Mutual Trust

by Lea Linnett

  Licking her wind-chapped lips, Bree dropped her pack to the ground and crept forward with only her bow across her back and her knife and talisman in her pockets. Then, she slipped silently over the lip of the ridge.

  The nook she landed in was just large enough to seat her comfortably and was shielded by a spike of rock that both hid her from view and warded off the rain. She often sat here to spy on the huge, alien beings moving around below, and today was no different.

  She’d nicknamed these ones Giants—with a capital G—for obvious reasons. Even from this distance, she could tell they were far larger than her own people, and with their sleeveless shirts and skintight clothes showing off their massive bodies, it was clear they’d be formidable in a fight. Their skin was gray and silver when it caught the sunlight in the summer, and they wore their thick hair long and half-braided.

  They were a familiar sight, and despite the wind and the rain, Bree found herself growing comfortable in a way she never did in the Barracks. For all of its alien qualities, the mine was predictable. The doors of the buildings stayed shut, the tower’s lights stayed constant, and the Giants moved with a slow lethargy that Bree didn’t really find threatening, like a moose eating grass in the distance.

  But just as Bree settled into her nook, all that was familiar suddenly changed in the blink of an eye.

  The lights of the tower went first, all of them extinguishing at once as a horrific, metal scream rent the air. The sound echoed throughout the ravine, and as it faded, the hum of machines faded with it, until the entire ravine went silent.

  Next, the Giants began to run. A few rushed toward the tower, but many more moved down, disappearing into the darkness of the ravine. The walkways rattled under their heavy footsteps, and Bree gripped the rock that shielded her, half-fearing she might be shaken from her perch.

  And then, far in the distance on the other side of the ravine, one of the building’s doors opened for the first time in Bree’s life, and a group of figures burst from its depths.

  She didn’t have time to gawk at the sight as the ground beneath her rumbled, and she clung to her rock, mud from the ridge above dripping down onto her hands.

  This, at least, was familiar, in the same way the big cats were. The quakes had started soon after the levekk began their mining operation, and although they weren’t regular, when they did come, they were shockingly uniform, always rumbling through in sets of three as if they were planned that way. Usually, she would wonder what they were digging for below, and what materials could have been so valuable to the levekk that they would conquer her entire planet just to get it, but now, she had eyes only for the other side of the ravine.

  The figures advanced in a triangular formation, hunched over weapons in a way that Bree knew well from her training, and even from this distance, they looked nothing like the Giants that she was used to seeing.

  Finally, the tremor stopped, and Bree wasted no time in slipping down a familiar, rocky path to get a closer look. Sleet covered the path, threatening to make her feet slide out from under her, and her heart was pounding by the time she dropped into her next hiding place.

  As she did, the aliens stepped into the ravine, approaching the lightless tower, and Bree watched as the leader motioned angrily at a nearby Giant, beckoning for it to follow. The Giant obeyed immediately, lumbering after the other alien far quicker than it usually would, and now Bree had no doubts about what she was seeing.

  These were levekk, the lizard-like aliens that had invaded her planet hundreds of years ago.

  She’d never seen one—not up close, anyway—even after coming to the mine for twenty years. The mysterious alien invaders rarely left the safety of their heated buildings, seemingly content to have the Giants do all their work for them, and when they did surface, they covered their skin entirely with black bodysuits and hid their faces with masks. Her elders said the suits kept them warm, that they would freeze to death like lizards and snakes caught out in the winter without them. No one had ever seen the scaled bodies that lay beneath their technology.

  No one except Bree.

  It was a slip of a memory, a fragment, but Bree remembered sitting on the ridge in her mother’s arms in the summer, watching the mine as it was being built. She remembered a clear, blue sky and green leaves, and then the flash of scales too golden to be of this Earth. It was her earliest memory. Her mom had disappeared soon after, leaving only a patch of blood on the ridge, and Bree had never seen her mother or a levekk again.

