Subchief Ranni (Modern Majuri Warriors Book 1) Page 2

  Never had a female affected him in this way. That was only to be expected since she was his female whether she liked it or not and once he had her, he would make sure she liked it a lot. Her siblings would be brought into his household as well. Her brother would be trained as a warrior. Hopefully he had some of his sister’s abilities. Her sister might train as a warrior too if she had the abilities and if not, she would make a warrior a fine mate.

  Now that he’d solved all the worries on the known world, he should be able to sleep but it still eluded him. In the back of his mind, a concern lingered. What would his female do now that she knew he would never stop coming for her? She also had to know some of her own people had given into greed to turn her in. What would he do? It occurred to him that she would go far away but she would need supplies.

  It was the moment he’d reached his epiphany that an alarm rang out. By the gods and goddesses! Could it be her? He strode out of his tent naked as he’d come into this world and saw her just as she grabbed a box of supplies and loaded them on one of the small haulers his camp used. It was on the other side of the containment fence meant to keep little thieves out, but right now it kept him in.

  Their eyes met and hers drifted down to his hard and sizable cock. Her mouth dropped open and he imagined it wrapped around his girth. Ranni almost came right then but he used his discipline to prevent it. Flander came up to him and Ranni saw his second had taken the time to dress.

  “Take what men you can find and go after her!” He commanded. “I’ll catch up to you shortly.”

  “Yes, Subchief.” Flader said with a smirk as he took in his nakedness.

  Had the situation not been so critical and his need to catch his mate not so serious, he would have beaten his second to within an inch of his life. Flander had a second sense for what and when he could get away with his disrespectful attitude showing. This was clearly one of those times.

  “What are you waiting for?” Ranni growled. Majuri were very close in nature to the beasts they had evolved from and some might say their leaders tended to be the closest of all. Once he saw Flander was on his way, he pivoted and went back to his tent to dress and weapon up.

  Ranni wouldn’t use his weapons unless absolutely necessary, but not only had the Grabbers abandoned some of their people, but some of the locals seemed almost feral. They were attacking his males and that was unacceptable. Ranni knew he and his males walked a fine line here between being seen as saviors or as conquerors.

  He put on his leather pants, shirt, and vest. His leather clothing had lots of pockets and hidey holes for weapons and other items he used when tracking. Ranni was, after all, the best tracker they had. Admittedly, he was a tad arrogant, but with good reason. Pulling on his boots, they were knee boots made of the toughest Corokian leather, a leather sought by those who could afford it, he was now ready to carry his arsenal of knives, guns, and throwing stars with him.

  Used to going all out, he loaded up quickly and now he would hunt down his ride. Ranni had a custom made air bike. It could go faster than the usual bikes because he had the skills needed to control it at the faster speeds. The bike was his pride and joy and the envy of all who saw it. Some females said the blue color matched his eyes. Painted flames of a lighter blue looked as if they shot from the motor and consumed the bike.

  His seat was made out of the same Corokian leather as his boots. Ranni would destroy anyone that hurt his bike. It meant that much to him and had cost a year’s salary that had taken five years to save. Many thought his father had gifted it to him, but his father gifted him nothing. It was the emperor’s belief that a warrior needed to make it on his own. That included providing himself with all his own gear and personal needs. Ranni was a self-made man as the humans would say.

  While his mother had given him love and training in those areas she was talented in, his father had only given him those traits he had inherited from him. He would probably take those away had he been able to. Gerit was obsessed with remaining emperor forever and saw his sons, he had twelve, more as competition than anything else. As the oldest, he viewed Ranni as the biggest threat.

  Gerit had just mated for the fourth time. His wives kept dying in childbirth. To Ranni, it was a sign that his father didn’t see to the needs of his mates properly. It didn’t seem to stop fathers looking for alliances from sacrificing their daughter to the emperor. Ranni didn’t like his father and his opinion was that he was a bad seed. Even the best families had them and his family, in general, was the best.

  Jumping on his air bike, Ranni cleared his mind of thoughts of his family and concentrated on catching up to Flander and their soldiers. Flander was probably the closest thing Ranni had to a best friend. Normally he liked to keep himself distant from the males under his command, but Flander had been a childhood friend. He simply refused to allow Ranni to distance himself.

  It had been a good thing since sometimes he needed a sounding board and Flander was a good one. He was also good company when Ranni missed home, the feeling he associated with his deceased mother, or just felt too damn lonely. Right now, he was on Flander’s heels and he knew he would catch them soon.

  That his warriors still hadn’t caught up to his mate by the time he caught up to them, told him something. There was no way they could outrun them for this long using anything he knew to be available to them. It was clear they had deviated from the presumed path and now, he and his soldiers would have to backtrack to find out where they had done that. Odds of tracking and taking them into custody, were now slim.

  He’d wanted to do this the old fashioned way, but she was making it impossible. If they didn’t locate them today, he would use the technology her planet had supplied them against her. She had side tracked him from his reason for being here. It was truly to help these people reclaim their world and once they were on their feet, the Majuri planned to leave.

