Текст книги "The Alien’s Bond"

Автор книги: Kira Quinn

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

At sunup a loud clang snapped Darla from her fitful sleep. She’d managed to drift off eventually, but the sparse cushioning on her bunk bed had proven barely enough to spare her from the hard metal beneath it, making for one hell of an uncomfortable night.

But it had been a hard, long day, and when she did finally succumb to slumber’s warm embrace her body welcomed the chance to repair itself in preparation of whatever lay ahead no matter how unpleasant the mattress might be.

“Get up!” a brusque voice shouted as the metal door slammed open. “You know the drill. No slacking.”

A pair of guards stepped in behind him and dropped off several large buckets of some sort of slop then headed back outside. Darla caught a whiff and crinkled her nose. Shalia couldn’t help but chuckle at the newcomer’s reaction.

“Yeah, it’s not exactly what I would call tasty, but at least it’s food. Eat what you can while you can. It feels like it’s going to be a warm day.”

The women gathered up the bowls they had washed and stacked from their meal the night before and handed them out. Unlike what one might expect of prisoners, the group was respectful of one another, each waiting her turn without shoving or jostling. They were all in the same boat, and if they didn’t support one another, they had nothing.

The food appeared to be a simple puree of native vegetables. Unseasoned and barely cooked, but quite edible in spite of the smell.

“No solids, I take it?” Darla asked.

“On occasion they may throw in some imperfect vegetables that they don’t feel are up to export standards for their superiors, but no, usually this is it.”

“And no protein to speak of,” Darla noted.

“Actually, I mentioned the same thing when I got here, but I was informed by one of the old-timers that several of the plants they grow here are actually quite protein rich. It’s why several races are able to be herbivores and still grow as muscular as the omnivores.”

“If only we had that sort of thing back home, right?”

Shalia nodded. “Our world would certainly be a better one if we could reduce livestock farming even a little bit. But that is not our concern now. Now we must focus on the task at hand.”

“Which is?”

“Do what we must to survive, and keep our mouths shut and eyes to the ground.”

When the group headed out to the field shortly thereafter, Darla took that advice to heart. Not once did she meet the gaze of their overseers as they were marched out into the fields they would be working that day. The plants were growing in neat rows with enough space to easily walk between them. Different crops were separated, just like they did back on Earth. Some things were universal, it seemed.

Upon arrival each was handed a woven basket with a long strap to hang it around their neck and sent out to begin their harvest.

“Who are they?” she asked of the other group of women working nearby.

“Don’t know, exactly. I’ve seen them a few times. They occasionally work us near each other, but they don’t blend the work teams that I’ve seen. Now, follow me. You’re lucky. The plant they have us working with today is actually pretty easy to harvest. I forget what they call it, but the important thing is there’s no crouching and bending. Most of it is easy to reach.”

“You’re saying everything here is hand-picked?”

“Yes.”

Darla shook her head. “We’re dealing with people who travel in actual spaceships, and you’re telling me they don’t have machines to do this? I mean, hell, back home we can barely get into space, and we still have harvesters.”

“And migrant labor working for a pittance,” Shalia noted.

“Well, yeah. But the point is we’re a thousand times less technologically advanced as the Dohrags, so what’s their excuse?”

“Sadism, maybe? I don’t know. But I do know we have a job to do, and we’d better get to it.”

With a resigned sigh Darla began picking the crop as Shalia showed her. It was a vegetable that grew among thick, dark green and slightly prickly leaves. The harvest was deep orange in color, and similar in size to a zucchini or cucumber, but there were large bumps all over.

The only way to tell if they were ripe was by the oozing of a sticky sap from the bumps when touched. Too much ooze meant it was overripe and should be discarded. No ooze and it wasn’t ready. Their task was to find all the ones in the Goldilocks Zone. Not too ripe, not under ripe, but just right.

An older woman with blue skin so dark it had looked almost black inside the dim light of the bunkhouse moved closer to the pair, picking as she approached to avoid attention.

