He looked around in helpless agony. A laser beam whizzed by his skull and he ducked instinctively, dragging the body away from the fray. Star, snapping out of her shock, helped drag the locust until they were out of sight in the shadows of a broken tank before the dusky curve of a cross chamber. The devilish hosts had not seen this passageway and now seemed more concerned with battling each other in the arena of war than searching for the rebels who had brought them here.
Miko wasted no time. Dragging Usk by a bloody pincer, he ordered Star to take up the other one and they tripped down the darkening tunnel. All the while Usk’s tortured breathing worsened. Dim walls of bluish stone narrowed in on them, walls naturally phosphorescent. Shrill cries echoed behind them. They came to what appeared to be a ceremonial training hall. Iron weapons of gruesome configuration hung from the walls: spiked hatchets and tridents with corkscrew forks, unlike any Miko had seen before.
He caught glimpses of more weapons and a lesser array of smaller locust statues caught in heroic poses. The weight of dust and decay, rust and ruin permeated this chilling place.
Usk’s noisy breathing had stopped but for a sporadic, choking gasp.
Desperately, Miko searched for a place to hide him, and to keep the locust safe from molestation, even if he were doomed. The locust’s only chance was to get to a feeding tank. But where? Whether one existed in these remote chambers—
There, ahead, a faint greenish glow! He motioned to Star. A corridor ran low into the shadows. Quickly they hauled the comatose Usk through, panting with their exertions.
Miko discerned four squat glass vats huddled in the gloom. Two were drained of liquid and only withered husks lay at the bottom. Another was stained pink and its horned occupants lay long dead. One tank remained with a healthy greenish hue. A single locust occupant stared out from within. Who had been using these tanks? Had they been here to provide fuel for those locust fighters of the ancient rituals? Miko thrust the thought from his mind and snatched up the trailing hose. To his dismay, he found the octagonal nozzle too large to fit in Usk’s navel. He flung it aside. Star watched in despair. These hookups seemed too incompatibly ancient!
Usk’s only chance was complete immersion in the healing water.
“Here, help me lift him,” Miko hissed. Star struggled to assist him. “Unstopper the tank first.”
She grimaced, trembling in her boots.
“Do it!” Miko shrilled.
Star reached up a quivering hand, yanked at the unyielding top. She swatted at the snakelike cord in a flurry of fear and revulsion while Miko half lifted, half dragged the unconscious Usk up against the tank. Panting, he heaved him over his shoulder and dropped him into the water. Usk sank like a stone. The primitive locust captive in the tank stared impassively back at them, flexing its hooked tusks.
“Stay here. Watch him,” ordered Miko. “I have to find an oxygen source. Help Usk out, if he recovers. Blast the glass if you have to.”
Star shook her head in fear.
“Hide in the shadows behind these tanks, if you hear any of them come. Here’s a weapon—” he tossed her his extra blaster. Hers had been lost long ago “—Use it liberally. We’re no match for their combined force.”
“You’ll get killed,” she sobbed.
“So be it.” Miko turned to hobble off. “I’ve already seen enough in this lifetime.”
Down the tunnel he loped, his teeth-clenched. He willed his being to bring on his mutant skills. It wasn’t working. He must trigger the cloaking power to conceal his battered body! That or find some way off this miserable planet. He couldn’t do it with Star cringing at his shoulder. He realized all too well their lives depended on what happened next—perhaps the lives of all humanity.
He set his headlamp on the lowest setting, relying on the ambient glow from the surrounding stone. Doggedly, he hobbled through the alien halls marking twists and turns with the sharp edge of his blaster. He would have to find his way back to the tanks sooner or later.
He rounded a bend. His knees sagged at what greeted him. Now he wished he hadn’t ventured from the sanctuary.
There was a glint of something, an enemy ship?—hidden somewhere in this crypt-like hall with three shadowy side passages. But—
His heart plummeted in his chest.
What was the other thing?
Some alien horror? A product of diseased genetic engineering? Miko gasped. How big did these creatures get?
Epilogue
Somewhere far away, blazing ships lit the zenith, and Fenli’s breath came in hoarse rasps. Spiderweb cracks lined his glass faceplate along with an ugly smear of blood and slime. He was losing air fast.
Of the half-locust, half Zikri things crouching not ten paces away amongst the peg-like stalagmites, he had little to note, other than he wished he was anywhere in the galaxy but here. The brothels or casinos at Skullrox would be fine. But not here.
As for the pilot, Vembrod, there was no sign. Fenli discerned Varon sprawled in black gravel on his side in his grimy spacesuit, writhing and gibbering in a general state of misery. Several hairless chitinous creatures scooped the figure up. They slapped the Jakru pilot in a nearby pit of bubbling, greenish yellow water.
Varon twisted and screamed in a most disconcerting way, as his head bobbed above the slimy liquid. He was plunged under by many pincered claws. Well, not the worst way to go, thought Fenli.
The pit was shaped like a medium-sized horsehoe, and Fenli observed that these creatures had adapted to the oxygen-low air. In fact, they thrived in it, judging from the vivacity of
