by T. J. Quinn
But luck wasn’t on his side that day. Soon, he was hearing the cyborgs communicating with each other, planning the attacks and trying to minimize the human casualties. They hadn't been warned there would be so many innocents inside the colony.
Khajal recognized Rafaroy’s voice, his best friend and he immediately sent him a private message. “Raf, there are hundreds, if not thousands of human females, held prisoners here,” he warned his friend.
“Khajal, you old bastard, what the hell are you still doing here?” he snarled at him.
“That’s not important. You need to blast all their systems, or you’ll kill the females when you try to take them out of here,” he informed him. “They have implanted a system that will kill them if their exit is detected.”
“Very well, I’ll forward the information. Now, get out of here. There’s a high price on your head, and humans are fighting here with us,” his friend warned him.
“I’m leaving. Make sure to destroy this place to the ground. And if you can, try to escape. I’ll be around for a while, in case you make it. The codes still work,” he replied.
“Copied that. I’ll do all in my power, believe me.”
“Good luck my friend.”
On his way to his quarters, he bumped up with a small group of human soldiers. They recognized him and immediately attacked him, but Khajal was ready, and he didn’t have much trouble getting rid of them before continuing his way to get Savannah.
He hoped the nanocybots had destroyed enough the code bar for him to take her out of the colony as soon as possible.
Feeling a bit restless that morning, Savannah spent her time pacing the room. She couldn’t lie down or even sit down. She had a bad feeling, and she didn’t seem able to shake it off, and when she heard the alarms followed by the first blast, she understood why. They were being attacked, and judging by the bombs she was hearing, Khajal had been right about it. They couldn’t care less for all the innocent victims they might kill on the attack.
That cold fact made her feel ashamed of her species and understand a bit more of Khajal’s hate for them.
Quickly, she got rid of the ridiculous navy-blue dress she was wearing and put on the jumpsuit he made her use each time they went walking on the snow, as well as the boots he had gotten her.
She wanted to be ready to leave when he came for her, or to leave alone if he never did. She didn’t doubt his word, but the battle she could hear from here sounded terrible, and she wasn’t sure he would be able to get to her.
The next explosions sounded very close to where she was, and the whole structure quivered, and she started considering her possibilities.
Should she try to get to where he had told her? Or should she wait for him?
She was still trying to decide when she heard women crying not far from where she was. Scared, she opened her door just a little and saw a few human soldiers gathering the women on the other side of the hall.
For a few seconds, she considered joining them. That should be the fastest way to freedom for her, right? But, for some reason, she knew she would be safer with Khajal than with these men, and she decided she had to get away from them as fast as possible. If they captured her, it would be impossible for Khajal to free her from them.
Deciding, she left her quarters silently and slinked down the hall, away from the soldiers and the rest of the women.
Her heart was thundering so loud in her chest, she was having trouble concentrating on the sounds around her. She needed to avoid both armies if she wanted to get to Khajal’s rendezvous place.
She was about to reach the door he had told her to use when a strong arm, appeared from nowhere and grabbed her. “It’s not safe for you to get outside.” A man’s voice snarled in her ear.
She struggled to escape his grip to no use, and when she turned around to look at him, her heart dropped to the floor. She had been caught by a cyborg.
“I just want to get home. Let me go,” she said, struggling harder.
“It’s not safe,” he insisted, with his husky tone. He looked very much like Khajal, but this one had brown hair instead of blue, and his skin looked more human than Khajal’s.
“I know this place better than you,” she assured him, but he didn’t seem to be listening. His nostrils were flared as if he was catching a scent in the air.
“You’ve been with Khajal.” It wasn’t a question, and Savannah froze in the man’s arms, for a few moments.
“I have no idea what you are talking. Let me go. I’m not the enemy,” she protested, struggling harder to get free.
“His scent is all over you, female. There’s no use lying to me,” he assured her, tightening his grip.
Another couple of blasts sounded near them, and again the whole structure quivered under the attack.
Savannah tried to think fast on the way to get out of this predicament. She had no idea if the cyborgs were hunting Khajal down. She couldn’t risk his freedom. “If you’re talking about the cyborg, then yes, I was given to him, while he was here. But he left the colony a couple of days ago,” she assured him.
Rafaroy stared at the woman, astonished. She was protecting his friend, a cyborg she was given to as a slave.
“Are you sure, female? Because I can still sense him here,” he said with a mocking grin.
“Then your sensors are malfunctioning,” she assured him, in a mutinous tone, as she tried to free herself from his grip, once more.
Another blast sounded even closer, and she looked at him with a deep frown. “Don’t you think we should leave this conversation for some other time?” she grumbled. “I’m sure your friends need your help fighting the Taucets, and I really would like to get somewhere safe, if you don’t mind,” she added, oozing all her rage in every single word.
“I can’t let you go. It’s too dangerous,” he insisted.
“I’m sure there’s more danger for me with you guys than by myself. Now, let me go, damn it,” she yelled at him, tugging harder.
