by Tim Marquitz
“Cabe’s right,” Lina agreed. “So things didn’t work out the way we hoped, so what? We’re not gonna let this stop us, are we?”
“Definitely not!” Taj answered, shaking her head.
“Well, whatever we do, we need to get to it quickly,” Dent interrupted. “Scanners are showing Wyyvan forces massing near the walls of the outpost on the eastern side. They’re not moving on us yet, but I would imagine it won’t be long before they do. They substantially outnumber us.”
“Then let’s stir up some dust,” Taj decided. “Everyone out,” she ordered over the comm. “Bots, stay in place.”
She triggered the shuttle’s exit hatch and left the ship, the crew following her out into the gritty, barren landscape. Her heart ached as the dirt crunched beneath her boots. There was so little remaining of the world they’d left behind. Seeing it as it was sickened her.
“Seal up your suits and get ready to move,” she ordered, turning to Dent. “Get these shuttles out of here. Find someplace a short distance away where they’ll be safe from artillery and AA fire and can be camouflaged well enough to keep them from being quickly detected.”
“You want to strand us?” Torbon asked.
She shook her head. “Just looking to make us harder targets,” she told him. “Keep the armada over our heads to warn off the Wyyvan fleet. Engage them if they even start to look our way, or if you see an opportunity. We don’t want them picking us off from space,” she told the AI. “As for the shuttles, keep them close enough for a quick evac if we need it, and stir up a mess when they leave, making a show of it.”
“Won’t that give away our location?” Jadie asked.
“They already know it,” Dent replied.
“Which is why the launch needs to be messy. The shuttles stir the dirt, and we run the stealth programs on our suits,” Taj explained. “As long as the Wyyvan fleet doesn’t return to close orbit and start scanning for us, we can essentially disappear down here to the limited-range scanners the soldiers will have available to them.”
The shuttles lifted off then, kicking up a massive cloud of dust as Taj had requested. Dirt swirled around the crew, darkening the sky and blacking out the area.
“Let’s go,” Taj ordered over the comm as soon as she felt there was enough dirt dancing around to obscure their direction of travel.
“You’re making me regret deciding to come live with you people,” Krawg complained, waving a hand in front of his visor despite the fact that Taj knew he could see perfectly well thanks to the advanced optics. “All this dirt makes me miss the snow.”
“At least it’s not cold here,” Torbon countered.
“I wish it was.” Krawg chuckled. “Maybe you’ve forgotten all the fur I’ve stuffed inside this suit?”
“Only the smell of it,” Torbon fired back, laughing.
Taj ignored the two and raced off, leading the crew across the dusty scrubland and down into a nearby gully. It broke off into a dozen more, sprawling out as if they were branches of a tree.
She picked a direction at random and kept on, pushing to put some distance between the crew and the place they’d set down and moving only in the general direction of the outpost.
She knew a determined effort by the Wyyvans would eventually suss them out, so the soldiers would have to get close before that happened.
At that range, Taj and the crew could inflict massive damage on them before they knew what hit them. She didn’t figure they would be that bold, although she had to admit, she’d misjudged a lot of things regarding this mission.
She swore to stop doing that.
Too much rested on her shoulders to screw it up, especially this early in the campaign.
While she’d left the bulk of her people back on Corzant, safe from harm, if Taj and the others failed here, it meant those people would never see their home again. Ever.
Taj wouldn’t let that happen.
She’d promised the spirits of Gran Beaux and Mama Merr that she’d fix all this and set things right. But most of all, she’d promised herself.
There was no way she’d let these gacking lizards take their home away twice.
She flitted through the deep gully carefully to avoid kicking up dust and giving away their location. The trenches she moved through were disheartening reminders of how much damage the Wyyvan had done to Krawlas.
Although the land hadn’t been much more than desert scrub where they were, it had been mined haphazardly in an effort to collect as much Toradium-42 as they could as quickly as possible.
She presumed the work had been done early on by the lizards, before they’d refined their efforts and figured out how to better mine the mineral under the surface, but seeing it made her sick.
The Wyyvans had torn the ground apart with callous disregard for the flora or fauna that called the desert home, just like they had with the Furlorians.
There’d been no mercy involved.
Taj pressed on, weaving through the gullies, marveling at how deep some of them were. Many ran to four meters, all sizes of dark tunnels shooting off from the walls and disappearing underground. The jagged, scraped ground sparkled with the remnants of the Toradium-42 that had been gouged from the planet.
There was so much of it that it was impossible for the Wyyvans to mine it all.
Taj didn’t know whether to be glad or upset about that.
If nothing else, it told her the lizards would do their damndest to maintain their hold on Krawlas no matter what. The mineral was simply too valuable and too abundant to leave behind for someone else to collect.
That meant that even if Taj and the crew succeeded in defeating the Wyyvan contingent on the planet and above, she could be sure more would come back in an effort to re-take their claim.
She imagined having to take the fight to the Wyyvan home world one day, and the thought made her head reel. It hadn’t been something she’d pictured when planning to take Krawlas back. It certainly wasn’t something she’d expected to commit her people to, either.
