Rax

by Maia Starr

  "Shit, Karissa," I whispered to myself. “You have it bad.”

  This meant that I really had to do something to get him out of there. I didn't know what Agent Mickey meant about Commander Cook being ruthless, but I knew that it could not be good for Kai. I couldn't rely on pleading my case to the Earth Council; instead, I had to come up with my own discrete to plan to get him out of here, and it wasn't going to be easy. Commander Cook said that they had reinforced the base after I left and this meant that no ground was left uncovered. I was going to have to be very resourceful. It would be the only way.

  The next morning, after getting some rest and trying to blend in back into the routine, I made my way to the working stations.

  "Agent Lane, good morning. Do you feel rested and settled?” Agent Mickey asked me as I entered the workstation.

  "Yes, sir. I have come to start on the reports that Commander Cook requested of me. I do not want to disappoint him. Always a good thing to be on the good side of a new commander; don't you agree?” I said with a big smile.

  "Yes, I agree. That's the spirit. Take to your workstation and get started,” he said, smiling at me.

  I smiled and got to work. I began to write a report on everything that had happened from the moment I was taken from the lunar base. I left nothing out. I even provided very simple information about Corillion technology that I had witnessed. If I intentionally left it out, then it would look bad on my part; it would support their theory that I was a double agent. So I had to put it in, but maybe I left a few extra details out. But more importantly, I was doing surveillance with my eyes and ears. I couldn't use the workstation to search the database for architectural plans of the lunar base without them finding out. But I could sit there and listen to other agents speak about what was going on, including what was happening to Kai. Only then could I devise a plan to get him out.

  Chapter 8

  CAPTAIN KAI SPORNIUM

  I was pissed that Karissa had not come to me. Even if she could not through permission of her higher officers, I knew that she was resourceful enough to figure out a way on her own. She was the woman that had single-handedly killed a leader of the Corillion three times her size all by herself. So I knew she could figure out how to get to me if she wanted to. Now I discovered that she did not want to at all; no, it's what I was being told.

  There I was, strapped to a wall, my arms high over my head wrapped in chains, and my ankles chained to the ground.

  "Tell me what you know about any future raids the Corillion have planned. Raids on Earth, on the lunar base, and on our ships out in space,” the man that had introduced himself as Commander Cook said as he walked back-and-forth in front of me with a whip in his hand.

  "I will tell you nothing, as I have told you before,” I spit the words out at him.

  Whack! The whip struck my flesh. They knew exactly what side to hit on too; they hit on the side without the protection of scales.

  "There's no reason to keep quiet. You are not betraying your race. You will not be returning to them, so no one will ever find out. Agent Karissa Lane has already told us that you were the one that took her from the base. She told us that you were returning her only so that you could gather intelligence on the weak spots of the base for the next Corillion attack,” the commander said.

  I narrowed my eyes at him and sneered out the words, “She said no such thing because that was not the plan. I was simply to return her and leave. That was the only reason why I came here. Why else would I come here alone? It is a death mission.”

  "Do not lie to us. We already know your true purpose in being here; Karissa wrote it in her report before she left for Earth,” the commander said.

  My eyes grew wide. She had left? She had gone to Earth? Why? This meant that she was not going to come to me, not even to visit me. She had abandoned me. My blood boiled and I filled with anger, and I had no reason to. She did not owe me anything. I was the one that showed her everything. I was the one that had taken her from her home and did her wrong. Then she repaid me by saving my life, so why was I filled with rage now as the commander looked at me with a smirk on his face.

  "Oh, were you expecting her to come to you? Tell me, did you have relations with Karissa Lane?" he asked.

  "If you're going to kill me, then kill me,” I angrily said.

  "Oh, we're not going to kill you. We are just getting started. And the fact that you avoided the last question let me know that the answer is yes. I don't blame you. I wouldn't mind getting into that myself. Maybe when I see her again, I will. We will continue tomorrow,” Commander Cook said as he whipped me one more time and then called it a day. They left me tied up there, fuming.

  I struggled angrily to get out of the chains. I was so mad that I could kill someone, a human. I was angry that they were torturing me when I had come in peace and planned to leave in peace. I was angry that the commander was so casual about torture. I was angry that Karissa had left me. She had gone to Earth and probably happy to leave this all behind her. I had got her home and then she washed her hands of me. It had been stupid of me to hope to see her again. I was her enemy.

  Was the commander telling the truth? Had she turned over all the information about me as a true spy would? I should never have stopped thinking of her as the enemy. She knew too much. I was betraying the Corillion race by being so casual and letting my guard down around her. It only allowed her to gather a lot of intelligence. Especially after she told me what her profession was, I should've locked her up then, but I didn't.

  Instead, I showed her how to fly the ship; I felt stupid for that now. She had handed over all the information to the commander, and they would use it against us, the Corillion.

