Zern Read online

  “Quiet, humans,” the Raither that was gripping me barked. The clamor gradually died down as the Raither waited outside the cell until everybody had withdrawn their arms. “You know what to do from here.”

  I watched in shock as the humans all dropped their hands to their sides and then laced their fingers together so that they were holding hands. They took several steps backward until their backs were pressed against the wall as tightly as possible, leaving ample room in between the door of the cell and the middle of the floor.

  “In you go, human,” the Raither said, sneering at me and shoving me forward. As soon as the door of the cell slammed closed again, the human women rushed toward me, and they helped me to take off the dirty cloth that had been stuffed into and tied around my mouth. They unbound the ropes and then slid them quickly through the underside of the door as the Raither watched, grinning menacingly. He kicked them away from the door so that none of us would be able to reach them again and then meandered back down the tunnel back the way he came.

  When he was gone, the women helped me to my feet and brushed off the dirt that had soiled what was left of my uniform. We were all dressed pretty similarly, considering we had all been a part of the elite research team on Earth. And although we had never been very close, in fact, most of the women who were there had struck me as catty and self-interested, I had never been more relieved to see anybody in my life.

  “Your name is Lila, right?” a tall, redheaded woman said, stepping forward in front of the group. She had been one of the self-appointed leaders of the group, and apparently, that still had not changed her role even though it had been quite a while since I had disappeared.

  “Yes, but please excuse me if I don’t remember yours,” I said, closing my eyes to try to figure out what I could remember about these women. It seemed like it had been an entire lifetime since I had seen them.

  “That’s all right; trauma can make you forget things. My name is Phoebe. Are you hurt? Is there anything that you need? What happened to you?”

  “Well, I’m not really hurt,” I said, trying to stand up straight and assess my wounds. I had fallen hard on my shoulder after the Raither had pushed me down into the tunnel, but I could tell that it was nothing serious. Still, it was sore. “And there’s nothing I need. As for what happened to me, well you all know that there was an attack, and we got separated at that point. From there I was just doing my best to survive. Nothing very special. And then, that Raither man got a hold of me and brought me here. Did he get all of the remaining humans? Or…?”

  “They would like to think that they got all of us, but the truth is that there were a few who managed to get away. Still, we are the majority.”

  I sighed. It went to figure that the humans who weren’t killed outright would manage to get themselves enslaved somehow. I knew about the manual labor, as I had heard the aliens talking about how the humans had been enslaved in order to dig their tunnels. I wasn’t really looking forward to taking part in that.

  “I heard them say that they are having you work on the tunnels. Well, us now, I guess. So what is it that you are supposed to be doing? Do you know?”

  “What does it matter?” one woman said miserably. “There’s no way out of this place. We’ve tried. Even our collective brainpower is not enough to save us this time.”

  “I find it hard to believe that there is no hope whatsoever. We were chosen as the best for a reason, so just tell me what you know, okay? It’s worth a shot,” I said.

  Phoebe grinned at me. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell these guys. It’s way too soon to give up. Even though we are all exhausted and miserable, and half of us have synced up our periods and make each other crazy, there is still a chance to get the hell out of here.”

  I nodded. “So tell me more about what you guys are doing here. What have you learned so far? And how many of these assholes are there down here anyway?”

  “There are a lot. I’ve counted four Raithers and five Bardans. The Bardans and the Raithers have a feud between them, but it hasn’t prevented them from working together.”

  “Well there are way more of us than there are of them,” I said. “So really not so many.”

  “Yes, but the Raithers are strong, and the Bardans are unbelievably intelligent. Not only that, but they have a very thick exoskeleton that makes it almost impossible to wound them. It would take resources that we don’t have before we would be able to really stand a chance against these guys.”

  But instead of sounding convinced as she spoke, Phoebe was looking at me with a gleam in her eye. As if she were daring me to try and figure out a way that we could make this work out in our favor. I knew that she didn’t fully believe that things were hopeless, and yet it was strange to hear her speak in that way.

  She was always trying to motivate everybody into working their hardest, even though a lot of the time her ideals and ours were different. She tended to rub us the wrong way. But I wanted to think that she was going to be genuine.

  “Well then, we’re just going to have to try and figure out their weakness and exploit it. Until then, we will pretend like we’re just following their orders. How long do they have you guys digging?”

  “All day. They give us giant meals in between; it’s almost as if they want us to bulk up for some reason.”

  The same woman that had been so defeated spoke up again, and I sighed inwardly.

  “There was a plan,” I said quietly. “One that I overheard. The Raither in charge didn’t know about it, or at least he didn’t order it himself. One of the Bardans, I assume that is what the alligator looking men are called? Well anyway, the alligator man was talking about trying to create an army so that they can begin to take over the planet Hexa.”

  Phoebe laughed. “That’s impossible. If they were going to take over the planet Hexa, they would have to disable all of the securities that the Resha Federation enabled in order to keep all of the creatures here prisoner.”

