Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

Acouple of hours of hard marching later he found a semi sheltered spot in a rock upthrust where he figured they could wedge themselves in, make a crude roof from woven branches and be relatively safe from the worst of the storm. "Stow your gear," he told Raeblin, "And come help me cut branches."

She was a good worker, fast and with an eye for which branches would be flexible enough to weave into the canopy he was planning. As soon as they'd gathered a sufficient quantity, Brent led her to the rocks and together made quick work of creating the shelter. He jammed it into the rocks as best he could, weighed down with rocks and then joined her in the small dry space. The rain was coming in small bursts and the winds were picking up and he figured they were in for it. Ushandirr's storms were legendary for their severity but usually blew over by morning.

"Did you want a fire?" she asked, handing him a survival ration and a drink pack.

He stared at her. "Seven hells no. Do you?"

"I'd heard humans like to have one at night to give comfort," she said, blushing.

Brent laughed with genuine humor and downed his drink in a series of long swallows. "Nice of you to ask but I'm not a sit around the campfire kinda guy." He patted his pulse rifle. "This is enough moral support for me."

Raeblin stared at him, taking in his lethal alertness, even after the events of the day and all their hard marching. She had no doubts if the enemy showed up in the next five minutes Brent would defend her and given any chance at all, he'd get her to safety yet again. He might not be a Badari but he was a dangerous, deadly man. She was glad he was at her side—she was so out of her depth and lost in the current situation and it was reassuring to follow his lead. She certainly wasn't a tip of the spear soldier. The thought reminded her he'd been injured and guilt washed over her. She should have treated him hours ago. "May I please look at your wound now?" She injected determination into her voice. This was her domain, her expertise, not his. "You're not Badari and an infection could be serious if left untreated. The wound could fester."

He stared at her for a long time but she met his eyes steadily. "This is my job," she said finally.

"All right but be quick. I'm going to freeze without my shirt." He stripped off his uniform shirt and his tight fitting black tee shirt with a quick motion and hunched his injured shoulder in her direction.

Fortunately being Badari she had excellent night vision and could examine the wound as well as if it was broad daylight instead of a cold, rainy night. "Not too bad," she said, opening her kit.

"Told you." He was as truculent as ever.

"This will take a minute." Cleansing the wound with a quick pass of the appropriate device, she held him steady with her other hand. Where her fingers grasped his muscular bicep her skin tingled and she had the sudden insane desire to stroke and lick. What the seven hells is wrong with me? Must be in shock from the day's events. Brent was no Badari but he was taller than she and well built, with a six pack abdomen and muscles which had to be big for a human. Her Badari sense of smell reveled in his scent—masculine, clean, with a hint of musk and an undefinable spice. Her inner beast wanted to roll in the scent and purr. Raeblin couldn't believe the way she was reacting to him sitting next to her, shirtless. Her predator rarely manifested itself at all and certainly had never exerted itself in this way. Hastily she applied the proper meds and a wound sealer. "Good to go," she said raising her hands away from him as if she'd been scorched. Taking in a deep breath of the antiseptic to counteract Brent's scent, she made herself a bit dizzy. "Do you still want adrenaphix? Or a pain killer?"

"Nah." He craned his head trying to see what she'd done and flexed his arm. "Good as new, thanks. I'll see how I am in the morning, as far as the stim."

"All right." She made a business of repacking her kit. "What do you think happened today?" she asked, seeking to divert her thoughts from the effect Brent was having on her.

With his shirt halfway on, he shrugged., "The Khagrish have been doing enhanced patrols lately. Guess it was our bad luck one was close enough to the facility we hit to come in as reinforcements. Shit hit the fan fast."

"I didn't hear anything on the telepathic link," she said, trying to settle into her small portion of their cramped shelter.

"Nothing on the subaural com either," he answered, confirming her assumption. "Standard orders are for our guys to bug out immediately."

