Christine Myers

 

Koha’vek

The cold didn’t bother me anymore. I’d gotten used to it in the months since I left the Mesaarkan base. I’ve spent a lot of time outdoors in the cold.

I moved through the forest with the silence of a predator. With each step, my heavy boots barely whispered against the pine-needle-covered Earth. It was late winter, and snow dusted the ground in thin layers, not deep enough to slow me down but enough to cover my trail behind me. I was glad for that because I knew hunters could still come looking for me.

Since I left my old life behind, the wilderness has become a sanctuary. The solitude has been good for my battered soul. Up here, deep in the ridges of the Medicine Bow mountain range. My routine of survival was honest and straightforward. I hunted mule deer and elk with a bow, and I only killed what I needed, but no more. The mountain streams were fresh and clear and I drank from any that I came upon.

Early in my wanderings, I found an abandoned mountain hideaway half buried under snow and vines. I rebuilt it stone by stone, log by log. Sometimes, the roof leaked during heavy storms, but I patched it the best I could. If I forgot to check the flue, the fireplace sent smoke into the living area. It was nowhere near as nice as my home on Mesaark, but it was mine.

I was on constant alert for anyone looking for me, but so far, no one seemed to be. Occasionally, patrols would fly overhead, and I would hide so they wouldn’t see me. My hearing is exceptional. I could hear them miles away and hide before they came close enough to spot me.

I don’t know whether I was surprised and disappointed that my people never came to look for me. I believe the patrols flying overhead were cyborgs looking for our base to find the missing people. I kept my weapons charged and stayed alert. These were habits I’d learned early in my military career, an occupation that was chosen for me against my will.

I still had my stolen flyer, but I dared not take it out from the old barn where I hid it in my house. I’d dare not take it out because it carried the greatest risk of being discovered by the wrong people.

I came to the edge of a clearing and stood crouched between the snow-covered cedars. The deer was still ahead, small, healthy, and alert. It sniffed the wind, its ears twitching.

I raise my bow, notched a narrow and true back the bow string, feeling my muscles tighten as I poised, waiting for the precise moment to launch the arrow.

Then the wind shifted. A new scent entered my nostrils. I knew that scent well. Human blood. It was coppery and fresh and my nostrils flared in recognition.

A twig snapped as I rose to my full height. The deer bolted at the sound as I turned toward the scent. By the strength, I could tell it wasn’t far. I followed the trail, dirt and snow slipping under my feet as I descended down a slope lined with jagged rocks and broken branches.

At the bottom lay a woman by a rock and a tree that apparently stopped to descent into the ravine. Her long, dark hair was tangled with dirt and leaves. Her clothes were torn and damp. Blood dripped on the snow from a gash on her temple. Her ankle looked swollen

I looked around her. She had no pack, no supplies, and I wondered how she even got here.

Note: Kohavek is the Mesaarkan deserter first introduced in Raven Blackwood Cyborg Guardian. This is a work in progress with a projected release later this summer. Kohavek is a monster romance.

Koha’vek’s Story Begins

Note: I introduced Koha’vek in my newest release, Raven Blackwood Cyborg Guardian. Here are the opening paragraphs of the work in progress:

Koha’vek Draal

The cries and screams echoed down the sterile halls of the research lab in the bowels of the Mesaarkan base, so many raw with panic and pain. I stood at my post, my claws tightening around the edge of the metal door frame, willing my body to stay still even as my soul twisted with revulsion. Another captive human was punished for some real or imagined infringement. My people crushed so many human spirits for infringements, long past, and thoroughly avenged.

I didn’t know the name of the young woman sobbing at the medical bay two doors down the corridor. I didn’t need to. I had new human captives to catalog, monitor their vitals, and administer injections designed to keep them compliant. My superiors called it mercy.

I called it what it was: slavery.

Turning away from the corridor, I scanned the dimly lit chamber. Rows of containment cells line the walls, each one housing a frightened human. Most of them were quiet now. Fear and despair had done what the sedatives had not. The stench of unwashed bodies, chemical restraint, and metallic despair hung in the air.

I never wanted to be here.

I was a historian once—before the draft, and before the war, and the aftermath when they sent me to Earth. I spent my youth studying ancient Mesaarkan architecture, collecting oral histories, and deciphering ancient codes etched into stone tablets. Now, I watched over broken humans with a scanner in one hand and a stun baton in the other.

A child whimpered in the cell next to me, and I glanced down. A small boy, no more than seven, pressed his hands against a transparent barrier, his eyes wide and hollow. Tears stained his cheeks. Perhaps he cried for his mother, who’d been ripped from him too soon.

“Go to sleep, little one. No one will hurt you while I’m here.” I spoke in the human tongue, though I knew there was little I could say to bring comfort.

Footsteps echo behind me, sharp, heavy, and imperious.

Subcommander Gar’hako stepped into view, his bulk barely contained by his uniform. “Draal,” he barked. “Why have you not finished sedating these test subjects?”

I rose slowly. “I have dosed the children, and I am checking their vitals.”

“That doesn’t explain why you’re behind.”

I clenched my jaw, knowing nothing I could say would appease him. “Because this is inhumane. They are suffering, if not physically, mentally.”

Gar’hako’s yellow eyes narrowed. “Their suffering is of no consequence after what their kind did to our kind. You dishonor your bloodline. A Draal does not question orders. These creatures are cargo.”

I didn’t flinch. “They are alive – thinking, feeling, sentient beings.”

Gar’hako stepped closer, his voice low and full of menace. He clearly had no respect for me, but in that, we were equal because I had no respect for him. “One more failure, Draal, and I’ll send you to the breeding labs on Shekhar Station. Let’s see how softer ideals are after watching a few mating experiments.”

My claws itched to extend. I wanted just to rip him apart, but my instinct for self-preservation allowed me to keep the impulse in check.

“Yes, Sub-Commander,” I said coldly.

Gar’hako grunted and strode away.

I stood still for a long moment after he disappeared, my chest heaving with restrained fury. I hated that man. He would have me executed if he knew what I was thinking, I realized. The scanner slightly shook in my hand before I set it down, forcing myself into a calmer state.

That was the moment I knew I finally had enough. I had waited, hoped, endured—but Gar’hako finally crossed the line. Everything about him and this place was wrong.

I would not stay here and watch another child’s spirit crushed or a human female used in ways I wished I could unsee. That night, I went back to my quarters after my shift and packed up everything I thought I might need to survive.

To Be Continued…