by C. R Corbin
"Well that was sooner than expected." I said, it was close to two weeks after we called my father but to be honest, I kind of lost track.
"They say back in Kanosia that when a mating bond is formed the rate of attraction is accelerated. That could explain it." he stated.
"Oh so this is all because of pheromones and not your charms? I think you're selling yourself short." I replied with a smile.
"Selling myself short?" he asked with a questioning eyebrow raised.
"You'll learn what it is eventually." I replied.
Silence fills the air for a while longer while I stroked his chest, the wound was already sealing up quite nicely.
"I've come to realize something. A new direction if you will." he said.
"Really? Tell me."
"I was wrong to have....denied what my people have done. There's no excuse for the brutality that I have been party in and...I’m sorry for those comments that I had made earlier, they were insensitive. After this is all over and we find Denos...I think I may just want to go somewhere with you, somewhere away from all of this. Maybe I can negotiate something with the Kanosians..." he trailed off.
"You don't need to blame yourself. You were raised in it. It's all you knew. You couldn't just back down when some girl started questioning your entire creed could you?" I asked him and he frowned.
"It is my fault. Where has this path led me? It's led to you being in such incredible pain, a pain that I can't even fathom. I was wrong to believe so blindly in the merits of violence and ...I renounce it because of meeting you. What man would I be to go back to a war that would harm members of your race? What kind of man would I be?" he asked me and I nodded gently before resting my head back on his shoulder.
"And I promise not to get so angry at the mere mention of a Kanosian..." I murmured and he sniffed the top of my head and kissed it.
"Like you said. If you can change-"
"I can change." I finished and he nodded.
"So what do you say? To hell with this war. To hell with all of this hatred. All that matters to me now is my love for you and I will never give it up." he said.
I couldn't agree more.
I spend the night in his arms and wake up early the next morning. He was already out of bed thanks to that Kanosian physiology and I soon followed him. He was sitting near the entrance of the cave with his armor on and I soon joined him in my own jumpsuit. We sit there in the snow in the bitter cold of the morning, a helmet obscuring his face and a balaclava obscuring mine.
"It's nice isn't it?" he asked as he pointed skyward at the stars. It was the first clear day that I have seen here in months.
"It is..." I replied and rested my hand on his.
From here we could see a million battles waging across the fabric of the night sky. All of that hatred and foolishness was as clear as day to him as well as to me. None of that mattered now, not to us at least. None of that bitterness mattered here on this pristine snow where we sat ...here we were content and that was all that would matter to either of us from now on, no more hatred, nothing.
Just him, me, and the stars.
#
Fherin
The last two days are spent preparing everything that we could. We went over what we would tell her father and the human soldiers in order to negotiate a way to track Denos down.
"So what do you propose?" I asked her.
"Your father is most likely going to want to stay here to rebuild and can't exactly send ships after Denos. That is if his plan to track Denos down at first failed which it likely did according to your stories about the guy." she said and I nodded.
"He's headed to one of several spots around an area I have in mind and I think I have the feeling where." I said.
"Why didn't you tell him while we were on the communicator?" she asked me and I sighed.
"I don't think your father would have trusted whatever testimony I gave him. Besides it's rather hidden and I’m going to have to track his signature if I hope to find him." I stated.
"Well...I don't feel comfortable sending you alone to fight him." she said and I brushed off her concerns.
"I have the element of surprise don't I? He thinks I'm dead." I said as I turned around and went to retrieve one of those canisters of "orange juice" out of one of the boxes in the cavern.
"Shouldn't he be stationed at a barrack anyways and not some secret location like you're telling me?" she asked and I shook my head.
"He's been....getting further and further away from Kanosian standards over the last couple of years. I remember he moved into the new base not that long ago, it's off the grid and you can only really find it if you know the exact signature which...I do." I muttered while sipping the juice.
"So that's it? You're just going to go after him alone?" she asks with a worried expression and I nodded.
"You have a better idea?" I asked her teasingly.
"How about bringing someone along? A couple soldiers? Anything!" she hollered and I shook my head.
"This is my mission. He betrayed me." I explained.
"And he destroyed my base! Humanity's base! Let me talk with my dad, let me talk with him and try to convince him..." she pleaded with me and I bit my lip while glancing at her.
"It will likely fail, but if you want to convince him be my guest." I stated before hearing the distinct sound of an engine whirring. The winds outside suddenly picked up and we both walked to the exterior of the cavern to see a variety of ships touching down on the clearing near the small crater.
I glanced at the collection of rough, black, jagged shapes that laid themselves across the snow in front of me. She beckons for me to follow and I do, but at a distance. A variety of soldiers step outside and aim their guns at us, ordering us to stay in place and we comply. Natalie attempts her verbal jabs at the soldiers but they ignore her. She is able to keep her composure, for the most part, until a man steps out in full combat armor before removing his helmet. He glances at Natalie and smiles and she removes her balaclava before running into his arms.
