Dark's Savior (Dark World Mates Book 2) Page 4

  A low, distant howling started down in one of the far caverns below. Aly closed her sketchbook and pocketed it in the small pouch on her belt. Several more howls joined the first, and, when Aly looked over the edge, she saw a few bodies crawling along the side of the cave face opposite her. Ugly creatures with mangy fur on their backs and small beady red eyes, resembling something between a fox and a monkey, with flat pointed ears and curved tails. They shrieked and hissed at each other, clambering over rocks. They had extremely long, sharp claws that helped them climb. Aly called them howlers.

  She had drawn a few of them in her sketchbook. She had portraits of each person and alien creature she had encountered. She and her team had lost all their devices when they had been raided by the tradeship, their ISpads lost or destroyed, so there was no way to take pictures or document like they were supposed to. The others hadn't bothered to continue with the mission once the ship had been destroyed and they were taken as prisoners. The only thing the team worried about now was getting home.

  Aly couldn't blame them, of course, but she still felt the need to have something to show for all their troubles. And, honestly, she greatly enjoyed drawing the others.

  The howlers disappeared back into a cave opening as a low fog began to seep its way down into the earth. Aly looked up and could see nothing above save for the faded blots of lights. She should get back to work. Surely there were a few bots needing fixing. But all she could do was sit there and think about Blue.

  She really needed to see him again so she could get a more accurate portrait.

  A few floaters began to descend, as if pushed by the thick fog. One hit a low moving fan vent and sparked, then fell to the ground before her. Aly sighed and forced herself to her feet. She picked it up and sat back down with this strange mechanical jellyfish now in her lap. A wire was hanging out, and she moved to push it back in place. Her slender fingers worked gingerly to unknot the few string lights that had gotten tangled, and, using her mender, she fixed yet another hole on its head, something that seemed to happen often.

  From the corner of her eye, she noticed a few miners watching her, one grex and a couple of krull, their feathers puffed as they chittered quietly, their talons pointing toward her. There were only a few groups around, mostly keeping to themselves, drilling and scraping into the rock around them. The ones who watched her did so out of curiosity, but they never came near nor did they ever speak. She tried once to initiate a conversation, but they weren’t interested. All they did was watch.

  The floater tried to float away, but Aly caught it firmly and worked at another knot in its strings. It felt strange to be the one gawked at. To be the outsider. Funny how things could change so quickly. Now she understood how the other aliens must have felt being studied on the bases back home. The gyda were their first known contact, and they had taken it pretty well. But others...not so much. At least, if they somehow made it out of this dark underworld and back home, they could tell everyone how it felt being on the other side.

  Of course, having to tell the foundation (and inevitably the government) that there was an advanced civilization whose domain reached several dozen known solar systems, unlike the handful humans oversaw, might open a very bad can of worms. WAR flashed pretty heavily in her head at the thought. It was something the team had barely discussed. Should they tell the others? Even if their whole mission was about finding advanced civilizations in the first place? Well, yes, except they hadn't actually been prepared for one of this magnitude. They had been looking in the realm of planet or planets, not...a portion of a galaxy.

  Aly fixed the last knot then gently let the floater go. It went off to join the others, flashing its blue light.

  She watched it go for a moment then turned her head and caught the eyes of one of the krull. Its hawk-eyes shifted to her hands and it gibbered something to its partner before turning away. Aly looked down at her hands also. They were dirty and full of calluses. She had gloves, but she used them sparingly. She always worked better without them, her slender fingers making it easier to work on tinier fixes that needed a more delicate touch.

  She supposed it was why she had been assigned to be a mechanic for both the mission and now on Lethe Maws. She was good with her hands.

  And really, she liked it. Though she preferred having a pencil or paintbrush in her hand instead of a screwdriver or mender.

  The groups began to disperse, and Aly got a ping on her techband letting her know a fix was needed a few levels down in one of the lower, smaller sectors. She brought up her map and the holographic screen showed the location. She picked herself up and made for one of the narrow tunnels carved into the rock face. She passed through, making sure to not bump into others, then crossed a section bridge over to an elevator car. She took the elevator down, and it got noticeably darker.

  When she exited the car, she found a large group of miners huddled in a circle, their heads bent as if looking down at something. A few others crouched before them, and Aly saw the medic symbol on the backs of their suits. As the crowd parted, Aly got a good glimpse of a body. As she moved closer, she saw it was a tylian, its gray shell now looking noticeably whiter. Its eyes—usually brownish-black—were now filmed over. It looked mauled. One of its feelers was gone.

  The medics were taking samples and touching around as the crowd spoke in whispers. Aly heard some of the words.

  "He was found in a lift coming up from the lower levels...he shouldn't have gone down," a lygin spoke.

  "What do you think got him?" asked another.

  "Who knows. Something nasty down in the lower levels, for sure."

  "Or maybe it was the Dark One. Maybe the tylian got too close to his territory," said a grex.

  "Maybe the nillium is sending a warning."

  "Hey, human!"