  They had to have something to do with her mom’s disappearance. They had to be the key to finding her. Bree’s heart pounded in her ears as she watched the levekk leader circle the tower and come closer, gesticulating angrily.

  She had to get closer. She had to see.

  She stepped down onto the slope just as the second quake hit and skidded down the sleet-covered incline, sending up a splash of mud as she landed heavily on a shelf in the dirt that was more mud than rock now. The walkway was mere feet below, and Bree lay as still as possible, terrified that the levekk guards might have seen her fall. But when she peeked over the edge, no one was looking her way, too preoccupied by the malfunctioning tower and the cold rain.

  And now, the levekk leader was close enough for her to make out the sharp points of his covered claws as he threw his hands up in the air, all while the Giant stood solemnly beside it.

  Despite its smaller size, the levekk somehow managed to look even more dangerous than the hulking Giant, everything about it screaming predator in a way that Bree was intimately familiar with after her years sharing the forest with big cats, mountain lions, and bears. The black, skintight bodysuit molded to its muscular build, talon-like claws, and hooked legs that reminded her of an eagle’s, although far more powerful-looking. Its mask hid its face, giving it a permanent forbidding expression, but Bree couldn’t look away.

  Then, she heard it speak, its deep voice cutting through the air like an arrow even through the machine-like distortion of its mask. She’d heard the Giants speak before in a guttural language that rumbled off the metallic walkways, but this was different. The levekk’s voice was raised like Luis’ when he was chewing out a cadet, and every short, sharp syllable of the alien’s language was punctuated by an angry swipe of its hand.

  Her curiosity burned. God, if only she could understand what they were saying…

  Suddenly, the levekk seemed to lose its patience, stalking back toward the tower, and Bree’s heart leaped into her throat. If it vanished back into the featureless, black buildings, she’d lose her chance. She’d never gotten this close to a levekk in all the twenty years she’d watched, and she might actually go as insane as everyone thought she was if she had to wait another twenty.

  She leaned over the edge of her muddy shelf, studying the mine below. Could she follow behind? Slip inside the building? No, that would be crazy. What the hell would she do, trapped in a building full of aliens that had ravaged her planet and killed her people?

  But as the levekk retreated, she found herself easing to her feet, drawn by that string that always seemed to tug her towards the mine.

  At that moment, the third quake rolled through from deep within the earth, shaking the ground beneath her feet so violently that she pinwheeled for balance. She lunged for the rock behind her, but it was out of reach, and she dug her heels into the mud to compensate.

  Mud which crumbled out from under her.

  Dirt raked up her legs and her side as she slid over the lip of the shelf, the earth slipping between her fingertips as she scrabbled for purchase. She fell through the air, her world spinning, until the metal walkway slammed into her from below, bruising her ribs and knocking the wind from her lungs.

  Then, she rolled, freefalling into the darkness. The black chasm was above her and the white, cloud-filled sky at her feet. Alien shouts filled the air.

  She was going to die. She was going to fall into the mine and die, she thought, fighting to suck even a mouthful of air into her p
anicked lungs.

  Then, her back hit metal, a sharp crack rent the air, and she slipped into unconsciousness to the sound of thundering feet and scraping claws.

  2

  Bree’s eyes snapped open to a world of grays and blacks and a throbbing ache in her neck. She sat up rapidly, her heart pounding. The last thing she remembered was the chasm opening up before her and the crack of bone, but apart from the pain in her neck, she could feel no injuries.

  Placing a hand beside her, she recoiled at the feel of warm metal beneath her fingertips. The material was textured with small, raised circles, which glistened in the light that emanated from a strip set into the bottom of the wall nearby. The strip was narrow, but bright, illuminating Bree’s face as she looked around.

  She was on the floor, surrounded by three walls all made of a dark metal, shinier than the stuff outside. The fourth wall was translucent, disrupting her vision as if she were looking through a waterfall, and it glowed with a soft, violet light. Beyond it, the room continued, ending in a single, featureless door.

