Heart of the Beast

by Sonia Nova

  Flanked by the rest of the pirates, Xeegan followed the Mehelian through an automatically opening doorway into a hall. He caught a whiff of Kira’s fading scent and looked for any trace of her, but as the Mehelian turned to the right and led him deeper down the hallway, he realized Kira must have been taken in the exact opposite direction.

  This direction, down an empty hallway, led to a pair of double doors with about five different locks holding the doors together. Wherever they were going, they either really wanted to keep intruders out or keep something inside.

  “Stay,” the Mehelian ordered and started to tap codes into the first few locks. The last two locks scanned his iris and the fingerprints of his eerily thin fingers.

  Once the doors slid open, the Mehelian pulled him into the next hallway. The doors shut behind them with a quiet thud after the rest of the pirates had gone through. There were five other pirates following them, all with guns drawn. How much backup did they really think they needed for one Ezak-X like him? Five seemed like overkill.

  Of course, he could take them all out. Not easily – with a fight – but he had no doubt he could do it.

  Just wait, he reminded himself.

  They went down the hallway in silence, passing large gray doors labeled with numbers. The configuration reminded Xeegan of another hallway he had done his best to forget. The silver doors with the numbers… The heavy-duty security on every exit and entrance…

  No.

  There was no time for getting wrapped up in his past. He had to say here, right now, and be ready to act when the time was right.

  The Mehelian entered a code on the lock of one of the doors, and the door slowly slid open, revealing a small cell with concrete walls, ceiling, and floor. The pirates pointing their guns at Xeegan practically shoved him inside with their weapons.

  “Let’s go report this,” the Mehelian said to the rest of the group as he hit the switch to close the door.

  “I can’t believe you found a female too,” another pirate said.

  One of them shook his head as he holstered his weapon. “It’s a good day for the boss.”

  The door slid closed without another word from them, and Xeegan was left alone in the dim cell. A single strip of flickering light wrapped around the edges of the ceiling. The door was solid metal and had no opening for bars or even a slot for food – nothing to let light in or allow him to escape.

  Through the door, Xeegan could hear the pirates leave, and as their footsteps faded along the corridor, he pulled his hands apart, breaking the rope tied around his wrists with barely any effort.

  Was he really right to not attack the pirates? He could have easily taken the fragile Mehelian out, gun or not. The rest of the pirates might have taken a couple more minutes, but it wouldn’t have taken him long to free himself and go after the pirate who had taken Kira. He started to regret his decision. If he had just acted, they could be together.

  Instead, he was now trapped in a cell and had no idea who – if anyone – was in the cellblock as well, or even exactly where they were. It seemed like some kind of large facility, but all he had seen was a couple of hallways and a docking bay. He hadn’t even seen any Krezlians.

  Lucky for them.

  This whole setup brought back memories that made his skin crawl. There had been times when his makers had put him in a cell like this – no bed, no toilet, no food. He had taken to passing the time by imagining ripping apart his Krezlian guards, limb by limb. Not that he would have ever touched them, not then. They had trained him too well – trained him to believe that living as their experiment was all he was worth.

  Not now. Now, he was ready to get his revenge. Over and over. As many Krezlians as he could find and kill.

  But Kira had a reason for telling him to wait. She knew that backup would be there soon. The Alliance would come, and they would have a better chance of getting out of here alive and well, with the kidnapped human females and Zeon.

  …What if he was in the same cellblock as the other Krezlian prisoners right now? What if, soon, the Krezlians would come get him and start their horrible experiments on him again?

  He couldn’t think about that. Thinking about that fucked with his head and he had to stay alert.

  He started walking in the cell, unable to sit still. Only two strides and he was already on the other side of the tiny room. He turned and kept pacing. Of course, pacing wasn’t about to do anything to help the situation, but he needed to do something with the energy he had and the frustration that was building up inside him. Let alone keep the nightmarish memories of his past at bay.

  Kira.

  He wanted to go save her. Now.

  But he had to wait. When the Alliance showed up, there was sure to be chaos. Even if the goal was to send a targeted group in to rescue the prisoners and leave, once his makers figured out what was going on, they weren’t going to give up without a fight.

  They hadn’t last time…

  Xeegan shut his eyes, fighting to remain sane and to not let the memories affect him. At the first hint of trouble, he was going to get the hell out of this cell and join the fight.

  CHAPTER 20

  KIRA

  Any time now…

  Kira was still streaming her location data to her Alliance colleagues. The Mehelian pirate had seemed more focused on getting her handcuffs secured than searching her, thankfully.

  Backup had to be nearly here, right? It had been over five minutes since they had been discovered in the back of the van. Wherever they were, the place was huge. The pirate was still leading her down a maze of hallways that seemed endless.

  “Where are we going?” Kira asked, unable to stay silent a moment longer. She knew better than to push the buttons of her captors before backup arrived, but she wasn’t going to just get meekly dragged around until then.

  “Here,” the Mehelian answered unhelpfully, and stopped outside a door with a glass window in it. The words “Laboratory 3” were etched into the metal of the door, beneath the bottom edge of the window.

