Henri's Story

by Dragonsteamfan

Summary:

A slight change to the movie. Henri survives his encounter with the Mog, and sends John and Sam to find the other numbers. But while the boys continue the movie as scripted, Henri's life takes a VERY strange turn from what he expected. He had expected to die, instead he now has to deal with living with the most dangerous predator in the most dangerous place on Earth - his one's hometown of Perfection, Nevada.

Notes:

This is a story for my daughters, who insisted that I write this story as I dreamed it. This is what happens when my youngest daughter watches I am Number Four back to back with a Tremors marathon. O.o

Chapter 1

On The Road

‘A plague, that’s what the Mogadarians were. They roamed from planet to planet; consuming, destroying, devastating everything that they touched. We knew they were coming. Lorien wasn’t the most peaceful planet in the universe, despite what the Elders might have said. We warred with other worlds for various reasons, taking the battles to them rather than allowing war to taint our world. That’s how we found out that the Mogs were coming. One of the worlds our warriors were on was overwhelmed. They barely had enough time to warn us.

‘The Loric Garde were the leaders of our army. They were born with special abilities we called legacies. These abilities were so powerful that when combined, only a handful of Garde were needed to defend Lorien – but even the most powerful of people can be killed. One bomb was all it had taken to kill every Loric Garde adult.

‘They had been in a planning session, attempting to prepare our world for the Mog’s attack when a single bomb had come out of nowhere. I don’t know if we were betrayed or if something else had led the Mog to attack us at that point. All I know is that the building I had just left an hour before was gone, and all of my commanders with it. I had my orders, what to do in case the worst happened and I followed them, as did eight of the others who had the honor of serving the Garde personally.

‘We were the Cepan, the best of the fighters our world produced and we had but one duty, to protect the next generation of Loric Garde. No one served in the Cepan without first having survived real combat with the enemy. We had to be intelligent and smart, able to both hide and attack, and knowledgeable enough to know when it was time to do which. We were skilled in hand to hand, weapons, intelligence work, anything and everything that a Garde child would need to know. We were their protectors, their teachers, and now we had to take the place of their parents as well.

‘Nine of us made it to the ship with our charges. We didn’t have time to wait for the rest. That fact haunts me now, but as I watch my charge I know it was the only thing we could have done. My charge was only eight years old. The youngest of the children was only three. They might never remember their homeworld, but we would teach them, protect them, and when the time came we would stand with them when the Mogs came to take this world.

‘The Mogs would come. We all knew it. They couldn’t afford to let the Nine live. Together, once they came into their legacies, they were one of the very few powers in this universe that could stop the Mogadorian fleet. So they would send scouts out to try and assassinate the children before that happened. The best way to protect the children was to scatter. The most senior of us put a charm on the children to further protect them. I don’t know what else to call it. I don’t know how it works; only that it does. The Mog or anyone else really, can only kill the children in sequence. My charge is number four. We stripped the ship of anything that we could use or could trade for Earth currency and then we scattered to the four corners of this new world.’

The Cepan now known as Henri paused his writing for a moment as he relived that heart wrenching time. Nine years had passed, but his grief at the loss of his world remained soul deep. The Mogs had come. The first three of the Nine were dead, and no doubt their Cepan as well; number three had just died last night. He glanced over at his charge, sleeping in the motel bed farthest from the door. It was important for number four that he record as many of his memories as he could, especially now. With number three dead, his charge was next on the Mogs’ hit list. If for some reason number four survived but he did not, his charge would need to know what he could remember.

It had taken only a single year for the Mogadorians to find number one. Three years later they had found number two. It had taken five years this last time, but Henri wasn’t going to take any chances. They had left their current home the minute they could, changing identities as they did every time they moved and for safety’s sake they moved often. He knew his charge hated it, but there was no other choice this time. He had to find Malcolm, and hope that with his help they could find the others. At least one of the others had to have come into their legacies by now, even if number four hadn’t yet. He was a little behind schedule, but only for the most common forms of the legacies. The rarer forms took longer to manifest.

Henri smiled. The boy was more stubborn than a fleet of Mogs when he put his mind to something. It would be just like him to manifest when he wanted to regardless of what was considered normal by Loric standards, and there was no way he’d settle for something less than outstanding regardless of what he thought he wanted. John, (and Henri had to remind himself not to refer to his charge by another name but he would only need to remind himself for another couple of hours before he had their new identities firmly in his mind), had been born that way.

From the moment he took his first steps Henri had been forced to rescue the stubborn child from one situation after another. Trees, strange chimeras, nothing had stopped the child from charging right into something interesting to him regardless of the possible danger. The arrival of the Mogadorians had changed that, but John was still stubborn. Henri stood up from the motel room table and stretched before silently moving over towards John’s bed. He gently brushed his hand across John’s cheek.

As much as Henri had never wanted to be John’s father, he loved the boy as though he were Henri’s son, and as he well knew once a Loric loved, they loved forever. John would be safe here for a little while, long enough for Henri to get a haircut and pick up some supplies. They were going to need warmer clothes in Ohio than they had needed in Florida, and John’s hair was too short to change by any other means than dyeing it. He hoped John liked being blonde.

 

Hours later, after giving John his new identity and both of them changing their appearance as much as possible, Henri and John were once more driving down the highway. Henri noticed that John was fidgeting in his seat, something that didn’t happen often. “You want some story time?” he asked, knowing that John had reached the age where he wanted to be treated as an adult not a child. He chuckled as John shot him a dirty look. “Or you can tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Did you have anyone back home? Before the Mogs came?” John asked, looking out the window again.

“No,” Henri admitted. “The closest thing I had to family was my sister and the other Cepan, and you of course. I remember the first time I saw you. My sister had been chosen as Cepan the year before and when it was announced that you were on the way, the competition became intense to be the next chosen. We’d be going over our files, looking for anything that would make us stand out. We learned new languages, took child care courses, mastered new weapons, you name it one of us in the running was doing it in the months before you were born. I was scared shitless when they brought me in and placed you in my arms. You were just hours old, so tiny I almost thought you’d break if I breathed hard enough,” Henri chuckled, amused now at how scared he’d been at the time. “Now look at you. You’re almost as tall as I am and you’ve mastered most of the basics. You’re almost all grown up.”

“Yeah, about that….there was this girl, just before three died. I think she wanted me to…” John trailed off, not knowing how to explain.

“That’s not surprising. Humans begin experimenting with sex about your age. They’re going to expect you to do the same. We don’t though, we’re different. You’re not ready yet,” Henri said calmly.

“Can we even?” John asked, now staring at Henri.

“Find a mate among the Humans? Sure,” Henri said. “Your mate doesn’t have to be one of the other Garde, not that I would mind you hooking up with my sister’s charge.”

“What about you?” John asked. “And your sister was assigned to a girl?”

Henri could hear the concern and surprise in John’s voice. It didn’t surprise him, John had always worried about him, at least unless they were butting heads over John’s teenaged angst. Those were the times that he really wished that they were back on Lorien, simply so that he could have other Cepan to talk to. “I’m in the same boat you are John. I didn’t find my one back home so if I ever do find her, I’ll find her here. As far as my sister goes, yes like all female Cepan her charge is also female. There are some things that are only taught along gender lines. I’d have no idea how to teach a girl how to deal with becoming fertile for instance.”

“But you do know to deal with a male,” John laughed. They’d had that talk only three months ago.

“You can’t teach that without having gone through it, especially the rape talks,” Henri said matter-of-factly.

“You?” John asked, horrified. Henri realized that John had thought that part of the talk had simply been standard information, like the sex ed classes in Human schools.

“Every Cepan has to have experienced everything that a Garde might have to deal with. That is why we are chosen from the front line fighters, because sooner or later every Garde ends up on the front lines of a war. With your protective instincts it’s inevitable,” Henri said patiently. “And because everyone knows we Loric are monogamous, it’s a common torture tactic.” He always dealt better with teaching this sort of knowledge than fighting with John about wanting to settle down somewhere. He knew that the boy simply wanted to have a home, but that was impossible while they were still being hunted, no matter what their instincts told them. He wasn’t about to give the Mog any help when it came to tracking them down. That seemed to stun John, who remained silent for the rest of the trip to Ohio.

Chapter 2

Paradise, Ohio

 

They were only in town a couple of weeks when John finally manifested his first legacy, and if Henri had made a bet with himself he would have won. John’s first legacy was Lumen, one of the most rare and powerful legacies. In fact, a Garde with Luman was actually able to recharge other Garde, allowing them to continue to fight long after they would have passed out from exhaustion. It also frustrated Henri because John for some reason wasn’t developing telekinesis, the one legacy every Garde had.

Henri did the only thing he could; encouraging John to practice as long as he couldn’t get caught along with stepping up his hand to hand combat training. Weapons training was harder, both because John’s strength and speed were increasing, and because they were limited in the weapons they had access to. Henri couldn’t take time out from his search for Malcolm Spellman as he knew they had a very limited time in Paradise, Malcolm’s hometown, and he was already only able to search when John was either at school or occupied with doing something around the small town.

Henri had already discovered that Malcolm was more involved with the Loric than he had thought. He had found half of a Loric tracking device, as well as drawings of all of the crests of the surviving Loric Garde in the basement of the abandoned steel mill where Malcolm had worked before his disappearance. His ex-wife had no idea where he might be, not that Henri accidentally scaring her had helped when he’d gone to ask her questions.

Then the sheriff had come around asking questions about some football players that had spent the night in the hospital. It was the morning after the spring carnival, which Henri knew John had gone to. It was also the first time Henri had heard about the girl that John was apparently dating. While Henri was glad that John was keeping himself from standing out, he had learned enough about Human schools to read between the lines – the boys had jumped John for some reason, (probably the girl) and the sheriff would pay Henri and John back in any petty way he could for John injuring his son in self-defense.

After the sheriff left Henri turned to John. “So, four of them?” he asked.

“Yeah,” John confirmed.

“Was it difficult?” Henri wanted to know, curious as to how John had handled it, other than coming out on top.

John shook his head. “Piece of cake,” he said, shrugging off the attack.

“Good, that means you’re getting it.” Henri turned back to his row of computers. “Go upstairs and pack your stuff.”

“Because of last night?” John protested.

“Because I don’t like people showing up and asking questions.” Henri picked up a laptop and brought it over to the table between them. “And I think this is going to raise a few.”

“They walk among us,” John read off the screen. “What’s this, some more ‘truth is out there’ freaks?”

“Except that’s actually you,” Henri stated, pointing out a short video showing John reeling in the Florida surf, three’s death branding a new scar onto his leg. “One of the kids must have caught you on video.”

“Oh shit,” John breathed.

“I can’t get through their firewall. We have to go there and take it down ourselves. Mogs see this; it’s just a matter of time.” Henri began packing up his computers. “Pack your stuff, we’re leaving.”

“I’m not going,” John said flatly.

Things quickly escalated into a fight after that, quite probably the worst fight they’d ever had. John even threw Henri into the wall of the house with his legacies when Henri followed him outside. As glad as he was that John had finally developed and apparently mastered telekinesis, Henri wasn’t about to let John throw his life away for nothing.

Henri didn’t back down from the fight and between a bluff and a few quick moves managed to take John down to the point where John gave up; allowing them to actually talk to each other. That was when John admitted that he had thought about leaving this girl Sarah before, but that for some reason he didn’t understand, he just couldn’t bring himself to do so.

Henri was floored. John had gone and done it again. Loric usually found their mate, their one, in their early twenties while they worked on their specialization education. John was not only years late in his legacies emerging; he was also years ahead in finding his mate.

“I don’t want you to be miserable John,” Henri admitted, running his hand over the back of John’s head. It wasn’t something that Henri did often while John was awake. He didn’t want John to ever think that he wanted to take his father’s place, but he did love the young man and sometimes he just had to show it. “We don’t love like the Humans. With us, once we’ve found our one, its forever. We never forget and we never change; that’s why we’re monogamous. You’re one of the lucky ones. You found your mate about five years before most back home would have.”

“What does that make you?” John huffed, already in pain at the thought of leaving his Sarah.

“Unlucky in love, but lucky in war,” Henri admitted. “And you know that’s what’s needed now. Look, I’ll go and take down the site myself. I’ll try to buy you a day.”

“A day to say goodbye?” John’s voice cracked.

“That’s more than the rest of us had,” Henri pointed out. “I may not have had a mate John, but I did leave behind people I loved to be killed by the Mogadorians so that you could live. If you don’t lead the Mogs away from her, if you let them win this war and her world dies - I promise you; you’ll never forgive yourself.” The knowledge that Henri did know what he was talking about and exactly what it felt like echoed in the air as Henri walked away.

Chapter 3

Warsaw, Indiana

 

When Henri woke up chained to an overhead beam in the basement of the house of the man who ran the website he was interested in, he grimly acknowledged to himself that he had gotten soft being on the run for the last nine years. He’d never have walked into the trap that the Human was ranting and bragging about otherwise. It turned out that the Mogs had been there, had in fact given these Humans the footage in the first place. They’d been tracked down to Florida and the Mogs had found whichever kid had taken the video. Henri didn’t doubt that the kid was dead. Then they’d done the unexpected; they’d used it to create a trap.

Henri was more used to the Humans putting up video at every opportunity, regardless of whether or not the person in the video knew about it. It was a pain in the ass to make certain that neither of them left any trace in the information stream, but it was a vital part of staying invisible long enough for the Garde to grow up enough to take on the Mogadorians. Thinking about such things made dealing with the beating that the Humans were giving him easier to bear.

They were both amateurs, doing more damage than was necessary. A really good torturer could inflict a tremendous amount of pain while doing only a small amount of damage. Henri’s ribs were already broken. Given enough time they’d kill him long before he would talk about anything the least bit useful. Henri fell back into the mindset that had helped him survive torture before. Hours could pass in the time it took for his heart to beat, but if there were the slightest change in his circumstances, he’d be instantly aware of it. Hours passed with the Humans demanding to know about his invasion plans, not that he could have answered even if he’d had plans for any invasion other than putting his knife where these two men would like it least because these two idiots had gagged him.

Finally one of the two men left, telling his partner that he would be getting help from their new friends to make the alien talk. Henri was instantly alert. The Human was talking about bringing at least one of the Mogs down here. If he was lucky, very lucky, then he’d have a chance to escape before the Mog got here. If he wasn’t, he had to make certain he died before the Mog got its hands on him. The Mogadorians tortured for fun and they were very, very good at it. He was waiting for his chance, mentally urging the follower of the two Humans to get close enough for Henri to break his neck when they both heard the sounds of someone sneaking around upstairs.

Henri would have let loose every single curse word he had ever learned in every single language when he saw the glow of John’s Lumen if he hadn’t been gagged. Of course the boy would be using it like a flashlight. “Henri!” John called softly and waved his hand to unlock the chains holding Henri upright.

“You aren’t supposed to be here,” Henri scolded after removing the gag. The Human tried to charge the two of them, and Henri let loose on the idiot. “This is how you do it stupid,” he growled as he incapacitated the man with a few precision strikes. Then he quickly broke the man’s neck. “He was a collaborator with the Mogadorians. The website was a trap. They’re on the way back here and we’ve got to be gone before they get here,” he explained at John’s shocked look.

That explanation was all that John needed. He understood exactly what was at stake. Henri had made certain of it. “I know you’ve killed people before, I’ve just never seen it,” he explained.

Just then they heard a voice coming from the direction of the door. “Don’t you move or I’ll shoot this kid!” It was the surviving member of the stupidity brigade. He was holding up a teenaged boy and holding a shotgun to his head.

“You just had to bring the gun,” John said to the boy.

“You’re Malcolm’s boy,” Henri realized, along with the fact that apparently he and John knew each other. It was probably from school. “Get the lights would you?” he asked John, ignoring the Human’s babbling. John smirked as he broke the light with his telekinesis. That was all the distraction Henri needed as the man jumped just like Henri knew he would. Henri knocked the gun aside and kicked the man in the chest, knocking him into the wall and getting Sam away from the remaining idiot.

Apparently the Human really wasn’t getting the fact that he was outnumbered and outmatched because he lunged for the shotgun. John slammed him into the ceiling, holding him there with his telekinesis. The man began in again with his ranting and raving and Henri wasn’t about to listen to it again. “Shut him up,” he told John as he walked over to the table where his knife and Malcolm’s half of a tracking device sat. John slammed the man onto the floor of the basement, knocking him out cold. Henri knew that John hadn’t missed the fact that he was hurt, but that didn’t matter now. “We’ve got to get going. The Mogs are on the way here.”

“You know my dad?” Sam asked as they headed for the basement door.

“He was helping us,” Henri admitted, just as he heard footsteps on the floor above. “John no!” he called out as John ran up the basement steps. The warning came too late. An explosion, the type that Henri had seen far too often nine years before, blew the basement door off its hinges and knocked John back against the basement wall.

The Mog that came down the steps was typical for his race; big, mean and ugly. The Mog was seven feet plus tall, pasty white, bald with black tattoos all over its head and Henri knew the rest of its body, and while it could cover up the gills on its face, most never bothered, and that description didn’t even cover the pure black eyes and predator sharp set of teeth. How anyone could ever mistake a Mogadorian for Human was something that Henri would never understand, nor did he want to. As a race the Loric were at least close enough to being Human that they were actually able to interbreed.

The moment the Mog hit the floor Henri was ready for him. As he knocked the Mog out of the way of the stairs, Henri silently thanked his old instructors for making certain that he never, ever got into the habit of slacking off his training. It had been nearly eighteen years since he’d been in a war zone, not counting the loss of Lorien, but his fighting skills were still good. Even with the beating he’d received over the last day, Henri was still in shape and knew what he was doing. There was a reason that he’d been chosen as a Cepan after all. It helped even more that the Mog was overconfident. As soon as the two combatants cleared the stairway Henri yelled at John. “Get him out of here!” As much as it was Henri’s duty to protect John, it was John’s duty to protect those who could not protect themselves, and John was no longer a child.

The boys ran up the stairs behind him. The Mog shoved aside the debris that had tumbled down on top of him and came up swinging at Henri. The two warriors traded knife blows, (the alien weapons would have classified as swords if Henri’s was a bit longer or the Mog a bit smaller) the Mog backing the Cepan across the basement. Taller than Henri by more than eighteen inches with corresponding differences in strength and weight the Mog had a decided advantage that it took great enjoyment in, raining blows down upon the smaller Loric.

Henri was avoiding getting hit with the Mog’s knife as much as he could, but he couldn’t avoid it forever. The Mog struck a lucky blow in Henri’s side, but Henri was able to strike as well. Both warriors ended up thrown to the opposite sides of the room, losing their weapons in the process. The Mog recovered first, easily getting up from where he’d fallen. He advanced on Henri, reaching for the alien rifle that he’d thrown to the side when he’d first gone after the Cepan.

Henri however, wasn’t as helpless as he looked. As the Mog came close he swung out of hiding, emptying the shotgun that had been lost on the floor when Henri had rescued Sam into the Mog’s face and upper body. Knowing that the blasts had only knocked the Mog down and out for a short time, Henri grabbed up both his knife and the Mog’s rifle before running up and out of the basement. He had to get to the boys.

Outside he could see both boys in a truck, the one they’d came in apparently. Henri jumped in the passenger seat, asking what the problem was as they hadn’t even started the engine. Fortunately Henri had a simple solution to Sam’s half hysterical admission of losing the keys. “John, start the truck.”

“What?” the boys chorused.

“You can do it,” Henri said calmly. He pulled a small bottle out of the front pocket of his jeans and opened the cap. John nodded and tried, but his nerves were getting in the way. “This isn’t any different from what you’ve done before,” Henri told him. “Just start the engine.” Unnoticed by either young man Henri poured a thick substance into the wound on his side. It wouldn’t heal the wound but it would stop the bleeding. He then took the tracking device out of his pocket and put it on the seat beside him. He had spotted the Mog coming out of the house, and knew that if John couldn’t get the truck started he would need to do something.

Unfortunately the Mog attacked before John could get the truck started. He launched himself at John, through the truck’s windshield, using his body like the pole part of a spear and his knife as the blade. Henri didn’t bother to stop and think. He simply threw himself between John and the Mog’s knife. It pierced the windshield, Henri’s hand which he had thrown up to block it, and into Henri’s chest.

The wound was not instantly fatal. It missed Henri’s heart and the most important blood vessels. That did not stop John from shoving his power out in reaction to Henri’s injury. The Mog was thrown clear of the truck and across the clearing that served the house as a parking area. The truck also started. Henri knew that the Mog wouldn’t be stopped by simply being thrown. He shifted himself back into the passenger seat, growling at John. “Find the others. You’re more powerful together. Don’t let them win.” With those curt orders he left the truck, slamming the door shut. “Get out of here!”

Henri knew he was going to bleed to death. As long as he took the Mog out with him, he was alright with that. “HENRI!” he heard, but he ignored his charge’s call. He raised the Mog’s rifle, aiming it at the monster that was taking him from his duty. One of the boys must have realized what was happening because he could hear the truck pulling out and driving away. Not waiting for his enemy to completely rise from the remains of the car that he had crashed into, Henri fired two shots in quick succession. That was all it took to finally kill the threat to his charge.

Henri staggered over to his truck. He knew he was weakening, but he really did not want his truck to be found near the site of a murder. With no bodies to find as Loric as well as Mogadorians turned to ash upon their deaths, the only person the Human authorities would be able to focus on would be John. It would only make John’s already difficult life impossible if the authorities were trying to track him down in order to arrest Henri for murder.

Getting into the truck was a study in discipline over pain, but one that Henri had learned how to accomplish long ago. He put the rifle down on the floorboards, kicking it under the passenger seat. It was more habit than anything else, hiding the evidence that he wasn’t Human. He fished the keys out of his pocket, (he still couldn’t believe that the stupid fools hadn’t even bothered to search him) and started the truck up. He would simply drive it as far away from the house as he could before he died; one last measure to protect his charge. He would die a Cepan, having completed his duty. His honor would remain intact and he would be reunited with those he had lost.

Chapter 4

Notes:

I fully admit that I know nothing of medicine. All procedures, etc. in this story are all made up.

Mercy Hospital, Ohio

“Male Caucasian, carjacking victim, early forties, stabbed once in the chest, once in the side through and through, once in the left hand, beat all to hell,” the lead paramedic yelled as he and his partner rushed a gurney into the small hospital’s emergency room. He continued to rattle off the medical stats of his patient to the three person medical team that met them in the hall.

