|
Page 3.
 This particular afternoon came the moment Kion had patiently awaited, not long after the fatal beating near Kion. The dead man's wasted frame lay stretched where he'd fallen—a feast for the alien desert flies known as macabs.
There—what is this?
Kion spotted a shady little alley among some large boulders to his left. He kept his head down, and continued to mechanically lift and lower his pick. He did the absolute minimum he could get away with, as sun broiled his sinewy arms and shoulder blades. The boulders invited Kion to run down their shady lane to freedom.
Kion wondered where it led—that little alley zig-zagging between huge boulders.
Hoping the guards would not follow his line of attention, he furtively looked beyond the boulders while he raising his pick for the next down-stroke.
He spotted a long, dark shadow-line of what appeared to be a canyon rim, over which he could dive to find cover if he ran.
As luck would have it, his work battalion today had been marched out to this particular patch of desolation. He might not get another chance for a long time, and by then he might be too weak to lift a shovel, much less high-tail it under the noses and hovering skimmers of Sekurita. Not to mention turncoat humanian merks who lurked around the edges of the camp boundary, just waiting to go after some runner for their reward money and a bit of cruel fun. This was how the Kaarrk Swarm managed their human and humanian assets across the Ruby Arm—inhumanely. They had pushed the Dominion back, and imposed iron rule across the Treaty Marches, in violation of the neutrality protocols for which the former Dominion border sectors or marches were now named.
Being methane and ammonia breathers from hell planets, the Kaarrk sheathed themselves behind rubbery tank suits. One rarely saw them. The also wore heavy, brassy metal helmets, from which they peered inscrutably through heavy-paned little screw-hole goggles built into their face plates. Kion had seen a dying one once after a skirmish on the fiery shoals of Arak-7. The creature had been shorn of its helmet, and hung impaled in the wreckage of its Kaarrk scouter. The Kaarrk had a face like a pile of warts with hair and eyes scattered around the upper half, and a lipless mouth of woe below. Kion had raised his darter and put the thing out of its misery. It was more than a Kaarrk would do for any other sentient creature if the situation were reversed. The Kaarrk had a kind of ant-hill mentality, where the individual mattered only as long as it served the communion of the Swarm. They extended this same attitude to conquered carboxy peoples, because, Kion supposed, they didn't know anything else.
That sandy, dusty passageway among the boulders sure looked good. The Sekurita humanian regulars, and the mixed humanian-humanoid-humansh traitors who served as prison guards and trusties, weren't looking at the moment. There was one skimmer in the air, hovering a klik away over the canyon. The high watchtowers appeared empty as their Sekurita officers leaned their heads together for a nice cold teyin or chilled cafir.
Kion lowered his pick softly for the last time. He let its heaviness pull him down into the same bending posture as with every strike. He did not plan to ever raise it into the air again. Instead of rising upright on the upstroke for the next blow, he stayed low and ran.
He hugged the pick close and took it with him.
It would not do to leave a red flag—an abandoned tool—signaling that a man was missing.
Still bent, he sprinted some twenty heads into the shadow of the boulders.
His thin soles made next to no noise on the sandy, stony soil.
The boulders resembled two rows of giant molar teeth.
The dark alley between them led who knew where.
Kion threw the heavy pick aside as soon as he was hidden among the boulders.
He ran as fast as he could, while bearing left and right in adrenalin-fueled sprints.
He heard no outcry behind him.
He ran all the harder.
He grimaced, wide-eyed, as his hands and feet pumped like machinery in over-drive.
He felt a terrified electricity between his shoulder blades, anticipating any second now a stream of shock packets to his spine.
There were only silence, and numbness, as he sprinted all-out for his life.
Nobody had noticed—yet.
TOP
|
MAIN
Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
|
