Homecoming

The doorlock hissed open. J252 shifted his long body, craning his neck to peer out the single, small window at the end of his cage. Across the cargo bay, he could see worker-slaves lumbering through the door, escorted by an Overseer. He'd seen at least thirty different species during his years in the arena. These ones were big, dumb brutes, but the Masters found them useful.

Unable to see clearly, J252 listened as the slaves began loading the crates systematically onto a cargo skiff. Several more of the floating platforms waited to be filled. Eventually, the slaves reached him and he felt a lurch as his cage tilted. Alarmed, J252 dug his claws in, trying to stop his slide across the metal floor. He hit the cage wall and heard his wing joints creak at the impact.

A furious roar and a thump followed by a scream told him the careless workers were being disciplined. His cage tilted back upright and he felt the vibration of the skiff under him as the floor steadied. He strained to see, but could only catch brief glimpses of the worker-slaves and the dull grey of ship walls.

They floated to the next room. More banging and the grunts of the slaves proceeded the squeal of metal grating on metal. The skiff below him shuddered as a second cage impacted his own.

A strangely familiar smell hit his nostrils. He took another sniff. Male. He growled in response, worried. Other males were bad. Did the Masters want him to fight again? He was tired of fighting. Puzzled, he could do nothing for now.

The platform started moving under him as they headed out the door. His former handler had been excited and proud when he loaded J252 on the ship. All his talk for days before had been about promotions and new opportunities, at least how it would effect him. J252 had no idea what the changes might mean personally. The Masters were a violent, vengeful species. He did not expect to like their plans.

A breeze hit his nostrils as they approached the ships external airlock. J252 shifted, trying to see. He could hear the other male rattling in his cage, chains banging against the wall. For a brief moment, he thought he felt another mind brush his. He started in surprise, but then they were at the top of the exit ramp.

Light shone through the small barred window and his eyes watered in pain after the dark of the cargo bay. Pressing his beaktip against the bars, he inhaled deeply. The dark sour tang of the Masters battled the fear scents of the worker-slaves as they tried to avoid notice. The light, sweet scent of the fresh air nearly overwhelmed him. The arena and the pens smelled of blood and fear, but this scent sang to him. An unfamilar emotion rose in his chest, and he shifted, suddenly restless in the tight confines of his cage. The male next to him was moving as well, growling in sudden ferocity. J252 felt a mental touch, fleeting, gone again, almost before he registered it.

They were crossing an open courtyard and he got a brief glimpse of trees and bright foilage in the distance. Grey walls closed back in around him, followed by a rapid exchange of growling coughs. A pained grunt followed the nearby crack of a whip. J252 flinched involuntarily at the sound.

The light diminished, and the sounds took on a odd echo. J252 thought they had entered another large room, but he could only see more grey wall outside his window. Then a smell. Sickeningly sweet, and eerily familiar. Distant memories stirred in the recesses of his mind. Blood everywhere, hatchlings screaming. Terror, that smell.... that constant smell. It was used to clean up the blood, to cover the odor.

With a savage scream, the other male threw himself against the side of the cage. Frantically biting and clawing, he sought to escape. J252 felt the impact reverberate through the metal beneath his feet, and the skiff below him shuddered as it tried to compensate. Raised voices outside their cage.

"Control them!"

A snarl. "The sedative!!"

He felt the sudden stab of needles in his neck. His collar. His head spun and he knew no more.

—————

J252 woke slowly. His body felt weak and ached, an aftereffect of the drug his collar administered, and excerbated by the rough handling he must have received since.

He heard growled commands somewhere behind him. The echoes and clicking claws indicated he was in a large indoor space. Another growl was followed by a snarled response. A door hissed opened and the sound of claws faded as the door cycled close. Silence fell.

He opened his eyes to a barren grey wall. The floor was cold stone, also grey. Ignoring his body's discomfort, he lurched to all fours, turning to see where he was. He had been left in a small enclosure, not big enough to fully extend his wings, but at least he could move. A watering trough ran down one side, fresh water circulated through it and drained out a hole near the back wall. A metal grate barred the exit.

