by Calista Skye
But there would be no 'after this' for her. Charlotte felt tears sting the back of her eyelids. This would be a bad way to go. She had seen what the Prec did to even huge Acerex warriors from other squads – they slowly tore them apart and pierced them with their alien tentacles.
The dropship grew smaller in the sky, and now it was just a dark spot.
It could not come back.
And she'd be dead long before anyone would send a shuttle to get her.
“Fort ehlm eyva spanking ereyehn?” a voice right behind her growled, and Charlotte jerked and her eyes widened.
“Tell me again what a 'spanking' is,” her translator interpreted.
7
- Charlotte -
She twirled around in the air. Behind her and about ten feet above her, there was someone else hanging from a parachute. A large Acerex warrior, holding the straps of his parachute in one hand in a remarkable display of strength, as if it were just a light umbrella.
“Cori'ax!”
He smirked. “I'm glad you remember me. Because I think you just might deserve some disciplining after this.”
Charlotte's mind reeled. He must have yanked one of the spare chutes out of a holder and then just leapt out of the craft without taking the time to put it on. Jumped out above a moon that was teeming with enemies. Just to save her.
Relief and gratitude washed through her. She wasn't alone. The best warrior in the world was with her.
But it was hopeless, even so. And suddenly she hated that he had done this to himself. “Have you lost your fucking mind?!”
He closed his eyes and shrugged in mid-air. “Probably. Earth females seem to have that effect on us warriors. But it's not clear to me how wanting to spank you would indicate insanity. You have the most enticing behind, and the concept intrigues me. Greatly.”
“No, I mean, have you seen what's under us?”
He glanced down and raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. “Ah. No, not really. I've kept my eyes closed until now. I don't like heights. And now I find that I like falling from those heights even less. Indeed it is remarkably unpleasant. Please tell me when we're almost down.” He clenched his eyes shut again.
Charlotte passed her eye over him. At least he had his sword. But he was bleeding from many little wounds after the battle. “Down, as in, right in the middle of the enemy army? Do we have a plan for this?”
“Plans are overrated.” He opened one eye very slightly and smiled. It was the most roguish expression Charlotte had ever seen, and for some reason it calmed her down a lot. Maybe, just maybe, they weren't definitely dead.
She looked down again. They were descending slowly, and the alien sun was setting fast. The sky was now a dark teal, and the breeze had picked up and was pushing them exactly in the direction they wanted to go, towards the forest. And it didn't look as if the Prec had discovered them. The huge mass of disgusting aliens was breaking up as they appeared to return the way they had come, oozing across the landscape.
“I don't think they see us,” Charlotte whispered. They were probably still three hundred feet in the air, but she didn't know how good their alien hearing was.
Cori'ax still didn't open his eyes. “Prec are unattentive, but dangerous when surprised.”
She didn't like the sound of that. The way things were going, she could easily drop down right on top of one of the alien blobs, and that would probably surprise it. “Uh-huh. So don't surprise them, is what you're saying.”
“If possible. Of course, the element of surprise is sometimes very valuable in battle. So I suppose it goes both ways.”
Maybe it was his confident tone. Maybe it was that the Prec didn't seem quite as many now as before. But probably the thing that made Charlotte feel much better was his sheer presence. He radiated power and ability. How could anything bad happen to her if Cori'ax was with her?
The panic was gone, and the fear was subsiding fast. The fact that she now knew he was afraid of heights somehow grounded this whole situation and made everything better. Even this larger-than-life warrior had a weakness. “Right. What happens when we land among them?”
Cori'ax scratched his chin thoughtfully, still clenching his eyes shut. “Usually what happens when I land among aliens is that they die.”
Charlotte nodded. That made sense and confirmed everything she'd heard about him. “Let's hope that happens this time, too. So, we're not too high up anymore. You want to check it out before you land right on top of one of these things?”
“No.” But he opened one eye to a little slit and peered down at the surface. “Landing on top of one would not be ideal. Oh, look, there are hardly any left. And we'll land in the forest. We'll land, then make our way to the mountains.”
Charlotte looked towards the horizon. The sun had set, and the sky was a dark violet. “Pretty long walk.”
“Long and dangerous,” he agreed brightly. “We have set out many predators on this moon to scare away the invaders that use it for their base before they attack Acerex. And many, many traps of various kinds.”
“Really? I don't remember that from the briefings.”
“We keep Acerex secrets close to our chests. With an alien in the room, not all secrets will be revealed.”
They were getting close to the surface, and the Prec were now so few and far between that Charlotte worried more about hitting a tree on the way down. But the chute could be steered pretty easily. “Even when that alien is one of your own pilots?”
Cori'ax now had both eyes open, and he drew his sword, dangling from his parachute with one arm. “Even then. I suppose nobody thought you needed to know. Now I think that maybe you do.”
“Very thoughtful of you,” Charlotte said, hoping the dryness in her voice worked in Acerex, too. “And you probably need to know that I don't have any weapons.”
“That's useful knowledge,” the Acerex warrior agreed. “But not surprising. Earth females are good at flying fancy craft and mating with warriors, probably less good at slicing enemies in half.”
