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"Stop staring at me, bitch!" Cree snarled, spitting at the camera.

Ivonne jumped, her hand going to her throat. The harsh words were flung at the camera

like laser blasts and were punctuated with a growl that left no doubt in her mind the

warrior was infuriated beyond his ability to conceal it. She gasped as he made a leap for

the camera, swatting a heavy hand at the apparatus, before crashing to the floor. He tried

again, failed, and let out a howl of frustration that made the hairs on her arm stir.

Ivonne flicked on the Vid-Com beside the Director's chair.

"Yes, Miss O'Malley?" the computer answered the call.

"Find Dr. Dean and let her know Captain Cree is quite agitated."

"Certainly, Ma'am."

Ivonne returned her attention to the monitor and was surprised to see the Reaper

standing still staring at the camera. For a moment or two, he seemed to study the camera's

position, then as she watched in awe, he leapt again and this time managed to grab the

camera housing. On the monitor, there were a series of squiggly gray lines overlapping

his angry face then the screen went black.

"Oh my God!" Ivonne breathed. She knew that an ordinary man could not leap high

enough to grab the camera.

But then again, Reapers were not ordinary men.

Ivonne thought back to the indoctrination she received secretly from a Resistance

fighter her first week on FSK-14, some fifteen years earlier....

While Earth was still staggering from the assassination of the greatest political leader

our world had ever known, the Rysalians were systematically eliminating anyone they

considered a threat to their multi-world domination; not even newborns of the ruling

classes escaped the Rysalian sickle of destruction.

To that end, Dr. Piev Jale, the head research scientist on board frontier station

Khamsin-14, had engineered a new retrovirus that caused instantaneous infertility in his

female lab specimens. The retrovirus, codename V-7, attacked the ova and destroyed all

the egg cells, thereby rendering the female unable to conceive. The inability of enemy

females to bear offspring would mean no future enemies about whom Rysalia would need

to worry. Therefore, V-7 was developed as part of a huge stockpile of biological weapons

to be added to the Rysalian Empire's war arsenal for use in future conflicts. If Rysalia

could simply stop their enemies from reproducing, ultimately, there would be no more

enemies with whom to share their part of the universe. It had the full endorsement of all
high-ranking members of the fleet command.

Once the retrovirus was deemed safe for transport, two hundred titanium canisters

were sent via three long-range cruisers to the holding facility on Rysalia Prime. Each of
the other fifteen space stations was to receive a dozen canisters each to be incorporated
into the weapon's array of that station's assigned warship.

While FSK-14's own warship,
The Whirlwind
, was having her cache of V-7 installed,
the canisters of the retrovirus suddenly exploded in the cargo bay. The pressurized

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contents were forced out of the ship's forward hold and sucked into one of the space

station's air registers and from there into FSK-14's ventilation system. The bacteria

invaded every chamber, every corridor, and the respiratory system of every living thing

aboard.

The results were disastrous.

What had been harmless in lab animals became lethal to the females of FSK-14. Every

woman who breathed in the odorless, colorless gas drew deep into her lungs the live

bacteria and was dead in less than one hour from massive hemorrhage of the uterine

blood vessels.

Before news of the disaster could reach Rysalia Prime—and before the other fourteen

space stations could be warned of the potential danger—each of the poorly manufactured

pressurized canisters exploded, sending clouds of deadly gas into the lungs of every

Rysalian female in the empire. Within two hours, all the women were dead.

Such a tragedy stunned the men of the Rysalian Empire.

To have lost their mothers and wives, their lovers and sisters and daughters, was a

crippling blow. Humbled by their grief, the Rysalian's accepted peace terms from their

enemies and set about to re-populate their world with willing women from among their

former enemies.

But the gods had frowned darkly upon the Rysalian warriors and their attempt to rule

their part of the universe. The retrovirus, while harmless when inhaled by Rysalian

males, nevertheless attached itself to the reproductive system of its victim and began to
mutate amongst the spermatozoa. While no longer lethal, V-7 still carried with it

devastating results: the instantaneous infertility of any female who engaged in sexual

relations with a Rysalian male.

And there was no way to reverse the contamination of the spermatozoa.

As their male population began to decline, the Rysalians ranged farther and farther

afield from their home world, seeking out carbon-based humanoids with which they

might successfully mate and repopulate their dying world. The search within their own

galaxy had proved futile; the females they found were just as susceptible to the bacteria
as were their own.

Then, when their race was on the very brink of extinction, captain Kyrish Brell of the

Rysalian Fleet Command encountered an anomaly while on a routine run of the gamma

quadrant. The long-range cruiser was sucked into a massive wormhole and jettisoned out

into an area of space widely thought to be uninhabited. After ascertaining he could make

the return trip through the wormhole without endangering his ship and crew, he tried his

luck in the solar system into which he had been thrust.

Passing planets that showed no signs of sustaining life, as he knew it, the captain

finally arrived at a small, blue-green, pear-shaped ovoid.

