Broken Earth

by S. J. Sanders

  Veral shook his head. “I depend on them too much for protection and information. Binding them would be both dangerous and foolhardy.” His lips quirked in amusement, though he obviously worked to restrain himself as his mandibles twitched several times. “Do not worry, anastha. They will be kept close to my body in hunting mode when we are within the Reaper territory unless I am forced to defend us.”

  “Okay,” she replied, blushing at his explanation. Of course he wouldn’t have them out waving around. Even when he attacked the Reapers in the desert, his vibrissae had remained close to him, making his fighting silhouette more streamlined and lethal until he was upon his victim. He definitely hadn’t needed her to tell him to keep them pulled in.

  “Awesome… Yeah. We’ve got this then,” she said as she cleared her throat, her acute discomfort making her fill in the silence with awkward, fumbling words. Why was she suddenly acting like a fool? It had to be the pressure and the adrenaline running through her.

  Veral reached out and stroked her cheek gently. Terri sighed as she leaned into his touch, taking pleasure from the weight of his hand. Even his eyes lingering on her features was reassuring. his lips curving sweetly as he looked down upon her. She stared up at him, caught up in the raw, naked emotion in his eyes. It was a startling change from the way he usually appeared, and it totally captivated her and pulled her in.

  There was still a hardness to his gaze, but she knew that softness was only for her. It was only because he looked upon her.

  Leaning forward, he bumped the broad ridge of his nose against hers in a silent expression of affection before he pulled away and dropped quietly off the side of the rise.

  Terri scooted forward in the sand, grateful for the armor. Without it, she would have been wincing painfully from the rock and fine granules sifting into her shirt… Not to mention checking for venomous passengers hopping a ride. Glancing over the edge at her mate waiting below, she allowed herself to drop down into his waiting arms.

  They crept through the dark, making their way to the perimeter wall. It was just as gruesome as before, maybe more with the added decay, but at least Terri didn’t need to linger this time. They weren’t waiting for anyone to let them in. One of Veral’s arms wrapped around her seconds before he leaped to the top of the wall. The movement was so quick that Terri swallowed back an instinctive yelp. He clung to the wall with the claws of his opposite hand before he dropped onto the other side, flattening them to the ground.

  Terri, pinned beneath him, held her breath, her ears straining for any sign of someone nearing as Veral crouched over her. His weight pressed her close to the ground, enough so that she was certain that she would hear footfalls if anyone so much as walked their way. From the corner of her eye, she saw that his ears pricked up, listening for approaching threats as his glowing eyes scanned the area around them. Once satisfied that they were in the clear, he eased away to let her up. Standing slowly, he helped her to feet. A scream rent the night air, startling them both. Veral spun in place, his vibrissae flaring as his hand twitched as if he were going to snatch her up again. His head tilting, he looked down at her in consideration.

  Terri pressed a flattened palm against his chest. “Nuh-uh. I won’t go back, not until I’ve done what I’ve come here to do. So don’t even think of throwing me back over that wall,” she whispered fiercely.

  “I can retrieve them,” he growled. “You don’t need to be here. I object most strenuously to this.”

  “We’ve discussed this. They aren’t going to just come to you, Veral. Remember, humans are frightened of you… It’s that whole not cuddly thing you have going on. They’re more likely to accept help from me.”

  “Then they are foolish,” he grunted irritably, though he smirked at her description of him as if it were a compliment. “I am a highly evolved bio-cybernetic being. My nanos alone, that I’ve had since birth, make me a far more efficient organism. There is none better equipped to rescue them than me. Not cuddly works in my favor for destroying their enemies. That is what is necessary.”

  “Okay, but that doesn’t do a damn bit of good when it comes to reasoning with frightened women. This is how we have to do it, whether you like it or not.”

  Veral’s eyes narrowed in response but he didn’t argue further with her. He looked extremely displeased but nodded. Instead, he moved forward with purpose. He didn’t leave her to follow after him but nudged her with his arm to keep her by his side as they made their way through the encampment, staying well out of the way of the lights scattered through the vicinity.

  As expected, they encountered no one as they made their way from the nearest perimeter wall to the shed. On her first trip through the compound, she’d noted that the behavior of the Reapers erred closer to anarchy than organization. This worked to their advantage, since there was absolutely no order to the camp itself, leaving it open and vulnerable. As before, all the tents were practically clustered on top of each other at one end, leaving much of it unsupervised and in complete darkness other than a few areas with torches. One such spot was the area directly around the shed, but this was also the case throughout the camp around the bonfires where food cooked and drink ran freely.

  Though every gang member hung around those areas informally, there were no guards keeping watch. Terri had come to suspect that the Reapers depended on their reputation to keep intruders out, and the lack of order to confuse strangers and new recruits. Even the men standing around the shed seemed to be there more by chance rather than with a purpose. Not one of them was paying any attention to anything coming at them from the dark recesses of the compound.

