Thanks for reading.
Chapter Seven: Cosmic Castaway
Kira squinted her eyes against the light as she and her cellmate—Kriin—were led out of their quarters for the morning prisoner head count. She had a terrible headache, and while she wasn't exactly protesting being brought out of her dark cage, the harsh sunbeams slanting through the narrow windows fostered her growing migraine. She hoped the count would be quick; today was also one of the three days of the week where the prisoners were fed. She didn't bother asking what was in the stuff that the Krall guards were feeding them; all she knew was that, after a week of eating it, she had ceased to throw up and could actually garner energy from it.
After being roughly pushed down the stairs and shoved into position with the other twenty or so Nali captives, she stood there shivering as the Krall went down the line and checked the numbers on the prisoners' collars with the electronic logbooks they held. Kira figured it would be easier to just count however many prisoners there were, but then again, that would be too quick for Krall liking. She had developed a particular disdain for these creatures, moreso than their masters, the Skaarj. A more two-faced breed, she thought, could not be in existence. They bullied and beat the Nali on a daily basis, lording over the four-armed innocents, and yet when their Skaarj captains visited the cell block they practically fell on their faces in their efforts to please.
A Nali down the line yelped and collapsed to the floor; a Krall guard had struck his head and was now barking something at the cowering alien. Kira clenched her hands. She didn't understand the guard's words but it was probably something obscene.
A Krall appeared before her and clenched his claws around her neck, roughly lifting her chin so he could see the number on the metal collar on her neck. Kira held her breath, staring unblinkingly up at the ceiling, willing herself to be calm. After a pause, he withdrew his hand and moved down the line.
Kira sighed and shuffled her feet. God, she was hungry. She cast a glance at the Nali beside her. They were doing an excellent job of hiding their hunger pangs. She blinked and leaned forward a little.
What are they doing?
Kriin, who stood about two spaces down from where she was, had his head turned to the side and was moving his lips—just barely, but it was talking, and talking was forbidden in the presence of the Krall. Not only that, but he was making contact with the Nali he was talking to; one of his left hands was clasped around the other Nali's right. His eyes seemed to be misted over with—was he crying?
Stop that, she wanted to hiss. They'll see you and they'll kill you!
Suddenly, Kriin and his companion turned their heads and stared directly at her. Kira shook her head and mouthed the word 'no'. Kriin's eyes suddenly lost their teary sparkle; he set his mouth and gave a brisk nod to the Nali beside him.
And they ran.
At the first sign of movement in the ranks, the two Krall guards spun around. Seeing that two of their prisoners were making a beeline for the ramp that led to the main doors, they both snarled in fury and gave chase. Kira's heart was in her throat. What were Kriin and his companion thinking? Even if they managed to escape the cell block, they were running directly into the hands of the countless guards the patrolled Bluff Eversmoking's corridors. It was suicide!
When the two escaping Nali and the guards disappeared up the ramp, the Nali standing next to Kira suddenly broke from the line and dashed forwards, into the low pool of water that rested underneath the stairs. He turned around briefly and said something hopeful to his companions before he disappeared with a soft splash behind a pillar.
None of the other Nali tried to escape. Kira shivered from the tension in the room. They all waited in breathless silence until—
There. One scream. Cut short. Kira's heart surged into her throat. Please let their deaths be quick.
But the Krall were not that merciful. The Skaarj, even less so. Seconds after the scream, three sets of heavy footsteps approached the cell block. The first two to come down the ramp were the Krall guards.
Directly behind them was a Skaarj. In one of his massive hands he clutched a Nali by the torso, his fingers almost completely encircling the alien's waist. It was Kriin.
No.
The Krall skittered out of the Skaarj's way as the huge beast made his way down the ramp. The group of prisoner Nali reflexively broke their line and huddled together, crouching down on their knees, staring up at the Skaarj with terror-stricken faces. Kira couldn't move even if she wanted to; terror rooted her to the spot. The creature was absolutely gigantic. It was the first time she had seen a Skaarj up close; he towered over the Krall guards by at least a foot and a half. She wondered how the floor didn't crack beneath his weight.
The Skaarj threw Kriin down onto the floor like a rag doll, he didn't try to get up. Mistake. The Skaarj chambered his leg and kicked Kriin in the ribs, barking an order to him. Kira heard the distinct cracking of bones. Kriin, in vain, tried to stand, but only managed to raise himself into a kneeling position. His breath came in heavy pants.