“I heard you asking about the harvest,” she said. “I have been here a long while now, and I have learned the Dohrags stationed at this world are nothing more than a small supply outpost. They just happen to think rather highly of themselves, but I believe they are considered a lower tier among their people.”

“You’re sure about that?” Darla asked.

“Dear, I have been here many cycles. One hears many things when they become regarded as part of the scenery.”

Darla mulled that over. It was akin to how she’d been treated when she worked as a waitress. Unless you were actively engaged in taking an order, people acted as if you weren’t there. And oh, the things she’d heard.

“If that’s true, then we’re being held by a bunch of glorified farm workers with oversized egos. Hell, they’re probably passing off what’s supposed to be their work onto us when the bosses aren’t looking.”

“That I cannot say. But to address your other query, no, they do not possess any farming technology that I have ever seen. Just their weapons, some basic equipment for the compound, and the shuttle flying back and forth to the orbiting workstation.”

“It’s not a ship?”

“No. More of a distribution facility. Ships do come to resupply in orbit, but those would be transport haulers, not war ships.”

“Do you know how often they come?”

“No, they have never spoken of that within earshot.”

Darla’s mind was racing. Here she had believed they were dealing with a crack squad of commandos on detachment from their battle cruiser in orbit when the reality was these were nothing more than logistics grunts who had aggrandized their roles to the extreme. And if there really was no war ship orbiting above, how many Dohrags were actually here?

“Are you sure there aren’t any real commando types?” Darla asked.

“I do not know for certain, but not that I know of. Just a group of workers and their overseer.”

“And up on the station?”

“The rest of their ranks and the commander.”

“No one else?”

The woman thought a moment, a dark shadow flashing across her gaze. “Captives have been taken from time to time. They said they would be shipped out to work other planets, but we all know that is not always the case. What exactly happened to them no one can be sure, but there is a possibility some prisoners are still up on the supply station.”

A crackling weapon blast hit the ground beside them, spraying up dirt.

“No talking!” the Dohrag guard shouted. “Get back to work!”

The women shared the briefest of glances then set to it, not wanting to anger the man any further. It was going to be a long day, that was for sure, but as they worked, Darla’s mind drifted elsewhere.

I hope Heydar is okay.

Across the camp, her alien lover was indeed okay, though shirtless and drenched in sweat. The guard crew had tasked him with lifting massive containers of produce and loading them onto a transport vehicle to prep for the next shuttle’s arrival.

Before that, the Dohrags had forced him to push a farming plow like an animal, even though it had a perfectly functional power supply. His powerful limbs had managed to find the strength to accomplish the task, but only just.

But this wasn’t about them needing him to do the work. At least, not all of it. This was about tormenting the new prisoner until he dropped. It was all a game to his captors, and one of their favorites, but so far Heydar had kept up with their ever-increasing challenges.

His runes, while appearing more or less the same as those possessed by the men guarding him, had one thing about them different from the others. The pigment he had received to touch up and shade them over the years had been from a different variety of plant. Rare. Strong. And, fortunately for him, undetectable when mixed with the regular inks.

Had the Dohrags realized just how powerful their captive actually was, they might have put him down then and there just to avoid the slightest chance of an incident. As it was, they were simply running him all over the compound as a beast of burden, carrying heavy loads with little respite.

Heydar averted his eyes and kept his mouth shut, quietly doing as they directed him, carrying out the tasks as slowly as he could without drawing suspicion. He was not as tired as he made it seem, and after making a show of needing to catch his breath from exhaustion a few times, the guards began to think of him as a lesser man.

It was exactly what he wanted. With their caution waning around him, so too did their lips loosen. They didn’t talk about much that would be of use to him, but that wasn’t his main goal. The important thing was that in their attempts to wear him down, making him carry such heavy loads all across the compound, they were inadvertently providing him with the next best thing to a guided tour. And they were beginning to underestimate him.

Heydar grunted and strained, looking entirely focused on the task at hand, when in reality he was taking careful mental note of everything he saw. Every troop, every storage point, every weapons depot, and every potential weak point.

