by N. W. Harris
Vital signs unstable. First aid system malfunctioning, it read. Seek medical attention.
Pain enveloped his right shoulder, but other than that and a concussion, he didn’t feel like anything was wrong. He tried to get up, to see if anyone else was still in the pod, but his legs didn’t respond to his command.
With his one good arm, he groped his body from the chest down, finding his hips at a sharp and unnatural angle to his torso. He’d broken his back.
“No,” he groaned, panting frantically.
Please remain calm and seek medical attention, the narrow screen above his visor read, apparently able to sense his panic.
“Great advice!” Shane broke into hysterical laughter, tore his helmet off, and hurled it across the dark pod. He immediately regretted throwing the helmet, hoping he hadn’t hit anyone.
Methodically breathing in and out, he focused on subduing the panic, regaining a semblance of control. Dr. Blain could fix this, if he could stay alive long enough to get to her.
Funny how he felt uncomfortable in her presence. He’d come up with all kinds of sinister reasons why he didn’t like her, but in the end, maybe she just reminded him of his mom—always there to patch him up when he scraped his knee. Maybe he needed her to help fill that void, but he was too scared to admit it. He sure wished she were doting over him now.
Tears forming in his eyes, Shane kept still and tried to get his bearings. He felt a surge of warmth in his veins. The suit had administered a dose of pain medicine. Recovering his senses, he replayed the events that had brought him to this point in his mind. Liam was dead, vaporized when the reactor exploded. He felt guilty for it—they shouldn’t have left him behind. What if he was unconscious but clinging to life? In the heat of battle, they’d given up on him too quickly. Thank God Steve had grabbed Maurice, though he was probably dead too. All but one had made it into the pod. Two had been tossed out in flight, though the armor might have still been energized when they hit the ground. He hoped one of the ejected passengers was the Anunnaki Shock Troop soldier. Most of his team could be alive. Unless they’d all fallen out when he couldn’t see, one or two of them were still in the pod.
He could hear sounds of battle off in the distance. Jones and the rebel-trained army of teenagers must’ve rolled in to help with the fight. All the reactors must’ve been destroyed. He hoped Kelly and her team had fared better than his. At least Tracy was probably still alive, leading the freed teens against the supremacist a-holes who inhabited the ship.
It was too dark in the pod to see if anyone lay unconscious around him. Shane strained his ears to pick up a sign of life. He remembered seeing Maurice shot through the chest, and a flood of grief puddled his eyes. He’d lost so many people. According to the annoying message that had been displayed in his helmet, he’d likely be joining them soon.
A pained groan came from the darkness off to his left.
“Is somebody there?”
He strained to listen, hopeful it was one of his friends. The darkness surrendered a shaky exhale and a moan. It sounded like a girl, and she was hurt bad.
“Laura?” He peered in the direction of the sounds. “That you?”
Before she could answer, a loud screech pierced the air, metal scraping on stone. Shane closed his eyes and crossed his arm over his face for protection. He expected some part of the craft would collapse on him, delivering the final blow that would bring the end. The pod rocked back and forth gently, seeming like it was teetering on the edge of an abyss. It found a resting place, and for the moment, the inky darkness grew still and silent once again.
The female coughed weakly.
“Hello?” he called in English. “Laura?”
“No,” the voice answered in Anunnaki and then coughed. “Not Laura.”
“Are you okay?” he asked before his cloudy brain concluded she was an enemy.
“I…” She paused, a tremble in her voice. “Not so good. Funny question, I’d think you’d want me dead.”
It had to be the last Anunnaki soldier, the one blasted into the pod when the reactor exploded. He wasn’t sure what to say. Listening to her labored breathing for a moment, he hated that he actually wanted to help her.
“Who are you?” she queried hesitantly.
“I’m Shane.”
“You’re human?” Her voice grew steadier and surprised. The Anunnaki must’ve thought the rebels had attacked, never suspecting their harvest had turned on them. “How is this possible? Who helped you?”