“How long since he was found?” Doctor Anderson, a veteran of more trauma cases than any of them had ever seen due to his experiences as a doctor in Vietnam, demanded as he began his own examination of the victim. Tall, thin and with more grey in his hair than brown, the elderly doctor had the respect of everyone he worked with, as much for his easy going nature with everything un-medical as it was for his expertise in trauma medicine.

“Fifteen minutes from the site the accident to here,” the paramedic said as he helped remove the man’s clothing. “It looked like he got away from the ‘jacker before running his truck into light pole. No telling how long it was before we got there.”

Mindy Sterngood, nurse practitioner and Doctor Anderson’s assistant, gasped as she cut away the man’s shirt. His entire torso was a mass of scars, not counting the two bleeding wounds. Her hands did not slow, having learned through her own survival of traumatic events that slowing down, no matter the provocation, led to people’s deaths. The blond woman had begun learning about trauma at the age of eight when half of her home town was killed in a series of wild animal attacks. It hadn’t taken long once those animals had made a second appearance for her to decide on her future career.

“Combat vet,” was Doctor Anderson’s opinion. He glanced at the man’s wrists. “And whoever had him didn’t jack him. He’s been tortured.” The flat, unemotional voice of the elderly doctor who was well known for his love of laughter and his upbeat attitude, sobered the already determined medical team. “He needs surgery immediately. Anne, type him up, he’ll need whole blood. Mindy, saline until Anne brings the blood.” The nurse took a blood sample and Mindy with the help of the paramedics moved the patient to the small hospital’s only operating room.

It wasn’t until Doctor Anderson was actually operating on the man’s lacerated internal organs that he and Mindy (the only two people actually in the operating room) realized that the he wasn’t Human. “Mindy?” he asked, his hands not pausing in tying the stitches needed to stop the bleeding.

“My mother taught me that all life is sacred doctor,” she assured him. “As long as he isn’t actively taking a person’s life I’m certainly not going to deny him his rights to treatment and safety.”

“Good,” Anderson said with a smile. “That’s what I like to hear, and even better to see when a person is confronted with the reality.”

“My mom lives with some of the most dangerous wildlife on the planet and she practices what she preaches,” Mindy said. “She taught me the difference between exploitation, peaceful coexistence, and having your head up your ass.”

“She sounds like a strong woman,” Anderson mused, tying yet another stitch. He had been wondering what was taking Anne so long with the blood sample, but it was likely that the man simply wasn’t compatible with Human blood types.

“Realist with high ideals,” Mindy said as she treated the wounds on the man’s wrists. He’d broken the skin struggling against some type of restraints. She’d already put pressure bandages on his hand and side wounds once she’d cleaned them up. This guy couldn’t afford to lose another single drop of blood. “She’d tell me, ‘Mindy, a gun is the last resort to solving a problem, no matter what Burt says.”

“Burt?” Anderson questioned.

“Our local paranoid paramilitary type,” Mindy explained. “My mom does admit that there are times when killing is necessary. She simply reserves it for self-defense. That’s when everyone in town pushes Burt at the problem.” She finished bandaging the man’s wrists. “Killing something that’s chained up isn’t self-defense.”

“No, it’s murder,” Anderson agreed grimly.

Anne ran in with several bags of A positive whole blood. “This is compatible, but for some reason none of the rest of the blood types are,” she said as she rushed around setting up the transfusion. “Oh my god!”

“What?” Anderson and Mindy asked.

“I know him. He came to the house looking for my ex, Malcolm.” Anne connected the complete incompatibility with most Human blood types with her ex-husband’s obsession with aliens. “He’s not Human is he?”

“He’s a patient!” Mindy snapped.

“He’s got a son,” Anne said as she waved away Mindy’s attitude and connected the first of the blood packets. She’d seen him walking her son’s best friend out of the high school one day. “I’m certainly not going to orphan my son’s best friend.” Only friend was more like the truth and everyone in the room knew it. Anne had been extremely grateful to John Smith for standing up for her son against the bullies at the high school. “His name is Henri Smith.” She took over monitoring Henri’s vitals.

After five hours of delicate surgery, (mostly due to their patient’s unusual origins and the doctor taking the extra time to make certain that he wasn’t making things worse) Henri Smith was moved to an observation room. It was as Doctor Anderson was returning to the ER that he learned that his patient was wanted for suspicion of acts of terrorism.

The police officers who had responded to the accident scene had towed Henri’s truck and logged it into their impound yard. When Sheriff James had put an APB out on the vehicle, the computer had spitted out its location, which in turn had led James back to Mercy Hospital. “I told you he’s in surgery!” the head nurse growled as she confronted Sheriff James and several of his deputies.

“Cindy?” Anderson asked, walking up to the group. “What’s going on?”

“These men are here to arrest our carjacking victim under suspicion of acts of terrorism. The high school was blown up and they’re blaming him!” she snorted in disgust.

“We found suspicious equipment at Smith’s home,” the sheriff began.

“When did Mr. Smith allegedly blow up the high school?” Anderson interrupted.

“Two hours ago,” the sheriff stated.

“Well, I’m sorry sheriff, but you’re going to have to find another scapegoat for this one,” Anderson said sternly. “Henri Smith has been on my operating table for the last five hours. I just finished patching up the injuries he received when someone decided that it would be a good idea to attempt to torture him. He has two dislocated shoulders, all of his ribs are broken - most in several places, numerous contusions in the shape of fists - several of which caused enough rupturing to his organs to cause internal bleeding, lacerations on both wrists from where he struggled against whatever restraints were used to hold him as they were beating him, two large stab wounds, one to his side and one to his chest, and one minor stab wound to his left hand where he'd held it up to defend himself. It’s a miracle the man didn’t bleed out before he escaped, much less before he got here.”

Sheriff James blanched at the list of injuries. “I guess he did have a good reason for that surveillance equipment,” he muttered.

“I’d guess so,” Anderson said sarcastically. He watched as the sheriff and his men slunk away. “Cindy, make sure that any records concerning Mr. Smith are lost. I don’t want anyone to be able to find out that he was here, ever.” The look he gave the nurse was more than enough for her to go along with him.

“Seeing as how we’ve got two bodies in the morgue that could very well have been our patient, anything that has to be recorded can be listed under John Doe,” she said serenely. “It’s not like we don’t get our fair share of those around here.” She handed him the preliminary reports on the two murdered men.

Anderson nodded and walked back towards the ICU. It didn’t take a genius to see what was going on, aside from the fact that Henri Smith wasn’t from around here as the saying went. He’d been here the night that five football players had come in all banged up from a confrontation where they’d bitten off a lot more than they could chew, including Sheriff James’ quarterback son. There had been no doubt among the medical personnel that James would retaliate against the family of whoever it was that had injured his son. Any risk to his son’s future career as a football player was unacceptable to that man. It made sense that John Smith had been the one the other boys had attacked considering the rumors that the boy was dating the quarterback’s ex-girlfriend, and knowing what he knew about the father, that John had clearly been able to more than defend himself made sense as well.

“How’s he doing?” Anderson asked Anne and Mindy, both of whom were standing outside Henri’s ICU room.

“He’s still unconscious. I’m worried about the medications we used,” Mindy said, worrying her lower lip. “I’m hoping we haven’t put him in a coma.”

“Even if we have, that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” was Anderson’s opinion. “What he really needs is rest, and since we can’t give him anything for pain until he can tell us what he can take if we even have it, it’s probably for the best that he’s out of it for as long as possible.” He sighed and turned his attention to another problem that had until now taken the backseat. “Anne, have you heard anything from Sam about his son John?” Who knew what was happening with that poor boy? For all he knew, John might very well think his father was dead. If the boy was very unlucky he was now a target of whatever mad man was going around killing people involved in believing aliens were real. According to the report, those two men down in the morgue had been alien conspiracy theorists.

“Sam texted me while we were in surgery. He and John have taken off to go look for Malcolm.” Anne had always believed that her ex had simply abandoned them, perhaps thinking that this way he could have his obsession and that the two of them would be better off without him. Now, with a real life alien who had claimed to be a friend of his laying in her hospital, she wasn’t sure what to think. Perhaps Malcolm really had been abducted like Sam had always said.

“At least the boys are out of the reach of whoever it was that decided to torture Henri, and most likely are responsible for killing those two down in the morgue,” Anderson sighed in relief.

“If they find out Henri’s here,” Mindy began.

“Cindy’s already fixing the records,” Anderson told her. “But we’re not going to be able to keep the information quiet for long. The sheriff and his men already know that he’s here.”

“We need to get him out of here,” Anne said firmly. “Both for his sake and for the rest of our patients. Can you imagine what would happen if the killer came looking for him here?”

“One of us has to go with him,” Mindy pointed out. “He’s no-where near ready to convalesce on his own.”

“Too bad we can’t just take him home,” Anne said wistfully. While there had to be lots of reasons for him to be on their world, surely it would be better for him to be on his own right now!

At that Anderson perked up a little. “Mindy, how isolated is your hometown?”

Mindy, who everyone knew was going to be moving back to her hometown to provide medical care, understood what Anderson was asking.

“My hometown has a permanent population of five people. Tourists, a few scientists and a handful of others blow in and out over the course of a year, but they rarely stay long enough to make a nuisance of themselves. No one who actually lives there would be bothered by our patient’s circumstances either. They’re all used to weird,” Mindy endorsed with a grin.

Anderson pulled his keys out of his pocket and removed a blue key from the ring. “Take this, go over to my place and bring back my RV. We can set it up as a recovery room.”

“And I take him home with me with no one being the wiser,” Mindy nodded.

“I’ll drive your car down to you next week when I go on vacation, so make sure that you leave me good directions,” Anderson said.

“And I’ll be able to tell Sam so he can tell John about this the next time he calls,” Anne said satisfied. “He’s getting a new phone,” she explained when the other two looked confused. “I’m guessing it’s part of the security precautions John is taking.”

She turned to Mindy. “You grew up in a town with only five other people? And here I thought Paradise was small!”

Chapter 5

Perfection, Nevada

 

Henri hadn’t expected to wake up. He had expected to die of blood loss. So when he did wake up, it came as a surprise, although the sheer amount of pain he was in wasn’t. He knew exactly how much damage he’d taken both at the hands of the idiot brigade and the Mog, not to mention how painful slamming his truck into that telephone pole had been. He really had expected to be dust by now.

It was obvious that he had been found and somehow treated enough to keep him alive, as there was an IV hooked up to his arm and there were bandages over all of his wounds. He was very glad however that they hadn’t given him any pain medications. Most of the ones that worked on Humans he was either allergic to, just his luck, or they had very bad side effects that completely negated the dulling of any pain. The next shock was that he wasn’t in a hospital or medical clinic of some kind. He’d visited one once when John had suffered the effects of Two’s death during a spelling bee at school. It had been too public to hide, but he’d done his best to mitigate the disaster that had been.

Henri was lying in a bed in an older RV, one of the small class C ones where the main bed was also a table during the day and a second bed was positioned over the driver’s cab. As he turned his head to check on the driver that he could dimly hear cursing, he noticed that both his knife and the rifle he’d taken from the Mog were lying next to him. Whoever it was that had him definitely did not want him to think he was a prisoner that was for sure. There was no way to mistake the weapons for anything other than the devices of harm they were.

“Come on, don’t do this, don’t crap out on me now. We’re almost there and Tyler will fix you up so you’re running like you just came out of the factory,” the woman pleaded with the vehicle. Henri took a deep breath and slowly moved himself into a somewhat upright position. As bad as the pain was, he knew it would have been much worse if his wounds hadn’t been treated. Cautiously he peeked around the seat that made up the headboard of the bed to get a look at the driver.

When Henri saw the driver something that he had been waiting decades for finally happened – he saw his one for the first time. Love at first sight wasn’t something that was unusual for Loric, unlike Humans. In fact it was a fairly standard occurrence, or it had been when Lorien had still existed. All of Henri’s concerns, even the pain he was in, faded into the background as his eyes devoured every detail of his beloved. Her blonde hair was tied back into a high ponytail. She was wearing a light colored tank top and khaki shorts. He saw bright blue eyes set in a delicate face as she glanced in his direction. She was breath taking – or it might have been his broken ribs, but he didn’t care.

“Hey, you’re awake! That’s great, I was really getting worried. I know that you’ve got to be in a lot of pain, but I need you to tell me how you feel. On a scale of one to ten, one being skinned knees and ten being so bad you’d kill yourself to stop the pain, where are you at?”

“About an eight,” he admitted.

“What can you take for pain? The medication I gave you to keep you unconscious for the surgery knocked you out for nearly two days. I really don’t want to kill you by accident,” she said.

“You got any caffeine?” he asked hopefully. That was the best and easiest to obtain painkiller that would work for him. From the way he was feeling he’d need one of those energy drinks to get the dosage he needed to kill the pain. He’d be higher than a kite if he actually drank one though.

“I’ve got diet Coke, Mountain Dew and Red Bull. I can give you the Mountain Dew right now, but I’d have to wait until I finish limping this thing into Perfection to get you the Red Bull or Coke. We’re about ten minutes out,” she said, gesturing at the RV’s windshield. “Do you want to wait?”

“Not really,” he said. Although the road they were traveling on wasn’t riddled with potholes, he was still feeling every bump.

“Ok, here you go,” she said as she leaned over and tossed a bottle onto the bed next to him. “You don’t have to worry about eating or drinking, nothing there needed stitches. The chest wound missed the major blood vessels around you heart as well as your heart itself. It did however, catch part of your lung. There were also several smaller tears from your broken ribs on different organs, all of which were stitched up. The side wound - you were damned lucky, the knife actually slipped right in between your intestines. The wound in your hand was pretty much the same, it missed everything vital. Doctor Anderson was extra careful when he stitched you up. We reset your shoulders and gave you several pints of A positive whole blood. It was the only type you were compatible with. Can you take antibiotics?”

It had all come out in a rush as though she was trying to make sure she didn’t forget anything from his list of injuries. He paused in drinking his medicine. “Antibiotics would probably be a good idea. I’m not as susceptible to illnesses as one of your people would be, but I’m not immune.” There was no sense in trying to pretend to be Human at this point. Not only was his beloved talking as though she had actually taken part in treating him, thus having seen for herself that he hadn’t been born on this world, he couldn’t lie to her, not about something as important as that.

She nodded. “I’ll give you a shot as soon as we stop. Doctor Anderson sent us both to Perfection, Nevada to hide you from whoever it was that tortured you. It’s my hometown. It’s also right in the middle of one of the most dangerous wild animal preserves in the world. Anyone coming after you is very likely to get eaten, especially if they don’t take the time to learn the rules.”

“And what rules are those?”

“The major predator of Perfection Valley is El Blanco, a white graboid. Rule one, El Blanco hunts by sound. Do not pull your vehicle off the side of the road, leaving the engine running or the radio on. El Blanco will grab it, pull it under and try to find the tasty treat inside his new toy. If he comes by, and he comes through town a couple of times a day, keep quiet and make sure that anything that makes noise is shut down.

“Rule two, every person who lives in Perfection wears a wrist seismo, and everyone who visits must wear one while in the valley.” She turned to throw him a grin. “Believe it or not El Blanco is actually a tourist attraction. Basically they’re alarms that hook up with the seismology equipment all over the valley that monitors El Blanco’s movements. If he or anything else underground gets near you, the wrist seismo lets you know so you can take precautions.” Saying that she held up what Henri had thought was merely an unusual watch that sat on her left wrist.

“Rule three, everything and everyone is interconnected in Perfection. Someone messes with one of us; he messes with all of us. That now includes you because you are going to be staying here while you recover. There are only five people who live here full time, six now with me moving back home, so it won’t take long before you know everyone and everyone knows you. They won’t have a problem with you not being a local boy as Earl used to say. He and Val moved out right after the graboids first showed up here.

“Rule four, Mix Master is not allowed to leave the valley. Mix Master was the creation of a secret government lab. It’s some type of chemical mess that allows the creation of new creatures from different species. I have no idea how it works, just that it does. When the lab was abandoned a supply of Mix Master was left behind. Eventually it leaked and began changing plants and animals around the valley. 99 percent of those creatures affected don’t survive their birth, but that last 1 percent is often very dangerous. There have been quite a few deaths over the last seven years due to Mix Master creations,” she finished.

“Why does your family stay out here when it’s so dangerous?” he asked, wanting to learn everything he could about her. The rules were simple enough, and mostly common sense, but it would take him a while before he could say he trusted these people. He set the empty soda bottle down on the small shelf that his IV was hanging from.

“It’s just my mom Nancy and me. My dad’s been out of the picture for a couple of decades now. She loves it here and well, I grew up here.” She shrugged and grinned a little sheepishly. “I’ve missed it a lot to be honest. I’ve traveled a bit in the last ten years but Perfection will always be home.”

“Now that I know your mother’s name, can I get yours?” Home was a subject that he wanted to avoid. With John it was different, teaching him about his heritage, his parents and such was something normal, something that he would have been doing no matter what else had happened. It had nothing to do with his own sense of loss over Lorien’s destruction.

“Oh god, I’m sorry! I’m Mindy Sterngood.”

“Call me Henri,” he said, just as the RV’s engine finally sputtered and died. Fortunately they had reached town, and Mindy was able to coast to a stop in front of the town’s general store.

“Welcome to Perfection, Henri.”

Chapter 6

Chang’s Market

Henri watched as Mindy leaned out of the cab and talked to the Asian woman who had hurried over to see who they were. From her squeal of welcome he gathered that they were friends. He carefully shifted so that once Mindy had given him the shot she had promised, he could stand up. He really didn’t think that staying inside the RV was an option. He had to get the lay of the land, see just where he was, and if possible get his hands on a computer. He’d told the boys to run, and if they had there was a good chance that the Mogs hadn’t found them.

“Ok, give me your arm,” Mindy told him. He hadn’t noticed her moving around and she now stood in front of him with the promised antibiotic. He presented both of his arms to her, and she quickly injected the medication into the IV port. “What are these?” she asked as she disposed of the needle. She ran a gentle finger along the tattoos that covered Henri’s arm, traveling in a line from his right wrist to his shoulder.

“They’re the, I guess you’d call them heraldic crests, of the Loric Garde. Each family had its own crest.” He touched the tattoo on his collar bone. “This was the crest of the family I serve.” It didn’t matter that John was the only survivor of that family. He had given his oath, and would serve until he or his Garde was dead.

“Doctor Anderson thought you might be a combat vet from the scars,” Mindy nodded at the scars on his chest as she knelt down to put slippers on his feet.

Henri deliberately did not think about how close she was to him. “He was right. I’ve been in more than one war, and on more than one planet.”

“Well, I hope you don’t think too badly of Earth even if you were tortured here,” Mindy said as she got up and picked up a robe.
Henri stood and let her slip the robe on him. “I’ve been here nine years. It’s a pretty good place.” ‘Especially since I met you here,’ he thought. He wasn’t exactly sure how Humans courted their mates, at least those that actually stayed together in spite of the odds against them.

That was something that he’d have to find out. It was something that he’d been putting off, much like telling John about his legacies, because he wasn’t sure it would ever be needed. He certainly hadn’t expected to need the knowledge himself! After waiting for more than twenty years, he had simply resigned himself to the idea that his one had most likely died before he found her. It did happen on occasion.

Stepping out of the RV and into Perfection was an eye opener. As many small towns as Henri had lived in over the course of the last nine years, Perfection had to be the smallest. The town consisted of exactly three buildings; the general store, a metal Quonset hut that housed ‘Desert Jack’s Graboid Tours’, and a single family home. The rest of the town was a scrub desert, and the only real landmark that he could see was the town’s water tower, which could have come straight out of an old west movie.

“Jodi owns the store. It’s been in her family for a long time. She’s taken it international, selling graboid, shrieker, and ass blaster souvenirs all over the world through her website.”

“Shrieker and ass blaster?” Henri asked, mostly because he’d never heard the names before. He wondered if those were some of the Mix Master creations.

“Those are the second and third stages of a graboid’s life cycle. El Blanco won’t metamorphose into shriekers because he’s sterile. He’s also protected as a member of an endangered species. That’s why Burt hasn’t killed him yet,” Mindy explained. “That protection is the only thing protecting Perfection from being bought up and turned into one of those ranchette developments. My mom is the local artist that makes most of the figurines and such for Jodi’s customers, as well as having her own artist line. Tyler owns the tour business. He takes tourists out into the valley to see if they can catch a glimpse of El Blanco or one of the other oddities that only live here. Burt runs a survival school for the diehard adventurists, and Rosalita owns a cattle ranch further up the valley,” Mindy said as she pointed out each business, or at least pointed out the directions that Burt and Rosalita lived in.

“Tyler’s got a tour out right now,” Jodi said as she held open the door to the store. Henri leaned on Mindy’s shoulders as she steadied him with an arm around his hips. They slowly walked into the store, neither of them surprised at how exhausted the short walk had made him. “This group wants to see if they can find any new mutated wild life as well as see El Blanco in action.”

“As long as it isn’t them he’s eating,” Mindy shared a wry smile with Jodi. El Blanco rarely came to the surface unless he was eating, or playing with Burt. “Henri, meet Jodi Chang.”

“I know this is a lot to ask, but would you mind if I borrowed your computer for a couple of hours?” Henri asked once the formalities of introductions were done. “I’ve got a few things I need to check up on and I know you need to catch up with Mindy without me hanging around.”

“Of course, not a problem,” Jodi said, and led the way to her office.

Henri was well aware that Jodi was going to interrogate Mindy about him as soon as they left him alone in her office. That was alright with him because it meant that he could check and see if John had survived without answering too many questions. Like most of the situations they had thought they might encounter while on Earth, Henri and John had planned ahead about what to do if they were separated. This was the first time they’d needed that preparation.

As soon as the door closed behind the two women, Henri was deep into the internet, signing on to the online chess group that he and John used to pass messages to each other as well as ordering replacement equipment for what he’d left behind. His identity as Henri Smith was discarded as easily as the clothes he had left behind. He always had at least two other identities in use for the internet at all times, just for these sorts of situations.

Clothes and other necessities were quickly ordered as he waited for John to sign on. All he had with him was the robe and sleep pants he was wearing as well as the Mog’s rifle and his knife. That wasn’t the best way to start out, even if he was on the injured list.

It took twenty minutes but John did sign in. The sheer relief that swept over Henri nearly did him in. His Garde was still alive. Using a type of code that went along with the online identities they were using, Henri and John filled each other in on what had happened over the last couple of days.

When John mentioned his ‘cousin’ who had tracked him down the night the Mogs had attacked, Henri cursed quietly in every language he knew. So that was how the Mogs had tracked them down so fast. Of course, John’s bad habit of ending up on the internet had helped. Henri had already eliminated several videos of stunts John had pulled that night.

