by Tim Marquitz
She hadn’t given much thought to what she and the others were doing when she’d first started off, but as she neared her objective, realization had sunk home like a feral kitten’s teeth. She was running to her death, dragging her crew right along with her.
Taj gasped and nearly stumbled, catching her balance at the last moment.
If the aliens had found them, they would be swarming the secretive tunnels in force, an army there to root out the remaining Furlorians with prejudice. What hope did she and her crew have of repelling a full-on assault by the invaders?
None.
The answer dripped uninvited into her brain.
By then, though, it was too late to alter their course. Taj caught a whiff of scorched earth and the musky scent of the balborans pens. She skittered to a stop, whiskers flickering as she tightened her grip on her gun.
She raised a fist to stop her crew behind her. They came to a muffled halt at her back without a word, and Taj heard voices echoing through the tunnel ahead: strange, alien voices, distorted by their armored visors.
“Loz, damn it!” the first voice shouted.
“You all right?” another asked, the second voice seeming to come from a greater distance.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Stay there then,” the second came back. “Give us a minute to get some rope.”
Taj stiffened at hearing the voices, the conversation drifting in her head but not making any sense given what she’d pictured was happening.
She turned to her companions and pointed at the ground where they stood, imploring them to stay put. She needed to get closer to see what was going on, but Taj didn’t want to risk the lives of her crew any more than she already had. Besides, if her suspicions were right, it was best they stay where they were anyway.
Without waiting for her crew to respond, she slunk off, covering her nose and mouth as dust and dirt swirled about, choking the corridor the closer she came to where the aliens had broken through.
A dim light broke through the collapsed ceiling a short distance ahead, drawing Taj in. She held her breath and crept closer, her back so close to the wall that she could feel its cold stone emanating through her fur.
The quiet shuffle of pacing footsteps wafted to her ears a moment later, and she caught snippets of incoherent muttering. She slowed even further, coming to a halt near a mound of debris that had collected on the near side of the tunnel break. It had gathered in the curve and providing cover for her approach. The muttering continued from the other side, scraping bootsteps punctuating every complaint.
“The captain’s going to skin me,” Taj heard an alien mutter. “Get me out of here,” he then called out, directing his ire toward someone invisible above.
A cold chill skittered down her spine at his words, realization sinking in to reinforce her earlier uncertainty. Now she understood why the conversation she’d heard hadn’t made sense.
These aliens weren’t storming the tunnels; they’d stumbled across them by accident.
Taj grinned. They hadn’t discovered the Furlorians’ hiding place. At least not yet.
“What’s down there?” a voice called out from above.
“Shit if I know,” the fallen alien replied. “It’s a damned tunnel. We hit some kind of sinkhole or something.”
Taj dared a glance around the corner to see the alien waving his arms at another, whose face appeared in the hole above, head surrounded by a halo of morning light. The helmeted alien hovered there for a moment in silence before started up again, his visored gaze shifting back and forth between his companion and the mouth of the tunnel where Taj lurked.
“We’re getting rope to get you out, but you should do a little recon while you’re down there.” The alien jabbed a finger toward the tunnel. “The walls there don’t look entirely natural.”
Taj groaned under her breath. He was right. Though the Furlorians had found the tunnel system, they had worked over the years to expand and reinforce them and smooth the walls. And though the section they were in now had been the last of the labyrinth worked on, a close enough inspection of the stone would let anyone know there had been outside assistance for them to have reached their current state of functionality. Given who resided on the planet, it wouldn’t take more than a second before the aliens realized the Furlorians were using the place to hide from the invaders.
“You want me to explore the damn place?” the trapped alien asked.
“Why not? You got something better to do?”
The first alien grumbled something quiet enough to not be clear, but Taj didn’t need to understand it to know he was cursing the soldier above.
“Me and Frol will be down to help in a minute, as soon as we secure the rope, so take a quick peek ahead. Hopefully this is nothing, but with the captain on a rampage, I sure ain’t going to give him an excuse and say we weren’t thorough. How about you?”
The trapped alien grunted, setting the steam in his hoses to frothing. “All right already.” He waved a hand, shaking his head, and started in Taj’s direction. “I’m going but get that damn rope ready. I don’t want to spend all day down here.”
Taj bolted back down the tunnel as the soldier came her way. Fortunately, he took slow, measured steps, examining everything as he went. Taj ran into her crew, all of them chomping at the bit. She huddled in close.
“They don’t know we’re here,” she whispered. “Not yet, at least, but there’s a soldier headed our way, exploring the tunnels. Won’t be long before he realizes this is where all our people disappeared to.”
“What do we do?” Lina asked, visibly stiffening as the scrape of the alien soldier’s boots sounded a little way down the corridor. The pistol in her hand trembled.
Taj drew in even closer. “We need to take him out quickly and quietly,” she said. “There’ll be a couple more following him in a a few minutes.”
“We can’t let them hear us then,” Cabe insisted, drawing a nod of agreement from the others.
He broke away from the huddle and glanced around the tunnel. Taj saw what he did, realizing there was little cover for them to hide behind with only one small alcove nearby. He waved the crew toward it as the thump of bootsteps drew closer. Taj shook her head and ushered the others into the alcove, remaining outside.
