Operation: Marauder
Chapter 8

Rowan held the assault rifle against his shoulder, scanning the corridors and rooms for any stragglers. The rifle was lighter than the photon rifles he was used to, but the recoil was so much worse. It had taken weeks for his team to adjust to the humans' weapons. Now he held the rifle confidently as he slid from room to room.

Sweat beaded along his forehead, slowly dripping down the side of his face. He didn't dare to move his hands to wipe it away. He had been dealing with the tropical heat for days, he could deal with it for a few more hours.

After days of surveillance, hours of planning, and his reluctant focus, they had finally raided the compound holding three reporters hostage. Rowan's part of the plan was to do a sweep through the compound and snuff out anyone trying to stop the extraction. Mave was in the ship, relaying all the movement his sensors picked up. "Two coming up on your left," his voice came through the COMM in his ear.

Rowan snapped to the left, down the hallway, and shot two mercenaries rushing toward him. He was too quick for them to utter a noise. "All clear," Rowan relayed to Mave. "Any more?"

"No. Cas and Maliki got the others."

"Jack?" Rowan called to him over the radio. "Progress?"

"We have the reporters," Jack confirmed, breathing heavily. "Moving out."

"Coming up on the rear." Rowan turned the corner and found Knox watching Jack's back as he herded the reporters to the extraction point. He glanced to the balcony on the right, catching Cas mid-jump as he leapt from the balcony over the compound walls. Maliki did a final sweep of the courtyard then jogged alongside Rowan.

A truck from another team was waiting for them at the end of the street. All Rowan had to do was make sure the reporters made it to the vehicle alive and then he was done. He could go back to Connaville and finally take Zoey out for that drink--and hopefully take her home for dessert.

The hostages were hauled into the back of the truck. One of the soldiers bumped his knuckles against Jack's in thanks before the engine turned over and they were on their way down the street in a cloud of dust. Grimacing, Maliki waved the air front of his face to clear the dust.

Jack grinned at his team. If Rowan thought he was sweaty, it was nothing compared to Jack; his shirt, which was supposed to be green, looked black it was drenched in so much sweat. Poor humans didn't acclimate to temperature change very well. "Great work, guys! Who's ready to head back?"

"What did that human do to you?" Knox asked him, forming a fist and glancing at it curiously. "I thought humans shook hands."

"Some of us bump fists." Jack tapped his knuckles against Knox's. "Handshaking is more formal. Never bump Colonel Shaw's fist."

Cas grimaced at the mention of Colonel Shaw. Rowan didn't know why he cringed, he wasn't the one who had to deal with him once a month for a review. Rowan couldn't stand the human. The colonel topped the list of people he didn't trust in the human's military. If he had things his way, Rowan was sure he and his crew would never leave this planet. Thankfully, Jack was on their side and he appeared to have a lot of friends in high places; he convinced his officer friends if they helped them now, the Arthonians may help them in the future. It was a long shot, but the humans liked to think they had an IOU over their heads, and as long as they did, Rowan and his team got to go home. . . eventually.

They met Mave at the rendezvous point hidden in the jungle. The Marauder was nice and cool; the air made Rowan feel sticky and fresh at the same time. Mave, hopping out of the cockpit, nodded to them in greeting then slapped a piece of paper in Jack's hand. "For the record, I am not your secretary--but it sounded important, so I took a message."

Frowning, Jack read the slip. "My sister called?" In a panic, he pulled out his cellphone then groaned when there was no reception. "Is there a way you can boost the signal or something?"

Maliki gave him a dry look. None of them had ever heard of something so stupid. Boost the signal. With what? Their hopes and dreams?

Jack returned the look ten-fold, clearly not in the mood. Rowan rarely saw him this worked up. "What? You're thousands of years ahead of us in technology and you can't make my cellphone capable of calling my sister?"

"No. A jungle's a jungle, my friend." Mave climbed back into the cockpit. "I'll take you to somewhere with reception, though."

Jack looked up at the ceiling and praised the Architect. "Thank you!"

Rowan shook his head at him. He didn't have siblings, so he didn't understand what it was like to have a sister, but he doubted whatever she called him for was worth taking a detour just so he could call her back. "We'll be back in Connaville by tomorrow morning. You can see her then. What's the rush?"

Jack plopped in the chair and buckled up as Mave announced take off in T-minus sixty-seconds. "She wouldn't call the base to contact me if it wasn't important."

"Why not?" Rowan had overheard plenty of soldiers receive phone calls from their families via the base.

Jack waved it off, impatiently waiting for Mave to take off. "It's complicated."

Cas gestured around the ship as it disengaged from the ground. She was getting a little less wobbly every time they took her out. It gave Rowan hope she'd survive their journey home once they had the right materials. "We have time."

"Story time!" Knox cheered, clapping his hands like an excited child. "Come on, Jackie Boy! Don't disappoint."

Jack slid him a narrow glare. "Look, it's between my dad and her, all right?"

Knox licked his lips with a maniacal grin. "Sounds juicy. Keep going."

