by Kayla Stonor
Finally, they stashed their weapons and equipment under a pile of loose rock.
Tennant tapped his timepiece.
Oltu nodded and set a quick pace for the remaining trek towards the mine’s central vein.
The shift change was in progress, one fully garbed man arguing with a Dralexin official processing those coming on duty who had taken issue with his identity card. Oltu and Tennant watched from a distance, obliquely consulting a handheld device holding the shift’s designation. Several guards converged on the arguing miner, Ben Rooster, if Oltu’s agent had done his job. Other miners had taken notice and two guards deterred anyone interested in intervening.
The guards were K’lahn, new recruits to Dralexi, their tactics brutal.
Tennant growled, took the device, and stalked over to the group. The official looked across, saw the supervisor band on Tennant’s helmet and waved him through. A brief conversation ensued and Tennant ordered the miner to take his helmet off in K’lahn. His vocabulary was basic and his accent human, but that was normal here.
Oltu waited, his Qui hearing easily able to follow the conversation. Negotiating with Dralexi would go more smoothly if they extracted Rooster undetected, but Ben Rooster was several years older, not the young kid Tennant knew.
The subject of the discussion finally whipped off his helmet and facemask, his fierce scowl cut by a fine scar running from his eye, across his mouth, and down to his jawline.
“It’s him,” Tennant confirmed.
The miner frowned, clearly confused. The official shrugged and waved them off, snapping at the guards to return to their posts. Tennant took Rooster’s elbow and nudged him towards Oltu.
Ben Rooster waited until they were out of earshot before turning to Tennant. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Let’s get out of sight, first.”
Oltu fell in behind them as Tennant retraced their route, Rooster rebelling the moment they were out of sight. He grabbed Tennant’s arm, hauled him around. Tennant let the man pull his helmet off. Rooster’s expression veered from shock to disbelieving and then his eyes watered.
“Fuck, Cale? Is it really you? Tell me I’m not dreaming.”
“Good to see you, Ben.” Tennant’s voice emerged gruff and choked. “We’re here to break you out.”
Rooster frowned, looked around them. “Are there more of you? I don’t understand. How the fuck did you get here?”
“Things have changed back on Earth, Ben, and it’s just us. C’mon. We need to get moving. We haven’t much time.”
“No, wait, what about the others?”
“Not today. Just you.”
“No. You don’t get it. One breaks out, the rest pay. I’ll wait.”
“No can do. Don’t worry. We’re covering your tracks. You check your work order?”
Rooster nodded. “Testing XJF01. Fucking waste of time. That area’s gonna be unstable for decades.”
“Exactly. Come on, we need to move.”
Rooster gestured at Oltu. “Who’s he?”
Oltu forced his pupils to assume a circular shape and exerted a full human shift as he pulled off his mask. “We haven’t met. I’m Tennant’s backup.”
Rooster stared at him, nodded, then returned his stare to the man he knew. “Is it true Earth’s in bed with the fucking Qui?”
“Allied, yes, but later, Ben, we need to get moving.”
“No, there’s people here I care about.”
Tennant grimaced, glanced at Oltu. He looked torn. “Ben, Gabrielle’s with us.”
“Gaby? What the fuck! Jesus! Where?”
Approaching footsteps got louder and Oltu casually checked inside his glove.
“In orbit,” Tennant said, “Ben, she’s not a kid anymore. She’s representing the president of the United Region, your father, and she can’t do her job if she’s worried about you. We’re taking you with us. Are you coming, or do I have to drag you?”
Anger glittered in Ben’s eyes. “Look, I appreciate you coming all this way,” sarcasm coated his words, “but I got people here and—”
Pulling a glove off, Oltu shot out his hand and grabbed Rooster by the neck in a chokehold, his fingers laced with venom, the same motor inhibitor he’d used on Gabrielle. Tennant swore as Rooster sagged. Oltu ducked under the man’s chest and hoisted him over his shoulder. “We go, now.”
They retraced their steps. Oltu heard distant shouts, K’lahn guards. Rooster had a valid inspection order, but the guards would be suspicious of anything unusual. He put on a burst of speed, entered XJF01, the tunnel they’d mined. Oltu dug out their hidden gear, a cursing Ben Rooster still around his neck.
