I Married Amreth (Prime Mating Agency)

Chapter 14

Amreth

O ver the following three days, my mate and I settled in a comfortable routine. I loved accompanying her in what I started labeling as our field trips. I assisted in every way possible, although I wished I could do more. Her intelligence, skills, and work ethic never ceased to amaze me. I wouldn’t pretend to understand half of the things she was doing, but I was glad to be able to accelerate the process by capturing the animals she needed to test, collecting some of the samples required, and just flying her around wherever she wished.

Above all, I just loved being with her.

I was falling hard for my woman. It was silly how my mind would constantly look for ways to make her smile. Strangely enough, I had this irrational urge to annoy her from time to time. Not so much that she would actually become angry at me, but just enough for her to get that look in her eyes that screamed she wanted to kick my butt. Something about it was sexy as fuck.

Today, we wrapped up our final tests in the region and prepared for our return to Bryst. Ciara did one last round checking up on the patients of the village before we said our goodbyes to Vala.

“Thank you for everything you have done for my tribe,” Vala said, her voice deep with gratitude. “I especially want to thank you for what you did for Muti’s family. I doubt he ever would have recovered from the loss of his mate. He has loved her since childhood. We had all made our peace with the fact that she would die.”

A powerful emotion fleeted over my woman’s face as she smiled at the village leader. Pride swelled within me as I gazed upon Ciara.

“She’s still fighting and isn’t completely out of the woods yet,” Ciara warned gently. “But things are looking good now. Although I won’t make any promises, so long as the healers continue administering the treatments, I have high hopes that she and the others will make it through.”

“Have no fear, Ciara. Your instructions will be dutifully followed. Until you came, we had nothing but darkness on the horizon. Now, the sun rises again. It is with sadness that we see you leave. Just know that you will always have a home with the tribe of Jaln,” Vala said.

My mate blinked multiple times to stem the tears pricking her eyes.

“Thank you,” she replied with a slightly shaky voice. “But you are not so easily rid of me just yet. We will return to check up on the patients and see how everyone else is faring within a week. In the meantime, do not hesitate to radio call us if anything seems off. Nothing is too insignificant. We cannot take any risks.”

“You have my word. Safe journey, Sister.”

That last word wrecked my mate. To my shock, both females exchanged a hug. After they released each other, Vala also bade me a warm farewell, but an undeniable bond had formed between her and my Ciara. The village as a whole chanted for us as we climbed back inside the shuttle. I had never experienced something like that before.

“Now I see what you mean by wanting to make a difference in people’s lives,” I said softly while piloting the shuttle back to Bryst.

She smiled, her face still displaying the strong emotions this sendoff stirred within her.

“They’re not always this expressive,” she replied with a wistful look. “Some form of clapping, cheering, or offering gifts are somewhat common depending on the situation. Chanting is a lot rarer. Then again, my role rarely lasts until the illness is a thing of the past. Normally, I only stick around long enough to find the cure or treatment. Then I will move on to a different mission, and field nurses or general physicians will stay behind to see the treatment through. So they often are the ones to get celebrated.”

I frowned. “That seems a little unfair.”

She snorted and shook her head. “Finding the cure is only the tip of the iceberg. Those handling the following days, weeks, and months treating the patients have the hardest work. It isn’t easy witnessing so much suffering while trying to give both the sick people and their loved ones hope and the strength to keep fighting. It is heartbreaking every time you have to pull the plug on those who didn’t make it. And you keep asking yourself if there was something you could have done better, sooner, or differently that would have saved them.”

I pursed my lips and nodded slowly, not having looked at it from that angle. “I see what you mean.”

“Everyone in each step of the process is important and essential. So no, I do not begrudge the nurses and physicians receiving most of the accolades in the end. They deserve every bit of it. Knowing that my work contributed to that success is the greatest reward I could hope for. I helped save those lives.”

“That you did, my mate,” I said with pride.

We landed in Bryst a short while later. Once again, we were greeted warmly, almost like heroes. It was silly, but it struck me that our actions in Jaln reflected positively on them, as if we were a member of their tribe helping one of their neighbors. After all, Aku vouched for us and our intentions.

“More of our people will set off on a pilgrimage in the upcoming week,” Aku said as we finished bringing into the deployable lab the last samples Ciara and I had gathered earlier during the day. “We will head out in the morning to clear the main paths to the temple. An increasing number of rabid creatures have been spotted roaming closer to our village and hunting grounds.”

