Chapter 12

I can do this. I can do this. Repeating reassurances to himself, Levi stood next to Cora and waited for the pressurized doors of the shuttle to open. He had escaped from many sticky situations, but never with someone who depended on him.

Snapped from his reverie by the feeling of cold titanium against the back of his neck, he was given a grim reminder of the stakes. If he failed in his escape attempt, one or both of them would die. He had to make sure it was only him. Preferably neither, though.

"Here's how this is gonna go," growled the guard who had retrieved them from their cell. "You're gonna walk straight forward. No steps right or left. Just straight through the gates and no funny business. You got that?"

After a moment of silence, the guard struck Levi's skull with the muzzle of the blaster, sending stars through his vision. "Yeah, okay, I got it. Geez. I thought it was rhetorical!"

As the door hissed open and slid away before his face, Levi gave Cora a sidelong glance and winked, hoping she was looking at him. That girl was wound tighter than a piano string and she had to relax if they were to have any hope of escaping intact.

Heat billowed into the shuttle with a thin cloud of dust. Light glared onto Levi's retinas. He couldn't believe his luck. Jorvla's a desert!

Stepping off the shuttle, Levi was grateful for his boots on the baked soil of the planet. He glanced at Cora's bare feet, knowing she was about to have difficulty. "Shoes," he muttered.

"What's that, prisoner? Speak up!"

"The girl needs shoes."

The guard snorted. "Worried about your girlfriend's tootsies, are ya? It's a short walk."

Levi rolled his eyes and forced nonchalance into his voice. "Look, she's just a piece of tail, but you said it yourself. I'm a Lorr. I know my humans, and her feet are about to melt to the gravel."

"So? It's a short walk. We'll drag her."

Levi shrugged. "Whatever. They just get infected like nobody's business, and then the humans start to scream and smell, and it's just a matter of time before they die."

The guards looked at each other doubtfully. The nameless one hesitated and then shook Cora a little. "Are they really that fragile?"

Levi chuckled. "It's a challenge not to fuck 'em to death." Cora narrowed her eyes and scowled at him, but he couldn't help it. He was trying to relate to these morons, and they were filthy and vile. Besides, it might help if she had a little spark under her ass when he broke her loose.

"I guess we have something around here…" the nameless one said as he handed Cora's lead to his compatriot and rifled through the storage trunks on the shuttle. While his guard watched Cora, Levi slipped a knife from his belt and concealed it in his waistband.

Producing a shoddy pair of shoes that were way too big for her, the nameless guard returned and forced her feet into them roughly, tying them down using some cord he had found.

Cora winced as the guard pulled too tightly. Levi felt for her, but she was going to need shoes for this next part. "If they're so flimsy, why do you like 'em so much?" the other guard was asking.

Oh boy. If ever there was a chance to make Cora mad, that was it. Here goes nothing. "Their ears secrete this gel at climax that tastes really sour and we're into that sort of thing."

"We do not!" Cora exclaimed right as the guards guffawed, disgusted sneers oozing across their warty faces.

Levi smirked. "‘Course you do, honey. Don't be ashamed. You can't help being born a nasty mess."

"That's putrid," the nameless guard said, catching his breath. The irony was not lost on Levi, who could smell the guard from where he stood.

"Look, can we get on with this? It's hot."

"It ain't any cooler in the cells, genius. What's your hurry?"

"You're right. Let's just stand here chatting."

The nameless guard slammed his blaster into the side of Levi's face, opening a gash next to his horn. Cora gasped.

"Remember who you're talking to and who's got the gun," the guard snapped. The Jorvlens shoved Levi and Cora down the gangplank and into the sand.

Levi surveyed his surroundings. Scrub brush clung tightly to the soil, offering no cover. The glaring metal and adobe brick of the prison facility, the only structure tall enough to elicit notice for miles, radiated heat waves.

Squinting, Levi looked further ahead. Dust storms pocked the landscape, and the horizon shimmered in a hazy mirage. The upside was they wouldn't have to run very far before it would be impossible for the Jorvlens to see them against the stark blue of the sky.

Levi kept the guards talking long enough to gauge a rough idea of the wind on the planet that day. Just as he had hoped, it whipped all around them, drowning out their words and drying out his mouth every time he opened it.

Shuffling his feet in the dirt, Levi sent up a gritty plume from the ground that coated his legs to his waist. The gravity must have been less strong than he thought. This is gonna be easy.

"Hey, quit that!" the newer guard insisted as he continued shuffling. "Pick your feet up!"

"I can't. The gravity is so much worse here!" Levi kept shuffling, increasing the cloud around the four of them until he couldn't see the facility up ahead. Almost there.

"No, it's not! I've been to your planet. It's the same!" The guard smacked him in the head again, but he kept shuffling. "Stop it or I'll shoot! I swear I will!"

"Just hold him and keep walking. We're almost there," the nameless guard chided.

"But I can't see him!"

"Shut up, you foo—" The nameless guard never finished his sentence. Levi dropped to the ground and swept Cora's feet out from under her.

"Oof!" she exhaled as she hit the gravel. A blaster went off.

"What are you doing, you idiot? You might hit me!" one of the Jorvlens yelled.

Levi crawled around the guards' legs, wrapping them in his rope. When he pulled it tight, they fell, whooping and yelling their outrage.

Taking a couple of flailing fists to his core, Levi attempted to deliver as many blows as he received. He cut the ropes with the knife he had stolen, hoping he didn't stab anything important, and tossed up more dust in the struggle.

"Run!" he yelled at Cora, unable to see whether she had taken off yet. His eyes, nose, and mouth were full of silt. Edging out of the dust cloud, he made a break for the horizon but tripped over an extended leg.

"Not so fast," the nameless guard barked. "What the—"

Levi turned on him with the knife, punching and slashing as he doled out several body blows before the newer guard wrapped him in a vise-like hold from behind.

Just as Levi slammed his foot into the guard's instep with all his might, a sharp, icy pain hit the side of his neck like a tree branch swinging with full force. A stinging sensation like a million bees crawling under his skin spread across his whole body, and he fell to the ground, completely immobilized.

"Funny how effective something as old-timey as a stun gun is against ‘rebels' like this," he heard one of the Jorvlens say as his vision faded to black. The last thought that crossed his mind before he lost consciousness was the simple hope that Cora had gotten away.