by Lisa Lace
"Leave us," the commander said, dismissing all but one of the men, who remained by the door holding a massive firearm in a menacing way. I noticed it was the man who had rolled his eyes.
A glimmer of hope flashed through me. He didn't seem too impressed with his commander. Perhaps he would help us.
"Before I kill you, I'm going to have to fuck you," the commander said, turning to Kenna. "I haven't had a good fuck in weeks, and I'm backed up."
The commander quickly extinguished my glimmer.
Kenna looked terrified. I had been afraid this was going to happen. It would be better if they just killed her.
"If you're looking for a good fuck, you might as well just kill her outright. I've sampled her, and she's not worth bothering to undo your zipper," I told the commander. The words flowed out of my mouth without thought as I desperately tried to save Kenna from a fate worse than death. "It's like fucking a dead fish."
Kenna's expression changed from terror to anger.
He wrinkled his nose at the comparison, then frowned.
"I think you're just saying that to protect her."
"Have you ever fucked a dead fish?" I said.
"No, have you?" The commander was evidently finding the conversation mildly amusing.
"I would imagine it's as unpleasant as fucking her. I hate it when they cry," I said.
The commander gave me a look of understanding.
"I know what you mean. Except I like it when they cry." The cruel look on his face made me sick to my stomach, and I felt paralyzed with fear and helplessness as I watched him push her over the desk.
He didn't kiss her, only grabbed her shirt and tore it open, buttons flying everywhere. I swallowed hard.
"Mackeye likes everyone to be terrified and broken before they die," he said, trying to get at her breasts. Thank goodness she had found that bra in her size. He attempted to rip it, but the sturdy standard issue bra wouldn't tear. He turned her around and put his hands up under her flapping shirt to undo it. I could see that Kenna was shaking.
No. He couldn't do this. I wouldn't let him. But if I got myself killed then I wouldn't be able to help her, and he would do it over my dead body. Was there anything I could do?
He turned her around again, and her beautiful breasts were now bare for his dirty hands. When he reached out and touched one, I saw Kenna flinch and something twisted in my guts. He mauled her for a moment, then turned her around and pulled down her pants.
He fiddled with his belt and zipper, and I could see tears dripping on the desk where Kenna bent over. He got his dick out and pulled down her panties, spreading her butt cheeks in preparation for entering her.
I heard Kenna whisper, "No."
That's when I felt something snap inside of me.
There was no way I was going to let him do this. I would stop him or die trying. I didn't care anymore.
I would not let him hurt her.
I ran at him then, screaming like a madman with rage in my heart.
KENNA
As I waited in horror for the commander to penetrate me, unable to do anything to help myself, I suddenly heard a sound that sounded like an animal. A noise that triggered feelings of fury and death filled the room. I turned around and saw that it was Dar. But it was a Dar I had never seen before. He looked insane with rage, and he was coming straight for us.
Dar ran at him at full speed, making good use of his substantial form. He was much taller and broader than the terrorist, who had been consumed by lust and was completely caught off guard by Dar suddenly attacking him like a crazy man.
Dar hit him and knocked him across the room. The commander was surprised but recovered quickly, stuffing his cock back in his pants and getting to his feet. That was just enough time for Dar to reach him and punch him in the guts, making the man double over.
I quickly pulled up my pants and undies and grabbed my bra. Holding my arm across my breasts to keep them from flopping, I ran across the room to the window. The terrorist guarding the door, with the big gun in his hands, looked unsure of what to do. If I could keep the men between me and the guard, I thought he would avoid shooting. Since he hadn't already fired at the two men, I assumed they had to keep Dar alive.
I looked back at Dar and the commander as I did up my bra and buttoned the one button left on my top. Dar had a black eye, so the commander must have got at least one good shot in, but the terrorist looked like he was in pretty rough condition now. Both the commander's eyes were turning black. He had a bruise on his left cheek and his chin, and his lips were bleeding and puffy. He was favoring his right side as if it hurt him and he had his hands up just trying to protect himself from the barrage of Dar's fists.
Dar was a machine, punching and kicking. I remembered he told me on Dobu that he had trained in martial arts but hadn't done much fighting, only sparring. I had to say that he seemed experienced. He was a demon, hitting the commander until he dropped to the floor. When the kicking started, I had to do something, though.
I moved towards them, being careful not to get too close. Dar was clearly in the zone.
"Dar," I said, still staying out of reach. No response.
"Dar!" I yelled. He didn't react at all.
I pressed my lips together and moved towards him, ready to duck if he didn't realize it was me.
"Dar!" I yelled again, grabbing his arm and trying to turn him towards me. I still made sure that Dar was between me and the guard so he couldn't get a clear shot at me. Dar resisted, trying to kick the commander again.
I pulled hard so that he had to turn. He gazed at me for a long moment, not seeming to recognize me at all.
"Dar, it's me. Kenna."
He stopped trying to kill the commander and just looked at me, with a vacant look in his eyes.
"Dar! Snap out of it. Jesus. He's nearly dead. You don't want to kill him."
That got a reaction.
