“I don’t think so. They seem to be heading for the landing pad, but they’re coming in from all directions.” Candy stopped in front of me, gasping. She was white as a sheet. “The Kalquorians are fighting, but there’s a lot of confusion. It doesn’t appear we have a defense established yet.”
I turned to the Nobek. “I need to get to Medical. My sick mother is there, and she needs protection. She can’t fend for herself.”
He snapped a nod, happy to have something noble to do besides listen to me and Candy squeal. “I’ll escort you there and join those protecting the patients.”
The three of us raced off, Candy and I holding hands like terrified children as we went. The Nobek took the lead. Bless the poor kid’s heart, that’s why he got killed.
The shoo-wumph sound of a percussion blaster went off, and the air shivered for an instant before my bodyguard’s chest exploded. Candy and I screamed, flattening down to the ground in an instant. The Nobek fell down, his arm flinging out. The weapon he’d been holding thumped in the grass in front of me.
His glazed purple eyes filled my vision with his too-young face turned towards mine. I couldn’t look away for several beats.
“Shalia!” Candy shrieked, her voice tinny after my ears had taken the force of the shot. It was enough to convince me to glance in the direction her wide-eyed gaze pointed at.
Two Earther men in camouflage ran towards us from the cover of some trees. They wore body armor, the kind that deflects all but nearly point-blank fire. They aimed at us, and we had no body armor.
I reached for my dead bodyguard’s weapon, knowing I had no chance. I’d never fired a blaster. Surely our attackers would kill Candy and me before they came close enough for me to shoot with any accuracy. Still, instinct took over and my grip curled around the stock of the large firearm. I pulled it to me, hiding it beneath my stomach. My hand was damp with sweat, and I was dimly grateful for the weapon’s rough grip that kept it in my grasp.
The men closed in until they stood over us, their weapons pointed at our heads. “Well, look at this. You gals been slutting for the Kalqs? You been whoring for alien cock?”
I had the mad urge to say, “Just me,” thinking maybe they’d at least let Candy live. Staring into the huge muzzle aimed at me, I couldn’t remember how to talk.
What happened then was a blur. I remember the guy bending down, reaching for me. There was a harsh tug on my hair, but I didn’t register pain. He pulled hard to yank me upright. I blinked and found I was on my knees in front of him. Then there was the massive roar of a blaster going off. Then another. And another.
My next memory was standing over three bodies: my bodyguard’s and the two attackers. Candy clung to me, screaming my name, begging me to talk to her, telling me we had to run. She had blasters in both her hands. Those weapons were sized for smaller human hands instead of the near cannon I clutched in my numb grip.
“Shalia, come on! We’ve got to get out of here before more come!”
“Did I—” My voice dried up. I fought to force the words out. “Did I kill them?”
“Yes, but you had no choice! If you hadn’t, they would have killed us! Shalia, we have to go!”
I stared at the corpses at my feet. One’s belly was blown out. The other was missing half his head. I’d ended lives. I’d killed people.
“Shalia! We need to go to your mom! Focus, damn it!”
Mom. The idea of my mother was the only notion that could snap me out of my fog. I pulled together my shattered senses to let Candy shove and bully me forward until we were racing for Medical.
Fortunately for us, the next people who we came across were a bunch of Kalquorian Nobeks, some of whom had done guard duty over me. We had more blasters pointed at us since we were armed Earthers. Because so many of those guys knew me, not just from playing my personal security but also because of my presentation weeks ago, we weren’t threatened for long. Candy explained what had happened to us, and I bobbed my head in agreement since I found it hard to talk. I kept seeing those dead men in my head. It didn’t matter I killed them in self-defense. The fact remained that I killed them. Period.
The squad commander sent us on to Medical with one of his men, allowing Candy and I to keep the Earther-issued weapons for our own protection. Spotting the tan rectangle that was the Medical facility was a huge relief. As soon as our escort talked to the guards stationed there, we were allowed into its tense but well-ordered environment. I ran straight to Mom’s room.
Dad and Weln were in there. They were dressing her, swapping her nightgown for skirt and blouse. “What are you two doing out of your rooms?” Dad yelled at me and Candy.
“Hi Shalia,” Mom mumbled. “I get to go somewhere.”
“Not outside, Eve,” Weln said, slipping the blouse over her head while trying to keep her front covered with a sheet. He’s so conscientious. “Just to another room.”
“Okay, that’s fine. It sounds like war out there anyway.” Mom referred to the continuing blasts we could hear from her room. It did sound like war, which I supposed it was.
Dad still glared at me, not happy I’d been running around the Academy though he had to know I would head straight for Mom. “Stop being mean,” I said. “I’m having a rough day.” The understatement of the year.
He noticed I held a blaster, and his eyes widened. “Are you all right?”
“Her bodyguard was attacked and killed,” Candy told him, her mouth running a mile a second. “They came after us. Shalia had no choice but to defend us both. She was very brave, but she’s in shock. We took their weapons.”
