“How did a human like you get a hold of one of these?” the alien said through the electronic software. “What is a human doing here on Atr-kh-ilan? Why are you skulking around after us!?”
Dane’s glance flickered from the leader of the slaves to the others, and none of them appeared in any way compassionate or sympathetic to him.
“I’m not skulking after you . . .” Dane started to say. “I was saved by one of your communities in the forest. An elder gave the whistle to me after fighting alongside them.”
“Lies!” the leader spat and backhanded Dane across the cheek with a stinging blow. These aliens were surprisingly strong for their size, and Dane tasted blood inside his cheek. In response to this attack, there was a resounding thump of tails against the ground from the cohort.
“You humans are no friends to the Chr-At! You are in league with the Scales!” their leader accused him, and Dane figured that he was referring to the Exin.
“You couldn’t have it more wrong,” Dane said seriously. “We humans—my people—we’re at war with the Exin . . . whom you call the Scales.”
“Tk-tk-krr!” the leader spat, and apparently, the words that they used were so offensive that they had no natural explanation. “You expect me to believe that!? When you come sneaking up here with Scale weapons and stolen Chr-At artifacts?” The alien brandished the whistle. “And when I have seen your kind with the Scales, discussing how best to kill my people!?”
“What!?” Dane spluttered at the revelation. “You have seen other humans?” he asked incredulously, before realizing that somehow, this Chr-At slave had known to call him a human, hadn’t they?
“Chrr-chr!” There was a warning churr from another of the Chr-At. This one seemed about the same size and age as their leader and appeared to hold some sway. Dane watched the two glare at each other before the leader turned back to Dane.
“You are full of lies, human. You are probably a Scale spy.” The leader rose off from Dane’s body and nodded to the others. “Bring him. Perhaps the Scales will trade better food for the human’s life!”
And, at that, Dane was hauled up, carried on the backs of four of the largest of the Chr-At, who set off at a run toward the darkness under the Exin platforms.
16
A Predatory Logic
Dane lay in the darkness atop a couple of cold metal crates and listened to the angered, bickering sounds of the aliens on the other side of the plastic panel that served as a door for these people.
He had been brought through the warren of storage containers to what was obviously the slave community of the town. Several of the discarded containers had been hollowed out and walkways constructed up them and between them out of rusted and scrap bits of plastic, metal, or wood. In a curiously perverted version of their tree houses—or indeed their ancestors’ stone built “mushroom buildings”—the native life of this planet now lived in the squalor underneath the Exin Scales’ platforms.
And here, they argued for Dane’s life.
Of course, I don’t know if that is what they are really doing, Dane thought. But he could guess from their arguing tone that they must be debating the pros and cons of killing him, long into the night.
His weapons had been taken from him, and he had been bound at ankle and wrist by thick electrical cords that cut into his joints when he struggled.
Wonderful, Dane thought to himself with a heavy sigh. He didn’t know what hurt worse—the fact that he had gotten somewhere near a spaceship capable of taking him home, or the fact that the very people he had risked his life trying to save were now going to hand him over to the Exin. Or kill him.
However, the situation changed when the room outside suddenly went quiet. The outer door banged, and a new Chr-At voice rose into the throng. It was younger, thinner, and Dane thought that it sounded a little like the one that he had encountered in the sewers of this place.
“Chrr!”
“Tk-Tk-krrr-At!”
“Chrr-chrrr!”
The conversation went back and forth for a while, and Dane wished that the leader, at least, was still using the translation software. No such luck there, but he was surprised when the door suddenly banged open, and two of the aliens appeared at his uncomfortable bedside.
One was the Chr-At leader, still glaring down at him, and the other was indeed the slave that Dane had met in the tunnels.
“This is him?” The leader spoke to the other.
“Chrr-kt,” the slave said slowly.
“Tk-kt!” the leader swore for a moment and looked speculatively at Dane.
“Looks like this is your lucky day, human. Sister-woman Ult here says she saw you in the tunnels. Says the Scales were after you,” the Chr-At leader said.
“She did. I remember you,” Dane said seriously.
The Chr-At’s leader gave a disapproving look at Dane before showing their teeth. “Seems like not all humans are in league with the Scales. I was wrong,” the leader said with a sneer. “The Scales have been hunting you night and day since you came here. They think it’s some grand game of theirs,” the leader hissed. “Just like they hunt us!”
“The right to bloodline challenge,” Dane whispered, remembering the queen of the Exin’s words. “I was brought here because I dared to stand up and fight the Exin. My people did—a whole lot of us did,” he corrected when he saw the Chr-At leader’s face darken.
“The queen took it as some kind of offense and said that I had to undergo the Challenge Planet,” he said.
“The Scales are predators,” the leader said, and the word seemed to be an insult to them. “They believe everything has to be conquered. That nothing is worthy until it shows itself tough enough to resist domination.”
There was an ugly turn to the leader’s voice. Dane guessed that it was because his people had failed in the Exin test. They, or at least a sizeable number of them, had been enslaved. It made Dane’s blood boil.
