Placing a hand on the bed, she pulled herself to her feet. She managed a semblance of numbness as she retrieved her purse and walked to the couch, plopping down and settling her bag on her lap.
She glanced down at the pizza box. The empty cans remained, but the leftover pizza was gone. That rekindled her anger; he’d cheated on her, used her, spent her money on meaningless shit, and after everything, he couldn’t even leave her a couple slices of goddamned pizza?
Zoey dug her phone out of her purse, scrolling through her short list of contacts and selecting the only person she could talk to about anything. It rang three times before Melissa picked up.
“Zoey! I haven’t heard from you in ages! How are you?”
“Josh cheated on me, Mel. Used me for money and cheated on me,” Zoey replied, suddenly fighting back more waterworks.
“Oh, my God. Sweetie, are you okay? Well, of course you’re not okay, but are you okay?” Melissa’s voice had softened, brimming with love and concern. “Do you need me to come visit? I think I can get my baseball bat through security if it’s in a checked bag.”
“No. I’m… I don’t know, Mel. I’m so lost right now. My landlord is kicking me out because Josh blew the rent money, and I got fired today, and I came home to…”
“Don’t even think of that piece of shit. He’s not worth it. So not worth it.” Melissa sighed. “I know you don’t want to come back to Iowa, but…you can come stay with me, if you want. You know I’d love to have you as a roomie again. It’d be like old times.”
Zoey wiped tears from her face with the heel of her palm. “Mel, I—”
“What’s there for you in California? I know you wanted to get away, to start a new life, but what’s there for you, really? You can go anywhere, Zoey, and all I’m saying is I’d love it if you came back here.”
She looked around the apartment. In the months she’d lived here, she’d accumulated items to make it feel homier — a few pictures, a couple plants, some strange-but-appealing wall décor, and two or three pieces of old furniture, most of it obtained at secondhand stores. She’d taken pride in what she’d accomplished here. Though her job had sucked, she’d busted her ass working double shifts to have a decent place to live and make sure her bills were paid. She’d planned to eventually build a life out here. With Josh.
But that, apparently, wasn’t meant to be. This was just a place. It wasn’t home, and never had been.
She’d forgotten what it felt like to have a home, by now.
“Come stay with me,” Melissa urged.
“Okay,” Zoey replied.
“Wait, what? Really?”
“Really.”
“Yay! We can spend Christmas together!” Melissa yelled so loudly that Zoey had to pull the phone away from her ear. “Do you need help with a flight?”
“You don’t have to do that, Mel. I think I’ll drive. I don’t want to sell my car, and it’ll be easier to fit my things in it.” What did she really have to bring, other than clothes? Nothing else here had any meaning for her. “It’ll also give me time to…to think.”
“Take all the time you need, Zoey. And if you need me for anything — anything — just call. Day or night.”
“I will. Thank you, Mel.”
“Hugs! Of course. I know things suck right now and you’re in a bad place, but I’m happy! I can’t wait to see you.”
Zoey smiled despite everything. She knew what Melissa meant. “I can’t wait to see you, too.”
“Get some rest, okay? I’ll talk to some people to see if anyone’s hiring around here. And don’t let that douche bag back in.”
After they exchanged goodbyes, Zoey pressed the end button and slipped her phone into her purse. She looked around the apartment, at her eclectic decorations, at the massive TV Josh had to get when they first moved in, the video games laying on the shelves below it, at the few pictures of her and Josh that she’d put up.
She couldn’t stomach another night here. He’d be back, and Zoey refused to be here when he showed up. There was plenty of daylight left, and she wasn’t going to get any closer to Des Moines by sitting on the couch. She could stop at the bank to deposit her check on the way out of town.
Returning to the bedroom, she pulled her suitcases down from the shelf in the closet and filled them with clothing, shoes, toiletries, and the small, timeworn photo album that held all the pictures she had of her dad. She hummed to herself, refusing to recall the scene she’d walked in on not long before.
She had her check, her tip money, and a few hundred bucks she’d stashed in her underwear drawer, knowing deep down inside that Josh would never think to look in there for anything. She could do this. This was easy.
Despite her self-reassurances, she cried as she packed. Everything important fit in two suitcases, supplemented by some toiletries and a box of romance novels she couldn’t bear to part with.
“One day at a time, right dad?” She brushed the backs of her hands over eyes. “Someday I’ll find someone who will see me for me.”
Chapter Two
Rendash’s existence had become an endless cycle of darkness and light following no discernable pattern — there was no star, whether familiar or foreign, to illuminate the days, no reflective moons to set the night aglow. If this planet had day and night, he hadn’t the faintest guess as to when either was occurring. Time had lost all meaning to him long ago — it had become a fluid, malleable force that evaded definition or measurement. He knew only that his captors seemed to hold no schedule.
They arrived at random and switched on near-blinding lights before speaking with him in their clumsy, overly-complicated language, trying to hide themselves in the glow. But he knew their faces — especially Charles Stantz, their leader, who was always present whether he participated or not. Sometimes, they experimented on Rendash, taking samples of his blood or tearing off his scales. On other occasions, they inflicted pain with little apparent reason, beating him with blunt weapons or slicing his scales with sharp instruments.
