“Earth,” Cygnus says. “But also these orbitals. It sounds like the orbitals are the cream of society, so we’d be most interested in breeding with them.”
I shudder a bit at that. “So you’d rather have a glitzy orbital girl over me?”
“Of course not,” Cygnus says. “This is just how the marauder fleet will think. Mating with you has changed my thinking. They’ll still be set in the old thinking.”
“That’s sweet,” I say, smiling. I know he can’t see me through the tinted faceplate, so I press it against his. It’s surface shorthand for a kiss.
“I have to go pee,” I tell Cygnus. “Then we can work our way around the crater. We should reach the entrance in an hour or so.”
“I will escort you,” Cygnus says.
“No, you won’t. I will be just a few meters away.”
He huffs, but I convince him to let me have just a few moments of privacy. I appreciate his fierce and resolute protection, but watching me pee is taking it one step too far.
The worst thing about peeing on the Martian surface is how damned cold it is. The Martian air chills me to the bone as I pull down my pants, but my bladder thanks me as it finally relieves itself.
There’s a man-sized rock and about three meters separating me from Cygnus, but I know those bear ears can still hear me, which is annoying, but unavoidable.
As I pull my pants back up to shield me from the biting chill, I feel something snag my ankle.
I look down to see a robotic hand clasped on my ankle. The cable attached to it is still somewhat slack, but then it slides across the ground like a snake as it begins to tighten.
“Cygnus!” I shout. “Raiders!”
14 Cygnus
I’m already running when she shouts. “Cygnus!”
I shouldn't have let her out of my sight, but there’s no time for regrets now, only action.
I leap over the rock with my gun drawn. How did I fail to hear or smell someone so close to us?
As I clear the rock, I have my answer. There’s something clamped to Aura’s ankle, and hundreds of meters away is a band of men and a buggy. One of them is holding a long gun from which the cable is attached.
I draw the knife and rush toward the cable. It’s tightening and is going to drag my mate away if I don’t cut it in time.
I raise the knife. I’m only two steps away, but the cable tightens, and Aura slides across the surface. Away from me.
I dive toward her, and she reaches out to me. My fingers miss hers by mere centimeters. I watch in horror as she’s dragged away from me, down the lip of the crater and toward the four men. Four men who have only minutes left to live.
I raise the gun, and with the steadiest of hands, I make the micro-adjustments needed to hit a target from over 300 meters away. I fire.
Aura is halfway to them by now, but the bullet moves faster. I’ve accounted for Martian gravity— which means minimal drop-off as the bullet travels—and I see the man holding the harpoon gun drop the device and fall down.
As soon as he lets go of the gun, Aura stops sliding, and the gun instead pulls toward her.
I rush down the lip of the crater, toward my mate. I see muzzles flash from the remaining three men, and I dive feet first, sliding behind a rock.
I hit the rock, which breaks my sliding descent. I hear bullets biting into the other side of the rock, but I risk a brief look around.
Two of them are advancing toward Aura with guns raised, while one is jumping into the buggy. Aura is motionless on the ground.
I’ll return any injury they caused to her one-hundred fold!
I sight across the gun, which is pointing at the rock. I steady my breathing and leap out from behind the rock. I jump hard and travel far— further than they expect—as their reaction shots hit against the edge of the rock, but I’m several meters past it.
I fire three shots before I hit the ground. One shooter drops, and the other is hit in the leg.
I hit the ground, the surviving shooter’s muzzle flashes, and a bullet tears into my shoulder.
Both of my arms still work, but the gun shakes as I try to aim.
I fire wildly as I rush headlong toward the shooter. From the corner of my eye, I see the buggy begin to drive away. The coward will not stay and fight? How could he live with such shame debt?
The shots I take while running are inaccurate, but they force the shooter to hit the ground and roll to find cover behind a rock.
The moment he’s behind the rock, I shift.
The clothes and jacket tear apart as I grow to full size. The facemask’s straps break, and the mask falls to the ground, as does the oxygen tank.
When the shooter pops back out, I see his gun shake wildly. The last thing he expected to see was a 2,000 kilogram purple bear rushing towards him.
I’m almost on him, and I cut to the side just before he fires. He loses sight of me behind the rock.
Now he thinks I’m going to come around on his right side, so he’s likely holding the gun pointing toward the other side of the rock. He’ll unload as soon as he sees me, at point-blank range. It would be hard to miss from that vantage.
But I won’t come from the left or the right side.
I leap, and in Martian gravity, I might as well be flying.
I coast over the top of the rock, and just as expected, he’s tunnel-visioned and waiting at the edge of the rock.
I land on top of him, my claws severing all the tendons in his shoulders before he can aim the weapon up at me. My teeth find his throat, and I tear it open in one brutal bite.
Without bothering to look back, I run at full speed down to my mate.
I shift back to Marauder form, and I unclasp the robotic hand from her ankle.
“Aura!” I shout, putting a hand on her shoulder. I’m tempted to raise the mask—briefly—to check for injuries, but I decide against it. She needs all the oxygen she can get if she’s injured.
“Cygnus,” she says. “I’m fine. Stop the one on the buggy from getting away!”
