Jensen notices me looking at him and smiles. “Half a credit for your thoughts?”
“I think you're a better brother than most people will ever realize,” I reply honestly. “And if the people of Tamaria ever want to doubt your heart or Audra's heart, I'll be the first to say they're wrong. You don't just care about humans, or about Tauren. You're not doing this for power. You do honestly care about this planet.”
Jensen smiles bashfully, then stands up. “Thank you. Now, how would you like to do sleeping arrangements? It's a little cool to just lay down on the deck, but it'd be tight fitting two people down here.”
I bite my lip, suddenly shy. “Uh.... if you want, I could scoot over down here if you want. I won't bite.”
Jensen's smirk reappears, and he heads for the steps to the deck. “And what if I do? Have a good sleep, Kelbara. By the way, how's the arm?”
I flex it, for the first time in hours noticing my exposed bicep. “Doesn't hurt at all now. You owe me a tunic though.”
“Of course. Good night, Kelbara.”
I wake up curled in a ball, whimpering behind pinched together lips as my nightmare chases me up out of sleep. It's been a long time since I had this particular nightmare, and I know why. Those damn crackers. Still, knowing it was just some stupid crackers doesn't help with the sweat that's dotting my forehead as I sit up, my neck stiff and my shoulder cold from where it's been pushed against the sidewall of the boat. I would have done better if Jensen had joined me, his body heat would have been helpful.
I come out on deck, seeing that Jensen's already up, the sun just starting to turn the sky pink as it begins to rise. “Good morning,” I grumble, walking to the front of the boat and stretching. “Nice sunrise.”
“Very pretty,” Jensen says, but his voice sounds different, and when I turn I see that he's looking at me, not the sky. He shakes his head like he's chastising himself about something and sits down at the controls of the boat. “So where to?”
“Hold on, let me see the map of the area,” I reply, coming around to the control panel. The screen is tiny, this rental boat truly is nothing but junk with a decent motor, but I can see enough. “Okay, about ten kilometers here, right around this bend, on the left bank. When we reach the bend slow down, but we can go quickly until then.”
“Then I'll steer, you slap me when we get close,” Jensen jokes, getting behind the controls. “Just watch where you slap me.”
We start off, Jensen keeping the motors at a good pace but not too fast that we miss anything. It takes us nearly twenty minutes to reach the bend, and I turn, tempted to slap him on the butt but deciding to just pat him on the shoulder. “Here, take it down slower, and move towards the left bank.”
Jensen nods, and I go to the front of the boat, taking out my powerlance just in case there's something waiting for us. I don't see anything, but there's drag marks on the narrow sand bar that I remember, something's been by here recently. “Wait! Okay, slowly, you can ground the boat on the sand bar.”
“Hope this fucking thing has reverse, pushing off it going to be a bitch,” Jensen grumbles under his breath, but he does as I ask, the hull scraping on the sand just as I remember. “How's that?”
“Grab your powerlance, let's go,” I reply, hopping over the side. It's a decent drop, this boat wasn't designed for this, and I hope I can jump up high enough to grab the sidewall when it's time to get back on. Jensen jumps over next to me, his feet squelching on the sandy soil. “Yeah, we're going to be wearing wet socks after this. Sorry.”
“If we'd planned this, I would have worn higher boots,” Jensen says with a chuckle. “Don't worry about it. Wait... where's your armor?”
I touch my chest, surprised. “I... sorry, I forgot. I normally just wore light flex armor, not the heavier stuff. Lancer armor isn't something I'm used to.”
Jensen nods, and hands me his powerlance. “Wait here, cover me.”
He turns and jumps, in one smooth motion grabbing the top of the gunwale on the boat and levering himself over. Less than thirty seconds later he comes back over, my armor in hand. “Here.... don't forget it again, or else I start calling you Shorty.”
I want to grumble, but he's right, I screwed up. I pull my armor on over my head and latch it on quickly, handing Jensen his powerlance back as soon as I'm ready. “Okay. This time, I take the lead, I know this place.”
