Prisoners of Death

by Keely Caldwell

"Like these Cantellans?" Page asked.

  Tegan flinched and Ardammt shot Page a scowl. "Yes." She glanced at Ardammt and they exchanged a strange intent look. "As well as a few others."

  Page shrugged. He dropped the chopped veggies in a sizzling frying pan to sauté and turned to the eggs. Out of the corner of his eyes Page saw the two arguing quietly in that lyric language.

  "Here we go." Page plopped a plate in front of each of them and scooped his own from the counter. He plumped himself in a chair between the two aliens and dug into his omelet with obvious relish. He may not be a big guy, but he ate like a footballer.

  Ardammt's eyes were trained on Tegan. She had picked up the fork and was poking at the omelet as if she wasn't convinced it was dead, let alone edible. After a few more pokes, Tegan took a tiny tentative bite of the egg and veggie mixture and threw open a surprised face, forking another larger bite between generous lips.

  Ardammt turned his attention to his own omelet, scowled darkly at the innocent eggs before picking up his fork and shoveling a bit in his mouth as if he had to do it quick or he wouldn't do it at all. The taste and texture was different than Ardammt was accustomed to, but not as bad as it looked. The additions of the oil and the low crops rendered the concoction almost tasty.

  Ardammt shoveled in another forkful and looked around thoughtfully as he chewed.

  "Hey! Where's mine, man?" Jake demanded good naturedly as he trundled into the kitchen, his dark blond hair still sticking up in back.

  Page shrugged dismissively. "Your mum taught you how to do a fry up, didn't she? Make your own."

  Jake said something rude under his breath and gave Page's chair leg a friendly bonk with his foot. "Didn't you used to cook for Harrison?"

  "He's was my baby brother," Page defended good naturedly, "not my bone lazy best mate. Pick up a spatula or starve, man."

  Jake cocked an eyebrow at Page. "Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin. You'll cook for the aliens but not for your life long pal, huh?"

  Page smiled. "That's about it. Besides, Tegan and Ardammt are company. You're just a wise ass who's too lazy to cook. So cook!"

  "Eh, you're pretty mouthy for such a young pup, aren't you?"

  Page made a 'yeah right' face. "Two years younger than a loudmouth journalist hardly makes me a pup. Get over it and make yourself some eggs."

  Jake clicked his heels together and threw up a mock solute. "Aye, aye, mon captain!"

  Page was shaking his head and rolling his eyes when Jake turned to the counter and fired up the frying pan Page had used earlier.

  Tegan glanced from one to the other and dropped her eyes back to the newspaper. But she wasn't really seeing it. The obvious friendship between the two Earthmen shot a sharp ache through her heart. She used to be like that. Her, Culli, Ardammt, and... Her mind scurried away vermin like from the other two. The memories contained there were much too painful to feel.

  Abruptly, Tegan dropped the newspaper and stood up, moving to the back door.

  Ardammt looked up, his perpetual scowl shifting to one of perpetual worry. "What is it?"

  When it appeared Ardammt was planning to rise and follow her, Tegan waved him off. "Be still. I just want to look about."

  His scowl returned. Clearly he didn't believe her. But Ardammt stayed in his chair even though his eyes followed Tegan through the window all the way out the door and across the dirt packed yard to the large building a dozen yards away. One darker scowl and Ardammt reluctantly returned to studying the comic section of the newspaper.

  Jake and Page watched all this with curious eyes.

  ****

  When the back door opened a half an hour later and Tegan came back in, Jake noticed again the weird ring of metal around Ardammt's right ankle. Jake looked up at Ardammt, who was scowling at him with hot fire in his dark eyes. What's the matter with this guy? "What's that on your ankle?"

  Ardammt jerked as if he'd been electrocuted. He dropped the newspaper over his half eaten meal. The moment the words were out of the Earthman's loud mouth Ardammt could physically feel Tegan's startled eyes jump to his leg. He slowly looked up at the doorway to find Tegan staring at him as if she wanted to beat him to death where he sat. His blood froze. He knew why she was looking at him like that. The words spurted out of him like fresh blood. "Tegan, I..."

  Tegan closed her eyes. No! she cried to her mind. Why didn't I realize this last night when he was sending us both into orbit with long strokes of his powerful thruster? Did he forgot or did he deliberately not tell her that the cuff was still clamped to his leg? She opened her eyes at Ardammt and learned from the half guilty and half challenging look on his face that it was true.

