CHAPTER THREE

Hunter, Hunted

Kjeld stopped and crouched next to the second group of dead bodies he had come across. They were all laboratory workers. From the way the bodies were laid out, it looked like they had not put up much of a fight. Why round them up just to kill them? Kjeld knew there were clues all around him, he was just yet to put all the pieces together.

Only a short time before, the Vruhr had been parading groups of human prisoners towards transport vessels. If the Vruhr were after slaves, it made no sense that they would execute these unarmed prisoners. Which meant they were looking for something else.

He analyzed the bodies closer, noting their uniforms and security tags. Most of these people were auxiliary staff. Orderlies and assistants and one older man Kjeld knew to be a secretary. There were no senior workers amongst the dead. The scientists had been taken then. It made sense to Kjeld. Vermasse, although an outer planet, was not the closest to Vruhr space. So it had to have been targeted for more than just its weak defenses.

Kjeld searched the bodies, wiping ash from the face of a woman. Her brown eyes stared lifelessly, almost accusingly back at him. He stared back for a few moments before rising to his feet. The dead were beyond his help. Coughing violently against the smoke, he pulled his scarf tighter around his face before pushing forward. The entire south side of the laboratory had been destroyed in the explosion and the fire was spreading to the remaining wings. With the staff dead or captured and the automated building control offline, the flames had free rein over the remainder of the building.

A sudden scream punctured the air and Kjeld threw himself against a wall, the heat from the fire behind searing his back. A woman’s face appeared at the glass, thick black smoke surrounding her head. She screamed again, fists hammering at the great window. Lifting his rifle from his shoulder, Kjeld signaled at her to move back. Seeing his intentions, she did so, disappearing momentarily into the smog. He aimed and fired. A crack appeared in the glass, then another. He fired again. The layered polycarbonate was heavily strengthened, designed to contain explosions, amongst other things. He fired again and again, his anger growing as each blast failed to penetrate.

Just as the woman’s screams fell quiet, cracks started to appear in the window, spreading between the dozens of puncture holes. Kjeld stepped back as the glass shattered. A wave of heat and smoke struck him, covering his face and goggles in a thick black. He cleaned the lenses as best he could with a dirty sleeve and climbed through the window. The woman’s body lay where she had fallen, burned and blackened and already dead.

Anger filled him. A cracked beaker lay on the floor and he kicked at it, launching it into the far wall. The small explosion of glass satisfied him momentarily before he brought his emotions under control. Throwing his rifle back over his shoulder, Kjeld climbed back out of the room and continued after those who were responsible for the woman’s death and the deaths of so many others.

He chose his footings carefully. The underground seed bank below him had caught fire; he could feel the heat beating against the floor beneath his fleet as well as smell the sharp citrus of burning kulit. The Vruhr he followed would have come through here some time ago, but Kjeld had been forced to take alternative routes to avoid search parties. He had picked their trail back up numerous times, however. They made no attempt to hide it. Smoke forced itself under his scarf, filling his nostrils and mouth as he pushed through the laboratory.

He paused as he came to a great circular door. It was the first of many reinforced airlocks that led to the central research lab. If the door had been locked, the research lab would have been protected from almost anything. The whole planet could have burned beneath them, and the research lab would have still stood when the flames had finally burned away. If it had been locked. But it wasn’t, which mean the Vruhr had been this way. Kjeld knew that the central laboratory had only one entrance and exit. To step inside would be akin to snaring himself in his own trap. But Kjeld was a man who had stepped into far worse. Somewhere on the other side of that door, was the reason he had hunted a group of hostile aliens through a burning building. He pulled his hood closer and steeled himself.

He stepped inside. The first chamber of the research lab still had power. Blue lights lit up panels all over the walls, whilst a metal island harboring a variety of unknown scientific instruments claimed pride of place in the middle of the room. He pushed on further still, one hand beneath his heavy coat gripping the butt of the pistol strapped to his thigh, the other keeping his rifle strap in place on his shoulder. Each room he passed through was as eerie as it was empty, made even more so by the constant low hum of the working equipment all around. Eventually, he came to the last room and it was there that he saw them.

Kneeling behind a large viewing window, Kjeld peered into the room. He counted at least twenty-five Vruhr. Huddled around a giant computer were a group of human scientists. Two of the scientists already lay dead, pools of deep red blood staining the white floor. Towering over the remaining humans was a single Vruhr, different from the rest. Its black armor was decorated with swirling reds and whites on the chest. He knew from a lifetime of fighting the aliens that the markings were a symbol of rank.

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Strapped to the leader’s helmet-less head was a device, unlike anything Kjeld had seen before. Small and scarab-like, it sat on the Vruhr’s round skull and reached down to encircle its neck. Kjeld studied the device but couldn’t understand its purpose. Circling the rest of the room, like ebony statues, stood another dozen Vruhr. Their armor was almost identical to the leaders, different only in that it bore no markings whatsoever.

