by C. F. Harris
When he turned back the smile was all gone. He was all business. Good. This was what I needed. Plus it meant I wasn’t going to have to sample those green paste monstrosities and forever ruin my memories of a good donut.
“Be quick with it human,” he said in perfectly accented Terran. “What do you need?”
4: Attacked
Talia:
“I’ve heard through certain channels that you might be able to help humans who need some information,” I said.
“Information?” the Livisk snorted and his considerable bulk rotated and jiggled with that snort. It was hypnotic. Like watching one of those ancient lava lamps on earth or eating liquid food in a zero-g environment.
“Yes. I was going through some Livisk learning material when I found something very interesting embedded in one of the lessons about showing proper subservience to your master,” I said, trying very hard to keep my voice neutral. There was still the chance this was all a setup. There was still a chance I could find myself clapped in irons, or whatever the equivalent was on this world, and off to the magistrate.
Or off to the execution chamber. That was a hell of a lot more likely.
“Being subservient to your masters,” he said, looking me up and down. “Yes, I bet that’s something you have trouble with. You look like you have some spirit in you. A pity. You won’t last long with that attitude.”
I bristled at his frank assessment even though it was probably right. Hell, the fact that he was so on the money was probably why I was so upset about it in the first place. No one liked having their flaws thrown back in their face, though I didn’t think having some spirit was necessarily a flaw.
“Please, can you get me information? There are things I need to know before I move forward with… plans.”
Best to keep it nice and vague what I was really after. I still didn’t trust this man. It was possible this entire thing was a setup. The idea that I would find information pointing me to an information broker in a Livisk language tutor designed for humans seemed a little odd to begin with.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about with information,” he said. “If you need help getting away from your master then I might be able to help you with that. The question is how do I know you’re not in here working for the authorities?”
“I can promise you I’m not?” I said, knowing it wasn’t going to work even as I said it.
He waved his hand. “I don’t know about that. Obviously you’re well off or you wouldn’t have had access to that trainer. That’s not exactly something they give to the humans they send down into the mines.”
Well then. It seemed I was wrong earlier when I thought there weren’t mines humans were being thrown into. Damn. All the more reason to continue clinging tenaciously to the hope of escape.
“Can you help me or not?” I asked, my teeth grinding. This was starting to get almost as frustrating as trying to get my crew to do something on my old ship.
“That depends on what you’re looking for. Maybe if you tell me a little more about yourself I’d be a little more willing to help you out.”
“I’m looking for information about a human crew that was taken to this world. They were enslaved, but I don’t know where,” I said.
The baker shrugged. “I don’t know that I can help you there. There are human crews who are enslaved all the time and brought back to our world. The women go to the brothels and the men are put to work wherever they are most needed. It’s a sad fact of life on this world. Our whole empire is built on conquest and slavery.”
His voice grew heated there at the end and I raised an eyebrow. Now that was interesting. Very interesting indeed. I was starting to wonder if maybe this one was ideologically motivated. That would be good for me. Much easier to manipulate someone who was doing something for what they felt was the right reason.
“You might have heard something about this crew,” I said. “They were captured in the Terran home system and brought here under the personal attention of the emperor.”
The baker looked up at me and his eyes went wide. His entire body seemed to sparkle as he shifted back and forth in irritation. His mouth opened and his cheeks wobbled for a moment as he seemed to vibrate with sudden irritation.
“You’re her, aren’t you? The one the emperor bonded to the general,” he whispered.
I sighed. “Is it that obvious?”
He stepped up next to me and held my arm in a surprisingly strong grip. Well then. Perhaps the strength wasn’t something isolated only to their warriors. In a flash he was pulling me towards the entrance to his shop.
“What are you doing? I need your help!”
“You’ve come to the wrong place my dear,” he said. “I truly am sorry. If we needed to smuggle you to the… well if we needed to get you free and you were anyone but who you were I might be able to help you. I’m afraid you’re sorely mistaken if you think I can provide you with information. I’m not a spy.”
“What are you talking about? Smuggling me away? Are there people who help human slaves on this world? What’s going on here?”
“I’ve already said too much,” he said. “I can’t help you and you’re endangering far more of your people than you could imagine by coming here. I don’t want the wrong sort of attention. I truly am sorry.”
And with that he turned and shove me out of his shop. I stumbled into the street beyond and got curious looks from several Livisk. There were humans in the area as well, but I didn’t recognize any of them from my crew. Not that it would be easy to recognize any of them anyways with the way they were walking around with their heads down trying to avoid any sort of attention from the Livisk around them.
I bristled. I turned around to give the shopkeeper a piece of my mind. To maybe go back in there and let him know he couldn’t treat me like that. What he’d said sounded very much like there was a secret network of Livisk on this world who were smuggling humans, or at the very least helping them out. That sounded like the sort of thing I very much needed to learn more about, and because that stupid overweight baker was afraid I was out of luck.
