Colonial Commander

by K. D. Jones

  Ava stopped moving and glared at him. “You don’t even know his name? Where’s his mother?’ The lieutenant pointed to a group of women who were comforting one of their number who was crying hysterically. “I’ll be right back.” She ran over to the women, and a few seconds later returned breathing hard. She really needed to get back on an exercise routine.

  “Okay, the boy’s name is Sevoy and he is eight years old.”

  The lieutenant used his comm link to let the others in the search know. “Come, they think they have him cornered.”

  “Poor little thing. He’s probably freaking out.”

  “Why would you feel sorry for him? He ran away from the safety of his family knowing that his people were under attack.”

  “He’s only eight,” she reminded him.

  “I was already training as a warrior with my uncle by the time I turned nine.”

  She hadn’t thought much about what the new world would be like, except that there would be a lot of men in need of women. That had become clear when she first submitted her application. The Katierans, Kiljorns, and Colonists were from a warrior-based nation. They would raise their male children to be warriors and be ready to protect their people. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

  “Well, these people are not full warriors like you guys. This came as a surprise to them. They were lucky to have enough shields and weapons to hold out until help showed up. I understand this.”

  They approached the woods not far from where she and AshOR had shared sex. Where he claimed her as his mate. Those images popped in her head, and she her cheeks warm.

  “Are you okay, miss? Your face is redder than before.”

  “I’m fine, really.” She wanted him to drop the subject. She looked around and thought to herself, Where would I go if I were a scared eight-year-old?

  She loved to climb trees, so she looked up and scanned the branches. She would pick a tree not easily seen, with limbs she would be able to reach. She would climb high enough to look and see if her parents were coming for her, and if they were angry.

  “Sevoy! Sevoy, honey, come on out! We’re here to help. Come on, Sevoy, your mother is really worried about you.” She walked forward and stopped when she heard scraping sounds. She held up her hand for the lieutenant to stop walking and to let her move forward on her own. He growled his displeasure but allowed her to move past his immediate view.

  “Sevoy! It’s okay. Your mother just wants you to come home.” She heard sniffling close by. She looked up and saw a small boot-covered foot. Her heart was racing with relief and anxiety. She didn’t want the little guy to fall and get hurt.

  “She’s mad at me,” a little voice said from above.

  “No honey, she’s worried about you. Come on down and I’ll take you back.” She paused under the tree and waited.

  “She’s not mad?”

  Ava looked up and saw a little head peering down at her. “No, I promise she just wants you to come back to her. Will you come down for me?”

  “I don’t know you.”

  She smiled up at him. “My name’s Ava, and your mother said to tell you how much she loves you and that she just wants you to come home.”

  He started to move down the tree, almost losing his grip a couple of times and making Ava gasp. When he was on the ground she opened her arms and he flew into them. “Are you okay? Hurt anywhere?”

  “No. You’re sure she’s not mad at me?”

  “No. I think you’re lucky, though. You could’ve been hurt. Come on, there’s a big warrior around here somewhere that will escort us back.”

  “You came from the big ships above?”

  “I did.”

  “I’m glad you’re not with the ugly ones. They smell bad.”

  Ava paused and looked down at the boy. “How do you know what they look or smell like?”

  The boy looked nervous again. She knelt down to his level. “Sevoy, have you seen them?”

  He nodded.

  “Where?”

  He pointed to an area behind her. She took the boy’s hand and began to walk faster toward the edge of the woods. She stopped when she noticed that the warrior who was guarding her wasn’t where she had left him. She had an uncomfortable, itchy feeling that someone was watching. She leaned down and whispered in the boy’s ear.

  “When I tell you to, I want you to run as fast as you can back to the city center, find the biggest, tallest, baldest warrior and tell him where you saw the ugly ones,” she instructed him. He nodded silently and squeezed her hand. They took a few steps forward, and she heard steps on either side of her. She could feel them moving closer.

  “Now Sevoy! Run!” She pushed the boy forward through the trees and turned to face the ones stalking her. She wished she hadn’t looked. They were hideous.

  It was the first time she’d seen a Morin in person. They were large and sickly grey, and they smelled worse than rotten eggs. They were completely hairless, and their eyes were an unnatural, solid yellow. The one on the right pointed toward where Sevoy had ran.

  “You get the young, I’ll take the female back to camp.”

  She couldn’t let them get Sevoy. She ran and leaped at the other Morin, taking him by surprise and knocking him to the ground. She stood up and turned just as the other one grabbed her arm. She kicked him in the nuts and he went down as well. She turned to run, but a hand wrapped around her ankle, and she lost her balance and fell. She tried to kick herself free, but now the Morin had her other ankle in his hands.

  “Let me go!”

  “Hush, female, or we’ll kill you right here!”

  She screamed. “Help! Someone help!”

  “No one can help you. The warrior that was waiting for you is gone.”

  She felt all the warmth drain from her face. “What did you do to him?”

  “We killed him.” The Morin said as he walked over to her. “When we get through with you, you’re going to wish you were dead, too.”

