by C. R Corbin
Fherin (Kanosian Warriors Book 3)
by C.R Corbin
Table of contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
More from the Author
Sign up to C.R Corbin’s mailing list if you would like to receive bonus chapters for her books and a free book in addition to news and updates about new releases!
CHAPTER ONE
Natalie
Cold Perophian air glides over my cheeks and I glanced at the heavens, the three moons trickle their way across the white sky that was slathered in snow and ice at the moment. A land that was forged by star pilgrims, the low gravity of this planet means that the snow doesn't fall as quickly as I am used to, luckily we already received our nanite injections so that the low gravity doesn't ravage our bodies in all the ways that it did in the past. The air was extremely cold and we weren't even in one of the sections of the planet where the cold reached its extremes, here it was still around -10 °C, not terrible.
"Natalie!" I heard called out and I turned around with a frown, seems like they weren't going to let up huh?
I turned as my rubber suit crumpled and my head cocked back, my eyes shine through the goggles that they had granted me, my bodysuit slides against the extra layering that I had slapped on and I looked towards the facility to see Leland standing there. He beckons me inside, perhaps I had gotten distracted during my time out here.
We had only gone out for a moment, just a brief moment in order to clean some machines and to fix some things and yet here I was, staring at the snow like a child. To my right were the massive peaks that were about 20 miles from the facility. To my left were small peaks and crags, openings that lead into a small valley that we could enter and explore once it warms up...Why did I have to have my tenure here during the winter?
"Come on in....it's getting cold." he said, he was an old friend of my dad's. I nodded and tailed him inside.
Ever since ...well ever since Bradley, I think dad was a bit more careful with me than he was before. He always commanded that I get sent to specific areas that weren't of that much importance to the cause, such as Peroph.
The lonely cold rock in the midst of the milky way, far off from both human and Kanosian civilization and a place that was only used as a small mining and refueling port. I had wanted to be locked off on one of those distant worlds closer to the action, I dreamed of working on spaceships in order to fight off these Kanosian bastards and yet I was stuck here because dad didn't want me to suffer the same way Brad did.
I still remember the day of his death.
We had received a message that day telling us that he had been killed on the field, apparently it was bad enough that we couldn't even have an open casket funeral. I'm sure you can divulge the rest. Tales of how the battle went were apocryphal for the most part but I got enough details from his friends that were right beside him. They said he was surrendering in the heat of battle and the Kanosian struck him in the face with this large glaive.
I don't know why I had such an obsession with finding out how he had perished...to be honest I think I just wanted to know to reinforce my belief that the enemy was beyond redemption, that they were beyond any semblance of positive opinion that lurked in my consciousness.
And that was all...that was all that I had ultimately in the end.
I had lost countless friends during the battle. I had lost all that I have ever loved and more. I built my life back up only to have it torn apart once again and here I was...grounded in this frozen wasteland, unable to do anything but stew in my anger. Perhaps I should have become a warrior but I knew I wouldn't be skilled at it...all I had was my mind and what good that did me when I couldn't march off and figure out a multitude of ways to make them pay for what they have done.
I stepped inside of the metal doorway, the entire facility was this round, igloo-like structure that loomed above us, about a quarter mile in diameter if I had to guess. It was constructed out of special insulating layers derived from carbon nanotubes, strong and durable. There was a slight sheen on the outside of the facility due to plates of slick melted compounds that were placed onto here to dissuade the snow from attaching.
"Come on in...' get cocoa." said Leland as I stepped inside, following him down a long metal hallway until we reached the lounge room to my left. The rest of the workers were already there with their drinks and they all smiled at me. I smiled back at them and took a seat on the couch before I began to embark on my ordinary routine of conversation and mundane busy work for the rest of the day.
Or so I thought.
#
Fherin
"But you can't do that ...can you?" I asked aloud while sitting against one of the benches off to the side of the hall. Helor sits on the table across from me, gazing over and shrugging
"It's against warrior policy but he did it..." he remarked and I frowned. That was not how we do things...we were supposed to give our enemies a fair shake, killing one of them while his entire body was maimed and claiming it on his record as a kill didn't sit well with me.
"Anyways...Heard you got something to do today. Don't really know why he chose you of all people to do this but I guess he thinks you're pretty good at stealth or something, don't know." said Helor and I nodded.
Today I would be dropping down on Perophia to retrieve a human woman by the name of Natalie Karats.
"Yeah well...better me than you. You'd probably fall on your face while trying to grab her knowing how clumsy you are." I remarked as he grinned.
"You really want to start this with me right now? Your big head will probably end up getting seen and blown up while you try to sneak through the place. I would be so much smoother. Hell I could probably pass as one of the humans ...a big one." he remarked and I smiled while gazing at the doorway to the hall, watching the men come and go.
