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“You’re surrounded, Kail.”
She says it softly. Regretfully.
All hell breaks loose.
We were not alone. At least a hundred human soldiers emerge from various hiding places, beneath the ashes, and out of the burned out carcasses of buildings, from behind us in the trees, seeming to come out of the clouds themselves as they are sent in on sheets of thin fabric and wind.
I look at Tarni.
“It’s okay if you kill me,” she says softly. “I’d understand. I don’t want to see what happens next.”
“HANDS ON YOUR HEAD, SAVAGE!”
There is no time to kill her, even if I wanted to. This trap was set perfectly and planned meticulously. She was the bait, and I fell for it.
6
Tarni
The look Kail gave me when he was led away will stay with me forever. I am a Judas, the worst of the worst. What I just did was unforgivable on every human level — except the one that demanded I debase myself by betraying the creature I loved.
While Kail is taken away to die, I am marched off to be given praise. The destruction of Colony Alpha was not merely a tragic loss, it was also a shameful one. My commanders can handle tragedy, but embarrassment is completely intolerable.
I have not met any of these people before. I was deployed here from high command to hunt down a vicious savage and bring him to justice. I have been successful in that aim.
“Commander Rex,” a middle-aged man greets me with his name. He is nothing to look at, just a man. Humans seem very strange to me now, their faces lacking character and drama. I might have thought him handsome once. I might have found his power and rank attractive. Not anymore. His power is nothing compared to that of Kail, and his rank is absolutely meaningless to me.
“You are just as good as they said you would be.”
He opens with praise, praise I should be drinking in. I hope he mistakes my cool reaction for self-control, and not the complete indifference it actually represents.
“Thank you,” I say eventually, to avoid suspicious levels of awkwardness.
“Look at you,” Commander Rex laughs, looking me up and down. “Dressed up like a savage girl. He must have been so taken with you to create an outfit like that. Go and get cleaned up. Change into something civilized. And start writing up your report. Your testimony will be important in the trial. You have quarters in the officer’s section. Randolf will escort you.”
* * *
Iam escorted to rooms. Rooms with electricity and hot water. Rooms with cupboards full of food, and refrigerators containing cool milks, cheeses, and meats. I have been in a state of almost perpetual hunger for many weeks now. I should be falling upon these supplies with reckless abandon — but I am not hungry.
The second the door closes behind me and I am certain I am alone, I burst into tears. Once they start, they will not stop.
I cannot. Stop. Crying.
I know that Kail will be tried and he will be put to death as an example to any other native aliens who attempt to stand in the way of human colonization. His death will not be easy. It will be documented, and it will be cruel.
The look he gave me as they led him away will stay with me forever.
A knock at the door interrupts my misery. Why can’t they leave me alone? I compose myself quickly before answering it.
“You have not had the chance to get changed yet,” Commander Rex observes with some displeasure. It’s bad enough that he has come to check on me, but he is not alone. A taller, broader, even more decorated man stands next to him, and is introduced as General Dupris.
“Excellent work, Tarni.” General Dupris is complimenting me, and it is all I can do to hold myself together. “You have avenged your fallen brothers and sisters and brought honor to them, and to us all. I know you sacrificed much in this mission.”
He has no idea how much I have sacrificed. Not a fucking clue. His words do bring up something I have been mulling this entire time. My arrival on the planet was unnecessarily harsh.
“I was not made aware I would crash.”
Dupris and Rex glance at one another with a smug expression. They’re proud of themselves.