  The last thing she thought about was AshOR and how she wished she could have told him that she was in love with him. Pain shot across her face as the Morin hit her, and then everything started fading to black.

  Chapter 17

  TylOR was leaning over a screen that showed the topography of the planet. The land ranged from hilly, to swampy, to desert. The Morins could be anywhere. He felt a tug at his pants leg and frowned. Looking down, he saw a dark-haired little boy.

  “Yes?” Who was this boy and where were his parents?

  “She told me to find you and tell you.” The boy was breathing hard and could hardly talk. His eyes were full of fear.

  “Who told you to find me? Tell me what?”

  “The white-haired female with the strange blue eyes. They caught her.”

  A woman from outside the command tent screamed out. “Sevoy!” She shoved the warriors in the tent out of her way and threw her arms around the little boy, picking him up and holding him. “I was so worried about you.”

  “Sorry, Mother.”

  “Who found you?”

  “The nice lady with the white hair.”

  “Ava? Did Ava find you?”

  “That’s her name. She came into the woods to look for me. I was hiding in a tree. I didn’t want the ugly ones to see me.”

  TylOR squatted down so he was closer to the young’s height. “Where is Ava?”

  The boy had tears streaming down his face. His mother tried to move away from TylOR, but he held up his hand to her. “This is important.”

  “The ugly ones that smell bad took her. She told me to run and come straight to the tallest, biggest, baldest warrior. That’s you.”

  “Yes, that’s me.” TylOR stood up and looked at his males. “We have a situation. Get me Commander AshOR now!”

  *****

  “Do we have a heat signature?” AshOR asked his lieutenants as they each circled an area looking for signs of the Morin shuttle.

  “No, sir. All we are finding are residual heat tra
ils. They may have powered down their shuttle and camouflaged themselves within the jungle to keep themselves from being detected.”

  “We’ll check the next segment and then we’ll head closer to the city.” His comm link went off. “Commander AshOR here.”

  “Commander, what’s your location?” TylOR asked.

  “We’re a few miles south of the main city, making our way north. Why, is something wrong?” He felt like something bad had happened.

  “Ava’s been taken by the Morins.”

  “What? How?” He felt a like someone had stabbed him in his heart. No, they couldn’t have his mate.

  “A young was missing and she helped search for him. She went into the woods alone and found him. She told the young to run for help and the boy says he heard her scream.”

  “Why was she alone?!”

  “She had a guard assigned to her, but we found his body lying a few feet away from the entrance of the forest. The boy thinks he can show us where they are, but his mother won’t let him go because she is worried about his safety. We have him looking at visuals we have received from warships flying over the forest area.”

  “We’re on our way back. Give me directions as soon as you can.” AshOR felt like his whole world was caving in on him. He didn’t know what he would do if he lost Ava now. She was his true bond mate, his everything. How would he recover from that loss?

  He hadn’t had a chance to tell her his feelings. Goddess. He touched a hand to his heart. He loved her. More than anything in this world, he loved Ava. He felt foolish for fighting his feelings for so long. He could have been with her, maybe even have convinced her to remain on the transport, if she had known how much she meant to him. Her being taken was partially his fault.

  He looked down at his console and saw coordinates coming in from his brother. He accepted the destination and pushed his warship to fly as fast as possible. He would get her back and kill anything that got in his way.

  “Sir, we won’t be able to land any closer to the coordinates. I found a clear spot we can put all four warships down, but we’ll have to go the rest of the way by foot.”

  “I’ll follow you down.” AshOR checked his radar and saw a blip—one strong heat signature was found, but there were two inconsistent signatures as well, that faded in and out. Then in a blink they were all gone. He had to let his men know. “I detected at least three heat signatures briefly. One has to be Ava’s because it is so strong, but all three faded quickly.”

  “There could be more than that if they are able to hide their signatures. How are they doing that?”

  AshOR thought about what the Morin had confessed before he died. If the Morins could hide their huge transport, they might be able to send out signals to hide their warships and shuttles as well to keep them from being found.

  He hit his comm link. “Commander TylOR, the Morins have satellites on the corners of their transports that uses a moon’s electrical pull to cause waves that they have found to blend with their own signatures.”

  “How do you know this?” TylOR asked.

  “I was able to question one of the Morins whose warship crashed. He was in a confessing mood.”

  TylOR snorted. “So we should look close to the moon for the transport, then send out warships to destroy the satellites on the ends. I’ll let the second commanders know that. Do you think that’s why we could not pick up heat signatures from the warships and shuttle that went down?”

  “I do. If the shuttle is still being disguised, then that means that—”

  “The Morin transport is still close by and in range,” TylOR finished for him.

  “Keep everyone on high alert. We’ve found a place to land our warships, but we will have to go the rest of the way by foot.”

  “Be careful and bring my new sister home safe.”

  AshOR ended communications and landed his ship. He got out and walked over to where his warriors were waiting. “We have a shuttle that is being shielded from detection by moon waves bounced off of and distorted by Morin satellites. They must have a way to camouflage the warriors on board as well.”

