by Tammy Walsh
I expected a bolt of plasma to zip from the mist and catch me between the eyes. My breath rasped in my throat.
So much for trying to save Chax. I doubted I could even save myself.
“Self-destruct has been initiated,” Computer said. “T-Minus three minutes.”
A squad of Changelings stepped from the mist, blasters trained on us.
I thought it was the end.
I thought we were dead for sure.
But they didn’t fire.
Then they came to a stop three yards from us.
And waited.
A silhouette appeared, twice as large as the Changelings.
“Hold your fire,” he said. “We wouldn’t want to hit the star of the show now, would we?”
My insides turned to water and my stomach clenched.
Iron Hoof limped into view.
Stari stiffened. She took aim with her pistol blaster.
She was met by half a dozen Changeling blasters.
“Drop it,” Iron Hoof said. “If you don’t, you both die.”
Stari screwed up her face. She looked about ready to call his bluff and pull the trigger anyway. Then she eased up and lowered it.
“Good decision,” Iron Hoof said.
He grabbed me by the scruff of my shirt and hoisted me up onto my feet.
“You’re both coming with me,” he said. “Control will be very pleased to see you’re still alive. So will the audience. For the time being, at least. They can be very fickle. Maybe Control will let me have a little taste of you both before they make their final plans for you. I imagine it’ll be quite something.”
“Yaaarrrghhh!”
The scream was loud and powerful as Chax stormed from the mist and slammed into Iron Hoof.
I was thrilled to see him, and yet dismayed he might lose his life just to save mine.
The Changeling soldiers shifted target and aimed at Chax. They wouldn’t dare shoot in case they hit their boss.
Chax knocked Iron Hoof off his feet and pulverized him with one blow to the face after another.
“Go!” Chax bellowed at me. “Go! Now!”
There was no way I was leaving him. Not with the enemy surrounding him.
Stari grabbed me and yanked me into the thick mist. I pulled my arm away and moved to help Chax.
“We have to help him fight!” I said.
“We’ll never defeat them all,” Stari said. “And they won’t kill him. They want him for their show. Come with me.”
No. I had to help him.
“I lost him once,” I said. “I won’t lose him again.”
An arm wrapped around my neck, putting me in the sleeper hold. I would pass unconscious in seconds. Stari tightened her grip and hushed calmly in my ear.
My hands and knees went weak. I felt sick to my stomach.
I flailed with my arms, my legs, but Stari was too strong.
I heard the meaty slap of fists on flesh on the other side of the cloud of dust. I wasn’t sure who was winning and who was losing between Chax and the Iron Hoof.
Chax was outnumbered. The chances were, he was the one receiving them.
I felt every blow he received.
All to save me.
My eyes fluttered closed as darkness finally took me.
I veered in and out of consciousness as the soldiers carried my aching body across a vast sea of sand, tinted red by the passing moon.
It took me a moment to recognize where I was—not that I knew exactly where that was. The soldiers were taking me to their “emergency base” where we would develop a plan to counter the Changelings’ earlier attack.
It seemed an impossible mission.
We no longer had access to the tools and machines the Yayora had before. And still, the Changelings had come and defeated them.
It was easy to forget that not so long ago I was on Earth and had no idea about the existence of alien species. Never mind an alien TV show that wanted to use me for their own entertainment, with the end result decided long before I unknowingly stepped in front of their cameras.
And Chax.
Like every Earthling female, I dreamed of getting married one day. I even had a practice marriage to my childhood sweetheart Jamie McAllister at the tender age of eight and a half on the school playground.
Who would have thought my one true love couldn’t be found on Earth but far in the outer reaches of the galaxy?
I spied the starry night sky and was reminded of the time I spent in that fragile attic space of the dilapidated barn. Chax and I made love—real love this time and not the angry aggressive act of our first encounter—and lay on our backs, sated and satisfied. We peered up at the same sky through a hole in the ceiling and held hands, wondering if this was the start of a new beginning for the both of us.
Instead, it signaled the end of that happy time of lovemaking and looking to the future.
He’d been taken prisoner by the Changelings.
And I let it happen.
He never should have thrown himself at Iron Hoof like that. They wanted me, not him.
I felt angry that he threw away his freedom, his own life for mine. I know he did it from a place of love but I still hated him for it.
But the hate couldn’t last. I loved him too much for that.
I needed to help him, to spring him free from whatever new prison they kept him in.
I knew where they would take him. I knew because I used the Changeling’s technology against them.
I knew where their Control Room was.
I knew where they ran their twisted little gameshow from.
But time was running out.
If I wanted to rescue him, I needed to act fast. Who knew what they were doing to him right at this very moment.
BOOM!
The explosion shook the ground beneath the soldiers’ feet and sent reverberations through my body. A huge plume of orange-red fire blossomed like a summer rose toward the sky.
Most of the explosion had been underground. There was no doubt in my mind that the base was now totally destroyed.
