by Tarkin, Mika
Not fun.
And while he was sure that Naeesha meant well when she ran across the camp center and threw her arms around him, he really wished that she hadn’t. His skin, his muscles, his bones, they were all freshly made and terribly sensitive. Just the slightest touch was like fire. Her inescapable vice-grip was unbearable.
She caught on fast and released him. He fell forward, coughing and choking up a bit of ash that he had inhaled with his first breath of new life.
“Are you okay? Are you okay?”
He realized that the deafening noise all around him had just been Naeesha trying to get his attention. His brain was still reprogramming itself, and it was having a hard time with sounds. He held up his hand, imploring her to stop, and thank Gods that she got his message.
Coughing up the last bit of ash, he struggled to his feet and promptly fell onto his ass, earning himself another jolt of pain. He rose again, this time, managing to stay up on both feet. Naeesha was standing in front of him looking very concerned.
He tried to speak, but his tongue and his brain weren’t quite on the same page. It took him a few tries, but he eventually figured it out.
“Is Kiran alright?”
Naeesha turned and he looked past her to see the child laid on their back with two healers working to patch up their wounded body. After a tense moment, Kiran started to toss and cry and do everything that a hurt child should have done. They had a nasty set of wounds on their shoulders from where the wolfbat had grabbed hold, but they would be okay.
“What about everyone else,” Marko asked.
“Okay, I think. Some people are pretty dinged up, but I think everybody made it.”
Marko looked around. There were dead wolfbats - or bits of wolfbats - everywhere. You couldn’t throw a godsdammed stick without hitting a dead godsdammed wolfbat.
Naeesha caught his gaze and gave him that look that she always gave him when he had a bad idea.
“No.” she said.
“What?”
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“Come on,” he coaxed.
“Marko. No.”
“Fine. More for the rest of us.”
He walked over to the crowd and went looking for somebody who knew how to cook up bat.
***
“I’m serious.”
“So am I,” Naeesha said.
Marko scooped up another mouthful of the dark, rich stew with a piece of flatbread and devoured it.
“It’s really good.”
“I don’t fucking care. I’m not going to eat it.”
The cooks had really outdone themselves. Apparently the other tribe had been forced to do some creative cooking on their journey here, and this wasn’t the first time they’d had the opportunity to supplement their food stores with fresh wolfbat.
“Oh well,” he said, sopping up the last bit of stew from his bowl and setting it back down in front of him. “I hope there’s enough for seconds.”
There was plenty left for seconds. And thirds. And fourths, although Marko had the wisdom to stop after just two bowls of wolfbat stew. The cooks had several ingredients that were about to go bad, and obviously there was no shortage of bat meat to go around, so they’d made enough to feed the camp about a dozen times over.
“I told you Naeesha. The Halians really know how to make the most of a bad situation. You know that a bunch of Watchers just would have complained and griped and whined about how they had to clean up this whole big mess--’
“Ugh, Marko, please stop.”
“But no, the Halians just throw a barbeque and get on with their nights. I’m telling you. This is life.” Naeesha apparently didn’t like the idea of ‘life’ involving quite so much scavenging.
When he wasn’t tormenting her, he was keeping an ear to the conversation going around the room. In circle, he’d learned that the other tribe had been following the Wild as it swept across the planet and headed towards the capital. The way that they figured, it would wipe out everything, and then, with nothing left to destroy, lose steam and disappear.
They wanted to be there when it happened, to start rebuilding right away, and to do anything they could to help the survivors - if there were any.
The people from Marko’s tribe asked questions about how things had been near the portal. Answers varied. Some reported that there was still a great deal of danger there, mostly from Alderoc’s wildlife. Others said that it was clear and empty and that there was no reason to think that the plan wouldn’t work.
Unfortunately, nobody knew what things were like back on the Halian homeworld. Nobody had dared go back through for fear that things were just as bad as when they’d left.
Marko couldn’t get specifics on that. He knew that things on Hala were bad. Bad enough to justify living like this. But the Halians were reluctant to speak on it. As far as he knew, it was the only thing that they weren’t willing to talk about, and that scared the shit out of him.
All the same, if his people were willing to take the risk, then he trusted them.
Armed with new information, both tribes talked excitedly, weighing their options, reconsidering their previous plans. A few people seemed to have come firmly upon a decision, but most of them were still up in the air.
Either way, they would have to make a gamble. By the time anybody knew if they’d made the right call, it would be too late to change their minds.
Jintak and the leader of the other tribe stood and the room went silent. They wasted no time getting to the issues at hand.
Anyone who wanted to go back to Hala could go with Jintak. They would leave in the morning, and could expect at least two weeks of hard travel. There were no promises that they would make it to the portal, and no promises of what they would find if they did.
The other Hala would be headed for Alderoc. His promises were the same. The leaders said no more.
