Keeping With Destiny Read online

  “A necessary risk,” the darkness spoke to her gently with some fondness she never quite understood.

  “Why have you come?” Hope and disappointment stirred in her question. She’d been alone for far too long. Forgotten by the others, only the rare visit by this one, but never to take her away; never words of comfort that she would one day be safe from the very Hunters she hid amongst.

  “They are bringing in a captive, Aari. You must help him.”

  “The Hunters haven’t discovered any Symbiotai-carriers for many cycles. The Hunters don’t even look for them anymore.” She’d be surprised if they had discovered another and she felt a rising hopefulness that, for once, she would come face to face with another after so long. Even to touch another Symbiotai-carrier would be worth any risk. It had been ages since she’d known the company or touch of another, but she did remember. Remembered how they felt different. Like the touch was meant to be enjoyed. Within their touch, you were no longer strangers, like the embrace of being with family and more. “Where did they find this one?” Hope won out and motivated her question.

  “He is not from one of the Symbiote Temples, Aari.”

  Hope deflated. “Then why should I risk being found out for him?” She twisted, glaring up in the limbs of the tree. But just as she knew, there was no one there. No face to direct her emotional injury at.

  “Our future lies in the hands of this man’s destiny.” The leaves shivered with the very words as though it’d been them that spoke to her.

  Aari dropped her eyes back to the ground, equally absent of any proof she was talking to someone real. She shook her head softly, refusing to believe such things. Destiny. Life was dreary at best, living in a world of partially-restored technological ruins from another worldly era, destroyed nearly a hundred solar cycles ago. Made worse, she lived with those who had destroyed her kind. “More fancy prophecies to pass the time. Nothing more.”

  “He is the one to upturn the Blood Lords,” her unseen friend spoke, never losing his gentle patience with her lack of faith.

  She rolled her eyes. “Hope is a fable.” How many times had she heard of tales of chosen ones— come to save the world from the warlords? Too many. The blood part of their name was right, but they were no lords. Not to her anyway. And while some of the tyrants had perished, there was no celebration or freedom for the colonists. For the position of one fallen was always soon replaced by another. Killing one man, or five for that matter, wouldn’t change the battles the survivor-colonies, or the militia or even the sparse few straggler groups that called themselves the Rogue-Free, had to face. “If that were true, he wouldn’t have gotten caught.”

  “Perhaps,” there was a gentle chuckle above her. “Nonetheless, he must be set free, Aari. And you are the one who can do it.”

  Just then, static buzzed over the miniature communicator bud in her ear and then the static became words that were cutting in and out, “Control— (static) —this is gamma squadron 9— (buzz) do—you—read?”

  Aari touched the bud in her ear, adjusting it by means of the tiny dial on its side, hoping to hear better as the message came over, but it wasn’t her place to answer the call. She looked up across the field to the control tower that stood over the base, but it was too dark to tell if anyone was standing at the glass windows looking out.

  “This is Gamma-squadron-9, we are coming in hot with one prisoner. Need immediate medical response.”

  “Gamma-squadron-9, this is Central Control. Report your position and head count,” a response was finally issued from the command tower.

  “Sector 315. Fifteen clicks out. Upper vass 10.” The signal still sounding distant and choppy.

  “Your count, squadron leader,” a stern command for all details was repeated.

  “Nine, sir. Two severely wounded.”

  “Are you being pursued?”

  “Negative.”

  The airwaves went silent after that.

  Low frequency radio waves were weak at best, but easily picked up by relay signal readers and intercepted. They were the come and get me calls for every road bandit, thief, and scavenger out there. If you broke down before you reached base, you were on your own. And the scavengers were always out there. Which meant, communications were best kept to a minimum— just the facts, especially if your squadron was already crippled. That was one thing you didn’t want to broadcast for the marauders. But for Aari, the story behind the facts— that was worth going in for a closer look as to what happened.

  After all, fifteen men had gone out on the patrol to investigate why Sub-Terrain Station Epic-9 had gone silent days ago. Curiosity spiked Aari’s interest to know, what of this stranger, and what had happened that nearly half of the squad would not be returning.

  She pushed off from the tree to head for the gates to get a look when the patrol came in.

  “They are counting on you to follow through, child,” the voice spoke one last urgent request to her from the dark limbs of the tree before she was out of range.

  She hesitated for only a moment. They. Why should she risk her ass for Them? They had done nothing to improve her chance of ever being free from here. The only thing They had done for her was make it possible for her to enter the academy without ever being body scanned for the presence of Symbiotai, but nothing else. They did nothing for her now, so why should she have to do Their bidding?

  Making no comment that announced her compliance or refusal, she left. She wasn’t completely certain in her rebellious resolve, but it felt good to be angry at the moment. It beat being horny.

  He watched from up in the tree as the child left him with a quiet display of youthful defiance. Child, he’d called her. When in fact, she was a woman in the pattern of human cycles, but for him she was but a fresh new blink in time. A child compared to the age he had known, and as far as his compassions were, she was his child.