“You still got that wire lash of yours?” Jensen asks as we enter the darkness created by the shadows in the rock face. “Just curious.”
“I always have it,” I reply, showing him the thin cylinder. “It's too tight in parts of the space here to use it though. You'll see.”
I lead him towards the entrance to the cave, splashing through the knee deep water that helps keep attention away from this place. “Ambaris couldn't use this all the time, but during the dry season, this leads to a series of caves that stretch back into the mountain here. It was a good place to stash captured slaves while Ambaris negotiated reward fees with the owners.”
We reach the slight upslope that takes us into the main cavern, and I switch on the illumination light on my powerlance. “Over here. If he's not here, we can still see if those drag marks outside means they stopped by, he had supplies here.”
I see the power switch and check it over carefully before I throw it, the power cells still charged enough to turn on the lights in the cavern. Jensen stops, staring at what is before his eyes. “It's... cages.”
I nod, looking over the line of cages built into the walls of the cavern. “Twenty-seven of them, each exactly two and a half meters wide, two meters deep, and the height just depends on the cavern walls around them,” I reply softly. “I spent weeks here early in my teen years. When I was eleven, the rainy season hit quickly, I don't know if you remember.”
“Seven years ago, right?” Jensen says. “I was staying at Mogar's estate in the capital, I remember because it was right after the Blood Moon Games. I'd won, but I'd taken a wicked beating too, so Mogar'd put me in a weight suspension pod overnight. If you've never been in one, once the lid's closed, you get absolutely no sensory input from outside the pod. Relaxing, but I totally lost track of time and went to sleep hard. I woke up the next morning, and things had gone from hot and dry to there being at least four centimeters of rain in the main courtyard overnight.”
“And that was with the local storm drains,” I add, shivering at the memory. “Which all led to this river system. A whole capital's worth of rain, plus natural runoff. The river rose so fast the entrance was totally sealed off in less than a half hour after the rains started. The entrance tunnel we just came through flooded in an hour, and we were trapped in here. Sure, someone who wanted to could swim out if they were strong and had good swimming ability, but Ambaris had fifteen slaves that he'd rounded up in the cages. And you cannot make someone swim who doesn't want to swim. There were plenty of slaves Ambaris captured who were more than willing to drown themselves rather than go back to their owners, too. Ambaris wouldn't give them a chance. So...”
“You were stuck,” Jensen says, and I nod, going over to the fourth cage. The fourth cage, where so many things happened....
“What are you doing?”
I turn around, my hand letting go of the ration by instinct to drop to the damp floor of the cell. The human inside scrambles forward, grabbing it off the ground and stuffing it in her mouth before anyone can react, swallowing it in seconds.
“Father, I... I...”
My father steps forward, his bald head glistening in the damp chill of the cave. Three days, we've been stuck here for three days, and most of the slaves haven't eaten in that amount of time. On his orders.
“I told you not to feed the animals!” Father yells, grabbing me by the front of my shirt and jerking me around. “You cannot be sympathetic to these beasts!”
“They're humans, Father, not animals....” I protest weakly, trying to reason with him. “If we don't feed them, they can't be taken home.”
&
nbsp; “Home? You think these stupid fucks know what a good home is?” Father asks, reaching for the catches on my leather armor. I try to fight him off, but he backhands me across the face, stunning me until he's got my chest and shoulder armor off.
“Father... please,” I cry, trying to resist him. It's no use, and tears don't get any sympathy from my father. If anything, they make him punish me harder, and I rarely cry anymore.
“You need a lesson, child. So if you want to be nice to the animals, you can be treated like one of the animals,” Father says. He reaches for something on his leg, and I feel the pain of an injection in my thigh muscle and the hiss of a powerful injector. “Now you get to learn what it means to hate.”
Father opens the cell door, dragging me and shoving me inside. Before I can turn around he's slammed the door shut, locking it as he looks at me and the human woman I've just given food to. “Get to know each other. It won't be long.”