I hoped Chax managed to get out in time—even if it was in Iron Hoof’s custody.
Let him still be alive, I prayed, long enough for me to rescue him.
The stars were wiped from view when we entered an overhang of rock and descended into a world of darkness. Not even moonlight reached this place. I couldn’t see a thing and assumed the Yayora couldn’t either until I considered their large yellow eyes.
Could they see better in the dark than me? There had to be a reason for their yellow eyes, didn’t there?
I heard the rush of a cascading waterfall and a shift in the air as tiny molecules of water splattered against my face. The soldiers altered their grips on my body to negotiate a tricky section.
“I can walk,” I said.
No one said a thing as they continued carrying me deeper into the earth.
“I said, I can walk,” I said.
The soldiers came to a stop and a single pair of feet approached me from the side.
“If you get lost in here, we’ll never find you again,” Stari said.
I felt her breath on my face. It was so dark I couldn’t make her out.
“I won’t get lost,” I said.
Stari considered my words carefully. I imagined the look of consideration on her face.
“I won’t try to escape,” I said. “I want to help you guys.”
“Let her walk,” Stari said. “But hold my hand. We don’t want to lose you down here. You’re too valuable and I’m not in the habit of breaking my word.”
I held her hand and felt at the floor with my feet as we moved forward. Stari wouldn’t slow down and had to drag me behind her. My feet caught on invisible rocks and sank in shallow recesses. Sharp corners nicked my shoulders before I finally had enough.
“Wait,” I said.
“We can’t stop,” Stari said. “More Yayora are coming. If we hold up the line, we put them in danger. Let the s
oldiers carry you.”
I let go of Stari’s hand and shifted position. I stood behind her with a hand on either side of her waist.
“Okay,” I said. “Go.”
I felt the muscles tense in her back when she had to raise her foot higher than usual, when she turned to move around a sharp bend, or ducked to avoid an overhang.
I heard the squeak and squeal of creatures that sounded suspiciously like bats. I was even more grateful I had Stari taking point. I could use her as a shield.
“Where are we going?” I said. “The center of the planet?”
“No,” Stari said. “That’s much too far. And too hot.”
It was hard to understand these creatures’ humor sometimes.
“I didn’t mean it literally,” I said.
“Oh,” Stari said. “Then why say it?”
“It’s a joke.”
“But it’s not funny.”
“It would be back on Earth. A little.”
“Oh. We’re heading to the emergency base. It’s where we planned to pull back to if our original base was compromised.”
“You built a base down here?” I said. “How did you even find this place?”
“We didn’t build it. Nature carved it from the rocks and the earth and the stones for us. This is where we came from.”
“You came from this place?”
It seemed like a pretty dingy place for a species to evolve.
“We’re underground creatures. Our eyes are perfectly adapted to the dark. We only came up to the surface when our population became too large and we needed to spread out. It took many years for our eyes to adjust to the sunlight. When they did, we found an entire world left to be explored.”
“Now you’re returning to where you came from,” I said.
“It’s the only safe place we have left.”
They’d put their future and all their hope into their plan to fight the Changelings and force them off the surface of the planet. And now, because of the Changeling siblings’ hidden trackers, their location had been exposed to the Changelings.
Now they only had this place to launch their attack from.
“How much longer before we’re there?” I said.
My voice echoed, bouncing off distant walls, on and on without end.
“We’re there,” Stari said.
She turned to those assembled.
“Activate the torches and prepare the houses,” she said. “There’s going to be a lot of Yayora on their way and it’s going to get very cramped.”
The soldiers got to work. I felt like a spare wheel.
“What can I do?” I said.
“You’ve got the most important job of all,” Stari said. “You need to come up with a plan for us to defeat the Changelings.”
“How?” I said.
“That’s up to you. A situation like this has never happened before. If you want to see your beloved Chax again, you’ll come up with something. Oh, and you’ve only got a few hours.”
Great torches were lit. The fire burned brightly and triggered a chain reaction, with dozens of torches filling the monolithic craggy walls like a starry night sky.
The light revealed a writhing mass of Yayora. They filled the cavernous space already and more were filing in by the minute.
They were all relying on me.
If I didn’t come up with something soon, the Yayora would have no choice but to endure another long generational war with the Changelings.
And that was if the Changelings didn’t discover this place and wipe it from the map.
And with them, Chax would perish.
No pressure.
I weighed up each idea and crossed them off the list one by one. The problem I had was no one understood how the Changelings would react to any given situation. We needed Chax and his intimate knowledge of these beasts.
I needed him.
He knew the Changelings far better than any of us ever would. He’d found himself ensnared in their plans more times than he could count. He developed a sense of knowing what they were up to before the rest of us could react.
What did the Changelings want? I wondered. What had they gone to so much trouble with the base for? How could I use that information for our benefit?
When the answer came to me, the plan formed immediately at the front of my mind. It was simple, fast, and risked the fewest number of Yayora lives.
