The two humans he’d knocked down in his initial charge had regained their feet; one collapsed after Rendash landed a bone-crunching kick on his chest while the other fell back to join his advancing comrades, their blasters at the ready.
Rendash counted fifteen soldiers making a slow, methodical approach. His shield couldn’t handle much more.
His body couldn’t handle much more.
There was no time to assess his strained nyros. Forcing a surge of strength into his legs, Rendash leapt off the hard, black stone road. Wind whipped past him. The air was chilled; normally, his nyros would regulate his internal temperature to counteract that of his surroundings, but now it was only the fires of overexertion that protected him from the cold.
Humans shouted behind him, and Stantz barked orders. Engines roared to life as Rendash landed, crashing into the dried-out dirt and sand and sending up a cloud of dust. The beams of light projected by the black vehicles swung toward him. The humans were leaving the road in pursuit.
Rendash leapt again. Projectiles cracked through the air around him, but he could spare no more focus on maintaining his shield. Everything went into his aching muscles. He would follow the call of the command module’s beacon once he’d outrun Stantz’s soldiers.
He jumped again, and again, nearly crashing to the ground in a heap with each landing. Only honor, duty, and desperation kept him upright, driving him forward. The far-off mountains, which looked like piles of smooth, folded cloth, served as his immediate goal. The clumsy human ground vehicles weren’t likely to be capable of traversing such terrain.
As the lights behind him faded into the distance, he found more energy — somehow — to enable a cloaking field, rendering him all but invisible to anything but the most advanced detection systems.
His control of his nyros flickered, and he narrowed his focus, eliminating all concerns beyond reaching the mountains. The heat in his body was approaching a dangerous level, and the mental strain threatened to tear his mind asunder. But he could not stop.
An alien landscape sped by below while alien stars, twinkling in their multitudes, watched from above, all indifferent to his plight.
When he reached the foothills, he paused long enough to form a vrahsk on each side to slice the shackles from his wrists before scrambling higher, leaping and hauling himself into the mountains with arms and legs alike. As he finally reached the crest of the nearest peak, he poured another surge of strength into his limbs and launched himself high into the air.
For an instant, a sense of freedom settled over Rendash — the universe was open to him, the possibilities infinite, endless, and exciting. Though he’d enjoyed the rush of battle, had taken pride in serving the aligarii with honor and skill, he craved change. Craved the rest he’d fought so long and hard to earn. He’d known only conflict throughout his life.
Detachment.
As his upward momentum faded, a fleeting weightlessness settled in. He scanned the landscape stretched out before him — more sand and dirt as far as he could see, flat in many places, bunched into hills and mountains in others; all barren but for small, scruffy clumps of vegetation, all bathed in the silvery light of the stars and a pale-faced, lonely moon.
This was a wasteland of seemingly endless breadth. The command module lay somewhere beyond, outside his reach. As he was now, he wouldn’t survive crossing these wastes.
Moving lights caught his attention. Made tiny with distance, they moved smoothly across the flat portion of land; he guessed they were more human ground vehicles creeping along another road. Their path led to more lights — brighter and unmoving. A structure of some sort.
Then natural law declared it was time to return to the ground. His stomach lurched as the dust rushed to meet him. He braced himself with his nyros as best he could.
He hit the ground hard, teeth clacking together, and tumbled down the slope, kicking up dust and battering his weary body along the way. He scrabbled for purchase with all four hands but managed only to alter the trajectory of his roll and set himself to flipping backwards. Each time his torso hit the ground, a little more air was forced out of his lungs.
Finally, he reached a more gradual slope, and he slid to a halt. Lying on his back, he stared up at the unfamiliar sky as he caught his breath and reviewed his new aches. Somehow, he’d avoided serious injury.
A cold breeze flowed over him, chilling his scales; though he was burning up inside, his outer layers were like ice. That was far more uncomfortable than the pain in his limbs.
When his ragged breathing finally subsided, he became aware of other sounds — the airy whooshing of ground vehicles speeding along the distant road, the soft whisper of wind over the sand, the rustling of vegetation, and something else. His scales prickled.
Rendash sat up and turned his head to listen. It was a whirring sound, almost like the rapid popping of human blasters, but this was constant and seemed to originate from somewhere high up. He lifted his gaze.
The sound gained strength gradually, drowning out Rendash’s thumping heart, and soon pulsed through him. Suddenly, a black object roared over the mountain peak he’d just crossed.
The vehicle was long and dark, its tail end narrow. Huge blades rotated atop it — a primitive but effective means of flight. A bright light beamed from its underside to cast a broad circle of illumination on the ground. He longed for a blaster; he’d even accept a human weapon, so long as he didn’t have to rely upon his nyros to fight.
Rendash pushed himself to his feet to face the new threat.
The aircraft passed directly overhead. Its vibrations jarred the loose dirt around Rendash, and its spinning blades battered him with violent, freezing wind. Two more of the vehicles flew over the crest, veering in opposite directions along the mountains as the first continued toward the distant road. The noise of the aircrafts quickly faded.
They cannot detect me while cloaked.
A small boon, and not much of a surprise, but how long could he maintain the cloaking field?