  Laboratory…

  Looks like they were in the right place…

  The Mehelian started to pat her down, quickly finding her hidden blades and her wristband. She felt him detach it from her arm. He didn’t say anything, so he must not have noticed it was transmitting.

  Once he seemed satisfied with his search, he unfastened her handcuffs, opened the door to the lab, and pushed her in.

  “Don’t cause any trouble,” he muttered. “Boss will be here to interrogate you soon.”

  Then, he shut the door. The automatic lock clicked into place, and through the window of the door, Kira could see the Mehelian walk away.

  Had he really just uncuffed her?

  She stretched out her arms in front of her, rotating her wrists to get rid of the dull ache from the cuffs. Despite her heavy weaponry, these pirates really didn’t seem to think she was much of a threat at all.

  Their loss, her gain.

  She turned away from the door and toward the interior of the lab. Her heart fell as she took in what she saw.

  A woman. A human woman.

  Kira rushed to the operating table in the center of the room. The woman was strapped to the table, wearing a white surgical gown. Her light blonde hair was frayed around her face and she was pale – too pale. As Kira got closer, she noticed her lips were nearly blue. Her head lolled to one side, away from the door. She couldn’t tell if the woman was breathing or not.

  Please… Please, be alive.

  “Are you okay?” Kira put a hand on the woman’s shoulder and nudged her gently.

  No response. No.

  She took one of the woman’s limp hands in hers and pressed a thumb against her wrist, feeling for a pulse. A weak thrumming was just barely detectable. Kira heaved a relieved sigh.

  “Come on,” she said, looking into the woman’s face. Her eyelids fluttered at the sound of her voice. “Okay, that’s promising. I need you to wake up. I’m going to get you out
of here.”

  That “boss” the Mehelian had mentioned could be here any moment. If Kira could get this woman freed by then, they would both have a better chance of escaping.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” she said as the woman’s eyes opened all the way and she strained ineffectually against her restraints. “I’m going to help you out of here.”

  The woman stared at Kira like she was a ghost. Her blue eyes were bloodshot and wide in fear.

  “You’re… you’re really here?” she said in a thin, cracked voice as if she hadn’t had a drink of water in far too long. “I’m not imagining this?”

  “I’m here. This is as real as it gets.” Kira started to unbuckle the nearest strap that was holding the woman’s shoulders down. “Tell me: what’s your name? How did you end up here?”

  “I…” She coughed. “I’m Iris… Iris Anderson. I work in trade. I was on Agaria when… when it all happened. I tried to transfer… tried to get as far away from there as possible. But they kidnapped me again.” Tears started to stream down the woman’s pale face.

  Kira paused from her work on the straps to look Iris in the eyes. “The Krezlians?”

  The woman nodded. Her cheeks flushed from the crying and she took her breaths in gasps as more tears came.

  “Hey, hey,” Kira said, putting a hand on Iris’s shoulder. “I’m getting you out of here.”

  “No,” the woman sobbed. “They’re going to hurt me again.”

  “Hurt you?”

  “The tests. The… the shots, the machines…” Iris took a breath, her tears starting to dry on her cheeks as she stopped crying. “The surgeries–”

  She stopped talking abruptly, her already large doe eyes widening.

  “What are you looking at?” Kira asked, dropping the strap she was undoing and turning around to face the doorway behind them.

  Her breath caught and her heart jumped in her throat as the door suddenly clicked open. A green-skinned, scaly Krezlian in a military coat covered in medals strode into the lab. Two guards followed behind him: a tough-looking Krezlian and a tall Mehelian.

  “Step away from the female,” the Krezlian leading the group hissed in accented Alliance Standard.

  This must be the “boss.” With a decorated coat like that, there was no question about it. Just the smug, self-important expression on the lizard’s face could have told her he was in charge.

  Kira took the smallest step away from Iris. As soon as the alien had walked in, the woman had completely frozen, as if she had been made of stone. Kira wasn’t sure she was even breathing anymore.

  Calculations went rapidly through her mind. The only weapon she had on her was a small blade in the sole of her boot. The Mehelian who had patted her down hadn’t spent much time searching anywhere other than the typical places weapons were hidden.

  But even if she had a weapon, the blade was truly tiny and would take more than a moment to extract from the rubber of the sole. It wasn’t meant to be used in a high-pressure situation like this where she needed to move quickly. The Krezlian boss had a gun on his belt and who knew how many other weapons. The guards behind him were also armed.

  The best bet might be to keep playing along until backup arrived, Kira realized. But who knew what that might mean in this situation. After what Iris had told her about what the Krezlians were doing to her… She shuddered at the thought of being captured and forced to submit to the experiments Iris had described.

  No way. She wasn’t going to let it come to that.

  Just as she started to look around the room for a more accessible weapon, the ground beneath her feet shook as an explosion sounded in the distance. Kira grinned as the vibrations traveled through her body.

  Backup was here.

  “Investigate the explosion,” the high-ranking Krezlian snapped at his guards. “I’ll handle the female.”

  The female. Apparently, that meant her. It seemed the boss had no idea who she was or what she was capable of, and the way he talked about her, it was as if he could care less. The Krezlian had completely underestimated her experience and strength. Now he was sending away his guards? Smart move, she thought sarcastically.

