A/N: It will be more and more obvious who the Commander and his men are (if you don't know already…) But of course, Jorus has no idea so a name will not be mentioned for a while.
I'm glad I have you intrigued! That was my plan.
Chapter 2- Sad but True
He was standing in the middle of a field, eyes closed, calling for her, listening for her. The wind rustled the tall yellow-flowering grasses. It smelled as sweet as the honey of a glova-hive. The sun beat down on his face. Then he heard it, behind him, but it was too late. She had him in her clutches, hands around his eyes.
"Got you."
He turned around to see her smiling face. He held her in his arms, "Always."
Vinelle laughed, "You are losing your touch for sensing. If I was an enemy you would be dead right now."
"But you are not an enemy, and I am not losing it. It just so happens that you are rapidly improving in stealth techniques."
She rolled her eyes, "Perhaps we are both correct in a way?"
He mumbled something and closed his eyes.
---000
They opened in their dwelling on Ixonia. He was sitting on the edge of the unmade bed. It was a bright, happy place, out of the way, far from the nearest village of their people. The way they liked it.
"Vinelle?" He called for her, hoping what happened with that dreadful commander was only the imaginings of a sleeping mind. He called again, searching the house. It was modest, only a few rooms, made of brick. She was nowhere to be found inside, so went outside.
He headed down to the garden in the front of the house and was relieved to see her sitting on the bench. It was strange though, it was facing outward, not towards the house. He walked around to the other side and his heart broke. Her head was bowed, the brown hair fallen across her face, and the area over her heart was bloody. She was gone.
Jorus spun around, he had heard something behind him. A man was standing there, strangely clad in something blue and a black vest.
He screamed at the man, "You! You did this!" as he stormed up to the man who just stood there, staring.
Jorus grabbed the man's throat with both hands and squeezed. Hatred swirled through his head. The man become weak due to lack of oxygen and his legs gave out. Jorus was now kneeling over the man, his hands still clutching the throat. The man strangely did not fight back or struggle, only stared blankly into Jorus's eyes. He released his hands.
His eyes opened back in the miserable place of a cell. He sat up in the center of the dimly lit room. That was the sad reality, not the dreams. The guards had left him alone, he had no idea how long he had slept for.
He thought of Vinelle and wondered how she was being treated. Where she was, perhaps closer to the surface. He had almost escaped once the first day he was there. If he had succeeded, none of this would be happening. He overpowered the guards in his cell, quite easily. All he had to do was grab one's knife (an alright knife, he liked his better though), cut the guard's throat, hit one in her neck, crushing the windpipe, throw the knife into the new guard and leave.
That was when they only had the two guards in his cell and rotated one at a time. Then they added two outside the cell and rotated both at the same time. Two were out there now.
He had made it through a few corridors, taking out the couple soldiers as he went, but that damn Commander stopped him with four other soldiers. That man was an expert at hand to hand combat, much better than his men. Most likely why he had to find someone else to be the assassin. But Jorus had noticed the Commander had pain in his left shoulder. Every time he moved it, there was just something odd about it.
He looked around and saw a plate and a glass. Sighing, he stood up, sore from being in the same position for however long. He investigated the burns on his chest, nothing that wouldn't heal… physical pain he could block out. He supposed they did not inflict any cuts or lacerations or broke any bones being as he would need full mobility. The memory of the electric shocks came back… and he pushed them out. He rolled his neck and stretched, that made him feel a little better. He propped himself against the wall, eating what food they had left for him. Nothing ever tasted so good, especially after days without much of it.
He racked his brain wondering how he could have been so stupid enough to concentrate on one thing that he was captured. He was hunting in the forest by Vinelle and his house when he felt a sting in his neck. Then he woke up in this place, must have been a tranquilizer. At the time Vinelle was in the village, visiting family. They most likely caught her the same way a few days later when she returned home.
If he did not kill this Major John Sheppard, she would never return home again. She would be killed. That was the sad truth. Of course the thought of how much he could trust this Commander to keep his word passed through Jorus's mind, but he had no other choice. He was tired again, and closed his eyes hoping his dreams would be different.
A/N: That was a little more background before it gets going in Chapter 3.