by Mike Luoma
The guard glances from side to side. It snags a passing bug from the air with its right tongue. The Tek'Tah's eye stalks swivel around, watching out as it swallows. It does not want to get caught eating on the job. Full attention is supposed to be on the heavy cell door behind him. If the guard is caught feeding its superiors will know it is closing in on sleep cycle, and the guard will lose position. A noise from inside the cell gets the guard's attention.
"What are you doing! No! Noooooooo!"
One of the humans is screaming.
"Noooo! Aaahhhh... unh." The yelling stops abruptly. The guard smiles the Tek'Tah equivalent of a smile. Sounds like the Dakhur is finally feeding.
"Everybody eat!" the guards hisses to itself. Another bug floats by. This time the guard uses its left tongue to pull in the hovering morsel. Soon it will be sleep cycle...
"Wake up sluggard!" The Tek'Tah superior hisses at the sleeping guard before him. The guard snaps back into consciousness, battered by the slapping tentacles of the superior berating him. The guard began its sleep cycle! It will lose position!
"You feed on the job, Ka'Tah! You are worthless!" the superior hisses.
"I apologize! I beg humbly for forgiveness!" The guard tries to cover itself.
"Why do you always feed, Ka'Tah? To feed is to sleep!"
"The Dakhur fed, too."
"Were you inspired, then?" the superior says with scorn.
"I beg humbly for forgiveness!"
"Did you see the Dakhur feed? Which human did he eat?"
"Maybe he ate both of them? I did not see him eat. I heard him, through the door. Sounded messy," the guard says.
"Hurmmmm," the superior hums as he meditates.
"I beg humbly for forgiveness!" The guard blurts out another plea.
"I hear you," his superior hisses with disdain. "Wake yourself up!" He hands the guard a set of restraints he can use on the cat-man. "Since the Dakhur has eaten, it will now be sleeping. An excellent opportunity for you to go in and put these on him."
"Right now?" the guard asks.
The superior checks his timepiece.
"Give it an hour. Let him digest for a bit and sink deeper into sleep. Can you stay awake for another hour, Ka'Tah?"
"Yes, sir! I can and I will, sir! Thank you for this opportunity, sir! I won't let you down, sir! I humbly beg..."
"...my forgiveness," the superior says, cutting him off. "I know! I know, Ka'Tah. Here is your chance to earn it. Don't mess up."
The superior officer turns and slithers away. Ka'Tah leans back against the wall next to the door and tries to stay awake. The guard talks to itself.
"No! Not falling asleep," he says in a soft voice to himself. "Stay awake."
After about a half an hour alert, the guard begins to drift towards sleep cycle. He snaps himself out of it as he starts to slide to the floor!
"No. Can't. No sleep cycle, not yet!"
The guard's eye stalks whip around as it looks up and down the corridor. There's no one around, no witnesses to his drowsiness.
"Good. Maybe..." the guard looks up and down again. It looks back at the cell door. "Maybe I should do it now?"
The guard decides. He turns and unlocks the cell door. He opens it up and looks inside the darkened cell. There is a lump on the floor in the back corner.
Before the Tek'Tah guard can enter with the restraints, he's hit by two blurs flashing out of the darkness – Alibi hits him high, Kit hits him low. The three fly out into the corridor, tumbling in a tangle of fur, tentacles and human limbs against the wall opposite the cell door.
"Grab his burner!" Kit calls out to Alibi.
Alibi can't quite reach the Tek'Tah guard's burner, a rifle sized energy gun tethered to a harness worn over its tentacles. The burner has fallen from the harness and dangles from a strap.
"I can't reach it! You can! It's near your left foo... uh, paw!" Alibi tells the Dakhur.
"I got it," the drunk says. Piccolo has joined them in the corridor. He grabs the guard's burner strap and pulls the gun over to him. "How do you fire this thing?"
"Wrap your hands around the handle sticking out there, point the skinny end and squeeze the handle," Kit gives fast instructions, "as if your hands were a tentacle... do it now! Quickly!"
Piccolo buries the skinny end in the guard's side and squeezes the handle of the burner with both hands.
Fwaaaasssssshhhhhh!
A sick smell of charred meat fills the air. Alibi and Kit jump away from the severed halves of the former guard as they thump to the floor. The three cell mates exchange glances between them. Piccolo tears the strap of the burner from the dead guard's harness.
"Let's go!" Alibi says urgently.
"Aren't you going to thank me?" Piccolo asks snidely, brandishing the burner like a drunken cowboy with a rifle.
"Run. Follow me. This way. Now!" Kit commands. He turns and takes off down the corridor. Alibi and Piccolo follow fast as they can run, Piccolo holding onto the Tek'Tah burner.
