Alien Avatar: An Alien Sci-Fi Romance (20 page)

              Time did not move for Marko on that day. Between the excitement of finally reaching the compound and the worry of not knowing where Naeesha was, every passing minute became an hour. By the time the suns were at their highest point, he’d already lived and died a thousand times, just hoping to see their destination appear through the trees.

As they finally reached the last hours of their journey, the group came to a stop. Marko nearly lost his mind. The reason for the delay was a good one. It gave them time to feed everybody, to organize the group, and for the warriors to prepare their weapons.

There was no telling what they were about to walk into, and it was wise to be prepared. But still, Marko could feel his heart pulling in his chest, desperately yearning to press on. He tried to still it, but the attempt was futile. The fact that there was nothing for him to do to help only made things worse. All he could do was wait.

He paced the trail ahead of the group, practically wearing a rut into the trail.

When Rakkan stepped out of the crowd and put a comforting hand on his shoulder, it nearly scared the shit out of him.

“You’re nervous,” his Halian friend said.

“What gave me away?”

“We’ll find her. I promise.”

“It’s not just her.”

“And the tribe will be fine. We’ve come this far.”

“And what of Hala?”

“Who can say?”

Marko smiled. “You’re right,” he said. “We’ll be okay.”

Mercifully, the tribe started moving after just a few more minutes. Marko stayed towards the front of the procession, subconsciously trying to set the fastest pace that the group could manage. The excitement that the Halians projected was a happy one, like that of a child on their birthing day. His was that of a child going to the autoclinic for the first time.

He just wanted to get it over with.

Two agonizing hours later, a break in the dense jungle appeared and his heart jumped into his throat, beating two hundred times a minute. Although it was more overgrown than the last time he’d seen it, he recognized it instantly. The trees were taller and encroached on the clearing, giving it the illusion of being more ominous and claustrophobic than even the last time.

Rakkan gestured for the group to get low and proceed with caution. Marko stepped out with him into the forest, keeping their weapons high and moving out around the perimeter, scanning the dark woods for any lurking threat. He went right back to the last time he’d been here, doing very nearly the same thing. He was sure of the danger then, just as he was now. It was some relief knowing that he was not the only one who felt it this time.

He just wished that he had Naeesha watching his back. He always felt better knowing that she was looking out for him, just as he always felt better knowing that he could look out for her.

The jungle was still and silent. That bothered him. At the present moment, it should have been alive with animals, snarling and chirping and croaking their warnings of invaders.

There were all number of reasons why there would be no animals - or why they would be silent - but Marko didn’t like any of them. They all spelled danger, and he wanted nothing to do with it. No, he just wanted to get the tribe inside, to find the portal, and to get back to find Naeesha.

The Halian warriors filed into the clearing and took up their positions at the perimeters. Rakkan took six of his fiercest fighters and lead them into the tunnel. Marko couldn’t bear to think about going back down there and seeing the destruction that he had fled from the last time he was here.

He listened carefully to the sounds that carried up above ground. There was the clattering of concrete being tossed around. There must have been a small cave-in from when Naeesha hit the wild one with the rocket.

The clattering stopped and he surmised that the vanguard had either succeeded in clearing it, or had given up. When they did not return a moment later, he thought the best.

A sharp whistle carried out of the tunnel, and Marko held his breath, waiting for a second. It never came, and the next squad of soldiers moved to the tunnel entrance, the rest of the tribe following. Moving four abreast, he watched as a quarter-mile long train of his family disappeared into the ground. They were scared. They had every right to be.

Marko kept a sharp eye on the jungle, just waiting for something to go wrong. But it didn’t. He heard the next whistle, and slowly backed away from the trees, moving towards the tunnel entrance. He would be the last one in. The remaining twenty went down the crumbling stairway and into the darkness, and when the last soldier turned past, Marko followed them in. The tribe was still moving forward. That was a good sign.