  The commander said that Karissa told him I was returning her to the base so that I could gather intel on the base for a future raid. Why would she tell him that? Maybe she did want to see me locked up. If I returned to the Corillion galaxy, they would find out that I had helped her escape back to the moon base and maybe she was just protecting herself by not allowing me to return at all. She was thinking of herself just like a spy would. She was trained and she was doing what she was told; why did I think anything more of it? She was the enemy.

  A week passed.

  A week of torture. Every day I grew more and more angry with myself and with Karissa. I hated this Commander Cook more than I could understand, and my hate for the human race had grown exponentially. I had hoped they would just kill me and get it over with. Then on the seventh day, something happened, something I was not expecting.

  BOOM!

  The whole building shook. Then again, BOOM! There were explosions going off all over the place.

  "Down here!” I heard a very familiar voice say. It wasn't the voice of a human; it was the voice of a Corillion warrior. I was in complete shock. Just then, three Corillion warriors poured down into the dungeon where I was being tortured and was still chained to the wall.

  "There is a Corillion warrior down here! Cut him down!” one of the warriors shouted.

  "How did you get down here?” another asked me as he pointed his gun at the chains and fired. I was free.

  "It's a long story. What's going on out there?” I asked.

  "We are attacking the Earth’s lunar base. It is retaliation for what they did to the base on Altid. Come on, no time to speak now; let's get him out of here. Check in there for more Corillion prisoners!” the warrior in charge shouted.

  "Kai! Kai!” I heard another familiar voice shout, a voice that stung my heart deeply. It was Karissa.

  "It is a human female!” I heard one of the warrior shout.

  "Capture her. We might as well take what bounty we can while we are here, if we get out of here,” the one in command said.

  As soon as Karissa came running down the stairs calling my name, the Corillion warrior grabbed her in his arms. She struggled. I walked to her and stood directly in front of her. She saw me and stopped struggling. Her face turned to a frown and tears filled h
er eyes.

  "What have they done to you?” she said through tears.

  "Do not act like you don't to know. For all I know, this is your doing,” I said, motioning to the wounds on my body, the wounds of torture.

  "What? But no,” she began to struggle again.

  "You know this human female?" the warrior asked me.

  "I do. She is the reason I am in here. She is a spy. She is dangerous,” I said as I looked away from her. I could not stand to look at her anymore. I could not stand to look into the eyes of betrayal anymore. She was a dangerous woman, and if I looked at her any longer, she would be able to talk me out of anything.

  "Take her prisoner. She is valuable,” the warrior said.

  "No! No! Kai, tell them. Tell them I cannot go with them!” she shouted. But I ignored her. Instead, I followed the other warriors out of the dungeon and toward the safety of their ship.

  Once we got upstairs, I could see that there was a full-on air raid going on and the Corillion were winning. It was complete chaos. There were wounded warriors and Earthlings all over the ground. Complete carnage. There were Corillion spaceships on fire crashed into the lunar dirt. Laser blasts were being rained down from above from Corillion spaceships, while cannons on the ground shot laser blasts into the air. We ducked and ran across from one building to another. A warrior threw a gun my way. “You're gonna need this!”

  "Thanks,” I said is I cocked the gun and draped it across my body, ready to run and shoot anyone in our path. I looked back at Karissa. She was now unconscious, being carried over the shoulder of a warrior. I assumed he had knocked her out because she struggled so much and put up a good fight. It hurt me to see her that way, to see her being taken once more against her will. But the rage inside of me won the fight. I was really pissed off with her.

  BAM! Bam! Shots were fired at us. We took cover and fired back. Laser blasts popped all around us. I didn’t care if I died. I had nothing to live for anymore. The hurt of betrayal from Karissa was too strong. I didn’t care if I died.

  "On the right!” a warrior shouted. We saw a group of Earthling soldiers headed our way.

  "Fire!” the warrior in command shouted. I took to the front of line and began shooting and running toward the group of Earthlings in a mad rage.

  “What the hell is he doing?!” I heard a warrior shout behind him.

  “He’s insane! Follow him!”

  “Whoo hoo!” I heard the warriors behind me shout as they followed me into the rage of battle.

  We fired into the group of Earthlings and almost all of them went down. They didn't even see it coming. I wondered what Commander Cook would say if he saw me now? He would be raging with anger because he would think that I knew about this raid. He would probably think it was an inside job and I had been planning for it all along. He would probably think it was the reason why I was there. I would love to see the look on his face simply so that I could take his whip from him and beat him with it just as he had done with me.

  Crash! I crashed straight into the body of man. Bam! I punched him across the jaw, and he went down. Then another came at me. I was so weak from the torture but yet with the rage I felt in seeing Karissa I was able to fight.

