Alien Avatar: An Alien Sci-Fi Romance (15 page)

“Where does it go?” Naeesha asked.

“I don’t know. This is as far as I’ve gone.”

She looked at Marko, looked at the other Halians, and looked into the darkness.

“Well?” she asked.

“Well what?”

“Are we going to find out, or what?”

That had been Marko’s plan. The tunnel was big. Even if it didn’t go anywhere, it could fit the entire tribe. They’d be underground. Safe. Maybe even from Alderoccan bombs, if it came to that.

And if they
did
go somewhere, it could mean everything. The tunnels looked a lot like the one that they’d been through at the Dynasty compound. That fact made him equal parts nervous and hopeful.

Hopeful because there was a chance that the tunnels could take them straight to the compound. His memory was fuzzy, but he thought that the team that scouted the compound nearly thirty years ago reported a complex network of underground tunnels that they were unable to explore completely. He couldn’t imagine why they would stretch as far as two hundred miles out, but then, nobody had ever been sure of what Dynasty was doing in the compound, so there was no ruling this out as a possibility.

Of course, there was a real danger that the tunnels would take them several miles and lead nowhere. They could wind up setting their journey back by days, even weeks.

But the thing that really scared him were the flashbacks to the last time he’d been in tunnels like this. It was the same shape, the same dimensions. There was the same crushing feeling of being surrounded by stone and soil. There was the same sense of the unknown stretching ahead of him, and this time, it was behind him too.

He didn’t like it, not one bit.

On the flip side, the risk was worth taking. They could move a lot faster through the tunnels than they could through the jungle, and they’d be a lot safer. Unless, of course, the military managed to pin them down inside. There would be no escape. No chance of survival.

He wondered if it would be any better above ground.

It still seemed like the tunnels were their best shot, for now, at least. But the decision wouldn’t be up to him or Rakkan or Jintak. They would have to go back to the tribe and take the issue to the circles. And the sooner, the better. If the tribe wanted to take to the tunnels, they would be wise to do so as soon as possible. Every minute that they were above ground was a minute that they were exposed and vulnerable.

“What do you think?” Naeesha asked.

“I don’t like it,” he said. “But it might just be the lesser of two evils.”

“That’s how I feel,” Naeesha said. “What do you think the Halians will choose?”

“We won’t know until we ask them.”

The small exploratory team decided to take a quick look down the both sides of the tunnel to try and get a little more information. He and Naeesha decided to explore headed north, away from the compound. Rakkan went south.

They planned on taking fifteen minutes. That way they’d be back at the camp in less than an hour. They could go straight to the circles, eat, make a decision, and be back underground as soon as possible. At least, if that’s what the tribe decided.

There were no immediate clues waiting for them as they went down the tunnel. The darkness seemed to stretch infinitely forward in front of them. The walls were bare, unmarked, and unbroken. Aside from a little dirt, water, and foliage that must have come in through the hole behind them, the tunnels were immaculate.

They smelled of old, stale dust, with just a hint of mildew. Not exactly pleasant, but a fair deal better than some of the barracks that Marko had stayed in during his time in the military.

He and Naeesha kept moving forward. He counted his paces to mark the time, two steps to a second, one hundred and twenty steps to a minute. One thousand, eight hundred steps total. Then they’d turn around, walk back, and go back to camp to report their findings.

After twelve-hundred steps, he and Naeesha still had nothing to report. They continued down the tunnel as though though they were out on a casual stroll. Naeesha kept quiet. She knew that Marko wasn’t the most illustrious counter in the world, as she often reminded him. Anyway, she didn’t want to do the job so she didn’t make it any harder for him.

Their stroll came to a sudden stop when a faint and unidentifiable outline appeared against the wall of the tunnel.

“What do you think it is?” Naeesha asked.

“I think it’s creepy.”

She gave him a look. He didn’t even need to see her to know it. He could just feel it. Braver than he ever was, she started down the hall, her light fixed on the crumpled shape. He could tell that she was still afraid. Her footsteps were slow and cautious. She assumed the low, hunched posture of someone who was ready to fly or fight, depending on what the situation called for. He followed beside her - well, beside her her and ever so slightly behind - and squinted as he tried to make the shape.

The light glinted off something metallic. He recognized it as the brace of a plasma rifle. With that clue, he made out the shape of an Alderoccan combat helmet, and beneath it, the emaciated face of a Watcher.

“Fuck,” Naeesha whispered as she kept moving towards it.

The soldier had been dead for a long time. They’d been spared by the jungle’s scavengers, and looked to be in good condition except for the fact that they looked like a dehydrated flank steak.

The body was sitting upright against the wall. Their rifle was laid across their lap. It looked almost like they were taking a nap, or waiting around for orders. As they drew closer, he saw that there was a little more to the soldier’s situation than that.

“Where’s his arm?” Naeesha asked.

“Not where it’s supposed to be.”

He felt the glare again.

“What the hell is he doing down here?”

Marko didn’t have an answer to that question. He ran his light over the soldier’s desiccated body and saw some more clues as to his fate. There were dark patches of dried black blood, barely noticeable on the soldier’s camouflage fatigues. His uniform was torn open in a number of places. There was no saying what had done it, but whatever it was had been very sharp, very fast, or both.

There was a dried pool of blood around the soldier, and Marko followed it down the hallway. It disappeared into the darkness, and he and Naeesha traded a nod and went after it.

Their beams flitted around the hallway, looking for clues or warnings, any sign as to what fate had befallen the unfortunate soul. Something flashed in the darkness. They stepped closer, the beams of their lights trembling.

It was a door. A heavy metal blast door, locked shut. The trail of blood disappeared behind it. They stood for a moment, looking at it, saying nothing.

