Lucky us.
T’Hargen rubbed the fingers of one hand repeatedly over his mouth, looking rather like a man who had just spent three hours in the company of precocious five-year-old twins with an enthusiastic penchant for chemistry, and a tin of brown Play-Doh.
There may have been a sewerage system involved.
“I believe we have just been sanitised, Kathryn. Instead of being covered in dust we are now covered in . . .” He brushed ineffectually at globs of goo on his stinking, soaking clothes, spreading the stuff further rather than evicting it.
“Best not to speculate,” she suggested.
“These are the nutrient tubes feeding many larders,” TL said. “They must be kept clean of toxic growths.”
“Well, I really do smell now,” Kat said, harking back to her comment on New Earth.
T’Hargen gave her a carefully blanked gaze. “No comment.”
“Hah! You can’t smell me over yourself.”
“Perhaps that bath would be propitious now. Drone, are the enemy aware of our whereabouts?”
“No. The tubes are not fixed.”
Yeah, thanks for the heads-up on that one.
“Neither do the trespassers know who has infiltrated them, only that someone, or something, has. The nutrient and inhibitor will mask your bio-signatures. They will not find it easy to discover you.”
“Good.” T’Hargen lifted his scanner, shook off a few blobs clinging to it, and studied the screen. His strong, lower jaw shifted to one side and his cheeks hollowed.
“Is it still functional?” she asked.
“It is. Unfortunately we now appear to be encased in a cavern. Means of escape are . . . limited.”
And difficult, no doubt.
“Any Bluthen nearby?”
“Not within range of my scanner.”
“I will drill us out,” TL said in a tone altogether too merry, then flew away towards a far wall.
She turned to T’Hargen and carefully studied his features. “Are you all right?”
His hand lifted and he ran a knuckle under her chin. Her skin tingled, her senses eagerly following his touch.
“Yes, Kathryn, I am fine, mentally and physically.”
She stared at him then shook her head. His adverse reaction to liberal quantities of water seemed to be dulling with frequent exposure.
Nothing like a bit of immersion therapy.
She hoped the day would come when her courage would accept the appearance of her worst nightmare with such blasé indifference.
~ ~ ~
With all the water he’d been forced to deal with, T’Hargen wondered at the stability of his own mental state. However, his uppermost concern right now was Kathryn’s safety. He marched after the AI to where it connected to a data port in a panel embedded in the rock.
“Tell me, Drone, your Masterframe sent us down here with the express purpose of rescuing the captives. What is the proposed method of extraction?”
His voice echoed, toll-like, in the vast hollowness engulfing them.
Not the best of omens.
“I have established a secure connection with Masterframe. She has set in motion the means of escape, creating diversions, misdirecting the enemy by generating false bio-readings and incarcerating as many as possible behind secure doors.”
I should never have let Kathryn come down here.
“The intruders are not aware of our intent,” Drone continued, “nor indeed of your particular presence. Their only evidence of so-called unauthorised entry is the hole I cut in the panel to enter the tube system.”
Even for an anomalous security glitch the Bluthen will move to secure the captives. T’Hargen drummed his fingers over his thigh. They won’t risk insights into their abominable experiments being revealed. The captives will be eliminated if our intentions are discovered.
“Keep me informed.”
“Of course, I will not risk Katelena’s safety.”
Mine you’ll gamble with, no doubt.
T’Hargen gave a mental shrug. It was of little consequence. He could look after himself. Drone disengaged from the port, glided sideways along the rock wall, then hovered.
“Keep Katelena at a safe distance. The heat required to melt and vaporise the rock will be intense.”
T’Hargen pressed his lips into his teeth and ordered himself to deny the urge to reply with a caustic comment about Drone’s no doubt intentional arrogant dismissal of his intelligence. Yes, he knew the heat would be damaging to Kathryn in close proximity. All he required was notice of Drone’s intention to proceed.
“And the strategy once that is accomplished? What then can we expect to face?” he asked with pointed civility.
He did not care to place his life in the hands of an untested ‘ally’, but Masterframe knew the layout of this place and where the closest Bluthen threat resided. She could see the overall picture. His scanner could not provide information as extensive as hers.
“This is the proposed route.”
His scanner buzzed receipt of a communication and he studied the diagrammatic strategy.
“Guards?”
“Three immobilized and incarcerated in the control room.”
Suspicion pricked across T’Hargen’s internal radar. “Do we need to enter this control room?”
“No, you do not.”
You do not. Noted.
“Distance to chamber?”
“Twenty yards.”
T’Hargen stomped back to Kathryn where she stood, hands on hips, gazing up into the great cavern. Backlit by Drone’s light, his shadow joined hers stretching over the large expanse of water into infinity. She looked over her shoulder, her long dark hair curling about her face in wet, bedraggled ringlets, and smiled at him. He’d never seen anything so beautiful. Fierce devotion imploded his chest. His cranial ridges swelled as that odd sensation pricked over them. Her gaze shifted to his head, then back to his eyes, and her smile widened.