Jack dragged his hands down his face and relented with a groan. "She didn't live up to my dad's expectations. She was supposed to join the air force, become a mechanical engineer, and build jets. She didn't want to do that. My dad is a colonel with a lot of pull; he called in a lot of favours to make sure she would be taken care of when she joined. When she was of age to sign up and didn't, she embarrassed him. No one will ever say it to his face, but people talk and say he raised a bunch of washed up losers."

Rowan frowned. He couldn't imagine his own father saying something like that about him, no matter what he did. "You're here--with us." The military didn't let just anybody be their liaison; they had to be competent and trustworthy.

Jack shook his head disappointedly. "Yeah. Who do you think made that happen? I'm his redemption."

"Your dad sounds like a grade A asshole," Knox observed. He blew a strand of blonde hair out of his face when the ship hit some turbulence. Since coming to Earth--with no strict dress code to stop him--he had decided to grow his hair out; it stopped just at his jaw, too short to tie back but long enough to be in the way most of the time.

"He did it out of love." Even Jack didn't look like he believed it. "My mom left him shortly afterwards--moved across the country to get away from him. My sister hasn't talked to him in six years. There you go. That's my family."

"Wait," Cas interrupted with a deep frown of confusion as he reexamined everything Jack had just said. "Your mother left your father, her mate?"

"Yeah." Jack glanced around at them all, scowling more and more when he was met with confused stares. It was unheard for their people for a mate to leave.

"We mate for life," Rowan explained to him, still processing himself that humans apparently didn't always. He suppose he should have seen it coming after everything they had learned from humanity. It just never registered with him until now.

Jack snorted, eyes snapping straight to Knox, who had had his fair share of women everywhere he went. "You don't either."

"That's different," Rowan elaborated. "For us, we have a specific time of year, usually a week long, where the male of our species experiences what we call a Fever. During this time, our body is driven to replace a life-long partner. Sex is the only thing on our mind. Sometimes we are able to repress it, but we typically let our urges take control and set out to replace this mate. She could be anyone and the only way to tell is when we reach our climax."

Jack's eyes went wide, shocked. "So you become sex maniacs? Knox, are you in this Fever now?"

Knox laughed so hard he had to hold his gut. "No, brother! Definitely not. The women I spend my time with are just distractions, a little bit of fun on this planet."

Jack scratched his head, trying very hard to wrap his brain around this. "What's the difference, then?"

"You can only replace your mate during this Fever," Cas jumped in. "We develop an extra sense that allows us to replace the right mate for us. Almost like a compatibility sonar."

"What if you replace her when you're not in Fever?"

"We won't know until the next one. So we spend time with her--date, as you humans call it--and wait until the Fever returns. If there is a connection, the male will sense it. If not, we go our separate ways, no harm done."

"Wow," Jack breathed. "I wish it was that easy to break up with my ex. She wanted to date a soldier boy so bad. . ." He shuddered and shook the memory away. "Anyway, you said you experience this once a year. . . You've all been here a year. . ." He looked wary to ask.

"Yes," Maliki answered his unasked question. "We've all experienced the Fever on your planet."

"I don't remember any of you going sex crazy."

Maliki chuckled. "It takes a lot of control, but we can resist the urges. . . it's also easier when you're locked up and can't act on them."

Rowan grimaced at the memory of being stuck in the brig with his men while they all one by one went into Fever. It was not a fun time. Usually every male had their own time of the year when they regularly went into Fever, so he had time to prepare for it, but when they were all cramped up together and could sense other males going into Fever, it set off an early Fever in them. It was a miracle they hadn't killed each other.

Jack cleared his throat, rubbing his forehead; a pink hue climbed up his cheeks. "Are any of you. . . due for one soon?"

"It's hard to say," Maliki answered thoughtfully. "Your months are different from ours and, I don't know about anyone else, but I've lost track of what time of year it is on Arthos."

Mave called over from the cockpit. "The thirteenth month is just around the corner."

All eyes turned to Rowan. They all knew when each other's Fever were due so they could plan accordingly. And Rowan's was due next week. He was looking forward to it for once, because he had someone to get through the week with. She might not be his mate, but if he could thoroughly satisfy his urges and make Zoey happy, he might be a little less grumpy this year.

Jack shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "If you'd like, I can request a week of absence for you."

Rowan nodded appreciatively; for the sake of his precarious relationship with the humans, he agreed with Jack's recommendation. "I was going to throw my phone away so you couldn't call me, but I think a leave of absence would be better."

"Do we need to do anything to. . . prepare?"

"Just don't call me," he warned.

"Seriously," Knox added to Jack. "He might actually tear your head off if you interrupt him while he's with his female friend. Our females are everything to us, and if Rowan's already like this with this female, he'll be a hundred times worse in his Fever." Knox gave him a cheeky look.

"Riiiight," Maliki realised, slapping his knee with a dirty grin. "The mechanic."

Jack whipped his head between the two, eyebrows hiding in his hair. "The who?"

"Jack!" Mave called. "Call your sister now or I'm plotting a course for Connaville."

"I'll be a few minutes." Jack hopped out of his seat and went to the back end of the ship, phone in hand.

Rowan squirmed under the look on his crew's faces. They were thinking of all the ways they were going to tease him about Zoey until his Fever hit. Just wait until next week. Then they should run for the hills.