When they finished, they would inject him with chemicals he could not identify before turning off the lights, plunging him into total darkness again. They usually left food, which he’d locate by smell and touch and ate only out of necessity.
Today was the first time the humans had taken him out of his small holding cell in a long while. They’d forced him into a large, metal chair, restrained his arms and legs with heavy shackles that were bolted directly to the chair, preventing him from moving his limbs, and pulled a dark hood over his head. He’d felt numerous turns and inclines as they’d wheeled him through their facility. The shuffling boots of the human soldiers spoke of a great distance being traveled.
Finally, they’d brought him in here — they called it a mobile containment unit. They’d secured his chair to the floor and sealed the entry, leaving him alone in the dark once again. The entire contraption moved afterward. Given the rumblings and jolts that shook the walls, Rendash could only assume he was in some sort of primitive transport.
Though the mobile containment unit was just as dark as his cell, and the steady hum of the unseen ventilation system was similar to the one he’d known in the facility, the tremors, clangs, and slams of the transport bouncing over an irregular surface were new, offering him a bit of hope when paired with the other key difference.
They’d neglected to inject him with the chemicals today.
For the first time since the humans had taken him, he could feel his nyros; healing his wounds after the crash had demanded so much of its energy that he’d been unable to call upon it when the human soldiers arrived and subdued him. Whether they’d known it or not — and he was hesitant to give them credit enough to presume they knew what they were doing — their injections had kept his connection to his nyros suppressed.
Another jolt; the transport bounced, and Rendash’s restrains bit into his scales. He clenched all four of his fists and squeezed his eyes shut. The mobile containment unit had been moving for quite
a long while, though he couldn’t be sure how long or of how far they’d traveled. Stantz had mentioned something to his fellows about another facility with better equipment.
This was the first opportunity Rendash had been presented. It was like to be the only one.
I cannot allow my Umen’rak to be forgotten casualties on this unknown planet.
Rendash inhaled deeply; the air inside the transport was warmer and drier than that in the facility and possessed a hint of freshness that suggested open skies and wind.
Drawing in another steadying breath, he focused on his nyros.
It crackled to life at his mental command, flowing through his blood with new warmth, lending much-needed strength to his muscles. But it fizzled as it coursed along his limbs; he increased his concentration, and the resulting heat was disproportionately small. He feared it wouldn’t be enough.
With this nyros, I give myself into the service of the aligarii, my people.
He’d taken the oath a lifetime ago. He recalled the words now to draw upon the pride he’d felt on that long-ago day, to taste the power that had blazed through him.
With this nyros, the strength of my people, I become the Blade of the Aligarii, to be wielded with honor and integrity in the defense of my people and all others in need of aid.
The flame sparked deep in his chest, but it was weak. His connection had been broken for too long. His strength had waned too much.
The humans had captured the rest of his surviving Umen’rak — the warriors he’d fought beside since his youth, his brothers and sisters in arms, who he’d been bound to by millennia of tradition and connected nyros — and dragged them into underground cells along with Rendash. Those few who’d survived the crash and the emergency ejection were gone now. And Rendash’s imprisonment prevented him from completing his Nes’rak, his final mission, and returning to his home world to commend the unerring honor of his brethren through to their ends.
As though all that weren’t enough, the humans had nearly taken his nyros from him.
Though humans were a relatively primitive species, and he was dishonored by being their captive, it would be foolish to underestimate them. Succumbing to his rage and bitterness would only ensure that his escape would end in failure — that he’d never return to his people and report the outcome of his Nes’rak, that he’d never add the names of the dead to the annals of the valiant slain.
He would never end his duty and close the circle.
Humans are not the enemy of the aligarii, he told himself. I must not forget the korvaxx, who are the true threat. The creatures on this planet have no understanding of what it is they have done.
No…Stantz understands. He knows exactly what he’s done and holds no remorse for it.
Growling to himself, he cast aside the outward distractions — and his own negative thoughts — and focused on the lessons of his youth.
Control. Detachment. Instinct. Selflessness. Honor.
All things in service of the Nes’rak. My life for the aligarii.
He’d been trained since his earliest youth to be a warrior. He was Aekhora, one of the chosen warriors, whether his companions lived or not. He was Rendash.
He clenched his jaw as the fire inside was stoked, spreading heat to his extremities. If this was his sole opportunity, he would seize it, and he would put everything into the attempt.
Control.
Rendash’s nyros poured strength into his arms, and his muscles bulged. Nostrils flaring, he exerted force against his arm restraints. The metal shackles groaned and dug into his skin. He pushed his nyros harder, fanning the internal flame and forcing more power from it. Pain coursed through him, biting down into his bones and threatening to steal his breath.
Detachment.
With a growl, he shoved his pain aside and pumped more energy into the effort, straining his body and mind beyond their current limits. A metallic pop signaled one of the fasteners finally giving. The sound repeated several more times as the remaining bolts broke free. His arms darted up over his head with the sudden release of pressure, jolting his entire body.
His upper and lower arm on each side were bound together by the heavy cuffs, which had detached from the chair but not opened, effectively leaving him with two functional arms rather than four. In that respect, at least, he was currently on equal footing with the humans.