The fact that the two of them had fought the Mogs together also explained the destruction of part of the high school. When Henri had told John that the Garde were more powerful together he’d meant it literally. When the Garde fought together their legacies fed off of one another’s exponentially. Put enough Garde together when they were pissed off and you had what this world classified as weapons of mass destruction. Most other worlds simply classified them as walking death.

Henri didn’t have a hard time translating the message that said that ‘Jane’ had lost her mother in a hunting accident. Knowing the other Cepan as he did, Henri not only understood that the two of them had been hunting Mogs, he knew exactly which Cepan had been killed and which Garde it was that had lost such a fundamental part of her life. Four and Six were on the trail of Seven, and John thought that they’d be able to make contact within the next few days. Henri told him to keep tracking Seven and to tell Seven’s Cepan that the man owed him a beer.

He did not tell John where he was. That was too dangerous just yet. After getting a promise from John that he would log on at least once a day, Henri signed off. Then he went hunting for information on graboids. That was how Burt found him a few minutes later, looking up information on the giant, predatory worms and their subsequent life cycle stages. Burt came into the office and gestured for him to be silent. At least Henri assumed it was Burt. The gear, the weapons, and the abrupt way the man had gestured at him reminded him far too much of some of his fellow Cepan on the battle field for it to be Tyler. He complied with the demand, now having a much better idea of the threat under his feet.

A few moments later the entire building shook as El Blanco passed underneath it. Henri watched silently as Burt studied his wrist siesmo, tracking how close El Blanco was. Finally Burt looked up and nodded. “He’s gone for now, probably won’t come back through town for another few hours.” Burt looked over at the screen of Jodi’s computer. “I see that you’re checking out our local hazards.”

“Best to know what you’re dealing with before you have to deal with it,” Henri said calmly.

Burt nodded approvingly. “Proper preparation is the key to dealing with the enemy,” he said, beginning one of his familiar rants. Henri wasn’t prepared for it, not that he didn’t understand where the man was coming from, he was a Cepan after all and being prepared was one of the things that had kept him alive all these years. No, what he hadn’t been prepared for was hearing almost the exact same rant that his fellow Cepan, Likara, had used to berate him with for years.

Likara had been Six’s Cepan. Although he really did not want to break with tradition in such a major way, he could not ignore what the universe was telling him. He had been sitting here, following her often repeated advice and grieving her death, wondering who was going to teach and guard Six now. For any Garde to go through life without a Cepan was more than mere blasphemy, especially one so young. Now it seemed as though the universe had dropped him right in the lap of the perfect replacement for the late Cepan – except that Burt was male.

Six was old enough to have had the necessary female lesson from Likara, but still it was a huge breech of tradition. On the other hand, Burt already knew that he wasn’t Human and didn’t seem to be reacting like the stupidity brigade at all. There simply weren’t that many Humans who wouldn’t react badly and Burt did seem to have a very similar attitude to Likara, which would only help Six. “You Humans are very strange,” he said, interrupting Burt.

“Oh?” Burt asked, almost daring Henri to continue.

“Most Loric wouldn’t live within a hundred miles of a predator like El Blanco without a Garde who could communicate with it. You people not only can’t communicate with El Blanco, you have no idea what sort of life threatening life form might appear at any moment, and yet you actually fight for the right to live here.” Henri shook his head. “It’s just very different. Somehow, I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to completely understand you Humans.”

Chapter 7

Perfection, Nevada

“He’s an alien,” Nancy repeated for the tenth time.

“Yes Mom, he’s an alien. I had my hands in his guts. There’s no doubt,” Mindy reassured her one more time.

“I’m just trying to wrap my mind around it,” Nancy said. “I’ve always believed that there had to be life out there somewhere. I just never thought I’d get to see it.”

“I can’t believe the poor man was tortured,” Jodi said as she brought a tray of food over to the table where the ladies of Perfection were gathered.

“I believe it,” Rosalita said firmly. “I know men who would torture anyone if they thought they could get away with it.” She thought for a moment. “And they probably have,” referring to the fact that she was once a Vegas showgirl. It was no secret that at least one guy she’d dated had been in bed with the mob.

“Well if anyone comes looking for him, I’m sure El Blanco wouldn’t mind taking care of them for us,” Jodi grinned evilly.

“Exactly,” Mindy agreed.

“As much as I hate to say it, I have to agree with you. Anyone who can do to someone what they did to Henri deserves to get up close and personal with one of our unique wildlife,” Nancy said soberly. All three women had seen Mindy bringing Henri into the store. The way he moved, the bandages that could clearly be seen even under the robe he was wearing, as well as the pain and exhaustion on his face told their own story about his experience. “It would be a perfect example of karma. Well, at least he’ll have a lot of peace and quiet while he heals.”

“Um, peace and quiet?” Rosalita asked. “You do remember that this is Perfection; where we get our lives threatened every day?”

“That’s ok,” Mindy assured her. “Henri’s a combat vet. He’ll probably start getting antsy just in time for one of our crisis’s to rear its ugly head.”

“He’ll get along with the other boys then,” Nancy said with a smile. It was no secret that Nancy mothered the entire valley, no matter the person’s age. At least she tried to in Burt’s case; it was a common tug of war between the two. He was as anti-social as she was friendly. The other town residents simply let them go at each other whenever it came up; sitting back and watching the show. It rather resembled a brother and sister going through a ‘you’re not the boss of me!’ stage of sibling rivalry.

Tyler came in with his tour group and Jodi left to wait on anyone who wanted to buy a souvenir. This group was two families who had decided to vacation together, four parents and four children, three boys and a girl. The boys were all very excited. Apparently El Blanco had made an appearance, chowing down on a wild burro; which the boys were describing to Jodi with the ghoulish delight of preteen boys. The daughter was more excited about the pictures she had taken of a new Mix Master creation; a mix between a coyote and a snake, with some type of rodent thrown in.

Tyler was helping the young girl print out one of her pictures for the Mix Master bulletin board – a place of honor that displayed a great number of pictures of the more harmless Mix Master creations that could be found around the valley. He was also explaining that as the person who had first found the creature, she would be the one to name it. “Hmm,” she hummed, looking at her picture. “Rattlesnake rattle, rodent and snake mixed tail, (it was covered in tiny scales the color of pink flesh) stretched out coyote body with tiny legs and a coyote head with rodent teeth. It’s not a carnivore, because it was eating grass.”

“That’s right, and that’s the reason that I didn’t shoot it. Unless it proves to be a danger to Humans, we like to leave the creatures of the valley alone. At the very least they’re one more thing for El Blanco to eat that isn’t a person,” Tyler said, looking over her shoulder.

“Does El Blanco eat a lot of people?” she asked. The obvious crush she was bearing shown out of her eyes, but Tyler was doing his best to ignore it. There wasn’t much else he could do considering her parents were customers of his.

“Honestly he eats just about anyone who wanders anywhere near him and doesn’t take the precautions that I insisted you and your family take. That’s one of the reasons why we insist that anyone who comes into the valley registers and takes a wrist siesmo with them. I once saw him pull down a dirt biker and spit out the remains of the bike,” Tyler told her.

“I think I’ll call it,” she began.

“Anything but fluffy,” Rosalita muttered to Nancy and Mindy. The two ladies hid their grins at Rosalita’s snarky attitude. The truth was that the residents of Perfection had long grown immune to the excitement of naming new creatures, especially when most of the time those same creatures were a threat to Human life. The last thing they wanted to do was to be forced to kill something named something especially cutesy.

“A Rattlerat,” the girl finished with a relish.

“Well, that’s a fine name,” Tyler told her. He put up the picture and wrote the name on the bottom. “Now you’d best be getting back to your parents. They’ll be leaving soon and you don’t want to be left behind.” He left her and walked over to where the ladies of Perfection were having their lunch. “Mindy, back from Paradise or are you just on vacation?”

“Home to stay, at least for the foreseeable future,” Mindy told him.

“You heartbreaker you!” Rosalita teased as soon as the tourists had left the store. “You just went off and left her!”

“Oh come on!” Tyler protested to the laughter from the women. “You know I like them a hell of a lot older than that!”

“We know, but it’s fun to tease you about your admirer,” Nancy told him.

“I saw Burt’s truck outside,” Tyler said, eager to change the subject. “Where is he?”

“He’s in my office with the alien that Mindy brought home. Now you be nice to the poor man. He’s been tortured and we need to show him that not everyone on Earth is as nasty as the people who hurt him,” Jodi told him.

Tyler looked at her for a moment before turning to the other three ladies, pointing back at Jodi. Silently they all nodded their heads. Jodi was telling him the truth, not teasing. “It isn’t a joke Tyler,” Nancy told him. “We need to keep quiet about Henri because there’s a good chance that whoever tortured him is still out there looking for him.”

“Sort of our own personal witness protection program,” Rosalita said.

“So outside of Perfection, he doesn’t exist,” Tyler checked. The ladies nodded and Tyler turned around as the door to Jodi’s office opened. Burt came out supporting an obviously exhausted and injured Henri. He helped Henri to the table and sat him down in the only open seat, right next to Mindy. She introduced him to everyone at the table.

“Hey Burt, we got a new one,” Tyler said and pointed at the Mix Master bulletin board. This was the other purpose the board served. It alerted the other residents to potentially fatal creatures.

“Coyote aren’t too dangerous if you keep your wits about you, and neither are rattlers as long as you stay out of their way,” Burt mused as he looked the creature over. “I need to look up the kangaroo rat. This one could pose a problem.”

“How?” Henri asked.

“You wouldn’t believe how many harmless little animals turn deadly when Mix Master gets involved,” groused Rosalita. “I still can’t believe the shrimp that turned into a man eater. It was bigger than I am.”

“It could be very dangerous ecologically as well,” Nancy explained. “We really have to keep an eye out on the valley’s future as well as any creations that could be dangerous to people. In England, the rabbit – totally harmless. In Australia, those same rabbits devastate the ecology because they don’t have a natural predator to keep their numbers to a reasonable level.”

“And if the kangaroo rat has an unreasonable appetite or is exceptionally aggressive, then what it gets from the other critters can be magnified all out of proportion,” Burt chimed in. “Remember the acid plant?”

“Or the swarm,” agreed Jodi. “Those had a chirp that was as loud as jet taking off – each.” She shuddered at the memory.

“Needless to say, we take every new creature found very seriously until we know it’s harmless,” Nancy told Henri. “Come on, you look like you’re about ready to collapse. You can have Mindy’s old room for now.” She ushered Henri and Mindy out to her place.

“What do you think of him Burt?” Rosalita asked. From what little she had seen he looked like a nice man with terrible luck, but Burt had actually talked to him.

Burt sniffed. “He thinks we’re weird because we want to live here.”

“So do most Humans,” Tyler pointed out.

“He said that most of his people wouldn’t live within a hundred miles of El Blanco without someone who could talk to him.” Burt couldn’t understand why anyone would want to talk to any animal, much less a graboid.

“You mean like Doctor Doolittle?” Tyler asked.

“No, animal telepathy,” Burt said, amazed and wary. “I’m not sure he wasn’t making fun of me.”

“Burt, he wasn’t making fun of you,” Jodi sighed. “He’s an alien. Who knows what might be normal for him, even if he has lived on Earth for the last nine years.”

“I gotta admit Burt, animal telepathy would be very handy every now and again around here,” Tyler pointed out. “I gotta go clean out my jeep. I’ve got another tour group coming through for the moonlight tour.”

“I have to get back to my cattle,” Rosalita sighed. With that, everyone broke up and went their separate ways. People in Perfection had a tendency to spend most of their time either in pursuit of their own businesses and hobbies, or hanging out around the store if there wasn’t a crisis happening.

 

The next morning saw a lot of packages delivered to Jodi’s store; things that she hadn’t ordered. That mystery was cleared up as soon as she saw that they were addressed to Henri Johnson, care of Chang’s Market. There were no less than five laptops, all with satellite hookups much like the one Burt used to scan the valley every day; although these were probably to be used for internet use rather than infrared imagery. A good amount of clothing and camping supplies, suspiciously missing the goods that Jodi carried in her store stock, occupied the rest of the boxes. She grabbed a sleepy Tyler to deliver it all to Nancy’s.

Henri spent most of the next four days either in bed sleeping, or sitting out on the store’s porch with his laptops. The rest that he was getting was helping him to heal, because he was getting stronger every day. He certainly looked better wearing normal clothes and he was able to move more easily, not leaning as heavily on Mindy when she helped him to walk over to the store and back. It was on the fourth day that Nancy confronted him.

“Seeing as how you’ve spent the last nine years here, I’m going to assume that you know what I mean when I ask you this question,” Nancy said sternly. She and Henri were sitting on the bench under the store’s picture window. He nodded and turned to watch her. “Why are you staring at my daughter?”

Chapter 8

Perfection Valley

Henri could have kicked himself. He really should have known something like this was going to happen. He knew that Nancy was a very protective mother. She’d already scared off one tourist with a single look in the last four days when the man was tried to talk to Mindy. He really didn’t want to face that look himself, Cepan or not, she was one scary lady. “I didn’t think that I was being that obvious.”

“You couldn’t have been more obvious if you were a teenaged boy,” Nancy said drolly.

“I guess I am in a way,” Henri said after thinking about it for a moment. “I waited twenty years to find my one, and when I do she’s not even Loric. She’s Human, and I have no idea how I’m going to explain it to her, much less the rest of you. I can’t imagine a teenaged boy knowing what to do either.”

“Star from the top,” Nancy directed. “Your people are called Loric?”

“Yes, from the planet Lorien. Most of the time you can’t tell the difference between a Loric and Human. We can even interbreed we’re so close, but there are a few ways in which we are completely different,” Henri said carefully.

“What are they?” Nancy asked.

Henri sighed. He hated it when people started asking him questions. They never seemed to want to stop and they often wandered in directions that he really didn’t want to talk about. If he wasn’t really careful Nancy would start to pester him about Lorien and he didn’t want to ever talk about that. “The one we’re talking about is the fact that Loric are completely monogamous. Humans can be if they’re lucky, but most of the time you’re not. Your people tend to serial monogamy.” He paused to make sure that she was following along. She nodded and motioned for him to continue. “We tend to find our one, our mate, when we’re in our early twenties.”

“Wait a minute!” Nancy held up her hand. “Mate? I thought you had a son?”

It took Henri a moment to realize who she was talking about. He had no idea how she knew about Four, but he was quick to reassure her. “John’s not my son. He’s my Garde. His parents are dead. We just tell people he’s my son to get around custody questions. I’ve never been married because I hadn’t found my one; not until I saw Mindy.”

“But you do have legal custody according to Loric laws?” Nancy wanted to know. The last thing she wanted to learn was that the man who claimed to be in love with her daughter was a kidnapper.

“I’m his Cepan. It’s my responsibility to teach, mentor, and guard John for the rest of my life.” Henri was going to leave it at that. Going there would lead to questions that he had no intention of answering. “The closest relationship that I have seen here has actually been fictional. Have you ever seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer?”

“It was Mindy’s favorite show,” Nancy told him. “You mean the relationship between Buffy and Giles, her Watcher.”

Henri nodded. “It was John’s favorite too, although I have no idea how he found out about it. It’s very similar, except that a Cepan would never leave their Garde to face battle or any other dangerous situation alone if there were any choice. The only reason I’m here is because John and I both thought I was going to bleed to death. I told him to run while I took care of the danger.”

“You killed the people who tortured you,” Nancy said flatly.

“One of them,” Henri admitted calmly. “I’m fairly certain that the other one was killed by the people who had him set up the trap that I got caught in.” He wasn’t going to mention the Mog. With no body left behind, there really wasn’t much point.

“That was self-defense,” was Nancy’s opinion. Henri nodded; even though once he was loose there really hadn’t been any question about the outcome. “You’ve only known Mindy a few days. How can you be sure that she’s your one?” She used the Loric term deliberately, trying to tell him that she was taking his claim seriously.

“For my people, knowing who your one is and falling in love with them only takes seeing that person once. I honestly thought that my one had died before I’d had a chance to meet her until I saw Mindy for the first time.” Henri smiled, remembering the moment and it was at that point that Nancy really began to believe what Henri was telling her. That was a look that couldn’t be faked, no matter how hard some men had tried.

“So what would you do if she were Loric?” Nancy asked. If she was going to have a wedding to plan it was best to know about the groom’s traditions too.

“Just tell my sister,” Henri admitted. “There wouldn’t be anything else to do. We’d both know we were mates from the same moment, so it would just be a matter of telling our families. They would get together and throw a party to celebrate, but that’s about it. With no possibility for divorce, my people never had a reason for a legal binding.”

“Well you can forget that!” Nancy said. “There is no way Mindy is not getting a wedding!”

“Whatever she wants is fine with me,” Henri reassured her. “I’ve waited for her for so long that just knowing she exists is still a shock. I just don’t want to lose her now because I don’t have any idea of how your people get to that point.”

Before Nancy could say anything to that, Mindy pulled up in her mother’s car. She got out and slammed the door. “If I have to deal with that little crap stain one more time!” she growled.

“Mindy!” her mother chastised.

“Mother, two words – Melvin Plug!” Mindy said, frustration pouring off of her. Nancy nodded, conceding the point. “How that creep can dare to try and take me for a ride is beyond me.” She sat down between them with a groan. “Is it really too much to ask to be able to buy a parcel out here at a reasonable price when I already have a residency permit? You’d think he’d be glad to get rid of land he can’t sell, especially since I’m willing to pay cash.”

“Why would you need a residency permit?” Henri asked, confused. He’d thought that those were only for people who had been born outside of the United States who wanted to live inside the borders. He’d run across those types of permits when learning how to fake documents and create new identities for himself and John.

Mindy smiled, a bit sourly because of Melvin. “Everyone who lives in Perfection needs a permit because this is El Blanco’s habitat. You don’t because as far as anyone else is concerned, you aren’t here. You don’t exist. I’m planning on telling Twitchell, you’re my boyfriend or something if he sees you while you’re here. He’s the government guy over the valley.”

“I don’t mind,” Henri said with a smile.

He and Mindy didn’t notice Nancy rolling her eyes and smirking behind their backs. ‘They’re so sweet I’m going to need insulin because there’s no way Mindy doesn’t love him just as much as he loves her,’ she thought to herself, amused at the looks they were giving each other. ‘At least this is one potential son-in-law that I can stand, and grandkids won’t be a problem either.’

“Anyone who threatens El Blanco’s health is kicked out of the valley and sent to jail if there is thought to be sufficient evidence for violation of the protected species act,” Mindy told him. “There’s only been one case where it ever got that far. A scientist who couldn’t believe that the people of Perfection weren’t a threat to El Blanco actually poisoned him to make sure he would exhibit signs of illness in order to both validate her theories and get everyone kicked out of the valley.

“She had involved an animal rights group that I was working for,” Mindy told him. “We made sure that television crews were brought in and she ended up getting arrested on national television. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the footage no one would believe that El Blanco actually came into town to get help when he ate an overdose of the poison. Now the group actually praises Perfection as the best example of living in harmony with the Earth.” She rolled her own eyes at that bit of drivel. No one who hadn’t actually lived here could ever really understand what it was like to live with a graboid, even one who wouldn’t turn into shriekers. “So what are you working on?” she asked, leaning to look over his shoulder.

“I’m working on a graduation present for Sarah,” Henri explained. “One all expenses paid trip to Las Vegas ending in the graboid tour for her and her family. This way by the time they come for the tour, John should either be back from Argentina or on his way here.”

“That’s so sweet!” Mindy said.

‘Insulin, I’ll definitely need insulin,’ Nancy thought with a smile as she slipped off back into the store. “Jodi, do you carry insulin? And would you like to help me plan a wedding?”

“What?” Jodi asked confused as Nancy laughed.

“What are you talking about?,” Burt grumped. He and Jodi were at the counter. He was going over his mail and she was working on filling some orders.

“Mindy and Henri,” Nancy said, pointing back over her shoulder. “They’re sickeningly sweet to the point of sugar shock. I’m guessing that they’ll want to get married within a few months.”

“When was the last time there was a wedding in Perfection?” Jodi wondered.

“When your parents got married,” Burt told her. “Your uncle Walter planned it because your mother was his baby sister, so it was held here.”

“You remember that far back Burt?” Nancy chuckled.

“The reason that I remember is because it was the first time I saw Perfection,” Burt explained. “My family was invited because my parents were major land owners back then and the wedding was a big deal. They were the last owners of the mine that the bacteria escaped from the lab in. The land my compound sits on has actually been in my family for as long as this store has been in Jodi’s.”

“Wow, I didn’t know that,” Nancy said.

“I remember that from my grandfather’s stories,” Jodi laughed. “Hyrum Gummer, the only man who could miss with a cannon.” She gulped a bit at the look on Burt’s face. “You obviously got your marksmanship from his wife. As I understand it she was a great shot.”

“That she was,” Burt mildly bragged. “She won quite a few contests over the course of her life. She made certain that all of her children could shoot as well.”

“I thought that you and Heather moved here because of the geographic isolation,” Nancy said.

“That was the factor that tipped the balance to picking Perfection, but there were several different places in the running. Heather’s family owned some land out in Montana, but it was too close to several different concerns that I didn’t want to have anything to do with. She’s living up there now.”

“Well, do you think you could give away the bride?” Nancy asked, changing the subject.

“If they actually do get married, and I’m not sure they are, I would be honored,” Burt said seriously. He backed away as Nancy and Jodi put their heads together. While he was honored to be asked, he wasn’t stupid enough to get roped into doing anything else. The last time he had been involved in planning a wedding it had been his own and it had been an utter disaster between both of their mother’s trying to outdo the other. He and Heather had eventually sneaked off and eloped out of sheer desperation.

Chapter 9

Desert Jack’s Graboid Adventures

Being on the run had limited Henri in the things he and John had managed to collect. Leaving Paradise wasn’t the first time they had simply left everything except what they had brought with them from Lorien. That didn’t however, mean that he couldn’t afford whatever he had wanted or needed to buy. The metals and other things the Cepan had stripped from their ship had been worth more than enough to set all of the pairs up for a good long time, and Henri had easily increased that amount with his hacking skills. Earth’s economy was much easier to navigate than some planets he’d been on where his assignment had been to get creative with their intelligence storage networks.

So not only did he have more than enough to set up John’s one, (Sarah) and her family with a special trip for her graduation, he was also able to pay Melvin Plug back for his treatment of Henri’s one, (Mindy). Driving the cretin’s business under, buying it up and making sure that Melvin was left far, far away from Perfection with only a minimum wage job to support himself took nearly a month. It was worth every moment, especially when Mindy came dancing into her mother’s house showing off the deed to her new land.

