Darwin

by Amanda Bridgeman

  The dragging began to slow now. She shut her eyes and pretended to still be unconscious.

  “Logan,” a strange voice hissed angrily.

  “I told him,” Chet said.

  “She’s still alive,” Logan growled at them both in his gravelly voice.

  “Yes, but you’ve damaged her! Look,” the voice said.

  Carrie felt someone touch her face along the bone of her left brow. It hurt, as though they’d pressed into her with the edge of a knife, and not the soft, cold fingers they had.

  “Let’s take this headset off,” he said.

  No! A wave of panic shot through her, but she couldn’t do anything as she was paralyzed with fear.

  “There,” she heard the voice say calmly. “I’ll put the headset here, so her friends can watch.”

  Logan gave a deep, throaty laugh.

  “Chet, I’ll need you to look after her for me. We need to persuade the Aurora’s soldiers to comply.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Logan asked the voice.

  “Bring me Harris. He’ll help us get Sergeant Packham off that ship.”

  “What about McKinley?” Logan asked.

  “He’s still in the corridor. Oxer broke his leg, so he’s not going anywhere. I wouldn’t approach him while he’s got a gun in his hands. You’ve read his file. He’s a very sharp shooter. He’ll surrender to us later,” the voice said. “At his captain’s request.”

  She heard footsteps that stopped beside her.

  “Save some for me,” Logan said, then she heard the footsteps leave the room.

  “Check her pulse,” the voice ordered Chet.

  She felt him kneel over her and put his hand on her neck. He was quiet for a moment. “We have a strong pulse. And eye movement,” Chet told the voice.

  “Hmm. Pretending to be unconscious, perhaps?”

  “Shall we see?” Chet said, his voice very close to her ear, his breath brushing across it.

  “Roll her over,” the voice ordered.

  Carrie felt Chet’s hands slide underneath her arms and slowly turn her over onto her back. She kept her eyes closed, trying to ignore the dizzy feeling in her head as it moved. She focused on visualizing where her two remaining syringes were and suddenly realized that her leg was wet where one of them had been. Fuck! Then she remembered that she still had the small pistol strapped to her other ankle.

  Chet was right over her now. “Oh, Weeelles,” he sang eerily. “Let’s see if I can’t awaken you, hmm.”

  She felt his fingers touch her bare stomach, exposed from being dragged along the floor. He traced his fingers slowly upward until he hit her singlet bunched beneath her chest, then he flattened his hand and went underneath.

  “Make sure you don’t block the camera, now,” the voice said quietly, but excitedly. “I wouldn’t want the flight deck to miss this.”

  Chet gave a quiet, throaty laugh. “How’s your heartbeat, sweetheart?” he asked in a low voice. She felt his hand outstretched over her heart. It was warm and seemed to amplify the beating in her chest. “Heartbeat’s fine. What about the rest of you …” His voice trailed off as he moved his hand, sliding his fingertips underneath the cup of her bra.

  She opened her eyes slightly and saw he was kneeling over her, legs either side of hers.

  “Ah, sleeping beauty awakes,” he smiled as he clasped her breast firmly in his hand. “My hands have the gift of life!”

  Repulsed by his touch, she quickly mustered all her strength and brought her knee up hard into his groin and punched his face. Neither were as strong as she’d hoped for, and she felt her wrist jar on impact, causing them both to grunt in pain. Spying the doorway, she quickly rolled over and tried to scuttle away, as he clutched his crotch.

  She didn’t move as fast as she’d hoped for, though. Her head felt too heavy for her body to carry and her vision blurred. She heard the voice laughing as Chet lunged after her, grabbing hold of her belt and dragging her swiftly back. She tried to fight against him, but her wrist hurt and her head throbbed badly. He flipped her over while she tried to kick at him weakly, but he grabbed her legs and split them either side of his body, as he leaned over her again, grabbing her by the throat and squeezing tight.

  He held her firmly, not losing control like Grolsh had. This was how Grolsh had been supposed to do it, hold her firm and make her submit, but Grolsh had lost his temper and nearly killed her. She had to make sure Chet didn’t do the same.

