Alien Avatar: An Alien Sci-Fi Romance Page 12

  It came closer, and she realized that it wasn’t one light that she was looking at, it was three. And although she could see nothing more than the three small lights, moving fast over the wastes, she knew what she was looking at.

  It was an Alderoc strike craft. She’d seen them coming and going during many night raids, and recognized the configuration of lights any day.

  She kept her eyes fixed on the horizon, and saw more lights. Dozens of them. They flew in low and fast, and every one of them settled down to the ground just on this side of the horizon.

  The military was preparing an attack, and she didn’t have to guess what their target was.

  There was no telling how far out the airbase was, but it was her guess that they wouldn’t launch their strike until dawn. If she moved fast, she might be able to make it there in time to warn the commander of the mistake that they were about to make.

  She grabbed her pack and started running.

  As it turned out, running wasn’t a very accurate description. It was more like scrambling. She was down on all fours, climbing over twisted roots and shattered trunks and struggling to free herself from grasping branches. But she moved fast. More crafts came in. There must have been one ship for every single Halian at the camp. She wondered if her camp was the only target, or if this was part of a larger operation. It didn’t matter. She had to do something about it either way.

  Of all the times that she envied the Watchers’ ability to shapeshift, she felt it now stronger than ever. Climbing over the twisted wreckage of the forest in the dark was a huge pain in the ass. Literally. There were dozens of jagged sticks every step of the journey, and even after a few minutes, Naeesha was already sore from dozens of pokes and prods and cuts and scrapes.

  But those injuries would pale in comparison to what would happen if she didn’t make it to the airbase before they launched their attack.

  She’d thought about warning the Halians, or getting Marko to help, but decided against it. The military knew that Marko was here. He was a target, and bringing him into the situation wasn’t going to make it any better. And besides, there was nothing that he could do for the Halians anyway. They were on foot, fifteen miles from any kind of cover. The Alderoccan aircraft would tear them apart, and there was no way to stop them except for a diplomatic appeal.

  Any kind of disturbance in the camp would be a signal to the military that the had to launch their strike now, and that would spell certain disaster.

  So Naeesha kept moving, frantically trying to reach the base before it was too late.

  ***

  The first sun was coming up when Naeesha breached the security line of the improvised airbase in the middle of the ruined forest. Watcher guards greeted her with raised rifles. She was too tired to raise her hands in surrender, but in her bruised and bloodied state, nobody considered her to be much of a threat.

  Her throat was so parched that she barely managed to croak her request to speak to the base commander. The fate of the Halian survivors, and possibly the continued existence of the Watcher species, hinged on her meeting with the commander going well.

  The first challenge was to make sure that it happened at all. And thankfully, that challenge went her way.

  She was escorted into a temporary housing unit and seated at a table. The guards were careful to relieve her of her bag and her pistol, but did not feel the need to restrain her. In a few short minutes, and older Watcher commander was sitting across from her with a scowl on his face.

  At least he was taking this seriously.

  “Who are you?” the commander barked.

  “My name is Matron Naeesha Haro, Retired. I’m here on special orders from Prime Commander Tariq.”

  The commander laughed.

  “And I’m here on orders from the Magical Witch of Windsor.”

  Naeesha did not acknowledge his joke.

  “This group of Halian refugees is being accompanied by another soldier on special assignment to develop diplomatic ties with the Halian people in order to secure a peaceful resolution to the conflict at hand. I implore--”

  “Peaceful resolution?” the commander shouted. “There won’t be peace until every last one of these red-skinned pricks is dead and gone.”

  “They’re our best hope for containing the Wild threat and securing livable communities outside of Alderoc.”

  The general scoffed and sneered.

  “You and the Prime Commander can do all the containing you like. I’ve got orders from the people of the capital to annihilate the Halian threat, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

  “The Halians aren’t the enemy, commander, and by attacking them, you’re only going to make the problem worse.”

  But the commander wasn’t listening. He was already steaming at the ears, his face was red and his eyes were bulging and all that he could think of or talk about was attacking the small group of tired refugees.

  “Those bastards have killed hundreds of my men. Fine young men. Dead at their hands. You want to tell me that they aren’t a threat? Tell that to those soldiers families. To their children.”

  “The Halians fought to defend themselves. If you don’t believe me, talk with the operative in their camp.”

  “Marko is a fool and a traitor and I won’t listen to a damn thing that he says,” the commander spat.

  He climbed up from his chair and went to a nearby guard to take his radio.

  “This is Commander Artak. Prepare for joint strike on enemy encampment number four two four. Wheels up in three hundred seconds.” The commander returned his radio to the guard and sat back down in front of Naeesha with a smug look on his face.

  “We’re going to ‘resolve’ this little conflict alright, and I don’t need any red-loving shitbird sneaking around on the weak-necked Prime Commander’s orders to tell me how to do it. See, I’ve got a strategy.”

  The commander scowled, jabbing his stubby finger towards the camp on the horizon.

  “Kill all the savages.”

