by Tim Marquitz
“Are you sure—” Cabe started, but Taj cut him off, shoving the barrel of her bolt pistol against his cheek.
“You guys never listen, do you?” she asked.
Cabe stared at her with round eyes, gleaming with moisture. He pushed the gun aside. “Rowl, Taj. I was gonna—”
“Seriously, don’t ask if I’m sure about this,” she told him, shaking her head. “You and Torbon, I swear.” She wiped the back of her hand across her brow, smearing more sweat than wiping it away. Ears pinned back alongside her head, she glanced upward at the heavy steel hatch above. “I’ll be sure when that hatch opens.”
“Fair enough,” he muttered, shaking his head. He clung to his own pistol, not looking any more comfortable holding it than she did. “How long do we have?”
She shrugged. “No idea.”
“Then I guess I better not wait,” he said.
Before she could ask what he meant, Cabe darted forward and planted a kiss on her, pulling her in tight with his free hand. Taj gasped, caught off guard, but the gentle tingle that ran along her scruff and set it alight kept her from pulling away. Instead, she leaned in harder, savoring the kiss and closeness.
Given what she’d set in motion, she had no clue when she might get to hold Cabe so closely again, to have him all to herself again. Might be never, she thought, immediately regretting the thought, however true it might be. Still, at that moment, he was all hers.
At least until a sudden thump echoed above, and the hatch was flung open, dim light stabbing down toward them.
“It’s here,” an alien called out, peering over the edge of the hatch.
Taj grunted, broke loose of Cabe, and shot the alien in his face. “Now I’m sure,” she shouted, then shot off into the tunnels, Cabe at her side.
“Get them,” she heard someone scream, the voice too familiar to be anyone but the alien captain himself. Then she heard the sullen thump of armored soldiers spilling into the tunnels at their back.
Taj hunkered down and ran even faster, death on their heels.
Chapter Thirty
Captain Vort thrilled behind his visor, watching as his soldiers poured into the secretive hatch inside the burnt-out building.
At first, he’d been furious to learn the rodents had been hiding right beneath his feet this entire time, but once his fury calmed, he realized it was best for him that they were so close, so easily reached. It meant he wouldn’t have to spend much time mobilizing his forces to take them out. A few short meters beneath them, he could press his attack right away and ensure that each and every one of the locals felt his wrath.
“Kill them all,” he ordered, envisioning the piles of bodies his men would have to burn out in the fields.
Better still, he couldn’t wait until the locals were slaughtered so he could tour those very same tunnels for opportunity. If nothing else, he could use them to hide personal cache of Toradium-42 from the empire, using a section of the labyrinth as his private vault.
He grinned and urged his men on, his heart pounding against his ribs. Soon, it would be all over, and Vort would be so much more than a captain.
Chapter Thirty-One
Taj gasped and stumbled to a halt, her breath catching in her lungs. Her eyes scanned the gloomy tunnel, head on a swivel, as the sound of pursuing aliens continued behind her as if building a sparkstorm.
“Where is it?” Cabe asked, similarly out of breath. He looked pale, frazzled, tufts of fur sticking out in every direction.
Taj didn’t waste air answering. She pushed on, running her hands along the walls and doing her best to catch a familiar scent. Then, after a moment where she was ready to collapse, to give in to despair, she caught sight of what she’d been looking for.
“There!”
She raced a few meters farther down the tunnel and sighed loudly as her hand clasped over the roughened rung of a rope ladder. It dangled from a slightly-opened hatch above.
“Oh, praise Rowl,” Cabe muttered, coming up behind her, urging her on.
Taj steeled the last of her strength and started up the ladder. Right then, the hatch popped open, and a visored helmet appeared, staring down at them. Taj’s pulse raced, adrenaline setting fire to her veins. She swung precariously from the ladder by one hand as she pawed at her bolt pistol, yanking it from its holster.
“Whoa!” the soldier shouted. He rose up, hands raised, fumbling at his helmet. The visor slid away, and behind its darkened screen, Taj spied Torbon’s grinning face. “I’m on your side, remember?”