"At least we got most of the humans safely away." Raeblin tried to derive comfort from the thought but she kept seeing the corpses of the unfortunate humans who'd been with them in the lobby.

"There was nothing you could have done for them," Brent said in a low voice, squeezing her knee. "Don't beat yourself up about it. Today wasn't our day to die but their numbers came up. At least they died as free men and women and not under a Khagrish torture device."

"Cold comfort for them," she said bitterly, although she appreciated his support.

There was companionable silence for a few minutes. Brent passed her a survival ration and she handed him a drink pack and they ate what was going to pass for dinner. The calories were sufficient but unexciting.

"Did you try calling to the pack?" he asked her.

"I tried, after we were in the forest." She blushed and was glad he didn't have her night sight ability. "I know I should have tried sooner but I was distracted?—"

"Hey, no, don't give yourself a hard time. Our first priority was to escape, which we did."

His words were nice but Raeblin was well aware she'd screwed up. "A more experienced soldier would have contacted Camron or one of the others while escaping." As long as she was confessing, she figured she might as well get it all out there. "I don't have the range the Generation 8's do, you know. I can't reach very far, certainly not to the valley."

"Hell even Aydarr himself can't telepath across the damn planet and he's the Supreme Alpha." Brent nudged her with his shoulder. "They'll know we're out here through the pack bond and come extract us as soon as the coast is clear."

"We—we don't have a pack bond like the men do," she said, hating to disappoint him. "We have a certain amount of linkage but nothing like the Warriors." The Daughters had had such a different experience over their history, locked in the isolated mountain lab. They hadn't endured the tortures and experimentation the men had suffered but they'd had their own horror. In an ironic twist of fate, however, the Daughters were all created from first generation DNA with relatively few tweaks and lacked some of the power and attributes the Warriors took for granted. She was in permanent awe of all of them.

"Aydarr'll find us." Brent's tone was final. "Our job is to head for home and avoid getting captured on the way."

"All the way to Sanctuary Valley?" Her voice squeaked at the thought of hiking the hundreds of miles between this forest and the packs' current home. "It'll take us weeks."

"Got a better idea?"

Fortunately the storm intensified, with thunder crashing right above their heads, or so it seemed and the rain became a solid curtain striking the ground, and further conversation became impossible. Brent had constructed a good shelter for them and Raeblin didn't get wet but it was cold and miserable. She thought she wouldn't be able to sleep but found herself drifting off, worn out by the events and emotions of the day.

Brent knew when she awoke, startled to find herself nestled close to him, head on his shoulder. He immediately moved, gently shifting her aside before stretching. "You had bad dreams," he said when she raised her eyes to stare at him. "I couldn't get you to wake up but you settled when I put my arm around you."

"I often have nightmares about the science annex at the lab where we grew up and what was done there to Daughters, like Jezari." Her voice was low and she fiddled with the clasp of her medkit. "Thank you."

"No problem." He'd liked having her pressed close to him and her Badari body heat was welcome too. They ran much hotter than humans and the night had gotten pretty cold. Truth be told, he and Raeblin should have left their shelter and been on the move an hour ago but he'd been strangely loathe to disturb her, once she'd been sleeping peacefully. I must be getting soft in my old age. "We need to hit the trail—I've heard a Khagrish flyer go over twice so they're obviously looking for us."

Hand to her mouth, she let out a gasp. "How do they even know we're out here?"

"Whoever was shooting at us when we ran knows they didn't hit us." He shrugged. "We'll stay deep in the forest and in the proximity of the rock formations as much as we can. The mineral veins mess with their scanners but we do need to head out. Breakfast will have to be on the run."

Five minutes later they were making good time through the forest, heading generally west, although Brent led her on a few tangents, trying to throw the Khagrish off their track. "The good thing," he said when he called for a pause for a quick break at a small stream, "Is the bad guys will be communicating with their superiors about the hunt for us and MARL will pick up the traffic, which will let our guys know for sure we're here and give a rough location. We just have to stay out of the jaws of any enemy traps for a few days."