They shine their scowls and bar their fangs as I watched those white teeth shine back at me. I was unsure of what I could do to alleviate the sentiment regarding me at the moment. The had called me naive, said I clung to the warrior code far too much but it seemed as if they were straying a bit too far from the old ways. Killing prisoners without any regard for duels, straying from the battle that most of our forces were engaged in just for some human loot...there were even rumors that some of us had killed children ...I would not think of it. I could not bear the truth should it ever emerge that we were truly becoming the wild bandit pack that we had the reputation of being amongst all the other battalions in the Kanosian military.
Loom, the second in command, pokes his head into the doorway and looks directly at me, "We're live soon." he said.
"Understood." I remarked, there was still quite some time. I looked over at Helor who was focused on this video that he was watching on his multi-tool. I click my tongue and he looked up before nodding.
"I'm scared...' I said in a joking voice, he rolled his eyes and played along.
"I'd be scared too if I had to fight a bunch of human....*gasps* engineers and laborers. There might even be a couple of soldiers there with powerful laser weapons that will char your armor if you aren't careful!" he exclaimed and we both descended into raucous laughter.
"Oh god...I really hope that I don't have to fight any of them. I might feel bad." I remarked.
"I don't think you will, maybe you'll get to knock out a couple of engineers or something like that but I don't think that you're going to have to deal with any soldiers. There's barely any there, and those that are there won't
be an issue. I think you'll have a pretty easy time sneaking by." he said to me and patted me on the back as he stumbled over. I glanced at my hands and frowned while nodding...to be honest the entire idea of kidnapping this girl didn't sit well with me.
One of the Kanosian codes was that a non-combatant could not be harmed, only incapacitated. From what I understood what we were doing was kidnapping this girl for use as ransom...they left her fate ultimately ambiguous. Use of hostages was somewhat muddy in terms of Kanosian ethics at least but...the thought of kidnapping someone that did no harm to us and using them was...it just didn't sit that well.
"You going to be okay? You suddenly looked really sad." Helor remarked and I nodded.
"Yeah I’m gonna be fine. Don't worry about it.' I brushed Helor off and plopped myself back down on the large seat behind me. I rest my head against the soft fabric and sighed while Helor continued to stare.
"Oh don't tell me you're feeling bad about the whole thing. I'm kind of upset about how this team is run as well, but...they're really going to call you a Promina then." he said. Promina in our language meant someone that was always softhearted and striving to follow the rules...it was traditionally the title of boys that would have jobs helping around the city during their apprenticeships to become actual warriors.
"Orders are orders. I follow them as long as they come from Denos and I don't question them. I feel however I may, but they always get done." I remarked and Helor smiled.
"Spoken like a true Kanosian." he said to me and I nodded with a smile.
To a warrior, there were only two things to follow, orders and his own hands.
#
Natalie
"So I'm getting out of here in like a couple months! Isn't that great?" Sarah asked me and I can only stare at her while nodding.
"Yeah...that's wonderful." I muttered, lucky prick had a ticket out of here. She was getting assigned to work on one of the cruisers, a cruiser called the Yggdrasil, one of those massive warships that were sent in, the largest in fact.
"There's going to be so many people! I can finally eat fresh food instead of the rations here! My god we're going to visit so many landscapes. Oh and just imagine the cute guys!" she squealed, I was in awe at her enthusiasm. She had always been the type to get overly excited over something and then be disappointed once it happens because she got her expectations up. Always the optimist however, that never ceased with her. When she brought up boys I flinched, her being the sexy blonde with blue eyes and a slim figure it was impossible for her to miss out on much in that department. With me it was a bit more difficult, the curvy raven haired girl with green eyes that couldn't get so much as a glance.
"I...I don't know if I can take another month on here..." I muttered to myself, my sanity was starting to slip. Sure the snow was pretty and the company wasn't all that bad but ...I wanted more. I wanted so much more...
We both sat there in the break room which featured a collection of couches that were pressed together while three of the walls were covered in cabinets, the only one that wasn't had the doorway in it. There was a coffee table in front of us and she was resting her feet on it while I hugged my knees, her enthusiasm was only bringing me down. She rests a hand on my shoulder and laughs and all I can do is nod, I was jealous of the fact that she got to do all of those things such as have fun and travel, but most of all...I was jealous of the fact that she got to go out and inflict some pain on those bastards in a much more direct way than I was doing, fixing ships and what not.
"You know it's going to be fine ...you'll grow to like it here. The war's coming to a close soon, I think, neither side is making a dent so soon you'll be off this crappy rock and maybe back on Earth or somewhere even more exciting!" she suggested, I haven't seen Earth since I was 10. All that I could remember was warmth, humid air, sunshine, and lots of ice cream. That didn't sound too bad.
The idea that I wanted this to end, that I wanted my chance to harm these bastards to end was ridiculous. I wanted this shit to go on for as long as possible and I wanted to enjoy every bit of it. I knew that this wasn't the most healthy of obsessions but that was all I thought about ever since Bradley perished in that attack, that was all I could see, that was all I could dream about.
