I 3d printed an orken wa.., p.1
I 3D Printed an Orken Warrior, page 1
I 3D Printed an
Orken Warrior
Rebel Orken Mates
Book One
Viki Luxe
I 3D Printed an Orken Warrior
Copyright © 2023 by Viki Luxe
Published by Dioscuri Press
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction.
(Until they come.)
No portion of this work may be transmitted or reproduced in any form without permission from the author, excepting brief quotations for reviews, hopefully gushing about how awesome this book is. (Cross-stitch & fan-art is cool, too.)
This ebook is available exclusively through Amazon.
If found on any other website or platform, know that the author has not been reimbursed. Without reimbursement, the author cannot buy coffee and we all know authors need coffee to write. Please support content creators through legitimate sources.
Contents
* * *
Kenzie - 1: Daily Grind
Kenzie - 2: Hit Print
Zakris - 3: Wakey Wakey
Kenzie - 4: No Tricks
Kenzie - 5: Double Trouble
Zakris - 6: Push It
Kenzie - 7: Tentacle Fun
Zakris - 8: Forest Sounds
Kenzie - 9: Feelings
Zakris - 10: Flameshift
Kenzie - 11: Blue Triangles
Zakris - 12: Prey & Hunter
Kenzie - 13: Frozen
Zakris - 14: Truth & Lies
Kenzie - 15: Lil Dip
Zakris - 16: Definitions
Kenzie - 17: Spoiler Alert
Kenzie - 18: Sticks & Stones
Zakris - 19: Cliffside
Kenzie - 20: Hatching Plans
Aussie Zak’s Orkish Dictionary
Next Time...
* * *
“A-Day”
* * *
Five Years Ago
Rubbing some friction against my arms, I wait to cross the street. The weather was supposed to be lovely. Nice, balmy, sunny. But weathermen lie. They tell big, fat, forecast fibs. It’s not nice—the fibs or the weather. It’s an unseasonably cold day. Of course I should have brought a jacket, but it was supposed to be warm. A lying, bitter, chill breeze blows and I regret not grabbing a fleece in my rush out the door. Just a little bit of extra warmth would be really welcome right now.
Ooh! There’s a coffee shop up ahead. I don’t think I’ve been in here? A local mom and pop place with an actual striped awning over the front. Yeah, I’ll snag something hot to drink and be thankful for any shelter from this frigid breeze.
The pedestrian light finally changes and I do a check for traffic, practically skipping down the curb towards the cafe.
Bear claw? No—a cinnamon roll if they have one. And a macchiato…
Breaks screech.
Panic rips through me, but it’s too late. The car skids. I actually meet the driver’s white-eyed panicked stare as he swerves.
Through some primal reflex, I heave myself back, sprawling over the asphalt. Electric pain flashes up my tailbone. Gravel tears into my palm.
There’s a crash. A horrible tearing, screech of metal. Glass shatters upon bricks. Someone’s screaming. The driver door flies open and the man staggers out.
He stumbles towards the street, ignoring the chaos he just created. He’s walking to me.
“I’m fine, fine!” I shout. “Who’s screaming? What’s happened in the cafe? Is everyone alright?”
The driver walks right past me.
What the hell? Is he actually trying to flee the scene? Ignore the building he just rammed into and the person he almost flattened?
Anger unleashes through me like a dam broke. I don’t know if it’s the stinging pain through my shredded hands or bruised tailbone. It might be the adrenaline pumping, rushing through me. Obscenities flow from my mouth in a torrent as I try to push myself up. Pain slices through my ankle and I drop back to the ground, still calling him every name in the book.
BAM! There’s a heavy thwunk on metal, then a horn blares, more brakes, and I hear three rapid crunches, bam bam bam!
Instinctively, I curl to a fetal position, tucking my head and hugging my knees tightly to my chest. Don’t hit me, don’t hit me. It’s a pileup and I’m in the middle of the damned street.