My friend had slipped her arm about my waist while she chattered. I leaned my head onto her shoulder, letting the horror wash over me for a moment. As Candy went on about how some Nobek commander had given us permission to carry, Dad came over and pressed his palm to my cheek.
When Candy paused for a breath, he whispered to me, “I’m sorry, my daughter. It is no easy matter to take a life, not even when it’s someone threatening yours.”
“Matara Eve is ready,” Weln said, picking Mom up, as well as a small case. “I have her medications.”
“Good. Take her to the storage area with the rest. Bring Shalia and Candy with you so they’ll be guarded.” Dad headed towards the door.
“Where are you going?” I asked, pulling free of Candy. “You have to be safe too.”
He turned to reassure me. “I’ve got to gather some extra medications, little one. I’ll join you in a few minutes. Go on with Weln. Stay with your mother.”
He sped down the hallway. Dad’s body looks as if it’s made to lumber and not sprint. I stared after him in surprise. How could a guy that size move so fast?
Weln smiled at me as he led Candy and me down the hall, carrying my mother who waved at the Nobeks we passed. Guards for Medical, was my guess. My sweetie tried to be encouraging as he said, “It’s going to be all right, Shalia. Try not to worry.”
Yeah, that’s like telling the sun not to rise.
We went to the back of the building to a door marked ‘storage’ where half a dozen armed and armored Nobeks stood. The guy in charge noticed me and Candy holding our tiny Earther blasters.
“I have to confiscate those,” he said.
I was more than ready to give mine up. I didn’t care if I never fired a weapon again. Candy put up a fight though.
“Hey, the other commander was fine with us keeping these for our protection!” she squalled.
The Nobek gave her such a condescending expression that even I was tempted to punch it off his scary, brutish face. “We will protect you, Matara. You females have no need to worry with such issues.”
I swear, if he’d been able to pull off a southern accent, he would have been at home here in Georgia. “Y’all don’t worry yore purty li’l heads about it none,” I snorted in derision. I tossed rather than handed him my blaster. “Try being a little less patronizing, dumbass. It takes hands to fire a weapon, not a cock or two.”
> Candy scowled angrily at him as she surrendered her firearm. The Nobek acted confused as we went past him to enter the storeroom. I guess he was unable to understand why we poor helpless girls weren’t falling all over in gratitude for his protection. It’s too bad he’ll never have the opportunity to figure it out.
The storeroom was vast, almost warehouse-worthy in size. Medicines and plenty of treatment machines were stockpiled in floor to ceiling shelves in half the space. Also stockpiled in the other half of the storeroom were the ailing patients similar to Mom and those with special needs, again like Mom. I recognized some of her old daycare buddies, the people Weln helps with. There were equal calls of welcome to Weln and her as we came in and joined the patients, doctors, orderlies, and caregivers. You’d have thought it was a party. Heck, there were even juice drinks and cookies being handed out. It was a ‘We’re Under Attack Bash’. All we needed were balloons.
Weln settled Mom in a hover chair and hurried off in search of something. I squatted down and held her hand while Candy chatted up a cute Imdiko who was helping another older woman put together a vid puzzle. Mom kept sliding to one side, still too weak from her stroke to sit up straight on her own for very long. I checked for something to prop her up with.
Weln reappeared with his hands full of pillows. “This will help,” he said, tucking them about Mom’s frame. She smiled up at him, but her eyes were distant. Dad was right. She’s getting worse.
Once he had her set, Weln sat down on the floor and pulled me onto his lap. “My poor Shalia,” he said, hugging me tight.
“Weln,” I whispered, burrowing my face against his chest. I crowded against him, hiding in the circle of his arms, finding shelter in his strong body. I started to shake as I told him, “I don’t remember doing it. I could hear the blaster going off, and then I was standing over the bodies—”
“Hush.” He rocked me as if I were a child. “It’s over, and you’ll be okay. You did nothing wrong. It’s all right, sweetness.”
A minute later, Dad came running into the room, the door shutting behind him as bursts of firing sounded. “The building is under attack,” he said, his eyes wide. “We believe the assault on the landing pad failed and they’re trying for hostages.”
The humans wailed and the Kalquorians looked grim. Dad did a quick check around the room of the sick and injured before he ended up with me and Weln.
“Is it bad?” I asked him in a low voice.
Dad licked his lips. “The security team here will do everything in their power to keep us safe,” he said.
It wasn’t a real answer. That came moments later when the telltale sounds of battle started booming outside the storage room’s door.
People screamed, and there was a rush to cower in the corners and against the wall as what must have been a pitched battle commenced. I stuck close to Mom, with Weln and Dad standing between us and the door. Mom simply sat there, not registering any of the panic going on around her. Her lips moved once. I think she said, “Loud.”
The thudding rumbles of fighting and screams of men seemed to go on forever, but probably no more than five minutes. The abrupt silence that followed was even more deafening. My breath was a windstorm, my heart like the galloping hooves of a horse in that eerie quiet during which no one dared to speak. I peeked out from behind Dad’s tree trunk legs to watch the door. I needed to know if friend or foe would walk in.
