Teol braces herself beside me as the railing flashes. Women all around us scream and jump in excitement. “Good luck.”

“Same to you.”

The railing blinks green, and I haul myself over it.

Above us, the massive transport eases inside the shield. The doors open way up in the sky, and the first males leap out. They thunder to the ground, falling like lead rain.

Women scatter through the fields. A few run for the mountain. Others take off for the short forest, while a few hang out in the ropes course.

Kings and princes land in their royal armor, draped in ceremonial robes accented with shields. Dignitaries of the political and business worlds land in Abr race suits. Cameradrones buzz all around us.

I start for the forest. It seems like a decent place to hide. I know some of them can find us by scent. But I don’t like the looks a few of the males give me.

Two women nearby are slower than me: a pink and a blue. I don’t think the pink is trying hard. The blue doesn’t strike me as a physically fit type. Nevertheless, a Talhuskin warrior, deep brown and leathery, wings bound behind his back, charges at me. I definitely don’t want one of his kind: dominating, bossy, irritable, greedy. And a bed of pebbles sounds terrible.

If I can find a spot I will fit that he won’t, I can lose him. I veer toward the ropes course. Charging up to the structure with him right behind me, I drop into the dirt beneath the lower platform, sliding through the dust on a leg. Then I scramble up on the other side and run, grateful my mother had me in softball until my father took me away.

Behind me, a blue wolf-shifter tackles the Talhuskin as I sprint for the trees. They get into a tumbling roll that gives me space to get away.

My heart pounds. I keep up my pace so I have some space to scan the arena for Teol. All around me, males fight over women. A yellow Jorbiun alien tackles a woman only to get thrown by a red Klaphos in the ceremonial armor of a prince.

I find a cave opening in the hillside just inside the forest and drop into its opening.

A woman cries out in pleasure, and a pair of angry, reflective eyes look out at me.

“Whoops, sorry. Didn’t know it was occupie—”

I’m dragged out by an ankle.

“Mine,” a sinister voice booms behind me, hauling me across the mossy ground and back toward the complex.

“What is it with you men, anyway?” I shout, clawing at the ground, frantically trying to push myself over so I can look up at who’s captured me. “I’m a fucking red. Do you really want to deal with my pain in the ass?”

I kick at his wrist. He stops and rolls me over. The gray ogre towers above me like the trees. The translator on his neck flashes and relays words to him that I don’t understand.

“Holy shit.” I definitely don’t want his kind of mating, whatever that is! Just the thought terrifies me. I’m not into baby carrots, but I don’t want to take a fist of cement either.

“Strrrong,” he says, pointing at me.

That’s why they want me?

Another alien bodyslams him, breaking his grip free of my ankle. They tumble away. I scramble up and keep running through the trees.

A cameradrone zooms after me. I don’t want to be on anyone’s TV more than I already have. I’m glad my mother isn’t alive to have heard my earlier response. She’d be so disappointed. But this universe is at war; only the toughest and cruelest of us survive.

I dart off course through a tight group of trees, losing the drone. But as I break out into a field, a set of hands grips my shoulders like talons and lifts me high into the sky.

My stomach clenches. I grab the hands that hold me and look up at the Talhuskin’s edgy face and cheekbones with rigid, scaled enhancements. He looks triumphant.

The warm breeze ripples over my hair and uniform, and I realize resisting him at this height above the surface is a deadly idea. Below us, the race grounds look like an ant colony being overrun by another. The bigger, colorful ants capture and carry away the smaller ones.

I don’t know why Talhuskins seem to want me. They’re known for their egos. I’m a red. That’s a bad pair.

Unless they want to tame me. Which will never happen.

As we arc back toward the building, I’m torn between the awe of their natural flight capabilities and the notion they want me for another reason because they know who I am.

I’m no prize except to maybe that ogre guy. The other women are thinner, healthier, prettier, with fewer scars. It doesn’t make sense for them to want me.

“We have wing release! Alert, wing release!” A cameradrone communicates over a PA. A red light swirls atop the drone.

I strain to look up at the Talhuskin. His eyes scour the fields below us as another of his species crashes into him mid-flight. I’m knocked loose in their confrontation.

Gravity might be lower on the moon, but I still fall. Sickening fear chokes out my yelp of disorientation.

I never thought this was how I’d die.

I close my eyes. Sorry, Mom. For everything.

Shouts and screams fill the air and then fall silent.

