“Keep moving.”
“And why should I?” I asked boldly as I came to a stop once we were in the tree line, forcing her to do the same.
She turned around, an irritated look on her face that brought me a rather large amount of delight, “Because you’re my prisoner.”
“Really?” I said, jangling the chains on my wrists, “You think these are gonna hold me?”
“They should,” the Commonwealth girl said before turning back around and looking at the terrain around us before making the decision that where we were wouldn’t cut it and tugged on the chain, “if not, I can just shoot you.”
“That’s… That’s a really good incentive actually… If you can just shoot me if I try to bail on you then why bother with the chains?”
She shrugged, “Makes me feel more comfortable, now please be quiet. It’s very hard to focus with you talking so much.”
I’m not sure what I liked about her, all I knew was that I did, which was weird for me, not just because bondage isn’t really my thing either, but because I knew I hated the Commonwealth with every fibre of my being.
I started to convince myself that I just had Stockholm syndrome and what I needed to do was escape. But how? Judging from the ever so slight vibrations on my back the T-Pack was operational, but I had no access to the Casters that were security locked until the suit woke up. I had physical dominance over her, but she could easily burn me through with a blaster before I could break my chains.
“My name’s Kurleida.” she said with just a hint of shyness while we continued to trek through the slowly darkening forest, “What’s yours?”
I didn’t know how to respond at first, mostly because I was stuck asking the question ‘Is she addressing her prisoner as a human being?’
“Nokri, Freyja Nokri.”
“That’s a… nice name,” she said as if she knew it, “where’s it from?”
Was she trying to get inside my head? Or was she just being nice? After a few seconds I convinced myself that my mental fortitude was next to impenetrable and smiled, “Kaltjarna. Urbetes.”
We stopped, “Urbetes?” she asked concernedly.
“Yeah, how come..?” it was as I trailed off that I remembered where I knew her face from, “Oh Gods… You’re the one who got me out of there! Xiang, right?”
Kurleida turned and half-smiled at me, “It’s Xiao actually, and I’m glad you remember it that way. Better than ‘the bomber’ or ‘the girl who stowed away on your ship and then made a huge mess on the way out’.”
I shrugged, “We gotta do what we gotta do. It’s not like you enjoyed it.” I said as if I’d known that that had all happened.
She nodded, “Exactly, and it’s not like you enjo-”
“I’m going to stop you right there,” I said, raising my hands to silence her, “I did enjoy it, I’m not gonna pretend I didn’t, and I’d do it again.”
She looked confusedly at me for a moment and I continued, “I’m from a warrior society, there’s honour in battle for me. That and the fact that this,” I said, gesturing to the destroyed city behind us, “was a sort of retaliation for me personally, not just for the Federation.”
“What do you mean by that? Not for the Federation?”
I silently cursed my flapping tongue, something about this girl just made me want to talk and talk, “It’s getting dark, we should keep moving. These jungles aren’t known for their cuddly plush critters.”
She obviously wanted to get more out of me but gave up and tugged on the chain harder than the first time.
I had a feeling that I was in for a long night.
…’s in the Air
I’m a guarded person, boisterous sure, but most anyone who’s ever met me outside my family don’t know the first thing about me or my life story. Kurla though? Within an hour of setting up camp for the night she knew almost everything there was to know about me, I told her about how my mother had died when I was young and how my dad had left, which, if I’m being completely honest, isn’t a hundred percent true, the word ‘ran’ would be much more suited.
It wasn’t just me talking though, she told me about her brother and how he was off fighting on the frontlines and how her sister had died a few years back. She didn’t really want to talk about her position in the army though, and I accepted that, from what she had let slip it was above top-secret and would most definitely get her killed if she told me.
She’d also taken the liberty of removing my restraints once my suit had come back online and let me relax my arms, the thought of attacking or running not occurring to me for even a second.
“So… what are you?” she asked with a smile from across the fire, her face falling as soon as I raised my eyebrow at her, “Oh! Sorry, not like that! No, I just mean you-”
“Grown?” I laughed, “Honestly, it’s fine. After Urbetes I was pretty much ruined, and apparently brain death was an eventuality if I didn’t go through the procedure.”
“What procedure?” she asked, her embarrassed expression replaced with one of pure curiosity.
“The one that turned me into a Guardian. Saved me from certain death and made me into the white devil super soldier you see before you.”
She smiled at my little joke then looked at my suit, “And what’s that? I’ve never seen anything like it.”
I didn’t know how comfortable I was talking about the suit, mostly because it wasn’t directly a part of my anatomy, an extension of definitely, but also definitely not my place to talk about it. I couldn’t not answer her though, especially after how cordial she’d been since getting rid of the chain.
“This?” I asked, pointing the T-Pack that was integrated into the suit, “Basically just a tiny piece of Warp-Tech.”
She hid her disappointment well with a smile, “Amazing… How does it work?”
“Well, it’s simple really,” I said, pulling the Caster from just below my left shoulder where the suit had put it once it was done fitting the T-Pack, “all you gotta do is take this little ball and throw it.” I grunted as I threw it across the forest.
“Then what?”
I smiled, “Then this.” I said, pushing the button on my chest and immediately appearing a good four hundred feet from where Kurla and I’d been sitting.
I spun around and saw her standing and looking frantically in every direction.
In retrospect that would’ve been a great time to escape, but unfortunately I’m just far too addicted to showing off.
