Four humans were advancing down the hallway towards her, their rifles up and aimed at her. Aria shot at them, had the satisfaction of seeing two of them crumple before their companions returned fire. There was a white-hot searing pain along her left hip as a bullet sliced against her, a glancing blow. Snarling, she rolled to the side, coming up against the opposite wall and firing again. The other two humans fell, leaving the hallway ahead of her clear. Aria slowly lowered her rifle, breathing hard, her head spinning with the battle high.
A shot rang out behind her, and Aria's body spun around as a bullet tore through the meaty part of her left shoulder. As she fell to the floor, she saw a human female dash past her. Roaring, she hauled herself to her feet, firing after the fleeing figure. The human was too fast for her, and the bullets thudded into the wall at the end of the hall as the person made it around the corner. Aria ran after her, forgetting about Jack in her rage.
The female was running towards the rear of the ship, where the engine area was. Aria didn't care if she was being led into a trap, she wanted that bitch dead. They were running through a labyrinth of passageways, taking turn after turn. Aria was losing track of where she was going, but that was fine. She could find her way back when she needed to.
A minute later Aria came around a corner into what had to be the engine room of the ship. The female she'd been chasing was standing inside, near a bank of computer controls. She had her the index of one hand pressed down hard on a button, her other hand holding a pistol pointed at Aria. Baring her fangs, Aria raised her rifle, sighting directly on the woman's head.
“Stop!” the woman yelled. Her expression was mostly neutral, but there was a touch of fear to it. Aria let the corners of her mouth turn up in a grin. She liked seeing fear in an enemy's face. It was a welcome sight to her. “I know you can understand me. If you shoot me, my hand's going to come off this button. If I release it without typing in the right command, the ignition circuits in all of the engines will fry.”
Aria's fingers tightened on her rifle grip. “So what,” she hissed.
The female swallowed, a bead of sweat rolling down her forehead. “If that happens, this ship will be a useless pile of metal. We'll all be stuck on this planet, no way to get off. Do you want that to happen?”
“No difference,” Aria growled, advancing a step towards the female. Her aim didn't waver one millimeter. “Stuck here now anyway.” Her tail twitched dangerously, showing her barely contained rage. The fur on the back of her neck was raised.
“Be reasonable,” the woman pleaded. The hand in which she was holding her pistol was shaking now. “Tell you what. You let me live, and I'll give you Squier and the ship. I'll be your prisoner, just-”
Aria squeezed her trigger. The pleading woman's voice was cut off as the back of her head exploded onto the control panel behind her. For a few long seconds, her body remained standing, shaking erratically with death spasms. Then she collapsed, her pistol clattering to the floor of the engine room. Her hand came away from the button, which popped up with an audible click. There was silence for a few moments, then Aria heard a deafening crackling sound as electricity surged through the circuitry in the engine room. All of the status lights flickered, and then the room went dim as the engines went completely dead.
Aria lowered her weapon, gazing at the dead woman in front of her. “Much to learn of Ailians...”
Then she turned her back on the corpse and left, running to try to retrace her steps to where she could find Jack.
******
The male commando who had been left to guard Jack was pacing again, appearing impatient. The sound of gunfire had stopped, and now everything was mostly quiet. He stared at the door, paying little attention to Jack. Jack took the opportunity to test the strength of the handcuffs holding him to his chair. Like one might expect, they were solid steel and quite strong. But the commandos had been a little careless in fastening them. The cuff on his right hand had been left loose enough that he thought he might be able to wriggle his hand out of it.
Jack started working, twisting his hand while making his fist as tight and small as possible. It helped that he was sweating profusely with a combination of fear and pain, which made his skin slick against the metal. Before long, his hand was halfway through the cuff. Every time the commando glanced back at him, he'd still his movements.
A rumble shook through the ship, and the commando jumped. Jack winced, recognizing the feel and sound of a capacitor bank frying. This ship wouldn't be flying anytime soon. There went one option for leaving the planet.
