A Soldier for All Seasons

Lunar smacked her lips for the third time and let out an uncharacteristic giggle when he threw her a look.

"You don't know how good you taste." She defended herself, cradling her swollen stomach as she pulled him forward. "Such virility, I should have suspected."

They'd set off slowly from where Blessing fell, but Nate couldn't ignore her slowing steps, her pale face — she was hungry. Weak. Stumbling and falling into the snow that fell with her.

And he had the means to help her.

That

was a conversation he didn't want to repeat. She hadn't taken much convincing, since she'd remembered how strong she felt after their first night.

This time, he'd settled on a tree stump, oddly exposed in the wide open tundra as she learned to blow him. He'd thought that perhaps she might be too proud, offended, even in her shame-filled fantasies.

But she'd been amazed — and as she learned his pleasure points and his tics, he learned hers. Learned the way she liked to have his hand in her hair, liked to be held down, loved to be choked, liked to be talked to.

"This is the price you have to pay for my tutelage." He told her as he rubbed his cock over her face and she leaned with his shaft, nuzzling it.

"I shall be your greatest student, Kyrios. Teach me how to pleasure y—guurrk—" He stuffed her mouth again and the more precum he produced, the more she could deepthroat him, until he was pressing her head against his groin, her lips against his skin, his groan long and loud as he released into her, filled her again and again.

If she hadn't came simply from whatever the fuck his cum did to her, she definitely did from the unnecessary way he brought her back to her unsteady feet, levering her up with his fingers in her soaking snatch. It was so easy, he felt guilty.

"To see my belly grow so obscenely, like I carry a child...my people have never seen such a shameful daughter—" She babbled from ahead of him and Nate didn't have the heart to cut her off, even though he tuned her out.

Filling her up didn't cure

his

hunger. His stomach didn't hurt but his steps were unsteady, his head heavy. Lunar was basically lugging him along.

*Are you cutting off my hunger pangs, Isabelle?*

*I am, although I suspect that the process of ejaculation helps you somewhat as well. And not just the endorphins, I see an overall improvement to your vitality but it is difficult to quantify and even more so to analyze.*

Nate hummed. If blowing a load didn't fill his stomach or quench his thirst, then it was a problem for another time. Fuck knows he had more than enough.

He needed to eat — Lunar could only drag him so far. The North Star glimmered. Somewhere, Ana and Cora beyond. His Lunari minx. He smiled at the thought. She was endlessly surprising — his eyes had almost popped out of his end when Cora had started cleaning his seed from her face.

He hoped he was doing right by them. Ana. Cora. Lunar.

Blessing had been wrong about him, he told himself. He was a

good

man. He fought for his people, fought for good people, fought to save lives.

"Nate," Lunar pushed forward to take his arm. "We're being watched."

He took a long casual glance around. "Are we?"

"I can feel it." Lunar confirmed. "I do not know their intentions but I feel sure of their gaze. I cannot explain it more but my people are...

not

humans." She gripped his arm more tightly as if he'd run off, knowing her heritage. Her wings fluttered behind her, reminding him how true that was.

Something bellowed, shaking the ground. They knew that sound and they turned in fear to watch the titanic ape bounding towards a tree, every knuckle-print kicking away a flurry of snow. It snapped the tree up, roots and all and held the entire fir behind its back, scratching its fur.

"What the fuck?" Nate whispered. The beast took sight of them and then looked straight past, uninterested.

"Maybe it has exhausted itself in its rage." Lunar supposed.

"Maybe. At least our watcher is not more hostile." He kept his voice low. "Let's not test our luck. We'll keep heading north. We can't be too far away."

A drone ship flew above, carrying a sparking crate, a spanner in the works. Nate huffed. Did it know his thoughts?

The crate fell, a thick orange trail in the sky, only a kilometer or two east.

Off their chosen path.

"What do you think?"

Lunar paused. "I trust you and you need sustenance, but the crate will...prove difficult."

Nate sighed. He was having difficulty even keeping his eyes open, his very thoughts sluggish. "I think we need to go for the crate."

"Then we shall." Lunar said simply, changing direction and tugging. "It is close — we may be first. I shall defend you." She said proudly.

"Just don't forget who is Kyrios." Nate joked, pinching her bottom.

"I would never." She said, affronted.

He kissed her frown away. "Maybe it won't be a chocolate-covered maniac this time. Maybe it'll be one of our team."