“You’re alright! Here!” A woman picks her way out of the wreck of the cafe. She steps carefully over the debris and leans down to cup my elbow. “Here, child, gracious let’s get you—” The woman’s strength falls from under my arm. “Lord in Heaven.”
She’s staring over my shoulder, the direction the driver disappeared. I glance behind me.
There’s…
Beams of light.
Shimmering, multi-colored beams of light from the sky, coming down to Earth.
Another beam of light forms, not ten yards away. It’s tangible. I can feel it, even from here. A buzzing energy. And…
Something is in it. The light dissipates.
Standing in the middle of the road is…
…an alien.
Sci-Fi writers must have gone to the same school as weathermen. Little green men? Lies. Green, yes. But these guys are huge. Massive. With tusks. And the roar he unleashes as he chops off the head of the driver curdles my soul.
* * *
I materialize with a scream ripping my throat. It is not from my own pain or terror, but a warning, a promise to my prey. The first thing before my eyes is my commander being charged by one of the enemy. With a powerful downstroke, he severs the male’s head from his shoulders.
A scream of terror fills the air. Yes! I squeeze the leather grip of my battle axe in anticipation.
I leap from the transportation beam into air that smells strange. There are scents of life and war comingling. The yeasty scent of baked goods clashes with the sharp stench of burning hydrocarbons. Sweet smells mingle with electric. Everywhere is a contradiction of natural and artificial. But I will not become distracted, I am here to fight. To win. To conquer.
With a mighty roar, I step forward to battle.
An angry claxon blast of a war machine fills the air. A small tank plows towards my body. I jump to avoid the force of impact and land atop the hood as the vehicle bashes into a structure behind me. My head snaps against the surface and I feel my communicator dislodge at the unexpected blow. I steady my stance and raise my axe above my head.
I am ready to cleave the creature as he exits the tank, but I hesitate. The alien’s stench wafts from the vehicle before he trips over himself, falling to the pavement. He reeks of fear.
Every enemy has given off some tendril of that sour chemical response, no matter their experience in battle. But this creature smells as though he’s been dipped in a vat of pure terror. His face is slack, his eyes bulging, his mouth open in a silent scream.
My glowing battle axe pauses over my head as if it questioned my movements. In confusion, I seek out my commander across the battlefield. He meets my gaze and shakes his head, once. I follow as his attention sweeps the area around us. Screams, terror. Aliens running away from our orken warriors. None running into battle.
No. This is wrong.
My commander says something, but I cannot hear him without my communicator. Our transport beam engulfs me. He has ordered a withdrawal. I lower my axe as I begin to transport. But not before I see my commander’s head explode.
1
Daily Grind
* * *
Kenzie
I try to ignore the bleepity-bleep of an incoming call. It’s an annoying bleep, a default bleep provided by our new communicators. Which means it’s also an alien bleep from alien tech. An off-tone bleep, discordant to human sensibilities, which is pinging directly into my ear.
As I’m currently hugging a ladder in an access shaft three friggin’ stories from falling to impending doom, I’m just gonna ignore the call.
My focus right now is mostly a desperate attempt not to hyperventilate. They made these access shafts to fit into whatever unused space is available—so, tiny. I’m crammed like a sausage into a tiny tube smelling like a vile combination of peanuts and shrimp—the stench alone’s enough to make me sweat—I don’t need another distraction.
I take a quick breath through my mouth and push it out in three bursts. Then, I go for it. Close my eyes and shimmy down the ladder, concentrating on the steady connection of my mag-boots on each rung. Like jogging. A steady, easy pattern where the only thing you have to do is push your body.
Bleepity-bleep.
Bleepity-bleep.
If the bleeps were linked to my comm, I could see who was calling or even send a voice-text. But no such luck with the Sluxxo-9000 Auditory Communicators. Which are also slimy, uncomfortable devices designed for Zarkonian use. I shudder every time I have to squeeze the oozing thing into my ear canal. I have complained about them more than every other bit of tech combined. Most anyone who works with me knows not to contact me by slug. I keep my comm-band for a reason.
