by Aline Ash
“Tulo!”
I turned just in time to see my sister hit with the tip of a shock-stick. Even from over the din of the fight, I heard the crackle and pop as it sent electricity through her. I watched in horror as Daca twitched and spasmed.
I let out a mighty roar and rushed toward my sister. The Gargolian holding the stick to her stepped forward and drove its fist into her face. The rage inside of me flared, lighting me up inside with an intensity brighter than the sun. Gargolians quickly moved in and used sonic binders on her wrists and ankles, picking her up and quickly carrying her away.
My stomach lurched and I was gripped by an icy fist of fear as I watched them take her. Switching course, I sprinted toward the ship they were carrying her toward, only for a pair of Gargolians to step into my path. I led with my sword, but as I cut a murderous arc that would have seen both of their heads off, I felt an explosion of pain in my back.
I threw my head back and cried. It felt like a line of molten lava flowed from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. My body shook and then twitched, and there was nothing I could to do stop it. I fell to the ground heavily, my body shuddering so hard it was as though I was having a seizure.
Half a dozen Gargolian faces were looking down at me. They sneered and taunted me as they continued to beat me with their shock-sticks, shocking me with the electrified end. The pain that gripped me was unlike anything I’d ever felt. Every minute seemed like an hour and the torment seemed to go on forever.
One of the Gargolians brought out another longer, double pronged implement, and energy crackled and snapped between the two points. The Gargolian leveled it at me. All I could think of was my sister. I needed to stay alive for my sister. To see where they took her. To find and rescue her.
And when the Gargolian pressed it to my flesh, when I heard the loud pop and pain made every muscle in my body contract painfully, I held on to the thought of Daca, of saving her.
And then I knew no more.
* * *
I open my eyes and stare at the smooth steel of the ceiling above me. I’ve dreamed of the day the Gargolians came, the day they destroyed my village, killed my people, and took my sister, more times than I can count. And every time, it’s like I’m right there all over again.
When I wake up from the dreams, I can still smell the smoke and hear the screaming. I can feel the thick, warm blood on my body, and feel the vibrations that ran up my arm every time I cut through the scaly flesh of another Gargolian. My head rings with the sounds of my people dying, and my mouth is filled with the memory of the taste of my own blood.
But more than anything else, the one thing I can’t shake is the sight of my sister being dragged away by those scaly bastards. I remember in excruciating detail the sight of her eyes, so wide and filled with terror. The sound of her voice as she called for me. Those things haunt me, and I doubt that will ever change. Those are memories I do not think I will ever be free from.
I turn my head and look at the shadowy form in the next bunk. Her breathing is even and steady, telling me she’s asleep. She must have been exhausted. In a lot of ways, she reminds me of Daca. Both are fiery and passionate, and like my sister, Eva is willing to take on fights that are not her own. She’s not Tabiean but she is willing to put her life on the line to fight for the people of this world. I can see Daca doing something just like that.
What she doesn’t understand is that the G’osha clan has no love for the flatlanders, just like the flatlanders have no love for G’osha. Our tribes do not mix. We do not involve ourselves with their politics or their problems. Yes, the Gargolians are problems for us all.
But my sister’s safety is my priority. Even if I could get her away from here, I would get us back up into the mountains where we belong and where the Gargolians cannot follow. I would not risk her safety to fight the inevitable. The Gargolians are heavily armed, evil, and unstoppable. And the flatlanders. We do not need them, and they have never cared for us, so there is no use in pretending otherwise. I want nothing to do with those problems, or with them.
This human intrigues me, though. She is such a strange creature, fierce in her own way, and I find myself wanting to know more about her. I want to know why she is willing to fight so hard and sacrifice so much for a world and a people that are not her own. She is fragile and delicate and yet she behaves like she is Tabiean.
Somehow, she manages to stir my emotions. She stirs things in me I haven’t felt in a very long time. But it is something I cannot afford to let myself dwell on, for it serves no purpose in this place. Spending many years in captivity, in this hopeless place, I know that any feelings are only causing pain and despair. This is why I have chosen to detach myself from anything that is going one in this place. Anything and anyone.
All but Daca.
Chapter Seven
Eva
It took me a little time, but I finally found the exhibit cube where they have Tulo on display. It’s not that far from mine, I just hadn’t noticed it before. His is set beneath the wide branches of a tall tree that’s got pale blue bark, and vivid red foliage adorning the branches. He sits there, completely still. His eyes are closed… it doesn’t even look like he’s breathing. Tulo, for all the world, looks like he’s sleeping, or meditating, or something.
The crowd in front of his cube stares at him almost reverently. Unlike what I have to deal with on a daily basis, nobody is throwing things at him. Nobody is taunting him. Nobody is calling him horrid names, making faces or obscene gestures at him. They just stand there staring at him with something like awe on their faces.
I look up and see Tabia’s second sun slipping toward the horizon and sigh, knowing what’s coming. A worm of dread roils around in my belly. It’s not long before the walls of the cube dim, grow dark and opaque. That’s followed by the sound of the shielding dropping.
