Have you ever felt as if your memories belong to someone else?
Another person. Another life.
When you look back and can't recognize yourself? Or rather, the you who lived all those things is not you anymore.
So who are you? Who are you if not your memories?
Ah'kaedh took inventory of his hunting equipment. Inspecting each piece carefully, one by one. In a ritual that every single Yautja knew by heart.
While armoring himself, he strapped his wrist gauntlet to his right. Once, Ah'kaedh had been ambidextrous, preferring to wear it on his left (being an enforcer made him use every single bit of advantage he could gather when facing one of his own species, and a good amount of people would assume a fighting stance to face a right-handed opponent once they spotted the gauntlet on his left), now allowing any rational-minded prey to assume he had lost his dominant hand seemed a better strategy.
Not that he actually needed said gauntlet - his prosthetic of choice had the functions of the gauntlet built in.
This was his 3rd incursion on the satellite.
Location to an ooman company named Seegson, this was the place the Girl mentioned as her last home before…
Before meeting me.
Seegson was, per his Prey's words, a competitor of Seizei.
And sure enough, every bit of information she relayed had been true. But what she described was not quite what he found.
The humans named Solomons the satellite system around the planet named Alpha Caeli V, a massive gas giant. There were some minings colonies, well established by now, some cities, offices and other ooman structures.
A space bridge served as a connection point between the rocks and as docking for traveling vessels.
Alpha Caeli Vb was the moon with the largest city, which would receive more visitors - home to almost 2,000,000 oomans, Seegson offices, trade points, the largest hospital and health research in the region. Decent nightlife. A tolerable climate and had its terra-formation process concluded more than a century ago.
Some descriptions matched what he found, but again, not quite. Some places had closed, others had probably gone under renovations.
Oomans, as a short-lived species, were quite fond of building structures without having eyes on the future. Cities would change, structures would be torn apart. Changes to the environment made without much consideration. Oomans were mostly like termites. Taking and taking.
Ah'kaedh had not been a fan of the species before, but the range of feeling they would evoke now was way beyond despise.
And yet, here he was.
One year into his efforts to find his Girl, his Prey, the key to his peace (whatever that meant).
He had visited other places before. But her trail was cold…
Cold as a corpse. It was as if Ah'kaedh was the only one who was still aware of the ghost of her existence.
Failure has a bitter, bitter taste.
No amount of learning about oomans society (and how to take advantage of their systems, the ancient paraphernalia they called technology), customs, and their disgusting cities were enough to find Her.
He had been excused from his duties for 2 years - and those years came and went. Ah'kaedh started to use his free time in between assignments to learn more. To investigate. Sometimes even revisit clues he already deemed dead ends.
He would still monitor mercenaries activities - once upon a time he had access to their communication channels in the region he had been held captive, and it was little effort to keep capturing those vermin so he could acquire codes, access to other networks, learn about trade points.
After all, as he would find out during not long after his recovery period, merchs had made (and broken) a deal with the Bad Bloods he had been pursuing. Which led to the capture and confinement for the Yautjas.
And now Ah'kaedh was paying back the favor in kind - covering his wall with mercenaries skulls.
Years would start and end. Mating seasons come and go.
Ah'kaedh had filled the cracks in his heart with the cold anger that Her absence brought every new morning. (It didn't make the pain go away, but it was the only glue that would keep the pieces of his hearts together). Besides, he had an endless supply of it.
(Yautjas had two hearts. How ironic. Maybe that was the reason for his inability to let go, forget Her and move on. Move away from her memory).
It numbed the pain and propelled him forward. Anger, unlike sadness, had a way to prompt people into action.
And what good would sadness do, anyway?
His personality didn't improve with the passing years - and yet he was able to keep in contact (rapport was too strong a word) with leaders and enforcers in other clans.
Every once in a long while, a newly blooded hunter would disappear in weird circumstances. Obviously, his own clan had been outraged by the oomans intentions in creating abominations, but this was their problem - the other clans were quite clear in the matter. His was the mistake who allowed oomans to have access to their DNA, the responsibility to make them stop belonged to his clan.
This would change though. However, it took more than the 2 rescues of young Yautja. When a vessel with a pregnant female and 2 of her sisters was purposely attacked and made crash on a planet - that was when things changed.
Their clan was not happy. They had been on a leisure hunt, nothing out of the ordinary. It was supposed to brighten the spirits of the pregnant female who had lost a suckling to an accident in the previous year.
The skulls of the Bad Bloods who ambushed the females now adorned Ah'kaedh's new trophy wall.
Two ribs broken and his back clawed into ribbons - the mating season always brought some relief disguised as injuries.
This is how things are supposed to be. This is the touch he should desire. The pheromone induced haze driven by the scent of fertile females would turn off his rational brain. Would drown the howls of his broken hearts.
That is, until the mating was over and the female was receptive to non-violent interactions.
Those short periods of tenderness would grind his heart into a new mess - because it would make him remember quite vividly what it was like to be touched gently by someone else.
Thankfully, affection was always in short supply, and the pain of the mating would keep him somewhat busy afterwards, until he could drown his mess of a heart (well, hearts) once more.
Like now. Every breath made his ribcage physically ache. What a perfect distraction.
After 31 ooman years, Ah'kaedh believed his Girl dead.
For more than 3 decades he had tried and looked for her. Insistently, carefully.
He knew she had not been alone that day - the day she had set him free. Ah'kaedh knew other Yautja found a trail of a group that had left the place, and the landing point of a dropship.
If his Girl had died that day, she would have been carried away.
Maybe that was the reason he never found a trace of her, not a single one.
Part of his spirit could not cope - maybe her death was his fault. It could have been his delay in doing her bidding? Or maybe doing what she was asked, leaving her behind to risk herself alone? If she died that day, had he a hand in it?
Or maybe his Girl had been alive for a while. Ah'kaedh was sure their time together was not her first rodeo, she had been far too cunning in planning and executing his escape. That was not a novice's job.
But how long could a ooman keep up in that line of work? Certainly not long. And not without costs. Hers was a short-lived species after all.
For a while, Ah'kaedh thought the memory of her presence would finally leave him - once he was sure she was gone.
Only to discover that Her ghost would haunt him. Present like a constant companion.
Believing her dead quenched his need to look for the Girl in a way, but made him find her everywhere.
In the colors she liked. In the memory of songs she mumbled that lurked in his mind just before falling asleep. In the mercs he would kill. In white garments. In the ooman-made scars that covered his body. In his missing arm.
Everywhere, at every turn. There she was.
In some ways, Ah'kaedh knew the Girl so well, that he would hear her voice opining on some matters. And more often than not, telling him to keep going.
You must live. Move on. That's why I set you free.
It was maddening and comforting at the same time. His nameless Girl would never leave him now.
A message from a clanship that was not his own brought the type of bad news that would stir his hunting instincts in a pleasant way.
A young Yautja had been rescued - and while he was mostly okay, his companions perished under ooman hands, locked away in a zoo of sorts.
Per the rescued Yautja's account, the oomans had a myriad of different species, and even ooman slaves.
Which was just perfect. Because ooman society would not admit slaves, not on the surface anyways - but they would surely commercialize them on black markets, which in turn would be flooded with mercenaries doing their businesses.
And mercenaries were one of his favorite prey nowadays.
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NOTES:
Thank you so much Shalimar79 for being an awesome person and doing the beta for this chapter!