What he had found was Earth, or Terra as he named it in his own Rysalian high

speech. Captain Brell and his men transported to the surface of this undiscovered world

and encountered a female species that was not unlike their own. With methodical intent,

twenty young women of childbearing age were abducted, taken on board Brell's ship,
The Windlass
, and examined for their ability to conceive. Only one was rejected and she was

soon replaced with another fertile female. Satisfied with his human cargo, Brell returned
to FSK-14. Once there, the women were handed over to specially selected males of the

elite warrior caste whose task it was to impregnate them. When the first female

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conceived, there was uncontrolled jubilation throughout the empire, but the jubilation

soon turned to abject disappointment. Though all twenty females conceived and bore

offspring of the Terran-Rysalian union—twelve females and nine males—the female

children were born without reproductive organs;the males with contaminated

spermatozoa.

Such news was bitterly disappointing to the Rysalian males. If these females' children

could not reproduce, what good were they? It was decided by the high council of

scientists that from that time forward, all female fetuses growing in Terran wombs would

be aborted while the male fetuses would be left to term. It did not matter that these male
children could not reproduce. After all, Terran women could easily be harvested from

their backward world to be used to re-populate the Rysalian Empire.

What Rysalia needed were more Terran women to bring forth Terran-Rysalian males

who would become fierce warriors over time.

In order to advance this Rysalian objective, special sections of the Rysalian Fleet

Command were formed for the sole purpose of extracting suitable females from Terra.

They were called Retrieval units.

The men of the first section were called Hunters. They were transported to earth and

left there to blend in with the inhabitants. Their job was to seek out young females of

exceptional intelligence, maximum physical heath, and arresting beauty: all attributes

thought to be necessary for optimum breeding ability.

The second section, the Shepherds, were assigned the job of `herding' those women

who were selected to a pre-arranged spot where the third section, the Harvester, picked

them up and brought them to Rysalia. Once on FSK-14, the women were turned over to

the fourth section, the Breeders, who assigned them to their mates.

But it was the infamous fifth section we feared the most. It was these men who struck

fear into the heart of every woman brought to FSK-14.

`Run and the Reapers will find you,' they told us.

`Disobey and the Reapers will punish you,' we were warned.

`Harm your mate and the Reapers will kill you,' they promised.

The Reapers were the demons of every Terran woman's nightmare.

And one in particular was a nightmare in his own right.

His name was Kamerone Cree.

CREE NEITHER glanced at the women standing in the doorways of the other

Treatment Suites, nor paid heed to the whispers that followed in his wake; he was used to

it. His full attention was on the two people who awaited him at the end of the long

hallway down which he passed. The guards escorting him to the Director's office—two in

front, two to either side of him, and two bringing up the rear—held charged phasers set

on heavy stun at the ready. Such elaborate security precautions irritated Cree more than

he would have thought possible. To be unceremoniously ordered from his cell and told to

report to the woman's office like an errant schoolboy did nothing to lighten his black

mood.

"You destroyed Imperial property, Captain," the Director informed him as he walked

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annoyance of requisitioning a technician in here to install a new one before you return to

your cell."

"So take it out of my credits." He swept the woman standing beside the Director with an insulting glower, then folded his arms over his chest. "Is there anything else?"

Bridget almost smiled at the look that came over Beryla Dean's face. Had this been any

other warrior, the Director might well have had him slapped in irons until time for his

session.

"You seem to forget that you have been placed under my authority, Captain Cree," Dr.

Dean reminded him. "I will no more tolerate your insubordination than would your

Commanding Officer!"

Cree's left brow crooked. "You have no control over me," he challenged. "I don't have to do a gods-be-damned thing you say if I don't want to."

What happened next shocked Bridget. One moment the Reaper was standing in front of

Dr. Dean, a smirk on his dark face, and the next he had been flung back against the far

wall of the corridor, where he crashed into it and slid down to land with a heavy thud on

his rump. Even the guards were amazed at what happened and took a few steps back,

eyes wide and weapons at the ready.

"At ease," Dr. Dean instructed the guards. She walked to where Cree sat, stunned and shaking his head. "I have all the control I need right here."

Groggily, Cree looked at the weapon in the Director's hand. "Do that again and I'll tear out your miserable throat, woman!"

The threat didn't seem to faze Beryla Dean. Instead, she leaned over him, knowing he

was still too stunned to come after her. "You forget, also, that your life is in my hands tomorrow. The wrong chemical injected at the wrong time could turn you into a gibbering

idiot. Terran women have no love in them for Reapers, Captain."

A low warning growl came from the Reaper, but he made no attempt to either get up or

harm the Director. But if looks could kill, Beryla Dean would have been decapitated.

"I think we understand one another, don't we, Captain?" Dr. Dean inquired. She moved back, out of his reach.

"I won't always be locked in here," he told her, struggling for a moment until he could gain his feet. He stood there and glared at the doctor, but did not try to touch her.

"That's true, but I think you need to be told something very important about me."

"There's nothing you can tell me that I would give a gods-be-damned shit about!" he sneered.

"Not even that I am General Drae Cree's consort?"

If anyone other than Bridget knew that particular secret, they concealed it well. The

expression on the guards' faces did not alter nor did Cree's. He simply chose to ignore the