by Lia Nox
For now, Delia was extremely happy, happier than she’d been in such a long time; it wasn’t that she hadn’t experienced happiness with us before, but more that her happiness was developing the longer she found her way in the world. I hoped that in my own way, I helped bring that out of her.
I cocked an eyebrow, looking at Zuvo’s side, but he only shook his head.
Fine. He didn’t want to draw attention to it for now.
But later he’d have no choice. We couldn’t afford let our unit be weakened.
Our accelerated healing could overcome all but the worst of injuries, but that was no reason to be reckless.
We stood and examined the weapons for a while, Delia eager to finger at all the ones she didn’t recognize, with Zuvo only too happy to show her.
Axar and I helped out whenever we found a weapon we felt akin to, but it was Zuvo who knew weaponry inside out because of his love for strategy, clever thinking and using tools efficiently.
Again, the notion of Zuvo being the thinker of the group popped up into my mind as I observed him handing one weapon after the other to Delia. She cooed whenever an unusual one landed in her hands, each interaction as giddy as the last.
Once she was comfortable handling the weapons, Zuvo took her by the hand and started to position her in front of trees, occasionally making makeshift targets from broken branches and broad stiff leaves.
“Move it there now – I want to try shooting from further away!” Delia was ordering us, but we found it endearing more than anything else. When my hands clamped around the latest target, I held it like a shield and charged at her, shouting out a pretend war cry as I did so.
Delia squealed with delight, her attacks coming quicker as I closed the distance between us. We laughed alongside her, my body rolling to the floor to symbolize that I’d been hit.
All four of us kept testing our reflexes, both by coming together and playing for a while. Messing about and having some fun was one of my favorite ways to keep myself, and others, sane, so any chance to be silly, to have a joke with my friends, was a chance I would always take.
Delia giggled at me, the sound light, trickling into my ears. I looked to her and pretended to have been struck by her weapon, the arrows never having left it though. I faked my last swansong and fell to the floor, my body convulsing convincingly as I lay there.
Delia rushed over to me and held my face, her eyes full of mischief; she gave my nose a light tap, causing me to open my eyes, and then giggled in my face as I returned her laughter.
Zuvo
Tarnan was being such a goofy idiot - it warmed my heart to see him so happy. He’d always loved a good game and, for the most part, we’d indulged it and joined in, but Delia gave him endless attention that we couldn’t.
Not that he was ever quite this free with us; she so obviously brought out every part of his personality, such was her power.
Climbing off of Tarnan now, Delia straightened herself out, brushing the dried dirt from her the curved makeshift armor we’d fashioned for her, and stood with her hands on her hips.
She was thinking something over in her head, I could just tell. This expression always adorned her features that told the entire world that she wanted to discuss something with us; sometimes she’d look quite solemn about it, but today she was merely a ball of curiosity. The perkiness of her spirit just now having translated into this quest for learning. How could she be so annoyingly endearing?
I sighed to myself, adjusting my makeshift bandage as I waited for her to pose her question, as I knew one, or several, were about to spill forth.
Delia sheepishly smiled my way, almost as if she could read my thoughts - I sincerely hoped she didn’t possess that gift. The things I’d thought about her since the beginning - the sweet, the entrusting, and the downright filthy - were best left in my head, not in hers as well.
“Enemies?” She queried, the way she raised her voice at the end helping us to understand that it was a question she posed and not a signal that we were under attack yet again.
My puzzled mannerisms gave her clue enough that I didn’t know how to answer such a question, such was the simplicity of what she'd asked in the face of such a large topic.
Still, she loyally waited for my response. Although Axar and Tarnan had enough knowledge for her to probe further, it seemed that she wanted me to relay what I knew to her, as if I was the one who cataloged everything.
I liked how she had this high opinion of me, that she deemed me a type of oracle of the group - I saw everything and knew all, meaning I was an endless resource to tap.
Had anyone else even remotely suggested that and I’d have tightened up like a sealed tome, never to reveal what I knew, but this was Delia… she could tap away at me and I’d spill the goods. A devilish smirk plagued my lips, as I knew I meant that in more ways than one.
“Enemies,” I began, still uncertain about where this conversation would lead us. “Wave attacks, no war.”
My arms moved through the air to signify a wave, my aim being to show that our enemies were sent out in wave formations as a sort of training exercise for us, not as a result of war.
Delia blankly stared back at me for some time, the cogs in her head turning over what I’d attempted to say. Finally, she slowly nodded her head, though a frown still remained.
“No war… created enemies?” Came her next question, this one even more unsure than the last. As I opened my mouth to respond, Axar cut in.
“Masters… cre-eated… enemies. Missions and hunts. Challenges.”
Again, our words seemed to be causing more confusion than sense, a factor that angered Axar. He wasn’t mad at Delia, but at the fact that he couldn’t find a means of expressing what he meant - it was driving us all mad!
We were so used to the easy communication between just the three of us, that meeting someone who didn’t naturally slot into our way of life was a struggle. I knew this was how the masters had wanted it, had planned it even: for us to be conditioned, useful for one thing and one thing only.