  Kasey was his distraction and his patience and time were running out. Right now he worried that he would find her even using the technology he would have considered cheating not long ago. Finally here with his males, all he wanted to do was beat the hell out of Flander for not stopping sooner.

  “I know what you’re thinking. We went farther than we should have but we were going so fast I hadn’t realized we’d gone this far.” Flander explained.

  Ranni shot him a look of utter disbelief. “You know she’s cunning.”

  “True, but there weren’t any noticeable paths veering off.”

  “At least not above ground?”

  “Why would they have paths underground?”

  “This Earth they claim to come from had mines and under big cities they had train tracks.”

  “Train tracks?”

  “Trains are like shuttles moving large numbers of people and goods around.”

  “Why not fly them?”

  “They didn’t have the technology at the time.”

  “So we need to go down? I’ll have the ship scan underground. Meanwhile the warriors can rest.” Flander said and he moved off by himself to put in the call. He came back and stood in front of Ranni waiting.

  “Yes? You found something?”

  “You were right. There are tunnels. How did you know?”

  “We checked everywhere else. It was all that was left.”

  “Okay, warriors move out slowly.” Flander called as he had them going into the opening two at a time. He’d sent the fastest two first, but he wasn’t doing them any favors. Ranni was sure there would be pitfalls left for them. Nothing deadly, his mate wasn’t bloodthirsty, but whatever it was would slow them down.

  It wasn’t long before he heard a sound and saw water pooling around the warriors below. They’d hit the first trap. Things would be messier in the mud. That would slow them down and make the hike harder since they would slip and slide around. Ranni followed Flander down into the tunnels now wet from the water trap his males had tripped. He didn’t mind getting dirty as long as he caught her.

  They moved
through the tunnels speedily but it wasn’t long before the next disaster struck. This one was smellier and it seemed one or more of his males had stepped without using caution and broken a pipe that now leaked sewer along the floor of the tunnel. The odor was gag worthy.

  “I hope you spank her for this one.” Flander suggested.

  “I would if I thought she planned this. By my best guess we’re under the original prison area of the planet. The pipes down here are made of metal and date back a long time. She was just careful enough not to step on corroding pipes and we weren’t.”

  “Well shit!”

  “Exactly! Now we’d better be careful. There’s no way to know what might be down here.”

  Chapter 3

  Fleeing

  Kasey was using an air hauler to pull there ill-gotten gains behind them. There was no way they could have managed to carry them and the hauler was narrow enough to move through these tunnels while the vehicle that they’d originally had to pull it with wasn’t.

  If they’d had to carry everything, there was no way they’d escape. Her sister and especially her brother were having a hard time as it was. They only scavenged with her once in a while and now the fact that they weren’t physically fit was catching up with them.

  Just this morning things looked like they would work so much better…

  It was dawn when Kasey went to wake her two sluggish siblings. Lane was young, but Hel would never be a morning person and right now at sixteen, she had a lazy bone that didn’t want to be involved with anything that resembled work. The problem was, that in their current situation, survival depended on the willingness of them all to come together and do what needed to be done.

  Lane was up blinking and looking owlish, but Hel simply refused and slapped at her shrieking for her to go away. A job at night would be her thing but since they were basically at war, you would think she’d adjust. Life wouldn’t always accommodate a person, sometimes the person had to make sacrifices. Would Hel ever learn or would she take all of them down with her.

  It was time for the last resort. Kasey dumped the cold water on her sister who shrieked as if she was being killed. It wasn’t the ideal solution since anyone with ears would now know where they were, but there was no choice.

  “Really! You had to do that again? I’m beginning to think you enjoy being a bitch.” Hel ground out glaring at Kasey.

  “Watch your language.”

  “Or what? What will you do besides dump water on me?”

  “I’m not a baby and I’ve heard worse.” Lane chimed in.

  “We need to leave now for the best chance at supplies. The Majuri have good food and we can pick what we want.”

  “Oh, God! We haven’t had anything sweet in ages.” Hel admitted. “I’d love one of their protein bars.” Hel offered.

  “We’ll try to get some boxes of them. Maybe different flavors?” Kasey suggested.

  “I’d kill for a box of those.” Hel said.

  “I want some of the dry milk and cereal.” Lane added.

  “We’ll get in and everyone grab what they want.” Kasey directed. “They have plenty of everything.”

  “What will you get?” Hel asked.

  “Cans of chili and stew.” Kasey admitted.

  “We’ll have a little of everything.” Hel offered.

  That was the plan, but things never went as planned, did they? They got to the camp and watched the sentries for a few minutes. Time wasn’t on their side so Kasey hacked into their perimeter alarm, cameras, and the fire alarm. She set the fire alarm on the other end of the camp in the tent that contained all their electronics, to go off when they were leaving.

  Maybe they were slow or maybe she wasn’t as good as she thought, but they ended up only halfway supplied when the alarm went off and they had to leave. Rushing her siblings to get on the vehicle that resembled a bike only larger and with three wheels rather than two they drove away pulling their stolen goods behind them.