Tennant had fallen behind, his weaker physique no match for the speed and endurance of a Qui, but they’d anticipated this. Oltu moved forward. He paused at the far end and looked back, shifting his load. Colonel Tennant had nearly caught up, detonator in his hand. As Tennant passed the last buried grenade, Oltu pressed the trigger.
They had a twenty second window to get out.
Oltu resumed his run. Vibrations underfoot filled his boots with every tread. Walls steamed. Dust dropped from the ceiling. Ten seconds. The null-sonic mines were demolition grade and precisely calibrated to collapse a pre-determined area.
Three seconds.
They hit safe ground as a rumbling filled the tunnel behind them.
Oltu checked on Tennant and reversed direction bouncing off the cave walls for added momentum. A splitting chasm in the tunnel floor raced towards them. Tennant was past the danger zone and the collapse should have stopped, and was slowing, but not quickly enough.
Tumbling Rooster to the ground, Oltu brushed the man’s skin with his fingers as Tennant launched into the air, hand outstretched to snag solid rock. The colonel disappeared from view. Oltu threw himself after him, stabbed extended talons into the ground Tennant had missed, and caught the colonel’s wrist. His claws slipped as he took the man’s weight, Oltu’s purchase precarious.
The concussion from the grenades had opened a circular shaft, shored up by antiquated octagonal stonework. They had stumbled upon an ancient mine the Dralexin had long suspected but never found. Oltu’s sharp eyes could not make out the bottom. A fall promised death, the shaft too wide to brace against, the circumference too restricted for flight. Tennant looked up at him, the colonel’s eyes visible behind his face protection.
Questioning. Assessing.
Tennant’s voice spoke through their personal comms. “Get Ben back.”
Oltu tightened his grip on the man’s wrist, felt Tennant flinch.
They hung there for vital seconds, Oltu’s claws scraping rock. Oltu pondered the irony of dying in a bid to save the life of his rival in love, and then a hand grabbed his wrist, halting the slow slide of his tenuous hold in its track.
Oltu looked up and saw a miner’s headgear.
Rooster.
The antidote had counteracted the motor inhibitor just in time.
“Move!” Rooster ordered. “I’m a little shaky.”
Deciding his talons were holding firm with the extra support, Oltu pulled Tennant high enough he could hook a leg around Oltu’s waist. The colonel grabbed Oltu’s shoulder, pushed up and shoved a boot against Oltu’s neck and then he was up and gone.
For a brief instant both men stared down on him.
Oltu reached up to climb out, but then Tennant locked on to his hand and a combined effort hauled him up and then they were moving.
“Keep to the shadows,” Oltu whispered, hearing shouts for a rescue team.
The inquisitive guards had encountered the tunnel’s collapse.
With Rooster working with and not against them, they crouched low and loped out of there, increasing the distance between the collapsed mine and safety.
*****
“Three returning to base,” Cale reported in.
Gabrielle curled forward, jabbed a clenched fist in victory, and raced for the rear docking bay. She arrived in time to catch Oltu’s cloaked
transport rising through the lower hatch, the green shimmer of force fields guiding its passage. The ship eased forward before sinking to the floor.
Clamps automatically tethered it in place.
She ran across the vast space, the ship’s hatch already opening. Oltu stepped out first, Cale followed, both unharmed. Heart in her mouth, she stopped, waited. A man stepped out, tall and wiry, his hair white, face scarred, and his left eyebrow half gone. His eyes shot straight to her, and for a moment there was no recognition, and then a dawning wonder.
His mouth parted in surprise. “Gaby?”
The voice was Ben’s—croakier, rougher—and his eyes were the same fierce blue she remembered. She’d been a gawky teen when the K’lahn captured him. Even then Ben hadn’t seen her for three months, away fighting in the resistance, harrying the K’lahn wherever he could, following in Jaden’s wake.
She nodded, unable to squeeze a sound out through her suddenly clenched throat. He walked towards her and she covered a gasp with both hands, her brother blurring as tears welled. He drew closer, and she could see him more clearly now, emotion contorting his face.
