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Then he set to work on his message.
CHAPTER 6: SERENITY
By the time the midday meal rolled around, Serenity was dead on her feet.
The alien sun was blazing in the sky, but the canyon was relatively cool in the blueish shade created by the canopy of leaves overhead. Serenity waited in line with the other women outside of the cooking tent, and after a few minutes she received a generous helping of steaming soup served in a large wooden bowl, a hunk of fresh ksh-bread, and a wooden cup filled with spring water.
With her lunch in hand, Serenity retreated to the side of the canyon and plopped her butt down on a boulder to eat in solitude.
She had spent the morning with a group of other human women collecting round, smooth, marble-sized stones from the shallow river that flowed down the middle of the canyon. The ukkur used these stones as ammunition for their slings, and they could fling them as fast and as accurately as a bullet. Sometimes they used these sling-stones to hunt alien varmints and birds for food, but mostly they used them for killing their mortal enemies, the nith.
At least that is what Serenity was told. At first she had found it hard to believe that the primitive ukkur were able to fight so effectively against the more technologically advanced nith. But after everything she’d seen in the tunnel last night, Serenity understood just how deadly even a single ukkur warrior could be.
She blew on her steaming soup and tried to push those images of violence out of her mind.
Serenity had been grateful when she’d been assigned to river-rock duty this morning. Most of the other human women preferred crafting since it could be done inside. But rock collecting was the only task that Serenity felt competent at, probably because it involved finding instead of making. It appealed to her investigative instincts. Collecting sling-stones was not a mindless task either. It required some skill and experience to find the perfect stones with just the right size, shape, and weight.
After several hours of wading through the cool, clear water, Serenity had managed to fill a small basket with several dozen stones. It pleased her to think of each one embedded deep in some nith bastard’s brain.
The hardest part had been lugging the heavy basket across camp to the ammunition store.
The physical weariness was not such a big deal. It was the mental exhaustion that was really dragging Serenity down.
All morning, her brain had been a chaotic whirlwind of disjointed and conflicting thoughts and emotions. She felt sick and vulnerable when she remembered what those three men had tried to do to her last night. She felt enraged when she thought of their sneering faces. She felt gratitude for the massive ukkur who had saved her, and she felt terror when she recalled his darkly smoldering eyes and flared nostrils drinking in her scent.
But more than anything else, Serenity felt shame.
Shame for what she had done afterward.
Last night, after the ukkur had let her go, Serenity had raced straight back to the canyon. Inside the warm darkness of her shared sleeping tent, the other women were all exactly as she had left them, snoring softly as they slept, totally oblivious to the fact that not very far away three men had just been brutally killed.
Serenity had crawled back into her bedding and pulled the fur coverings over her shuddering body.
She had been greasy with sweat, her heart thudding at the base of her throat, and her muscles so saturated with adrenaline it felt like she was practically glowing. Those were all natural reactions to nearly being raped and killed and then witnessing the brutal demise of one’s assailants.
What was not natural, however, was the stubborn tautness in her nipples and the incessant throbbing between her thighs. It was the scent of the ukkur that had done it. Even though she had been back in her tent, surrounded by other women and buried beneath her covers, that rich, masculine, leather-and-pine-needles scent had surrounded her like an invisible embrace.
Serenity had tried to resist her terrible urges—she really had—but she’d not been able to hold out for long.
When she finally slipped her fingers between her sweating thighs, her clitoris had been so tight and tingling with arousal that she had come instantly.
In her struggle to contain her moans of pleasure, she’d bitten her bottom lip so hard she’d tasted blood.
That was the reason Serenity was ashamed of herself today.
Now, sitting alone on her boulder at the side of the canyon, she scanned her eyes around the encampment. The other humans were gathered in little knots of four or five, conversing as they ate. There were also many ukkur warriors striding through the canyon as well, but Serenity saw no sign of the one who had saved her last night.
Yet she couldn’t shake the funny feeling that he was somewhere nearby, watching over her with those darkly smoldering eyes of his.
A cold shiver slithered down her spine.
Her stomach grumbled, and she turned her attention to her soup, which had now cooled enough to eat. Serenity had to admit, it was pretty good. For primitive tribal aliens, the ukkur knew how to cook. The meat was tender and savory, and the broth had a bit of a spicy kick to it that left a pleasant tingle on her tongue. It reminded her a bit of the Sichuan-style cuisine she’d enjoyed so much back on Earth, and that in turn made her homesick.
Earth.
Even though it was a hellhole, it was Serenity’s homeworld, the place where she belonged, and even though she knew it was impossible, she longed to return.
The more Serenity thought about it, the more she felt like crying.