  “I’m sorry.” She strained to get her voice out.

  Chet stared down at her with cold, pale blue eyes.

  The voice laughed quietly, almost purring. “You will be if you try that again, my dear Carrie. I can only hold Chet off for so long.”

  She tried to look over Chet’s shoulder in the direction it came from, but Chet saw and squeezed her tighter.

  “Please! I’m sorry,” she said again.

  “You shot me, you bitch. I’m going to make you pay for that,” Chet hissed, then leaned in even closer so that his lips brushed her cheek. “Tell me, Welles, what’s your pain threshold like?”

  She patted his arms, his chest, his sides, as though she was trying to calm him. What she was doing, however, was making her way down to the pocket on her pants where her last syringe was tucked. She started thinking about how she was going to do this. She decided she needed to make sure he kept his hands on her throat, to give her an extra second or two with the syringe, so she changed her tactic.

  “Let me go, you fuck,” she hissed at him, angrily.

  He stared back at her, eyebrows slightly raised.

  “Carrie, my dear, that is not going to help you,” the voice said. “You can’t win this.”

  “Fuck you,” she said, then spat blood in Chet’s face.

  He growled and squeezed her tighter. She felt woozy as her head began to throb even harder. She brought her knees up high as though trying to buck him off, but it only brought her hand to her pocket. She slipped it inside and felt the syringe between her fingers.

  “You … can’t … win … this,” she managed.

  The voice laughed at her.

  “I think Logan hit her harder than we thought.” Chet smiled.

  “I told you she had a fighting spirit,” the voice said, as though in admiration.

  “Spirits are meant to be broken,” Chet said, his expression turning to a deadly stare as he leaned down and licked the side of her face.

  Logan came back into the room then, walking quickly, heavily, over to the voice. “Harris is fucking gone!” he said angrily.

  “What?” asked the voice.

  “He’s gone! I left him unconscious and now he’s gone. I can’t find him.”

  “Logan!” the voice said. “Couldn’t you hear him?”

  “No. I told you we can only hear things in the distance when there is silence around us. We need to work on strengthening the senses,” Logan argued.

  Chet started to loosen his grip as he absorbed himself in the argument between the two men. Carrie flipped the lid off the syringe and held it tight in her palm. She saw her opportunity to strike. She quickly pulled the syringe out and stabbed it into Chet’s thigh.

  His head shot around, lightning fast, wincing in pain. He growled and quickly smacked her hand away from the needle before she could inject the fluid. His fiery eyes locked with hers and he raised his muscular arm in the air. She squeezed her eyes shut as he unleashed a hard backhand across her face, knocking her head to the side. She opened her eyes and through blurred vision, made out Harris hiding in the doorway with his gun. She looked back at Chet who was pulling the syringe out of his thigh. She saw his nose suddenly twitch as he quickly looked up in Harris’s direction. She heard the crack of Harris’s gun as he fired and Chet’s body flew back, his upper left chest area spraying red.

  Logan and the man behind the voice quickly fled through another door as Harris fired after them too, but missed. She blinked t
o clear her vision. The man behind the voice had white-gray hair. He was side on, but she recognized him from the pictures Harris had shown them during their mission briefing.

  “Sharley!” she exclaimed.

  Harris was suddenly beside her, aiming his gun at the doorway through which they’d disappeared and motioning for her to get up.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he said urgently. “You got a gun?”

  She stumbled groggily to her feet, then bent down, scrambling to get the one on her ankle. She stood up with it and staggered as a wave of dizziness overcame her. She grabbed onto Harris’s shirt to steady herself, and he latched onto her arm in support, as a slight zap of static electricity passed between them. He glanced at her arm, noticing it, too, then at her bloodied head.

  “Welles, I can’t carry you. You need to walk. You hear me?”

