Alien Avatar: An Alien Sci-Fi Romance Page 17

  Even though he couldn’t join in with the happy, dancing Halians, he could go and be with them. He walked out from under the awning and sat with the rest of the tribe that wasn’t actively working or celebrating. It felt better being with them. Their joy was contagious, and it was better than the way he felt when he was alone. He wished he knew how they did it. Wished he could do it himself. But he couldn’t, and that was alright.

  What he could do was to sit there, and take everything in. The sound of the music and laughter, the smell of cooked food and campfires, the taste of fresh air and rainforest. He felt the cold rain on his skin and the love that radiated from his tribe - his family. That was all he could ask for, and it was all that he needed.

  Well. Almost.

  He searched the trees, looking for Naeesha. She would be somewhere nearby, he figured. Watching from a safe distance. But the rain and the mist and the thick swaying forest made it impossible to see much of anything. He abandoned his search and turned his attentions back to the celebration around him.

  A small colorful blur shot by in the corner of his eye, and he turned to see Kiran slide to a stop beside him.

  “We’re outside again!” the child shouted.

  Marko forced a smile and tousled Kiran’s hair.

  “That’s right,” he said, not sure what else to say.

  “There are birds and trees and clouds and rain and fires and mud and bugs and sunshine and grass and…” Kiran chattered on for about another minute, listing every single thing that had been absent from their lives underground. It was amazing how many things the child listed that Marko had never even thought of. Pinecones. Marko never thought about pinecones. “I love being outside!”

  “Me too,” Marko said. “Me too.”

  “Have you seen Naeesha?” Kiran asked.

  “I’m sure she’s around here somewhere.”

  “How come she isn’t dancing? She loves dancing.”

  “She just needs a little time alone. She’ll be back soon.”

  Kiran frowned, and in a strange way, it made Marko happy to know that Naeesha had earned a place in the hearts of the tribe, or at least in Kiran’s.

  “Come on,” he said. “I’ll dance with you.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  Naeesha had never been a huge fan of the outdoors. Common side effect of nearly getting killed so many times whilst surrounded by trees. But she was beginning to come around to this whole, “woods” thing.

  For one thing, she could be alone. Truly, completely alone. That was the only way that she found peace - when there was nobody around to take it from her. It was funny how the chatter of the birds didn’t bother her the way that peoples’ did, or how the drone of insects was infinitely desirable to that of traffic. It just was.

  She’d given up on trying to make sense of anything. Nothing made sense. She couldn’t understand why she’d spent so many years trying to ascribe order and logic to a world that contained very little of either. Maybe it was her way of coping. Of reassuring herself that behind all of the chaos and turmoil, there was a reason. Some divine truth that governed every little thing that happened, from a missed note in a song, to the most terrible evils that people could inflict upon others.

  Maybe that’s why she liked nature. It never let her forget the only real truth, which is that there is no truth. There was only what she chose to make of it. But that in itself was a mighty choice. What would she make of it? All this suffering, all this conflict. Why? The truth was whatever she decided it was. Either that, or it was utterly meaningless. She could decide that, and it would be true.

  She chose not to. She knew better.

  Everything has a reason, and it didn’t matter that some of those reasons boiled down to a choice that somebody made for some reason she’d never understand.

  Now that she believed what she’d already known for years, she had to figure out what to do with that belief. Again, the woods gave her a solution. Cut ties. Go her own way. Make her own truth and distance herself from anyone who would not let her have it. She finally understood the hermits.

  But that wasn’t what she wanted to do. It wasn’t what she was going to do. It wasn’t necessary. No, she was going to have her world, and she was going to find a way to break down every single person and thing in her way.

  Now that she knew what to do, all that was left was to decide how to do it. That’s where she ran into a problem. Violence wouldn’t work. At least, it had never worked before. But walking up to a military patrol with open arms would just get her and everyone with her killed. She couldn’t count on changing the minds of anybody whose minds were made up and who were intent on keeping them that way.

  But there were plenty of people who were still stuck in the middle. She just knew it. There were plenty of assholes who believed the lies about the Halians - hell, she had been one until about a week ago - but for every one of them, there were ten more who didn’t know what to think. They just needed a reason to make up their minds. If they could see what she had seen, Naeesha didn’t doubt that they would find a way to accept the Halians the way she had.

  Damn shame it was too late.

  Didn’t matter though. They’d make it to the portal, and they’d go back to Hala, and they’d make whatever world they wanted. Naeesha knew they would, because she knew there was nothing that could stop them. She’d seen the way that the Halians had handled everything so far, and she knew that they could handle anything.

  It was strange, feeling so certain in the face of everything. But that was the point. By letting go of everything that was uncertain, Naeesha only had to worry about one thing - that she could handle whatever the future brought her. And she didn’t have any doubts that she could.

  She walked through the woods with fearlessness, not letting her mind wander to the future, or the past, or in endless circles going nowhere. It was a peace that she’d forgotten was ever possible. And now that she had it, now that he could hold that tranquility in her hands, her only concern was finding something nice to do with it.