By the time the afternoon break rolled around he had a near complete map of the entire Dohrag compound in his head.

“Eat,” the guard said, throwing him a few unwashed vegetables with a cruel laugh.

Glistening with sweat from the sun’s relentless heat, his muscles fully pumped from his labors, Heydar brushed them off and ate. His body readily absorbed the nutrients with joy, trying to replenish itself enough for the second half of the day’s work. He would be okay, for the time being. How many days of this he could maintain, however, was another question entirely.

He felt eyes on him. Not close, but near enough. Movement across the field caught his peripheral vision and he turned his head. Darla was staring at him as she picked some sort of plant. A surge of relief flooded his body knowing she was okay. The look in her eyes told him she felt the same way.

She felt a little more, actually, despite the less-than-ideal situation. Seeing him like that, shirtless, muscles swollen from work, his body shining and slick with sweat, was enough to give Darla a little tingle between her legs in spite of herself.

As if by mutual agreement they broke their stare and turned back to the day’s tasks, but now with a little happiness in their gut. Something to look forward to. If they survived.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

It went on like that for three days. Three days that felt like an eternity of manual labor, leering stares, and restless slumber. Even with the runes Heydar had so carefully drilled into her to support her body in this stressful time, Darla was nevertheless utterly wiped out by the end of each day.

But come morning, the power focusing pigment that was now part of her had done its miraculous work, and she woke restored and ready for another round of hard labor.

As for the pigment and her runes, she had been so busy the first couple of days that she hadn’t even noticed the new lines and patterns the ink was making on her body of its own accord. It had formed new runes entirely without direction, and she had no idea what they meant.

With Heydar segregated away from the women, she couldn’t ask for his expert take on what they were. Nor could she touch his muscular body—something she found herself longing for even as her exhaustion washed over her from head to toe. One thing was certain; no matter how tired she was, in that regard her body was primed and ready for him, almost aching with need in spite of herself.

As she bathed away the dirt and sweat of her hard labor at the end of the third day, Darla felt the stare of one of the women in their work group before she even saw her looking at her. The woman was one of the quiet ones she hadn’t connected with. Wiry, with elongated digits, dark purple skin, and coarse black hair. She was middle-aged, or at least Darla thought so. It was hard to tell with alien races, and for all she knew this woman’s lifespan could stretch out centuries rather than decades.

What she did know was she had taken an interest in the newcomer. Being naked around other women had never really bothered Darla, especially not in a locker room shower type situation, but the unmasked intensity of the woman’s stare was becoming rather unsettling.

“Uh, can I help you?” she finally asked as diplomatically as she could manage.

The woman took that as an invitation to come closer. Far too close for Darla’s taste. She reached out and touched the human’s fresh tattoos, sliding her fingers along the lines, tracing them to their interconnecting patterns. Darla’s skin tingled with goosebumps, but at least the incessant itch had finally completely gone away.

“These are unlike any runes I have ever seen,” the woman said. “Where did you get them? Who is the artist?”

Darla looked at the markings the woman was speaking about and noticed something strange. These weren’t the now-familiar runes Heydar had tattooed onto her. These were something new. Something different. The patterns had a decidedly unique flow to their lines, and rather than accenting a darker hued pigment, the powerful white ink had taken on the primary role. And it was faintly glowing under the woman’s touch.

That alone was noteworthy, but the most shocking thing was these designs were not drawn by any Skrizzit. Somehow, they had formed completely on their own.

“There was no artist,” she finally replied. “These ones just sort of showed up.”

“Showed up?” the woman repeated, her shock clear. “That is not possible.”

“Hey, unless one of you inked me in my sleep, it looks like the pigments kind of did their own thing here. I guess it’s still settling in. But that’s not totally weird, is it? I mean, the ink does move around sometimes. I’ve seen it on other people.”

“It lives within us, yes, but never like this.”

“Let me see those,” Shalia said, joining the pair. She poked and pulled on Darla’s skin, examining her closely. “Were you serious about these forming on their own?”