He tried to keep his eyes forward, tried not to look at the blaster marks on the concrete walls or the strange stains or the gouges in the floor where the wild one’s claws had dug deep grooves.

The blast doors in the central chamber must still have been open, because the long snaking line of the tribe was still moving when the big room came into view. The wall across from the tunnel entrance was completely obliterated from all of the heavy weapons fire that had somehow made it past its target and struck there.

Marko didn’t dare look down from that wall. He knew that there were the bones of ten of his friends somewhere on the chamber floor, and it was all the better if he didn’t have to see them.

The big blast door was completely destroyed, much like the one they’d seen the day before. It was hanging off one hinge, folded nearly in half from the bottom corner up. Marko shook his head, unable to believe how much strength it would have taken to do such a thing.

The tribe wandered through new halls, bigger than before. There were warning signs written in Alderoccan, the sort that Marko always saw in military facilities, especially the ones that were full of things that could kill you before you knew you were in trouble.

He didn't feel great about being in the back of the group. Everyone agreed that the most pressing danger would be behind them, but it made him nervous walking into the darkness without any idea of what was ahead of him.

But the group kept moving without any sign of danger. They went down a long flight of winding stairs, dep into the ground. Marko leaned over the railing of the staircase and looked down so far that the bottom was washed out in darkness. He resisted the childlike urge to drop something and listen for the bottom, choosing instead to keep walking. He wondered what was at the bottom of the stairs, or why Dynasty had chosen to bury it so far underground.

It was nearly a half hour down to the bottom of the stairs. When Marko finally reached level ground again, he was surprised by how much cooler it was there than it had been in the jungle above.

The group passed through three more enormous blast doors, each of them smashed open like the first. A sense of awe rippled through the tribe and Marko knew that they had arrived. A chamber opened up ahead of him, completely dark. Lights began to shine around the room, exploring the vast cavernous space. He wanted to push and shove his way in to look inside and see for himself.

When he finally passed through the last door and into the space, he was instantly struck by its enormity. It must have been a hundred feet wide, twice as long, and with a ceiling nearly a hundred feet tall. The room wasn’t concrete like the rest of the facility, it was hewn out of the bedrock. It was crammed full of crates and machines and scientific equipment like he had never seen. The technology was more advanced than anything the Alderoccans had. He’d been on one of the Dynasty colony ships, and that’s what he was reminded of as he went from artifact to artifact, looking over each of them briefly before moving on to the next one.

Marko could only guess what it was all for. Much of it looked like mining and drilling equipment - the sort of things that he’d seen used to dig out the underground foundations of military outposts.

The tribe, which was currently spread out in the huge room and milling about in a constant state of awe, slowly began to move to the back of the room, as if drawn by something. Marko was unable to resist, and went with them.

He saw what had caught their attention. On the far side of the room was something completely unlike anything else. It was huge - taking up the entire wall, a hundred feet wide and a hundred feet high. A ring, made of a strange and dark metal, and covered in intricate markings.

The portal
.

A feeling of great sorrow and terrible loss hit him in the stomach. It was every bit as powerful as what he felt from the tribe when Jintak was killed. Marko couldn’t imagine what could have produced the same response now. He didn’t
want
to imagine.

Rakkan stepped out of the crowd and spoke to him in Halian, his voice full of anguish and worry.

“It’s destroyed,” was all he said.

***

              The tribe sat down and went to circle. They needed to make a decision. Marko thought that as long as they were here, they were in danger. It was better to keep moving, to get as far away from the capital as they could, and at least make it harder for the military to find and attack them.

He thought that they could hide out and that sooner or later, the Alderoccans would destroy themselves when they inevitably drove the rest of the Halians on the planet wild. Marko could fly out every week or so, check on the status of the capital, and keep the tribe up to date.

They would never be safe, not until the military was gone, but right now they had to figure out what they could do that would make them the safest. In his opinion, that meant running.

