by Presley Hall
He stabs the guard in the neck with deadly and silent precision. There’s no sound except a quiet grunt as the guard slumps into Zhori’s arms. He lowers the dead man to the stone floor, letting his blood pool out over it.
I feel no guilt, not even a little sadness or sympathy. Usually, it is our way to kill only in battle if killing must be done, looking into our enemy’s eyes after they’ve been given a chance to best us if they can. But these guards and those they work for here are the scum of the universe who trade in living beings. They deserve death—all who traffic in living flesh do. They have no honor in life, and they deserve none in death.
I gesture to Zhori to alert the warrior outside, looking down the long row of cages in front of us. My blood runs cold at the sight, my stomach twisting with nausea, but I force it down. It won’t help to think about the horror of what’s in front of us, only what we’re going to do about it. Only about the solution.
My muscles are tense, my entire body alert and ready to fight. We haven’t encountered more guards, but I don’t know how much longer our luck can hold out in that regard. The slave trade is a lucrative business on Nierra, and they protect their wares well. There may be few guards stationed inside the warehouse at the moment, but I have no doubt there are more close by, ready to be summoned if there’s any trouble.
Women are huddled in the cages, some of them barely visible in the dim light, and they shrink back as we make our way down the rows looking for Cora. It’s plain that they’ve been in captivity for some time, since before they were brought here—they’re unwashed, their clothes ragged and hair tangled. All of them look frightened, angry, or some combination of the two.
I peer into each and every cage, my heart beating harder with every woman I see who’s not Cora.
Where is she? Where is my mate? Was I wrong about her and Miri being brought here? The idea that we might be searching in the wrong place makes my stomach knot.
Then, at last, I round a corner and peer into another set of bars—and my gaze lands on Cora.
My heart leaps at the sight of her, alive if not yet safe, and I rush toward the cage. She spins toward the bars, alerted to my presence somehow, even though my footsteps are nearly silent. The look of joy on her face when she sees me makes something almost painfully sweet fill my chest.
I grasp the bars with one hand, leaning forward without thinking as I reach inside to cup her face, not caring about my men watching us or the fact that we have very little time.
My Irisa is here. I’ve found her, and the need to touch her is overwhelming.
My body aches for her, as if I lost a part of myself and have only just been reunited with it. I lean forward, kissing her fiercely through the bars as her hands slip through and go to either side of my face. Her soft fingers stroke along my skin as she gasps against my lips.
“You found me,” she whispers breathlessly. “I knew you would. I didn’t give up hope, Druxik, I knew you’d come—”
“I will never leave you. I would tear apart the entire universe to find you. I swear I’ll never abandon you, my Irisa.”
Zhori clears his throat behind us. “Sir, Vrexen and M’Xelni can only keep the guards distracted for so long before they start to get suspicious. We need to move fast.”
“Get the others out first,” Cora says determinedly, pulling back from the kiss. Her determination to finish the mission makes me more proud of her than I’ve ever been. My Irisa is as much a warrior as any Kalixian I’ve ever led. “I told the women about you. I was able to talk to one of them, and she helped me spread the word about the plan to rescue them and why we’re here. I told them you’d be coming for all of us. They shouldn’t be afraid of you. At least, I hope not.”
Relief washes over me. The fact that she was able to tell the women that we’re here to help them will make this so much easier. I don’t know if all the Terran prisoners believed her, but at least word has spread among them that we’ve come to rescue them, not enslave them again.
She was right all along, I think as we begin methodically breaking the locks on the cages, moving as fast as possible. She has always been the key to this mission’s success.
I never doubted that she was, but now the evidence is plain. Having her here to help calm the women has made this monumentally easier. Whatever suspicions they may still harbor about us, the Terran captives aren’t screaming in fear or shrinking away from us—there’s distrust in the eyes of many of them, but they seem mostly willing to follow Cora’s lead.