The Skaarj then began pacing in front of the prisoners. He didn't bother talking; he didn't have to. The authority he exuded and the terror he represented was enough to command everyone's attention. Kira couldn't take her eyes off of him. She expected him to begin slaughtering the prisoners any second.
Kriin coughed hollowly. Kira's heart nearly broke. Why did you run?
After a few more paces, the Skaarj stopped in front of Kriin's crippled body. The Nali lifted his head and stared into his assailant's eyes. His lips moved; Kira didn't hear what he said, but she knew it was the last thing that he ever would say. The Skaarj's face twisted with rage; his arm came forwards and a pair of razor-sharp blades extended from underneath the scales on his wrist. With one swipe, two of Kriin's arms detached from his torso and fell to the floor. With another, he was rendered armless.
Kira couldn't watch. She closed her eyes, fighting against nausea as the sound of her cellmate being dismembered echoed through the chamber. Eventually, the Skaarj barked an order to the two Krall guards. Kira's shoulder was roughly grabbed, and she and the other prisoners were escorted back to their cells.
When her cell door closed, Kira collapsed in a shivering heap on the concrete floor. She wanted to mourn the loss of her companion, but the only thing that was running through her veins was relief. She hadn't been killed. She was still alive, and she felt disgusted with herself for cherishing life as it was now.
"I'm a coward if there ever was one," she whispered, if only to hear her own voice. "Why did you do it, Kriin?"
Her head pounding, she closed her eyes to sleep. She didn't bother waiting for food. There wasn't going to be any today.
Someone was shaking her shoulder.
At first, she thought it was a dream, and her sleepy self simply shrugged the persistent hand away. "Leave me alone, Alexi," she mumbled. "Can't you see that…I'm sleeping?"
The hand came back, rougher this time, along with a half-whispered plea. "Ba'ti d'vaar!"
She jerked awake and sat up almost simultaneously. A Nali was in her cell? "…Kriin?"
The cell was dark, but somehow it seemed less gloomy than before—and she felt a breeze. A cold breeze. A fresh breeze. She sensed that someone was crouching directly in front of her, and she put her hand out; her fingers bumped into a sinewy arm. "Kriin? Is that you?"
Her translator beeped as the Nali answered her. She fumbled around in her flight suit pocked for the machine and squinted at the green lettering on the screen. "Not Kriin," she read; her heart fell. "Kruun. Kriin is my brother, and he is dead."
So it wasn't a dream. "What are you doing here?" she asked; the translator relayed her message.
"I am here to take you to safety."
She peered at the Nali before her. "How?"
The Nali shifted and she saw him lift his arm and point behind him. "I dug through the wall to get to you. We can make it if you come with me now."
"Didn't anybody see you?" She was having trouble believing this was happening.
"No. Please hurry."
His fingers grasped hers. He began pulling her with him; she only hesitated a moment before following him. She supposed that it wasn't the smartest idea to have built the cells into the side of an earthen hill, but she was certainly thankful that it had been so easy for the Nali to dig through all of that just to get to her. The cell walls weren't exactly dirt, though; she supposed that the Nali used some sort of small charge to knock the concrete loose. The creatures were smarter than they looked.
"Are you coming back for the others?" she asked as she followed him through the cramped tunnel.
"No," he said quickly.
She stalled. "Why not?" Surely he had friends in the cells—they were his own people, after all.
"Because you're going to save us."
She wanted to ask more questions, but the tunnel suddenly dumped them out into a circular corridor that was filled with ankle-deep sludge. The sewage system, probably, she thought disgustedly, but I suppose it could be worse.
"Now listen closely," the Nali whispered to her as they wound through the passageway. She read quickly along as the translator flashed Kruun's hushed orders. "I can take you as far as the lift that connects the monastery to the bell tower on an island in the lake. Once you're in the bell tower, hide there until nightfall. There's a shipping car that will take you from the bell tower to the entrance to Dasa Pass on the other side of the mountain. There are Nali there, Nali that know of your presence and are waiting to help you."
"But why are you doing all this to save me?" Kira asked breathlessly. Kruun, for the first time, paused in his flight and turned around to face her.