Over the next few minutes, every Halian in the dining hall shuffled around, separating themselves into two camps. The groups were mostly the same as they had been when both tribes marched into the camp earlier in the day, but both groups had gained and lost a few members.
The room turned bittersweet as people said goodbye to old friends, and greeted new ones. Kiran was among those that Marko would have to say goodbye to. Naeesha, true to her word, would be continuing onward to the portal.
Farewells were sweet and short. Just a few minutes later, the dining hall was emptying out, and everyone was returning to their tents to prepare for the next day’s journey, and to rest.
“Know any secret hiding places around here?” Naeesha asked.
Marko turned back to her with a smile.
“I’m afraid not. What about you?”
“Nope. I’m new here.”
“Well, I don’t think we need to go off hiking in the woods,” Marko said, pulling her into the darkened space between two tents. “There are plenty of places to hide right here.”
Naeesha’s hand settled on his chest, crawled down his stomach, and kept going. A small group of Halians walked by, chattering excitedly. One of them turned and caught Marko’s eye as they walked by.
“Maybe this isn’t the best place after all,” he said.
“Maybe we ought to rest up anyway,” Naeesha added. “I’ll have you all to myself tomorrow.”
They went back to the tent and packed their bags. Space inside the huge tent was at a premium, so they pulled their sleeping nests together and set their packs outside to make space for others. Once they were ready to head out as soon as the first sun came up the next morning, they lay down together and watched the fire.
Marko was amazed at how perfectly Naeesha still fit into his arms, how her curves seemed to lock against his. This was what he wanted. This was what was worth living for. He breathed in her scent and drank in the moment. The way that the orange firelight danced on her dark skin produced a color that he would never see again in his whole life. The sound of her breath - distinctly hers, but something
he would never hear exactly the same way after this.
If this moment couldn’t last forever, at least the memory could.
Chapter Twenty-One
Naeesha awoke, cold. It was perfectly dark in the tent. The fire was long out, and the starlight couldn’t penetrate the thick canvas roof above them. A space had grown between her and Marko during the night, and she inched closer to him until she felt the reassuring warmth of his chest against her back.
She pressed into him, and he stirred, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and pulling him tight. He kissed the back of her head and wiggled around to find a comfortable place.
Ten minutes later, they were both still awake. Marko was lying perfectly still, but she could hear his breath. He breathed differently when he was asleep that he did when he was awake. She reached up and stroked his arm with her free hand, idly running her fingers over his skin, feeling out the ridges and furrows of his muscular body. He pulled her closer and she could feel the heat of his breath on her neck, and the firmness of his hips pressing behind her.
She felt behind her, grasping for him. She found his stomach, and slipped her hand down the front of his tunic, finding flesh. His breath quickened in her ear as she went further, her fingers brushing against his cock. She took him in her hand and teased him hard. There was no doubt in her mind as to what she wanted to do with him, and nothing on Alderoc that was going to stop her tonight.
Fumbling with her other and, she pulled her pants off her hips, just past the curve of her ass, and felt Marko open his robe. He clutched her tighter as she rubbed bare skin against him. She could hear how much he wanted it and feel how much he needed her.
She pushed her hips back and guided him inside. They both held their breath, afraid to let out the moans that they both very much wanted to make. This wasn’t the first time that they’d had a discreet encounter, but with any luck, it would be the first time that they didn’t get caught.
Marko’s hand slipped under her shirt and she craned her neck to kiss him. It was a wonderful kiss, the heat of his lips matching the heat deep inside her. They moved without words, without sound, guiding each other with their lips and their hands, moving by instinct. Questing fingers slipped over her hip and between her legs, the other moving to stifle the moans that she could no longer hold back on her own. She rocked against him, feeling the effects of her action through the sound and the heat of his breath.
It wasn’t long before she felt him elsewhere, quaking and shuddering with one last thrust. His fingers didn’t stop until she joined him. His hand slipped from her mouth, replaced by his lips. They shared one long, sweet kiss, fixed their displaced clothes, and settled in to sleep.
***
The morning came too early. After waking up in Marko’s arms for the first time in almost five years, all Naeesha wanted to do was to stay there. And for a few minutes she did. But then Marko woke, and she knew it was time to get to work. They’d be pushing a harder pace today. Their group was stronger. Better rested. Better fed. Better healed.
There was no telling how many good mornings they would have, and it was imperative that they make the most of each of them. After sharing a kiss and stealing some leftover dinner for breakfast, they returned to their packs and started off.
They continued the previous day’s routine. Marko moving from tree to tree marking signs, Naeesha coming through with the machete to clear a path. Today, the work would be harder. Marko didn’t have the strength to shift into his combat form, which meant that she was on her own in the brush removal department.
It could have been worse. At least she still got to cut some shit up.
Trailblazing is thankless work. It’s slow. It’s labor intensive. And sometimes, when you look back at your progress, you can hardly tell that you’ve done any work at all. See, completely severing woody branches from the root plant is a huge pain in the ass. It means taking a shitload of work, and turning it into two or three more shitloads of work on top of that.
