Trees shook and uprooted, toppling in a circular pattern, giving her a direct bead on where the shaft would reveal itself once it reached the surface. Rocks and boulders bounced, shifted and rolled in response to the growing underground vibrations. From her calculations, the surface would crack within the next several minutes, spewing a desperate criminal from its bowels.
It was her job to catch the Hellion. A wide smile split her lips. This was the sustenance of life—the hunt, the kill, the simple satisfaction of knowing she prevailed over the evil, which resided in hell. Humans considered hell to be the home of their god’s opposition—the devil. In their spiritual scriptures, it was the place where unsaved souls suffered for all eternity. Shia knew the truth. Hell was an intergalactic prison cell located in Earth’s core. It held the dredges of the universe, sent there by the decree of the Kiengir—the creators and rulers of every aspect of the heavens.
The Kiengir produced every creature, planet and star in the universe, humans included. To them, these colonies as they called them, were simply science projects, experiments. Throughout the infinity of time, they guided, taught and controlled every aspect of life. It was a well-known secret they’d even bred with some of their creations in their efforts to form a perfect race of super intellectuals with superior strength and physical attributes. They held the power to create life. But did they take it away just as easily?
Closing her eyes tight for a split second, she shoved the unwanted images of a colony long gone back into the far corner of her mind. Now was not the time for sentiment. She shook off the thought, determined not to fail. The need to climb through the ranks to reach her goal drove her forward. One day she’d find the truth behind her family’s death. As a Paoni warrior she didn’t have clearance for those records, but as a High Guard Council member… She breathed deeply and refocused on the thrill of the matter at hand.
Like a hawk waiting for its prey, she watched. Anticipation coiled her insides tight, ready to spring the moment the escape route revealed itself. The good thing was, this event took place in a remote, densely forested area of one of the many faults she monitored within her jurisdiction. No humans were around for miles. Not until the earthquake chasers arrived would there be any interruptions, and by then she hoped the deed would be done. Though she stood still, the violent rumbling of the ground jostled her. She spread her legs and steeled her stance.
The escapee was close. Shia wobbled but managed not to fall. Instead, she moved toward the middle of the circle. Towns miles away probably felt the shockwaves from this. She shook her head. At least this escape hadn’t started at the bottom of an ocean. Eruptions underneath large bodies of water tended to create tsunamis that took out entire cities in their paths. Not that she cared for most humans. She just didn’t like seeing mass destruction of life in any form, even the subculture of Homo sapiens—or Adamu as they were known to her kind.
An enormous explosion set her back a couple of steps before she regained her balance. Dirt, rocks and fire filled the night sky. Smoke dense enough to suffocate billowed from the newly formed crack in the Earth’s surface. None of this bothered Shia. She came prepared, dressed in black from head to toe in the latest gear provided by the Paoni Defense Corps. The form-fitted suit was fully equipped with several deadly weapons, including the Paoni officer inside. A thick breastplate fit over the suit, which acted as a shield and also helped disguise her gender. All Paoni looked alike when in full regalia. It was their individual skills that distinguished them and separated them by rank.
Shia rolled her left shoulder, knowing two sun tattoos decorated her flesh. Her goal—earn four more, then she’d be presented to the High Guard Council. There she’d find those responsible for the change in her fate. A smile threatened to upturn her lips but she swallowed it. The possibilities of the Kiengir zoning in on her thoughts were high while dressed in battle gear, especially when wearing the helmet. She stilled, took a cleansing breath, and did an internal scan of her equipment as final prep before facing the Hellion.
Her helmet gave protection as well as acted as her eyes when necessary. She liked the fact these helmets were designed to each Paoni officer’s specific genetics. No one else could wear it. It worked in sync with the neurologic system and was calibrated to function from Shia’s specific brainwaves. Just thinking about the hours she’d spent in the chair as they programmed her helmet made her face numb.
