Chapter 37: Friends with Benefits.
The large hut wasn't just a living space, Jack instantly saw that it served as a village town hall or meeting place, in the middle was a rather large round wooden table with chairs all around it, the place as a whole had a kind of hunter's cabin crossed with rainforest jungle hut feel to it, on one hand you had things like the table made from what looked like oak and then you had what appeared to be a cabinet of some kind made from what looked like bamboo.
"Take a seat laddie" Monty said gesturing to the table,
"Thanks" Jack said and pulled out a chair next to him for his daughter who was busy taking off her rifle, she gave him a silent nod and placed her rifle by her side and her mask on the table after unclipping it from the rear of her belt, Jack had to remove a few weapons himself before he was able to comfortably sit down, but one his rifle and swords were removed he was able to sit down on the hard wood chair, Monty, Millar and his group and three people that Jack hadn't been introduced to yet joined them and all sat down at the table.
"So who goes first for the story swap?" Jack asked, Monty grinned with an amused look on his face,
"I will but before I do just some introductions" he said, then with his large shovel like hand he gestured to the three newcomers, first up was a young woman with olive skin, jet black curly hair and dark fierce eyes, "This is Isabelle an IDF sniper, think she's been here longer than any of us except for myself" Monty said, the young woman simply nodded at Jack without saying a word, "She doesn't talk much since her lover Royce was killed by those fuckers three seasons back" Monty said, Isabelle huffed and shot Monty a dark look,
"I speak when I feel something needs to be said" she said in her accented English, Monty simply smiled back at her,
"Or when she's angry apparently" he said which caused the young woman to huff in annoyance again, this caused the others at the table to smile slightly.
Monty moved his large hand onto the next person at the table, this one was a young Japanese man in his mid-twenties, "This is Corporal Yoshi Namboku, he's a rather gifted engineer, he is or was a member of the JDF, he's the reason we all live so comfortably down here, he's the one responsible for the huts, the running water, the electricity and so much more" Monty said, the young man bowed slightly to Jack and Sela,
"I am not much of a fighter, I prefer to build" he said rather humbly, Jack Grinned at him,
"This place is beautiful you've done an amazing thing here, building this place right under the bad bloods noses is remarkable" Sela eleth said, Yoshi looked at the young girl and smiled while blushing profusely,
"Thank you, but it was nothing really, just some bamboo, some wood and hard work, everyone pitched in it not like I could have done this all on my own" he said rather embarrassedly,
"Yeah but without your plans we'd still be sat on the dirt with barely any kinda roof over our heads" Monty said, this caused Yoshi to blush even harder and Monty to smile even broader.
Now it was the turn of the last new face at the table, unlike the other two this person didn't look military, she was a young black woman in her mid-thirties with her hair tied into a sort of scruffy pony tail and small round glasses that kept sliding down her small nose causing her to push them up every few seconds, her eyes screamed both intelligence and curiosity at Jack but it wasn't Jack she was looking at, it was Sela eleth, in fact she hadn't taken her eyes off her since they'd entered the hut.
"Last but by no means least my I introduce Professor Grace Osbourne of NASA" Monty said, the woman smiled broadly and before anyone could say anything she hand lunged across the table and seized Sela eleth's hand and was shaking it wildly, Sela eleth looked pretty startled by the young ooman's gesture and glanced at her father who simply smiled and shrugged,
"It's so good to meet you both" Grace said in a rather high pitched voice that was almost a squeak, Jack regarded the young woman curiously, it was only then that Grace seemed to notice Sela eleth's obvious discomfort at having her hand shaken quite so vigorously and she released the young girl's hand, "Oh I am so so sorry, I get a little carried away sometimes, you see I am a Professor of Biology and Exobiology so getting to see one of your kind up close is like a dream come true for me, the only members of your race that I have had chance to see were either shooting at us, or dead after one the military guys defending us killed one, so being able to see you up close like this is incredible, being able to sit down at the same table and have a conversation, it's like a dream come true for me, oh I have sooo many questions that I am aching to ask you, like where do you come from?, what's your home planet like?, how different are we to you biologically?, but I must say and forgive me if this sounds rude, but you do look rather different from the others of your kind that I have seen" Grace said talking so fast that her voice reminded Jack of a minigun on windup.
Sela eleth didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted by the curious woman, but she guessed that she didn't mean no harm and curiosity wasn't a bad thing, the woman was just lucky it was her she was addressing and not her Matriarch, if she'd had told her Matriarch that she looked different from others of her kind well after she'd have pulled her freshly removed arm out of her own arse hole then her Matriarch would have simply stated that now she looked different from other oomans too.
