by Tarkin, Mika
That she might forever remain a part of his past, always cut-off from who he was and would be. He’d never allowed himself to think it, because that might make it true.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “For leaving. For not saying goodbye.”
“I’m sorry too.”
“For what?”
“For letting you go.”
She put her and over his, and looked back up into the sky. Marko couldn’t take his eyes off her.
“I used to sit up here and think about you,” he said. “I wondered if you were somewhere else on this world, looking at the same stars, thinking about me.”
The silence that followed was nearly unbearable.
“I did for a while,” Naeesha said. “But then it hurt too much, and I stopped.”
Marko looked out over the glittering city and the twinkling sky and shivered.
“Why’d you come looking for me?” he asked.
Naeesha slid herself closer, her warmth pushing away the cold. She put her arm around Marko’s shoulder, pulled him close, and kissed him.
“So that I could do that.”
Chapter Thirteen
Naeesha swung her leg over Marko and grabbed the front of his tunic, pulling herself against him. His hands found her cheeks and he held her tenderly as they kissed under the stars.
“I missed this,” Marko said
She pushed him back onto the mossy ground and threw herself against him. He held her tight, not letting a single inch slip between them.
“Gods I thought we’d never do this again,” she said. “I thought I’d already had the best sex of my life and that it was never going to get any better.”
Marko’s hand slipped down her side and settled on the small of her back, pushing her against him.
“Is that what we’re doing?” he whispered into her ear.
“Only if you beg for it,” she said, kissing him just behind the ear and winning a needy gasp for her efforts.
“Never,” he sighed.
It wasn’t the first time that he’d made such a stubborn statement of resolve. It would be the first time that he’d ever actually followed through with one.
Her kisses meandered across his neck, crept up his jaw, and settled back onto his lips as she thrust her hips forward. A low groan slipped from Marko’s mouth as she slid along his full length
“I can do this all night,” she teased.
“You wouldn’t.”
“You think I’ve changed that much?” she asked, pushing up his tunic and running her fingers over his bare stomach and chest. He was so much smaller than the last time she’d done this. Leaner, mostly. It was a good look for him. It reminded her of when he was younger, before he’d put on an almost comical coat of battle-won muscle. She knew that he was covered in scars, but they were soft and faded now, and she could only find them by memory.
She slid back down Marko’s body and kissed his chest. He was writhing beneath her. For a moment, she entertained the notion of taking it easy on him. In the end, she thought better of it.
“You can make this stop any time you want,” she said, kissing him softly, sucking gently on his skin, grazing him with her teeth before moving on to the next tender place on his body. Her fingers slipped into the waistband of his pants, but she had no intention of doing anything more than teasing him, not until he gave her what she wanted.
He twitched and shook under her as she ran her nails down his sides and blew gently over the still-wet kisses on his stomach, and she grinned with devilish satisfaction.
She slid even further down, pulling his linen pants down inch by inch, spilling her hot breath over each newly bared bit of skin. A needy moan slipped out of his chest as a patch of dark hair appeared before her.
“Come on,” she cooed. “Don’t you want me?”
Marko smiled.
She didn’t have any time to react as he wrapped one leg over her shoulder and threw his weight into her, rolling her onto her back and leaving him sitting squarely on her chest, each of her wrists in his hands.
“I was hoping you might do that,” she said, licking her lips.
She pushed up against him, but he held her down tight, a wicked smile coming over his face.
“What else are you hoping I might do?” he asked.
“Mmm. Come here and I’ll tell you.”
Marko started to lean in, but stopped and doubled over. She felt it too. A stab in her stomach. Terror.
“The city,” Marko said, scrambling to his feet. Naeesha sat up and looked down. Fire was spreading through the tents. A steady roar drowned out all but the most terrible screams.
“Gods,” Makro said, holding his head in his hands. “What are they doing?”
Naeesha didn’t need to ask ‘who’. She could tell by the way that the chaos was spreading through the city. Alderoccan shock troops. The fear in her gut soured and turned to rage.
“Oh shit oh shit oh shit,” Marko started to babble. “Nononono they’re going to kill us all.”
Naeesha couldn’t remember ever feeling so angry in all her life. It wasn’t her anger though, it was the Halians. It was rank and poisonous and it utterly consumed her. The fires below continued to spread towards the bazaar. She could see darkened shapes fleeing in crowds. Some of them fell and never got back up. And then, that old, familiar smell. Death. It had returned again.
A fireball erupted in the center of the bazaar. All of the military forces converged, their weapons fire rang out, tracers of plasma all focused on one small space. She didn’t need Marko to tell her what had happened.
Tents flew up in the air. Screams pierced the night. The ground shook beneath her feet and she thought that the rage inside her might ignite at any second.
The military forces retreated, and a new evil spread through the city headed outwards, destroying everything in its path.
“What do we do?” she asked.