“Son of a bitch...,” the commando muttered. “What the fuck is going on out there...” He opened the door, glanced out, and swore. “Shit! It's like a slaughterhouse out there!” He closed the door again, stared at Jack for a minute, then crossed the room and leaned against the wall. The tapping of his foot betrayed his anxiety.
“If you're so eager to go investigate, then go do it,” Jack suggested.
“Shut up,” the commando said. He rested his hand on his holstered sidearm. “Captain Bennett said I had to stay in here with you. She didn't say anything about you being alive when she got back. So keep your mouth shut, if you know what's good for you.”
Not having anything else to say, and kind of not wanting to end up with another bullet hole in him, Jack kept his mouth shut and continued working on getting his hand free. He almost had it out now, if he could just ease the cuff over his knuckles...He'd probably wind of scraping most of the skin off them, but still...
Jack looked up as the door suddenly slid open. His heart leapt as he saw Aria standing in the doorway, blood streaking her flight suit and her face contorted into a snarl. The commando froze in place, staring at her in shock and terror. Aria looked Jack over for a second, and she saw where he'd been shot in the leg. She turned her eyes to the commando, and her jaws gaped open as she let loose a deafening roar full of pure rage.
The commando's face went pale as all the blood drained from it, but he managed to draw his handgun from its holster as he darted over to Jack. With admirable speed, he'd wrapped his arm around Jack's shoulders and pressed the muzzle of the pistol to the side of his head. “Alright, cat, h-here's how it's gonna go down. You put the gun down, and-”
With an effort, Jack ripped his right hand out of the loose cuff and reached up, grabbing the commando's gun hand and jerking it down. In that second where the gun was pointed away from Jack's head, Aria fired her rifle. Her shot took the commando in the arm, and he dropped his pistol as his body spun away from Jack, falling to the floor.
Before the man could try to get up, Aria was on top of him, her rifle forgotten as she ripped at him with her claws. Blood spattered the walls as she tore at him, alternating rakes of her claws with brutal punches. She was in a true blood rage now, and all her prey could do was lay there as she beat and clawed him to a bloody mess. Long after the man was dead, Aria kept beating him, shrieking and howling in disjointed phrases of her own language.
“Aria!” Jack shouted, horrified at the carnage he was watching. “Aria, he's dead, stop! Aria!”
Her ears twitching back at the sound of his voice, Aria spun around and lunged at Jack, grabbing his collar. Holding his breath, Jack stared into her eyes as she stared back at him, her lips quivering as she bared her clenched teeth. She was growling at him, rage in her eyes, looking as though she didn't even recognize him. Her nostrils flared and she whipped her tail behind her.
“Aria, it's me,” Jack said, his voice shaking. “You know me.”
For a long time they just stared at each other, the only noise being Aria's heavy breathing and low rumbling growls. Her hands grasped his jacket tightly, stretching the material. Jack was absolutely terrified. The look in her eyes was something he'd never seen before, something he'd only ever heard about. It was the battle high, the almost narcotic effect of combat that made an Ailian fearsome in battle. The veterans who'd survived hand-to-hand fighting that Jack had talked to in the service had described it to him with looks of pure terror on their faces, and now he knew it for himself.
“Aria, it's me,” he repeated. He raised his free hand slowly, shakily. He touched the side of her face with it, feeling the fur against his skin. The Ailian's eyes flicked to the side, then back to his face. Jack swallowed, holding her gaze. “Come back, Aria, come back...”
Aria blinked, looking confused. Then the awareness slowly came back into her eyes, and her breathing slowed, her lips closing. She sucked in a sharp breath and leaned back from him, sitting back on her haunches. She clutched her head in her hands, huddled into a ball for several long minutes before she looked up again.
“Jack?” Aria blinked again, then shook her head as though to clear it. She looked around, spotted a key glinting on the belt of the man she'd just killed. She snatched it up and quickly released Jack's other hand from the chair.
“Thanks,” Jack said, still a little wary of her. He rubbed his wrists, feeling the soreness where the handcuff had dug into his left wrist. Then his hand went to his leg, probing at his wound. He unfastened the tourniquet, relieved to see only a little blood leak out. The bleeding had mostly stopped. Taking a deep breath, Jack tried to stand up, but his leg wouldn't support his weight and he collapsed back into the chair. “Can we get out of here? I've had enough of this ship...”