Sela eleth decided to humor the curious woman who seemed like she was about to start bouncing up and down in her chair any second and fire even more questions at her, "I look different because I am only half Yaujta" Sela said in a calm voice, Grace's eyebrows flew up,
"A Hybrid!?" she almost yelled, again she flew around the table, this time she started examining Sela in close detail while the entire time talking to herself sounding like she was taking mental notes, looking at her skin "Smooth texture with camouflage patterning interesting" she said, her hair "Fine hair braided into what appears to be dreadlocks similar to the dreadlocks seen on others but more like human hair" she said, her hands "Smaller than other members, rather delicate and with obvious fine dexterity and motor skills" she said, it was only when she went to touch her mandibles that Sela eleth decided that enough was enough, she growled which caused Grace to freeze as she looked into the shining eyes of the young huntress,
"I don't think my daughter appreciates being prodded like a lab rat Professor" Jack said calmly, this caused Grace's mouth to fall open,
"Y-Y-Y-Your daughter!?" she exclaimed now looking at Jack as if this was the first time she'd seen him in the room, he nodded,
"That's right my daughter, Sela eleth Mason, proud full blooded huntress of the clan Mason" Jack said, this caused Sela's head to snap towards her father and found him smiling past Grace and directly at her, he had noticed the marking on her forehead after all, hearing her father refer to her as a full blooded huntress in such a proud voice made her heart swell with pride.
Grace flew to Jack's side now, "You mean to tell me that you were actually able to mate with one of their kind and successfully produce an offspring!?" Grace exclaimed, she was almost dancing on the spot skipping from one foot to the other like she really needed the toilet, Jack regarded the young scientist with a raised eyebrow,
"I didn't just mate with anybody professor, I simply made love with the woman I love more than life itself and was blessed" Jack said, Grace cocked her head to one side as if the notion that simply mating to swap genetic material and the idea that making love to someone because you ache to bring them so much pleasure in this life that your heart bursts was somehow the same,
"And the union produced an offspring?" She said curiously,
"Two offspring actually, twins, a girl and a boy, my beautiful daughter Sela eleth who you see here and I also have a son Ryan, who my life mate Tik eleth is currently on the way to tear an Arbiter's head off and shove it up his own arse to retrieve" Jack said in a matter of fact voice,
"Both human/Yaujta hybrids?" she asked, Jack nodded, this time Grace did actually jump up and down on the spot, "So human hybridization is actually possible with other species, oh Mr Mason you don't know this but you have just made history, you have to be the first not only to engage in interspecies mating but for it to produce offspring!" she said bouncing up and down, then she proceeded to bombard Jack with questions regarding the why's and how's of it all, never actually giving him time to answer a single one before she fired the next at him, the others at the table looked amused at this little spectacle but Jack soon tired of it,
"Professor rather than answer all these questions why don't I just show you?" he said, that put a few people at the table on instant alert, Grace cocked her head curiously at him,
"Show me? Show me how?" she asked, Jack went to reach for her,
"NO! Don't!" Angel yelled jumping up from her seat, Jack glanced at her and saw all the anxious faces of Millar's team staring back at him,
"Spoilsports" he said retracting his hand and sitting back down,
"Huh?" Grace asked confused by this, Angel breathed a sigh of relief,
"Professor you have no idea of the bullet you just dodged" she said,
"What bullet? I don't understand?" Grace said looking at all their anxious and now relived faces,
"Jack is something the Yaujta call a Dream Warrior, it means he has these abilities, crazy and insane abilities that can really fuck with your head" Angel said, now the professor looked really curious,
"Take a seat professor this is going to take a while" Jack said gesturing to the table, wordlessly she moved back to her seat and sat down, "Right then from the top shall we?" Jack said and with that he began to recount his own story from the very beginning.
Jack told the majority with Sela eleth interjecting certain bits from her perspective and then fully taking over when it came to the Jack and Tik heading off to find them and telling what had happened to her and her brother, Jack listened intently at this point as this was the first time he'd heard her story, he'd gotten somethings from his memory transference with Ryan but when he'd connected with his son he still hadn't found his sister, as he listened to her side of the story he found himself silently celebrating his daughter's triumphs and swearing vengeance on those that had dared to try to hurt her which caused him to smile subconsciously as he caught himself doing it.
After they were done Jack glanced around at the group seated before them, there were a few stunned faces in her now, while Millar and his team had heard Jack's tale or at least part of it as he'd gone into far more detail this time, they hadn't heard Sela eleth's and it stunned them and also worried them after she mentioned fighting the bugs.
