Tamn Read online

  Defend your crew until the heavens turn dark.

  I stood cautiously, scanning our surroundings as I ran to catch up to Adi. I wrapped my fingers around her shoulder and spun her to face me.

  Her gills flared while dark green light danced in her gaze. “Don’t you dare try to stop me, Royal. We need that chole more than food.” She smelled as though she had bathed in the combustible mineral.

  She barely budged when I shook her and checked the trees again for signs of our enemy. “Survival first,” I ground out, “food, water, shelter, then we can think of finding a way home.”

  Adi’s brow furrowed, drawing the swirling tattoos closer to her narrowed gaze. She broke my hold with a quick but powerful hit with her elbows and I slipped on a blend of chole and purple blood. “Go back to camp, Tamn. I can handle myself better without your cracked head in the way.”

  I took a knee, catching my fall and my blade sank into the earth. The miner weapon in my left hand crackled. I lifted my head, a curse on the tip of my tongue and shouted, “Get down!”

  Time seemed to slow down as Adi’s expression turned from fury to confusion. From the trees behind her, the alien beings swung silently, spears raised and poised to fly.

  I dropped to my side and swept out a leg to knock the miner off her feet. As she fell, the spears flew where her body had stood and I rolled to cover her with mine before the earth exploded.

  Electric currents danced in the air as the spears impacted with already broken earth and spread in an indigo cloud. It filled our lungs, suffocating and somehow invigorating all at once.

  Adi muffled a curse beneath me and I rolled off her as time rushed to catch up.

  “Run!” I snarled as I clicked the gears into place, bringing the chole blade to life.

  “Shut your bleeding trap, Royal!” Adi lifted her gauntlets and fired over my head. A pained cry followed by a thump and then the rest of the alien hunting party was on us with renewed fury.

  Adi ducked to the ground and fired again in a quick circle around our position. The dust began to spread further out, stealing our cover.

  Bleed them dry, soak the earth…

  The urge was so thick on my tongue, I could taste the need building in my arms. There were five left standing now. Three were injured from Adi’s blasts, but pulling their spears from the ground and turning to face us. Two rushed us from opposing angles.

  I set the monsters in my mind loose as I let go and relied on instinct.

  With my scythe, I cut a wide upwards angle knocking my prey’s spear aside. As the alien being stumbled, I twisted, swiping my blade along their chest. Bright red blood pooled against the cut and I stabbed up into the creature’s jaw. Their eyes were smaller than ours, closer together and eerily hunan.

  I shuddered and a heavy ringing dulled my senses as more of Adi’s blasts fired next to my head.

  “Now we run!” She mouthed, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me away from what remained of our enemy. I glanced down and saw she held several small sacks in her opposite hand.

  I felt blind without sound, but only took a quick look at the destruction behind us. Three pale, fur-clothed spear-wielding warriors followed us, their mouths open wide with soundless cries.

  Adi tugged hard on my arm as we leapt over a fallen log. Once we landed, I used my speed to drag through the dense undergrowth. With the shock of the blast ringing in my ears, at least I couldn’t hear the voices anymore. Long enough to take in my bearings, the sky, the terrain. We needed to climb up the approaching hill.

  If we led the alien beings to camp, our combined crew could destroy them, but more would come looking. We needed to be far away when they did.

  Blast Adi and her leaking chole dust!

  Adi’s voice came faintly to me as if from a distance. “Think we lost them!”

  I didn’t stop or slow my pace. Adi thought they were gone before and I had been stupid enough to break cover for her. “Keep running.”

  I flared the gills along my neck as wide as I could to take in any extra moisture in the air, anything to give me an advantage. I caught sight of the path I had made earlier that day, almost parallel to our position and banked right to meet it ahead. Adi struggled to keep pace, but didn’t complain. She was strong, but I was fast.

  With the blue dust on my tongue, I felt stronger and faster than ever before, enough to pull her weight with me. Ever since we landed on this rock I had missed this weightlessness of being. I wanted more.