But if I don’t stop this incessant beeping, it will spike anxiety and I might do something stupid.
You know, like fall to my death.
To answer the call, I kid you not, I have to pinch my nostrils and blow, popping my ears—which is really hard to do with one arm pretzeled through a ladder. The pressure squishes the device inside my ear canal and I get a squelching sound and cool, tingly sensation before another bleep.
Then, Tamara Soong’s voice: “The new transportation d
A hello to you, too.
I sigh, planting my feet on the rung. “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” I’m supposed to be the fixer, not the diagnostician. Supposed to be. That’s why they pay the engineers the big bucks. I’m just a tech.
“Well, that’s the problem entirely.” I can hear her face pinch up in annoyance. “This pad is fresh from the factory. It should be the first time this machine has been turned on—but the malfunction light is blinking. We could troubleshoot all day, but with all the problems we’ve had with the quality of equipment they’ve sent from the Xerko warehouse, I didn’t want to waste manpower on shoddy merchandise.”
Xerko. I can feel the headache forming behind my eyeballs. Xerko would have to look up to see the lowest bidder. They’d been conveniently left out of the entire vetting process, yet miraculously had a fifty-three hundred page legally-bound contract signed in triplicate before our former president was ousted. We’re stuck with them. And whatever junk they sell us which fell out the cargo bay of some space-semi.
If this transport pad is stolen merchandise, I wouldn’t be surprised. Livid, yes. But not surprised.
It’s also not lost on me that Soong doesn’t count my time troubleshooting as being wasted unlike her staff. Her engineers have all been trained in the newest, top-of-the-line tech from Zarkon. It’s sleek and sophisticated, even if it does squelch in your ear in discordant bleeps. They’ve never had to deal with wires or analog or dial-up.
Honestly, it’d be faster if I did it.
Also, anything to end this conversation so I can get off the ladder and out of this hole.
“Fine, I’ll be over to take a look.”
“You still want me to turn it off and on again?”
“No, just leave it. I’d like to see whatever error messages are showing up. Does the battery have charge?” They usually don’t when they’ve arrived from Xerko. Because why waste the money on energy?
“Down to three octos.”
Wow, not depleted. The Zarkonians use a base-8 number system. Eight octos is a full battery life, roughly sixty-four hours long. As long as some Warehouse-X genius hasn’t managed to screw with the batteries, we’re good with octos. I can fix most anything in twenty-four hours.
“Leave it, then. I’ll swing by at the end of my shift and check it out.”
There’s a pause which sizzles with irritation. “The alarm system activates at midnight. These offices must be secured by 2355.”
I can’t help my smirk, even though Tamara can’t see it. “You won’t leave the door cracked for me?” Her inhale could cut diamond it’s so sharp. Instead, I cut her off. “Don’t worry, Soong, I’ve got S-5 security codes. If I don’t make it in time for lockup, I can sneak my way in.”
Sometimes it’s good to remind her that this lowly tech has higher clearance than anyone on this station.
“Now, unless you’ve got anything else, the air handlers for level five are busted and there’s an electric saw on deck nine that thinks it’s got an AI chip installed…” I let the possibilities of that dangle.
“Very well. This has taken up enough of my time today. Soong out.”
The call doesn’t automatically disengage, but ends on a hissing crackle more annoying than a dial-tone. I have to wiggle my finger against my tragus to end my side of the call. The slug’s squelching icy chill shoots right down my spine and I shudder. Eww. Just eww. I swear, Tamara uses the Sluxxo-9k just to mess with me. She’s cold and stuck-up enough that a little ear-squelching wouldn’t bother her in the slightest.