Taj growled. “Not dressed like that you aren’t.” She stuffed her pistol back in its holster and clambered the rest of the way up the ladder and out into the warm desert air. Torbon helped pull her from the tunnels, and she, in turn, helped Cabe scramble loose of their confines.
Cabe took one look at Torbon, dressed in the alien battle armor, a gleam of red smeared across his chest, and shook his head. “Damn near gave us heart attacks,” he told him. “Why are you suited up like that?”
Torbon shrugged. “Figured I’d give it a try, see how the stuff fits. Kinda loose,” he said, wiggling and showing how the armor rattled a bit on his slim frame. “Not sure how these guys wear this stuff all the time.”
Taj tapped him on the skull. “We don’t have time for this,” she muttered. “Mind getting to work before we’re overrun by a bunch of pissed-off aliens?”
Snapping to attention, he offered her a sharp salute. “Yes, sir,” he said with a grin. “On it.”
Before Taj could say more, he unsnapped two of the silver grenades from his belt and activated them, tossing them in through the hatch.
“Fire in the hole,” he shouted, chuckling as he kicked the hatch closed behind them. Cabe slammed the locks into place, and the crew darted away from the hatch. A moment later, two distinct explosions sounded, and the ground rumbled, kicking up a storm of dust.
Taj sighed, staring at the metal hatch as smoke squeezed its way between the seals. She stood there, silent a moment, before turning back to Torbon. “Tell Lina it’s her turn. We don’t have a lot of time.”
Torbon, slapped the repaired visor on the alien helmet shut and raced off, clattering. Taj watched him go. It wasn’t until he was gone that her thoughts settled, and she spotted the milling group of Furlorians in the distance, gathered behind a nearby dune. Several eyes watched her and Cabe, and she cast a nod in Grady’s direction as he grinned at her.
“We get everyone?” she asked.
Cabe nodded. “Yup. Now we need to get them out of here.”
Taj started off, casting furtive glances at the sky over her shoulder. “Then let’s do that,” she said, waving her people on. Grady passed the word, and the clustered people of Krawlas, weary and worn, marched alongside her in a tight circle.
Unlike the others, those captured and subjugated by Captain Vort and his soldiers, they did so with their chins raised, eyes defiant.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Vort stood in the town square. His men had long ago flooded the tunnels beneath the Furlorian city, and he waited impatiently for word as to their success. Each and every second was torture.
Until he saw the corpses of his enemies splayed out before him, he knew he would fret and fume, wanting nothing more than the total annihilation of the local resistance.
He paced back and forth near the hatch where his men had descended, kicking up debris as he carved a path in the wreckage. Over and over, he tapped his comm for updates only to be told the tunnel system was extensive, and his men were scouring every inch, rooting out the enemy. In fact, he’d heard the same response so many times he could repeat it verbatim.
He’d triggered the comm once more when Commander Dard coughed to get his attention.
“Sir?”
Vort waved him off, focused on the battle being waged beneath his feet. He was half-tempted to slip through the hatch himself and join the fight to hurry it along. How long did it take to root out exhausted, barely-armed rats?
; “Sir!”
Vort growled, spinning on his commander. “What is it? Can’t you see I’m busy?”
Commander Dard simply pointed in reply, drawing Vort’s attention from his thoughts and settling it squarely on the object that had so thoroughly caught the commander’s focus.
Captain Vort gasped before he could rein his reaction in. “What the hell are they doing?” he shouted, clanging his hands on his hips.
There, in the outskirts of Culvert City, the Monger’s engines sputtered and flared, and the ship rose unsteadily in the air. In its wake, shadows swallowed the square, the roar of its passage growing steadily as it drifted upward, rising higher and higher.
“I didn’t order this!” Vort cursed, whirling on Dard. “Bring them down now!”
The commander grunted. “Communications are down, Captain. I’m unable to reach the crew.”
