Page 4 of Alien's Challenge
Alice rose to her knees on her cushion. The floor of the train swayed.
“Human,” she said, tapping her chest. “Alice.”
“Not now,” Randevere grumbled.
“I’m human, from Earth.”
“I said be quiet.”
The collar issued a mild shock, nothing more than the pop of static electricity on a cold day. Regardless, Alice’s eyes went wide and she gasped, clutching the collar.
That fucker.
“Be quiet like a good pet, or I’ll use the collar.”
Alice sat back down, an ugly loathing brewing in her guts.
I’ll smother him in his sleep the first chance I get.
The lights flickered, and she heard shouting outside.
Men with guns burst into the carriage.
Faris
Only the strong survived on Reazus Prime.
Old hands at the saloon slapped each other on the back, congratulating themselves on another day of survival. They celebrated with lukewarm beer that tasted like piss, liquor that would taste better if it were piss, and food bland enough that you wished it tasted like piss.
Trust was for fools. Trust got you a knife in the back. Faris had learned that lesson the hard way.
Survival.
Faris wanted to do more than merely survive. He’d stubbornly clung to life on this hellhole of a planet out of pure spite. He craved revenge.
Today, he would take the knife his former partner left planted in his back and return the favor.
Twenty-three years ago, nearly half his life ago, Faris killed a male and was dumped on Reazus Prime by the Overlords to serve a life sentence. He’d killed since then but found he couldn’t regret a single one. The first killing had been necessary. As the fourth son with a four-syllable name, he did the unpalatable work his family required and paid the price.
Since then, he tried to avoid taking a life, but sometimes a slithering bastard wouldn’t take no for an answer and more drastic measures had to be taken.
He didn’t like it, but that was the cost of survival on this planet.
If the goal of imprisonment there was to make a person think about their life choices and repent, then mission accomplished. Faris had plenty of long, solitary nights under the stars to think and even more frigid nights huddled under a thin blanket. He questioned every damn life choice he ever made that led to this place but he was here now.
And the Overlords weren’t. Two decades ago, the mines dried up and they left everything behind, including the prisoners.
Only the strong survived.
Faris shifted, his boots sinking into the snow. The cold seeped in through his gloves and coat. The hovercycle between his thighs rumbled and purred, wanting to lunge forward. The snowstorm created enough cover that he was not concerned about being spotted.
The train snaked through the mountain pass, a black streak oozing through the gray stone and snow.
“Now?” Perrigaul’s hovercycle rocked forward.
“Wait.” Their timing had to be perfect.
“Now,” Perrigaul said. He wanted revenge as much as Faris. Randevere planted a lot of knives the day he betrayed his business partners and left them for dead.