“Ah...Yes...” Standing up, Aria lifted Jack from the chair easily. She started to carry him out, but he stopped her.
“Don't forget the radio.” Aria turned and saw the portable radio that Jack had detached earlier. She picked it up and Jack took it, holding it in his hands as she carried him out of the room. Picking their way around the bodies on the floor, they both went down the hallway towards the exit to the commando ship and left death behind them.
- 10 -
“Lie back. Be still.”
Doing as she instructed, Jack laid himself down on the floor of the tent. After leaving the commando ship, he and Aria had appropriated the camp the privateers had set up outside for their own purposes. Aria had gotten several of the generators running to provide heat to the camp, and had found several tents set up with sleeping pads. They decided to use one of them as a treatment area so that Jack's wound could be tended to.
Kneeling next to Jack, Aria unfastened his pants and drew them down his legs. He winced as the fabric dragged over the bullet wound in his thigh, and some bleeding started again. After removing his boots, Aria pulled the pants completely off and examined the wound closely. The flesh around the ragged wound was blackened slightly, burned by the heat of the contact shot from the commando's pistol. She probed gently but firmly with her fingers, and Jack choked back gasps of pain as the Ailian dug a finger in. The wound was bleeding freely now, disturbed by her examinations.
“Bullet still inside,” Aria said, looking up at Jack's face. “Could try to take it out, yes? But might cause more damage. Better to leave it in.”
“No, take it out,” Jack managed, the pain starting to increase as his adrenaline wore off. “I don't want a bullet in my leg. Be careful about it.”
“Yes, I...oh.” Aria looked around, her eyes widening in a sudden realization. “I forget. Leave our packs up on ridge when I come down. Not have any medical supplies with us.”
Giving an exasperated sigh, Jack placed a hand over his eyes. “You have got to be kidding me. Well, what about on the commando ship? I remember Captain Bennett saying something about there being a sick bay in there. You ought to be able to get a few supplies from there.”
Nodding, Aria stood up in the high-ceiling tent. “Yes. You give me code to enter, and I go. Will not take long.” Jack told her the code, and the Ailian left the tent. Her footsteps faded away from the tent, and Jack heard the sounds of the hatchway opening and closing a few minutes later.
Trying not to think about the pain, Jack lay there and waited for her to return. With blood slowly streaming down his leg, though not as much as right when he'd been shot, he picked up his pretty-much ruined pair of pants and pressed them hard against the wound. The pressure hurt like hell, but he managed not to pass out.
Nearly half an hour, by Jack's estimation, passed before Aria made it back to him. When she re-entered the tent she had a full ship surgeon's kit slung over her shoulder and a bundle of clothes under one arm. Aria knelt next to him again, setting the clothing aside and shucking off the surgeon's kit. While Jack watched her, she opened the kit up and withdrew some disinfectants, numbing agents, and bandages.
“What took so long?” Jack asked her, curious. She seemed a little out of breath.
Aria shrugged her shoulder, nonchalant. “Was one more left, in sick bay. Had to take care of problem.” Jack shivered, though he wasn't about to admonish her for what she'd done. He would have done exactly the same thing in her position, considering what the commandos had done.
Getting to work, Aria first took a section of bandage and wetted it with some of the liquid disinfectant. Using the damp bandage, she wiped off his wound, cleaning the dried and wet blood and burned powder from around the hole. When she finished with that she picked up a filled syringe of a numbing agent.
“Is going to hurt a moment,” Aria said, somewhat apologetically. Before Jack could respond she jabbed the needle directly into his wound and depressed the plunger. Jack's body tensed up and he threw his head back, screaming between his clenched teeth as fire shot up and down his leg from the point of injection, but he kept himself still. As Aria withdrew the needle, the fire cooled down and his leg gradually went numb. “May not want to watch. Humans so timid.”
