Lin's Challenge

by Mara Jaye

  Damn. I really don’t like intruding. Lin, I have a military override for civilians in danger. It’s mentally invasive, and I don’t want to use it.

  So don’t.

  Even though I want to, I don’t smile at how easy it is to pick up her location. Lin, please. We need to go back to the main area and wait for word from our director. I need the databurst from you, and you need to stop using the nanos. I can also tell from infrared she’s been through here. Before I’m able to say anything else, an alarm sounds in the distance. The crude translator in the back of my neck begins to ache.

  Turkh?

  They know we’re away from our post. I switch gears. G’nar?

  We’re done. They know about the three of us and will raze the planet to rubble if you don’t come back.

  Lin, did you get that?

  I did. She steps out from around a large mound. “I’ll go back with you. Just don’t touch me. Under any circumstances, got it?”

  Now that she’s forbidden me, all I want to do is hug her until she trusts me again. I shake my head. “I won’t touch you.”

  She glares at me. “Not even if I’m about to die from a brain aneurysm. Which honestly feels like any minute now.”

  Enduring the databurst’s effects on her was bad enough. There is no way in the universe I could stand by and watch the life slip from her body. I couldn’t bear her death. “No, I can’t promise that.”

  She crossed her arms, still holding those damned gathering bags. “Then I stay here and let them gun me down.”

  The mental image of her dying terrifies me. “No. You’ll do no such thing.” I rush up to her. “Do not make me drag you there just to keep you alive.”

  Lin held up her hands and took a few stumbling steps backward. “I won’t if you promise not to remove the nanos until I’m ready.”

  “Fine.” She’s killing me. She knows what promises mean in my culture. “I promise to not touch you even if doing so saves your life.”

  “Thank you. I’m not sure I can trust you, but thank you.” She begins walking toward me, and a stun beam hits her chest. She falls to the ground and whatever I said a few seconds ago is gone as I dive to her.

  “Lin!” I begin crawling to her limp body, but before I can reach her, another stun beam hits my back. Everything overloads as the pain smothers me.

  “Did you know they were Alliance?”

  I don’t recognize the voice. The ground is cold and smooth under me, not the cold and rough of what seemed a few seconds ago. I reach out for Lin and G’nar on the innercom but can’t ping them. I pray to Origin that they’re merely unconscious.

  “No. None of us guessed they were anything but chattel. No one’s ever sent us anything but sixth and seventh worlders.”

  Two are in here at least. One’s the boss, another’s getting raked. If there are any others, they’re letting someone be their spokesman. I want to peek but don’t want to tip them off about my regaining consciousness.

  “So you never think, hey, those two look like Gharians. Maybe we should scan them and see if they are?”

  Turning on emotional dampeners because yeah, this observation is amusing. It’s also something we’d counted on when landing and blending into the crowd.

  “No. We didn’t. “

  “I see. One of them is already awake. Wake up the other two, so we can talk.”

  Pless it. At least now I know the other two are here and all right. There’s no need in playing durika, so I lift up my head before sitting. “I’ll do it. I’ll wake them both.”

  “See? I told you one of them was awake.” The man talking looks like a Vahdmoshi but with a thin, wide mouth and big beady eyes. His daddy was from Gleet, or more probably his mom was. I try not to smirk at the insult. My back aches as I get to my feet and he motions with a webbed hand. “Get going, then. And you.” He turns to the other guard. “I want everyone on your team in here now.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He scrambles as I look behind me. Lin and G’nar are there, tossed together like limp rags. I want to pull them apart. She’s mine. I’m hers. I take a deep breath to calm the jealousy surging through me.

  “Why are they not awake yet, Gharian?”

  The raspy voice of the Vahd leader sets my irritation on edge. I turn to the two where they lay. “Give me a few moments. They’re out cold.”

  “You have until the guards are here.”

  Resisting the urge to smart off to him, I go to Lin’s side first and kneel. “Lin, dearest.” I pick her up from G’nar, and he stirs. “Come on, buddy, let’s wake up.” G’nar opens an eye. “Yes, you. They want us coherent for our deaths.”