“I would be glad to assist you,” I immediately offered while setting the container down on the counter. “My drones can help locate all of them, and it will be a lot faster to get to them and dispose of the bodies with my shuttle.”

“Thank you. We’re grateful for the offer,” Aku said warmly.

He didn’t need to specify that he had hoped I would. It made sense. On their own, it would take them weeks to scout their extensive forests, with many beasts likely slipping through their nets as they continued to roam around.

“Actually, while you guys are out there, you should mark the locations of the berry bushes and even start uprooting them,” Ernst intervened while opening one of the crates we brought in. “I understand the Jaln tribe has already begun exterminating the strawberries in their area.”

“We were planning on doing that after the culling,” Aku said.

Ciara shook her head. “I think you should get rid of the berries first or at the same time. The type that you have growing here is what we call day-neutral strawberries, which means that they continuously fruit from spring to fall. I had hoped you would have those that bear fruit only once or twice in a season.”

“Of course, we don’t. That would have been too easy,” Aku said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

“Culling all the rabid beasts will only have a bunch more roaming around so long as the berries are still getting eaten. So until your people have decided what you want to do with these berries and what the best containment method will be going forward, I suggest that you dig them out completely and we can help you adjust the soil’s pH to make it more difficult for them to grow again. What we’ve come up with so far isn’t a permanent solution, but it will drastically reduce the probability of more creatures becoming rabid and by extension of making your people sick.”

“We can take care of both during the culling tomorrow. The drones can track both the animals and buried patches at the same time. If you dig them out as we go, we can burn them in the shuttle’s incinerator,” I suggested.

“Excellent idea,” Aku said approvingly. “I will round up a few more people to take care of the berries while we hunt.”

That night, being back in that first house felt strange. It was almost like being back home. Naturally, I shunned the guest room to share Ciara’s bedroom, which also had a bigger bed better suited for my tall frame—not that we slept all that much.

It still shamed me how I repeatedly gorged on her emotions. I couldn’t help myself. Over the handful of days spent in Jaln Village, the tribe had started making jokes about my strange habit of casting an insane amount of lightning in the distance every morning. At first, they feared something or someone had infuriated me, prompting me to vent my fury that way. Then their wariness quickly gave way to amusement. When I asked my mate if she had snitched as to the cause of my behavior, she swore her innocence. Judging by her aura, she was speaking the truth.

So how did they guess? Assuming they did…

The thought that they figured it out because of how loud we got was mortifying. Still, it remained a stretch for them to make the connection. Therefore, I convinced myself that they had no idea but were merely entertained by a behavior they deemed quirky.

That morning, Aku and sixteen Kreelars joined me aboard the shuttle. The return would be a little cramped if we planned on flying back with the carcasses of the creatures. In the end, we agreed to burn them on site to avoid bringing back unnecessarily anything that might be harmful to the people.

I released five drones, sending them ahead to scout the neighboring areas of the path the pilgrims would use. In no time, we found the first couple of wild beasts they called a Murthis. Of all the infected creatures, they presented the biggest threat. At least three meters long, and two meters high, the beasts possessed the broad shoulders and sleek body of a predator. Ciara claimed they looked as if a giant lion had a baby with a dinosaur. I had to look up the latter to find out what she meant.

It had a short greenish coat on its underbelly, and green scales along its thick neck, chest, and back. Even bigger scales covered its feline legs and paws, as well as its reptilian tail, which boasted a series of sharp bone spikes along its top side. The head was undeniably reptilian, triangular-shaped, with a wide mouth filled with dagger teeth, and a long, forked tongue. A huge set of horns, also covered in spikes on the upper edge, sprung from the brow and recurved on each side of its face.

Despite its massive size and weight, the Murthis could move at insane speeds. Its jaw was strong enough to cut right through flesh and bone with a single powerful bite. Thankfully, they usually traveled as small packs of around fifteen. Most males only remained with the females and the offspring they sired on them until the cubs were old enough to start hunting alongside their mothers, which normally took about six months. The males would then set off again on their own, although they remained within the territory that they shared with up to ten other males.

Just as I was hoping that we wouldn’t have to cull mothers and their cubs, drones picked up a suspiciously large pack, at least two to nearly three times the normal number of beasts. A quick fly over with the drone indicated they were all females with their cubs. They looked nervous, the mothers forming a circle around their offspring.

“The females are joining forces to protect their young from the enraged males,” Aku said. “Please tell me none of them are infected.”