The transport shook with a sudden loss of speed, stuttering violently and forcing him back into his rear-facing chair. Rendash tugged the black cloth off his head. The chamber was filled with impenetrable darkness. His nyros could be used to alter his vision, but it wouldn’t be worth the expenditure of energy.
He allowed himself a moment’s rest, relaxing his muscles and his nyros. Fully recovered, he would have been able to massively increase the strength of his muscles through his nyros with little more than a thought, but he’d fallen far.
Rendash raised his left arms and clenched his jaw in concentration as the transport came to a full stop. A vrahsk — flickering and sputtering like it had during his first inexperienced attempts to form it, so many years before — extended from the back of one hand. The wide, curved energy blade cast a soft purple glow over Rendash and his surroundings, revealing smooth, bare metal walls.
He ignored the pain in his stiff muscles as he bent forward and set the vrahsk to his leg restraints. Metal sizzled as the blade sliced through it. The shackles fell to the floor of the transport with heavy clangs, and Rendash stretched his legs gratefully.
A light flashed on overhead, pure white and blinding in its intensity. Slitting his eyes, he lifted his right arms to shield his face. Machinery rumbled; they were opening the door.
Awareness pulsed through his mind — the command module of his ship. It was very distant, but the tracking beacon was operational. That meant there was a chance the module itself, which could operate as a ship on its own, was functional.
There was a chance it could get him home.
Rendash’s eyes adjusted quickly to the light, but he didn’t lower his hands. He peered through the gap between his right forearms to see four humans in dark attire gathered at the opening. They directed their blaster-like weapons at Rendash.
“Sedate the specimen and get it restrained!” Stantz commanded, voice muffled by his mask.
Instinct.
Rendash released his conscious thought, devoting his mind to controlling his nyros. He projected a shield in front of himself and filled his legs with additional strength.
For my Umen’rak.
He leapt forward.
Startled, the humans shouted and fired their weapons. The solid projectiles disintegrated against Rendash’s shield. Each impact jolted him, threatened to bring down the barrier, and added to the heat building inside him.
He landed in the middle of their front line, knocking two humans to the ground. As he rose, he plunged his vrahsk into the chest of the third human, simultaneously swinging his right arms to hammer his shackle into the face of the fourth. Warm blood splattered on Rendash’s scales as both men fell.
Large, black human vehicles — filled with more of their ill-equipped soldiers — were lined up behind the mobile containment unit. Rendash shifted his shield to intercept the other soldiers’ gunfire; many of them shot at him from the cover of vehicle doors. To either side, a vast landscape stretched away from the hard road; it was dust, hills, and mountains as far as he could see, lit only by ambient light from the night sky.
“Do not fire on my specimen with live ammunition!” Stantz shouted over the roaring weapons.
Rendash met Stantz’s eyes. The human was beside the nearest black vehicle, face grim and gray eyes gleaming behind the clear plate of his mask.
Those eyes had always been steady, hungry, regardless of what the man behind them was doing — droning through infuriatingly circular lines of questioning; watching as large, uniformed humans beat Rendash with fists and clubs; slicing Rendash’s scales with sharp instruments and prodding at his flesh, un
concerned about the pain he was inflicting. Stantz’s gaze hadn’t wavered for an instant when he confessed to having overexerted the other aligarii survivors. They were only projects to him, things to be dissected and studied — to Stantz, Rendash was only Specimen Ten.
In all his life, Rendash had never hated another being as he did Charles Stantz. Their time together — four years, though that human reckoning of time meant little to Rendash — had been a torturous, hellish dance. Stantz had pushed ceaselessly to break Rendash, to discover his secrets, but the aligarii warrior had given nothing.
Now I show what I truly am. Rendash, Aekhora, Blade of the Aligarii. Your doom.
He could get to Stantz and kill the man before the other humans overwhelmed him and the exertion of maintaining his nyros became too much. He could avenge his own suffering, could avenge those of his Umen’rak who perished in human captivity. It would mean death, but it would be a good death, a death in combat. The sort of end any true warrior would appreciate.
But then his people might never learn of the korvaxx’s plots, would never know to immortalize the memories of his fallen Umen’rak in the fashion they deserved. His pride, his bitterness, his shame — all was meaningless compared to his mission.
All things in service of the Nes’rak.
Selflessness. Honor.
Two more humans charged Rendash, the long rods in their hands crackling with electricity. They attacked in unison, swinging and thrusting their weapons with one goal — to strike a blow anywhere on Rendash’s body. He knew the muscle-locking pain of such devices well enough, by now. He couldn’t withstand the jolt of one in his current state.
Rendash backed up, swaying and dodging the blows, the shackles on his wrists heavier with each passing moment. He caught one baton with the edge of his vrahsk, shearing the rod in half. The other soldier lunged and thrust his weapon. Rendash dodged the attack, clamped both right hands on the human’s extended arm, and brought his blade down on the man’s elbow.
As the screaming soldier grasped the smoking stump of his severed arm, Rendash sliced his vrahsk across the other man’s gut.
Claimed by an Alien Warrior Page 2