Page 11 of Taken to Voraxia
“Augh!” Kiki’s voice comes as a shock to me — I haven’t heard it in two rotations, since the day warrior Kiki was born and beauty queen Kiki died.
She buckles, but doesn’t lose her weapon and then I see it —she has a plan. From her position, she’s almostbetweenit’s thighs. Close to its eyes. She stabs for them again, and grey explodes everywhere.
The creature screams. I scramble down from the rocks and lunge for my amp on the ground — the only weapon I brought with me. It has two handles and just enough for one pulse.
“Kiki, I can use the amp. Move!”
But she doesn’t. She just keeps stabbing and the creature keeps swiping and she’s getting tired as she blinds it, one sweep of her Grabar at a time. The thing has started to retreat now, moving backwards down the tunnel.
“Kiki,” I call. But she’s closing in on it, chasing it away. I feel hope kick in my chest for just a moment, and with Kiki’s next step, it’s brushed irreverently away.
Slipping in one of the thick, glossy patches of its blood, Kiki loses her footing and the monster, seeing its opening, slams one of its serrated arms across her belly.
Kiki wavers where she stands. I hold my breath while everything inside of my body shrieks. Time is suspended and when it moves forward again, it does so faster than I could have ever imagined.
Kiki’s Grabar charges up, spear tip stabbing the thing through the underside of one of its jaw. It wails through the other, stumbling backwards a few feet before rising up with renewed vengeance.
I dart forward and grab Kiki by the arm, then push her up through the rocks I’ve cleared. She disappears through the opening and I scramble to follow her through, tumbling onto the ground out in the clearing unceremoniously.
I don’t have time to catch my breath as an enormous grey arm slides through the opening after us, stuck —but for how long?
I disengage the amp, moving my finger off of the trigger. “We’ve got enough time to run. Come on, Kiki, let’s get back to the colony. This…we can’t…this isn’t…Kiki?”
I grab for her arm but all she does is kneel there, looking up at me. No — looking past me. I follow her gaze to the craggy path we took to get here, and whatever thoughts I had about returning to the colony are snatched from my mind like an egg from a nest when I seeanothermonster clawing its way over the black rocks towards us.
And there are two more behind it.
Sssack, sssack, ssssack sack sssssssack sackkk sack sack ssssssssack.I wipe my sweaty palms off on my shit-stained tunic and grip my homemade amplifier by the handles so hard I’m sure my knuckles will break through my skin.
There’s only enough for one pulse. One. Pulse. And there are three of them. Stars be damned.
The nearest creature is less than twenty paces from us and its claws create grooves in the solid stone every place they light down. The material must be dense.And one of those things got Kiki’s stomach.I don’t have time to look back to see how she’s doing.Doesn’t really matter. Neither of us have much longer…
Stumpy, trunk-sized hind legs make it slow, but the arms more than make up for the lack. The first one arrives in the clearing and roars and my thoughts flash fleetingly to the grey-blue alien, remembering the way he’d looked at me. The weight of his palm on my cheek. The fury he waged over Bo’Raku’s face when words were exchanged between them.
Without knowing what he said, I had the funny feeling that he was defending me. That he would try to help defend me if he were here.But he isn’t. We ran from him. And now we’re both going to die.And even if he were, would it matter?There’s a hundred claws all writing my death in the grooves they cut over stone.
The mathematical part of my brain calculates our dwindling odds of survival and I glance back at Kiki, hoping to remember why we came out here and why we thought this was worth it.
Her unfocused gaze offers me nothing. She just wavers where she kneels, clutching her stomach, while red seeps through her fingers in a way that fills my mouth with terror and bile.
“Kiki, are you here? It’s…it’s not over yet. I think if I can get them all in a line, I might be able to take them out at once…you just have to stay with me…”
She blinks, long lashes falling over lost and lovely eyes.
“Kiki…” I gasp.
Without warning, Kiki gathers a breath and surges up onto her feet. The motion sends the animals into a frenzy and they come faster now, maneuvering easily and lithely over the rocks in a way that doesn’t make any sense at all with their huge and horrible shapes.
Reaching me, she rips the amp from my fingers. I hit the ground hard when she shoves me and, looking up, am arrested by the look in her eyes. A look that says she’s willing to die.That she welcomes it.
“Kiki…” I hold up my hand, offering her a warning, trying to spear her determination with reason. “I built this myself and you, of all people, know that my inventions don’t always work. It’s by the universe’s grace that your Grabar didn’t collapse like tin foil. And even if it does work, the kickback will be too strong. You’re injured. Let me do it…”
Her thumb lights down onto the trigger. There’s a three second delay. Three seconds for me to get to her.
“Kiki!” I rush up onto my feet but she kicks me in the ribs, knocking the breath clean out of me. Stars dance before my eyes.
Three… My back hits a sharp stone and I release a cry while the monsters close in, coming at us from all sides.
