by Lea Linnett
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
2
Kormak towered over the tiny human, casting her in shadow as she stared up at him in fright. He’d spoken in Trade, the most common levekk language spoken in the Constellation, so he was confident she’d understood him. Her mouth was open wide, throat working furiously as she tried to formulate a response, and he suppressed the urge to roll his eyes.
Humans were always so noisy until the moment came when you actually wanted them to speak. She continued to stare at him like he was some kind of monster stepped fresh from a nightmare, and so he arched his neck threateningly.
“What are you doing here?” he asked again, his voice taking on a steelier edge.
The human squeaked, and slid herself back along the floor, seemingly on auto-pilot. It was difficult to make out much of her in the dim light—it painted her skin and hair the same murky green as the walls and floor, and made her wide, shocked eyes appear almost black. Her features were small, and he supposed she might even be pretty for a human, if he was at all interested in that kind of thing.
But he wasn’t. Humans were weak and wasteful, and he couldn’t be distracted by one now.
And cowering on the floor in a jumble of legs, it was clear to Kormak that she was as feeble and toothless as the rest of her kind.
She still hadn’t spoken, instead gaping at him like a chintah caught in the sights of a cat. He leaned forward a little, hoping he might spook a reaction out of her, but all it did was make her mouth close with a snap. Kormak did roll his eyes then.
The Iso Ward was supposed to be empty. The ward’s alert system, among other things, had been implemented wrong during the recent renovations, giving Kormak the perfect window in which to have a guard trip the power and compromise the ward. With no light and no alarms, having less inmates screaming out the door alongside him was supposed to heighten his chances of escaping.
The presence of this little human put a wrench in that plan. Though he might not have to worry, seeing as she was practically mute.
Maybe that’s why he’d never heard her being brought in? He’d heard doors slamming and the grunt of a warden, but most inmates who were shoved into Iso put up more of a fight.
His inattentiveness worried him nonetheless. Now was not the time for his wits to be blunted.
He didn’t have time to tease answers out of a human. He turned decisively, making his way back to the service door.
He only had a limited amount of time before the alarms started—the guard he’d wrangled had only been able to promise a few minutes head-start. So he strode the length of the corridor quickly, wrapping his fingers around the ancient latch. The Iso Ward was one of the oldest parts of an already crumbling prison, so pulling the rusted latch back with a screech was easy. This door had no alarms, all the credits available having undoubtedly been funneled into the state-of-the-art lock system on each cell door rather than any backup security, so he opened it with little hesitation.
He pushed the door open, satisfied when it only groaned once and briefly. He heard something shuffle and paused, his foot on the threshold.
When he glanced behind him, he saw the girl was now on her feet, suddenly alert. “You’re escaping?” she asked in accented Trade, and Kormak’s eyes widened. So she could speak.
“Seems like it,” he replied, voice quiet.
“Where are you going?”
Kormak’s eyes narrowed. “Not your business.”
“Is it New Chicago?” The girl stepped forward, and there was an energy to her, excitement bunching in her shoulders, although her face betrayed nothing but caution.
He curled his lip, but that seemed to be all the answer she needed. She opened her mouth to speak again, but Kormak stepped toward her, growling deep and low. “Be quiet.”
Her mouth snapped shut, her eyes wide. He walked up close to her, grabbing her by the wrist and squeezing. Humans only ever seemed to listen when you really threatened them. “Don’t follow me, human,” he bit out.
She shook in his grasp even as she tried to pull her wrist free. He made a show of tightening his grip, but made sure not to bruise her. Despite the theatrics, he had no intention of actually hurting the girl. He only wanted to scare her enough to send her running back to her cell.
In the back of his mind, he registered just how warm her skin was to the touch. It would almost have been pleasant, had it been anyone else, anywhere else.
He was about to drop her when her lips trembled open. “Let me go with you.”
His nostrils flared, with annoyance and shock all at once. “Did you not hear me, human?”
But her jaw was set. “Take me with you.”
He squeezed her wrist, his expression dangerous. “I don’t need a pathetic human getting me killed. Stay here if you know what’s good for you.”
With that, he released her, crossing back to the door. He fought the urge to look back at her, exiting the Iso Ward without even shutting the door.
---
Lena felt a chill run down her spine as the levekk disappeared out the door.
The monster had spoken to her. He’d leaned over her and barked questions at her in Trade and she hadn’t been able to formulate a reply. She knew the language—it wasn’t what she spoke with Ellie or Augusta at home, but every child learned it in fundaments school regardless of species. If you wanted to have any hope of communicating with non-human coworkers, Trade had to be just another skill in your wheelhouse.
But she’d somehow been surprised to hear it coming from a levekk. From what she’d heard, they spoke something different—a language that was off-limits to the sub-species. To hear something so alien as a levekk speaking something she used every day was… shocking.
And then he’d used it to tell her to sit down and shut up, effectively.
But despite his words, despite his terrifying figure, she was overcome by the urge to follow him.
