Stranded by D.A. Sanford - HTML preview

Relatives and new friends

“What do you mean, my mate?”

Mom now tells me that, by saving her, Serena is now bound to me as my mate. She can tell I am thinking about size differences.

“Size is no matter. Yes we would like grandchildren but, as we are now trusting you for our safety, trust us on this. In time you will find that size is no problem. I can tell you that she is already smitten with you. With you being big, she will not be cold.”

Now Lile tells me that we should divide the remaining rooms.

“You can make three floors high and two rooms wide. We can make the pits on the other side of the cavern. I will tell you that we will be getting a lot of our race coming here. We will have them build more in the cavern. We may need to have your cook area moved out to make it communal.”

They were able to find another cavern room in here. The opening was too small for me to notice. They cleared the opening big enough for me to get through on my hands and knees.

“We can block it long enough for us to escape.” Ken tells me. “It has saved many from the felids.“

I have now found that having them with me, now feels normal. I have a family feeling that is totally opposite of what I had with my crew. I tell myself that if we ever get off this planet, my family will be my crew. Again that would be if we decide to get another ship.

Serena has really become comfortable sleeping with me and I with her. We both keep each other warm but so far, I have not explored my options even though I think that she is giving me signals. With all her family here, I am just not comfortable especially when I hear mother and father going at it.

This morning, my new brothers are quite proficient with the light pistols. The extra cavern is their shooting range. Thankfully they haven’t been hurt by the impact the bullets have on the rock wall.

We go out to hunt and find that there are now a group of felids herding a large group of mouse folk. It appears that the six felids were almost farming their catch because, from what I understand, no mouse group is larger than ten. They have almost one hundred.

“My brothers, are you ready to become people of legends? Heros who’s exploits will be told by camp fires for ages untold. The first heroes to take on the dread enemy? We need to rescue them but this large of a killing will not go unnoticed.”

With out a word, they all have their pistols and we all sight a different cat.

“On three, one, two three.”

We stand and five of the six cats fall instantly. As one of us takes the last one, junior yells for the group.

“We are friends.” And then the famous words that, in a way made me proud, “We are the king clan rescuers. Follow us and be free. Be safe, be part of the king clan.”

The group see me and then my brothers. After the shock Ken tells them that I am our clan leader. “He is offering you the freedom that we have never felt. He has given us the weapons that just freed you.”

That was all they needed to hear. They came over to us and we freed them. Before we left, I did something that has become a signature. I walk over to the dead felids and proceed to piss on them. My brothers laughed and did the same. I left a note on a stick that I drove into one of the bodies. It simply read.

Keep hurting my people and this is your fate. Dead and pissed on. I finished with our name. The King Clan. I drew a crown. My brothers asked what it said and I told them.

“Think about this. They will read this and get incensed. An angry enemy makes mistakes. As long as we train and attack, we will win. Now lets get these folk back to the base. We will need to make more rooms. One thing, do you think mom will be upset at all the new mouths to feed?”

Bruce tells me that she always wanted a large family.

We get them back to the base and mom starts to cry. She runs over and embraces quite a few. She brings them over and introduces me as her son. Then explains that I am mate to Serena.

“Rubin this is my mother and sisters. I thought that they were lost but they ran in an opposite way when our father was captured.”

Now she kicks into high gear. She gathers quite a few of the women and cooks up a storm. We go back out to finish the hunt that we started.

I was curious. “Lets creep up to the site. I want to see if anyone has found them.”

Sur enough, there were another group looking aghast at the sight of their kind dead on the ground. They are reading the note then tore it to pieces.

“You want to start messing with them? Let’s play with them. Target a knee on each.”

Robert commented that there were a few females there. “Do we shoot them?”

“Have any female felid killed one of us?”

He nods.

“Then we are giving more mercy that they would have given us. Shoot them in the knee.”

We fire and the whole group goes down. I walk out with my brothers. We slowly come up to them. I introduce myself.

“I am Rubin King. These are my brothers. We have condescended to allow you to live as messengers. Leave my people alone. Release your slaves and send them to us. Tell your people that you are the last to be allowed to live. If in two days, we do not see released mouse folk, we will become the hunters. Tell them, my brothers are small. We can hide and observe. Don’t try anything that your kind will regret.”

I hold my pistol on them as I tell my brothers to gather all their weapons. “Take anything that we can use. Mom would like to have some of their extra clothes to remake into clothes for us.”

I look at the wounded then continue. “When winter comes, we may need more fur coats.

Lile, my brother, that female over there. Do you think father would like a play toy. She won’t be able to run from him with that knee?”

“Not his type. You’ll have to declaw that one.”

I look at her and tell her, “Sorry, you have no appeal. We’re done here.”

We are clear of their view. I tell them, “They are not here alone. We need to find their camp. I have a suspicion that we may find quite a few things. My bottomless bag will handle it all.”

My brothers are all for it. Soon we do find the camp. There is one lone guard. We shot both his knees. The camp was full of supplies along with another group of kin. Now an empty field, the group start back. This time though, I am hearing yelling coming from the group.

Once we are far enough away. I stop and ask,

“What seems to be the problem? I will not take anyone back to our home is you are going to cause a problem.”

One of the women comes forward and points to another woman.

“That one was a play toy for one of the felids. She cooperated with them to garner favors. There were a number of us that were singled out and eaten. She was the one.

She’s not a mouse folk, she’s a rat.”

I walk up to her and point blank ask her about this. “Is what she is saying true?”

“They would have killed us all if those ones had carried out their plot. I did it for the greater good of us all.”

She is so confident that she did the right thing. I have run into those kind before. They will do anything to keep peace, even to the point of telling on them to the oppressor.

Better to live under tyranny then die in freedom.

“I am brother to mouse folk because my mate is one of you. In this matter I will say that you will be bound and blindfolded. You will defend yourself when we get back to our home. I will not be your judge. We will pick twelve of our kin to sit. You will present your

reasons and these will either corroborate or deny what you say. If the twelve find you guilty, we will again blind fold you. Take you out to where felids are and let you lose.

What do you say?”

“I was only trying to keep us alive. They don’t understand.”

“So you say that they are right.”

She tried to say more but there was rustling and she yelled,

“They’re here. Help us.”

A deer bounded out of the brush.

Everyone was very angry with her outburst.

I look at her, then to the kin. “My brothers, I am going to do something that I do not want to do. My kin, I cannot even allow her near our home. She has just shown where her loyalties lay. I will not put this burden on anyone of you. Tie even her feet. Put a gag in her mouth.”

They do that. I pick her up and tie her to a tree. Then with one last look in her eyes, I blindfolded her and hung some meat on her. Those with me knew the reason for the meat.

“Last chance has passed. We go.”

They did not know that when we stopped for a rest, I excused myself and ran back. She was still there but there was an arrow in her. Felid. I ran back and told them that we need to be on guard for felids.

When we heard rustling this time. A few felids came out but were just as quickly put down. There were no more contacts after that. I told my immediate group that I went back and was going to kill her so she would not suffer. I was surprised that they felt that we should have shot her on the spot.

When the news spread, one by one the freed came to me and told me that it was the right thing to do. One put it best.

“If she had lived and was brought here, she may have escaped and brought down the whole lot on us. Now we don’t have to keep looking over our shoulder.”

I need to get the pistols in production.