Amy

AMY

I ran hard, though every step felt like a betrayal of Razov. He had rescued me from slavery, and shown me more kindness than an alien devil had any right to.

And here I was, leaving him behind to save my own ass.

It wasn't entirely true. I also tried to keep the bomb out of the hands of Kalak's Nazoks. Only, I didn't know if I could even pull that much off.

Razov's howl of rage filled the air behind me as the sound of heavy, bone on bone impacts echoed through the trough. I rushed toward one of the relays, my eyes fixated on the lights that would indicate a lethal surge of energy.

"Amelia, watch out! One of them got past me."

Panic surged through me, spurring me on. The footfalls of the Nazok were right behind me, catching up fast. Though smaller than Vinduthi, the Nazoks still had longer strides than humans, and I knew it would only be a matter of time before he caught me.

I neared the relay just as the lights flashed for the first time. Before the bulb had faded into darkness, someone tackled me from behind.

We went down together…right in the middle of the relay. I screamed, trying to scramble away but the Nazok didn't seem to realize how much danger we were really in. He stubbornly clung to me, claws scratching a line down my thigh.

The light flashed a second time. In a second and a half, I would be incinerated to a crisp by the plasma burst. Screaming, I aimed a kick right at the Nazok's nose, immediately rewarded with a hearty crunch and a spurt of blood. Twisting, I rolled my body as far away from the array as I could, coming to rest as the Nazok struggled to his feet.

The third light faded, and the hair on my arms stood up on end. The Nazok took a half step before a red wall of crackling energy shot out across the trough.

He sucked in air for a scream that never came. In an instant, his body blackened and smoldered, flesh curling from his bones in sheets.

I turned and fled before what was left could hit the ground, hoping to make it to the next relay before it went off, putting even more distance between myself and the pursuing Nazoks.

As soon as the crackling energy barrier disappeared behind me, I heard renewed shouts.

"Get the human! She has the bomb!" Kalak bellowed. I still heard Razov fighting, the screams of his agonized, dying enemies mingling with his roars and snarls of fury.

Maybe he would win after all, but I couldn't take that chance.

Just like when I tried to escape from the Ewani slavers, this wasn't just about me. It was about saving others, too. In this case, thousands of lives, or worse if the bomb did more damage than Kalak thought it would.

I made it within four steps of the next barrier when someone grabbed me by the hair. I shouted, my throat raw from the visceral howl, fighting like a Vinduthi, biting and clawing and savaging the Nazoks trying to grapple with me.

Still, one of them tore the bomb from my grasp as another cracked me across the temple. My vision dimmed, and the floor rushed up to slam into me.

I drifted in and out of consciousness, despite my best efforts to stay awake. The Zoks each took one of my arms and dragged me along, cursing the day I was born as they bled from the wounds I'd inflicted.

"You two look a mess," Kalak said, taking the bomb in his own hands.

"It's all superficial," muttered the man who'd struck me.

"Of course, of course…"

Kalak winced as a bleeding, battered but still fighting Razov tore the throat out of another Nazok. Twelve bodies littered the floor around him. Probably twelve. It was hard to tell, since most of them were in pieces.

"That's not superficial," Kalak said with a grimace. "Enough messing with the Vinduthi."

He noticed me looking up at him. My head throbbed, but I could make out his expression of glee.

"Did you know that Vinduthi have extremely acute hearing?" he asked me, though I knew it was rhetorical. He took a small silver cylinder out of his coat pocket, and I thought it must be some kind of weapon.

Instead, it turned out to be a whistle. He put it in his lips and blew. I heard nothing, but the Nazoks grimaced, even Kalak.

Razov had a far more extreme reaction. He fell to his knees and clasped both hands over his ears. Kalak's breath wound down, and the moment the whistling stopped Razov tried to rise.

Kalak blew again, and this time, the Nazoks were prepared. What remained of them piled on top of Razov in his moment of helplessness.

"No!"

I found more gumption somewhere deep inside of me. I bit the hand holding my wrist and scrambled to my feet as my victim hollered in protest.

I ran up to the pile of Nazoks on top of Razov and kicked one in the head. I got a couple of shots in before three Nazoks tackled me to the floor.

"I've had it with this bitch," said the one I bit. He pulled a knife from his boot sheath and raised it in the air. The other two held me down, and all I could do was watch my death come streaking down toward me.

"Stop," Kalak ordered.

The knife wielding Nazok turned a shocked expression on his leader.

"She deserves it," he sputtered.

"Oh, don't worry, she'll die. But in my opinion, the best death to wish on one's enemies is the one the longest suffered."