During that time he got to meet with Doctor Anderson when the man brought Mindy her car and picked up his RV. Anderson also checked him over to make certain that he was healing. For a Loric, he was healing the soft tissue damage at a normal rate, which was just slightly faster than a Human. His bones on the other hand, would take slightly longer. Finally cleared for light exercise beyond walking to the store and back, Henri began scouting out the valley with Burt on his patrols.

It came as no surprise to Henri that Burt was planning to subject him to a much more through interrogation than Nancy had. Henri planned to use that interrogation to ask Burt to become Six’s new Cepan. As much as it bothered him to go so far outside tradition, Burt really was the best choice for a replacement Cepan for Six. He’d have to tell Burt everything if he was to have any chance of persuading the man to take up the task, but for her he’d bare his pain to the other man.

“You’ve been on Earth for nine years. What brought you here in the first place?” Burt began.

“John needed a safe place to grow up,” Henri said.

“And why wasn’t home safe?” Burt asked. Everyone in town now knew that John was Henri’s ward. Going from teacher to parent couldn’t have been easy, but Burt was suspicious as to the reason it was needed in the first place. Even if the kid’s parents had died in an accident, hadn’t there been any relatives to take him in?

“A race called the Mogadorians invaded,” Henri said bluntly. “They killed every adult Loric Garde in a surprise bombing attack, including John’s parents. As much as I hate to think it, we were probably betrayed. The Mogs knew that was the only way that they would ever be able to take Lorien, because all it takes is a handful of Garde to defend a planet. Four Garde, pissed off and using nothing but their own inborn talents can completely destroy an armada of invading ships. It’s only happened once before, but it was caught on film. Most of the time other peoples were smart enough to invite us to fight on their home ground on their behalf rather than attack us. The Garde were the ones who decided which side we would fight on.”

“What did these Mogadorians want, some place to colonize or conquer?” Burt asked.

“The Mogadorians strip a planet of all of its resources, kill off the local population by torture for fun, and leave behind a blackened husk that is completely incapable of supporting life in any form for centuries.” The rage and pain in Henri’s voice was all too real. He was holding nothing back. “My people are dead, killed in the worst possible ways for the amusement of the Mogs.”

“Dear God in heaven,” Burt breathed. He pulled his truck over, parked it and pulled off his shades as he turned to look at Henri, who refused to look at Burt in return. It was the only way he could get through this recital.

“Nine Cepan, teachers and bodyguards of the next generation of Garde, were able to escape the invasion with their charges. John was eight years old. The eldest was ten, the youngest was three. The role of Cepan is practically sacred to my people. It is the highest possible honor to be assigned as a Cepan to Garde infant. We stay with them until one of us dies. It is a bond of absolute trust, especially as Garde are instinctively driven to protect. They will end up on the front lines of a war. That is inevitable, but while they’re fighting and protecting others, we Cepan protect them.”

Henri pulled up his sleeve so that Burt would be able to see the tattoos that ran up his arm. “The Mogs cannot allow the nine to grow up and come into their legacies if they wish to continue their rampage across the universe because the children will stop them even if it is only to ensure that Earth never faces what Lorien did. These three Garde children and their Cepan are now dead, murdered by the Mogs. This one died just before John and I move to Paradise.” He touched each of their crests. “That’s bad enough, but one of the Cepan died hunting down the assassination squads that were sent after us. Her Garde, Jane survived.”

“What happens to her now?” Burt asked; horrified at what he was hearing.

“She’s been hunting Mogs on her own before she hooked up with John. We don’t have anyone who qualifies as a Cepan to take Likara’s place. Normally there would be an easy hundred to choose from. Burt,” Henri finally turned to look at the other man. “You could be Likara’s twin. You are the only one obsessive enough to teach like Likara did, and right now Jane needs something to be familiar. It’s a huge breech of tradition, but would you at least consider taking Likara’s place?”

“I need more information,” Burt spluttered, although the idea of a young girl facing off against aliens like the ones Henri was talking about alone made him sick to his stomach.

“John will be coming with Jane by the end of the month, along with another Garde and Cepan and a Human friend of his. I still don’t know the boy’s name. You can meet her then and I’ll answer any question you want,” Henri told him.
“What sort of things do you teach a Garde?” Burt asked; taking the opening as Henri had hoped he would.

“Any and all forms of combat, weapons, although traditionally Cepan use knives in one on one situations, intelligence gathering, tactics, diplomacy although honestly that tends more towards ‘You really don’t want to push me or I’ll have to gut you’, cultures of any people the Garde might be required to visit, languages that he or she might need, hacking skills, economics, basically anything at all that the Garde might need,” Henri listed easily. “Like I said, you really don’t qualify because you don’t have combat experience against people, but you are just the sort of person to take the job as seriously as it needs to be taken. Until she meets her one, her Cepan is the only person Jane will ever have.”

“That reminds me,” Burt’s good humor was restored as he could put Jane on the backburner for now. “Are you aware that Nancy is planning a wedding for you and Mindy?” He swung out of the truck and started towards the cargo area.

“If that’s what Mindy wants, I’ll go along with it,” Henri said with a shrug as he joined Burt. “With my people, either you are married or you aren’t. There is nothing legally binding a mated pair together other than the fact that they are mates. My problem is that I still don’t know how to tell Mindy that she’s my one.”

“Hmmm, is that why Mindy still doesn’t know that you were behind Melvin getting his comeuppance?” Burt grinned. “I loved hearing what you did to the little turd. Although truthfully the way news spreads, she probably already knows. I don’t think Nancy’s been able to keep her plans a secret.”

“He upset her for nothing more than his own greed and to show her he was better than she was,” Henri growled. “He deserved worse than what I gave him. He’s just lucky John didn’t find out about it.”

“Oh? Do tell,” Burt encouraged.

“I told you, Garde are extremely protective. They instinctively claim a territory and the people who live there are theirs. No one belongs to a Garde more than their Cepan and by extension their Cepan’s family. John would have lost it if he’d thought that anyone had hurt her.”

“And four Garde were enough to take out an invading armada,” Burt remembered with a wince. “I have to say that the one thing I’m proud of is that I’ve never had to kill another Human. Animals for food, graboids, shriekers and ass blasters to protect other people no problem, but I’ve never taken any person’s life. I never wanted to be one of those paranoid paramilitary wackos who shoot at everyone who comes close thinking that they’re government types out to steal something.” He thought about it for a moment as he got out a series of small boxes. “I think that I could if the situation warranted it though. One thing I’ve never been shy about is protection, and forgive me for saying so, but I don’t want Earth to end up like your Lorien.”

“I don’t either. Earth’s a good a place as any in the universe. There is no reason why it should suffer like Lorien or any of the other planets the Mog have killed,” Henri said, more puzzled about the toy car and the watches that Burt was taking out than interested in where the conversation was going. “What are you doing?”

“El Blanco has a real fascination for these,” Burt said as he held up a watch. “I have no real idea why he likes the ultrasonic signal they give off so much, but it is the one way he’ll be sure to come to the surface. I like to check and make sure he hasn’t eaten anything that has poisoned him again.”

“You’re calling him to the surface to run a health check on him?” Henri clarified as Burt sent the toy truck out onto the dirt floor of the valley. “Now I know you Humans are weird.”

 

The Remaining Six

They’d all felt Three’s death and even seen the Mog who had killed him, but it was Four’s encounter that really shook them up. All over the world, five young Garde reacted as the vision swept over them, showing what they all thought would be the death of another number. It was Five who really feared Four’s death, not only for her own sake, but for her Cepan’s as well. Her Cepan was sister to Four’s Cepan and the death of her brother would hurt her more than the rest of the death’s combined.

When she saw Four’s defiance, and Six rescuing him from the hold of the exploding Mog, Five was elated. She woke to find her Cepan whispering with the Reverend Mother. “The scars on her leg and the seizures are products of the extra protection they were given. Each time one of the children dies, this happens, but it is different this time. There isn’t a scar, which means that the child survived.”

“I still cannot understand this protection,” the Reverend Mother whispered harshly.

“It is not witchcraft or magic Reverend Mother. It is nothing evil. It is a product of their own psychic abilities. It prevents any of the children from being killed except for the next child in the sequence. Their names were a small price to pay for that protection.” Her Cepan was practically a rock on this subject, no matter how many times the Reverend Mother chastised her for it.

Personally, Five agreed. She remembered Lorien and the debate that had led to the protection. She’d been old enough to participate and she had voted to give up her name. She couldn’t remember it now, in fact she couldn’t even remember the name her Cepan had before they’d come to Earth, or any of the others either. For the year that it had given One, the four years it had given Two and the nine it had given Three, she had been grateful; for it had given her and those who came after her in the sequence nine years of peace.

When she awoke for the second time, it was after yet another vision. She’d never had two visions so close to each other, but then it hadn’t been time for them to come together before either. “It’s time,” she whispered to the nun sitting at her bedside. For the last eight years she and her Cepan had hidden in this Catholic run orphanage, she as an orphan and her Cepan as a nun. A most peculiar nun to be sure, one who taught self-defense, mechanics, computer skills and other very un-nun-like skills, but one that no one had ever questioned actually was a nun.

Her Cepan looked at her with a question in her eyes. “Four survived and he’s with Six. They’re looking for the rest of us. We have to go and join them. The armada will be here soon.” Five was sure of this. At eighteen she was the second oldest of the surviving Garde and one of her legacies was precognition. It wasn’t very strong, because future events were always changing, but when she was certain about something it always came to pass.

“Do you know where they were?”

“Paradise, Ohio, United States of America,” Five rattled off softly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see your brother, just Four and Six.”

“That’s all right,” Sister Mary Catherine told her. “I’m sure that baby brother of mine is fine. We’ll leave after Compline when the sisters and the children are asleep. What would you like your name to be this time?”

Five had thought about it for years. She’d been required to act as the orphanage’s mouse, the quiet and studious child, for what seemed like forever. “I want to be Betty, like the cartoon.”

“Alright, although I think you’d be better as a red head than have hair that black,” was her Cepan’s amused reply. “How about a haircut too? Your long braids are good for a school girl look, but they’re not so good in a fight.” The plan had long been in place. All they needed to do was sort out the details, then they’d be on their way to Paradise.

Chapter 10

Paradise, Ohio

Big news never really dies in small towns. The tale of a single murder can linger for generations. So it was no surprise that when Betty (Five) and Katie (her Cepan) arrived in Paradise the entire town was still talking about the events of the last few months and the people involved.

Jack Collins had been the regional high school janitor and he had died the night terrorists had attacked the school after hours. It was generally assumed that there had been at least one couple, if not more, of students there after hours as it was one of the few places in town where a young couple could have a little privacy. It was universally agreed that the man had died a hero, saving both half of the school and the teens, although no one alive would admit to having been there that night.

Two of the teens that the town was talking about were John Smith and Sarah Hart. John had blown into town with his single father and swept the town’s ex-princess off of her feet. Any hope of reconciliation between the high school’s quarterback, Mark James, and Sarah had died the moment she’d met John. The town was split over whether or not this was a good thing. Some claimed that Mark was a spoiled brat who didn’t deserve a sweet girl like Sarah. Some maintained that Sarah was a total bitch for dumping Mark and then taking up with John the minute he showed up in town. She had also just received an all-expenses paid trip to Vegas, which some people regarded as highly suspicious as no one knew just where the trip had come from.

But it was the Smiths, John and his father Henri, that really had the local gossips in a frenzy. Henri had claimed to be a writer, but it was claimed by the sheriff’s deputies that he’d been tortured by the same terrorists who had blown up the high school. From there the gossip devolved into a complicated mess.

Henri had been working undercover for the feds to track down the terrorists and had gotten caught. He was a writer working on a book about alien nut jobs and had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, because the local quacks were also dealing in illegal weapons. He was widowed, divorced, had an ex-girlfriend dump John on him, he’d rescued John from the ex-wife/girlfriend who was one of the terrorists and they were running from her. Henri had escaped from the hospital and had taken one of the nurses hostage because he was one of the terrorists, he’d just been caught in an internal feud. He’d had a sick bed romance with the nurse and they had run away together to get married.

John was either a witness, child of one of the terrorists, or an ex-terrorist himself and Henri was his bodyguard for the witness protection program. He was Sarah Hart’s love slave. He was best friends with Sam Spellman because his father was writing a book and needed to include Malcolm Spellman in it and no one could find him. He was involved in a love triangle with Sarah and Sam. He had run away with Sam because Henri was dead and the terrorists were still after him. He and Sam had run away together because neither boy could admit to anyone that they were madly in love.

It was the last few about John that had Betty drawing the line at listening to any more of the rubbish the locals were obviously making up. John was only seventeen, far too young to become involved with anyone, much less get into a situation as ludicrous as the rumors were claiming. “How can you listen to that drivel?” she asked Katie quietly across the table. They were eating dinner at one of the local bar and grills, listening to the various conversations going on around them. “None of them are even remotely possible, much less true!”

“Even the most outrageous of stories often have bits of truth to them,” Katie instructed. “You have to learn how to sift through the dross to find the truth. For instance, it sounds very true that my little brother got himself hurt bad enough to need a hospital and that he’s not there anymore. There is a possibility that he’s with the nurse and personally I’m hoping that the romance story is true.”

“How would that even be possible?” Betty wondered.

“He never found his one back home,” Katie answered with a sad look.

Betty wondered whether the look was for her own lost mate or for her brother’s long loneliness. “Well, I’m guessing that the story about Sarah and John being together is true after all,” she said. “She and her family just sat down to my right and she’s wearing his crest.” Betty fingered the necklace chain that her own crest hung from.

They were one of the very few things that the children had managed to take with them when leaving Lorien. A few had managed to take chimeras, favored pets of the Garde children mostly because the shapeshifters had been in small forms, or a few trinkets they might have been playing with when their Cepans had run into where ever they had been and snatched them up to whisk them off to their escape ship, but all of the children had been wearing their crests. Five’s chimera was currently in her pocket, in the shape of a tiny kitten. It had learned that the shape of a mouse was not a good thing, especially among Human females, the hard way. The crests marked which family the children had been born to, as their birthmarks (which looked like random geometric tattoos to the Humans) marked them as Loric Garde. “I think that would make a far better promise symbol than a ring for one of us, don’t you?”

“And if he and Henri are gone, which all of the rumors seems to agree on, then it would be child’s play to set up a trip as a way to get Sarah out of town to be able to meet with them,” Katie pointed out, a little cheered at the prospect of finding a clue as to where John and Henri had gone.

“I guess we have a bit of exploration to take care of then,” Betty said with a grin. They got up, paid for their dinner and left. It was far too easy to find Sarah’s house, even easier to break in, and as far as the search for information on the upcoming trip to Vegas, they didn’t even have to look. The information was spread out all over the living room. “’Desert Jack’s Graboid Tours’,” Betty said with a grin as she waved a printed out advertisement. “This is the only thing that is out of place. Everything else is a typical resort type treatment for a family of four.”

Katie came over and took the print out from her. “I guess we’re going to Perfection then?” Betty nodded.

 

Perfection, Nevada

 

Henri found out that Burt was right the hard way. Mindy did know all about Nancy’s plans for her wedding and was not at all pleased. Feeling rather like a deer that had been caught by a car on the road, he’d just followed as she grabbed his hand and led him away from the mother and daughter confrontation that he’d stumbled into. “I am so sorry about that!” she said as she dragged him into her room. She reached for his shirt, obviously trying to act professional and check his bandages.

“Hey, it’s ok,” Henri said, catching her hands and trying to get her to look him in the eyes.

“It isn’t! There’s no reason to pick on you just because she doesn’t think I can get a husband on my own!” Mindy cried, trying to stifle her upset.

“That’s not why she’s doing this,” he reassured her. “Your mom caught me staring and got me to admit that I’m in love with you. She insisted that Loric traditions weren’t acceptable and that you would get a wedding - not that you couldn’t find a husband on your own.” He brought up her hands and placed gentle kisses on her palms. “I’m the one she thinks is an idiot because I still hadn’t figured out a way to tell you that you’re my one.” He laughed softly at himself. “Actually that part isn’t so difficult; it’s trying to figure out a way to persuade you to let me be yours that’s the hard part.”

“Your one?” Mindy asked, losing the tension that had been caused by her misunderstanding of the situation.

“Loric only fall in love once,” he said. He let go of one of her hands and gently brushed her bangs out of her eyes, tucking the hair behind an ear. “The only thing I want is for you to be happy. I’ve been trying to research the concept of dating trying to figure out how it works, but it really doesn’t make sense to me. I’ve been on this planet long enough to get a general idea of what dating is, plus I am raising a teenager so I’ve watched the whole dating thing from a distance. By the way, that was scary and pretty much horrifying, but I still don’t understand how a lifelong, loving relationship could ever come out of that.”

Mindy giggled at the thought of Henri trying to guide his Garde through the horrors of the high school dating scene. “Yeah, laugh at the clueless alien,” he chuckled, pulling her gently into his arms. He tucked her head under his chin. It felt so good just to hold her. “I’ve waited so long for you. I’d almost given up hope.”

Mindy didn’t quite understand that. “Even if Loric only fall in love once, don’t you still have a choice?”

“It depends on what you consider a choice,” Henri said with a shrug. “It was our belief that there is only one mate for each Loric out there. That’s why we refer to our mates as our one. We fall in love the first time we see our one, and it either happens then or it won’t happen at all. It simply happens in that first split second. When you add in that Loric love forever choice becomes kind of a moot point. We have absolutely no interest in anyone who isn’t our one.”

“How long were you waiting for me?” Mindy asked, slightly unnerved at the possibility that while she could have married anyone, he was stuck with her.

Henri blushed. This was one of the few things that could actually embarrass him these days. “Loric typically find their one when they’re around twenty two. I was really, um looking forward to meeting you so, I uh began looking when I was eighteen,” he admitted. “That was just short of twenty five years ago. Now though, I’m grateful that you’re here instead of on Lorien.”

“Burt told us what happened,” Mindy said quietly. That knowledge made sense out of some of the things that he had told her; such as his tattoos having been the crests of the Loric Garde, past tense, while he still served his Garde. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“The worst part has been that my duty required me to run away from the fight,” Henri admitted. “The Garde must be preserved, and my duty is to John first and foremost and always has been, but I never thought that doing my duty would come at such a price.”

“I’m glad that you did,” Mindy told him. It was her turn to hold him against the emotional storm, although she couldn’t hold him as tightly as he did her due to his still broken ribs. “Every child deserves a chance to live, and you’re not the only one who is glad that you’re here now. So why aren’t Loric traditions acceptable?” she asked in a deliberate change of subject.

Henri smiled; glad to get off that subject and on to a much happier one. “Because according to Loric traditions we’re already married and the only thing that would happen after informing our families would be a party where they could get to know each other. We don’t have binding ceremonies. Mates simply are.”

“Crap,” Mindy grumbled. “Now I’m going to have to apologize to my mother. She was right. Loric traditions are definitely not acceptable in place of a wedding.”

Henri laughed and tilted her head back so that they could see each other. “I don’t mind. As long as you’re happy very little else matters to me.” He kissed her gently, with her more than enthusiastic cooperation.

Chapter 11

Chang’s Market

 

“Sorry, the tour is closed right now. We’re having a bit of an emergency. Come back later,” Jodi called as she noticed two women coming into her store. Another Mix Master creature had appeared and this one was not friendly to Human life at all.

“Jodi, hand her a gun, she’s a better shot than Burt,” Henri countered as he came into the store. They were only there to round up as many guns and ammunition as possible to take care of the new infestation.

Jodi paused in her rushing around the store. “You sure? Because if we don’t get every single one of these things it’ll be majorly bad news.”

“She should be,” he said with a grin. “She’s my big sister.”

“Oh thank god!” Jodi cried and actually looked at the woman for the first time. She was wearing jeans and a halter top that showed off the same tattoos that Henri had; the ones that Mindy had said marked him as Cepan. Reassured she pulled out a few of the rifles that Burt had told her to keep on hand. It had paid off more than once when a new creature had gone on a rampage. “Here, do you know how to work this one?” she handed one of the rifles to Katie.

“Yes,” she said, as she checked the rifle over. Small, isolated orphanage or not, there had been a couple of ways for her to get her hands on local weapons and she had done so; up to and including joining a few of the local hunters every season. “What sort of things are we shooting?” she asked, getting right down to work. Her reunion with her brother could wait for now.

“On the board,” Henri told her, nodding his head in the right direction. “Bat, biting insect and something reptilian we think, at the very least they’re poisonous. So far there is only one colony, but they’ve already killed two hikers and permanently maimed another.”

“She’s here for the wedding?” Twitchell asked, having come in right behind Henri.

“Yeah,” Henri told him. It was as good an explanation as any and it was true enough, considering he had wanted his sister to be here when he married Mindy.

“I’m Betty, this is Katie,” Betty told him, shaking his hand and running interference. She’d seen the hand-speak the Loric military had used that Henri had flashed at her Cepan, telling them that Twitchell was only to be trusted with the least amount of information they had to give him.

“Nice to meet you,” Twitchell told her. “Sorry you’re related to one of the lunatics here.” He jerked his head in Henri and Jodi’s direction.

“Well, thank you,” Betty said, not really sure how to respond.

“Alright, everyone in the car,” Henri ordered, ushering them all outside.

“Burt to Jodi, come back,” Jodi’s walkie talkie squawked.

“I’m here Burt. We’ve got the rifles, ammo, and we picked up a few passengers,” Jodi said as they loaded up her car. “We’re headed to the cave now.” Jamming five people into Jodi’s car wasn’t the most comfortable thing, but it did allow them all to get to where the problem was in the least amount of time.

“Burt, Nancy here. I’ve got the night vision goggles and Rosalita has the ammunition. Is there anything else we need?” came over the walkie.

“Negative, just get here before sundown. The little buggers will take off and then we’ll never find them.”

The three Loric ended up in the back seat, with Jodi driving and Twitchell in the passenger seat. Henri handed out the rest of the guns and ammunition to everyone. “God, I hate it when you people come up with something new,” Twitchell snarled, quickly loading the weapon. He’d become surprisingly good at it over the last few years.

“Yeah, yeah Twitch, and your momma //vehtkral lorcfeme tra horfgranad//,” Henri muttered. Jodi didn’t understand half of what he’d said, (obviously it had been in his own language,) but the insult was clear, especially since Katie had whacked him on the back of the head. Henri had quickly adopted the attitude of most of Perfection after meeting the man for the first time.

“Watch your language,” Katie said.

“Thank you,” Twitchell interrupted her.