But would it work?
I explained it to Stari, who was busy organizing living arrangements for the mass of Yayora still arriving.
“No way,” Stari said. “We’re not putting you at risk. You’re our best hope of finding a way out of this. If anything happens to you, we’re done for.”
“If we don’t act soon, Chax will be done for,” I said.
Stari sighed and placed a hand on my shoulder.
“I know he’s important for you,” she said, “but he’s only one Titan. We have thousands of Yayora down here to worry about. Never mind the millions spread across the rest of the planet. We have to be levelheaded about this.”
“What kind of state do you think I’m going to be in if he dies?” I said. “You won’t get a recognizable word out of me for months. I thought I already lost him once. Next time, it will be even worse.”
“But you would still be alive,” Stari said. “We could build a plan. If the Changelings get their stinking hands on you…”
I expected this response from her. My best plan came with the greatest level of risk but also the greatest payoff if it was successful.
“It’s the best idea I came up with,” I said.
“So keep thinking,” Stari said.
“We’re out of time already,” I said.
Stari had set herself up in a large room carved into the rock. She was supposed to sit in the stone throne at the center of the room but she had never been the type to stay in one place for long. She moved to a desk where soldiers squirreled at sheets of paper, issuing and receiving orders at a frenetic pace.
This was where their resistance started and it was where they would have to begin all over again.
“If you have a better idea, I’d like to hear it,” I said.
Stari turned toward me and rubbed her eyes. Day one, and she was already exhausted.
She didn’t like the plan. It wasn’t like I loved it. But there was nothing else we could do. Not unless she wanted to spend her entire life pursuing it the way her Grandpa had.
“If your plan fails…” she said.
“Then you can always repeat what your Grandpa did,” I said. “This plan doesn’t leave your base here exposed. You can still keep fighting.”
“Grandpa spent his entire life building an elaborate underground base right under the Changelings’ noses,” Stari said. “What you’re suggesting… It’s so simple. The Changelings will know we’re coming.”
“Not necessarily. You can be patient and fight long term the way your Grandpa did or you can take a gamble and have victory within the next few hours. It has to be worth trying, doesn’t it? And the window is closing. It’s not going to be open forever.”
Stari shook her head and braced her hands on the desktop.
“Your life will be on the line,” she said. “Are you sure you accept that?”
“Chax put his life on the line for me,” I said. “The least I can do is the same for him.”
“Fine,” Stari said. “We’ll do it. But I’m coming with you.”
“No,” I said. “The Yayora need you.”
“I’ll leave my best officer in charge,” Stari said. “There’s nothing I can do that he can’t. And he’s got a lot more patience than me. He won’t blow everything just because he gets a little antsy.”
I looked Stari over. She was being serious.
“I’m a fighter, not a leader,” Stari said. “My place is beside you on this mission. And you’re not doing it if I’m not allowed to go with you.”
I raised my hands in surrender.
“I
t’s your decision,” I said. “So, we’re really doing this?”
“We are,” Stari said. “I’ll get my seamstresses onto it. I’ll make sure they don’t make my ass look big. If I’m going to die, I want to die in style.”
“And I don’t want to die at all,” I said.
We shared a nervous smile.
Boy, did I wish I didn’t have to do this.
Stari met a lot of resistance when she told her generals our plan. It took some finessing, but finally, they relented. Short of tying Stari up and forcing her to lead from a cell, I didn’t think she was the kind of person to change her mind by consensus.
After that, everyone leaped into action. I was given a new set of clothes—haggard and torn, with holes and dirt rubbed into the pants and t-shirt. A makeup expert rearranged my hair and added dirt on my cheeks and nose.
I got off easy. At least I didn’t have to go under the knife as Stari and her comrade did…
Then we were bundled onto a device that reminded me of the winching machine people used to clean skyscraper windows. A pair of workers took us up the sheer rockface to a door at the top. Then we moved through endless dark tunnels. Stari and her friend, V’Sen, led me through the tunnels until I thought we would never reach the end.
Finally, a pinprick of light beckoned in the distance like the first star out at night. We stopped short of stepping into its warm embrace on the fringes of the outside world. I could smell the fresh air on the cool breeze that blew into the cavern.
“Are you ready?” Stari said.
“No,” I said. “I don’t think I’ll ever be ready.”
Stari attached the restraints to my wrists and hugged me.
“Try to stay calm,” she said. “We’ll be okay.”
She wore a plain skintight suit with a shaggy brown cloak over the top. The hood hid most of her face in shadows. I’d already seen her face after the surgeon had finished. He’d done an excellent job of morphing her features. Just looking at her made me shiver. The likeness to Trang was uncanny.
We needed a male Yayora, and he came in the form of Stari’s favorite foot soldier, someone she seemed to spend a lot of time staring at when she thought he wasn’t looking at her. His name was V’Sen and his boyish good looks had been morphed into the sinister and pointy features of Klang.