“The scanners do not show any infection among these females or their cubs,” I said with relief.

“Perfect. Let’s take care of the sick males then,” Aku said.

I landed the shuttle in a small clearing, half a kilometer from the closest rabid beast. As with the first time they captured me, the Kreelars weren’t armed to the teeth. You’d think they were simply going off on a leisure stroll in the woods. They all wore those poofy pants with a decorative loincloth on top. Barefoot and bare chested, they had a weapons belt and bracers, with the occasional chest straps.

Where my weapons belt included a blade—not quite a full sword, but longer than a dagger—and a blaster, the Kreelars only had a blowpipe barely thicker than a straw, a dagger, and a small pouch containing the darts they would fire on their targets.

“What?” Aku asked when he caught me eyeing them as we exited the shuttle.

“I was only thinking your weapons are quite minimal to face off against such imposing beasts,” I said carefully.

As one, the Kreelars snorted and huffed, looking at me as if I’d said something ludicrous.

“Watch and learn, off-worlder,” a female said teasingly.

With the same mind-boggling speed they had displayed when they came after me, the Kreelars took off running in the direction my scanner indicated a couple of rabid males were located. They split into two groups, one climbing on the trees on the left, and the other on the trees on the right. Aku kept running on the ground straight ahead. I activated my stealth shield and took flight, following the leader.

Watching his tribemates swing from tree to tree took my breath away. Now that I was no longer attempting to flee them, I could admire the physical prowess it involved. They easily leapt over six to eight meters to the next tree, catching a branch with one hand, and using their momentum to propel themselves towards the following tree. It reminded me of the hypnotic motion of a pendulum, their bodies swaying from side to side as they caught themselves with the left hand, leapt to the next tree, caught a limb with their right hand, and leapt again in an infinite loop.

The movement of all those Kreelars traveling at comparable speeds and in almost perfect synchronicity made the whole thing resemble some sort of lethal choreography. Acting as bait, Aku dashed forward on the ground towards their target. As soon as the beast noticed him, it charged with a blood-curdling roar. I fought the instinctive urge to swoop down and haul the Kreelar leader out of harm’s way.

The bold confidence with which he continued to race towards a feral beast at least four times his mass boggled my mind. Watching him simply whip out his blowpipe felt even more reckless. But his aura indicated no fear, just focus and determination. He suddenly veered towards a tree as the beast closed in on him. At the last minute, Aku leapt at an impossible height over the Murthis. It reared on its back legs to try and eviscerate the Kreelar with its vicious claws but completely missed. Before it could get back down on all fours, at least three or four darts found their marks in its underbelly, fired by the tribemates swarming the trees.

But my eyes were locked on Aku. With phenomenal grace and dexterity, he kicked off the trunk of a nearby tree, caught a branch with his tail, using it to swing himself around back towards the creature, and fired a blow dart at the back of its head. He loosened his tail, using the momentum to land back a short distance from the creature. My jaw dropped as the Murthis staggered under the effect of whatever drug coated the darts. It collapsed just as Aku was running up to it.

Grabbing the thrashing creature by the massive horns framing its head, Aku snapped its neck with one powerful movement. And just like that, it was done. The respect I felt for his people grew a thousandfold. Admiration for their skills was only a tiny part of it. It was the merciful and efficient way they dispatched the animal that truly impressed me. I also loved that, as their leader, he didn’t safely sit back at home and let them do the dirty work. He got down into the trenches and took on the most dangerous role.

Despite my stealth shield, Aku lifted his head to look at the exact position I was hovering in, a smug expression on his face. It still messed with my head that they could so clearly see me. I hated how vulnerable it made me feel, which was ironic considering that my people leveraged that very power to track our prisoners.

I nodded in concession before looking for the female who teased me about watching and learning. She was crouching on a thick branch a few meters to my right. She winked at me with a playful grin that had me snorting.

Aku emitted a single high-pitched sound that had all of them moving as one in the direction of the next beast, except for two of the Kreelars who closed in on their kill. They both took a few moments to spray something over the carcass. I presumed it would repel any carrion feeder that might want to take a bite until they could come back and dispose of it. I marked the location on my bracer before catching up to the rest of the tribe. I arrived just in time to see them make quick work of the next target.

Once again, I realized what a deadly army they would be in battle. It wasn’t just their speed and efficiency, but also how incredibly silent they were as they literally flew through the trees. Primitive or not, the UPO needed to strike an alliance with the Kreelars and nurture that relationship for the future.