Gabrielle remembered the boy who told her stories about a photo-journalist with golden hair who sang him to sleep at night, the brother she ran to for comfort, and who told her daring-do news of the resistance. Ben found her the best hiding place for when K’lahn dropped by. That was the man who left her behind to fight a war.
This man was a near stranger.
Arms wrapped around her and tightened. Panic bubbled up and congealed into a silent scream she swallowed down. The acrid smell of his uniform overwhelmed her senses. She wanted to run. Pushing her hands up between them, she jerked them apart, breaking his hold. Catching herself, she grabbed the arms of his work clothes before he could react, and then found his arms.
Her voice returned. “Let me hug you!”
Bemused, he stood there as she flung her arms around his neck. Finally, he placed his hands on her shoulders.
“Daddy will be so happy to see you,” she whispered, stepping back.
“Can’t believe the old man let you come find me.”
She grimaced, studied his scar, her brother still handsome but in a beat-up way. Years of suffering had carved grooves in his face, his eyes hollowed and she could see yellow in the whites of his eyes. “You need feeding, and we should get you checked out.”
“I’m fine. Cale says you’re part of a diplomatic mission. It’s not just me, Gaby. There’s hundreds of us down there.”
She nodded. It felt surreal. Ben was alive, standing before her. She wanted to pinch herself, check she wasn’t dreaming.
“Gaby?”
“Yes, sorry, of course. I’ll explain everything.”
“Like why we’re on a fucking big ship crawling with lizards?”
Gaby followed his gaze to a K’lahn engineering crew attending their duties.
“We will. I’ll explain everything, I promise.”
She glanced at Cale and Oltu. Oltu had stripped off his miner’s uniform. He met her gaze, offered her a smile, and then walked off to speak to a K’lahn inspecting his ship’s hull, shifting to Qui as he did so.
Ben followed her gaze, frowned. “What the fuck?”
Cale glanced Oltu’s way as he joined her and Ben. The First Lord of Katar had his back to them, his feathered wings settling into place, dominating the vast space with his alien physique. “Ah, Oltu’s Qui. You see one before?”
Ben’s frown deepened to a glare. “Yeah.” He stepped away. “Hey, you! Oltu!”
As Oltu turned, his reptilian hardened scales reflected the artificial lighting. He retraced his steps and Gabrielle shook her head, raised her hand.
Oltu stopped.
Thick scaled ridges structured his face. His magnificent black wings flexed. It was difficult to assess his expression, although Gabrielle had seen Oltu in Qui form enough to know when he was angry, and Oltu appeared calm, even friendly, his black diamond pupils surrounded by a circular expanse of emerald edged with gold.
Ben stepped forward as if seeking a closer look and then he staggered. Cale reached out, but Ben shook him off and stalked towards Oltu, his hand stabbing the air, gaining momentum.
Oltu straightened; his demeanor less friendly.
“You!” Ben snarled.
Cale took after him, Gabrielle not far behind.
“You fucking lizard!” Ben yelled. “I’ll fucking kill you!”
Cale shot ahead and blocked his path, tried pressing him back but Ben wasn’t having any of it.
Gabrielle grabbed her brother’s arm. “Ben!”
Thwarted, face contorted in fury, Ben shoved her sideways. She gasped, shocked, Ben never aggressive. Not with her.
Oltu was growling, K’lahn guards descending upon them.
“What the hell, dude?” Cale shouted, angry now.
“Yeah, what the hell?” Ben shouted back as Gabrielle said, “I’m okay.”
Ben didn’t hear her, his fierce gaze locked on Oltu. He jabbed a finger at the Qui. “I saw him. Oltu. On Earth! He’s a fucking slave trader! He’s the reason I’m here.”
Ben’s accusation slugged Gabrielle in the gut. Blood leeched from her skin. She felt weird, faint, and it was difficult to breathe. She shook her head. “No, Ben, you’re mistaken. Oltu’s Qui. Not K’lahn. He wasn’t there.” She swung back to Oltu. “Tell him. Tell him you weren’t there.”
“I can’t.”
Her heart twisted; a burning ache in her chest. “You were there?”
