by Greg Dragon
Her eyes met Cilas’s but she couldn’t read his face, which was a cross between a look of horror and one of extreme anger.
“Lieutenant,” Helga said, her dry throat causing her voice to crack.
“Yeah?” he said. “What’s up, Ate?”
She could barely see him in the diminished light.
“Are we thyped? What’s our plan?” she said.
He didn’t answer, which frightened her even more.
“We were sent here as food for these crutas,” Brise said, and Helga wondered what he meant by “sent.”
“How does that make any sort of sense, Sol?” she said. “Who would send us across the galaxy just to become food for lizards?”
“Oh, shut it, Ate. If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t be locked up in here,” he said. “You made us take that stupid thopter, which they used to track us and get Lamia. I finally was official, and then you came along, thyping things up for us. What kind of cadet training were you given, anyway? Did they not teach you to obey the chain of command? Master Chief said to march, but you wanted to fly, just so you could show off for the lieutenant.”
“Thype you,” Helga screamed. She was so angry that she shook. Her feet slipped off the outlet and her shoulder pain returned. But she did not feel it. All she could feel was rage, and the need to break out of her restraints to punch him in his mouth.
She was about to cut into him about being a terrible squad mate when Cilas finally spoke. “You two finished?” he said. “We need to cut out the blame and figure a way out of here. Judging by the way these bodies have been preserved, I assume that we will be here for a while. They will bite into each one of us, trying to see if we have the Seeker blood. That’s our reality, Nighthawks. You need to accept it.
“We will need to work together to get ourselves free, so whatever you feel for one another, just push it to the side and think. Before Lamia attacked us, I sent an SOS to Louine, informing them that the lizards had taken over the moon. We need to be strong, just in case they send help. Keep your wits, even if one or two of us dies. Do you understand me, Nighthawks?”
“Yes, sir,” Helga said.
“Of course, Lieutenant,” said Brise Sol, but then he shot her an angry glance. He looked as if he wanted to say something more, but kept his mouth in check.
Helga decided that she hated this man, who had been judging her silently since they deployed. At least Wyatt was honest and had given her a chance. She wished that it was Brise who Lamia had killed.
She wept silently as she hung her head and thought about the men that had died. Cruser, who she had considered a friend, who had helped her strap in and adjust to a new life. Varnes, who had been friendly from the very beginning, who had a wife and family waiting on the Rendron. His loss above all brought tears to her eyes. He’d lost so much yet managed to still be so nice.
Then there was the Master Chief, Cage Hem, who had done everything to keep her alive. A giant who placed the mission ahead of himself. Even Wyatt had come around to treating her as one of them. He had touched her shoulder when they faced off against the dredge, and that tiny gesture had meant so much.
The chat with Lamia, seeing his face change the way it did – she feared that she could have warned them, if she only knew. Was Brise Sol right? Had her rookie mistakes cost them their lives? Could a more seasoned ESO had recognized Lamia’s change? It was possible, she reasoned, someone who’d seen it happen before. The more she thought about it, the more she felt a painful guilt grow inside of her chest.
She had known that she would experience terrible things coming on this mission, but she didn’t know that so much responsibility would have been passed on to her. It was like a painful nightmare she could not escape, and she hoped that she would wake soon. She’d awaken in their camp with Wyatt laughing, and Varnes brooding about his wife.
This was not the case as she hung there for a time, slowly accepting her fate. When a mist of cold vapor came down from the vents, she felt her limbs stiffen, and saw Cilas and Brise lose consciousness. For some reason she didn’t pass out completely, and she could still see what was going on around her.
The door slid open, and several Geralos walked in. One pointed, and the leader shook his head and then gestured towards another woman. They touched a panel above the woman’s head, and her slender, pale body took on a flush of color.
When the thawing was over, she began to move, and the Geralos grabbed her hair and pulled her head down. He produced a knife with a glowing edge, and cut open her head with a quick, practiced move. As the woman began to scream, the leader bit into the exposed brain, and stood that way, with his eyes rolled back.
Helga had always heard that the Geralos ate human brains, but what she was witnessing was something else. Perhaps this important Geralos was in fact eating the brain, but it was in a manner that she had never imagined. She strained her eyes and ears to investigate further, but then her vision blurred and everything went black.
10
His eyes cracked slightly, defying the thin film that covered his face. The pain was gone, but this wasn’t a good thing. Pain meant that you still had feeling, and more importantly, that you were still alive.
There had been so many theories about death and what came afterwards that Cilas Mec had resolved to believe that no one really knew. Now he pondered the numerous possibilities. Was he now a spirit, stuck to his frozen corpse, forever tied to this life until it was properly disposed?
That was one theory at least, but there were others. Perhaps this was the afterlife, and he was being punished for a lifetime of killing. At least the first supposition had some hope. Perhaps someone in time would come, find him hanging, and destroy the place.
His lids came open to a dark room, and he could smell the stench of the deceased. As his eyes became focused, he could make out Brise Sol, but Helga’s hook was empty.
His heart sunk. She must not have made it. They bit into her skull and used her up. Why am I awake? he thought, looking towards the door. He wondered how long he had been out.