Taj stumbled to a halt as images of a war-torn future assailed her. She stared up at the sky as Cabe came over and set a hand on her shoulder.
“You okay?” he asked, giving a gentle squeeze.
“Yeah,” she replied, shaking off the thought of going to war with the whole of the Wyyvan race. “Was just thinking, working things out,” she told him, readying to start off again.
“Picked a bad time to do that,” a strange voice announced from above them.
The crew stiffened and spun about to see a female standing over them, a rifle pointed their direction.
Dressed in dusty brown pants with a brownish wrap slung over her torso, her yellow eyes gleamed with ferocity.
“We’re not alone,” Dent stated.
“No gack,” Torbon muttered as dozens of similarly dressed people crept out of the tunnels, weapons up and aimed at the crew.
“Don’t move or you die,” an older male told them, inching forward.
He looked gaunt, but not frail.
Taj swallowed hard. The weapons were much like the bolt rifles she and the Furlorians had used when they’d roamed Krawlas. They were crude but powerful.
She was sure the armored suits she and the crew wore would protect them to a degree, but there was no certainty no one would get hurt or killed at this close of range. She decided not to take the chance.
Taj eased her hands into the air. “Nobody do anything stupid,” she ordered over the comm.
“Like surrender?” Torbon asked, reluctantly raising his hands along with the rest of the crew. “You know we can take these guys, right?”
Glad the suits muted the conversation from those outside, she wondered for a second if Torbon was right, but decided against going on the attack.
No one needed to get hurt.
“Stand down,” she ordered.
A quick look at the people surrounding them told her they weren’t Wyyvan, and they weren’t Furlorian either, so that gave her
a pretty good idea as to who they were.
“We’re not with the lizards,” she announced. “In fact, we’re here to kill them.”
Taj triggered her helmet, causing it to meld back into her armor, revealing her features. Several of the strangers gasped at seeing her, and she noticed their weapons wavering.
“You’re Furlorians?” the older male asked.
Taj nodded. “Most of us, at least,” she told him. “We’ve come to take our planet back.”
“Off to a good start, I see,” a young female standing behind the older male snapped, sneering at Taj.
Her skin was dark, almost obsidian, and it gleamed beneath the dirt crusted across her face. Brilliant orbs of blue stared at Taj.
“Easy, Rat,” another male told her, holding his hand up to quiet her.
“Just stating the obvious, Malcolm,” Rat went on, unperturbed by the male’s chastising.
“Doesn’t mean they aren’t who they say they are,” Malcolm shot back. “Let’s give them a chance to explain things.”
“Malcolm’s right,” the older male said.
“Are you serious, Jak?” Rat asked.
“I am,” he answered, not bothering to look at the young female as he did. “Still, I can’t say I’m comfortable with you people carrying all that hardware around with you. Hand over those rifles on your backs, and we can find a nice, quiet, out of the way location without lizards around to discuss your future.”
“Or we could—”
Taj reached out and thumped Torbon in the chest, cutting him off before he got his threat out and instigated something.
“Do it,” she ordered, easing the rifle off her back.
Seeing as how it was hardly the only weapon she had, the others melded into the armor like her helmet was, she didn’t have a problem offering the strangers the most obvious of their armaments.
If that was what it took for them to complete their mission, so be it.
After the weapons were passed over, the strangers ushered them into the nearby tunnels, leading them into the darkness.
Chapter Three
“So, you escaped from the Wyyvans?” Taj asked Jak.
She glanced at her surroundings as he nodded.
The strangers had led them through a maze of narrow tunnels, bringing the crew to a large, rough-hewn cavern several meters beneath the surface of Krawlas. It reminded her of the tunnel system that had been beneath Culvert City. She wondered how much of it was natural, although she was certain these people had put considerable effort into expanding the cave system.
They’d passed one of the Wyyvan tunneling machines on the way in.
“We did,” Jak answered, sitting on a rock that had been positioned to be a chair.
Dozens more of the makeshift seats were scattered about, and the crew plopped onto a number of them. Jak’s people stood around in a loose circle, guns still pointed at the Furlorians, who’d all removed their helmets to assure the strangers that none of them were Wyyvans in disguise.
“These scaly bastards brought most of us here about ten months or so back from all over the place,” Jak went on. “Hard to remember exactly when it was, seeing as how ain’t no one scratching reminders in the dirt or anything, but it’s been a while now.”
“They brought you here to mine for them?” Lina asked.
Jak nodded. “Plan to bring more, too, or so I’ve heard, but Grand Admiral Galforin, the lizard sack of shit in charge up there on that dreadnought, doesn’t appear to be in a hurry to expand his operations for whatever reasons.”
“Means more work for us,” Rat muttered.
“I remember that name,” Cabe growled. “Vort told us about him.”
Taj nodded, swallowing the venom she wanted to spew at hearing the lizard’s name. He’d been the one to blast Krawlas, answering Captain’s Vort’s call for backup, killing her people and forcing those who’d survived to flee.
“It’s probably because he wants the profit for himself,” Dent clarified. “No point in making a big deal of things if it draws attention to what he’s doing.”
Taj was sure the AI was right.