With a long sigh, I get to my feet and turn around to face her, only to find it’s not her. No, this time, Omna stands just outside the doorway of the cube. It’s her guards who come in. One of them takes up a position next to the door and the other wastes no time in stepping up to me, an amused sneer on his face.
“Your father said this was a no-no,” I remind her.
“My father is otherwise engaged for the evening,” she hisses. “Besides, he said I was not to touch you. He never mentioned anything about my guards not touching you.”
“I don’t think that is what—”
I never get to finish my sentence, as her guard drives his fist straight into my stomach and the air explodes out of me. I fall to my knees as the two burly Gargolians chuckle and make crude jokes with one another.
The Gargolian reaches down and grabs me by the hair and hauls me to my feet roughly. He punches me in the stomach once more, not letting me catch my breath. The punch is followed by the business end of the shock-stick and my body twitches as he holds it to me. The pain is so much more intense, like they upped the voltage in the damn thing. My insides feel like they’re turning to mush.
Finally, he backs off. It takes a moment, but I feel like I can breathe again. I feel completely spent though, and like I will have a hard time walking anywhere for a little while.
“Enough. Anymore and we’ll have to take her down to the medic,” Omna says. “Return her to her cell.”
I’m immediately lifted off the ground and thrown over the shoulder of the burly guard. They march to the elevator and back down into the facility, dumping me unceremoniously in my cell. Tulo is already there, sitting on his bunk. He looks over at me as I crawl over to mine. It takes me a couple of minutes before my limbs cooperate enough and I’m able to pull myself up.
Winded by the effort, I flop onto my back and stare up at the ceiling, my entire body still vibrating with the two million volts—or whatever it was—they shot through me. I’m half convinced that if I look down at my arm, I’ll see bolts of electricity crackling across my flesh.
I turn my head to see Tulo sitting on his bunk with his b
ack against the wall. He does not turn his head towards me, but I catch him casting a surreptitious glance at me.
“Thanks for the hand up,” I groan when I finally catch my breath.
“You seemed capable enough of crawling onto your own bunk.”
“And they say chivalry is dead.”
He cocks his head and looks at me. “What is this chivalry you speak of?”
I roll my eyes and quip, “Don’t worry about it. It isn’t like you’ll ever come down with a case of it.”
“It sounds like a disease,” he says.
“Most guys seem to think it is.”
We both fall silent for a moment. Tulo turns in my direction and locks his gaze on me. He studies me closely, like he’s trying to figure something out. Like I’m some intricate puzzle. I take the chance to have a better look at him too.
Like all Tabieans, Tulo is big. Wide. All corded muscles, power radiating from every pore in his body. But he looks worn. Tired. There are ridged, white scars in his fur, and he bears a lattice of scars on his back; perhaps from beatings, perhaps from fighting, I don’t know.
It’s his eyes that draw me the most. There is a deep well of sadness in them. He looks like somebody who has seen - has endured - more than one person should. I see somebody who looks as if he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders, and the weight of it is crushing him.
“Why don’t you like the name Jin?” I ask him.
“I think being called the White Monster is insulting.”
I shrug weakly. “I think it sounds kind of badass.”
“Badass?” he asks. “Does that have something to do with this chivalry you spoke of?”
I laugh softly. “Only in that they’re words you don’t understand. All I’m saying is, the White Monster doesn’t sound as horrible as you seem to think it does. It might even have some admiration in it”
He seems to listen to what I say and rolls it around in his head for a moment, the expression on his face telling me he’s not entirely sure what to think of it. I realized earlier today that getting upset and yelling at him, or calling him a coward, isn’t going to help matters any. It’s not going to make him more likely to help us. It’s not going to do anything but piss him off and close me down before I can get him to change his mind. He’ll never join the fight if I continue.
Therefore, I decided today that no matter what, I’m going to keep my cool. I’m not going to lose my shit on him, and I will try to win him over. You catch more flies with honey and all that. So, I’m going to be nice to this guy even if it kills me.
“Why do you fight so hard for Tabia?” he asks.
“Like I told you before, some of the people I care most about are Tabiean,” I reply. “And I also hate the Gargolians with everything in me. If I can be part of the reason they are driven to extinction, then I’m happy to do so.”
He nods and purses his lips as he looks at me. “Your hatred must be deep indeed if you are willing to give your life to exact your revenge on them.”
I pause for a moment and look down at my hands. The horrors of everything Bruc did to me back on his production ship come flooding back into my head once more and it sends a shudder of absolute revulsion through me. A lance of pain pierces my heart, and it’s all I can do to keep from bursting into tears.
“Are you all right?” he asks, his voice low and gruff.
I try to wipe my eyes as unobtrusively as I can and nod. “I’m fine.”
“Are you certain?” he asks. “I can smell your sadness from here.”
I manage to sit up and put my back to the wall like him. I stare at him incredulously from across the cell. “You can smell my tears?” I ask.
“Actually, it’s the change in your body chemicals I can smell,” he says. “All Tabieans have this ability.”
“That’s sort of creepy.”
“Cre-epy?”