  There were no windows, and no sign of the aliens from earlier. Her side of the room was bare apart from some overturned chairs, but beyond the rippling wall, multiple pieces of dark furniture had been pushed to the side. Machines and instruments covered with sharp edges and serrated points sat atop them, and they looked like the kind of instruments meant for poking and probing and dissecting people’s bodies, in Bree’s opinion.

  Her hand wandered back to her sore neck. Had they used those things on her? She shuddered at the thought.

  The room was silent apart from her own heavy breathing and a strange buzzing, which, after a short inspection, seemed to be coming from the glowing, translucent wall.

  Despite the ache in her neck, she pinched her arm and winced. Not dreaming, then. And probably not dead.

  God, she hoped this wasn’t a fucking spaceship.

  Bree had seen the levekk ships that came from the south to collect their cargo, before they slipped under the lip of the plateau and out of sight. They were sleek and black, like everything levekk, and they skimmed through the air like dragonflies. Her elders told stories of even larger ones that had flown overhead when the mine was first built, so vast and dark that they blotted out the sun, but Bree was too young to remember.

  What if she’d been taken onto one of those? One so large that it could have been a city in the sky? She could be speeding away from her people as she sat here.

  Bree curled her shaking hands into fists. She had to keep it together. Spaceship or not, there had to be a way out. She just needed to calm down long enough to find it.

  Blowing out a steadying breath, she got to her feet, looking around the room. It was a perfect box, the seamless walls and floor interrupted only by that strip of bright light. The buzzing, see-through wall vibrated with energy, almost as if it were alive, and it repelled her hand when she hovered it close.

  She checked her pockets, wondering if she could use her knife to cut at the strange substance, but they were empty. Her bow was gone, along with her folding knife and her talisman, and the sharp instruments littering the room were all on the other side of the rippling wall.

  At least she still had all her clothes, although her thick, caribou-hide coat was making her sweat. This room was hot, she suddenly realized, like someone had kept a fire going for hours, although there was no hearth to be seen. But she didn’t dare remove her coat, so she wiped at her brow, turning to survey the room.

  What if she tried to ram a chair through the forcefield? Would that break it?

  She didn’t get a chance to find out.

  At that moment, the door slid back, and she whirled around to find a narrow, reptilian face staring back at her.

  Bree jerked away, barely keeping her footing as she slammed up against the far wall. But the face advanced, stepping into the light and revealing golden scales, shot through with brown. Its legs were hooked at the knee like a cat’s, and its eyes zeroed in on Bree like a mountain lion’s as it brandished its bone-white claws—claws that were decidedly un-cat-like. They didn’t extend from the skin, they covered its skin, transitioning seamlessly from its fingers in a wicked curve.

  A levekk, up close and personal in a way she’d never thought possible. Its eyes narrowed in disgust, and Bree’s breaths turned shallow. Suddenly, she regretted ever wanting to see one in such detail. Before, they’d been more mysterious than dangerous. Now, Bree was sure that this one wanted her dead.

  Everything about it screamed danger, but instead of attacking her, the alien stepped aside. When it turned its head, she noticed a strange crest rising from the center of its forehead, but her attention was soon diverted when another huge form stepped through the door.

  That was when she realized that the first must have been female, because this one was taller and broader, and twice as mean-looking. Rather than a crest, his brow was armored, covered in a bone-like material, identical to his claws, that protected his nose and swept all the way back to the base of his skull. Alien technology adorned his head, a dark contrast to his golden scales and bone-white plating.

  Both of them wore the black, skintight suits that followed the sharp lines of their bodies, and they both looked sleek and predatory, just like their spaceships.

  They also looked angry, making Bree wish for her bow.

  “Salak mehr ka?” the male barked, and her heart thundered. That wasn’t any language she knew. The words were harsh and choppy, the rhythm alien.

  “I don’t—”

  “Salak mehr ka? Salakaan behr ka?”