  As soon as the lab door closed behind the guards, Kira leaped to the side of the room. She grabbed a thin surgical blade she had been eying from the medical table beside the table Iris was strapped to, and held it up toward the Krezlian.

  “Get out of my way,” she ordered him. “I’m going to take Iris out of this lab and you aren’t going to touch us.”

  The Krezlian laughed, a horrible scratchy sound, and drew his gun.

  “Drop the blade, female,” he returned.

  Kira fought the urge to roll her eyes. If he had really thought of her as a threat, he wouldn’t have drawn his weapon and then just stood there. He would have fired right away.

  She took advantage of his hesitation and lunged forward, stabbing the ugly alien through his ostentatious coat and just beneath the ribs. It was a thin blade, so she made sure to twist her wrist and punch it as deep within his torso as possible to make a more significant wound.

  The Krezlian dropped his gun at the pain, which Kira caught with her free hand before it even reached the floor. She released the blade, first drawing it out of his chest, and watched to make sure he fell to the ground, doubled up in pain, and didn’t try to attack again.

  Probably not a fatal wound, unless he didn’t find a way to stop the blood loss soon. Not that Kira was about to stick around long enough to find out what he would do next.

  Keeping his own gun trained on him, she ran back to the surgical table.

  “Iris,” she said. “Do you hear me? The Alliance is here. I’m going to get you out. Help me get the last few straps off, okay?”

  The words seemed to bring the woman out of her state of frozen fear. She sat up on the table and started to pull the last of the straps off her legs and from around her ankles.

  Once she was free, Kira put a guiding hand on her forearm and moved them both toward the door of the lab, still making sure to face the Krezlian bleeding out on the ground. She kept the gun ready in her hand and checked to ensure that both directions outside the lab were clear before she turned back to Iris.

  “Okay. Iris, was it?”

  The woman nodded, looking around the hallway with fear in her eyes as another explosion sounded – this time closer.

  “I need you to lead me to where the Krezlians are keeping the other human women and the Ezak-X. Can you do that for me?”

  Iris looked hesitant for a moment before resolve settled over her delicate features, and she nodded with confidence.

  “This way,” she said, her voice steadier and stronger than Kira had heard it since she had met the woman.

  “Let’s go,” Kira said. “You lead me. I’ll cover us.”

  Iris barely waited to hear what Kira had to say. She was already a couple of yards ahead down the hallway. Kira jogged to catch up with her. Her pulse raced and her heart started to beat faster than the jogging could account for.

  The captured woman had been waiting who knew how long for this moment, and she wasn’t alone. Kira was finally on the verge of discovering the resolution to her investigation and saving the missing women – and the Ezak-X.

  It was time to end this.

  CHAPTER 21

  XEEGAN

  Even through the thick door of his cell, Xeegan could hear the footsteps approaching. These steps didn’t sound like the heavy, rigid pace of the pirates who had locked him up – they were light and quick. It sounded like someone on the smaller side, running. Three –no, two pairs, he realized, as the sound got closer.

  He stood up from the floor of the cell where he had been sitting, and walked to the door, pressing his ear against the smooth metallic material.

  Could it be…?

  If he had to guess, he would say that the rate of footfalls and the sound of one of the pairs of footsteps sounded like Kira. The sound of the thick rubber soles of her boots was unmist
akable. But why would she be in this cellblock without guards? And who did the other footsteps belong to?

  She must have escaped.

  The sound of one of the guards approaching came from the other end of the hallway. Xeegan tensed, his heart freezing in his chest. Did Kira know the guard was there? He slammed his fist against the inside of the door in frustration. Anxiety built inside him. He wanted to be out there, ready to protect Kira from the approaching pirate.

  Instead, he was stuck in this room with the sound of his own racing heartbeat, only able to listen in an effort to figure out what was going on. Useless. Dreading what could happen next.

  Why the fuck had he allowed himself to get trapped like this?

  “Don’t attack?” Right.

  His palms started to sweat. Had Kira seen the approaching pirate? Did she have a weapon on her?

  The buzzing sound of a gun firing echoed through the hall, and Xeegan’s breath caught. As far as he could tell, the gunshot had come from Kira’s direction and toward the guard, but he couldn’t be sure.

  The sound of the guard’s heavier body thumping to the ground at the end of the hallway confirmed Xeegan’s guess, and he released a relieved breath.

  Yes!

  Kira really didn’t need his help – not to keep her safe at least. She had gotten away from the pirates all on her own, and with the help of whoever was with her, she was no doubt trying to rescue the prisoners from the cells – which, now, included him.

  Xeegan grimaced at the thought. Letting himself be captured had been a mistake. Even if Kira was doing fine on her own, he didn’t like being trapped in the concrete box for a minute longer.

  A beep sounded in the hallway, and the door to one of the cells opened. Xeegan held his breath in anticipation as Kira started to unlock the cell doors and let the prisoners out. She got closer and closer to his cell, sometimes pausing to say a couple of words to whatever prisoner was released from the cells.