With the next target located a significant distance away, I landed near Aku, the rest of his tribemates also descending from the trees.

“Impressive work,” I said as I disabled my stealth shield. “I’m curious though as to why you didn’t use your mind disruption ability instead of rushing straight to an enraged beast.”

“Specifically because they are enraged,” Aku said with a smile. “The mind of a rabid animal is already too confused for our powers to work. Your calming ability could actually slow them down as it makes the target a little groggy.”

“I would be happy to do it,” I immediately offered. “Although you don’t seem to need it.”

He grinned at me smugly in a way that had me shaking my head. In that instant, I realized that I would miss him once we left this planet. Under different circumstances, I believed he and I could have grown to be close friends.

“We will remove the berries in this area before we move on to the next beast,” Aku said pensively while glancing around us.

“I’ll go fetch a hovering platform so that we can bring back the carcasses to the shuttle’s incinerator as well as the crates to put the bushes in,” I replied.

“Thank you, my friend,” Aku said.

Once more, I watched in amazement the efficiency with which each of them worked, their physical strength and stamina easily rivaling some of the fittest Warriors I knew. On more than one occasion, I wondered if they had some sort of a hive mind happening. Nothing specific prompted that assumption. It was just a combination of things in the way they required little communication as they worked collectively towards a common goal.

They formed a line and moved forward as they tore out the berry bushes, stem and roots. A few of their tribemates shadowed them holding the crates in which they dumped the plants while also observing the ground for any signs that anything had been left behind. As they filled them, I grabbed some of the crates, flying them back to the shuttle, and then dumping them into the incinerator.

For now, the Kreelars and my mate’s team agreed not to play with the pH of the soil until they better understood how it might affect the surrounding fauna. Although their initial tests indicated that it would be safe to use some aluminum sulfates to lower the pH and make it less suitable for strawberries that thrived on more acidic soils, there was no rush. The current cleansing would give us a long enough reprieve so that more thorough tests could be performed first.

Everyone got back in the shuttle, and we moved to a different sector. They dispatched four more Murthis as well as a handful of less lethal, smaller rabid creatures that still threatened the local fauna.

We moved at a phenomenal pace that hinted we could clear the entire area by the end of the following day. By early afternoon, we flew back to the village for lunch and for the Kreelars to restock on darts. This time, instead of us eating in the meeting room next to the deployable lab in the inner courtyard, our hosts invited us to join them in their gathering hall.

It was common practice for them to eat together, although it wasn’t like everyone ate at the same time. While the room could fit the entire tribe, they usually came in smaller groups, like the infants with their parents or caretakers, the farmers and crafters as a separate wave, and then the hunters, although not necessarily in that order. That didn’t prevent people from various groups from coming in at a different time or mingling with others. If nothing else, the Kreelars appeared to be very informal, with a strong sense of community.

They didn’t have formal currencies. Everything was based on trade, goods for goods or services, whether within the tribe or with their neighbors. That they invited us to share their meal said a lot about how they were now accepting us as friends and not just intruders. Hopefully, it would give us an opportunity to get a deeper look at their society, which they were zealously keeping secret from us.

I couldn’t blame them for only showing us the strict minimum necessary for us to accomplish our task here. The less we knew about them, the less they exposed potential vulnerabilities that could be exploited later.

Multiple tables were set in the back corner of the building, with large windows looking out onto the square. A buffet had been laid out on one long table. It was one of my first times seeing their use of electricity with wide trays that kept some of the salads and vegetables cool, and burners that kept the cooked dishes warm.

While the hunters who had accompanied us scattered at various tables, Aku and Enre settled with my mate, her colleagues and me at our own table. We enjoyed the meal while making casual conversation. Most of it was dedicated to our hosts inquiring about our lives off-world. I didn’t miss how they skillfully deflected any efforts we made into getting them to open up more about their own people.

Under different circumstances, it might have come across as distrustful if not a little offensive. But he wasn’t the leader of his entire species. I strongly suspected that he and the other Kalds had agreed to avoid oversharing as it could potentially impact all of them. As only a handful of them had met any of us, they had no reason to trust us, despite the blossoming friendship we had with Aku.

At least, his questions were harmless. He wasn’t trying to pry into anything that might jeopardize our own national security. It was the type of friendly chatter one would have with a new acquaintance regarding our families, hobbies, and what led us to our respective careers.