He pulled her closer to him and whispered in her ear. “Are you going to meet Khajal?” he asked.
“Even if I was, and I’m not saying I am, why the hell you think I would tell you that?” she replied, through gritted teeth.
“Because he’s my friend and I want to be sure he’s alright,” he said, in a stern tone.
“And why should I believe you? I have no idea who the hell you are and I sure as hell won’t trust you,” she snarled at him.
“I’m your best chance at getting out of here,” he assured her.
Rafaroy realized he had bumped into the reason Khajal had stayed so long at the colony. For some reason, beyond his understanding, his friend had gotten involved with a human female.
He sent a message out to his friend. “I believe I bumped in with your woman,” he said, in a mocking tone.
The snarl that came across their private channel almost deafened him. “Don’t you dare to harm her.”
“Easy boy... I knew she was yours from the first moment. She stinks of you,” he mocked his friend. “She’s trying to get outside the facilities where we are.”
“Let her go, she’s following my instructions,” Khajal said, sounding a bit calmer.
“Should I go with her? This place is a maddening chaos.”
“It’s too dangerous, they could be tracking you, and I don’t want them close to me,” Khajal warned his friend.
A bomb exploded too close to where they were, and Rafaroy pulled her out of there, through the nearest door. “Khajal, this is my opportunity to escape. Can I trust your human? Do you think she can help me deactivate my control system?”
Khajal punched the wall in front of him, frustrated. He wanted Savannah in a safe place, as soon as possible, but his friend was right. This was his best shot at escaping.
“Do you remember all of the codes?” he asked him.
“Of course, I do.”
“Then ask her to help you access your control system. Tell her I’ll be waiting for
her at the rendezvous point we agreed upon,” he said, hoping he wouldn’t live to regret his decision.
“How she will know she can trust me?” Rafaroy asked while he dragged the woman behind him, looking for a safe place amongst the chaos surrounding them.
“Tell her you to know I’ve been licking her code bar to make it fade away. She will know you’ve been in touch with me,” he told his friend. “Get to it. I want to leave this place as soon as possible.”
“Sure thing.” He finally reached a small corner, hidden between two of the igloos. “Listen, I need your help. I’ve just spoken with Khajal, and he told me I could trust you to help me.”
“Yeah, sure, of course, you did,” she replied oozing scorn.
“We have private communication channels, that allow us to talk when we’re close enough,” Raf explained. “But I was expecting your reaction, so I asked Khajal for something only he would know. He told me to tell you about the way he has been licking your code bar to make it fade away.”
Startled, Savannah looked at the cyborg in front of her, remembering how Khajal had told her about their communication system and the man’s last words confirmed he really had been in touch with Khajal.
“Very well, what do you need from me?” she asked, going straight to the point. There was no time to waste.
He pulled a sharp knife from his armor and handed it to her. “I need you to access my control system. We’re programmed in a way that prevents us from accessing to it by ourselves,” he explained.
“You want me to cut you open?” she said, horrified, remembering the wound underneath Khajal’s arm.
“It’s the only way. With it open, I’ll be able to reprogram my system and free myself from the humans’ control,” he explained.
Savannah looked at him and at the knife doubting, but another blast near them was enough for her to decide. “Very well, show me exactly where,” she told him, and a few moments later, she was running the knife across his skin, forming a frame and exposing a small control panel.
“That’s it, thank you,” he said, through gritted teeth.
She handed him the knife, doing her best to control her nausea. “You’re welcome. I have to go now. Take care,” she said before she turned away.
“You too.”
She nodded and walked away. It took her a few seconds to recognize where she was, before she started running towards the point where she was supposed to meet Khajal. Bombs were still exploding all over the place, and there was fire and smoke all around her.
It took her a few minutes to get to the place, and to her relief, he was already there, waiting for her.
Chapter Sixteen
“Were you able to help Rafaroy?” he asked her as he received her in his arms.
“I cut him open, but I didn’t stick around to see if he was able to access the control system,” she replied, taking a few deep breaths.
“That was more than enough. Now, let’s get you out of here,” he said, looking at the chaos behind them.
“Do you think it’s safe?” she asked, not sure she wanted to experience the pain the other women had told her about.
“I won’t lie to you. I’m not sure. I believe the nanocybots have done enough damage to the damn thing to allow us to get the hell out of here and with luck, the humans have already blasted the control system, so we should be alright,” he explained. “But we don’t have any other choice, we must leave now,” he added, in a stern tone.
“I know,” she took a deep breath, and he kissed her, loving her courage.
“Let’s go then.”
He took her hand and dragged her behind him, as they walked to a small door they had located on their strolls through the colony. Khajal used his gun to blast the door, and without giving her time to think, he pushed her through the door, attentive to her reactions.
The system had been deactivated.
“I’m alright,” she told him, with a wide smile.
“Perfect, now let’s get the hell out of here,” he said, taking her hand and starting to run across the snowy woods.
