by Ella Maven
“Do you need backup? I can send some males.”
I shook my head. We couldn’t afford that. We were the Night Kings, a warrior clavas of about sixty strong.
Currently, Daz had taken one of the humans to retrieve translator implants so we could communicate with the females. Gar, along with Hap, Nero, and Xavy, were protecting the other four females. The rest of our clavas remained at our compound, which needed to be protected from predators and rival clavases. In particular, we’d been having some issues with the Red Hands. It was my wish all Drixonian males got along, but after all we’d been through since the death of over half of our species, not all Drix agreed on upholding the values of our dying race.
“No, I’ll be smart, you know that.”
Gar shifted, and his pictured shuddered for a moment. The signal was weak in the western half of the continent. Holed up in their fortress in the eastern plains, the Uldani controlled most of the tech on Corin. “Be safe then, brother.”
“I’ll meet you back at the compound. I expect this to take a few rotations.”
“You better, or we’ll send out a rescue party.”
I scoffed. “Don’t do that. Don’t waste any males on me.”
He narrowed his eyes and his lips curled. If I didn’t know him, I’d think he was angry. And he was. He was angry because he hated when he had to care about something. And he cared about me. “You’re worth ten of our best men.” He tilted his head and a slight smirk stretched his lips. “Unless I’m one of the ten.”
“Fleck off,” I curled my lips into a defiant smirk. “Don’t scare the females, Gar.”
“Too late!” Xavy yelled in the background.
I rolled my eyes. “Gar.”
“They are difficult, and their voices hurt my ears,” he frowned. Nearly a pout.
“At least they haven’t run away like my disobedient one. So be grateful you’re there with food and a cleanser while I’m hunting down a Rizars pack.”
“You have a point.”
“I need to go. Let Daz know my situation?”
“Of course. She is all, brother.”
“She is all.”
My brother’s picture blinked off and I pocketed the comm as I set my sights on the Rizars in the distance. This pack would take her to a cave on the coast the Rizars made their camps. Once there, they’d make her their meal. I didn’t let panic set in. I refused to give in to the emotional distraction. My mind locked on my mission. Rescue my human from the Rizars pack and protect her until I could meet up with the rest of my clavas. I’d completed more difficult orders in the past. I was Ward Garundum, and I wouldn’t fail.
Two
Reba
I fucked up. I wasn’t too proud to admit it. In fact, I wasn’t proud at all. After these grimy, bipedal, crocodile aliens grabbed me, they’d thrown me into a cage. Now, four crocs held two poles at each corner while my cage sat on top, so I was being carried like Roman royalty or something. So far, they hadn’t hurt me, but I didn’t have high hopes I’d stay unmolested.
In addition, they kept throwing things at me. At first, I thought this was some sort of public humiliation, like throw rotten fruits at the human before we hang her in the town square or some shit. But this fruit wasn’t rotten; in fact, it smelled good. With raspy grunts and gestures with their stubby, three-fingered hands, they encouraged me to eat. At first I refused, wondering what the food would do to me, or if they poisoned it, but then I saw a few pluck a berry-type fruit off a tree and toss it in my cage.
Maybe I was … their pet? I could only hope that being their pet meant they’d feed me and then let me go like a rehabbed raccoon.
I ate because I was hungry, and I didn’t know when they would feed me again. I only picked food items which didn’t look tampered with, like whole fruits. I peeled one with a combination of my teeth and a sharp stick to reveal a rather tasty jelly inside. When they shoved a liquid at me that looked like water and smelled like vinegar, I drank it.
I wasn’t sure if it was the right decision to eat, but I didn’t quite trust myself to make the right decisions. The crocs sure as hell looked scary and there was the small matter that they’d caged me.
Eventually, I grew full. After piling my uneaten bounty in a small corner of my cage with a large leaf covering it, I peered out of my cage bars. I tested the construction of the thing, but there were vines tough as sailing ropes tying the branches together. The floor was made up of sticks lashed together, and the rough edges dug into the soles of my bare feet.