Moving to the front of his new cage, he looked out at a familiar sight. Twenty workstations filled a large, dimly lit room. They were arranged in groups of five, a sacred number to the Master's. A large data station full of computer equipment sat on a raised platform in the middle of the room. Raising his eyes, he looked across the empty room. A row of five cages lined the opposite wall. The beast in the center cage stared back at him.

Copper eyes topped a long ridged face that ended in a beaked tip. The mobile, feathered crest was nearly flat in submission. A long, lean body and tail with shorter, grasping forelimbs, tipped in retractable claws. The back legs were heavily muscled for running and jumping and ended in claw tipped, semi-webbed feet. Wings were folded back behind its shoulders. Dense, curled feathers covered most of the body; except for the leathery scales of its belly and the scaled ridge that ran down the creature's spine. If he could see himself, this is what he'd look like, J252 thought. The other beast moved, turning away from him.

Movement from the cell beside him snapped him back to awareness. He must be in the center of his row, he could hear and smell other males around him. Then, a soft whisper, a gentle touch, he felt a new mind brush his.

"Brother."

With a cry, J252 lunged forward, pressing his beak through the bars as far as he could, as he strained to see. In the opposite row farthest from the room's only door crouched another male. Not the one he smelled coming in, but familiar, grey.

"Brother. Can you hear me? Do you remember?"

A flood of memories hit him; other males, hatchlings barely out of their shell. Fear as they were separated, experimented on. Desperation. The weak were weeded out, culled by their Masters. Once they were considered fit for training; the Master's caged them separately, and half-starved them. Using their hunger as incentive, the Masters forced them to fight over live prey. Eventually, the strongest survivors were deemed fit for the Arena. An endless time of loneliness, fear, death and killing. A final desperate battle to please the Klan Leader. Longing for a reprieve.

Remembering, J252 dropped the walls he had built up over the years in the Arena, desperate to block out the mental calls and the agony he had felt. He reached for another mind like his own.

"Brother?" A wave of relief passed back through the mental link.

"I was afraid you'd never hear me. So many of us came back mad." The grey shifted, turning in his cage to see better. "Do you remember me?"

"Yes, when my hatchling group was moved from the birth pens. You were the first one to speak to us. G739. You're G739."

The grey shifted, tail moving restlessly.

"That is what They call me. Group G, specimen #739. You were in the J grouping, as was your friend who came in with you."

J252 remembered now why the first male had been so familiar. His hatchmate, #268. The smell was stronger and richer than what he remembered, that of an adult male. They had been out of their shell only a year when they were sent to the fighting pens. The best of them had gone on to the arenas at the end of their second year. That had been nearly three years ago.

"Why are we here? Are they going to make us fight again?" The last question worried him the most.

"No. The Emperor was so pleased by your performance in the Arena that he wants us to breed more of his new fighting pets." G739 hesitated a long moment, amusement and satisfaction rippling through the mind-link. "Unfortunately, it's not going well."

The door hissed open and two Creators entered growling in conversation. J252 stepped away from his cage door, hearing the males around him do the same. The Masters' were terrifying, tormenting them for amusement, but they could at least be distracted. The Creators' conducted their experiments with a ruthless, singleminded intensity that was a thousand claw-ful's worse. J252 listened to the Creator's speak.

"Their results are good. Both males are fertile. Just in time, too. They attempted another breeding today, but she went violent again. They stopped her before she could kill this one at least, but he may not be viable anymore."

"Too bad. The Chief's Aid thinks there may have been an instability in the base genetics. He's worried. We may have to start again from scratch on the females."

"Years of work wasted? I'm not ready to make that call. There are things we haven't tried yet."

One of them approached his cage, staring in. J252 felt a tremor of unease run through him, before the Creator moved on.

"These two are ready. Let's get this whole lot moved."

The second Creator moved to the data station in the center of the room. He wrapped a claw around a switch and pulled down.

Needles stabbed into J252's neck. He felt his legs buckle and heard the caged males around him falling, too. For a moment, his mind drifted, seemingly outside the confines of his body. He looked down, seeing the room spread below him. Cages full of scarred, battered bodies like his own, worn from years of abuse. Upright, pale-green reptilians moved around the room, preparing their victims for further transport. His memories inspired his dread of what was to come.

"Home. I'm home."

The world dissolved, taking him with it.