I smile for a bit as father and daughter are reunited, or at least I would presume that was her father. I stay in place and watched them embrace for a few moments before he released her and looked over at me. His eyes suddenly lose their warmth and harden and I am left to lament that bitterness.
Looks like Natalie's plan probably isn't going to work after all.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Natalie
"Absolutely not." he said with a grim face while I informed him of what I wanted from him. All I needed was a couple of soldiers to aid Fherin, that was all.
"Come on dad this guy killed everyone here. He destroyed the base!" I pleaded.
"And what? Am I now supposed to trust some random Kanosian? How do I know this isn't some ploy on his end?" he asked.
"He's changed dad. He's not like the other Kanosians. He's acting in my best interest and your best interest as well. You can tell based on how he saved me back at the caverns!" I pleaded while my father paced back and forth.
"What has gotten in your head Natalie? These guys killed your brother! They waged war on us for all this time and now you just for-" he began but I interrupted.
"I'm not excusing them all but I know he's telling the truth. If he really wanted to harm me or you, he would have done so already by taking me hostage. There would have been a million better ways to cause damage to our fleet and he didn't do any of it."
"I can't believe this...The answer is no. Nothing you can say will change my mind."
"I can't believe how stubborn you're being!"
"Stubborn? Denying troops to our enemy is stubborn? I am thankful to him for being so good to you but beyond that I don't trust him enough to send any of my men with him. We're already spread so thin and don't have the troops to send any with him, they need to be here for the base. The most I can offer him is his freedom once we reach a Kanosian base. That's it." he commanded and I hung
my head, knowing that this battle was all but lost.
"Fine, fine, whatever." I replied with a grimace and walked back outside.
I see him sitting in the cell that they had set up for him in the back of one of the cruiser ships. I walked over to him and waved, he waved back, frowning. I opened my mouth to inform him of what had happened but he interrupts me.
"I heard it all already. He doesn't trust me. I can understand." he stated and I shake my head.
"I can't believe how hard headed he's being." I huffed while he sits down on the stool in his cell.
"Well...I suppose I'll just go back to Kanosia after all of this to try and get some action taken against him. Not that they would take my word above his though." he muttered.
I looked around the remnants of the base to see soldiers already setting up makeshift tents and beginning construction. They were going to replace the base and probably station me somewhere else from the looks of it. Before all of this the base was already terribly under-fortified so this wasn't really that much of a shock to me.
"All of this lost and he won't do anything about it. He won't follow up on the only lead that we have." I lamented.
"Don't feel so bad about it. This was the most likely outcome." Fherin states and I sighed while nodding.
"Yeah....." I said until an idea popped up inside my head.
The ship that Fherin was in wasn't all that special, it was a common cruiser that they had tossed him inside, a common cruiser that I knew how to fly. They would probably move him to the main ship sooner or later but for now dad ordered him to stay here near the main command tent in order to be available for questioning.
It was close to night time now which meant....
"What are you thinking about?" asked Fherin.
"I have an idea." I replied with a mischievous smile.
#
Natalie
I was able to hack my way through the ships mainframe and was in the cockpit soon enough. It was nighttime and only several patrols were out. I quickly did my work by hacking through the mainframe of the ship to access the controls and soon enough the ship did light up. All that engineering training did pay off after all.
"Hey! Hey!" I heard in the distance but immediately set the ship for lift off. I float upwards and rocket into the sky soon after in a hurry. I could see the men below scrambling to catch up to me but their efforts were useless.
We breach the cold, blue stratosphere of Peroph and reach the void. We rocket amongst the stars and sail by the sun before I pressed a couple of buttons into the command panel and released the lock on his cell. Moments later I find him next to me, resting a hand on my shoulder and smiling.
"I'm impressed." he said and I only rolled my eyes.
"Is that all I get?" I asked.
"Thank you."
"That's much better."
The radio unit begins to bark. I could see that my father was trying to send a signal through once he likely found out that I was missing but I ignored it entirely. Fherin types in the signature of Denos's ship and sure enough it's been found to be travelling in a path towards the base that he was talking about.
"So...are we ready to do this? I'm not so sure about..." I muttered and he gripped my head and kissed me on the lips. He caresses my cheek and begins to speak.
"You have to promise me that if things get rough then you'll get out of there as soon as possible. You have to promise me that." he stated.
"But are you going to survive?" I asked and he frowns.
"You think I know the answer? I really don't, but we only have one shot at this really. The most important thing to me is that you make it out of this. That's all I care about. Destroying him is secondary." he stated
"So you're not sure if this is even going to work." I said with a frown.
"It.....just believe in me."
"I always do."
