The Harvest (38 page)

Kelly slowly opened her eyes, focusing on a metallic gray ceiling.
She lay on her back on something cold and hard. A metal table
perhaps. That deeply rooted instinct, the voice all animals shared
that warned them a predator was nearby, told her to keep still and
quiet.

A youthful man in white clothing stepped into
view. His face was soft, like he couldn’t grow a beard, yet he
looked to be at least thirty years old. His brown eyes focused on
her shoulder. The memories of everything that happened in Cairo
returned to her in a flood, but she was stunned and confused over
how she’d gotten here.

Keeping her eyes pointed at the ceiling, she
perceived a blue light passing over her wound, the pain vanishing.
Acid flooded her stomach, and it felt like her heart turned into a
block of ice in her chest.

She was in the Anunnaki ship! The fog cleared
from her mind, and she remembered entering the vessel with the
possessed teens. She’d been so delirious from her injury that she
could hardly believe she’d made it so far. But then what happened?
She must’ve passed out, and they brought her here.

Her instincts were correct—laying still was
the right thing to do. Hoping she hadn’t done anything to give
herself away, she congratulated herself for making it into the
vessel. With any luck, the rest of her team was already in the
reactor compartment.

Unable to look around, she wondered if she
was alone with the Anunnaki doctor. She couldn’t hear anything, but
there could be rows of operating tables on either side of her,
Anunnaki quietly working beside each one.

Her bloody tank top stuck to her chest,
tugging uncomfortably on her skin as it dried. At least he hadn’t
needed to cut her shirt away to treat her. She’d be forced to strip
out of her clothes in front of the aliens soon enough. Meanwhile,
she had to resist the urge to reach up and tug the material away
from her body, no matter how irritating it became.

The doctor standing over her was the first of
the enemy she’d encountered. While she’d feared the Anunnaki since
meeting the rebels, she’d also fantasized about taking revenge. She
suppressed a desire to attack him. If they were alone, she was
certain she could kill him. The neural upload had furnished her
with hundreds of ways to take lives with her bare hands. It would
happen so fast that he’d barely have a moment to be surprised.

Unfortunately, until the reactor was shut
down, she had to pretend to be one of the possessed teens. He
finished treating her, and the table tilted upright. A footrest at
the bottom kept her from sliding off.

Once she was in the vertical position, she
discovered she wasn’t alone with the doctor. A line of teenagers
with slack expressions walked by in front of her. Nervous that the
alien who’d just treated her was watching, she stepped forward and
turned left into the line. She kept her eyes glued on the kid ahead
of her, following the other human slave patients. In the periphery
of her vision, she saw injured teenagers enter from the other side
and step onto the tilting examination tables after the treated ones
stepped off.

The line turned out of the brightly lit
healing factory and took Kelly down a darker passageway. It opened
into a large holding chamber filled with possessed teens, probably
the one in which she’d passed out earlier.

Kelly fell in the ranks behind the patient
ahead of her, waiting for the power failure that would set these
slaves free. She prepared what she’d say to the teens to get them
to attack the Anunnaki. It wouldn’t take much. Pointing out the
aliens as the ones who’d killed their parents ought to get quite a
few of them fired up in a hurry. With any luck, too much time
hadn’t been lost while she was unconscious, and she’d get her armor
before the reactor was shut down.

An alarm sounded and lights started flashing
overhead. Excitement surged in her veins, and her mind grew clear
and focused, as it did when she was attacked by the skin-faces.
Kelly kept her eyes forward and her face slack, knowing she had to
appear possessed until after the power was cut.

Surveying the closest soldier in her
peripheral vision, she planned her attack. The Anunnaki were weaker
than humans were. In spite of the armor, her target appeared
smaller than she did. Kelly was confident she could take the
soldier’s weapon. Then she’d turn and fire on the Anunnaki on
either side of her. She would show no mercy. The aliens were
responsible for the death of her family and of so many other
families on Earth and across the galaxy. How many innocents had
they slaughtered? How many teens of different species had they
turned into slaves? She let the anger grow in her, ready to fuel
her aggression when the time came for attack.

Hopefully, one of the teens would come out of
it fast and, without much effort, she could convince them to pick
up a rifle and join the fight. She’d never liked how so much of the
mission seemed left up to chance, but she came to terms with the
odds being against them early in the brutal training.

“Man battle stations,” a female voice said
through the intercom at a pause in the alarm. “Emergency lift
off.”

What was going on? The ship trembled, and she
guessed it was breaking away from its pyramid docking station.
Panic gripped her, though she managed to keep the dazed expression
on her face. The Aussies must’ve failed—the ship was flying away.
She studied the kids around her. They were still in a deep
trance—no chance she’d recruit them to fight. She couldn’t let the
ship take off—she had to attack. But she was unarmed and the
Anunnaki soldiers had full power to their suits. Probably given
some command through the speakers in their helmets, they lifted
their rifles to their shoulders and took aim at the slaves.

Was the rest of her team dead? Had they been
captured? Nothing in her training prepared her for this. Kelly
focused on her breathing to maintain a calm demeanor. It was nearly
impossible for her to keep still and not do something, but she’d be
blasted if she made a move. The ship trembled a final time and
became stable. She sensed it was airborne. It was carrying her away
from the Earth, away from Nat.

Her eyes grew moist with frustration, but she
accepted there was nothing she could do right now. She’d have to
bide her time and hope the rest of her team had not been
discovered.

“The other ships were attacked and disabled,”
a quiet voice to her left said.