He could feel his heart beating now, pounding in his chest, but he couldn’t move his limbs. An hour passed as he hung there, wondering. It felt like torture, and his mind was teetering at the brink of the dark abyss of insanity.
Resolved to his fate, he thought back on their mission. Brise said they were sent as food, but Cilas believed it went deeper than that. For a long time since starting the Nighthawks, their missions had been in sync with the standard Alliance Navy. Starships would fight the big loud wars, while he and the boys went after high value targets.
Going after the Geralos command was as dangerous as it came, but he had Cage Hem, and together they made a formidable team. He missed the big man, especially his smile. It was always there to reassure him that “impossible” was just a word.
Four major battles had been won thanks to his Nighthawks: the Alliance’s silent assassins. Then Lamia came aboard and they won three more, and that was when things began to change. There were no more covert kill missions, just random drop and fetch. Things that a regular squad could handle, yet they were the ones made to do it.
It felt like punishment, and he could only vent to Cage. Still, it began to be a problem, trying to keep his men motivated. “Go search a derelict ship,” or “escort a Genese diplomat to the moon of Traxis.” These were their orders after so much success.
Why would you need the Alliance’s best for doing things like this? Then this fiasco, this messy mission to rescue settlers on Dyn. Cilas wracked his mind for an incident in the past where he would have offended Retzo Sho. He was always respectful to his Captain, even when he disagreed with the man.
The only thing that made sense was that it went beyond Captain Sho. But why would Alliance Command want the Nighthawks out of the way? That part was even tougher to understand than the theory of having offended the captain. The only thing they ever did was to follow orders to the letter.
He began to feel his body, and as co
ntrol returned, so did the pain in his upper arms. He felt as if he’d been run over by big barrels of rocket fuel, or had gotten the worst part of a five-man brawl. Still, he could finally move, and that meant that he had a chance. He examined the body next to him and paid careful attention to its restraints.
It seemed that the only thing holding them to the wall were the cuffs, and they were merely draped over a hook. If he could slip the hook, he’d be able to get down, and then he’d be able to help out Brise.
As time ticked by, he worked at weakening the hook by pushing off the wall with his legs. It was metal in stone, and he was heavy enough to make it move when he threw his legs out in front of him.
Between the hunger and the pain in his limbs, this exercise reminded him of BLAST—which was the Navy’s Basic Land and Space Training.
For an ESO operator, BLAST was the epitome of hell. Several long months of grueling objectives, ranging from space to planetary survival. Select spacers were put to the test, from simulating exposure in spatial conditions to spending time in a rain forest on the savage planet of Arbar.
All of the Nighthawks had been through BLAST; it was a requirement that he and Cage had set. They were all special, especially Helga, who he had seen as a copy of himself. He tried not to think about her, since he blamed himself. He had brought her along just to die.
With one big push, his legs came up, and this time they made it over his head. As he reached the peak, he jerked his hands up, and was free for a few seconds before the floor found his back. Struggling as the air rushed out of his lungs, he blinked past the stars to cough up blood.
When he could finally breathe, Cilas got to his feet. “Good job, Nighthawk,” he whispered to himself. His eyes found Brise, who still hung in a frozen state. “I have to find a way out and then come back to get him,” he whispered. “No use having us both get killed, if the lizards manage to catch me out there.”
He limped over to the door, paused, and looked down at his hands. He was still wearing the chained cuffs and would need to get them off. He examined the room to determine what it had been before the Geralos turned it into a prison. He decided that it had been a freezer that started out as a kitchen. The settlers rigged it to store something large, but he couldn’t tell what it would have been.
Did they find animals on the moon to kill and store here for food? he thought. If this place where they were hooked was considered a freezer, than the adjacent room had to be a kitchen. They had been led down a hallway, past several closed doors. Which mean that there was a chance that guards were standing outside that door.
But wouldn’t the lizards have heard me fall? It was loud enough—unless they were deaf. He cracked the door, and something moved. Without stopping to consider who it was or what, Cilas acted on instinct and grabbed him. He wrapped his left arm around his neck, pinned his gun arm, and kicked the back of his knee.
The Geralos fell forward, dropping to his knees, and Cilas threw his chained cuffs around his neck. Wrapping his legs around his waist, he hooked in his feet and fell backwards. Gurgling as he thrashed about, fighting for his life, the Geralos reached up to pull the chain away from his throat. But Cilas was desperate, despite his weakened state, and pulled the chain tight, using his legs for leverage.
After what seemed like an eternity, the Geralos went limp, but Cilas kept pulling just in case it was a trick. When his energy was spent and the movement had stopped, he accepted that his enemy was dead.
He listened down the hallway to see if any more would come, but the place was quiet, and the doors stood closed. Maybe they can’t hear, he thought as he got up. He searched the guard for the keys to his cuffs, and found them almost immediately.
Cilas grabbed the Geralos and pulled him into the room where the rest of the humans were hanging. Before waking Brise, he wanted to make sure there was a clear path of escape. He took the Geralos’s handgun and leaned him up against a wall, then went around and unlocked all of the cuffs.