  She nodded absently, studying him. He had blood down the back of his neck, bruises and swelling across his face, and as he moved to the doorway and peered around it to see if it was clear, she saw him hold his ribs for a moment, wincing in pain. She took a deep breath. She had to hold it together. They could make it out, but she was going to have to focus and walk herself out.

  He motioned for her to do a cross-cover with him. She did, but her hands were only half-mast with the gun. They felt so heavy she could barely raise them, and that worried her. She tried desperately to attune her hearing to make up for her eyes as they blinked heavily. But it was useless, her hearing was no better than her eyesight. Her brain was caught up in heavy, painful fog.

  They made their way down the corridor to the elevator quickly, taking as much care as they could in passing each closed doorway. Her head continued throbbing and she was still unsteady on her feet, but she tried her hardest to ignore it. She could just make out Harris’s tall silhouette in front of her and stuck closely to it. She kept checking the hallway behind them, but it was clear. Empty. Quiet.

  It felt like an eternity but they eventually made it to the elevator, stepped in, and sealed the doors behind them. As soon as they were shut, they both dropped their arms to their sides, exhausted, and leaned back against the walls. Carrie wanted desperately to slide down and sit on the floor, but she fought the urge with all her might.

  She knew if she did, she would not be able to get up again.

  *

  Harris eyed Welles carefully. The left side of her face and neck was covered in blood, and her eye and cheekbone were so bruised and swollen, her eye was half closed over. He could just imagine what her head felt like.

  “Hang in there, Welles,” he told her. “We’re nearly there.”

  She moved her eyes slowly over to his and gave a slight nod.

  The elevator came to a stop and they raised their guns, although Welles’s arms weren’t quite as firm as he would’ve liked. He knew that it was going to be up to him to get them safely back to the ship. The doors opened and they slowly moved out into Sharley’s office. As they approached the doorway to the darkened corridor, they saw a weapon’s spotlight suddenly shine in their direction.

  “McKinley, it’s us!” Harris spoke quietly into his mouthpiece.

  He peered out the door of the office and saw McKinley sitting on the floor, against the wall diagonally opposite, gun firmly in their direction. In the shadowy light of his weapon, his lieutenant looked a little pale. He was sweating and Harris saw his left lower leg looked bent out of shape.

  Fuck! I can’t carry Welles, and I sure as shit can’t carry him either.

  They moved over to him, carefully covering each side of the corridor. McKinley glanced hopefully at Harris as they did, then shone his light on Welles’s face for a moment and the hope on his face seemed to fade.

  “Give me your hand,” Harris said to McKinley. He had to try.

  McKinley held out his hand. Harris gripped it and tried to pull him up. His lieutenant got halfway, but Harris’s ribs couldn’t take it and he dropped him. McKinley groaned loudly as he fell back down. Harris steadied himself on the wall, bringing his hand up to his ribs and wincing.

  “Fuck!” he wheezed in pain.

  “Dddrrrraagg him,” Welles slurred, moving over to them.

  They each took one of McKinley’s hands and tried to drag him down the corridor. Welles got a couple of steps, but then dropped his hand, grabbed her head, staggered and fell to her hands and knees. Harris tried, but his ribs wouldn’t let him move an inch. They felt worse now and it was hurting him to breathe. Welles stumbled slowly back up to her feet. They stood there in the corridor for a moment, catching their breath, trying to think of a way out of this situation. Then they heard a voice.

  “Don’t shoot,” it said calmly.

  They both spun round raising their guns in the direction of Section Two. The light from McKinley’s weapon spotlighted Professor Sharley and Logan walking toward them out of the shadows, hands in the air.

  “We are unarmed,” Sharley said, his large, angular, nose casting shadows across his face.

  Harris watched as Welles, positioned in the middle of the corridor between him and McKinley, turned around to check the corridor leading to the dock. Her defensive tactics were still working. That was something.

  “You are safe,” Sharley told them in calm voice, reminiscent of Chet’s, albeit with a European accent of some kind. “We are the only two left.” He and Logan walked slowly around to stand in front of them, cutting off their path to the Aurora.

  “Stop right there, Sharley!” Harris said, holding his gun firmly on them. “What do you want?”

