Chapter 2 Ror’k
The practice battlefield lay buried under a thick layer of unexpected white, and the spring sun was quickly melting what had been deposited after the previous night’s freak storm.
I drove my shovel into the top-most layer of the wet, heavy snow, lifted a large amount, checked to make sure it was relatively clean, and deposited it in the oversized plastic bin.
Kaj’k worked beside me in a steady rhythm, his body efficient in his movements.
It was strange to see a hunter doing simple domestic chores, but perhaps it was a good thing.
Tasked to eliminate the scourge, our kind had followed them across the stars for centuries.
It was good to finally set down roots, even though I might not live long enough to see it to fruition.
The entire settlement of New Franklin was diligently working this chilly spring morning to salvage the late-season snow, leaving only the dirty bottom layer to soak into the ground. The settlement planned to use the meltwater to jumpstart their spring crops.
This wasn’t the training I’d expected to do, but it was still good exercise. Now my shoulders ached differently than they did after training with my blade, a weapon that hadn’t seen real combat in years. By the time we cleared the arena, my stomach was growling, and I was ready for food.
Kaj’k must have silently agreed because he stuck his shovel into the snow bin we’d just filled and said, “Let me grab my mate, and we will visit the cafeteria in the survivor building.”
It took me a moment to realize he meant the mess hall.
Tarv’k and his mate Evie had left to monitor the closest nest, which meant we had to visit a cafeteria in one of the human residential buildings if we wanted anything other than our food bars.
Packed with everything our bodies needed during the swarms when we spent entire days fighting, the food bars did their job. But we were at the tail end of the cold season now, and we didn’t need that much protein anymore, no matter how many hours we spent shoveling snow.
And if I had to be honest, I’d taken quite a liking to human dining fare.
Back on the mothership, I would eagerly wait for hunters who had started working with humans to visit, because they often brought food with them.
Some of the offerings had been better than others, but most were tastier than our food bars.
And I’d often wondered whether it was possible to reformulate our bars to make them more palatable without losing their nutritional value.
Sticking my shovel into the snow next to Kaj’k’s, we started back toward the hunters’ compound. Kaj’k’s mate must’ve sensed our arrival because she stepped out before we got to the door.
“Let’s go grab some grub!” Alice sent us a grin, then hooked her arms into the crook of Kaj’k’s elbow.
I fell in step behind them, wondering what the larval stage of insectoid creatures had to do with anything. I knew she wasn’t referring to hunting the scourge. But why else would you grab a grub? Humans had many strange sayings, and I didn’t pretend to understand all of them.
Perhaps if I’d come here with Jask’l at the onset instead of to a food production facility after losing our mothership, I’d understand more.
Jask’l had lived up in the mothership with me, but unlike me, he seemed to be dealing with the loss of our home very well.
He was integrating into this settlement’s blend of human and Xarc’n culture much better than I.
The inside of the survivor building was bustling with life.
If I ignored all the wet boot prints on the floor, it almost reminded me of the mothership when everyone was on board and we were hurtling through space to our next destination.
It was too crowded with many bodies and many voices.
Except these were not the purple bodies of young warriors on their way to training, talking about their plans for the next big hunt when they finally arrived at their new planet.
These were humans. They came in all shades of beige, from pale, creamy, almost pink, to the rich, dark color of fertile soil.
I scanned the faces as I always did now whenever I stepped into a new space, looking for that streak of pink hair that differentiated my mysterious female from the rest, but she was not here.
It had been four days since the most beautiful female in the galaxy gave me a new obsession, a new reason to live.
The next morning, I saw her again in the courtyard between the buildings and froze, not knowing what to do. So I just watched her, trying to formulate what to say. That evening, I visited the hunters’ compound again, but she didn’t show up.
I’d been looking for her since, and while I kept finding her tantalizing scent in the main survivor building and their community center, I’d only caught glimpses of her here or there before she disappeared behind a wall or into a crowd.
I cursed my damaged olfactory system and blamed it for my inability to find one single female.
It had been decades since the injury that landed me permanently in the mothership, and the visual scars had turned faint, but the damage to my senses affected me every day.
No other hunter would have such difficulty locating a female in such a tiny settlement. But perhaps she had already left New Franklin, having only been here for the Trader’s Market.
I’d stopped checking inside the rooms after I accidentally stepped into a room full of half-dressed human females and was loudly berated.
I’d run out, confused, not knowing what I’d done wrong.
At first I thought humans wore bodily adornments only because they could not regulate their temperature well, despite having evolved on this planet.
But now I understood that humans were strange about nudity.
They were also extremely loud and vicious when they were upset, especially the females.
I hadn’t dared enter an unknown room since.
I continued to follow Kaj’k and Alice toward the mess hall. Many of the survivors waved and greeted the pair, and some looked at me with interest. It was strange to go from a place where everyone knew you to one where no one did. I felt completely out of my element.