MARL was an ancient alien Artificial Intelligence who'd been found in Sanctuary Valley by Jill Garrison when she escaped from the Khagrish. The AI had been her ally and thus an ally to the Badari through the entire conflict to date. He also provided power and protection to the valley. Raeblin was fascinated by him every time she saw him floating next to Jill but she'd heard some of the Badari thought there was too much reliance on the AI's capabilities and loyalty. She had no opinion on the matter but if he could help get Brent and herself out of the mess they were in, she'd be eternally grateful.

The day passed in a blur of hiking, with short breaks periodically and moments of intense fear when the Khagrish flyer appeared in the sky. After the third such incident, Brent cursed and said, "Their search pattern is getting closer to us each time. I'm a little surprised the hunters haven't called in reinforcements but this crew probably wants to hog the glory for capturing us."

"What can we do?" Raeblin asked, hoping he had a technique or a strategy she wasn't aware of to evade their pursuers.

Instead he clapped her on the shoulder in a gesture of soldierly comraderie. "No easy solution. Keep moving till dark, like we have been. The Khagrish close down at night, for cultural reasons I guess. Never heard any other explanation. Not too smart on their part but the Khagrish have weak spots, lucky for us. If you're up to it we'll keep moving after dark for a few hours and try to get out of their search zone. Throw them off tomorrow."

"Sounds good."

He knew she was tired but he appreciated her matter of fact acceptance of the situation. He was happy when he could finally call a halt. The campsite was a bit better than the previous night, located in a grove of trees. Briefly he considered a fire, even though Raeblin had said she didn't need one but ruled it out. This would be the one time the damn Khagrish did keep searching after dark.

"I wish we could have hunted or fished today," she said as he shared out the remaining survival rations. She regarded her dinner with distaste. "These things taste like cardboard and remind me too much of the lab where I grew up. We had a garden and occasionally we were allowed to leave the facility to hunt or fish but not often. We ate better there most of the time but the director would punish us sometimes by putting us on rations."

"Once the pursuit is called off we can take a chance on hunting and fishing," he assured her. "We won't make it to Sanctuary Valley unless we do. Neither of us packed more than the required minimum of survival bars and it's a long trek. At least we had berries along the way today."

Raeblin smiled but her next question was a serious one. "Are we going to keep watch tonight? I know no one was out in the storm last night so we could skip it but?—"

"I wasn't deep asleep," he said, a bit insulted. "Soldier sleep, wake up at the slightest hint of a situation."

"Ah, I see. Well, I'll split the night with you. Want me to take first watch?"

"I can handle it," he said.

Eyes glowing, she rested her fisted hands on her hips and glared at him. "We're a team here and I'm not about to let you shoulder the whole burden. There's no reason I can't stand watch." She rested her hand on her pulse rifle, close by, next to the medkit. "I can shoot, you know."

"I know—you saved my bacon yesterday with your covering fire. All right, point made. You can take the first watch. I guess I'll turn in now then."

Without another word he lay down and wrapped up in his lightweight but effective, silvery blanket, for all intents and purposes asleep immediately.

Open mouthed, Raeblin stared at his back. We didn't have to stop talking. Even though Brent was right there, loneliness hit her like a cold wave. Pulling her rifle into her lap, she let her Badari senses expand, tasting the wind, sampling the sounds and finding a certain amount of peace in the night. Her inner beast prowled, intrigued by the forest around them and even more interested in the man sleeping close at hand.

Brent was an enigma to her. The Badari Daughters had virtually no experience with the opposite sex at all prior to coming to Sanctuary Valley. There had been a few Khagrish men at the lab where she was raised but Raeblin didn't think any of them were a good template for what a man should be. Even a year in the company of the Badari Warriors hadn't enlightened her much. They were fierce soldiers, much more in touch with their inner predator than she or any of her sisters were, but considerate and polite to the humans and their small pack of Badari women. Even though she'd trained with human men and Badari, and worked alongside the doctors and nurses in the valley's hospital, she hadn't grown close to any of them.