“Hey, you, listen...,” Jack started to protest, but he saw a little sparkle in her eye, and realized she was trying to lighten the situation with humor. His protest faded away into a chuckle. “Right, right. Just don't screw up the wound any more than it already is. You Ailians are only good at killing things, after all.”
Widening her thin black lips in a smile, Aria picked up a scalpel from the surgery kit and started cutting into the wound. Despite her warning, Jack watched in fascination, amazed that the numbing substance could work so well. As he saw the scalpel cutting into his flesh, he felt a slight tugging sensation but no pain at all even as fresh blood began to flow. When the wound had been opened up enough, Aria set the scalpel aside and retrieved a set of strong tweezers and a spreader. Using the spreader to keep the incision open, she went in with the tweezers and probed around for the bullet.
“Po'krai...,”
she muttered to herself, searching around for several minutes. Just as Jack was starting to worry about when the anesthetic was going to wear off, he felt a solid tug and Aria clamped down on something. Aria pulled hard and yanked out, a small, bloody lump of titanium-jacketed lead held in the tweezers.
“Man...,” Jack breathed, reaching down and taking the bullet between two fingers. He examined it closely. “It's lucky this wasn't a hollowpoint. That could have done some serious damage.”
“Yes,” Aria agreed. “You very lucky.” She snatched up another small wad of bandages to soak up the blood that had gathered in and around the wound. After cleaning it again, she sprayed a substance inside and along the incision that was designed to clot Jack's blood, and then she wrapped his thigh tightly with bandages to patch it up. Sitting back, she looked satisfied with her work, her tail waving back and forth slowly behind her. “Is good job for only an Ailian killer, yes?”
Jack smiled at her. “Yeah, you make a pretty good doctor when you put your mind to it.”
Smiling back, Aria picked up the bundle of clothing that she had set aside earlier. “Here. Fresh clothes. Look about your size, I think.”
“Thanks,” Jack said. He took the clothes from her, a full set of pants and a jacket in the same unmarked black fatigues that the commandos had been wearing. A few small patches of blood seemed to have been hastily wiped off of the clothing, and Jack looked up at Aria, arching an eyebrow. “I think I have a pretty good idea of where you got these.”
“Is not important,” Aria assured him. “Besides, person who they belong to not need them, yes?”
“Right...” Jack pulled off his old jacket and tossed it into a pile with the pants he'd been wearing. He put on the “borrowed” set of clothing. While a little bit big, they fit him well enough. “Now, what about you?”
Aria looked a little confused. “Me?”
“Yeah,” Jack said, surprised. “You mean you can't feel that? Your shoulder and your leg?”
Her eyes widening a little, Aria looked at and felt her shoulder and her leg. She seemed shocked to feel the bullet wound in her shoulder, and the bloodied lacerations caused by the fragments in her leg. She shook her head. “Ah...Is hard to explain. Something happen when we get in good fight. Not feel pain for hours afterward. Not even realize I hurt...”
“Well, lie down,” Jack said, getting up on his knees, a little wobbly. “My turn to play doctor.”
******
Later, Aria and Jack sat opposite one another in the other sleeping tent, having left behind the bloodstains in the first. Aria had the top portion of her flight suit unzipped and pulled down for comfort, though she had bandages wrapped around much of her torso. Jack was thankful for the lack of distraction; he had enough to concentrate on right now. They had a fairly important decision before them, or rather between them. For they each sat on one side of the radio set they'd carried out of the commando ship.
“Well...what now?” Jack asked for probably the fifth or sixth time.
Aria had learned to be patient with her human companion, though she was growing tired of his indecision. “Is simple,” she said, for probably the fifth or sixth time. “Use radio. Call for help.”
“Sure. But who do we call?”
Shrugging, Aria looked at Jack helplessly. “Is your radio. Is your choice.” She nudged it towards him with one foot. “You use it to call humans. Get rescue from your own people. Is best, I think.”
Jack blinked at her. “I can't do that,” he protested. “If I call for help, they'll probably send a military detachment, considering how close we are to Ascendancy territory. That'd put you in danger.”
Snorting a laugh, Aria shook her head. “I know how to hide. Can wait for humans to leave with you. Come back and call my people when gone.”