Still, it’s impossible to break the locks in total silence. They clank against the bars as we break them open, the sound echoing through the warehouse. We work as quickly as we can, but each lock that breaks makes me grimace.
How much longer can we keep our presence here a secret from the guards?
As if in answer to my unspoken questions, a low whistle from outside reaches my ears. I look up, my hand falling to my sword as I recognize the sound. It’s our lookout, warning us of danger. A heartbeat later, as we’re about halfway finished opening the cages, there’s a shout from the front doors of the warehouse—the unmistakable sound of guards yelling.
Krax. We’ve been caught.
The doors burst open, and a guard rushes toward us, sounding the alarm. Zhori springs on him from behind, putting him into a headlock and opening his throat before the guard can even begin to fight back, but it’s too late to stop it. The alarm has already been raised, and as Vrexen and M’Xelni run to join us, more guards come through the doors, filling the space.
“Fight!” I shout to my men, pulling my own sword free. “Keep opening as many cages as you can and fight back!”
It’s not easy, as I feared. The guards are well-trained, the best of them clearly kept here to watch the valuable stock, and they outnumber us now. For every cage we open, there’s two or three guards we have to fight off, and although I know they won’t harm the women on purpose due to their value, I’m afraid some of the Terrans will get caught in the middle of the fight.
Some light floods in from the open doors, but the majority of the warehouse is still in near-darkness, making it difficult to see.
I strike out at a guard as he raises his blaster, stabbing him in the chest and kicking him backward into one of the cages. He slumps down onto the floor, but another is already there, swiping at me with a blade as long as my forearm.
“Behind you!” Cora screams.
I whirl around in time to see another guard aiming a blaster at me. I duck to one side, and the shot goes wide, hitting the door of a cage nearby and melting some of the metal.
A deep, ragged growl rumbles from inside the cage, and as I fight the guard who attacked me, a massive form crashes against the bars from the inside. The entire cage shakes, and the occupant throws himself at the bars again, managing to force the damaged door open this time.
He leaps out, his teeth bared in a snarl, just as I take down the guard. I pivot on the balls of my feet, my weapon still raised as I get a good look at the newly escaped prisoner.
It takes me a moment to realize that the creature in front of me is a Kalixian. He’s tall and muscular, his bronzed skin streaked with dirt and blood and filth. His hair is long and matted, falling past his shoulders and tangled around his face. He’s bigger than any Kalixian I’ve ever known, massive and hulking and made of pure muscle. His nose has been pierced, a thick gold ring threaded through the cartilage below his nostrils, and his long, curving horns have been filed to sharp, deadly points.
This creature has been made into a weapon, something far beyond a simple gladiator. But he is a Kalixian. He’s one of us, even if he’s been twisted beyond recognition.
His head swings in my direction and his gaze burns into mine, his eyes fierce and wild. Then he turns and charges into the melee, going straight for the guards as he roars out a sound that’s half Kalixian battle cry and half pure, unfettered rage. I can almost feel it boiling out of him as he begins to tear through the guards, beating one to a pu
lp before taking his weapon and plunging into the fray.
He fights like a madman, partly due to his skill and partly due to the feral anger that seethes out of him like a geyser, destroying everything he touches.
I hesitate for a moment as the battle rages around me, worried that this wild Kalixian could be a danger to my men or to the women we came to rescue. But his wrath seems purely focused on the guards—for the moment, at least—and it gives us the cover we need.
“Rashar! Brekkar! With me!” I shout, gesturing to the cages that are still occupied.
Taking advantage of the carnage and destruction being wrought by the feral Kalixian, my men and I focus on freeing the rest of the women. We need to act quickly and get them out of here before even more reinforcements arrive.
I won’t let this mission fail.
24
Cora
As soon as Druxik breaks the lock on my cage, I shove open the door and stumble out, my heart racing. The sounds of battle echo from all around me, loud and chaotic, and he catches me before I can fall.