“In front of my Garde,” she finished, not even looking at the government man. “Where is yours?”

Jodi caught the sight of Betty giggling on Katie’s other side, so she figured the insult couldn’t have been too bad. Maybe once Twitch was gone she’d ask for a translation; if it could be translated. There were some things that simply couldn’t be translated from one language to another due to lack of concepts. English was so limiting sometimes for her. She had no idea how Henri managed.

“Argentina, with a friend of his trying to track down one of his cousins,” Henri answered. Betty could see that he was talking in hand-speak near his knees to Katie where Twitchell couldn’t see, but it was too far away and he was going too fast for her to make out what he was saying, not that she really needed to in order to understand. Six had been with Four and they were looking for the other numbers and Cepans. One of the sets must be in Argentina.

Moments later they joined Tyler and Burt on the hillside underneath a dank cave. There were no other exits to the cave fortunately for them, so as all of the new type of bats were located inside the cave they could be certain that all of the new creatures were killed as long as they didn’t let any of them escape. Mindy was nearby with her medical bag and Nancy and Rosalita were just pulling up in Rosalita’s truck. “Alright everyone, so far there have been no further attempts at escape by the rodents with wings. There is no guarantee it will remain so. Stay vigilant, and be safe. Tyler, you man the flamethrower,” Burt ordered as he took a load of ammunition from Nancy.

In the end other than Betty having to bash a couple of the creatures with her telekinesis to keep them from escaping, they were all shot and then burned to ash in very short order. Twitchell was sent on his way back to ‘civilization’. The rest of Perfection stumbled off to bed. Rosalita offered Katie and Betty the use of her bunk house while they were in Perfection and they accepted.

 

South America

 

Safety first had been something that had been drilled into the heads of the Garde children their entire lives; and Sam had quickly gotten used to taking the precautions that John and Six had insisted on. This however, did not include not talking to his mother – which in turn had led to the revelation that Henri was still alive. (John had managed to confirm that very comforting news through some sort of web site chat. Sam was terribly glad because he had been feeling guilty as hell about causing his best friend’s Cepan’s death.) Of course, that probably had a lot to do with the fact that John couldn’t seem to go four hours without talking to Sarah. They sent texts as often as they could.

Sam had no idea how John was keeping the Mogs from finding the texts, but John had merely smirked and said that computer work and intelligence had been Henri’s specialty. The confrontation between Six and John about Sarah (and the talks that had resulted over the next two weeks) had proved to be a fascinating trove of information about their people.

Their planet was called Lorien, they were called Loric Garde and the differences between Garde, Cepan and civilians were explained in detail. Sam had actually felt like he’d been punched when he’d learned that most Loric had been artists of one sort or another and what the Mogs had most likely done to them. Legacies, why only the Garde had them, what they were, when they usually showed up and when they didn’t, what they did. Mates, how they went about getting one, how John was extremely early in finding Sarah as his one, how Henri still hadn’t found his and how John felt somewhat guilty about that. Knowing that Henri was still alive thanks to Sam’s mother had helped that situation only because as long as Henri was still alive, he still had a chance to find his one. All in all, it had made a long and difficult journey much quicker and they’d arrived in Argentina far faster than Sam had realized.

Meeting with Seven turned out to be a letdown after the excitement of meeting Six. Of course without any Mogs trying to kill them it was bound to be less exciting, but Bernie Kosar had simply run off while they were checking into a hotel and had come back leading Seven, his Cepan and Seven’s chimera who had taken the shape of a parrot. From the talk that had ensued Sam had learned that the two animals were littermates and Seven’s chimera (who now had the name Pepe`) had actually been a gift from John to Seven.

Seven was fifteen, tall and skinny, with dark brown hair and eyes, which was very similar to his Cepan. They easily passed as father and son. Honestly they probably passed far more easily than John and Henri ever had, not that Sam had ever actually seen them try. They went by the names of Eric and Charles and both had distinct British accents; which was very strange to listen to right next to Six’s Australian accent. The thing that Sam found most surprising was how Charles tended to defer to John and Six. Garde or not, they were only teenagers. Six was nineteen, while he and John were both seventeen. He’d have thought that Charles would have taken control, or at least attempted to as he was the only adult in the group.

Sam was spreading out the world map on one of the two beds in their hotel room when John’s cell phone beeped. He didn’t even bother to raise his head as he knew it would just be Sarah texting again. They had already decided that John wouldn’t be helping Six try to find the other numbers this time. They needed to know if Eric could help with this task in case one of them was unable.

Six and Eric joined hands over the map while John sat down on the room’s other bed. Sam and Charles watched as the strange light show produced by the Loric tracking device emerged from their hands and swirled down over the map. John and Sam exchanged a grin before John went back to his phone. “Sarah says that one of us passed through Paradise yesterday. The woman with her had a tattoo on her collar bone that matched the necklace the girl was wearing. She’s also missing the graboid tour ad from their trip paperwork,” John informed them.

“That’s probably the number that used to be in Spain,” Sam said, waving John to look at the map. “The one in Mexico is still in the same location, and the one in the Pacific has moved west quite a bit. It looks like the one from Spain has gone somewhere in the U.S. southwest, not sure where exactly from this map.”

“Did you say graboid tour?” Charles asked with a shudder. “Nasty creatures from what I’ve seen on the news.”

“Henri says it’s like when we lived in Canada and the polar bears wandered around downtown during certain times of the year,” John said. He didn’t mention the fact that Henri had pulled them out of that particular town because he’d caught Four petting one of the polar bear cubs. “There’s an albino graboid that lives in Perfection, Nevada. That one won’t change so it’s protected by the government. The town’s residents use it as a tourist attraction. If that set of Garde and Cepan are headed there, Henri will watch out for them.”

Sam was tracking the movements the sea bound number had made over the last month that they had been using the map. “It looks like our sailor is headed for Florida, or perhaps the Gulf of Mexico.”

John groaned while Six smirked. “Damned Mogs,” he cursed. “I can’t go to Florida.”

“Told ya you need to keep your stunts off the internet,” she said.

“It’s not my fault Three’s death caught me in the middle of a beach party,” John snorted.

“Two’s murder happened while I was in school,” Eric said. He’d sat down at the head of the bed and had his hand wrapped around his lower calf. “My pants caught on fire. We had to run after that.” The look on his face; resignation, fear, and misery, told Sam everything he ever really needed to know about the way all of the Loric had been living over the last nearly ten years. “Where were you?”

“A spelling bee,” John answered easily. “The only reason Henri wasn’t thrown in jail for child abuse was that he was sitting in the audience with the other parents when it happened. We ran as soon as they let me out of the emergency room.” Sam had seen the scars on John’s leg, the ones in the same place that Eric was clutching and realized that each burn scar had come from the murder of one of the first three numbers.

Everyone turned to look at Six. “I was killing a Mog when Three died,” she bit out and left, slamming the door behind her.
“Think that’s when her Cepan died?” Sam asked quietly.

“Probably, remember how quick Henri was to throw himself between that Mog’s blade and me?” John asked. “The death of another number completely incapacitates us. All we can do is suffer through the pain.”

“She blames herself,” Sam realized. “She couldn’t prevent her Cepan’s death by killing the Mog fast enough.” John nodded. He was probably the only person who really could understand Six’s pain, because he’d suffered through it himself when Henri had almost died a month ago. If he had only gotten the truck started sooner Henri would never have had to make that choice.

“We’ll swing through Mexico and pick up the number there,” John decided. “If our sailor is close enough we’ll pick that one up too. If not, we’ll split up – one group to Perfection and the other to Florida.”

Chapter 12

Notes:

Author Notes – “nonsense” is English, //nonsense// is Loric

Mexico

Finding the Garde in Mexico required John’s group to leave Sam’s truck, Six’s motorcycle, and the beaten path.
Fortunately Sam had visited the area with his father often enough that he knew where an old abandoned temple was where they could safely stash the truck and bike. It had been looted and emptied out long ago, so there was no risk in leaving them there. After that it was a four day hike deep into the jungle.

Under normal conditions the local villagers would have caught them unaware. This wasn’t normal circumstances. Charles had been actively hunted before, as had Six, and they both retained the awareness that had allowed them to survive. John and Eric both had chimeras at their side, and at the first hint of trouble they had both shifted into the largest jaguars Sam had ever seen; so none of them were taken by surprise when the tribe’s warriors stepped out into the open.

What did surprise them was the appearance of a large, dark haired, male Cepan. Tanned to within an inch of his life, with a scruffy face and deep blue eyes, this Cepan was built more like a tank than either Henri or Charles. Henri was on the lean side, although it was obviously all muscle, where Charles was practically whipcord over bone. This man was a solid wall. He wore his tats openly and before the group could do more than register his appearance, he had Charles up off of the jungle floor in a bear hug.

“Put me down, you overgrown lout!” Charles laughed, while doing his best to return the greeting.

“Only if you agree to actually eat something! You’re still nothing but skin and bones!” the Cepan laughed in return.

As they made their way into the village, the Cepan introduced himself as David. His Garde was number Eight. David had received the name from the priest who ran an orphanage and trading post nearly five days travel away from the village. That was their only link to the outside world. Eight had known of the attacks by the Mogs like all of the other numbers, but none of the other Garde had learned what David and Eight had.

“Here,” David spread out a large map of the area over a cleared area of ground not too far from the village’s central fire pit. “This is where the Mogs have started to process this world.” He touched a spot on the map. “It’s another three days hike from here, but they’ve already set up one of their workers camps.”

“Well, they’ve tried to anyway,” Eight laughed. The skinny fourteen year old was tanned as deeply as his Cepan, although he was blond rather than dark. The boy’s cheeky grin told its own story about that. “For some reason they keep having problems.”

“It’s nothing that they can track back to us,” David reassured John, who looked worried. “Eight came into his legacies early. Telekinesis, invisibility and weather manipulation are very useful in this situation. A lot of night time storms with heavy lightning strikes, broken straps, locks and other equipment failures have taken their toll. Of course, the fact that everyone who manages to escape from the camp ends up being dragged off and eaten by the wild animals around here means that the Mogs aren’t too concerned. They just keep bringing in more slaves.”

“How many have you been able to rescue?” John asked, understanding the implications of David’s report.

“Not enough,” David said seriously. “We’ve gotten forty eight out, almost all of them Loric civilians. There were five prisoners, and the Mogs actually staked the last two out in the jungle themselves.”

“That’s not good,” John and Charles said at the same time. Charles deferred to John. “Henri told me that the Mogs torture for fun.”

“He was right,” Six told him, the look on her face telling them all that she had seen exactly what the Mogadorians considered entertaining.

“If they aren’t taking time out for that, what’s got them so busy?” John wondered.

“I’m afraid to guess,” Charles admitted. “But with the four of you here, we have the minimum number of Garde needed to defend Earth when it becomes necessary.”

John turned to look at David and Eight. “We’re gathering everyone together in Perfection, Nevada. It will be easier to work out a strategy when we know who and what we have to work with.”

David nodded. He had expected to be told something along those lines. “Five will have come into her legacies, but Nine is too young. She’s only twelve. Aside from her Cepan, she’s still helpless.”

“That’s why we’re meeting in Perfection,” Six smirked. “The local wild life should have lots of fun eating anyone or anything that gets too close to Nine, or the rest of us for that matter.”

“The wild life?” David asked skeptically. He’d used the excuse of wild animals to rescue people from the Mog’s camp, but the truth was that most of the animals were a lot less dangerous than he’d made them seem.

Charles grinned. “Do you remember those snakes back on Elbratikal? Think of those, only long enough to stretch from one end of this village to the other. They eat meat and hunt by sound. They drag anything that moves or makes a sound under the dirt. Even if you escape being digested, you’d still suffocate from the dirt.” The look on his face told them just how much he wanted one of the Mogs to endure such a death.

David shuddered visibly. He remembered those snakes all too well. “The timing is good for us to leave. The rains are about to start and the Mogs are going to make very little progress as long as they last. Also, the last prisoner they staked out really needs better medical care than I can give him.”

“Then we’d better get started,” Six told him. “We need every bit of intelligence you’ve managed to gather. How soon can we leave?”

“Give us an hour to get the prisoners ready for the hike,” David promised.

They broke apart to get ready. Most of the group was led off to the fire pit, where the women served them lunch. Sam however, followed David and Eight needing to be more useful, even if it was just to add supplies to his pack. So he was the first one of the group to see the escaped Loric. The sight of them made him glad that there was nothing in his stomach, and also had him silently apologizing to his history teacher, who had forced him to pay attention in class. She’d told him that one day her lessons would be of use to him someday. The escapees looked like something right out of his WW2 history books, starved and beaten, and these were only the workers. The prisoners had suffered far worse, and Sam was horrified to discover, that included his father.

Perfection, Nevada

Rosalita brought Katie and Betty to Chang’s Market early the next morning. She had gotten into the habit of doing her morning ranch chores early enough that she could indulge in a guilty pleasure, one that she shared with Jodi and Nancy. As for Mindy, there was no guilt involved in watching Henri doing his morning workout. Stripped to the waist and wielding the biggest knife any of them had ever seen, Henri had begun rebuilding his strength and speed as soon as Doctor Anderson had cleared him from bed rest. What had begun out of sheer curiosity had endured for the simple pleasure of watching the man move.

Jodi had recently added a second bench to the front of her store to accommodate all of the new people moving into Perfection. One three person bench was no longer enough. Nancy and Mindy were already sitting down with their coffee, and Mindy as always had been given the seat with the best view. He was her man after all.

Jodi came out of the store with a tray covered in coffee cups, muffins and fixings for the same. As Katie laid her leather jacket on a free portion of bench she asked, “How badly was he injured?” All of her attention was on her little brother, and the very vivid scars that still showed on his skin.

“He had three potentially fatal wounds,” Mindy admitted. “He almost bled to death from the side wound and the internal injuries. If the knife he was stabbed with in the chest had gone a quarter of an inch in any other direction, he would have died instantly.”

“Katie, what did you and Henri wear for ceremonies on Lorien?” Nancy asked.

The question was odd enough that Katie actually looked away from Henri to answer. “It varied, but the most important part was that our tattoos were visible. They are a badge of honor and of great significance.” Satisfied, Nancy nodded and returned to watching Henri.

Tyler wandered over and joined the ladies for breakfast as Katie pulled out her own knife and joined Henri. The two warriors fell into perfect harmony, their movements so precise and smooth that their kata looked like a choreographed dance. “Can you imagine what it must have been like when all of them got together to work out or practice like this?” Nancy said in wonder.

“I can just barely remember,” Betty said, helping herself to a cup. “My mom used to get me up and we’d go down to the salle first thing in the mornings. We’d see all of the Cepan and the highest ranked officers practicing together before we’d pair up to go to our morning classes.” Watching Katie and Henri brought that hazy memory into sharp relief. Betty could almost feel the metal bars that separated the observation area from the great salle below, and her mother’s hand on her shoulder.

The Cepan and prospective Cepan, row upon row of them, going through kata after kata while waiting for their Garde to appear had been a formidable sight, one that had driven home to more than one opponent that fighting the Loric really wasn’t a good idea. All of the Cepan had their own quarters in the building simply known as the Center, as did the Garde, but they would spend almost all of their waking hours together. A Cepan’s duty was to his or her Garde, first and always so it was rare to see an adult pair apart from one another. Seeing her Cepan with another, even if it was only her brother brought home to Betty just how much they had lost. Her children would not have a Cepan waiting for them, nor would there be a list of prospective Cepan for her to choose from for them. The knowledge hurt more than she had imagined.

After only a few katas Katie and Henri stopped. Henri had reached his limit and Katie was more interested in talking to her brother than working out with him at the moment. A single glance from her at his newest scars, and a slight twitch of his eyebrow and shoulders told her everything she needed to know. His Garde had been in danger and her brother had done what every Cepan did – put himself between that danger and his charge. //So why am I being asked about ceremonial clothing?// she asked.

//Please tell me you didn’t,// he begged, as he reached for a shirt.

//Only that they had to leave the Cepan marks visible,// she reassured him. She had no wish to don some of the occasionally extremely uncomfortable garments that they’d had to wear for some of the ceremonies back on Lorien either.
Henri looked over his shoulder at her and the look on his face was one that she knew to be wary of. Her brother was a very serious man, one to whom his responsibilities meant everything. That didn’t mean that he didn’t have a sense of humor. There was very little in their lives, especially now, that could be considered funny, but Henri had obviously found something.

//I’m having a binding ceremony with her daughter,// he said, knowing that it had to have been Nancy who had asked. He’d been dodging the question for over a week.

//Why would you want to do something like that?// she asked, confused. Most Loric believed that binding ceremonies were redundant and rather silly and she was no exception.

//Because Mindy is my one,// he admitted a little nervously. He didn’t want to shove Katie’s pain in her face. The loss of her mate and children was a bleeding wound that she would never recover from, but at the same time he had waited so long to be able to tell her this news.

Katie froze in shock, and only her training allowed her to retain her hold on her knife. Had he really said what she’d thought he had? A sudden flash of memory reminded her of when she had announced to her family that she had found her own one – he’d had the same look on his face, happy but concerned although at the time the concern had been for her dream of becoming Cepan. He really had found her, his one, after all this time. Katie let out a squeal of joy and threw her arms around Henri’s neck.

Tyler winced at the pitch Katie had managed to reach. “I guess she found out about the wedding,” he said. “If the plans get too much for him, send him over to my place. I could use some help with my jeep.”

Nancy shushed him, but Mindy shot him a grateful look before turning back to her mother’s sketch book. Nancy was already deep into designing the bridesmaid dresses as well as something more Loric than a tux for Henri to wear. “Nothing says he has to wear sleeves,” Mindy pointed out. “The problem is going to be how to show off John’s crest.” That tattoo was on the left side of Henri’s neck, where the other crests ran up his right arm.

“Too bad he can’t wear a tank top,” Jodi said.

“Or nothing at all,” smirked Rosalita. Betty just looked on in confusion as she watched the picture of a sleeveless dress appear on Nancy’s sketchbook.

Chapter 13

Perfection, Nevada

Rosalita brought Katie and Betty to Chang’s Market early the next morning. She had gotten into the habit of doing her morning ranch chores early enough that she could indulge in a guilty pleasure, one that she shared with Jodi and Nancy. As for Mindy, there was no guilt involved in watching Henri doing his morning workout. Stripped to the waist and wielding the biggest knife any of them had ever seen, Henri had begun rebuilding his strength and speed as soon as Doctor Anderson had cleared him from bed rest. What had begun out of sheer curiosity had endured for the simple pleasure of watching the man move.

Jodi had recently added a second bench to the front of her store to accommodate all of the new people moving into Perfection. One three person bench was no longer enough. Nancy and Mindy were already sitting down with their coffee, and Mindy as always had been given the seat with the best view. He was her man after all.

Jodi came out of the store with a tray covered in coffee cups, muffins and fixings for the same. As Katie laid her leather jacket on a free portion of bench she asked, “How badly was he injured?” All of her attention was on her little brother, and the very vivid scars that still showed on his skin.

“He had three potentially fatal wounds,” Mindy admitted. “He almost bled to death from the side wound and the internal injuries. If the knife he was stabbed with in the chest had gone a quarter of an inch in any other direction, he would have died instantly.”

“Katie, what did you and Henri wear for ceremonies on Lorien?” Nancy asked.

The question was odd enough that Katie actually looked away from Henri to answer. “It varied, but the most important part was that our tattoos were visible. They are a badge of honor and of great significance.” Satisfied, Nancy nodded and returned to watching Henri.

Tyler wandered over and joined the ladies for breakfast as Katie pulled out her own knife and joined Henri. The two warriors fell into perfect harmony, their movements so precise and smooth that their kata looked like a choreographed dance. “Can you imagine what it must have been like when all of them got together to work out or practice like this?” Nancy said in wonder.

“I can just barely remember,” Betty said, helping herself to a cup. “My mom used to get me up and we’d go down to the salle first thing in the mornings. We’d see all of the Cepan and the highest ranked officers practicing together before we’d pair up to go to our morning classes.” Watching Katie and Henri brought that hazy memory into sharp relief. Betty could almost feel the metal bars that separated the observation area from the great salle below, and her mother’s hand on her shoulder.

The Cepan and prospective Cepan, row upon row of them, going through kata after kata while waiting for their Garde to appear had been a formidable sight, one that had driven home to more than one opponent that fighting the Loric really wasn’t a good idea. All of the Cepan had their own quarters in the building simply known as the Center, as did the Garde, but they would spend almost all of their waking hours together. A Cepan’s duty was to his or her Garde, first and always so it was rare to see an adult pair apart from one another. Seeing her Cepan with another, even if it was only her brother brought home to Betty just how much they had lost. Her children would not have a Cepan waiting for them, nor would there be a list of prospective Cepan for her to choose from for them. The knowledge hurt more than she had imagined.

After only a few katas Katie and Henri stopped. Henri had reached his limit and Katie was more interested in talking to her brother than working out with him at the moment. A single glance from her at his newest scars, and a slight twitch of his eyebrow and shoulders told her everything she needed to know. His Garde had been in danger and her brother had done what every Cepan did – put himself between that danger and his charge. //So why am I being asked about ceremonial clothing?// she asked.

//Please tell me you didn’t,// he begged, as he reached for a shirt.

//Only that they had to leave the Cepan marks visible,// she reassured him. She had no wish to don some of the occasionally extremely uncomfortable garments that they’d had to wear for some of the ceremonies back on Lorien either.
Henri looked over his shoulder at her and the look on his face was one that she knew to be wary of. Her brother was a very serious man, one to whom his responsibilities meant everything. That didn’t mean that he didn’t have a sense of humor. There was very little in their lives, especially now, that could be considered funny, but Henri had obviously found something.

//I’m having a binding ceremony with her daughter,// he said, knowing that it had to have been Nancy who had asked. He’d been dodging the question for over a week.

//Why would you want to do something like that?// she asked, confused. Most Loric believed that binding ceremonies were redundant and rather silly and she was no exception.

//Because Mindy is my one,// he admitted a little nervously. He didn’t want to shove Katie’s pain in her face. The loss of her mate and children was a bleeding wound that she would never recover from, but at the same time he had waited so long to be able to tell her this news.

Katie froze in shock, and only her training allowed her to retain her hold on her knife. Had he really said what she’d thought he had? A sudden flash of memory reminded her of when she had announced to her family that she had found her own one – he’d had the same look on his face, happy but concerned although at the time the concern had been for her dream of becoming Cepan. He really had found her, his one, after all this time. Katie let out a squeal of joy and threw her arms around Henri’s neck.

