by Lea Linnett
Kamanek kept talking. “Look, how about this? We don’t want to fuck with you, specifically. We just want to get the humans out. If you give us their location, you could be out of the city with a drive full of credits before your boss even knows anything’s missing.”
“Nice try.” The levekk moved to stand over Kamanek, his voice dropping to a growl. “But not everyone can be bought, mercenary. I understand how hard it can be to fathom loyalty after so many years of drifting, though, so I’ll be generous. Leave now, quietly, and I won’t be forced to rearrange your limbs.”
“You’re pathetic,” Taz spat, stepping forward and pushing the much larger levekk back without thinking. “You’re as bad as him, pledging yourself to some businessman for credits. Do you know what happens to the humans you steal? Do you care?”
“I suggest you leave here while you still can, human,” Niro said, his voice dangerously low. “You’re tempting a worse fate than they are by continuing this.”
“Is that a threat?!” she snarled. She swung back a fist, aiming for the huge levekk’s unprotected jaw.
But it connected with nothing.
Kamanek collided with the much larger levekk, knocking him from her path, and when she straightened, she found them locked in a grapple. She started forward, but pulled up short when a cicarian aimed his weapon at her, holding her at bay.
That left her with nothing to do but look on as the huge aliens struggled. Claws dug into the threadbare carpet, scales shined as they rippled under the light, and the cicarians gave the two levekk a wide berth as they teetered around the room. For a moment, Taz found herself thinking that they looked magnificent, until Kamanek freed an arm and hit Niro with an uppercut that smacked his plated head into the ceiling, making the lights flicker.
He lashed out again, aiming for his opponent’s fleshy internal ear, but Niro seemed to have learned. He used his height to his advantage, avoiding the blows, and Kamanek changed tactics. He tried to sink his claws into the other’s stomach, but his arm was caught midway, and in a move that was more force than finesse, Niro managed to pin the arm behind Kamanek’s back. He pushed him away, making him stagger, and then dived in to sink two final blows into Kamanek’s face and stomach.
The smaller levekk buckled, clutching his abdomen, and Taz barely controlled her urge to rush forward, all too aware of the guns still pointed at her.
At least she couldn’t see any blood.
“Are you finished?” Niro growled down at the levekk. Taz glared up at him, her hand curling around the hilt of her knife.
But Kamanek had the audacity to laugh, the sound wheezy and strained. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I’m done.”
“Good. Get them out of here.”
Niro exited deeper into the building without a backward glance, and Taz started after him, but was restrained by small cicarian hands and another blade, this time pressed flat against her stomach.
She cursed the guards, struggling against their grip as they hauled her outside and down the metal staircase, dropping her unceremoniously into the concrete alleyway. Above her, Kamanek descended more calmly, although she noted the cicarians now held him too, pushing and shoving where it wasn’t strictly necessary.
Once outside, they chased them out from under the hub’s eaves at gunpoint, smearing insults at them before disappearing back into the upper level.
Left alone in the quiet side street, the main drag bustling behind them, Taz rounded on Kamanek.
“The fuck was that?”
Kamanek tried to grin at her, but ended up wincing and rubbing at his cheek. “Figured it was better if he hurt me rather than you.”
Taz gaped, her cheeks turning hot despite herself, and she clenched her fists again. “Excuse me? That was all some bullshit attempt at protecting me?”
He shrugged. “He was twice your size.”
“Well, I don’t need it!” she snapped, and then turned away in frustration.
She whipped back around again at the sound of his chuckle.
“What?”
Kamanek opened his mouth to say, but hesitated. He glanced behind them, up at the narrow windows of the hub’s upstairs. “Come on.”
He placed an arm around her shoulders, drawing her deeper into the side street and around a corner, away from prying eyes and ears, and for a moment, the heavy weight of his arm across her back and shoulders was strangely… comforting.
She shrugged him off when they reached the alley, crossing her arms. “What is it?”
