by Elin Wyn
Sk’lar looked at Navat, who had sprayed medi-gel to heal his wounds temporarily. “Are you well, Navat?”
“Fit to fight, Commander.” Navat gave a thumbs up, but the edge of pain in his voice was impossible to ignore.
Cazak picked up a street sign knocked asunder by passing rioters. He turned it around so the chunk of concrete clinging to the base acts as the head of a club. I winced, because I knew that improvised cudgel was going to be lethal in application.
Sk’lar wasn’t exactly pushing us to use non-lethal force any longer, however. We all knew that the time for that was past. We’d been exercising restraint, only using the bare minimum of force to protect ourselves.
That was about to change. In my heart, I felt a swell of pity for those anti-alienists. They’d hurt one of our own, two of our own if I counted the gash on my forehead. My scales popped out to the surface, and a guttural growl began low in my throat.
Come forward, you bigoted men of Ankou I thought. Come forward, and face Strike Team Three when we’re no longer trying to play nice. We are killers of Xathi. See what we make of your soft skins. Come forward, and let us send you to whatever afterlife awaits your kind.
Come.
Dottie
I think I’d gone into some kind of shock. Weird.
I’d never gone into shock in my life. I’d never felt what I was now feeling before in my life either.
I’d hypothesize that shock and whatever I was feeling now were one and the same.
That made sense, right?
One moment, I’d been unceremoniously dumped on the ground by Jalok the dickhead- I mean, Skotan.
The next, they were all rushing off toward something likely dangerous. I had no desire to be a part of that.
“Get in there!” Jalok didn’t so much as order me as he did shoved me underneath an overturned transport.
I put my weight on the upside down seat, hoping to steady myself but it nearly collapsed under my weight.
I refused to believe that Jalok or any member of his team sat on these. If it couldn’t bear my weight, no way in hell could it support one of the aliens. Even the smallest of them was basically a titan.
I wish I knew what was going on at the lab. The riot seemed to be moving in the opposite direction but when has a riot ever been predictable?
The heat was oppressive. If anything, it was only making me feel worse. From what Jalok said, the rioters were moving closer to the makeshift camp.
If I was careful, I could sneak away which would put me closer to the lab. I’d be out of Jalok’s hair and better able to protect my work.
I stumbled back out from under the transport and sucked in the fresh air.
Then immediately choked on the dust stirred up by the aliens and rioters. A rioter collapsed at my feet. His hand was broken and bleeding. I stumbled around him.
My brain wasn’t working as fast as it normally did.
I was out of my element here. Way out of my element. If I was going to get out of this unscathed, I needed to let go of my fear and rely on logic.
I was good with logic. One step at a time, right?
I looked around the camp. Many of the aliens were fighting rioters’ hand to hand. Some of them had batons. The one thing I didn’t hear was gunfire or blasters discharging. I wasn’t likely to be hit by a stray bullet.
Now, I just had to figure out which direction the lab was in from where I was now.
As it turns out, an active battlefield isn’t the best place to come up with a detailed escape plan.
Another rioter saw me and charged at me with a thick, rusty knife at the ready.
No time for logic now.
I had to run.
I ran blindly through the fighting, knocking into any rioter I could. I liked to think I was helping but that probably wasn’t true.
At some point, the rioter chasing me was taken out by an alien. I didn’t look back to see who it was. I had to find a place to hide and wait this out.
All I wanted was to get to my lab. Was that so much to ask?
I spied an industrial dumpster that had been pulled over to construct part of a barricade between the base camp and the city streets.
It was too tall for me to jump into but there was a large gap between the bottom of the dumpster and the ground. With no better options in sight, I dropped onto my belly and rolled under.
It took some wiggling, but I got myself into a position where I could watch the fight unfold.
The only advantage the riots had were their numbers but that didn’t appear to be doing them any favors. The aliens outmatched them in size, strength, stamina, combat techniques and tons of other attributes I didn’t know enough about to comment on like the club-thingy one of the Skotan’s wielded.
It wasn’t Jalok. He didn’t have a club like that.
I would’ve noticed that when I was thrown over his shoulder.
This Skotan had electric currents running through the wooden club. I wondered how he did that without completely frying the wood. The effects were devastating. When the club made contact with the jaw of a rioter, it left deep purple scars that looked like lightning bolts on his skin.
The other nearby rioters took note of their comrade's damaged face and took decisive steps away from the Skotan with the club. Wise choice. At least the rioters weren’t completely stupid. Just mostly stupid.
The Valorni, green aliens with purple stripes down their arms, didn’t seem to carry much in the way of weapons.
Instead they used brute force to subdue the rioters that challenged them. I watched in awe as a single Valorni lifted three rioters off their feet with one arm and launched them into a tent structure.
A K’ver came into view. Like the Valorni, he didn’t carry any weapons that I could see. However, instead of launching anyone who came his way across the camp, he engaged in complicated hand-to-hand moves that left me, as well as anyone he was fighting, dizzy.
The K’ver moved so quickly his opponent couldn’t keep up with him. I felt the urge to laugh as the rioter swung blindly at the K’ver. When the K’ver was done disorienting his opponent, he knocked him out with a swift punch.