The leader moved suddenly, and with two fast movements, cut through the bonds that held Dane captive.
“I want no part in your plans, human. If the Scales think that the Chr-At have anything to do with one of their prey, they will only treat us worse.” The leader stepped back to reveal the Exin gun and the Exin dagger that Dane had when he arrived. Nodding at them, the leader turned to go.
“Wait!” Dane called out quickly as he sat up, rubbing at his wrists as he did so. “Your people could fight! You seem to be the ones doing the work. You know the tunnels. The secret ways around the Scales’ town. You must know the places where we can stop their engines, their factories, their spaceships.”
“Tk-kt!” The leader gave a long, dry laugh in response. “You think in the two hundred years since the Scales came here to Atr-kh-ilan that we haven’t fought back? Risen up?” The leader mocked him before their face suddenly went long and sad.
“It is no use. You are foolish. The Scales will do to your people just what they did to the Chr-At!” The leader, at this, turned to go.
Never, Dane thought. He was never going to let humanity become like this.
“I’m sorry for your people,” Dane said in a rush. There was something that he had to know.
“You said that there were others like me, humans, here on this planet,” his voice tightened as he thought of the deep betrayal it meant to Earth.
“You said that they were working with the Scales . . .”
The leader paused at the door, looking back at Dane over one shoulder.
“It is true. Only a few, and always with the Scale chiefs and war masters. I’ve seen them while I clean the upper buildings. There is one above right now, up in the Scales’ platforms!”
“Then take me to him,” Dane heard his own rage in his low growl. “Or tell me how to find them.”
The leader of the slave Chr-At nodded just once. It seemed that, predator or prey, they could understand the principle of revenge.
“That I can do for you, human,” he said, showing off his sharp, white teeth
.
17
Bravery
“He’s up there!?” Dane whispered in apparent horror at what the leader of the slave Chr-At was suggesting.
It was still the dark of night, but Dane could guess from the slight umbral glow on the horizon that they had to be approaching morning. It had taken a long time to get the urban Chr-At to realize he was actually an ally and then an even longer time to climb this far into the Exin township.
Dane and the leader of the Chr-At had made their slow way to where they said the other human was located, and to do this that meant that they had to climb. First came the metal ladders that were designed for the Chr-At, it seemed, in order to quickly ascend to the factories and processing facilities dotted around the lowest levels of the town.
The ladders had led to suspended walkways, galleries, and balcony levels that cranked and thumped and creaked with noise as the blocky processing units they contained whirred and belched smoke. Everywhere was lit by the same dim, green lights—but Dane saw no Exin warriors or guards.
“Why would they bother? They know that they could burn down the entire jungle from space if they wanted to, destroying our planet,” the leader ahead of him murmured when Dane mentioned this fact.
So, the Chr-At who had been captured as slaves led a miserable existence on the industrial grounds underneath the Exin. They were being sent to work in shifts in the processing factories that extracted blue-steel ore from the distant mines dotted here and there across the Challenge Planet. Different Chr-At slaves would be brought up to the higher levels to serve in some way or another, or, like the one who had saved Dane’s life, they were sent down to the tunnels below to aid in the cleanup and security.
It’s no wonder they are riddled with scars, Dane thought to himself as he had to duck under a sudden out-gassing of viciously hot steam.
Their progress was slow because even though there were no Exin guards, the leader was careful to avoid any direct contact even with their own people.
“Some of my brethren do not share the same beliefs that I do,” the leader confessed sadly as they waited behind one metal block where four tired-looking Chr-At climbed down toward the ground below at the end of a shift.
“We used to be a very proud people—and a very peaceful one too. We had a whole planet! And ample enough dangers and predators in the wilds to contend with. No need to go to war with each other.”
Dane watched as the older alien shook his head sadly.
“The Scales have changed everything. Where there was once unity, there is now division. Some of our people would now report their own family if it meant more food. There is no bond as there once was.”
“So fight!” Dane urged in a low and urgent voice. “Rise up, if you can. Defend what is left of your culture, your people!”
The leader Chr-At did not even look at their human charge, but instead out at the distant, dark gloam of the deep forest, and said nothing. With a shrug, the alien stood up and indicated that they were free to continue their journey.
Up more metal ladders and hiding beside more power relays and metal processors until, finally, the leader paused at the last small set of gantry stairs that led up to the greater Exin township.
The port town of the Exin was not comprised of many buildings, Dane had to admit—but each one sat in a nest of their own metal scaffolding connected to the broad base that Dane had climbed through. When the leader pointed, Dane could see silvered walkways between the nearest tall, high-rise blue-steel building and its rounded neighbor. Dim green lights moved through the gap, which Dane took to be Exin drones going about their constant work through the night.
“This is the one. I was cleaning the windows when I saw him,” the leader pointed up the side of the building, where multiple scalloped balconies popped out of the sides at various irregular places.
“Fourth one up, second along . . .” the leader pointed.