  Aly looked around and saw a large lygin male waving her over. Aly did as told, and the lygin took hold of her arm and pulled her around to face a hole where a drill machine had drilled in the rock and was now inside, stuck. "Stop gawking and start fixing!" he said. He left her there to return to the crowd as the medics began bagging the tylian. Aly watched, wide-eyed, for a moment, getting one last glimpse of the torn body.

  It wasn't the first body she had seen, but it still made her stomach twist. Many were found in caverns, and their deaths were usually not much of a mystery. Either they fell or something got them and, in that regard, there usually wasn't much to find save for bones. It was strange that the tylian, though shredded in parts, was still intact. Like something had toyed with it then just left it alone.

  The unusualness of his death and where he had been found was likely why she heard them accusing the nillium this time; only now because the tylian had supposedly been where he shouldn't have been.

  A shiver raked Aly's body. Maybe she shouldn't want to see the dark nillium again after all. If he supposedly did that to another. Then again, it might not have been him. He hadn't hurt her, after all.

  But then, she hadn't trespassed into his territory.

  "Why do you think he went down there?" she heard someone say. "He would have known better."

  Aly stood there in deep thought, feeling sorry for the tylian, when she caught eyes with the large lygin, who gave her a nasty look. Heat rose in her face, and she quickly turned away.

  Placing her hand on the cold, sharp rock, she crouched down and looked deeper into the hole. The drill was jammed in but not because it couldn't penetrate the rock. It had only malfunctioned, a red light blinking to tell her it just needed to be recalibrated. Aly crawled into the tight opening and stretched out her arm to open a small hatch on the drill's side showing the switches needed to turn on and off. The lygin could have easily done it himself but was obviously too large to get inside and reach. Aly was small enough to get through the tight spaces of the rock, making her at least useful in that regard.

  She flipped the switches and closed the hatch, and the drill began to reload. She shuffled out of the hole just before it start
ed again.

  The lygin returned but didn't thank her. He didn't even acknowledge her. Aly watched him drill at the rock for a moment, wondering if he would find anything. She turned away before he noticed her staring and walked onward with a heavy breath.

  ***

  She was working on fixing another crawler (the small bots that crawled up the cave walls and collected rock data) when she felt like she was being watched. And not in the usual way, like before with the Krull and their hawk-eyes or the grex with their lizard ones. It started with a chill running down her spine and the impulse to turn her head. When she looked around, no one could be seen, no matter how hard she tried to peer into the open cave entrances around her.

  She finished fixing the bot and left the section where she was, but still, the feeling was there. She thought about the tylian again and felt a sudden great need to be around others. Mark was shown to be working on the twenty-second level according to her techband. She made her way up, thinking to just have a little chat.

  When she got off the elevator, she found him in a small alcove against a cave side, taking apart rock and harvesting aulion, a silver-coated mineral, into the large buckets beside him. As she walked toward him, she admired the shine of his blue-black hair in the lamplight.

  Mark turned his head and paused as he saw her. He placed the bits of aulion into the bucket and waved at her. She returned it with a wave of her own as she strode toward him. His face was dirtied by dust and rock fragments, but his smile was still bright, his dark eyes squinting slightly as the lights on his wrist blinded him.

  "Hey, Aly, what's happening?"

  Aly smiled, swinging her arms forward in a sort of shrug. "I was bored and came to say hello." She lied a little.

  "Oh, yeah?" Mark straightened up and assessed her carefully. "You take your break pretty late, huh?"

  "Not exactly," Aly replied sheepishly.

  Mark made a silent 'oh' and smirked. "Braxin will get on your case again, you know."

  "I know." Aly sat herself down on a flat-ish rock near the cave face. Mark watched her for a moment then looked around. No one seemed to be paying much attention to them, so he came over and sat down beside her. They sat for a moment just looking out over the wide chamber, and Aly began to feel more relaxed.

  "It's crazy, huh...to think only a few months ago, we were on Grayhart 12 and just cruising along to that random-ass planet, all because Kate thought we homed in on some signal." Mark shook his head. He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. "And we thought we were gonna be such big-shots. Like we were gonna discover the next civilization...or maybe even find the vrisha." Mark bent his head.

  Aly eyed him and smiled sadly. "Well, technically, we did discover a new civilization. Just not in the manner in which we were trained."

  Mark blew out a quiet laugh. "Yeah, for real. Though I didn't exactly sign up to get kidnapped and forced into slavery."

  "We’re not really slaves," Aly remarked.

  "Might as well be for what they pay us," Mark grumbled. "And even if we could save enough together, they won't let us leave here. I know no one likes to talk about it but...we are prisoners, just without the name."

  Aly didn't say anything because she couldn't argue. They knew it to be true when they found out the ships that brought them here didn't take people off. Not without strict permission from the Xolis council. The ships that were docked were for materials to be exported only. And they were heavily guarded by second-ranked enforcers. No one left Lethe Maws.

  "Do you really believe Julian will be able talk with one of the council members?" Aly asked.

  Mark shook his head. "Honestly? Not a chance. But he has to keep hope in the others somehow. Otherwise..."