I can feel the drugs working through my body, my heart speeding up and my muscles starting to tremble. I've just started to get my womanly cycles, and I'm adding muscle almost daily it seems, trying to keep up with all the men in Father's band of mercenaries.
Father watches me for a minute, then walks away, coming back with a large box of Lancer ration crackers and a dart gun. He aims and shoots the human woman, who cries out and pulls the dart out, staring at it. “What the fuck was that, you asshole?”
“Hunger enhancer,” Father says, laughing. “Fight it now, but in about five minutes your metabolism is going to be so high into overdrive that your body will literally eat itself alive if you don't consume calories. Such as these crackers... but it won't be enough for two. The other option is, of course....”
Father unsheathes a knife from his leg and tosses it into the middle of the cage before following up with the crackers. “There's three minutes left before the hunger hits. Kelbara's already feeling it, along with the other ingredients in her little cocktail. So, human, what are you going to do?”
Jensen stares at me open mouthed as I shake my head, shivering. “He.... he drugged you and put you in a cage in order to what?”
“He wanted to teach me not to have sympathy for humans,” I whisper, looking into the cage with haunted eyes. “The woman, she tried to resist it, she could see that I was trying to fight it too, but Ambaris had included more than a hunger enhancer in the drugs he injected us both with.”
“What?” Jensen says, coming closer and putting a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Kelbara, you don't have to.”
I shake my head, intent. “No, this is important for you to understand the man you're hunting. There was a modified version of the libido enhancer in it as well, sex, rage, violence being so close in our brain centers. It doesn't take much to repress the libido and allow the violence centers to be stimulated.”
“I know,” Jensen says softly. “I faced opponents like that in the Arena. Of course, they only drug test the winners, but I could tell. The eyes always told me, the way they....”
“They dilate first, then go to nearly pinpoints,” I finish for him. “Your vision goes super bright, then almost to a dark haze, and everything goes cold. Mogar told me when I asked. That it's a defensive reaction by your body, it pulls all the blood to your muscles and core, leaving your skin cold, and it was already chilly in the caves from the water. She sprang at me first, she was hungry and desperate. The morsel I'd given her was her first food since we'd been trapped in the caves. She actually got the knife first, but I'd been training in martial arts since I was four years old. I tried just disarming her, but she attacked me again, and again, and again and the drugs....”
I can't take it anymore and I lower my forehead against the bars, crying softly. I still don't cry that often, but for this woman, and for what I did to her, the tears flow. “I killed her, Jensen! I finally couldn't hold back any longer, and I took her down, the anger getting the best of me as I wrapped my arm around her neck and started to squeeze. She fought, but there at the end she seemed to just.... she relaxed totally, almost like she was happy that I was killing her. Her hand stopped trying to claw at my face but instead caressed my cheek for a second or two before it dropped away as she passed out. I could have let go, but I didn't. I.... when Ambaris opened the cage four hours later, I'd eaten all of the crackers. He thought that I'd have lost my sympathy for the humans.”
“You didn't,” Jensen says softly, and I lean into him, finding comfort in his touch.
“No. Actually, Ambaris had momentarily forgotten about the knife, and when he came close enough I stabbed him in the arm. I was going for his lungs, but he was fast enough to partially deflect it. He never tried using drugs on me again after that.”
I close my eyes, shaking as the memories come back to me, shivering as I try to hold them back. It was soon after that I started carrying a mono wire lash everywhere, even when I bathe. A mono wire will cut through bars; it will cut through almost anything not energy shielded. I won't be made a prisoner again, I won't....
Jensen takes me by the shoulders and turns me to him, pulling me close and holding me. He's warm, strong, and in his arms I don't feel afraid anymore. Last night, when he kissed me it was so nice....
I reach up, caressing his face. “I'm so cold, Jensen.... please, I want to feel warm again.”
