Tau's Miracle: Alien Destination: Scifi FantasyRomance

by Serena Simpson

  She looked around. The trip from the ships had not been too far and she could walk it in no time. Beyond the ships stood the forest. It may provide the cover she need when it was time to escape.

  The structure in the middle was her main concern. It was where she would find the device she needed to destroy. She would have to do it as soon as possible. She could feel the force of it pressing against her skin. She had been told it worked directly on their physiology, making it impossible to do what came naturally. Tau had gone further to speculate that it sapped their strength and had the ability to make them want to serve.

  She had thought such a thing was impossible, since he was a young one when he was caught, that he had gotten it wrong. She should have known better. She shook off her thought and concentrated on looking harmless. Where were the Mians kept and what were they used for she wondered.

  Talia watched as the leader of the Krier walked through the Mians, not fearing for his life, to stop in front of her.

  “I am Gor, leader of all you see here. You will be my personal slave until I turn you over to my healers. After that you will find no one will want you.”

  He reached up and placed a collar around her neck before she could react and pulled her through the compound behind him. He took her into the building situated in the center and she followed, hoping to see the machine in question.

  They entered into a small hallway that had three doors. He walked through the middle door, taking them into a large room. When he entered, every Krier in the room stood to acknowledge him.

  He took it as if he deserved every bit of their show of loyalty before pulling on the collar to bring her into view.

  “As you can see, I came back with the one who dared to try and defy our mighty race.”

  A cheer went up as they looked at her.

  “She will now serve me until I tire of her.” Again they cheered.

  He took her back into the hallway. Stopping there, he opened the door to the right. This room was much smaller, as well as empty. He went to a panel in the middle of the room where a large screen was revealed.

  He touched the panel and waited until finally another Krier appeared. “Exalted leader. I have captured the one who dared to defy us.”

  Gor pulled her forward and forced her to her knees. “She will defy us no longer.”

  “Have you broken her yet? Has she given us the information we need?”

  “Not yet, but she will. I wished you to see her with your own eyes.”

  “You wished to curry favor and you have done so. There will be much more after you have broken her. Give her to the healers.”

  “Lately they have killed more than they have broken. She is too valuable to waste. I thought to make her my personal slave. This way I will be able to break her myself.”

  “Do as you see best, since you have been diligent about her capture. But understand this. I will not wait long.”

  “Yes, exalted leader.”

  The screen cut off and Talia felt his eyes upon her. “First, we will pull what was placed in your ears out. It will give me joy to watch you cry out.”

  Talia wanted to react with fear, but she had just spotted the device Tau had spent hours describing to her. Now, how would she breech the shield on it to destroy it? She was brutally yanked off her feet and dragged out of the room.

  She managed to finally find her feet and followed after him as he led her to one of the smaller buildings around the main building. She walked in and knew she was in a healer hospital. Tau’s words came back to haunt her, making her want to retreat. Taking deep breaths to keep the panic at bay, she allowed her body to go limp and follow directions. She was forced to lay on a bed similar to the one she had lain on for Tarek, but this time they strapped her to the bed.

  “Take out what they put in her ears.”

  “Dampeners.” This was the first she had said since she left the ship.

  “So you do talk. It is nice to know, since you are about to scream.”

  She felt the healer probe her ear none too gently until he caught the edge of the dampener and pulled it out. She felt the flesh inside her ear tear. Blood welled up and seeped out and still she said nothing. She would give Tarek a big thank you the next time she saw him. He had loosened the dampeners, saying pulling them out would cause some minor damage enough to look real, but she would barely feel it and he was right.

  Talia kept her smile to herself. They had expected overwhelming pain and were indeed waiting on it, but nothing had come. The way she was jerked from the table and thrown to the floor was enough to let her know how they felt.

  Gor handed her off to another as soon as they left the healers facility. “Strip her and cage her. No one is to touch her or to see to her needs.”

  Talia was led to another structure close to the healer’s facility where her hands were bound. They had ripped her clothes off taking the time to accidently touch her. When they were done, they thrust her into another tight cage and left her all alone in the room.

  She had felt like this when the souls bound her to a chair in the white room. She had been unable to move, unable to defend herself. She opened and closed her mouth trying to get words to come forth, but nothing happened. Then she had been condemned.

  “We have kept our eyes on you. We have watched you for years knowing you did not belong here. You choose to identify with your name more than you do with being a soul. You wish to cause change, to disturb our way of life. It was not until now that we had what we needed to get rid of you.”

  “You have been condemned.” She knew that voice. It belonged to a soul she knew. One who claimed to be her friend.

  She had then been forcibly ripped out of that chair and shoved into another body. The new body was smaller than the one she had always thought of as hers. Being shoved into it felt like being taken apart joint by joint. She suffered as she existed in that body. She thought she would spend her eternity there. She hadn’t been alone in that body. The creature had still been there with its malevolent thoughts. It hated. It wanted nothing more than to bring destruction to anyone it came across and it had now come across her.

