“Do you remember the battle in Sector 14 last summer?” My voice sounds raspy. When I clear my throat, it feels raw and chafed.
I pause as I realize Carleon is no longer following me. I look back over my shoulder and see the droop in his shoulders and his open stare. “There weren’t many survivors left from that battle, were there?”
I don’t want to scare him, but he needs to know what is coming our way. If I know Vikesh, he will already suspect I am here and will be looking forward to our reunion . He is no average, run-of-the-mill Caldonian. “I managed to save twenty-three that day. We arrived with over three hundred men.”
His gulp is audible in the eerie silence that has fallen over the base. The night seems darker and the shadows deeper than before. A shiver works its way up my spine. “We’re in trouble, aren’t we?” he asks.
“Yes.” I dart a quick glance around, wondering from which direction the alien will approach. “Vikesh is a Rumbler. He uses vibrations to attack. It can be something as simple as an explosion, a tree falling upon the ground, a bird chirping, or even a footstep that unsettles the earth. Any sound, any move you make can be turned against you.”
“Then what does he do?”
I shake my head, swallowing roughly. “You don’t want to know.”
Sometimes at night I can still hear the men screaming, pleading for death as the ground opened up around them and swallowed them alive. Others were pummeled by falling stone, cut in half and left to slowly bleed out. Still others were caught in the fires that spread through the forest, searing their flesh as they spasmed against the ground with no end in sight. Vikesh seemed to take the most delight in making her men suffer as he sought her out, using their own rhythmic pulses of their hearts against them as the fist-sized organs imploded in their chests.
Only the men within my protective shield had survived, but I was drained from the battle and too weary to do anything more than defend those few that stood nearest me. I still blame myself for not saving more. Eamon knows of my nightmares, but we never speak of them. To do so would be to admit my fear and my inadequacy.
I thought I could handle the alien on my own. I learned a hard, terrible lesson that day, but that was half a year ago. Am I strong enough now to save Carleon and my friends?
Vikesh is the only Caldonian that I have ever feared, apart from Drakon. And now he happens to show up at this particulate base? That can mean only one thing. The intel was correct… Drakon is here.
As the ground begins to roll beneath our feet again, screams pierce the night air. My comm unit goes crazy. “Illyria? Where are you?” Eamon screams. I wince as I pull the earpiece from the inner drum of my ear, alleviating some of the blaring pain. “Are you all right?”
I fight back against my panic as a second wave ripples through the ground, faster and harder than the first. Am I all right? I don’t really know, I think silently, lost in a torrent of doubts.
“Illyria, answer me!” Eamon roars.
My annoyance with my boyfriend for breaking protocol helps me to see through my fear. “I am here and on target. Now stop shouting my name so everyone can hear! You are endangering my mission and our men,” I yell back and let the earpiece dangle beside my cheek.
Carleon takes a deep breath and waits for my order. I can see how white his fingers are against his grip on his laser gun. For the first time I see him truly terrified and rightfully so. “Let’s go.”
He follows behind me at a near crouch, moving with extreme caution and as little noise as possible. We leave tracks in the softened ground, but there is no time to hide them, and with Vikesh tracking us, there’s no point either. I watch as Carleon’s gaze darts toward every shadow, no doubt convinced the alien is sneaking up on us, but that is not his way. He doesn’t need to hide.
“So you think you can take this guy?”
My shrug does little to ease either of our fears as we pause against the side of the building I thought to be the armory. I rise up and look over my shoulder into the window and am struck by a mixture of disappointment and relief. Long rows of bench tables span the length of the room. This is the mess hall, not a storage locker of weapons. At least he won’t be able to blow us up with it!
“That’s the bunker over there.” I point to a single door that rises from the ground. An entrance rises in an arch that stands barely eight foot tall, plated with sheets of hammered metal. The roof of the structure disappears into the earth, as if the tunnel has been swallowed whole. “Drakon should be through that door.”
There is no telling just how many exits there are to this bunker, or how many soldiers lie in wait beyond that door. I can feel my heart thumping wildly in my chest as I peer out into the dark. Where has all of the laser fire gone?