Without a second thought, I whisked the Caster back at the campfire and hit the button again, landing me approximately where I’d been before.
“What?” I asked as if nothing had happened while Kurla looked in the opposite direction.
She snapped back around and tilted her head, “But… you wer-”
“As the leaf?” I joked, “That’s what this thing does.” I said as I pulled the Caster out and threw it lightly up in the air.
“How?”
“As I said, tiny Warp-Tech. Really fancy stuff. You wanna try?” I asked without thinking.
Her eyes widened to fantastical proportions, “Seriously?”
I nodded and started the process of taking it off, which was uncomfortable to say the least as the suit buzzed and whirred at the sudden disconnect, “As anything.” I said as I walked toward her, the four straps dangling off the Pack.
“Mind helping me get it on?” she asked, obviously overwhelmed at the idea of doing it herself.
“Course.” I said with a comforting smile as I slung the Pack part over her head, holding the two straps that went over her shoulders.
I hadn’t really gotten a sense of it until we were standing that close together, but I seriously dwarfed her by a solid foot. That wasn’t the part that had me feeling shaky though, what instigated that was when I’d clipped all the straps together and had to run my hands around her hips to press the auto-adjusters on the bottom of the Pack.
It wasn’t meant to be anything other than m
e being helpful, but a full second passed by before I realised I’d left my hands where they were, resulting in an incredibly awkward moment where I pulled them away and said in a far too excited voice “Ta-da!”
Kurla looked away and laughed a little, her cheeks a vibrant red, before looking back to me with a slightly too serious face, like she’d overcompensated for the uncomfortableness I’d undoubtedly inflicted upon her, “So, how’s it work? I know you showed me, but I don’t really like messing with Warp-Tech that’s strapped to my chest.”
I laughed and nodded, breathing a sigh of relief in the safety of my mind with the knowledge that I’d escaped the weird moment I’d created, “Okay, grab the Caster, the little ball, from that thing on your chest.” she followed my instructions and let the ball roll around in her hand for a bit, “Good, now, throw it, anywhere you’d like but preferably somewhere where you’ll only roll an ankle if you fall.”
She gave me a concerned look, but then a trusting nod and pegged the Caster into the forest, “Now what?”
“Push the button.”
“Like-” and she was gone.
I looked around to where she’d thrown it and activated my helmet, “Kurla?” I asked hopefully as I switched over to thermal and found her flat on her arse about fifty feet away, a distance that I covered in all of two seconds, “Are you alright?”
She looked up at me and jumped a little when she saw the helmet, “Yeah… yeah. I’m good.” she said dizzily.
“You sure?” I asked as I helped her to her feet.
A massive grin spread across her face and she nodded, “Absolutely.” she said before pulling out the Caster and going for round two.
I started darting through the forest in the direction she’d thrown it, having her appear just in front of me with an even bigger grin and for her to throw the Caster again.
It was the most fun I’d had in ages and it got me thinking about how the only real fun I’d had over the past few months had been training. That was quickly far from my mind though as I laughed and ran, seeing Kurla had gotten the hang of the T-Pack and was using it to traverse the trees like a teleporting gibbon.
Eventually she appeared directly in front of me, bringing the game to a halt as we stared at each other gleefully, “One more?” she asked.
“Deal.” I said, the last syllable not having even left my lips before she’d thrown it again.
I went to give chase, but right as I did I detected another life sign and, the moment Kurla pushed the button, I heard the distinct whip crack of sniper rifle being fired.
Everything froze as I watched as a spark blipped from the direction Kurla had thrown the Caster, but no Kurla.
“Did you see that!?” I heard Mouse scream over our comms, “I shot the Caster right out of the air!”
I remained silent, watching the space where Kurla should’ve been occupying in silent agony.
“Frey?” Mouse asked as she came from the brush a good hundred feet away, a scout’s sniper slung over her shoulder, “Frey? Are you okay?”
“Yeah!” I said, blinking and turning my attention to my sister who I was absolutely resenting for some reason, “Yeah, sorry, comms were being weird. Must’ve stuffed up in the crash.”
“Ah,” Mouse said knowingly, “well, all that matters now is that you’re not stuck trying to get that T-Pack back. What happened anyway? How’d she get her hands on it?”
“I… don’t know,” I lied as convincingly as I could, “one minute I was in the shuttle, the next I was chained up by that fire.”
“What fire?”
I turned around and went to point at it but discovered I was a Hell of a way from where I’d started, “Oh… must’ve been running for a while. How’d the invasion go?”
I could practically hear Mouse smiling behind her helmet as she tilted her head back the way she came, “See for yourself.”
I looked at her confusedly as I followed after her, based on her new personality a smile could’ve meant that we’d lost and she was excited for the opportunity to take the city back with me, or we’d won and she was proud.
As we stepped out of the forest though I discovered it was the second option in a big bad way. Fast attack crafts zipped around the skies while Pangolins roamed the streets, and above it all sat the Valkyrie, her lights bathing the city in white and blue.
We’d won.
Yay.
Other Works by Zachariah Dracoulis
The Mulligan Planet : Books One & Two
Legends of Tarthirious : Books One & Two
DilDozer : Parts One & Two
Just A Taste: A Collection of Short Stories
Peaceful Protest
For more information on upcoming stories, or if you just want to ask a question or have someone to talk to, come find me on
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@ZDracoulis
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Guardians (Æthyrium Rising - Guardians Book 1) Page 16