“Uh-huh. Seems I can slice enemies in half pretty okay with the lasers on my fancy craft, but whatever you say.”
They were only about twenty feet above the surface now, and Charlotte braced for the landing. They had descended much slower than she'd thought, and the closest Prec were so far away that she no longer worried about hitting one on the way down. They had been able to steer towards a clearing among the trees, and the last drop was undramatic. She bent her knees, ran a couple of yards and then she was down.
Cori'ax landed heavily on both legs and stood there as steadily as if he had grown there like the trees around them. He packed the thin fabric of the parachute into a bundle as he walked over to Charlotte and looked her critically up and down. “My pilot is unharmed?”
“She is. My squad leader is not, though.” She pointed to the small wounds on his chest and thighs.
He shrugged. “A battle that doesn't leave scars was never a real battle, as we warriors say.”
Charlotte got out her small first aid kit and sprayed his wounds with a cleansing nanofluid. “And alien weapons that don't kill right away may kill later, we Earthlings say. Or at least I'm saying it.”
“Earthlings can be wise, it appears.” Cori'ax looked around the clearing. “No enemies close. I would be disappointed, but I've killed sixteen of them today, so I'll try to survive the letdown.”
“Sixteen, huh? The Earth female who's so bad at slicing enemies got seventeen.”
He didn't flinch. “And she's welcome to them. We're not used to pilots logging kills. Perhaps it is a trend that should continue.”
“Perhaps.” It was getting very dark, and Charlotte looked up at the starry alien sky. “So when will we be picked back up?”
He peered up into the darkening sky. “I've never been alone on a trap planet and surrounded by enemies before, so thank you for this experience.”
“No problem. But there is a system in place for these things, right? If someone has to get lifted from
behind enemy lines?”
The huge warrior gave her a very alien frown. “Rescue? After a battle? Now you mention it, I can't say I've heard of that before. I think it was always assumed that a warrior in that situation would just fight to the death and then be remembered ever after as a hero. He wouldn't want other warriors to risk their lives trying to save him.”
Charlotte felt a new uncertainty starting to grow. That all sounded so typical of the Acerex. “Yeah? So nobody's coming to get us?”
“I must confess I don't know. As I said very recently, this experience is all new to me. But I think someone will come to get you. You, after all, are not an Acerex warrior. When Queen Harper hears that you're stranded here on Ett, might she not initiate something? A rescue of some kind? Certainly she will suggest it to the king, yes? Perhaps? Does that fit with how you know the queen?”
That Harper would do anything to save a friend? Um, yeah. “It does. But seriously, is that what has to happen? This has to get reported all the way up to the king or queen if anyone is to come look for us? How long will that take?” Charlotte looked around the forest. The Prec were still drawing away, but the alien forest at night gave her the creeps. And if there were predators and traps ...
Cori'ax shrugged. “I don't know. I think it's quite rare for the fates of individual warriors to be reported to the king, unless they were especially heroic. But of course you're not a warrior, but an alien and a good friend of the queen's. I'm sure your little problem will be reported right away.”
Charlotte thought she heard a sarcastic tone. “You disapprove of that?”
The huge warrior placed his sword in his belt. “Aliens do what aliens like. As always, the Acerex warrior is left to himself.”
“Is that all I am to you? An alien?”
He fixed her with his yellow eyes, but there was no anger in them. Just indifference, and that scared Charlotte more than anything. “As am I to you, it appears. Well, this alien is going towards the mountains, where there might be some safety. These lowlands will become unsafe when the various animals we've brought here come to eat what is left of the dead Prec. I would suggest that you do the same. Going to the mountains, I mean. Not eating Prec. Unless you want to. Perhaps it's an alien delicacy?”
He turned his back and calmly walked further into the woods. Charlotte stood there for a moment, staring after his muscular back. Has she said something wrong?
He didn't seem to care much about whether or not she followed him. But he probably knew she'd have to. If what he said about this moon was true, he was the only thing between her and all kinds of predators and traps and the stars only knew what else.
Well, he couldn't hate her that much. He had jumped out of the craft, after all, probably knowing that it would kill him. But now Charlotte got the feeling that he regretted it.
“Swallow your pride, girl,” she said under her breath and trudged after him.
8
- Cori'ax -
For a moment he was worried that she wouldn't follow, and he was a split second from turning around when he heard her walking after him with short steps on the dry grass. He smiled to himself, relieved. She could never survive on her own on Ett without any weapons and without knowledge about the traps that Acerex would use here.
His smile didn't last long on his lips. Why had she brought up the rescue idea? Didn't she trust that Cori'ax would do his best to protect her? Had she forgotten their mating, that magical night when he had felt something thaw inside him?
The mere thought of the memory sent a hard surge to his crotch and his manhood twitched.
That night ... He had never known it could be like that. He'd had women before, of course. His fame for being reckless and strong appealed to some females, as did his size. But the way Charlotte responded to him, the way her body seemed to meld with his and their minds, too ... it was remarkable.