  Aly thought of Ethan and how awful he had looked at the last meeting. And how scared Jamie seemed. Once again, the image of the tylian flashed in her mind, and Aly wondered how much longer they would last before that hope died. And one of them with it.

  Mark's hand fell on Aly's knee and squeezed gently. Aly didn't move away, though she tensed briefly. She smiled at him and placed her hand on top of his in a friendly manner. She locked eyes with him and noticed the dark circles forming underneath his gaze.

  "You seem to be doing okay, though, huh?" he said. "You seem to be taking things better than the rest of us."

  Aly wasn't so sure. If anything, she was just much better at hiding it. She was scared too, but she tried her best to focus on other thoughts, tried to see the better side of their predicament, if there even was one. It was the reason she drew the other people around her or the scenery or anything. And why she wanted to try to help the abbiots or strike up a conversation with a grex. She wanted to continue working at the mission and have something to show for it. And if she never did see home again, then she wanted to believe she was where she was now for a reason.

  And maybe that reason was to integrate and start a new life.

  Aly unlatched from his gaze in hope that he couldn't read her face and her thoughts. She would never voice this to him (or the others), but home didn't give her the same bright and fuzzy feelings that it might for them.

  Because Earth hadn't exactly felt like home to her for a long time.

  It was why she had joined the Grayhart mission after all. And though she might like to see the blue planet again, to see fellow humans, she didn't care to step back on Earth's soil. Not really. In fact, if they did ever get back to the foundation's base, she would probably hop right back on the next ship, ready to go on in search of the next planet holding its secrets of life and advancement.

  Aly let her hand slide off Mark's and opened her palm upward as an invitation. Mark took it gladly, entwining his fingers in hers.

  "You were always the optimistic one, Aly," he said.

  Aly looked back at him but didn't smile. Instead, she leaned in and kissed him softly at the corner of his mouth. Mark tensed in surprise at first, then closed his eyes and returned the kiss.

  She shouldn't have done it. But after the last couple days, after her encounter with the nillium and seeing the dead body of the tylian, she felt suddenly very alone and more afraid than before (though she was grateful in being able to hide her fears) and in need of comfort.

  This wasn't the first time she had sought out comfort in Mark. And just like before, he was ready to comply.

  They parted and looked at one another. Mark opened his mouth and Aly knew the words he was about to say. But before he could say them, both their techbands went off.

  Breaking the moment, they drew apart from one another and looked down at their wrists.

  The message was from Kate. There was to be another meeting tonight. Only this time, they were to meet at...

  "She can't be serious," Mark breathed.

  Aly's heart did a little jump of excitement. "I think she is pretty serious."

  Mark snorted. "Great, just what we need. Another reason to be glared at."

  Aly gave him a sly little smirk and elbowed his side. "Our shifts will be over soon. I should probably get back to work. I'll see you there." Aly got up from the rock and walked off, feeling just a tad better than before.

  "Yeah, I guess you'll have to," Mark called after her. "But I won't drink, and I call the first seat facing the wall."

  Chapter Five

  Ryziel had perched high up on the rock, making sure not to be seen, watching the human woman carefully from his hiding place. Watching as she fixed the bot in her lap then paused to look around, her eyes passing over where he was hidden in shadow. She was alone like the others had been. Braxin hadn't cared to keep them together, maybe to ensure they didn't get to talking or be distracted from their work.

  He had gone in search of the humans and had found each one of them. The first had been a man. He prepared himself, in case his Drega slithered its way to the surface at the mere sight of him. But, to his great relief, he had felt nothing. Only maybe a little guarded at first but nothing more.

  When he found the next human
and saw it was another female, it was as he had feared, only this time his Drega was not so quick to rise. But it was, indeed, there. It wasn't like the first time, when he thought he would lose himself. Not by far. But the instinctual urge was there, only more as an itch that he could at least ignore. For the most part.

  When he found two more females, the itch was stronger, his receptors vibrating slightly, but he could still manage at least some, though it made him uncomfortable after a certain point and so he left. After that, it was men again and—again to his relief—he felt nothing.

  When he finally found the area in which the lone woman from the bridge was located, he prepared himself first. Even her scent, now familiar to him, drew his Drega out even a little, unlike the others who, though making him stir somewhat, did not seem as appealing.

  When he finally found the strength to look over the edge and see her, his Drega moved quickly and almost violently, making him shake. He stilled himself in time, enough to will himself to remain calm, though his receptors hummed, and his stomach clenched, hardening him between his thighs.

  He should have left then. He had completed his little test, and he should just go, knowing now that these human females (and not the males) affected him in a way he still didn't understand but they affected him all the same. A mystery still with few answers.

  Yes, he should have gone. But he found too soon that he couldn't bring himself to move, couldn't bring himself to look away from the woman down below. She wasn't nillium. She wasn't even a silion. Yet, he sat there all the same, staring down at her, wanting...

  Wanting something he shouldn't. This was wrong. nillium didn't entangle with others.

  Yet his body was telling him otherwise. He couldn't fathom the reason and it bothered him.