Moving carefully, Kjeld swung the rifle from his shoulder. He was lining the scope up to his eye when he stopped. He strained his ears. A sound rung through the room, alien and yet somehow familiar. He slowed his breathing and focused. He was sure of it this time— the lead Vruhr had spoken. Kjeld was too far away to make out the words, but the sound was undeniable. He centered on the leader once more, sighted it in his scope, saw it beckon with a great hand. Two Vruhr peeled away from the others, manhandling a human prisoner and lifting her easily to her feet. The lead Vruhr spoke once more, gesturing with its arm as it did so. It pointed again and again at the central computer and then back at the female prisoner.

The woman, her head turned away from Kjeld, simply slumped into the grasp of her alien captors. She looked up momentarily, the back of her head lifting into view and Kjeld felt his knuckles tighten around his rifle. The woman’s hair was red. A deep sense of foreboding began to grow within him.

At that moment, the lead Vruhr strode across the room. In two quick steps it was on top of the human. With a vicious blow of an armored fist, she was sent flying backward. She slumped to the floor. This time Kjeld saw her face and he recognized her immediately.

Adrijana.

Kjeld swore silently. The woman lay unmoving, blood dripping onto the white floor from a fresh cut on her mouth. He narrowed his eyes, the muscles of his jaw clenching and unclenching.

There was no doubt it was Adrijana. There were few on Vermasse that had hair the color of rusted metal, and even fewer that had the stubbornness to anger a room full of armed Vruhr. Kjeld scanned the room hurriedly, but he could see no way of getting to the prisoners without alerting every Vruhr in the room. And probably a good few dozen who weren’t in the room.

The Vruhr commander approached Adrijana, as if to strike once more. Kjeld made up his mind. Steadying his rifle on his shoulder, he waited, eyes narrowed, fighting down the growing nausea in his gut. The Vruhr drew closer. Kjeld fired. The white-red heat of the rifle’s projectile cut through the window, leaving a perfect round hole in the glass. The beam sped towards the Vruhr, and Kjeld was already lining up his next target before the lead Vruhr fell.

But the leader didn’t fall. With astonishing speed, it leaped away from the deadly beam, throwing itself to the floor. Kjeld blinked in surprise but had no time to marvel at the alien’s speed. Already the remaining Vruhr were springing into action, chaos erupting inside the confined room. He turned his rifle on the nearest and fired. The second Vruhr hadn’t responded quite as fast and his new target fell dead. Just as the soldier hit the ground, the Vruhr commander regained its feet and two guards rushed at Kjeld. Another group ran at the human prisoners who were even now rising to their feet in fear and confusion.

He turned his rifle to Adrijana, saw her slowly push herself up to a sitting position. Her head spun around the room eyes, wide with panic, locked to his momentarily. Something flashed across her face and then she was on her feet and running. Close behind her was a Vruhr. The creature stopped suddenly, raising its weapon. Kjeld sighted the alien, letting out a deep breath he shot. The beam flew past Adrijana’s head, striking her pursuer. Kjeld had little time to savor the shot as returning fire forced him to retreat for cover.

A volley of projectiles tore through the air above his head as glass exploded all around him. The first of the two nearest Vruhr reached the door, but Kjeld shot it dead with his pistol just as the second rushed through. It struck out at Kjeld violently. He twisted his body, but the alien’s weapon caught him a painful blow on the hip. Rolling away, he turned and fired into the space the alien had occupied. But the creature had already moved, throwing itself on top of Kjeld. Spindly fingers wrapped round Kjeld’s throat and he hammered his fist desperately against the creature’s heavy skull.

He could feel himself grow weaker, waves of dizziness fogging his head, muscles strained. He struggled, kicking and punching at the Vruhr. He felt himself blacking out when the creature’s great body fell into him, all strength gone from its fingers. He pushed the Vruhr off him and gasped for breath.

“Kjeld? Is that you?” Adrijana panted. She stood above the Vruhr, pulling a long, sharp piece of metal from its body.

“Adrijana,” Kjeld spluttered, pulling back his heavy hood to show his face. He jumped to his feet, recovering his rifle and shooting a burst of fire through the doorway where moments before a Vruhr had appeared. “We need to go.”

“No! Tanner is still in there.” Kjeld looked into the room and saw smoke rushing through it. More Vruhr were already forcing their way through the entrance and Kjeld fired again, hitting nothing but causing the Vruhr to retreat momentarily. He fired at another Vruhr, just as his rifle's power pack emptied. Roaring, Kjeld swung the weapon at the alien’s head, knocking it to the floor before finishing it off with a pistol shot.

“There are too many. We have to go. Now!” He reached out an arm and wrapped it round Adrijana’s waist, half carrying, half pulling her away from the smoke-filled room. In his other hand, his pistol continued to fire bolts of energy at the open door.

“God damn you Kjeld! Let go of me!” Adrijana beat at his arm but he pulled her back through another door before slamming it shut. He punched some buttons on a keyboard and heard the door lock. Through the door’s small viewing window outside, he could see the Vruhr swarming.

“We have to go. Your kids…” He let the sentence hang in the air, unfinished.

Adrijana only glared, her green eyes piercing the tinted lenses of his goggles. A fresh bruise was forming around her eye, whilst blood still dripped from her cut. Setting her mouth in a tight line he watched as she gave a slight nod of her head and set off at a run. Kjeld followed, the look of hatred she had thrown his way lingering in his mind. Together they headed through the burning laboratory.