by Vixa Moon
“Hey,” I say, interrupting Korzak. “Look at that car behind us.”
There’s a car behind us that’s traveling very fast. Maybe 120 MPH, and it’s speeding right toward us.
It’s getting closer by the second. I study it in my rear view mirror. I recognize the model of the car. It’s a ‘90s Corvette.
Korzak turns to look.
“It’s the CAT,” he says, his voice low and serious.
“Shit,” is all I can think to say.
16
Korzak
“What should I do?” says Olivia, her voice frantic and worried.
“Keep driving,” I say.
“Should I go faster?”
“Their vehicle seems faster than yours.”
“Yeah,” she says. “It’s a Corvette. It’s definitely fast. A lot faster.”
“Then we can’t outrun them,” I say.
I’m running through the options in my head, trying to come up with a plan. The closer they get, the more danger we’re in. If they get up alongside us, they’ll be able to shoot their blasters at us, and there seems to be no way to defend Olivia against such an attack. Their blasters will cut right through the thin metal of Olivia’s little car.
“Keep driving,” I say again.
Olivia speeds up a little automatically. But it’s no use. The other car is much faster and it’s approaching us quickly.
I ready my blaster, holding it steadily in my hand.
I’m ready to fight for her. I’m ready to die for her.
“I’m getting in the back,” I say, realizing that it’ll be a better strategic position.
I’m large for this car, but I manage to squeeze my way into the back seat.
From my new vantage point, I can face directly backwards. I watch as the car speeds towards us.
Suddenly, one of the CATs appears. He leans out the window of the speeding car, exposing most of his torso. He steadies his blaster and fires. I see him squeezing the trigger in slow motion. My Tarnan warrior trainer kicks in, completely online. I’m ready for anything. But that alone might not be quite enough.
“Duck!” I yell.
Olivia and I both duck just in time.
The blast destroys the rear windshield and shoots right through the length of the car. It shatters the front windshield as well.
Right after the blast, I pop up and steady my blaster. I take aim and fire.
I hit the CAT leaning out the window directly in the neck, where there’s no armor at all.
He cries out, a savage scream that I can hear over the roar of the engine and the road, despite the distance between our two vehicles. As he cries, his body crumples and he falls onto the road. His body bounces as he hits, suddenly going from something like 100MPH to 0 in a split second.
The CAT who’s driving the car doesn’t let up on the accelerator. After all, that’s part of the CAT code. They don’t stop for fallen warriors. After all, they have no honor. None at all.
The worst part of them not having any honor? They’re devious and they’ll pull whatever trick they have to in order to get what they want.
I’m just waiting for the trick to appear. The CAT aren’t dumb enough to simply try to attack us like this. They failed at the hotel, and they won’t try the same thing twice. Even though this is a little different, and they have more of an advantage here, with their faster vehicle, on the open road, I know that something’s still not quite right. I’m expecting something, some trick. The problem? I don’t know what it is. It’s not like the CAT employ the same tricks over and over. That’s why they’re known to be so devious.
“Are you OK?” shouts Olivia. Her voice is panic stricken. I look at her and she’s visibly shaking in fear. That’s a normal reaction, especially for someone not accustomed to battle.
“I’m fine,” I shout. “I got one of them. But there’s still one left.”
“I’m going as fast as the car will go,” shouts Olivia.
I told her not to try to outrun them. But she’s panicking and pressing her foot down on the accelerator as far as it’ll go. She’s flooring it out of fear. Understandable. It might help a little anyway, although it’ll increase our chances of an accident.
I aim my blaster through the broken rear windshield at the Corvette that speeds towards us. I can’t get a good angle on the driver, because he’s weaving in and out of the lanes rapidly, doing his best to evade my coming shot.
But he’s getting closer every second. And the closer he gets, the better chance I have.
I turn back around once to see where we’re headed. The highway is empty. There aren’t any cars in front of us.
But there’s a big curve up ahead. The highway curves to the left. Off to the right side, there’s a thin metal guardrail that separates the highway from a huge drop off off a steep cliff.
“Make sure to be careful on the curve!” I yell out to Olivia.
I know she’s a good driver, but she’s not used to driving this fast. One bad maneuver at this speed could cause us to go plummeting off the cliff. And it’s not like we need more problems right now, with a CAT-driven Corvette hurtling towards us.
“Got it!” shouts Olivia.
“I’m going to take him out,” I yell, over the incredible roaring of the road meeting the tires, over the whining engine.
The driver of the Corvette is finally in my crosshairs. I can see his face clearly now. It’s nothing but pure rage and concentration. He’s a warrior, but he doesn’t know how to control himself. He only knows how to let loose his emotions. That’s where he’ll fail.
I squeeze the trigger and the blaster kicks back into my hands as it lets loose its pulse of blue-white light. The blast slams into the CAT’s face. The Corvette makes a horrible screech as it swerves uncontrollably, its driver dead, before crashing into a barrier on the side of the road. It doesn’t explode, but it makes a sickening crash.
“I got him!” I shout, victorious. I turn back around to Olivia.
