by M. Garnet
When he looked at the type twos, he smiled. He had a large group of men and women. He would need to break these down into smaller groups, and he would need recorders and helpers. Anyone who tried hard but just was not made of fighter material could always back up a fighter.
Finally, he had his fighters in his type threes, the doers. Run until you fall, stand at attention in heat or rain without flinching. Carry heavy loads of armaments up the cliffs after being without sleep for twenty-four hours.
Now he was looking for an elite group. Out of his type threes he needed to find that small percentage that could be used for special projects. He didn't know what kind of special projects might come up, but he had already heard rumors. He wanted to be prepared for anything.
His quarters were within the barracks of the men and women who were the military that he was to lead. He needed to be close to these people so he could learn them, and they could learn him.
He walked a short distance to an opening that led out to a balcony with stairs on both sides that went down to the area set aside for the exercise and development. He leaned against the railing to watch, always zoning in on his special choices.
"As I explained to my brother, I knew you would do well, the right man for the right job."
Baloko gripped hard onto the top railing to keep from showing any reaction at the surprise of having the twins appear without any sound of their approach. He knew the two men standing behind him in identical clothes, and identical poses were twins and one was a friend. He knew his friend Bleak so well when he had served under him for so many years.
He remembered how Bleak had talked about his home planet and his brother Leant. Baloko had visited the planet once during a leave and enjoyed the hospitality. But it had been different. It had not been the center of politics and the threats from so many different systems. Leant had been absent as he was working as a scientist on an off-world lab.
Now things were different, and so was his friend. He felt that somewhere deep inside the male was still part of the Commander, but there was much more to both twins now. Baloko talked to himself, refusing to be afraid of Bleak. But he did understand why the nearby systems were a bit hesitant about having all this power in their vicinity that they had no control over.
While watching the groups work out below and gripping the hand bar he addressed the two as if they weren't reading his mind.
"I am picking some for an elite group. That tall blond over there holding back on the man he is boxing."
He didn't know who spoke since they sounded alike. "Honest, a rare quality."
"The tall dark one running his legs off on the machine across the room."
"Hmm. A real killer yet you can trust him."
Baloko nodded in agreement. "The leader of the small group at the near side."
"Yes, he lost all his family and has adopted this military group to take its place."
Now Baloko gathered his courage and turned to face the twins. "A couple of the slaves I rescued are still missing up top. I need to find them or their bodies. It is the last step to getting the girls their freedom. The ones that ran didn't understand why I brought them here and I feel guilty about those that got hurt or killed."
"This is our world, we have talents no one else has available. We can find them for you."
Baloko looked at the two sets of eyes that were in front of him. Until Bleak identified himself, Baloko couldn't tell which one was his Commander.
"I would like to take two of the three I point out to you as a test to see how they do within the storms and heavy forests of your world. It will also let me see how they work together along with me. We know the females couldn't go too far so we will take the usual heat seekers and sound equipment. There is a couple of other technological items that we will take advantage of because I think it is important to bring these women back down and let them know they have choices."
The twins nodded exactly alike. "You will leave tomorrow with the two males and whatever equipment you need." With those words the twins were gone, step to step totally alike.
Baloko thought—creepy, but at least he got what he wanted.
Chapter Six
Bogdan sat hidden on the trusses above the ceiling watching the movements or lack thereof below. He was eating some great fresh vegetables that he had lifted from trays that were being returned to the kitchen area. No one missed the uneaten food left over from service taken back on its way to be cleaned.
Mistress Loralei had offered him quarters and food along with fresh clothing. She told him she would provide him with a pass that would allow him to enter or go wherever he wanted or needed to go.
But Mistress Loralei didn't understand assassins. He had brought all the clothes he needed with him. He did not need a place to lay his head as he was always on duty. He would provide for his own sustenance, and he could go wherever he wanted.
The only place he avoided was where the power of the twins gave him a feeling of their presence. Here he felt a power he didn't understand and for now he would not study it until he found what kind of threats were in the area of the Mistress.
He watched his charge as she moved among the many rows of shoes. This storage area for clothing was wide and deep. At one side in the distance, he saw the work area where workers were repairing or making new items. Fortunately there was no one near the Mistress.
Although the twins were a power he didn't want to examine, the female he was protecting was an enigma for him to study. He now understood why Master Misrot had chosen him for this assignment. This large center was too big to be called a home, it was a small town with politics and intrigue and thousands of beings.
As a shadow protecting the female, he heard the plots and scams and thought of the many spies he had already found within the household. Yet the female knew of some of this and was doing her own plotting.
This female was not like the ones he had seen when he had accompanied Prime Misrot to a meeting some time ago. That had been a meeting of many of the top representatives of many planets and governments. It had been called to decide how to keep the Twinned Dissnue from getting together and forming into a power.