  Tegan approached, nodding, still staring at Ardammt, who almost wiggled in discomfort. "Tegan. I... No!"

  Without a word, Tegan reached down grabbed Ardammt's ankle, dragging him off the chair so he was sprawled half on his back in the kitchen doorway with one leg in the air. Clamped to his ankle, half hidden under his ankle height boot, was the Cantellan homing ring - The Death Ring - as it was called by any who had the misfortune to be fitted with one.

  It was a gleaming twist bracelet in some jet colored metal. It was about an inch in width, it's clasp of polished silver decorated with a grotesque design of what appeared to be human leg bones and some strange motif, a small keyhole was centered in the clasp and this was what Tegan stared at as her mouth turned down in a frown of disgust and dismay.

  And raw, bald fear pounding through her like a fever.

  Over his leg, Tegan glared at Ardammt, still sprawled in the doorway, shaking, leg slowly turning numb in Tegan's furious grip. "I tried to get it loose!" he insisted.

  Tegan seemed in some kind of trance. She stared down at Ardammt like she'd never clapped denim eyes on him before that moment. It was then that they all saw it in her eyes. She was almost stark raving mad with fear. "I'm sorry," Ardammt babbled feebly. "I didn't get a chance to get it loose."

  "You didn't get a chance?" she repeated slowly, incredulously. A mirthless laugh escaped her panting mouth. "I handed the key back to you," Tegan replied calmly. Too calmly. Ardammt wanted to jump and run, but Tegan had him on his back on the floor with his ankle in her fist so there was nowhere to hide now. "I handed you the key. You were to unlock the manacle and hand the key to Culli. Why didn't you? All you had to do is unlock it and hand it back. That's all. Why couldn't you do that?!"

  "I'm sorry, Tegan," was all he said.

  "But you didn't take off your manacle?"

  "It was stuck! I couldn't get the star blasted thing off!" His eyes wavering from Tegan's intent stare, Ardammt admitted. " And I dropped the key!"

  By now, Tegan was almost beside herself with fear soaked rage. She yanked his ankle up further. "What? Dropped it? How? Tell me how you dropped the key, Ardammt! Tell me!"

  Ardammt stared at Tegan over his leg, trying to pull himself from Tegan's maniacal grip. "I dropped it. We were running for the ship bay. I tried to unlock it, then I jumbled the key and it rolled into one of those gratings in the floor. I dropped the starifying key in the grate!"

  "So instead of telling me this then you just kept it to yourself." She was started to tremble, he lips pulled back from her teeth in the horrible sneer of an animal who knows it's about to be cornered by its most feared predator. Tegan stared down at Ardammt, murder and terror in equal measure in her eyes. "You know what will happen now. Don't you?"

  Ardammt shook in Tegan's tightening grasp. His own building terror making his head swim. "Yes!"

  "Of course you do. We will die." Tegan gritted her teeth at Ardammt, still gripping his ankle. With her free hand Tegan grabbed the dicing knife off the cutting board on the counter and swung it towards Ardammt.

  Ardammt's eyes flew wide in terror. Jake and Page moved to intercept Tegan. "Now just wait!" Ardammt bellowed.

  Tegan shoved the blade under the manacle. With a wrench the restraint broke off. Tegan dropped Ardammt's foot and flipped the manacle onto the
cutting board next to a half diced onion. She rammed the blade through the heart of the latch. Red sparks spewed up, bathing Tegan's crazed face in a devilish light. The device sputtered a couple times before going deathly silent. Tegan whipped around, her chest rose and fell with rapid breaths while her dark eyes had taken on a wild look of that animal almost at the end of its endurance. "We have to go."

  Ardammt climbed to his feet, but he had to lean against the door frame until his leg woke up.

  Page looked puzzled. "Where to?"

  "Anywhere. We just have to go. Now!"

  Jake and Page had been sitting at the table watching this scene play out with mouths open. "Why? What the hell are you two talking about?" Jake insisted, but a furtive glance at the impaled bracelet make him feel he knew.

  Tegan swung a staring gaze at Jake. He shot an eyebrow at Tegan. She looked almost crazed. "Ardammt couldn't get the manacle off but instead of telling me, he stayed silent."

  "And the big deal is?"