They could still hear the guns and the bombs back at the colony, and Khajal was determined to get as far from it as possible.
After a couple of hours, he stopped to allow her to get some rest. She clearly didn’t have his resistance or his strength.
“I forgot to ask you something,” he said as he took her in his arms to warm her up.
“What is it?” she said, in a shaky voice.
“When the Taucets took you to the colony, did they implant any tracking device in you?” he asked, in a stern tone. He had been thinking about that ever since they had left the colony.
Even if the humans didn’t leave any Taucet alive, they would be able to catch the signal emitted by her tracking devices.
“Oh, god… yes, they did. The nipple rings, they told me they were tracking devices and that the only way to get them out was by tearing the nipple off,” she explained.
“Damn… I should have remembered this earlier,” he grumbled. “Let me look at them,” he said, and she quickly opened the jumpsuit she was wearing.
He cupped one of her breasts and examined the small ring, placed on her nipple. It was made of an unknown metal he wasn’t sure he would be able to cut open, so his best chance was at deactivating the damn things. He scanned them, but they looked a lot more complicated than the code bar they had printed on her neck.
“We’ll have to take our chances with this, at least, for now. Even if the humans are looking for me, they won’t be looking at the aliens’ frequencies,” he said, with a deep frown.
“Are you sure you want to take that risk? Perhaps you should go alone and leave me behind. I’ll be able to get to a village and hide there,” she said, dreading the idea of being away from him.
She knew it would happen sooner or later, but she would rather have it later.
“You would endanger any villages you went to. The Taucets from the other colonies will try to track the slaves to see if they can recover them,” he assured her. “They need the human females to reproduce themselves,” he explained. “We’ll find a way to deactivate those things, believe me. Now, we have to continue.”
She nodded. “Do you have any idea where we are going?” she asked, as she got up.
“Yes, of course. That time I contacted the free cyborgs, we set up the coordinates for them to pick me up in a few weeks. I was to contact them in case I needed them to come for me earlier,” he explained.
“Were you able to send those coordinates to your friend?” she asked him, with a slight frown, not very pleased with the idea of him leaving so soon.
“Yes, I was. I hope he was able to get away,” he said, as they resumed their walk across the woods, going up the mountains.
The jumpsuit she was wearing wasn’t warm enough to protect her from the chilly weather, and she prayed they would get to a place where they could take cover from the snow falling as soon as possible.
But they didn’t. And after a couple of hours, she simply collapsed to the ground.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, kneeling next to her.
Shivering uncontrollably, she fluttered her eyes to look at him. “I can’t… go on… too cold…”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he scolded her, in a soft tone, as he picked her in his arms and pushed her against his warm chest.
“I know… We have to… get as far as possible,” she replied, burying her face in his chest.
“I don’t want to get anywhere if that means you’ll collapse,” he scolded her once more. “Come, I’ll carry you,” he said, trying to get her to climb on his back.
“No… you can’t… I’m too heavy…” she protested.
“Slave… my armor is heavier than you,” he pointed out in a coldly. “Besides, I’m a cyborg. I can carry ten times my weight,” he added, finally getting her in position before he got up.
She could feel his warmth through his jumpsuit, and she cuddled up mor
e against him. “I’ll stay here just for a while,” she assured him, as she closed her eyes.
The wind and snow hurled around them and she hid her face on his back.
Khajal scolded himself for not getting her a coat or something. The weather was too cold, and he realized he had to look for cover as soon as possible or she would get hypothermia.
Stopping for a few seconds, he scanned the area they were on and found a series of caves not far from them. He couldn’t detect any wildlife in them so he headed toward them as fast as he could. He needed to get her to a warm and safe place.
The caves were farther than he expected, but he finally got there and took her all the way in, helped by his night vision. Though he didn’t want to leave her there alone, he needed to find some wood to make a fire so she could get warm as fast as possible.
“Stay here, I won’t be long,” he asked her, while he laid her on the hard ground of the cave.
She nodded as she curled up around herself, trying to get warm, missing his body underneath her.
Khajal left the cave and looked for a dead tree. It would be easier to make a fire with it. Fortunately, he found one, not far from where he was, and he ran there, worried about Savannah.
With a strong kick, he brought down the old log and turning his gun into a laser he cut it in a few pieces that he carried back to the cave.
Savannah was still there, with her eyes closed and he feared she was unconscious.
Quickly, he set up a fire near her, and when he got it burning, he laid next to her and pulled her into his arms, trying to warm her up as best as he could.
After a few minutes, he heard her moaning, and his worries faded a bit.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, showing concern on his tone.
“Too cold…” she mumbled.
“The fire is already burning. Perhaps we should get you out of that jumpsuit. It must be wet,” he suggested.
“No… it’s impermeable,” she replied, getting closer to him, seeking his warmth.
“I should have thought of this and ordered you to get a coat or something,” he said, in a self-deprecating tone.
