Chapter 40
Romival
A smirk pulled at his face as the barrier technology deployed perfectly.
He lifted his finger from the display as he watched through the camera of Holly’s combot as it projected the ovular barrier around her and Hattie both while Sizuka was repelled backward with what, no doubt, must have been a painful jolt.
Beside him, Atem let out low breath of relief. On his other side, Tuvo was growling, barely keeping himself in check.
“Good work,” Atem growled. “I didn’t think it was going to catch up to them.”
“If it were an ordinary combot, it wouldn’t have.” Romival smirked, pride filling him. Not just for his own creation, but also for his female. Holly was so brave. She had just faced death, afraid but unflinching.
Hattie’s combot was still at the marketplace. When she was dragged under, it had been unable to keep track of her. Holly’s combot, however, Romival’s personal creation, was not only faster than a standard model, but its tracking technology was military grade.
As was its light barrier technology. Nothing but air would get through that barrier. However…
“Its power source is small,” he said to his Dominani. “It can only keep the shield up for a quarter of a mark if we’re lucky. Then, it will fail, and they will be vulnerable again.”
“I don’t intend for it to take that long to rescue them,” Atem growled. “Havali is already leading the other guardians to the tracking beacon in the combot. A few other peacekeepers have diverted to pick up Valorii. She will pay for this.”
Romival grunted in understanding, watching on the display as Sizuka was helped to her feet by the other females in her clavas. They were hissing to each other in their native tongue now, but he didn’t have that imprint, so he didn’t know what they were saying.
Something he planned on rectifying the first moment he got.
Atem, however, did have that imprint and he translated briefly. “They’re trying to figure out where the combot came from and worrying about us tracking them through it.”
“A reasonable fear,” Romival growled, observing Holly’s movements as she and Hattie looked around their orb of safety.
The light would have dug into the mud and water beneath them, forming a complete shield.
It was powerful but since the combot was so small, it wouldn’t last long.
And once it burned out the power source, the combot would die completely and they would lose their ability to track it.
But as Atem said, they didn’t plan on taking that long to find them.
“What are they doing?” Tuvo snarled as they began to surround the orb.
“They can’t break through,” Romival assured him. “It’s short lasting, but it’s power is comparable to the shielding on a battle cruiser.”
“You fit that into a standard combot?” Atem asked, even more impressed than he had been even just a moment ago.
“The technology isn’t all that complicated once you’ve completed the math for it. The hardest part was programming it to respond to her DNA and capturing her without hurting her.”
“I don’t think they’re trying to break through,” Tuvo said when the females began moving.
Romival growled a curse as, instead of attempting to break or attack the barrier, they went to the crates of supplies they must have brought down with them and began creating a basic net that they then threw over the orb.
It wasn’t complicated and, if they were free, Holly and Hattie would both be able to squeeze through easily.
But it caught around the orb, sizzling as the light began to spark – but the lifeless, artificial fibers absorbed the power surge without issue.
“Can water get through that?” Atem asked, concerned, as the females began towing the orb along after them as they dove back under the surface.
“No. But air exchange will be compromised. And with the net setting off the defensive charges, the life of that shield was just cut in half,” Romival said, frustrated at their insistence. “It’s fine. The tracker is still activated. Havali’s team will catch up.”
“They swim fast,” Tuvo growled.
The ratchi, as a species, evolved in heavy swamplands on their own planet. Their bodies were designed to swim with ease through thick mud. They had no issues at all cutting through the flooded forest, even dragging Holly and Hattie’s orb behind them.
“Krik this!” Tuvo snarled, turning. “I’m going after them.”
Without a word, Romival and Atem both turned to follow.
Holly’s combot, which was only partially above the surface of the water, showed him approximately where they were in the trees as well as gave him a view of Holly and Hattie being obviously confused, trapped in their bubble that was mostly submerged.
But they were safe, and that was all that mattered.
“That combot,” Atem said, looking not at Romival’s but at Holly’s through it, “can you make another?”
Not at all surprised by the question, Romival grunted in confirmation.
“I want one for vi Peony.”
“It will take some time, but consider it done,” he assured him. “Speaking of Adassani, are you coming with us or staying here with her?”
Atem snarled. “They are my sisters. Of course, I am coming with you. Peony will be safe with the others here in the palace. This won’t be a long trip.”
Romival accepted that easily enough.
