by Calista Skye
They all look at me with what I choose to think is new appreciation. I wasn't sure if Xan'tor knew about that, but I'm sure the Bululg do.
“She may be a resistance fighter,” Renerak says. “But I honestly can't see a small thing like that being effective in the kind of work we do.”
“Of course not,” Xan'tor says, fixing me with his luminous eyes. “Much too soft and small.”
“So what do we do with her?” Frox asks. “Now that we have shown her our secret base and all.”
“I'm sure she will have some uses,” Xan'tor says. “Meanwhile, we'll keep her here.”
“I am free,” I remind him. “Not slave, not person to keep.”
They all look at each other, then busy themselves with whatever they were doing before we arrived.
Xan'tor pierces me with his eyes. “We'll see. For now, we must make sure you don't see anything in this base that might create problems for you later.” He stands up, comes over, and casually grabs my wrist. “So you will come with me.”
His grip is firm, and I know I have no chance to escape it. “Where will you take me?”
He drags me with him. “Somewhere safe.”
I try to resist, but it's like holding back a speeding train. No chance.
Damn it. I was really starting to like him.
9
- Xan'tor -
“I think should take me home to Earth,” Mila says while I pull her along the corridors. “Is risky, but I'm willing to face.”
“I'm not,” I reply, somewhat hurt that she'd prefer to be sold again over staying here with me.
“You not understand,” she says. “My sister also taken by Bululg. I must find, rescue.”
I give her a glance to check if she's telling the truth. But her face is too beautiful for me to judge her alien emotions properly. “If she has been sold already, then there is no chance of finding her. Or rescuing her.”
Walking along the triangular corridor with her, I suddenly notice all the debris and trash the guys and I have collected and just pushed aside. There's all kinds of old machines and broken equipment and stacks of materials and spare parts that we'll probably never use. We're having to zigzag among the many piles of worthless scrap, trying not to touch any of the unsteady-looking stacks. Mila must think we're a bunch of incredibly messy people. We really have to clean up this place.
Mila has stopped resisting my grip around her wrist and now comes willingly along. “I think you could.”
“Me?”
“You rescued me. Very easy for you! Big, strong warrior. The baron so scared when see you! Rescuing my sister hard for me, easy for you.”
I groan. I should never have stolen this female. She's going to be all trouble, I just know it. “I've given myself enough trouble just rescuing you,” I growl. “I will not be doing anything like that again.”
She looks up at me with big, dark eyes. “Xan'tor afraid?”
“Yes,” I confirm. “Xan'tor afraid of becoming outlaw and hunted by every mercenary and assassin in the universe.”
“Strange,” Mila says softly, as if to herself. “Xan'tor afraid. Is huge and dangerous warrior. But small Bululg scare him.”
I snort. “The Bululg are small. But they are many. Now, here is my—”
Mila suddenly yanks her hand out of mine, runs four paces, and then pulls down a towering stack of broken fluid compressors. It topples over right on top of me, and I have to throw myself out of the way and then shield myself from the hailstorm of falling machines. Each is only about the size of a fist, but they're deceptively heavy and they all have heat sinks with knife-sharp edges.
When the avalanche of useless hardware is over, my arms have multiple bruises and Mila is gone.
Another pile of trash falls over with an ear-splitting racket further down the corridor.
I swear loudly, then run back the way we came. I have to catch her!
10
- Mila -
As soon as the stack of alien artifacts starts to topple, I bolt.
I may never get another chance to escape. That ship looked easy enough to fly, and I think I know where it is. As far as I could tell, there are no locked doors between me and it.
I run back along the corridor, avoiding all the piles of weird machines until I see another stack of stuff that looks unsteady. I grab hold of a protruding piece, pull at it with all my might, and then jump aside and keep running. The surprisingly loud crash behind me tells me I toppled that pile and probably the one beside it, too.
That should slow Xan'tor down.
I turn a corner and approach the room where all the aliens were hanging out. They must have heard the noise and wondered what it was.
As soon as I hear voices, I take a step to the side and duck down beside a tank-like vehicle with scorch marks and alien weapons sticking out of it.
Several aliens jog past without spotting me.
I carefully stick my head out again. I don't think that was all of them, but I can only hope it was enough.
I tiptoe back out from behind the tank and peer into the pyramid room.
Frox and Crirux are still in there, but they're not looking in this direction. The room is very messy with all kinds of alien objects, some of them bigger than the tank I hid behind.
I crouch down and make my way inside the room, ducking behind some kind of gigantic light bulb coated in black. I can see the exit to the other corridor, and the door is open.
Just standing here is not an option. Xan'tor could come running at any moment.
I mentally map out the route I have to take, then commit to it.
Back when I was training with the Resistance, I never knew the obstacle courses we were sent through would one day be a handy experience. But now, it looks like it could actually be useful.
I zip between two-tracked vehicles, then tiptoe around an alien cannon with four glass barrels and a refrigerator-like carriage the size of a house. The exit is only twenty feet away.