He just hoped that he’d have time to find Naeesha before they left. Leaving a trail for her meant leaving a trail for the military, and that wasn’t an option. They couldn’t afford to risk a thousand lives for her, even though it hurt to admit.

In listening to the members of the tribe discuss their ideas, Marko got the sense that there were three main ideas. One, his idea, was to run. Two, which was just as, if not more popular, was to stay here and to try and repair the portal. Three was to march on the capital and to try and wipe it out. Marko was shocked that the idea had as many supporters as it did. It was such an unHalian thing to do, but he supposed that as long as this conflict came down to us versus them, it might as well be them. At least, he could understand why some people felt that way.

Conversation went around the circles, people weighing their options, discussing the possibilities, and considering the ramifications of each choice. There was little comfort in the discussion. So much was unknown that it was impossible for anybody to make a decision that they felt comfortable with.

Marko decided that he didn’t much care what they chose to do, the odds were just as good or bad one way as they were another. So many members of the tribe seemed to share his sentiment that it seemed like an official decision would never be reached. Nobody had strong enough opinions to make a decision.

“I propose another option,” came a voice from the other side of the room.”

Their accent was, well, bad. Even to Marko’s ears it was stilted and awkward, the pronunciation not quite right. The entire room turned around to look at the speaker.

It was a Watcher. Specifically, the commander of the air base that the tribe had destroyed. And he was surrounded by heavily armed and armored Watcher commandos, already shifted into their combat forms. But that didn’t bother Marko. No. There was only one part of the scene that sent chills up his spine and rage to his cheeks.

They had Naeesha.

The military made their approach while the tribe was circled, discussing their plans. They snuck in as insects, moving behind Naeesha with the threat that if she made a noise, they would kill her on sight. She opted to take their threat seriously - alerting the tribe now wouldn’t do anything to help them. The military’s plan, the best she could figure it, was to isolate the Halians one by one and take them to the holding cells that they’d passed in the tunnel. This was the only way to destroy the tribe without starting a fight that the Watchers could not win.

She’d picked up little bits of their strategy, watching the military unit operate as they waited in the hills around the compound, waiting for the Halians to walk inside. It wasn’t until Marko had long disappeared that they moved. They were cautious to make sure that the tribe was deep underground before there was any chance of a fight.

It made sense. If they did that, they could at least contain the threat of one of the Halians going wild. A small detachment was carrying high explosives into the tunnels behind her right now. There was enough power in those bombs to vaporize anything in the tunnels and bring the entire compound down in a rubble pile. It was unlikely that even a completely enraged wild one would be able to free themselves from thousands of tons of rubble.

Naeesha didn’t see a lot of room for hope. She thought that maybe the military would give the Halians a chance to go through the portal. It turned out that they’d deliberately sabotaged the device to make sure there was no escape for the tribe.

Second was that the Halians would have seen the attack coming and set up an ambush for the Watchers. Naeesha knew that wasn’t going to happen as soon as she was close enough to feel their emotions. They were scared and confused and hopeless. Not exactly the feelings of a strike force preparing to ambush an enemy.

Now? Her only hope was that the military forces would fuck something up
big time.
That was about the tribe’s only hope. They were in a bad position, heavily outgunned, with no options for escape. She’d never seen such a dire situation on either side of a fight.

The only thing that gave her any hope was, well, hope. That irrational, illogical, and indifferent voice in the back of her head that didn’t care how bad things were, it could still see a way through. She didn’t see what good it did her now, except to make her death a little less traumatic.

She stood in the entrance to the portal room, watching the tribe at circle, so caught up in their own affairs that nobody noticed her. Nor did they notice the two dozen Watcher commandos as they shifted back into their combat forms and readied their weapons.

It wasn’t until the commander spoke that anybody looked up.

“Listen carefully,” he said. “We’re going to let every single one of you walk out of here unharmed, but only if you cooperate. I will not tolerate even the slightest resistance from any individual in your group. Any act of defiance will be met with swift and lethal retribution. I hope I’ve made myself clear.”