Kamanek reached into the small satchel he carried on his back and pulled out a device with a flip-screen, which he opened. “Show tracking data for TF49-3.”
Taz’s eyes widened as the device came to life, the screen casting a blue glow across the levekk’s scaled face. She circled around him to get a better look and saw what looked like a confusing mass of blobs and shapes, until Kamanek hooked his clawed thumb into a dial and zoomed in. She realized it was a topographic map, each cube correlating to a building nearby, and with a blue dot pulsing a few short meters from their current position.
She gasped. “Is that…?”
Kamanek grinned, reaching into his pocket again. He held out his palm, revealing another tiny device sitting atop it. It was barely an inch in diameter, flat on one side, with a small blue button on the other. “Managed to stick a beacon on his clothes while he was distracted. Big guy like him shouldn’t notice something so small.”
Taz gaped down at the device, her mind blank. “You placed a tracking beacon on a guy during a fistfight?”
He looked pleased. “Told you I’d be useful.”
She looked up at him, at his cheek. It didn’t seem to be bruising like hers would be, but some of the scales had dulled and were lifting away from his face. “Th-thank you,” she said, before clearing her throat. “I mean, good work. We’ll follow him tonight, see if he leads us anywhere.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.”
But rather than return his attention to the tracker like she’d expected, Kamanek put it in one of his jacket pockets and drew in close to her. Without really knowing why, she allowed him to take her hand in one of his and press the tiny spare beacon into her palm.
“Take this,” he said. “Might come in handy later.”
She looked up at him, her heart picking up its pace in her chest. “How do I activate it?”
“The blue button. It should stick to whatever is touching it and start sending out a signal then.”
“Don’t track me with it,” she warned. “If I find out this is already activated…”
“I would never,” Kamanek assured her. His grin turned sly. “I’d like to keep my scales firmly attached to my body.”
Taz nodded, cautiously slipping the tracker into the slim backpack she kept strung across her shoulders.
After that, they settled down to wait, Kamanek folding himself into a space beside a noisy power generator and cradling the tracker in his lap. Taz stood beside him and leaned against the wall, her gaze glued to the pulsing blue dot that marked their prey.
She almost didn’t hear Kamanek speak over the rumbling, hiccuping generator.
“Did you notice anything odd about that guy?”
“Hm?”
“Niro,” Kamanek said, a little louder. He peeked up at her. “He’d never played Kerfesk. Every levekk child plays Kerfesk.”
“What is it?” she asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.
“A strategy game. The board is the battlefield, the pieces are moved around like a war table.”
“Huh, sounds like a game some of the older humans like to play.”
“Oh?”
“Chess. It’s all knights and castles. Stuff from before the Invasion. Too difficult for a lot of kids.”
She glanced down at him, expecting some comment over her calling the levekk’s ‘Settlement’ what it really was, but Kamanek stayed silent, worrying his lip.
“Well, we’re taught how to play it as soon as we can hold the pi
eces,” he explained, and she saw his plated brow dip. “I can’t believe he didn’t at least recognize it…”
“That is weird,” she said, but her attention was already drifting. They were close now, and she was distracted by the realization that the levekk didn’t seem to give off much body heat. He was like a lizard, in that way. Or a statue. He certainly was heavy enough to be a statue, and chiseled enough. She was well-aware of how nice his physique was, especially the broad shoulders she’d clung to with her thighs during their fight…
She sniffed, shaking her head to dispel the intrusive thoughts. She had better things to think about.
“He had an accent, too,” Kamanek mused, snapping her out of her thoughts.
“Did he?”
“Yeah.” The levekk’s eyes widened slightly, and he turned them up at her. She tried to look away, scared he’d be able to read the thoughts she was trying so hard to push down, but his gaze trapped her. “He sort of sounded like you, actually.”
That made her pause. “Me?”
“Like a sub-species, I suppose.”