Damn it.
Only as I turned the windows on his shop went dark. There was a distinct click as though something big and heavy had just locked the door shut. The sign above pulled into the building and it was as though the shop didn’t exist.
I let out a growl. This day was not going at all like I’d hoped, damn it.
“I’m going to make you pay for that,” I said. Though I had no idea how I was going to go about doing that. I was powerless on this world. The fact that a baker of all things was able to throw me out of his shop like that with no consequences was proof of how far down I was on the pecking order on this world.
Damn it, damn it, damn it!
Well there was nothing for it. I’d swung and it looked like I’d struck out. I didn’t have any information about my crew and I’d wasted one of the rare trips I was allowed out of Jorav’s palace. I’d have to be back soon or he might start to suspect something.
I wanted to scream, but I didn’t. That would draw the attention of those stupid overseers. I glanced at the stream of Livisk moving back and forth in the street. No vehicle traffic down here. All of that was moving past at impossible speeds overhead.
It was easy to spot the overseers now that I knew what to look for. Livisk who looked more like soldiers than the civilians around them. Aliens with bored looks on their faces as though they’d rather be anywhere but here keeping humans in line.
I wondered what the story was there. Warriors who couldn’t cut it on the front lines for some reason? Either way it wasn’t my problem.
I started down the street, still glancing over my shoulder every thirty seconds or so to make sure I wasn’t being followed. And it was because of that overabundance of caution bordering on paranoia that I saw him.
The alien was doing a good job of being stealthy. I’d give him that. He almost might have blended into the crowd except that he di
dn’t match anyone else down here. This was the dregs of Livisk society down at the bottom level which is one reason why it was so dangerous down here, and he didn’t look like that. He had the look of a soldier with those broad shoulders and elaborate tattoos. Plus he didn’t have the bored look that the overseers had.
That was a Livisk on a mission. Not Jorav, but Jorav could easily have someone working for him to tail me.
I sighed. And here I thought things couldn’t get any worse. I turned and continued walking and looking over my shoulders as I had been, but I tried to act like I wasn’t seeing anything. I didn’t want to do anything that would signal a change in behavior. If this guy was any good that would just tip him off.
I kept up the act until I ducked into a small alley off to the side. It was merely a sliver between two massive buildings, but even something that looked like a sliver on the scale of the construction of this planet was about as wide as a road back home on earth. It would have to do. I just prayed there was an end to it. The ground level on this damned planet was a maze and I could only hope that I lost my pursuer before I got too lost myself.
The only problem was apparently someone had already thought ahead to potential avenues of escape. There were a couple of Livisk standing in the shadows of the alley looking at me, and I’m not talking about the sort of homeless Livisk you normally saw in a place like this. They had the same look as the one who’d been following me. Broad shoulders. Dangerous smiles on their faces. Also? They were armed to the teeth with nasty looking blades.
Not the kind of person I wanted to be stuck with in a dark alley, thank you very much.
They were hidden in shadow, but I knew from a simple look that neither of those Livisk were Jorav either. I felt a tingling between my shoulder blades. Something was very wrong here. I thought back to what he’d said about the emperor having it out for me, and wondered if I’d just stumbled across a group of imperial assassins.
I turned to leave the alley, but of course my exit was blocked by the one who’d been following me in the first place. Foot traffic moved past behind him, but I didn’t bother to scream or anything. It’s not like there was any help on this world for a human woman screaming in a back alley anyways.
That was business as usual around here, but I wasn’t your usual human prey.
“Right. So if you leave now I’ll let you go without killing you,” I said to the one at the alley. I assumed he was the leader. Something about the way he carried himself screamed that he was the one in charge.
And he looked confused. He paused for a moment and looked over his shoulder as though expecting some sort of attack from behind. When it didn’t come he turned back to me and frowned.
“Why would I have anything to fear from you, human?”
He reached behind him and pulled out a long curved blade that looked dangerous. And sharp. And pretty useful in close quarters combat. I frowned. Not good. Very not good. I should’ve taken Jorav up on that offer to learn how to do hand to hand combat against a Livisk without power armor, because I could use that sort of training right about now, damn it.
“Last chance buddy,” I said.
I tried to keep my voice calm. Collected. Always act like you were the one in control of a situation even if you weren’t. It could throw someone off, though it didn’t seem to be throwing off this guy. I looked around at the two behind me but they weren’t doing anything. Just standing there preventing my escape.
Which was plenty, thank you very much.
