Jake Dorgen led the flight, his flaming hair and beard whipping wildly in the wind, his eyes burning a bright evergreen. At his side was his pregnant wife-to-be with a swollen belly over five months along. The moment he found the village he took a deep breath and his deep voice boomed inhumanly loud due to his overlarge size. “ISABELLA, GRAND PAPA IS HERE. GET YER MA’S ASS MOVING TO COME MEET ME!!!”
Andrea smacked his arm. “Behave yourself you oaf. You probably scared all those kids half to death.”
“I did it so me first granddaughter could feel me voice. She’s too premature to have ears. So she can feel me voice.” He was too excited for Andrea to stay mad at. She already knew how happy she was when she became a grandmother a few years back. She let it slide. The Hunters also being flown by her Scotsman’s power were merely laughing at his announcement. She glanced to Elder Scythe to find he thought it funny too.
“Looks like we both lost the bet.” Oliver said with a smirk when Renee returned and said it was clear. The lingering scent was only mildly irritating from his child’s natural functions. He was glad Renee used extra strength deodorizers on Isabella and herself so he wasn’t run off.
“Haven’t you learned anything about women yet, Olly? By default I won regardless. Papa’s words would only have let you win if he said them. I won regardless and I expect my pussy to be pleasantly occupied tonight by that wicked tongue of yours.”
He chuckled and shook his head before spotting the party rapidly descending from the sky. Padding out of the shadows of a shady set of leafy trees was Nova, the fierce protector who has stayed close throughout the past three days waiting and watching for the assassin to return. He nudged Renee who jumped a little in surprise as he managed to sneak up on her from behind.
Carefully Captain Dorgen lowered the entire expedition party onto the ground where other Hunters were coming out to see who had yelled like a thunderclap. Largest of them all was the ever impressive Scottish redhead who eyes dimmed to natural vibrant green irises when he no longer needed to carry near twenty individuals, humans and not as well as a small package of treasure of historical significance taken from the forgotten city. The package being roughly three tons worth of objects along with two statues of a man and a woman he would place in his private treasure room along with the other two he took from the city of wind.
It was Jake Dorgen who locked eyes with a pair beside the great striped cat that held his undivided attention. Long strides of a man two hundred and thirty centimeters tall made approaching faster than the average. His heavy footfalls shaking the ground a little. The grin splitting his face was jovial to say the least. “Where is me…”
“She’s right here, Papa.” Renee crooned as she placed a hand over her breast and the cloth covering the little joy separated and Isabella dethatched from the nourishing nipple to fit in the palm of her hand. She covered herself back up in a bikini-like set of clothes in the hot morning sunlight and extended her hand as Jake dropped to his knees and bent over, eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Meet Isabella Dorgen Void.” She said happily in introducing “My daughter.”
“Yer ma would be proud of ye, Lass.” Jake brushed his enormous thumb against his child’s cheek before laying a hand out under the one Renee had extended. “And hello, Lass. I’ve waited a long time for ye. I’m yer grandfather. Ye will call me Grand Papa. And ye be assured I’ll spoil ye rotten.”
“Not too much, Papa.”
He smirked. “It is a grandparent’s prerogative to undermine the parent.”
“You screw up my daughter and I’ll make sure my baby brother is pure evil.”
“He is a Dorgen. He will be a pain in the ass no matter what we do.” Andrea lilted with a hand on her swollen belly. “May I hold her?”
“Of course. You’re an experienced mother so I’ll be relying on you for pointers.” Renee carefully passed Isabella’s tiny body over to the maternal woman of Indian stock.
“She’s precious.” Andrea voiced softly.
“Speaking of. Any signs of problems with my baby brother?”
“No, David is fine and healthy, growing still. It helped you ridded me of my miscarriage problems and the Dorgen bloodline is so strong. I’ve had to slow down a little bit now that I can no longer hide the baby bump, but he is well.”
“Still want Shamus…” Jake grumbled irritably under his breath.