  “Is this a kill-on-sight situation, or should we save one for questioning for later?”

  AshOR shook his head. “These are not high-ranking warriors, so they aren’t going to know much. Kill on sight. Just wait for my command. They have my mate as hostage.” Both males paled at that.

  “How long have they had her?”

  “An hour or less. I’m worried that if she fights them they will kill her outright. She’s kind of strong-headed.”

  “I thought all Earth females were like that,” one tried to joke but AshOR wasn’t in the mood.

  “Just remember they have her, so you can’t open fire on them until I have her clear and safe.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  AshOR wished there was something that he could do to knock out the satellites. He felt helpless, and he hated that feeling. He had to get Ava back so that he could tell her how much he loved her.

  *****

  “I don’t need your help. Go back to the building and help with the medics,” a male voice yelled out.

  “You’re a freaking asshole! I’m trying to tell you, I picked up signals with my radio.”

  “What’s going on?” Commander TylOR heard the yelling coming from outside the command tent. He went outside to find Katieran Commander LemAN arguing with a small female from Earth.

  She turned her back on LemAN and faced TylOR instead. “Good, I’ve got the man in charge.”

  “I’m in charge of you,” LemAN growled from behind her. She stuck her middle finger up at him. He clearly didn’t know that was an Earth insult, and TylOR was not about to inform him. He didn’t have time to deal with squabbles.

  “What is this about?”

  “I was trying to explain to Commander Bossy here that I was able to pick up an odd frequency from my handheld radio. I think it's the Mors people.”

  LemAN rolled his eyes. “Morins, they’re called Morins.”

  “Whatever. Anyway, I brought my radio down to see if I could pick up any tunes that might have made its way to this solar system. Sound travels, so it stands to reason that the frequency—”

  “Move on, speed this up,” TylOR growled out, not completely following the female.

  “I found a frequency on my radio that was odd. There wasn’t any music or talking, but a constant stream of beeping sounds. I think it’s coming from an orbiting satellite.”

  TylOR’s eyebrows rose as he looked up at LemAN. “The Morin satellites. Are you sure about it? Could you pinpoint the location of the satellite?”

  She nodded her head. “I’m a specialist in satellites back home. I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to building homemade communications…”

  “Can you track it down?” TylOR interrupted again before she went off on another tangent.

  “Yes. I just need a computer and my own portable satellite dish that I can basically point up to the sky and move around.”

  Leader Toro moved forward. “I believe our tower may have what you need.”

  She glanced over and gave him a wide smile. “You have a tower? Are you a prince or something?”

  Toro smiled back. “Leader Toro.”

  “I’m Teagan. Show me to your tower, blue man.” She followed Toro out of the tent.

  TylOR pointed to Leman. “Go with her. As soon as she has tracked down those satellites, have all our transports move closer and fire on them.” He hated that his mate would be put in danger, but the three transports should be able to protect one another.

  LemAN nodded and followed after the female, who still had not stopped talking. TylOR hit his comm link. “AshOR, hold your position. We may be able to take out those satellites which will then expose the location of the Morin shuttle.”

  “Hurry, I don’t know what they have or have not done to my mate.” AshOR sounded stressed.

  “Hang in there, brother, we’ll get her back.” Goddess help us all.


  Chapter 18

  Ava’s head hurt so much that she wasn’t sure she could stand up if she needed to. So instead she lay still on the cold hard ground and kept her eyes closed. She could hear the two Morins moving around. She peeked one eye open just a little. They were working on repairing their shuttle. It had been damaged, so that’s why they were still on the planet. She quickly shut her eyes when one of them looked her way, and kept listening to their conversation.

  “Do you think Leader Krosis will share her?” Morin Number One asked.

  “Probably not. With the loss of the other females, he’ll want to use this one for himself,” Morin Number Two answered.

  Ava shivered. She knew what they meant by use her. The thought of one of those ugly grey things touching her made her sick to her stomach. The little boy was right too, they smelled so bad she had to fight not to throw up and give herself away.

  She probably would have gotten away if it had just been one Morin, but they’d managed to bring her down by double-teaming her. They had her hands tied behind her back with some kind of rope that was chafing her wrists. They’d left her feet untied; she guessed that they’d run out of rope. If she had to, she could kick at them and make a run for it. She just had to find a way to get her hands free.

  They went inside the shuttle, which gave her the perfect opportunity to look around. She was lying near a big boulder, which was surrounded by tiny rocks. She scooted backwards, careful not to leave drag marks on the ground. That was really hard to do; she used her feet to try to wipe the drag marks clear. She reached for the little rocks, feeling their edges.

  She had to pretend to still be passed out so that they would leave her alone. One of them suspected she wasn’t still out and came over to kick her in the stomach. She moved and groaned but didn’t open her eyes. The other Morin yelled to not damage her too much before they were able to leave the planet.

  They were loud about what they planned to do to her. Bile rose up in her throat and she had to swallow it down. She didn’t think she would still be living once they got her to the Morin transport. She would rather die than go through any of that. No one should suffer so horribly.