Page 11 of Darik's Quest

“He always says he’s a lone wolf,” Nicolle replied. “That’s not exactly what you’re describing.”

“He’s very good at doing solo missions. He had to be to survive a lot of what the scientists threw at him by himself, isolated from the rest of us. It’s his fallback survival mechanism.” Camron stared at the silent man on the bed. “But he’s a man of the pack just like the rest of us, no matter if he functions at a high level on his own. I didn’t mean to get so deep into this but I know he was worried about the state of your mate bond and the way the two of you were drifting apart. It scared him.”

“Scared me too,” she said in a small voice. “Once we stopped talking to each other about the big things that really mattered, it was like there was a wall between us and neither of us could find a way to break through. It was easier to go to work and focus on what was in front of me there, events and problems I could control and resolve.”

“When he gets regains consciousness,” Camron said, “Promise me you’ll break down the walls, okay? Now you know the emotions and the pain and the sorrow and the love are there, boiling to get out and be shared.”

“I will.”

Camron patted her hand and headed for the door.

Nicolle swung around in the chair. “Thank you for telling me. I’m sure it was hard for you to do.”

“I want the best for my brother and his mate,” Camron said. “And that means a healthy mate bond and a strong partnership. Together you can face anything.”

“Even bearbeasts,” she said with a sad smile, remembering the giant creature which had menaced her at one point in the early days when she first met Darik. “Real or imagined.”

“See you tomorrow,” Camron said, with a nod as he left.

Nicolle rose and sat on the edge of the bed, studying Darik’s face. She brushed a tendril of hair off his forehead tenderly and kissed him. “I hope at some level you are listening to all of this talk. I hope we get the chance to have the wall busting conversation Camron was advocating.”

But there was no reaction from Darik, not even a blip on the medical monitors.

Chapter Five

Darik had accomplished two days of hard marching through the dense forest of the ancestors’ planet, following the map he’d received at Javon’s encampment. He’d made excellent progress moving at a Badari Warrior’s best speed and expected to complete his task well within the Great Mother’s deadline. Game and fish were plentiful and tonight he’d decided to camp in a small clearing and cook fresh meat over a small open fire. Stomach full of his delicious dinner, he sat on a fallen log, feeding his fire twigs and small branches to keep it going, while he pondered what was really going on here.

He was no fool. The goddess could have easily placed him right at the spring itself had she chosen to do so or not bothered to send him here at all. She could have simply handed him the water he needed. Therefore the Great Mother must have had a reason to drop him right outside the high chief’s location and ensure he had to interact with the people there to get his directions. He wondered again if she was concerned his people were becoming complacent with their safe haven in Sanctuary Valley, particularly now that MARL the ancient alien AI had been refreshed and was good for another 10,000 years of guarding and powering the settlement there. Not to mention the Tzibir location hidden away in the north.

The war had settled into something of a routine as well, with the Badari making sorties outside the valley to do battle with Khagrish security forces and to rescue more humans when possible but the packs were stymied when it came to launching an offensive powerful enough to drive the Khagrish off Ushandirr and gain true freedom. And even if they did, there was the question of the Mawreg overlords who had contracted for the planet to be used by the Khagrish for doing horrific scientific ‘research’. He was well aware the Mawreg had planet busting weaponry. Destruction of the world was the fate to be suffered by this planet he was sitting on right now.

Darik felt no lessening in his heart of the hatred he held for the Khagrish but it was true he and his pack brothers were becoming increasingly involved with fated mates and the possibility of families. A man fought harder for his beloved and for his children. He was positive Aydarr and Jamokan and the other Alphas retained the fire in their hearts to complete the war effort and claim the entire planet. But for them the hundreds of humans in the valley were a distraction. It was noble of the Badari to insist on freeing humans wherever they could and to give them a safe haven but maintaining a colony-sized encampment on top of a war effort took a lot of work.

He'd seen the evidence firsthand as his mate Nicolle became more and more enmeshed in administering the Alphas’ dictates, in dealing with the human council and in problem solving on a daily basis. She now had two assistants and never seemed to make a dent in the list of action items no matter how hard all three of them worked.