She grabs the harpoon gun and throws it at me. I catch it and look up.
I’d forgotten about the one on the buggy, but quickly I understand. I’ve shown them what I can do, and if he escapes, he’ll tell others who will come for us. If I let him escape, I’m failing to protect my mate.
He’s only about 200 meters away. He must have stopped to gawk at my bear attack. That delay will cost him.
I raise the harpoon and notice there is a screen on it for sighting. When I put the harpoon on my shoulder and sight across it, the cable retracts all the way and suddenly there is a green flashing reticle. It locks onto the man; I pull the trigger.
I expect the projective to fly straight, but the hand adjusts itself as it flies. The buggy swerves wildly to try to dodge it, but the hand simply follows, the cable trailing behind. The harpoon beeps slowly at first, and then faster as the hand travels.
I hold the harpoon tight with both hands, and the beeping intensifies.
The beeping becomes a constant hum, and the targeting reticle flashes red.
I see the cable begin to tighten, and I press my foot against a rock to brace myself.
As the cable goes fully taut, I tug the harpoon and the man is jerked out of the buggy. He hits the ground, and the cable drags him across the dusty surface. I hold tight, and the cable does all the work. He’s coming quickly toward me, but I spare a moment to look down at Aura.
She’s sitting up now, and she nods at me.
I look back, and I notice the hand is grabbing the man by his head rather than his ankle. His facemask is still attached to his oxygen tank, but the tank is dragging across the ground.
When he’s about 100 meters away from me, the tank slams into a rock and a moment later, he’s engulfed in flames. I drop the harpoon, and it flies toward the burning mass.
“I wanted to kill him with my own hands,” I say.
Aura tugs at my arm. “Cygnus, we need to go. There may be more nearby.�
�
“We will take the buggy,” I say. “It’s faster, yes?”
She nods.
We get into the buggy, and Aura checks the storage compartment. It’s full of weapons and food, and I devour several kilograms of rations immediately. It’s more cured meat, but it has some type of heat built into it. I find this odd, but the burning sensation somehow enhances the taste. Aura eats some as I drive the buggy, and we stop at each of the raiders’ corpses, throwing the equipment we retrieve from their bodies into the cargo container.
We finally retrieve my gun as well, which has a few bullets left.
“Get yourself covered again,” Aura says, smiling down at my penis. “Not that I don’t like admiring it.”
I remove the clothes from the largest of the raiders and manage to put them on, but they are a tight fit. The boots don’t fit, so I cut the toes off. My purple toes poke through the ends, so I wrap them in extra cloth.
“You look like a raider now,” she says. “A bad one...who doesn’t get much loot.”
“Will this be a problem?” I ask.
“No,” she says. “Getting attacked was certainly scary, but it worked out for us. We actually have a lot to trade with now. If that hadn’t happened, I honestly didn’t know what we were going to do when we got into the city.”
I nod in satisfaction. Just as I promised myself, I provided for her on this planet.
“We will flourish here,” I say, leaning back in my chair and chewing into another stick of jerky. “And you now have no need to sell your beloved Zephyr.”
15 Aura
As we approach the road, I turn to Cygnus.
“Let me do the talking here.”
“But—”
“Please,” I say. “I’ve done this dozens of times. I know what I’m doing.”
“I can intimidate them,” Cygnus says. “And—”
I cut him off. “Cygnus! You’ve saved me so many times.... I owe you great shame debt. Please let me repay you.”
He laughs loudly, from deep within his belly. “How can my lifemate be shamed when I protect her? It makes no sense!”
“Please, Cygnus,” I say. “Just keep quiet at the gate.”
He crosses his arms and leans back in his seat.
We drive onto the road and turn toward the gate. A small portion of the crater was blasted away to make a narrow tunnel through the crater. The gate is guarded, and beggars and troublemakers are turned away. Well, troublemakers are let in if they offer a big enough bribe, but beggars are never allowed entry.
I stop the buggy at the gate, and two men with rifles slowly walk toward us. I tap Cygnus’ shoulder and point up to the big guard towers. I whisper to him, “There are more guys with guns in those towers.”
“Yes,” he says. “Shall I get the sniper rifle from the cargo—”
“No!” I snap. “I’m pointing them out to you so that you don’t try to fight your way through this. Okay?”
He crosses his arms again, an annoyed look painted across his face.
I want to punch or slap him, but I know that will hurt me more than it hurts him.
“You got papers?” one of the men asks. He doesn’t point his gun at us, but he grips it tighter when he sees Cygnus.
I know this guard. It’s Tobias; he’s easily bribed.
“I’m back from a scrapping run,” I say. “I have a lot of high value goods to trade.”
“Please!” Cygnus says.
I elbow him.
“You look like raiders to me,” Tobias says. “What you think, Yannick, these look like raiders to you?”
Tobias clearly doesn’t remember me, or he’s pretending not to so he can milk out a better bribe.
Yannick leans into Cygnus. He pushes his facemask nearly into Cygnus’s. My heart pounds and my stomach churns. I worry Cygnus will snap his neck or do something incredibly stupid, but instead he reaches out his hand.