She blinked and instantly the face shield activated a screen showing everything clearly within a few hundred feet. It calculated distance, distinguished the opponent’s weaponry if any, warned of intruders—human or otherwise—and most importantly, located and identified which Hellions escaped. Several criminals crawled from the six-foot-wide-by-fifty-foot-long gaping hole.
Yes. She grinned. What started off as a bland evening of loafing on the sofa with a beer, a bucket of buttered popcorn and a stack of B movies humans called sci-fis but she labeled as comedies, turned into a hunt for intergalactic escaped convicts.
For years she’d lived among the humans and guarded them, keeping them from learning of the prison’s existence and she strived to keep it that way. Two blinks brought the Hellions into clear view. Shapes moved on the screen. One, two, three she counted. Not too bad, a number she could handle in her sleep. A short, lean male from Sirius, more bark than bite. She snorted at her inside joke about the man from the Dog Star. The second was a woman from Aludra, a place known for its comely beauties. What most didn’t know was that these ladies had a dark, deadly side. Shia made a mental note to take her out first.
Shia stilled. The biggest man she’d ever seen in her entire career got to his feet and stretched. A crack echoed and she wasn’t sure if it came from the ground settling or his neck as he worked out the kinks. Biceps the size of her thighs bunched and flexed. Broad shoulders and back, a set of healthy legs strained the dingy, torn prison jumpsuit and she bet if he turned, his chest and abs wouldn’t disappoint. From this angle, the man had a perfect physique. Too bad he walked among the Hellions. She huffed and prepared for battle. The Aludra female would be easy compared to this giant.
Even in the darkness, his profound dominance couldn’t be missed. The leader of this trio of misfits, she surmised without losing sight of any of them. Odd, no information lit the screen about the third escapee. Shia blinked to reset. After a short hesitation, the system rewarded her with an answer she preferred not to have received.
Lanius. The worst category possible for a Hellion. To her knowledge, few of them existed. They were terminated or jettisoned into a solitary confinement Black Hole, not sent to a prison planet. How had this man escaped either destination? Looking at the prisoner, she decided it could have been his sheer size had intimidated the Kiengir, who had determined his fate. But she doubted it. Members of the Kiengir weren’t known for being swayed by fear or granting leniency. They ruled the infinite universe and their word was law and enforced by the High Guard Council. The High Guard Council was a respected group of leaders, who answered directly to the Kiengir, managed their assigned colonies and oversaw that the Paoni warriors enforced these laws. Being a Paoni officer, Shia had a job to do no matter how small or large the situation.
Little to no information followed his rank. Origin listed as unknown. No name, only category and gender came up connected with this one. Lanius. Male. It didn’t make sense. He had to have come from somewhere. What crime had he committed that warranted eternal damnation, instead of instantaneous death? He must have pissed off someone in the Kiengir to the extreme.
Instantaneous death or eternal damnation in a prison cell? Shia wasn’t sure which she’d pray for if she ever found herself on the wrong side of the Kiengir.
Quickly and carefully, Shia maneuvered closer, weapons charged and loaded in both hands. She readied for their next move as she calculated her strategy. It didn’t appear they were aware of her yet. Hellions needed a few moments to become acclimated to the conditions on Earth’s surface. Those were the precious se
conds Paoni relied upon. It made apprehension easier when the subject was disoriented. Once their heads cleared, they tended to fight or run. In the big man’s case, she doubted he was a runner.
Flames spewed and sputtered from the gap, lighting the immediate area. Shia knew she needed to contain the Hellions and seal that hole before it shifted into a free-flowing, newly formed volcanic lava pit. That was a problem when escapees used Earth’s constant natural activity of seismic energy to reach the surface. Disasters tended to follow such as earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. At least the humans were clueless and thought these events to be natural disasters and not the escape attempts of the criminally insane.
The occasional stupid few rode the waves of a geyser, like Old Faithful. They were always immediately captured. Didn’t they realize geysers were timed and basically predictable? Damn Hellions.
Shia shook her head. Thank the Kiengir the humans weren’t too bright. She focused on the escapees and moved closer. The Sirian helped the Aludra female to her feet. Better watch out or you might lose your soul, Shia silently warned.
