by Elin Wyn
“With some luck,” I continued, laying one hand on her shoulder as we climbed out of the pit and back through the tents, “the structure will be just fine and you’ll be able to get started in a few hours.”
“Fingers crossed,” she smiled. “I’m gonna start prepping my team, just in case.”
“You do that. My guys are already on their way.”
Looking over Maki’s shoulder, I could already see more than thirty workers walking out from the tent and heading straight toward the excavation.
As they went, the three Valorni on site joined the humans, Navat leading them.
They were all carrying heavy-looking shovels, far bigger than anything a regular human being could handle.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I asked Navat the moment he passed me.
My tone was more sass than anything, and I hoped he’d pick up on that. Despite the fact that he was a Valorni, I actually liked the guy.
Maybe more than I should.
“I heard your foreman speak to your crew,” he responded in that deep tone of his. I felt a shiver run up my spine, but I tried to ignore it. My body always reacted like this whenever I was close to him. “I figured you could use the help.”
A smile spread across his lips, and he looked straight into my eyes. That was enough for my heart to start beating slightly faster.
“And do you think your guys are up to the task?” I teased him.
I knew that all of his men were competent workers, but I just couldn’t resist poking him. Navat knew a lot about construction and excavation, probably more than I did in some fields, and maybe I could extend him the benefit of the doubt in this instance.
I was actually impressed that a soldier like him would be so knowledgeable, and I had been happy to accept his help during these past six days of excavations.
“Are you seriously asking me that?” Cocking one eyebrow up, he placed the spade of his shovel on the dirt and rested both hands on the handle, his eyes never leaving mine. “I thought you were smart.”
“This isn’t a job for the faint of heart,” I said to Navat as I began to walk through the excavation tents. “We’re doing sensitive work that’s also hard.”
“I’ve fought a war my whole adult life and had to deal with sensitive creatures like humans, so I can handle hard and sensitive work,” Navat grunted.
I turned to look at him, fire in my eyes. I realized that we were alone, away from the main crowd of workers. We were behind a tent.
Tingles of electricity went up my spine. This was a perfect place if I was so inclined to…
No.
I needed to keep my head in the game. I struggled to remember what I was thinking.
“You think humans are fragile and sensitive?” I asked him. “After what we put up with the Xathi and now these possessed?”
“My crew did most of the fighting,” Navat grinned as he retorted back. “And then we had to put up with the whiny humans who seemed to always complain and then go all anti-alien.”
“Well maybe they have a point?”
“What point could they possibly have?”
“All you big giant sexy aliens came and destroyed our way of life and--”
“Wait. Big sexy aliens?” Navat asked. There was a grin on his face I wanted to slap off.
Or lick off.
“You know what I mean,” I sputtered. “With big muscles and abs.”
“Well, dainty little human woman, I think if you didn’t like what you see then you’d--”
I didn’t let him finish. Just talking to him was keying me up so much I couldn’t think straight. It was like I was drunk. I reached up to him and got on my tiptoes and brought his head down to mine.
His mouth was eager and his tongue slipped into my mouth as he began massaging it.
I moaned.
The back of my brain screamed at me to stop. It kept telling me anyone could walk by at any point.
But Navat’s hand went lower and I could feel his powerful hand grope my ass. I wanted him to squeeze it harder.
And he did.
This was heaven.
But it had to stop.
I broke free, with much reluctance.
Navat stood there, looking at me, a confused grin on his face.
“Looks like you’re not so anti-alien after all,” he said wryly.
“Alright, alright,” I laughed, punching his massive shoulder. The moment my fingers touched his skin, I felt electricity crackle under my fingertips.
I hated the fact that my body reacted like this every single time he was near, but I just couldn’t seem to control it no matter how hard I tried.
Truth be told, I didn’t try very hard. “Let’s get to it, shall we? Maki is anxious to get started.”
With a nod, Navat strode off, shovel over his shoulder, long strides eating up the distance to the excavation.
He started the descent into the hole we had dug, his boots kicking up dust as he went, and my eyes followed him.
“You like the guy, don’t you?” Tameron asked me, and I spun on my heels to find him staring at me with an amused expression. “I can see it.”
“Of course I don’t like him,” I sputtered, even though I already felt warm blood rush to my cheeks. “He just knows what he’s doing. I respect that.”
It sounded like a complete lie, but that was the best that I had to offer. No matter how much I trusted my foreman, I wasn’t about to tell him that I felt attracted to Navat. After all, I didn’t even know if I was really attracted to him.
If he was human, sure, he had all the qualities that I appreciated in a man...but he wasn’t a human, was he? He was a Valorni, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to fall for one of them.
That wouldn’t be safe, or prudent.
“Whatever you say, Alessa,” Tameron laughed, and then he joined the masses of workers as they used their shovels and pickaxes to clear the dirt and rubble covering the structure’s entrance. I remained atop of the clearing, checking on their progress with my wrist computer. According to the schematics, we were only a few feet away from—
“I think I hit something,” one of the workers shouted, and that was enough for all the other workers to stop.