The room was full of overdressed beings, males and females who were soft and unprotected. They wore jewels instead of weapons, perfumes instead of defensive mindsets, too many layers of colorful clothes instead of body armor. He knew without a doubt that he could wipe out the entire room within minutes. But he had not been brought along for that purpose; he and the other Medal Assassin had attended to make a silent statement behind the words of Prime Misrot.
Part of being an assassin was learning how to wait. So now he crouched on the beams, quietly enjoying the fresh vegetables as he searched around his female charge making sure no one came near her.
In such a short time, he was beginning to admire her. She was making herself strong on the outside. Twice now she had gone to a room set aside for exercise and done some stretching routines very much as the ones he had been taught early on to control and understand his muscles. She did them very well, pushing her thin body to the limit then drawing back only a small way to freeze and hold.
He felt his cock push upward and by will he forced it to retreat. An assassin controlled all parts of his body. But he would seek a female from the servant group for release soon.
He nodded approval as she chose a pair of soft shoes that had something on the bottom that would grip the polished granite floors most of the cave had been polished into as the stone was now a high sheen.
His keen eyes watched the four men talking in a side aisle. They had been picking from other lots, but it was an excuse to meet and talk. Their paths should not have crossed except one of them held up a hand.
Then one man spoke. "I hear someone."
They all stood quietly, listening. The man who had spoken stepped forward and then over a couple of rows and there he was, in front of the direction Loralei would take as she left.
She was distracted, not looking
ahead as she gathered her pick of footwear and replaced carefully several others back in their places. Then nodding with purpose she moved forward shifting to one side as she realized there was another person in the aisle ahead of her.
The man turned and smiled at the good luck that had come their way as he started to wave his cohorts forward.
Bogdan decided to act instead of allowing something to happen that all would regret. With speed that the normal eye would not see he was down from the beams, going behind the opposite aisle to keep out of view as he used the shelves as an easy ladder and came around behind the female.
"Mistress Loralei, let me carry your load so that you can continue to look for a pretty shoe that will please the twins."
Loralei was surprised, but only smiled at her security. Something was wrong here, but she didn't think this moment was the time to question. She now knew her shadow was with her and she was relieved to find that he was as she wanted, mostly hidden.
He wasn't dressed in the intimidating cape; still, covered all in black leathers there could be no doubt whom the tall male represented. She glanced over her shoulder, surprised to see the other man in the aisle ducking away between shelving. A very strange action as most people, even those who weren't on her political side, usually liked to speak to her.
She quickly decided that her security had done his job. Something had been afoot when he just mysteriously appeared and until now she hadn't seen him.
"Thank you. Perhaps, since you have volunteered, I will pick up one more pair. But even in party shoes I go for comfort." Loralei ran her hands over a pair of black flats that were decorated with pretty green stones. Still, the whole time she was looking around to see where the man had gone.
The whispered voice answered her puzzle, "They were smart enough to leave the premises."
She nodded looking back at the shoes. She looked at the boxes to find her size. "There was more than one?"
Unerringly, he leaned down and pulled out the right box to add to the one already in his arm. "Three who have been plotting and right now thought they had a gift given to them."
She wondered if recorders picked up that whisper, probably no one could capture that low sound.
"I can take those now if you want to go back into hiding. You are very effective, but I guess you already know, don't you?"
He looked down at her with no expression. Shit, she was surrounded with males she could not read.
Bogdan nodded his head forward. "Perhaps it would be a good idea this one time for everyone to see you with your security. I will escort you to your rooms."
They did get much attention, but very few eyes met theirs as people preferred to turn away from the eyes of an assassin. Well, maybe a few female looks returned to the tall figure. Danger and beautiful always was a lustful draw.
Chapter Seven
Joo knew there were others in her area. There was something different this time, a determined persistence about the trackers that said they were here to stay.
Damn, she would have to leave this perfect little cave and probably fight some other smart animal for the next one that she needed to find.
By this time, she had decided in her mind what she called north, south, east and west on this planet. She also had a good idea of the layout of the cliff along the side that dropped off into the ocean. In one area, it also had the openings below to the large caves that held the people that lived here.
It was here where the trackers were coming from, where they were prepared and found some easier way to reach the plateau. These trackers didn't take the long way up the face of the rocks.
As always, Joo's first thought on survival was in gathering information. She began to assemble into piles the things she had accumulated in the cave. One small pile was items it would be nice to have, and the other small pile was items she needed.
Joo didn't panic as she took time to prepare to leave. She took the pile of items she needed and began to finds ways to put them on her so that they would not hinder her as she moved through the wet forest. She grabbed the ties of the other bundle and kicked the fire out.
