The secret, p.1
The Secret, page 1
part #4 of Arena Series
THE SECRET
BOOK 4 IN THE ARENA SERIES
DANIEL YOUNG
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Also by Daniel Young
CHAPTER 1
Captain Joel Richmond stumbled down a long pitch-black tunnel, trying to grope his way...somewhere.
The tunnel walls and ceiling were too low for him to stand up. He kept bumping into the sides and banging his head against the ceiling every time he changed direction.
The tunnel seemed to be made of some smooth, slippery metal, which didn't help him keep his footing. He kept slipping and tripping on the steeply upward-curving floor.
Banging, crashing, and cursing echoed up and down the tunnel in front of and behind him. His friends stumbled through as fast as they could, in between bumping into each other and falling over.
Richmond collided with something very big and very solid. It took him a second before he realized it was Venov, the big Krion with whom he had escaped from the Necrodrome.
Richmond tried to keep his voice down, but the cursing, arguing, and slamming noise made it impossible.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"Aemon collapsed," Venov replied over his shoulder. "He's bleeding out from that gunshot wound to his chest."
"We are not leaving him behind!" Sergeant Jasper Leatherwood snapped.
Zuna's steady voice came from right behind Richmond. She must have caught up with him when their party came to a halt.
"No one said anything about leaving him behind, Sergeant," she murmured. "The problem is that he's too big for us to carry."
"I'll carry him."
A moment of silence fell over the group at the sound of that deep, rumbling voice.
Richmond didn't recognize it. It could only belong to one person--the unidentified Drichi who'd escaped with the group just now.
He really wished he could see the stranger right now. "Thank you," Richmond exclaimed. "And thank you for all your help. We're honored to have you with us. What's your name?"
"Fadek," the Drichi boomed. "I will carry him."
"Where the hell are we, anyway?" Corporal Redmond Hayes demanded.
"We're somewhere under the Palace of Sevao, of course," Niur replied in his depressed Gulepe voice. "That should be obvious, shouldn't it?"
Richmond turned to Zuna. "Where are we going? Where do these tunnels come out?"
"In the outer neighborhoods. We have a long way to go[?]--"
"Don't tell us that!" Leatherwood countered. "We could be down here for hours."
"We're safer here than we will be outside," she pointed out.
"We can't stay down here, especially not if Aemon is in trouble," Richmond decided. "Do you know anyone out there who can give him medical treatment?"
"Yes, but we'll need to hurry. Fadek can go in front, carrying Aemon."
"How will he know where to go?" Venov asked.
"There's only one way to go," Zuna murmured. "Pick him up, Fadek."
The whole group had to shuffle around and even step on each other to get out of the way. Fadek and Venov were both almost too big to fit in this tunnel at all. God only knew how Fadek would be able to carry an alien as big as Aemon, but this was the group's only option.
Richmond retreated to the back of the line. Zuna had been in the far rear after the friends left the Necrodrome.
Now she moved to the front and took a position right behind Fadek. Richmond didn't see why, since this tunnel didn't have any side branches or offshoots. Fadek wouldn't be able to get lost.
Maybe she did it to encourage him. How did Richmond know what these aliens had in mind?
He'd bet his last hope and all their lives on Zuna. If she didn't get the friends out of here, they were all sunk, but that was no different from the situation they had all been in since they'd first entered the Necrodrome.
At least they were out of it now. They were on their way to freedom--he hoped.
Hayes migrated closer to Richmond in the dark. "Sir..." he husked.
Richmond picked up something wrong with his subordinate right away. "What is it, Corporal?"
"I'm going to need medical attention, too, sir," Hayes choked. "I...I don't know how much longer I can go."
Those words flipped a switch in Richmond's mind. He'd been so pumped on adrenaline and hyper-focused on fighting all these battles, he hadn't felt the wound in his own body until right now. He'd been hit with a Lilri rifle shot somewhere along the way.
Richmond couldn't even remember when or where it had happened. He didn't feel it when it happened. He hadn't felt it at all--until right now.
The instant Hayes said he needed medical attention, Richmond's pain came back with a vengeance. He needed medical attention, too. He needed it right now.
His head reeled from loss of blood. He didn't know how much longer he could go, either. He might drop dead in this tunnel along with Aemon.
He did his best to shake that off. "We just have to keep going." He tried to extend his hand to touch Hayes, but couldn't find him in the dark. "We'll get to the end of these tunnels. Here. Walk in front of me so I know if you fall. I'll--" Richmond corrected himself. "We'll carry you out."
Banging noises started up at the front of the group just then as Fadek took off up the tunnel, carrying Aemon. Zuna followed, with Niur and Venov behind her. That left Hayes, Leatherwood, and Richmond in the back.
Leatherwood heard Hayes and Richmond talking. He must have sensed something wrong with the other two. "What's going on, sir?" he asked.
"Get behind me, Corporal," Richmond ordered. "You bring up the rear."
"Why?" Leatherwood asked. "Is something back there?"
Richmond didn't have the heart to tell Leatherwood the real reason why. Fortunately, he didn't have a chance to. Zuna, Venov, and Niur set off to follow Fadek.