He can’t have been, but a flash of something in Oltu’s expression told her it was true.
Regret, sadness, was that grief?
Oltu abruptly shifted to human, but the shift gave nothing away, his expression now a mask of remoteness, cold and unyielding.
Pure rage filled her, hot, intense and palpable. It controlled every part of her—every sinew, every nerve, and every cell. This man, this monster, destroyed her world.
She walked up to him and spat hurt in his face. “I hate you!”
*****
His wildest hopes crashed and burned in the scorching heat of Gabrielle’s wrath, scattered across a wasteland of broken dreams. Nothing could be salvaged, the damage done, irrevocable, and pride would not have allowed him to voice a defense, even if he had one.
Oltu issued orders in the Qui tongue to make sure the humans were returned to their quarters unharmed and then left. He had much to do. Their mission was half done and he had one person left to help him set right the sins of his past.
Saiorse.
Dismissing the humans from his immediate sight did not erase the sour taste in his mouth. Trapped in the link shaft, that chaotic day on Earth replayed in his mind, a reel of sequential snapshots.
Ben Rooster featured in none of them.
The K’lahn had taken losses following fierce indigenous resistance across the planet’s continental landmass. He’d authorized the Dralexi order and remembered watching K’lahn load up the last of the human cargo. The moment had been inconsequential. Other demands distracted his attention, his priority to return to Katar and report that humanity’s defiance had the potential to develop into an existential threat to the Qui Empire. The Qui should obliterate Earth, forsake the natural resources, and redeploy the entire invasion force back to the Qui Empire.
“Stop.”
The link shaft terminated and Oltu stepped out at a point farthest from his residence, needing the walk, time to think.
Oltu’s ideology back then reflected his youth, his immaturity. Bludgeon enemies into submission. Stamp out infection before it spread.
Strength. Resolve. Discipline. Victory.
That’s what the Emperor demanded from his first born.
He had watched his father pull the legs off lkigu in the palace gardens—leave the intellectual disciplines to those unsuited for rule—and slice off the head of his most loyal adviser—only the weak advocate mercy.
Oltu absorbed Xyon’s
teachings with every beating and watched his siblings argue their fledgling views with impunity. He grew stronger and faster, studied in every spare moment. He would succeed his father stronger and wiser.
Destiny sought otherwise.
Sonestra reigned, the Qui and Earth joined forces to defend the Sura K’la, and the Surashan enemy no longer controlled a secret route into the Qui Empire.
Gabrielle lived, because he had not risen to a height from where he could destroy Earth.
Her life wasn’t enough.
Oltu entered his tribute’s quarters.
“Leave us,” he ordered Yulla.
Saiorse fell to her knees, but not before Oltu glimpsed apprehension in her eyes.
“Arise, Saiorse. I do not speak to you now as my tribute. I wish to speak with Dralexin’s queen.”
Startled, she looked up. Oltu offered her hand. She accepted his help and rose with her accustomed grace, deporting a regal bearing he remembered well.
From Queen to tribute, Saiorse survived undiminished.
The Qui Empress argued that tyranny did not guarantee strength, that oppression wasted energy and resources. The short-term gains of efficient solutions often destroyed future opportunity for peace, for mutual respect between species.
How well he understood that now Gabrielle despised him.
Oltu had seen the iron shutters drop and encase her heart.
Saiorse watched him, waiting. Her quiet dignity put him to shame.
He took a bended knee before her, determined Saiorse not doubt his words. “I have committed a terrible wrong, against you, Saiorse, and the humans I condemned to slavery in the Dralexin mines. Now I seek your aid, for the future of your world, for the humans on Dralexi, and for the good of the Qui Empire.”
Chapter Twelve
The translation scrolled before her retinal implant.
“I interpret two warships as a threat, First Lord.”
Gabrielle agreed with Dralexi’s Regent. The unnerving arrival of a second warship implied Oltu anticipated force would be necessary to secure the human slaves’ release. Dralexi prioritized its economy above all else and Oltu believed anything less than an overt threat would signal weakness. He wanted the Dralexin and any curious observers to conclude the Qui Empire had warships to spare.