Monty was the first to speak managing to get his words out quick as he could see Grace charging up to his far left, "Well that really is quite an adventure you've had for yourselves there" he said rubbing his mustache thoughtfully,
"Well now that we've told you ours why don't you tell us yours?" Jack said, Monty glanced around at his group and each of them nodded,
"Very well laddie as ye wish, better strap yourself in though as it quite a doozy in itself, not as glamourous as meeting and marrying an exotic alien woman but starting a village on an alien world while being hunted down is no mean feat I can tell you" he said, Jack and Sela eleth both grinned at him, so taking a deep breath Monty began to recount the story.
Well as it turned out most of them had near enough identical stories to Jack, well except for the falling in love with an alien huntress part anyway, they had all been snatched from Earth and air dropped in as part of a group of ten, what shocked and saddened Jack was that each of them was the sole survivor of each of their separate groups, for each of them there was nine others who didn't make it and while Jack's group was pretty much all military personnel quite a few of the other groups weren't, the Professor's group for example had been pretty much entirely made up of civilians, all scientists except for one soldier, Grace was the only one to survive and by her own words, just because she was incredibly good at hiding.
As he had already seen some of the other groups had contained children a fact that boiled Jack's blood, he knew that Yaujta society revolved around hunting and sport killing but hunting children and those who were defenseless was nothing short of vile and he knew that no self-respecting Yaujta would ever do such a thing, hunting an armed soldier is one thing but hunting a defenseless child was quite another, even Sela eleth was moved to tears as she heard some of the tales from the group, each of them had taken it in turns to add bit and pieces to the whole story each terminating in how they were found by the others and led here to the place that Monty had found and Yoshi had built, but by far the saddest was that which Cortez told. He told an account of how the bad bloods had deliberately dropped ten unarmed children in by parachute in order to lure out the other survivors so they could be picked off as they tried to reach the defenseless kids.
"And it worked too, the group went into such a rage that a large chunk of our number went out to scour the jungle for these kids, we lost twenty people that day and all we saved were three" Cortez said in a sad voice, Jack looked at him sadly and as he did grey smoke appeared around him and straight away Jack noticed seven young children standing there looking sadly at Cortez , a young girl of about nine walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, he smiled at the spirits of the kids that Cortez had failed to save,
"The point is that you tried, sacrificing yourself for an innocent life is a noble and honorable death" Jack said softly, Cortez looked at him and so did the spirits who seemed genuinely shocked that he could see them, the young girl who had placed her hand on Cortez's shoulder walked towards Jack and stopped in front of him, Sela eleth noticed her father's unusual look and also noticed that he seemed to be watching something that she couldn't see,
"Father?" she said quietly,
"They are here" he said softly as he reached out his hand to touch the hand that the little girl offered him,
"Who's here?" Grace asked looking around in confusion,
"The children" Jack said and his hand made contact with the girl's, instantly his eyes flashed from brilliant ice blue to black and his mind was flooded with the images of her life, her name was Lilly and she was nine, she'd been on holidays with her grandparents when she was taken, Jack saw the fear, the pain she had suffered and te darkest of despair when she knew that she was going to die, now she just wanted someone to know her story and to remember her, she didn't blame Cortez for not being able to rescue her, she was just glad that he'd managed to save at least some of them.
As soon as his hand touched the young girl spirit's a coil of grey smoke had emanated from his finger tips and had coiled its way around his arm, Jack didn't see this as he was currently inside the girl's mind, but the others could all see it and they all watched in fascinated shock at this, suddenly Jack turned to look at Cortez whose mouth dropped open at the man's eyes, "Cortez come here, she wants you to see this too" he said, Cortez looked scared as hell as he looked at the man with grey smoke coiled up his arm and black eyes where there had once been blue, It's ok you don't have to be afraid" Jack said, slowly Cortez moved around the table to where Jack was, "Hold out your hand" Jack instructed, Cortez did so and instantly Jack took it with his other hand and the smoke coiled out from Jack's hand around Cortez's arm, "See her and remember her" Jack said in a soft voice and to his utter shock a young girl appeared in front of him holding hands with Jack and now also with him, he looked at her in utter amazement and then his mind was flooded with her memories and the tears started.