I was just angry that it had worked so well. To ease Axar’s annoyance, Tarnan patted his shoulder and gestured for him to relax while myself and he figured out how to explain all of this to Delia. Axar looked put out, but he grunted his approval nonetheless.
Now it was Tarnan’s turn to talk.
He groped at a stick to the left of him and started scribbling in the earth; the land here was moist, less dry than the plains, and so what he was drawing came out less defined than he’d have liked.
However, it soon painted out this picture of how our missions had worked.
I was pleased he’d found a way to get his point across, as finger painting with sticks was hardly my idea of fun, nor was struggling to speak. Feeling the fool left a bitter taste in my mouth, and while Delia never regarded me a fool, I didn’t want to give her any reasons to.
“Masters,” Tarnan pointed at the figures in robes, the crudeness of his drawing still able to coax emotions deep from inside of me. “Ordered missions. We killed enemies, scavenged tools, found teams.” His explanation was jarring to listen to, but Delia seemed to have followed it, though the last word had grabbed her attention in particular.
Now her mind was wandering elsewhere.
We’d never really covered the subject of other teams with her before, as it had become obvious to us upon waking that there weren’t any left, or if there were, they were in hiding.
The latter option just didn’t sound plausible to me however, not with so much decay and carnage everywhere.
My opinion was that they’d been killed or had managed to flee from the planet, though the reason why they'd flee still dogged me.
It was my turn to take over.
“Teams.” My hands waved from myself to Tarnan and to a still disgruntled Axar.
Delia gave a firm nod, understanding immediately that I meant that the other teams consisted of a similar setup to our own. “Scout ahead and battle.” I was trying t
o describe how the teams had worked so well together, but it came out much like Tarnan’s report; I wanted to hit my head against a tree stump…
No. Delia needed to hear this, she needed to know.
I saddled up next to Tarnan, taking the stick out of his limp hand, and started to sketch out a story that I hoped he’d walk her through while I drew.
Axar immediately started paying attention, his eyes giving away so many emotions to those who could read them - he was angry, uncomfortable, and jaded. Delia only had to give one glance his way and she’d have known everything from that single look. But she was too busy watching me draw, captivated by my unfolding tale. Then again, so was Axar and Tarnan - this was out of character, even for me.
My tale was from a time when the masters had sent us out to follow up on another team, a team that had gone dark unexpectedly while on a routine mission.
“The masters believed that the beasts sent to challenge them must have bested them in some way,” I started to explain, the device Delia had reclaimed working smoothly for now. “We weren’t sure how that would happen, so it made me incredibly uneasy.” I could see that Delia was gripped, her eyes flashing every time I revealed more of the story to her. “No beast was meant to be able to overpower us like that, not to the point of death.”
“When we’d arrived at their last known location,” Axar cut across me, his body trembling at recalling the memory; he was excited to retell the story, but the anxiety it brought with it was palpable, even for him. “We’d discovered a ransacked base, littered with the corpses of the creatures we thought had killed the others.” The drama he incites has caused Delia to go rigid, the tension so tangible I could have cut it with a knife.
“In a flash, we were ambushed by the team itself! They were revolting against the masters, tired of being treated like slaves and toys; they wanted freedom, a better life for themselves. We all shared their sympathies and that sentiment, more than we could ever admit to them, but the mission was clear: we had to eradicate the issue. That, of course, meant them. The masters had ordered us to kill the defectors and we’d obeyed.”
I finally finished my tale, my sorrow heavy in my chest like it had been that day.
My admission was one that shocked Delia, causing her to gasp; at that moment, her expression darkened towards us, as if her trust had waned a little. I couldn’t blame her, it was far from one of our proudest moment.
But she needed to know the truth. At least, as much of it as we could convey, between our stick drawings and her translator.
“We gave them each a warriors burial, even in spite of the masters expressly ordering us not to.” My voice wavered as the images of their dead bodies, silenced by my own hand, flashed in front of me. “When we’d returned back to them, we’d been whipped and lashed because of it,”
“It was worth every mark they left on us!” Axar exclaimed, a smug smile decorating his face. He wasn’t wrong: a lashing seemed mild in comparison to what we’d witnessed and been a part of.
“What made it worse was that other teams had been trained to deal with defectors. Not us. We still carried out the task, but we weren’t made to serve that purpose.”
As I finished, my eyes could barely look at Delia anymore, as I was worried what I’d see staring back at me was the fear she’d worn on that first day she’d seen us. Soft hands touched both of my cheeks, bringing me back so that I’d look at her; it was a gentle rescue from a pit of sorrows.
“You obeyed your orders, Zuvo, don’t hate yourself for it.” I took on board the words that I could and nestled my head deeper into her hands. Baring this much of ourselves was hard, and it opened up old wounds, but Delia was there like a soothing salve to make the pain go away.
She made it possible for me to take a painful memory, one that I’d regretted ever since I’d carried out that dreadful order and had made it into something I could process.