  She suspected it wouldn’t be long before the Majuri were in pursuit. Kasey caught a glimpse of Ranni, in all his naked glory, watching them make their getaway. His form was glorious, the male was beautiful. Still, she wanted no part of whatever he planned for them. Pressing the accelerator, they sped away and were soon out of sight.

  Their trackers would hunt them and there were few places to hide. Kasey had a talent for thinking outside the box. It was something the Majuri hadn’t needed to do before. They attacked head on rarely using any type of strategy. Kasey was a big believer in strategy and planning. That was why they were entering the underworld as she jokingly called it. The bike was too big, so she took the hidden ramp and pulled the cart which floated and could be remote controlled, behind her.

  Now if only the Majuri continued to follow the path above ground which led in another direction entirely. After an hour had passed, Kasey was sure they had fooled them. She and her siblings reached the area that had been under the original prison in their planet’s ancient history. The sewer pipes had rusted even though the alloy used was resistant to it. “Be careful here unless you want to smell like shit.”

  “Kasey cussed?” Lane chanted over and over.

  “Enough! Do you want our enemies to hear us?” Kasey asked.

  “Are you sure they would be so bad?” Lane asked.

  “At least the guys are hot. Did you see the leader standing in front of his tent-” Hel began.

  “Enough. I saw him, so? He’s just a man.” Kasey said.

  “Oh, but what a man.” Hel observed.

  Kasey couldn’t deny the man was drool worthy. She just wasn’t interested in anything right now except keeping her family together and free.

  They hurried past the obvious exits careful not to leave an indications of which way they went. By noon, they stopped for lunch and she grabbed her notebook style computer to see what was going on.

  Kasey pulled up the first of two cameras she’d left behind to track those that were tracking her. They were just entering the tunnel as she watched them approach. They took no care and didn’t look for traps or pitfalls. The subchief wasn’t training his men adequately and she was thrilled. They had a bigger head start than she could have hoped for.

  “Mm, this protein bar is so much better than I remember.” Hel moaned in pleasure as she devoured it.

  “Not as good as this sweet cereal with milk.” Lane spoke out of the corner of his mouth leaking milk. He was hard to understand with his mouth stuffed full.

  For her part, she was thrilled to see them eating something good and not having to worry about where the next meal would come from yet. She unzipped a packet and ate some kind of noodle dish. It tasted good enough and stopped her stomach from growling from hunger.

  While her siblings rested, she decided what to do next. There was a split in the tunnel up ahead and the smaller tunnel led to an old abandoned plant that made hover cars. Perhaps something useful had been left behind.

  “Okay, guys. Let’s go.” Kasey said.

  “Can’t we rest a bit longer?” Lane asked.

  “You can ride on top of the supplies if you hang on tight. You’ll have to walk once we get out of the main tunnel.” Kasey offered. Lane squealed like a little girl but she made no comment.

  “Why does he get to ride?” Hel asked.

  “Because he’s little.” Kasey answered and she ignored the fact that Lane stuck out his tongue at Hel and Hel made a scissor sign with two of her fingers. It meant she was going to cut his tongue off. The joys of two younger siblings.

  They made it to the split in the tunnel in about a half an hour and they followed the smaller tunnel. Lane had to walk now but he seemed to be reenergized from either the rest or the food. Another half hour later, they reached the door to the plant.

  Amazingly, it had an electronic lock that was still working. Five minutes later, it popped open. Once inside, she locked it with a much more complicated password. She also reduced the attempts to three so if the wrong code was used thre
e times, the lock would shut down for a day. It would be devilishly frustrating for whoever tried to enter here.

  They were in the basement and it was crammed full of hover car parts and unmarked boxes. There was no reason to think food or other supplies would be here so they moved up to the next level. Here there were assembly lines with partially built hover cars at every point in the production process.

  It looked like they’d gotten bad news in the middle of the shift and shut everything down and walked away. At the end of the line was what she was looking for, a finished hover car. These beauties were battery operated so she had every reason to hope it would be fully operational. The solar charging unit sat on the back, recharging the batteries as the car drove along.

  Getting in, she pushed the button and it squeaked out a weird noise. She tried again and it sounded like it wanted to start. Somewhere she’d heard the third time was a charm. Praying to God and putting every wish she had behind it, she pressed again and it started reluctantly. The motor sounded better by the second and she and her siblings hooked the trailer full of supplies to the ball on the bumper.

  Finally something was going right! They drove to the double doors and she had it open quickly. Now they could leave and find a new place to call home. Relocating would make it harder for the Majuri to find them, but it would also make things harder on them because they would be in unfamiliar territory.

  It would be harder to find places to hide, know where food might be, and the people there would be more likely to turn on them for a reward. She hated the Grabbers for destroying her life, but she resented the Majuri for adding complications she didn’t need. Right now things might seem alright, but their lives had been in a constant state of change since her parents had died and now they couldn’t even stay near their home.

  They drove through a rural area and saw no one. That didn’t mean no one was there. Kasey had seen travelers go through the area they used to live and she never showed herself to them. No one could be trusted when everyone was fighting to survive. They were moving along fast enough no one running could catch them and she was doing that on purpose.