  Tegan didn't look at Jake. "The manacle is a homing device. From the Cantellans."

  Page's eyes bulged. "You mean these Cantellans know where we are."

  A sharp nod. Tegan swung towards the back door.

  Jake sighed. "When?"

  Tegan glanced out the kitchen window. The black scaly ship she saw descending in a landing pattern made her heart start to pump into her throat until she felt like she was going to pass out. She wanted to run. But it was a waste. The Cantellan's would smell them out anywhere. She looked at the Earthmen, fear prominent in her denim eyes. "They know exactly where we are. They are landing."

  Page groaned. Jake sighed. "Bloody hell!"

  "What's going to happen?" Page asked.

  Tegan gave him a look as if he were somehow mentally deficient. "You will die. We'll all die."

  "They have a ship?" Jake asked. "They'll probably take us all prisoner of war."

  Tegan and Ardammt both shuddered. "Prisoners of death, more like," Tegan told him. "You'd be better off dying right here than being transported to the mother ship. "

  Jake snorted. "Is that right, honey? Well, let me tell you something. I'm not dying on my own planet either. Not at the hands of some space bully. I'll fight."

  "You'll lose."

  Jake's expression was implacable, his mouth a tight line. "I'll still fight."

  Page nodded. "Jake's right. Our world has a history of fighting for what is ours and our lives are ours. So we'll fight." Page looked around critically. "But not here. We need to get out in a more open area so we have room to move."

  "You want to fight the Cantellans?" Tegan was truly shocked. No one fought the Cantellans. Except her, although a lot good it had done. "You don't know what they can do to you."

  Jake grinned. "And they don't know what I can do to them. So we're even. Now let's go!"

  " Let's get to that other building." Tegan started out the back door at a run towards the barn.

  "The barn? Good idea. Plenty of weapons in there."

  "What do we do out there?" Jake asked as he followed Page and Ardammt.

  Ardammt's answer was short but held all the info Jake needed. "Looks like we fight or die."

  Seven

  "The Fight"

  They decided the barn would be a better base from which to fight for their lives. There was more room to maneuver and weapons were abundant in the form of hoes, pitchforks, rakes and other farming implements. As they raced for the relative safety of the barn, the Cantellan assault cruiser – much smaller than the mother craft, but still so large it was a solar eclipse – descended in the yard and field like a dropped rock.

  Through an opening in the warped and worn boards of the hayloft, Page peered down on the graveled clearing at the huge dull black ship that had squatted there. "Jake!" he whispered, "that's the ship that buzzed us last weekend."

  Jake was peering through another chink in the boards. "Sure as hell is!"

  As the two Earthmen watched, a low ramp of slick black metal shoved its foot out from the side of the ship. A wide hatch above the ramp rolled up in clanking spurts to reveal the occupants, two abreast, moving rapidly down the ramp.

  Page gasped and Jake's mouth sagged open. "What the bloody hell!"

  Tegan and Ardammt perched down on bales of straw and frowned towards each other. They didn't need to see to know what Jake and Page were seeing.

  Jake and Page watched in bold shock as giant slugs undulating on glittering slim trails oozed quickly down the ramp two at a time.

  The slugs ranged between five and a half to six feet tall and ran the gamut of shades of slick skin between mud brown to deep glossy black. Long eyestalks sporting staring black irises eyes rotated independently, dipping and twisting to survey everywhere and everything. Short stubby fingered hands that looked like they were borrowed from a T rex fronted a round gelatinous body. A strange ridged line subdivided the body vertically. A small lipless mouth full of tiny razor sharp teeth chomped.

  Page shuddered violently. "That's a Cantellan?" He glanced at Tegan, staring straight at Ardammt, her full lips bloodless. Ardammt looked back, grim, a pulse pounding a tattoo in his neck. These two were scared to death.

  Page peeped out the chink again. "How dangerous could a bunch of slugs be?"

  Jake shrugged. "Lots, by the look of those two," he said, nodding his head back at Tegan and Ardammt.

  Page frowned out the chink. "Then we'll fight."

  Jake nodded, reaching for a nearby weapon laying across a bale of hay. "Damn straight."

  Page's face was hard and determined when he turned from the wall. "The slugs are coming this way. Let's get ready." Jake grabbed a rusty tined pitch fork, shoving it at Page. They turned to watch down at the main barn doors.

  "You will be captured," Ardammt mumbled sullenly.

