Page 7 of Claimed by an Alien Warrior

Large, black human vehicles — filled with more of their ill-equipped soldiers — were lined up behind the mobile containment unit. Rendash shifted his shield to intercept the other soldiers’ gunfire; many of them shot at him from the cover of vehicle doors. To either side, a vast landscape stretched away from the hard road; it was dust, hills, and mountains as far as he could see, lit only by ambient light from the night sky.

“Do not fire on my specimen with live ammunition!” Stantz shouted over the roaring weapons.

Rendash met Stantz’s eyes. The human was beside the nearest black vehicle, face grim and gray eyes gleaming behind the clear plate of his mask.

Those eyes had always been steady,hungry, regardless of what the man behind them was doing — droning through infuriatingly circular lines of questioning; watching as large, uniformed humans beat Rendash with fists and clubs; slicing Rendash’s scales with sharp instruments and prodding at his flesh, unconcerned about the pain he was inflicting. Stantz’s gaze hadn’t wavered for an instant when he confessed to havingoverexertedthe other aligarii survivors. They were only projects to him, things to be dissected and studied — to Stantz, Rendash was onlySpecimen Ten.

In all his life, Rendash had never hated another being as he did Charles Stantz. Their time together — four years, though that human reckoning of time meant little to Rendash — had been a torturous, hellish dance. Stantz had pushed ceaselessly to break Rendash, to discover his secrets, but the aligarii warrior had givennothing.

Now I show what I truly am. Rendash, Aekhora, Blade of the Aligarii. Your doom.

He could get to Stantz and kill the man before the other humans overwhelmed him and the exertion of maintaining his nyros became too much. He could avenge his own suffering, could avenge those of his Umen’rak who perished in human captivity. It would mean death, but it would be a good death, a death in combat. The sort of end any true warrior would appreciate.

But then his people might never learn of the korvaxx’s plots, would never know to immortalize the memories of his fallen Umen’rak in the fashion they deserved. His pride, his bitterness, his shame — all was meaningless compared to his mission.

All things in service of the Nes’rak.

Selflessness. Honor.

Two more humans charged Rendash, the long rods in their hands crackling with electricity. They attacked in unison, swinging and thrusting their weapons with one goal — to strike a blow anywhere on Rendash’s body. He knew the muscle-locking pain of such devices well enough, by now. He couldn’t withstand the jolt of one in his current state.

Rendash backed up, swaying and dodging the blows, the shackles on his wrists heavier with each passing moment. He caught one baton with the edge of his vrahsk, shearing the rod in half. The other soldier lunged and thrust his weapon. Rendash dodged the attack, clamped both right hands on the human’s extended arm, and brought his blade down on the man’s elbow.

As the screaming soldier grasped the smoking stump of his severed arm, Rendash sliced his vrahsk across the other man’s gut.

The two humans he’d knocked down in his initial charge had regained their feet; one collapsed after Rendash landed a bone-crunching kick on his chest while the other fell back to join his advancing comrades, their blasters at the ready.

Rendash counted fifteen soldiers making a slow, methodical approach. His shield couldn’t handle much more.

Hisbodycouldn’t handle much more.

There was no time to assess his strained nyros. Forcing a surge of strength into his legs, Rendash leapt off the hard, black stone road. Wind whipped past him. The air was chilled; normally, his nyros would regulate his internal temperature to counteract that of his surroundings, but now it was only the fires of overexertion that protected him from the cold.

Humans shouted behind him, and Stantz barked orders. Engines roared to life as Rendash landed, crashing into the dried-out dirt and sand and sending up a cloud of dust. The beams of light projected by the black vehicles swung toward him. The humans were leaving the road in pursuit.

Rendash leapt again. Projectiles cracked through the air around him, but he could spare no more focus on maintaining his shield. Everything went into his aching muscles. He would follow the call of the command module’s beacon once he’d outrun Stantz’s soldiers.

He jumped again, and again, nearly crashing to the ground in a heap with each landing. Only honor, duty, and desperation kept him upright, driving him forward. The far-off mountains, which looked like piles of smooth, folded cloth, served as his immediate goal. The clumsy human ground vehicles weren’t likely to be capable of traversing such terrain.

As the lights behind him faded into the distance, he found more energy — somehow — to enable a cloaking field, rendering him all but invisible to anything but the most advanced detection systems.

His control of his nyros flickered, and he narrowed his focus, eliminating all concerns beyond reaching the mountains. The heat in his body was approaching a dangerous level, and the mental strain threatened to tear his mind asunder. But he could not stop.

An alien landscape sped by below while alien stars, twinkling in their multitudes, watched from above, all indifferent to his plight.

When he reached the foothills, he paused long enough to form a vrahsk on each side to slice the shackles from his wrists before scrambling higher, leaping and hauling himself into the mountains with arms and legs alike. As he finally reached the crest of the nearest peak, he poured another surge of strength into his limbs and launched himself high into the air.

For an instant, a sense of freedom settled over Rendash — the universe was open to him, the possibilities infinite, endless, and exciting. Though he’d enjoyed the rush of battle, had taken pride in serving the aligarii with honor and skill, hecravedchange. Craved the rest he’d fought so long and hard to earn. He’d known only conflict throughout his life.

Detachment.

As his upward momentum faded, a fleeting weightlessness settled in. He scanned the landscape stretched out before him — more sand and dirt as far as he could see, flat in many places, bunched into hills and mountains in others; all barren but for small, scruffy clumps of vegetation, all bathed in the silvery light of the stars and a pale-faced, lonely moon.

This was a wasteland of seemingly endless breadth. The command module lay somewhere beyond, outside his reach. As he was now, he wouldn’t survive crossing these wastes.

Moving lights caught his attention. Made tiny with distance, they moved smoothly across the flat portion of land; he guessed they were more human ground vehicles creeping along another road. Their path led to more lights — brighter and unmoving. A structure of some sort.

Then natural law declared it was time to return to the ground. His stomach lurched as the dust rushed to meet him. He braced himself with his nyros as best he could.

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