He noticed though that her energy was flagging. She levitated lower to the ground and the last few soldiers that she attempted to zap caused them only to jerk back, confused. Khoth had to go in and slam heads against walls, crack skulls together, and kick legs out from beneath them before they went down.
Final hallway. There, Gehenna told him.
At the end of the hallway there was another door. There were boxes in front of it. This was a door that the humans had given up on trying to open. But it opened now. The boxes toppled. Gehenna glided over them while Khoth cleared them with a jump. Just as he entered the room beyond, someone called his name.
“Khoth!” Colonel Diane Parker called. He knew it was her the moment he turned his head to look back. She and Jace had the cheekbones. Her face was stricken. “Commander Khoth! Please let my son go!”
She was surrounded by soldiers. They all had their guns out. Pointed at him and Gehenna.
Just as the doors were sliding shut, Khoth said, “We cannot. We are saving him.”
The Pilot
Darkness and then light. Shafts of light that blinded him and then disappeared. Jaced was reminded of a curtain being pulled back and then falling shut again. Light and dark. He heard a clicking sound like metal against metal that seemed to morph into the shake of a cobra’s tail.
Where was he?
Something--no, some things--were wrapped around him. Coils? Tentacles? Snakes? Squids? Both options were terrifying. But no, the coil-tentacles were metal. Or something like metal. Maybe they were chitin like bug-armor. That had him thinking of the Khul. The centipede-like Cetixes. He remembered what Gehenna said about what the Khul did to the ones they caught. They infected them.
Was he infected?
He hurt. Everything hurt. Not just his head. But every molecule of his being. Maybe there were Khul larvae already in his system, squirming through his tissues, nesting in his brain, swimming in his bloodstream, getting caught in his heart before being pumped out to the rest of his body. He wanted to scream, but all sounds cut off in his throat.
He was being moved. Carried. Not by Khoth though. Not any longer. Were the Khul taking him to their needle-like ships? Where was Khoth? He wouldn’t have let Jace go without a fight.
“Khoth!” His mother’s voice rose out of a shaft of light. “Commander Khoth! Please let my son go!”
Khoth! Khoth is here?
Jace twisted his head to the side. He saw flashes of light between the tentacles. Was Khoth there? And where was his mom? How could his mom be anywhere near the Khul? It wasn’t safe! Not safe!
You’re safe. I’m here with you, Gehenna whispered.
Jace drew in a shuddery breath. Gehenna was here. Khoth was here. His mom was here.
But where is here?
Khoth was wherever “here” was, though he couldn’t see him. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. With the flashes of light through the--coils? Tentacles? Metal? Chitin?-- he caught sight of Khoth’s legs and feet. Sometimes his hands and waist, too. His view of the floor--that glossy black-blue that reminded him of a night sky just calling to be explored--told Jace that he was still in the Osiris. But no longer on the prisoner level.
Khoth responded to Jace’s mother presumably, “We cannot. We are saving him.”
Saving me? Jace’s mind whirred to life.
Memories of Khoth and Thammah getting him past the human military, the massive Osiris, creeping across the cavern, and then slipping inside the ripped skin of the spaceship flooded him. He wasn’t in the hands--or coils--of the Khul. But what--who--was carrying him?
“You don’t understand!” His mother’s voice rose. “That’s where he was hurt! It’s dangerous!”
Hurt? When? Jace wondered. It hurt to wonder. Like it had hurt to laugh. He had been reduced to pain and the light and the dark. Don’t worry, Mom. Khoth and Gehenna have got this.
“It’s dangerous! Don’t do this!” His mother’s voice was ravaged by pain.
“Colonel, should we fire?” a male voice asked.
Fire? Fire what? Guns? Oh, no, Mom, Khoth’s a friend!
“No, you’ll hit my son! Stand down! Khoth, don’t do this!” she repeated.
Her voice was cut off with a snick. A door shutting?