So except when absolutely necessary, Naeesha took one good swing at every offending branch, and moved on. By the time the rest of the group arrived later that day, the branch would be drooping and lifeless. The first couple of hikers would knock it to the ground without even noticing it.
But after an hour of hacking, the jungle still looked very much the way that it did before Naeesha poured a bucket of work into cutting a path through it.
She hated that feeling. Of working as hard as you could, standing back to look at your work, and realizing that you’d accomplished nothing. Of course, that feeling was a lie. She’d done everything she had to do. All that was left was to wait for the results.
Why couldn’t she accept that? Why couldn’t she just be patient and trust that she’d done her job well? How much energy did she waste beating herself up for a failure that only existed in her head?
It didn’t matter.
All of that is behind me, she thought. All I have to do is accept this moment, and do the best that I can.
She knew that message wouldn’t sink in right away. Knew she’d be struggling with it for a while. But that was okay. She had her whole life ahead of her. There was no rush to get anywhere.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. The faster they made it to camp, the more time she’d have alone with Marko. Their little tryst the night before had been wonderful, but in the end it only managed to amplify her desires. It was everything she could do now not to chase after him, push him against a tree, and jump him right there in the middle of the jungle.
But she knew that she’d never be able to get back to work. The rest of the survivors would find them sprawled out on a grassy patch, fucking like wild animals.
That wasn’t the part that bothered her. She was really just worried about letting them down.
She and Marko had a responsibility. One of the most important responsibilities in the whole group. If these people were going to be her family, then she wanted to do right by them.
And that meant no fucking around on the job.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Marko tried going backwards through the alphabet in his head. He tried humming the Alderoccan national anthem to himself. He thought of the old Prime Commander - the old lady that had been around when he was a kid.
None of it worked.
He’d made the mistake of thinking about the night before, and now he was plagued with an absolutely unbearable erection. It went away if he could manage not to think about Naeesha for a few minutes, but that had proven to be a real challenge.
If he left his mind to its own devices, it always turned to her. If he tried to focus on his surroundings, he’d see a flower whose petals reminded him of her lips, or heard a bird whose song was almost as sweet as hers.
Pouring all of his focus into his work of marking the trails helped a little, but that quickly became boring, which meant that a few minutes later, he was thinking about his hands on Naeesha’s hips.
And thus, the cycle repeated. All. Fucking. Day.
They key walking, hacking a path, marking up trees to tell their friends where to go. Marko was halfway through a trail sign when an overwhelming stench washed over him. As soon as he was aware of it, he started gagging as his body tried to reject the air around him as unfit to breathe. He caught Naeesha doubled over in the corner of his eye, apparently suffering from the same malady.
He tried backtracking, but the stench was everywhere. It was only once the lack of breath got to his brain that he was able to take in air. Death would have been preferential. The air tasted so foul that Marko wished he could cut out his tongue and be done with it.
Naeesha was coughing hard, sucking in air to keep from asphyxiating, and then coughing it all back up. She fell to her knees, struggling to keep her head up. He wondered if she was going to make it.
His head started to spin. Whether it was from the lack of air or the pollution in it, he didn’t know.
Gradually, his body began to adjust, and Naeesha’s follow
ed. The reek stayed with him, but he was able to breathe almost normally.
“What the fuck is that?” Naeesha asked, her face locked into a grimace.
“I don’t know, did you fart?”
She took a half-hearted swing at him, but ended up hunched over, hands on her knees, coughing violently.
“This fucking sucks,” she wheezed. “Let’s try and put it behind us.”
“Do you think it’s going to get better?”
“No, but I think we need to get to the other side of it one way or another, and the sooner that happens, the happier I’ll be.”
So they pressed on, moving fast. Marko’s eyes stung and watered and he took each breath with some degree of resentment for still being alive.
He was so focused on getting from one tree to the next that he didn’t notice the forest disappear until he looked up from the last tree in it and saw the vast expanse of destruction before him.
“Oh my Gods,” Naeesha said. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. I have no clue what could have done this.”
There had been a forest here, not long ago by the looks of it. Most of the forest still was here, but it had been violently rearranged. There wasn’t a single standing piece of vegetation more than three feet tall. Shattered tree stumps suck out of the ground every few feet, surrounded by the splintered trees that had previously sat atop them.
The carnage stretched out as far as Marko could see. Nothing stirred in the vast expanse. No birds. No animals. Not even insects, as far as he could tell. The air was still and quiet and he couldn’t shake an awful feeling.
***
Marko and Naeesha plucked their way through the ruined forest. They stood up tall bough and saplings as markers. Even a five-foot long branch driven into the dirt was visible from hundreds of feet out. Looking back, he could see a clear trail, dozens of markers stretching towards the disappearing treeline behind them.
Looking forward, Marko still couldn’t see and end to the sea of broken trees.