  Bree pressed her lips together, shaking her head, but that only made the male’s expression turn stormier. He motioned to the female, who stepped forward and fiddled with something on the wall. The forcefield disappeared, snapping the two alien forms into sharp clarity, but Bree didn’t have time to study them further. The female came at her with her claws outstretched, locking them around her arm.

  “Hey, wait a minute!” she yelped, pulling against the grip, but the levekk was too strong.

  “Lisira ve,” the female hissed, reaching for her other arm, and Bree swung out wildly. She kicked back with her foot, but the levekk side-stepped her, and after a brief struggle it became clear that the alien’s size was too great of an advantage. Bree’s other arm was caught in no time and yanked behind her back, and the male stepped forward menacingly.

  “Salakaan behr ka?” he asked again. He was within arm’s reach of one of the tables, his hand creeping toward the dangerous-looking instruments upon it.

  Oh, hell no.

  Acting on instinct, Bree leaned back on the female and brought her legs up between her and the male, driving them into his chest as hard as she could. He took the hit better than the levekk holding her did, and the female overbalanced. In the short moment that the female’s grip loosened, Bree slipped out of her coat, ramming the alien to the ground.

  She paused to take stock, and for a second she didn’t know what to do. Luis had trained them for this, but Noe had always been better at close-quarters combat. Bree wished Noe was here now.

  The male advanced. His claws caught on her sleeve, ripping it open, and Bree clenched her fists. Her first punch caught him in the chest, the next in the side of his head, and then, to her shock, the levekk howled in pain.

  She didn’t stick around to assess the damage.

  Dashing past the screaming alien, she spun around the open door like a spinning top and careened down the corridor. Dark metal doorways and shafts of light flashed past her, and she had no clue where she was going, but she would find an exit. She had to.

  She almost froze when another levekk appeared, but this female—who wore the same skintight suit as the others, but in white—simply stared at her in shock, a device held limply in her hands. Bree pressed on, ignoring the panicked, alien words flying around behind her and the distant thunder of feet.

  That wasn’t the only alien she saw. Her breath caught in her chest when she turned a
corner to find a gaggle of thin, insectoid aliens clustered around a wall panel, their huge eyes following her. She sped past corridors full of hulking shapes, some round and squat, some whose heads brushed the ceiling. She nearly tripped into a wall when a door opened beside her and an ink-black, shadow-like creature stepped out of it, and by that point her heart was beating in her ears, her breaths ragged as she raced away.

  Then, a flash of brown skin, and Bree skidded to a halt. A human, standing in the adjacent corridor, blinking at her as if he’d never seen anything like her. He wore the same, uncomfortably tight-looking clothes as everything else here, and his hair was cropped close to his skull.

  “Do you know a way out of here?!” she asked desperately, approaching him even though shouts echoed through the hallways behind her.

  But the human only stared. “Salak mehr ka?” he asked in that same alien language, and Bree’s stomach dropped.

  She jerked back, dashing away. Her neck throbbed, blood rushed in her ears, and the combined noise drowned out her pursuers as she sped down corridor after corridor, deeper into the maze. No matter where she turned, more of the same black metal greeted her, and she felt hot and cold with panic.

  Would she ever make it out of here? Was there even a way out of here? What if she burst through a door only to start falling through the air again, back into the chasm that the aliens had dug into her planet?

  Could this all be a hallucination?

  Her eyes stung, but she refused to let the tears fall even as they blinded her. She turned another corner, blinking them away…

  Only to slam face-first into something broad and hard. The force of the impact knocked the wind from her lungs and sent her reeling back, but a pair of strong hands steadied her. Cool palms with rough, work-hardened skin brushed her arm through the rip in her sleeve, and for a moment, she could have been back in the Barracks, being picked up from the ground by Luis or her friend, Torrin. Although, the chest she’d fallen into was far more muscular than either of theirs. She pulled a deep breath into her aching lungs, finally given a moment to rest.