“Too much time with the riff-raff, maybe,” she said dryly, and Kamanek huffed out a laugh.
“I better watch my tongue, then.”
She would have written it off as an innocuous joke if his lips hadn’t pulled up in a smirk, his eyes flicking over her. She tossed her head, growling out some kind of denial as she crossed the alleyway. She couldn’t trust herself, her expressions, with him so close. He was like a black hole, always pulling her closer no matter how she fought it.
Why did he affect her this way? What had she done to deserve this?
She braced herself for more wheedling as she sank down against the opposite wall, since it appeared to be his favorite pastime, but the levekk just watched her. A small smile played on his face, but he soon turned his attention back to the tracker in his lap.
And not for the first time, Taz couldn’t decide whether the silence was a relief, or torture.
10
“Man, that asshole knows how to throw a punch.”
Kamanek did his best to look sorry for himself when Taz looked up and leveled him with a scowl. She sat opposite him, but she’d moved multiple times in the three hours they’d been waiting, and her hair was wild from the way she kept burying her fingers in it. Patience really wasn’t one of her virtues, it seemed.
“Stop complaining,” she said. “It’s your fault he hit you so hard.”
He smiled to himself, glancing down at the tracker again, and the blue dot that hadn’t moved once since they’d been here. The CL-32 sun was almost entirely set, dark purple shadows beginning to creep through their narrow alleyway. It didn’t escape him that this was becoming a trend with them: lying in wait, silently stalking prey while the sky caught fire above them.
He didn’t mind it. He was discovering that he loved watching the pinks and oranges play across Taz’s olive skin. He loved the way the changing light carved sharp shadows under her cheekbones one minute, and brought a soft flush to them the next. It turned her hair into strands of fire and lit up spears of brown in her eyes that weren’t usually visible. In the sunset, Kamanek could see both the brave fighter and the vulnerable human in her, and he was equally intrigued by both.
But as night fell, the tracker let off a sharp beep, and they both jumped. Taz leaped to her feet, her eyes dark and pointed again in the fading light. “Is he moving?”
“Don’t rush,” he warned softly as he slid up the wall. He half-expected her to rail at him for the order, but she was too absorbed by the tracker, shuffling closer to look over his arm.
“How will we know for sure it’s him? That it’s working?”
He chuckled. “It works. I’ve used this tech plenty of times.”
She didn’t look convinced, but for once she didn’t argue.
They followed the dot at a safe distance, threading through the crowds as they thickened around them. Taz was a constant presence at his side. Her hand was buried beneath her jacket, no doubt fingering her gun, and he wondered if it was a part of her bodyguard act, or if she was actually nervous. She drew some stares as they passed through, but if they made her uncomfortable, she hid it well.
The stares quickly dissipated when he glared at them over her head. He knew it wasn’t exactly fitting with their cover story, and he knew she’d complain if she noticed, but Kamanek couldn’t help it. He’d found himself jumping headfirst into trouble more and more with her around.
He tried to tell himself that it was for both their sakes. Taz was strong, and brave, but almost too brave. He knew she’d refuse to back down if confronted.
But a part of him almost felt protective of the fiery human at his side. He wasn’t used to that. He was far more used to working alone, and only looking out for himself…
A rapid-fire beeping emitted from the tracker, and he rocked to a stop, pushing the thought away. The blue dot had fallen still, pulsing gently in a building about a quarter of a mile away, and Kamanek felt a familiar thrill of anticipation. “We’re close,” he said, prodding the human, and when she nodded, he saw the same fire burning in her eyes.
The trail led them to a large square that thrummed with movement and noise. There were so many people—levekk and sub-species alike—filling the space that for a moment Kamanek worried he’d lose his tiny human in the crowd, but she stayed by his side, moving around him like a planet revolves around a star. Like a good bodyguard should, really.
