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“Gladiators are desperate for females, so all packs will want to offer safe harbor to the Earthlings, and fighting will ensue for that right.”
“And when you reclaim your position in your pack, will you offer safe harbor?”
He glanced over at me briefly. “Yes. I hope you will find me a worthy mate and accept me as yours, making my pack your home. And for Earthlings willing to stay in my pack, you can help acclimate them to their new home within sector seven.”
I swallowed hard at his words, unwilling to decide that now.
“My goal right now is to rescue my fellow humans. Once that’s done, then I’ll decide about what’s next.” I caught myself chewing my lip and forced myself to stop. It was a girlish gesture I wanted to banish. “But I won’t decide for the women. If they want to visit sectors three, four, and five to determine which sector they want to live in, that’s up to them.”
He grunted acknowledgment as he moved between Chaser and a patch of darkness. He covered it with his blaster as we passed it, and well after, in case whatever was hiding in it aimed to sneak up behind us. Nothing shifted within it. Either we were both getting overcautious, or whatever was hiding there had figured out it couldn’t take on all three of us.
“Are there shortages in any particular occupations on this planet?” I asked.
“Because of our dwindling race… many. But our most pressing need is in the areas of technology and medicine.” He went quiet, watching me mull that over.
“What about combat?” was my next question.
I saw him tense slightly and frowned. Did he have a problem with women fighting? Or would he have a problem with me fighting?
“When our women lived, they were all warriors as well.” He sighed. “I could not deny you your calling any more than I could deny myself. But I do not relish the idea of potentially losing you either.”
I smiled slightly. “But you wouldn’t try to keep me from going?”
“I wouldn’t try to keep you from going. But I would want to be there with you. No warrior fights alone among us, not unless we must. And none of us would leave our mate to fight while we sat at home.”
“I see.” Protective but without belittling me. I could go for that. Then I caught myself and swallowed, looking away from him.
I peered up at the fragments of sky I could see between the leaves. It was still full daylight out. Still hours from when we would have to stop, but I still felt like we were going too damned slow, and it frustrated me deeply.
I knew we were days away from sector seven. We were even further from catching up with the slaver caravan, especially after having to stay in place for so long for my convalescence. But rushing anywhere in this jungle was a terrible idea.
“Tell me about your pack,” I asked quietly, changing the subject. Maybe something positive would distract me enough. And from the way he talked about them, this was it.
He smiled again, this one wistful and with a little of concern mixed in. I knew he had to be preoccupied with whatever had happened to the family he cared for so much. “My pack is a mix of blood kin and those who have ascended to their positions through a combination of their competence and their trustworthiness. As my father rose in the pack and became Alpha. I inherited my place, but in order to be accepted as Alpha, I had to face several challenges.”
“How did that go?”
“The first time I faced the adults in what was then my father’s pack, I was fifteen sun cycles and full of attitude and overconfidence. It took two cycles of working on it before I became a pack member in good standing, and that was even with my father’s influence.”
I winced slightly, imagining a fifteen-year-old kid facing down a bunch of guys Naxer’s size. “Sounds rough. But if your guys are anything like us, well, soldiers are practical people. We want qualified leadership, and we want evidence of their being qualified. Following orders from a terrible leader gets us killed.”
“Agreed. It was grueling and humiliating. It is true, but each one of us faces it, and I have never believed it to be anything but necessary.” He chuckled drily. “Also, every one of us needed a reminder that we weren’t yet fine warriors to keep us from disaster. You have seen how my world is.”
“Yeah.” On this world, a bunch of overconfident teens running off into the woods to party would end up as plant food. Or something-else food. “I get that.”
I tried to imagine him as a teenager. Smooth-faced, impetuous, and probably a pain in the ass. It made me laugh a little. “I was kind of hellion as a teenager myself.”
“Oh?” The corner of his mouth turned up as he eyed me.
“Yeah. I always give authority attitude.” I winced a little now, thinking about it. I had been beyond a pain in the ass, especially when I had been in my tweens. And then I had gone and become a soldier.
“As for my pack themselves, the membership has changed over the years, of course.” His mouth worked. “Our members were mostly lost to the mating sickness. But many had sons beforehand, and some of them stepped into their place. I have three cousins who are in the current pack. It’s been thirty orbits since we’ve had female Gladiators among us. The Omers used our females for rutting, their staffs ripping into our females, killing most. Those that survived became weak and sick, incurring a very slow and painful death.”
I swallowed hard, pushing down the rise of emotions—anger, disgust, sadness. Between losing their females to the Omers and the whole mating-sickness thing, it seemed the Gladiators had suffered a tragic existence.
“What are your cousins like?” I croaked. Anything to distract him and me from thinking about… that.
“Two of them I get along with well. All of us lost our fathers in similar ways. We are brothers-in-arms within the pack.” His eyes narrowed in thought as we plodded on.
