Jet frowned, pressing her lips together.
If Richter noticed, he didn’t react.
He went on talking to her, almost cheerfully.
“Anyway, there will be other interested parties,” he added. “So it’s not a slam dunk, as I said. It never is, really, even under contracted acquisitions to the Royals. Especially with unusual acquisitions. And you, my dear, are an unusual acquisition.”
Jet’s mouth hardened, but she didn’t respond to that, either.
When they’d walked for a while longer, neither of them speaking, Jet bit her lip, realizing if she wanted to know anything more, she’d have to ask him. He may not answer her, or he might lie, but she had no one else to ask, and no other way to get information.
She could also feel that window rapidly closing.
After wrestling with it back and forth for a few more steps, she made up her mind.
“Why are we alone down here?” she said. “Where is everyone?”
He answered her at once, as if he expected the question.
“This is a private dock, kitten. Only cullers for particular clients come down here.” He turned his head, winking. “Hate to break it to you, darlin’, but you’re in with the big boys of the Zone. That means more scrutiny. Also more perks.”
He smiled, and she could have punched him in the face for the look she saw there.
Before she could say anything, Richter went on.
“My client would rather if your presence here was kept quiet for now,” he added, sounding more cagey. “At least until he can assess your skill level, and decide if he wants to purchase you, or let others have you in an open bid.”
He glanced over seriously, his dark eyes hard.
“Nirreth are proud creatures, Jet. They hate being embarrassed. He’d rather not brag he’s got a new mammal with pretty hair and a nice ass who can fight with swords… not until it’s a done deal. He wants to know whether he’s going to buy you, first. And if he might have to kill you in the first few weeks he owns you.”
Jet felt her jaw harden.
Shrugging, Richter added,
“That’s assuming he agrees to my asking price, of course.”
He added, his voice a touch colder,
“You’re not out of the woods yet, kitten.”
Jet rolled her eyes. She knew his words were probably meant to scare her, and maybe they should have, but mostly, they just annoyed her.
“I never for a second thought I was anywhere but in the woods,” she muttered.
He gave her a sideways look, his eyes serious-seeming in the blue light.
“I’m trying to help you, princess,” he said softer. “You need to do well this first month, or he might decide you aren’t worth the pain in his ass. He could sell you to the Rings for fodder, or just give you to one of their loyal servants as a pet, for a job well done or something along those lines. Don’t screw around with these people, Jet.”
“These lizards, you mean?”
“Whatever. However you need to think of them, you go ahead and do that. Just stop screwing around, Jet. As you keep telling me, this is your life. Maybe act like it.”
When she only snorted, his jaw hardened, right before he squeezed her arm in his thick fingers, yanking her ear close to his mouth.
“Take this seriously, all right? Do the damned tests. Jump through their hoops. Smile pretty for the big lizards with their pointy tails. There’ll be plenty of time for heroics later. This first month, you just need to survive.”
Jet found herself looking at him, hearing something in his voice she hadn’t up until then. His accent even changed at the end, sounding more like the one in the settlement where she lived, which her mother told her was a mix of what had once been accents from America, Asia, Canada and Native American tribes that originally joined their settlement.
More than the accent, she heard emotion there, emotion that sounded almost real, a kind of fighter’s determination mixed with anger.
It reminded her of something.
Or someone, maybe.
It was fleeting, though, whatever she heard––as was the expression that briefly came to his eyes. She couldn’t pin it down, and then it was gone.
In the end, she could only sigh.
“How did you end up like this?” she said, looking up at him. “The myth at the camps was that you hated the Nirreth. That you used to fight them, even after the wars. Not just in the first resistence, but since then. They said you raided their camps… even busted out prisoners. They said you were a true believer.”
Richter chuckled, smiling as if the idea amused him.
Aiming the smile at her, he raised an eyebrow.
“Guess we can’t all be idealists, kitten.”
“Yeah, well, we don’t all need to be mercenaries, either,” she said.
“You can lecture me in another hundred years, sweetheart,” he said, shrugging. “We’ll see how many of our race are left who haven’t found a way to live with our hosts… a way that doesn’t involve them being disintegrated by sandblasters. See how many descendents of your little settlement are left, as opposed to the families and children of people like me.”
Jet felt her stomach sink as she turned over his words.
She heard the truth there, and hated it.
She hated it with every fiber of her being.
“And people like me,” she told him sourly. “Don’t forget, Richter. You’re helping to continue the race as a slave caste, too. In fact, if you’re telling the truth about life here, there’ll be thousands of slave brats running around, for generations to come… kids who don’t remember life as anything other than surviving as dogs to the Nirreth. Along with human whores for Nirreth, gardeners for Nirreth, housecleaners for Nirreth, and whatever else.”
“True,” he said, giving her a thoughtful look. “But at least there’ll still be humans around to tell them stories of the good old days, Jet. At least there’ll still be some of us left alive.”
“Sure,” she said, gritting her teeth. “Alive.”
Richter smiled.