But she’s not there.
There’s no one in the driver’s seat at all.
“Olivia!” I shout, looking around frantically.
But there’s nowhere she could have gone. The car is small, and we’re traveling fast. It’s not like she could have just gotten out of the car.
Shit…
My mind reels.
What the fuck just happened?
Where’s Olivia?
Suddenly, it hits me.
The whole thing was nothing more than a trap.
The two CAT warriors in the Corvette knew they were going to die. They knew they were no match for me. But they sacrificed themselves, as the CATs are known to do. It was nothing more than a diversion. They just wanted to get my attention away from the real plan.
Meanwhile, a CAT ship nearby must have locked onto to Olivia’s signal and transported her out of the car.
Right now, she’s probably terrified, captive in a CAT ship hovering somewhere up in the clouds.
Fuck.
Without her, there’s nothing left to fight for.
All is lost.
Well, all seems lost.
She still needs me. I need to get to her. Somehow.
But I’m fucked.
Olivia’s little compact car is hurtling forward, driverless, at almost 90 MPH.
I’m headed right towards the little guard rail. Right towards the cliff.
There’s hardly any time to react.
I lunge forward, trying to grab the steering wheel from the back seat where I am. The wind is rushing powerfully through the shattered front windshield.
It’s too late.
The car slams right through the guardrail and I go flying into the air, right off the cliff.
As I’m falling through the air in the car, the only thing I can think about is Olivia… Olivia… my mate…
17
Olivia
One moment I was driving my car, Korzak in the back.
Next thing I know, I’m su
ddenly in a space ship.
It’s similar to what happened to me before, except this time I wasn’t knocked out.
There are strange guttural sounds all around me. It’s the CATs. I know instantly what’s happened. They’ve kidnapped me.
The first thing I think about isn’t myself and my own fate. Instead, it’s Korzak… Korzak…
If I’m not driving the car, what’s going to happen to Korzak?
My mind feels hazy and I can’t remember if he fired the shot or not. Maybe it’s an effect of being transported.
I’m lying on a bare metal floor. My physical strength feels completely zapped.
My strength, though, is slowly returning.
My first thought is to fight… to fight with all my strength against the bastards who stole me away from Korzak, my Korzak.
The aliens are at the front of the ship, which is long and narrow, like a tube.
I get up off the floor, feeling dizzy. My vision seems to swim in front of me. How did Korzak transport himself onto that CAT ship the other day? Maybe he’s trained himself to deal with these strange effects. I could certainly see Korzak doing something like that. He is a Tarnan warrior after all.
Strange where your thoughts go when you’re getting ready to charge two heavily armed aliens without any weapons of your own… Korzak, Korzak, my mind keeps returning to Korzak, like a broken loop, like some crazy machine that won’t stop…
I charge forward, trying to sprint, but my legs feel heavy and ungainly. I feel like a newborn colt just learning to walk.
I get up to the cockpit, right between the seated aliens, who look a lot like Korzak, except that their clothes are different, before I collapse right back onto the cold metal floor.
They see me and they laugh. Their laughter haunts me and chills me to the bone.
They say something to me in their alien language, but it just sounds like gibberish.
Then one of them presses a button. I get the feeling he’s activating a translator in the same way that Korzak did on his ship, the Verdant Falcon.
A second later, I’m proven right.
His voice is no longer gibberish.
It comes to me in plain English. His tone is snarly and nasty, nothing like Korzak’s calm, even voice.
“So we’ve got you,” the alien says, cackling. A horrible laugh, high and nasal, eerie and perverted.
I try to get up off the floor, but my body is too weak. I can’t even pick myself up.
“Don’t worry about trying to get up again,” says the alien. “We partially stunned you when we transported you. You’ll be weak as long as you’re on board our ship.”
“What do you want with me?” I say, my words coming out vitriolic and intense. I practically spit them. I hate these assholes so much.
But the reason I hate them? Their whole purpose in life apparently is to keep me and Korzak apart. They’ll do whatever it takes to destroy us, our relationship, what the two of us could have if it weren’t for these evil forces.
“We don’t care about you,” says the alien. “We want Korzak.”
“Yeah,” I say sarcastically. “I know the whole story. You’re the sworn enemy of his people or something like that. Is that really all you have going on in life? Just to be someone’s sworn enemy? I mean, come on, there must be other things to do out there in the big wide universe.”
My sarcasm seems lost on him. But it’s the only weapon I have right now, lying powerless on the floor, my muscles weakened by their horrible alien technology.
“You’re just bait for Korzak,” says the other alien, who seems a little more tight-lipped than his companion co-pilot. “We’re laying a trap for Korzak.”
“What are you going to do?” I say. “Send Korzak a message telling him that you have me captive somewhere on Earth and that he’s got to come get me?”
“Basically,” says the alien.
“Wow,” I say. “Great plan. I never would have thought of that one. And I’m sure it’s going to work, given that Korzak has already defeated four of you in battle.”