The drone’s buzz morphs into the blasting thrum of a thruster array. Metal tines collect me like a spider’s legs.

Voices cheer as my insides slam against my ribs. The drone lowers me safely to the ground and sets my feet down.

“Confirm your status,” it says.

I catch my breath and nod.

It zooms away.

A cluster of males piles over themselves on their way toward me. I back up and look at the other girls in the area who’ve stopped running to watch them fight.

“What do you have that we don’t?” A blue-banded woman asks.

I shrug. “A piece of shit cargo ship that breaks every single fucking day? That’s literally all I own. I make federal minimum wage. I’m not that pretty or healthy. I barely scraped in here.”

A green-banded woman crosses her arms. “Must be something to have so many males fight over you.”

I watch the five males break apart and cluster up in a fight again. I’ve only seen males behave so aggressively over one other thing in the whole universe. If females and families don’t drive them to act like this, treasure or the promise of it will. “I didn’t want or ask for this.”

Abr guards come out to break up the fight. When they struggle to get control, they open doors to a set of stairs to the third level, where human guards hustle down the steps.

One of the alien racers breaks free and charges at me on all fours. To my dismay, it’s a Ginarigon.

I stagger backward and try to run, but he’s fast and catches me around the waist. We pile up in the grass, but he quickly climbs over me. The auburn beast is three times my size and bares his pointed teeth at me.

He draws in a deep breath near my neck while his sheer weight crushes the air from my lungs. I try to push him off, use every trick Teol taught me, but he just grumbles like I’m an annoying bug.

His predatory pupils open inside striated orange irises, and I fear he’s not there to claim me but to kill me. When his teeth graze my skin, their sharp tips stinging my skin, my concerns solidify.

A shrill cry leaves with what’s left of my breath. I close my eyes as the world darkens around me from lack of oxygen, wishing I’d never come here.

The Ginarigon’s weight lifts. I blink and look in the direction he’s disappeared and see the Ginarigon tumble away, get up, and shake himself like a dog, rattling his battle armor. Between us stands a man in all-black tactical gear, tightening his fists.

Abr staff said we were protected. I’m honestly surprised that they meant what they said.

A striped hand appears before me, covered in thick, smooth scales. “You alright?”

I let him help me up, then follow his green eyes to another woman being carted off by the blue wolf-shifter. Then the male who has put me on my feet launches sideways in a blur of orange. My heart sinks.

This is not what I want. I don’t want them fighting over me when so many are starving and dying in battle with the Nebs. I wish we could put our energy toward more important things.

The two males growl at one another and scrap in the dust.

“Stop!” I squeeze between them and try my best to break them apart. “No one needs to get hurt!”

They split up. I reach for the nice male, the one closer to my size, aiming to ask if he’s okay and if he’d consider me. He’d be a decent alternative to the Ginarigons and Talhuskins, which seem to only want to risk my life. But the aggressive Ginarigon laces an arm around my waist and hauls me away before I can make my offer.

The race time ticks through the last seconds as I wriggle and kick the male that’s taken me. “Let go of me!”

The buzzer goes off. A woman somewhere on the mountain has won. She cheers from atop the rock. I wonder if it’s Teol.

“Zariah!” Teol hangs over the shoulder of a huge male with feathery fur as dark and eerily translucent as obsidian. He slinks toward the mingle celebration. She waves and gives me a big smile. But I’m stuck with Baby Carrot.

“So do you want the money or me, red?” my captor asks. “No, not money. I saw your answers. You don’t care about stuff. You must want a mate. Lucky me, I want both.”

“Fuck.” I think he knows who I’m descended from. I have nothing but an antiquated StarBuster. He can see that in my Abr digital file.

“That can be arranged.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Guess this means you’re mine.” He doesn’t give me a chance to protest; he just picks me up by the waist. I’m slung high into the air before he folds me over his shoulder like all the other males do with their women.

“Do not bite-claim me. I might do the same to your pathetic member,” I warn.

He snorts. “Still bigger than a human.”

“It is not proportional.” I’m frantically looking for a way out of this arrangement. If he wants what I think he does, he’ll try to get me to take him to one of my father’s rumored outposts to hunt down some treasure that might not even be there. And then what? What purpose will my life have if I don’t stroke his ego? And I’m definitely not doing that.

“Are you going to be like this the whole time?” he whines.

“You picked a red. What do you think?” I growl.

From where I hang over his body, I look out at the field and see the chrome-banded woman getting handed a check.

I wish I was her.