Captain Vort shrieked, stomping about in a circle. “I’ll have each and every one of the crew tortured for this!” he screamed, waving a fist at the ship as it continued its ascent.
It was then that he noticed the gangplank remained open, the ship’s primitive landing gear still jutting from beneath the Monger’s hull. Then the engines flared, coughing blackness, before nearly giving out.
“What are they doing?” he asked. He glared at the ship, willing his gaze to pierce its hull so he could see into the bridge to determine what his wayward men were up to.
“Uh,” Dard started, reaching over and clasping ahold of Vort’s armor at the shoulder, “I think we need to move, sir.”
“Why?” Vort shouted, knocking Dard’s hand aside and spinning about to stare face-to-face with his officer. “What do you know, Commander? What are my men doing?”
Vort heard Dard swallow over the comm. “I don’t think it’s your men, Captain.” He pointed at the ship once more, and Vort followed his finger.
The Monger’s engines flared once more, nearly burning out, and the ship’s nose angled sharply, aimed toward the ground and the city. Toward them.
“Oh…” Vort muttered as the ship—his ship—shot forward, diving and cleaving through the air like a missile.
The captain swallowed hard as realization struck home, at last. This wasn’t some errant crew failure. It was an attack.
An attack on him.
“Run!” he screamed, racing toward the desert with all the speed he could muster, Commander Dard on his heels.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Taj and Cabe watched as the Monger streaked toward Culvert City. Torn, she fought to keep her breathing calm as the plan she’d put in motion ran its course.
Somewhere deeper in the desert, Lina sat with Torbon and fiddled with the control cube she’d stolen from the great destroyer. She’d managed to interpret the basic function of it quickly and had realized she could take control of the flight system after Taj asked her about it specifically.
She grinned and thanked S’thlor for his unintended wisdom. It was his comment that had set all this in motion, his insight into Captain Vort. And the captive alien had been right. Vort would stop at nothing to rid himself of the Furlorians, and that meant marching his troops into a tight warren of tunnels with only a few exits and no way to quickly retreat.
Her stomach churned at the idea of what was about to happen, but this was war, she reminded herself. People died so others could live. Much as it bothered her to realize she was condemning hundreds of alien soldiers to their doom, it raised her spirits to know she was saving her own people in the process. It was a horrible sacrifice, but it was one she was willing to make.
Mama Merr and Beaux would be proud of her, she knew.
Then it was too late for anything but recriminations.
The Monger’s engine flared one last time, gathering as much speed as it could muster, and crashed into town, directly over the labyrinth of tunnels that had kept Taj’s people safe for so long.
The ground rumbled, even as far away as Taj stood, watching the crash through her gazefinders, and she was nearly knocked off her feet. The Monger slammed into the earth and sank beneath, its momentum driving it deeper and deeper. Buildings toppled and fell into the crater the ship made, and Taj saw flashes of orange and red as the ship crumpled and its hull gave way.
While Lina hadn’t been able to repair or control the weapon’s system, she had been able to open all the bulkheads between the ship and the weapons store. Plasma torpedoes, no longer stabilized within their own compartments, exploded, setting off a chain reaction of great rippling explosions traveling the length of the Monger. Flames burst through the compromised hull, and fire jetted from thousands of newly-made vents. Death spilled into the tunnels, charring everything into ash in an instant.
Taj sighed. At least the soldiers’ deaths had been quick, if not entirely painless.
It was hardly a consolation, but it was all she had.
She looked away, unable to watch any longer. More than the idea that she’d condemned hundreds of men to death, she’d also killed Culvert City, burying them both together in a ruinous grave.
Everything she’d ever known was going up in flames. Every building, every place she’d played, her home, the homes of her friends, all gone in a flash, annihilated by the culmination of her idea.
Her stomach soured, and her earlier thoughts of Mama and Beaux being proud faded like Culvert City, going up in flames. How could they be proud of this?
As if reading her mind, Cabe set a hand on her shoulder. “All of this can be rebuilt,” he told her. “Our people are safe, though, and that’s all that matters.”