He gestured to me.

"Bind her, nice and tightly, now. And gag her, too. Enough of you have to get disinfectant shots as it is."

The Nazoks got off of Razov at last as the ones holding me shoved me onto my stomach on the floor. I lifted my head enough to see Razov's still, bloody form laying on the floor in a pool of expanding crimson.

"No!" I screamed. "Razov! Razov, wake up!"

"Oh, he can't hear you, darling," Kalak said as the Nazoks crossed my wrists at the small of my back and bound them with a thin cord. I cried out as it cut into my skin, almost deep enough to bleed. "I don't know if he'll ever hear anything ever again…."

Kalak suddenly looked like he was considering something. "Which could be a problem. Like it or not, some of the Fangs will survive the bomb. If they find out we beat one of them to death…"

"Hey, boss," said one of the Nazoks holding down my thigh. "In about fifteen minutes, this trough is going to be completely electrified as part of a maintenance cycle."

"How do you even know that?" Kalak asked.

"My cousin works on a crew down here. Once the charge goes through, there won't be enough left of him to tell how he died."

"Razov," I said, shaking my head as they dragged me to my feet. He couldn't be dead. My chest felt like it was being shredded into tiny pieces.

Why couldn't I see him breathing?

"Please," I said as they roughly dragged me around to face Kalak. "You have your bomb. Just drag him out of the trough so he at least has a fighting chance."

"Now why the hell would I want to do that?" Kalak sneered. "During the war, the Nazoks were indentured to work for the enemy. The Vinduthi slaughtered us even though we weren't really a threat to them. We were civil servants, construction workers, and they killed us just the same as the ones pointing guns at them."

"You have grudges, I get it, but don't you want to prove you're a better man than the Vinduthi are?"

He snickered and gently patted my cheek. It was worse than a slap. A slap would have indicated he was angry or considered me a threat. But you didn't pat a threat on the cheek. You patted a helpless child on the cheek.

"I don't care about being the better man, my dear. That is by and large a uniquely human concept. I just want to be the last man standing."

At his wave, one of his fellows came up behind me and crammed a coarse cloth into my mouth. Then they wrapped more of the cord around my head, to hold the towel in. I could breathe through the material, but just barely.

"Say goodbye to your lover," Kalak said as his fellows dragged me along in their wake.

I took one last look at Razov, tears forming in my eyes. I barely knew him. We'd only met a little over a day ago.

And still, I felt as if I was losing the most important thing to me in the entire galaxy.

I prayed to whatever gods were listening that he would recover in time. I prayed, but I didn't hold out much hope. I didn't think the gods were listening at all to my prayers anymore, if they ever did in the first place.

Then I couldn't even see him, as Kalak ordered his men to blindfold me. One of them slung me over his shoulder and I choked on the gag as the sharp bones dug into my belly.

Muffled whispers were all I could make out, the journey seeming endless.

It had been more than fifteen minutes.

Razov was dead.

And nothing else seemed to matter. Not being captured, not the bomb.

Emptiness weighed me down like lead.

"It'll be good to be done with this bitch." With a sudden thump, I was thrown to the ground, my blindfold pulled free to reveal only two Nazoks hunched over me, crowded into a room the size of a small closet.

One noticed my confused glances. "Looking for Kalak, human? He's got other things to do. Now that you don't have your protector, we're more than enough to take care of you."

While that one fastened my ankles together around a metal pipe, the other opened the case, and attached the bomb to a large cylindrical protrusion from the wall.

"Hitting the plasma relay should take care of this whole part of the station," he snickered.

"And you'll have the best seat in the house. At least for a while."

He indicated the bomb's countdown timer, the surreal sight almost making me dizzy. I thought they only had those in old triVids. The impact was a little different when it ticked down right next to you.

"You can count down exactly how many minutes you have left to live. Take care, sweetness."

He ran his hand up my thigh as I screamed behind the gag and jerked away as best I could. I barely heard my own voice. No way would anyone on the station be able to hear me way back in the maintenance shafts like this.

The Nazoks left me, moving swiftly to save their own hides. I looked up at the bomb countdown timer and struggled furiously. All I got for my troubles was a cut on my wrist which bled freely. I hoped the blood might lubricate my bonds, but it didn't make any difference. The cords were just too tightly knotted. My fingers had gone numb more than twenty minutes ago while I was being carried.

All right, the gods aren't listening, so maybe I'll try the devil. I'll sell my soul to him if he'll just get me out of this ? —

A big, heavy shape lurched out of the shadows, and I let out a muffled scream.