Page 1 of Koha'vek
Chapter One
Koha’vek Draal
The cries and screams echoed down the sterile halls of the research lab in the bowels of the Mesaarkan base, so many raw with panic and pain. I stood at my post, my claws tightening around the edge of the metal doorframe, willing my body to stay still even as my soul twisted with revulsion. Another captive human was punished for some real or imagined infringement. My people crushed so many human spirits for long past and thoroughly avenged infringements.
I didn’t know the name of the young woman sobbing at the medical bay two doors down the corridor. I didn’t need to. I had new human captives to catalog, monitor their vitals, and administer injections designed to keep them compliant. My superiors called it mercy.
I called it what it was: slavery.
Turning away from the corridor, I scanned the dimly lit chamber. Rows of containment cells line the walls, each one housing a frightened human. Most of them were quiet now. Fear and despair had done what thesedatives had not. The stench of unwashed bodies, chemical restraint, and metallic despair hung in the air.
I never wanted to be here.
I was a historian once—before the draft, and before the war, and the aftermath when they sent me to Earth. I spent my youth studying ancient Mesaarkan architecture, collecting oral histories, and deciphering ancient codes etched into stone tablets. Now, I watched over broken humans with a scanner in one hand and a stun baton in the other.
A child whimpered in the cell next to me, and I glanced down. A small boy, no more than seven, pressed his hands against a transparent barrier, his eyes wide and hollow. Tears stained his cheeks. Perhaps he cried for his mother, who’d been ripped from him too soon.
“Go to sleep, little one. No one will hurt you while I’m here.” I spoke in the human tongue, though I knew there was little I could say to bring comfort.
Footsteps echo behind me, sharp, heavy, and imperious.
Subcommander Gar’hako stepped into view, his bulk barely contained by his uniform. “Draal,” he barked. “Why have you not finishedsedating these test subjects?”
I rose slowly. “I have dosed the children, and I am checking their vitals.”
“That doesn’t explain why you’re behind.”
I clenched my jaw, knowing nothing I could say would appease him. “Because this is inhumane. They are suffering, if not physically, mentally.”
Gar’hako’s yellow eyes narrowed. “Their suffering is of no consequence after what their kind did to our kind. You dishonor your bloodline. A Draal does not question orders. These creatures are cargo.”
I didn’t flinch. “They are alive, thinking, feeling, sentient beings.”
Gar’hako stepped closer, his voice low and full of menace. He clearly had no respect for me, but in that, we were equal because I had no respect for him. “One more failure, Draal, and I’ll send you to the breeding labs on Shekhar Station. Let’s see how soft your ideals are after watching a few mating experiments.”
My claws itched to extend. I just wanted to rip him apart, but my instinct for self-preservation helped me to keep the impulse in check.
“Yes, Sub-Commander,” I said coldly.
Gar’hako grunted and strode away.
I stood still for a long moment after he disappeared, my chest heaving with restrainedfury. I hated that man. He would have me executed if he knew what I was thinking, I realized. The scanner shook slightly in my hand before I set it down, forcing myself into a calmer state.
That was the moment I knew I finally had enough. I had waited, hoped, endured—but Gar’hako finally crossed the line. Everything about him and this place was wrong.
I would not stay here and watch another child’s spirit crushed or a human female used in ways I wished I could unsee.
That night, I went back to my quarters after my shift and packed up everything I thought I might need to survive. I waited until long after the base lights dimmed and the guards rotated shifts. Then, I crept through the hangar bay with quiet precision to a small hovercraft, a scouting model that was quiet, fast, and lightly shielded. I had memorized the blind spots in the patrol routes weeks ago, considering how I would escape if I ever got the nerve actually to do it.
Sliding into the cockpit, my fingers danced over the controls. The engine purred to life like a creature awakening from a deep slumber. I took one last look at the compound that had stolen my honor. The wind howled across the cave entrance like awarning. I turned southeast and headed to another mountain range far from here, a place where I hoped to find solitude and freedom.
I flew away at top speed, and I didn’t look back.
Ava
“No, that can’t be right. You’re making a mistake,” I said through gritted teeth. “My father paid off that loan years ago.”
Mayor Jenkins smiled the kind of smile that crawled under my skin and made my stomach turn. He leaned one hand on the porch railing of what had once been my family home and let his gaze wander far lower than my face.