Marko just shook his head. “There’s nothing we can do. The best way for us to help is to stay hidden and safe.”
They sat on the edge of the cliff, hiding, and watched the city burn.
Chapter Fourteen
Marko did not sleep. He had nightmares all the same. When morning came, and he could look over the city and begin to take toll of the previous night's destruction, he rose to his feet and woke Naeesha.
Her face was wracked with rage and sorrow before she fully awoke, like rising from a bad dream only to find reality is even worse.
“What’s going on?” she asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
“It looks like everything’s cleared out. I think I see a few groups of survivors down south. We should go see if we can help.
“Okay.”
They left the woods and walked through the meadow that surrounded the city. There were scorched craters and long scars in the earth. He tried not to see the carnage hidden in the tall grass, but he couldn’t look away.
“Marko!” a voice cried out.
A small Halian appeared from a hiding place in the tall grass. It was Kiran. They were alive.
Marko dropped to his knees and wrapped the child in his arms.
“You’re alive,” Kiran said, echoing Marko’s same thoughts.
“Have you seen others?”
“Here, in the trees.”
Naeesha walked alongside him, her arm in his, helping him along through the pitted field. Kiran lead them to a stand of trees where a few dozen Halians sat, trembling and wide eyed.
They told him that they were hungry. That they couldn’t go into the village for fear of the horrors that they might find there.
Marko was scared himself, but he knew that at least his own feelings would not spread to the others. He volunteered himself and Naeesha to go to the bazaar and to find some supplies.
They did not speak as they started the macabre task of picking through the ruined wastes. Both of them had seen their fair share of death and destruction, but that didn’t make things any easier.
The bazaa
r had been the center of fierce fighting and most of it had been utterly destroyed. Naeesha managed to find a few crates of bread that remained intact after being blasted across the meadow. Marko found a few jugs of water that still seemed potable.
They started carrying their finds back to the trees. There were more survivors there now, naturally gravitating to the point. Some of the Halians got to work distributing the supplies to the survivors, and Marko and Naeesha went back to their soul-crushing work.
By the time the suns were high, they’d managed to gather food, water, medicine, tents, and some bedding. It wasn’t much, but it would be enough.
The population of nearly two-thousand had been reduced to less than fifty overnight.
The Halians mourned, and Marko and Naeesha mourned with them. They did not delay for long though, because there was no time for it. They had to decide what to do next.
It was impossible to say for certain, but the guess was that nearly a dozen Halians had fallen to the Wild and scattered. It was most likely that they had all pursued the military back to wherever they came, but there was no knowing for certain.
The question of the military also weighed heavily on the minds of the survivors. They could not afford another encounter. That would be the end of their band.
Marko and Naeesha answered questions about the trail towards the capital, but the final decisions lay with the survivors as a whole. They deliberated for an hour, and then ate, as was their custom.
In the end, the tribe decided that their best hope for survival was to turn around, and head back for their own world.
Chapter Fifteen
“What do they mean, go back to their own world?”
Naeesha and Marko hung towards the back of the group, keeping up the stragglers as they fell back from the pack.
“The Halians say that they came through a portal beneath the Dynasty facility. That portal links their world and ours.”
“And they want to go back?”
“They don’t see another way. Our kind refuse to coexist with them. I can’t even imagine what the capital’s response will be to their attack.”
“What do you think happened to the soldiers that massacred the village?”
“Dead. All of them.”
There seemed to be very little doubt in Marko’s mind about that fact. From what he’d told her of the Wild, she was inclined to believe him.
“What will you do?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, they’re going home, how far are you going to take them?”
Marko gave her a sort of sad, sympathetic look.
“Our people drove them from their homes in the first place, and then refused to take them in. The least that I can do is to make sure they get home safely. I’m taking them all the way.”
Naeesha didn’t like the sound of that. The Dynasty compound was hundreds of miles away, over rough terrain filled with unimaginable danger.
“It’s not your fault, you know. You don’t have to repay the evil of others.”
“We’re not innocent in this, Naeesha. Neither of us. Anyway, I’ve made up my mind. I don’t blame you if you don’t want to come.”
She bit her tongue. She didn’t want to go. She wanted to be somewhere safe. Somewhere with Marko. But she knew he wouldn’t change his mind. That was impossible.
“Hey,” she said. “I just noticed your nose. It’s crooked.”
Marko looked at her out of the corner of his eye. The glance was a good deal less than friendly.
“Maybe you don’t remember punching me? I’m pretty sure you broke it.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I was pretty on edge.”
“You were-” he cut himself off. “Yea, you were. What happened to you? After I left?”
Naeesha put her head down and walked a little faster, eager to avoid the conversation. But Marko wasn’t having it.
“You looked half-dead when you showed up. I just want to understand what you were going through. That’s all.”
She looked up at him, but couldn’t hold his gaze. She lowered her eyes and kept walking.
“I guess I just got lost.”