  In the light of the torches set around the shack, Terri was able to get a good look at the group of men who were standing around outside of it. To her surprise, not just one or two, but the majority of them, had obvious signs of mutations. Few looked anything close to normal, though all were incredibly dirty. She wondered how much of a role those most obviously mutated played in hunting down women. Their skills were likely put to use in other ways that she didn’t want to think about.

  In the case of many of the men, their skin hung from warped bone and muscle. One of the men even had an additional set of eye sockets pitted lower beneath his cheekbones, sealed over with skin. She had never had the opportunity to study the Reapers too closely, but more than half seemed affected. Nauseating green pus dripped from more than one orifice. Was this solely the result of the mutations brought on by nuclear fallout in blast areas, or was a portion of it linked to generations of rampant cannibalism and other savage acts? She’d heard rumors about inbreeding and disease but didn’t know what to believe. Now she wasn’t so sure. With this new information, she doubted that they were a recently established gang, given their size. No doubt their mutated daddies and granddaddies had been eating people and breeding their lineage long before the current power took control.

  “There are more signs of strange polymorphisms among your species in these males as well,” Veral also observed. “They appear varied from minor to severe cases.”

  “I didn’t realize… I didn’t know that there were so many mutations,” she whispered. “I knew that the war created some—like that guy we came across when salvaging—but I always assumed it was in small, isolated cases. I never imagined it would be anything like this.”

  “Mutation will spread uncontrollably where it is given free rein.” His thick, horned brow furrowed. “In my species, there has recently been a substantial increase in offspring born with violet eyes. It is a strange mutation that was first documented one thousand, seven hundred and twenty-five planetary revolutions ago, and yet when I left, the cases were spreading in the hundreds. Adults were discovered to be genetic carriers for the mutation due to early unregulated breeding practices before the Council began licensing mating and breeding. No doubt some of these males possessing the less severe mutations would be able to create thriving offspring that could potentially benefit your species were it not for their depravity,” Vera
l observed.

  Not for the first time, his impartial, almost cold description of the fate of her species left Terri feeling aghast. Whatever affections he felt toward her, they did not extend to her species.

  “You’re saying that the mutations are a good thing?” she whispered vehemently.

  Her mate gave her a calculated glance before returning his gaze to the shelter. “They can be when they are not errors in the genetic coding. Some mutations would also be in response to the drastic environmental changes you have noted in your world. I calculate the odds are in favor of the rescued females suffering minor biological mutations that allow them to carry offspring to term where others are failing, by your admission. In cases of mutagenesis, it occurs in response to environmental factors for which the current biology may lack. Many of the Argurma would like to eradicate mutations, missing the point entirely that certain mutations would be a positive evolutionary growth for our species. The violet eyes in my species are linked to a natural reduction in a chemical that not only provides a certain pigment to my species, making the scales thinner and also paler in color, but lowers our core temperatures. Some believe that it is in response to the growing heat on our planet from our suns. Regardless of the cause of a mutation, no species can stay static forever. They must change and adapt in order to flourish.”

  Terri considered this. He had a valid observation—up to a point. “I’m not so sure I see the results of the mutations here very favorably,” she whispered.

  “No, I would not classify these males as ones that I would wish to continue their line,” Veral said. His attention shifted to the males she was watching. A puzzled frown pulled at his mouth and his nostrils flared only to be followed by a look of disgust.

  “That smell… It is vizi!” he growled as he drew up a flap of material around the neck of his armor and pulled it over his mouth and nose.

  She wrinkled her nose as the sickening smell drifted over to her. Terri couldn’t blame him. She didn’t have a strong sense of smell and it was nauseating even to her. A few among the men nearest to them leaned on the wall as they smoked sticky sap from the Orange-Bloom. The flower had appeared about fifty years ago and the sap not only caused a euphoric high but was extremely addictive. The way the smokers were leaning against the wall, smiling in the far distance, she had no doubt that their eyes were glazed over with the effects of the sap.

  “Those humans are behaving abnormally, and not only because they do not seem to notice the abominable smell. Their bodily chemicals appear imbalanced,” Veral observed.

  She chuckled. “They’re ‘higher than a kite,’ as my grandmother was fond of saying.” She frowned. “I don’t know what a kite is. Maybe some kind of bird? Either way, it’s a drug to make them feel good.”

  “It is foolish to intentionally induce impairment to one’s functions,” Veral stated, although a hint of humor edged his tone as they continued to watch for their opening.

  “Let me guess,” she said, her attention trained on the pair of men laughing and slipping an item between each other in front of the door, “there are no drugs on Argurumal.”

  Now the male beside her snorted derisively. “Do not be absurd. There are drugs on nearly every planet in intergalactic space. Some planets are cultivated exclusively for the addictive drugs they produce. The Argurma are no less susceptible to their influence, but most of the warrior and trader classes have cybernetic augments that make such impulses less likely since we have a more logical core processing unit. Even still among the general population, due to cybernetics, only cases of severe emotional imbalance will drive a cybernetically enhanced Argurma to seek such an escape.”

  Veral slipped forward to the right, shifting his angle of vision. She squinted through the darkness searching for him but became disoriented when a raucous sound rose from the center of the camp. It was loud enough that it made Terri jump, her heart pounding in her chest.