  “Pless,” he mutters and gets to his elbows.

  “I know.” Lin is still limp, and I try to access her programming via the innercom. Bondmate, time to wake up. I pull her to me. We need to be alert for this.

  No. Go away. I’m so tired and don’t like you at all.

  I can’t help but chuckle at her rebellious tone. I am, too, but wake up for me and I’ll leave a lot sooner. Her eyes open and I smile. “Good. Let’s wake all the way up.” Three guards and their leader shuffle in, cutting off what I was going to say next.

  “All right.” The mixed species leader gets to his feet. “Who of you knew we had an Earther and two Gharians among the workers?”

  The men look at each other like guilty school children. None of them want to admit to fucking up, of course.

  “None of you noticed? Really?” He comes out from around his desk with his hands clasped behind him. “You’re telling me in a mix of Gleets, Blendarians, MoNsi, and Mrwars with a few Khsccs thrown in because Khscc was on the way, these three didn’t stand out to any of you?”

  He walks in front of each man, and I’m glad we’re not them. The guards scuff their feet and give furtive looks to one another as Lin sits up. I ease back to provide her with more space as G’nar pushes himself up, too. We may have to run, he sends me, and I glance at Lin. She gives me a slight nod.

  “We’re understaffed, sir. I figured a few errors wouldn’t matter.” The lead guard shrugged and looked to the others for support. “I mean, it’s not like we meant to get an Earther in the mix.”

  “Oh.” The leader let go of his hands and lifted them high before letting them down with a plop on his belly. “I feel so much better. You didn’t mean to break Alliance law.”

  I frown at G’nar. What does the guy think this whole operation is besides illegal? G’nar shrugs. I clear my throat, wanting to give him something else incriminating to rant about while we record everything, and say, “Why just one Earther, too? I mean, we could have been picked up accidentally while slumming it with one of those Khscc women or sneaking out of Mumbani’s salacious zones, but the Earther? How does that happen and why stop at one?”

  He nods. “Good point, Gharian.” After walking up to his chief guard, he adds, “Well? Tell me we didn’t waste fuel going for one tiny Earther so you could all gawk at the forbidden.”

  “We stopped for more than her, sir. There were several, eight or nine. Most died on the way here while three more died in the mines and one was killed in the fields.” He went over to Lin and pointed at her sleeve. “Even she was hit during an altercation. I figured she was dead as well or I’d have told you about her.” He lifted his chin. “Taking on Earthers was a trial. If it had been successful, we would gain nearly nine billion new workers. It didn’t, so we’re stuck with the usual thirty billion to draw from.”

  Doesn’t seem like a lot of people for a galaxy’s population.

  I don’t smile at Lin’s observation. He’s counting the fifth to seventh worlds. Second to fourth have forty billion combined.

  And the first worlds?

  We don’t know. They won’t allow us to access their tech.

  Smart of them to not let inferior beings access anything of theirs.

  I look down to keep from smiling at her barb. By now, the planet’s leader is seated at his desk, the interrogatio
n paused. He’s quiet for a moment before finally speaking. “I have a mess now, thanks to you, all of you, who didn’t pull these three from the workers and tell me about them. Instead, I’m sure the Alliance is on its way to rescue their two Protectors and their Earth pet.

  Before I can correct him about Lin’s status, G’nar steps forward. “We’re Enforcers, not Protectors.”

  “Oh. Impressive.” He stands. “Well, then, guards. You’re done. You’ve really put the operation into jeopardy. We will need to dismantle the entire operation before the Alliance does it for us.” After pressing a button on the desk surface, four men in red uniforms step in. “The guards need to be executed and the Gharians released outside of the dome.”

  The guards’ leader steps forward to speak but is shot by the red security detail. The sudden action startles Lin, and I pull her closer. I want to ask about his plans for her, but the detail kills the remaining guards.

  G’nar glances at me and addresses the leader. “You’re releasing all of us to die outside? Why?”