Rubbing his chin, Jack considered that for a moment. “So, you've given up on making me your prisoner, then? Won't that make your people rather mad with you?”
The Ailian shrugged again, her ears flattening just a little. “Have committed treason once already on this planet.” She smiled meekly, her white teeth peeking out from between her lips. “Could do it again...Different way, but...punishment is the same. Besides, you earn your freedom, yes?”
Touched though he was, Jack shook his head. “I can't let you do that. I'm not going to let you just throw your life away like that.”
“Why?”
That question threw Jack for a moment. The single word made it seem like such a simple inquiry, but it was loaded with all sorts of other implications. And she was looking at him so earnestly when she asked it, her head tilted to one side and her tail twitching to the other. Her yellow and gold-flecked eyes were fixing him with a piercing gaze. Jack cleared his throat, meeting her eyes with his own.
“Well, because...well...,” he muttered. The human struggled with what to say for several long moments. It shouldn't have been that hard, but in his mind it was complicated.
It's just difficult to say.
“Yes?” Aria leaned forward a little.
Giving up, Jack changed direction. “Look, I don't know what, if any transmissions those commandos might have made before you killed them all. I mean, they obviously knew we were here if they set up a trap for us. For all I know they could have radioed back to their commanders already.” He rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly very nervous. While he'd meant this as a cover for what he'd been unable to say, he was surprised to discover that the fear was very real. “I'd just rather not go back to the UN if I'm going to be facing the blame for that commando team's destruction. I mean, you might have done it, but there'll be an awful lot of explaining for me to do if they're all dead and I'm alive. You see?”
Leaning back again, Aria reluctantly nodded her head. “Is make sense...” Jack thought he saw a hint of something in her expression, was it...? “Then what you think we do?”
“I think you should call your people now,” Jack said. He pushed the radio back towards her with his foot. “We have to be rescued by someone, and it might as well be the Ascendancy.”
Aria's eyes widened. “You are sure?” She held up a hand, forestalling his immediate reply. “Think. Ascendancy comes to rescue us, you will be prisoner of war. Put in prison, most likely, or made slave. Will be interrogated, locked up, or used.”
“Don't think I haven't been considering that the whole time I've been with you,” Jack said. A sharp wind blew through the campsite, battering the walls of the heavy tent. The rumbling caused by the rippling canvas material sounded almost like thunder. “To be honest, I don't have a whole lot waiting for me back home. My job is definitely down the tubes, and I don't have a family of my own. I've never been close to my relatives, even my parents. I'm basically a screw-up back on Earth.”
“I see...”
“So I'd almost rather be a prisoner than to go back to the scrutiny and failure I'd face back home,” Jack continued. He felt pathetic even saying that, though it was definitely true. The cargo run he'd been making had basically been his last chance to pull himself out of the gutter, and he'd blown it. “So...Go ahead. Make the call.”
Aria stared at him, crossing her arms over her chest. She regarded him with a mixture of pity and new found curiosity, and something else that strangely looked like respect. Perhaps because she recognized in him the same willingness to face an undesirable outcome that she had. Nodding slowly, Aria reached down and examined the radio, finding the power switch and turning it on. She looked back up at him once more.
“You are sure?”
“I'm sure. Besides...” He offered a weak smile. “If I don't go with you, who's going to speak on your behalf at your trial?”
She blinked at him. “You do that for me?”
“'Course I would,” Jack said. He found himself surprised that she would even question that. “I owe you a lot. I'd have been dead at least five times if it wasn't for you. I could at least try.”
“Not sure they let you anyway,” Aria chuckled. “But...Very well.” Fiddling with the various knobs on the contraption, Aria started tuning the radio to the proper frequency. She adjusted the signal booster to give it as much range as possible. Jack would have suggested using the radio inside the commando ship, but he was fairly certain that would be fruitless. The sound of frying electronics inside the ship upon the activation of the doomsday mechanism had sounded pretty final, and he was sure that most of the ship's systems were deactivated.
When she had the radio tuned just the way she needed it, Aria picked up the microphone and began speaking in Ailian.