The thousand eyes of the Halian tribe stared back at the commander. Only one pair looked at her.
Marko.
She could read his face, looking for a way out, looking for a solution. She saw the precise moment when he realized that there was none.

She watched helplessly as the military troops moved through the frozen Halians taking all of their weapons. Well,
almost
all of the weapons. She’d caught Marko shifting his weapon into his arm, hiding it away. Naeesha wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. Any cause that he would have to use it was almost certainly a death sentence for anyone in the compound. Still, maybe.

Although her hands were still bound in chains, she tried to give Marko all the intelligence she could pass along with hand signals. She told him about the bombs, the reinforcements in the tunnel, the heavy guns outside covering the exits. He nodded in response, and told her to hang tight, that help was coming.

She tried to believe him.

The Watcher troops piled the confiscated weapons in the corner of the room and turned their guns back on the tribe.

“We’re going to take you one at a time. Don’t move a muscle until one of our soldiers puts you in restraints and gives you orders. Anybody who so much as sneezes gets shot, no questions asked.”

Naeesha’s blood began to boil. The commander was dead serious. She’d heard him order his troops to shoot the first person who stepped out of line, even a little bit, just to show that they meant business. She crossed her fingers and closed her eyes and prayed that it would not be necessary.

One by one, the Watcher troops began to restrain and walk off with the tribal members. She watched Marko carefully, waiting for them to go to him. Waiting for something that looked like hope.

She watched as her friends and family were dragged from their people and into the darkness. It was everything she could do not to lash out. The only thing that stayed her hand was the knowledge that she would be no good as a corpse. Still, that didn’t make it any easier.

Her heart leapt as she heard the sounds of shouting from the group. A young mother, was clutching her child, sobbing. Two Watcher guards pried them apart and one carried the child off. The other dragged the mother out of the group. Naeesha held her breath, hoping that they would take her away. That she would not pay for her humanity with her life.

It looked like she was going to be okay. The guard pulled her along, limp and sobbing, but made no sign of reaching for his weapon. She looked at the woman’s face as she drew closer. The anguish written across it spoke for the entire tribe - being pulled apart one by one, separated from that upon which their lives depended.

The commander reached out and stopped the soldier dragging the wailing mother as he walked by. Naeesha did not hear what was said, but the soldier dropped the woman and turned back to the group. There was an audible gasp and a moment of immeasurable sadness from the tribe as the commander pulled out his sidearm and shot the woman dead without a moment of hesitation.

He looked up with a grin, defying anyone to respond to his cruelty.

One of the warriors did. He walked towards the commander, hands loose at his side, no trace of emotion on his face, no sign of fear in his stride. He made it three steps before the guards dropped him with plasma fire.

The tribe remained silent, crushed. Naeesha found Marko, his jaw clenched and his hands clutched into fists. Rakkan stood beside him, his hand wrapped around Marko’s arm, trying to soothe him. Nobody else stepped forward. They all resisted the urge to lash out.

But Naeesha could not. The commander turned away from the group, confident that he’d made his point and that he would have order for as long as it took to systematically dismantle the Halian people.

He was still wearing a shit-eating grin when Naeesha spat in his face.

For a split second, everything went perfectly still. Naeesha thought that time had stopped, but as she felt her heart pounding, she realized that time was not frozen, only everybody in the room, the commander included.

He raised his hand to wipe away the strands of spit covering his smug, murderous face. He traded his grin for a scowl, and lunged towards Naeesha, striking her with the back of his hand.

She twisted to the side, rolling with the blow, and came up smiling.

“Maybe you have your men carry out all of your beatings for you.”

The lines on his face deepened as his scowl intensified. He swung a wild haymaker, connecting the butt of his pistol to Naeesha’s cheek. She went down, the taste of blood in her mouth. She managed to look up and get half a laugh in before the commander’s boot connected with her chin.