"For the same reason that Kriin and Jaara ran a suicide run to distract the guards so I could get to the underwater passages. For the same reason that I'm not going back to help my friends in prison. We Nali will do anything to protect you."
He grabbed her wrist again and picked up his pace. There was a ladder on the wall up ahead, and Kruun began pulling himself up the rungs. Kira followed, in a daze.
They died…for me?
The ladder led up to a grate, which the Nali pushed aside with relative ease. They had arrived in a well-lit stone hallway; empty at the moment, but Kruun was not taking any chances. "Be very quiet," he warned as he dragged her behind him. Kira nodded and picked up the pace. The rounded a corner and dashed up a ramp.
"The lift is right in front of us—oh, no."
Kruun stopped in his tracks; Kira nearly ran into him. Instinctively Kruun pushed her behind him and hissed, "When I say 'run', you run."
Kira peeked out from underneath the Nali's elbow. Standing on the ramp was a Skaarj, and he was staring right at them.
"What's going to happen to us?" she whispered hoarsely. Kruun tensed.
"Nothing is going to happen to you."
The Skaarj stalked down the ramp, clenching and unclenching his fists. He rattled at them; a deep, throaty growl whose feral undertone could not be denied. He was going to kill these two escapees. When they were five feet apart, the Skaarj stopped.
And lunged.
Kruun shoved Kira out of the way and jumped forwards, meeting the Skaarj hand-to-hand. The Skaarj's wristblades shone in the dim lamplight as he struggled to get out of the Nali's grip on his wrists, but Kruun was not letting go. Digging his heels into the ground, the Nali drove the Skaarj backwards into a wall; his second set of arms came up and pushed the Skaarj's head back; he was trying to break his neck.
"Run!" Kruun shouted over his shoulder. "Get out of here!"
"What about you?" Kira cried. "You don't need to die for me—we can get out of here together!"
The translator's message was almost lost amidst the snarls and barks of the Skaarj warrior, but Kruun, struggling to keep his enemy pinned against the wall, panted, "I'll come find you after this—so please, run!"
Kira turned on her heel and bolted the rest of the way out of the ramp, trying to block out the sounds of the fight behind her. He was risking his life to save her—two other Nali had died for her—but what for? What could she possibly do for them?
Save them? Was he kidding her?
She dashed onto the lift, kicking the lever that activated it and looking worriedly back at the corridor that she had just come from. Was he still alive?
The lift carried her up and away from the monastery; the metal creaked so much that she was worried it was going to dissolve under her feet. Her destination—a bell tower, was it?—loomed in the distance. It was at least fifty stories tall, made of polished gray rock, and it jutted into the purple sky, cutting a harsh outline in the horizon. She hoped to God there weren't any Skaarj to worry about once she got there.
The lift creaked to a halt at the base of the bell tower; she stepped out cautiously onto dry ground. Being out in the open, under the huge sky, was such a foreign feeling, even after only a week or so of imprisonment. It made her feel open, vulnerable. She hurried towards the bell tower and slipped inside.
The inside of the tower was dark, but enough of daylight remained so that she could make out the delineation of a staircase and a table on the opposite side of the room. A single candle burned on its surface. Kira approached the table slowly. Aside from the candle, a journal of some sort was propped open; the pages were filled with scratchy, hurried characters. Kira pulled out her translator and held it over the open page. The scanning eye on the back of the translator skimmed its red beam over the page and relayed the Russian translation onto the screen.
"I sit here," Kira read quietly, "and pray that the sky demons will evacuate the monastery, and day after day I am disappointed. I feel so ashamed that our Messiah has arrived and was greeted, not with feasting and praise, but with hostility. I fear even now that the sky demons have destroyed our Messiah as a warning to my people. However, I must cling to the prophet's words: have faith and never sway from your beliefs. Only a soul that keeps the faith despite all oppression shall triumph when the savior princess comes from the stars."
A cold chill whispered up Kira's spine. "Savior…princess?"
Because you're going to save us.
"Oh my God," Kira put her hand to her forehead. "They think I'm their messiah?"