The entire group watched this display in stunned silence, even Sela eleth who knew of her father's abilities watched in amazement, she'd seen his memory transference before but she'd never seen him talk to spirits before even though her Matriarch had told her about it, but as she watched now Cortez's eyes changed color to match her father's and the smoke that had been coiled around his arm was now also coiled around Cortez's and tears were streaming down his face, "I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry that we couldn't save you" Cortez said in a choked voice, then a smile broke out of his face, "Thank you, oh god thank you, you have no idea what that means to me" he said with tears streaming down his cheeks, then just as suddenly as it had begun it was over and the smoke receded from both of them.
Jack's and Cortez's eyes returned to normal and the bond was broken as the girl and the other spirits with a last wave of good bye to their new Dream Warrior friend and the friend that had tried to save them, they all vanished in a wisp of smoke.
Cortez looked at Jack who now looked pretty drained, "How? How is that possible?" he asked, Jack shook his head,
"No clue my friend, all that I know is that it is and now you do to" he said,
"That was incredible, all her memories, all of her feelings, it was like I lived her life inside her head as she was living it" Cortez said looking at his hands, Jack smiled,
"It's quite something isn't it?" Angel's voice said from behind him, he turned and looked at her,
"It was incredible, I met Lilly, she was one of the kids that those fuckers dropped in to get us to come out, she showed me her life, or Jack showed me her life I don't know which, but the main thing is she didn't blame us for her death, she's happy where she is now and there's no pain, she told me not to blame or hurt myself for her death anymore" Cortez said,
"Hurt yourself?" Monty asked curiously, Cortez looked both guilty and sad but then Jack placed a hand on his shoulder,
"Show them" he said softly, Cortez nodded and lifted up his shirt, all of them at the table gasped in shock, over his torso Cortez had a patch work of scars about an inch big obviously done with a razor or small blade,
"It was my way of paying penance for them dying, I thought that if I put myself through a small amount of their pain, then maybe they'd forgive me for not rescuing them" Cortez said sadly, Angel was off her seat and on her feet in a second, she threw her arms around Cortez and pulled him into a hug,
"But they never blamed me, t-t-t-they thanked me for trying" he said as his voice broke into tears, the whole group watched as Angel gripped the big man and held him as he wept into her shoulder, then after he was done and Angel released him Cortez turned to Jack and grabbed both of his hands in his, "Thank you, thank you so so much for showing me that" he said, Jack gripped Cortez's hands tightly in his,
"Your welcome my friend, but it wasn't me, it was Lilly who wanted you to see" he said,
"But without you and these crazy arse gifts of yours none of that would have been possible" Cortez said, Jack smiled softly,
"Then you are very welcome my friend, I hope it gave you peace" he said.
Finally Cortez returned to his seat, the man looked about ten years younger, it was like someone had pulled the weight of the world of his shoulders, the group watched him silently for a moment before Grace broke it, "What did we just witness?" she asked, before Jack could answer Sela eleth piped up,
"The way my Matriarch described it to me is that Dream Warriors are people capable of incredible things, they have incredible power within them, a foot in both the living world and the spirit world at the same time, it grants them gifts like being able to see the spirits of the dead as if they were living beings as they walk among us, it also allows them to reach into another's mind and see them in their entirety, their hopes, dreams, loves, fears, all as if they were theirs themselves, it also allows them to show people things, to pass along knowledge or memories as if the recipient themselves had lived that very moment" Sela said, Angel nodded from their left,
"And I can tell you it's one hell of a ride, Jack did that to me back in the cave when we first met him, he made me live his entire life in a split second, I felt every love hope and fear he's ever had in its rawest form, from helping his sister as a child, to the love that drove him to nearly kill himself to save his life mate when he was stuck on this planet, even holding his daughter and his son in his arms for the first time, it was incredible, feeling someone else's life like that, all I can say is wow, it nearly blew my mind" she said, Sela eleth nodded,
"Dream Warrior memory transference is quite something, I remember when I ran away once when I was younger, I blamed my father for everything, thought that he loved my brother more than me, thought that he was his favorite and that I'd never be good enough, he found me and when he did I screamed and I screamed at him, I called him every vile name that I knew, he never said a word, he simply walked over and placed his hand on my cheek and I saw it and I felt it, I saw the very first time he held me in his arms, I watched myself sucking my thumb as I slept through his eyes, I saw my first birthday and I felt the happiness and the pride he felt when he looked at me, not to mention the love, but the one that broke me was the fear I felt from him when he discovered that I'd run away, the panic in his heart and the sheer force and determination to find me, he was literally prepared to tear our home world apart with his bare hands just to have me in his arms safe and sound, I've never cried so hard in my life" she said, Angel smiled and laughed softly,