"I hope they are all doing okay." Lunar worried. "Lita will be fine but I have seen that Bastian requires extreme sustenance to function."

Nate snorted. "I'll tell him that."

"I have remarked upon it several times." She told him plaintively.

"Well, hopefully we can tell him again." Nate stopped talking, trying to conserve energy as she slipped an arm behind him, helping him walk.

The crate was at the bottom of a thick snowbank, and beyond that, a steep but smooth decline, the sort of mountain that the rich paid to ski down.

"No footprints." Lunar said brightly. He half-slogged half-fell down the bank, following Lunar's eager steps. Her head snapped around like an owl, searching for an ambush, but nothing came.

It was quiet.

The crate opened with a hiss when Lunar activated it. He leaned against it as she searched it.

"Food!" She stuffed a fruit cake into his mouth, practically feeding him as he swallowed hungrily. Fuck, it was dry and stale and hard and

heaven.

He couldn't even be embarrassed as he picked the crumbs from her fingers, and his groan of delight was bigger still when she fed him some hardtack crackers.

They were awful as he remembered, the staple of every military ration he'd ever had. But they tasted like victory — they were going to make it. It wasn't far and they had everything they needed. Lunar poured some water down his throat and some on his face, slapping him affectionately.

"On my world, we have these green mammals called mothra — algae grows in their fur to camouflage them, you could walk by them every day without seeing them."

He munched on his cracker, watching her.

"They have incredible grip and sharp claws, sharper than this cutlass even. Some warriors embed their claws into our battle-skirts." She tugged her puffer coat down, laughing as she followed his gaze to her golden legs.

"Stay away, predator." She teased as she twirled just out of his grasp.

He felt himself come back to life as he ate silently, enjoying her teasing. "What brought that on?"

She smiled, her trap closing. "Because all they do, each and every day, is hang upside down on their branches, sleeping. They sleep and when they do not slumber, they move so slowly, it takes them years just to reach their breeding mate in the tree next to theirs."

"Ah, I see where this is going." Nate chuckled.

"Come on,

mothra.

Let us speed to victory. It's all downhill, down that steep slope." She danced away from him, beckoning him forth. "And perhaps you will find my tree over the finish line."

Renewed, he followed her. "I like the sound—gaah!" Pain, hot and rushing. His fingers came up, confused, to grasp at the arrow in his shoulder. Something whistled, rustling through his hair.

"Nate!" Lunar cried. Nate fell back, stumbling back to the crate, blood spurting his chest. He couldn't stand, resting his back against the cold metal of the crate and his climbing axe, scanning the hilltops. Lunar's fingers replaced his, checking his injuries.

"How deep?" Nate growled.

"Too deep to remo—"

Nate swore, snapping the arrow shaft, leaving the head buried inside him. If it was a broadhead, it wasn't coming out easily and he might just bleed to death before it did.

He glanced over the crate.

A figure slid down from the hill-top, bow in hand.

No.

"Bastian?" He spat in disbelief.

"Lunar, back away." The stocky man yelled. "I don't want to hurt you."

Nate's mind swam with confusion. Bastian — his always smiling, always cheerful teammate. It made no sense. Bastian wouldn't do this...

"Bastian, why are you doing this?" Lunar screamed.

"Bastian, I would have given you whatev—" Nate fell silent as realization dawned. Bastian wouldn't do this, unless...

"It was you." Nate called out over the crate, shutting his eyes tightly, seeing starbursts in the black, his stomach roiling. "Not Xavier. You're Jarek's man on the inside. You're the one who turned off the medbay alarms."

Bastian's voice was soft, flat. "All you had to do was die, Nate. I'm sorry. You crossed the wrong people."

"Brother, you don't need to do this." Nate implored him. Lunar stared at him with wide, wet, confused eyes.

"Oh,

cuate,

this is a road I took a long time ago." His voice came closer. Nate's death came closer.

*Isabelle?*

*I'm sorry.*

He bit his lip. Nate met Lunar's gaze and he jutted his chin at the open crate. She brought out a single dusty flare. Even if the med-drones were there, even if they were watching, they still wouldn't come in time.

Bastian was still talking. He had to keep him talking. "—grow up poor, you don't look too hard at who is feeding you. Sometimes, there's no going back."

"And Xavier?"

Bastian came around the crate, too far away to reach, too far to axe, his bow cocked. His expression slack, eyes dull.