Before I thought things through, I threw myself onto the hole and rushed down the steep incline of dirt, only stopping once I was side by side with the man that had shouted.
Taking his shovel from his hands, I used the edge to clear the bits of dirt covering what seemed like a massive stone arch that led into a tunnel.
“Holy shit,” I whispered. “We found it.”
Taking a moment to catch my breath, I then ordered the rest of the workers to be as careful as they could as they opened the entrance up.
I still had to check the integrity of the entire thing, but I couldn’t wait to go and break the news to Maki.
She was going to be over the moon.
I was climbing back up the hole when I heard screams coming from our campsite.
I rushed up, anxious to see what was going on, but I didn’t have time to get all the way to the edge.
It only took a couple of seconds before Maki and her team of archaeologists jumped over the edge of the hole, all of them panicking as they rushed toward the excavation workers.
“What the hell’s going on?” I cried out, grabbing Maki by the shoulder.
She turned around fast, her eyes wide with fear, and blinked twice before she realized who was talking to her. “Talk to me, Maki. What’s going on?”
“The possessed,” she breathed out, her words coated with fear. “They’re here.”
She had barely finished speaking when I started hearing the snarling of furious creatures just a few yards away from where I was.
Fighting against my instincts to run, I poked my head over the edge of the hole and my heart tightened as I saw a mass of bodies rush through the campsite.
I immediately recognized some of the workers from the Sauma bridge and, even though they st
ill looked like humans, there was something beastly about them.
In their eyes, there was murder.
“What do we, Alessa?” Maki asked, tugging on the sleeve of my shirt. “What do we do?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, barely believing what I was seeing. “Half my guys are up there.” My chest tightened. “Tameron-”
I was cut short by a pair of hands that latched themselves to my throat. I rolled down the incline of dirt, a heavy body on top of me, and I found bloodshot eyes looking straight into mine.
One of the possessed had managed to get their hands on me.
I was as good as dead.
Except I wasn’t.
The head of the hybrid sitting atop my chest snapped back as Navat hit him with his shovel, its snarl replaced by the nauseating sound of a neck being broken.
“Quick,” Navat said, grabbing me by the wrist and pulling me up to my feet. “We gotta get inside!”
I didn’t complain.
I just let him drag me inside the structure, the ancient shadows of millennia ago wrapping themselves around us.
It wasn’t a safe thing to do, but right now safety was just a detail.
Our lives were on the line.
Navat
“Go, go, go!” I shouted.
I looked around at the wounded. Some were able to get up and move, others sustained too many injuries.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to them, even though they couldn’t hear me. Some were already gone.
Maki knelt beside one of the excavation workers. She pumped their chest in an attempt to start their heart. It didn’t work.
I forced myself to look away.
I grabbed Maki by the shoulder and shoved her in front of me.
“Go!” I urged again.
“Where am I going?” She shrieked.
“Anywhere. Away from here,” I directed. I gave Tyehn a push in Maki’s direction. “Cover her,” I told him.
“What if there are more hostiles?” Maki called back to me.
“Just go!”
I didn’t stop to watch them run off. I started grabbing everyone in sight and pushing them in the direction of the tunnel.
A Gorgo infested human ran up on me. I fired one shot off the stun gun and it fell to the ground, quivering.
“Good call on the stun guns, Maki,” I muttered to myself.
“Give me one of those!” I whirled to see Alessa standing beside me.
“I told you to run!”
“I’m not leaving until everyone else is safe first,” she protested. “I always take care of my team.”
Her voice cracked on the last word. Even as Gorgo infested humans closed in around us, I was impressed.
“Focus on helping those who can still be helped,” I told her.
She looked back to the unlucky ones, dead or dying on the ground.
She nodded once. She understood.
She stayed near me as we pushed people towards shelter. Once we had everyone else pointed in the right direction, I ushered her into the darkness.
“Who’s covering you?” She called back to me.
“The stun gun.”
“How many shots does that little sucker have?” She forced a light tone into her voice, likely to distract herself from the horrors unfolding around her.
“Great question. I’m sure we’ll find out soon.”
“Very funny.”
“I’m not kidding. I’ve never used one of these in a practical situation.”
A shrieking growl cut me off. I whirled around and threw a blind punch in the darkness. My fist connected with a jaw.
The shrieking stopped but I knew more of the infected were coming after us. A snarl on my left startled me. I hadn’t heard it approach.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Alessa grunted. I looked at her just in time to see her leg come up and make contact with the jaw of an infected human.
“Nice kick,” I said.
“I take it that means thank you.”
“Something like that.”
We took off after the others, stopping periodically to stun, punch, or kick the infected as they came after us.