I slumped against the side, letting my head roll on my shoulders with the sway of the cage as the crocs plodded along at a slow as shit pace. Something poked me in the back, and I yelped as I whirled around. A croc held a stick and gestured to my food stash before pointing to my mouth.
“I’m full,” I announced, as if they could understand me. Their language was just a guttural series of grunts and barks.
He had a long snout and beady yellow eyes. When he blinked, an opaque film descended over his eyeballs. As he thrust his head closer to mine, I had to hold my breath. He stank like rotten meat, and chunks of food hung off his razor-sharp teeth.
He poked at me again, harder this time, enough to leave a mark. “Ouch!” I said. “Stop!”
He made as if to poke me again, then pointed at the food again. He wanted me to eat? More? I picked up a small berry and placed it between my lips to see if I’d read his meaning right. He lowered the stick and kept walking, now ignoring me.
I frowned at him, unsure why it mattered so much that I ate. As we plodded along, this became the theme. If I stopped eating, I got poked. If I tried to protest, I got poked harder.
So, I ate in little bites. My stomach, unused to this food, began to gurgle, and I feared I’d vomit it all up and then get poked to death. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed as I played this stupid pointless game with them, but the sun reached its peak in the sky before dipping back down. I had to pee. For real this time. My stomach hurt and my head pounded. The constant swaying of the cage was making me nauseous. I got motion sickness, okay? This was why I didn’t travel much.
After a while, we stopped. My cage was placed on the ground and the four crocs stood around me like sentries. The rest ate or pissed out in the open. I studiously avoided looking at any croc penis, as if I wasn’t already scarred for life from this freaking journey.
I had just finished another berry when a one from the front of the pack hobbled back. He was the largest one I’d seen yet. He wore a necklace made of small bones. While some of the others wore bone jewelry, his was far more elaborate. He was followed by two more, who seemed to flank him like a bodyguard.
He held a spear, the end an off-white bone chiseled into an arrow-point. He reached through the cage with his meaty hand and poked at me. First on my arm, then my thigh, and then my stomach. He tutted and clucked and grunted before pointing once again to my pile of food, which had somehow increased since I last saw it.
I threw up my hands. “What the hell? While I appreciate the hospitality, I’m done. I’m full. No more eating, or I’m going to puke it up.”
His eyes widened before he shoved the spear tip at my throat. I sucked in a breath, sure that this was it. He was going to slice my aorta and I’d bleed out on this strange planet, but all I felt was a little prick as he leaned his snout through the bars and hissed at me, stinky breath nearly making me choke. He pointed at the food before jerking his spear away.
Breathing hard, nearly out of my mind with fear, I picked up a handful of legume-like beans. I shoved them in my mouth and chewed as my eyes filled with tears.
He nodded and turned to walk away. His guard gave me a look which chilled me to my bone. Hunger. He licked his lips and snapped his jaws at me.
The beans turned to ash in my mouth. I gagged, spitting them out on the floor of my cage just as my stomach upended its contents. Grunts came from all around me, but I couldn’t stop vomiting, and gasped and retched until all I spit up wa
s bile.
Because I knew now why they wanted me to fill my stomach. They weren’t being nice. They were fattening me up so they could eat me.
Ward
Rizars were easy to track. They didn’t bother hiding, because they knew in a pack that large, most predators wouldn’t bother them. They were also so plentiful the leaders didn’t care if one or two were picked off by a salibri or a group of pivars.
They crashed through the forest like they owned it, leaving trampled leaves and hacked-at trunks. I maintained a safe distance behind. Their sense of smell sucked, but they could hear well. If they thought a Drixonian warrior was on their tails, they’d send a fighting group to take me on, even if it was a suicide mission for their ranks. They would hope to slow me down, or deter me. Rarely would a lone Drixonian warrior take on a Rizar pack. But then it wasn’t every rotation the Rizars had in their possession the one thing I was willing to fight to the death for.