  Jake didn't even spare the big Vaneallan a glance. "I've been captured by everybody and their goat on Earth, but I've never went down without them knowing they'd been in one hell of a scrap. A mess of slugs on steroids ain't no different."

  Not looking at Ardammt, Jake missed the look of almost admiration that opened in the Vaneallan's face. He also missed the look of total admiration that flew over Tegan's face.

  The barn door rattled. Jake and Page hefted their weapons. "Here they come!" Jake said.

  The barn doors had been padlocked from the inside but the doors groaned as their hinges snapped and were slammed down and slid over by the sheer bulk of several giant slugs.

  A dark dog poo brown slug, taller and bulkier than its fellows, slithered into the center of the barn floor, eyestalks swiveled this way and that. "Va-ne-lan." Its voice reminded Jake of a rumble of far off thunder. "Out iv hide. We sense we this place. We will have we."

  Jake could hear Tegan swallow.

  Page took careful aim and sent his pitchfork flying from the hayloft.

  "EEEEE!" The squeal from Cantellan was skin crawling, but also satisfying.

  "Take that!" Page crowed.

  Jake was impressed. "Good shot!"

  "Van-ne-lan!"

  The new voice was not as deep but was very angry. "Descent from we perch!"

  "Go play on a salt lick, you overgrown garden creeper!" Jake barked.

  Jake wouldn't have thought one of those things could snarl, but snarl it did. So loud and long that the silence that followed was deafening.

  Jake was reluctant to peep over the edge in case of one of those ghastly eyestalks was staring up at him. "Wonder what they're up to down there."

  They soon knew. The loft began to vibrate as if in the grips of a violent earthquake. They all hit the wood floor as the loft started to tilt forward. "Damn things are toppling the supports!" Jake yelled.

  The Cantellans relied on their slim trails to move their massive bulks against the wood support beams. Four of them shoved against the two beams that were cracking in two.

  The floor started to flip down like a loose trap door. "Here we go!" Jake called to his companions. "Get ready to sca
tter!"

  The floor collapsed, the beams cracking and Cantellans yelling their death cries.

  Ardammt was ready, his slim but powerful frame poised. When the floor fell, he already had Tegan's hand and together they sprang over the heads of the Cantellans to land behind their would be kidnappers. Ardammt reached for another pitchfork against the wall and swung it towards the advancing enemy.

  In the face of another sharp weapon the Cantellans slithered to a stop. "Return to your ship!" Ardammt bellowed. "We will not be your captives again."

  The eyestalks of the advancing creatures gyrated crazily. Jake, brandishing a rusty scythe, could have swore the Cantellans were laughing at poor old Ardammt.

  Ardammt realized it too. With a scream of fury, Ardammt lunged at the nearest giggling Cantellan and drove the pitchfork into the creature's fleshy skull. The Cantellan let out a paint peeling squeal before collapsing in it's own slime trail.

  The remaining two Cantellans twisted their eyestalks warily at the pitchfork but didn't stop.

  Jake stepped around himself, backing into the yard to give himself room to maneuver. "Okay, boys, if that's the way you want it. Let me show you how we bale hay!" And Jake swung the pitchfork up, catching one of his pursuers in the chest with all tines.

  "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" The Cantellan bellowed, plucking it's tiny hands at the pitchfork as putrid puss green blood spewed and spit from the wounds.

  Jake grinned. "Did that hurt?" He grabbed for the pitchfork as the Cantellan fell in it's own trail, oozing blood pooling over oozing slime, and swung toward the other Cantellan pursing him.

  The creature screamed and tried to pivot away, but Jake was too fast. The pitchfork dove into the back of the creature's small skull. The eyestalks froze in bizarre angles as if the Cantellan was truly shocked that it had just had it's head skewered. Then the massive body shuddered and toppled on its side where it lay twisting like frog legs on a hot skillet. "Take that!" Jake bellowed. He yanked the pitchfork from the creature's skull and swung around to see who needed help.

  Across the gravel yard Ardammt and Tegan stood back to back, the light of ancient battle in their dark eyes. Tegan had found a flat bladed implement against the barn and now welded it at the advancing Cantellans. One, who seemed determined to capture Tegan himself, had already lost a hand and two chunks out of his face from the weapon. Now Tegan held the beast at bay. "Back, you demon. You won't have us back on you torture ship!"