  Chapter

  Marko woke, and was not surprised to find that Naeesha was nowhere to be found. He had hoped that maybe, maybe he’d been able to change her mind. That he’d wake up and she’d be sleeping next to him and that they could fix things.

  But it wasn’t to be.

  He went to the dining hall, heated up some of the last night’s dinner over the dying embers of the cook fire, and mourned. By the time he’d finished his gruel and coffee, his head was clear and he was ready to get to work. He cleaned up a little in the kitchen, took his time walking back to the sleeping tent, took his pack, and headed out.

  The shattered forest was a lonely place. There was no beauty, and nothing to distract him. All he could do was to focus on his task of making a trail for the Halians to follow. It wasn’t enough to distract him from the thoughts of Naeesha eating at the back of his brain.

  It was a cruel trick of the universe, giving her back to him only to take her away. In time, he could have taken the patched over hole in his heart and actually mended it. He didn’t know if he’d ever recover from having that wound ripped open like this.

  But he would try. He would find a way to persevere. It’s what he did.

  There were trees in the distance, and he kept his eyes on them as he crossed over the remnants of the once great forest beneath his feet. To him, it represented the future. Possibilities. No matter how much destruction surrounded him, there was still hope. Still something else to be created.

  He would have plenty of opportunities to do that, and plenty of obstacles to keep him busy until then.

  There just wouldn’t be time to be distracted on the way to the Dynasty compound. The forest was turning to jungle as they went south, and soon the path would be so dangerous and so difficult that it would demand all of his attention. Especially now that he was going alone.

  And once they got to the portal? Who knew. The future from that point on was unknowable. He didn’t know what they’d find on the oth
er side. He didn’t even have an idea of what Hala was like. What he’d gathered from Halian culture, he didn’t imagine it to be a terribly hospitable place, but that didn’t make any difference. It was just another set of obstacles, more challenges. He would overcome them, and he would help the Halians to carve out new lives.

  He would be busy.

  And what would he do with the new life that he made? Would he find a mate? Raise a family? Or would his tribe be his family. They already treated him like an esteemed member. They valued him. For his hard work, for his knowledge, for his dedication to their wellbeing. He could do more to prove himself. He would.

  It made him smile, imagining himself as a pillar of the tribe. He would grow old with them. Maybe become an elder. That made him happy. The idea of sitting around a campfire with old friends, watching a new generation of Halians grow up. Children who didn’t know the sorrows and sufferings of their embittered lives on Alderoc.

  It was all possible. And he could make it happen.

  The future looked brighter as he moved towards the looming forest in the distance. Just a few more miles to go. He wanted to shift into his combat form. It was better suited to moving over the twisted landscape. But it would also take more energy. Energy that was better saved for the struggles ahead. His day’s work wouldn’t be finished even once he made it to the treeline. He’d still have a few miles left, and he expected that they would be hard miles. He carried on in his natural form, climbing over the fallen trees, picking branches and saplings out of the ruination, standing them up in the mud below.

  Just keep moving. That’s what he told himself. He repeated it over and over like a mantra, just saying the words to keep his mind from wandering to more painful subjects. Thinking of the future wasn’t good for him. Unless he focused his mind, it would always try to insert Naeesha into his fantasies. That hurt too much.

  He wandered numbly towards the trees, making good time. Alone, he could move faster. He was more focused. No distractions. The suns were still low in the sky when he stopped to rest against a tree, the first live and standing tree that he’d touched in two days.

  Marko turned around to look over his trail, to see if he needed to go back and add any markers for the Halians to follow. He looked over the line of upright boughs, and at the end, just over the horizon, he saw a pillar of black smoke winding into the sky.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Naeesha watched helplessly as the Alderoccan strike crafts lifted off the ground and made their way to the Halian camp. The commander grinned as he watched his soldiers go off to seal their fates. The destruction of Alderoc and the loss of billions of lives would be on his hands. There was a chance that Alderoc could survive the Wild Ones that were already loosed, but any more would be a certain death sentence.

  She wondered if he would be smiling then.

  It wasn’t far to the camp. The ships grew smaller, and Naeesha gritted her teeth in anticipation of a flash of light as the ships launched rockets and plasma barrages at the Halians below, just now waking and starting their daily chore of tearing down their home, putting it on their backs, and wandering Alderoc in search of a new place to build their lives for a few hours.

  The flash of light came, but it was not what she had expected. It was an explosion in the sky. Something had destroyed one of the strike crafts. The commander looked, shocked and horrified. He turned to Naeesha, glaring.

  More ships launched and started flying towards the camp.

  Another ship exploded in the air.

  Naeesha strained her eyes to try and see what was happening. And then the world lit up in a net of a plasma fire. It came from all directions, from the ground up. The telltale red skin and brightly colored robes of Halian warriors appeared all around. Aircraft began to fall out of the sky all around as the plasma fire converged on the lightly armored ships.

  She didn’t understand. There were only a few soldiers with their group, and even fewer weapons. She could see at least fifty now, plus however many were in the camp.