“We all get lost, you know. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I don’t know.”
“I do.”
She smiled at him, but said nothing else. They were both happy to walk in silence. Most of their time together had been spent like this. Some things just didn’t need to be said, and they both knew that. Or maybe some things just didn't need to be spelled out. It was whatever it was, and that was okay.
Anyway, the quiet made it easier for her to think about last night. Before the attack. Gods she’d been so happy for just a moment. All the emptiness and worry and fear had vanished, pushed back by joy and belonging. At least for a few wonderful minutes.
It still gave her hope. After years of trouble - they could still get right back to it if the time was right. She just wondered if the time would ever be right again. She wondered how much time they had left.
As far as Naeesha was concerned, the world had been over for about three years now. The fleeting happiness that she’d had with Marko was so brief that it barely counted as a dream. Now she was back to reality. The world really was coming to an end.
He went up ahead of her to help carry a wounded elder in a makeshift stretcher. He was so at home here. So comfortable with these people. The uncomfortable reality was setting in that Naeesha didn’t resent the Hala because of who they were. She hated that Marko had chosen them instead of her.
A familiar shape dropped out of the long line ahead of her. Kiran. The child was all smiles, as usual, and beamed up at her as they walked by her side.
“I’m glad you came to visit us,” Kiran said.
Naeesha cocked her head and smiled.
“Why’s that?” she asked.
“Because you’re nice, and Marko is happy because you’re here.”
She blushed.
“How do you know that Marko’s happy because of me? Can you feel his feelings?”
Kiran laughed.
“No, I can just tell by looking at his face.”
She wondered if it was true. Marko’s spirits had seemed high, all things considered, but she thought that was just how he was these days. It seemed like he’d been getting along just fine without her. Why should her sudden arrival make any difference?
“How old are you?” she asked.
“I’m four and three quarters. How old are you?”
“Four?” she asked, wondering if Hala used a different measurement of time. “You seem so much older.”
“That’s what Marko said. He said that Hala children grow up fast. You didn’t answer my question.”
“I’m…” she had to stop and think about it. Another sign that the last few years had really gotten the better of her. Her age wasn’t the only thing that had gotten away from her over the last few years. She’d lost track of everything that mattered. Forgotten everything that had ever been important. “Forty six, I think.”
“You think?” Kiran laughed.
“When you get old, sometimes you forget things,” she said.
Chapter Sixteen
Marko had his doubts about making it back to the Dynasty compound. The way he figured, it was a two-week journey, best case scenario. They didn’t have a real map - the only one they did have was one that Naeesha had brought and was set to a planetary scale. They’d have to navigate based off rough guesses at lakes and mountain ranges.
If the jungle around the compound was as thick as it had been twenty-eight years ago, then they wouldn’t have a hard time walking right past it even with a good map.
And that wasn’t the least of his concerns. Getting there was. He took stock of all the things that their rag-tag group had to worry about.
1) The Alderoccan military.
2) Halians who’d given in to the Wild.
3) Animals, assorted.
4) Exhaustion, dehydrati
on, starvation, exposure, heat stroke, etc.
5) Despair
It was by no means a complete list, but Marko was confident that if anything was going to kill him over the next two weeks, it would be on that list.
If they did make it to the compound, their odds of survival were a complete mystery. Well, not a complete mystery. Everything that he’d heard of the Halian homeworld suggested that it was a splendidly dangerous world. So the odds of survival remained low. The difference, he thought, was not when, but how.
But for all the ways that he and everyone else in the city could ie, he sure as hell wasn’t going to let it be standing around here.
The group would need to move efficiently. That meant no doubling back, no getting turned around. And resting every minute that they weren’t moving. The majority of the survivors were very old or very young. The more able bodied Halians had helped them to a hiding space before going back to help others. Most of them never made it back out of the chaos.
Marko discussed this with the group, and it was decided that he and Naeesha would scout ahead of the group. They would blaze a trail, and the group would follow their markers. That would ensure that when the group was finally ready to move, they’d already be headed somewhere safe.
That was, of course, provided that Marko and Naeesha could find somewhere safe. They’d only be able to cover about ten miles a day, and there were more than a handful of stretches where safe places were a hell of a lot further apart than that.
Anyway, “safe” was a relative term, and anywhere that that wasn’t an active battleground was safe enough.
He found Naeesha, still sitting with Kiran, and told her about the plan. She was all for it, and was up with her pack before Marko had even thought about getting ready to head out.
“I just don’t want to sit around anymore. I feel useless here.”
“You’re being a good friend to people who need one. There’s nothing more important than that,” Marko said.
Naeesha blushed. She’d never been good at taking compliments, even when she deserved them as much as she did now.
The change that she’d gone through in just a couple of days was astounding. When he’d first run into her, she’d been just like every warmongering, xenophobic Watcher in the capital. And now she was getting antsy because she felt like she wasn’t doing enough to help the Hala.