I caught glimpses of her every once in a while. At the beginning, she’d been alert. Eating. Now she sat curled in a ball in the center of her cage. Not moving. I still couldn’t see any blood, but her prone body worried me. I didn’t think they would have killed her yet as they liked fresh meat in their caves.
Why had she run? I regretted that she had to see what she had back at the spaceship landing. We hadn’t known the cargo was human females. The Uldani—our enemies since fifty rotations ago—had only told us we had to make a delivery in order for them to release Daz’s brother. All they gave us was a location and time. When we saw the Kulks guarding a half-dozen human females, we hadn’t been prepared.
Then one of the Kulks had hit and bloodied a female—the one Daz couldn’t take his eyes off—and he’d started the battle. As always, we’d slaughtered the Kulks, and the females had been a witness to all of it. I couldn’t imagine what they thought at seeing us in our warrior modes, our machets rippling out of our skins as we slashed at the inferior Kulks.
So, maybe I could understand why my female felt like I was a danger to her, but that didn’t stop me from thinking of all the ways I’d never let her get hurt again. Once I dealt with these flecking Rizars.
The coast was about one and a half rotations away for me, which meant about double that for a Rizar pack of this size. I still had time to make my move, but I had to do it before they reached their cave, or I couldn’t be sure she would still be alive.
As I walked, I drank some qua and shoved a bit of antella jerky in my mouth, barely tasting anything as my focus was slowly on following the Rizar pack and listening for any other predators.
My cora beat with renewed strength and purpose at having a female to watch out for. The Drixonian males who survived the virus had been so young and unprepared for dealing with life after our society collapsed. Our females had been in charge of everything—from our leader council to our manufacturing and food production. The males were solely in charge of protecting our planet, the neighboring twin planet Corin, from threats. We were warriors, not homemakers.
The Uldani from planet Torin—previously only minor acquaintances of ours—offered us a chance. We could work for them as bodyguards and law enforcement. They’d help us get back on our feet. That worked fine for about a hundred sun-cycles until we discovered the Uldani had been conducting experiments on Drixonians in secret—causing suffering and death among the males of our race as we were already dying out with no way to reproduce.
After that, we started the Uprising, a war which lasted many cycles until we emerged victorious, gaining our independence. The remaining Drixonian warriors retreated to the western half of the continent, separating into clavases and each electing their own leaders or drexels. The Uldani remained on the eastern half of the continent, living in a fortified community and hoarding as much technology as they were able.
We were left with our bikes, our weapons, and our wits. We’d rebuilt a new Drixonian society and although it wasn’t perfect, most of us had found a way to retain the Drixonian values. One of those was that females must be protected and cherished at all costs. That was the way we were bred. It was embedded in our biology. It was why I refused to turn around and give up on my female despite her careless decision. She is all.
I needed a plan. I couldn’t slash my way through to her cage and steal her away. Not without succumbing to the many dozens of sharp Rizar weapons. And a large part of me worried she’d refuse to come with me. I couldn’t tell her I meant her no harm and I’d rather cut off my arm than see her in pain.
There was one way I could get close to her. One way that could maybe get the Rizars to let their guards down. I hated it with every fiber of my being, but pride meant nothing in the face of a threat to my female.
I trudged forward, moving at a faster clip now. I wanted to make it to her by nightfall.
Three
Reba
The good news was after I’d puked my guts out, they’d stopped making me eat. Maybe if I acted sick enough, they’d think I was diseased and drop me off somewhere. Or they’d perform a mercy kill. I wasn’t even sure which one I preferred anymore.
I remained in the center of my cage, curled in a ball, feeling sorry for myself. I did that for a few minutes, until the shadows began to lengthen, signaling dusk was coming. Then I forced myself to start using my brain. Not using my brain was probably what got me into this mess in the first place. Had the blue guys shoved me in a cage? No. Had they insinuated they wanted to eat me? No. Had they hurt me in any way? No.