  “I would like you and Lieutenant McKinley to turn off your headsets, please.”

  “You want my headset off, then you come and get it,” McKinley challenged him through gritted teeth.

  “Not with that gun in your hands, lieutenant,” Sharley smiled.

  McKinley looked confidently back at him.

  Sharley turned his eyes to Harris. “Your team has done well, captain. You should be proud.”

  “What do you want?” Harris barked again.

  “To talk, captain. To negotiate.”

  “Negotiate what?” he spat.

  “Your lives.” Sharley’s voice was calm, but his words cut through Harris like a knife.

  He stared hard at the professor.

  “This was a test, Captain Harris. I know you figured that out,” Sharley told him. “You were sent here by the UNF to test my Jumbos. And your team has done well. You have lost only four men and I have learnt a lot about my Jumbos’ strengths and weaknesses.”

  “Only four men,” Harris said incredulously.

  Sharley smiled. “Consider it a cleansing of your team, captain. Your strongest have survived.

  Harris continued to stare at him. He could feel his eyes burning a hatred that seemed to match the fire lashing at his ribs with each breath he took.

  “So, here we are,” Sharley continued, shrugging. “I am content with the results of the test that your men have provided, and I am willing to allow you to take what’s left of your team and go, but … you will leave this one behind.” He pointed to Welles. “She is part of another phase of my experiment.”

  Welles look nervously over at him. She still didn’t really know me …

  “Corporal Welles is a part of my team and she is coming with me,” he told Sharley firmly.

  Sharley smiled again. “I admire your bravado, Captain Harris, but it’s not needed. I have UNF backing. You are allowed to walk away from this. No questions asked. You see, I told them that when I was ready I would send them a sign. They knew that when they got this sign, they were to send the selected hosts, here to me. We didn’t accidentally lose the comms with Command. We purposely disabled them so that a team would be sent here to rescue us. Of course, Private Smith was clever and his systems managed to track some of our scrambled messages, after the fact.” He smiled. “Still, that worked in our favor. We were sent a team that was alert and on guard. Wary. A
team that would test us well. A team that would have something we wanted from them.

  “Although, at first, we were unsure as to whether any women had been sent. Our survivors, as you called them, had not seen them. But Chet knew … he could smell them on Lieutenant Walker as he ran his tests. He knew, and so instead of attacking you outright, they won your trust, you released them and you brought them together. This was a test against your soldiers, a test to get the women into our custody. You have proven yourself, Harris. So you and your team may go. But I still want the women. They were sent here for my program. They belong to me.”

  “Like I said,” Harris stared menacingly at him, “Corporal Welles is a part of my team and I will not leave without her.”

  “Neither will I,” McKinley raised his gun a little higher in Sharley’s direction.

  Harris saw Welles glance at McKinley, then back at Sharley. Obviously feeling reassured, she, too, raised her gun a little higher.

  “Captain Harris,” Sharley began, a little more of an edge to his voice now, “I am allowing you to leave and take the rest of your team home, alive. I can tell you that was not a part of my original plan. And that’s including the other two women, who technically belong to me … but I know Corporal Colt is injured and you need Sergeant Packham to get you home. So I am willing to make a sacrifice, but you, too, will sacrifice and leave Corporal Welles here with me.”

  “What’s she to you, Harris?” Logan growled.

  “Corporal Welles is a part of my team and I will not leave her behind,” Harris hissed through gritted teeth. “Now you better accept that, because my opinion will not change. The way I see it, you’ve got three guns on you. Disagree with me too long, and we will shoot you, regardless. It’s as simple as that. So, it is I who am allowing you and your last Jumbo to live, but the choice is yours.”

  Sharley laughed a long, guttural laugh. “Very nice, Captain Harris, turning it around like that. But you’re ignoring the fact that the UNF sent her here knowing full well what would happen. Look at her.” His eyes scanned over Welles. “She needs medical attention and we can provide that for her. We mean her no harm. In fact, we wish for her to be as healthy as she can be.”