Tyler winced at the pitch Katie had managed to reach. “I guess she found out about the wedding,” he said. “If the plans get too much for him, send him over to my place. I could use some help with my jeep.”

Nancy shushed him, but Mindy shot him a grateful look before turning back to her mother’s sketch book. Nancy was already deep into designing the bridesmaid dresses as well as something more Loric than a tux for Henri to wear. “Nothing says he has to wear sleeves,” Mindy pointed out. “The problem is going to be how to show off John’s crest.” That tattoo was on the left side of Henri’s neck, where the other crests ran up his right arm.

“Too bad he can’t wear a tank top,” Jodi said.

“Or nothing at all,” smirked Rosalita. Betty just looked on in confusion as she watched the picture of a sleeveless dress appear on Nancy’s sketchbook.

Chapter 14

Bixby

Sarah relaxed back into the leather captain’s chair behind her dad. Henri had arranged the perfect graduation trip for her family and had included all the amenities. He’d even arranged for them to have the rental van her dad was driving and it was completely decked out. This was no economy rental car. Personally she wasn’t even sure what half of the electronic devices built into the van did, not that she minded. Her little brother was engrossed in the movie he’d picked out and wasn’t causing any trouble. That in itself was a huge blessing considering the amount of time they’d spent in the van.

Los Vegas was a tourist city and they’d been put up in one of the really good hotels. They’d seen shows, (fortunately there were a few family oriented ones or her mother would have had Henri’s head) they’d checked out the casinos, there had been a night of dancing for her parents with movies and room service for her and her brother, and a showing at an art gallery that focused on photography among other things. Now they were on their way to Perfection, and their last stop of the trip. It was during this trip that Sarah had informed her parents, about John and Henri’s real secret.

To say that her parents had been startled was an understatement, but they’d soon (after more than an hour of almost silent yelling between the three of them) settled down once they’d realized that John really was the same nice boy that they’d met a few months ago. Her parents had always told their children that a person’s race didn’t matter. Now Sarah was putting them on the spot. They’d approved of him when they’d thought he was Human and she’d made the point that they couldn’t back away from that stand without looking like prejudiced hypocrites. Sarah had been forced to hold back a giggle when her mom had finally given in and pointed out to her dad that John was still a better choice than Mark James, high school football player and bully, even if he wasn’t Human. With that in mind, both of her parents were now looking forward to getting to know John better.

“Bixby, last town before Perfection Valley,” her dad called out as he pulled into a gas station. “Bathrooms, gas and munchies.” Even with a luxury van, having spent too much time in one position meant that everyone got out to stretch. That was actually a good thing because Sarah spotted an unusual truck across the street.

The back of the truck had two bench seats along the sides, high enough up that the back edge of the seat sat on the side wall of the truck bed. There was a worm mounted on the end of the hood where an old fashioned company logo should have been, and ‘Desert Jack’s Graboid Adventures’ painted on the doors. The tan-ish paint job looked as though it was attempting to hide more than a few rust spots, but all in all it looked like a typical desert tour truck. A man was loading the back of the truck with supplies. “Dad,” Sarah said as she pointed the truck out. “I’m going to say hello and ask if we can follow him back to Perfection.”

Spotting the truck and the driver, Mr. Hart nodded his head. “Good idea honey. Ask if there is anything we should be bringing,” her dad told her, going over to start the gas pump.

Sarah hurried across the street, checking both ways out of habit. A woman had joined the man in loading the truck. “Does Gummer think that Perfection is going to go through an epidemic, Tyler?” she asked with a laugh. Sarah knew from the research she’d done on graboids that the woman was talking about Burt Gummer; graboid, shrieker, and ass blaster hunter and paranoid survivalist. She’d read that he still lived in Perfection, which is where he had survived the first hatching of the animals.

Tyler laughed easily in response, but Sarah could see that the laughter didn’t reach his eyes. “Well you know Burt,” he said. “I don’t think that there is a worse case scenario out there that he hasn’t thought of and planned out how to survive.” The woman walked away, shaking her head and muttering about paranoid military wannabe wackos. “It isn’t paranoia if they’re really out to get you,” Tyler pointed out, almost under his breath and more to himself than to her. “Hello!” he called out, his introspection interrupted by Sarah’s approach.

“Hi, I’m Sarah Hart,” she said, extending her hand. She’d meant to finish her introduction by telling Tyler that her family was scheduled to take the tour, but Tyler interrupted her.

“You’re John’s girl. How much do you know about what’s going on? Henri said that you and John are in almost constant contact.” Tyler grabbed her hand gently to shake it.

Sarah blushed. Tyler wasn’t the first one to comment on her and John’s texting habit. She rallied though and asked how he was aware that anything was going on at all.

“Perfection is quite likely the smallest town in America. We have six full time residents and everyone one of them knows everything about everyone else. It’s not exactly a place you can keep secrets,” Tyler answered her, smiling genuinely this time.

“You look like you’re getting well prepared for the refugees,” Sarah said, eyeing the medical supplies packed into the back of the tour truck.

“Forty three refugees, four Loric prisoners and one Human prisoner,” Tyler said tersely. “I never thought that I’d ever hear about anyone worse than the Nazis, but these Mogs have moved to the top of my true evil list.”

“They’re even scarier up close,” Sarah admitted. “If it hadn’t been for Six showing up and helping John, I’m not sure we would have made it out of the high school alive.”

“I saw your website. That was a really nice memorial you did for the janitor,” Tyler said.

Sarah nodded sadly. “The Mogs killed him just because he was there. He wasn’t a threat or anything, and well, I know that John and Six are glad that he got the credit for saving what was left of the school.”

“It’s a much better outcome than them taking the blame,” Tyler agreed.

“SARAH!” her dad called.

She turned and waved to let him know that she had heard him. “I’ve got to go. We’re planning on following you into Perfection and my dad wants to know if there is anything we should bring.” Sarah looked again at the medical supplies.
“Bring as much caffeine as you possibly can. It’s a strong pain killer for Loric and Jodi’s shipment has been delayed.” Tyler bit his lip. “I don’t know how bad it’s going to be, but it’s better to be prepared for the worst.” Sarah nodded and ran back across the street. They were in Perfection less than an hour later.

Sarah hadn’t been sure what to expect of Perfection, not after talking to Tyler, but she was still surprised when her dad parked in front of Chang’s Market. Tiny didn’t even come close to describing this town, but it was a bigger surprise to see a man and woman dueling with a pair of very short, curved swords in the area across the road from the store. Thanks to the pictures that John had taken for her, Sarah recognized Henri as one of the combatants. The wounds she had heard about that he had received the night the Mogs attacked had healed and lost the bright redness of recent injuries, but they were still very visible.

The woman he was fighting with had the same set of tattoos that he had, which Sarah guessed made her Five’s protector because the number that had been sailing in the Pacific was Number Nine. Nine was the youngest of the Loric Garde and only twelve years old. Even knowing what John had told her about the invasion of Lorien, she still hadn’t really been able to wrap her mind around the idea that John had lost his entire world. It was seeing a picture of Nine being introduced to Sam, and realizing just how young the tiny girl must have been when they’d fled Lorien, that brought the tragedy home for Sarah.

Quickly Sarah pulled out her ever present camera and began taking pictures of the fight. There was no way this was what it looked like. John had told her that Eight and Nine’s protectors were also mates. They’d spent nearly ten years on opposite sides of the planet and were still as much in love with each other as they were when they lived on Lorien. These people surely couldn’t want to kill each other now, not when they were so close to completing the task they had been sent here for. The woman lost her sword and both she and Henri burst into laughter. “Ok, ok you’re fine. I promise I won’t say you aren’t ready to get back in the field,” the woman said amidst her laughter as Henri retrieved her sword.

“Damned straight I am,” Henri said, grinning as they turned to walk over to the store. “And no more pulling that big sister crap either.” He poked her in the shoulder as he made his point.

“HA! I’ll still be doing that when both of our ashes have spread to the far corners of the universe!” the woman, (Henri’s sister!?!) retorted. They both spotted the Harts at the same time and fell silent.

“THAT WAS SOOO COOOOL!” Sarah’s little brother exclaimed.

“NO!” his family snapped at him. He pouted as Sarah’s dad asked Henri not to let his son touch either weapon. Sarah’s mother took the boy off into the store and away from the temptation posed by the Loric swords.

“Of course not,” Henri said to reassure him. “These aren’t toys and we don’t treat them that way. Katie was testing to see if I was strong enough to go back into a war zone. She just wanted to make certain that I was fully healed first.” The scars he carried told their own story to Mr. Hart, although Sarah was the only one who knew the particulars of the three most recent ones.

“He’s stubborn enough to go anyway, but if I can force him to see that he’s not up to it he’ll listen when I tell him he can’t,” Katie said.

“You’ll watch John’s back, right?” Sarah asked. “I mean, as much as I really don’t want him to be in a war zone, I already know it has to happen.”

Henri glanced down at the chain around her neck and smiled. “I’ve been watching his back since he was two hours old, Sarah. I’m not about to stop now.”

Sarah smiled back as she realized John had told him about her. Not that she believed John had kept her a secret; it was simply that they rarely talked about other people except as they were impacting their day to day lives. They were still getting to know each other. “I’ve told my parents about you and John being Loric, Henri. Jackson doesn’t know, but that’s because he can’t seem to keep his mouth shut yet. I’m hoping my little brother grows up sometime soon.”

“Well, like it or not he’s going to get an introduction soon. Four and the others should be here in a couple of days with the refugees,” Katie told them.

“Refugees, war zone? Would one of you mind telling me what’s going on?” Sarah’s dad asked, frustrated by having only half of the playbook.

“Sure,” Katie said, and took him by the arm. “Our home planet of Lorien was invaded by a very nasty race called the Mogadorians, or Mogs for short…” She led him off towards Nancy’s home, a place that was out of the way of the refugee preparations, although the wedding preparations were still in full swing.

Henri shook his head at his sister’s deft handling of Mr. Hart. “Well, I guess it’s just the two of us,” Henri said. “I’d give you a tour, but you’ve already seen the entire town – water tower, general store, tour business and Nancy’s place.”

“Where will the refugees be staying?” Sarah asked as they began walking over to the store. “I figured that I’d be better off helping with them than trying to do something like figure out how to kick the Mogs off of Earth. I’m ok at games, but real strategy is beyond me.”

“A lot of people don’t realize that until it’s too late,” Henri praised her.

Chapter 15

Texas

It was all wrong. Six rode her bike numbly at the front of their little caravan. Nothing was going the way her Cepan had taught her, except for the way to kill Mogs. Humans were not to be trusted with their secrets, and yet Sam had been willing to fight with them and his father had been tortured for them. Four’s protector Henri had been saved by them for no reason that she could see.

Garde were not supposed to fall in love with Humans, only other Garde, but Four was happily head over heels for his Sarah and Six had felt nothing for him other than what she had before she met him – the concern and hope of finding another Garde. Seven and Eight were far too young for her to even be thinking about them, but Four had found his one early, so why not one of them for her? Even if they were too young to realize who their mates were, she wasn’t.

Instead her thoughts kept turning back to Sam, the Human she had tried to shrug off when she’d met him. The same boy, who couldn’t take his eyes off of her the entire trip south, now wouldn’t even look at her. She knew that he was terrified for his father, and that the man still wasn’t out of the woods, but she didn’t understand why his sudden inattention towards her caused her pain. It shouldn’t. There was no way that Sam was her mate. He couldn’t be.

Six ignored every symptom her Cepan had ever taught her; her thoughts continually returning to him, her inability to even think about leaving him, the way she thought he was cute, especially when he was playing with Four’s chimera, and even her overwhelming concern for his father’s health. Her only hope was Henri. Seven, Eight, Charles and Henri were the only unpaired male Loric left and she had a terrible feeling that Charles had lost his mate to the Mogs.

She glanced back behind her and was forced to smile at the sight of an empty space between her bike and Sam’s truck. The four older Garde had done a great job of working together to get the refugees into the United States, even if it was the first time they’d ever worked together at all. Seven had a legacy that had been invaluable – Healing, while she and Eight had taken turns concealing the truck that the escapees were traveling in with their shared legacy of Invisibility. The truck that Charles had stolen from the Mexican military was the largest thing that either of them had ever concealed, but it held almost everyone with room to spare. It was a great place for Seven to work when he was healing the worst of the injuries. When Seven became worn out, Four recharged him with Lumen.

It was a potent combination, and Charles thought that it was possible that all of the life threatening injuries might be healed by the time that they got to Perfection. Normally Healing repaired all of the damages done to a person, animal or plant all at once, but Seven had just gotten his legacies and was still developing the strength it took to use them. He was healing more of the damage each time he used his legacy, and Six was sure that by the time they needed his Healing when they went against the Mogs, he’d be able to heal them of anything as long as they weren’t dead.

Thinking of the other numbers, especially Eight, led to thinking about his Cepan, David, which in turn led her to think about his mate and her Garde, Number Nine, and how the two of them were still so very much in love with each other. They weren’t sappy sweet about it, thank everything in the universe, but their devotion to each other was obvious. Six knew that back on Lorien, if Eight and Nine had still lost their parents, David and Catherine would have raised the two Garde together. In fact, even if they hadn’t lost their parents they still would have grown up together, knowing each other through their Cepans.

Confused and upset, Six didn’t notice that when she turned a corner, the street was too narrow for either of the trucks to follow her down. They tried to go around and catch up with her, but in the confusion that was the streets of San Antonio they easily lost her. Six was on her own.

 

Refugee Group

David immediately told Eight to stop making them invisible. With no one in front of the truck, it was far too dangerous a tactic to maintain. Charles tried to find a way around that would allow them to catch up to Six, but was soon lost in the complex maze that was a modern city street system. He hit the steering wheel in aggravation and pulled over into a parking lot. Sam pulled in behind them and the Garde, Cepan and Sam gathered between the two vehicles to discuss their options.

“Easy boys, don’t panic,” Catherine said when it looked like the younger boys were about to do just that. “We can catch up to her later. Right now we need to stop and find shelter for the night, and we need to do that away from this city.” Unspoken was the fact that the Mogs loved city environments and were far more likely to catch them there than they were in a small town.

“You’re right,” Four said, relaxing a bit. “Six has actually fought the Mogs on her own and survived. She’ll be fine until we can find a place to meet. Sam, you need to lead us out of the city. Your dad’s truck has the only GPS. I’ll call Six until I get a hold of her.”

“Let David do that,” Sam said and handed over his phone to the Cepan. “You’re worn out and need to get some sleep before Eric needs your help again.” Unspoken between them was the fact that Sam’s father was still injured and needed Eric’s help to survive. Four nodded and went back to the military truck while Sam showed David how to call Six’s phone from his. A few minutes later they were back on the road, this time with Sam in the lead and headed out of the city. Two hours later Sam not only gotten them out of the city, he had found them a campground that was isolated enough that it wasn’t in heavy use and could take them all for the night.

Catherine was in charge of getting the civilians settled. She went around from one small group to another, her Garde following in her footsteps and helping where she could. Catherine and the other Cepan had ditched what clothing they had been wearing to conceal their tattoos in an effort to reassure the rescued civilians. Letting them know that there were still Cepan out there and that they had been doing their duty in preserving the Garde had boosted the morale of the older civilians. It was the children that broke Catherine’s heart.

They peered out at her from behind the adults, watching every move she made. One child, a small toddler who couldn’t have been more than two, had been brave enough to reach out and reverently touch the tattoo on her collar bone. After seeing the child’s actions, the Garde had removed their shirts as well so that their birthmarks could be seen. Four’s was on his right flank. Seven’s on the back of his right shoulder blade. Nine’s ran from one shoulder to the other and her swimsuit top did nothing to hide it. Eight’s spread across his chest. That sight, as much as Seven’s Healing and Four’s Lumen brought home to the civilians that they were finally safe.

 

San Antonio, Texas

Burt Gummer often took short trips to places where he could get things that he needed. This time it was to Antonio, Texas where a gentleman of his acquaintance supplied him with the ammunition for his Barrett M82A1, or as the other residents called it, his cannon. Burt really didn’t understand why people couldn’t learn the correct terminology for vital pieces of equipment. He’d lost his cannon during the ass-blaster invasion when he’d been forced to demolish his house. Some people didn’t agree with the assessment that firearms are vital equipment, but they didn’t live in Perfection where the slightest wrong move, (or running out of ammo) could get you killed. That was one of the reasons he loved the little town. It was not only a haven from too many damned fools who were too stupid to live, most of them government drones, but it always presented him with new challenges to survive – such as Henri’s request that he consider becoming Six’s Cepan.

Burt had discovered that it really didn’t matter what name the young Garde was called because she literally didn’t have a name. That had been taken from her, with her consent, as the price the children paid for a truly nasty method of protection. The only way they could be killed was in sequence, a protection that would last the rest of their lives. Not even natural causes could kill off a number as long as there was another number ahead of them in the sequence.

Knowing that the enemy, (and the Mogs were becoming the enemy more and more each day he thought about the situation) not only knew about the protection, but had already killed the first three children Garde was enough to send chills up and down his spine. The more he thought about it, and he had interrogated both Henri and his sister Katie for hours on the subject, the more he was inclined to accept the assignment. He had discovered that for the Loric, for a Garde to go unprotected by a Cepan was almost, if not really, blasphemy. An unprotected Garde would willingly throw away their lives in an attempt to protect others. A Cepan’s duty was as much to protect them from themselves as it was to protect them from those who would harm them and prepare them for the battles they would one day face.

It was that theme of protection that really appealed to Burt. He didn’t have any children of his own, his ex-wife Heather hadn’t been able to have any and he’d never wanted to sire another woman’s child, but the idea of becoming a Cepan was rather like having a daughter given to him. The fact that Six was nineteen years old did not invalidate the feeling. He’d almost accepted that he was going to say yes. The only thing really holding him back was, ironically enough, the same thing that had Henri uncomfortable in asking him. He wasn’t sure that he knew what to do with a daughter.

For Burt, preparation and observation were vital parts of his being, thus he was not one of those people who ignored the seven foot plus man dressed in a black trench coat, hoodie and dark sunglasses. Knowing exactly who and what that was, he followed the Mogadorian. When the Mog turned down an alley, Burt turned his truck down after him. He wasn’t expecting to see the end of a fight. He hadn’t been that far behind the Mog.

Burt couldn’t understand what the creature was saying, but that didn’t matter. Between the gestures he made to the girl in a tank top and leather pants and the way he was beating on her, Burt had all the information he needed. He stopped his truck, opened the door and carefully stepped out onto the doorframe. His Barrett M82A1 was close at hand and all he needed was to wait for the kill shot. The Mog gave him his opening when the creature threw the girl to the ground and started pulling on its clothing. “Thank you for giving me one more good reason to send your sorry ass straight to hell,” Burt said as he pulled the trigger.

The bullet went straight through and into the brick wall behind the Mog. For a split second Burt panicked when the body simply stood there. Then he realized that the body was stiffening and greying out. By the time the second had passed, the body had exploded into dust. “Are you alright?” he called out to the girl.

Six sat there in shock as though she’d fallen down into Wonderland, her world view had been so far turned on its head. This man, this HUMAN, had saved her. By the time that he reached her and laid his very large gun on the ground beside her, she was shaking in reaction. The Mog had known who she was, and had known that he couldn’t kill her. He’d been planning to have fun instead before bringing her to his commander. “Six, are you alright?” the man asked, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

“Burt Gummer, at your service. I’m your new Cepan, if you’ll allow me the privilege,” he introduced himself.

The offer, as unexpected as it was, on top of the fact that he had already saved her from the Mog’s attentions, had Six bursting into tears. She’d never felt safe after her Cepan’s death, not even when she was surrounded by the other numbers and their Cepans. They didn’t belong to her, and their first concern was their own Garde, not a stray with no Cepan of her own – not one who had gotten her Cepan killed by her own weakness. Now this man was offering her the safety that she’d lost almost six months before. It might as well have been an eternity. The fact that he was a Human suddenly meant nothing at all.

Burt was shocked when Six burst into tears and suddenly clung to him, but carefully swinging his weapon over his shoulder, he then gathered the sobbing child up in his arms and carried her to his truck. It looked like she needed him for more than just the training and backup that Henri and Katie had told him about. Well, there was one good thing that had come from his marriage to Heather; he did know how to deal with a strong woman when she was in tears. A cuddle and hot chocolate was now on the menu for their immediate future, provided that she didn’t cry herself to sleep.

Chapter 16

Perfection, Nevada

Burt had decided against taking Six back to the refugee group. Once he’d taken her back to where she’d been forced to ditch her motorcycle, he’d taken her cell phone and called the number for Sam. It was the first listed name in her phone and he’d remembered that there was a boy named Sam helping the Garde and Cepan get the civilians back to Perfection. The man who had answered the phone hadn’t been Sam, but David, one of the Cepan. Burt had informed David that he had Six and was going to take her straight to his compound in Perfection. Six needed the break and they had more than enough Garde to help them get the rest of the way without her.

The two of them had loaded Six’s bike into the back of Burt’s truck and headed off. He’d settled Six into the cab with a cup of hot chocolate and a couple of doughnuts from the nearest coffee shop while he drove. It didn’t take long for her to finish them off and pass out curled up on the seat beside him with her head on his lap. The terrible burden that this child had been carrying alone for six months broke his heart, not that he was one to show it. She’d done her best with what she had, and there was no better praise that Burt could give her.

It was just approaching dawn as Burt pulled into Perfection. He loved this time of day, when the nocturnal creatures were settling down and before the rest of Perfection’s creatures stirred for the day. It was quiet and there were far fewer chances that something would sneak up on him. He’d snapped on his geomonitor the minute he drove into the valley, checking for El Blanco and any other underground threat that might have appeared in his absence. It looked like the big worm was still sleeping and nothing else was threatening, so Burt checked out the rest of his terrain as he drove home. Nothing that he could see looked out of place, (he was expecting the line of tents and trailers that looked to be pitched on the ridge near Rosalita’s ranch) so he didn’t bother to drive into town to tell everyone he was home. There would be time enough for that later.

Burt unlocked his security system before going back to the truck to wake Six. She was already awake, (a part of Burt approved as it spoke to her awareness of her surroundings but he also knew that she was scared that he wouldn’t be there when she woke up) and he welcomed her to his home as he let her out of the cab. “Where is it?” she asked looking around what appeared to be a dirt parking lot surrounded by a high chain link fence in the middle of the desert.