  “Not all three of you. You and your Gharian brother there will accidentally die from the lack of air. I certainly didn’t have any second world protec—I mean, enforcer executed.” He shrugs. “If anyone asks, you two made a run for it and died in the attempt.”

  We need a plan for staying together, so I ask, “What about her? Is she going back to work or being let out with us?”

  “Her kind are useless in our mines. Too weak.” He waves over a red guard. “Plus, her planet won’t retaliate in any meaningful way, so I see no reason to keep her alive.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lin

  Turkh steps in front of me. I can’t let him be killed. “You can’t kill me,” I say, trying to stall for time while searching the bionan database for something legal to scare him with. “Because…” At last, the knowledge drops and now I have an argument. “Because I’m now a second world citizen. If you kill me outright, you’ll hang.”

  “Hang?”

  “Hang in this context is an Earth colloquialism meaning corporal punishment,” I say as if I’m a computer. “You are already in serious legal trouble by kidnapping me and the others from Earth. Their deaths can be explained as accidents if any proof can be found. Killing me, though?” I step out from behind Turkh. “There are too many witnesses. You should send me out with the men and let me die accidentally.” I used air quotes around accidentally and no, I’m not proud of myself. But really, we all knew the word needed the quotes when he said it first.

  “Fine. I don’t care either way.” He sighs. “Which one of you is her bondmate?”

  “I am,” Turkh answers.

  He peers hard at G’nar before turning to the red guards. “Take all three to the exit. Shoot to kill if they try to escape before then.”

  I look to Turkh first then G’nar to join in any protest they make, but they’re silent. They have a plan, I hope, and one that includes me. The red guards approach us, weapons drawn.

  “This way.”

  We turn and follow the two behind us out of the room. Now that I’m conscious, I look around for ways to escape or weapons to use. Nothing. The walls are a bare gray and look like they’ve been made out of concrete. Our footsteps echo in the emptiness. Or, theirs do because I’m still shoeless. A securbot occasionally whirs by us. They’re like wasps and give me the chills despite the seemingly routine nature of their actions.

  Lin?

  I love Turkh’s voice in my mind. He’s not on my good side just yet but isn’t on my bad, either. Yes?

  You have emotional dampeners. Could you please use them while we talk?

  I stop just short of nodding. Instead, I do as Turkh’s asked and turn on the dampeners. There. What’s the plan?

  We don’t have a lot of time, thinks G’nar to us. There are two options. Talk the guards into letting us go or scatter and pick them off one by one. Then, one of us would turn off the planetary signal block so we could get a message to the director.

  Turkh sends me blueprints to the station. I don’t smile even though I want to. Where were these yesterday or the day before?

  Need to know basis, G’nar replies. We don’t have much further before the main airlock. Lin, do you have any fighting skills?

  Not against armed assailants. Sorry I’m dead weight.

  Can’t be helped. In fact, start limping to draw their attention. Turkh and I will do the rest.

  I glance at Turkh, and he gives me a slight nod. A few steps later, I stumble. “Ow!” I go to my knees and grab my ankle before falling to my butt. “It hurts! I’ve hurt my leg.”

  The guards circle me as the leader says, “Come on, nothing happened.”

  “Yes, it did.” I’m rocking back and forth as if the pain is too much to bear. “I ran into one of these goons and stubbed my toe.”

  “Your toe,” he says.

  Maybe I should have tried out for a school play or taken drama because he doesn’t seem to buy it. “Yeah, my toe. I stumbled and hurt it.”

  “Uh huh.”

  I bow down over my ankle. “I can’t walk. It hurts too much.”

  “Pless, kill her and let’s go.”

  A guard lifts his weapon to me as another says, “Not here. I’m on floor duty around here since Zars left. I’m not mopping up her diseased Earth blood.”

  “So don’t. Let the leader see your laziness and your corpse can be next to hers.”

  “I am not la—”

  G’nar slammed into the lazy guard while Turkh rammed into his buddy like rugby players. I scoot out of the way as the men shove the guards into each other. A gun falls and goes off. I crawl over and grab it, aiming at the tumbling and fighting bodies.