She worked her feet through the blackened embers covering up her smell to fool any animals that might follow her. It took her an hour, crouching and crawling through the forest to find a tree with a deep scar and enough brush growing in front of it to hide her small pile. Hopefully, she could retrieve it later. She covered the area with some broken small limbs and blown leaves and then pissed on the area to scare off small rodents.
Now it was time to get some info. She needed to do some tracking herself, to see if she could find out how many were up top. There was also the problem of how good they were going to be or how well the hunters were trained for the forest.
There was a body of one of the women who had tried to escape with her deep in the forest. The animals had been eating on the remains, but it could still be identified as female. Maybe they would find it and call it quits. Could her luck be that good?
Okay, they would have all kinds of technical equipment. She had to be aware that they had night vision and heat sensors. She had one small advantage. She knew this forest, while they were weighted down with their equipment, and that meant she would be faster and would hear them as they moved.
It took her what she thought was almost near dawn to locate the team. She stayed far away and learned about them from their sounds and the animals that were moving. There were animals that were eaten by anything that would move and hide from anything. There were also animals that would eat anything and would move to find out if there were something worth eating or something stronger that might eat them. It was the way of any living forest.
Joo had been born in a deep forest with people that respected life of all kinds. The rule of live and let live was practiced so animals that could eat a young child lived in the backyard. A child was taught at an early age how to learn to live with them or eat them when really hungry.
Now, Joo used that knowledge to work her way closer to the trackers with a couple of animals. The size and shape of the animals would confuse the heat sensors the men used so if she were careful that particular equipment would be useless for the individuals hunting her.
As she got closer, she needed to keep the big tree trunks between her and her prey. If they couldn't see much of her, they might not be able to recognize the shape as being one of the females they were hunting.
They were moving away from her, and the wind was in her face, so she stayed with a larger animal on her left and moved ahead, bent low to be the same size as the animal.
Joo heard a shout, and some talking on the communicators, both to the men here and to some of the people below in the caves. Yep, they had finally found the remains of the other woman.
The fog moved in heavy with dawn as there was a break from the wind with only a soft breeze to stir the fog. She decided all the team would be gathered around the body. They would be busy taking care of business, and she had a chance, while they were distracted, to get close enough in the fog to get a count and see what kind of equipment they carried.
Sure enough, making no more noise than the large cat that had moved off to the other side, she finally was close enough to see the two men down over the remains. They had set aside most of their equipment to open up a body bag. At least they were being respectful as they started the process of gathering the pieces, including items of clothing.
She looked at the two piles of their equipment. They were big males, and they had carried a lot of items, but there weren't many weapons. She decided this wasn't a hunting expedition. It was a tracking excursion to locate escaped women.
Joo decided she had taken enough chances. Still on her hands and knees, but keeping her eyes on the two men she began to back up in her own tracks. She had used this normal trick as she felt she knew her own path, but when her soft covered foot hit a barrier she froze. She looked over her shoulder as she started to move her foot, and then understood what type of trouble she was in
to as she slowly reached for her shale knife.
The male straddling her reached down and carefully grasped her wrist. He removed the shale knife, inspecting it with respect and put it in one of the deep pockets of his pants.
Joo had no choice but to let him pull her to upright as he stepped back, hanging onto her wrist. She could see him plainly now. He was the man who had brought the slaves to this planet.
"Will you come of your own accord or will I have to cuff you to bring you back inside?"
Joo looked at the hard military face and trying to read some answers. "I will not be a slave to anyone, male or female."
He nodded as by the wrist he pulled her over towards the two working men. "I offer you freedom, it is why I brought you to this planet."
She pulled against his grip, but he didn't seem to notice even as he trudged forward. The two men rose and stood waiting on her captor.
"I want you two to finish what you are doing and transport the body back with you. I must take this reluctant female down and see what it takes to convince her that she is now free on this planet."
Evidently the men didn't feel a reply was necessary. They just looked at her, nodded and returned to kneel by the body. Joo still hung back, making the big man drag her through the underbrush.
At last, the frustrated Baloko stopped. First he roughly searched her, which presented an interesting struggle. Sharp rocks were removed from several places. Then he just hoisted her over one shoulder and broke into a jog.
Joo was shocked and incapacitated by the situation. Her breath was knocked out as she was slung over the wide shoulder covered by some type of bumpy covering. The jogging gave her very little chance to regain much breath in order to fight back.
She felt that the male had his arm wrapped tightly around her legs, holding them against his chest giving her no chance to move or kick out. Her head and long hair floated down his back, and she grabbed onto some of his clothing to give her some feeling of being able to keep her upper body in place.