“What are you doing?” Lina hissed?
“Being bait,” she answered, and there wasn’t time to say anything else.
The soldier came around the bend in the tunnel and spotted her. Taj slipped her weapon from view, stuffing it into the belt of her uniform at the base of her back, and she dropped to her knees with a sob.
“Please, don’t hurt me,” she cried.
“What the—?” the alien asked, his surprise obvious even through his visor. The steam in his breathing apparatus gurgled. “Stay where you are!” he shouted, raising his rifle and starting forward. “Don’t you move.”
Taj offered a compliant nod, sniffling. Though everything was going according to plan—if it could be called a plan at all—she didn’t have to fake her fear.
She knew gack well that Captain Vort wanted her and her people dead. There was nothing keeping her alive but the hope that this soldier wanted to capture the captain’s good graces by bringing him a prisoner who knew where the rest of the Furlorians were squirreled away.
Inch by inch, he drew closer, gun raised, ready to tap the trigger and end Taj’s last-minute ruse of servility. “Please,” she said again. “Don’t kill me.” Taj sunk deeper, groveling against the stone flooring.
“I should,” the alien answered, but she could see his confidence growing. What menace was there in a single, small Furlorian anyway?
Taj buried a grin behind her cowed head. He’d find out shortly.
She raised her hands and scuttered backward.
“Stay where you are, or I’ll—”
He didn’t get more than that out before a furred blur crashed into him and slammed him into the nearby wall.
There was
a sharp crack as the alien’s visor shattered against the stone. The soldier grunted, shaking his head to clear it, but Cabe didn’t relent. He pinned the alien against the wall and kicked his legs out from under him. The alien hit the floor with a curse, struggling to bring his rifle around, but that never happened.
Taj shot forward and pushed her hand inside the alien’s helmet, through the broken visor. Her claws found his eyes and sunk in. The soldier gasped, the sound quickly turning into a ragged shriek. Taj hardened her will, steeling herself for what she needed to do, and tightened her grip. Then she yanked her hand from the alien’s helmet, raking her claws across his eyes, tearing one out.
She felt blood pulse, warm and wet, in her palm. She cast the grisly trophy aside, stumbling into the wall at her back as the soldier thrashed about. She stared at him, the alien clawing at his wound as though he could stop the gusher of blood spilling free from his face and filling his helmet. Her stomach churned at what she’d done, how easy it had been to maim another creature, blinding him with her own bare hands.
She pressed her palm against the alien’s chest, leaving a red handprint behind, while the soldier whimpered, going still as the pain overwhelmed him, and unconsciousness took hold.
The crew looked at her, eyes wide. It was one thing to fire back on an enemy, killing them before they did you, but what she’d done was up close and personal. It was the type of fighting Mama Merr had spoken about. And Taj knew it would change her.
All of them did.
But before despair could sink its talons in deeper and force her into a fetal ball while she questioned her every action, more voices rumbled down the tunnel, coming from where the aliens had broken in. Taj shook her morbid thoughts clear and rolled the soldier over, her hands yanking at his gear despite the crews’ confused stares.
There was still more to be done.
She pushed her disgust away and snatched one of the silver devices from the alien’s belt.
“S’thlor!” a voice shouted in the near distance. “Where are you?”
Taj rose from the alien corpse, swallowing hard. “Bind his wounds and keep him alive,” she whispered, then shot off toward the voices that grew louder with every second.
“What are you—?” Cabe started to mutter behind her, but she didn’t stop to respond.
She continued down the corridor, not bothering to hide her presence. A moment later, she skittered around the last corner separating her from the other aliens who’d invaded their tunnels. She grinned when the pair spied her.
“Hey!” the first of the aliens called out. “What are you—?”
She answered his question with action instead of words. Taj twisted the device like she’d seen the soldiers do and tossed it their way. Both aliens went rigid at the sight. There was a moment of silence, the only sound in the tunnel the metallic clank of the grenade bouncing across the floor. The men finally gathered their wits, screamed, and spun about before bolting.
“Run before—”
Taj had done just that. She darted around the corner, putting the stone wall between her and the grenade. The aliens had no such protection.
There was a horrendous boom, and the tunnels swayed drunkenly under Taj’s feet. She crashed into her crew, taking them to the ground with her in a heap of tangled limps and hissed curses.
Dust spilled from the ceiling, coating them in a cloud of gray. A deep, rumbling echo filled their ears as the cavern collapsed behind them, burying the alien soldiers under ton of rubble and debris.
And as much as Taj hated that she was responsible for their deaths, a quick glimmer of Mama Merr washed over her, and Taj couldn’t help but grin. While these particular soldiers might not have been directly responsible for the old Gran’s death, there was a satisfying irony in the way they’d been killed, the roof coming down on top of them as it had Mama.
Taj sighed and disentangled herself from her crew, inching over and pressing her back to the wall. Their wide eyes followed her, cautious expressions defying the curiosity she knew they felt. She ignored their unspoken questions and gestured toward the alien on the floor.