  “What the hell is the Resha Federation?” I asked, quirking my brow at Phoebe.

  “Well apparently, from what we gathered when the Raithers were camped out at that old ship, the Resha Federation is responsible for this being a prison planet. They set up all the security, and they do the maintenance, and they make sure that there is enough food to go around for those who survive. And they are the pieces of shit who refused to send us any help from Earth.”

  “You mean they could have sent someone from Earth to help us? But they didn’t?” I asked, gaping at Phoebe. “We don’t belong here.”

  “According to them, apparently, we do,” Phoebe said. “One of the Petchuvian men who had abducted us was killed, and the entire group was blamed for it. It doesn’t mean it’s fair, but if we are going to have any chance of survival, it won’t be because the Resha Federation is going to help us. It will be because the Raithers on planet Yala or the people of Earth were able to do something about it. But I really don’t think that they are going to. And even if they did, the most they would be able to do is probably put us a prison planet that isn’t quite as dangerous.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, even though Zern had told me the same thing. It just seemed impossible that we were doomed here no matter what. Everything about the situation was extremely unfair, and life had already been challenging enough before all of the remaining human women had been abducted and thrown into this prison. There had to be a way out. And if anybody was going to find it, it would be me.

  “What kind of an evil jerk would think that it’s okay to leave us here?” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. No matter how hard I thought about it, it was still unbelievable. “Well never mind that. We’re going to get out of here. One way or another. Just trust me on that.”

  I didn’t have a plan. And I really didn’t have any idea what was going to happen or what they were going to make me do now that I was a prisoner underground. But what I did know was that I didn’t believe that this was the way things were going
to end. There was some strange, inexplicable glimmer of hope that was shining deep in my heart. I was going to do my best to see to it that my hope was able to amount to something, no matter what the cost.

  ***

  “Okay, humans, it is time to wake up.”

  It felt as if we had just fallen asleep, in a strange replica of the way we had slept on the Petchuvian spaceship on the way to the planet Hexa. Each of us on the ground, close together in the limited space that we had. Most of us were still extremely tired as it was very cold underground and we had been huddling for body warmth.

  There were few moans and grumbles as we stood up, and it became clear that everybody was terrified of the Bardans, who were going to serve as our prison wardens. I didn’t recognize the Bardan that had woken us up, but I already knew that I didn’t like him. There was an evil gleam in his eye, and he waited for us to collect ourselves before he opened the cell door and waited for us to line up and march out in front of him.

  “Let’s go. You gorged yourself on your meal last night, so you should have plenty of energy to get to work today, so no whining about breakfast today; do you understand?”

  I frowned. So that was why they were so anxious to keep us fed. They had probably learned about how humans metabolize fuel in the form of food. They thought they were gassing us up or something.

  I didn’t have much of a chance to think deeply into this strange revelation, because soon we were being marched outside the cell and down the long, dark tunnel. It was pitch black, and I couldn’t help but whimper in fear and reach my hand forward until I felt the shoulder of the woman in front of me. She said nothing when I gripped onto her for comfort and guidance; they had all gone through the same thing themselves and she seemed resigned to the fate of anchoring me until we got where we were going.

  When I turned my head to look over my shoulder, I froze, and another woman bumped into me. I cried out in fear; not from being startled by the impact of another human, but because of the eerie orange glow of the Bardan’s eyes. They shone out through the darkness, creepier than anything I had ever seen before. There was something horribly menacing about those small creatures, even though I had a strong feeling that they were vulnerable somehow. They were good at being aggressive, but I doubted they could do much when it came to physical confrontation.

  Either way, they had to have done something deemed pretty horrible to have landed on this prison planet, and I couldn’t help but wonder what that was as we were marched forward in the darkness.

  Finally, I spotted light ahead, a soft golden glow. It wasn’t much: just a flickering rushlight that wasn’t emitting any sort of smoke; it was an odd alien technology I had never seen before. But before I had a chance to analyze it too much, the Bardan began to speak.

  “Grab your tools and begin!” he demanded.

  As the group ahead of me began to thin out, I saw a line of glittering silver tools and recognized the material immediately. It was the metal pieces from outside the Raither ship, and I shuddered. It was odd to think that the same Raithers that had crashed here and escaped had left behind a group of freaks who actually belonged on this horrible planet. It brought my mind back to Zern, whose quiet sweetness had nearly fooled me into thinking he wasn’t capable of doing an unkind thing.

  And yet he had shown no hesitation about kicking me off the ship, and had apparently only been waiting for the right moment to bring it up; as if it were more entertaining somehow to bring it up when I was the most off my guard and actually being stupid enough to hope that maybe whatever that relationship was that we were sharing was something that could maybe warrant the strange warmth he always seemed to generate inside of me.