“Why would I lie?”

“It’s just weird, is all.”

“Pretty much everything that’s happened in the last few weeks is weird, so you’ll have to give me a little slack here.”

Shalia chuckled. “Okay, that’s a fair point.”

The door to the bunkhouse flew open with a crash and three Dohrag guards filed in. The women, many still in a state of undress, covered themselves as best they could, but the Dohrags leered at them lustfully, regardless.

“You lot, get dressed and follow us.”

“Where are we going?” Darla asked.

“You are to have the great privilege of serving General Barzin during the evening’s display. Now, get dressed. That is, unless you wish to provide additional entertainment. I’m sure the men wouldn’t object.”

The women gathered themselves quickly, dressing in the still damp clothes they had just rinsed off and hung to dry. It seemed they would be working later than normal today, but what serving the general entailed was anyone’s guess.

Darla heard the shouts and cheers of the Dohrags well before she and the others stepped into the dining area. She hadn’t been here before as it was a prohibited area of the camp, but today things changed, though not necessarily for the better.

The troopers not on duty were gathered at the tables, eating and drinking and laughing, greatly enjoying the show being put on for them. It seemed the majority of them had taken the evening off to enjoy the spectacle, leaving their armor in their quarters, only a few actual guards toting weapons.

Darla wondered what exactly the occasion was when she saw where she had been led. She quickly took it all in and felt her stomach sink when she realized what was going on. It was worse than she’d anticipated.

A makeshift arena had been formed in the center of the tables. A fighting ring, clearly, the ground spattered with drops of blood. Fresh blood, whose provenance was made clear by the two prisoners beating one another in a bare-knuckle brawl.

It was barbaric, but then, given what she’d already seen of the Dohrags, it wasn’t much of a surprise.

“Gather trays over there,” the guard directed. “Serve the men. Their plates should never be empty and their glasses always full. You got that?”

The women nodded as one.

“Well? Get to it!”

Darla hefted up a platter of some sort of cooked meat and began making rounds, piling the steaming food on plates as she moved through the ranks while the fighters continued to pummel one another until one finally fell unconscious to the ground. The moderately inebriated Dohrags cheered and yelled, their money changing hands as the exhausted victor was led out to clean up while his vanquished opponent was unceremoniously dragged away.

“Do they do this a lot?” she quietly asked the four armed, green-skinned woman handing out food and drinks like a multi-tasker extraordinaire.

“No. They are violent people, but they generally do not want to damage the merchandise. Perhaps their men captured more males recently and they can afford losing a few to injury. I really don’t know.”

“No talking!” the man at the seat nearest them growled. “Do your jobs and get out of the way. The new one is up, and I have coin riding on him.”

Darla cowered and backed away. “Of course. Apologies, sir.” But something he had said caught her attention. The new one was fighting, and if this brute was willing to bet on a newcomer, she had a pretty good idea who would be entering the ring next.

Heydar strode into the crowd to hoots and cheers, along with a fair amount of insults from those betting against him. He was shirtless and already glistening with sweat even as the evening air had dropped to a cooler temperature. Clearly, they had warmed him up before his match, and his muscles had responded, rippling beneath his skin like serpents ready to strike.

Darla felt the dull ache between her legs return at the sight of his pulsating runes slowly moving across his body. He locked eyes with her, quickly scanning her, assessing her status. She was uninjured, at least for now, but his concern was clear.

Darla wanted to run to him, to talk to him, but all she could do was watch helplessly. But even that moment of revelry was cut short when his opponent, a hulking beast of an alien with boulder-like shoulders and thick, meaty hands, was led into the arena to the joy of his supporters.

His skin was deep red, almost like brick, and his hair was jet black, just like his eyes. He held his arms up wide, reveling in the cheers. Clearly, he had been through this more than once before and was a crowd favorite. And by the look of him, Heydar would have his work cut out for him.

He sized up the enormous red alien and took a nervous step back. The crowd howled with laughter. Heydar’s darting eyes seemed uneasy as they looked every which way.