“How many dogs do you suppose would live in the continental United States these days, kitten,” he said, laughing. “…if humans didn’t like them, and start cultivating them as pets? Do you think they would have survived? Like the wolf, perhaps? Or the lion? Or the polar bear, maybe?”
He tapped his lip, pretending to be thoughtful.
“When did wolves go extinct again? Was it a good century before the Nirreth even got here? Or longer? How many centuries for the lion? The tiger? The polar bear?”
Jet didn’t answer.
She felt her hands tighten into fists where they were cuffed in front of her.
“Survival is survival, kitten,” Richter said.
His voice sounded almost angry when he added,
“You tell me what’s going on in that settlement of yours isn’t slow suicide. That those rebels would do anything to help any of you. Or that humanity has the technology, or the numbers, or even the will to fight back against the Nirreth in any meaningful way. If we couldn’t do it at the peak of our civilization, with our highest population numbers and most advanced tech, how in the hell would we do it now? When most of our people are living like our ancestors did, a few thousand years ago?”
Grunting, he shook his head. “With the exception of a few broken tech toys and bunsen burners, we might as well be monkeys again, kitten.”
He looked at her, his voice growing harder.
“Go on. Convince me otherwise.” His voice grew derisive. “I don’t think even you can lie to yourself that much, Jet.”
Jet didn’t answer.
She thought about his words, unwillingly almost, but unable to stop herself entirely. She was honestly surprised he’d bothered to rationalize himself to her at all.
“Hit a sore spot, I guess,” she muttered.
This seemed to actually anger him.
He glared at her, his fingers tightening on her arm.
“Yeah,” she said, meeting his gaze. “Sure. Thanks for the favor… Eamon.”
His fingers didn’t relax.
She could tell he was still angry.
Maybe more than angry.
Feeling that anger worsen as he turned over her words, she watched him surreptitiously, wondering again why he gave a damn what she thought.
She saw light begin to reflect on the walls in front of them.
The end of the tunnel grew visible––first as a sliver of yellow, sun-like illumination, then as a slowly uncovered circle of near-white, like an eclipse happening in reverse.
Meanwhile, they kept getting closer, so the light got bigger, until Jet could almost see shapes beyond the opening.
As they got closer, his fingers loosened on her arm.
“Behave yourself, kitten,” he muttered then. “I mean it. Even this will be a hoop to jump. You don’t want to piss off the bureaucrats on this rock, trust me on that score.”
Rock? she wondered silently.
She didn’t answer him, though.
His fingers tightened painfully at her silence, forcing her to look up at him.
“I mean it,” he growled. “You so much as sneeze wrong, and I’ll have Laksri here sting you again. Hell, I’ll let them all go to town on you. They like stinging, if you haven’t figured that out yet, pet. It feels good for them. It’s like a little rush, every time they do it.”
Jet felt her stomach drop, queasy at the idea.
“So you'll do exactly what I tell you,” Richter added harshly. “You got me, kitten? You’ll listen to me, and you’ll do as you're told. You’ll answer questions. You’ll smile and nod and walk where I tell you to walk and do what I tell you to do, right when I tell you to do it. You’ll behave, in other words, or you’ll be drooling in your supper for the next week in an assimilation tank with a few of their house guards for company.”
Jet felt herself tensing in fury as he spoke.
She was getting really damned tired of him threatening her.
She was about to answer him, when Richter cut her off, as if sensing where she was about to go.
“…And let’s not forget your little buddy, Anaze. They’ve had a lot of fun with him for the last day or so, but they could do a lot worse to him, too. Believe me.”
Jet didn’t answer.
Turning her head, she glanced at Anaze, in spite of herself.
He stared back at her blankly, eyes glazed, no recognition there at all.
In the rising light from the room ahead, he looked overly pale again, ghost-like, and disturbingly serene as he followed the guidance of his Nirreth keeper’s fingers. Jet wondered how many times they’d stung him, to get him to look like that.
When Richter gripped her arm tighter again, demanding an answer, Jet found herself nodding, her jaw hard.
“Fine,” she said. “I heard you. I’ll listen. I’ll be good. For now.”
“You’d better,” he growled under his breath.
8
Tagged & Bagged
They reached the lit entrance.
Jet watched it approach, feeling her chest tighten with nerves or fear or maybe something else. When they finally walked through the opening, leaving the dark of the tunnel behind, she could barely force out breaths.
The space opened up so quickly and dramatically, it shocked her.
Then it disoriented her.
Her eyes scaled a domed ceiling, painted sky blue, in a round room filled with tree-like plants, none of which she vaguely recognized. A canal ran around one half of the room, disappearing under two walls.
On one of those walls, a thin sheen of water ran down a tile mosaic of what she guessed must be the Nirreth home planet.
The image was familiar to her, the same one gracing the flags she saw painted on the sides of Nirreth cullers. They usually depicted the planet as black, with a rim of white around it and a second circle of white in the center. Off-center and above the planet stood three small suns… or maybe moons… nestled in a blue background.
Jet still didn’t know if the planet itself was actually dark, or if they depicted it in shadow for some other reason.
Focusing on a few of the more exotic-looking trees, Jet wondered if they were even native to Earth.