She looked behind her at the empty corridor and the black tinted window where a guard should be sitting. Even the cameras had deflated, their lenses trained on the ground beneath them. She was completely and utterly alone, and this might be her only chance to escape.
What had following the rules gotten her? An obsessive warden and an extended sentence. Garross would ensure that she spent extra time in Kharon, of that she was sure. Some of the other girls had relayed horror stories of how dogged he could be, getting years added to girls’ sentences only to lose interest when the next vulnerable-looking inmate was brought in.
She’d be stuck here forever—so what did it matter if they caught her trying to escape?
She might be able to get back to New Chicago and find her sister. They wouldn’t be able to stay, but she’d find a way for them to get out of there. If she could lie low for long enough, she might be able to scrounge up some fake identification, and then they could go anywhere.
They’d be fine, as long as they stuck together.
The only problem was getting back to Ellie in the first place. She’d seen where Kharon was situated on her way in. It was right in the center of a desert, and the distance between here and New Chicago wasn’t walkable.
…But that’s where the levekk was heading. His silence proved it. Even if he wasn’t, he was going somewhere, and that was better than here. And he must have something better than walking planned. Otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered.
She had no choice really.
If she was going to try this, she’d have to stick to him like a limpet. The only question was how closely she could tag along without angering him. His disdain for her kind had been written clearly across his face, so it was safe to assume he wouldn’t hold back. She might not make it back at all if she ended up on the wrong side of his fist.
But even as fear coursed through her, anger followed swiftly on its heels. The alien thought she was a liability. She was the weak cog in the machine that would bring his whole plan down and get them both caught.
Fuck that.
>
That was the same story she’d been hearing for years. You can’t, you shouldn’t, you’re just a human.
And she was sick of it. She wasn’t going to sit back and let aliens tell her what she was capable of anymore.
So she stepped up to the door, felt the cool night air brush her skin, and stepped out into the darkness.
---
It didn’t take her long to catch up to the huge alien, skulking along in the darkness as quickly and quietly as she could. It was dark outside the Iso Ward. The floodlights that would usually light up the grounds were now powered down, but there was just enough light from the moon to see by.
That did nothing to ease her nerves. She couldn’t work out why no one had sounded the alarm yet. Surely a guard would have noticed the open doors by now. Or maybe seen the faint light from the Iso Ward spilling out onto the gravel yard.
The levekk didn’t react when she reached him, his pace unfaltering. He was moving quickly but not yet at a run, striding confidently across the prison grounds like he was a warden, not a prisoner. The outside of the prison was divided up by tall wire fences, but the levekk simply walked up to a certain spot on each one and passed through it, ducking through a pre-slashed gap in the wire every time. Lena’s eyes nearly popped out of her head the first time he did it, thinking he’d somehow teleported straight through metal.
It was simple enough to follow him at a short distance. The gaps in the fence were built large enough to accommodate the hulking levekk, making them easy for her to pass through. And he wasn’t exactly hard to track; he was a big blue-and-yellow smudge on the night. Even without the moonlight, she would have been able to find him by following the soft slap of his prison sandals against the gravel.
He still hadn’t looked at her. He seemed to not even care about her presence. And maybe he didn’t. Lena felt a pinch of frustration, remembering how he’d dismissed her. She’d always expected that humans were little more than ants to the levekk, and this asshole proved it.
How could they not be? Earth was just another conquest on the levekk’s itinerary, according to the stories Augusta had told her. They came, they conquered, they established humans as yet another sub-species in their menagerie, and then they populated the planet with so many new races and cultures that humans were collectively put on the bottom-most rung of the ladder. In the blink of an eye, Earth became CL-32, barely distinguishable from the thirty-one other planets that came before it.
So yeah, she grumbled to herself, she probably was just an ant to him.
And to her, the huge alien now walking fifteen paces in front of her was a monster.
Even so, now that she was at a safe enough distance, she couldn’t stop herself from studying the creature. She’d never seen a levekk in person before. They had so far been a nightmare relegated to horror stories or the occasional glimpse on a billboard. Levekk were a rare sight in the Manufacturing District where she grew up—they were much more likely to send a cicarian or Calideez martian to handle their affairs if they owned any property or factories there.
Augusta had described the levekk as monstrous reptiles, like wing-less dragons who sprayed bullets from their high-tech firearms rather than spitting fire. But even with that description, Lena had never fully been able to grasp their sheer size.
Lena wasn’t short, but with that thing standing over her? She’d felt about as tall as a puddle.
She’d also never realized how… humanoid the levekk looked. Sure, they had the cicarian legs and the weird head shape, but as she watched the gentle sway of his body, the agitated fisting of his hands at his sides, she saw little bites of familiarity. If you only saw his silhouette, or were watching from a distance, you might be tricked into thinking he was just a really tall—really well-built—human, and that surprised her, even as it brought a faint blush to her cheeks.
She shook her head, chasing the thoughts away.