“Gather the women together,” he tells me, his voice cutting through the din. “We’ll need to be ready to run as soon as we take care of the guards.”
He pulls me into his arms for one blistering kiss before releasing me and turning back to the fight.
I scoop Miri up into my arms, holding her against me as I begin to funnel the terrified women past the battling warriors and guards toward the doors of the warehouse. They look confused and frightened, but I shout above the din for them to follow me, that I’ll get them to safety. We can’t leave the warehouse yet, not until the warriors can come with us for protection from anyone outside, but I want them all together so that we don’t miss anyone, and away from the battle.
Druxik and our warriors are fighting valiantly, but what’s truly turned the tide against the onslaught of guards is the wild Kalixian. He’s taken out half the blue-skinned guards on his own, and though he’s bleeding from a dozen wounds, he barely even seems to notice. I don’t know whether he’s fueled by adrenaline or some kind of drug, but it’s astounding to see him fight as he slaughters the guards one after another.
At last, after what seems like an eternity, all of them are dead. The silence that falls over the warehouse is punctuated by the soft, frightened crying of some of the women, and the heaving snorts of the feral Kalixian. He sounds like a bull getting ready to charge again. Between that, the ring in his nose, and the curved and sharpened horns, he almost looks like one too.
He’s stopped fighting now that all the guards are down, but he’s clearly still agitated. A shiver of fear washes over me. Will he turn on us? So far, I’ve only seen him kill the guards, but maybe that’s just because they were the most obvious targets for his rage. Now that he’s taken them out, will he come after the rest of us?
Miri burrows into my chest, her face pressed into my shoulder as I hold her close to me.
“What do we do about him?” I hear Zhori ask in a low voice, and Druxik shakes his head.
“Easy there,” he murmurs to the feral Kalixian, taking a step forward. “We’re not your enemies. We’re your own kind, and we’re going to get you out of here.”
The man’s hair is tangled around his face, now wet with fresh blood, and his hands are so soaked in it that it looks like he’s wearing gloves. He snarls at Druxik as my mate takes a step toward him, and Druxik freezes.
The Kalixian swings his head from side to side, eyes rolling as his gaze darts between the warriors in front of him. It’s clear that he still wants blood, that his anger hasn’t abated. If anything, it’s more frenzied than ever, and he lets out another deep roar, reaching down to grab one of the corpses of the guards and fling it aside like a rag doll into the bars of one of the open cages.
Druxik, to his credit, doesn’t flinch. But he shifts his gaze quickly to one of his men. “Rashar, do you have the tranquilizer gun?”
“Yes.” The Kalixian nods.
My eyebrows jerk upward in surprise. I didn’t realize Druxik and his crew were armed with any non-lethal weapons, but it makes sense, I guess. They haven’t used tranquilizers against the guards, fighting them with blasters and swords, but it’s useful to have a way to take someone down without killing them. If I hadn’t been able to convince the women that this is a real rescue operation, maybe they would’ve had to tranquilize some of them to get them to safety without a struggle.
I’m not sure how I feel about that, but at the moment, all I can feel is relief. They need to take this savage beast out before he tears through their ranks like tissue paper.
Without hesitation, following his captain’s orders, Rashar lifts his gun and fires a series of rounds toward the feral Kalixian, enough shots to well and truly put a being of his massive size to sleep—hopefully.
For a second, it looks as if it hasn’t worked. The wild Kalixian bows his head, shaking his entire upper body from side to side as if preparing to charge. And then he does, closing the distance between him and the warriors at a frightening pace.
Druxik tenses, and I can practically read his thoughts as he faces down the feral warrior. It goes against everything the Kalixians believe in to kill one of their own. And yet he can’t risk letting this dangerous man attack us all.
His hand tightens on his sword, and several of the Kalixian who carry stolen blasters take aim. They’re ready for the worst, braced for it, but just as it seems the worst might come to pass, Rashar’s final shot strikes the Kalixian’s chest, and he rears back.