The three men started forward. Hayes stumbled a lot, and so did Richmond. He had to steady himself against the walls.
He felt a lot more light-headed now that he recognized how injured he was. All his fatigue and pain caught up with him in an instant. He kept drifting into the walls and pushing himself off them to stand upright, but his arms felt too weak to hold him.
Leatherwood had to steady Richmond more than once. He would have collapsed if Leatherwood hadn't been there.
Richmond lost track of where the group was, where they were going, or how long they had been down here. It might have been hours. He was starting to feel really sick to his stomach when he spotted light up ahead.
The others saw it at the same time, and it electrified the group. Gasps and exclamations of relief raced back and forth through the party.
They kept going until they arrived at the mouth of the tunnel. It opened into a plain, bare, empty, dusty, squalid little street between two buildings in this city.
It was nighttime. The stars didn't penetrate through the thick cloud cover, but they and maybe whatever passed for a moon on this planet lit up the clouds from above. They cast an eerie glow over everything. Richmond and his friends could see everything that wasn't there beyond the tunnel.
The friends could also see each other--which didn't inspire much confidence.
Aemon's big, jointed frame draped over Fadek's shoulder. Aemon showed no sign of returning to consciousness anytime soon.
Richmond really envied the big Yenus. He would have liked to pass out and have one of his friends carry him all the way back to the Chronon Vanguard. He would have really liked to fall unconscious right here and wake up in the hospital on board the Durudan, or any other Vanguard battleship.
That wasn't likely to happen.
Just in case Richmond entertained any doubts at all, Zuna glanced out at the street, turned to the friends, and lowered her voice to a murmur again.
"The Lilri soldiers will be searching for us. They're bound to find us eventually, so we'll have to fight our way through."
"Through to where?" Venov asked. "Where are we going to go? Everyone on the planet knows who we are, and they know we escaped."
"We can take refuge with the Khuell rebels," Zuna decided. "They'll be able to give our wounded medical attention, and the Khuell have the firepower to protect us from the Lilri recapturing us."
"Why do we have to go to the Khuell?" Niur countered. "We should go with the Thalek rebels. The Khuell are disorganized and riddled with infighting. The Thalek are better organized."
"The Thalek are too far away," Zuna replied. "We'd never make it to them before the Lilri found us."
"If you're worried about the Lilri finding us so fast, we should go to the Valzor rebels," Venov interjected. "They're even closer than the Khuell."
"The Valzor are Krion separatists," Zuna pointed out. "You might be able to go to them, but the rest of us would be risking our lives if we showed our faces to the Valzor. They'd let Aemon die and turn the rest of us out to take our chances with the Lilri."
"No, they wouldn't," Venov countered. "You don't know them. You're assuming based on[?]--"
"That's enough," Richmond interrupted. "Zuna has gotten us this far. Sh e can take us where she thinks we should go. If we have a problem or it doesn't work out or anything goes wrong, we can fall back to one of the other groups." He turned to Zuna. "Do you think you can get us there in time? Hayes needs medical attention too, and Venov's head is bleeding."
Zuna gave Richmond a strange look. "You need medical attention, too, Joel."
He tried to brush that away. "Just get us there."
"Bring your weapons forward and be ready to fight." She moved toward the tunnel mouth. "Fadek, you move to the center. We'll protect you."
CHAPTER 2
Richmond and his friends inched out of the tunnel into the open city street. Everything sounded deadly quiet out here after the noise and confusion in the tunnel.
His addled brain had trouble comprehending the depth of silence around him after all the chaos and gunfire of the last several days. He kept sweeping his weapon into side alleys, but no one came out to bother the friends. No one moved around in the street. The whole city seemed deserted.
It could never be that easy, though. The Lilri knew now that Richmond's group had finally, finally succeeded in getting out of the Necrodrome. The entire Narillian population would be on the lookout for him and his friends--either to turn them in or to help them get away.
This night would end. All the Narillians of every species would come out of their houses and apartments. They would continue with all the business and activity Richmond had seen them doing when the Lilri had first brought him and his men to the Palace of Sevao. Then the friends wouldn't be able to hide anywhere--or at least, concealment would become astronomically more difficult.
Richmond didn't know anything about the rebel groups, but his friends sure seemed to. He put his faith in Zuna, but what if the other two were right? What if some other rebel group would be better able to protect the party--or better able to get him, Hayes, and Leatherwood off the planet and back to the Chronon Vanguard? Wouldn't going to a different group be worth it then?
Richmond knew nothing about any of these groups, so he couldn't be the one to decide. He didn't even know which species belonged to which groups, or how they operated. Zuna seemed to know more about them than anyone else--or he liked to think so.
She went in front of the group this time. She and everyone else covered all the side alleys and behind, so Richmond wasn't the only one.
His vision started to blur. He had to continually shake his head and stretch his eyelids open so he could see. Cold sweat broke out all over his body. It soaked his uniform on the inside, but at least he stayed upright.