  After several minutes, Veral scooted back to her side, his face inches from hers as he spoke. “Most of the males are pulling away from the building. I suspect it has something to do with the infernal noise among those gathering in the center of the compound.” He tilted his head, appearing to listen. “They are angry about their losses from their latest hunt, but more so since so many females escaped them.”

  Terri frowned and strained to hear. To her frustration, she didn’t hear anything like that but knew that Veral’s hearing was likely far superior to her own even before it had been enhanced.

  “All right, let’s go,” she whispered as she patted her bag. “Once we get the females out, I have a nasty surprise for the assholes.”

  A bony brow arched at her, and she grinned savagely as she opened her pack. A few days ago, during one of their salvages, she had found an entire box of explosive materials labeled “TNT.” Veral hadn’t been interested in it since it wasn’t worth credits for him to collect, but Terri had been fascinated. It hadn’t been difficult to work out how it was used, although Veral had glared at her when she’d set one off a bit too close to their salvaging area. Now his lips quirked, and glowing eyes narrowed with unmistakable satisfaction. Her alien sure did like his destruction and violence, but unlike the Reapers, he was tempered by mercy and logic about how and when he used it.

  At Veral’s signal, she dropped back, her body tensing with anticipation.

  19

  Terri wiped her sweaty palms on the legs of her armor, the oddly absorbent material drawing in the moisture. She was nervous, but she knew what to do—though she almost wished they brought Krono with them rather than leaving him to guard the women. She would have felt better having him nearby. She suspected Veral would have too since he’d protested leaving the dorashnal behind. She’d insisted on leaving protection, however. It had been the right decision, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t regret it on some level.

  Veral turned and gave her a questioning look, no doubt sensing her anxiety. She smiled at him and gave him a thumbs-up. His eyes focused on the gesture for a long minute before he nodded and slunk away

  She was fine.

  Terri had to hang back while he approached the shack. Veral had insisted on it, claiming that it would be more expedient and efficient for him to deal with killing the Reapers. Her task was to keep the women calm and escort them out of the compound.

  Terri had no argument with that. She wasn’t trained to fight and had little instinct for killing anything. She didn’t even own a single weapon after losing her baseball bat while fleeing from the Reapers. That didn’t stop her from admiring the way he silently crept up behind one of the nearest men. With a quick twist of Veral’s arm, he broke the Reaper’s neck before the man could make a sound.

  Veral continued to move like a wraith around them, picking them off one by one. The Reapers, deep in their own fog of drug-induced bliss, weren’t aware of what hit them. It was, in Terri’s opinion, far more merciful than they deserved, but the goal was silence rather than mercy so she had no real complaint.

  As Veral took care of the last one, Terri opened the door slowly so that the hinges only squeaked minimally, and stepped inside. Immediately, she gagged at the overwhelming odor of piss, shit, the sour musk of unwashed bodies, and the unmistakable odor of sex. Her eyes widened in horror. There had to have been fifty women crammed into the small space. They were huddled together, filthy, and several had open sores and wounds that had been left untreated.

  As her eyes scanned the crowd, she recognized a handful pressed into one corner as those who had been captured during the caravan raid. They held small children close to them. One cried over a little girl whose skin was tinged blue, her glassy eyes staring sightlessly. Her tiny body must have been brutalized and returned to her mother.

  Terri felt her throat close in grief and wanted to shut her eyes against the horrors of the prison.

  One of the caravan women cried out upon seeing her, and the sound was soon echoed as they pushed through the other women to get to her. The other women
turned their heads, tears of relief streaming from their eyes as they too surged toward her. Terri waved her hands frantically to silence them, and the noise dropped so quickly that she blinked in surprise until she felt a familiar presence behind her.

  Turning her head, she saw Veral standing just behind her. Every woman went silent. Unlike those women who Terri and Veral had saved, all the women collectively gravitated toward the alien. Terri gaped at them before feeling a surprising wave of irritation as they began to press in around him with sounds of gratitude, more than one woman whispering, begging them to take her with him. Terri bit back a snarl and shook her head in an effort to clear it.

  These women were traumatized. She had no reason to be jealous.

  Clearing her throat to get their attention, she stepped forward and spoke in a low, urgent voice. “Don’t be afraid. We’re getting you out of here. Everyone needs to quietly follow me out of the building and stick together. Does anyone need help?”

  A woman toward the back hesitantly held up her hand. The women parted before her, several of the women from the caravan looking on anxiously, many of them with tears in their eyes. Terri approached, and her eyes misted over as she saw the woman seated on a stool, half of her leg missing above the knee. A blood-soaked tourniquet was wrapped around the stump. The woman managed a weak smile despite her obvious pain.

  “Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to be able to walk out of here. They cut it off when I tried to escape,” she whispered. Her face was pale and drawn but she met Terri’s eyes steadily, her lips set firmly against the pain. Her expression struck a familiar chord with Terri as the woman bit out, “I took one of the bastards out though. Gutted him like a fish with his own knife.”