Chapter 12 Ror’k
It was a small rescue team. Remi, the female leader of New Franklin’s guards, had taken one other human in a Xarc’n shuttle they’d salvaged. And together, we’d flown quickly to join Kaj’k.
The NEM was already leaving as we arrived, and we’d watched from the air as groups of scourge had started to travel toward the area.
Had they expected us to stop where they’d just vacated instead of following them and get ambushed?
We weren’t dumb enough for that. Especially when following the cloaked aircraft to their new location was easier than expected.
The Earth-style rotary-bladed aircraft made a distinct sound and was easy to track even when cloaked.
I didn’t know how they managed to use our cloaking on their vehicles, but I was sure our Tech Wizards would love to get their hands on it.
While it was easy to track because we knew what to look for, it still avoided visual detection.
According to the conversations I’d had with the human Tech Wizards, our cloaking technology was very different from Earth’s attempts.
I didn’t understand much of it, despite being an overseer.
Not many hunters did. Our technology was created by the now-defunct Xarc’n military centuries ago.
Hunters were made to follow orders and fight, not to understand technology.
But things had changed so much since the beginning, even before we found Earth.
Our creators had given us the bare minimum.
We were fighters, nothing more, and comfort wasn’t part of the design.
We’d questioned that, and some of us pushed back.
The more technologically inclined among us made improvements to our shuttles and weapons, reducing casualties and improving our odds. And then we discovered Earth.
Earth, and her intelligent and wildly intriguing humans.
They were the first to be able to break down and understand our technology.
For the first time since Xarc fell to the deadly combination of the scourge and our mighty military’s own folly, we found beings intelligent enough to fill the role of Tech Wizard.
But most importantly, Earth had biologically compatible females.
Here we could set down roots and start again.
And here I was, on a mission never detailed in our protocols, searching for a female who would probably not make a difference in our fight against the scourge. Destroying the scourge had been my life’s only mission until now. Dottie was in one of those shuttles, and I had to rescue her.
We hadn’t expected the New Earth Militia to drop our females off with some of their men at the new location and fly out without them. They were loading the females up into their ground transports when we arrived.
It was an easy rescue mission. Too easy.
The few armed combatants they’d left behind hadn’t expected us to come charging in, my bladed staff and Kaj’k’s battle axe blazing with plasma energy.
They shot wildly at us in a blind panic.
The fight was over before it even started, and Kaj’k was stomping over to sweep his mate up into an embrace.
I turned to the females, chest puffed out and eager to see Dottie’s reaction to the rescue.
I knew instantly that something was wrong.
The air carried Dottie’s scent, but it was faint and fading, as if it were clinging to the clothing of the females present rather than really being here.
I scanned their faces, and my chest tightened. She wasn’t here.
“They left her,” Alice said from Kaj’k’s arms. “They said Dottie was too old and they left her. It was an abandoned bar.”
“Shit!” Remi paced. “They called in the scourge after. We saw them stream in.”
I turned on my heel and stormed back to my shuttle, the gravel scattering under my feet. Every instinct in me screamed for me to move, to track, and to hunt her down before it was too late. She was out there, alone, and surrounded by scourge.
Alice’s enthusiastically yelled, “Bring her back, Ror’k!” were the last words I heard before my shuttle’s door slid shut.
I powered the engine and climbed high, the shuttle vibrating with the steep launch as I scanned the terrain, searching for any signs of her. But all my brain could focus on were the groups of scourge leaving the other location. Was it already too late?
A growl tore from my throat, the sound filling the shuttle’s cabin. I forced myself to breathe, to think. I scanned the abandoned city again. There! A group of scuttlers was chasing something. I urged the shuttle closer, hope surging in my chest.
The hope was dashed when I zoomed in on the screen and realized it was not Dottie but two human males.
These males were not wearing NEM armbands or uniforms, and decades of training demanded I hunt down the scourge chasing them.
But I didn’t have time for that, not with Dottie still out there, so I did the next best thing.
I shot my shuttle’s nets at the group of scuttlers, trapping them so the two males could escape unharmed. I’d return later to clear them out.
First, I needed to find my female. I landed at the building where the NEM had left Dottie. The main group of scourge was gone, but a few still lingered in the area. They crowded around one of the storefronts and didn’t react until I was right on top of them to mow them down.
Their reaction reminded me of how the scourge reacted to our lures. Except if one of our lures had been going off, my shuttle and communication device would have warned me. Also, I’d be able to hear the faint, rhythmic pulses it gave off.
I leaned over to see what had kept their attention, afraid of what I’d find. But instead of prey, all I found was rubble. There wasn’t even the scent or residue of blood from their feast.
Relief hit me that I hadn’t found scraps of Dottie’s clothing.
I was just stepping away when the morning sun slanting in from the horizon caught on something metallic in the rubble.
I reached in and picked it up. It was a small device that looked similar to a human-style communicator, but much smaller, with a tiny screen and several buttons.
I pressed the tiny button with my large Xarc’n fingers. Nothing happened; it had no power. It could be just a part of the rubble, but something told me it wasn’t. I tucked it carefully into the pouch on my belt and continued looking for signs of Dottie.
I found her scent, acrid with fear and apprehension, several doors down. I followed it out away from the building. She’d left before the scourge arrived, and there were others with her. I recalled the two males I’d seen earlier. Those must be their scents.
My sense of smell wasn’t what it was in my younger years, but it was enough for me to follow them down the street where the two male trails vanished.
Curious, I backtracked, piecing the scene together.
They’d doubled back and continued down the other road, and the scourge followed them, giving Dottie a chance to survive.
Renewed with hope, I followed her trail for a short while. Then, certain that she was making her way back to New Franklin, I jogged back to my shuttle.
The cry of a flyer, a normal one that was out extra early, had me looking to the sky. The creature had spotted something. It cried out again, calling all the scourge in the area.
She was out there, and I was going to find her.