"What do you have to do today? Are you going down the gully to do some repairs on the sensor arrays?" asked Sarah and I nodded.
"Uh yeah...least I think so. After that I think I'm just going back to the mess hall, we're having something that's not awful slop today. Mac and Cheese." I remarked and she nodded before getting to her feet and stepping away.
"Well I'll see you later then. I have to go off to the fueling department to fix smoke leaks. See ya." she remarked and scampered off. All I can do is nod and stew in my own self-contempt and my contempt for my father.
I wasn't even a soldier for god's sake! I wouldn't even be on the front line and this is where he decides to place me? The nerve!
I lean into the couch and sighed before I heard something outside of the doorway, there was this slight clicking noise that flowed out of the crack.
"What the hell is that?" I asked myself and inched closer towards the door.
I stepped up beside it and clenched the handle before poking my head out, down either side of the hallway I could see nothing which was somewhat unsettling considering the fact that there was usually someone doing something in the facility, it wasn't uncommon for the place to be silent though, and I presumed everyone else was inside their offices or something like that ...but what the hell was that noise?
I looked behind me and glanced over the couch before stepping back in and reluctantly sitting back down. Was I really paranoid about what could happen out here? There could be no attacks on this frozen ball! Who the hell would be here to attack it?
I lay down and sighed, groaning slightly as I shut my eyes and tried to pull myself into a small nap while lamenting my current situation. When I awoke my shift was nearing so I got ready by slipping on most of my gear. At least my gear wasn't terrible, it kept me warm so I didn’t have to suffer most of the pain of cold weather. Still wished I was stationed somewhere else though.
And then I heard it.
There was this light banging sound that ended a few seconds after it started. I lunge to my feet and grabbed a small laser cutter from my tool belt. It was coming from outside of the doorway. There hadn't been any signals at all and yet my gut was telling me that something was wrong and I had to follow it. Normally I would have simply laid back and assumed that whatever was happening was due to some experiment that the others were doing but this was...this was different indeed.
I clenched the tool tightly and inch closer to the door. I hear someone yelp before I immediately grit my teeth and kicked open the door. Just as I was about to call out for the guards or the others, I was tackled to the ground by this immense force that slipped out of the doorway down the hallway. He was a tall and muscular Kanosian dressed in white plated armor, his glowing red visor retracts and I looked in those golden eyes, his blue skin matched the blueness of the ice, I feel his hands tense around my wrists. His golden eyes seems to shine and that light blue skin flushes a dark blue as he bared his fangs while on top of me.
Kanosians aren't that different in appearance to humans, bipedal, similar facial structure, their only differences were that they were usually in tremendous shape, they were a great deal taller and more muscular, there were two small horns that protruded for the top of their heads, they had fangs as well as claws on each of their four limbs, and they had extremely strong legs that were much denser and a bit thicker than human legs.
That was why when he snarled while on top of me I felt so...helpless. These guys were meant to be the apex predator of their home world and here he was, holding me down and there was nothing that I could do about it.
From the sight of his neck I could tell that he was rather muscular, his jawline was extremely well defined and his black horns poked up from t
hat tussle of white hair. I stared into those slits and watched as he presses a hand over my mouth and my vision slowly fades. I cursed myself for being so distracted by that rippling body and the implications of what he could do...oh god there was a thought that flashed through my mind for a brief moment regarding the fact that he could grab my arms and pin me down to pleasure me to my heart's content and that there was nothing that I could do about it...and I lusted after this ideal.
It was horrible and I was spared from any more of it as soon as I shut my eyes
CHAPTER TWO
Fherin
This woman...she was beautiful. I realized it as soon as I felt the back of my neck throbbing upon sight of her. She was the one, the woman that I was destined to be with for the rest of my life.
My mate.
How is this possible? I thought my mate would have been one of the women that lived back on Kanosia or one of our colonies but she was the one out of all the beings in this entire galaxy? Really? A human and my target no less? This certainly made my mission a bit more difficult.
If she really was my mate and given that the mating signal had never been wrong for anyone before in our documented history...then how would I give her up to Denos with such ease? I could not. Surely once I informed him he would realize the gravity of the situation and allow me to keep her around right? He would have to!
I could not leave her to be a hostage but I couldn't violate my orders as well...Gods why was this such an infuriating choice? Why did she have to be the one to arouse me so? I stared at every inch of her, those curves that hugged her body in that slim white jumpsuit, the way her black hair fluttered over her cheek and those green eyes shone, the way those curves tensed up as all of that ample flesh shifted in my grasp. Oh I wish I could tear this stupid armor off of me and this stupid jumpsuit off of her in order to plunge myself into her depths and make her feel every inch of me. Oh god I wanted it more than anything else.