  It was all I could do not to fly down the path we had come down. Adi pulled me off our trail with a sudden jerk and together we climbed atop a slight crest overlooking the tops of trees we’d just run past. We ran like the wind as quickly as we once swam through the heavens, and the voices in my head were silent.

  No sounds of the hairless beasts came from the valley below us.

  “We lost them,” Adi said between breaths, bending over to rest with her hands on her knees.

  I wiped the fine film of blue dust from my face and savored one more sniff. My anger with her from before seemed a far-off thing compared to the power pumping through my system. Savoring the stillness, I scanned the jungle for the third time for any sign of our pursuers.

  Behind us, faint laughter from my brother and his mate, Captain, speaking with the elder miner, Remin.

  Adi rose and met my eye with a brilliant smile brightening her dark face. I was struck by a powerful urge to drag her body against mine and kiss that smile off her face. It was a struggle to remember the exact shade of Qeya’s hair in that moment.

  Thankfully, Adi chose to strike me in the shoulder with her fist, or I might have done something too embarrassing to ignore. At my curse, she laughed, then turned to lead the way to our waiting crewmates.

  The after-effects of inhaling chole dust started to settle in once we stepped over the tripwire staked around the camp perimeter. I steeled myself for the anger in Min’s face. He didn’t disappoint. His inner lids flickered; his mouth thinned. Qori rose from their shared pallet, a hand brushing his exposed arm.

  I lifted my chin in defiance and flicked my chole dagger so the blade retracted, then hooked it to my belt. Its gears whirred and clicked, blade hidden but ready to light. Min’s furious gaze lingered on that blade, then narrowed on Adi’s satisfied smirk.

  She wasted no time approaching Captain Xame and Remin, the other miner in our crew. “Listen up filsh wastes! You will never guess what Tamn and I just found.”

  Captain’s fair skin flushed red at her interruption. “Out with it, before I lose my temper with you for disobeying my orders again.”

  She cocked her hip out to the side and slowly pulled a pouch of chole from the outer jacket of her biosuit. “You won’t be angry once you sniff this.”

  Captain snatched the pouch from her hands and his mouth parted with disbelief at the contents. “Where did you find this?”

  Adi had the gall to turn her back on Captain to come stand by my side. “Tamn and I were having the most enlightening conversation when we caught wind of a pack of beasties. We thought to bring home supper when a group of alien beings attacked the beasts instead. Imagine our surprise when they weren’t just carrying crude spears.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest to keep from wiping the smirk off her face. I might have if I’d known she wouldn’t laugh and return my hit with a more powerful jab.

  I dragged my gaze from her curling lips and focused on Captain’s hopeful expression. “What she claims is true.”

  “Imagine all the dust these aliens are hiding.” Adi returned to Captain and Remin, placing a casual hand on the elder miner’s arm. “We didn’t look too closely at this mountain range or valley last time. The others shot us out of the sky before we could get close.”

  I flinched at her words and saw the crash happening all over again in my mind. Watching our families burn through the atmosphere, falling from the heavens. Anger and hate burned through me. I wanted to turn it on the miner—her fault for reminding me. Her fa
ult for my addiction. Her fault for being seductive. I wanted to forget Qeya, and I wanted to never forget.

  Remin leaned over to whisper something in Captain’s ear. Brunan and Kall, the other two adult Royals in our crew approached to handle the chole Adi had produced.

  Brunan pulled out a small scanner and flicked it above the dust. Then his face cracked in a huge grin. “As pure a sample as I’ve seen. For a primitive people, it is a wonder. Either they have discovered other methods of refinery or their source is untainted.” I saw the shadow of his son Bruv in his brown face and wondered how the hunan could still smile.

  Adi was quick to interject again. “Or the others who shot us down are supplying them.”

  Captain frowned. “None of that matters now. Whoever they were, our enemy in the skies believes us dead or they would not have left us behind.”

  Kall, the first mate was usually quiet, but spoke up then. “We should search for these alien beings at first light. Adi, could you lead us back to where you encountered them?”