“Well,” Marko said, breaking the tense silence. “Whatever got him, it’s on the other side of that door.”

“Does that make you feel any better?”

“Not really.”

“Why do you think there’s a door all the way down here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s a compartmentalization thing. They’ve got the tunnels set up so that they can lock down individual sections to contain a threat.”

If that was true, then there would be more doors. And Marko didn’t know if they’d be able to open them. If that was the case, hopefully they’d find out sooner rather than later. But that was getting ahead of themselves, and this new development in the mystery of the tunnel wasn’t likely to encourage anybody to come down here and take shelter.

Naeesha sat at the edge of the camp, waiting. She couldn’t stand the tension of sitting in the circles, not being able to understand what was being said. She felt more useful sitting here, standing guard.

The Halians were not big on guards or patrols. They figured that those activities added up to more wasted life than the threat of violence posed. Naeesha thought about the number of hours she’d spent standing guard, and she figured they might have been on to something.

Still, it made her feel better, just knowing that somebody was watching.

A branch snapped behind her and she swiveled around to see Marko heading towards her.

“It looks like we’re going down. Won’t know for sure until after dinner, but right now almost everybody thinks the tunnels are the safest bet.”

“Good. I guess.”

“Yea, I don’t know either.”

“At least we won’t have to hack apart another twenty miles of jungle,” she said hopefully.

Marko laughed.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go get some dinner.”

They ate well. Rakka’s tribe had good food, and more of it than they could carry. They’d scavenged and hunted while they moved from place to place, moving like a swarm through the forest instead of following a trail. It was riskier, but the benefits were sitting right in front of them.

Kiran came over and sat with Naeesha and Marko, and while it filled her heart with joy to see the child again, she was a little disappointed that she wasn’t able to have a long overdue conversation with Marko.

She said as much as she could without using any words. Marko seemed to be getting the message. And Kiran, to their credit, was a little too observant for their own good.

“Are you two in love?” they asked.

Marko and Naeesha traded a look. Marko cocked an eyebrow as if to remind her that her answer was the only one in doubt. Not that it looked like he was doubting her.

“Yea,”Naeesha said. “We are.”

“That’s cute.”

“That’s cute?” she asked. Something about having her complex and evolving relationship with Marko described as ‘cute’ by a four year old was, well, humbling to say the least.

“Yea,” Kiran said. “You two are perfect for each other.”

Naeesha wanted to tell them that it wasn’t that simple, but she stopped and thought.
Maybe it was.
She smiled at Kiran and shifted her focus on her dinner. She didn’t have to look up to know that Marko was sitting across the table with a big, dumb grin on his face.

***

              Dinner only seemed to reassure the tribe’s decision to take their journey underground. The dangers were well understood. Marko ensured her that he’d made every case he could for the threats that could have been lurking beneath the ground.

But every one of the Halians was well acquainted with the dangers that awaited above, and they were happy to take a chance. The way that Marko described it, they were just as worried for Alderoc as the were for themselves. Nobody doubted that an Alderoccan attack on the tribe would result in more Wild Ones.

Naeesha wondered what would happen if the soldiers caught the tribe in the tunnel. There would be nowhere to go once the shooting started. All that fear and hatred and anger would be trapped, condensed. Purified. She wondered what the consequences of that might be. But she trusted that the Halians knew themselves, and had taken that possibility into account.

Not that it mattered anyway. Dead was dead. What did she care happened after that?

They agreed to travel with a similar policy as the days before. A small party would scout ahead of the group, staying a couple miles in front, along with a trailing team who would watch from behind. That way if they did run into trouble, people could at least get a head start on running away from it.

The plan was to move as soon as possible. That meant that Naeesha and Marko were going to head out as soon as they finished dinner to get a head start on the rest of the tribe.

They finished eating, packed their bags, and hit the trail.

Moving through the jungle at night was not a pleasant experience. It might have been even more unnerving than going through the tunnels. At least in the tunnels, the danger could only come from one direction. Out here, the darkness was as confining as the concrete walls were below, with the express difference that bad things could move through the darkness far easier than they could stone.

When the made it back to the pit and moved underground, she was relieved. But it was an empty relief. The release of one fear only made room for another. There was still something awful behind them, and ahead of them was the unknown. She wasn’t sure which was worse.

They didn’t waste any time on ceremony. It was straight underground and due south. Rakkan and his group had walked fifteen minutes down the tunnel, just like she and Marko had, and hadn’t reported anything, not even a door.

Naeesha figured they had at least fifteen minutes before things got interesting.

“So what do you think is down there? And you aren't allowed to say that you don’t know. You have to guess something?”

Marko turned up an eyebrow to her.

“I think there’s going to be a mountain of candy, and a river of whisky, and fruit cups that grow from trees,” Marko said.

“Well, I think there’s going to be a mountain of whiskey, a river of whiskey, and little tiny bottles of whiskey that grow from trees.”

Marko laughed.

“How would a mountain of whiskey work, exactly?”

“Shh. You’re ruining the moment.”

“Ok, seriously though.”

“You first.”

“I think that the tunnel will link up to the Dynasty compound. I think we’ll find the portal. I think we’ll go through and find Hala.”

Naeesha looked over at him, his face just barely illuminated by the soft reflecting glow of the flashlights.

“That’s not fair,” she said. “Now if I say anything else I’m the pessimistic asshole.”

“Well, only if you don’t say that we’ll find barrels of whiskey.”

“Ok, ok. I have a good one.”

Marko smiled at her.

“Let’s hear it.”

“I think we’re going to find the future. For the Watchers of this world. For the Halians. And for us.”

“Ok,” Marko said. “You win.”