As Alex opened the tent door, three sets of eyes met his—one Zotari that looked to be a doctor, another that was probably its assistant, and a brute. Of course it was a brute.
Alex immediately pounced on the two civilian Zotari. They would be the perfect ones to ask for information. He shot out two rapid tendrils of Eonsteel to restrain the two of them with mummy like wrappings around their bodies. He even had the presence of mind to cover their mouths. He was proud of his foresight. They struggled against their bindings, but were unable to budge the cold metal an inch. With those two essentially down for the count, Alex shifted his attention to the brute.
Unfortunately for Alex, the majority of his Eonsteel was preoccupied with his prisoners. That meant he would have to use less subtle means to deal with the brute. He needed to end things quickly and quietly to ensure that their presence in the basement remained unnoticed. It would be unfortunate for them to be found so shortly after arriving on the floor.
If Alex had a huge reserve of energy stored up, he would just focus all of it into one strike. Sadly, this wasn’t the case. They had hardly run into anyone and therefore he had only his own strength to rely on. His strength had grown significantly, but there was no way it surpassed that of the brute.
While Alex tried to brainstorm a few ideas in rapid succession, Krizzik was already on the move. He had pulled out a rather primitive looking tube. It looked like a blow dart from on Earth and Alex was surprised when Krizzik shot a dart at the hulking figure. Moments later, the alien collapsed, the other members of the squad caught it before it could crash to the ground.
“Seriously? That seems like a primitive tool. You guys couldn’t have come up with anything cooler than that?” Alex asked incredulously.
“We are here on a stealth mission, are we not? We do have technology more advanced than this, but this is compact and quiet. Those darts allow us to incapacitate an enemy. This Zotari will remain unconscious for at least three hours. We had designed the payload to put a normal Zotari to sleep for eight, but I do not believe it will work as intended on a being as large as this. I do believe three hours is an accurate estimate,” Krizzik responded.
Alex hovered over the snoring brute and examined the dart. It was essentially a medical syringe with a long needle and hollow glass container that had housed a green liquid. Only the residue of this liquid remained inside the dart. The rest had been injected into the Zotari. Alex guessed that needle had some type of impact sensor that signaled the plunger to inject whatever concoction was inside. Whatever that stuff was, it was both fast acting and effective. The brute hadn’t even been able to raise the alarm or put up any form of attack.
“Thanks for that. I don’t think that I would’ve been able to take him down in time. I was trying to think of something, but even now, I don’t know how I could’ve done it,” Alex said.
“It is fine. We did not expect you to do everything on your own. What would the rest of us do?” Krizzik responded with chuckle. It sounded like someone clicking a pen repeatedly. It was somewhat unnerving, but Alex took it for what it was—a good natured gesture.
“Now,” Krizzik continued, “let us see what our new friends have to offer us.”
He motioned for Alex to join him while the others started scouring the tent. Alex pulled the civilians closer to them, staring them straight in the eyes.
“I’m going to remove one of your gags at a time. We just want information. We don’t want to hurt you. That doesn’t mean that we won’t hurt, just that we don’t want to. If one of you calls out, I will kill you. It wouldn’t even be hard,” Alex said.
He tried his best to look menacing. He even channeled what little energy he had into his suit to enhance the glowing effect in his eyes. He didn’t know how that would look to them, but it must have worked because their eyes were huge.
Alex motioned Krizzik to the one that looked like a doctor, and after giving another glare, he removed the gag.
“What are you doing here?” Krizzik asked, a menacing edge to his voice.
“We are trying to win a war,” the doctor spat.
Alex rolled his eyes, “He meant specifically.”
“I know of you. You are the reason for all of this,” the Zotari said narrowing its eyes at Alex.
“I thought you were trying to win a war. I’m hardly cause for such attention.”
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“You know that isn’t true. Your very existence is proof that there are superior beings out there.”
Alex didn’t know how to feel about being referred to as a ‘superior being’, but he didn’t interrupt the doctor.
“You are faster, stronger, more cunning than us.”
Now Alex was certain they had to be confused. There was no way they were talking about him right? But again, he let the doctor continue.
“We were slowly whittling away our victory. It was only a matter of time. We had received reports of a single mercenary that had joined the Saxan traitors…”
“Traitors! You are the ones that betrayed us. The gall. We have always been loyal to the Zotari.”
Without missing a beat, the Zotari continued, “At first you didn’t seem to make a difference. You were only spotted on the lower tier battlegrounds. Your strength began to grow. When you attacked that supply cache and killed nearly every single soldier there, we knew we needed to act. That was when we were enlisted. We had been working on a way to enhance our soldiers before, but we didn’t have the support we hoped for. You were our ticket. We have been able to make leaps of progress in the blink of an eye.”