“And I don’t care. He’s David. So stop trying to make me feel guilty. It doesn’t work on me. It’s David so get over it. Now is the time we look for Isabelle in Isabella.”
He grumbled and decided to change the subject. “Lass, that is quite some power yer putting out.”
Her eyes widened. “You can feel it, Papa? I’m shielding everyone though.”
“Aye, ye are. Ye forget I’m rather sensitive. I felt it as I landed. Don’t ye worry none. No one will scratch themselves to death. I’m a little upset me little lass is stronger than me, but I’m a bit proud too. A child should surpass the parent. By the way, how strong are ye exactly.”
“Stronger than Reten ever was.”
“And how would ye knew that?”
“Shit.” Renee slapped her forehead. Shouldn’t have said that. She thought. “Forget I said anything.”
“Sorry, Lass.” Jake shook his head. “How do ye know how strong Mantive’s wife was.”
“Please, Papa. Don’t ask me. I made…”
“A Promise? Lass, the only people with that possible knowledge are the Creelin. Ye must have spoken to them. When were they here?”
“I can’t, Papa. Please stop.” Her entire expression pleaded and his jaw jumped in irritation. Andrea’s extra arm smacked his bicep and he let it go. For now.
While the three huddled together and those of the Dorgenox crew that was part of the expedition fawned over the newborn, Oliver and Nova moved over to meet up with the impressively built, battleaxe carrying Elder Scythe. “He just woke up not fifteen minutes ago.”
“Good. Take me to our injured brother.” They went into the village med bay and found Elder Scimitar shoveling food in his mouth quickly. “It is a good sign to see you eating like always.”
“Bite me, Scythe.” Scimitar smiled and took a drink. “Aren’t you supposed to treat injured patients with care?”
“True, but then again you are still the same pain in the ass you’ve always been since we were first stationed on the Equinox for thirty years. I stopped feeling sorry long ago.”
The old friends bantered like old times for several more minutes before getting down to the issues and learned all Oliver had discovered. Scythe then gave a few suggestions and then told about their time in the city and its marvels. He told how Jake had called for immediate gathering of things to take back and how they were leaving as soon as possible after the attack and how the AI was stolen right out from under their noses. They flew most of the time since Andrea’s pregnancy was too far along to run. They took a break every few hours because the pirate king needed rest after strenuous use of his abilities and camped out when it got too dark to safely travel, especially since more Beasts were nocturnal.
The following four hours were filled with farewells and putting things away before the Dorgenox crew all got aboard and left Zerika.
For two weeks of FTL Oliver was down in the tenth level of the ship spending most of his time in training and honing his skills. He may have mastered the steps taught by Vanishing Claw, but in human combat against an opponent as fast as himself proved to be sorely lacking. He had gotten used to fighting slower humans and the martial style of the Creelin and their Psi Blades. So he created a robot from scratch. Patterned after the sentry drones he faced at the manufacturing depot where starships were made on Verard that was hijacked by Davan Took. He programmed the robot with Solarian reflexes and gave it a hard wooden sword and they fought hours on end. Often Oliver’s armor is all that allowed him to come out not looking like some bloodied victim. Often Breena, Stone and Steven would come and watch, more often gawking,
as he fought with something able to keep up.
Any remaining time was dedicated to finishing the Gravity Forge and allotting a few hours with the genius scientist Davan Took as was promised a year ago. Davan’s indigo face and two lines going over his bald head and over the eyes was strange, but never brought up as to why. Nevertheless, his hard work in teleportation wasn’t some spur of the moment idea. He had been working hard and long to recreate all the data that was lost when someone had hijacked his body to kill all the lab assistants he thought of as family. He was more curious than most about the Valek’s capability of teleportation and asked precise questions. More often than not he was turned down. Davan was hardly happy, but any mistakes Oliver found in the man’s data was pointed out. Sometimes Oliver would give pointers to get Davan on the right track. Never giving answers away though.