  Something like going to see Marko.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Marko started worrying once the second sun went down. Naeesha hadn’t come back, and nobody had seen her. Her pack, along with everything in it, was sitting by the edge of the tunnel. Her weapons, her food, her water, her clothes. All of it. And she was nowhere to be seen.

  He took a deep breath and tried not to worry. She could take care of herself. She could handle anything in these woods. She would come back when she was ready.

  In order to pass the time and to keep himself from going completely crazy, Marko spent some time flying around, trying to get a sense of where they’d come out of the tunnel. He had some good maps, courtesy of the military unit that had tried to attack them back at the ruined forest, but they wouldn’t be of any use unless he could figure out where they were.

  Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot to go off of. They were far inland, and the only river he could see was barely big enough to count as a creek, and wound and snaked so much that he saw very little hope in trying to match it against anything on the map. The best clue he had was a big hill just over the horizon to the south. It rose up out of the ground, towering above the surrounding forest. It stuck out because Marko couldn’t see an other hills or mountains nearby. With any luck, it would be marked on one of the topographic maps.

  He landed back in camp and took the maps out of his bag, unfolding them on a table in the dining hall. Alderoc was a big fucking place, and he didn’t have the faintest idea about where to start looking. He decided to begin by finding the Dynasty compound and scanning north. The scale was huge, and he wondered if he’d the hill was even big enough to register, even if it was marked. He ran ran his finger north south, tracing the contour lines and searching for a little blip, a tiny set of concentric circles standing out all alone in a sea of gentle, rolling hills.

  He slowly worked his way west, thinking that they’d wandered that way before findin
g the tunnel. He found nothing. That was alright, there was still another half of the map. With a deep breath, he started looking east of the compound. There was nothing there either.

  So he double checked. And triple checked. And he got Rakkan to look, and then had Kiran take a look at the map - just to be sure. But there was nothing that matched the profile of the hill anywhere north of the compound. He was about to give up and go join the circles when he got an impulse to check the rest of the map.

  It was a desperate move, and he made it just to keep himself busy, more than any other reason. His most generous estimate was that they were still more than fifty miles north of the compound, but still, he looked.

  And thirty miles west of the Dynasty compound entrance was a lone hill, surrounded by gentle hills. There was a even a small, winding river that ran through the surrounding forest.

  He shouted for joy, and began to cry.

  ***

  Marko’s news was fuel on the fire of the night's celebration. He made it to the circles just in time to tell the group that they were closer than they hoped. It was his estimate that they were ten miles east of the hill, and so only twenty miles west of the compound. They could make the trip by second sunset tomorrow.

  He couldn’t wait to tell Naeesha, whenever she made it back.

  People started talking about plans - plans for what they would do when they made it to Hala. Nobody had said much about their homeworld before now. He wasn’t sure if they were superstitious, or just didn’t see the sense in planning on something that, until just now, still seemed slightly impossible.

  One thing was quickly agreed upon. They would take Jintak’s body, along with the remains of the other six who had perished in the tunnels, and they would bury the fallen back on their homeworld. Of the six, only two had ever seen Hala. That’s how long they had been kept from their home.

  The celebrations died down shortly after dinner. Everybody was tired, and everybody wanted to be well rested for a hard day’s march tomorrow. After all, their journey was not over when they made it to the compound entrance. After that, they had to find a way inside, and then, they would face Hala. Marko had heard several Halians use that expression verbatim. They spoke of Hala as though it was a rival, an enemy to be bested. It was the only time he’d ever heard the Halians speak of anything in that context. Everything else they did was an act of collaboration. It was never them against anything. He wondered what made their homeworld different.

  Everyone was in bed within an hour after dinner. But Marko couldn’t sleep. He didn’t need it - he was well rested and could go for the better part of two weeks before it started to slow him down. Still, he would have liked to be able to lay down and let the time pass more quickly. Mostly though, he wanted to have Naeesha here with him.

  And she wasn’t.

  He stayed up, walking the empty camp, waiting for her. There were nearly twenty sleeping tents, and he wondered if she’d just picked one to sleep in without finding him. It seemed unlikely, but it was easier to consider than the alternative - that she was still out alone in the woods.

  It was everything that he could do to resist going out to look for her. He knew that she wouldn’t like that. She’d want her space. Would want him to trust her. So that’s what he was going to do. Sit here and wait, and be here for her as soon as she came back.

  He waited for an hour. And then another. And for six more. The first sun came up, and she did not return. The second rose and the camp woke up and cheerfully began to tear down the camp and pack up for the day’s hike. They were wasting no time this morning. Marko went around, asking everybody if they’d seen Naeesha at all since they left the tunnel.

  Nobody had.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Naeesha woke up on a Watcher ship. A transport shuttle, by the sound of it. She was gagged, bound, blindfolded, and strapped down to a seat. Whoever had got hold of her wasn’t taking any chances with letting her get the best of them.

