Zern Read online

  I crept out of the small room and trailed behind the Bardan, my eyes boring on the human. Lila’s graceful body was moving ahead of him, her eyes kept forward as she tried to make anything out in the darkness. Raithers had no issue seeing in pitch-black darkness, but we preferred not to be without the sun in any way. Our planet was one of the most beautiful in the galaxy in that way, the sky being unbelievably beautiful, but it had always been a novelty that meant little to me.

  Instead, I had always preferred to occupy my time with training: whether indoors or outdoors, it didn’t matter. Sure, the sky was beautiful, but there were more important things to me than the way the planet looked. I had to focus inwardly; I had gone through a lot in my life, and focusing on being the strongest I could be was a way to help me prove to myself and everyone else that I was a survivor.

  “No! Please, don’t make me go in there!”

  Lila’s voice was frantic now, and I peered ahead; there was a gaping hole in the middle of the ground ahead of her, and the Bardan was already laughing sinisterly.

  “This is quite an honor. You are going to make the Erksha very happy.”

  My chest became tight as a visual of the terrifying worm-like creature flashed in my mind. Was he really going to feed the human to an Erksha? I had to stop him.

  But just as I was charging the Bardan, the horrible little creature shoved the human forward, and she screamed shrilly, disappearing into a deep, deep hole.

  “You gredding monster!” I bellowed, causing the Bardan to turn to me, its reptilian eyes wide and confused as I charged toward him, sending both of us hurtling down after her.

  ***

  The heat was overwhelming, and I winced, glowering down at the Bardan as he fell. My hand was still wrapped around his neck, and I saw with a start that we were falling down a long pit with magma oozing at the bottom. As I fell, I saw with relief that the human had landed hard on one of the several jutting platforms made of rock that were leveled precariously above the magma. The Bardan was squirming to free himself from my grip when we both slammed into the rocky surface of another platform.

  “Let go of me, Raither scum!” the Bardan exclaimed. I narrowed my eyes in anger. This Bardan was responsible for putting my human in mortal danger. He didn’t deserve my mercy.

  I got to my feet, my grip around his throat tightening.

  “I am going to destroy you.”

  Before he had the chance to reply, I held him over the ledge and let go. He let out a piercing screech that echoed throughout the chamber, and I knew that it was only a matter of time before the other Bardans came running. Unless they were too afraid of the Erksha to go anywhere near this area, which seemed to have been the case, judging by the smell. I was trained to detect the Bardan scent and had been given a vaccination against the chemical odors their bodies emitted.

  “Help!”

  My attention was torn away from the Bardan at the sound of Lila’s frightened shout. I looked up, spotting her small form standing rigidly on a platform that was high above the one the Bardan and I had landed on. I climbed quickly along the wall of stone and dirt nearest me and scrambled toward Lila just in time to catch sight of the tremendous Erksha rising from the magma below and fixing its gaze upon Lila.

  It reared its horrific head, a mouth of shark-like teeth, sharp and jagged, and it stared at Lila, who was trembling before it, unable to move. The creature was unbelievably huge, and Lila was dwarfed by its massive pink body.

  Everything went by me in a blur as I began my single-minded quest to reach Lila. She still hadn’t realized that I was there. It was as if she had been blinded by the horrific creature in front of her. Although it was several feet away, it would take no time at all for the Erksha to strike.

  Before I could even register what I was doing, I was standing in between the human and the monster, holding my hand out protectively in front of Lila.

  “Zern?” her beautiful voice asked in shock.

  But there was no time to acknowledge her or give her a proper greeting. What I had to do was to rescue her from this potentially awful fate. The last thing that I wanted to do was to see the human ripped apart before my eyes. The Erksha were cruel and merciless creatures. They lived within the magma of all worlds, but nobody usually knew about their existence. It was hard to say whether this Erksha had already been on this planet before it had been turned into a prison, or if perhaps it had been placed here purposefully because of its cruel actions.

  If the latter were true, then I was dealing with an even more dangerous beast then I may have originally determined.

  The monster looked at me with an amused glint in his eye, almost as if it was having a hard time believing that I had the nerve to believe I would be able to protect the myself, let alone the human. And the truth was that I wasn’t sure I would be able to pull this off.

  Although I remembered the weakness of the Erksha—inside their mouths was a small hollow cavity that contained the monster’s central nervous system—the thought of getting close enough to the area to actually do any damage was both terrifying and discouraging. It seemed that there was no way that I would be able to do what needed to be done without being completely mangled and killed, or at least seriously deformed for the rest of my life.

  “Zern, please,” the human begged. “Don’t get yourself killed for my sake. Just try to get out of here. It’s my own fault this is happening. If I would’ve just kept my cool and stayed put…”

  “No,” I said shaking my head without taking my eyes away from the creature. “I should not have told you to leave the way that I did. I didn’t want you to. The truth is…”

  But before I had a chance to finish my sentence, the Erksha lunged at us. The human screamed, and I pushed her out of the way and rolled ahead to dodge its attack.