"I know this sounds weird, but I remember that as if it was my own memory, I can see it clear as day in my head, you had a black top on with leather pads all over it that you mother made for you and a pair of shorts and you cried so had into your father's stomach that you soaked his only tee shirt" Angel said, Sela eleth smiled at her and nodded, then she looked back at Grace who was watching this entire exchange with gnawing curiosity,
"It also grant's them a few other gifts too" she said,
"Like what?" Grace asked eagerly,
"Like increased strength, he's about two maybe three times stronger than a normal ooman, then there's the speed, if you don't see him move you never will my Matriarch always said, my father can cross a room in the blink of an eye" Sela eleth said proudly, Grace cocked her head and turned to look at Jack who seemed to shimmer for a second before disappearing, she looked confused before she felt something behind her, she turned and saw Jack smiling down at her from only an inch away,
"Boo" he said which actually caused her to jump back, then she glanced back at the empty seat and then back at Jack, only Jack was nowhere to be seen, she looked back at Sela eleth and saw her father sat there with his arms crossed looking the picture of innocence,
"But, I, I mean he, what?" she said glancing around herself in utter confusion, Sela eleth giggled sweetly,
"Don't worry you're not seeing things, he does that to our Matriarch all the time, he's forever just appearing next to her kissing her and disappearing again, well that or pinching and smacking her bum, drives her crazy, she chased him round the house once with a spatula because he smacked her bum while she was trying to sew Ryan's armor and she stuck her finger with the needle" she said through her giggle, Jack grinned,
"I'm damn glad that was the only thing she had near her at the time, plenty of sharp shit in my house" he said grinning like a naughty schoolboy, this caused a few of the group to burst out laughing,
"Fair play laddie, their kind seem angry at the best of times, must be a brave man to want to marry one" Monty said grinning under his mustache, Jack smiled at him,
"She's my soul mate and I wouldn't have her any other way" he said, before Grace could continue to bombard Jack or Sela with questions Monty decided to move things along,
"Well then laddie, now that you know our story are ye willing to help us?" he asked, Jack smiled,
"Monty we were both willing to help you the moment we walked in the door, but now we know what you guys have been through, it just makes us more determined to get you guys out of here" Jack said with Sela nodding next him, Monty sighed a massive sigh of relief,
"Well laddie you don't know how glad I am to hear that, we can definitely use all the help we can get around her, a human Dream Warrior thingy who moves like lightning and his gun touting sniper daughter will be a definite boost to morale" he said, Jack grinned,
"Ain't going to be easy though Monty, these bad bloods are no push overs, we're going to need a plan, not only to bring out the fighters, but to bring out their leader as well, she's the one we need to kill, with her dead the others will either descend into a power struggle or scatter, at the very least it will give us time to get the hell off this rock, but ideally we need to put an end to this once and for all, otherwise it's just going to keep happening once they're organize, we need to teach them not to fuck with Earth" Jack said,
"Or kill them all, whichever comes first" Angel said, they all nodded at this,
"Well then I think we have our answer, it's going to take a little time to come up with something this grand laddie, but for the mean time you will be our welcome guests, I'm sure you and your wee daughter there could use some rest, we have some spare huts dotted around that you can use as Yoshi here just seems to like to build more and more" Monty said,
"I am not wee! wait what's wee mean?" Sela eleth said he mandibles flaring a bit, Jack laughed at her behind his hand,
"What?" she said looking right at him,
"Nothing, you just don't know how much you remind me of your mum sometimes" he said, she huffed not knowing if that was an insult or not, still smiling Jack turned back to Monty who was also smiling in amusement at the teenage girl's outburst,
"Thanks Monty I could definitely use the rest" he said, the big Scotsman grinned and then they all stood up from the table,
"Miller will sort you both out, I'll see you tomorrow and we can get to planning" he said, Jack nodded and both he and Sela eleth followed Millar out of the door and into the village, Sela was still grumbling under her breath about being wee.
As Millar led them across the village Sela eleth looked at the place in wonder, it amazed her that oomans had managed to survive this nightmarish place and not only that but to make themselves a community like this, as her eyes settle on the massive statue in the middle of the village that the god ray of sunlight hit she realized that it was Paya the goddess of the hunt, as he eyes followed it down she was surprised to see Amy the young black skinned ooman girl that she'd met when she first got her, she appeared to be making something out of flowers that looked kind of like a circle, then as she watched she turned and placed it on the head of the person sitting next to her, thats when she saw Robert and her heart started to thump again, it was also at his time that her father and her reached the hut and Millar ushered them inside.