"Yes. I do," he said, slowly enunciating each word. And I saw the bloodlust on his face as he looked at the groaning man on the floor.
"No," I said firmly. "You don't. You come from a peaceful race, remember? We have to get out of here. The fire?" I gestured towards the window.
Finally, he looked at me like he was actually seeing me.
"Kenna? Are you all right?" he said.
"Yes. You saved me. I'm fine. But we have to go. Do you know anything about wildfires?"
"No. It's like a regular fire, but bigger, right?"
"All you need to know is that they're extremely dangerous, and we have to get the hell out of here, now. That guy said the other one should reach here in under an hour, and that was twenty-five minutes ago."
He nodded, and I hoped the peaceful, disgusted-with-humans-and-their-violence Dar was back. I appreciated what kick-ass Dar had done to save me from being raped, but I think I liked the peace-out Dar a lot better.
Dar looked down at the commander and back up to me. The body on the floor had stopped groaning finally and appeared to have lost consciousness. There was horror in Dar's eyes.
"Did I do that?" he said to me.
I nodded.
"Don't sweat it, man. He had it coming." The guard at the door suddenly spoke, dropping his gun. It hung loosely in his hand. "He's the biggest asshole in the whole organization, and he's beaten many of us worse than that for less."
Dar and I turned to the guard, wary. I looked at him and didn't know what to think. He seemed friendly, which didn't seem possible. He must be faking. But it's hard to fake a look of genuine kindness.
We didn't say anything, and neither did he.
"You'd better get going before the wildfire hits," he said, putting the gun down on the floor and raising his hands. "I won't stop you."
I blinked.
"Hurry," he said. "Turn left in the hall. There's an exit at the bottom of the stairwell. No one ever uses it. It leads right into the forest. You might have a chance."
I glanced at Dar, and he was studying the man, utterly confused.
>
"Why are you helping us?"
"Because I wish somebody would have helped me when he was doing that to my girlfriend," the man said, his face hard.
Geez.
"What are you talking about?" I said, but he continued as if he hadn't heard me.
"I wish I would have beaten him to a pulp then like you just did so that he couldn't have raped anyone else. Instead, I let him rape her and imprison her. And I let him force me into working for the AEA."
"You didn't volunteer?" Dar said, and I could see his view of humans shifting yet again.
"I would never volunteer to work with these fucking terrorists in a million years. They're a bunch of idiots and bullies. He's kept my girlfriend alive so that he would have something to hold over me. He didn't want me to leave. That's how the terrorists get a lot of their recruits."
"Are you serious?" I said, absolutely aghast.
"Not too many guys with brains are interested in violence as a means of getting what you want. When he runs out of actual volunteers, he forces people to sign up for his cause. Doesn't mean we're loyal."
"Is she still alive?" Dar said, focusing on the important question.
"Yes. She's being held with various other prisoners in the basement. It's a fucking dungeon down there."
"Maybe now's your chance to get her out and escape," I said.
"Where are we going to go? We're on a barren planet with only a few clusters of people living here and there. They barely get by and are extremely hostile to outsiders."
"I don't know where you're going to go," I said, meeting his eyes. "But I can promise you one thing. If I were her, I'd rather be lost on a barren planet with you, than waiting in a dungeon for the next time he was going to rape me."
He looked at me with a shocked look on his face. Perhaps he hadn't thought about it like that before.
"Go get her," Dar said. "You'll never forgive yourself if you abandon her a second time."
"You're right," he said a look of resolution on his face. "Come on. You're going the same way as me. We can pretend I'm taking you to the dungeon. It'll keep them off your back till you get out the door."
We walked out the door ahead of the man, and he followed us. I kept my head down. The whole building was in a state of controlled chaos. Men carried bags and were moving quickly through the halls. They kept their heads down, too, as if worried someone would stop them from leaving if they made eye contact. We heard a snatch of conversation where a superior officer was complaining of deserters to someone on the other end of the phone.
When we got to the stairwell, we dropped the pretense and raced down the stairs until we got to the ground floor.
"This is where I leave you," the man said. "Thank you."
He held out his hand to Dar.
"My name is Dar Shu'in, but you probably knew that," Dar said, shaking his hand.
"And I'm Kenna DeAndrea," I added.
"The name's Jared McKinnley, and it was very nice to meet you both."
He smiled briefly, turned, and ran down the stairs.
"Come on, Dar. Let's go," I said, still feeling the fear and adrenaline coursing through my bloodstream. I needed to run. I wanted to be as far from this horrible place as I could get.
I pushed open the door and looked around. No one. They were all leaving in the vehicles on the other side where the parking lot was. The forest on this planet looked like a jungle back on earth. The jungle worried me a little bit, but I didn't care, not when freedom and relative safety awaited. I'd rather take my chances with the animals in the woods than the beasts inside this building.
DAR
I followed Kenna out the door and into the dense forest without thinking about it. I was trying to process everything that had just happened.
I had nearly killed a man.
I was the king of Susohn, a planet with a peaceful history for more than a thousand years.
I had nearly taken a man's life with my own hands.