Kaj’k opened the door and ushered his mate and me through.
A cacophony of scents assaulted my nose the moment I stepped inside.
Some were pleasant, like the savory smells coming from the food in the front; some were less so, like the unbathed male standing by the door.
But one stood out like no other, and it had me scanning the room for the mysterious female.
“Earth to Ror’k, do you copy?” Alice’s voice interrupted my thoughts, along with her hands waving in front of my face. “Are you okay? You look dazed.”
I did not know what we were copying, so I just said, “I’m hungry.”
It wasn’t the whole truth. Sure, I was hungry for food, but my real hunger was for the mysterious female who’d attacked me with her lips that night.
However, I knew better than to express any interest in females when around the hunters and their mates.
They were constantly conspiring to get more hunters mated and joining their ranks.
I was too old for that. And too damaged. But apparently my body felt otherwise because I’d thought of nothing but the mysterious female for days.
“I’m hungry too! Let’s get in line.”
We did, but my eyes continued to scan the crowd for her.
She was the reason I’d accepted Jask’l’s invitation to stay in the grounded mothership with him instead of returning to the island food production facility after the market. Though if I had to be honest, they didn’t have a job for me there anyway. Technically, there was no job for me here either.
Usually, overseers stayed as overseers until they took their final mission and fought the scourge for one last time, dying in battle and glory. There’d never been a spare overseer until me.
And because of that, I found myself occasionally wondering if it was time for me to plan that final battle.
Was that why Jask’l had invited me to stay close to him? So he could keep watch over me? I knew he didn’t believe it was time for me to go yet. I was old, but not that old. If the scourge hadn’t infected our mothership, I might still have had many more decades.
The younger hunter had even asked me to take over his role as the overseer of the grounded mothership, or the mothership building as the humans preferred to call it, but I’d rejected the offer. Jask’l and the humans working with him were clearly doing a much better job than I ever could.
Besides, this wasn’t my ship. My ship, my baby, the only home I ever knew, was gone.
I’d come to New Franklin to witness the human survivors’ First Annual Trader’s Market.
The hunters had hijacked the event for an excuse to see comrades from hunter groups that they’d fought with before.
I hadn’t expected to recognize so many faces.
I hadn’t realized I’d trained so many young hunters in my time.
It had been a strangely emotional experience.
And when all was said and done, the hunters left New Franklin for their respective groups. That had felt even more like the time for my final mission was nigh. All these hunters were doing well. They were the future, and they no longer needed me.
That was until a gorgeous, bespeckled female, who smelled like flowers and alcohol, came crashing into me. She’d surprised me so much with her mouth-to-mouth mating that I was left unable to speak. I also didn’t have enough working brain cells left to follow her home or even ask her name.
I just stood there in the cold at the corner of the hunters’ building like an idiot.
I felt an elbow to my ribs. Kaj’k looked back at me with concern on his face.
“You do seem distracted.”
“Just hungry.”
“Well, come on, you gotta move,” Alice said. “We’re holding up the line.”
We continued through the line and picked up our portions of breakfast burritos: packages of animal ovum cooked with vegetables and pieces of nutrition bar, all contained in a thin, doughy wrapping.
It tasted better than it sounded, with plenty of interesting spices to tantalize my palate.
Considering my less-than-ideal sense of smell, that said a lot.
Maybe that was why I enjoyed human cooking so much, because I needed the extra flavor to taste anything at all.
Unlike in the hunters’ compound, all the tables and chairs here were human height. They were awkwardly small, as were the tiny metal utensils. Luckily, many humans were picking up the wrap with their hands and eating it. I did the same until laughter had me looking toward one corner of the room.
There she was! I’d found her!
The female with the heavy-framed glasses on her face and white-tinged hair sat at a table with several other humans.
“That’s Dottie,” Alice said. “She came by to visit a few days ago. You’d just missed her when you came by.”
Was it that obvious I was staring at her?
I knew I hadn’t asked the question out loud, but Kaj’k chuckled and replied anyway. “You are staring at her with your mouth open, your burrito held several inches away. It is quite humorous.”
I snapped my mouth shut. I did not want to be the source of their humor.
“I can introduce you two! You guys would be perfect for each other.”
“Oh no, Ror’k, run! She’s going to start matchmaking,” Kaj’k said, running a hand down his face.
“No, seriously,” Alice said. “You two would be great together. She’s a little older and works at the library, and you’re a little older and were an overseer. It’ll be so cute.”
My brain latched onto the word “library.” I knew what that was. It was a physical repository of information, and in this settlement’s case, a place where they stored all their books and manuals.
“That is not necessary,” I said sternly. Even as I did, Dottie stood along with the humans in her group. Together they stepped out of the mess hall, laughing and talking.