After checking their vitals, he found that Brise was the only one still alive. Most of the others had already been bitten, but some had simply starved to death. He slipped back into the hallway and tried the next door. It was a kitchen just like he imagined, with five Geralos asleep inside. Cilas slid the door shut and destroyed the locking panel, standing with his back to the wall trying to catch his breath.
“I can’t do this alone,” he whispered to himself, and went back to the first room to wake up Brise. He stepped over the bodies to find the Nighthawk, and rubbed the frost from his face with the blade of his hand. “Sol,” he said, then slapped him in the face. “Brise Sol, wake up!”
“Lieutenant?” Brise said.
“Yes, it’s me, wake up. We’re breaking out of here,” Cilas said.
“I can’t feel my legs,” the young man said, his voice sounding frightened.
“It’s okay, you’re not paralyzed. This is just part of the process. Whatever the lizards froze us with shuts off the mobility to our limbs.” He thought he heard a noise. “Sol, I have to go. There will be lizards storming this building. I’m going to buy you some time out there. When you can finally move come join me.”
“What if you die?” he said. “You can’t take them all by yourself.”
What’s wrong with this kid? Cilas thought. He should be better than this. “You’re a Nighthawk, Sol, how about you act like it? What if I die? Don’t ask me that, schtill. If I die you fight on, because that is what we do.”
Why did I bother? he wondered, then stepped back out into the hall. There were three more closed doors before the main entrance and he needed to know what they were.
The first door he took his time opening, and hid behind the wall. He listened to hear if anyone moved, but it remained quiet inside. He chanced a look. It was empty and dark, except for a solitary figure in the back. It was a female form, which looked like Helga, but the idea seemed absurd.
She had been the sole female with them, but why would they choose to isolate her? He’d heard numerous stories of the Geralos experimenting on humans. Helga was part Casanian and they would have found out the hard way, since Casanian blood was toxic to them.
He’d expected on discovery that they’d kill her outright, not wanting to risk more casualties. But perhaps they were seeing if they could dilute her blood, to make her brain safe for eating. He took a few steps in and examined the form. It was definitely Helga, but she had no clothes.
“I’ll come back for you, Ate,” he said, backing out. He wondered why she was naked, and assumed the worst. Poor kid, he thought. Whatever they did, I’ll make them pay. With both Brise and his pilot, he was liking his chances of finding a way off this moon.
Cilas checked the next room and found it empty, so he made his way to the final door. A commotion outside the main doors grabbed his focus, he was about to be overrun. He clutched his pistol and brought it up, walking slowly towards the main doors.
“Steady,” he said to himself, as he stared down the pistol’s sights. He was determined not to miss when they came rushing in. They had the numbers, but he was a Nighthawk, and the steadiest aim always wins.
The doors slid open, and he pulled the trigger twice, hitting the chest and abdomen of the Geralos who came in. The lizard went down, but he kept on firing, dropping another as the first fell back into him. But the Geralos that followed didn’t rush him like he expected. They shut the door and took off running, which left him feeling a bit confused.
Cilas lowered the pistol and eased his breathing. He was alive after committing to die. Second chances came with confusion, and a lot of adrenaline, so he didn’t really know what to think.
Why had they run? It made no sense; he was but one man with a gun. Even if he managed to keep on shooting, the pistol would’ve overheated and ceased to function. He’d get at least five, but then they would have him … every ESO worth his uniform knew the limits of a gun.
Their running only meant one of two things had happened. They’d either set
a trap, or something more pressing was happening outside. Cilas checked the last door, holding the pistol up and ready. It was a closet full of gear that the settlers had used for traveling outside.
He slipped inside this closet and locked the door, waiting for the inevitable explosion, or the Geralos rally. Neither happened as he stood in the dark waiting, his mind going through an endless sequence of different scenarios.
One had them opening the door and disarming him instantly, then torturing him and Brise for hours before allowing them to die. Another had them shutting off the oxygen, and he would wake up on the hook freshly frozen.
When it had been over twenty minutes, he donned one of the suits and pulled on the mask. He stepped back out into the hallway and slowly walked towards the main doors. As he grew close, they suddenly opened, and Cilas lifted his pistol, preparing to shoot.
But he paused when he saw what it was that was waiting, an armored figure too tall to be Geralos. Behind him were the dead bodies of the Geralos that had fled when he shot the first two. There were also lights that he didn’t recognize, and other armored strangers within the dome.
They regarded one another, and Cilas lowered his pistol. The enemy of his enemy was definitely his friend. It didn’t matter who this was; what mattered was that he wasn’t Geralos. He lifted his free hand and gave the universal sign of peace.
“I am Lieutenant Cilas Mec, of the starship Rendron,” he said. “Man, are you a sight for sore eyes. I was sent here to rescue these poor settlers, but they took us prisoner and—wait, can you understand what I’m saying, friend? There are humans here who need your help.”
The man didn’t move, so Cilas became concerned. Was he wrong to trust this stranger? He didn’t recognize the armor, but he noticed that the mask was similar to the ones they wore. If this was some trick by a mysterious Geralos, he would drop to the floor and pull the trigger.