  They weren’t airborne for long.

  The shuttle touched down and right away, she heard the cargo ramp lower and somewhere between four and six soldiers climbed aboard and made their way towards her. They unstrapped her from the chair and pulled her up, carrying her by the arms and legs like a prize stag.

  They dumped her unceremoniously onto a patch of hard dirt and left. She struggled to get up to her knees, but the task was impossible with her arms and legs both tied.

  She took deep breaths and tried to keep calm. She had no idea what exactly was going on, but as far as she could tell, somebody had ambushed her in the hills outside of camp, took her to an airstrip, and flew her.. somewhere.

  There was no way of saying how long she’d been out, which meant that there was no way of saying how long she’d been in the air, or where she could be. That didn’t really matter right now.

  Because it also meant that the military knew where Marko and the tribe was. It meant that they had aircraft within operating range of their camp. And it meant that she needed to find a way to help them.

  And that started with getting herself out of her immediate situation. She didn’t have the faintest fucking idea what she would do if she did manage to get escape, but she didn’t worry about that. Everything was out of her control until she got out of her bindings and had a chance to take her bearings.

  The easiest place to start would be her wrists. She was reasonably certain that she was cuffed with standard issue restraints, and that was a point in her favor. Once, during a particularly foolish affair, she’d had Marko handcuff her as part of a little role play. Halfway through the fun and games, the base commander stormed into their barrack looking for a grunt to order around.

  Marko had the good sense to throw a blanket over her, but not the foresight to undo her cuffs. The commander, who had been working with soldiers for nearly fifty years, didn’t bother asking why Marko was standing around ass-naked, he just asked how soon Marko could be ready to fly a sorty.

  Being a clever man, Marko told him he needed five minutes - a lie - but one that would have given him time to fix her situation. Would have, if the commander had left the barracks instead of standing at the door watching Marko get ready.

  He was gone for six hours.

  Naeesha was only cuffed for twenty-two minutes. She was clever too, and after eighteen minutes of looking for something to disengage the cuffs with, and four minutes of fumbling, she was free.

  Ever since then, she made a habit of keeping a few hair pins clipped to her clothes.

  She pulled her feet back until she could reach a pin from her sock, and got to work. Unfortunately, the military had done something that it rarely did, and upgraded the cuffs. Naeesha swore under her breath as she tried to figure out exactly how the restraints were put together, and what it would take to break them.

  After four minutes of fumbling, she wasn’t any closer to picking the lock.

  Thankfully, that wasn’t her only plan.

  Just as often as the military keeps old hardware around long after its heyday, it also has a terrible habit of replacing the old gear with cheap, ineffective alternatives.

  Naeesha rattled the chain links of her cuffs, trying to jostle them into position. If she was lucky, she’d be able to get a little kink in the chain and get one of the links stuck in the others.

  It just so happened that she did get lucky (and it was about godsdamned time, if you asked her), and with a good torque of her wrists, the kinked link snapped open and her wrists were free.

  Her captors had the good sense to take away the knife the knife on her belt, but they were too hasty or too stupid to check her boots. The blade that she kept against the inside of her right lower leg was small, but it was sharp, and it only took a few seconds to be free of the rope around her knees and ankles.

  She put the blade back in her boot and felt around her neck to see how her captors had done the hood. As she feared, it was belted around her neck and padlocked, and would be a proper pain in the ass to remov
e.

  Of course, she didn’t have to remove the belt, because she could cut the thin canvas loose and be completely functional. She’d have a ridiculous piece of jewelry until she got a hold of some bolt cutters, but that’s the price you pay for getting caught with your pants down.

  Naeesha reached back into her boot and grabbed hold of her knife.

  “You can stop right there,” said a familiar voice.

  Someone walked to her side and undid the bindings around her neck and pulled the hood over her head. It was the base commander from the destroyed forest.

  “Precept Naeesha,” he said. “So good to see you again.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  They left without Naeesha. Marko tried not to worry. She was perfectly capable of following the trail that they would leave. This was, of course, assuming that she was able to get back to camp, but Marko would not allow himself to believe anything to the contrary.

  Of all of the things that he did not allow himself to think, there was one possibility that scared him the most.

  While he was waiting all night for Naeesha to return, he had plenty of time to think. And one of his thoughts had been of the Husks, specifically the cells where they’d been kept, and even more specifically on the claw marks on the walls of those cells. The way he figured, the poor creatures must have been trapped in those cells for a long time.

  So how did they get out?

  One possible answer was that the medical compound was automated and for some reason decided that the best response to living creatures around was to unleash thousands of murderous monsters, but it seemed like there was a more likely option.

  It seemed possible to Marko that somebody knew that the Halians were down in those tunnels, and didn’t want them to get out. Someone who didn’t want to start a fight themselves as long as there was somebody to do their dirty work for them. Someone like the Alderoccan military.