Chapter Eighteen:

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Dommik left Kat at midnight Earthian time and went back to the bridge, keeping her door and the lavatory open for her use. He was covered in her scent and he relished it, knowing he took a little piece of her with him when he left.

Bin-One, his constant companion was waiting for him when he arrived.

“Report.”

“The Trentian aircraft is still tailing us, Master, they have informed nearby ships not to interfere with your passage,” it responded.

“What about our destination?” Dommik sat at the helm, pulling up the coordinates.

“We will be within Xan’Mara’s atmosphere in the next hour. Shall I find us a port to land, Master?”

He looked out over the dark room, eying the ropes he had hanging throughout his make-shift web in every corner. It was varying, thick in some places while others were just knotted heaps and bundles. Matted hair with wet and dripping fibers that almost touched the ground. He found a length and tugged it into his hands, enjoying the burn as it chafed across his skin.

“No, I’ll find us a place. Thank you, Bin-One, you can go below.” It left without a farewell.

Dommik checked his transmissions, finding only several from Mia and the EPED hailing him for his status, and one from Gunner.

‘Arrived at Xan’Mara, day 22th of May, with an escort from Space Lord Markoss to retrieve one O'lia flower.’

It wouldn’t arrive before he was done with this mission. Messages were slow this far out in space. He expected they would be on their way home by the end of the day. He opened the security feed to see that Kat hadn’t moved from her quarters.

He opened Gunner’s message.

‘Stryker’s a real dumbass who's going to get himself fried. I need you to take my deliveries in, I’ll meet you at the spot.’

Dommik chose not to respond. He didn’t want Gunner to know his current coordinates. If Gunner entered Trentian airspace, the aliens have an allowance to take him in and take him out without a reason. He wasn’t about to get mixed up with political warfare. It was his least favorite kind.

The moon came into view and he scanned the surface for the pilgrims, finding several settlements throughout the muddy-grey landscape. The surface reminded him of stagnant puddles of water left behind by the sun’s rays to birth new bugs.

The flower, a native to the moon, was harvested and sold by the pilgrims as their main source of income. It was often used for medicinal purposes for the aliens, as well as having a vitality boost upon intake, a natural steroid that could increase energy and endurance, it was a symbol in bonding pairs to be taken before mating to prolong the act and guarantee that insemination had occurred.

It was an outdated ritual that had come back in recent years. A small hope to replenish the Trentian species after the war and the breeder’s disease.

Earth wanted it.

One flower. One is all you get.

Dommik was sure the Space Lord believed he couldn’t keep the flower alive to bring one back. But he was going to damn well try just to spite the bastard. Even so, it was hard to care about anything anymore, his mind had been lost since Argo and now his heart was bleeding out of him every time he thought about Kat.

And the child he put in her womb. His nanocells reconfiguring and bonding to her egg to create a human baby. Cyborgs can’t be born but the child he gave her would be superior to any human alive.

Except for the monstrous qualities his father had...the blood of bugs.

He only hoped that Kat would see it as she saw him. And someday forgive him.

Dommik looked down at his hands to find the rope tied tight into a ball. He threw it to his web, where it got caught in the strands. The ship screened the atmosphere and alerted him for landing. A flat plateau of land within a wild field of plants. He felt his ship adjust as he left the bridge.

He buckled up in light armor that was camouflaged and strengthened with his specific bio-suits nanoparticles. The knives he kept and his specialized darts tucked into the bands of his suit with one pistol for good measure.

Who knows what that flower could do. He found himself snickering as he entered the elevator, checking the metal parts of his body to ensure safe shifting. Nothing stuck.

He was good to go.

Dommik ran into Kat as the elevator opened. She softened under his gaze, greeting him with a yawn and stretch. Her tits perked as they pressed into the soft cloth of her shirt.

She eyed him back. “Time to pluck the flower?”

Dommik wanted to shift back into his beast and fuck her all over again. “I’ve already plucked it,” he growled, pulling her against him. “You should be holding onto something during landing.” The ship shuddered as he said it.

“Good thing I have you to keep me in line.” She leaned up and kissed the underside of his jaw.

More blood dripped from his heart.

“They know we’re here. Let’s get this over with.”

***

Kat leaned up on her toes and placed a kiss on Dommik’s cheek. They were on Xan’Mara and had passed the first test brought on by the Trentians. One flower, only one flower could be extracted because of her.

She should have stayed at Ghost. She didn’t know how they were going to get the plant back to Earth, alive. All she could think of to do was kiss him and continue kissing him. Hoping each kiss would make him forgive her faster, love her faster. She flinched.

“Be safe.”

“It’s a damned flower.”

“And it changed our lives.” He turned to face her, his eyes hard. “This isn’t Argo,” she whispered.

“You don’t even know. You should have stayed on Ghost.”

Kat sighed, exasperated. “I know. And if the flower dies, I’ll lose my job anyway, right?”

Dommik looked at her like he knew something. Something she didn’t. “You don’t even know.” He dropped down on his knees and lifted her shirt, his lips kissed her right below her belly button. She grabbed his hair for balance as his breath tickled her into a shuddering frenzy. He stood up with a twisted smile that she couldn’t help smile back at. “I’ll be back soon. It’s a failed mission if it dies. We only get one.”

He stepped away from her and entered the hull, she followed as he checked the edge of one of his knives. One gun strapped to his hip. Kat looked at the weapons at length and the weapon he was. She knew at some level that he would never hurt her, that in a way she may be the only person he would never hurt, that’s if she could believe the whispers he flooded into her ear the night before.

Kat shook herself, “Then steal some seeds. Did he say anything about the seeds?”

His steps echoed in her ears and she knew he was withdrawing into his metal shell. The hard exterior of his body solidified and his eyes darkened into the shadows they were. Dommik unraveled his humanity, leaving nothing but the Monster Hunter he was behind.

The hatch opened up, letting in a waft of earthy soil into the ship, pervading the once sanitized space. She gulped it down as if heaven itself was just through that door.

The Trentian ship landed with a plume just outside, killing the fresh smell with exhaust and fire. Kat tried to peer around Dommik but he shielded her sight. “If I’m not back in twenty-four hours, alert Mia and the EPED. Don’t open the hatch for anyone.” He stared at the other ship, his voice no longer human.

“I won’t.” Can I even open the hatch?

The door shut with him on the other side. And silence met her every breath. She looked up at the vents that groaned on above. The smell of everything outside her cage disappeared into the ceiling as if it had never been there to begin with.

One of the Bins approached her. “He left this for you, Katalina Jones.” The android handed her a wristlet.

“Thank you,” she said, putting it on. It didn’t help the feeling of suffocation.

Kat walked back to the elevator to see if it would open but to her annoyment, it did not. Checking the console room only made her heart race; the computer was gone, smashed and cleaned up by the androids. Before long she found herself pacing back and forth across the menagerie, counting every step and every second that passed.

The door to the roach room loomed in her periphery and every time she came close to it, her steps quickened. Every time she noticed it, fear clouded her mind. It was as if the room was alive and waiting for her and it watched her with hunger.

Kat could feel it watch her. She could also feel her promise cracking under the pressure of its gaze, reminding her of the sickness that killed her parents and the delusions she fed from it.

Until her feet faltered and she stood in front of it. The door peeled open, allowing her entry. What were the odds that the very thing I feared most was with me this whole time…

Kat stepped through the innocuous rectangular entryway and into the light where she was going to face her fears. Not for Dommik, but for herself.