  But it wasn’t. He didn’t care about me. I was just some invader on his property. A nuisance. Some sort of pest to get rid of that had infested his precious ship. The sooner I was out of his way, the better, as far as he was concerned. Why had I wasted my time trying to spend time with him, feeding him and laughing with him, only to be kicked out like the world’s biggest pain in the ass?

  “Get to work!” the Bardan shouted. I cringed, knowing he was referring to me. I was the only woman who hadn’t picked up one of the makeshift tools to begin hacking away at the dirt walls as the other women had begun to do.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I mumbled.

  “You! Show her what to do, human.”

  The Bardan was staring at Phoebe, and Phoebe sighed.

  “Yes, sir,” she said with mock politeness.

  The Bardan didn’t seem able to detect the difference between mockery and sincerity in the human dictation, so I hurried over to Phoebe before he might suddenly learn the difference.

  “It’s pretty straightforward, really. All you have to do is dig. We’re expanding this room and continuing a tunnel south. That is going to make it easy for our captors to expand their reach of the planet. Most of the creatures here are above ground; they don’t even know we are here.”

  “All right,” I sighed.

  Before long, I was standing beside Phoebe, working grimly along with the others. There was no music or chatter: only the silence filled with metallic clanging and the sound of Earth being shoveled into buckets that were being carried away by a line of human women. They would reappear after taking it somewhere and continuing their digging. When the buckets were full again, they would return to the grueling work of emptying the buckets. It looked exhausting.

  “Did they have to do something special to get that job?” I asked Phoebe.

  She scowled at me. “They were working too slowly. Bardans are big fans of speed, and they put me in charge of dealing out punishments when the wardens aren’t able to pay much attention.”

  “I see,” I said quietly. “So they were slow, and you had them go on bucket duty?”

  “That about sums it up, yeah,” Phoebe said. She turned away from me to focus back on her work and smiled privately to herself. I got an eerie feeling from that look: almost as if she derived a sadistic pleasure from having that sort of power over the other humans.

  I tried to shake the feeling away. I was probably just tired and overwhelmed by the situation and assigning meanings to things that weren’t there. It wasn’t possible that this place was affecting Phoebe, was it? No, humans had a good moral compass. There was a line between what was good and what was bad, and we were duty-bound as elite researchers to represent the best qualities humanity had to offer in every situation.

  “You have another human with you today; I want you to have made some real progress by the time you’re done!” the Bardan demanded, his high-pitched voice reverberating in the chamber we were creating. “Dig! Faster!”

  I cried out in pain as the sickening sound of flesh breaking filled my ears. My back was on fire suddenly, and then it happened again, and I realized that the little asshole was whipping me.

  I whirled around to face him and dodged away from the whip. “What the hell is your problem?”

  I held his gaze, and the room suddenly became silent. I could feel the weight of all eyes on me as I faced down the Bardan. At first, I thought I had sealed my death in no uncertain terms, but then the Bardan’s eyes began to shine.

  “It looks like we have another volunteer to work in tunnel six!” he said, his face exceedingly cheerful.

  I looked around the room at the horrified faces of the others in the dim light until my eyes rested upon Phoebe. I was shocked by the look of sheer delight creeping across her features. When she caught me looking at her, she wiped the look away quickly and feigned the same horror that was on the faces of the other women.

  “You’re in for a real surprise,” she said. “Remember: don’t look down.”

  Chapter 5

  Captain Zern Krechan

  I had been huddled in the tunnel overnight, in a small, unfurnished room with no light. I couldn’t see anything when I had gone inside, but I could tell by the scent that neither Raithers nor Bardans had set foot here for a while; it seemed odd that I had found an are
a that was uninhabited by Bardans and Raithers alike.

  And yet, here was this space. I decided to use it as a base for the night. It had been impossible for me to sneak through the populated area of the dining hall; even at night there were Bardans and Raithers coming and going; it was as if their appetites were never satiated. I had to be careful; Bardans were known for their ability to outsmart Raithers…particularly if we were outnumbered.

  Beyond the hall was the place where the human had been taken, but I had heard enough to know that she would be safe for the night. At least it gave me a chance to hang back and regroup. I had been up half the night thinking about what I was going to do to save the human, but I also knew that if there was going to be a fight, I would need to be rested. And so when I was sure I was out of sight, I allowed myself to sleep briefly—just enough to get my energy back.

  “You are really going to like it here. It is always a treat to introduce Keno to a new friend!”

  The sound of the Bardan’s voice made my skin crawl, and I backed up against the wall so that nobody would see me. They passed by the entrance of the room I was in and headed deeper down the corridor. I had gone there myself, but an extreme heat had caused me to turn around and head back. I could tell I was only going further away from the human, and whatever was at the end of this hall was dangerous.

  “I’m sure it will be a blast. We need the tunnel completed soon. He should not bother you unless he is hungry. But if he is, you may need to work smart.”

  I gaped at the Bardan’s back, recklessly sticking my head out the doorway. The human he was leading through the tunnels was Lila. I was so close. All I had to do was take him out and get her out of here.