  Shouts came from nearby. She saw the Watcher guards dropping their weapons, and then a squad of Halians advancing from the perimeter of the airbase. They had the base surrounded, and the Watchers knew it. The commander begrudgingly dropped his weapon to the ground and raised his hands above his head. Naeesha did the same.

  The Halians started collecting the fallen weapons, piling them in the center of the airbase. A familiar figure strode up to the Watcher commander and announced that he was taking him and his soldiers prisoner.

  “My name is Rakkan. I swear by the sacred oath of the soldier that you and your people will be treated fairly, but that we will respond to any threat of violence in kind,” he said, seeming to tower over the commander.

  To Naeesha’s surprise, the Watcher commander started laughing.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re going to change, son? Do you have any idea how much whoop-ass you just brought down on yourself?”

  “I suggest you give your soldiers the order to stand down.”

  “And I suggest you start running right now. Not that it’s going to help, mind you.”

  Rakkan turned to one of his soldiers and gave him an order that Naeesha couldn’t understand. The Halians started binding the hands of the Watcher soldiers. She wondered if they knew that cuffing the wrists of a shapeshifter was a strictly useless act.

  The Halian leader stepped towards Naeesha.

  “He is right, though. We should leave immediately. Your tribe is already making its way to the forest. We would be wise to join them.”

  Naeesha grabbed her pack and one of the plasma rifles that the Halians had taken from the Watcher troops.

  “We’re coming for you. You’ll never make it to the portal.”

  “We’ll see,” Rakkan said, helping himself to some of the Alderoccan supplies. “Do you have any of the rations with the fruit cups? We like those best.”

  “Fuck you, red. We’ll see how much shit you want to talk when our reinforcements get here.”

  Rakkan looked around at the now thoroughly plundered airbase.

  “I hope for your sake that they get here soon,” he said. “Because we’re taking everything that you’ve got.”

  The commander laughed again. “You and what army?”

  Right on cue, Rakkan’s tribe appeared in the distance, a thousand head strong, making their way towards the base. Rakkan was digging through a crate, and stood up with a meal packet in hand.

  He smiled at the commander, holding up the ration.

  “We wish you well, commander. Thanks for the fruit cups.”

  ***

  “Since when did you speak Alderoccan,” Naeesha asked.

  Rakkan smiled. “Kiran’s been teaching me.”

  “You aren’t telling the truth, are you?”

  “We had a Watcher hermit stay with us for a while. He taught me, and a few others.”

  “And you didn’t think to share this information with anybody?”

  Rakkan shrugged. “You’re the only one that didn’t speak Halian, and I didn’t trust you enough to have any reason to talk to you.”

  “And you trust me now?”

  “Your tribe trusts you, and that’s good enough for me. Although, I would like to know what you were doing at that airbase.”

  “I saw the ships flying in during the night. I tried to convince the commander that launching an attack was a bad idea for everybody. He didn’t listen.”

  “Ah, but he found out well enough, did he not?”

  Naeesha smiled.

  “I suppose you could say that.”

  Rakkan and his tribe moved fast. She didn’t do much talking as they marched, it took all her energy just to keep up with them.

  By the time the suns were at the top of the sky, their group had already caught up with the smaller tribe. They were waiting at the edge of the forest. A well marked trail lead into the dense brush.

  Rakkan spoke briefly with Jintak, and turned back to Naeesh
a.

  “He says that Marko is moving ahead with the trail. He found a clearing about four miles in, and will attempt to clear a path. If we do not see him by the time the first sun goes down, we are to assume that he has been successful and follow into the forest.”

  “Okay,” Naeesha said. “That’s great.”

  She’d hoped that he would be here, waiting with the survivors. She wished she could talk to him now. She could only imagine what he thought when he awoke to find her gone. It hurt to think of him alone, hacking his way through the jungle with that awful feeling hanging over his head.

  But she would see him soon, and she would tell him everything that she’d wanted to say last night.

  “Rakkan, what made your people turn back?”

  “We saw the Alderoccan ships.”

  “And you turned around just to come help?”

  “Not just that. The commander was telling the truth. The Alderoccan forces are gathering. There are many thousands of them. I think they mean to try and exterminate all of the Halians on Alderoc.”

  “The commander said that was the plan. So your people will try and come to the portal?”

  Rakkan nodded.

  “It seems as though the Alderoccans intend to take us down with them. My people have decided that our homeworld is safer for us, at least for the meantime.”

  “Well it will be good to have you, and thanks for bailing us out back there.”

  “It was my pleasure,” he said with a smile and a bow.

  After that, Rakkan went to tend to the unified tribe of Halians, reassuring them, and getting them ready to move out once more. But there was no reassurance for Naeesha.

  The only thing that would make her feel right again would be seeing Marko.

  Chapter Thirty

  Marko found the clearing. He’d done a quick flyover earlier and found a nice place to set up camp just a few miles into the forest. It was easier to get to than he expected, and there would be plenty of time before the combined tribes made it. They wouldn’t even leave for another two hours.