by Dan Oakley
Gripped in his fist was a sparkling destruction blade. He had stabbed me.
I tried to walk towards him, but staggered, already suffering from loss of blood. He grinned and detached my comms unit before I could react. I reached out to steady myself on some of the boxes but stumbled and fell flat on my face. Beneath me, a pool of blood seeped across the floor.
I looked up to see what Zarak was doing, but I was too slow. I just heard the click of the lock as he closed the door on me.
Sprawled on the floor, I stared up at the metal grid work on the ceiling. So this was how it ended for me. Not devoured by a mutant lizard, but murdered by one of my own team. Spots danced in front of my eyes. Death wasn’t far away.
It was easier if I didn’t fight it.
I felt myself drift, imagining being back on Terrano, sitting in front of a crackling fire, sipping soup. Maureena was by my side.
“You know this isn’t over. You need to get up. Find the girl. She’ll help you.”
“What’s the point? There’s no time.”
“You can’t give up, Tomas. There are people who need you.”
“I’ve tried. But nothing I do is enough.”
“Then you need to try again.”
I was so tired. My head swam as I tried to lift my body. Slowly pulling myself forward on my elbows, I dragged my body across the floor, leaving a smear of blood on the tiles.
“You can do it, Tomas. Don’t give up.” Maureena’s voice echoed in my mind.
My muscles were so weak that my arms trembled as I reached up to try and open the door. There was no way I could walk anywhere. But I would drag myself along the floor all the way to the spiky-haired girl’s room if I had to.
When I pressed the button, the door slid open, and I pushed myself through the opening.
I soon regretted that.
At the end of the corridor, was a huge lizard.
I flung myself back inside and punched the close door button with my fist.
I heard the lizard’s feet pound against the corridor as it ran towards me. The scratching of its nails on the tiles made my blood run cold.
“Oh, come on,” I groaned.
Why couldn’t I catch a break?
The lizard flung itself at the door, denting the metal. I pushed myself back to the other side of the room. I didn’t even bother to unholster my weapon. I already knew the ElectroLaser was next to useless against these animals.
I had to pray my blood loss didn’t weaken my magic. It was my only hope.
I tried to focus on generating some vibrational energy.
“What are you doing, Tomas?” Maureena’s voice sounded clear and loud as though she was right beside me.
“Preparing to fight,” I muttered.
“There is a time to fight and a time to run. Now is the time to run.”
“There is nowhere to run. I’m trapped.”
“There’s always a way.”
My hallucinations were starting to get on my nerves. There was no way to get out of this other than trying to blast the lizard with an energy bolt when it managed to bash through the door.
The creature flung itself at the door again, scratching the metal with its nails. It left a lizard head-sized indentation in the top of the door.
My head rolled back, and I stared up at the metal grid work. Maybe Maureena was right. Maybe there was a way to get out of this.
I used the wall to pull myself upright and pulled some boxes together to form a pile.
Flinching, as the lizard threw itself again at the door, I climbed to the top of the pile of boxes and threaded my fingers through the metal grid work.
I managed to remove one of the panels, and it took all my remaining strength to pull myself up through the small gap into the crawlspace just as the lizard burst through the door.
I swore as the lizard’s snapping jaws narrowly missed my boot. I crawled away as it stuck its head further into the cramped space. Over my shoulder, I saw it open its mouth and give a low hiss.
I was tempted to send an energy bolt its way, but in the end, decided to conserve my energy. I slowly crawled forwards, following the schematics on my wrist device.
Below me, the lizard jumped, using its snout to bash the grid work.
“Are you kidding me?” I screamed down at the lizard. “You are just a sore loser!”
If it carried on like that, it could dislodge a panel, creating a nice human-sized hole and I would be back on the menu for the lizard’s dinner.
I crawled on, and luckily for me, the grid work seemed to hold, despite the lizard’s punishing hits. Though, it did manage to insert its claws between the holes just by my right leg, gouging a deep cut through my armor.
Luckily, the cut wasn’t deep enough to scratch my skin. I pressed on through the pain.
The next hit from the lizard’s snout did precisely what I’d feared. One of the panels fell loose and clattered to the floor.
My legs dropped down, dangling from the ceiling as I desperately clutched onto a pipe to stop myself falling.
Below me, the lizard raised its head, and its tongue flickered over its teeth as its amber eyes focused on my exposed limbs.
Chapter 26
Why couldn’t the reptilian gunk gecko accept defeat?
Still gripping the pipe with one hand, I turned and pointed my other hand towards the beast. Anger flooded my body, and I could feel the fury vibrating through my veins.
The creature crouched on its haunches, preparing to jump and snap its deadly jaws around my legs. But it wasn’t expecting the energy bolt.
Considering I’d lost a lot of blood and was feeling very weak, the energy bolt was impressive. I was pretty sure it was the biggest and most powerful attack I’d launched so far. The energy left my hand as a streaking ball, white, red and yellow swirling light, like a ball of fire.
It hit the lizard right between the eyes, and its head split in two like an overripe watermelon.
“Take that, dirt sucker!” I muttered.