  “Can a leviathan swallow you whole? Of course I remember the way.”

  I shook my head and looked past my crew and the infuriating miner. Without the buzz of chole clouding my senses I felt the familiar creeping sensation of unseen eyes watching us. “We must change positions before it gets any darker. There is no guarantee the beasts won’t follow our trail here. It is no longer secure.” My voice trembled and I clenched my fists to fight the urge to grab the rest of the chole Adi had kept hidden in her jacket.

  Only Brunan seemed to hear my voice and listen. Compassion filled his black eyes, but he said nothing. Too often this had happened since the crash. I knew it was my fault. I was unstable and the elders knew it. But we were all grieving. No one wanted to talk about things like feelings and behaviors when we were doing all we could to survive this cruel world. Brunan was kinder than my parents had ever been for listening to me past the madness.

  The others were too busy arguing over the best way to hunt the aliens. Remin’s voice rose over theirs. “We will end on this blasted rock if we don’t get that chole. I don’t care if I must burn this entire world to get it. I’m not abandoning my people like your kind seems so willing to do.”

  Captain brought his scythe against the miner’s neck in a flash. “I won’t have any of my crew questioning my authority! We do this my way, Remin, or so help me…” The rest of his words were drowned by the increasing roar of crashing waves in my head.

  Listen to me, you sitting wreen! The words didn’t make it past my lips because the rage was nearly blinding. I saw the world in shades of red, a flash of light and fire.

  As the smoke cleared, I heard the screams around me and then the red was gushing from the gaping wound in Brunan’s chest. His shocked expression remained fixed on me as he grabbed the spear sticking through his gut.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, willing the vision to pass away, convinced this was another bloody episode from my past merging with my present self. But the screams grew louder, the blast of miner weapons burst past my head and I understood.

  This was happening now. This was as real as the hairless beasts rushing towards my crew to finish their attack, cries spilling from their painted faces.

  Remin and Adi kept their backs to each other as they sent out blast after blast of concentrated energy. I couldn’t see the others as the Royals moved in a blur of scythes and deadly motion, felling our attackers.

  Brunan sank to his knees and I was at his side before I knew I had moved. A female alien charged him with her spear. From the fury in her glittering eyes I knew she had thrown the mortal blow.

  Kill her! Do it, do it now! Draw it out and bathe in her blood!

  The voices in my head seemed to overlap at once, rising so suddenly I couldn’t push them out.

  The female’s cry was cut off by the swipe of my scythe against her neck. Her gaze found mine as I threw my weight into her body, pushing her back against the earth. Her blood spattered on my neck as I brought my scythe against her a second time, again and again…

  In my rage, I almost didn’t recognize my own voice. “You killed him! You killed them all you bleeding filsh!”

  Yes! Make her suffer, make them all pay.

  “Tamn!”

  I ignored my brother’s voice. Only when the gleam of several scythes appeared in my peripheral vision did I slow enough to see what I had done. There was nothing recognizable left of the female I had just killed. I dropped my scythe with a groan. I was covered in blood. The voices were quiet, but I could sense the approval of the more murderous of my past lives. I heaved the contents of my second stomach over the soiled earth, retching until tears and stinging blood blinded my eyes.

  “Tamn.” Min’s voice came softer now, with an undercurrent of fear.

  Qori spoke with him, kneeling at my side, her hand on my back. “It is all right, Tamn. We are safe. You kept us safe. It’s not your fault.”

  I looked up at the grime covering her lovely face and hissed. “Don’t bleeding lie to me!”

  Min pulled his mate back by the shoulder, a warning in the glare he leveled at me. I couldn’t stand the disgust or shame in his eyes.

  “We don’t have time to bury Brunan,” Kall spoke from the side. I didn’t bother looking at the rest of my crew, already knowing what I’d find in their eyes. Instead I found Brunan’s blank stare waiting only an arm’s reach away, his head turned to me. It was the sorrow in his slackened expression that made me snap.