Naeesha looked up to see the commander level his sidearm at her head. She was still laughing, even as she choked on her own teeth and blood. The pistol’s capacitor whined as it charged, glowing green as the commander prepared to fire.

A small voice pierced the silence. “Don’t hurt her, don’t hurt her!” Naeesha looked up to see Kiran running across the room, her arms outstretched and tears in her eyes. She saw Rakkan run after the child, trying to stop her, but it was too late.

There was a burst of light and plasma. Naeesha sat stunned and sobbing, staring numbly as what was left of Kiran drifted into the air on a cloud of vaporized matter. Rakkan was still kneeling, holding his arms out as though Kiran might rematerialize and come running to him.

She saw him look up and lock eyes on the commander, she could feel the bloodlust boiling in his veins, stronger than any hatred she’d ever felt. The commander shouted for his soldiers to fire, and another volley of green light criss-crossed the portal room.

Naeesha looked away from the blinding flash, looked back up and saw another cloud of thick, acrid smoke. It rose towards the ceiling to reveal Rakkan, still kneeling there, his robes tattered and charred, hanging from his shoulder by a single shred.

She jumped to her feet and brought her chained hands down on the commander’s head. He dropped to the ground, his pistol falling next to him. Naeesha dove for it, rolled onto her back, and squeezed a shot off at the demolitions specialist, hitting him square in the chest.

Heavy plasma fire sailed over her head towards the Watcher soldiers. She spun around and dropped two guards as they turned their rifles to the Halian tribe. She saw Rakkan charging at the enemy. Except that it wasn’t Rakkan. Not anymore. He was gone. He was wild.

Naeesha pushed herself to her feet and shuffled as fast as she could away from the exit to the room. Rakkan wouldn’t distinguish between friend or foe, not anymore. She needed to get out of his way.

She wasn’t the only one with that idea. The Watcher commander scrambled to his feet and dove away just as Rakkan spilled into the tunnel. A hail of plasma fire spilled out after him, causing the tribe to scatter for cover. Naeesha turned around to take aim at the Watcher commander, but wasn’t fast enough to stop him from knocking her weapon away, sending it sliding across the rough stone floor.

“Are you happy?” the commander taunted. “Is his what you wanted?”

She swung wildly at the commander. He ducked right and spun around, catching her in the back with a closed fist. She tumbled forward into the blaster fire, tumbling away before she was caught in the crossfire. The commander approached again, fists raised.

“Look what you did, Precept. You’ve killed everyone here. You’ve killed everyone on Alderoc. We had this threat contained, and you had to go and run your fucking mouth off.”

Naeesha charged, swinging her arms up at the commander’s stomach. He took a step back and caught her on the upswing, pushing her flat onto her back.

“Petulant,” he shouted, kicking her in the ribs as she lay stunned on the ground. “Short sighted.” More kicks. “Stupid. Fucking. Bitch.” He accented each word with the toe of his boot. On the last kick, Naeesha managed to get her hands around, and caught hs shin in the chains of her shackles. She rolled onto his other foot and pushed up off the ground, sending the commander back.

He twisted free as he fell, and was back on his feet before she could launch a counter attack.

“You brought this upon yourself, Naeesha. You killed that child. You killed everyone in this place.”

She charged again, aiming low. He caught her as she slammed into his stomach, grabbing her by the middle and flipping her up over his head. She landed hard. Pain shot through her right leg and she fell. Her arms caught behind her as she hit the ground. The commander’s back was pressed to hers, his hands reaching behind him frantically grasping at her head.

The chain had caught under his chin as she flipped over him, and was now wrapped around his neck. He kicked and gasped, flailing for something as she pulled hard, choking the life out of him.

She’d heard of Watchers dying of strangulation before. They panicked, and tried to fight with their hands instead of shifting. Until she felt the commander’s body go limp against her back, she never believed it.