“Hello,” he says. “I am Garrett.”
They both start laughing.
Yannick backs away. “All right, you two look like trouble to me. Especially you, Garrett.”
“Yeah,” Tobias says. “Sorry, you’ll have to go back where you came from.”
I see Cygnus tense, but I put a hand on his arm and squeeze, willing him to be calm.
“Sir,” I say. “Maybe you can have a look through our cargo hold? Help yourself to something valuable? As a sign of goodwill?”
“Hmm,” he says. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
He gestures toward Yannick, and the two of them pop the cargo hold open and start digging through it.
Yannick whistles through his facemask. “A lot of guns here for a scrapper. You find a weapons cache out in the belt? A lot of these are covered in Martian regolith too...real fucking odd that Martian soil would find its way to the belt.”
The two of them each grab a gun, and Yannick takes a full pack of jerky.
“I think we can let you two in if you promise not to make trouble,” Tobias says.
“Deal,” I say.
Yannick moves toward the gate controls, and just before he hits the switch, Cygnus speaks.
“No.”
Yannick pauses, and leaves the gate shut.
I draw in a breath, and do everything I can to suppress the flaring anger and panic I feel rising in my gut at Cygnus’s insufferable stubbornness.
“What’s that? Garrett doesn’t think we made a fair deal?” Yannick asks.
“No,” Cygnus says again, and he gets out of the buggy.
He takes one step toward them, and they raise their guns.
He takes another step.
“Stand down, raider!”
Cygnus stops. “Give back the meat.”
“What?” Yannick says, looking over at his friend.
“He just wants the jerky, man.”
“Fuck that,” Yannick says. “We made the deal already.”
“No,” Cygnus says. “This is the new deal. I keep the meat.”
Cygnus takes another step forward, and the two of them step back. I realize that despite the guard tower and the guns—and the fact that Cygnus is completely unarmed—the guards are scared of him.
“Just give him the jerky, dude!”
Yannick reaches into his jacket and throws the jerky pack onto the ground.
Cygnus reaches down, tears the package open, and throws a piece at Yannick. “Enjoy. Please!”
As soon as the gate shuts behind us, I punch Cygnus in the ribs as hard as I can. It hurts my hand, but I don’t care, and I punch him again and again.
He finally stops driving and looks over at me. “Is this foreplay? We can find a place in the city to mate again, if you wish. I would not be against this idea.”
“You big dumb idiot!” I try to gut-punch him, but his abs are like steel even through the coat.
“I was practicing my human bartering skills,” he says.
“What?”
“To get good at something, you must practice. I noticed that to strike a good deal, you must not show weakness. I want to master this skill.”
I’m still red-faced with anger, and I’m breathing so hard that my mask is fogging up. But I stop hitting him. “So you weren’t just risking everything for a pack of jerky?”
“Hmmm,” he says. “I did want the jerky.”
“If you really want to learn to barter,” I say, “you need to learn risk and reward management. Do you know what that means?”
“It means if I take a big risk, I will be rewarded. Like when I warmed you with my naked body, and then we mated.”
I blush just thinking about that, and I feel pissed off again when I realize he’s arguing against me successfully without even trying to.
“No,” I say. “How much do you think the jerky is worth compared to the two guns?”
“The guns have more trading value,” he answers. “But I was very hungry, so the jerky had greater immediate value.”
I sigh. “Okay, but think like...an hour
ahead. We have a box full of more guns, which are worth much more than a pack of jerky. So why take such a big risk for the jerky?”
He crosses his arms. “You really think I am so short-sighted?”
“Yes,” I answer immediately.
“I told you we would thrive here. We will have to deal with these guards again in the future, and they now know we drive a hard bargain. They will not push us around or laugh at us again. They will fear the name Garrett.”
I laugh, and the anger seeps out of me. Cygnus does a lot of dumb things, but he always seems to at least have some kind of logic driving his actions.
16 Cygnus
I enjoy the jerky meat as Aura drives. It tastes even better knowing that I shame debted the guard to obtain it.
We clear the tunnel that goes through the wall, and the crater opens up into a fairly large city. The top of the crater is covered by some type of dome.
Aura pulls off her mask, but tells me to keep mine on. “Rust Bucket’s CO2 scrubbers have been known to fail; some paranoid people keep their masks on. You’re one of them.”
The buildings look haphazardly placed and organized. They are all quite tall, but each story is sometimes a different color from the one below it and made of a different material, as well. There are a lot of people in dusty clothes swarming through the streets.
I see some other buggies, but pedestrians clog the streets, and Aura has to stop constantly as people walk right in front of us.
“Run them down if they disrespect us,” I say.
She looks at me and rolls her eyes. I know what that look means now, so I hold my tongue.
We reach one of the taller buildings that I can see, and Aura stops the buggy right on the side of the street.
“All right,” she says. “The cargo container is too heavy to take in, so you’ll need to guard it—”
I reach down and unlatch the cargo container. I grab the handles with both hands and I lift it effortlessly into the air. I rest it on top of my head, still holding the handles.
Marauder Cygnus: A Scifi Alien Shifter Romance (Mating Wars Book 1) Page 8
