Kave
“Send for Zenik,” Athen ordered Goru the moment they entered the command center.
“Zenik? Why Zenik?” Kave asked. Jane’s mate was a Mahdfel spy that had been placed on Noven 90 after his cover as a simple trader with shifting loyalties had been burned.
Athen frowned and Kave kept his mouth shut. The prince would share his motives when he was good and ready.
“How sloppy have you let my warriors become?”
“We drill,” Brale chimed in. “We drill a lot.”
“We also drill our mates,” Leif added with a grin. “Scrubs says seventeen are carrying.”
Athen glared at Leif and Kave was glad that his ire was directed somewhere else for a moment. Truth be told, Kave would have risked more than Athen’s anger for such a mate as Humility.
A glare was enough to put the warriors back in line, though they all knew that the next drill they completed had to be above and beyond to satisfy their recently returned warlord. It was not a lie that they had kept up on their drills. Kave had even roped Jane into making sure the wives took them seriously. The ones that were here during the Suhlik incursion didn’t need convincing. They had seen the damage and death that the Suhlik could wring upon them if they were caught unawares.
Zenik entered command and waited for his warlord to speak. Athen eyed him up and down.
“There is word. The Wine Merchant has surfaced again.”
Zenik’s face immediately darkened and flashes of barely contained rage flickered across his skin.
“Where?”
There was no question about Zenik taking the mission. Despite his rather innocuous name, the Wine Merchant was responsible for the destruction of a multitude of Mahdfel outposts throughout the sector. He was also the one who had burned Zenik and abandoned him to face twenty Suhlik on his own.
Zenik had slaughtered them all, then taken their ship and limped back to Mahdfel space. He had come home a hero, but with no future in the spycraft that was his forte. Service in Athen’s clan on Noven 90 as well as a mate had been his reward, and Jane was quite a reward as far as Kave was concerned, not as good as Humility, but perhaps second.
“Trevose Station 3. There’s a trader loaded with the specs next to the ship.”, Athen responded.
“I’ll leave within the hour,”
Zenik said then nodded, turned and left.
“But what about his mate, Jane?” Kave asked.
“Jane. Is she one of the mates who is carrying?” Athen inquired.
Brale shook his head.
“Then it is a shame.” Athen was under no delusion that Zenik would complete his mission. The best outcome for such a slippery creature was to go down with his target. Zenik would most likely not return to Jane.
“So what else has occurred while I have been absent?” Athen asked, done with that particular topic of conversation.
Kave and the other warriors continued the debrief, and Athen updated them on the current battle lines. The longer they continued, the more Kave longed to go to Humility, hold her close in his arms, and fill her with his child.
When Athen finally dismissed them, Kave hurried out, torn between seeing his own mate and tracking down Jane and offering her his condolences.
He found Humility digging furiously in the garden plot the Terran females had insisted on planting. Rather than checking the progress of seedlings, she was on the edge, attacking the native ground cover, flushed and dripping sweat.
“What are you doing?” he asked her.
“Weeding.”
“Those are not weeds. Those are-”
“They will be, once I put in another row of those whatchamacallits.”
“I was thinking we could fuck.”
She looked up at him in a very disapproving manner.
“There are no other warriors present. You said I could use that term when we were alone,” he said in response.
“I’m not in the mood.”
“But you’re always in the mood.”
“Not today! Now go away.”
Kave opened his mouth to question her further, but she simply turned and pointed back toward the camp with such fervor that he took three steps back before walking away. Jane would know what was wrong. She could fix this.
Kave spent the next twenty minutes looking for Jane, but she was nowhere to be found. He called at her quarters and she did not answer. Perhaps, she was still inside.
Kave entered the command center and without another word, hit the alarm bell. The klaxons rang out in an ear piercing shriek, barely tolerable to Terran and Mahdfel ears. To the Suhlik, the shrill sound was nausea inducing and would set them off balance. Warriors began to pour out to the quad. They, at least, had an inkling that they would be tested today. Not a single one of them appeared without a weapon. With very little sense of panic, the females scrambled to the most defensible area of the camp, a corner on the beach near the force fence. Most of them could swim, despite their mates’ objections, and could reach the sea in the case of a full invasion. Other than taking pot shots at them with a laser rifle, the Suhlik would have few ways of harming swimming targets.
The fear of large sea creatures had largely been quelled by some well placed research. They’d found that the most dangerous creature near the shore was a shelled creature with sharp claws that could at worst take off a toe. Swimming there was a calculated risk, but considering the Suhlik could slice a woman open, they gave it little thought.
The warriors seemed bent on impressing Athen, who had probably planned to execute a drill later in the evening when the warriors were cozier with their mates. However, as second in command, Kave was well within his rights to start a drill at his own leisure and this one suited him now.
Once it became clear that it was indeed a drill, the warriors paired off and practiced a few fighting throws. The klaxons ceased and the wives lined up. He counted them, as did Meadow, while his own mate stomped in still wielding a shovel. She looked ready to take the head off of any Suhlik that showed his face.
What he did not see was Jane. She should be there, standing guard in front of the mates, a laser rifle in her hand. He waited as that fact dawned on Meadow too. She looked around, just in case Jane was hiding, but Kave knew the truth.
Kave stood next to Athen who, with a critical eye, watched his warriors battle each other. “Zenik took his mate with him,” Kave said.
Athen shrugged. There wasn’t much they could do about that now. Kave would miss her. She was a good friend.