He turned toward the stationary lights. Until he recovered more of his strength, a human vehicle would be the only reliable means of covering considerable distances. They were rudimentary conveyances; surely, they’d be simple enough to operate.
Without wasting more time — or precious mental energy — he hurried down the slope and sprinted toward the distant structures. The faces of his Umen’rak flitted through his mind, affording him impossible reserves of strength as his limbs threatened to fail. He leapt over a strange pathway that was set atop a mound of small, dark rocks in a narrow valley. It consisted of two relatively thin metal rails that ran as far as he could see to the left and right, which were bridged by shorter, thicker beams along the way.
Despite his cloaking, he kept low and to the shadows as he approached the structures. The buildings were well-lit, and several immobile ground vehicles sat nearby, some beside posts bearing more lights.
Rendash froze and pressed himself flat to the ground as the sound of an aircraft suddenly grew. The aircraft passed directly overhead, drawing the attention of the few visible humans.
Another ground vehicle — dull gold with four doors, small compared to Stantz’s black transports — arrived and stopped at the edge of the lights. When the door opened, a human female climbed out, but she turned and walked toward one of the buildings before Rendash caught even a glimpse of her features.
The whirring of the aircraft continued in the distance. This was potentially his only opportunity before his nyros failed.
He crawled forward, remaining in the shadows as he approached the gold vehicle. Its size became more apparent as he neared; he doubted he’d fit in the operator’s position without tearing the seat out completely. He glanced toward the buildings. None of the humans were watching, but the other transports were too clustered together for him to access without being noticed.
Slowly and quietly, Rendash opened the rear door and climbed into the back seat, gently pulling the door shut be
hind him.
He couldn’t guess where the woman was heading, but he couldn’t continue on foot. He’d simply have to make her go in the direction he needed until he could travel alone.
Chapter Three
Zoey flushed the toilet and stood inside the stall until the roar of the water being sucked down the pipe was replaced with eerie silence. The newer rest stops were like that — too quiet. That put her more on edge than the old, echoing, rundown restrooms did; at least in the old ones you could usually hear cars driving past on the highway, reminding you that you weren’t all alone.
She would have preferred not to stop at all, but sometimes a girl just had to pee.
She stepped out of the stall and walked to the sink. After washing her hands, she splashed cold water on her cheeks and stared at her reflection as she dried her hands and face. She looked tired. Not an I went to work at six this morning and have been driving for half the day kind of tired, but a bone-deep, emotionally-and-mentally destroyed kind.
Zoey braced her hands on the edge of the sink and leaned forward. She looked herself in the eyes. “What are you going to do, Zoey? How much longer can you hold on before you break?”
Unsurprisingly, she had no answer.
Her eyes brimmed with tears. “I thought I had it for a while there, dad. I really did. A job, a boyfriend, a home. Not a great job, or the best boyfriend, or the nicest place to live, but it was stable. And now it’s all gone.” She blinked, and the tears spilled down her cheeks. Laughing humorlessly, she straightened and wiped her cheeks. “And here I am talking to myself in a restroom in the middle of nowhere. God, can I sink any lower?”
The answer to that question — deceptively bright and tempting — came promptly after she left the restroom and saw the row of vending machines beneath a nearby shelter.
“Aw, come on!” She spread her hands to either side as she looked up at the sky. “This is so not what I need right now.”
Frowning, she walked to the machines and looked over the variety of snacks and drinks they contained. She didn’t need any of it. These indulgences were part of why everything had gone wrong with Josh. If she’d developed a backbone and tried a little harder to resist, to avoid giving in to her temptations, she could’ve been what he wanted. She could’ve been more attractive, more pleasing…
Bullshit. Why couldn’t he just love me for me?
That deep, consuming hurt spread through her chest again.
“Fuck it.” She opened her purse, pulled some cash out of her wallet, and fed it into the machine.
A minute or two later, she was walking toward her car with a pair of Snickers, a Twix, a Pepsi, and a bottle of water. She thrust aside her pang of guilt; she was going to damned well enjoy this stuff before she let herself feel remorse about it.
A helicopter flew over the nearby desert, shining a searchlight below it. It sent a chill down her spine; she’d either seen the same one pass twice since she got here, or it was a second helicopter. What were they searching for? An escaped convict, a fugitive serial killer? And here she was, alone, at a desert rest stop in the middle of the night with who-knew-what out there.
She glanced around her. There were a few other cars parked in the lot, but no other people in sight.
“Stupid, stupid,” Zoey muttered, quickening her steps.
She reached her car — more aware than ever of the busted locks — and peered into the back seat to make sure it was empty before tugging open the driver’s side door. She tossed her purse and her bounty onto the passenger seat and got in. Fishing her keys out of her purse, she jammed them into the ignition and started the car. It sputtered for a few seconds before finally turning over.
Her nerves eased when she pulled onto the onramp, leaving the rest stop behind. She clicked her seatbelt into place and checked her mirrors as she merged onto I-15. The helicopter continued its sweep of the desert behind her, and another was moving through the darkness up ahead.
Something wrapped around her neck from behind — a powerfully muscled arm.
