Hunting Cari (First Wave) (6 page)

“I’ll
brief you all on the newest developments at the housing unit.” Scaden said, not
waiting for their confirmation of his order before using his port stone to
arrive at Randor's cabin.

Chapter Five

Niklosi’s
team met him at the front of the home, and the other Tact Team members began to
port there as well. Once the team was all assembled, Scaden briefed his men.

“We’ve
confirmed that the man is Randor Macner, son of Counselor Macner, and presumed
dead on the Outpost. And we’ve confirmed that the female with him, is the child
of Mikel Lakatis, son of Counselor Lakatis, and also presumed dead on the
Outpost.” Scaden paused allowing his men to absorb the ramifications of what he
had just said.

“They
survived! On this planet? How did they find mates? How many are still alive?”
Balduen asked his commander is shock.

“Randor
has confirmed that there are at least 20 to 30 more children on this planet.
And they are being hunted by the Relians. He has said that they have lost at
least a dozen children to Relian attacks. In fact, Mikel and his mate lost
their lives. Right now, we need to find their daughter. Randor said her name is
Caretia, as she is named after her father’s clan mother. But she goes by Cari.
Right now, our priority is finding her and bringing her back to her Clan protector,
Randor. When Randor is well enough to tell us how to find the other children,
we will eventually find them as well and bring them home.” Scaden replied to
his astonished team.

“They
have more children? More daughters? Females? How?” One of the men asked in
amazement.

“We
don’t know. And we won’t know until Randor is well enough to explain it to us.
Right now, we have to find Cari. Randor said the children have 'gifts'. We
aren’t sure what all these gifts are, but he said Cari is something he called a
projectionist. She has the ability to project any emotion and make everyone
around her feel it. Fear, anger, hatred… any emotion.”

“Randor
said she is very stubborn and would most likely attempt to instigate the
Relians to kill her, rather than be held captive by them. So when we find her,
we are going to have to be very aware that what you may be feeling might be her
projecting her emotions. You will have to fight through it. We all will.”
Scaden informed them.

“Sir,
we have found the vehicle used by Randor for travel. We’re ready to follow the
trajectory scan, at your command.” Niklosi said.

“Then
let’s move out now.” Scaden said following Niklosi to Randor's vehicle. He had
to find the female… and soon. He had to touch her, and know she was alright.
And he was damned if he knew why.

*****

Cari
slowly climbed through the darkness in her mind. She hurt. Everywhere. But
nothing so bad that she couldn’t handle it. Putting her toes back on the floor
to take the pressure off her wrists and arms, she opened her eyes to see if
Vincent was still in the barn.

The
only person in the barn was Jess. She was curled up on the floor near Cari’s
feet, and looked to be asleep. She could see the bruises on the girls’ arms and
legs where they had hurt her. Her anger rising, she vowed to herself that if
she ever got out of here, she would come back for Jess. She no more than
finished the thought, and Jess whipped her head up and around to look at Cari.

“Stop!
No anger. Please stop. You are already so badly injured. Please stop.” Jess
begged as she awkwardly tried to crawl towards Cari.

“It
can’t be that bad. I really don’t hurt all that much. But I’ll try to calm
down, for you.” Cari said gently.

“It
is that bad. And worse. You have broken ribs, a broken leg… and your face. I’m
so sorry. You have to try to control yourself. He’ll kill you next time. And it
does no good to release you if you can’t make it out of here to safety.” Jess
said grabbing a rag and dipping it into a bucket of water, Cari hadn’t noticed
before.

“But
I don’t hurt bad enough to have really broken anything.” Cari said taking stock
of her injuries. She knew one of her eyes was swollen almost shut. And her lip
was split; she could taste the blood in her mouth and used her tongue to run
along the cut. Her ribs and leg did hurt, but she didn’t think it was bad
enough for anything to be broken. Her wrists and arms hurt, probably from
holding the weight of her body.

“It’s
the bracelet on your ankle. Apparently, what was created for you is dampening
the pain and speeding the healing process for you. Even now, you look a lot
better than you did a few hours ago. I made another one for your other ankle as
soon as I saw what he did to you.” Jess said, gently using the rag to clean off
more of the blood from Cari’s face.

“Wow.
Are you sure the anklets are what is helping to heal me?” Cari asked
wonderingly, lifting up her foot to try to look at the anklets. It didn’t look
that special to her although, it was beautiful. However, she did notice the
awkward bend in her thigh, denoting Jess was right about the broken leg.

“I
didn’t understand at first why it chose all the healing stones, but now I know.
The red is carnelian, and the white is an unusual obsidian and the metal
platinum, all known for their healing properties. Apparently even the Earth
knows how stubborn you are.” Jess said with a small smile.

“Thank
you Jess. You have an amazing gift.” Cari said with gratitude, wondering just
how bad she’d be feeling right now if Jess hadn’t been here to help her.

“You
have to try to project fear right now, until the bracelets help you fully heal.
Anything else and Vikan might come back here. And we really don’t want that!”
Jess stated.

“Vikan?
Who is Vikan?”

“He’s
the man who beat you. I thought you knew who he was. You seemed to have met
before.” Jess said questioningly as she continued to help gently clear the
blood off Cari’s face.

“You
mean Vincent Baker?” Cari asked confused.

“Oh
I see… he chose a more 'earth' name when he spoke to you. His real name is
Vikan B’Tai. He was the commander of the original ship that crashed here while
attacking the transport our fathers used to get here from the outpost. You do
know all about that right?” Jess asked.

“My
uncle Randor told me all about how they came to be here and the struggles they
had with the Relians, who crashed as well. I knew after he took me that
Vincent… I mean Vikan was a Relian. I didn’t realize he was their commander.”
Cari admitted.