I alert my comm to add a tasking for engineering. If I don’t, I’ll completely forget about it. It’s not that it’s unimportant. Or that I think Tamara Soong is a self-important snob who leads a small group of hoity space cadets. Which both hold a lot of truth. But my day is full of the non-stop mundane. Sure, I let Tamara believe the rogue electric saw was dangerous, but while we’re on the subject of truths, its only malfunction is that it won’t stop shaping snowflakes. Which is great for a winter landscape and horrible for the hatch to a docking port. This morning, I had to deal with the cafeteria food replicators printing out nothing but peanut-shrimp sandwiches. (Senior Midshipman Pruett, the definition of impatient, likes to hit the selection button five times until the machines freeze. Then, he’ll go to the next and try the same damn thing.) Gross-smelling, but an equally bland fix. But since the saw and food printers are at least human technology, they’re relatively easy repairs.
There are other things like the anti-gravity unit and air filtration systems that combine alien and human tech in a jury-rigged integration which take a bit of finessing. Which, after Tamara’s interruption, is where I’m headed.
I’m about three-quarters down the tube, I think. But it’s best not to think too much about it. Just place one foot beneath the next, solid, strong, steady—
The entire station suddenly lurches. The jerk from inertia rips my foot from the ladder. My forehead smacks against the rung, pain lancing through my skull, but my arms instinctively grip tight to the metal bars. For a moment I’m suspended. An alarm blares somewhere in the distance, but my mind doesn’t register what it means. Lights are out, the tunnel is pitch black, and a creepy red glow flashes in the tube, glinting off the metal of the ladder.
The station shudders.
I cling tight.
Gravity? Do we have gravity? I feel weightless. Fumbling fingers hit my comm-band and tap the icon to activate my mag-boots.
The magnetic soles hum. My left foot regains purchase.
Of course we have gravity. If we didn’t have gravity, I’d be flying, not falling. But at least the panic made me do something useful. If I fell from the ladder, it’s a three-deck drop. I’d ping-pong off of the tube walls or get a limb caught and snapped between the rungs, or…
Stop!
“Not again,” I whisper. “Not again, please.”
I can feel a tear slip down my cheek. A part of me is ashamed. A coward, scared of the dark, too frightened to move. The rational part of my brain knows that this shaking could be anything. We haven’t lost gravity. We haven’t lost power, otherwise the alarms wouldn’t work. It could have been a solar flare. The station might have hit a small debris field. We’re hovering just a bit too close to the asteroid belt for comfort and have had some rumbles before. It could be any number of things. Just breathe through it.
But, of course, all I can think about is the last time and them.
“Alert. Alert. Code twelve. Alert.”
Code twelve? I should know what a code twelve is. Shouldn’t I?
Instead, I hug the ladder and squeeze my eyes tight. My pulse is pounding. I can feel each time it gushes blood through the veins aside my temple. It hurts, especially where the rung smashed my forehead, but at least my heart is working. The pain proves I’m alive. Breathe, just breathe. I take a shaky inhale and hold it. Enough perspiration has formed on my lip to drip into the crevice where I’m pinching my lips tight between my teeth. Slow exhale, whoooooo.
I breathe. In, out. Slow. Steady. Calm.
I’m in an access shaft, not a manhole. The station hasn’t rocked again. It was probably just a rogue asteroid. Not blasters. No explosions. No giant green aliens overwhelming the Stellar Corps.
“Alert. Code twelve rescinded. Resume normal function.”
Resume normal function. As if that were easy.
I must hang onto the ladder for another fifteen minutes at least. My breathing slows. My pulse steadies. But I’m left shaken. I feel like a snow-globe in the hands of a three-year old.
A beep—human this time—from my comm. I glance down at the message: Food-printers spouting out rainbow-flavored hamburgers with a side of sardine sorbet and the Captain is hangry.
It’s going to be a long day.
* * *
I should have said exhausting.
Three hours, but the machines are fixed. Senior Midshipman Pruett managed to hit a Konami-code of buttons to reprogram half the food library. As my granny would say, I gave him such a what fer to make his ears burn for a week.