In the periphery of her vision, she saw an
Anunnaki Shock Troop soldier had stepped out of a narrow passageway
and was speaking to another soldier who stood guard by the wall of
the chamber.

“Rebels?” the soldier being spoken to asked
incredulously. “How is that possible?”

“We’re going to run neural and biological
scans on every recruit,” the Shock Trooper continued, ignoring his
subordinate’s question. “Keep your people on high alert. Assume
there are enemy insurgents on this ship.”

“Yes, sir.”

Kelly’s blood ran cold. She and her team were
trained to pass the general inspection that all the slave recruits
endured, but they couldn’t hide that they weren’t under the
influence of the slave gene if the Anunnaki subjected them to a
closer examination. Terror and panic washed over her, but she kept
her head. She would do her best to stay undercover. She sure as
hell wasn’t going to give herself away by freaking out and
attacking the enemy too soon, though that was what every cell in
her body wanted to do at the moment.

Without the flow of energy from the ship’s reactor, the armor lost
most of its strength-enhancing capabilities. When Shane bashed
against the other side of the tumbling craft, his arm landed behind
him, and he felt it snap, pain exploding through his shoulder.

A millisecond later, he was levitating in the
center of the pod, looking up at the moon through the open hatch
and expecting to die. He was aware the instant the craft hit the
ground. It stopped moving in less than the blink of an eye, and he
slammed down onto the control panel, into darkness.

Waking with a stunning headache, he opened
his eyes to a blurry warning flashing inside his helmet on the
narrow display just above his visor.

Vital signs unstable. First aid system
malfunctioning,
it read.
Seek medical attention
.

Pain enveloped his right shoulder, but other
than that and a concussion, he didn’t feel like anything was wrong.
He tried to get up, to see if anyone else was still in the pod, but
his legs didn’t respond to his command.

With his one good arm, he groped his body
from the chest down, finding his hips at a sharp and unnatural
angle to his torso. He’d broken his back.

“No,” he groaned, panting frantically.

Please remain calm and seek medical
attention
, the narrow screen above his visor read, apparently
able to sense his panic.

“Great advice!” Shane broke into hysterical
laughter, tore his helmet off, and hurled it across the dark pod.
He immediately regretted throwing the helmet, hoping he hadn’t hit
anyone.

Methodically breathing in and out, he focused
on subduing the panic, regaining a semblance of control. Dr. Blain
could fix this, if he could stay alive long enough to get to
her.

Funny how he felt uncomfortable in her
presence. He’d come up with all kinds of sinister reasons why he
didn’t like her, but in the end, maybe she just reminded him of his
mom—always there to patch him up when he scraped his knee. Maybe he
needed her to help fill that void, but he was too scared to admit
it. He sure wished she were doting over him now.

Tears forming in his eyes, Shane kept still
and tried to get his bearings. He felt a surge of warmth in his
veins. The suit had administered a dose of pain medicine.
Recovering his senses, he replayed the events that had brought him
to this point in his mind. Liam was dead, vaporized when the
reactor exploded. He felt guilty for it—they shouldn’t have left
him behind. What if he was unconscious but clinging to life? In the
heat of battle, they’d given up on him too quickly. Thank God Steve
had grabbed Maurice, though he was probably dead too. All but one
had made it into the pod. Two had been tossed out in flight, though
the armor might have still been energized when they hit the ground.
He hoped one of the ejected passengers was the Anunnaki Shock Troop
soldier. Most of his team could be alive. Unless they’d all fallen
out when he couldn’t see, one or two of them were still in the
pod.

He could hear sounds of battle off in the
distance. Jones and the rebel-trained army of teenagers must’ve
rolled in to help with the fight. All the reactors must’ve been
destroyed. He hoped Kelly and her team had fared better than his.
At least Tracy was probably still alive, leading the freed teens
against the supremacist a-holes who inhabited the ship.

It was too dark in the pod to see if anyone
lay unconscious around him. Shane strained his ears to pick up a
sign of life. He remembered seeing Maurice shot through the chest,
and a flood of grief puddled his eyes. He’d lost so many people.
According to the annoying message that had been displayed in his
helmet, he’d likely be joining them soon.

A pained groan came from the darkness off to
his left.

“Is somebody there?”

He strained to listen, hopeful it was one of
his friends. The darkness surrendered a shaky exhale and a moan. It
sounded like a girl, and she was hurt bad.

“Laura?” He peered in the direction of the
sounds. “That you?”

Before she could answer, a loud screech
pierced the air, metal scraping on stone. Shane closed his eyes and
crossed his arm over his face for protection. He expected some part
of the craft would collapse on him, delivering the final blow that
would bring the end. The pod rocked back and forth gently, seeming
like it was teetering on the edge of an abyss. It found a resting
place, and for the moment, the inky darkness grew still and silent
once again.

The female coughed weakly.

“Hello?” he called in English. “Laura?”

“No,” the voice answered in Anunnaki and then
coughed. “Not Laura.”

“Are you okay?” he asked before his cloudy
brain concluded she was an enemy.

“I…” She paused, a tremble in her voice. “Not
so good. Funny question, I’d think you’d want me dead.”

It had to be the last Anunnaki soldier, the
one blasted into the pod when the reactor exploded. He wasn’t sure
what to say. Listening to her labored breathing for a moment, he
hated that he actually wanted to help her.

“Who are you?” she queried hesitantly.

“I’m Shane.”

“You’re human?” Her voice grew steadier and
surprised. The Anunnaki must’ve thought the rebels had attacked,
never suspecting their harvest had turned on them. “How is this
possible? Who helped you?”