Hunting Cari (First Wave) (10 page)

“I
believe Cari should stay there for now and allow Amun to evaluate her and her
gifts to the extent of his ability and send all information to our tech’s here
so that they can better understand her. And we should ask Cari what she would
like. Scaden, we will also send a Med-ship from here directly so that her, and
the other children like her can be fully evaluated.”  Ivint ordered. As the
High Councilor, he alone had the authority to override the rest of the council
members.

“I
believe you are correct Ivint, and I shouldn’t have allowed my emotions to get
in the way of my judgment. However, I respectfully request to be on the
Med-ship. And I believe there are other family members of the other potential
survivors who may wish to be there as well, in case their loved ones or
children are found.” Caretia stated, her eyes welling up with tears.

“My
mate and I would also like to be on that ship Ivint. It’s been a long time
since we’ve seen our son, and we would like to be able to do so in person and
not just through the comm’s.” Councilor Macner added.

“We
are dealing with an unprecedented situation. This requires us to go against
previous rules that have been set for hundreds of years. And I can’t help but
think about the children we may find and their mothers. I can’t in good
conscience agree to seize their children from them and whisk them away to
Valendra, because their children may be the only hope for the survival of our
people. And I agree that Councilor’s Lakatis and Macner and the others who may
have surviving family should be able to go.” Councilor Namashoo, the only other
female member of the council besides Caretia, stated. The rest of the council
nodded their heads in agreement.

“Then
it is settled. The ship will depart as soon as it is ready and since there will
be council members aboard, we will send along the proper escort ships to ensure
their safety. With such a heavy presence of ships in the area, we don’t want to
take a chance that the Relians will think of us as a good target. Scaden, make
sure extra precautions are in place and that the crew remains on high alert.”
Scaden’s father commanded.

“As
you wish, sir.” Scaden breathed a sigh of relief.

“Randor,
I believe now would be a good time for you to try to explain to us what
happened that allowed you and your crew to find mates. And what happened on the
outpost.” Councilor Davos requested.

Chapter Eight

Amun
settled Cari in her quarters and began the scans to determine what he could do
to help her. Cari had begun to feel better as soon as they left the comm room
though and was in no mood to be fussed over.

“Stop,
Amun. I’m feeling ten times better than I did in there. Why do you think their
emotions got to me so badly? I’ve never experienced that kind of … overwhelming
feeling before.”

“Honestly,
I don’t know. But if you sit still for just a few minutes, I can finish these
scans, and we might be able to see if there is something that can answer that
question.” Amun replied, smiling indulgently at her. He adored this woman, as
did the rest of the crew, and he didn’t want to see her in pain the way, she
had been when he walked into the comm room.

Somehow,
this beautiful little girl crawled into the hearts of the entire crew within
only days. Her smile lit up any room she was in and her happiness and wonder at
everything on the ship was contagious. And he didn’t think it was only her
projecting her emotions. There was something so very charming about her that
made everyone want to be near her and make her happy. He grinned again when she
huffed out a breath in frustration. It reminded him of Scaden, who did the same
thing all the time.

“So,
have you figured out if we can have children together yet?”

Her
bluntly asked question startled him so much he almost dropped the scanner in
his hands. “What?!”

“Oh,
I don’t mean you and me, specifically; I mean me and a Valendran, in general.”
She clarified throwing a cheeky smile at him.

“Now
what makes you think I’ve even tried to figure that out yet?” He teased,
wanting to see what she was trying to get at.

“Oh
please! It’s probably the very first thing the council wanted you to find out!
So give, I have a right to know too.” She made her best scowl face at him and
all he did was laugh at it. So much for intimidating him, she thought. None of
the guys on the ship seemed the least bit bothered by even her best scowl or
angry looking faces. They generally just laughed at her attempts to look tough.
Now on Earth, she could make those guys cower from her. She’d done it in stores
all the time when she thought someone was invading her personal space.

“Actually,
no one has asked me to find out. I think once the shock of finding you wears
off; I'll be bombarded with that question. Why, do you have someone in mind
you’d like to try to have a child with?” He asked wiggling his eyebrows up and
down at her.

Cari
blushed fiercely and laughed at his antics. Actually, she thought about it more
often since she got on this ship than she had in all her years. However, she
wasn’t going to admit that to Amun.