We took several sharp turns. I couldn’t tell if we were entering tunnel offshoots or if the corridor simply turned. I hoped someone ahead of us knew where we were going because I sure as hell didn’t.
“It looks like this access shaft is getting narrower,” Alessa observed.
“Is that a good or a bad thing.”
“Good because less infected can come after us,” she said. “Bad because narrow shafts tend to lead to dead ends.”
“I hope you're wrong.”
“I hope your stun gun doesn’t run out of rounds.”
“Is there someone in front of you within calling distance?” I asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“Tell them to pass a message along to Maki. I want her stun gun.”
“Don’t you have any other weapons?” I could hear the indignation in her voice even though I couldn’t see the look on her face.
“Of course,” I tutted. “However, I don’t want to use deadly force if I don’t have to. Our goal is to remove the Gorgo infection from humans, not kill them.”
“Right,” Alessa said softly. “When they’re attacking like this, it’s easy to forget they’re still human. Apologies.”
“Don’t apologize to me,” I said. “Apologize to them for kicking them in the face when we get the Gorgo out of them.”
“Will do.” I heard the smile in her voice even though I couldn’t see it.
Alessa passed on my message to the person in front of her. I could only assume the person carried it forward.
“It’s like telephone,” Alessa mused.
“A telephone?”
“No, telephone. The game. One person whispers a phrase to another,” Alessa paused to drive her fist into the nose of an infected. “The phrase gets passed from person to person and at the end, you see how much the phrase was altered.”
“This phrase needs to remain unaltered,” I said.
“I know but this is a stressful situation so let me make this fun, okay?” Alessa huffed.
“You don’t think punching hostiles is fun?” I smirked.
“What happened to ‘these are still humans’, huh?” She shot back.
“I let you have your telephone fun. Let me have mine.”
I whirled around and fired a stun shot at an infected just three feet away from me.
We’d moved so deep into the underground structure that no natural light penetrated the tunnel anymore.
The only light sources were the lighted helmets some of the excavation team wore and the lights from our tech.
“Hide your lights,” I urged Alessa. “We’re glowing targets. Pass it forward. Everyone in the back half of the group should try to go dark.”
“Kill your lights,” Alessa shouted to the person ahead of us.
I didn’t have a headlamp, but there were small lights on my radio and comm unit. I did my best to tuck them under my clothing.
I watched as the frantic herd of scientists and excavators dimmed their lights. The front portion of the group stayed illuminated.
I could see where Maki and Tyehn were leading the way. Hopefully, they wouldn’t run us into a dead end.
The light trick worked. Somewhat.
The infected pushed forward, trying to get to the illuminated people at the head of the group. This led to them crashing into me frequently.
Inconvenient, but at least I could take them by surprise. I never struck them with my full strength. I didn’t want to do permanent damage, I just wanted to knock them out.
“Here’s Maki’s stun gun.” Alessa pressed a second stunner into my hand.
“Excellent,” I grinned.
“We have a problem!” Maki’s shrill voice carried all the way to the back of the group where Alessa and I were.
“What kind of problem?” Alessa’s voice was pinched with fear. So far,
she’d done a great job at hiding her terror. I hoped she’d be able to hold it together, at least a little longer.
“I don’t know where to go!”
“Keep moving,” I urged Alessa, keeping one hand on her shoulder to guide her and the other pointing the stun gun into the darkness behind us.
Even if there was a dead end ahead, we couldn’t stop.
Not here.
One of the possessed shrieked. I fired a stun round in the direction of the noise and was rewarded with the sound of the stun dart striking something fleshy.
The group spilled into a brightly lit circular chamber.
High above us was a perfect circle of natural light, though it was far too high for us to climb through even if we stood on each other’s shoulders.
I spied a few archways leading to other parts of the structure, but they were filled to the brim with rubble.
There was no way out, not in the time we had.
“What do we do?” Alessa whispered to me.
The group moved away from the opening of the tunnel as the possessed started pouring in.
I fired the stun gun until it was empty, then I emptied Maki’s but the possessed kept coming.
“Not too many rounds in those little things, huh?” Alessa quipped in a wavering voice.
“Not as many as I’d like,” I replied.
“Tell me you have a plan B,” she said.
“I do but I was hoping not to use it.”
“That’s why it’s called a plan B.”
“Tyehn! Axtin!” I shouted.
They appeared at my side.
“Do you have any stun shots left?”
“Only a few,” Tyehn replied. Another wave of the infected came through. Tyehn lifted his stun gun and fired off the last of his rounds. “Never mind.”
“Axtin?”
“I only have lethal weapons,” he replied.
“Right,” I nodded. “Any close combat weapons?”
“A utility knife.” Axtin took a short, thick blade from his belt just in time to drive it into the shoulder of an infected that got too close. It reeled back, screeching in pain. Blood gushed from the wound. I wasn’t an expert in human blood but something about the infected’s blood looked wrong. It looked too thick.