The Dohrags laughed even harder, though those who had bet on him were less amused. It seemed their hopeful to defeat the champion was not quite what they’d hoped he was.

“Begin!” the general bellowed without further pomp or ceremony.

The red menace lunged forward, sending Heydar scurrying away, slamming into a table before redirecting to the other side of the ring.

“Don’t run! Fight, you coward!” the man whose drink he’d just knocked over yelled.

“Fight! Fight! Fight!” the crowd chimed in.

Heydar was having none of that, running away as best he could, but he slipped on a patch of blood, and his opponent seized the opportunity, grabbing him by the arm and throwing him across the ring.

The crowd cheered but Heydar rolled up to his feet unharmed. That is, until the fist already heading his way connected with his ribs, followed by another to the jaw. Somehow, he stayed on his feet, but only just. He fell onto another table, wild-eyed as he looked at the Dohrags cheering his eventual defeat. It was clear to all the outcome was all but a given.

Darla didn’t want to watch, but she couldn’t look away as he absorbed blow after blow, falling into tables, knocking over dishes and heavy mugs as he tried to scramble away from his attacker.

Heydar took a hard shot to the jaw, driving him to his knees, and the crowd cheered. What they didn’t see, however, was the smile creasing his lips. Darla did, but she had no idea what it could possibly mean.

She found out soon enough.

Heydar’s powerful legs pistoned him up from the ground, his massive fist catching his adversary under the chin, throwing his head back with a sickening crack and driving him onto the general’s table, unconscious, if not dead.

Heydar didn’t hesitate.

In a flash, moving much, much faster than anyone would have thought a man his size could move, he was on top of the fallen alien, but while the Dohrag cheered him on assuming he was going to deliver the coup de grace, Heydar had other plans in mind.

Before he could react, the Dohrag at the table and his comrade beside him, suddenly found their throats slit, their blood gushing out in a torrent. Heydar was in motion flinging the knife into the eye of the nearest armed guard as he took down two more spectators then disarming and disabling the other guards in the room before they could even react.

It was a stunning whirlwind of violence, but so long as no weapons were fired, any who heard the commotion would just assume it was the evening’s fights going on as usual. And only the guards were carrying guns. And most were bleeding out on the floor.

A moment later all of them would be.

Heydar increased his speed, knives flying, taken from the tables and belts of the fallen, each of them finding its target and ensuring no one would get off a shot.

Darla was stunned as the realization set in. Heydar hadn’t been wide-eyed and scared. He had been assessing every last Dohrag in the joint, sizing them up, noting their weapons and levels of inebriation, forming a plan of attack, all while pretending to be losing to his sizeable adversary.

The general reacted once his personal guards had fallen, grabbing the nearest person he could lay hands on to act as a human shield. In this case, a literal human shield, as Darla wound up in his clutches.

“Stay back! Don’t even think of—”

Heydar snatched up a heavy mug and whipped it hard across the arena without hesitation. It hit the general’s head hard enough for Darla to hear a sickening crack. The general went limp, hitting the deck, unconscious or worse. Heydar rushed to her side.

“Are you harmed?” he asked, his hands resting on her shoulders, concern bright in his eyes, along with something even more visceral.

“I’m fine,” she said, but Heydar heard the tone in her voice.

Darla was okay, but she was pissed.

He nodded and hurried to finish off the guards, just in case they had any hopes of rising. He then returned to her and handed her one of their guns.

“You and the other women remain here. Bind the ones who still draw breath but are merely unconscious. Be sure to gag them.”

The quiet woman with deep green hair and velvety brown skin kicked the nearest Dohrag with impressive force for someone her size. “What about the wounded?” she asked, murder in her eyes.

Heydar sized her up in a glance and gave a sympathetic nod. He knew the Dohrag ways.

“Do with them as you please,” he replied, gathering up multiple bladed weapons and a Dohrag rifle. “I will handle the rest.”

With that he quietly stepped out into the night, and the Dohrag would be paying the ultimate price.

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