Dane guessed that each of these balconies was in fact a part of some kind of suite of rooms or offices inside the building. He prayed that the human—whoever he was—was still in the one where he’d been seen.
The leader stayed low, scampering on the smaller service gantry that ran underneath the street until they came to a bobbled metal storage unit. As the leader drew closer, the green jewel on their own collar flashed, and the door opened, for the leader to pull out what appeared to be a large metal trolley. Working with all the skill of someone who has become used to the tools of their trade, Dane watched as the leader pulled out short railings on the sides and wheeled the trolley over to the base of the building, where a blue glow flashed as it magnetically clamped onto the side of the wall.
“Control it here. Go.” The leader was pointing straight up, and Dane was pleased that he didn’t have to freestyle climb the entire height of the building.
“Thank you.” Dane stepped onto the cleaning cart and pulled the makeshift canvas cloak a little tighter around him. Another gift from the Chr-At, this was precisely what they wore when the weather was bad. Dane knew that the protection would not cover him from any active security scans, but for a distant Exin observer, if he hunkered down and kept his flesh out of view, it might buy him a little time.
“You are very brave, human,” the slave Chr-At leader said in response, pressing the power button and stepping back as the trolley started to rise into the air at a slow and steady rate.
“So are we all, when we have to be,” Dane said heavily, earning a serious, measured look from the alien below him, before the leader turned and vanished into the darkness, leaving the marine alone to consider his next actions.
The trolley did not move quickly, and Dane huddled as best he could in the corner nearest the small railing, his eyes peeled on the portholes of crystal or glass that he passed. He saw snapshots of the Exin interior, large and small rooms, all dark save for the dim, green lights, and with rooms that appeared to be large lounges or halls. Several had statues or what could be art or could be technology for all that Dane knew. Friezes on the walls that depicted strange, organic whorls and sharp, pointed shapes, alongside displays of what could only be weapons.
Was this where the Exin lived or where they met? Dane had no idea. He passed two levels and then the next—
To see a room that was filled with rows upon rows of long metal tubes, a design that he had seen before.
The buttresses in the Exin Beacon, Dane thought, remembering how they had opened with rushes of steam and gas. And out had leapt the Exin warrior caste, each one who had the task to activate the Exin Beacon and summon the Exin jump ship.
That room alone could have contained thirty or forty of the warrior caste. Dane wondered if that was how they slept. Or were kept in waiting . . .
For an Earth invasion? Dane considered, before one side of the trolley was being eclipsed by shadow, and there was balcony four. The very one where the human collaborator was supposed to be staying.
The trolley crunched to a halt beside the strange midnight-blue metals of the balcony, and Dane breathed slowly . . .
Just as the sky above the planet peeled open with fire bursts and thunder.
18
Twenty-five Minutes
“Keep an eye on your sides, people!” Otepi snarled to her squad as she slammed through one fireball, for it to flare around the nose of her modified starfighter and reveal the dome of the planet underneath.
Alarms were going off all around her, and she gritted her teeth in frustration. This was a foolish idea. This was an insane idea.
“I got scans from the planet coming in!” she heard one of her flight marines—the forward scout in the super-fast and smaller vessel—called out. He dipped lower toward the white orb of the planet, with hazes of green and blue seen through the gaps in the upper cloud level.
It wasn’t a large planet, not as big as Earth, Otepi was thinking. How could such a small planet produce such a devastating civilization as the Exin?
“Send them in, marine!” the captain said t
ersely. “Broadcast to main group . . .” she was saying, just as she saw the small marine scout ship suddenly burst apart in a flare of white-and-orange plasma.
No! He’d been shot out of the sky. From the surface. This planet clearly had surface-based defenses.
“Another barrage burst at vector two-oh-five . . .” she heard her gunnery sergeant call and saw him out of the corner of her eye pulling hard on the firing stick to release another high-atmosphere barrage of explosive plasma charges. They’d never done this sort of thing before. They had no idea if this was how you went about invading an entire planet . . .
It wasn’t how the Exin played it, Otepi thought bitterly. They had just appeared one day in near orbit and proceeded to bombard a number of Earth cities from above, as well as releasing the deadly Exinase virus to finish off the job that their small number of seed craft had started.
But that was not the official strategy for the Marine Corps, Otepi was momentarily grateful to acknowledge. They did not use biological or chemical weapons. Even against an enemy like the Exin, they did not, and could not, stoop low enough to completely destroy an entire planet’s ecosystem.
So instead, the rushed plan had been this: jump to the coordinates that they had retrieved from the Exin Beacon and do everything in their power to strike at what they deemed to be strategic targets. Ports. Factories. Reactors and power plants . . .
And hope that the strike is just as unexpected as theirs was on Earth, Otepi thought, her eyes flicking to the clock in the top left of her suit HUD.
>00.24.38 . . .
Twenty-five minutes. That was all the time that they had available to them to get the job done—and even that felt like it would be too long out here.
Metal Warrior: Steel Cage (Mech Fighter Book 6) Page 10