Yes, he was a despicable human, but that did not excuse my behavior. I had never felt an urge to kill before. It was contrary to everything I believed. I had never felt so strongly in all of my life before.
The question was, why?
Yes, what he had been going to do to Kenna was wrong and horrifying. And it required action. But the rage and fury that had possessed me had gone far beyond merely doing the right thing.
Ever since I had met this small human woman, I felt as though I had been on the verge of madness. I was making choices I would never have made a week ago. I felt as though I was bubbling over with emotion, and I had certainly run the gamut of feelings. Sadness and regret, happiness and anger, wrath so intense I had nearly killed someone.
Except someone had stopped me.
I remembered coming back from whatever place I had been in as I had beaten the commander. I had felt her pulling on me, trying to get me to wake up from the violent rage that had gripped me. Looking into her eyes had brought me back.
I stole a glance at her now as she pushed through the dense vegetation, holding the branches until I grabbed them so they wouldn't slap me in the face. Before we left the ship, she had styled her long brown hair into two braids and tied them at the end using the elastic, so they hung down her back and wouldn't get in her way. She was moving as fast as she could, probably needing to get as far away from that horrible place as soon as possible.
Tears welled up in my eyes at the thought of what had almost happened back there. If I hadn't come into her life, she would still be happily digging in the garden on Dobu. I felt guilty at what I had put her through since I had met her, and I needed to apologize.
"Kenna," I said, putting my hand on her shoulder.
She turned, surprised.
"I'm sorry," I said.
She frowned.
"You don't have anything to be sorry for, Dar. You saved me. Remember?"
I shook my head.
"No. If you had never met me, you would never have had to go through all of this."
Her face softened, and she swallowed.
"If I had never met you, I never would have had all the happy moments, though, either, Dar. If I had to make the choice all over again to go or not go to that party...I wouldn't do anything differently."
Even after everything that had happened? She couldn't mean that.
"Dar? We have to keep moving. I can't be caught by them again. I might not be so lucky next time. That's twice I've avoided..."
She drew in a deep breath.
"Well, I don't want to come close to experiencing a rape attempt a third time. I'd rather die than have to go through that again."
I studied her face. She was beautiful. And smart. And capable. And her body fit mine perfectly.
"Dar?" she said, trying to understand my silence. "Are you okay? You had to do what you did. Don't feel bad about it."
She reached up and put her hand on my cheek. I closed my eyes at the feeling of comfort the small gesture gave me.
"I don't feel terrible about that. I feel awful about the problems you've experienced recently. It's all my fault." I opened my eyes to look into hers.
"Your fault? Dar. Stop being stupid. I make my choices just as you make yours. I could have decided differently, but that would not have led me to being here. Right now. With you."
I tilted my head and considered her words.
"But I didn't want to make those other choices. I want to be here with you. No matter how long it lasts. For as long as you want me beside you. Okay?"
She pulled me down to her so that she could kiss me. It was a soft kiss with just a touch of longing in it. And when she pulled away, I just wanted more. I watched her back as she forced her way through the brush, thunderstruck by the sudden realization that I would follow her anywhere.
She moved forward into the bush again, glancing back over her shoulder with a smile to see if I was coming. She beckoned to me, looking like a magical creature from the old tales, promising me pleasures unknown to mort
als. I knew that there would be a price to pay for sampling those delights, but I didn't care. Wherever she wanted to lead me, I would go.
That's when I knew I was lost.
KENNA
I moved as fast as I could through the jungle vegetation, not sure what had just happened. But my heart was beating fast, and my breathing felt erratic and shallow.
The look in Dar's eyes had scared me. He had seemed dangerous and real. No one had ever expressed their feelings like that to me before.
It had been a long time ago that Gran had last told me that she loved me. And no one had said it to me since then, but I remembered how she had looked when she had said it. There had been a light in her eye and a warmth in her face. She had looked the way Dar did for a moment back there.
I wasn't sure if I wanted him to care about me. That would complicate things considerably.
But hadn't I just told him that I wanted to stay with him as long as he would have me? What had I been thinking, saying that? It sounded desperate, didn't it? I just meant that I liked being with him and wanted to be with him and would stay with him until he booted my sorry human ass back to Earth. But maybe it had come out sounding like I loved him?
I recoiled at the thought. No. I couldn't love him.
That was dangerous.
That was foolish.
That was guaranteed to get my heart broken.
I wished longingly for a machete as I stepped over the big leaves and pushed through the thicker bushes. I shook my head. No use wishing for that which I could never have — and that included Dar.
I sniffed the air that was thick with smoke now, and it reminded me of my childhood. Summers, where we lived, were always a time of danger. Forest fires had burned in my home every year of my life. Sometimes the smoke was so thick that the sun looked like a bright copper penny and people with asthma were told to stay inside.
The authorities evacuated us once. It was the year that the forests were as dry as tinder and nearly a hundred fires had burned all at the same time. Nothing had happened to our place, but many people had lost their homes that year or been forced to live in hotels for weeks because they couldn't go back to their houses.