Maybe the goddess believed the packs needed a reminder of the tremendous stakes at play here. More and more he came to believe she intended him to return to Ushandirr and give his testimony to the beauties of this long-gone world and the relatively peaceful life the ancestors had been living here before the enemy snatched them up to become pawns in experiments. He was no orator but he would speak his heart about how hard it was to move among the ancestors, knowing the fate which awaited them.

The packs were all counting on Reede to return from the Sectors at the head of an armada which would give them the upper hand and enable the final battle. Reede and his mate Falyn and the packs’ friend Walt had been gone on their quest for a long time and Darik hoped the relief force would show up any time now. The war had gone on for so long.

He sighed as a pocket of pitch in one branch exploded into sparks and the fiery motes drifted away on the slight breeze. This was all above his pay grade as the human soldiers said but here he was in the middle of the situation.

Drawing a deep breath of the pine scented air, Darik wished he felt more at peace. This was exactly the kind of experience he claimed to prefer, out here as a lone wolf, and the woods were beautiful. His inner predator was happy and enjoying the novelty of this time, not to mention the hunting. It reminded Darik a little of the time he’d been sent out alone to scout a strange Khagrish lab far to the north, which is where he first saw Nicolle and realized she was his mate. The two of them had fought hard to survive what the Khagrish did to them and then battled a parasitical Chimmer. He bore the scars of that encounter on his back, as did Nicolle. Even the Badari powers of healing couldn’t erase the permanent marks the aliens had left on him when one used his body as its host. Nicolle had a matching set.

He missed Nicolle so fiercely his heart ached. The mate bond throbbed in his heart from time to time but there was no contacting her through the immense gulf of time and space. When he got home he was going to ask her to come away with him, just the two of them, for at least a short respite from her job, and see if they couldn’t repair the mate bond, talk out their grief and regrets from the miscarriage and move forward. He still wanted children with her and he assumed she wanted the same but he’d never actually asked her, fearful of making her sense of loss worse. He hadn’t talked to her about their loss much at all, which he now understood was the absolutely wrong thing to do. He and Nicolle were partners in all things, good and bad. Yes, they could actually read each other’s minds when it came to proactively telepathing but no, they couldn’t read each other’s minds when it came to deeply held emotions like grief and loss.

In the solitude of the forest, he accepted the fact he’d reverted to the Badari mode of hiding his emotions. Nicolle was his mate, the other half of his heart, not a Khagrish scientist who would punish him or others if he let his feelings show. She was the woman he loved and he should have been open and honest with her and invited her to be the same with him.

“Goals to do better,” he said out loud. “Being a mate isn’t a simple thing.”

Darik decided to turn in for the night. He planned to be up and on the move before dawn and a few hours of solid sleep would give him energy to make his last two days of travel to the spring go smoothly. Rising to his feet he became aware of two things—his inner predator was suddenly alert and pacing and the forest had gone utterly silent. Hastily he kicked dirt over the fire and grabbed his pack and spear, moving deeper into the trees around the clearing.

Looking at the sky between the towering trees, he saw three green-and-blue lights moving against the stars, floating together briefly before one shot straight up toward the moons and the other two began skimming the trees. A sound which had no place on this pretech planet assaulted his ears—there were two or more flyers in the sky.

He was being hunted.

Darik sprinted deeper into the forest, weaving between the huge tree trunks. Every time he checked one of the lights was in proximity to his position. Must have scanners. On the heels of the thought he scrambled up a truly giant old growth tree, his claws digging into the bark as he ascended. Once he was high enough, he ran along the branches, each of which was as big as a sapling tree. He jumped nimbly from tree to tree, hugging the trunks when the flyer veered closer. He leaped to the ground at one point and ran along a rocky upthrust before vaulting into the foliage again and repeating his evasive techniques.

Whoever was piloting the flyer finally lost interest and rejoined their companions, hovering quite a distance away.

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