It was easier to blend into the crowd here. Some that brushed past them and felt the heat of Taz’s skin or caught sight of her face turned to give them appraising looks, but most were too busy to notice. It helped that night had well and truly fallen above, sucking away any natural light and bathing everyone in a multicolored neon glow that bleached them of their features.
The building they sought was a hub. It was the largest in the square, its music deafening, and inside, it felt ready to burst. Patrons filled every corner, crowding the dance floor, leaning over the railings of the upper levels and scattering across the tables that lined the room. Kamanek saw sub-species workers and rich levekk customers getting a taste of life in the underground. But he also saw levekk that kept to the shadows and watched the crowds with keen eyes, and sub-species lolling on the tables, spending their hard-earned credits in whatever way they saw fit.
It was a microcosm of the city itself, echoing many of the colonies he’d traveled, and he wondered if New Chicago would one day look this way, or if Taz’s people would remain segregated from the levekk who ran her city.
He glanced down at his human, who was craning her neck to look around, her dark eyes wide with surprise. Her lips moved soundlessly beneath the thump of the music, and Kamanek leaned in.
“Not what you expected?” he asked.
The human shrugged, not meeting his eyes. She opened her mouth to reply but was distracted by something over his shoulder. “He’s here.”
He turned slowly, following her gaze, to find Niro sitting on one of the upper levels, close to the railing. It was unmistakably him, his large frame dwarfing the two smaller levekk that he was with, one at his side and the other sitting across from him.
Taz started forward, as if she might confront all three of them at once, but Kamanek stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll watch for a while.” Her lips thinned, but she subsided, and Kamanek looked around. “Come with me.”
He led the way as they ascended the stairs, coming out on the level just below Niro and his companions. It was quieter here, the huge speakers dotted around the balconies turned down toward the pulsing crowd below them, allowing the patrons up here to speak more freely. There was a bar on this side which was a little less busy than the one downstairs, and Kamanek’s eyes lit up when he spotted an empty table.
“This way.” Eyes turned towards them as they crossed the room, but Kamanek did his best to ignore the protective feeling that welled up inside him. Taz was supposed to be the one doing the guarding,
he reminded himself. He did his best to look oblivious, touching her arm gently as they came to a stop, and although she frowned at him, she didn’t pull away. He nudged her toward the chair opposite. “Sit a while, you’ve been on your feet all day.”
Surprise turned to confusion, but she followed his ‘order,’ slipping into the tall chair with more grace than he’d expected.
He saw her eyes widen, realizing why he’d positioned them this way. The tapered structure of the balconies afforded her a perfect line of sight to Niro on the upper balcony opposite, while Kamanek’s broader body hid her from sight. They were far enough away that they should be unrecognizable, were Niro to glance at them.
Taz sat up a little straighter, folding a leg beneath her to get more height, and nodded at him. “Thank you.”
Kamanek smiled, glad to no longer have to yell when he asked, “What can you see?”
“Just him and the other two. They’re talking about something serious, but no one looks particularly on edge.”
“It’s business, then. He’ll be a while. Time to have a little fun.”
She frowned at him, her default response whenever something he did confused her, but he only grinned. Behind her, one of the cicarian waiters was approaching, and Kamanek waved him over. “Two glasses of Pindarro,” he ordered with his most winning smile, and the cicarian bobbed his head and disappeared.
Taz’s strange little eyebrows dipped further in utmost disapproval. “You’re going to drink on the job?”
“We need to blend in,” he said innocently, enjoying how her eyes narrowed.
“We can’t afford—”
“This one’s on me.” He slipped a thin credit drive from his pocket, waggling it at her, and she rolled her eyes.
“I mean we can’t afford to get sloppy.”
“I’m never sloppy,” he insisted, smiling at the cicarian as he returned with their drinks. He slid one of the glasses across the table at Taz, watching her intently as she pressed her lips together. She glanced up at him, her gaze flicking over his shoulder towards Niro. “Just one drink, please.”