Just like Vort, the other Wyyvans in command were selfish gackwads who would do anything to get ahead of the rest of their people.
Lina raised her arm to the ceiling, examining the computer attached to her armored forearm as she scanned the room. “I presume the Wyyvans can’t pick you up down here because of the Toradium-42.”
“Not that they try all that hard,” Rat spat out. “We’re no threat to them, no matter what Jak wants us to believe.”
“Always have to be difficult, huh, Rat?” Malcolm asked, shaking his head.
“Always have to be reasonable,” she fired back. “Look at us. We’re a bunch of dirt-eaters with blankets for armor. We’re not exactly a threat to the lizards, even on a good day.”
“We can help with that,” Taj offered, seeing an opportunity.
“Yeah, like you and your people didn’t get snuck up on and captured by tunnel-crawlers with antique popguns,” Rat countered. “What help can you possibly give us?”
Taj grinned.
Then she was on the girl.
Her armored suit pushing her natural speed advantage to its limit, Taj ducked under Rat’s weapon and knocked it from her hands with a swipe. As she did that, she ejected her pistol from her suit, pulling it up and around and holding it to the young girl’s temple before Rat could so much as gasp.
Taj offered a feral smile. “We’re hardly helpless,” she explained, letting go of the girl and nudging her forward before Taj returned to her seat, putting her pistol away.
The crowd stirred in response, nervous hands jabbing gun barrels toward the crew, unsure whether to shoot or run away.
“Even without the rifles you took,” Taj went on, “we could kill each and every one of you without fear of reprisal.”
It took every ounce of Taj’s self-control to keep her façade stable, to keep from showing anything to these people that would make them suspect she was bluffing.
The last thing she wanted to do was have to fight or hurt these people, but she was even more concerned by how many of her own people might get hurt were hostilities to break out.
She hoped her posturing would buy them some leverage with the escaped slaves, or at least some information.
Although she and the other Furlorians knew the nature of Krawlas, having been born and raised there, the compound and surrounding area had undergone a drastic transformation. The slaves, however, knew the current Krawlas, and that information would be invaluable to Taj if she was to take out the occupying force of Wyyvans.
Rat ran over and grabbed her rifle from the ground and came back, jabbing it in Taj’s face.
Taj sat stoically, staring down the wavering barrel of the weapon.
“Put it away, Rat,” Jak told the girl. “They proved their point, that’s all.”
The young female stood there with a trembling sneer on her lips. Taj was worried that Rat might just pull the trigger and be done with it, but the girl eased back at last, stepping away, although she didn’t lower the rifle.
“You ever touch me again—” Rat let the threat hang.
Taj nodded to the girl, hoping to earn her respect. “Fair enough. Was only a demonstration.”
Rat was tough, clearly, and headstrong and brave, and Taj didn’t want to do anything to discourage that. They would need allies like her in the fight ahead.
“Go get a drink, Rat,” Jak ordered. “Take a minute to catch your breath.”
Rat held her ground long enough to make it clear it was her choice to leave, not Jak’s, then she sashayed off, glaring at Taj the entire time.
“Looks like you’ve made a friend already,” Torbon said over the comm, covering his mouth so no one but the crew heard him. “Should probably watch your back from now on. That kid looks fierce.”
“You’ll have to forgive Rat—” Jak started, but Taj cut him off with a wave.
&nbs
p; “Nothing to forgive. She doesn’t know us, so she’s only being smart,” Taj explained. “She has nothing to prove to us.”
“I’m glad you understand,” Jak went on. “If we’re honest, though, I agree with Rat. While you might have fancy armor and weapons, you’re not exactly an invasion force, which raises a lot of questions as to why you’re really here.” He motioned to the small number of crew present. “The only reason we didn’t kill you after we captured you was because you’re Furlorian.”
“Why did that buy us your mercy?” Cabe asked, barely restraining his anger at the attitudes of these people.
“Because we’ve proven ourselves to them,” a hauntingly familiar voice said from the shadows.
Taj and the crew leapt to their feet and stared at the source, eyes wide and mouths gaping.
“Harley?” Taj asked.
The young girl stepped forward, offering them a soft smile. An older tom stood beside her, looking sullen.
She recognized them both from when Mama Merr had passed on. The pair of them had been in the tunnels with her when it happened.
Both looked gaunt; far thinner than she remembered them.
“I thought—”
“We were dead?” Harley asked, no hint of rancor in her voice. “We pretty much were,” she went on. “Me and Garr here were caught in the catacombs when the Wyyvans started bombing Culvert City.”
“Wasn’t anywhere to go,” Garr finished. “The lizards dug us out a few days later and put us to work.”
Taj’s blood froze in her veins. She stumbled forward, a hand over her mouth. “I’m so…sorry.”
Harley wrapped her in a hug, pulling Taj close. “Don’t be,” she replied, shaking her head. “You had everyone else to worry about. You did the right thing.”
Garr nodded his agreement as the two separated. “Beaux would be proud to see you now.”
While Taj had managed to hold back her emotions, the mention of Beaux nudged her over the top. A tear ran down her cheek, and Taj wiped it away with the back of her hand.
