At least the vehicle kept any other creatures at bay as they travelled across the rocky, barren ground. Occasionally they would navigate through small wooded areas of sparse, spindly trees with triangular leaves. Despite looking out for them, Denver never did catch sight of those other strange bipeds he saw going into the lake.
The ride became bumpy, jarring Denver in his seat. He leaned across to Layla to ask if everything was okay when suddenly the ground disappeared, the front end of the catamaran nose-dived, hurtling them down a steep slope into darkness.
Layla screamed as the momentum of the catamaran’s fall toppled her out of the vehicle, sending her crashing off into the distance, disappearing into the thick shadows of a steep valley.
Chapter 16
VINGO BACKED AWAY to the opposite corner of the cell and turned to face the wall. Charlie thought a yellow streak of cowardice ran deep inside him.
Charlie glared at the tredeyan slaver who stood at the open door. He could tell it was a female due to the prominent clavicle muscles absent from Vingo and the others he’d observed at the command center.
The slaver pointed the electro-stick toward him and said something in tredeyan.
“What’s she saying?” Charlie said.
“She said if you look at the croatoan like that again, you’ll be fed to the clusps. They don’t have time for impertinence.”
“Tell her to come in here and say that to me.”
The slaver’s beady flickering eyes focused on him and she jabbed the prod forward, just missing him by an inch. Charlie wasn’t bothered by her threats; he’d had enough of them after the invasion of Earth.
Vingo remained silent. The cell door slammed shut. She shouted something through the bars and moved back to the central table.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Charlie said. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life as a slave?”
“We cherish life. My destiny is the mines or execution on a croatoan homeworld.”
“You make your own destiny. It’s time to grow a pair.”
Vingo turned to face Charlie. His faced seemed to droop behind his tinted visor. “My time is up. I failed to deliver the secure data and can’t fight the slavers.”
“There’s always a way to fight,” Charlie said but wondered about the depth of Vingo’s deceit. “What exactly have you done?”
“I stole some secure data from the command center. If I have technology to trade to an enemy of the croatoans, they will accept my group.”
“You’re trading with the scion?”
“No. There’s a growing force on the edge of the galaxy called the Amalgam. They’re not strong enough to fight at the moment, but if we can provide them with technical designs, they can increase their power.”
“How do you know they won’t be just like the croatoans?”
“Their whole ethos is based around liberty. It’s too late for us, though. When they wheeled me past the group in the middle of the cavern, I heard them talking about an evacuation.”
“Evacuating where?”
“Senpra. The mining planet,” Vingo said. “The only tredeyans who think we can win this war are in the main command center. If we don’t fight, we answer to the croatoan high council.”
Most tredeyans seemed resigned to losing their homeworld. If they surrendered to the scion and gave them what they wanted, a croatoan destroyer would probably come and obliterate the planet. They chose to avoid that and fight, which pretty much guaranteed the same thing based on the evidence outside.
Denver, Layla and Charlie had made themselves bigger targets by accepting Vingo’s assistance. Charlie couldn’t get upset about the fact. If it wasn’t for the tredeyan, they would probably be lying dead in a cavern or being digested in a clusp’s gut. The dishonesty grated on him, but that was a minor irrelevance considering their plight.
THE BIG UGLY croatoan in a faded gray soldier’s uniform, with the distinctive armor plating attached, bounded over to the next cell. It grabbed the small cream-colored alien by its head and dragged it back to the middle of the cavern.
It threw the alien against the ground and the two tredeyan slavers, in filthy blue robes, aimed their graphite rifles at its face. The female, who seemed to be in charge of the operation, zapped it on the head with her prod. The small alien squealed and wrapped its arms around its face. The group rasped and clicked and appeared to be enjoying it.
“Bastards,” Charlie said. “What are they doing?”
“They’re testing him to see if he’s capable of working in the mines. If he doesn’t meet the requirements, he’ll be pulped into clusp food.”
Charlie took a deep breath and continued to observe. If he had no chance of escape, passing the test would at least buy him some time. The longer he stayed alive, the more chance Denver and Layla would find the location. He trusted his son’s skills as a tracker, even on an alien world.
The female slaver ran a device up and down the cowering prisoner and glared at the screen. The croatoan dropped a large piece of metal in front of him and the group stood back.
Wrapping his spindly arms around the metal, the little alien attempted to lift it, without success. He hopped around, trying from different angles, grunting and squealing, but it didn’t move an inch.
Aliens in the other cells moved to the bars and watched. A few tredeyans, stripped naked, stared over to Charlie’s cell. Vingo ignored them, most likely feeling ashamed. The croatoan drew its thigh sword, raised it high in the air, and swept it down, hacking into the small alien’s shoulder. He dropped to the ground and received three more scything blows to the face and chest.
One of the tredeyan slavers grabbed the dead alien’s limp arm and dragged him over to the closest clusp. It wrapped a tentacle around the alien’s legs, raised it in the air, and sank its saliva-drenched teeth into the exposed chest wound.
For supposedly advanced races, they acted like savages. Charlie considered if the scion knew about this too, and were only doing what humans might, if they had the resources. The juxtaposition of the pulse cannons and slaver cavern seemed odd.
The female tredeyan approached their cell and shouted through the bars.
“It’s my turn,” Vingo said. “Good luck, Charlie.”
“Wait. Take this thing off my suit.”
“I don’t have the correct tool. Pass the test and I might see you later.”
Vingo walked to the cell door. The female opened it up, led him out with the prod, and slammed it behind her. She rested her black soulless eyes on Charlie for a few seconds before shoving Vingo toward the central table.
She provided proof that some tredyans didn’t lack gumption. Vingo proved to be a coward, but this cold-hearted hag thought nothing of butchery and slavery.
The two tredeyan slavers, who Charlie worked out were the henchmen of the female, surrounded Vingo, grabbed his right arm, and fingered his pad.
His armored suit opened with an electronic whine and he stepped out of it, revealing his semitranslucent body. He wore only a pair of the three-quarter-length trousers, like the command center workers they saw after they first entered the main caverns.
They scanned him with the same device. The croatoan slid the rock toward him with its boot. Tredeyans in cells rattled their bars. Rasps and gurgles echoed around the cavern. Charlie guessed they were shouting encouragement.
Vingo leaned down, gripped the metal and his eyes squeezed shut. He shakily raised it to his chest and staggered back a couple of paces. The group stood silently around him in a semicircle.