Just as we were preparing to head out again, my com went off. Intrigued, I glanced at its interface, thinking it was only a notification from my scouting drones having detected more feral beasts. To my shock, it was an actual message.

‘You have company.’

“What in Tharmok’s name…?!” I whispered to myself.

A set of coordinates and a frequency followed that single sentence. The identity of the sender was unknown. Technically, I shouldn’t be receiving this type of direct message here. It was not using basic analog radio frequency, but a digital one which required connectivity.

“What’s wrong?” Ciara asked, her face displaying the same curiosity as the others.

I shared the contents of the message with them then redirected one of my drones closest to those coordinates to see what was happening.

“Company?” Aku echoed, his face and voice hardening. “More off-worlder ships came?”

“I’m assuming that’s what this means,” I said carefully while calling up the holographic display from my bracer to show the camera feed from my drones. “Give me a minute.”

At first, it didn’t show anything, even when I set the scanner to the widest radius. I recalibrated the device to scan on the frequency provided in the message. Within seconds, it detected a camouflaged vessel a short distance away. My stomach dropped when the zoom in revealed a Nazhral ship.

“Fuck! That can’t be good,” Ernst said.

“Who are they?” Aku demanded, with a glimmer of suspicion and betrayal in his yellowish-brown eyes. “What are they doing here?”

“Based on the vessel, they belong to a species with a rather bad reputation when it comes to smuggling and piracy,” I explained cautiously. “But I have no idea who they are, or why they came here. We’re all finding out together. If we were up to no good, I would not be sharing this with you in real time.”

Aku appeared embarrassed for implying we might have been double-crossing them. He gave me an apologetic look, and I smiled, indicating I wasn’t offended. Under the circumstances, he had every reason to be suspicious of off-worlders.

The drone followed the ship discreetly. Thankfully, I had set all of them to stealth mode to avoid causing any distress to the fauna while surveying the land. As it didn’t possess the advanced anti-detection systems of a military-grade drone, I worried that our targets might detect it. However, as the intruders had no specific reason to suspect we were onto them, they blissfully went about their business, apparently not scanning for potential threats.

To our collective shock, their ship headed straight for the Svast Temple. Aku uttered a series of swear words in his language. Enre bared his teeth, the same fury visible on his features. Even though this wasn’t my planet or my sacred shrine, I felt personally violated when I watched them land in a large clearing near the pathway that led to the entrance.

“Thank God there are no pilgrims there right now,” Ciara mused aloud. “I can’t imagine how ugly things might have turned otherwise.”

“It seems incredibly convenient,” Aku countered, the same anger visible on his face. “Just yesterday, over four hundred of our people were there. Tomorrow, hundreds more will arrive in the morning. How did they know to come today to be undetected?”

That was an excellent question that triggered many more, all of which would likely yield the type of answers I dreaded. But two passengers disembarking from the vessel sent another shockwave among us. Despite the model of the ship, it wasn’t a pair of Nazhrals who came out, but a human and a Raithean.

“What the hell?!” Ciara uttered under her breath.

Although stunned, I immediately directed the drone to capture their images to attempt facial recognition. Unfortunately, as I didn’t have network access, I would need to transfer the data to my contact later to try and identify them.

Both intruders walked the short distance up the path to the water by the entrance of the temple. The human remained on the edge while the Raithean went into the water. He waded through the shallow part, occasionally pausing for a few seconds before moving again. And then he dove into the deeper part, completely vanishing from view while his companion observed in silence.

“What are they doing?” Aku asked. “Who are they? And are they a threat?”

Frowning, I shook my head, failing to find a satisfying explanation.

“I’m not sure. They came in a vessel that does not belong to either of their species. But they could have purchased it used in a shipyard for a reasonable price. They don’t seem to be doing anything other than the Raithean getting into the water. It is salt water, correct?”

Aku nodded.

“As you can see, Raitheans are an amphibian species. They need to soak in salt water at regular intervals. So it might explain why he is doing this,” I said, although my tone made it clear that my own explanation didn’t come even remotely close to convincing me.

“Fair enough,” Aku said, his voice still dripping with suspicion. “But why our temple? There’s plenty of water everywhere else. Some of the areas they flew over on their way to Svast had large, unobstructed shores that would have been a lot more convenient for them to land in. This feels too deliberate.”

“Oh God!” Ciara suddenly exclaimed. “This is Kalmia! They’re here to kill us all!”