Beyond remarkable. Incredible. Sensational. The closest thing he knew was when he was fighting aliens and he was winning. And even that paled in comparison to seeing Charlotte's supernaturally beautiful face under him when he entered her, feeling her warm, luxurious flesh, her feminine scent, alien yet familiar, hearing her gasp and seeing her eyes go glassy.
He had almost fainted when she'd showed up in his tent as his new pilot. He'd known it was an Earthling, of course. But her? It hadn't crossed his mind. But there she stood, round and delectable and with a slightly uncertain smile on her luscious lips. He could no longer remember what he had done then. Had he greeted her? He must have. But the memory was all a blur.
And then she was his squad's pilot! The idea still made him dizzy. Bandi'ex's idea to accept an Earthling into the squad had been intended as a way to deflect suspicion from them when the attack on the Friendship would take place. It had seemed like a good idea, and the Earthlings did have better dropships than the Acerex did. But a woman? And Charlotte? If anything, it placed the entire operation in jeopardy. Because how could he possibly ...
He shook his head in anger. He'd had no idea how to react and how to deal with her. He'd kept her at arm's length in front of the other warriors, hoping that she would come to him. Why hadn't she? If he had made her feel as good as she'd made him feel, how was she able to stay away? Surely she must understand that she had to come to him?
Probably he hadn't made her feel that good. Probably she regretted it now. Probably she had thought he was more important than he really was, and had later realized that he was not a good target for her alien tricks.
He walked among the trees, reflexively keeping watch for predators and traps. This was not a bad area yet, but the traps would get more numerous closer to the mountains.
Charlotte's light and quick steps in the grass were still following. He would have preferred her closer, but he wasn't going to tell her that.
He had to concentrate to keep from groaning in frustration. His mind was a chaos of thoughts, all in conflict with each other. Was it a trick? Why didn't she trust him? Why hadn't she come to him in the nights and made him feel the same way as before? Why had he thrown himself out of the dropship to come to her aid, barely remembering to grab a parachute on the way?
And why did she make him feel like this?
Cori'ax had no illusions about himself. He was big and crude, burned and ugly. Unsophisticated and low-born. Not very smart. Not very well connected. Not a descendant of the great noble houses, like Ravex'ton or Vrax'ton. Why, their names alone told everyone who heard them that they were someone to be reckoned with. Of course they, destined for greatness since birth, would find their Mahans among the sophisticated and beautiful Earthling women. No one could be surprised about that. Or, by the same token, no one could wonder why the aliens would seek out the leading men of the Acerex to subdue into romantic bliss before they were destroyed, which was certainly what was happening.
Maybe.
But Cori'ax was different. Lucky? Certainly. Admired? Perhaps by some of the younger warriors who were still too inexperienced to know that his recklessness was actually quite carefully calculated. But great? He would have laughed if he hadn't been in this lethal forest. Greatness wasn't for him.
No, of course she wasn't his Mahan. She was an alien, and she made him feel strange. It was no mystery, really. He was simple and easily influenced by alien wiles, probably. But he had long since realized that he would never find his Mahan. Most men never did, and there was no reason why he would be any different.
The landscape became hilly and her presence behind him was a constant temptation to him. At every second he yearned to turn around and check on her, to go to her and embrace her and feel her scent and the smoothness of her long hair and hear her mild voice close to his ear.
Why didn't she trust him?
He would do his best to keep her safe, didn't she know that? Of course there were no guarantees that he would be able to keep the predators away if they attacked in force, but at least they'd both die with honor if that happened. How was it better to be airlifted ou
t-
The first bran came bounding towards them from straight ahead, and in the darkness he nearly missed it. It leaped easily on its ten powerful legs, and the arrow-shaped head was all fangs and razor-sharp horns.
Cori'ax drew his sword, shouted a warning to Charlotte and sliced the alien predator in half as it pounced.
The warm blood sprayed him down and he scouted around for more. The brans would sometimes hunt in packs and sometimes alone, and if there was a large pack here, then he might not able to fight them off.
Charlotte was crouched down, but she was still alert and looking around, not cowering in fear. “Are there more of those things?”
He looked her up and down, partly to check her for injuries, but mostly because he found it very pleasant to do. “Many.”
She looked over her shoulder. “Shit. That thing's the size of a car. I had no idea they'd be that big.”
He took her hand and pulled her back up, enjoying for a second the cool feel of her smooth and slender hand before he let it go. “The size is one reason they're used here. Very hard to fight brans if you've never seen them before.”
She followed him, much closer this time, almost by his side. He noticed her walking in a respectful arc around the dead bran.
“I totally believe that. Your people got them from somewhere else and then put them here as guard dogs?”
He replaced his blade in its scabbard. “That's the principle. Very few animals lived here from before. Now there are very many, from scores of alien planets, both predators and prey for them to eat.”
“Got to be hard to keep that balance right.”
He glanced at her. “So they say. But any effort is worth it, if it will help us harass our enemies.”
“How about the traps you mentioned? Do you know where they are?”
“Not exactly. I think I know how some of them might work. But I didn't help put them here. Whenever we fight aliens on this moon, we pick areas where there are no traps.”
They walked in silence for a while, Cori'ax without a sound, Charlotte with a soft swish of her flight boots through the grass behind him.