  "Move! Move!” the warrior shouted. I ran with them as we took all the men down. As I did so, I looked up and saw a spectacular sight. The sky was full of Corillion battleships. There must have been over 500 of them covering the sky. The lunar base wouldn't have a chance. Then I moved my gaze back to the ground and I saw him. I saw Commander Cook staring at me with rage in his eyes. I smiled and aimed my gun at him and fired before he could move. Boom! He went down.

  "Right over here! Let's get you out of here," the warrior said to me as I followed him into a ship. I could see them putting Karissa and a different ship. That was good. I did not want to be in the same ship with her. I could not be near her. She had betrayed me, and I could never forgive her.

  Seconds later, the ships were shooting out into space. It was a very large battalion of ships, and I had been lucky that they planned such a raid while I was a prisoner. It was pure luck because I really did not know about it. I was only captain of my own fleet from the Spornium tribe. The Corillion galaxy was vast, and I didn't know every single attack that was planned. I had not lied to Commander Cook in that way; it was the truth.

  Chapter 9

  KARISSA LANE

  I had a plan. It was a good plan. But I would never get to use it. It had been a week of me spending time being the good agent. I followed a routine every day and never strayed from it. I never asked questions about Captain Kai Spornium, because I did not want to give the illusion that I cared about him, even though I did. I didn't need to give Commander Cook and Agent Mickey any more reason to think I was a double agent.

  So I kept to myself. I did my work. I spent time in the training room exercising and practicing my skills. But underneath it all, I was inspecting every single space of the lunar base. I was checking for weaknesses in the guard patrol. I was inspecting where Kai's ship was being kept and if it was taken apart. I was gathering as much information as I could in order to come up with a plan. Finally, I had one. I was ready to put it into action when suddenly the base came under attack.

  Boom! Everything shattered around us. A thousand laser blasts were raining down from the sky and sirens blared in every single room.

  "We're under attack! We're under attack!” someone shouted.

  "They are Corillion ships! Corillion ships! Air raid!” someone else shouted as they ran by.

  "Shit,” I said as I ran toward the holding area of the prison. I needed to find Kai. This would not be good for either of us. But maybe he could somehow escape in the attack chaos. It was better than the plan that I had. I ran faster and faster and could see Corillion ships landing outside the base very close to the buildings. I saw a few land on the roof. They were coming in. Were they here to get Kai? No one knew that Kai and I were here. That did not make sense. I doubted that there would be such a large attack just to save one Corillion captain.

  I ran through the maze to the prison cells and found that they were empty.

  "Where is the Corillion that was kept here in the cells? Captain Kai Spornium! Where is he?” I asked one of the guards that was busy loading his gun getting ready to fight.

  "He was taken next-door to the underground chamber last week. He has not been back. Go for cover!” he shouted as he ran out of the cells holding area.

  The underground chamber? I didn't even know such a thing existed. I ran to the building next door and climbed every single stairway that I could find until I was down in an underground chamber. To my surprise, there were Corillion warriors armed with guns.

  "Kai! Kai!” I shouted out as I ran into the room. A warrior grabbed me and stopped me. He was very strong. But when I saw Kai, I stopped struggling because I was filled with shock and sorrow. They had been torturing him. I did not know they had been doing that to him. Torture was not allowed and whoever was doing this was breaking agency rules.

  I was pissed off as soon as I saw it. I wanted to hurt whoever was doing this to him. I was mad at myself for not knowing earlier. But the look on Kai's face was different. He was not the same warrior that I had left. Something had changed in him. He was harder. His eyes were filled with hate and I almost could not stand to look at him.

  So when the warrior said they were taking me with them, it shouldn't have surprised me that he did not try to stop them. He had been through days of torture, and I had allowed it to happen. He had hardened. He was going to let them take me. It was my punishment for abandoning him I could see it on his face. I struggled to get loose, trying to fight them, but before I knew it, everything went dark.

  When I woke up, I was in a familiar place: a locked bunk inside a Corillion ship. It was damn déjà vu. Here I was again. I couldn't believe this was happening. I banged on the door.

  "Open up!” I shouted.” Open this door!”

  I kept banging until fin
ally the door was opened.

  "Shut up. I will only tell you once,” a warrior said as he shoved a tray of food at me and then locked me in. I was so frustrated and angry. I needed answers. I needed to know where Kai was. I needed to know if I was being taken back to the Corillion galaxy for a trial, or simply death. Did they figure out who I was? I was so nervous.

  I put the tray of food down and walked back-and-forth in the room. There was no way out of this. We were probably miles from the lunar base, thousands of miles. And by the look of the attack, it didn't look like they would be in any shape to send out a rescue ship. Not that they would want to rescue me. They thought I was a double agent; they wouldn't see me as worth saving. They probably thought I orchestrated the attack.