And along the way, I’d been able to teach her more about our enemies and why the attacks seemed so sporadic, illogical.
Just like us, it seemed our enemies had no direction anymore.
Delia
My strength eventually left me as yet another hour passed since we started walking again.
My stomach rumbled louder than before, and I felt lightheaded. For a moment, the whole world spun around me. Leaning against a tree trunk, I took a deep breath and ran one hand through my hair, and that was when my knees decided to fail me.
Axar was on me before I hit the ground.
With one arm around my waist, his strong muscles holding me up, he lowered me gently until I was resting with my back against the tree.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered, patting my empty stomach for good measure. Not that I needed to do it—it rumbled once more, loud enough to drown out my own words. “Food. We need food.”
“Food.” Repeating the word slowly, Axar stood straight and eyed the other two. Zuvo said something quickly, his words half-a-growl, and Tarnan’s smile disappeared as he let out a frustrated sigh.
The three of them pierced the dense foliage with their gaze, and then exchanged a knowing glance.
I didn’t need to hear them say it to know we were in trouble: we’d have to go hunting again for anything larger than a snack of fruits or berries. I felt like my body craved something heartier, like the meat of a cooked animal, but given our situation I surrendered to the idea of eating a lighter meal.
“Zuvo,” Axar said, his voice brimming with a tone of command. Standing tall, Zuvo merely nodded and silently turned his back to us. In a matter of seconds, he blended right in with the vegetation and disappeared, his footsteps so light that it was as if he had never been here in the first place.
“He’s gone to look.” Axar explained, though I’d already guessed as much.
“Yes, thank you,” I breathed out, closing my eyes for a second. Part of me was concerned for Zuvo, although it was fruit he was searching for, he was still wounded.
It wasn’t slowing him down much, but I still felt bad for him having to tend to me like this. After being with them so long, I should have been better prepared to handle hunger. Back home there had been a few difficult weeks, but I never had to fight for my life while on an empty belly.
This was definitely on a whole new level.
I tried to think of something else other than the hole inside my stomach, but it was almost impossible to do so. Pain radiated from my insides, and each time I opened my eyes it felt as if I was being tossed around inside the pod once more. I pinched the bridge of my nose, drawing another deep breath, and that was when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“We protect.”
I opened my eyes to meet Axar’s gaze. Down on one knee in front of me, his fingers gently squeezing my shoulder, he offered me a reassuring smile.
“Family protects.” Standing behind Axar, Tarnan echoed the other’s words. Just one look at them and it was enough to see that they meant it. Even though we barely knew each other, even though we had no idea what the future held...I knew they would gladly put their lives on the line to protect me.
That was new.
All my life I had been the one looking out for others, but now the tables had turned. On a distant planet on the other side of the galaxy, one filled with bloodthirsty creatures—if we could call them that—I had found a new family for myself.
“Holy shit,” I muttered as I saw someone appear right behind Tarnan. Moving from behind the cover of a tree trunk, it was as if Zuvo had materialized out of thin air. Their skillset went beyond combat prowess, no doubt about it.
I watched as the three of them talk in hushed tones, and my ears perked up as I heard something that sounded eerily similar to ‘boar’.
When I repeated the word back to them, Axar threw me a curious glance and nodded. I wasn’t entirely sure if Zuvo had found a ‘boar’ or a ‘bear’, but what the hell—if bear meat was the only thing on the menu, I’d be one happy customer.
“Stay here,” Axar told me, his
tone leaving me no margin to protest. Even if I felt inclined to do so, I was so physically weak I would just get in the way. Keeping my mouth shut, I just nodded at the guys and watched as they disappeared out of sight, Zuvo leading the way.
It was slightly weird to think that the three of them were venturing into the wilderness to hunt for me.
When had been the last time someone had cared for me like that?
Always used to fending off for myself, I couldn’t help but enjoy the treatment I was getting. It wasn’t only about the way they treated me, though. It was also about the way they looked at me—their attraction burned bright in their eyes each time I caught their gaze, but I also saw a certain kindness there as well.
Even if they were engineered for the battlefield, these three cared for me.
“Crap. What now?”
Awkwardly pulling myself up, I held my breath as I heard something in the distance. There was something heavy moving through the vegetation, and the sound grew louder with each passing second. I heard the rustling of leaves, branches and twigs snapping, and then came a mighty roar that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t a boar.
And it wasn’t a bear either.
It was something way bigger.
Reaching for my new bag, I grabbed my crossbow and got three arrows ready. I gritted my teeth and, doing my best to forget about how hungry I was, I climbed up the tree I was leaning against. My movements were awkward and slow, but I somehow managed not to fall off and break my neck.
Perched on a thick branch, I took a few breaths as the creature roared once more. I heard the guys roar as well, and I quickly realized they were in pursuit. They had found dinner in this barren planet, after all.
And thank God for that—after surviving a crash landing, acid-spewing spiders and murderous creatures, it would be pretty sad to die of something as boring as starvation.