Zoey screamed, releasing the wheel to claw at the arm around her throat, fingernails scraping a tough, scaly material. The arm tightened, cutting off her scream. The car veered toward the side of the road.
“Control your vehicle, human!” a gravelly, strangely accented voice commanded.
Keeping one hand on the arm, Zoey caught the wheel with the other. Her stomach flipped as she corrected the car’s swerve, directing it fully onto the shoulder, and slammed on the brakes. Her seatbelt locked, digging into her chest as the sudden stop pushed her body forward.
Whoever was in the back grunted, and a great weight pressed against her seat from behind. The hold around her neck loosened briefly.
She threw the car into park and reached for her seatbelt buckle, but before she could do anything more, the man pulled her back. “Move this vehicle, now. In the direction you were going.”
“P-Please don’t hurt me,” Zoey begged. She clutched desperately at his scaly sleeve.
The car’s shocks groaned as the man shifted in the back seat. Zoey glanced at her rearview mirror and screamed again. She fought against his hold, rocking the car with her struggles, and he clamped a hand on her arm — and then, somehow, another on her thigh and one over her mouth, all without releasing his grip on her neck.
He’s just wearing some kind of mask. It’s a mask, and there’s another man hidden back there, grabbing me at the same time.
“Cease your struggles, human!” he growled.
Zoey stilled, squeezing her eyes shut. She just had to breathe, and all of this would go away. She’d wake up from the nightmare and still be in Santa Barbara with a shift coming up at Bud’s Shitty Diner.
But when she opened her eyes, the monster was still there.
She stared at his reflection in the mirror. The light from passing cars highlighted the fine scales on his lower face, keeping his upper face in shadow, and as he turned his head toward her fully, his eyes — all four of them — met hers. Two of his eyes were positioned as a human’s would be, but there was another set at his temples, higher and to the sides. They glowed green, like cat eyes in the dark.
She panted against his large hand. He smelled like the desert — earthy, dry, primal.
The monster turned his head to look out the passenger-side window. Zoey followed his gaze to see a helicopter searchlight in the distance. Was he the one they were looking for?
“Move this vehicle,” he repeated, swinging his unsettling gaze back to the mirror. “Now.”
Zoey whimpered. She slowly raised her free arm and tapped the back of the hand clamped over her mouth.
He growled but removed his hand.
“Are you going to hurt me?” she asked.
“If you do not move this vehicle, I will have no choice but to harm you.”
“Okay. Okay,” she whispered. “I n-need both arms.”
For an instant, his hold on her strengthened. When he finally released her arm, she numbly moved it to the shifter and switched the car into drive, turning the wheel to pull back onto the interstate.
She slammed on the brakes again as another car sped by with its horn blaring, and narrowly avoided a collision.
“Control yourself,” the monster said, loosening his hold on her. “Breathe, human. Operate this vehicle as you would if I were not here.”
Right. As if I could forget a four-eyed, four-armed creature is my car.
Zoey did as he instructed and took several deep breaths. It helped a little — she was still terrified, but at least her hands weren’t shaking anymore. She adjusted her grip on the steering wheel, checked for cars, and eased back onto the interstate.
She drove in silence, her gaze shifting ceaselessly between the road, the helicopters patrolling the desert, and the monster in her rearview mirror. His hand was heavy, solid, and warm on her thigh, even through her jeans. It was a brand, a reminder that he was still there. That he was real. She risked a glance down at it.
&nbs
p; His skin was green, though its precise hue was impossible to determine in the poor light. He had only three fingers and a thumb, tipped with blunt black nails. He was also covered in scales, but that hardly seemed the strangest part, by now. Her eyes flicked up to the mirror.
He was covered in dust, and something dark was splattered on his face and shoulder.
Don’t try to guess what that is, she warned herself.
“Who are you?” She could be proud, at least, that she’d kept her voice from trembling.
He didn’t answer.
Perhaps if she kept talking, if he came to see her as a…a person, he wouldn’t hurt her before she found a way to escape.
“My name is Zoey. Zoey Weston. I am — was — a waitress in—”
“I have no interest in conversation.” The arm around her neck loosened, and she felt him shift his weight back. “Continue in this direction. Make no signal to the other humans.”
“Are they looking for you?”
The muscles in his arm flexed. “Whether they are or not, you would do well to obey my commands.”
“I-I was just asking.”
“And I have had enough human questions to last me a lifetime.”
Zoey took that as her cue to shut the hell up.
The silence promptly resumed. Her frightened grip on the steering wheel soon had her hands aching, but she couldn’t loosen her hold. Zoey’s entire body was tense, waiting for the inevitable deathblow. What did he plan to do to her? What did he want? Would he let her go, or would he kill her once she was no longer useful to him?
They eventually overtook the farthest helicopter, and, before long, the aircraft were nothing more than faint blinking lights in the rearview. Immense heat seemed to radiate from the monster, but his hold gradually eased. Finally, the arm around her neck slid away, leaving only the scalding pressure of his palm on her thigh.
The desert flew by outside. She passed slower cars, and faster drivers — some of them dangerously faster — sped past Zoey.
Claimed by an Alien Warrior Page 3