  She could do this. Nothing done to her here could compare to what she went through living in that creature. Shivering from the sudden coldness in the room, she curled further into herself and reached for sleep.

  ***

  “You should be back in the village.”

  “Because it is so much safer there?”

  “If Talia knew you were out here…”

  “Tarek, she may be my little warrior, but she is not the only warrior. If those Krier find Azure, it won’t matter where I am. They will either kill me on the spot or capture me and eventually use me against her. I thinks its best I participate in this little skirmish. What do you think?”

  Tarek threw him a smile. “I think no matter what I say, I will not win.”

  “Smart male.”

  “Tau, how are you holding up?”

  “I am fine. As long as she holds up, everything will be ok.” Tau stopped looking for signs the Kriers had been here recently.

  “We have two, maybe three days before the Kriers come back to this spot. They walked off towards the southwest. Soon, depending on how fast they are going, they are going to come to the great canyon. They will realize they have gone in the wrong direction and come back. I suggest we stage our battle here. Any closer and it will be too close to Azure.” Tau allowed his gaze to swing back to Tarek’s.

  “This spot will work as well as any other. Do you think we should just move the village?”

  “Where will you move it to? Do you think you can move the entire village in three days leaving behind no trace? We both know, if the Krier think we are running, they will follow.”

  “Why must you ask questions, Tau? No, we can’t move the village in three days. Yes we will leave clues all over the place that we were there. You are right. The one sense the Kriers have in full is predatory. They would chase.”

 
Tau nodded his head as he examined the tracks on the ground. “Fifty to sixty Krier came this way.”

  “How will we fight so many, even with you leading the fight?”

  “There are too many to fight, so we will strategize. We have at least two days to make this field into a trap. We will use their natural weakness against them. I have also asked Kie to stay behind and help. He agreed.”

  “What did you have in mind?” Tarek asked.

  “I want big reflective mirrors that will burn through their clothes and expose them to the sun.” Tau threw Tarek an evil smile. “The sun itself will fight part of our battle. There are many who have not taken the time to get acclimated to our sun on their skin. They will burn.”

  “This is why we are friends, Tau.”

  “Why?”

  “You are too deadly to have as an enemy.”

  “I suggest we use a piece of sharp wire between two trees. Several Mians can stand behind it, tempting the Kriers to run through it, cutting them in half.”Kie had walked up silently and added to Tau’s plan.

  “That would work, Kie. Thank you for agreeing to stay.”

  “Now I have two of you to watch out for.”Kie looked from one male to the other.

  “What would you do without us?” Tarek said.

  Tau took a step and stumbled. Tarek caught him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Talia woke feeling disoriented. How long had she been here? Her body was filled with pain. She had been crunched in this one position for too long. Her stomach was twisting, her last meal with Tau nothing but a memory. Gor had come in several times to taunt her. He had asked her if she was mated. Would she like to find the other half of her soul? He could make it happen. Then he had asked about how she had withstood the call, even with the dampeners in.

  He had asked about the location of the compound and where the village was located. He had offered to let her stretch and use the bathroom like a real Mian and not an animal. She had spat at him. It felt like the right thing to do at the time. He had her beaten through the cage. She almost missed the pain of it as she concentrated on how it was being done. When they finished, her body, already in pain, burned from the beating. She chose to ignore the questions again.

  The next time he came back, he brought food; food she could eat. The fruit called out to her empty stomach as he cut it in front of her and waved it past her nose.

  “Would you like a bite? All you have to do is tell me if you are mated. Why wouldn’t you want to answer that question? Just a yes or no and you can have the whole piece of fruit.”

  Talia had stared at the space over his shoulder like he was invisible. He had taken the fruit and dropped it to the ground, grinding it with the bottom of his shoe. Then he had left it just out of reach, so she could smell it, but not touch it. The smell of the fruit splattering all over the ground had made her want to cry out, to give in. The only thing that kept her strong was the thought of Tau captured and tortured

  Now she just curled into herself on the floor of the cage, wondering why she thought this would be easy. She had been overconfident, not because she didn’t think there might be problems, but because she didn’t want to worry Tau. He was worried and she knew it. She had been gone longer than they anticipated. She was so sure she would have freedom. It was the first thing that had been stolen from her. She felt her spirit wanting to give in every day. Her body was caged and unable to move.

  Her desire to fight was being systematically stripped from her, all because of her proximity to a machine that knew her bodies’ makeup better than she did. It promised to fulfill every dream she ever had, if she would simply succumb to it, give in and allow it to address her worries and fears. The fear of losing herself to something more powerful than her became her waking nightmare. If she made it out of there alive, she often wondered who she would be. The little warrior Tau knew or the brainwashed inductee she felt living in the back of her head?

  Closing her eyes, she knew giving up was the only answer. She even made plans to give in, but every time she tried some small spark of what she was would rise up in defiance and she would live to suffer another day.