Standing still for two seconds, I listen for sounds of activity. I have no way of knowing what Frox and Crirux are doing and where they're looking. Frox especially is a worry – he has all those eyes on swivelling stalks and probably a field of vision that's a full three hundred and sixty degrees. Or more, because who knows with aliens. But I can't control that.
I take a deep breath and half-crawl to the exit, my back prickling with the possibility of being spotted at any time.
And then I'm through and back in the first Toblerone corridor.
I straighten up and run on my toes to be as silent as possible, excitement bubbling in me. This could actually work!
Loud voices booming behind me make me run even faster. It sounds like Xan'tor has reached the room I just left.
He'll come after me, but there's so much alien stuff in here, too, that he won't be able to see me until he gets to the ship. And I intend to get there first, close the hatch, and then take off before he can do anything about it. I paid close attention when we left the ship.
I run as if I had a fresk chasing me, dodging weird alien objects and jumping over others. My breath is going ragged and my heart is beating like crazy, but I've never felt more like a soldier of the Resistance.
The corridor splits in two, and I'm pretty sure we came from the left one. I sprint on—
The floor disappears from under me, and for a second I hang in the air like Wile Y. Coyote, feet still running. Before I can scream, I realize I'm falling.
Upwards.
I hit the ceiling with my back first, hard, but I'm so tense and full of action that I bounce back onto my feet immediately.
I experience dizzying vertigo for a second, then realize that a part of the ceiling has now become the floor and the former floor is now half of the ceiling. It's like the Toblerone box suddenly twisted 120 degrees, and the surface that used to be the floor is now the wall/ceiling to my left.
I don't recall that happening when we came the other way. And it's the kind of thing I th
ink I'd notice.
I don't know what to do, so I start running again.
Staying close to the right wall in case the corridor does something weird again, I soon find that I don't recognize this place. This is not where I came with Frox and Xan'tor. I must have taken a wrong turn.
But there's no way I'm going back through that weird twist of gravity, because if I fall wrong, it could kill me. So I continue at a slower jog. The direction can't be that bad.
The air is stale and has a sour smell, like old electronics burning. It's getting darker, too. The further I progress down the triangular hallway, the less light there is.
Yep, this is definitely the wrong corridor.
I stop, not sure what to do. Reaching the spaceship before Xan'tor is not happening now, I can be sure of that. But he can't know why I bolted. If I'm not in the spaceship, he'll have to wonder where I am.
Perhaps I can hide for a while, wait it out, and then calmly find the spaceship and be on my merry way. But probably Xan'tor will close it off if I'm at large in this weird old wreck. That's what I would do.
Damn it. I had one chance to escape in that ship, and now it looks like I blew it.
There's a sound of heavy feet on metal. It comes closer fast.
And before I know it, I'm running again. At the very least, I'll keep him from catching me. When I see that blue creep again, I'll make sure I'm in a position of power to negotiate my release and transport to Earth or some Earth-adjacent place. I have no idea how that's supposed to happen, but this is a big, old, derelict spaceship and there must be something here I can use.
At the end of the triangular-walled corridor, there's a door that opens automatically before I have to stop, so I run through it. Immediately, I'm slammed to the wall/ceiling on the right, landing awkwardly on my shoulder and barely having the sense to turn it into a semi-controlled roll.
I sit up on the former wall, now floor, and rub my shoulder. “Stupid bullshit ship.”
But at least I was right – it was the right wall that eventually became the new floor, so I didn't fall as far as the first time.
This is yet another corridor like the inside of a gigantic Toblerone box, except this one is much shorter and widens at the far end.
I can't see anyone behind me, and the footsteps have faded away. So I still have time to hide.
Walking towards the end of the corridor, I hold one hand on the wall to my right, ready to brace if the gravity rotates again.
The door at the end of the corridor opens with an angry hiss that sounds dangerous. I immediately change my mind and turn to go the other way, but the gravity shifts again, and I both fall and am sucked through the open door and out into nothing.
11
- Xan'tor -
“Red light!” Frox says into my earpiece. “An outer hatch just opened.”
“Vix!” I curse with some intensity. “Where?”
“No idea. The display won't tell me. Remember, we only rigged it for basic alerts? On the order of a certain blue general? Saying we would deal with it later?”
I curse again. “It could be any of them. Which one is closest to the Pyramid?”
“That would be… sixteen,” he says from the main hall. “Quite a small one. Lots of random gravity shifts in that place.”
A sudden draft chills me, and a brief gust of wind howls past a corner. A very bad sign. I throw myself around and run back the way I came. “Anyone close to there?”
“No,” Frox informs me. “You're it. Should take you only forty seconds to get there. The good news is that hatch sixteen isn't open to space. It's only open to the internal void. So there's low pressure, but her life expectancy in there is longer than in hard space. Well, a little longer. Say forty percent. Oh, the light went out. The hatch is closed again. Automatically, I think.”
“Tell the others to get to the four next closest hatches. Just in case.”