“Of
course not, I was just curious. I think I would like to have a child one day
though. And it would be nice to know if we, I and a Valendran were compatible,
or if it is only our mothers who are compatible.” Cari hoped that would
distract him from the curiosity she could feel from him.

“Well,
I guess you won’t be mad at me then for going ahead on my own the other day
when you were in MedLab, and running the tests?” He teased her with another
grin. She huffed out another frustrated breath wanting the answer, not teasing.

“Of
course I’m not mad, and I want to know! Tell me! Have you told anyone else?” He
grinned more broadly at her demanding little tone and could almost imagine her
stomping her foot in frustration, if she wasn’t sitting on her bed.

“Why
would I tell anyone else before I told you?” He asked, knowing she was getting
more frustrated by the second, since he could feel the frustration building in
himself and knew she was beginning to project her feelings.

“Amun,
I swear if you don’t tell me I’ll… I don’t know what I’ll do, but I’ll think of
something and it won’t be nice either!”

He
laughed again and decided to use the scanner to figure out how her gift worked
while she was not only frustrated but projecting.

*****

“We
escaped from the outpost by stealing one of the Relian ships. The controls were
unlike anything we had seen before, and we knew we wouldn’t get far so we
headed to the first place we knew would sustain life, figuring we could hide
out there until the rescue ships could come and get us.”

“And
it’s lucky we did too. It wasn’t long before the Relians were on our tail and
firing at us, and the ship sustained heavy damage. Taran was able to figure out
enough of the ship's weapons systems to fire back at them and damage their ship
as well, but we ended up crashing on the planet. We saw the Relians crash as
well, but they ended up thousands of miles away from where we ended up, thanks
to Taran’s skill navigating the ship.”

“At
first we tried to stay away from the humans because we didn’t want to do
anything to influence them. But when years went by, we knew we weren’t going to
be rescued, and it was getting harder to avoid people. We are a much larger
species, and we couldn’t disguise ourselves very well. So we gave up on hiding
and decided to help where we thought we could, without greatly interfering with
them.” Randor paused, gathering his memories.

“The
first time we helped form a society, they called themselves the Sumerians.
Their ruler had the right idea about governing the people and setting up a
city, and we agreed to help them. The people flourished for many, many years.
Until the Relians, who had crashed, found us. They didn’t come after us and
kill us; they plotted from the shadows and turned the minds of the people dark.
They no longer wanted a fair and just society who lived in peace; they began to
want war and terror in the hearts of their own people.”

“We
fought to stop it from happening, but it became inevitable. We left, and struck
out again hoping that if we were gone, the Relians would eventually leave the
people alone. We did our best to help people during our travels in any way that
we could, but decided that it was too dangerous to them to stay for any length
of time.”

“It
was during our travels that we came upon a small band of men and one woman.
There was a man, in particular, who told us that he was an emissary of the All
Father and he had come to Earth to spread peace and share the teachings of the
All Father. He said that he knew of our plight, and to never give up hope. That
the All Father was going to send to us gifts and that one day our people would
come back for us.”

“Of
course, we could never have anticipated the gifts that he was sending to us.
There were other emissaries sent through the years that would later find us and
tell us the same thing. But like with anything good, the Relians had to destroy
that too. The first man, who came, was named Jesus, and we would never forget
him. He was a truly amazing man. In the end, the Relians turned the people
against him, and they killed him.”

“The
Relians began to twist and destroy the messages of the emissaries until the
people began to believe that they were supposed to hate and destroy those who
were different. They began starting wars among themselves, killing any who
didn’t agree with the contaminated beliefs that the Relians had made them
believe. Sadly enough, even today there are people who wear the shroud of
hatred like a blanket and continue to hate and kill based on what the Relians
taught them.”

“The
Relians even corrupted the Holy books that told the true story of what the All
Father wanted the people to learn. And now they are nothing like what they were
to be. It was during this time that the Relians had the people build the
pyramids in their honor. They installed themselves as religious leaders and
prophets among the people and ruled them with hate and violence.”