He sways for a moment, stumbling. He blinks twice, his eyes losing focus. And then all of his heavy, muscular bulk goes crashing down onto the stone floor.
“Well,” Druxik mutters, his tone dry, “who volunteers to help carry him out?”
A choked, giddy laugh gets caught in my throat. None of this is funny, but my adrenaline is running so high that I need some release for the energy pent up inside me. If I think too much about how close we all just came to death, I won’t be able to stay focused and alert.
And we can’t afford to get distracted. We’re not out of this yet.
I hurry to Druxik’s side, Miri still in my arms. “We should go. Now.”
He nods, and I gesture for the women to follow us as we head for doors the guards came through. I’m sure more reinforcements will come soon, so we need to take this opportunity to run while we can.
The wind outside has picked up, turning the air icy cold, and the women are shivering as we burst out of the warehouse and begin the dash back to the ship.
“Follow us!” I call to the women. “We’ll get you out of here.”
Some of them look dubious, but all of them seem to agree that wherever we’re going, it’s got to be better than the auction block awaiting them. With me there to reassure them that Kalixians don’t harm humans, they follow in a cluster, racing down the streets as we head through the city to the docking bay where the ship is.
My legs burn, and air stings my lungs with every gasping breath, but I don’t slow down.
I have no idea if the repairs on the ship have been finished yet, but we’ll have to do the best we can with whatever the dock workers have managed to accomplish. It won’t take long for someone to see the carnage left in the warehouse and raise another alarm. We can’t stay on this planet any longer, no matter what condition the ship is in.
My arms ache from carrying Miri, and I stumble a little as I hike her higher on my hip. I’m not exactly out of shape, but sprinting across a sprawling city while carrying a small child is a hell of a lot more challenging than the morning jogs I used to take back on Earth.
Druxik notices that I’m falling behind and reaches out smoothly to take her from me.
I hesitate for a second, not wanting Miri to be frightened, but she goes to him easily, arms wrapping around his neck. The metal of his robotic arm glints as he hefts her into his hold as if she weighs nothing. I breathe a sigh of relief as the strain on my own arms lets up.
; “Guards!”
Rashar’s shouted warning makes my already racing heart skip a beat. We’re near the docking bay, and Druxik shifts Miri in his grip, holding her tightly with his flesh-and-blood arm as he draws his weapon with the other. Vrexen unsheathes his blaster, firing off several shots in the direction of the oncoming guards. Druxik, Brekkar, and M’Xelni fight the ones who get closer hand-to-hand, cutting through the guards with impressive skill as we careen toward the docks.
Bystanders scream as they scatter, trying to escape the violence as we rush toward our ship. A dockworker stares at us as we approach, his waxy skin turning even paler.
“The ship is not ready!” he exclaims. “It’s almost fixed, but the engine—”
“It’ll have to do,” Druxik growls, hitting the mechanism to lower the hatch of the ship. “Brekkar, pay the man.”
Brekkar does so quickly, looking at Druxik with concern as the other warriors fight back the guards, forming a wall of bronzed, rippling muscle between our pursuers and the women. “Druxik, without the engine fully repaired, we won’t have full thrusting power—”
“We won’t need it.” Druxik nods curtly to the dock worker, then turns to me. “Help me get them onto the ship, Cora. Hurry!”
The dockworkers scramble away as I shout for the women to get on board as fast as they can, encouraging them as they board in a tangle of frightened, churning bodies, all two dozen or so of them. The guards are fighting back, but their ranks are thinning, and as the last few women start to board, Druxik shouts for them.
“Get on board, now!” he yells, standing at the edge of the hatch.
I can see more reinforcements coming in the distance, and the handful of guards still fighting surge forward as the Kalixians retreat. The knobby-headed leader of the guards shouts at the others to grab the women before they’re all taken.