“Done. But I don't see the point. If the female opened any one of those, she was sucked into space and can't be saved.”
“We have to try.”
“Try what? Hey, you're not planning on throwing yourself out of that hatch, are you? Even getting anywhere close—”
I turn off the communicator and run on. My boots feel heavy against the metal floor.
Finally, I see the widening hallway that leads to hatch sixteen. And I can swear I detect her scent on the air.
The gravity shifts again, but I've spent so much time in this old wreck that I hardly notice it.
The door opens.
And there she is, a white speck against the darkness of the central void of the spaceship. It's a huge cylindrical space where the aliens who built it once put some mysterious and gigantic device, then removed it again before they left. The lack of pressure sucks the air out of my lungs and makes my eyes and ears ache. This could kill anyone, and she's probably dead already.
Frox was right. She can't be saved.
I back up five paces, take a deep breath, run up to the open hatch, and dive into the void.
12
- Mila -
I'm suffocating.
My lungs pump like crazy, desperately trying to fill with air. But there just isn't any. My chest feels like a flat paper bag and I gasp wildly, but to no avail.
“Mila,” Ingrid says, barely audible, “you seem to be in a place with very little air. Try to get to another place. If you can't, try to sound an alarm or make people aware of you. This is a critical alert. Your life may be in danger. Since you are not responding, I will sound my own alert and flash my screen.”
A weak but insistent beeping noise starts from behind my back.
I'm panicking. Like never before, sprattling and twisting and reaching out for the nearest part of the ship. But it must be a hundred yards away, totally out of reach.
This is death. I'm dying in space. And nobody will ever know what happened to me.
“Evan,” I gasp while blackness starts to fill the edges of my vision.
Something hard hits me and would have pushed all the air out of me if there had been any.
The next thing I know there's pressure on my mouth and my lungs are being blown up with air.
I exhale, then gasp, and immediately more air is blown into me.
Then I focus my eyes.
Xan'tor is here, and it makes my heart sing.
“Hang onto me!” he yells into my ear, so I cling to him with all my might.
I'm not sure what happens next. He seems to bounce off girders and walls and triangular struts, then jumps straight up with so much force I lose my grip on him and he has to clench his hand around my arm.
There are bangs and thuds and impacts, but I don't mind at all, just closing my eyes and hanging on to a strong, blue body that will not let anything bad happen to me.
Then I'm on the floor in the Toblerone-shaped corridor, gasping for air. And, I finally realize, getting it.
Ingrid's alarm is still sounding, and in here it's so loud I worry about my hearing. I take her out and turn the alarm off.
Then I collapse to the floor again. It takes me a good few minutes to catch my breath.
Finally, I roll over on my back.
Xan'tor is squatting beside me, piercing me with those eye suns. But this time his frown is less strict and more worried.
“Thank you,” I pant in Interspeech. “I almost die.”
“I'm glad to see it was only almost.” A small smile is playing at his mouth.
“Thanks to you.”
“This old spaceship is very dangerous and unpredictable. It's not healthy to explore it on your own.”
I lie back and relax. My toes and fingers are tingling as they get oxygen again. “Now you tell me.”
“I would have told you sooner if I had known you were planning to run. The whole ship is deadly. We have only explored about half of it.”
“I thought you will lock me in little room. Like captive. Like slave.”
His eyes flash, little novas going
off in his face. “I don't keep slaves.”
My gaze wanders down his body, because of course it does. “You bleeding!”
He glances down. “So it seems.”
He has a number of little cuts on his arms. Red blood is oozing out.
My hand goes to my mouth. “Oh no! Is that because I… the falling things?”
“I had a couple of heaps of trash fall on me,” he says, bright eyes examining me. “We shouldn't store it like that in the first place. And you have an injury, yourself.” He nods.
The latex-like fabric has developed a small rip right over my wounded thigh, and a sliver of skin and the bandage I put on it can be seen. “Yes. From I capture. I mean, from I was captured.”
He leans in. “May I?”
Not waiting for a response, he gently tugs at the edges of the high-tech fabric, and it splits open all around the injury. Some blood has seeped through the bandage.
His finger suddenly has a claw, and he inserts it under the bandage and slices it off. “How did it happen?”
“The aliens. The tentacle had spike on, and when capture me, it cut.”
“Ah. A girku captured you.”
“Two,” I state, not wanting to seem too easy to catch. “And were also fresks. And others.”
He examines the wound, which is still seeping clear liquid and looks worryingly pale and bloodless. “Can you feel this?” He digs the claw right into the cut, and I prepare to scream in pain. But I feel nothing, just numbness.
“No.”
“Some aliens have dirty or even venomous spikes. I think the girku do. Already, this wound is going sour with some nasty thing. It should be treated properly.”
Before I can reply, he puts his mouth right on the injury.
I gasp and try to pull the leg away, but he easily holds me and appears to suck and lick at the wound and the skin around it. After a little while it starts to tingle, and I can feel the movements of his tongue. It has to be a very special tongue, because it seems to create heat that spreads up and down my thigh.