“We want your research and supplies. Where are they stored?” Krizzik asked.
“Like I would tell you. Starbound dog. You are all weak.”
“And how are you different? You only answer to a different master. We all answer to someone. Neither of us are strong enough to stand alone. We just chose to remain loyal to our allies.”
“Loyal,” the Zotari scoffed. “This is a luxury we don’t have. We have been ignored by the Coalition. What have they ever done for us? But of course, they send you resources. While we are forgotten, aid is sent to you.”
Krizzik was silent for a few moments. Alex looked at him, trying to glean any of his friend’s thoughts. He wasn’t sure what the Zotari had said that had Krizzik looking so glum, but he took the chance to speak.
“We don’t need to know your motivations. Frankly, I don’t really care. I’ve told you what we want. If you don’t give it to us, we’ll ask your friend here. Whoever we find more helpful will get preferential treatment. If one of you really starts to annoy me, I’ll just remove you from the equation. If you understand my meaning.”
The Zotari looked like he was about to shout out, but Alex wasted no time in covering the doctor’s mouth. Muffled screams sounded out so quietly, it would put a mouse to shame. Alex smiled at the doctor’s failed attempt at raising the alarm. And turned to the other captive.
“Looks like it’s your turn. Hope you aren’t as unhelpful as this guys was.”
The Zotari looked back and forth from the doctor, who was glaring at it while jerking its head around wildly, to Alex. It was obvious the Zotari was concerned about what would happen if it didn’t speak and if it did.
“I can assure you, we are a much bigger threat to your wellbeing right now. Heck, if you tell us what we want to know, the only people who are going to know are you and us. I’m not going to tell anybody where we got the information if we get caught. Will you guys?” Alex asked as he turned to the other members of his group. They all shook their heads.
Alex was kind of surprised that conveyed the same message here, as it did on Earth.
Are all of these things universal? Probably not. That’s just a coincidence for sure.
After another moment of silence, Alex decided the Zotari would need a little push. He edged closer, puffing his chest while channeling his inner giga chad. This proved to be enough and the other Zotari started talking so fast, Alex could barely keep up. By the time it was done speaking, they had a rough layout of the entire basement level. It had outlined where they should go if they wanted to reach the samples, or the research notes, and it had even divulged some extremely private information. Stuff that Alex never wanted to hear again.
He wasn’t even sure why it had felt the need to share some of that stuff, but Alex chalked it up to the stress of impeding death. He knew from personal experience what that kind of stress could make a person do. He had, on more than one occasion, whored himself out to the whims of the Forge.
Alex was about to ask the doctor if it had anything to add, but a sudden stirring behind him pulled him out of interrogation mode. He peered back to see the brute start to get to his feet. Alex was the first to notice the movement and had to act fast. He made a miniature katana like blade out of the remaining Eonsteel. This ended up more as a knife than a sword, only measuring about two feet long.
Alex lunged forward and stabbed the katana into the brute’s gut. It looked into Alex’s eyes in alarm, but Alex didn’t stop his assault there. He plunged the blade in three more times. Each time the only sounds to be heard were the grunts from the brute and the squelching of flesh. Alex stabbed the blade into the Zotari’s head, following the sound advice of the snake king and Krizzik. And believe it or not, it actually worked. The brute fell lifeless to the ground. Alex looked over to the rest of the group expecting looks of amazement.
They were horrified. Not nearly as horrified as the Zotari trapped in his Eonsteel. They looked like they were going to pass out. Then Alex looked at Krizzik. He had his sleep dart at the ready.
It hadn’t even occurred to Alex that he would use it again.
----------------------------------------
“Why is there so much blood? I know these things are huge, but come on. This is absolutely ridiculous,” Alex said.
The group started grabbing random supplies and furniture and piling it up around the brute’s body. Luckily, the blood was only draining in one direction. The floor was built at a slight slope likely for this exact reason. Well, not this ‘exact’ reason. Alex doubted that whoever designed the building had this exact scenario in mind. It was probably designed so that liquids would go towards a central drain and wouldn’t pool inside the building.
Krizzik grumbled again.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think that any of you guys saw him waking up. I didn’t want him to fully wake up and make too much noise,” Alex tried to justify.
“It is fine. You acted how you thought best. Now, we will just make sure that we are not found out,” Krizzik said in a huff.
Alex just continued stacking stuff in front of the red river. He was glad for his suit because he was sure that his face was at least as red as the liquid.