With Oliver’s ideas and voicing problems regarding deadly issues, Davan’s human genius mind and knowledge of mathematics far above the average human drew up a formula for point to point teleportation so long as the individual had the Psionic potential for a class two ability to telekinetically reach out for instant transportation. Having the formula was one thing, creating the physical means was another. Oliver already made up more than a dozen systems without saying anything, but Davan impressed Oliver in expressing that he would prefer to figure it out and make up a technology to do it on his own. It was his lifelong project. Oliver’s aid to point out flaws that could have dire complications was all he truly wanted help with. Davan still had his pride, now that the drive to complete it for his family was back after mourning their loss. Human pride made the scientist want to figure the rest out. For the past two days the two of them had little contact over teleportation, but they did bump into each other in the mess sometimes.
For Renee, she was busy showing off her daughter to the eagerly anticipating crew. The most bubbly was Chloe the eleven year old. Despite how strange Isabelle looked as a near four month old premature conceived child, everyone was instantly in love. Mother and child never went anywhere without Sparky and a Liger. She gave up yelling at Oliver having one of the males keep a constant vigil. She knew he was often watching though their eyes.
When not showing off her daughter she was kicked back with her eyes closed, but not asleep. She was connected with her bracelet, learning the secret of her own means of teleportation. Without interruption, she didn’t need to hide the fact she was fixated on discovering the means. What took her man a month, needing to pause to deal with ravenous Beasts, having conversations with Netul and Callier, taking care of the Pride and whatnot, meant she had more time to dedicate.
Ten days of hard work, the hardest she ever had to do mentally, and she unlocked the teleportation program built into the jewelry.
And use it she did. She popped up around the ship, sometimes scaring people outright. It especially helped when there was a rigging accident during the flight through subspace and she was near instantly out on deck saving the shattered arm of a crewwoman who had fallen when the rigging shifted beneath her. The fall was bad, but being under less than a single gee saved her life.
Also, all the Hunters, her father and over half the crew had the Warrior Gene and all with the MAOA gene eagerly volunteered for the therapy. Piranha stocked aboard were carefully harvested as the therapy changed the dietary staple, especially in men. The largest change had come from the chief engineer Jacob Wrench who had near no Psionic potential, but in two weeks he was able to move small objects like nuts and bolts when he could never do so before except in zero gravity.
The feel of the Dorgenox crew was peaceful for most of the trip.
But Renee had been studying how her eyes continued to glow right after finishing playing with her new ability to appear anywhere on the ship in a moment’s notice. She was cooped up in her sterile private lab.
Glowing eyes were the byproduct of a tremendous increase of output the brain puts out when sealing the body from constantly releasing natural energies. Sealing the body locks the potential for gathering, harnessing the energy. But the eyes have a near impossible way to block the rise stored inside the body when gathering occurs. That was normal for human of Class Ten and up.
For Renee, she didn’t need to block her body to Gather. The mental valve released and had to. Though nearly all released energy was constantly focused to her bracelet, her eyes expressed the remainder.
And Oliver was right, Renee discovered. The crew was greatly wary of her eyes the way they were.
Both human and Solarian eyeballs were near identical and the glow produced was actually from a chemical reaction caused by a great introduction of Psionic energy. Like the bioluminescent glow of Drakes when they get excited, scared or angry.
It was this reaction of chemicals Renee discovered the key to fixing the issue. Her bracelet was invaluable in figuring it out. With that in mind she created a cure for the issue. Simply modifying the ocular fluid chemicals just a little solved the issue.
Day fourteen of Faster Than Light travel had Oliver looking up after wiping his sweaty face with a towel after another strenuous battle with the robotic training dummy. He blinked as Renee had appeared out of nowhere again. His usual smile at seeing her faded for a moment as he looked up into vibrant emerald irises that gave off a little evergreen smoke from the corner of her eyes.
“You figured it out!” he was instantly on his feet as he was drawn into those large expressive flecked irises.