Taj nodded, but still, she couldn’t rid herself of the horror splayed out before her, the ruin she’d wrought upon her people. At least, right then, she could rationalize it as something that needed to be done, even if that didn’t make her feel better about it.
“It’s over,” Cabe told her, pulling her in tighter.
She shook her head and let out a tired sigh, turning away from the wreckage of Culvert City. “No, it’s not over yet,” she said, breaking loose of Cabe and walking off. “We’ve one last loose end to tie up.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
After gathering the whole of the surviving Furlorians, from the barn and elsewhere, Taj led them around the city, each armed with whatever weapons they had at hand. Not that it matters, she thought, the slimmest of grins peeling her lips back.
The throng circled the glowing wreckage of their homes until they came across what they were looking for. The quiet shuffle of feet and weary souls turned raucous as they did.
“Well, well, well,” Taj started, “what have we here?”
Captain Vort and Commander Dard stumbled through the desert, desperate to find cover, shelter, someplace to hide. They’d had no luck with the whole of the Furlorian population sussing them out before either had a chance to find sanctuary in the unforgiving land.
Vort stiffened. He reached instinctively for Dard’s blaster pistol, but the commander was faster. He drew the weapon and tossed it aside as nearly two hundred Furlorians clustered around them.
Vort glared, the piercing dots of his eyes visible even behind his visor, but he said nothing, likely realizing his commander had been right in ridding himself of the weapon. It would do them no good anyway.
Taj and the crew split the crowd apart and approached the pair, who stiffened in place and held their ground without a word. Judgment had come to call, and both knew the scales were against them.
“Now, what to do with you two?” Taj said, holding the barrel of her bolt pistol on them. Dozens of other weapons were trained on the aliens similarly, assuring Taj there would be no escape from their fate no matter what the two enemies might try. “I suppose I should shoot you after all you’ve done.”
Dard groaned and dropped to his knees. Vort held his ground, easing a hand upward to lift his visor. The greenish hue of his skin seemed sickly in the glowing embers of Culvert City.
“I am a valuable man,” he told the assemblage, “impo
rtant. My masters would pay you an emperor’s ransom in exchange for me.”
Taj let loose a bark of laughter. “I doubt that, Captain,” she answered, gesturing over her shoulder to where Private S’thlor stood among the gathered Furlorians. “I know all about your society and how little it values anything but itself. Your admiral won’t pay for your release, nor would he waste a moment contemplating it.” She shook her head. “No, you have no value to him or your people, so don’t waste my time.”
“But…but…”
“But nothing, Captain,” she said, stepping forward and pressing the barrel of her pistol to his head. “Fortunately for you, however, you do have some value to me as an informant.” Taj offered him a crooked grin. “So, here are your options, Captain. Surrender peacefully and avail yourself to my questions whenever I think to ask them or die here on your knees. The choice is yours.”
Torbon kicked the captain’s legs out from under him, driving him to the dirt alongside Commander Dard.
“What say you, Captain Vort?” Taj asked. “Live or die?”
Vort cast a furtive glance over at Dard and let out a loud sigh, shifting his gaze back to Taj. “I choose to live, of course.”
Taj chuckled and holstered her pistol. “Then that’s settled.” She waved to her crew, and Torbon and Cabe secured the prisoners and helped them to their feet. “Find somewhere safe to keep these two until I decide I have some use for them.”
The two aliens were hauled away in silence. Once they were gone, Taj addressed the crowd. “I know this is a bittersweet victory, everything we’ve ever known razed and burning over there,” she motioned toward Culvert City, “but we’re alive. Mama Merr and Gran Beaux would consider that a win.”
“Hear, hear!” Grady shouted, mustering the crowd behind him. Cheers erupted.
Taj waited them out, letting the people—her people—revel in the moment before she ruined it with the cold hard truth of their future. At last, after they’d settled, she raised her hands to ensure she had their full attention once more.