Kit leads them through twisting corridors to an outside door guarded by two Tek'Tah. The three escapees stop just out of sight of the guards, around the corner from the exit.
"Give me the burner," Kit says to Piccolo. Piccolo pulls the gun back away from him.
"Why should I?" he asks. He draws the gun-like weapon in close to his chest.
They hear a noise around the corner, hissing from the Tek'Tah. Sounds like the guards have heard them.
"Either give me the burner or turn that corner and shoot them yourself. Now!" Kit hisses at Piccolo. Piccolo hurriedly hands over the burner to the cat man. Kit struggles with the weapon, and lets out a sharp hiss of his own.
"I cannot squeeze it correctly! I cannot make enough contact on the handle with the pads of my hands! Damn tentacled bastards!" the Dakhur curses.
"Let me see it," Alibi asks, holding out his hands. Kit passes the burner over. Alibi gets a feel for the handle.
Ah! That's how it works!
"I've got it. Here we go!"
Alibi surges around the corner and squeezes the handle of the burner at the same time. The beam from the high intensity energy weapon slices a jagged, burning path through the two Tek'Tah guards. Alibi swings the burner back and forth. The reptilian aliens' hissing protests fall silent as they dissolve into pieces on the floor. Kit comes up behind Alibi.
"Go." Kit says. Alibi feels a furry paw on his back pushing him to move forward. He runs ahead toward the dead guards with Kit and Piccolo close behind him.
"Ew," Alibi blurts out when a small piece of Tek'Tah flesh squishes underneath his boot as he runs through the doorway outside.
"Keep moving," Kit says, catching up next to him. "We need to get out of here, get as far away from the Tek'Tah holdings on Tek'Ti'Karn as we can – as fast as we can!"
Outside the building the ground is barren. The three see a distant fence marking the boundary of the compound.
"That way," Kit says, nodding at the fence.
Hissing alerts them. They look back and see another Tek'Tah guard emerging from the building. Alibi lifts the burner.
"You guys get going. I'm right behind you!"
Kit and Piccolo begin to run as he swings around and squeezes the burner's handle, the beam slicing the Tek'Tah clean through. As the smoking alien collapses in pieces, Alibi turns and runs. He catches up with Kit and Piccolo at the compound's fence, an eight foot high barrier made of plastic and stone.
"Blast the fence with the burner," Kit calls over to Alibi, nodding at the barrier before them. Alibi turns the burner on the fence and squeezes the handle.
FWAAAAASSSSHHHH!
Alibi concentrates the burner beam and melts a hole through the wall of fused plastic and rock. He plays the beam steadily around the edges of the hole, expanding it. He stops when he figures it's big enough, about three meters across.
They wait for the edges to cool and then duck through the hole. The area beyond the fence is also bare and desolate. Kit gets his bearings. He nods to
the left, and heads off in that direction with Alibi and Piccolo following. Leaving the Tek'Tah holdings behind them, they run.
"We need to get to the port. My hope is we can find a non-Tek'Tah ship to get us out of here," Kit says, looking over at Alibi as they run across a gravel field dotted by sparse growth. "Do you have a ship we can use?" Kit asks Alibi.
"Nah. I hitched a ride with the Tek'Tah to get here," he tells him.
"You stowed away on one of their ships? No wonder they do not like you," Kit says. The cat-like alien turns to the other man, about to ask Piccolo if he has a ship, but Kit stops himself. "Never mind."
"Don't you have a ship?" Alibi asks Kit.
"Impounded," Kit explains.
"Does The Project ever send ships out this way? You ever see any of them around?" Alibi asks Kit.
"The human scientists? Why would they? Tek'Ti'Karn is a commercial outpost, and a shady one at that. Not much on this rock to interest your human scientists, I would not think," Kit says.
"I was just hoping," Alibi explains. "I have some connections in the Project. My, um, 'aunt' runs the place."
"Your aunt? It is good to have friends in high places. Even better to have relatives there!" Kit says.
FWAAAASSSSHHHHH!
Alibi feels heat on his back as the beam from a Tek'Tah burner makes contact with the gravel behind him.
"They're shooting at us!" Piccolo yells in a panic. "They're shooting at us from the fence!"
"Brilliant observation," Kit comments. "Keep running!"
The three fugitives continue their mad dash as the aliens fire burner weapons at their heels.
Fwaaaaaassssshhhhh!
Another beam hits, but it's a little further back this time.
"We're almost out of their range!" Alibi figures. "They'll have to send guards out after us if they want to keep up."
"You know they will," Kit says.
"I'm betting on it," Alibi jokes.