“You’re standing right on top of it,” he grinned proudly as he led the way to the back of his truck. Six pulled her saddle bags out and Burt wrestled her bike down to the ground. He parked it carefully, knowing that it had probably been her home for a long time now, and led her over to a stairway that led underground. “This entire compound is surrounded, all four sides and bottom with a concrete graboid barrier; four feet thick, steel beam reinforced. It’s completely graboid proof.” He led her down into his bunker. It had been the basement of his house before he’d blown it up in the initial ass blaster invasion, and now was the entirety of his home.

The main room was a workshop type area, with weapons hung on the peg board walls, gun cleaning supplies neatly stored on shelves, and equipment that Six had no clue as to the function of decorated the rest of the room, along with benches, workstations, a periscope, and a large, slightly damaged creature’s head. “What’s that?” she asked, going over to look at it closely.

“That my dear, was one of the very first graboids to hatch in this valley. My ex-wife Heather and I killed it as it broke into here and tried to eat us. Honestly I had it mounted because I was tired of people making fun of my lifestyle. It’s sort of been physical proof that there is a good reason that I do what I do.” Burt wouldn’t have been that honest with anyone else, (he wasn’t someone to admit a weakness) but the simple fact was that he wasn’t ignorant of the relationship that he had proposed to the young woman. He’d studied Katie and Betty carefully in between interrogation sessions. The total honesty and rock steady dependability that existed between the two was something that he was determined to give Six as much as he possibly could.

Six heard the sadness in Burt’s voice when he mentioned his ex-wife, and she understood that much like a Loric, Burt was a one woman man. There would never be another woman for him, even if another pairing was possible with his people. She’d heard that sort of sadness far too often of late to ever mistake it for anything else. “So this albino graboid I’ve heard about,” she said, going with the only option she had that wouldn’t scream that she was changing the subject. “How do you deal with living in the same valley and not being able to kill it? Four compared it to living with polar bears, but even in Australia we know that you can shoot the damned things if they get too close.”

“Managing a peaceful co-existence isn’t easy,” Burt admitted. “However, El Blanco is far smarter than his sand colored cousins because he’s been alive so much longer. The other graboids proceed with their lifecycle and metamorphose into shriekers after a certain amount of time and food so they don’t have the time to learn what El Blanco has. That makes it easier.” He showed her around the room, opening doors to the bathroom, bedroom, and safe room. “This,” he said, showing her a computer station that was rigged up with yet more equipment she didn’t recognize, “Is the geo-phone monitoring system. Every square inch of this valley is covered by the geo-phones. They monitor every seismic event in the valley. El Blanco’s activities are generally well established by now. The only time we really have trouble with him is when outsiders try to interfere with what they don’t understand.”

He reached over and picked up a box with a strange looking wrist watch inside. “This is a wrist seismo. It vibrates and beeps anytime any seismic vibration is recorded in your vicinity. You will wear one, on your wrist at all times that you are in this valley. Is that understood?” he said sternly. Six nodded quickly and put it on. “I’ve seen too many people eaten to risk your safety over something so simple.” He finished more quietly, seeing how quick she was to take his orders. “I’ll take you down to the store for breakfast and get you more acquainted with both the other residents and the local dangers. Right now I want to set you up a sleeping area in the safe room. It has an escape tunnel in case of emergencies.”

Burt led her over to the smaller room. There were emergency rations, blankets, and other supplies on the shelves, and there was a very tiny sanitation closet between it and the door. He showed her how to work the hatch and quickly set up a cot in the only area that had an empty wall. Six was so touched that he would take her safety so seriously that it was all she could do not to burst into tears again. Quickly she pulled her only two treasures out of her saddle bags and placed them on the cot Burt had just finished making up.

Her Loric Chest and her late Cepan’s knife glittered brilliantly in the harsh light. “This is my Loric Chest,” she began. “The concept really doesn’t translate well. We have everyday boxes that you would call chests, but these are different. They’re made by one generation of Loric Garde for the next. They contain our inheritance; things that help us with our legacies and things that they think we will need when we’re older.” Six put her hand on the lock, intending to show Burt a little of what was inside, but it refused to open. For a moment she frowned before she realized why and then she turned a blinding smile on her new Cepan. “Loric Chests won’t open for anyone but the one it is made for and that Garde’s Cepan. It is only opened once our legacies first show and it takes both of them at once to open it unless the Cepan has died. Only then can the Garde open it alone.”

It was then that Burt realized what had happened. Reverently, almost holding his breath, he held out his hand and let Six place it in the proper position – his palm on the back of her hand, their fingers intertwined and her palm on the lock. With a very firm click, it opened. Six released Burt’s hand and reached for the Cepan knife. She held it out to him as somber as a judge. “This is yours now. Take it and use it only in defense of your world and your Garde.”

“It will never taste the blood of an innocent by my hand,” Burt swore just as solemnly as he took it from her. He meant every word and the way Six’s face lit up, well he was suddenly very glad that he had chosen to accept the assignment as her Cepan.

“You’ll like this,” Six said as she turned back to her chest. She removed a small pouch that held a number of small, round, black stones. She poured them into her hand and then folded herself onto the floor next to the cot. Burt joined her, wondering what she was going to do. She suddenly flung the stones into the air where they stopped midflight, and began to arrange themselves into a model of a solar system. It wasn’t the Sol system, Burt knew that having gone through public school like most everyone else. It had to be the Lorien system.

When Burt looked at Six, she nodded. “This is Lorien,” she said, pointing to the third planet out of six. “This shows what Lorien looks like right now.” Burt looked closer, and shuddered as the planet loomed towards him like he was watching a zooming camera shot. The planet looked like something he had seen out of a horror flick; every surface was covered with ash, blackened stone, and even the water, what was left of it, was more of a grey sludge than anything else.

“This is what it looked like before the Mogs got to it,” she continued, an ache in her voice. She leaned up and blew on the rock that represented Lorien and it changed, becoming a planet that some would describe as a paradise. Rich fields of crops and wild plants, deep forests green with healthy trees, herds of animals roaming around peacefully, deep green oceans and people going about their daily lives in harmony with everything around them were everywhere that Burt looked. He looked over at Six, not surprised at her next words or the determined look on her face. “I will not allow that to happen here,” was all that she said.

“I believe you,” Burt told her. “And I will stand beside you when you face those that killed your world and wish to do the same to mine.” He stood up and reached a hand down to help Six to her feet. She reached out and took the rocks out of the air, returning them to their pouch and then to her chest.

“In the meantime, while we wait for the rest of your people to get here, let’s go get breakfast down at the store. I’m afraid that most of my food selections here are rather basic. When the second hatching of graboids happened here, they made it almost the entire way through their life cycle. A graboid hatches from an egg, which then metamorphoses into a shrieker, which in turn goes through a molting stage and turns into an ass blaster which eventually lays an egg to start the cycle all over again. A hungry ass blaster broke in here and I was forced to detonate my powder reserves, which in turn took everything but the basement with it. I do have plans to rebuild eventually, but my monetary reserves were kept in silver bars, which became shrapnel scattered over a couple of acres, so I survive by teaching a survival school out here. Once we’ve taken care of the Mogadorian problem, I’ll have you help out with that. Tyler and I are also on call for any graboid, shrieker, or ass blaster extermination needed. There are always civilians in danger when that happens, so you’ll be needed there as well. How does that sound?”

“That sounds perfect,” Six said. To her, it did sound good because it was very similar to what the Garde did back on Lorien, protecting civilians and then when they weren’t needed for that, practicing and teaching classes. There was also the fact that with her legacies, it would be easy for her to retrieve Burt’s lost silver for him. She followed him out of the bunker, but while he stopped to reset the security system, she went to the center of the fenced area. Setting her feet at shoulder width, she reached outwards with her major legacy into the ground, calling for the silver to come to her.

Burt came out of the stairway to find Six standing with her hands pointed down at the ground at her sides, and her eyes closed in concentration. Having seen Katie working with Betty on her legacies, Burt knew to keep quiet while Six did whatever it was she was doing. To his surprise, the ground outside of his fence line began wiggling. It soon became obvious what was doing the wiggling, as small shards of metal came to rest at Six’s feet. Fifteen minutes later, Six relaxed and turned to look at Burt. “My legacies are; invisibility, teleportation, telekinesis, energy shield projection and elementary mastery.”

“We’re going to be working with those,” Burt promised her. “I do realize that you were pinned down and exhausted when we met, but there is a good chance you’ll be in that situation again so we’ll work on figuring out a plan that will allow you to use your legacies to get out of it. If you could suck the air out of the Mogadorian’s lungs for instance, that’s one Mog that won’t be bothering anyone again.” He walked over and opened the door of his truck for her, noticing the shocked look on her face. Apparently she hadn’t even thought of that one. “Don’t worry, I’ve got a lot of practice at thinking about such things,” he told her with a grin.

Chapter 17

Notes:

Author’s Note: Once more, “speech” is English, and //speech// is Loric

Chang’s Market

Everyone in Perfection was waiting for the refugee group at the store. Breakfast was long over and done with, and small groups were wandering around talking in quiet voices or fidgeting. Henri, Katie and Burt were all on the porch, quietly discussing Burt’s acceptance as a Cepan. The fact that Six’s Loric Chest had refused to open without his input was very reassuring to the other Cepan. They explained to Burt that Garde made objects tended towards operating of their own volition, not quite as though they were sentient, but as though that something was overseeing their use. Only those who really and truly dedicated themselves to the protection of others, rather than putting themselves first, would be able to work the objects. With the Chest’s acceptance of Burt as Six’s Cepan, Burt would also be accepted by the rest of the Cepan as well.

Five and Six were sitting on the other bench getting to know each other after their ten year separation. Five’s chimera was playing catch the fingers in its kitten form while the girls discussed their favorite weapons. Five preferred an Earth made pistol, while Six preferred a Loric knife as her teleportation abilities made it easy to get in close to the enemy without being seen. She’d made good use of that ability at the high school she and Four had trashed when they’d gone up against the Mogs.

The Harts were talking with Mindy and Nancy inside the store. Jackson was being distracted, by Tyler who was telling him stories, while his parents and sister were learning yet more about the Loric that they’d gotten mixed up in when Sarah had fallen in love with John. “No weddings?” Mrs. Hart exclaimed, horrified. “They don’t have any sort of commitment ceremonies at all?”

“They fall in love at first sight, and for them it only happens once,” Mindy explained. “Mom is the one insisting on a wedding, but Henri has no problems going along with it.”

“I’m trying to make it easier on him by not insisting that he wears a tux,” Nancy said. “I’m going more with a tabard and obi design as it is the one thing that I’m sure will allow his tattoos to be seen.”

“Tattoos?” Mrs. Hart asked, looking more worried than ever. She’d seen the ones Henri and his sister had, but had hoped that they were temporary and the results of their trying to stay undercover.

“Only the Cepan actually have tattoos,” Mindy said, gesturing to show which tattoos she was talking about. “The Garde families each have a crest and those are tattooed on the Cepan’s right arm, everyone but the family he or she serves. That crest is tattooed on their left collar bone, right here. The Gardes have birthmarks that look like tattoos and they could be anywhere. Betty’s is on her lower back and Six’s is on the left side of her neck and her shoulder.”

“The tattoos are very significant and symbolic,” Nancy said. “It’s not like they have a heart with mommy written in the center or the devil all over their backs; not that I’m personally against that sort of thing as I think it’s a personal decision and a person’s body is something that only they should control, but you’re looking a little worried.”

Mindy nodded. “They’re almost religious because to the Loric the Garde are the protectors of their world, and the Cepan guard the Garde. Protecting their world means everything to them, so becoming a Cepan is just about the highest honor they can give a person.”

“I’m marrying an alien Mom,” Sarah said with a grin. “That means that there are going to be alien customs to deal with.”

“Well they’re here, so let’s go and deal with them,” Mr. Hart said, and helped his wife up from the table. They walked outside, only to freeze as El Blanco made one of his trips through town, sending all of the wrist seismos into a frenzy. Instead of simply passing through as he usually did though, El Blanco came up to the surface. His head lay on the top of the ground, and he extended his tentacles towards John and Sam, who had both jumped out of the smaller truck as soon as it was parked.

Everyone froze in fear for the two boys, except for Henri who merely covered his eyes and groaned softly. The reason for Henri’s reaction soon became clear as John grinned and reached up to scratch the nearest tentacle. Nine jumped out of the larger truck and scampered over to stand next to John, reaching for her own tentacle to scratch. “NINE! WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT PREDATORS!” Catherine yelled as she stormed out of the military truck after her Garde.

“Keep my hands inside the boat,” Nine told her calmly. “But there isn’t a boat here and Four’s petting him so I can too,” she reasoned.

“Only after your legacies kick in young lady!” Catherine said, arms crossed in front of her chest.

“Cepans,” Nine and Four both muttered in total agreement. Nine heaved a huge sigh, but allowed Catherine to herd her away from the graboid.

“‘Keep my hands inside the boat’?” Burt asked, amazed at what he thought was the careless way the Cepan was treating her Garde.

“Burt, it is all but impossible to get a Garde child that will manifest animal telepathy to stay away from animals of any kind,” Henri explained, after bring his hand down and crossing his arms. “You wouldn’t believe the amount of puppy eyes I’ve had to fight just to keep the animals that Four kept, not the ones that hung around, but actually kept down to just his chimera, not that he really understood that it was the same animal.”

“Besides,” Sarah pointed out. “Bernie Kosar really is just as strange looking as El Blanco when he’s in his own form.” Mr. and Mrs. Hart darted a startled look at Sarah, knowing that she was talking about John’s pet beagle.

“Chimeras can be a pain in the ass,” Henri griped. “I never knew when it would show up or what it would show up looking like; just that it wouldn’t stop following John unless he or it was dead.”

Mindy came up behind Henri and patted him fake sympathetically on the shoulder. “And you loved every minute of it,” she said knowingly.

“Yeah, you say that when you aren’t the one who has to explain to the school principal why you can’t keep a simple animal at home and away from your son’s third grade classroom,” Henri said, annoyed. “Hey John! You know you can’t keep this one, right?”

“He’s lonely, Henri. He says that the one guy who plays with him doesn’t do it very often, and he never pets this guy,” John called back over his shoulder.

Burt huffed and pulled his hat down lower. “You play with a graboid?” Six asked, amazed.

“I do not,” Burt snapped.

“Yes he does,” Henri disagreed. When Burt turned to object, Henri overruled him. “El Blanco’s talking about your health checks. Every time you turn one of those little trucks with a sonic watch loose, he comes up to play with it.”

“Told you so,” Nancy smirked.

“I’m just making sure that no one has poisoned him again!” Burt huffed and walked off. Six glared at both of them and ran after her Cepan.

//Hey Six! Relax, we’re just teasing him,// Henri called after her. He didn’t think it would help, but hopefully it would give the girl something to think about. He knew that she was bound to be over protective of her new Cepan, especially considering the way she lost her last one, but she was going to have to lighten up or she’d have a heart attack before she reached twenty two. To his surprise, Sam ran after the two, catching up to Six and Burt, introducing himself to the graboid hunter.

Henri walked over to John with Mindy, Nancy, Sarah and her parents trailing after him. “Does he know?” Henri asked. He was paying more attention to the three over by Burt’s truck than he was the animal John was petting. The Humans were a little amazed at his total nonchalance at being so close to an animal that the day before he had treated with extreme wariness.

“Nah, not that it matters,” John said. “She’s fighting it and none of us were willing to tell him while his dad is so badly injured. Malcolm’s only been healed enough that we knew he was going to make it since last night.”

“Tell him what?” Nancy asked.

“That he’s Six’s one,” Henri said with a smile. “You kids are growing up way too fast. That’s two of you who found your one’s years early.”

“Four of us,” John said with a laugh. He nodded over at the larger truck where Eric and Betty were talking and smiling at each other.

“At least they won’t have to do a binding ceremony like the rest of us,” Henri sighed.

Mindy scowled and slugged his shoulder gently. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“I don’t have a problem going along with it if that’s what you want, but I’m not going to pretend that I don’t think the whole thing is silly. You don’t need to make me promise anything,” he explained.

“Henri, I don’t want you to make the promise to me that you won’t leave me because that’s meaningless. You can’t leave me; but I can leave you. I want to make that promise to you. I want you to know, I want to show everyone that we both care about, that you’re my one the way I’m yours,” Mindy explained gently.

“Henri?” John asked, astonished.

“Remind me to tell Sam thank you for losing the keys to the truck,” Henri said with a grin. He was grateful for John’s interruption. After all, just what was he supposed to say after a declaration like that? At John’s lost look, he elaborated. “Mindy is one of the people who treated me at the hospital. This is her home town, and she brought me here to heal up. When I woke up and saw her, well that was all it took.”

“Congratulations,” John laughed. Henri could see an infinite amount of relief in the young man’s eyes, but he was probably the only one who could. He knew what that was about too. With the way his Garde worried about him, (and there was no Garde that didn’t care for and worry over their Cepan no matter what their age) especially after learning about Six’s Cepan’s death, the boy would have been feeling guilty about finding his own mate so early when Henri still hadn’t found his.

“Alright you bastard,” Charles laughingly griped as he walked over with a large box in his hands. “I still don’t know just how you knew, but here’s your damned beer.” He handed Henri the case of alcohol.

“I couldn’t keep him away from the animals no matter what I did,” Henri shrugged. “It’s not my fault that you wouldn’t take my word for it.”

Charles looked uneasily at the graboid that John was now scratching around the hard beak that made up its mouth. “How many of those things do you have around here?”

“Just the one,” Mindy reassured him. “But, that being said, Perfection isn’t a safe place for anyone, even those of us who live here. El Blanco is actually one of the more easily avoided dangers. We’ve got a place set up for everyone in one of the safest places in the valley, but that’s only for until we can get everyone moved to the next valley over. We’ve set up the beginnings of an artist colony there. We weren’t sure just how many homes would be needed, or how many of your people would be hurt.” That of course, was one of her main concerns. She was the closest thing there was to a doctor in the valley, and she was also the only person who had the slightest idea of what to do for a Loric as opposed to a Human in distress.

“Thank you for your concern,” Charles said. He’d heard the conversation about her being Henri’s one, but it really wasn’t polite to bring it up with her. What finding her meant for Henri wasn’t something that she could really understand, being Human as she was. “Fortunately my Garde Eric has the healing legacy. He’s still building up his strength, but everyone is out of danger and we won’t be losing anyone to any of the injuries the Mogadorians inflicted on them.”

“That’s wonderful to hear,” Mindy said sincerely. “Let’s see what we can do about getting them all settled in.”

//You’re one lucky bastard, my friend,// Charles told Henri before leading Mindy over to the group that had begun leaving the trucks.

Chapter 18

Nancy’s

John slipped into living at Nancy’s like he’d always been there. After washing the dinner dishes, (the ladies had cooked and neither of the two men felt it was right to make them clean up as well) Henri took him out into the desert on a walk. This was something that they had always done, taking frequent walks through whatever sort of nature was in the area they were currently living in. It was a defense against the stressful lives they had been leading. Henri had already scouted out several fairly safe paths and now led John over to a set of boulders large enough for both of them to stretch out on. John was silent for a short time before admitting, “I don’t know where to start.”

“Start wherever you like,” Henri said with a shrug. “I’m sure we’ll get to everything soon enough.” That was the other thing Henri used the walks for. It was a quiet time for them to talk about anything that John wanted to discuss, without worrying about stepping over any lines. It was on these walks that John had asked for ‘real’ stories about Lorien when he was younger, not the ancient fairy tales that Henri had used as bedtime stories.

“You scared me so bad,” John said with a tremor in his voice. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. Those first few days, when I thought you were dead…”
“You did very well without me,” Henri interrupted. “I know perfectly well that Six isn’t someone who wants to be in charge, and even if she was she certainly isn’t ready to do that right now. She’s had her life thrown into so much chaos over the last six months that being in charge would actually make things worse for her. Sam certainly hasn’t had either the training or been given enough knowledge about the situation to take charge either. You took charge and not only did you find all of the other Garde, you got them, their Cepan and a group of injured and traumatized civilians back here safely. You did a damned good job John. I’m proud of you.”

“Why were they all looking at me to be in charge? I mean, yeah ok, for the trip down to pick up Charles and Eric sure, but even after that everyone was looking at me like I was in charge, even the Cepans. I don’t get it!” John protested. “I was scared stiff I was going to get us all killed. I still am. I’m still a kid! I won’t even be eighteen for another two months and I haven’t even come into my major legacy yet. Henri, Six ran into a Mog in Texas and I know they can’t be that far behind us.”

“That’s because you are in charge,” Henri told him sympathetically. “Remember what I taught you about how things were back home? The Loric Garde were in charge of all of our defenses, up to and including our military. There are only seven of you left and two of you are still young enough to be defenseless. The choice for a leader from the rest of you really boils down to Six, Five or you, and neither of the girls are up to it. Five is better off than Six, but she’s a precog. She sees far too many futures, and none of them in more than fragments unless the event is overwhelming and already in motion. She’s too distracted by that legacy for her to take charge.”

“Did anyone see what was going to happen before Lorien was lost?” John wanted to know, distracted from the Mogs for the moment.

Henri shook his head. “Precognition is the rarest legacy of all, even more rare than your lumen. There were only two Garde with that legacy in your parent’s generation and one in your grandparents. All three of them were dead years before the Mogs made their move.”

John nodded sadly in understanding. A sudden thought shook him and he shot up, startling Henri as he leaned over. “You’re not going to start acting like the other Cepan are you?”

The sheer horror in his voice had Henri laughing harder than he had in years. “I’m your Cepan,” he told John, pulling his head down and ruffling his hair. “That’s one of the reasons each Garde has their own. It’s not just because we raised the five of you that we treat you the way we do. It’s part of the duty of a Garde’s Cepan to always – well, be the one person that you can count on to tell you when you’re being a shit head.”

The look of relief on John’s face had Henri laughing again, but he really couldn’t blame John for reaching that conclusion. He couldn’t have many memories of his parent’s Cepans as anything other than a couple of people who just hung around his parents, and there had been a lot of those. John had simply been too young to understand that they had been anything more than a favorite aunt and uncle. Henri missed the older Cepans deeply. They’d helped him so much in the short time he’d known them.

John slumped back down to look up at the stars again. “Oh thank God. I don’t think I could have handled that. So how did you survive a stab wound to the heart?” Online they had chatted about his recovery from his ‘heart attack’ but that wasn’t something that they’d been able to discuss.

Henri snorted. “It certainly wasn’t anything I did.” He reached up so that John could see his hand and held his thumb and forefinger a very short distance apart. “That much further in any direction and something vital would have been cut. I also had internal injuries and another stab wound. I was bleeding out, but it was much slower than either of us thought. I had enough time to try and move my truck away from there. Fortunately for me, just as I was passing out from the blood loss I hit a light pole and someone called it in. I ended up in the hospital where Mindy was one of the three people who treated me.”

