Page 8 of Hunter’s Valentine (Xarc’n Warriors)

I returned to my shuttle to find that Sara had snuck out while I took care of the scourge on the ground, and she had left the protein bar.

Hadn’t that been the plan all along? She was supposed to leave once my hunt had proven successful. So why was there an inexplicable hollowness in my chest?

How had she managed to get out? I’d only given her access to the blasters. I had my shuttle replay her last moments and realized she’d simply asked it to open the door, and it had.

I groaned, dragging my palm down my face. When I collected Sara’s biosignature for my shuttle, I also ordered the craft to facilitate her mission of shooting down the flyers. I’d failed to mention that it was not to help her with anything else.

But she had done an exemplary job of keeping the flyers off me so that I could take them down one at a time—not to mention, the truncated centicreep.Curious, I scanned through the recording to watch how she had fought them off.

Her little maneuver, rising in the air to shoot at the centicreep and then landing again once I’d distracted it, had been risky but fruitful. She hadn’t managed to kill the wretched thing outright but had removed enough of the body sections so that it was not much longer than a spitter. Every body section gone meant one less set of blades I had to avoid.

It wasn’t just the maneuver with the centicreep, either. Sara managed to take down a large number of flyers as well. I’d tried setting the lure outside and shooting at flyers from inside the shuttle before, but it had only been mildly successful because usually when flyers found nothing to attack they veered away, out of range. Seeing me on the roof, they’d milled around waiting for an opportunity to attack, making themselves perfect targets.

I saw now why mated hunters sometimes brought their partners along to hunt with them. Not only had this hunt been the most successful one I’d had to date, it had also been faster. Imagine what else we could achieve together; the scourge would not stand a chance!

But Sara was gone now.

I lifted off the roof to hover over the town, scanning the landscape for her. I couldn’t see her anywhere between here and her underground shelter.

Had she ducked into one of the homes to forage? She couldn’t have gone too far.

Movement in my peripheral vision caught my attention. There she was! She wasn’t heading back to the underground shelter but traveling away from it. And she wasn’t on foot but riding a two-wheeled contraption as she sped down the abandoned streets.

A quick glimpse through my shuttle’s history showed that she’d scrolled the map showing the way to New Franklin. Was that where she was going? After spending the last few hours with her, I didn’t think she’d be a danger to the people there. However, the group she lived with had been marked as hostile, so I couldn’t be sure. Were they sending her over as a spy? Or was this a diplomatic mission?

I could send a note to the hunters there and let them figure it out. So why was I considering ordering my shuttle to follow her?

It had to be because of the successful hunt. It would be prudent for us to continue working together. I was a hunter, and my job was to destroy the scourge. She’d make a good ally and improve my hunts. Yes, that was the reason. It had nothing to do with liking her or wanting more of her company.

I glanced down at the piles of scourge still burning away in my traps. My net was there too, but I could return for that later. For now, I should go.

Staying here was tough on my shuttle’s filter. It wasn’t just the smoke and ash from the fire but the aerosolized fungal spores from the dead scourge. The scourge’s symbiotic relationship with the fungus was what made them so difficult to fight. It put them at the top of the food chain in every biome it infested.

The fungus was toxic to any other creature, and anything dumb or desperate enough to eat the scourge, despite its horrendous stench, quickly succumbed to it. But the fungus needed to be back inside a scourge to complete its life cycle, so when it was time, oozing sores opened on the sick animals. The horrendous smell called every scourge in the area to it so that the weakened animal could be consumed.

The fungus also served as a secondary immune system for the scourge, fighting off infection and helping to repair damaged cells. It was a strong partnership, one the original Xarc’n military itself had created. It was still a mystery to me why they ever thought they could control it. No matter, they hadn’t been able to, and we were the ones created to pick up the pieces.

I ordered my shuttle to tail my little human, then started to strip off my armor. I ran my weapons and armor through the decontaminator first before stepping inside to clean myself. I stank of the scourge as well as of fire and ash, and I couldn’t wait to be rid of the smell. The cleansing light of the contamination unit passed over my body, tingling as it went. It didn’t quite clean as thoroughly as a good, hard rain, but it did kill the scourge’s fungus, which was important. It also neutralized the stench.

Sara’s fragrance hit me the moment I stepped out of the unit, bold and intoxicating.

Krux!

The shuttle was away from the dying embers of the burning pyres now, so I asked it to refresh the air in my shuttle. It did little to help. Sara’s essence was everywhere, like she’d sunk into the very fabric of the mat in my sleeping nook and molded the pilot’s seat to fit her form.

Was this what happened to hunters who found their mates? Was this why their life goals of hunting as many scourge as possible changed virtually overnight?

I didn’t want that to happen to me. At the same time, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I told myself again it was because she and I made a good team. She didn’t need to be my mate; she could be my hunting partner.

Sara was already at the edge of town. With the area cleared of the scourge and riding her two-wheeled contraption, she moved fast. She continued onto a long stretch of paved road where her vehicle really shone. It might only be powered by muscle and bone, but it moved much faster than she could on foot. She was only forced to stop when darkness fell.

As she made camp for the night, I found myself scanning the area to make sure there were no scourge or hostile humans. Then, knowing she was safe, I returned to our hunt site to retrieve my nets.

I spent the entire night in my sleeping nook, remembering the taste of her lips and resisting the urge to swoop in and carry her back to my shuttle.I wondered if she thought of me too.

She was moving again the instant it was bright enough for her to see the next morning. But unlike the day before, today was dark and gloomy. Clouds had blown in overnight, and snow was drifting down in ever-increasing amounts with every moment that passed.

Worse yet, she’d crossed over into hostile territory. The human survivors in this area were anti-Xarc’n and had shot at me numerous times over the last few months. I wasn’t sure if they were any friendlier to their own, but then again, the underground shelter Sara came from had been marked as hostile as well, due to negative interactions with hunters. With any luck, Sara would be through their territory by the time the weather forced her to stop.

But luck was not on our side today.