She and Brent certainly weren't close. She'd managed to pull a bit of conversation from him as they marched. In answer to her questions he'd shared a few stories from his youth on a colony world, a few anecdotes from the time he and Gabe, her Alpha's mate, had been in Special Forces together and then as mercenaries. She'd offered up a bit about her life before Gabe rescued them all but she was ashamed of her past. All the Daughters were. They'd believed the lies the Khagrish fed them and went willingly to the slaughter when the time came. It had even been hard for them to believe Gabe when he told them the truth of what the Khagrish were doing at the lab and showed them.

"You didn't have any way to know,": Brent had said when she haltingly confessed her embarrassment. "The Khagrish are good at lies. And Gabe said there was a Badari woman you all trusted who was in on the lies too. The important thing was you stepped up when the time came and helped to get yourself and your sisters free."

His praise warmed her. Of course then the next minute he reverted to being coldly efficient about their trek through the forest and the conversation time was over. He was an odd mix of the hard, deadly soldier, man of few words, and a kind, sensitive person underneath. Well, kind to her anyway. She smiled as she remembered how he'd insisted she eat the majority of the berries they'd found earlier in the day.

She'd spent quite a bit of time with Gabe, since he was mated to her friend and Alpha, Keshara and the two men shared the aura of being deadly when called upon to fight or to protect, but otherwise Gabe was much more approachable, always teasing, openly affectionate with Keshara…Brent intrigued her because he seemed to be so closed off, except for those tiny flashes of a caring man underneath. Like holding her all night the first night because she'd had nightmares.

He didn't like her insisting on standing watch, not because he didn't trust her, she was sure, but because he wanted her to rest. Not going to happen. I have to do my share to get us home safely. With that thought she rose to her feet and did a patrol of the nearby area, weapon hot. Since she was a predator, she hoped none of the various large threats in these forests would venture close, but she wasn't willing to ber her life or Brent's on the belief. Now a Badari male, at seven feet tall and weighing in excess of 300 pounds of sheer muscle, with fangs and talons to match would undoubtedly send any hunter running. Flicking out her talons, Raeblin chuckled at the contrast between herself and any of the men in the packs. Better weaponry than a human was born with but nothing compared to a warrior's.

"Well the human proverb says the female of the species is actually deadlier," she said under her breath as she finished the patrol and settled in again next to Brent's sleeping form. I'm not quite sure how the concept works but I guess we'll see if we get in a combat situation again. Actually she hoped they had an uncomplicated hike home to the valley or better yet got picked up by their own people in the next day or so. She wondered if she'd ever see Brent again once she was home safe. He and Gabe were tight but he didn't spend any time with her pack. Maybe she and Brent would get assigned to another mission—they were functioning well as a team, or so she thought. The prospect of not seeing Brent made her sad and she debated going on another patrol to work off her unusual emotions.

Raeblin decided it was better to stay at their campsite where at least she had Brent's company, even if he was sleeping.

When he finally roused himself, right before she would have called him, she got to her feet, gave him a snappy salute and grinned. "Nothing to report. No action. I did one patrol of the area but it's all quiet."

"Good job," he said with a nod. "Now turn in and get some sleep. We need to hit it hard tomorrow and see if we can't lose the damn bird dog on our tail."

She wanted more interaction with him but Brent dug into the sentry position she'd vacated and was staring out at the dark forest, weapon ready for trouble so Raeblin picked up the blanket, enjoying the faint scent of the man which her Badari senses made plain as day. The idea of wrapping up in his blanket pleased her and rather defiantly she did so, reclining so she was facing him, although he paid her no mind.

Drifting off to sleep because it had been a long hard day, capped off with standing watch for hours, she heard him say softly, "Have good dreams."