No doubt he was thorny.
“What’s the plan?” she asked.
He stepped to her side, allowing a proprietorial hand to rest on her waist. “We are close.”
“Are we in for a fight?”
“Not immediately. Our approach is still covert.”
Light from Drone’s lasers flickered gold and red across the chamber. His shadow danced with hers and merged. His imagination expanded on that, saw them casting naked silhouettes before the flames on the hearth fire at his home. Need mulled his lower abdomen. Astonishment and amusement twitched his lips.
Even here in this situation she affects me.
For this short, precious moment he savoured the closeness with her, the peace, then the shimmering light ceased and Drone whistled ‘all clear’. T’Hargen un-holstered his laser and took Kathryn’s hand.
“Shall we?”
Firm determination shone in her amber eyes. “Absolutely. Let’s get these people out of here.”
He tucked her behind him, ignoring the silent, tolerant rebuke of her twitched eyebrow, then bent low and led her into the tunnel. Heat radiated from the laser-smoothed walls. The rock popped and hissed as it cooled. He ensured Kathryn stayed well out of burn range. Bright light shone ahead. Dull, irregular thumping filtered into hearing. He poked his head out from the tunnel, panned his gaze down a corridor, and ducked back. No personnel in sight. The muted pounding seemed to be sourced at the end of the hall.
He nodded at Drone. “Go ahead.”
The AI vanished.
Impressive cloak.
Kathryn leaned into his back, and her breath feathered the side of his neck. Trog’s pits! His list of what he wanted her, and only her, to do to him kept growing.
Focus, Mhartak. Focus.
“What’s going on?” she whispered.
“Drone is . . .” He swallowed, struggling to concentrate against the mind-blowing wave of need flooding from the soft caress of her exhalation.
“Taking care of a problem?”
He cleared his throat. “Precisely.”
“How many problems?”
“Three.”
Her chin rested with casual familiarity on his shoulder. His strength and determination increased ten-fold.
~ ~ ~
Kat peeked over T’Hargen’s shoulder and stared down a short corridor, deserted and silent. No, not silent. She tilted her head to one side. Thumping? A soft swish suggested an opening door. Bluthen voices shouted in irritated relief. Fear tensed her muscles. Before she could pull back, a trio of golden streaks flashed from an apparently non-existent source. The voices ceased. She smiled.
Good ole TL.
Her friend materialised at the far end of the corridor, uttered a soft, assuring warble, and glided forwards. As he couldn’t, as far as she was aware, fly through walls, she guessed into a room. T’Hargen turned his face to hers.
“Stay close, Kathryn.”
Where’ve I heard that before?
She jogged after him down the corridor and they halted outside the room. Two Bluthen lay crumpled on the floor by the entrance, and one more slumped over a workstation-shaped desk constructed of something resembling solid amber. Needle-thin black lines traced through it.
Like circuitry.
Lining one wall, silver-grey ‘couches’, their shapes gently undulating like flags in a light breeze, reminded her of great globs of mercury retaining their form only through extreme surface tension.
“What is this place, TL?”
“The control room for the aquatic chambers.”
She frowned at him. “Tell me we don’t have to negotiate more water.”
Good grief, I’ll end up with a watery phobia at this rate.
“No, Katelena. The captives are in a chamber at the end of the corridor on the right of this room.”
“Guards?” T’Hargen demanded.
“None between here and the chamber. Nor are there any with the captives.”
T’Hargen lifted a hand and gripped her left shoulder. “Remain here.” His direct stare awaited her agreement. She nodded. He turned and loped away, her gaze glued to his back until he disappeared around a bend. She straightened her shoulders and turned back to the room.
TL lowered from his position near the pale-rose roof and nudged the Bluthen collapsed on the console. “Katelena, this trespasser is obscuring the communication panel. Masterframe is unable to access this station due to trespasser interference, and she is concerned that commands may have been initiated here.”
Kat stepped over the two bodies and approached the console. She reached a hand towards the Bluthen’s shoulder. The skin on her palm crawled, recoiling at the thought of actually touching one of the scum. She hesitated. Her lips curled in disgust and she clenched her fingers into a shaky fist. She took a fortifying breath, grabbed a handful of his grey uniform, and dragged the unconscious, or dead, she didn’t care one way or the other, so long as he remained that way, Bluthen off the silver-grey seat moulding his body. He landed on the floor with a satisfying thud.
Unprofessional, Kathryn Holden, but very human.
Familiar teal-coloured curves spiralled upwards from a copper-coloured fluidic screen, aligning themselves in—yes, you guessed it—isosceles triangular shapes.
“Oh, no!”
TL’s high-pitched squeal twanged every one of her taut nerves. She forced calm over her twitching muscles, then waited a second to ensure her control wouldn’t snap and she devolved into a screaming termagant.
“Problem?”
“Yes! We must hurry. Come, Katelena, the descendants are in grave peril.”
Is there any other kind?