She skimmed the incarceration intel on both and knew the Sirian stood no chance against the Aludra female. The Sirian was a young male imprisoned for theft. A petty crime cost him life beneath ground. In Shia’s book, theft didn’t warrant such extreme action. She inhaled, schooling her thoughts. It wasn’t her job to judge, simply capture and return to prison or eliminate the possible threat.
The woman chose to follow the path many Aludra females traveled to remain eternally beautiful—stealing the souls of lovers. Three men had already died for the price of her vanity. And from the looks of it, the Sirian would become the fourth if he didn’t wise up and break contact soon.
The big man ignored those two. The rise and fall of his chest hinted he breathed deeply. It appeared as if he meditated. Probably his way of adjusting to the sudden climate change. Being shot from the hot pit of hell into the cool night air of the surface would short circuit the toughest of souls. She snorted. And looking at him, she didn’t doubt his ability to adapt and survive. Yep, the big man posed a problem, but even the largest had a weak spot. Besides, she was armed, highly skilled, and they weren’t.
Shia stood within several meters, prepared to fire, and issued a strong command through the voice-enhancing device of her mouthpiece, which projected her voice and deepened it to disguise her gender.
“Halt. Drop to your knees and place your hands behind your heads.”
Out of the three, only the Sirian followed the command. At least one of them had a brain. Or he was simply too scared to do otherwise. The Aludra leveled a gaze on her that Shia knew from research of the breed was meant to captivate their victim’s senses. Though covered in dirt, her beautiful pixie-like features shone through the grime. Oval light-blue eyes stared in Shia’s direction as a thin smile crossed the Aludra’s lips. This species played on the weak need to be loved and used it to draw the victim close then ripped out the heart and stole the soul with the speed and precision of lightning.
“Lower your eyes, Aludra. You hold no charm for me.”
“Ah, but you’ve given me no chance,” the Aludra female proclaimed in a sickly sweet lilt. She took one step toward Shia and it was her last of the night. Shia squeezed the trigger of the smaller weapon in her left hand and the Aludra froze in place. She stood upright like a statue. Her eyes were opened wide as was her mouth.
“Now, you.” Shia turned to the biggest and reiterated her command. “On your knees, hands on the back of your head.”
He did no such thing. Instead, he pivoted on his heels to face her. If she didn’t know better, she would have sworn her heart stopped. Emerald eyes stared directly at her, filled with a fathomless depth of stone-coldness to the point it felt the temperature in the air dipped a few degrees. Never had she seen eyes this shade, nor endured the chill of deadliness she read within them. He wore no vision-enhancement gear, but Shia had no doubt he saw her using only the light of the flames spitting from the pit.
Everything about this man screamed intimidation, the subtlety in his movements, his rigid stance and the drop-dead glare. He wasn’t going down without a fight. Great. Not that she minded gutting a felon. She did it with such precise technique not an ounce of internal fluid spilled as she removed their vital organs. In this case, it’d be a shame to waste such a perfect specimen. The look in his eyes gave her no choice.
“This is your last warning, Hellion. On…your…knees.” She spoke slower and pronounced each word, clearly giving them an edge of finality in their meaning. If he didn’t follow command, she’d end his escape using every weapon in her arsenal if needed.
“Outta my way, Paoni.” Anger dripped from his words and his entire body tensed, making him appear even huger. “I have no intentions of returning to hell.”
A warning in his words, Shia almost laughed at the absurdity. “Hell is where you belong and hell is where I shall return you.” She paused for effect then added in an ominous tone laced with pure conviction, “Or kill you and send your organs to the Kiengir.”
His deep rumble of laughter held no humor and his expression showed no fear. Truly a man with nothing to lose in life—or death. Shia anticipated as much, but his next statement confirmed it.
“Likes stronger than you have tried.” A small spot beneath his left eye twitched and for a split second she wasn’t sure if she caught a glimpse of unexpected emotions in his glare. Sadness. Regret. Did the big man feel remorse for his crimes? If he did, his voice didn’t show it. “Bring it on, Paoni. Let us see which one shall die this night.”