“That was hand to hand combat,” says the alien. “We’re going to lay a trap that even Korzak can’t escape from, even with his mighty warrior ways.”
He snickers as he says “mighty warrior ways,” like it’s some kind of grand joke.
“Sounds like you’re just jealous,” I say. “I bet you wish you fought like that.”
“Quiet, human!” shouts the alien, rage suddenly rushing through him.
The other alien turns to me. “You’ll be lucky if your precious Korzak even comes to rescue you,” he says. “Trust me, we’ve seen this before. The Tarnens claim they love their mates and they’ll do anything for them. But that anything really only includes fighting with blasters and swords. When the going gets tougher, that’s when they quit.”
“So you’re laying a trap expecting that Korzak won’t show up?” I say. “That doesn’t make any sense. Either you want to catch him or you don’t. Which is it?”
“It’s easy,” says the alien. “Either we catch him and kill him with our trap, or we’ll simply destroy your whole planet, with Korzak on it.”
“You couldn’t do that,” I say.
“Oh, we absolutely can. It’s just hard for your technologically primitive brain to comprehend. But almost every war ship in the universe has the technology to destroy a planet like yours.”
“Then why haven’t you simply destroyed Tarnen, if they’re your sworn enemy?”
“Because they have defense systems that would neutralize that kind of attack. But your puny planet doesn’t have anything of the sort. It’s wide open for being blasted into nothing but little particles that’ll float off through the universe and in a million years maybe be part of some more sophisticated planet.”
“So why haven’t you just blown up Earth already?” I say. “Why didn’t you just blast the planet to smithereens in the first place instead of chasing us all over the planet and losing your warriors.”
The alien laughs. “There are various governing bodies in the universe that would really look down on us if we blew up your planet. It’s a big legal risk for us. We would be severely punished if we did it.”
“But you’re willing to do it now?”
“Exactly, we’re willing to take the risk now. After all, we’ve lost four warriors battling Korzak.”
They sound serious. This isn’t good. I know Korzak is an intense warrior and I have faith in his abilities and skills. But these aliens have proven that they are crafty. After all, they transported me away from Korzak. What kind of trap do they have in store for him?
The alien answers my unasked question.
“We’re headed to your North Pole right now,” he says. “Flying high enough above your atmosphere that we won’t be detected. We can land there without any of your systems noticing anything. It’s strange, isn’t it, that your North Pole is so desolate? Most normal societies concentrate their technology at the North and South poles in order to defend their planet…”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say. “I get it. We’re a primitive planet. So your brilliant plan is to fly to the North Pole. You think that Korzak isn’t going to be able to deal with a little bit of ice or something?”
“We know he can deal with ice,” says the alien. “What he can’t deal with is an apparatus we have that will run a powerful electrical current through all the ice. The minute he steps foot within the designated boundaries, he’ll be electrocuted to death.”
I fall silent.
That does sound like a good plan on their end.
For me, it means the certain death of Korzak.
My spirits fall and all feels lost. It happens all of a sudden. I can almost physically feel the energy draining out of me. My body feels even heavier than before. A depression sets in, seeming to color the already poorly illuminated ship even darker shades of grey and nothing… The world has shifted. Nothing is right at all. Absolutely everything is wrong…
I s
ink back onto the cold metal floor. My physical strength is long gone, and now my will is gone too.
What can I do? I’m powerless to get up off the floor, let alone somehow foil their plan.
How can Korzak possibly survive?
That is, if he even decides to come look for me.
Maybe these aliens are right. Maybe Korzak will think that it’s not worth fighting for me. Maybe he’ll just decide to wait for his rescue ship…
Who knows… My thinking has suddenly changed from optimistic sarcasm to the worst of the worst of the worst… I’ve never felt this bad.
My thoughts turn to Korzak.
What happened to him after I was transported away? What’s he doing now?
18
Korzak
I’m lying in the wreckage of Olivia’s car.
I’m still alive, but everything hurts…
We Tarnan are strong. Our bones don’t break as easily as human bones. Our muscles are strong. Our minds are strong.
But there’s a limit to how much we can tolerate. We’re not gods, after all. We’re not super heroes.
But somehow I’m alive.
My body is on fire with pain. Pain is the only thing I feel. It’s all over, coursing and pulsating, terrifying and intense. Pain is almost all my thought. The only thing that keeps me fighting against it is Olivia… the memory of Olivia, my fated mate… She occupies the one small section of my brain that is not pain…
I can barely move because of the pain…
Suddenly, a memory from my old training comes back to me…
I was back on Tarnen, a young warrior in training… My teacher was smashing me with a tough wooden stick, striking my back repeatedly. He was causing me an incredible amount of pain.
And he was taunting me. I didn’t understand the lesson. I got furious with him. My body was nothing but torturous pain from the hours upon hours of endless beating. He laughed the entire time, hitting me harder as each hour passed. My mind was young and I was angry but there was nothing I could do… I was completely under my teacher’s command. That’s the way Tarnan warrior training works. It’s completely authoritarian, for better or for worse. I couldn’t speak out, or I would be punished. I just had to endure it.
