“There was a human colony there, near a mine for Orb-material. Hundreds had died when the Scorp had overrun it. Our first combat mission, on our first week of service, was to find the source of the infestation and eliminate it.”
I laugh bitterly.
“Oh, we found them easily enough. The Scorp… Gods, the Scorp were deep in there. We found a series of caverns near the colony that was just teeming with them.”
I shudder, remembering the holo-projection from those tunnels. Scorp had skittered and scurried from every point of entry like cockroaches…
Only, nine-feet-tall cockroaches, with claws that could cut a man in half with a single snip, and barbed tails laden with the deadliest venom in the universe.
“The older guys were laughing about it,” I tell Ashley. “They’d all cleared a dozen nest each. Fuck. One of them had two confirmed Queen kills. They thought we had nothing to fear…”
They were wrong.
“Oh, fuck, Ashley. I watched him… I watched him…”
I watched him die.
I watched all of them die.
The image of that particular soldier flashes back to me.
He was in his eighty-first year of service – and had the scars to prove it. As tough as they come, and eager to be finished with his hundred years of service so he could start building his harem.
He was, perhaps, the toughest man in our company – and I’d never seen a hard man like that scream before.
But now, whenever I try to sleep, it’s his screams that keep me awake.
Out of all the men we lost that day – all but the three of us – his are the screams that will haunt me the most.
They were so high-pitched, like those of a terrified little girl in pain.
He was the toughest, bravest and most noble of all of us – and I remember how all the pride and nobility left his face as that man lay writhing and twisting on the ground, dying from the Scorp venom plunged into his veins.
I reach down for the weapon at my waist. As I touch the shard of Orb in the hilt of my sword, I remember what my triad and I witnessed that day.
It explained everything, and yet explained nothing.
Scorp are meant to be mindless. They’re meant to be a hive entity, that kills and feasts and drags the crippled, still-living survivors back to their Queen; to be implanted with their vile eggs.
But these Scorp?
When we reached the center of their caverns, we found a hundred of them – a thousand – gathered around and worshipping an enormous, shimmering Orb.
They must have been bringing it sacrifices – dragging the humans they captured to the Orb, rather than their Queen – because in return, the Orb filled these skittering, scattering Scorp with an otherworldly energy.
They were changed. Different. Deadly.
These Scorp moved so fast, we could barely counter them. They had such power to their blows, it sent grown soldiers flying across the caverns. Their carapaces were sheening with the Orb-imbued powers; making them more deadly than any Scorp we’d ever heard of before.
A company of warriors should have destroyed that nest in hours.
Instead…
“They all died, Ashley,” I stammer. “Our whole company died. They were slaughtered. Only we survived – and only because we ran.”
The shame wells up inside of me.
“Evander made the decision, but we all followed him, without even stopping to question it. We left our company to die. We left the men we’d trained with to their deaths, without even trying to help.”
I shudder.
“Without… Without even giving them the mercy of a quick death.”
My mind fills with the painful memories. I look up, into Ashley’s eyes, and I see her recoil with the intensity of my emotions.
“Do you know what happens when you’re stung with Scorp venom, Ashley? Do you know what that does to a man?”
I know my eyes are wild and crazed. Ashley should be looking at my weak display of emotions with disgust. Instead, she stares at me with a warmth and caring that feels unreal – that I feel unworthy of.
“You would have died down there too, if you hadn’t run,” she says.
I yank back my hand from hers, as if the touch of Ashley’s skin was scalding hot. I don’t deserve a woman’s touch, least of all one like her.
Even in that shapeless bathrobe, nothing can hide Ashley’s perfect curves. She is fertility incarnate – all softness, and round lines, and beautiful, generous flesh. I ache so badly to claim her and forge the Bond between us – before she can realize how little I deserve her, and deny me her love forever.
“Aurelians don’t run,” I hiss.
Ashley reaches forward, grabbing my hand again and squeezing it.
She looks right into my eyes – deep into my soul.
The beautiful blue of her eyes is so much deeper than my own. I could stare into them for hours. I want to drown in them, to have all my shame and guilt washed away in their depth and beauty.
“Everyone runs if there’s nothing to gain and everything to lose,” Ashley reassures me. “If you’d died down there, you’ve never have come to Reena. You’d never have saved me. I’d have been sold to Don Sloor, and I would be…”
She visibly shudders in front of me.
“Gods, I don’t even want to think about it. I need another drink!”
We’re already halfway done the bottle – but it feels right to drink with her, to let my guard down and be honest.
We’re taught in Aurelian culture not to display our emotions. We’re taught it’s a sign of weakness. And yet, when I show Ashley my true self, she doesn’t recoil. She accepts me for who I truly am, in a way I can’t even accept myself.
Ashley pours herself another drink, taking her hand away from mine, and the moment she does I crave the return of her touch immediately.
“You did what you had to do.”
Did I?
But Ashley nods, as if reading my thoughts.
“Gods, I’d thought… I’d
