Page 49 of Monstrous Rampage
No! The fucking bracelet activated. Again.
SYKO
I despisedevery single moment my mate was ill and scared, though the medical emergency was exactly the distraction I needed.
DSC really shouldn’t have given me a basic Comms-specialist framework under my BGR programming. Even dumber, Snyder’s controllers didn’t have active monitoring on the tubes to ensure the dyni on board actually stayed asleep. I’d deployed thirteen mrion bots disguised as simple monitoring shells to each of the dyni held in stasis. I wasn’t sure if Holly would want them all or not, but I started their waking sequence while laying down a secure communication portal with each one. Especially the UGRR primed for rut.
My message was simple.
I’m the fucking alpha. Join me or die on ice when I blow the ship.
Not surprising, they all were willing to take my orders, even before they were fully freed from the tubes.
As soon as Snyder transported the waiting raptor to the training chamber, I initiated the next phase.
:Nihil, deploy the cloak and proceed with Kaos to the hold. Everybody else, stand by.:
With a Ankylosaurus base, Nihil’s plating was lined with adjustable light-bending material to easily match refraction indexes of most surfaces, allowing him to appear to be invisible. Whether his cloak would be wide enough to hide the presence of another dynos was the only unknown in my plan.
Once shifted into his Maip base, Kaos would be too big to take the lift or fit down the hallway, so he simply crawled closely to the Cl-ANK without shifting. So far, so good. The refraction shield shimmered and sparkled in the vids, but I couldn’t see either of the dyni moving toward me, and no alarms blared.
:Alpha, I can add another layer of firewall protection around this grid.:Terroar, a Comms specialist built on a Dilophosaurus frilled base quickly added,:Not that there’s anything wrong with what you’ve done so far. Just an observation to make it even better.:
:Do it. Make us as secure as possible. Bomb the computer with junk tasks, whatever you think works best. This is a think for yourself squad.:
:I don’t know why I never thought to make a private grid before.:He let out a nervous laugh and released a flurry of commands to the ship’s network. :Now that I see it’s possible, I just keep coming up with more ideas. Adaptive programming at work.:
:He took her!:Rekt roared on our private channel I kept separate from the others until Holly made her choices.:She’s beginning ovulation.:
:Relax. Chonk’s on our side.:
:Would have been nice to be in on the plan.:Rekt made a disgruntled rumble.:How do you know his name?:
:I couldn’t risk telling you the plan in case they detected unusual activity in your headspace. All the dyni are on our side.Awake and executing orders on a temporary grid I set up with them.:
Shock reverberated through our connection.:All of them? What if she doesn’t want them on the squad?:
:We’ll decide once we’re safely away.:
:Don’t know what she’d do with fifteen,:Rekt muttered.:Seems like an exorbitant number of mates for any female to deal with. Can you even control that many at once?:
:Evidently you need to see more of my supremacy in action, or you wouldn’t make such a ridiculous statement.:
:You’re taking all of this very well. Even her imminent ovulation.:
I could only imagine how good she smelled right now. With a vicious, silent snarl, I shoved those thoughts deep and locked them down.:Compartmentalization. I can’t worry about both of us being in heat until we’re away.:
:Humans don’t exactly come into heat. Not the way we do. What does the XAS say about human mating rituals?:
Spike, the Xenobiologist on a Ankylosaurus Spicomellus base had been yapping away in his channel for minutes now but I honestly hadn’t been paying attention. I tuned in to him and listened for as long as I could stand it.
:Dyni haven’t mated in the wild in thousands of years. Let alone with a species as incompatible and inferior as humans from planet Earth. Human females ovulate monthly, many on a regular cycle of approximately twenty-eight Earth days. They ovulate even without a suitable breeding partner present, which in my opinion is a waste of valuable biological resources. If fertilization and implantation aren’t successful, the female’s uterus sheds the lining and blood for several days. Yet another example of why humans aren’t considered compatible with us. Not only must we contend with the ovulation pheromones but also the tantalizing scent of her blood. Monthly! Are you sure?—:
:We?:I growled.:And yes, I’m absolutely sure. We are compatible.:I didn’t give him access to all of Holly’s data. Not unless she selected him for the squad.:The initial mating was accomplished.:
The XAS let out an strident squeal I could only hope was on the grid and not audible.:You knotted in her? And she survived?:
:I did. She is definitely still alive. That’s why I woke all of you to help.:
