by J. Blanes
As they expected, their approach to the entrance was straightforward because of the boulders. They were crouched behind one of them, only a few yards from the entrance, when two guards approached from their right. Blip had warned them not to show themselves at any time or from any angle, as the wide-angle eye would see them even from behind. They had to remain hidden until Albert gave them the order to proceed. It was a tense, long wait, but after twenty endless minutes, one of the guards left, and the other entered the caves.
The first part of the plan had been a success. They reached the main-entrance corridor and were on their way to their intended target without any trouble. The ship’s guidance was perfect, always using deserted, lateral corridors, and not a single member of the tribe bothered them. Their pace was quick, and they progressed unhindered until they reached the cell where the human captive was held. Opening the cell door proved to be easy, as it was clumsily locked with a shoddy rope, which was tied to a wooden stick protruding from the door and to another one nailed into the ground. Dylan loosened the rope just by pulling it and pushed the door aside.
The cell was humid and filthy, with leftover food all over the place. Near the back wall, a person in tattered clothes was lying facedown directly on the wet floor. His captors had not made the slightest effort to keep him with a minimum of comfort. Keira and Dylan were not sure whether he was hurt or not, or even alive. Dylan bent over him and tapped on his shoulder. He tried several times without any response, so he pulled him gently to turn him over.
“Oh, my God!” both of them exclaimed in surprise when they saw the person’s muddy face. “A woman!” The person lying on their feet was a young woman, probably in her late twenties or early thirties. Her body was emaciated, most likely from the years of starvation on this tough planet, and her overall appearance was not good.
Dylan shook her, trying to wake her up. She mumbled some words in a foreign language and slowly opened her eyes. The cell was pitch-black, but she felt their presence and winced from fear. Dylan tried to calm her, but his helmet prevented his words from reaching her. Keira took her helmet off to speak to her, but the cell’s stench hit her with force, and she almost threw up. After a few seconds, she managed to control her nausea and finally spoke.
“Don’t be scared. We’re people, like you. We’re friends,” she whispered. “We’re going to get you out of here. Do you understand me?”
The woman seemed to be confused for a second. Then, she tried to sit up, but she had not enough strength left for even this simple movement. “Where’s Mirby?” she asked at last in perfect English.
“Mirby? Who’s Mirby?” Keira replied, glancing at her in disbelief.
“She’s my friend,” the woman explained.
These were startling news. There had been no signs of other people living with her, and the ship confirmed it when it didn’t find anyone else on its last scan. “Your friend? We’ve checked; there’s no one else here.”
“I mean…” The woman faltered and put a hand on his forehead. “My head…” She groaned in pain.
“Don’t worry, let’s talk about it later. We’ll find her from the ship.” They had wasted much time already, and Keira was getting nervous. “What’s your name?”
“Iris,” the woman whispered.
“OK, Iris, I’m Keira, and this one here is Dylan. Can you walk?”
“I don’t think so,” Iris said just before fainting again.
“Dylan, can you carry her?”
Dylan nodded and carefully lifted Iris and carried her piggyback. She was light as a small child, and he felt sad for her. Abducted and abandoned to her luck by aliens, and now kept captive by a primitive alien tribe. She was no doubt a brave and strong woman, being able to endure this for who knew how long. The sadness he felt slowly turned into admiration.
It was their turn now to alleviate her misery, but first, they would have to get out of there. Keira remembered their way back and led Dylan through the maze of corridors as if she had lived there all her life. After just a minute of navigating the corridors, he estimated that they were already halfway back to the exit.
“One guard coming your way!” Albert voice resounded abruptly into their ears. “Go back, back! No, wait! There are another two behind you!” He was screaming anxiously at them.
“Anywhere to hide?” Keira asked, trying to remain calm.
“I…I…don’t know,” Albert stammered. “There’s some kind of pit at the end of the last corridor on your right.”
“OK,” she replied as she turned around to face Dylan. “Follow me.”
Dylan increased his pace to keep up with Keira’s; she had drawn her weapon and was aiming it with her arms extended in front of her, ready to shoot if needed.
They reached the corridor and entered it. “You should see a pit or something like that in front of you,” Albert informed her.
“I see it. It’s a pit, but not too deep,” she said with disappointment. “Lie down over there,” she told Dylan.
“What about you?” Dylan asked as he lowered Iris into the pit. It was barely big enough for two people and it didn’t have space for her.
“I’ll find another place,” she replied.
“No way. You stay, I’ll go,” he suggested instead.
“No!” she insisted adamantly. “I’m smaller than you and can find a hiding place sooner. And I know my way inside those corridors better than you. You’ll only get lost and complicate matters.” Before he could continue arguing, she rushed to the corridor’s entrance. It was too late. Albert announced that the guards were almost on top of them. Dylan jumped inside the pit and Keira lay down on the ground, facing the entrance, with her gun aiming at it. Dylan also drew his gun and prayed for the best.
Beads of sweat rolled over Dylan’s face. He stirred impatiently, the gun in his hand trembling like a leaf in the wind. The waiting was killing him, and if it weren’t for his companions, he would have already stormed out of the pit shooting at anything that moved. Keira, by contrast, seemed focused and steady, like a professional contract killer preying coldly on her next target. Dylan felt ashamed and scoffed at his own cowardice—some brave bodyguard he was to keep Iris safe! Even a scared chimpanzee would do a better job at this. He forced himself to dismiss everything except concentrating on what to do once the action started, which it did sooner than expected, but not for them.
Keira and Dylan were surprised when they barely glimpsed two shadows hurrying quickly up the corridor. As Albert informed them seconds later, a hunting party had arrived on the other side of the complex with a big catch, and the news was spreading fast. The guards rushed to greet them, as did most of the individuals that were staying at the complex.
It was their opportunity, and they took it with haste. Dylan stood up and carried Iris piggyback, while Keira went to the entrance and peered down the main corridor. It was empty, and she motioned Dylan to follow her. All of a sudden, when Dylan turned into the main corridor, a member of the tribe, a child, appeared unexpectedly in front of them. Keira instinctively drew her weapon and aimed at him as the little creature froze in place, startled by the strange intruders and clearly intrigued by their presence.
“Shoot him!” Dylan yelled at her, but Keira wavered. She recalled Blip’s words about the possibility of blinding him permanently by her shooting.
“I can’t,” she said finally, lowering her gun. “It’s only a child.”
At that moment, the creature decided that it was best to run for his life than die from curiosity, and vanished.
“What child? What’s going on?” Albert asked nervously, trying to figure out what was happening.
“We’ve been made,” Keira replied, resuming their escape. “We need the ship ready, and closer. Now!”
“OK, but you need to hurry; it seems that you’ve already caused a commotion,” Albert informed them. The youngling had inf
ormed the rest of the tribe about their presence, and everybody was rushing toward their position, some coming from inside the caverns and others from the outside. They were extremely fast and were closing the gap by the second.
“Hurry up!” Keira urged Dylan. “They’re already onto us!”
Dylan increased his pace as much as he could. “OK, OK, you don’t need to remind me,” he complained.
To gain precious seconds, Keira walked yards ahead of them, always getting to the next intersection first, making sure the coast was clear before Dylan reached it. “Go, go, go!” she urged him at each intersection, letting him pass by before resuming her position at the front. This way he never had to slow down, and their run was as smooth and quick as possible.
“A group is about a hundred feet behind you!” Albert screamed. “And there’s another one circling the hill trying to cut you off from the outside!”
Dylan was tired and having trouble maintaining this fast pace with Iris’s weight. His arms had already gone numb and he was almost out of breath, but he would rather die than let her fall into their hands again. He was thinking to activate his plan B when Keira announced that the exit was behind the next corner.
“We’re almost there!” she exclaimed excitedly.
A last effort and they would be free. This good news gave him the extra push he needed. He concentrated his remaining strength on his arms and legs, and focused only on not losing Keira.
When they finally came out of the caves, a group of tribe hunters and guards was rushing toward them from their left at high speed. A storm of spears and arrows poured over them, and one stone made a hollow sound when it hit Dylan’s helmet, but the accuracy was awful overall and they escaped the onslaught unscathed. However, their main problem remained, with their relentless pursuers closing the net around them. Keira glanced at them in despair. Their three muscular legs gave them extraordinary power and speed, and they would capture them in no time.
“Keira,” Dylan called her. “I’m exhausted. I need your help. Take Iris for a second, please,” he pleaded. “She’s not heavy; you’ll manage without a problem.”
Keira found his request strange, but he really seemed exhausted and she felt pity for him. Trying to slow down as little as possible, she took Iris and resumed running.
But Dylan did slow down. He had just put plan B into action—his turn to wreak havoc. He turned around and started shooting at the group of hunters, now less than sixty feet away. He shot and shot again, slowly walking toward them, screaming like a madman, releasing all the stress accumulated in the last minutes, thinking about Iris and Keira, and feeling good about giving them an opportunity to live another day. At this distance, the weapon had no effect, and the hunters roared in excitement toward their easy prey. Dylan didn’t care, as he wasn’t there to escape but to die for their friends. Yes, it felt good.
Keira heard Dylan’s yelling and glanced back. Dylan was walking toward the tribe, shooting and screaming like crazy. Her heart skipped a beat, and her soul screamed in pain. She quickly understood that he had deceived her into taking Iris so that he could buy time for both of them, but for an instant she could not run anymore, frozen at the sight the scene unfolding in front of her. The group of hunters was now twenty feet away from Dylan, growling and roaring, with evident intentions of killing him on the spot. Dylan had stopped by now, but he didn’t budge an inch. Keira realized that he had no chance and only a miracle could save him.
As she could not stand having the image of Dylan’s death in her mind for the rest of her life, she closed her eyes when the group was about to jump onto him. At that moment, she also decided to resume her escape, making sure his sacrifice would not be in vain. She turned around, crying in soulful pain, and walked away.
Dylan screamed and screamed again, but not from pain but happiness. Keira frowned in confusion and looked back, just in time to see the ship landing between her and Dylan, visible to all, without its invisibility active. The group from the tribe stopped in its tracks, astonished and shocked by the ship’s imposing presence, having never before witnessed anything like that. They might have thought that a god had visited them, because they instantly folded their legs and let their bodies fall to the ground, closing their mouths tightly and raising their arms. Their single eyes turned white, and from then on, they remained motionless and silent.
Dylan wasted no time in looking for Keira, taking Iris back from her, and hurrying back together to the ship. By this time, Albert had lowered the ramp and was keeping watch on the tribe, just in case someone converted to atheism and decided to attack their fake god. They jumped inside the ship, and Blip made it disappear at once, leaving the poor creatures without their newly found god.
Inside the bedroom, Dylan put Iris on one bed and then took off his helmet. When he turned around, he was greeted with a slap on the face from Keira, who was standing right behind him.
“Ouch!” he exclaimed in pain, touching the hurting spot with his hand.
“You…you…” She was still struggling with her grief, and for the first time in her life, she was out of words because of her feelings. This angered her even more.
“You’re welcome,” Dylan said with a smile.
“You idiot,” she could barely say, wiping away the tears. “You could have told me before doing something so stupid. We could have found another way.”
“First of all, you wouldn’t have let me,” he said plainly. “And second, there was no time to find another way.”
“I don’t like martyrs. I prefer living people, so don’t do it again,” she warned him.
“OK,” he lied.
She was about to leave when she stopped and looked back. “Thank you,” she said before leaving. Dylan nodded.
They gathered in the control room with Blip. “What do we do about her friend?” Keira asked the group.
“There’s no one else,” Albert replied firmly. “We all know that. Maybe she’s delusional and her friend is only a product of her imagination.”
“No, it’s not.” Iris’s voice startled everybody. She was standing in the passageway. “She’s waiting for me at home, and we need to go back for her.”
“But we were hours waiting for you there, and nobody came,” Keira said. “And…” She hesitated to tell Iris about the dangerous animal.
“And?” Iris insisted.
“And we were attacked by a strange animal, very dangerous,” Keira continued. “If your friend was there, she wouldn’t have a chance against it. I’m sorry.”
“A strange animal?” Iris seemed to be excited about this news. She smiled creepily and with a swift movement put her hand near her neck. She was holding Dylan’s Swiss army knife with its blade just inches away from her carotid artery. “I’m not going anywhere without her. If we don’t go back for her, I’ll kill myself right here.” It was clear to all that she was not bluffing.
Keira glanced around at the others and then spoke again. “OK, we’ll go back for her, but only if you promise us that if she’s not there, you’ll come with us. Alive, of course.”
“OK, I promise,” Iris said, relaxing and lowering her hand.
She had given up too easily, and Keira wondered why. From Albert and Dylan’s expressions, they also were thinking the same.
“Blip, let’s go back at her house,” Keira commanded him.
Only a minute later, they were landing the ship about a quarter of a mile away from Iris’s house. This distance has been a request from Iris, so her friend would not hide away, scared by the ship. They headed to the house accompanied by Iris who, even in her frail condition, had demanded to go with them. Everybody was a little on the edge, remembering the previous attack, except for Iris, who walked as if nothing could hurt her anymore. If she was exhausted or fatigued from her captivity, she showed no signs of it and kept a fast and steady pace. About a hundred yards from the house, she start
ed calling her friend.
“Mirby! Mirby! It’s me; you can come out now!” Then, to their surprise, she ran quickly toward the house.
“Be careful! The animal could still be there!” Dylan shouted from behind, running a few feet behind her.
Keira and Albert were caught by surprise, and when they reacted, it was too late. The animal jumped from behind the roof again, and with the help of its tails, propelled itself at outstanding speed toward Iris, who ignored Dylan’s warning and was running directly toward it. It was still dark; but at this short distance, the animal was perfectly visible, and so was Iris. Dylan had still not been able to recover his strength from his last exertion at the caves, and was struggling to keep his pace with Iris. To his growing despair, despite his best efforts, she increased the distance between them.
Then, the inevitable occurred. The animal pounced on Iris and embraced her with its tails.
“No!” screamed Dylan in despair, but then, a miracle happened. Iris laughed and screamed in joy, hugging the animal as if it were a baby, repeating her friend’s name again and again. “Mirby! Mirby!” Dylan rubbed his eyes in incredulity, not only because of Iris’s happiness but also because the animal reciprocated her love, whimpering and licking her face.
Keira, Albert, and Blip arrived seconds later, staring in awe at the astonishing scene. When Iris approached them, completely embraced by the animal tails, she introduced them all.
“This is Mirby, my friend,” she said excitedly. Mirby didn’t have the same friendly feeling toward the others and snarled at them, especially at Keira, recalling their encounter. They all winced and took a step back at the threat.
“No, Mirby, they’re friends; they saved my life at the caves,” Iris reprimanded her. “They’re here to take us back home.” As if Mirby could understand her words, she tilted her head and frowned before relaxing.