“He still alive?”
Lina nodded. “Barely.”
“Good.” Taj clambered to her feet. “Then let’s grab him and get back to our people.”
“What do you want with this guy?” Cabe asked, going over to scoop the soldier up despite his obvious reticence.
“He might be useful,” Taj answered, moving to help Cabe. “He knows things that might be important to us.”
“So, you plan to torture him,” Lina asked, “like they’re doing to our people?”
Taj shrugged. “Time is running short, and they’re not leaving us much in the way of options,” she answered with a sigh. “I don’t want to do this any more than you do, but if it helps our people get out of this safely, then I’ll do whatever I need to.” She met the engineer’s gaze until Lina relented and looked away.
It’s what Mama and Beaux would do.
Together, the crew carried the wounded soldier through the tunnels, and Taj pushed aside any thoughts of right and wrong. She could worry about that later. Right now, it was all about making sure her people were safe.
They’d gotten lucky the aliens had only stumbled across the tunnels by accident, a byproduct of whatever it was they were doing. They wouldn’t be so lucky next time, and anything Taj could do to prepare her crew and people for the next attack, she would do it.
Including torturing an alien soldier.
She drew in a slow, deep breath, and held it until it soured in her lungs before letting it slip loose. This wasn’t who she wanted to become, but she couldn’t see any other way. Besides, if all she had to sacrifice to keep her people safe was her innocence, it was worth it.
At least she hoped it was.
Chapter Twenty
It took the crew nearly a half hour to get the wounded alien back to where the others were gathered. Lina had run ahead to let everyone know they were safe, and that they didn’t have to run. Not yet, at least.
A small group of Furlorians met the crew at a small chamber cut off the side of the tunnels. That’s where Taj and Cabe dumped the soldier. Grady stood there alongside Gran Em, both of them rubbing at their paws.
Taj knew the look. It was one of dissatisfaction. She didn’t let it stop her, though, and she ignored the narrow glares of the pair.
Snubbed, Gran Em cleared her throat. “Why did you bring that thing here?” she asked.
“He might be able to tell us more about the enemy,” Taj answered without so much as looking back at the Gran.
“And you think he’ll simply divulge that information to you?”
Taj stiffened and turned on a heel to face the old Gran. “I don’t expect anything except that I’m going to do my best to find out whatever I can to help us.”
She told Cabe to stay put, then waved Lina off after some water for their prisoner. Though she figured it would come down to her torturing the alien for information, she wanted to try a different tact first. If she could avoid bloodying her hands, that’d be the best route. But if she had to…
That thought trailing off inside her head, the alien groaned, and Cabe settled him upright with his back against the wall. They’d stripped him of his weaponry and communication devices on the trip through the tunnels, not that he had much. Taj made sure Cabe stayed nearby so the alien didn’t get a chance to do something unexpected.
The soldier stared at Taj with bloody sockets, swollen shut. He said nothing, simply licking his lips and waiting. Taj pushed a flask of water against those same lips once Lina returned, doing her best not to stare at the wreckage of his features.
“Here, take a drink.”
The soldier complied, gulping down several sips before Taj pulled the flask away. “That’s enough for now. I’ll give you more in a moment,” she told him.
“Will you?” he asked, his voice jagged and raw.
Taj nodded, then muttered a quiet, “Yes,�
� realizing the alien couldn’t see her. You blinded him, the thought rang out, and she shook her head to push it aside. She couldn’t think about that right then. For all that had happened, she’d been fighting for her life.
She still was, for that matter.
“Look, I need to ask you some questions, and if you decide not to answer them, I’ll be forced to hurt you further,” she said. “Do you understand?”
He nodded without hesitation. “I’m dead already, Furlorian. There’s no coming back from this with my people.” He gestured to his face, then to the tunnels surrounding him in a general manner. “I’m a lost cause now.”
“What do you mean?” Taj heard Grady and Em shuffle closer, grabbing a spot alongside the crew.
“Captain Vort has no use for a blind, captured soldier,” he replied. “Were he to know I was here, he would kill me right alongside all of you without any hesitation.” He shrugged again. “Better I take my chances with you and plead for mercy than hope my precious captain will take pity on me.” He said the last with phlegmy chuckle.
Despite herself, Taj grinned. She’d known the aliens were loyal to Vort out of fear more than honor, but to hear it so plainly laid out made her heart swell. Maybe there was hope after all, perhaps she could turn them against their commanders.
Taj put a hand on the alien’s shoulder and gave a firm but gentle squeeze. “I promise you that no more harm will come to you as long as you cooperate.” Cabe stood nearby, and though the alien couldn’t see him, the Furlorian held a bolt pistol aimed at the soldier’s chest.
The alien let out a resigned sigh and licked at his broad green lips. “Then ask your questions, alien, and I’ll do my best to provide you with answers, though you need to understand that Captain Vort and Commander Dard are the two who truly know the most. They kept us grunts in the dark.” His tail swished against the floor, hard scales scraping against stone.
Taj had figured as much, but it was worth a shot anyway. “What’s your name? S’lorth?” she asked, vaguely remembering one of the other aliens calling it out.