  Luckily, I still had the knives that I had been equipped with at the beginning of my journey, and soon, the Erksha was thrashing away from my blade. Its skin was nearly impenetrable. I should have known that anything that spends a good amount of time and molten lava was not going to be phased by a blade, even a blade of Raither quality.

  It was becoming more and more clear what I would have to do, no matter how unappealing it might have sounded. I would have to get into its mouth and destroy the creature from the inside out. Whether that meant my doom or not, as long as the human survived, I would be able to say that my mission was a success.

  I could hear the human sobbing behind me as I stood and attempted to collect myself before I resigned myself to my undesirable fate. The last thing I wanted to do was to get close enough to this creature that it could digest me, but I had to do it for Lila. She was a victim of circumstance, in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it was cruel of the Resha Federation to deny her and the rest of her people the opportunity to go back to Earth.

  At the very least, I could make up for it in the best way I knew how. The Erksha let out another terrifying sound that made my blood run cold. The human’s sobs were cut off by what I can only assume was a wave of fear, and I looked up into the beady red eyes of the Erksha as it measured me up. I knew that it was going to lunge at me, but there was nothing that I could do about it. If it was going to come at me this way, then at least I would have a chance of getting into its mouth unscathed and tearing apart its central nervous system so that the human could leave. I owed her that much at least.

  I braced myself, summoning all the courage in my body so that I was able to face the creature coming at me unflinchingly. If I was able to fully concentrate, I would be able to save myself. But if I choked up and allowed my fear to take over, then I might as well be sacrificing myself without a fight.

  Suddenly, my body was enveloped in a moist darkness, and I gasped for breath as I tugged my feet forward, doing my best to avoid all of the horrifying teeth that were surrounding me. The creature’s tongue flipped me back and forth, trying to get me between its teeth and to crush the life out of me. I had to act fast and quickly attempted to locate
the cavity where the central nervous system was located.

  I held the knife tightly in my hand and thrust forward to cut the bundle of nerves at its core. Suddenly, the creature’s jaws slackened beneath my feet, and I began to tumble down the steep slope of its tongue until I found myself falling over the sharp edges of its teeth and down to the ground. The creature was swaying dramatically, and I knew that if we didn’t act, it was probably going to fall and the land on the human and break the platform, potentially destroying us both.

  “Zern, you’re all right!”

  I barely had time to heed the human’s relief. Reviewing all of my options revealed that if we followed the slope of rock up the face of the cavern walls, we would be able to find a way out this forsaken dungeon and escape once and for all.

  The Erksha let out a deep moan that shook the Earth around us, and I grabbed the human, pulling her to her feet and leading her forward. She was almost too afraid to move, so I lifted her up and carried her as I ran toward our only chance of escape. There was no telling what would happen when the full weight of the Erksha landed on the unsteady platform of rock that had been formed above the magma. The human seemed weak, not only from fear, but from the extreme heat in the area. It was clear that humans were exceptionally vulnerable, and I had to do whatever I could to make sure that she got out of this alive.

  She held onto me tightly as I ran, occasionally meeting my eyes with her own. They seemed to be asking a million questions, but there was no time to give her any answers. I knew that she hadn’t expected me to come and find her. In fact, it had been quite the surprise for us both. And if I didn’t get back soon, then I was going to lose the only chance I had of getting off of this prison planet once and for all.

  Once I finally made it to the corridor, put the human back down on the ground and we walked slowly together toward the end, where the room I had been staying in overnight was hidden. What I wanted to do was to get to the entrance of the underground tunnel as quickly as possible so that I could make sure that Lila was able to escape this hellish prison.

  My chest was tight as we made our way, and I could see our escape clearly. There was nobody guarding the door. It was as if we were destined to get out of this horrible place without any further consequences.

  “Wait, where are we going?” Lila said, her voice wavering. “There are other girls down here. Humans. We can just leave them here. There are innocent women who deserve the same chance that I’m getting now.”

  I gaped at her in disbelief. I had nearly lost my life to save hers. There was no way that I was going to let her talk me into getting us both killed.

  “You need to lower your voice. Better yet, stop speaking entirely. There is danger here, and I need you to go up this ladder and out that door and never look back. It doesn’t matter whether there are one million humans in here. We got you to safety, and that’s what matters the most.”

  “You are such an asshole,” the human said, shoving away from me and turning on her heel. She looked disoriented for a moment, as if she were trying to figure out the best course of action to take and she was suddenly very confused about where she was going. Any hesitation was going to cost her the freedom that I had risked my life for. And that was unacceptable.

  Without another word, I lifted her once again from the ground and slung her over my shoulder so that I could climb out. She struggled and squirmed, not making a noise except the sound of her fist against my flesh. I didn’t feel anything much and ignored her as I did my best to escape from the pit as quickly as I could.

  But it was a long way down, by the time I was about two-thirds of the way up the ladder, a familiar scent made my stomach churn.

  “It is funny that you think that you can escape from this place. Sure, you may have been smart enough to overcome the Erksha, but I doubt that you will be any kind of match for your own kind, Captain Zern.”