He caught Leatherwood giving him sidelong looks. Richmond really hoped Leatherwood realized just how badly he was deteriorating.
Hayes had problems of his own. He stayed upright, but that was the best thing Richmond could say about him. He kept stumbling, veering out of line, and staggering to catch his balance. The others had to keep grabbing him to straighten him out.
He kept his weapon up and aimed outward at the surroundings. He stayed just conscious enough not to point it at his comrades, but Richmond would have been incredibly surprised if Hayes had been alert enough to aim at anything.
They just had to keep going. Richmond gave himself an order to keep going until he collapsed. Now he just had to do it.
He didn't keep track of where Zuna led the group. They emerged from the tunnel in a part of the city Richmond had never seen before. Then again, he hadn't seen very much of it. He wouldn't have recognized any of it. He probably wouldn't have recognized the streets the Lilri had used to take him from the prison ship to the palace in the first place.
His brain started to go to some strange places, but right then, Zuna stopped. She held up her hand and froze. "Shhh! Listen!"
Everyone stopped walking. Hayes almost fell over, but Leatherwood and Venov both caught him and held him up. His eyelids hung at half-mast. His skin shone pallid and glistening with sweat in the faint light. He looked half dead already.
"Someone's coming!" Zuna whispered. "Quick! We have to get off the street! Over here!"
She hustled the group across an intersection to hide behind one of the large vehicles the Narillians used to transport cargo around the city.
This was one of the bulky cargo haulers that trundled along the ground. Richmond had seen plenty of lighter transport craft hovering or flying around the city during his first trip outside on this planet.
All the vehicles rested on the ground now. They didn't move or show any sign of life.
The group crouched behind the vehicle. "What's the matter?" Richmond whispered.
"Soldiers are coming!" she whispered back. "Don't you hear them?"
"I don't hear anything."
She cocked her head. "They're marching through the streets. They must be tracking our life sign readings."
"We should have expected that," Niur mumbled.
"Can't we just steal one of these vehicles and fly wherever we need to go?" Leatherwood asked. "To hell with all these rebel groups. Just get us a spacecraft so we can leave the planet."
Fadek interrupted by putting Aemon down. He pulled his weapon forward to get ready to fight.
Zuna opened her mouth to answer, but right then, Richmond heard the sound of tramping feet coming closer. He heard the Lilri long before he saw them. Zuna's hearing must have been so much better than his.
The Lilri definitely knew where the party was hiding. The soldiers came straight toward the hidden fugitives.
The Lilri all raised their weapons when they entered the intersection. They couldn't have seen the friends hiding there. They must have known the fugitives were here beforehand.
Richmond shouldered his weapon. He started to straighten up behind the vehicle so he could open fire on the Lilri before they shot at him first.
Fadek, Venov, and Leatherwood all had the same idea and started to stand up, too. Hayes was too out of his mind to even notice what was happening. Niur stayed crouched behind the vehicle, but he gripped his weapon just as tightly as the others.
Zuna grabbed Venov's arm and tried to pull him back down out of sight, but he shook her off and kept flexing his knees to stand up.
The Lilri spread out to surround the vehicle. Fadek, Venov, Leatherwood, and Richmond had to pivot outward to cover all those Lilri. As soon as the shooting started, the Lilri would outnumber and outgun the fugitives.
Richmond didn't see any way out, but right at that moment, gunfire exploded from somewhere else. It didn't come from the Lilri, nor did it come from anyone in Richmond's group.
It seemed to come from all sides. It surrounded the intersection from multiple buildings, but Richmond didn't see any shooters over there. It was still too dark.
Whatever weapons these shooters used, they fired the same crackling white energy bursts the Lilri used. The beams ejected inward into the intersection and flattened a dozen soldiers right off the bat.
The soldiers spun away from the fugitives to return fire, but not before the hidden attackers hit another ten soldiers and took them down.
Venov, Leatherwood, and Fadek all launched out of their hiding place, with Richmond right behind them. The four men unloaded on the soldiers, using the vehicle as cover.
The soldiers kept turning from one direction to the other, trying to see and hit everyone, but the Lilri couldn't defend themselves. The twin assaults carved the Lilri numbers down to five. Richmond and his men stormed out from behind their vehicle to finish off the last stragglers.
Richmond saw the tide turning and glanced toward the source of the attacking gunfire to find out who was helping him.
He'd barely taken his eyes off the soldiers when another platoon of Lilri barreled down the same street this last group had come from.
Fifty soldiers invaded the intersection and opened fire on the only target available--Richmond and his men. The original shooters remained hidden and unseen.
A blistering jet of gunfire crackled across the intersection and hit Fadek in the shoulder. He buckled roaring on the ground and tried to use his injured arm to raise his weapon. The friends returned fire, but they had no choice but to retreat.
Richmond sprang over to Fadek, grabbed him by his feathers, and hauled him back toward the vehicle, but the Drichi was a lot heavier than a normal man. Fadek didn't make it any easier by trying to shoot at the Lilri anyway. He kept twisting in Richmond's grasp and bellowing at the top of his lungs.