  A new presence made itself known to him, just as shapeless as he in the dark shadows of the tree. Just the pulse of their existence lingering. The breeze in the leaves— their breath. Yet, he felt the Edify Mother all the same.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself,” she chided him gently.

  “I am too weary of time and the watching of such barren existence to be concerned that I hold such fondness of one above all others. And let it also be known, I do not approve of this.”

  “It will work,” the Edify Mother advocated, always gentle, yet always persistent.

  “She is safer here. Protected in the lion’s den.”

  “Do not deject that she is not happy within the den of predators.”

  “Who, in this wave of Terra’s desolation, is happy?” He invalidated that such a thing even existed amongst the humans at all.

  “She will be,” a ring of hope chimed in her voice as assuredly as the sun would come up in a few hours.

  “You risk her,” his gruff disapproval just as present as her certainty.

  He felt her touch as she overlapped him, like the touch of her hand taking his.

  “Have I ever let you down?”

  “Such nonsense you speak of now to placate me.” His attention remaining on the little woman who had long since vanished into the distant night, but he knew where she was— always. Always seeing her, and her dismal existence. She was the sad lonely speck of life that touched his essence of heart.

  “Then trust me. It will work. He will love her.”

  He felt more of the Edify Mother’s existence, like a swelling of a heart full of love. In his mind, it took the shape of a warm smile across feminine facial features, and then her bodiless form pressed closer and he felt her kiss on his cheek. Then the summer night breeze bristled through the branches of the tree, taking their existence with it as though they were wisps of smoke, and it whispered once more to him, “Trust me.”

  Aari hung around just outside the security check-in for the Command Central Building. Even the building itself was foreboding. Thick concret
e walls two stories high and not a window in sight. From its rooftop, the usual four-man patrol was now reinforced with two more gunmen from what she could see.

  She leaned against the wall of the main building, hiking a foot up, then pulled a dagger from her belt to clean the dirt from under her nails playing it off as if she had absolutely nothing else better to do. She watched idlily as the returning squadron came through the last of the three gates that made up part of the bunker’s containment.

  The ranger pulled up in front of the command center and stopped. And she could hear the movement overhead as the guards got into position with their rifles trained down on the remaining men of Gamma-squadron-9 who spilled out one by one, then all joined in the struggled to get just one man out of their armored road ranger.

  Aari’s dirt digging came to a frozen halt as she watched wide-eyed at the seeming ease to which this prisoner played tug of war with the guys from the squadron. The bound captive jerked bck inside the truck and one of the handers came right off his feet and slammed into the sliding door of the truck.

  “Whoops. That must’ah hurt,” the sarcastic call came from under the hood that blinded him.

  He was toying with them, she observed. She had to wonder, for all the failing to keep the out of the truck had it occurred to them how much harder it was going to be getting him through the front doors of the building? He certainly was giving them a run for their credits despite being bound with three times the number of restraining coils a normal captive would have been contained with.

  Aari kept off to the side, and out of the way, not venturing too close but not giving up her prime viewing spot either. But, she wasn’t the only straggler to gather and watch for pure amusement.

  There were a few cursed breaths from the watchers when the squad finally succeeded getting the captured man out of the ranger and he straightened to a good head and shoulder over the tallest of them.

  “Woah,” she gasped under her breath.

  The height and broad form of the prisoner, though still bound, did more than make her gasp. A thrill sent her heart pattering a little faster. She pushed off the wall and stood in awe. It was too bad they had his face covered, she continued to muse, but soon realized she was taking a little too much interest in this captive and she quickly tightened her expressions to hide her amusement from the others. Still, it intrigued her to know, outside of the obvious towering height he had over everyone present, how had he earned the extra bondage rings around his torso? It was equally odd, how the squad wasn’t using any of the rigid restraint poles that were supposed to lock into the binding coils to better control a disgruntled prisoner. That was, of course, until the squad of men passed right by her with the prodigious man, and she saw the broken pieces of the former poles protruding from the metal coils. It didn’t slip her attention either how some of the jagged broken ends were tipped with dried blood. It must have been an impressive takedown to see the behemoth toss the rangers about like matchsticks wherever they first apprehended him.

  One of the squad guys glanced her way and caught the slight grin on her face, and he tossed her a leering glare as they passed but said nothing about her close proximity. She dropped back against the building again, satisfied her need for some entertainment had been filled. It wasn’t completely out of place for her, or anyone else for that matter, to be hanging around for no reason other than to kill the time. It wasn’t often one could expect to have a front row seat to some event and not be in striking distance. Thus, it was a frequent thing for hunters, staff, and guards alike to gather and gawk, anytime something new was going on— and when job details allowed it.