“They
had themselves so well protected that we couldn’t get anywhere near them to
destroy them. So we stayed far enough away to not be detected by them and ended
up in what is called Greece. It was there that Taran met Lita. She was a
beautiful woman, and he took one look at her and couldn’t stay away. Though we
warned him against it, he took her to wife. It was the next day that they
emerged from their home that we saw the Ator-Ma on them both. We didn’t know
what to think at the time as we knew from previous scans of the planet that
originally no compatible females existed on the planet.”

“Then
how did the females get there? Were the initial scans flawed in some way?”
Councilor Davos asked.

“No,
they weren’t flawed. The females weren’t there at the time. They were being
born. And they were easy to recognize as well, though we didn’t know it at the
time. It wasn’t long before Lita was pregnant. Any doubts we had that their
mating was just a chance encounter, had fled. She gave birth to a healthy baby
girl that she, and Taran named Iria.”

“Lita
had a unique gift for healing. She could find any herb or plant with medicinal
properties and heal just about anything. And one by one, we began to encounter
special women in our travels. Each one with a unique gift and each one turned
out to be a mate to one of us.”

“We
had mates and children, and we were happy. Then the Relians found us again.
This time they were angry we had found mates that could bear children, and in
all the years that they had been raping and plundering the planet and its
people they had never found anyone that could bear their children.” 

“They
found Razak’s mate and child alone, and tortured the little girl so her mother
would tell them what she knew. In the hopes of saving her child she told them
that we had figured out that the All Father had put special women on this
planet for us and that each had special gifts, and we would recognize them
through these gifts. She told them that the children we created also had these
gifts. After they had learned everything they could from her, they killed her and
her daughter.” Several council members gasped at the news.

“They
began actively hunting us then, killing our women and children whenever they
could find them. We had learned to hide well and after years of rarely finding
them, the Relians decided to try to eliminate the women before we could find
them, they started influencing more religious leaders in the area where we had
been living. They began whispering that anyone with special gifts was a witch
and in league with a dark entity, they called Satan, from their Holy book. This
had the people terrified, and they began turning in anyone whom they thought
may be a witch. There’s no telling how many women, meant for our people were
killed during the years that followed, or how many innocents were killed, through
hatred and jealousy.”

“We
knew that we could no longer protect our women and children together. Not only
did the Relians outnumber us, but they were using the humans to help hunt us
down. We decided to separate from one another in the hopes that we would be
much harder for them to find.”

“Through
the years, there have been only a handful of times that our path crossed with
another's, and we kept the encounters as brief as possible in order to protect
the children. These few times we exchanged as much information that we could
about the gifts of the children, and the others that each of us had
encountered.”

“I
have a list of those we can confirm dead, and the dates and places that I last
heard from others and their families. The places would not give any clues as to
their current locations, but it may give us a place to start.”

“I
also have a few ideas on how to search for them based on the planet’s current
technology. Like our comm system, the people have a way to access a global
computer system that allows them to keep in touch with others around the
planet; they call it the World Wide Web. There may be a way to set up a
website, a place for the others to find us on there, that can’t be accessed by
the Relians or regular humans. I have thought about doing so before, but since
there was no way for me to make sure the others couldn’t be hunted and tracked;
it wasn’t worth the risk.”

“With
the technology on this ship, we should be able to create it and secure it. If I
could work with a few techs on board we could probably have something up and
running before the ships arrive.” Randor ended, waiting for the response of the
council. It concerned him that they had not spoken even one word while he
related the information to them, other than councilor Davos.

They
broke many rules while on the planet. Under the circumstances that they had
faced, he was hoping the council would overlook them.

“Scaden,
ensure that Randor has access to any tech's, he needs to set up this website he
speaks of. It would help us greatly if we could help the others find us,
instead of attempting to search an entire planet for them.” Councilor Torenson
ordered.

“Yes
sir, I will assign my best tech’s to him immediately.” Scaden answered,
wondering when they were going to ask the question he most wanted an answer to.

“Randor,
how did you know which women were different? Other than their unique abilities,
specifically how were you and your men able to determine which woman was meant
to be your mate?” Councilor Satiya finally asked the question Scaden most
wanted to know.

“We
would become unreasonably angry and possessive when another man looked at or
spoke to our woman. Our thoughts revolved solely around them to the point of
obsession. We would ache with the need to be with them and touch them. There
was a feeling as if there was a primal beast inside demanding us to stake a
claim on them before any other could. I had heard many times that this was the
feeling all of our men felt when finding their mates.”