That had John smirking. “Well, no wonder you told Sam thank you for losing the keys.” He sobered. “Sam was horrified, thinking that he’d killed you. Finding out that you’d survived was a huge relief. I hadn’t seen him break down before that. He’s surprisingly strong for a guy that’s been picked on for years. Of course, Six glared at me for over an hour for that.” He was silent for a moment. “I never had time to ask you, but when I took out those four football players, I lost it. They’d taken Sarah and she was screaming. The way Six has been acting with Sam, it reminded me. Is that normal?”

“Do you remember what I told you about your protective instincts? They are the strongest that our people know, and you won’t be more protective of anyone than you are of your one. Not only is it normal, under those conditions I’m even prouder of you for restraining yourself so much.”

“Restraining myself?!?!” John sat up again. “Henri, I threw one of them sixteen feet in the air into a tree! I bulldozed them!”

Henri nodded, but looked straight into John’s eyes and said point blank, “They’re still alive.” That simple statement made John’s blood run cold. Henri could see that he hadn’t even considered that he might have killed the other boys. “I didn’t teach you self-defense John. I taught you close combat maneuvers. I taught you to kill because I knew that one day you would be in a situation where you would be fighting for either your life or someone else’s. You took those boys down, but you didn’t hurt them more than it took to do that. That was restraining yourself to an incredible degree. I’m very proud of you,” he repeated. Deciding that John needed to be distracted he changed the subject. “Do you think that you could help me with this wedding thing?”

John grinned. “I noticed that Nancy was getting a little wild. Tell you what; I’ll help you with yours if you help me with mine.”

“Deal,” Henri said with an answering grin.

 

Perfection Valley

Rosalita’s ranch was slowly losing its guests as each of the Loric were given a chance to clean up, eat a real meal at a table and allow Mindy to check on their healing injuries. Then each family, or sadly the single survivor of a family, was sent on to the next valley where Henri’s realtor company (once owned by Melvin) had built a community for them. One of Nancy’s contributions to the new community was a large selection of art supplies, stored at the community building.

Sarah wasn’t exactly sure what Nancy had been talking about when they organized the supplies, something about purging their experiences through different mediums and not knowing exactly which types would be necessary, but the first time she showed one of the first Loric to move into the new community the supplies she was very glad that Nancy had known what would be needed in general. The woman had been in tears, thanking Sarah over and over again while touching the supplies as though she thought that they would disappear. Within an hour the first arrivals were out in their gardens and out on their patios creating some sort of art work.

Sarah had gone back to Rosalita’s, helping out with bathing the young children. She realized that these people had been traumatized, she’d have to be an idiot not to, but she wasn’t expecting one young woman to nearly freak out when she went to wash one of the three toddlers. While Rosalita and Jodi did their best to get the woman to calm down, Sarah did her best to do a hurried wash on the little girl before she changed the child’s clothes and diaper. It was when Sarah ran a damp washcloth over the girl’s dirt covered stomach, tickling her in the process and getting a high pitched giggle in return, that she saw what the mother was trying so desperately hard to hide. The child was a Garde.

With the now clean child in her arms, Sarah went over to where the women were trying to argue through the language barrier. She hefted the child in her arms and showed the woman John’s crest that hung around her neck. “It’s alright,” she said, smiling as she doubted the woman knew English but could no doubt understand her tone. “Let’s take the two of you down to the store.”

There was no doubt she was still terrified for her daughter, but the fact that Sarah had the crest and neither she nor Rosalita tried to hurt her as they got her into Rosalita’s car helped. She sat in the back and clung to the baby the entire trip. Sarah knew that all of the Garde and the Cepan were at Chang’s Market, most likely gathered around Henri’s ever present group of laptops, planning out their assault on the Mogadorian’s work camp and fleet. The leaders of the small group of refugees were there as well, providing whatever information that they could.

“Hey we need a translator!” Rosalita called as they came into the store. “This one has something important to tell you!” The broad grin on her face told everyone that for once something good had happened. Everyone looked curiously at the woman that she gently pushed forward. Hesitantly the woman turned the toddler around and pulled up the front of the shirt she was wearing.

Everyone was silent, with looks of disbelief, shock and hope. Henri gently reached out and cradled the child’s head, before looking up and asking the one question that everyone wanted answered. //How?// Quietly the Garde began to translate for the Humans as this was an extremely important event and they did not want their friends left out.

//My mother was Loric Garde,// she said, passing the child to Henri. //I am not, but I had plans to become a Cepan like my father. I did not know that it was possible for me to have a Garde child until she was born in the Mogadorians work camp.//

//She was born here?// Six asked, delighted. The woman nodded.

//Then she is the first Garde of this world,// Katie said, solemnly. She turned to the new Elders. //Do you know the ceremonies to welcome a new Garde to their world?//

One of them, a man who looked far older than he was, nodded with delight. //I was able to take part when I was much younger. I have a good memory and I was excited enough to memorize everything. I never thought that they’d be needed again.// Everyone politely ignored the tears in his eyes, mostly because they were trying to deal with their own.

“Six, do you think that you could make one of those chests for her?” Burt asked, knowing that she would be the most likely to have the necessary legacies.

“Four will have to help me,” she told him. “I can control fire and I don’t burn, but I don’t have his affinity for heat.” she said, looking over at John.

“No problem,” he said with a grin.

“How can we get the necessary materials?” Katie asked. “They have to be pure. No one other than Six and Five can touch them and then only during the creation of the chest.”

“What do we need?” Jodi asked, already mentally running through her contact list to see if she could come up with someone who could fill the strange request.

As Catherine listed off raw gems, metals, and such, Henri was running information through his mind. Four did have an affinity for heat, which meant that he could easily be the forge needed. There was also a volcanic vent in the valley. He knew that because Mindy had taken him up to the hot springs. “All of that we can find here in the valley. Four and Six should be able to pull most of that list to them through the volcanic vent that warms the hot spring.”

“What about the wood and water?” Catherine asked. “This is a desert.”

“There are cottonwoods along the creek and while there isn’t a lot of water it is there,” Henri told her. “Admittedly cottonwood isn’t made of the prettiest wood on the planet, but that was never the point. They struggle to survive, so they’re dense and strong.” Back on Lorien the most beautiful of wood had come from the trees that had the hardest time surviving.

“And that is the point,” Katie said. “We need a representation of the struggle of life and how it makes one stronger.”

“What about a Cepan for little Ten here?” Nine asked.

“Let’s see how many of us are left after we get done with the Mogs ok?” Henri asked, mussing up her hair. “Besides, it’s her mother’s job to pick out the new Cepan, not ours.”

“And I don’t think that her mom wants to call her Ten,” Catherine added. “She isn’t part of the protection that we put on you and the others. She’s completely helpless right now.”

“Did my mom pick you out for me?” Nine asked.

“She sure did,” Catherine said with a sad smile.

“What if something happens to you?” Nine asked, worried. The look she shot Six and Burt made it very plain what she was thinking.

“Then it is the job of the other Cepans to pick a new one for you, just like Henri did for Six because your mother isn’t able to pick one out anymore,” Catherine said calmly.

Nine shot Henri a disgusted look. “But he picked out a boy!” Henri shrugged. It hadn’t been his idea, but he doubted that Nine was old enough to understand that.

“That’s ok with me, Nine. He’s perfect for me. I’ve already learned two new weapons,” Six told her. That made Burt smile slightly. Six had really taken a shine to both his Barrett M82A1 (he had realized that her strength more than made up for her smaller size) and his LAR Grizzly Big-Bore. She’d probably be able to handle a VR1 sniper rifle once she’d passed his tests on semi-auto weapons, not that he expected she’d ever really want to take things out at a distance. Sometimes it was necessary however, and it would be his job to make sure she knew how to do it.

Chapter 19

Perfection Valley

Heather Gummer hadn’t been back to Perfection since her divorce from her ex-husband, Burt. It wasn’t that she hadn’t wanted to visit her old home or her friends, but simply that it was far too hard to be around the man she still loved but couldn’t live with. She hadn’t talked with or seen him since they’d signed the papers. She’d heard through the media that Burt had been involved with more graboid attacks and was doing much better than when she’d seen him last, but she was a pessimist about human nature and didn’t want to get her hopes up that it would last. After all, what was shown on a TV was far different from the reality of what a person really was like.

The reason for Heather’s return to the little town was a joyous one at least. Mindy Sterngood, one of the only two children who had grown up in Perfection was getting married. She pulled up to the store in her truck and was just getting out when she saw Nancy rounding her house and being followed by the largest dog type monster she’d ever seen. Not one to balk at a dangerous situation, (or to get hysterical about a new kind of monster) Heather grabbed her HK91 and sprinted around to aim right between the beast’s eyes. If that didn’t work, she was going to see if she could try to find a heart.

“HEATHER NO!” Nancy yelled as she saw her friend run around her truck with a rifle of some kind, no doubt to shoot Bernie Kosar. Bernie wasn’t interested in the work being done over at the hot springs and had been begging sweets from Nancy all morning. “He’s a pet!”

Heather pulled herself and her weapon up. “A pet?”

Nancy nodded, calming down now that the danger to Bernie was over. “His name is Bernie Kosar. He’s named after the football player. He belongs to John, who is Henri’s ward. Henri is the alien Mindy is marrying.” The look Heather shot Nancy proclaimed louder than any shout just how likely she thought it was that Nancy was telling her a fact. Nancy smiled. “He’s also a shape shifter,” she told Heather as she proceeded to her car. She opened the door, set the basket of goodies down on the front seat, and then opened the back for Bernie to get in.

Heather watched in amazement as the huge animal shook itself and suddenly shrank down, becoming a normal appearing beagle. Bernie bounded over and jumped into the backseat of Nancy’s car, looking like nothing more than a family dog getting a favorite treat of a car ride. “We’re headed up to the hot springs. A group is up there helping John and Six get ready to make a Loric Chest for little Ten, apparently it’s a big part of the ceremony they’re having for her at the end of the week. Want to come with us?”

“Sure,” Heather answered a little dazed. “Six? Little Ten?” she asked as she settled into the passenger seat. She had one hand on her rifle and kept the other on the basket. She knew how hard Nancy worked in her kitchen. The last thing she wanted was for the basket to end up on the floor boards as they drove off.

“The Loric are a group of alien refugees. Their planet was invaded by a group called the Mogadorians. From what I hear they’re a cross between a plague of locusts and the Nazis. They consider torture to be high end entertainment. You know that I like to try and see both sides of a conflict, but Henri came here after being tortured because he’d been caught in a trap they’d set up and Mindy helped to treat him. Not to mention that Burt ran into a Mog down in Texas who was attempting to entertain himself with Six.” The look Nancy shot Heather left no doubt as to what sort of entertainment she was referring to. “Burt shot him and brought Six back here. So, I really have to agree with their take on the Mogs.

“Anyway, the Loric divide themselves into three groups; the Garde, the Cepan and the civilians. The civilians are all artists and your everyday sort of people. They had regular jobs, everything from politics to maid service back on their home planet. They don’t have the temperament to defend themselves in bad situations. Those that do ended up in their military. The Cepan are like the Special Forces or perhaps a better comparison would be the guards for the royalty over in England; you know the ones who stand outside the palace all gussied up in those big black hats and red coats?” Heather nodded, having been the one to tell Nancy that those gentlemen were actually some of the most highly decorated soldiers that England had. Britain took protecting its royalty seriously.

“Well the Cepan are the Garde’s, (the Garde are the leaders of the military and are in charge of all of the Loric defenses) bodyguards, mentors and life-long companions. They’re usually paired off when the Garde are only hours old. Now when the Mogs invaded, they took out all of the adult Loric Garde in a sneak attack. The Cepan who were left were the ones responsible for taking care of the next generation of Garde and they brought the children here to Earth to hide them until they grew up. There were only nine children who survived and three of those were killed by Mog assassins.”
“Why?” Heather broke in aghast at the situation Nancy was describing. She couldn’t tell herself that her friend was imagining things with the shape shifting dog in the back seat, although she was already wishing she could. It looked like Perfection was in trouble again.

“I know, it’s terrible,” Nancy fretted. “Anyway, the Garde are born into their position because they have what we’d call superpowers; telekinesis, animal telepathy, something called lumen that looks like light coming out of the Garde’s hands, that sort of thing. Each of the children was given some sort of weird protection thing that took their names away and each one is called by a number. A couple of them have adopted English names, but little Ten still has her Loric name because she was born in a Mogadorian work camp down in Mexico eighteen months ago. The Garde and Cepan managed to rescue her, her mother and a bunch of others. We call her Ten though because her Loric name is almost unpronounceable.”

Heather looked into the back seat where Bernie was just to confirm that yes; there was still a shape shifting dog back there. He was looking back at her with his head cocked, almost as though asking her what the problem was, there wasn’t anything strange going on. “And Mindy is marrying Henri,” she said.

“Right he’s John’s, or Four if you want to call him that, Cepan,” Nancy agreed. “It’s very romantic. Loric fall in love at first sight once in their entire lives and he’s been waiting for her for years.”

“Sounds like you’ve had your hands full,” Heather told her.

“It’s been an interesting couple of months,” Nancy agreed. “Most of the Loric live in the next valley over, but Henri, John, Katie, Betty, and Six all live here. Katie is Henri’s older sister and Betty is her Garde. They’re staying up at Rosalita’s. She inherited Miguel’s ranch a few years back. Six is living with her fiancé Sam, his father Malcolm and Burt up at his compound.”

“Burt,” Heather said. “My ex-husband Burt,” she said again to clarify, “The one that Earl and Val used to make fun of for being an anti-social paranoid. Burt has houseguests?!?!?!?!”

“I know!” Nancy agreed. “I keep looking for the Four Horsemen. Although I think only Malcolm qualifies as a house guest because Burt is Six’s Cepan now.”

“Burt is a Cepan?!” Heather exclaimed.

Nancy nodded. “The Mogs killed her first Cepan and Burt is the only one who even remotely qualifies as a replacement. We’ve been terribly worried about Ten not having anyone who can be a Cepan for her.”

“So this is really important to them,” Heather said, beginning to wrap her mind around the idea. “Well, Burt never could walk away from someone who really needed him.”

“He’s been buying an awful lot of hot chocolate,” Nancy said quietly. She’d lived in Perfection all through
Burt and Heather’s marriage. The last time Burt had bought this much hot chocolate, they’d gotten the news that Heather couldn’t have children.

“Hot chocolate and toast,” Heather said, shaking her head sadly. “It’s my favorite comfort food. He’d make it for me every time I got upset. If he’s buying a lot of it, that poor child must be having a terrible time of it.”

“Nightmares I think,” Nancy told her. “She watched as the Mogs killed her first Cepan and couldn’t do anything to stop it. Henri told me that Burt becoming her Cepan and taking the three of them in was the best medicine anyone could have given her though.” She pulled her car over to the side of the road. They had to walk the rest of the way from here.

 

Hot Springs, Perfection Valley

The sight that met Heather as she carried a basket of food (there had been two more in the trunk) following Nancy and Bernie over the last rise before reaching the hot springs was one that could have knocked her over with a feather. Up on the far bank, at a right angle to the creek, two teenagers were standing on either side of a fissure. The fissure was glowing red and the girl was stripped down to the least amount of clothing she could get away with. Between the two, bits of lava were spitting up only to crack open and fall back into the fissure. When the lava cracked in two, something was released. Sometimes it was a crystal, others it was rocks that Heather couldn’t identify.

These items floated in the air over to where another teenaged girl was waiting by the creek bank. Somehow in the process of floating they must have lost the heat they had accumulated in the lava because they landed in a set of wooden crates that looked to have been assembled from cottonwood branches without burning the wood. She was checking things off of a list. “We need amethyst next,” she called out, “One the size of a baby’s fist and one the length of an adult’s hand. Those are the last two.”

“Right, no worries,” called the blond girl at the fissure.

“Crystals are easier,” the boy with her agreed.

“That’s Four, Five and Six,” Nancy nodded at the three teens. “Five is called Betty. Six prefers to be called by her number and of course Four prefers John.” She pointed to each teen as she named them. “As for the rest of them,” she said, pointing down at the group on the opposite bank, “Henri is sitting between Burt and Mindy. Malcolm and Sam are on Burt’s other side. Katie is the one moving the crates over to Burt’s truck, and Sarah is sitting on Mindy’s far side. She’s John’s fiancée.” She led the way down to the creek. “Hey everyone! I brought lunch and a guest!”

Just then there was a muffled thump, and John was suddenly on fire. Over the Human’s exclamations of surprise and shock, John’s voice could be heard. “Uh, Henri tell me this is another legacy.”

“Yeah, but you knew you had two left to go,” Henri reassured him calmly. “This is your last minor one. The last one will be your major legacy and primary weapon.”

“You haven’t gotten all of your legacies yet?” Six asked, stunned but with a bit of laughter in her voice.

“No, mine showed up late and out of order,” John said, annoyed. Heather watched in amazement as the young man who was looking like a living version of the Human Torch, slowly began flickering out. She almost missed the fact that the fissure was filling in on its own or that Six seemed to be directing it.

“Well be glad that you’re getting ones that are in the hot category,” Betty said with a grimace. “I got all mental ones. I have telekinesis, precognition, strong empathy, telepathy and mind control.” She shuddered while saying the last. “The last one isn’t very nice.”

“It’s not supposed to be nice,” Katie called out. “Remember, it’s a weapon. You can’t defend others if you don’t have a weapon to do it with, but that’s also why it’s always pared with strong empathy, so that you only use it when it’s needed.”

“Our ancestors developed the legacies so that we would not destroy Lorien defending ourselves,” Henri added. “By setting up the Garde and Cepan pairs, they made certain that the Garde would not become like the Mogs are now.”

“Because you’re always there to tell us when we we’re about to cross that line,” John said.

“So they tell you when you’ve got your head shoved so far up your hind end that you can’t see daylight?” Heather asked with a bit of a grin. She liked that idea. She was also glad that Burt had taken up the role of moral compass for Six. It had obviously given him a new purpose and direction for his life.

“Hello Heather,” Burt greeted her.

“Hello Burt,” she said in return, only to have Six get in her face.

“Hurt him and I swear that the only thing left will be a pile of ash,” Six growled.

“SIX!” Burt chastised. “She’s not going to hurt me.”

Henri and Katie were laughing as Six stuck her chin out. “Just making sure she knows where I stand,” she told him.

“I warned you,” Henri told him, laughter still clear in his voice.

“That you did, but this is a bit ridiculous,” Burt answered, exasperated.

“That’s ok,” Henri said. “She’s going to do the same thing to us later tonight every time you flinch.”

“So don’t flinch ‘cause I don’t want to get into with her,” John joined in the laughter. “Henri is the one who’s going to be working on you.”

“Don’t give her a hard time Burt. I, for one, am glad that she’s looking out for you. Now, what is he going to be doing?” Heather asked as she handed Burt the basket of food.

“Five and I are heading out,” Katie called as she placed the last crate in the truck. “Anyone coming with us?”

“I’ll go,” Malcolm called out. “I’d like to see what they’re going to do with your raw materials.” He headed over to the truck and the three of them called out their goodbyes. Those who were left behind spread out the blankets they had and arranged themselves for a picnic lunch, passing out food and drinks. Introducing Heather to the others was taken care of at the same time.

Finally Heather was able to get back to her question. “So just what is Henri going to be doing Burt?”

To the surprise of all, Burt actually blushed. “I know that I said I’d never get a tattoo, but they’re used as ceremonial markings for Cepan.”

“You never do things halfway Burt,” Heather said proudly. She was probably the only one who knew that Burt actually had a bit of a phobia about needles. No matter how serious John was about his request, there was no way that Burt wouldn’t be flinching, but he’d go through with it anyway just for Six’s sake.

The afternoon passed quickly, Heather sliding back into the family that was Perfection almost as though she had never left. In fact, it wasn’t until after she had called Burt ‘honey’, that she even realized how comfortable she was, and just how much Burt had returned to being the man she had married. She wasn’t surprised however, to be confronted by Six when the teen made certain that they hiked back to the vehicles together. “Don’t think that you can just pick up where you left off. You hurt him.” The glare the teen was giving her actually warmed Heather’s heart because she knew it meant that Six really did care about Burt.

“I don’t expect that at all,” she told Six calmly. “But I can’t stop loving him just because you think I should either.”

That stopped Six in her tracks. “You don’t love him. You hurt him and you left him!” she said, glaring even harder at Heather.

“Six,” and Heather had a hard time stopping herself from using the nickname of ‘honey child’ that her own mother had used years ago. “Just because you love someone doesn’t mean that you can live with them. Burt and I had our problems, some of which you will never be able to understand. I will try to explain what I can though. Several things happened that were outside of our control and we just had too many of those sorts of hits in too short a space of time for Burt to handle. He became very depressed, and quite frankly I had my own problems with that as well. It just got to the point where we just couldn’t stand to be around each other. That’s why we divorced.

“I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you came into his life. The Burt you know now is the man I fell for and ran off to marry all those years ago. I never once stopped loving him. No one could ever measure up to him and quite frankly, I never even wanted to try and find a man who might have come close. I never wanted to hurt him, but I did want him to have the option of finding someone else if that was what he needed.” Here Heather smiled bitterly. “Apparently that was you, the daughter I could never give him. Just stay close to him when they do this ceremony tonight. He’s phobic about needles,” she said as she walked away, leaving Six to stare at her in confusion.

The ceremony that took place in the center of the new Loric community was simple and moving. Burt stood in front of the Loric elders with Six and took an oath to stand with her, to protect her, to mentor her both in battle and in life for as long as he drew breath. Then each of the Garde, save for Six who was already next to him, came up to Burt as he stood still while Henri inked each of their crests into the skin of his arm and welcomed him on behalf of their people.

Seeing the tiny Nine and Ten (her mother held the baby up and Ten laughed and gave Burt a kiss as her part of the ceremony) give their blessings to the new Cepan brought home to Heather just how devastated these people were. Each of these children were the only survivors of their families. Normally this duty would be performed by the oldest member of the family with many of the Cepan and Garde from the different families and the Loric Elders in attendance, as well as any civilian who was privileged enough to watch in the audience, as an hours old infant was placed in the care of their new Cepan, cementing the age old bond that protected their world. It made her so proud that Burt had risen to the challenge of becoming Six’s Cepan and it made her bound and determined that she would not let him be the only Gummer helping where possible. There had to be some way that she could help too.