"Not one of us. We grew up together. They evaluated him but he was too...unstable."

"Who is they?"

He shook his head. "Lunar, move. I don't want to, but I will."

"You disgust—" She cried out, but Nate held her back.

"Go." He told her quietly.

"Nate, no—"

"It's okay. I'll be okay. I have a plan."

She sniffled, cradling his face. "You're lying."

A chaste kiss. "It's not a good plan." He took the flare from her fingers, flicked the cap, struck it against the ground — it lit instantly, with no effort, no friction. Just like he thought — it was old and cheap, but no military would replace something that looked like it was in working condition, no matter how unsafe.

He held it high above him, as it sprayed a molten orange glow high into the dark sky.

Bastian smiled at him, like a parent smiles at a child.

"Haven't you noticed? There are no drones. There is no one coming. Well, actually, neither of those things are true." He held his arm aloft. A droning sound, loud, electric. Two snowmobiles roared over the hill, smashing into the snow blanket, kicking up a spray of flakes. Behind them, skiers, gliding gracefully behind, like a pianist playing after an electric guitar had been smashed on stage. A squad of black masks, black everything. Black Tritan rifles slung around their backs, the obscenely expensive kind.

A drone too, circular and flat, like Rivero's, but this one had thick black barrels on both sides. High fire rate barrels — Nate had seen a military order manifest for them once. XD14s — but the men called them

crowd-thinners.

They spread out, encircling the three of them around the crate. They watched, silently.

Nate could almost feel the blood drain from his face. How could he outrun machines? Was this really how it ended? Just when life sparked for him...just when he'd found something worth living for. Just when he'd found...

He wished he'd told Ana he loved her. He'd die without sharing his heart. She'd live thinking he never loved her. The thought made his eyes glisten.

"A-all this for me?" Nate laughed bitterly.

Bastian snorted, shaking his head. "No, Nate, you don't understand. None of this is about you. You're a small piece on a chessboard we're wiping clean, just a little bit of revenge for someone higher up. This," He threw his arms wide. "It's been a long time coming. We've been preparing all of this for so long, bringing our equipment in, our men, our weapons. This is the end of the Judges. This is the purge, the night of knives, the be all and end all." He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "It really is Judgment Day. Rivero, the Admiral, every Judge trainee, every Judge we know about — they all die tonight. The Council's shield and their sword — gone."

Nate grew cold, a blizzard in his blood. He gripped the crate tightly as he rose to unsteady feet, knuckles whitening. "You're destroying the defenses for the invasion. Do you know what you've done, who you're letting in?"

The muscled man pulled his bow-string back, notched an arrow. "It's about change, Nate. There's a deal in place. It's not about death, I hope you understand that."

Nate's nostrils flared, his ears ringing. "I watched my sister get ripped in pieces, don't tell me bugs don't bring—arrrgh!" The arrow sank into his arm, an accidental block with his forearm. He tore the shaft off, roaring fury.

But his roar was drowned out by another. The ground shook. The snow slipped from the hill. And the ape bounded forth, eyes wild and black, almost blind. Except for bright lights.

Except for his flare.

Nate threw the flare above him, as high as he could, already running. He grabbed Lunar. Time slowed. Underneath him, a vast shadow, above, the beast, leaping high, so huge it moved the very air. It swatted the drone out of the sky, colliding with the flare.

Ahead of him, the drone bounced from the sheer force, smoking, whole panels missing. And just a few feet away, the glowing hissing flare.

The soldiers had panicked, rifles firing, muzzles flashing in the darkness. In their fear, they made themselves a target to the raging ape. A fist smashed one of the skiers into a pulp as fine as the snow. The beast's tusk pierced a snowmobile, a fling of its jaw sending its rider high.

Nate didn't watch him fall - he wanted that drone.

"Forget the beast, get those two!" Bastian yelled.

A grin split Nate's face. He had a chance. And when he had a chance, he had hope.

He dove for the lit flare. An arrow screeched past his ear, but he grabbed it. And then

up

, pure adrenaline in his veins, rushing for the dead drone.

"Help me!" They both shoved it a little further onto that steep slope. Another arrow clanged against the axe on his back. He hurled them both down onto the drone, lying on their backs, their view toppled and blurred as they slid down the slope on the dead drone, a million credit snowboard.

Black stars and Nate was seeing more than there were, his blood pouring out of him. They tumbled up and smashed back down on the drone, bruised but holding on, snow whipping back behind them.

