I once again shuffled into the green classroom, with the other recruits. They had been a little more distant and sullen since last night.

  Eva had stood before the entire barracks and declared herself my first. Had pointed and counted Beatriz and Sonia as second and third. Cheers had started and been cut short as she declared that entry was closed. Like she had declared hunting season and then closed it in the same breath.

  The Instructor, in her green school teacher outfit, did not look sullen. She was grinning and holding an example of the bulky long gun I had seen the soldiers carrying the day Last Eden had docked.

  “I have brought a prize today. My very best friend and soon to be your very best friend. Behold the J5 combat rifle. Not a silly dart thrower or a laser pointer. But a practical weapon of war.”

  She moved the slide, popped out a bullet from the weapon and held the shiny brass cartridge in her clawed hand for us all to see.

  “The time honored thirty-aught-six round. Simple brass and gunpowder. Is it not beautiful?” she asked.

  “Yes, Ma’am!” we all spoke in unison. She chuckled.

  She undid a latch and pulled a bulky sleeve free revealing a much more familiar rifle.

  “This is the standard coolant sleeve for the Jag-5. It is not strictly required in atmosphere. However it is essential without atmosphere to prevent the weapon from melting in your hands. That is why you will maintain it in perfect condition regardless in all situations and in all places. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Ma’am!”

  “But today is not the day you are issued your new best friends. Today is just for flirtation. You will see a handy diagram on the wall. It lists all the parts of the J5. The J5 will be placed into your hands. You will take it apart and then you will put it back together again. Is it not simple?”

  “Yes, Ma’am!” it looked slightly daunting to me. The J5 was a bit more complicated than the common revolvers back home and I hadn’t seen a coolant hood like that before.

  Junior instructors delivered copies of the gun to work tables at the front of the room. Jags soon began to form lines where they would take turns breaking down and reassembling the guns.

  There was a lot of struggling involved.

  Regardless, each one was timed and compared. If they took more than 2 minutes a bell would ring and the recruit would be shuffled to the back of the line.

  I nervously took a breath as my turn began.

  The clasps holding the sleeve were large and simple, with a click they came free. The interior tubing slid free pretty easily. A spring tried to escape as I took apart the breech, but I managed to catch it. A quick look confirmed I had all the parts separated.

  “Ma’am!” I gave a salute to indicate my completion. The instructor drew closer to inspect.

  “Get it back together, recruit. Don’t leave a job half finished,” she barked.

  It wasn’t too hard. I had to double check the diagram on the wall a few times but I managed it.

  “Give me that,” she rudely grabbed the gun and checked its action. Pulling back the slide. Venting the gun with a hit of the coolant trigger. Eventually she gave a nod.

  “Good work, recruit,” she held the weapon aloft and addressed the crowd. “Forty five seconds for a first attempt. That is a record. Let it be known.”

  A smug smile spread across my face as I cycled to the back of the line.

  * * *

  “Oh, Jack… You’re such a good boy aren’t you, Jack?” Virginia crooned as she lounged behind her desk. A lit cigarette already held carelessly between her fingers. The smell of her and the smell of the smoke filled the air between us.

  I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I just sat in the metal chair.

  “Barely here a week and you’ve already chosen your first. Don’t you think the people back in Last Eden should know?” she gestured towards me with a lit cigarette. “Don’t you think you should tell them how good it is, in the Dominion?”

  I could feel myself blushing. It wasn’t bad, per say. I had three beautiful women. When I could keep Eva from- and when I went along with what Sonia wanted and Beatriz was just really sweet.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  But good… There were a lot of caveats and warnings I would have to append to that. Certainly not safe.

  “It’s certainly… okay in the Dominion?” I ventured somewhat nervously.

  There was a moment of silence.

  “So you wouldn’t be opposed to a picture of your new family, showing off their new boy, being put up on a few walls? In the Dominion habs of course.”

  “Yeah… I guess that would be fine,” I admitted, casting my eyes towards the ground.

  “You know Jack…” she took a long drag of her smoke. “There are a number of reasons you should have made me your first instead of Recruit Eva and not just because I always know what is best for you. Do you know what any of them are?”

  My left eye twitched.

  “Not off hand…” I replied.

  “The big one is that I’m not under command structure and young Eva is,” Virginia just watched me. Waiting for the implication to dawn on me.

  “What’s… what’s the problem with having a first… under command?”

  “Nevermind that, it’s not really important,” Virginia shook her head and relaxed into her chair.

  * * *

  The message I sent to Sarah read: I wasn’t able to turn her down.

  I could read her reply or replies if I turned my data pad back on. Which I didn’t do.

  Instead I looked towards Eva, on whose bunk I was sitting.

  She was tapping away at her data pad in annoyance.

  I kinda didn’t want to bother her. I looked at the ground briefly wondering what I should do.

  A hand touched my shoulder.

  “Oh, hey,” I looked up, “You’re Rocio aren’t you?”

  “You remembered! I just wanted to ask how you handled the break down so fast-”

  Eva coughed.

  “We were just talking,” excused Rocio as she caught the hint and backed off.

  I glanced over at Eva again. Still looking at her pad in consternation.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She shot me a guarded glance, but relented.

  “It’s my mother. She’s almost out of breeding cycles and she wants to blow all her money on a Javier auction,” she muttered.

  “Hmm,” I nodded. “I don’t get it.”

  “See, this is Javier,” she showed me a picture of a handsome looking jaguarine male. “He’s famous. He’s fathered thirty sons and just over a hundred daughters,” she looked at me for a moment to see if I understood. “That’s nearly one in three. It’s a very high number for a jag.”

  “Ah,” I explained. “I think I get it.”

  “He sells semen sometimes at auction and people bid lots of money for it.”