If I had to choose between Glower and these croc aliens, I would choose the blue guy. His breath hadn’t smelled like rotten meat. His muscles had been nice. For a half-second I felt a little safe as he whisked me away from the bodies he’d slaughtered. I shuddered. And okay he was handsome. Which made me feel crazy to even think that, but hey, I might have had a thing for Predator fan fiction in my heyday.
I’d felt his thighs beneath my stomach and umph…
Shut up, Reba. Shut up, you crazy horny mofo. Focus.
Did these crocs sleep? That was what I wanted to know. If we traveled all night, that was going to be bad, but if they rested, I might be able to do … something. My goal wasn’t necessarily to get out of this cage and be able to run away, but I could try to damage it enough to force them to use another way to restrain me. Mistakes were always made when killers resorted to Plan B. Or something. I’d read that somewhere.
So that was what I’d do. Wait until nightfall and see if these assholes needed to sleep. Fuck, I prayed they needed sleep. Before we started moving again, back after I’d thrown up, I had peed as discretely as I could, but I didn’t want to think about how bad I smelled.
I grabbed the water-stuff and did my best to rinse the taste of vomit out of my mouth. I drank some of it and then went back to my food pile, trying to eat to replenish my energy. Throwing up always took a lot out of me. Stupid body. I slurped up the jelly fruit because it tasted good and sweet. Sugar would help my blood sugar levels. Next I went for some hard shells that had a meaty center like a nut. Did they have protein on this planet? I wasn’t sure, but I ate that too.
The sun dipped lower and lower. The air grew cool, and after the first time I shivered, I went still. Okay that was bad. How cold would it get here at night? The climate was rather pleasant during the day, but I was wearing next to nothing and there were no blankets or coverings in sight to protect me from the cold.
I had fragile pathetic human skin not whatever weird scaled plated armor covered them. I couldn’t move inside the cage very well to keep my body warm, but I flapped my arms and rowed the air with my legs. Some of the crocs gave me weird looks and a few pokes. Probably because I was burning precious calories they wanted to ingest from my flesh.
When the sun touched the horizon, we abruptly stopped. Several of the crocs immediately sat down on their squatty haunches. I guessed overtime wasn’t a thing in their world.
The leader stomped down the ranks, grunting at his minions in what I could only surmise we
nt along the lines of, “get up you lazy assholes.” Most of them swayed to their feet with moans and grumbles.
I kept quiet, hoping maybe they’d forget about me, but I was, of course, wrong. The leader slashed at the vines on my cage and hauled me outside. I stumbled; my legs were nearly numb from being cramped for so long.
He didn’t seem to care. He shoved me to the ground and issued some orders to guards standing nearby. Hands clamped on my shoulders, and I tried to squirm away and kick them off me, but they were too strong. One lashed a strong vine around my ankle and tied the other end to a tree. Great, so I went from caged like a dog to tied to a tree like a dog. I didn’t see this situation as an improvement, although it was nice to be able to stretch out my legs.
They milled around, some flopping to the ground in an instant sleep with their creepy opaque eyes. Nearby, two crocs dragged something between them. In the dimming light, I couldn’t see what it was until they drew closer. I gasped when I saw the blood. It was some type of animal, I thought. There was some fur, and broken limbs and dripping entrails.
I pressed a hand to my mouth at the smell. I avoided the raw meat section of a grocery store, so this was … viscerally appalling. They hacked at it with their blades and spears before depositing a hunk of raw meat at my feet.
Raw. Alien. Planet. Meat.
Even if I hadn’t been a vegetarian since I was eighteen, there was no way I was putting that in my mouth. I gagged and crawled away from their offering, testing the limit of the leash, which was not very long. Grunts and clicks and hisses greeted my rejection of their meal. “Yeah, well fuck you. I’m not eating raw foreign animal meat unless you want to see me puke up my guts again.”
After more hisses and poking, they finally left me alone. By now, the sun was a half-circle over the horizon and the air had cooled considerably. It was maybe fifty degrees Fahrenheit which wasn’t bad if I would have been wearing appropriate clothing.
