Page 2 of Sheltered in the Storm

The decision was impossible, but that did not prevent me from having to face it.

My human hand tightened its grip on my weapon and my index finger rested lightly on the trigger. The mechanism was so precise that less than three pounds of pressure activated the dartgun.

Time slowed.

N’vors finished their dance of greeting, bowed deeply, and opened their mouth to speak. I took aim at the soft pink inside of their throat.

In my peripheral vision, I caught a flash of movement from the doorway at the other end of the foyer that led to the landing platform and the busy street beyond.

The energy field guarding the opening flickered and died. Two black spheres flew into the embassy’s foyer and landed on the stone floor about a meter apart. The embassy guardsshouted the Bordian word forbomband dove for cover, but the enormous lobby offered few places to hide.

Fear and adrenaline washed through me, turning me cold before my training kicked in. I dropped my weapon, scrambled back from the grate, and tapped my wrist cuff to activate my personal shock-absorbing field.

The shockwave rolled through the building with a deafening roar and a rush of crackling blue lightning. The embassy shook violently and plunged into darkness as the foyer collapsed. My lungs filled with smoke and dust. The ringing in my sensitive ears drowned out all other sounds.

Around me, the air duct sagged and buckled as the building rumbled.

A single thought cut through my disorientation:This is how I die: alone, unknown, buried under megatons of rubble on a planet light-years from my homeworld.

I expected grief or bitterness to overwhelm me. Instead, my gut felt hollow, as if I had nothing to lose and therefore nothing to regret. Nothing to fight for.

Nothing to leave behind, and no one who would mourn.

The hollowness gave way to rage, and my rage propelled me toward the metal grate as the duct crumpled under the collapsing weight of the building. If I were to die today, I would at least be on my feet.

I deactivated my forcefield cocoon and pulled up the collar of my coveralls to cover my nose and mouth. I also breathed through my gills, allowing them to filter out the smoke and dust particles that clogged my airways and threatened to reduce me to uncontrollable coughing.

A glance behind me confirmed the duct had collapsed in the direction of my initial entry. My only escape would be through the foyer—or what remained of it.

As my hearing returned, the first—and only—sound I heard other than low rumbles of falling stone was a high, thin wail.

The explosion had reduced the embassy’s foyer to rubble. The ceiling had collapsed, revealing what appeared to be the roof of the building five stories above. The doorway that led to the landing platform had collapsed as well, but my enhanced eyesight made out a sliver of daylight that offered what might be my only hope of escape. Assuming, of course, I could get through it and disappear before emergency crews arrived.

From the rubble, the thin wail faded to a weak, warbling cry that compelled me tomove. I gripped the grate with my tentacles, twisted, and pulled. The grate tore away with the sound of shearing metal and broken bolts.

I tossed it behind me deeper into the vent and clambered through the opening, careful not to cut myself on the sharp edges. I did not want to leave any trace of myself at this scene of carnage.

Regardless of my own feelings on this disaster, my training demanded I take note of every detail for my report. At a glance, I determined the guards and delegates were all dead, including Ambassador N’vors. Who had chosen to end these trade negotiations before they began in the messiest, most cold-blooded way possible, I did not know. The Guard was not the culprit—of that much I was certain. Equally certain was the fact others besides the Guard’s client, whoever that was, had reason to prevent a trade deal. The Guard would conduct their own investigation using operatives trained for that role. My job now was to leave immediately and report back to my superiors.

My final Guard assignment had not ended in the way I had intended, but ithadended. The daylight at the far end of the foyer beckoned, offering escape and a path forward to the retirement I had yearned for.

Another wordless, fearful wail came from under N’vors’s bloody corpse. In an ultimate loving sacrifice, the ambassador had covered their child with their own body and diedprotecting them from the blast. I was in no way prepared for the force of anger and grief that rose within me at that realization.

“La La,” the child cried. “La La? La La, La La!”

A child’s plea was a universally understood sound.

My enhanced hearing caught the distant howl of emergency sirens. My window of time to escape without being questioned was dwindling quickly. I let out a hiss. The building rumbled as something else collapsed. Maybe an exterior wall nearby.

A small pincher on a long, thin arm appeared from under N’vors’s body, clacking helplessly. “La La!” the child wailed.

What was my survival worth if I left the child to die?

With a grunt of effort, I hefted N’vors’s massive body with my human hands and arms just enough to scoop the child up in my tentacles, covering their eyes so they could not see their parent’s body. Then I dropped the ambassador’s corpse back on the rubble and clambered over fallen stone toward the sliver of daylight.

I had never held any child, but I had no time to process the emotions of the moment. N’vors’s child fought my grip with surprising strength and pinched my tentacle that covered their eyes hard enough to draw blood. Cursing, I climbed the pile of rubble and reached the fresh, salty air that blew in through the opening.

Several pairs of webbed hands appeared and voices called out in alarm: a small group of Bordian citizens trying to help survivors. Not emergency services or embassy guards, though those would surely arrive within moments. Generally speaking, Bordians were a kind people, to a fault. No doubt only the likelihood of another collapse kept them from rushing en masse into the building.

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