I sigh. “There are a lot of words I’m going to have to teach you.”
His face suddenly darkens, and his expression grows sober. It’s as if the idea of thinking into a future where I’m teaching him human words has upset him or something. I don’t know what it is, but something’s definitely getting under his skin.
“What did you do to upset Omna? Why does she have you beaten?” he asks, changing the subject.
“Because her father won’t let her beat me herself anymore.”
“What does that mean?”
“Never mind. She hates me and enjoys beating me because I killed her husband,” I say.
“And why did you do this?”
Once more, images of having him on top of me, forcing himself inside me, and taking me against my will flash through my mind. I feel a greasy, nauseous sensation roiling in my insides.
“It doesn’t matter,” I snap. “But she can beat me now until the day I die and I’ll never regret killing her husband for a second.”
“At the rate you are going, the day you die could come a lot sooner than you think.”
“Thanks. That makes me feel super.”
He shrugs his massive shoulders. “I was not aware I was supposed to make you feel super.”
He seems to take things more literally than I’d like. It makes communicating with him difficult and frustrating as hell. But I’m going to keep trying. We need him. Kon was very clear on that. So it’s up to me to get him on board with the program.
“Who is she?” I ask. “And who is her father?”
A wry chuckle passes his lips. “Let me just say that you choose your enemies very well. Or perhaps very poorly.”
“And why is that?”
“Her father is Wylto D’gresh,” he says, as if that answers my question.
“Who in the hell is Wylto D’gresh?”
“He is one of this quadrant’s most notorious criminals,” he says. “Drugs. Women. And especially weapons. He deals all of them illegally. He has amassed a fortune and has a personal army at his beck and call. People who cross him, more times than not, tend to go missing.”
“Wonderful.”
“Most assume he takes them into space and then airlocks them,” he goes on. “There is a rumor that Wylto has a floating graveyard in orbit around Gargole. I have never seen this myself though.”
“Sounds like a real garden spot,” I crack.
Tulo cocks his head and looks at me, clearly not understanding what I meant. I just wave him off.
“Forget it,” I say. “What is this place, anyway?”
“This is the D’gresh family compound,” he says soberly. “This is where Wylto stores his…pets.”
“His pets?”
Tulo nods. “They built this place shortly after the Gargolians took Tabia. It’s a heavily guarded fortress, but it’s also where the elite, cultured, wealthy Gargolians gather,” he says. His ‘pet collection’ is made of beings from other worlds that he puts on display for them to ogle.”
“I’ve noticed that already,” I say.
“The Gargolian elite have a voracious appetite for gawking at beings from other worlds,” he tells me. “Worlds they will never themselves visit.”
I understand the impulse. It’s one reason zoos and museums are always popular back on Earth—people get a chance to see things they’d never see in their normal, everyday lives. But if you’d told me I was going to be a fucking exhibit in some intergalactic freakshow, I would have called you nuts. Probably even worse.
And yet, here I am all the same.
“You should rest,” Tulo says. “You need to regain your strength.”
“Regain my strength? For what?” I ask. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“In here, you always need your strength,” he replies.
Chapter Eight
Tulo
I awake and stare up at the steel ceiling above me. In the darkness, I listen to the slow, steady breathing coming from the other bunk. She was agitated and in pain, so it took some time, but the human was finally able to find sleep.
She
is intriguing to me. She has a fire and a spirit in her that I have not seen in many. She reminds me of my sister Daca in that respect. And if I am being honest with myself, I have to admit that it is extremely attractive too.
It has been a very long time since I felt desire when I looked at a female. And I have certainly never felt a physical longing for anybody other than a G’osha female. But there is something about this one that leaves me wondering what it would be like to sink my jura deep into her pysa.
There’s a part of me that thinks she is too small and too delicate to withstand the way we Tabieans mate. It can be rough, and I don’t know that her fragile human body could handle that. But her fiery temperament makes me wonder if maybe she could.
Just as I push those thoughts from my mind, I hear the soft chime that precedes the deactivation of the security shield. I sit up as two Gargolians step into the cell, stopping just inside the door to wait for me. I know the drill. With a sigh, I swing my legs over the edge of my bunk and get to my feet. I see them both tense and involuntarily take a step backward as I approach them.
They’re afraid of me. That’s good. They should be. I could rip the heads off their bodies anytime I desire. But what would that accomplish? It will not free my sister. If anything, that sort of defiance could put her life in more danger than it is already in. So for now, just knowing they fear me will have to be enough.
They escort me to the medical examination room that belongs to Dr. Ryz. Once every seven days, I am taken to see Dr. Ryz who puts me through a series of tests, draws and analyzes my blood, and asks me many intrusive questions. I do not know what the purpose of it is, but I must bear it. If I am to keep my sister alive, I must endure everything.
When the door slides open and I step into the room, I am surprised to see that Dr. Ryz is not there. Instead, Wylto D’gresh is sitting on a stool, studying one of Dr. Ryz’s implements. He looks up as I enter and sets the implement down as his guards take up positions on either side of the door outside. The door closes and Wylto gestures to another stool.