What really confused him was Tuvo.
He had declared his intention to go before either of them could. Romival was confident in his combot’s ability to protect Holly until she was tracked, and Atem had been ordering Havali to lead the group to do so.
It was strange that Tuvo would be the first to declare his intention to go himself.
He watched First Warrior’s back as he led the way outside to where Atem’s hover – the fastest hover between the three of them – was waiting. His kinked tail was twitching angrily, his fists were clenched and ready to destroy an enemy that was far out of reach.
He had said that he didn’t want Hattie, but Romival was fairly certain that this righteous anger radiating off of him wasn’t for Holly’s sake.
When Tuvo practically threw himself into the hover, Romival checked Atem to find that he was giving Tuvo a suspicious, angry look.
Tuvo and Atem were like brothers, but just the idea that Tuvo might want to claim one of Atem’s sisters was enough to set off his instincts and even the love that Atem possessed for Tuvo was not enough to save him from that.
Considering Romival was still a target for that same, instinctual ire, he found it kind of funny to see another subjected to it.
Especially someone who had declared he wasn’t going to pursue one of the humans.
But Tuvo certainly seemed like a domin on a mission to protect his adassi as he turned on the hover and took it into the air before Romival even had a chance to seal the door at the back after he climbed in.
“What direction?” He asked over his shoulder, already heading in the general direction that he knew the females had been taken.
Romival came to stand beside him, sending the tracking information from his combot to the hover so Tuvo could follow the trail directly.
“Where are they heading?” Atem asked, staring at the map that appeared on the control console of the hover.
Confused because there should have been nothing in that direction.
Only denser and thicker forest that would get progressively less flooded the further they traveled from the lake where the flooding originated.
Tuvo growled, his hands tightening on the controls. As they got further from the city limits of Calvitorum, the trees would get closer together and the routes between them more hazardous and less familiar.
Why would they be going out this way? They couldn’t know that the barrier had such a strict time limit, so he doubted they were just trying to run it out until the shield died. So, they must be going somewhere.
As Tuvo flew – like a madman – Romival got lost in thought. Trying to figure out what they were planning to do with them.
Instant death and revenge made sense, but why take them? Especially when they already suspected that they were being tracked. It was a rather difficult thought experiment because the domini weren’t like the ratchi.
But if there was anything he had truly learned from Holly, beyond just a basic understanding of her planet, was that it was important to separate his thinking from human thinking. His expectation from that of another. In this case, ratchi thinking.
He knew that he himself, as a domini, would get nothing by capturing them.
Kidnapping someone was not honorable, would gain him no titles, accolades, or advantages.
If he was after revenge, he would have attacked them outright, either on the street or after capturing them successfully.
And the ratchi had tried that initially, but failure had led to this.
So, how would a ratchi think?
Ratchi males went out after they came of age in service of their clavas.
They either had to perform a great deed, obtain something valuable, or earn an honorable name for themselves.
There was no end to the things that would qualify as success and earn the title, and scars, of an adult of their clavas.
Only adults had the right to speak among their clavas, to make decisions for themselves, and to mate – so it was an important rite of passage.
The ratchi that had been killed in this attempt, they had captured first Atem, then the human females when their subspace jump home went awry and placed them near Earth instead. By ratchi culture, they owned Atem and the females.
Except that Atem was beyond them. It had been duplicity and treason that delivered him into their hands.
The human females, despite not having the same rank, were more of a prize because they had been found and captured without help.
And by ratchi standards, that meant the females were prizes to the clavas.
Not quite the same as a possession or slave, but the difference in definition between them was very gray.
It was against ratchi law to mistreat or abuse a living prize, and it was expected that, if you claimed one, your clavas was responsible for its care for the rest of its life.
It was, after all, a prize, and such things must be treasured by their very definition.
Her revenge failed, now thwarted by Romival’s barrier technology, she instead would look at the females as what they had originally been.
Prizes.
Something to claim and bring home. Just because it was law to care for their prizes didn’t mean this rogue clavas was going to do it. They weren’t kidnapping them right now, they were taking their prizes back where they belonged.
Romival gestured to his combot, setting aside the continued feed of Holly and Hattie, and instead sent out a message to Havali and First Voice Survii. The latter of whom spent most of his time in orbit as being in space made communication with other worlds easier.
He was in the best position to help Havali find the ship that would take the ratchi home.