I left the smoking lizard carcass behind and carried on pulling myself along the crawlspace. At least the scaly beasts couldn’t follow me up here. The dark, narrow tunnel was disorientating, so I was glad my wrist device could track my position in the building. I had three choices. I could go back to the team immediately and let them know what Zarak had done, or I could find the girl first and then tell everyone Zarak had tried to murder me. I still had fifteen minutes until the jump, and though the wound between my ribs was still oozing blood, the heavy flow had slowed. Then there was the fact that if we jumped without the girl, I’d never be able to forgive myself.
After I’d twisted my body around two tight curves over the pipes, I calculated I should have been directly over the spiky-haired girl’s room. I peered down through the metal grid work. It was dark down there. I really hoped she hadn’t gone walkabout.
But then I noticed a small glowing square in the corner of the room. Was she looking at something on a monitor? I tapped on the metal to get her attention.
“It’s me, Tomas. I’m going to come down from the ceiling. Don’t shoot me, okay?”
She didn’t respond, and I hoped that meant she wasn’t about to blast me with one of her stockpiled weapons. The metal panel was stiff and took a few tugs to yank free.
It fell to the floor, and I tumbled down after it.
Not the most graceful of landings. I groaned as the pain from my knife wound seemed to intensify tenfold.
The girl looked at me, wide-eyed. She’d been holding a portable screen and chucked it on the bed, then turned the lights up. She looked at me and pointed at my blood-soaked armor.
“It was Zarak,” I growled. “He stabbed me. Don’t worry. He’ll be punished, but first, we need to go to the communications suite. It’s time to jump to our ship.”
She shook her head and stepped back away from me. I couldn’t blame her. Sure, here she had to contend with lack of human contact and predatory lizards, but she’d just found
out another of the Kingdom’s crew had attempted to murder one of their own. What the commander had done was bad enough.
“Not everyone is like the commander and Zarak,” I said. “We can get you to safety. Maybe even contact your family…”
That made her pause, and through her confusion, she almost looked hopeful.
“No one will try to hurt you,” I reassured her, hoping that was true. “But we need to get to the communication suite now. We don’t have much time.”
Rather than agreeing and opening the door, to my disappointment, she grabbed a large box with a metal handle from the shelf. It had a large red cross on the front of the box.
She opened it up to show me different types of dressings and medicines. She pushed it towards me, and I selected a large dressing that I could use to pad my wound. I could hold it in place with a bandage around my midsection. Hopefully, that would stem the bleeding until I could access medical treatment back on the K.S. Morellic.
She grabbed a syringe, and before I could have any say in the matter, she stabbed the needle into the top of my arm.
“Ow, I hope that’s not out of date.”
I rubbed my arm, and she grinned, holding up the bottle to show it was an antibacterial and clotting drug.
As I struggled to wrap the bandage and secure the pad over the knife wound, she tapped on the console in the corner of the room, and one of the large screens on the wall came to life. It showed the communication suite and the team.
“Are you sure he’s dead?” Draylan asked.
“Yes, it was horrific,” Zarak said, shaking his head and looking upset. “The lizard ripped off his limbs as he screamed. There was nothing I could do to help.”
Who were they talking about? The remaining team members were all in the suite... Was this a delayed recording? Maybe they were talking about Cartwright?
“Are you sure you just didn’t hide in a cupboard while the lizard attacked?” Bobby said, not bothering to hide his disdain for Zarak.
Zarak pressed a hand to his chest, feigning hurt. “I did everything I could, but Tomas is dead. We are all here. Let’s jump now.”
I turned to the girl. “Unbelievable! That sneaky, lying... He thinks he is going to get away with this. I can’t believe it!”
“But what about the young girl?” Bayliss asked, and I turned my attention back to the screen.
“She was already dead when Tomas and I got to her. Then we were attacked by another lizard on our way back here. Look, I’ll explain everything when we get back to the ship. But there are loads of those things out there on the prowl. If we don’t jump now, we may not live through the next five minutes.”
Draylan nodded. “You’re right. I’ll communicate with the jump deck that we are ready to go as soon as they are.”
I stared at the screen in disbelief. Zarak was going to let them go without me. He thought I was dead, and he was going to get away with murder.
Hell no.
I pushed myself to my feet. Holding the sterile pad to my wound, I staggered towards the door.
“You need to help me get to the communication suite. We can’t let him get away with this.”
She hesitated and then nodded. She strapped a large fire weapon to her back. Grabbing my arm, she wrapped it around her shoulders, so I could lean on her as we left the room. She shut the door behind us, and we headed out along the corridor.
I had to hope there would be some delay before they jumped. I could only stagger along. There was no way I could run to the communication suite in this state.
I leaned heavily on the girl. She was stronger than she looked. We’d made it to the bottom of the staircase when we met our first obstacle. We heard it before we saw it.
The low hiss made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
She gripped my arm and tried to pull me away from the stairs.
“Is there another way?” I asked desperately, checking the time on my wrist device.
She shook her head.
“Then I’ll distract the lizard and draw it away from the stairs. You go to the communication suite and tell them what happened.”