He felt weak, too feeble to have a conversation, but he knew he had to take this opportunity to learn as much as he could. He also didn’t want to give away too much just in case she was the one who got rescued first.
“Why do you think someone helped us?” he finally asked.
“Oh.” She groaned, pain seeming to crush her. Panting for a moment, she then said to him, “You needed to know too much to do this.” She huffed again. “It had to be the rebels,” she added, whispering with uncertainty, like she was trying to convince herself.
He didn’t reply, afraid she might catch him in a lie.
“But they couldn’t have gotten here—they didn’t have any long-range vessels,” she said, sounding tormented by the question.
“Then I guess it’s a mystery,” he replied, fighting off a wave of dizziness.
She chuckled weakly and coughed. “Humor is definitely one of your species more admirable characteristics.”
Shane pressed his good elbow down on the control panel, trying to lift himself once again, but he couldn’t move.
“At least we beat you,” he said, laying his head back and sighing wearily.
“Beat us? Why would you want to do that?”
“You were here to take over the planet,” Shane played along. “You leaked technology to our stupid government that caused them to kill our parents. And that,” he paused, explosions and screams echoing in the distance, “is the sweet sound of revenge.”
She moaned again, and he suspected the end was near for her. With the way he felt, it probably wasn’t far off for him either. He strained his ears for the sound of approaching helicopters, hoping help would be on the way soon.
“How do you know we are responsible for your parents’ death?” she asked wearily. “Who told you?”
“We figured it out,” he replied cryptically.
She let out a sound of frustration, and then fell quiet.
“What’s your name?” he asked, hating the silence.
“I’m Hanne,” she replied. “And until you attacked us, I thought we were here to help you.”
“What do you mean?” He felt weaker and cold. He must be losing blood. “Help us?”
“Yes,” she replied. “We were passing near your solar system, and we picked up the signal of a very powerful weapon being activated on your planet. We came to investigate.”
“Investigate?” he said incredulously. “Why activate the slave gene and start arming kids? It doesn’t look like you’re here just to see if we’re alright.”
“How can you know so much?” She coughed a wet-sounding cough. “I’m dying,” she said quietly. “Why would I lie to you? I have nothing to gain.”
Shane lay silent. What was her angle?
“You didn’t answer my question,” Shane groaned, pain flaring up in his shoulder as he shifted his weight.
“Why were the kids hypnotized?” She coughed again. “Thousands of years ago, we came to this planet and enslaved humans. We genetically modified you, infecting you with our genes to make you more advanced. We also put in a gene that makes it easy to control you.”
“So we are the perfect slaves?”
Her frustration seemed to give her a burst of life. He fed on her energy, goading her to say more.
“No, you were the perfect slaves,” she corrected, sounding irritated. “We have long since abandoned such behavior, and as a people, we are sorry for what was done in the past.”
It sounded eerily similar to the sto
ry the rebels had told them.
“So why control us now?”
“We did it to help protect you. We feared your planet was under attack, so we activated the gene and armed you so you could defend yourselves. Once your assailant was identified and defeated, we planned to release you, and help you to rebuild your world.”
Shane couldn’t imagine what she hoped to achieve by this, but her deceit was starting to piss him off. His head spun. What was he supposed to think? Maybe she was trying to turn him on the rebels. If she died and he lived, she could be hoping to undermine her enemy through him.
“It seems impossible,” she said quietly. “But how else could they know enough about our ships to do what they did? How else could they resist the slave gene?” She paused, and he heard her take a little gasp. “Anunnaki rebels helped them. It had to be.”
It almost sounded like she was talking to someone else. He suddenly worried that she might be in communication with her comrades and was too delirious to realize he could hear her. It was just as likely that her mind was coming undone and she was talking to herself. He didn’t answer, didn’t want to say anything that might be used against the humans.