  She shifted her attention to study what was left of the unit of men following up. Not one of them appearing to have returned unscathed. Her grin deepened into a deeper morbid humor; it was too bad she’d missed the really good parts of the toss-up. The base had grown tiresome for her the past couple of solar cycles. Anything new was worth some trouble, if only to break up the monotony of her daily routine. Especially— the strange, long bundle one of the men carried in with him. Like a beacon for new treasure, her eyes followed it with considerable curiosity.

  After the squad and their prisoner were inside, she stalled her intentions before finally resolving herself to go inside and get a better look at the man in the lit interior, if only to feed her curiosity further and hope for another show. Maybe he’ll break loose and make a run for it. That’d be really exciting. She could refrain from taking him down. Claim her gun jammed, then tell Them she’d done as they requested.

  She walked through the front doors as if it were just another night, her eyes quickly adjusted to the bright lights inside letting her take in the continuing ruckus while the team leader headed up to the data counter. The four on the prisoner struggled every bit of the way just to get their prisoner to continue to walk forward. The rest of the squadron were already being shuffled out through a side door in the direction of the medical ward.

  She stopped at the check point, still watching the new arrival.

  “You’re not due in for another few hours.” Hattrix, a large young man with ashen dreads past his shoulder halted her as he ran his usually station at the entry.

  Aari didn’t answer, only paused, so transfixed was she on the prisoner. Even inside, where there were more soldiers and hunters standing about with whom she could compare the man, he loomed over each and every one of them. For herself, she’d likely break her neck trying to look up at him if she ever took the chance to be so close. She caught that shift of emotions in her and quickly forced an inward scowl. The last thing she needed to be doing was developing any crushes on a bandit destined to either die here or be freed for things beyond her.

  “Aari?”

  Aari tore her attention from the prisoner and looked at Hattrix finding him smirking at her. He knew what she was up to. She shrugged indifferently. “My gun’s jamming up. I need to change it out really quick.” She gave the generic excuse as she ran the stainless-steel band around her wrist under the scanner light.

  Hattrix’s eyes went to the monitor that verified her identity and clearance when it beeped, then winked at her. “Gun jamming, you say? Must be drenn.”

  “So, what’s the story on him?” She motioned her head over her shoulder to the uncooperative giant.

  “Found him hacking into the intel-system at one of the sub-terrain stations.”

  “No shit?” She feigned surprise.

  “They said he was just sitting there as if waiting for them to come get him. That’s when all hell broke loose.”

  “What sort of hell?” She couldn’t help the smirk then. They all lived for stories that didn’t include their own broken bones.

  Hattrix raised a brow and jutted his head towards the prisoner. “You’re looking at him.”

  Aari turned, stealing another look at the bound man, taking in that last bit of sight while she was able. Underneath the restraint coils that banded his arms to his chest, she saw mass quantities of veined muscles. One could almost imagine that he could break the coils with the simple flex of his arms, considering his biceps were the diameter of her legs. His legs, however, were equally built with powerful cords of flesh still easily defined under the confines of clothing that fit snuggly over the hard flesh. She let her gaze continue to float over him until it landed on the haphazard braid of long, black hair that fell down his back, pointing the way to his eye-catching ass that was framed perfectly by his tight pants. She felt her eyelids flutter to half-mast as mischievous thoughts churned up rampant ideas while she took her fill. The slight movement in her back soon diminished the minute pleasurable back scratching from earlier into some distant past and what respite it had granted was now gone.

  Her attention went back to the braid. She wondered how he’d managed to take such good care of his hair that it would grow to such lengths. Her hand floated up self-consciously and tugged at one of the strands of her own black hair; one of the few lengthy stran
ds that’d so far dodged getting hacked off and noted her own envy of such.

  What was visible of the prisoner’s stern square jaw clenched tight as he leaned back to counter the efforts of the rangers, still attempting to get him to walk through the archway that would scan him for any internal weapons or objects. But the rest of his features were obscured by the blindfold tied around his eyes. Face or no face, word of his physique was going to spread like a wild fire across the tongues of nearly every woman on the base and even a few men. A body so tantalizing, they weren’t going to care if he was a prisoner or otherwise. Aari was only glad to have seen him first and she allowed herself a little longer to soak him up for later fantasies.

  The fight to get him through the scanner finally came to an end when the archway tipped then went crashing to the floor. It was followed by several loud pops and electrical currents zapped and shot sparks out to bounce off with a sizzle, then the whole thing went dead.

  “Fucking Drenn!” one of the squad men shouted and threw a punch but missed— the blindfolded man having moved as though he’d seen the swinging fist coming and pitched back. No one anticipated the next move, as the prisoner sent his foot out and caught the guard in the shin and down he went alongside the killed scanner.

  “Enough!” their team leader shouted over his shoulder, “Forget the scanner, just hold him until they clear us to go in!” Oddly, even their prisoner settled down after the bark.

  While the squad leader finished checking his prisoner in, the soon-to-be-incarcerated man looked about the room blindly, yet clearly mapping out his surroundings. No one seemed to notice but her. And seeing such caused her heart to race. He was far more aware than a bound and blindfolded man should be.