As I watched the aliens fight, the anxiety knotted in my stomach started to ease. What I still couldn’t figure out was why Kaster? The only reason that made sense to me was that the anti-alien radicals were trying to make some kind of statement.
Maybe they wanted Nyhiem to see how wide-spread they were or how powerful they were. Anyone could’ve told them that was a losing battle.
A rioter landed limp in the dust a few yards from my dumpster-slash-shelter as if to further punctuate my point.
I doubt the anti-alien radicals ever intended for it to go this far. Things likely snowballed out of control into this clusterfuck.
Five rioters caught my attention. They looked like they were running away from something rather than into battle. They kept looking over their shoulders, their faces pale and covered in dust and blood.
Jalok appeared in a cloud of dust hot on their tails. I saw the rage burning in his eyes even from my position under the dumpster.
Even though his anger wasn’t turned on me, a cold sheet of fear settled over my body. Just seeing him like that made me want to shrink into a tiny ball and hide, yet I couldn’t look away.
He caught up to the slowest rioter of the group. Judging by the rioter’s uneven walk, Jalok had already done some damage to his kneecap.
Jalok punched the rioter square in the spine. I heard a sickening crunch. The rioter fell to the ground. He wasn’t dead but it didn’t look like he could move.
I thought I’d seen Jalok fight when we collided in the alleyway.
I was wrong. He was just warming up then. He caught up to the next rioter and yanked him back by his hair.
Jalok placed his other hand around the rioter’s throat until he went limp. At first, I thought he was dead but after he hit the ground, I saw the slow rise and fall of his chest.
It was s
trange how Jalok could be an unstoppable fighting machine but also be careful enough not to kill if he didn’t have to.
Incapacitation seemed to be his goal. The only rioter he’d killed that I knew of was the one that pinned me down in the alleyway. I couldn’t say I felt bad for the guy.
Two of the rioters managed to get out of Jalok’s warpath by splitting up and running in other directions. Unfortunately, the remaining rioter was stupidly brave. He turned and faced Jalok with only a metal pole to defend himself.
Jalok disarmed him in seconds.
It was almost comical.
“And you wonder why we want you all dead,” the rioter sneered.
Jalok closed the distance between them and picked the rioter up by the collar with two hands.
“You attack a town unprovoked and wonder why I showed up?” He snarled.
“We weren’t unprovoked. We wanted the aliens stationed here gone. We won’t be silenced.”
“You will be silenced if your plan is to keep harming innocent people just trying to make a living,” Jalok snarled “All you’re doing is making things harder for your own species, a species I’ve sworn to protect. I will do whatever I have to in order to keep that promise.”
Despite the unsavory context, Jalok’s words struck me as honorable.
“Go ahead and kill me then. Isn’t that what you aliens are at heart? Killers.” The rioter spat on Jalok’s face.
“I’m not going to kill you,” Jalok replied with a calmness that was somehow more terrifying than anger. “But I am going to break every bone in your body.”
I looked away for this part.
But with each scream of the rioter, I knew Jalok was keeping his word.
Jalok
A squirming mass of limbs rained ineffectual blows down upon my scaled hide as I lifted the two rioters into the air.
Amidst the carnage of the battlefield, looking for the perfect place to deposit my burden, I felt alive.
This was what I was made for.
The angry shouts of Tyehn drew my attention. He was fending off a half dozen rioters armed with makeshift weapons.
Under normal circumstances, the big Valorni would have finished them off with ease. Injured as he was, however, the numbers game overwhelmed him.
With a shout, I sent the struggling men in my arms sailing through the air. My meat missiles crashed into the throng and sent rioters sprawling. Tyehn used the distraction to smash two rioter's skulls together with a sound akin to a hard shelled fruit split open.
Shrieking sirens heralded the arrival of reinforcements to our location.
Finally. After things were pretty much over. The men who rushed our position now lay in various miserable heaps about the street.
Most of them weren’t even conscious, and those that were probably wish that they were not, like the fellow with his knee bent the wrong way courtesy of a blow from Cousin Cazak's makeshift club.
I'd done just as much mayhem with my bare hands, though, if not more.
As security filled the street and took in the brutality of Team Three's prowess, they quickly called for emergency medical technicians—but not for us.
For our victims.
Cazak staggered over to me, blood covering him but most of it not his own. He slammed the crimson spattered concrete cudgel head first to the ground, crossed his arms, and grinned.
“Twelve being stretchered out.” He jerked his head toward a human groaning on a gurney.
“I can't feel my legs—I can't feel my legs.”
“Huh.” I shrugged casually. “I lost count at fourteen, but it's not like it's a competition, right cousin?”
“Fourteen? Ludicrous. You just picked a number higher than mine.”
“Really” I jabbed my thumb at the stack of unconscious rioters near where Tyehn stood. “There's three right there. Then there's the guy with his jaw dislocated over there, and that human with the large belly draped over the sewage vent, and--”
“All right, I get the point. Well fought, Jalok.”
“Well fought, Cazak.”