A light wind cut through the open windows above her and the sound of fluttering cloth caught her ear. Looking up, she saw a huge tapestry, at least two stories tall, that took up about half of the circle of the entire base of the bell tower. The background was stitched with dark thread, but she could make out the form of some sort of mountain range, over which dark storm clouds churned. In the foreground, a Nali, stitched with earthen tones, bowed before a figure seated on a golden throne. Kira narrowed her eyes. The seated figure was bent over the Nali, cupping its hands around the Nali's head in a surprisingly maternal gesture, but there was something different about its shape that made Kira do a double-take. While the Nali was brown, with a flat face and gold eyes, the one in the throne was blue-skinned, with a distinct nose and pouty red lips; a pair of bluish wings bloomed out of its back. It had four pairs of arms like the Nali, but aside from that fact, the winged figure looked human in shape.
Had there been humans on this planet…before?
Outside, there was a harsh squeal of metal. Someone's activated the lift? Slightly panicked, she grabbed the candle off of the table. After a slight pause, she grabbed the journal and stuffed it into her pocket along with the translator. It won't do to have them finding out about this whole 'messiah' business, she thought as she began ascending the winding stone staircase.
She kept a sharp ear out for the sounds of the lift. Hopefully, if she hurried, fifty flights of stairs wouldn't take too long to ascend.
"There better be some hiding places up there," she panted.
Bharuk massaged the back of his neck with one hand, examining the wrist blades of his opposite wrist. Fucking Nali zar'chi, he thought irritably, noticing a bit of flesh that still clung to the inside of the weapon. I wonder why we put up with them so much in the first place.
Four escapees. Four. Three Nali and that irritating Terran bitch that had stood there staring at him as he ripped apart one of the four-armed slaves. If this kept up, he'd have to resort to crucifying the whole lot. They weren't serving any purpose, anyway.
And now that Terran had run off and he had to hunt her down. It wouldn't do to have escaped prisoners making a scene in other parts of the country about how they escaped the infamous Bluff Prison. Besides, this particular Terran bitch was the Nali's supposed messiah. He had wanted to use her status to command even more respect from the Nali, but it couldn't be helped now that she had gone and run away. She could not be spared.
It was a good thing that she had holed herself in the bell tower. She'd done his work for him. All he had to do was follow her straight up.
Gasping, Kira finally, finally, collapsed on the top floor of the tower. The room was open on all sides, with a thin stone railing protecting her from a fifty-story fall. She could clearly see the entire valley from this vantage point; the lake, whipped into white froth by the wind; jutting up from the water was her previous prison, and off in the distance was, she supposed, the Pass that Kruun had been talking about.
She breathed in deeply, trying to get her breath back. The air smelled like woodsmoke and pine; a familiar scent that brought back a memory of Earth so poignant that she actually had to blink tears out of her eyes. Well, she was here, where she was told to go. Now all she had to do was sit and wait. She picked a seat near a stone pillar and slid down into a sitting position, putting her candle between her knees and casting another glance around at her hiding place. The bell above her swung lazily in the breeze, its engraved, mirror-like surface catching the light and throwing it onto the ceiling.
After a short pause, Kira pulled out her translator and pressed the record button. "Science Officer Kira Argmanov," she said wearily. "Separated from my crewmates from ISV-KRAN, I've only been able to stay alive by holding up in this bell tower. A native Nali helped me escape from the prison cell the Skaarj put me in. Hopefully the Skaarj won't find me here. I've decided that I should log the rest of my trip from here on out.
"So they think I'm a warrior princess. Funny, I was always the chicken of the group. Alexi and Karl's group, I mean. It's been a week and a half, and," her voice caught on a short sob, but she checked it, "I don't think they're coming. But I've got friends, it seems, in the Nali. Two of them even died for me. I suppose I should return the favor by playing the part of 'messiah' for them. Right now I'm waiting for, um…Kruun, is that it? I'm waiting for Kruun to come, and we'll get to Dasa Pass. From there, I don't know what will happen.
"It's funny," she looked out across the water. "If I close my eyes, I can image that this is Earth. The sky's the same. The water's the same. It smells like Christmas right now."
The candle sputtered. The lift outside squealed to a halt. Kira swallowed thickly and closed her eyes, flicking the power switch on the translator and stuffing it into her pocket. Instead, she pulled out the journal that she had taken from the table and began to methodically tear the pages into small bits. The wind picked up the white flakes and swirled them down towards the lake. It looked, Kira thought, like snowfall.