“I
was very young when they killed my father. The times they allowed me near my
mother before they killed her, she would tell me all the stories that my father
had told her about how they had gotten here and where they were from. I really
didn’t believe any of it until I got older, and they had kidnapped some of the
other girls like us.” Jess told her sadly.

“I’m
so sorry Jess. I promise you, if I get out of here, I will take you with me or
come back for you.” Cari vowed emphatically.

“Watch
your emotions. You’re heading into anger again. We don’t want them to come back
here for a while. Vikan will stay away and let you heal if he’s not angered
enough to come back. At least if they feel afraid they are going to be scanning
the area looking for humans wandering close or Valendrans.”

“I
overheard that they have no idea if your uncle was in communication with
others, or if he told them of where you were hiding, so they are going to be
watchful until we move camp again. They are planning on doing it soon in order
to avoid any possible rescue mission for you. Hopefully, we can get you healed
and out of here before then though. As soon as I recover my energy, I’m going
to try and fashion something else for you to help you heal.” Jess informed her.

“Jess,
don’t waste all of your energy on me. Save it for yourself right now. I’m
healing fine and barely feeling any pain at all. You keep making things for me,
and I’m going to look like a jewelry store!” Cari tried to laugh, not wanting
the poor girl to waste any more energy helping her when she needed her energy
for herself.

Cari
had already noticed how exhausted she seemed, her movements slow and sluggish.
Between the abuses, she must have suffered at the hands of those animals and
her efforts to help her, Jess looked like she was ready to fall over.

“Just
keep projecting fear and we’ll see what happens. I still need to steal
something to cut those ropes for you too. We'll deal with that when you’re
healed enough to actually escape.” Jess said tiredly, laying her head back down
on the ground. Her eyes seemed to close as if they had a will of their own and
exhaustion seemed to overtake the girl.

*****

“Sir,
I really don’t think this is a good idea. What if there are too many of them.
What if they have weapons we aren’t aware of?” A Tact Team member asked
fearfully of Scaden.

Scaden
ran his hand through his hair in frustration and tried not to strangle the man.
This was the fourth member of the team that had asked him these stupid
questions since they had reached the outer perimeter of the Relian camp a
little while ago. It was taking every ounce of his self-control and training
not to storm the camp and recover the female.

He
could feel her fear rolling through him in waves. And he smelled her blood.
They hurt her. And he wanted nothing more than to tear every one of them apart
with his bare hands. He had to get to her… and soon.

“I
explained to all of you before we even came here, that she would be projecting
her emotions. She is obviously projecting fear; otherwise you wouldn’t be
acting like an untrained child instead of a highly trained Valendran Warrior!
Now do whatever you have to do to push that fear aside, because we are going in
there, and we’re going to kill all of them and rescue the female and bring her
back to her people! Do I make myself clear?” Scaden growled through his gritted
teeth, trying to control the anger that was overwhelming the fear he was
feeling.

“Yes
sir!” The man replied, stepping back and trying to pull himself together.

“Sir,
the men have the entire area surrounded. We’ve counted fifteen Relians, and
believe two more are in the smaller dwelling to our right. Our scanners
indicate that the female’s cell code is in the larger building to our left.”
Niklosi informed Scaden as he hunkered next to him in the underbrush that
surrounded the housing unit area being used by the Relians.

Scaden
surveyed the area once more. The area looked like at one point it had been used
as a farming facility. With the smaller structure being a housing unit and the
larger one, a place to store supplies and implements needed to tend to the
land. There was another building that resembled barracks, which seemed to hold
most of the Relians. The wood of the structures was weathered and rotting in
some places. Gaps in the wood seemed to reveal some form of light source being
used in the three buildings in the area. There were doors to each building
clearly visible in the moonlight.

When
they had gotten to the area there had only been four Relians that were
patrolling the perimeter. However, not long after their arrival, one of the
Relians walked out of the smaller structure and into the barracks. Within
minutes nine, more Relians took up patrolling the area. Scaden had realized
that as soon as they had done that, he and his men had begun feeling the waves
of fear. It had to be the female, Cari’s emotions. They had to get in there.
Her fear was tearing at his insides, the smell of her blood causing a rage he
was having a hard time controlling. He didn’t feel the same kind of fear that
his men did. He was furious over the fact that they had caused her to feel
fear, that they dared draw her blood.

“Balduen,
are you and your team ready," he asked impatiently into the comm at
Balduen, who was on the other side of the buildings.

“Sir,
we are ready at your command.”

“We
are a go at my command.” Scaden stated with as much calm as he could.

*****

Cari
didn’t realize she had dozed off until she heard blasts and screams coming from
outside. She had barely put her feet under her body, when the barn door was
roughly jerked open, and she saw the huge, evil Relian that had taunted Jess
with his abuse earlier was striding quickly into the room followed by Vincent
aka Vikan.

Jess
must have also been awakened by the noise outside, as she was trying to crawl
silently away from the hulking beast headed right for her. No match for the
much larger man, she was quickly scooped roughly into his arms.

“Come
little mouse, I’m not letting you get away from me. We have far too much fun
together don’t we?” He taunted, striding out the door as he chuckled at her
feeble struggles against him.

Rage
overcame Cari at Jess’s treatment. She hadn’t even healed from the animal’s
last abuse of her, and he was going to abuse her again! By the One, she
couldn’t begin to imagine how the poor girl had survived years of this.

“Put
her down! Leave her alone! What the hell is wrong with you animals?" Cari
screamed in rage as she fought with the ropes holding her with a renewed
purpose. She had to break free and do something to help Jess.

Vikan
walked up to her, anger darkening his face. “You brought them here didn’t you?
How did you bring them here?” Vikan screamed at her, spittle flying from his
mouth in his anger.