  Squeezing the trigger does nothing. I smash it a few more times and nothing. I don’t see a button or a safety. The bionans tell me it’s DNA coded. “Damn it.” I don’t throw away the gun but keep it. Turkh and G’nar have the men piled up into a heap anyway.

  “Good.” G’nar gives me a genuine smile, the first I’ve seen, and he’s actually rather gorgeous. Not Turkh gorgeous but still decent. He’s also still talking. The bionans have a handy review function and I back it up.

  He’s said, “Let’s grab everything. Can’t use them, but if we have the weapons, they can’t either.”

  Turkh and I follow G’nar’s lead and grab up everything. One guard stirs, and Turkh punches him across the jaw again. “Stay down,” he growls before pulling the gun from the man’s limp hands.

  The whirring sound of a securbot echoes against the bare walls. Run! flashes in my mind along with a map. Turkh grabs my free hand, and we go up the hall and down a smaller corridor. The lighting is low, and after we pass a light fixture, the familiar securbot sound begins. Turkh looks at the bot before checking down the hall. “Stay with me.”

  He grabs my hand, and I drop the gun as he zigzags us down the corridor. The bot follows while spitting lasers at us. Turkh’s movements are random enough for me to have a tough time keeping up. As soon as he finds the door, he gives it a couple of hard kicks. The securbot gets in a couple more shots. One rips into my right side, going through my waist. The emotional dampers keep me from screaming as we fall inside.

  I can’t breathe from the pain. This makes what happened to my arm seem like a scratch and the databurst a sprained wrist. The room’s automatic lights come on. Turkh’s talking to me via the innercom. I pick out words like block, safe, and temporary but my injury overpowers everything.

  “Are you all right?”

  He’s next to me, and his spoken words break through my haze. I’m not sure how I found a box to sit on, but I’m here, and he’s kneeling next to me.

  “The bot hit you, didn’t it.” He puts a hand on my knee. “Let me see how bad it is.”

  “All right. You look for us both.” I turn my right side toward him while watching his face. He pales under his metallic skin. Now I know how badly I’m hurt. The bionans sent me messages, but I refused to listen. It’s b
ad, and I can see the warning in my internal display outlined with red. Pushing off the freakout about dying until later, I take his face in my hands and look him in the eyes. “You need to go. Find another way out of here and link up with G’nar. The mission, remember?”

  “No.” He kisses my palm. “Let me stay here with you and talk with him, first.”

  He’s probably right. The securbot could still be out there or worse, calling for friends to help him blast into here. Unless, I put a hand on Turkh’s arm. “The translators. They can track the three of us with them.”

  “They’re nonfunctioning.”

  “Are you sure? Mine is giving me tingles, still.”

  “Let me see.” He pulls my hair up from my neck and puts his fingertips over it. The sensation tickles for a moment before he lets my hair down and shows me the crude translator. “You might be a little sore there for a while. The bionans are busy elsewhere.”

  “And yours?”

  He reached back and retrieved his, too. “I don’t feel a signal from them, but who knows? The Vahdmoshi had this place hidden for quite some time before we found it.”

  The room spins a little, and I hold on to the seat’s edges for stability. “I might sit on the floor and lean against the box for support.”

  Turkh stands and crunches our devices under his heel. “I need to finish my message to G’nar. He’s behind cargo in the ship hangar.”

  “He needs to remove his translator. Too bad we can’t blow up the cargo without killing ourselves at the same time.”

  “Too volatile.” His face goes blank, and I know he’s talking with G’nar. I ease down to the floor. The pain radiates from my side through my arm and up my neck to cover half of my face. My body and the bionans want me to lie down and rest, but I’m afraid I won’t wake up again. I want to be conscious until Turkh leaves. He glances at me while he’s communicating. I can see the fear clearly on his face. I need to give up and die. Let him escape here in one piece.

  My eyelids flutter closed until he begins shaking me. “Damn it, Lin, don’t you dare. Stay with me.” He’s kneeling in front of me and places a knee on either side of my thighs where I sit. “We have one more thing to try, Understand?”