,” Doom said.
“Agreed,” I replied.
Doom and I spent the next ten minutes discussing how we would get large quantities of water to the basement. With Reklig’s help, we then proceeded to dismantle the hatchery’s tanks and stasis chambers from both the lab and the basement to use them as basins to put the Creckels in. But with their large numbers, we had to get creative and welded some of the metal plates normally used to repair hull breeches to create more containers.
We placed the balled-up creatures in the tanks half-filled with water. Under Janelle’s and Stran’s guidance, we made sure their heads weren’t submerged. How the fuck they knew where the head was in what otherwise looked to me like a seamless sphere boggled my mind.
By the time we finished, the sun had already begun to set. With the additional work required, we hadn’t managed to finish butchering the Zebiers. I was beyond sick of that chore. Worse still, we would need at least another three days to get through the last of them. However, if our efforts with the hibernating Creckels proved successful, all that extra meat would come in handy.
Nevertheless, Doom sent out a call for a frigate to join us. There were too many Creckels for us to carry aboard our chaser, despite it being a larger model. They would also bring more food, water, and medical supplies.
That night, I took my shower while Jessica was giving my mate a quick check up. When Janelle returned, she showered in my room while I went to fetch her things and bring them to mine. I walked back in just as she was coming out. While my mating glands had gone back to being mostly dormant since our initial encounter before the Creckels killed me, they now started swelling again at the dreamy sight of my female.
Unlike the modified Creckels that had required little treatment to quickly bounce back from their hardships, it would still be many days before Janelle regained a healthy weight. Nevertheless, the nanites restoring her system were doing wonders. I was dying with the need to bury my face in her beautiful blond hair that was cascading down her back and over her light grey nightgown.
She walked up to me with a strange expression on her face. Picking up the small pile of clothes from my hands, she placed it on the table next to the seating area before facing me again. We stared at each other for a few minutes, a silent communication that I couldn’t define passing between us.
After a beat, her gaze lowered to my chest. “You are far too dressed for bed,” she said matter-of-factly, before boldly lifting up the hem of my shirt.
Speechless, I raised my arms and bent forward to help her rid me of it. I loved the way she just stood there, examining me with something akin to possessiveness. She gave me a mysterious smile then walked to her side of the bed and hopped in. I joined her, and she immediately lay her head on my chest.
“If we manage to revive the Creckels, it will take at least a week before they are in any condition to travel back to their homeworld,” my mate said wistfully.
“That’s no problem,” I replied. “We are not in a hurry.”
The delay actually pleased me to the extent that it would give me more time to properly court my mate.
“Brees says she will not part from me after we leave this place,” Janelle said carefully.
I tensed, bracing for where this was headed. Since discovering she was my soulmate, I’d started looking into Dreija and what kind of life we could build there should she decide to settle on the Creckel planet. Since the Kryptid war, the couple of scientific colonies that had once existed there had never been rebuilt. We would be the only humanoids there.
“She and the others aren’t sure they want to go back to Dreija,” my mate continued in a hesitant voice, choosing her wording carefully.
“Why?” I asked, my fingertips lazily caressing her back.
“They feel they are too different now to breed with the original Creckels. While some of their traits have been enhanced, others have been weakened,” my mate replied with a frown. “And they… hmmm… They liked that fight against the Zebiers.”
I waited for her to continue, but she let the words hang between us. Brushing her hair from her face, I lifted my head to look at her, forcing my mate to slightly roll to the side. I was hoping her mind was headed the same place mine had gone right after that battle.
“It isn’t surprising,” I said in a gentle tone. “Creckels are naturally formidable hunters. Everything about their anatomy seems to have been conceived to make them the ultimate war machines. Your friends have been enhanced for that specific purpose. A civilian life would obviously be more difficult for them.”
The tension in Janelle’s shoulders drained with each of my words. She beamed at me and lifted her hand to caress my cheek.
“You understand. You always understand,” she whispered with something akin to awe.
“You flatter me,” I said, fighting the urge to puff out my chest. “But my brothers and I were created the same way, and so were Reklig and his people. The Vanguard has accepted us for who we are, notwhatothers intended us to be. It gave us a chance to become all that we could be and to live proud and free. If the modified Creckels wish to settle on Khepri, I have no doubt something could be arranged.”