She’d half-expected crowds, large numbers of Nirreth, but the space was cathedral-quiet, and empty outside their little group.
Above, a glass dome shone light from somewhere.
If Jet hadn’t known they were a few hundred feet underground, she might even have been fooled into thinking it was sunlight.
Richter tightened his hand on her arm. He pulled her up to the solitary desk that stood directly under the glass dome.
Jet let him pull her along, still looking for doors, for any sign someone existed in the room besides her and Anaze, Richter and his Nirreth guards.
She didn’t see anyone.
When they reached the desk, Richter simply placed his hand on the smooth surface, fitting it right over a lighter-colored oval etched in the black metal.
The response was immediate.
Doors opened in the previously unmarked walls.
Jet felt her stomach drop as five large Nirreth entered the room, wearing what she presumed to be some form of civilian attire. Instead of the heavy suits worn by Richter’s crew, these lizard-skins wore lighter clothing on top, and form-fitting leggings below, made of thin material that showed off their muscular legs.
Most of those leggings were black, but the one in front wore them in metallic blue, with a long sheath of gold on top, belted at the Nirreth’s narrow waist. Instead of the military anti-grav boots, they wore enormous sandals made of leather-like material, designed for their two-toed feet.
Some had colorful stones embedded in the leather. One wore an anklet, and a number of rings on its jointed, four-finger hands. The one with the blue leggings wore a bronze-colored necklace, and a gold harness that wrapped around its relatively thin shoulders.
Somehow, seeing Nirreth like this, instead of heavily-muscled, carrying guns, wearing military-style boots, their bodies wrapped in dark, armored uniforms, confused Jet more than reassured her. It made her feel almost like she was looking at a different species.
The Nirreth with the blue leggings seemed to be the leader.
It stopped in front of Jet and Richter, but didn’t smile.
After exchanging a few words with Laksri, it nodded to Richter in a kind of greeting, then to Jet herself. The new Nirreth’s dark eyes shone with noticeably less aggression than what she’d seen on Richter’s crew.
Jet distinctly got the impression that blue-legging Nirreth was female, not male, but she had no real way to tell the difference.
That same Nirreth walked to the other side of the desk. Her eyes examined Jet openly, looking her over from her feet to her hair, then going back to focus on specifics: hands, arms, legs, feet, face, hair, eyes, breasts, lips.
Jet’s jaw gradually tightened, the longer the creature stared.
It didn’t help when Richter let go of her arm, and indicated with a twirling gesture of his fingers that he wanted her to turn around.
Gritting her teeth, Jet only glared at him until Laksri raised his tail.
She made a single, stiff circle, holding out her arms.
The Nirreth walked closer to her while she turned.
When it got close enough, the Nirreth gripped her arm, indicating for her to stop, to stand still. Once Jet complied, the Nirreth walked around her, inspecting her from every side.
Jet noticed its black eyes shone with a faint rim of gold.
After making another circuit around where Jet stood, the well-dressed Nirreth turned to Laksri, letting out a series of low hisses. Another string of sounds followed, those sounding more like language. Like before, Jet heard only hard consonants, no vowels at
all.
Laksri answered back, hissing at the end with no change in expression.
Then Laksri turned to Richter, speaking in stilted English.
“She want price. How much.”
Richter laughed, shaking his head.
“Tell her no deal. This is special commission. Royals only… at least until they exercise right of first refusal.” Snapping his fingers at the Nirreth guard holding Jet’s sword, he took it from the midnight-blue fingers when the creature stepped forward and held it towards him.
“Tell her this one fights,” Richter smirked, winking at Jet. “Tell her this one fights good enough for the Rings… that she’ll beat any of her fat, lazy slaves. Without even trying.”
Laksri turned to the female, repeating Richter's message.
The female Nirreth hissed a low, displeased sound.
Then she motioned towards the sword, speaking to Laksri again.
“Not here,” Richter said, before Laksri could translate. “Absolutely not. You think I’m kidding or exaggerating, but I’m not. She’s already cut my men. If you want a demonstration, you’ll have to ask the Royals if you can attend. I’m not giving this back to her unless we’re in a controlled environment…”
The well-dressed Nirreth hissed a deeper, displeased his, but after examining the bandage on Laksri’s chest, she seemed to concede the point. She pointed them towards the wall from which the five Nirreth first appeared, and spoke to Laksri again.
That time, Laksri’s lips firmed, pressing together.
The expression made Jet think of smiling, only without those frighteningly bared teeth.
“She say come,” Laksri said. “Quarantine here. They handle us first. Consideration for Royals.”
Richter chuckled, but bowed politely to the tall, female Nirreth.
“Tell her, thank you.”
If the Nirreth noticed his humor at her expense, Jet couldn’t see any indication on the female Nirreth’s dark blue face. As they walked towards the doors that appeared once more in the smooth, round walls, Richter leaned towards Jet’s ear, speaking in a low murmur.
The Complete Alien Apocalypse Series (Parts I-IV Plus Bonus Novella): An Apocalyptic, Romantic, Science Fiction, Alien Invasion Adventure Page 9