We bumped fists, and then I noticed a sharp pain in my back. Turning my head, I could just make out a shard of metal stuck between two scales on my shoulder blade.
“Damn it.” I turned around and present my back to Cazak. “Yank this out, will you?”
“Sure thing.” He took hold of the shard, and I clamped down on a scream as he gave it a hard yank.
Cazak staggered back, and I straightened up, back in flaming agony.
“Did you get it?”
“Not all of it.” He showed me the bloody piece of shrapnel. “Part of it is stuck up under the bone. You're going to need someone to cut it out, cousin.”
“Great.” I moved my arm about carefully to test his hypothesis, and was rewarded by an intense pain. “Damn. Just don't tell Sk'lar or he'll send me off to the quacks before I get a chance to bust more heads.”
“Don't tell me what?”
Gritting my teeth, I turned around to stare into the jet black features of the leader of Team Three.
“Jalok's been injured, sir,”
“Thanks, Cazak.”
“Hmm.” Sk'lar assessed the wound on my back. “That's pretty deep. Report to the medical center, soldier.”
“But Sk'lar--”
“That's an order. I'll expect clearance from a medical professional before you can return to duty.”
“Yes, sir.” Shooting Cazak a withering glare, I stalked off toward the medical transport hovercraft.
The technicians slapped a bandage on to stop the constant seep of blood and directed me to climb into the back. I just happened to wind up sitting next to one of the men I'd injured during the riot.
“Oh no, not him. Get him away from me, get him away--”
“Boo.”
The man wet himself, which, while quite funny in the moment, made the ride to the medical center rather unpleasant.
Even the EMTs, used to various gushing bodily fluids, were bitching about the smell.
It was still funny.
Because my condition wasn’t life threatening, I got sent to what amounted to the rear of the line. Once the triage nurse assessed me, she decided with her vast medical knowledge of my species that the shrapnel sat dangerously close to an artery.
Thus, I ended up being ordered to sit in a bed holding a bandage in place with one hand while I awaited a surgeon.
“That looks painful.”
Turning to my left, I found that my day had gotten even worse.
Or better.
The rush of emotions was confusing, uneasy.
Sitting in the bed next to mine, her leg bandaged heavily, was the strawberry blonde human woman who nearly got me killed with her screaming and squirming.
Maybe she’d let me take her out later. There was something compelling about her, despite how she argued with everything I said.
“It's nothing for a Skotan warrior.” I attempted to shrug, but that drove the shrapnel in deeper and I couldn’t hold in a wince.
“Well, 'nothing' looks pretty painful. Don't worry, those painkillers they're feeding into your arm should kick in soon. Myself, I'm experiencing the most amazing display of vibrating blue abstract shapes in my peripheral vision.”
“Sounds like a personal problem,” I tried to joke. I wasn’t good at this. Whatever this was.
I turned my head away and tried to talk to the attending physicians so I wouldn’t have to speak to her. However, they were called away on an emergency and left me alone with the woman and these uncertain…feelings.
“I got hurt too. That riot was just insane. One second, it's loud but contained, and the next boom. People running and fighting everywhere.”
“Bah. It's nothing compared to the chaos of a battlefield against real soldiers. That untrained mob went down without much of a fight.”
“Managed to get you pretty good, though.”
My scales popped out and I gave her a good, low growl.
“That's a cute trick.” Cute? “Hey, don't feel bad. I saw you fighting in that alley. You were amazing, like doing red raptor spinning ju jitsu. It was incredible.”
She was baffling…but she wasn’t wrong. I really did crack some heads during that brawl.
“All Skotan must learn the arts of unarmed combat. I was the champion of my age group seven times.”
“That's cool. I'm not much for fighting. I'm a scientist.”
“Really?” I asked, grateful for a small lead in the conversation. “I don't suppose you study weaponry or munitions?”
“No, my specialty is environmental sciences.”
Oh. Nothing I knew anything about, then.
She continued. “But lately, I've been working with the Puppet Master. Did you know he's as old as the planet? A minute to him is probably a thousand years to us.”
Now she did have my attention.
Like just about everyone dwelling on this planet, I had a lot of curiosity about the Puppet Master. The idea of a hyper intelligent, gigantic plant being the literal core of the planet was very relevant information to anyone who lives here.
“Does it—does it speak to you? In words?”
“Well, yes. I suppose it does, in a way.”
“It speaks your human tongue?”
“It speaks telepathically, so I think I hear it in my own tongue because that's how my mind interprets it. If he spoke to you, you might hear it in Skotan.”
“Hmm.” That was interesting.
Skrell. She was interesting.
“I'm Dottie, by the way. Well, Doctor Dorothy Bellin but don't call me Dorothy. Only my Mom gets away with that sin, and only because I can’t seem to stop her.”
She thrust out her hand for the human ritual of shaking, but I grimaced and held my shoulder.
“I have this—that is, this thing is--”
“Oh, right, sorry.” She winced in sympathy and retracted her hand. “What's your name?”
“Jalok, son of Kronuz.”
“Well, it's nice to meet you, Jalok. I guess.”