Jensen lowers his head and we kiss again, his lips starting to melt the ball of ice inside my heart. His tongue demands entrance to my mouth and I let him, moaning into his mouth when he picks me up and pins me against the cave wall, his hand grabbing my ass and squeezing. His lips are hot on my neck, and his free hand runs underneath my armor, over the tunic that's covering my breasts, tingles shooting through my body as he rubs my left nipple. I want him, he's so strong and powerful.
“Jensen......” I groan as his knee slips between my thighs. I feel his muscular leg slide closer to my warming pussy, I've never had a man before and he's the one, yes the one that I want to be my first.
A beep comes from Jensen's pocket, and we freeze, our eyes opening. It's his communicator, and it's with difficulty that he steps back, letting me down from the wall and reaching with a shaky hand for his pocket. “Yes?”
The signal's fuzzy, these caves play havoc with comm signals, but we can make a little bit out. “Je.... it... ren. Lost your.... readout. Where.... you?”
“Tauren, I'm in some caves. Give me five minutes to get outside, I'll signal you then.”
“Caves? Fi..... under...d. Tauren...t.”
Jensen puts his communicator away and looks at me, his eyes full of desire and guilt. “I'm sorry, Kelbara. I should not have taken advantage of you that way.”
He turns, but I reach out, snagging his hand. He looks back, shocked as I wrap my fingers through his. “You didn't. Jensen, I know this is weird.... but thank you. What a strange first date for me.”
“Date?” Jensen asks, shocked. “You consider this a first date?”
“Closest I've ever had to a first date, yes,” I reply, giving him a smile. “Remember, I was raised by a man who was a merc and who wished he had a son instead of a daughter. Come on, let's go find out what King Tauren has to say. If you don't mind.... hold my hand in the tunnel?”
Jensen looks at our entwined fingers, then nods, sighing in mock exasperation. “You'd probably get lost otherwise. Come on, let's shut down the lights, there's nothing useful left here.”
Chapter 6
Jensen
The chilly water of the river helps with my erection in my pants, although my cock quickly rises back to full attention when I give Kelbara a boost up to the rim of the boat, and her firm, tight ass is just centimeters from my face before she pulls herself up just as smoothly as I can and flips over neatly. I've always been attracted to strong women, and Kelbara.... the way she felt in the cave with her ass in my hand, her pert, sensitive breast under my fingers.... I'm confused. Is this a mission or a date? Or is it something both, something more?
Mission first. I jump up and g
et into the boat, opening my communicator as soon as I'm on board. Kelbara looks at me expectantly, waiting for my commands. “Warm up the engines, see if you can get us off the sandbar.”
“Yes sir,” Kelbara replies, her eyes and words stirring my cock again. She goes to the control panel and starts up the engines, and I can hear a *chunk* sound underneath us before the propeller starts pulling us in reverse. I watch over the side for a second to see that we are making progress before I open a comm channel.
“Tauren, this is Jensen, come in please.”
“Jensen, this is Tauren. How goes the search?”
I sigh, looking back at the barely visible entrance to the cave. “The first location we searched was a bust. We're progressing downriver. What's the situation there?”
“Chaotic. Joren's starting to get his memory engrams back, and we've identified what the codes you overheard being talked about are. Jensen.... we've got a problem.”
“What's the problem? What are the codes?” I ask as Kelbara gets us to deeper water before slowing and putting the boat back into forward propulsion again.
“The orbital weapons platforms,” Tauren says, making me wince. “After the unification wars, they were put under royal control, and only the royals had the codes to unlock them. Jensen.... my mother knows the codes.”
“Understood. Can you lock her out?”
“We're trying, but so far, there's been resistance at the station level as well at some locations. Some of the platforms, they're not responding to hails or to communications requests. You need to find Tauria before she can reach a proper station.”
“Understood. Will keep you updated, Jensen out.”
I close the communicator, running my hands over my eyes. Kelbara puts her hand on my arm, and I open my eyes to look at her. “What is it?”
“The orbital weapons platforms,” I reply, getting up and putting my communicator away. “I learned a lot about them when I was in the Resistance. What do you know about them?”
Red Planet: The Revolt (Tamarians Book 2) Page 5