Page 74 of I Married A Catman

“We do not want interference,” Gaelec interjected, his tone immediately hardening.

Tedrick raised his palms in an appeasing gesture. “Nor do we intend to. Like I said, for this to work, it must come from you, not us. So long as you stay the course, the head of our outreach program will inform you of whatever new programs or services may arise that could be beneficial to you. Just know that there are some security measures embedded in the most valuable pieces of equipment that we gave you.”

“Like what?” Gaelec asked, his back stiffening.

“Nothing intrusive,” Tedrick replied in a slightly mocking tone. “But we want to make sure you remain in control of all of this. Therefore, all the deployable buildings, com system, geothermal system, speeders and shuttle have biometric locks configured specifically for you and Ophelia. Should anyone attempt to steal them, you can remotely shut them down, and no one will have access to them again until you reactivate them.”

“This, I approve of,” Gaelec replied with a shit-eating grin.

With this, he gave us a quick overview of some of the security features included with the equipment provided, followed by two solid hours of their female engineer working with Gaelec to set up the geothermal system. The atmosphere and mood in our budding village was electric—pun intended.

By the time the Enforcers left, all five buildings had been deployed, hooked to our new electrical grid, and to both our water and sewer systems. The latter two would require significant upgrading to optimize their function, especially to help support what we hoped would soon be a growing population. But for tonight, it would give us a similar comfort level to what we previously had in Nevian.

That first night, we celebrated with a big feast on the beach. We agreed to temporarily use three of the deployable buildings as dwellings. Gaelec and I would use one, Kazaer and the three young males who had followed him would share another, and the four older males from Nevian would share the third. The remaining would be used for more official functions. One of them would be focused on everything food-related, like both our fish plant and larder. The other would serve for crafting.

Once we finished building proper dwellings from scratch, we would gradually shift the other three deployable buildings to more specialized functions such as a school and medical clinic. After moving our ‘mattress’ and belongings into our new home,Gaelec and I went all out baptizing every room and every surface in the naughtiest way possible.

Life was good.

Chapter 18

Gaelec

Contrary to what Tedrick implied, we didn’t get the news about the raid until the next day. Then again, we’d been a little too busy playing with our new toys to really devote much time tracking down any tidbits of information we could get.

For all the relief we felt for having wisely steered clear of it, reading the fate that befell those who went out of stubbornness—but especially those who did out of desperation—broke our hearts. The Enforcer didn’t exaggerate by saying they wanted to make a statement with this. Nearly two hundred males from various Prides were caught alive. Fifty-six lost their lives trying to escape or resist. Twenty-three were injured, some seriously maimed. Every single survivor, injured or not, was guaranteed a minimum of fifteen years in a Q2 or Q3 on Molvi. For most of them, it was a death sentence.

On top of that, their Prides were fined a flat amount for each of their members as punitive damage for their part in encouraging or coercing them to participate. It would be a severeblow to a lot of them, as most Prides pushed their males to participate in those missions to bring back desperately needed extra income. They likely wouldn’t have the credits to pay.

Naturally, our government would challenge that sanction, claiming that the Enforcers had no jurisdiction on our people. My gut told me that the UPO was hoping specifically for that response so that they could then put the burden on our government to take steps to eradicate piracy. Obviously they never would. Too many of our major corporations and wealthy preyed on our males intentionally to do their dirty work. Most of Melelyn’s technology was stolen during those raids. The firms who funded these missions would then reverse engineer and sell their knock-off versions of the same technology.

In all probability, once the UPO either threatened or applied sanctions against Melelyn due to our government’s lack of cooperation, our leaders would likely simply pay the fines or negotiate a lesser amount, promising to instate some sort of educational programs to help fight crime and crack down on recruiters.

All of which would conveniently meet one hurdle after another until it was simply abandoned before it ever truly took place.

Despite how devastated we were by the news, especially since most of us knew at least one person or more from the list of names that was made public, we needed to focus on our own future. Anyway, we still had tons of work to do building our new home.

The next five days flew by in a whirlwind of activity. The village was coming along nicely. Thanks to all the gifts we received, my original budget remained intact. We were debating whether to buy a small fishing ship or build our own. With the fancy tools we now possessed, we could make something pretty impressive in a relatively short amount of time. However,considering all the other work we needed to do, we had to carefully weigh what made the most sense for us.

The biggest issue was the need to bring in credits. Without the shuttle, we would have had a bit more time. But as we had to pay the lease on it, we had to bring in some form of income. Fishing was the fastest thing we could do on that front… which required a boat. On the other hand, if I didn’t spend my credits buying that ship, we could use them to pay the lease, which would keep us covered for several months. If we had more people helping us build everything, then it would have been a non-issue.

And that was the crux of it.

I didn’t know how I felt about the fact that, contrary to Tedrick’s warning, no one had come knocking to join us or even attempt to take over what we were building here. Although relieved that we could continue building our new home in peace, a part of me felt a little hurt and even slightly depressed that no one seemed interested in what we had to offer. In truth, I expected the floodgates to open the minute people heard what a failure the mission had been. Was I truly so out of touch with my people that I still completely misinterpreted what other males might want?

And then the tsunami hit.

Exactly seven days after we received those gifts, and ten days after leaving the Nevian Village, the one person I truly hoped to see showed up. My brother’s happy shouts alerted me as to the identity of the intruder announced by the perimeter motion detector.

I rushed out of the house we’d been working on only to see Kazaer running towards the forest. It was silly considering she was still a few minutes away. But she also wasn’t alone. Based on the security system, three more females we’re tagging along.I didn’t quite know how I felt about it. It could both be great and seriously problematic.

Walking hand in hand with my mate, we approached the entrance of the village, our other males, especially the younger ones, perking up. My stomach knotted with apprehension. Although they’d not been with us for very long, I’d seriously grown attached to all the members of my Pride. They were good, hard-working males, and had so far shown themselves to be respectable and honorable. Without bringing females into our village, they would eventually have no choice but to leave. I couldn’t expect them to remain celibate through their prime years while personally enjoying the companionship of my own mate.

The newcomers finally cleared the forest. My chest warmed at seeing Ylis and Kazaer entering the village, their hands clasped, and their eyes filled with the joy of being reunited. Despite us having established our com system, my brother complained about her going radio silent since he joined us.

At first, he acknowledged that things were probably shaking up so much over there that she had her hands too full to contact him. But as more and more days went by without a word from her or any response to his messages, Kazaer started convincing himself that she never truly wanted a future with him and had used my project of starting my own village as an excuse to get rid of him.

Although I went out of my way to reassure him that he was being silly, I couldn’t deny feeling relieved she was finally here, confirming that she had not been leading him on.

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