The alien in front of her was just that—alien. And not in the same way as a cicarian or a pindar, who you saw every day and who a human might even be able to bring home to meet the parents. No, the creature in front of her was unknown and might as well have stepped off the stage of a nightmare. Nothing could overcome that, no matter how nice his shoulders might be.
And anyway, she had more important things to be thinking about.
She focused on her current situation, the soft crunch of their footfalls as they crossed the open grounds. The prison behind them was still lifeless, but Lena didn’t dare believe they were out of the woods yet. There was still one final obstacle…
She looked up, squinting through the darkness, and sure enough, there it rose before her. The indomitable outer wall of Kharon Penitentiary. Stretching up nearly thirty feet, the smooth levekk-made surface reflected the light of the moon, making it appear pale and formidable in the darkness. It probably didn’t hold a candle to the bigger prisons that dotted Earth now, built like metallic fortresses using peak levekk technology, but it had been taunting Lena every time she went outside to exercise for months now, and she gulped when she saw it.
How the hell did the levekk plan to get over that?
As they approached, she kept a keen eye trained on the alien, half-expecting him to have a secret door already built into the rock. But instead, he walked up close to it, tipping his head back to survey the entire height of the wall. Lena waited with bated breath as he paused there, hands at his sides.
Then he raised an arm, his palm out flat, and thrust it into the rockface fingers-first, sending a small cloud of dust swirling around him. The impact was deafening, and Lena looked on in confusion, wondering if the alien wasn’t as prepared as he looked, and had struck out in sudden frustration.
But when the dust cleared, she saw that his hand had left a gash in the concrete, one handwidth across. Ignoring her gasp, the levekk made another hole a little lower down to slot his foot into, and one a little higher, and before Lena knew it he was scaling the wall and creating new hand- and footholds as he went.
Lena gaped after him, but didn’t have long to dwell. Shouts filtered from the prison at her back, the levekk’s noisy display having finally roused the guards. As she stood there, an alarm sounded, screaming loud across the grounds.
That spooked her into action, and she found herself rushing towards the wall and awkwardly digging her sandaled foot into the first too-high foothold. It was a bit of a stretch to the next one, and she wobbled precariously on one foot for a few crucial seconds, but her hand found its grip, and soon she was pulling herself up the wall, albeit haltingly.
The floodlights burst into life, illuminating the entire grounds and the wall above her. When she looked up, she saw the levekk scaling the wall at a rapid pace, and she soon had to close her eyes against the showers of concrete dust he sent down onto her head. He’d be up and over long before she managed it, and Lena felt a cold chill settle in her stomach. Whether he intended it or not, she was going to end up being the perfect bait to distract the guards—who were now approaching at a rapid pace—and allow the levekk to escape.
She peered up just in time to see his sandaled foot disappear over the top of the wall, and simultaneously heard an angry shout, much closer now. They’d noticed her. She was still only halfway up the wall—they would catch her before she made it anywhere near the top, let alone worked out how to scale down the other side.
But she couldn’t stop now. She wasn’t a liability and she wouldn’t let herself be caught. She had to make it over—she had to escape. And so she hauled herself up the wall, fingers slipping on the uneven grooves. Panic flourished in her chest as one of her sandals got stuck in the concrete, spiraling down to the ground when she pulled her foot free. She drew herself flush to the wall, her arms shooting up to find handholds even faster now. She ignored the crunching of multiple sets of shoes on gravel, the angry yelling beneath her, and focused solely on finding the gashes in the wall with her fingertips.
She wasn’t going to make it. She could hear the cra
ckle of a stun gun being fired up somewhere below, and she’d seen those things in action. They could travel thirty feet easily, and if even one wire caught her she’d be off the wall and writhing on the ground.
So she closed her eyes to the world, and kept climbing.
Suddenly, she felt a rain of dust and tiny rocks hit her nose and brushed them away. She looked up, searching for the source, and what she saw nearly made her eyes pop out of her head.
The levekk was there, perched on the wall’s apex. His legs were bunched beneath him, trembling with the effort of balancing on the thin strip of concrete, and he was a hell of a lot closer than Lena expected him to be. She looked around wildly, realizing just how high she’d climbed, and then her vision focused to the hand that was now reaching down toward her.
Internally, she froze with shock, but her body moved without her, shooting up to take the alien’s hand and allowing him to lift her up onto the top of the wall.
She was then pressed against a hard chest, strong arms wrapping around her, and a sudden weightlessness shocked through her. Her heart jumped up into her throat as they went airborne, the levekk leaping from the wall and hurtling down with her still clutched in his arms. She whimpered as the ground came rushing up to meet them, but with a loud thump and a jerk, they landed, the levekk’s legs taking the brunt of the hit even as Lena’s stomach lurched.
Dizziness threatened to overcome her when the levekk set her on her feet, but he gave her a quick thump on the back, urging her forward.
So she went. Even as gravelly sand wormed its way between her bare toes and the darkness threatened to disorient her after the bright floodlights, she focused on putting one foot in front of the other, and together, her and the levekk disappeared into the dark desert.