The door opened, and Matt King stuck his head in to look at us. I could have cried from relief to see a friendly face.
His eyes found me, as if drawn by a magnet. A grin unfurled. “Hello, Shalia. So glad to find you here. I was hoping to get the opportunity to thank you for telling me about the transport schedule.”
I blinked. I stood up and stepped forward. “The transport schedule?”
Matt nodded. “The transferring of prisoners was perfect timing for us to attack these murdering monsters you enjoy slutting with.” His mocking grin grew larger. “Let’s see if you like dying with them as much. Door, close and lock.”
He moved back and the door shut. There was a telltale buzzing as it locked. Several Kalquorians raced forward and tried to force the door open. I stood glued to the spot, my head trying to catch up with Matt’s words. He was with the attackers?
“Son of a bitch,” Weln swore. “They were on the inside as well as the outside.”
My knees felt as if they’d give out at any second. Candy stood next to me and yelled furiously. “That asshole! He pretended he was our friend. That he wanted to work with you guys. All along he was working with the killing bastards!” She turned to me, breathless with realization and anger. “That night we were shot at, Shalia! Matt was near the perimeter. He must have been meeting with them then.”
I couldn’t speak. I’d done it again. First Armageddon, when I hadn’t alerted the general populace that most of them were sitting on time bombs. Now this. I’d given Matt the information so that the group attempting to destroy those of us in the Academy could attack. Attack and win were my guess, based on what had happened so far.
Somebody spoke in Kalquorian, and Dad stiffened beside me. “You smell smoke?”
The men crowded around the door stepped back, and I saw the first gray curls coming in through the cracks. There was a cry of, “They’ve set the building on fire!”
The announcement brought screams from several Earthers. Dad held his hands up and bellowed for quiet.
“Panicking will get us all killed. You and you—” he pointed to a couple of the orderlies “—stay here and keep an eye on the patients. Everyone else who is able, fan out and find another way out of here. You two, keep working to open the door.”
We did as we were told, some people sobbing in fear. The storage room had only a single obvious entrance, the locked door we couldn’t break through. I found a vent an infant might have been able to wriggle through, but nothing else. Frightened cries announced that no avenue of escape could be found.
“I see a panel of some kind in the ceiling,” a deep voice called. Like terrified lemmings, we rushed towards the voice. It came from the area filled with shelves.
An orderly and a doctor stood among the shelves, staring up. We crowded around the metal floor-to-ceiling unit they stood in front of. After confirming the rack of shelves was bolted down, the Kalquorian doctor climbed it, trying to reach the metal panel overhead. It seemed pretty small. It was definitely too tiny for somebody Kalquorian-size. Dad’s bulk would never, ever get through.
The other doctor clambered up there and pulled on a manual handle on the panel. It swung down easily, revealing a dark hole. He could fit his head inside, but not his wide shoulders. He stuck his head in.
He ducked down again after a few seconds. “It’s got an extremely low ceiling, but otherwise it’s a wide open space. I saw some light coming in from a far wall. It’s possible there’s a route out for you smaller Earthers.”
Hands closed over my shoulders. I twisted to find Weln standing behind me. “Let’s send them up then,” he said. “They can go for help, maybe call the fire and rescue crews here.”
Dad stepped up beside us. “It’s our best chance.” He smiled down at me. “Ready to be brave, my daughter?”
“But–but—” I stuttered. I didn’t want to leave him, Weln and my mother there.
“That’s a girl,” Weln said, lifting me up and shoving me so I was forced to start climbing the shelves. “Get out as fast as you can and find help.”
“Fuck,” I muttered. Pushy Kalquorians. I climbed with Weln coming up beneath me. He ensured I didn’t fall.
When I reached the doctor at the top, I paused to have a look. Candy was coming up behind me, along with another couple of smaller women. Kalquorians were also climbing, clinging to the shelves as they kept hold of those trying to reach the dubious safety of the overhead space. Faces stared up at me from those who stood on the floor, their eyes wide and frightened.
I glanced at the locked door, and terror knifed through m
y guts. Thin tendrils of wispy smoke were wafting in through the seams. The place was on fire. If I didn’t move my ass, people were going to die.
“Take care of Mom,” I whispered to Weln and gave him a quick kiss before accepting the hand of the doctor at the top of the shelves.
“I will,” I heard him say.
The other Kalquorian helped to boost me towards the open square. I lifted my arms, grabbing onto the ledge and scrabbled into what at first appeared to be pitch black surroundings. I wondered how the hell I was supposed to find my way out of there when I couldn’t see shit, but the most pressing matter at hand was to climb up there in the first place.
My hips scraped the edges of the opening, and I got stuck for a moment. A big hand shoved up against my ass, forcing me through. I decided I wouldn’t protest the manhandling since the guy was trying to save my life.
Shalia's Diary Omnibus Page 37
