Page 98 of The Commander

He made her whole. Their home was safe.

But a tub would be very nice.

CHAPTER 33 - BASTAIN

The wind whipped at Bastian’s cloak as he surveyed the area. A tapestry of muted greens and browns, dotted with the remnants of human farmsteads and forgotten old towns, stretched as far as the eye could see.

It was a couple of miles from their lodge to the greenhouse he planned for Kitten. She insisted on vegetables, so he would give his mate a way to grow vegetables. They would not be trading with any humans they had seen. She was lucky he had left them alive.

After a burst of noise, the crow friends he’d cultivated went silent. They’d learned to follow him when he was in the woods in the expectation of scraps being left behind. Their quiet signaled a change in the forest. Prey or…strangers.

He had company. Because of the magnetic fields here, any of the Sarrian would have to walk in. They weren’t here by accident.

He led them away from Kitten and the greenhouse. There was a cluster of five buildings lining a street that Kitten told him was called Miller Creek. People had lived there, once, but it was largely abandoned now. With some of the trees cleared out of the way, he’d be able to see them better.

There were no red hats with the group. He counted four prime battlers and a gray-skin with a fifth, smaller figure keeping pace on a silent hover disc. A female. To the battler’s credit they did their job. He never heard or saw the female with them. Her softer, musky scent was too unusual to go unmarked on this planet. But her team knew what they were doing and took her protection seriously.

Once in the town he perched in a tree for the vantage point and waited, watching. They slowed. Knew he was there. Other than the normal hand to hand combat weapons, it appeared they didn’t carry anything long range. Not acting or looking like an attack party, he decided to see what they wanted.

Jumping from the limb of the gnarled oak, he allowed them to see him. The woman stepped forward first. He’d never had an opportunity to meet her personally, but he knew who she was. Dulcina Nectuis Xylos.

He guessed that two who were barely past their naming ceremonies, with tipped chins, their name day blades gleaming at their hips were her sons. The tallest, hulking battler with a scarred face must then be her mate. Another survivor of the bug planet, Bastian recognized him. A gray-skin stood a little behind her, her link to her shuttle and the Anciadrimda.

“Commander Bastain, I want to make a treaty with you,” Xylos called out before approaching, wasting no time on pleasantries. Her voice, less brassy and irritating than Eld’s, carried a steely undercurrent.

He didn’t answer.

“Eld is dead.”

As he expected. If she wanted dramatics, he wasn’t going to provide them.

“I killed her when she returned the cruiser. She is no longer necessary. Her reckless visit here enabled me to solidify my position in my House as Arch Prima. I have a proposition for you.”

He made a show using his survey device to pretend to check the time, tapping a fingernail against the screen. “Lay it on me, sister. My hunting schedule is rather full.”

She ignored his sarcasm. “You will be decommissioned. Just as others have been decommissioned. Permanently. I’ve already informed Control that you have entered into a private breeding program under my care.”

Bastian chuckled, a low rumble in his chest. “Your private breeding program? Really? Does it come with vacations? Health care?Is there a frequent flyer program? Do I get a complimentary fruit basket?”

She gave no indication that she understood his taunts. Females like her, as a rule, did not dilute their intelligence with alien data downloads. She didn’t have an implanted input device. That was what her gray-skin was for. “I will provide you with the coordinates of the other primes. Those who, like you, have chosen to disconnect.”

“A support group? Excellent! Will there be snacks? Matching T-shirts? Because I’d rock a T-shirt that says, ‘Fuck the Establishment.’” He grinned, flashing all his teeth.

This time, her younger son couldn’t contain himself. His choked back snort earned him a steady glare from his counterpoint, a belligerent sibling on the other side of their mother.

Bastain was unsurprised to learn that other battlers lived. It had taken a never ending stream of armored, poisonous giant bugs to wipe most of them out. There were few things that could kill them. So, they lived with mates. Human, he assumed. Now disconnected from Control and under the guise of this woman’s private breeding program. “How did you make that happen?”

“As you know, the Goddess’s will has been twisted and corrupted for a hundred years on Sarria since the ascension of House Ruccuna.”

“I don’t need a history lesson, woman. I am well aware of the stories. A wife who felt scorned and wanted power, who twisted her daughters against the goddess. A weak, drunk, prime battler mate who sent others to do his fighting instead of doing it himself. The rise of the other players in the great game. Social outcry. So on and so forth.” Bastian cycled his hands in a human signal to get on with it.

The woman had been trained as an orator and librarian. She couldn’t help herself.

She touched her mate’s arm. Her hover pad stayed low to the ground, slightly behind him. Not in deference, but in an understanding that he needed to be able to move to protect her.

“But you are a hunter. A born hunter. If you were not, you would not have finished the ritual. You would have abandoned it.Abandoned your mate and the old ways like the others.” Her face shone with her earnest belief.

“I don’t subscribe to theHunter’s Way,anymore.” As far as he was concerned, the goddess of Sarria and all she stood for died on the planet with a bunch of foaming bugs.

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