  I hated all those voices in my head. I hated myself most of all because I let my crew leave Brunan behind with the alien beings we’d slaughtered. All in the name of Adi’s bleeding chole.

  My crewmates snatched up what dust they found on the bodies of our newest enemy. I followed them as we ran away from our camp into the night, leaving a trail of beasts wherever we went. Until now, I had foolishly believed us to be the victims. Now I knew we were the alien invaders. We were the monsters.

  III : Datura 3

  After Brunan’s death things changed.

  The aliens continued to drive us out of their territory, attacking when we were at our most vulnerable. Their weapons weren’t as advanced as ours, so I disagreed with Captain when he said they were working with the aliens who shot us out of the sky. This was a young world and this primitive people would regret their choice to make an enemy out of us.

  With our tech, it usually would have been easy to avoid them, but glitching gears meant we were reduced to baser measures. We started calling them Var, for the war cry they sang with every attack. The fact they spoke a language we could hear and possibly understand made all too clear they were more than beasts.

  It was increasingly harder to tell the difference between our primitive enemy and the beings that killed my family. A new enemy gave me the focus I needed and the ancestral voices helped keep the rage in me alive. With every kill, I pocketed the precious dust that pushed my body to new, sweeter heights. Each day left me feeling deader inside than the last. I was nothing more than a killing machine.

  It could have been Min, was all I could think of after Brunan’s death.

  We kept constant watch, only stopping once we secured explosives-rigged perimeters, thanks to Remin and Adi’s expertise.

  Nights blurred together and while the others talked of going to that blasted Var village to look for chole dust, the screams of the dying reverberating around my head was all I could hear.

  Sleep evaded me, but when I stilled long enough, when I wasn’t on duty, I would stare through layered underbrush at pockets of stars and try to remember the color of her eyes.

  “You’re doing it wrong,” I offered from over her shoulder. Golden, slightly mismatched wide eyes flashed threateningly at me over the edge of her scythe blade, an amusing expression on the face of a child. Then again, she wouldn’t be a child much longer, I reminded myself. Not to mention the fact she was going to be my wife one day. But every time I looked at Qeya, all I saw was the small bright-haired girl wh
o had followed me around the castle like a greandal pup.

  “Stop telling me what I’m doing wrong and show me,” she huffed back.

  Tendrils of her fire hair stuck to her sweaty face and I fought the need to brush them back. Instead, I unfolded my long limbs and pushed off the wall to stand in front of her. I blocked her from the simulation she had been practicing with and ignored the familiar buzz of energy the projection emitted as I stepped into its motionless form. Today, it had copied the physiology of a miner, one of the oldest defensive programs in the training program. That Qeya was learning how to best our most ancient enemy first said much for how she would develop in the future.

  “Here,” I said, twisting her hand around the grip so her fingers locked together, clutched tightly. I concentrated on angling her elbow higher. “Always keep your arm up, level to your chin, in case you need to block.” I lifted my hands to tuck her chin lower and our eyes met briefly. We both smiled and I ignored the sudden twitch of her translucent, second eyelids. She was often nervous around me.

  “Oh, thanks, high and mighty leader,” she snapped. I was amused, as usual, by her pride.

  “You really think you can live up to that challenge? I am four years older than you, pup.” I pulled my retractable blade off my belt and ran a palm over the flat surface. I wasn’t making idle threats. Everyone knew I was the best in the program.

  Qeya grinned and took her stance. “Hah! You might have fooled the rest of them into thinking you’re some kind of all-powerful warrior, but I know your weakness, Tamn.”

  I laughed, “What might that be…hey!”

  She barreled into me, putting away her blade in favor of using her hands as she ran them up my sides. I convulsed and then I was on the ground laughing despite the control I worked so hard to maintain. She did this to me, made me act like a child instead of the adult I was meant to be. She made me forget anything existed but us.

  “Tamn?” Min’s voice ripped me from the pleasant memory into the present. Part of me didn’t want to leave her behind. I was still alive when I was with her.