“But we crushed the rebellion so long ago,” she said distantly.
A screech cut through the darkness. The pod shifted, and he sensed they were about to fall.
“Do not trust them, Shane,” Hanne said desperately.
The pod broke loose and flipped, flinging him into the opposite side of its hull. There were loud crashing sounds, and he was slammed back and forth like a pinball, banging his head again and again. It felt like the craft was bouncing down a steep hill. When it came to a rest, Shane landed on something padded.
“Hello?” he called once he caught his breath. “Are you there?”
Listening intently, he could no longer hear her labored breathing.
She must have died. The rest of his team might be dead too. What were the chances Kelly survived? Grief tore at him. It took all his strength to roll onto his side, and he welcomed the pain exploding from his shoulder. He wished he could feel pain below his waist, or anything down there for that matter. An image of Matt, lying on the asphalt with his leg sheared off, flashed through his mind. Then Aaron, his guts spilling from the gash in his abdomen. Now it was his turn, but no one was around to see him off.
He rolled from the bench onto the floor, cursing at the agony the short drop caused him. Raising his head, he realized the pod had come to a rest with its open hatch pointed at the necropolis. Half a mile away, Shane saw the command ship he’d attacked. The moonlight reflected off its white marble interior through the dark frame of the outer hull. The golden skin must’ve been created by energy from the reactor, because it was now gone. He could see the ship’s coliseum, stark white in contrast to the barrel-turned-smokestack that had ejected the reactor’s core into space.
A smaller ship, the one to which the Russians were assigned, was in a similar condition. The last vessel, the one Kelly, Jules, and the Australians were in, was lit up. No smoke came from it, and the outer skin was intact. Flashes from plasma rifles erupted around all three ships, but most of the battle was focused on Kelly’s. Jones’ backup army was trying to disable it, to prevent it from launching. There was a loud, grumbling sound, and a cloud of dust obscured the necropolis. Terror seized him. The golden pyramid lifted off the ground, rising into the night sky.
“No!” he groaned.
Pulling his uncooperative lower half behind him, he made his way to the hatch with his one good arm. He felt an explosion of strength, intending to claw across the desert to the retreating ship and drag it back to Earth so he could rescue her. Managing to get out of the pod, he depleted this jolt of energy, succumbing to his injuries. He collapsed a couple of yards away. Dizzy from the pain and the apparent loss of blood, he noticed the inside of his armor felt wet and sticky around his chest.
He wept into the sand. He’d lost her.
He was sprawled facedown. Holding on to the last of the sun’s heat, the ground was warm against his cheek. It was a sharp contrast to how cold his body started to feel. Pain engulfed his abdomen, like he’d swallowed a bag of razorblades. His armor’s first aid system must’ve stopped working. He gasped for air, coughing when he sucked dirt into his throat. A measure of strength returned, and he used it to roll onto his back.
The escaped recruit ship was still visible, a golden pyramid rising up into the dark heavens. Climbing until its shape was no longer discernable, its yellow glow and size distinguished it from the stars. It adopted a speedy flight across the night sky, entering into space and orbiting the planet with man’s puny satellites.
Angry tears clouding his vision, he watched it race toward the horizon. Off in the distance, the battle with the two disabled Anunnaki ships grew quieter. He hardly cared—didn’t care about anything except that Kelly was gone.
But there was no guarantee she was dead.
Staring up at the heavens, that desperate thought sparked a little flame of hope in him. He was freezing, but he was too weak to shiver. His abdomen seemed to inflate like a balloon, pressing into his lungs and forcing his breaths to grow shallow. How would he get her back? He didn’t have a clue. But maybe Jones and the other rebels could help. If there was a way, regardless of how dangerous, he was going to do it.