  “So, she’s going all in on it?” I leaned against Eva’s knee.

  “She really wants a son.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” I muttered while watching her. I didn’t know what was bothering her so much. I could tell. This was bothering her a lot.

  “It doesn’t. Trying to sell her house to get pregnant? With how old she is?” Eva huffed in annoyance. “She won’t be able to take care of herself, never mind a kid. She’s so stupid sometimes.”

  She looked like she needed a hug, so I gave her one. About the waist with my head resting on her stomach.

  “Never mind all the kids she already has,” she places her paw hand on my head.

  We laid there for a little while.

  “Am I interrupting, you lovebirds?” it was freaking Colonel Raquel.

  There was a scramble where we both tried to stand up and salute without disentangling ourselves first.

  “Ma’am!” Eva was first to get into position. I was only slightly after.

  “At ease,” the officer in command of the entire base replied with slight annoyance.

  We relaxed slightly.

  “I am here, Recruit Eva, to politely ask for you to lend me your ward for a few hours.”

  “Wait, Colonel-”

  “Do not make me order you. You are one of my recruits. He is your ward. He is on my base. In the same way I can order you to surrender your toothbrush for inspection, I have every right to order you to lend me your ward.”

  Eva trembled. “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll have him back to you before sunset,” Raquel said reassuringly.

  * * *

  Corporal Rosario was very apologetic as she hastily stripped me out of my fatigues.

  I tried to just roll with it, not cringe at my nudity and vulnerability.

  “The Colonel is expecting a visit from a General. You are to serve drinks,” she explained as she efficiently washed me.

  The water was not very warm and I kept reacting to it.

  “You are not to speak, unless spoken too,” she helped me into a leotard.

  Ridiculous.

  “You do not move,” she doted my skin with marks. A leopard print. Or a jag print rather.

  Beyond absurd.

  “You do not listen, you are not privy to what is spoken about in that room,” a head band with round jag ears on it was placed onto my head.

  I wanted to laugh, except it wasn’t funny. It had stopped being funny.

  “Whatever you do, do not embarrass the Colonel.”

  With, serving tray in hand, I was pushed out of the room, down the hall and into another room.

  The room was dark. The furniture was wood. The skins of animals, large ones, larger than any deer, adorned the floor and walls. Each one would have needed vast portions of hab space set aside for their existence.

  I had never seen so much wealth in one place.

  “Is that the treat you promised?” A jag woman I had never seen before asked. She was large. Larger than most jaguarine. She had a pale almost white coat adorned with small spots.

  “No, but he is carrying the treat,” Colonel Raquel answered with a warm smile that was not directed at me. “Come, serve us.”

  I moved forward and poured a glass of wine for the Colonel.

  “So how did you get one of those?”

  I moved and poured a glass for… Her guest.

  “A recruit,” the Colonel responded, with a nod. “I wonder how many there are in that Last Eden.”

  The guest stopped me before I could step back with a hand on my hip.

  “Nubile young men like this? Maybe four hundred at best,” the guest grimaced.

  Not sure what to do I just stood at attention.

  “That’s a lot,” Raquel smirked.

  “Not nearly enough,” the guest squeezed my butt thoughtfully. “Plans to get their breeding numbers up to an acceptable level are underway.”

  “More than the Conglomerate probably has,” The Colonel countered.

  The guest, apparently done with her fondling, released me and I stepped back.

  “The Conglomerate won’t be happy about that and we can’t hide the movement of habs from them.”

  “Filthy creatures…,” my commander muttered.

  “They plan to update the Last Eden education system. Start teaching them the history of the Dominion.”

  “Nothing about Eden Two?”

  What? Eden Two? What the hell is Eden Two?

  “No, no, they are still skittish about that.”

  “Why? We can’t be ashamed of Eve,” Colonel Raquel responded, scandalized.

  The jag’s Eve in Eden Two. The first jag?

  “Of course not. We’ll have to tell them about her,” the guest responded.

  “The seed vault of the founders. Was it actually viable? It’s been over two hundred years.” The Colonel asked.

  “Oh the techs say it is. We haven’t gotten many human volunteers for in vitro yet. I think it is still too early to say for sure. But maybe. We might have to start applying more pressure on them if it works.”

  Human women under pressure to accept bearing the children of… the cult that created the jags? My stomach turned at the thought of how they might push Sarah into something like that.

  “The rewards… Would be worth the effort,” Colonel Raquel raised her glass and I stepped forward to fill it.

  “You wouldn’t mind loaning him to me for a week, would you?” the guest laughed as she raised her own glass.

  I stepped forward and poured the last of the wine into her cup.

  “Loaning a loan? I think that would be too much for the poor thing.”

  * * *

  Back in my fatigues and with the marks washed off I made my way back to the barracks. I was having a bit of trouble catching my breath.

  I was shaken.

  Beatriz caught me in the hall before I made it to the barracks. She greeted me with a warm hug that I dearly needed.

  “They, they didn’t do anything to you, did they?” she whispered.

  “No… No. They didn’t do anything. I just served drinks,” I lied to her. She didn’t need to worry about some groping. I could protect her from that, at least.

  “I’m sorry. I saw you in the hall. I saw what they made you wear,” Beatriz explained.

  “Yeah,” I admitted.

  “You looked so terrified. So out of your depth and embarrassed,” she whispered into my ear, snuggling me close.

  “It’s-” I choked. I wanted to say the words.

  It’s not that bad. It’s no big deal. I can handle it. You don’t have to worry about me.

  But I knew if I spoke I’d sob.

  “It was so beautiful,” she kissed me. Deeply, hungrily. Reminding me of her claim. I realized how thick the smell of her arousal was.

  She smothered my self pity in her lust.