"So promise me that you'll get out of there the moment things get hairy."
"I promise."
"Okay then, that's all I needed to hear."
I had my doubts about the entire operation but some part of me wanted to deny him the pleasure of keeping me at an arm's length. I wanted to help him for this was my battle too, not just his. It would take a couple of days for us to get there anyways so we had plenty of time to plan but...the odds were stacked against us.
That night we sat across from one another at the dining table, he sets down a ration plate across from mine and we quietly mull over our dinner. He had about three plates on his side whereas I only had one.
"How many people are going to be there?" I asked him.
"You mean like soldiers? Oh I don't know. A hundred?" he stated.
"A hundred are you serious?" I asked him.
"Afraid so." he stated.
"So two of us versus a hundred of them." I replied, dumbfounded.
"Yeah." he said nonchalantly as if he had just told me that there were 10.
"And you're not afraid?" I asked while stirring the stir-fry on my metal tin. He reaches out and gripped my hands.
"In order to avenge your people and reclaim my honor? No. I am not afraid. But even more so than all of that is the fact that he tried to hurt you...that I cannot excuse." he stated with the utmost sincerity in those golden eyes of his. He sweeps some of my long black hair off of my cheek and glances back at my green orbs while I only sighed.
"I just...I don't know how the hell you're going to stop that kind of force...." I state.
"You know I'm not the only one that's getting tired of Denos right? I can get others to reject him. I can get others to deny their allegiance towards him. Maybe start something up so that we come out of this on top.
"So what you're going to contact some of your team?" I asked while he scooped some of the dried chicken breast up to his mouth.
"I'll try. Maybe listen in to see if there is any discontentment and then ...we'll get them to help us." he suggested.
I couldn't shake the worry from my system, I couldn't even finish my meal due to it racking me at the very moment and he seemed to be concerned so that night he meets me in the bedroom. The bed was rather small for two people, let alone a human and a Kanosian so he had to squeeze in. I feel him pressing against my back while resting his mouth against the back of my head. He groans and I can only grimace as I felt my hands quivering while grasping his.
"You're worried about me?" he asked.
"Of course I am! I don't know how but you just snuck up in my heart and suddenly I can't help it fret over everything that you do!" I cried out while getting up from the bed rather rapidly. He remained in place, laying on his side.
"Don't worry about me." he pleaded.
"I can't help it! What do you want me to do? Just go back to not caring?" I asked and he frowned.
"I should have known this would happen. A mate can't help but worry....*sigh*....Come here." he said and I pouted before relenting and allowing myself to be embraced.
I laid there while resting my head on his chest while he stroked the back of it. I felt so helpless, I wasn't a soldier at all so I couldn't hope to help him but somehow just the feeling of his arms around me was enough to wash all of the worry out of my system.
"We're going to be fine. I will come back to you and you will come back to me. I am sure of it." he said.
"I just feel so helpless...." I remarked.
"You got us this ship, you got us out of there ...who's to say that when we get to the base you won't be able to get us something else?" he asked me and my eyes lit up before he kissed me.
We spend the rest of the night there and he wakes up sometime later, leaving me the entire bed. I didn't think he was that comfortable anyways. I watch him as he wanders around outside, gathering up supplies. I can't help but get to my feet to watch him compile everything. Piles of guns and medication laid on the table, I realized that he was taking inventory.
I peek my head around the corner and watch him
as he lays everything out and patches some holes on his armor. I bite my lip and wandered back to my bedroom, wondering if there was anything that could be done on my part to help him. I could manufacture something, something to help him in this endeavor couldn't I?
I lay across the sheets and tried to shut my eyes but couldn't shake the feeling from my mind that there was more to be done. I bite my lip and bury my head into the pillow as flashes of his suffering played out in my consciousness before I finally gave in and got to my feet. I wandered over to the table where he was sitting and sighed while he glanced worriedly at me.
"Let me help." I said.
#
Fherin
I was a bit shocked me when she told me of all of these plans that had been brewing in her mind.
She had requested that I list down every detail that I remembered about our crew, tech wise. All the signatures, the types of tech that we used, that sort of thing. I even gave her the radio frequencies that we used, all the insider info that I had went directly to her and she used it rather effectively.
"What are you doing?" I asked her.
"A device to hack into their mainframes to allow you to communicate a bit more effectively. This should enable you to listen in and get into contact with whoever you need to get into contact with much more easily." she states.
She was hard at work right alongside me and I was grateful for it. Every moment that she spent as me was worth a lifetime, it was all worth it. Eventually I felt her hand resting on mine and her head leaning against my shoulders, she had fallen asleep during all of her efforts. The tools that she had produced were immensely helpful, or at least I suppose they would be. I carry her back to the bedroom and laid her down on her back and she cooed in my heart as I did so.