The flame of hope diminished as the ship slid out of sight. It seemed to be tearing his soul away from his flesh, dragging it beyond the horizon and surrendering his broken body to the desert. Suddenly overwhelmed by exhaustion and heartache, he trembled, exhaling all the air from his lungs. The natural inhalation didn’t follow as it should. His head spun, and his vision blurred. He focused every reserve of dwindling strength, determined to stay alive so he could save her. Try as he might, he couldn’t take another breath.
Darkness closed in and stole away his pain, quieting his panic. Deafening and blinding him, it crushed his senses and devoured his thoughts. It destroyed everything until there was only one flickering image floating in the emptiness. It was Kelly, standing close to him. Focusing on her beautiful face, he knew as long as he could see her, he was still alive. He reached out to her, trying to press his lips to hers one last time. His fingers passed through her ethereal image like she was made of smoke. He couldn’t stop her from fading—didn’t have the strength to hold the shadows at bay. Lethal darkness billowed through her ghostly image, and she was gone.
Shane heard garbled conversation. Tracy barked orders, her voice louder and firmer than the others were. She did it so well, like she was born to be a drill sergeant. He wasn’t alert enough to understand what she was saying. Hands pressed under his sides, raising him. Pain erupted from everywhere. He opened his mouth to beg them to stop, but he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs to speak. The voices were muffled, and he passed out again.
“He’s coming around now,” Dr. Blain observed. “Give him some space.”
Shane opened his eyes, blinking them into focus on a cracked, white plaster ceiling.
“Kelly!” He sat bolt upright, and spots flashed across his vision.
“Easy there, big guy,” Steve said, putting his hand on Shane’s arm. “You were jacked up like nobody’s business a couple of minutes ago.”
“Steve,” Shane said. “You’re alive.”
“Yeah,” he replied, a sad smile on his face. “I’m fine.”
“But Kelly… ”
“She’s not dead, Shane,” Lily said ominously. She was sitting at a table nearby, one of the advanced holographic computers the doctor used in front of her.
“So we’re going to rescue her.” He tried to shrug Steve off so he could stand.
“Not so fast,” Dr. Blain warned.
“In due time.” Lily looked away from the computer. “But there’s something we must do now to save her life.”
“They have to shut off their earbuds,” Steve said, his voice cracking.
“You can’t,” Shane objected, terrified. “She’ll
be enslaved.”
“A part of her will remain conscious,” Lily replied.
“We don’t have a choice,” Dr. Blain added, firmness in her tone that he’d never heard before. “You have to trust us.”
After his interaction with the soldier in the escape pod, Shane wasn’t certain who he could believe. Rescuing Kelly was everything to him, and he’d sign with the devil if that was what it took. In hindsight, much of the alien’s story didn’t make sense. For now, he had to side with the rebels. Even if they were the enemy, he’d use them until he guaranteed Kelly’s safety.
“Will we be able to get her back?” he asked.
“There’s a good chance, yes.”
“A good chance?” Anger flashed in him.
“They’ll suspect a tainted harvest,” Jones growled, sounding impatient. He was standing on the other side of the dimly lit room, which had no windows and only one old, wooden door. It smelled dank and earthy, probably underground. The captain’s worried gaze changed to angry frustration. “The Anunnaki will find them if we don’t do this.”
Shane looked at each of the people in the room. Both the rebels and Tracy and Steve’s faces said they’d already debated over this while he was out. They’d decided it was the right thing to do. He was surprised they were even asking him, though it did give him more faith that the rebels could be trusted.
“I’ve made the connection,” Lily said excitedly. “Everyone’s earbud except Kelly’s has been deactivated.”
“Shane,” Dr. Blain urged. “We don’t have time.”
“Do it,” he said, afraid of losing her forever.
Lily nodded and returned her attention to the computer. Shane looked at Steve, whose brow was heavy with concern. Then he glanced at Tracy, grateful his friends were alive. She returned his gaze, her eyes expressing the same heartache he was enduring.
“We will get them back, Shane,” she said, sounding so determined that it fanned the little flame of hope still burning in his heart.