TL scooted past her and she raced after him through the doorway and down a curved corridor, following T’Hargen’s footsteps. Distressed cries and the sound of rushing water spurred her on. She sprinted around a bend. TL’s lasers glowed orange hot. A wide, triangular entry to a brightly lit area opened before them. She dashed in after TL.
On the far side of a large square room laser fire crackled and flashed back and forth in fiery streams.
“Kathryn, keep down.”
T’Hargen’s bellow would have cracked lesser walls. She measured her length on the hard, grey-blue ceramic floor and frantically scanned his position. He crouched behind some form of bench, exchanging fierce fire through an open archway with God knew how many of their enemy hidden from sight outside the room.
“TL, help T’Hargen!”
“I must protect you.”
She twisted her head and glared up at him. “Unless I’m in imminent danger that isn’t apparent, I don’t need your protection. And by the looks of things over there, if you don’t help T’Hargen, none of us are likely to get out of here alive.”
TL bobbed in the air for a moment then speared away towards the fire fight, disappearing as he went.
“Help!” A hopeful shout seemed to rise out of the floor, just barely overriding the muffling roar of water. “Hello?”
Something about the cry pinged at her mind and she cast her gaze before her.
English! They spoke in English.
She popped her head up, feeling like a green sea turtle seeking shelter while hungry tiger sharks patrolled nearby. Half a dozen strides before her, cerulean walls dropped downwards forming a wide, cylindrical hole. She launched herself to hands and knees and scuttled forwards. The harsh, muted thunder of driven water grew. About four feet down from the rim of the floor, a torrent of clear water poured from a yard-round outlet.
She charged to the edge and stared down.
Fifty or so feet below her, seven, no, eight, piteous, hopeful, humans peered up, hugging each other as they struggled to stand in the surging flood that poured over them.
“Can you swim?” she yelled.
“Swimming’s not the problem, ma’am,” a tall, lean man shouted back. “They’ve opened a drain. We’re being pummelled from above and suctioned from below. We’re barely able to stand.”
Shit.
Anger and distress burned in her veins, compressing her lips. She turned towards the corner and hollered.
“TL!”
A heartbeat later, he materialised before her.
“Can you get Masterframe to shut the water off?”
“No, no,” he fluted agitatedly, “she is incapable. The trespassers have crippled her. We must remove them from the pool.”
Pool?
“Without you and T’Hargen, we can’t remove them, TL, they’re caught down there. What about closing the drain?”
“Drone!” An undercurrent of desperate urgency cut through T’Hargen’s roar. “Your assistance now.”
The pressing need for a solution rushed through Kat’s veins as vigorously as the water pouring into the pit.
“Well?” she demanded.
TL swayed from side to side.
“Tell me.”
“Trog’s pits, Drone, NOW!”
“Masterframe advises you must throw the manual cock valve”—a shaft of green light shot from his nose and landed on a regulator on the far wall—“from the upright position to the quarter position to seal the drain. The water will automatically cease flowing when it reaches the maximum level.”
He spun on his axis and disappeared. Kat glared at the valve located about thirty feet up the wall.
Seriously? Who designs these things? She twisted her mouth in a rueful grimace. Begs the question what they look like. Okay, so the ladder running up beside it is probably for access. But the darn lever is at
least five feet to the side. How tall were these people? Maybe they were built like orang-utans with long, stretchy arms.
With her six-foot arm span she should be able to reach. She launched herself to her feet, raced around the lip of the pool, then skidded to a halt before the ladder. Her heart beat an urgent tempo that her feet equalled up the rungs until she was adjacent the valve.
She gripped the right-side rail with her left hand, wedged her left foot into the corner of a step, and reached out for the lever. Stretched. Missed. Her weight travelled down her unsupported right leg and tried to drag her off her perch. She contracted the muscles in her left thigh and bicep and hauled herself back to safety. Anger, fear, and disappointment spurred her on. She tried again, and again gravity sucked at her, tugged her towards an uncontrollable, gonna-break-bones fall.
God, she was missing by just inches. T’Hargen would reach it easily, but she didn’t much care for the result if he left his post. In desperation she swung her foot at the lever. Not even close.
“Anytime now would be good, ma’am.”
She glanced down into the pool. Ropey muscles bulged in the man’s arms as he struggled to keep two women and himself upright against the turbulent assault. Water splashed into their faces, their open mouths no doubt gasping for air. The others weren’t faring any better. A couple were already struggling to resist the forceful drag of water and keep their heads above the surface.
She stared back at the lever.
Fine, I’ll do it the hard way. She placed both feet on a rung and gripped the one in front of her face with both hands. Don’t look down. Don’t look down. She squeezed her eyes closed, took a fortifying breath, then focused on her target.
Her pulse gathered speed. She crouched, marshalled her strength, and flung herself sideways. Fingers spread wide, she flew towards the valve. The lever neared, she wrapped one hand around it, two, clutching it like the lifeline it was. Her momentum and weight swung her wide. Her fingers tightened in terrified reflex and she clung on for dear life.
Alien, Awakening (Alien, Mine Series Book 2) Page 18