Perhaps no one else had survived, but she continued to hope others had hunkered down in a safe place. There were other caves, bunkers, mines, underground tunnels where people might have escaped the death rays.
The alien scum had murdered damn near everyone on the entire planet. They didn’t deserve to live. And this one could pose a threat to her. She had to kill it.
While agreeing in principle that a person had the right to defend himself with deadly force, she’d never imagined herself killing somebody under any circumstances. She hadn’t owned a gun. The automatic pistol had belonged to her dad, who’d insisted she and Brent learn how to use guns since he’d kept them in the house.
Pull the trigger. Do it.
Killing it when it lay facedown, half dead already seemed more like a cold-blooded execution than an act of self-defense.
She lowered the handgun.
Maybe nature will run its course and finish it off soon anyway.Or it will get a massive infection and die a slow, painful death.
It might even be dead, in which case, shooting it in the head would be a waste of good ammo.
She’d thought it dead until it had moved. It hadn’t gotten far, but ithadmoved. What if it survived?
As if proving her point, it groaned.
She jumped. It clawed at the ground, pushing itself up and rolling over. She raised the pistol. The bead of light danced between those startling-blue eyes. She recognized resignation in its gaze.It knows I intend to kill it.
Intense anger surged through her as she remembered her parents, her brother, everyone she fucking knew, every single one of them dead, while thisthinglived.
She squeezed the trigger.
Chapter Three
Grav couldn’t move. He regained consciousness spread-eagled on a flat surface, arms and legs tethered to posts.
But I’m alive.He felt shamefully relieved. There was honor in dying in defense of the empire, but he discovered he valued his life more than honor.
The female had intended to kill him, but she hadn’t. She’d discharged her weapon, firing into the ground next to his head, causing his ears to ring painfully. Why had she spared his life? Had the situation been reversed, a Progg wouldn’t have hesitated to eliminate her. One did not let the enemy live.
Do it once. Do it right.Leave no survivors.
Instead, she’d brought him here. Wherever here was. Drifting in and out of consciousness from pain, he had only a hazy recollection of being dragged on some sort of sled across the rocky, frozen ground. He lifted his head and spotted the sled leaning against the wall.
He’d peeked inside enough dwellings to recognize this wasn’t a common habitat. A lamp smelling of oil cast a shadowy glow, enabling him to see rough walls of speckled gray stone, the domed ceiling the same, the floor covered by hard-packed dirt. No windows. No doors, only a wide opening. Cave, probably. It was an obvious place to hide. Vaporizers penetrated walls of wood, glass, plaster, even a layer of brick, but not solid stone manyruqathick.
The Progg had conducted a thorough geological scan of the planet. Aided by human informants, eventually the teams would have gotten to the caves and underground hiding places to root out the stragglers—but before that could happen, the excrement hit the turbines, and the GM aborted the campaign.
Were others living here? He noted two other beds besides the one he lay on, which appeared to be a double-decker; his wrists and ankles were tied to the posts holding up a top bunk. Had someone helped her bring him here? He weighed no less than twentyyemps,not an easy pull on a sled. He didn’t recall seeing anyone else—just her, but he’d been out of it a good part of the time.
He yanked on the restraints, but the ties held fast. The effort hurt his already cramping chest. The cave’s warmth and his own body heat had relaxed his muscles, enabling his body to begin to expel the foreign object.
“You’re awake. Still alive. Pity.” The woman entered with a kit of some sort, and he got his first good look at her. Humans were hirsute, although not as much as some furry four-legged Earthlings roaming the planet. This one had a full head of dark-brown hair falling to mid-back, a fringe covering her forehead, and a slender arch of hair over her dark eyes. She lacked the luminescence or the scales of other alien races, leaving her skin smooth. He’d noted that human coloring ran the gamut from very pale to very dark; she was in the middle.
Standing over him in the woods, her weapon trained on him, she had seemed much larger. Having shed her bulky outerwear, she appeared less imposing, considerably smaller than him. He could overpower her—if not restrained and injured. And if she wasn’t still armed. The weapon was holstered on her hip.
She settled on a chair by his bed and surveyed him with loathing. Unflinching, he met the scrutiny but wondered with some trepidation what she would do next, what the kit contained.
Hatred he understood. Vanquished peoples retained long memories of their suffering, hence the necessity to kill everyone—eliminate survivors who might regroup and foment a rebellion.
The Progg didn’t hate any of the beings they vanquished—they viewed them merely as obstacles to the expansion of the galactic empire.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Every word, but he kept his expression blank.