  I froze, realization dawning suddenly upon me. I knew now where I had heard that voice before. The man that had abducted Lila was the right-hand man to one of the most dangerous criminals that the planet Yala had ever seen. They had gone quickly from my mind after they had been imprisoned on the planet Hexa, because as far as I was concerned, I no longer had to worry about either of them.

  And yet, here they were. Making our lives a living hell.

  “Captain, you are not going anywhere with this human. She is mine. I am staking my claim upon her, and that is final.”

  The voice of the Raither in charge chilled me. Both Parra and Marx were standing at the bottom of the ladder, holding up what appeared to be laser weapons. But when they fired, I found that they were actually simply doctored into primitive weapons that cast hard pellets at my body. Regardless of their lack of life-threatening danger, the constant assault on my hands and legs was too much, and I couldn’t help but lose my grip.

  The human and I tumbled to the ground, and I fought against the nearly superhuman strength of the Raither leader and his goon. They seemed amused by the effort and quickly ended their attack with a swift blow to my head.

  “Zern!” Lila shouted. “What the hell is wrong with you guys? He hasn’t done anything wrong!”

  The Raithers cackled at her words and struck me again. The world went suddenly dark, and I was left unconscious, my final thought being concern for the human’s welfare.

  Chapter 6

  Dr. Lila Andrews

  The small ray of hope that I had suddenly allowed to blossom in my chest curdled into a sad cloud of defeat. I hadn’t expected for Zern to come after me. In fact, I thought that he would be hard at work disassembling the ship and making any thought of escape that I may have had completely impossible.

  Instead, he had just saved my life in one of the most dangerous ways possible. When he had disappeared into the terrifying worm creature’s mouth, I thought that I would never see him again. It seemed so uncharacteristic for him to just stand there and allow himself to be engulfed by the creature, but as soon as its face went slack, I started to realize that it must’ve all been a part of his plan.

  I hadn’t allowed myself to feel hope again that I would see him, until he tumbled out of the creature’s mouth and stumbled toward me, saving me once again from the creature’s heavy body as it fell onto the platform and destroyed what was left of it. If we had waited just a few moments longer, both of us would have gone down into the magma along with the monster’s corpse.

  “So the Erksha did not quite teach you the lesson that the Bardans were expecting it to, did it?” the tall Raither who referred to himself as Parra asked.

  He was the one in charge, the one that all of the others were taking orders from. He had his hand heavily on my shoulder, and I couldn’t help but feel extremely uncomfortable with this unwanted attention.

  Even if I had wanted to reply to Parra, my voice was caught in my throat, and I simply continued moving forward. The other Raither was dragging Zern behind us, his body limp and a rope wrapped around his thick, muscular legs. I felt horrible for getting him into this position. If I would’ve just listened to him and allowed him to lead me to freedom rather than worrying about the other humans, this might not have happened.

  And yet, my scientific mind was already rationalizing everything that had happened. I had been in shock. There was no way that I could have acted any better than I had at the moment. I wasn’t entirely in control of myself. And although that happened rarely, I had to accept those brief moments when it did happen and do what I could to learn from them.

  “I do not think that you will do anybody much good staying with the other humans. It seems that Captain Zern already knows where you and the others have been held. The last thing we need is another attempted jailbreak. The two of you need to stay far apart. You are going to come back to my chambers, where we will not be disturbed by anybody. Is that understood?”

  I froze. The thought of being stuck in Parra’s chambers was terrifying. Even though he was a Raither like Zern, there was something incredibly inhu
mane about the way he conducted himself. I could tell by looking into his eyes that he lacked all empathy and conscience. The thought of being near him for any extended length of time made me sick to my stomach.

  “I said, is that understood?” Parra demanded.

  I nodded quickly and turned away, my face red and probably betraying my revulsion.

  “Good,” he said. “Make sure that you take care of Captain Zern. I am taking the human to my chambers now. You had better secure him. I have heard things about his strength that do not make me confident about our confines. Once the human is secured, I will come and begin the interrogation. There has to be a reason that Zern is here. I refuse to believe that he simply came in order to rescue a lowly human. There has to be something else. And not only that, but a reason why he is on this planet. If he got here, chances are he will have a way to get off as well.”

  “Of course, sir,” the Raither that had kidnapped me said, bowing to Parra.

  Parra turned his cold, metallic eyes upon me and his face contorted into what I could only assume was a smile. I wished I had never seen the sight, and knew that it would probably haunt me for the rest of my life.

  “All right. Come then, human. It is time to make you a little bit more comfortable.”

  ***

  Parra’s room was surprisingly posh, considering the lack of resources that they had to work with. I was beginning to understand that the Raithers were a very resourceful bunch, and whenever they had a need, they would figure out a way to fulfill it, no matter how limited their materials might be.

  He had me sit down on his bed: one that looked as if it were taken from the ship that I had been squatting in for the past few months. However, it was a little bit different, and I had to wonder where it had come from. All of the beds in our ship were intact.

  “Have a bite to eat,” Parra said, coming to me with a small tray of dried fruit. It was actually quite delicious, and I ate slowly, hoping that trusting this man’s food was not a mistake. However, before I could determine whether or not he was going to take advantage of this particular situation, he was suddenly summoned by one of the alligator men.