The one with the nasty smile stepped forward. Well then. I guess he wasn’t going to play nice and listen to my warning after all. At least I could say I gave him a warning. I reached behind me to a knife I’d hidden away in the back band of my pants. It was the sort of thing that would probably have me put away for life if any of the Livisk out there had an inkling I was carrying a weapon, but I figured better in prison than dead.
I pulled it out and brandished it. The blade was large, but here in this dark alley surrounded by armed Livisk on all sides it suddenly didn’t seem nearly as impressive as it had when I snuck into Jorav’s private office before we went down to the simulator. He thought I was engrossed in learning their damned written language.
Instead I’d been engrossed with casing the joint in the few moments I had before I went down to kick his tight sparkly blue butt in the simulator.
My attacker laughed.
“Am I supposed to be afraid of you or something human? You wouldn’t have the guts to use that even if you could get close enough to try,” he said.
I shrugged. “Can’t blame a girl for trying.”
I heaved the knife at him with every ounce of strength I could muster. Not that I thought throwing the thing was going to do a damn bit of good. Not that I thought a thrown weapon was going to do much of anything. I wasn’t good at the whole ground combat thing unless I had power armor.
My branch of the Combined Interstellar Fleet lived by the motto that if the enemy was close enough for hand to hand combat then you’d done something terribly wrong and probably deserved what was coming to you.
The knife sailed past him harmlessly and clattered to the ground with a loud clang, but it was enough to distract him momentarily. His eyes followed the blade with that same cocky smile plastered on his face and he watched it fall with satisfaction.
That moment of cocky satisfaction where he was turned away was all I needed. I reached behind me a second time and pulled out the second surprise I’d managed to get out of Jorav’s personal study, or whatever the hell he called that room that overlooked the Livisk imperial palace off in the distance.
I wheeled around and fired at the two blocking the entrance. The first took a blast of charged energy right in the chest and fell to the ground with a smoking hole where his skin had been. I didn’t quite hit either of his critical hearts directly, but from the way he was twitching it didn’t seem like he’d be causing me any trouble any time soon.
The second had enough warning to jump out of the way, but the blast still singed a muscular arm before the energy weapon flew out of the alley and into the crowd beyond. I heard an explosion as it slammed against a building on the other side and screams from humans and Livisk filtered into the alley.
Not that I had time to think about any of that. I wheeled around with every intention of stopping the third one who’d been distracted, but on completing my turn I saw that he wasn’t quite as distracted as I’d hoped for. He towered over me and he’d moved right behind me. His hand grabbed my wrist and the weapon fired harmlessly past him as I squeezed it to set it off.
“That was clever,” he said. “They warned us you might do something clever. I’m glad to see it was true.”
“Who warned you?” I asked.
I had a pretty good idea of exactly who was doing the warning. I had a pretty good idea of who’d sent these assassins out to try and take me out. Something told me it was the asshole who lived right in the center of that palace Jorav could stare at from the comfort of his own building.
I also hoped there was a chance this guy might be in a mood to talk. Only he smiled and wagged a finger at me. He must’ve learned that from some human at some point. Then he pulled something from his side. My eyes went wide as I realized he had an energy weapon of his own. It let out an ominous hum as he held it up to me at point blank range.
His hand squeezed. The weapon went off. My world was filled with blinding light and then darkness.
5: Rescue?
Jorav:
I felt something very close to worry as I made my way through the crowds of Livisk that made up the underdwellers on the bottom levels of the city. I tried to contain my disgust as I looked at men who had decided that a life of battle wasn’t for them.
To think that they enjoyed the fruits of our vast civilization here on our homeworld while brave warriors were out there dying between the stars so that the people of this city might live in comfort and have humans to continually do their dirty work.
Talia. That worry hit me again. I should have been able to go straight to her. It had taken me several twists and turns in the confusing maze that was the ground level before I realized that I wasn’t getting a sense of where she was.
Somehow she’d figured out how to block me out. I didn’t know how, but I wasn’t surprised. She was as clever as she was attractive. That cleverness was going to get her in trouble someday. I just hoped someday wasn’t today.
She really didn’t appreciate the dangers that were out there for her on this world. There was so much that went along with us being bonded. Things I’d done my best to hide from my thoughts because she was already having trouble adjusting to life on this world.
Actually that was an understatement saying she was having trouble. I shook my head as I thought about the last time I had to pull her out of a scrape. It had taken all my authority to get her out of that, and even then I’d had to promise to pay for the medical costs for the officer she’d sent to a med center.
I was getting distracted though. The emperor’s agents would be out there. Waiting. Watching. Looking for any opportunity to pounce on her.
That meant I needed to be nearby if anything did happen. She was human. No human had ever been bonded to a Livisk before. No human had ever been through the Adequacy. There were numerous ways she could be killed because she’d been bonded to me, but I didn’t want the Adequacy to be one of them.