A challenge. She couldn’t help the slight smile from tickling her lips. Life. Death. It mattered not to her where Hellions were concerned. Looking at the hulk of a beast, Shia hadn’t realized until now how much she itched for a good fight. Gutting this one would be an honor. Albeit, a loss of a perfectly formed male specimen she wouldn’t have minded sampling under different circumstances. She swallowed the unwanted sigh of desire. The pleasure she’d reap from this one would come from doing her job well.
Kal hadn’t meant for anyone to escape with him, but he couldn’t leave the kid behind. Hell was no place for the young man. The Aludra was a different story. He cut a sideways glance at the frozen bitch. Served her right. Her kind could not be trusted. If the kid had listened, the woman would still be where she belonged. Without looking, Kal knew Dio followed the Paoni’s threat and knelt.
Good, it’d keep the kid out of his way while he dispensed of the Paoni. He focused on the Kiengirs’ watchdog. From the looks of it, his opponent was dressed in the finest battle gear provided by the High Guard Council. He’d sneer, but he didn’t want to show an ounce of emotion to his enemy. Emotion equaled defeat.
An arsenal of deadly devices lay hidden within a Paoni battle suit. Kal knew that all too well. He noted the obvious weapons in the officer’s hands. The smaller of the two, the KO-2, had four levels of stun—low, medium, high, or extreme—for the criminal who refused to halt. The larger, the Magnum, used a more painful method to incapacitate, maim or kill its victim. His gut knotted at the thought of possibly being hit by the Magnum’s shock waves. Fiery prickles shot through his system at the memory of the last time he stood on the wrong side of that weapon. Many times he’d used it, but it took just once getting struck by it to understand the meaning of pain and incapacitation.
He never intended to experience it again. Kal searched the Paoni for weakness. The battle suit protected, but it didn’t prevent injury or death. He had the scars to prove it. Paoni were trained killers, as was he. Their methods were his methods. He watched for a flicker of movement that gave away the officer’s intentions. If it were him beneath that black cloak of armor, the criminals would have already been dead. Why the hesitation?
A movement so slight he almost missed it fired the KO-2. He dodged the shot and it hit the Aludra, knocking over the statuesque woman. Two blows on low, she should survive that, and if she didn’t, no lo
ss, he noted as she rolled dangerously close to the edge of the gap. Before he regained his balance, the second shot hit him dead center of his chest.
Ugh, that stung. The Paoni must have switched the levels from low to high, skipping the middle for him. Lucky him. He gritted his teeth and dug deep to resist the paralyzing efforts of the stun to his system. This trick had been part of his training when he was a young buck, so soaking up the internal energy bouncing along his nerves didn’t entirely faze him. It simply warmed his insides. But he let the Paoni think it worked. Kal froze and waited.
He didn’t even blink when the officer walked over and stood beside him. “You disappointed me. I thought you’d be harder to catch. Gutting you will be a pleasure.”
“No,” Dio screamed as he lunged, clipping the officer behind the knees. The Paoni dropped to the ground, rolled and sprang into a crouched position. Dio slid face-first into the dirt.
Faster than anything Kal had ever seen, the officer holstered the KO-2, produced a port-a-pod and encapsulated Dio for transport. If he didn’t do something, the kid would be teleported to the delivery ports in Peru. Every species of the universe had a delivery port, which decorated the surface of Cajamarquilla—known to the Adamu as the band of holes. When a port-a-pod reached its specific port, it opened and swallowed the pod. It was a one-way chute into the prison and worked at a speed no human eye could see.
That would not happen. Though he’d been trapped, Dio caused a much-needed distraction. Kal jumped, packing the momentum of his size into the double-fisted blow he landed to the side of the Paoni’s helmet, just below its rim where it fit onto the battle suit. If he jarred the head unit from the battle suit, the neurologic connection between the officer and his weapons were disengaged. This he knew as fact. The Paoni went down hard on his side with Kal on top of him.