  A creak of the floor brought her out of her dark thoughts.

  “Take her to the medical facility.”

  The cage door opened and she eyed it. She no longer had a desire to move. Her body had adjusted to being nobody in a cage and no matter how she screamed at herself to move, she stayed still.

  “Pull her out.”

  Talia’s arms were grabbed as they roughly pulled her from the cage, while two Kriers held the cage to keep it from coming with her body. The flood of pain as she felt her torso roughly removed from the heat of her legs was unbearable. Every muscle felt as if it had atrophied. She bit down hard on her tongue to keep from crying out as the Kriers pulled her through and out of the building across to the healers building.

  “She is ready. Get my answers. Remember my plans for her tonight.”

  The healers fell all over themselves assuring Gor they would do what he ordered. He turned around and left the room.

  The one Talia silently thought was in charge, turned to look at her. His eyes had darkened and his mouth had curled up in a sneer. There was no love lost in those cold eyes.

  “How will we get Prime Gor’s answers if we cannot damage her?” The other one looked from her to the one who was in charge.

  “Hang her up by her feet. We will start there.”

  Talia felt a burst of hatred for the healer before he walked out the room. She refused to grimace as the painful emotion woke a small part of her. She watched as the one left behind called in reinforcements and had her hanging, swinging back and forth from the ceiling in no time.

  Her body was stretched out as painfully as when it was curled up into itself. Blood flew through areas she was sure had died. In slow painful increments, she moved her free arms and began to twist her body, forcing it to move. The more she moved, no matter how slow, the more she began to resist the insidious voice messing with her mind.

  Build a wall, she thought. No matter how she tried to do that, the voice broke through. It reminded her she was weak and unable to resist the Kriers. Build a wall. She focused on that until Tau tackling her the first time they met came to mind. His smile soothed her. She could hear him call her Lia; feel him as he made love to her. She built a wall with the only thing that mattered to her, Tau.

  She was cut down and allowed to hit the floor. “How did you resist the call?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s not an answer. Once again, how did you resist the call?”

  “It’s all I know.” Her voice shook when she talked to them.

  The healer in charge smiled in victory as he heard the shakiness of her voice. Walking closer, he questioned her. “Have you found the one you refer to as the other half of your soul?”

  Talia lowered her head and her bottom lip trembled. She needed to tell them.

  “Have you?” The healer snarled at her.

  “No.” A barely audible whisper escaped her lips.

  “Perfect. Now for the important things. Where is the village located?”

  “I don’t know of a village.”

  “Which did you like more, hanging or the cage?”

  Talia cowered in front of him.

  “Where is the resistance?”

  “They left me.” Talia’s voice shook with the feeling of her sadness. “They don’t come and get those who don’t do right.”

  “Right?”

  Her head nodded. “I was taught to never stop, to constantly keep moving. But I stopped. They will not come for me.”

  Talia’s head was down, she missed whatever reaction the healer had to her words. What, she wondered, if anything, would she do now?

  “Call the Prime. Tell him his new slave has been broken and is ready for use.”

  ***

  Talia was chained in his sleeping area. She knew the Kriers were incapable of mating with Mians, but s
he had heard of things they did to Mians. Being here was not making her comfortable.

  “The healer tells me he believes you are telling the truth when you say you know nothing. I don’t have that kind of confidence in you. I will be keeping a watchful eye on you. If I discover you lied to me, you will be punished severely. Understood?”

  She nodded her head, giving him the respect he deserved.

  “After I show you off at the gathering tonight, you and I are going to have some fun.”

  He reached out to pet Talia’s head, then ran his hand down to pet her breast. “I will make sure you scream.”

  Her body shivered in fear and the smile on his face became broader. “You Mians make excellent pets. I may keep you after we leave this planet.”

  He turned and walked out the door looking pleased with himself. Talia waited until she was sure he was not coming back and stood, testing how far she could move. Standing on shaky legs she moved into the center of the room. Plenty of room she thought. Closing her eyes, she slipped into the first warm up move Tau had taught her. Taking her time, she moved from one pose to the other, allowing her body to stretch, allowing it to wake up.

  Once she finished, she slipped into the first defensive move he taught her until her body did the routine from muscle memory. She smiled as she slid back into a sitting position. Now all she needed was strength.

  She was ready when she heard him walk back into the room. She watched as he fingered an object in his hands. Her eyes tracked his every move as he touched the weapon. He raised his eyes and smiled, making her empty stomach want to revolt. He lifted the weapon for her.

  “This is a weapon capable of cutting you in half. No worries since you are broken. There is no need to kill you, yet.” He walked over to a shelf and laid the weapon on it. “I am going to release you so you can clean up. The exalted one will be here and I wish my new pet to be cleaned and properly taken care of. I have had to use that weapon on many of your kind. It is not a pretty sight. You would do well to remember that.”