“There isn’t much I can’t, Moron.” She teased already in a light blue bikini with a bag slung over a shoulder. The bikini showed off all her voluptuous curves, taut belly and thick muscular thighs. Her creamy complexion and freckles were a stark contrast to her flaming mane. He felt himself already hard. The only thing stopping him was a tiny bulge latched on the right nipple. “The solution was a little tricky, but I managed to make it permanent. Now only my hair turns green when I Gather a shitload of energy. Can’t to a damn thing about this mist.” She waved a hand past her eye to whip the smoke into a frenzy for a moment.
“It makes you more exotic with the shadow you put over your eyes.”
“I think so too. Do you want it now or when we arrive?”
“Now please.”
He nodded and it made her smile at such eagerness. “Okay. Look at something and try not to move your eyeballs. The gauge of the needle is a bit larger than normal.”
He looked pointedly at her ruby red rosebud lips and how they quirked a little before she lifted her wrist. Out of the bracelet style Valek shout two needles over a meter long that pushed through the soft lens of the pupils. It was a very uncomfortable pressure and after a few seconds she retracted the needles. A tiny dot was in his vision, but didn’t compromise how things looked. Whatever she injected from within her own body began making his eyes cool down and gave a mild feeling akin to a brain freeze. He had to close the lids and pinch the bridge of the nose in attempt to alleviate the tension.
After about a minute he decided to open his eyes to find her watching. “Stings a bit don’t it? Don’t worry, it’ll pass shortly. It’s changing the chemical makeup of the ocular fluid. The glow in your eyes are already diminishing. I’m glad you told me to work on it. I really did miss those amber eyes of yours. They are more expressive than those blinking light bulbs that never go out… oh yes, much more sexy.”
Oliver lifted his hand and created a shape. “Wow, so I can still see the emanation of energy still.”
“That is what took me a few hours longer than necessary to understand. We need that ability so Phantoms don’t keep sneaking up on us. The chemical sequence is intricate and I pulled off another miracle thanks to my knowhow of all forms of biology.”
“And people call me dangerous.”
“I love proving people you are a timid puppy compared to me. Between us, I’m the deadlier one. I could kill you and you’d never feel a thing. Now I can’t wait to get my hands on that bastard and pump him so full of poison not even you nor I could build i
mmunity against.”
“What would that be?”
“Oh, that is my little secret.” She looked downright evil with that smile. “He fucked with the wrong woman’s man. If I see him again, he’s dead. No one can stop me now. Muahahaha!” she cackled like an evil scientist and it had Oliver doubled over.
“Mrs. Void?”
Their heads turned to find Breena coming inside the nearby door to the training room. “Yes?”
“Sorry. I’m still unused to you appearing out of thin air. The captain is waiting for you on the bridge. He sent me to fetch Oliver first, but you saved me the tr… your eyes!”
“Notice them now do you?” Renee laughed as the Huntress gawked between the tall couple. “What do you think?” she batted her long crimson lashes quickly.
“Better in my opinion. If we had to hunt, you would stick out. Now you are better equipped.”
It didn’t take too long to reach the nearest elevator and take it all the way up to the bridge. When they made it most every woman was in a two piece bikini and every man was wearing swim shorts. There were a few double looks when they realized Renee and Oliver looked relatively normal again…
Right about the time there came an incoming message. A woman’s face appeared large inside the bridge. “Hello and welcome to Mereddia, the vacation island planet. Please state your name for the record.
In his ornate throne the leader of the ship said “Me name is Captain Jake Dorgen flying in the starship Dorgenox. I be the pirate king of the Andromeda galaxy.”
The woman blanched. “My apologies, My king. It has been a long time since I was part of your armada. You are looking well.”
“As are ye Jezibee.”
“You remember me?” shocked was the literal expression.
“Eidetic memory, Lass. I know all me loyal subjects. Are we cleared to take residence?”
“Yes, My King.” She recovered quickly. “Your land purchase is at coordinates I’ll send after transmission. I must say you bought a lovely island. Have fun and let me know if you want to rent the land for other vacationers whenever you are absent. I’ll make sure the tenants know it belongs to you and to keep it in pristine condition.”
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