Of course, there were a few flaws in my plan. For one thing, the girl wasn’t speaking to anyone. I didn’t know whether she couldn’t talk or just didn’t want to, but I wasn’t too concerned. If the other team members saw that the girl was alive, they would know Zarak had lied, and surely that would make them question whether he’d lied about my death too. Then there was a little matter of drawing the lizard away when I was already injured. Perhaps that was a touch suicidal.
She shook her head firmly and tugged on my arm. She wanted to give up. Her sense of self-preservation was strong. It had to be for her to survive for this long on Tor.
It was unfair of me to expect her to risk her life like this. By trying to help her, was I going to get her killed?
“Please, I really need your help,” I begged.
She was conflicted. She wasn’t talking, but her emotions played out clearly on her face. Finally, she sighed and nodded. She pointed at a small air-conditioning hatch and then removed the cover. She was showing me where she was going to hide while I distracted the lizard.
When she was safely hidden, I helped her put the cover over the hatch and then turned to the stairwell. It was game time.
I propped open the door so I would be able to make a quick getaway if needed. My heart was racing as I approached the first step. I couldn’t see the lizard but could hear it grunting and snuffling on the next landing. Was my accelerated pulse rate due to fear or due to low blood pressure after blood loss? Maybe a bit of both.
I wasn’t planning to get too close to the lizard. That would be madness. The creatures moved far too quickly, and I wasn’t confident my reaction times were good enough to shoot off an energy bolt before it turned me into a snack. Instead, I planned to lure it downstairs and along the corridor so the spiky-haired girl could run upstairs to the communications suite.
It was a long shot. But I couldn’t see another solution.
I banged the flat of my hand against the cold metal of the railing.
The lizard stopped grunting. There was silence for a moment, followed by a long snort. I imagined the beast sniffing the air, detecting my scent.
“Down here, you overgrown gecko!”
The lizard’s claws scratching against the hard floor made me take a step back from the stairs. It was heading towards me.
Then it stopped.
The only sound was my breathing, intensified by my headset. What was it doing? Why didn’t it just run after me?
I crept forward, craning my neck, trying to see where the lizard was and why it wasn’t pursuing me. I knew the creature was close, but I couldn’t see it. It had to be just out of sight.
I took a deep breath, trying to counteract my dizziness, and put my foot on the first step. I looked up the stairwell, straining to see, but there was no sign of the lizard. Had it gone?
I didn’t have time to play a waiting game. In a matter of minutes, the rest of the team would jump back to the ship.
I climbed two more steps, bracing myself against the railing and looking up.
Too late, I caught the movement above me. The lizard was smaller than the last one I’d dealt with and had a more pointed snout.
I couldn’t get a clear shot. The angles in the stairwell were a problem. The energy bolt could miss its target and rebound on me. My only chance was to draw the scaly creature away from the stairwell.
I took two steps back, quickly, too quickly in my weakened state, and my legs buckled beneath me. I crashed to the ground, and the creature’s head swiveled towards me. Its amber eyes glowed, and it let out a birdlike screech that made my stomach flip over.
Then it jumped, clearing a whole set of stairs in one bound.
Cursing, I scrambled to my feet and threw myself through the doorway. Just in time as it turned out because the lizard leaped again, its enormous scaly feet and black claws landing j
ust where I’d been a split second ago.
My feet slipped on the tiled floor in my mad hurry to get away. I was slow. Far too slow. The lizard slammed into me from behind, sending me sprawling forward, sliding over the tiles. I raised my hand to deliver an energy bolt as the lizard lunged for me, but again my reactions were too slow. One of the lizard’s feet landed on my bicep, pinning my arm to the ground. I lifted my left hand throwing an energy bolt at its head, but I missed by a mile.
The blast left a smoking hole in the ceiling, but the lizard was unharmed. It crushed my left arm with its other foot.
It raised its head letting out another birdlike screech. I struggled, trying to free my arms but it was no good. The creature weighed a ton. With one of its smaller front legs, it slashed the body armor covering my chest.
I look down to see my armor cut to ribbons and fresh blood pumping out of my chest.
The adrenaline racing through my system deadened the pain.
Even though I couldn’t see a way out of this, I fought like crazy to get free. I hoped the spiky-haired girl had made her way to the communications suite. Even if I died, she would get off this planet.
The lizard opened its mouth, showing off its yellowing fangs. I knew what was coming next. It positioned its large head so it could take a big bite out of my torso.
A flash of light dazzled me, and the creature let out a groan before falling headfirst on top of me.
It took a lot of effort to push the creature away, and when I looked up, I saw the spiky-haired girl standing there with her laser weapon pointed at the beast.
She’d saved me.
I should have been grateful, but all I could think about was that we might have missed the jump time.
Without pausing to thank her for saving my life, I grabbed her hand. “Come on; we have to catch them before they jump.”
I wasn’t sure how my legs were still functioning. Maybe it was the leftover adrenaline still pumping through my system. I scrambled up the stairs as fast as I could.
When we reached the communication suite, I pounded on the door with the sides of my fists, but there was no response.