The electric whir warned them from behind and the snowmobiles roared into chase. Bastian was on the back of one, jaw set in determination. Behind them, that familiar roar, the ape chasing its prey or chasing his flare. Nate didn't care which.

Fir trees shot by. Lunar leaned into him hard, shifting them just enough to clip past a thick trunk. The bark tore skin from her forearm but they were still speeding.

Rushing wind, rattling gunfire. The snow kicked up in front of them, powder flurries they slid through, like petals at a wedding. But they had no engine — the machines were gaining and so was the ape.

Another tree, bent low by the fierce winds. Nate grabbed Blessing's axe and hacked at the branch as they slid under it. It caught a snowmobile and sent the rider flipping thrice.

The skiers were too slow, the unmistakable crunch of bones sounding as the ape fed, fists pounding in the mountain, sending their drone-board bouncing in response. The ape screeched, launched a discarded ski board at them. It buried into a tree trunk and came out the other side.

Still, the snowmobiles gained, so close he could see the victory in their eyes. But they were going too fast to raise their rifles and the obstacles were increasing, the clean snow disappearing. Jagged rocks, dead trees — Nate tried to turn them with his axe in the snow, but they couldn't slow down.

They weren't fast enough. Two snowmobiles pulled alongside, sandwiching them. One of the riders pulled his rifle. Lunar kicked the barrel away as he fired, sending a useless spray of bullets into the other man. His snowmobile careened into a tree and exploded.

The mountain rumbled, an avalanche of snow falling from behind the eager beast. But Nate wasn't looking behind. He was looking ahead, at the sudden drop, the sheer drop approaching

fast.

"Cliff!" He yelled.

Lunar wasn't listening. She tore the axe from him and as the snowmobile neared within inches, she hacked at its underside. But the rider slammed into their drone, sending them spinning helplessly towards the cliff side.

Nate grabbed the axe and slammed it into the snow, but they were going too fast, out of control. Lunar clutched his hand, screaming something. The world blurred, span. Dizzy colors. A snowmobile flew past them, the brakes severed. The world turned right side up and then back again, a second of free-fall as white turned into brown rock.

He held out his arm — his axe screeched down the cliffside, sparks flying. And then it

caught

, held, held by the tightest of crevices, a precarious mountain anchor. His shoulders pulled hard, pain ripping through him, eyes bloodshot. Lunar hung on below him, his every muscle splitting as he was stretched.

He wasn't strong enough. "No!" His lip bled as he bit it, vibrating with the effort, veins bulging.

He couldn't lift her. But he

could

swing her. To the side, an outcropping, not enough for a bush, a tree, just the thinnest ledge where some rock had been shorn off by centuries of wind.

"Nate!" Lunar cried up from above. "Let me go."

"Never!" He swayed her from side to side, vision so red it felt like his eyes would pop. If it weren't for the arrow deep in his shoulder, he thought his arm would tear straight off.

The sway become a swing. "Jump!" He demanded, letting go. She smacked against the cliff with a heavy crunch, slipped, caught herself, her wings fluttering uselessly.

"I'm okay!" She called out to him. It would take her sometime but the cliff was cut up — with her skills, she could climb it.

Now he could climb himself. Above, it was oddly silent. Where was the beast? Where was Bastian? Had the ape got him?

Pulling himself above the axe, Nate felt for a niche, copper in his mouth, every gasp and gulp a cocktail of blood and sweat, dripping from his face. He wanted to give up. He was so fucking tired.

He wanted to be in a bed with his girls and he wanted to never leave. But Ana would never forgive him.

Nate pulled himself higher and Lunar alongside him. *If she can do it, so can you.* Isabelle chastised him. *Is a girl better than you?*

"Cheap trick." Nate grunted, climbing higher. There was the cliff's edge. A hand on the surface.

Bastian's foot crushed his fingers, his grim face peering over the cliff.

"Give me a break!" Nate yelled.

The man wiped his face with a handkerchief and laughed. "Funny, I was thinking the same thing. You can never just die, can you?"

Lunar snarled from below but she was still climbing, those wings beating rapidly. She could not take flight.

She couldn't help.

Bastian leaned forward, increasing the weight on his knuckles. They crunched. Nate hissed and he couldn't help it, couldn't stop the tears that glistened in his eyes, couldn't stop them falling down his cheeks.