He didn't know how long he'd been here. Wherever here was. No windows. No means to pass the time. Could be days. Could be months. He knew his team was looking for him. If they can get him out, they will. This hope alone kept him going. Kept him silent amidst the torture he was enduring. How did he get here?
Linx. He hoped he was okay. He knew the visage that kept appearing before him, doing things Linx would never do. Linx. Caring, loving, gentle Linx. He smiled a bloody smile. They'll heal you soon and start over. Gentle is not an adjective most beings would associate with Linx. On the battlefield he was ruthless. He showed no mercy to any man. Despite the pain in his lip, he smiled further at how opposite he was at home. In private. His tender moments when they explored planets, small glances, and minute smiles. His smile slipped. The last he saw Linx or his team they were under fire from the same who took him. The look in his eyes as they dragged him away, a captive he knew not where.
Peaceful explorers. Planet hoppers looking for a final place to settle after the destruction of Earth. The once-thriving planet was reduced to rubble and ashes in a matter of days. They had to flee. The four of them absconded an abandoned craft that, to their luck, still had hyperdrive capabilities.
This was the sixth planet in three years they'd tried to settle on. A couple they thought would work, but one circumstance or another made them relocate. The last place, a planet called Zenoo, they had thought would be where they would permanently call their own. But sudden surges from warring tribes made them once again try and find somewhere to settle.
Their whole lives Earth had been war-torn, all four from young ages had been trained to kill, to fight. After a lifetime of blood, screaming, death, all they wanted was to live out their lives in peace.
He looked around him. Everything was the color of rust. Leaky pipes dripping from the ceilings. He looked in longing, wishing he could get a taste.
He didn't know what they'd given him. They forced him to drink something. Neon green-like antifreeze used in Earth vehicles. All he knew was it kept his captor's face unknown, and in its stead, he saw something else. He saw it now. Suddenly standing in front of him. "Do whatever you want to do to me. You've already done your worst."
"We have only just begun." His breath was putrid against his face, his body odor enough to singe nose hairs. He cut him down. Turning to his men he ordered, "Heal him. Put him in the foscmrak kleficill and leave him."
The two men, whom he could only describe as soldiers, grabbed him on either arm and dragged him back to the healing chamber. They toss him haphazardly in a metal chamber, doors lock behind him, clanging shut with a sickening echo. He doesn't move. He lays flat, his face pressed to the cool floor, and waits. The white light flashed and he screamed. He screamed as broken bones mended, gashes and cuts and burns healed, his flesh and bone pulling back together in splintering agony.
When he woke again he was in darkness. The only anguish he felt was mental as the images of what was done to him flashed mercilessly behind closed eyelids. He didn't know how long he laid there before he woke, or after. Just him in his cell, silent darkness mocking him. He wanted to scream but refused. They'll come back for you soon. Begin this all over again.
"Linx. Please find me." He whispered this plea, though he heard its echo, taunting him with its lonely playback.
He must have passed out again. Light. Beams of light spilling forth, blinding. In his haze, his training was kicked in enough to know there were three sets of feet entering this place. He felt a hand on his arm and he jumped, knowing it was them to begin his torture anew. The sound that poured from his mouth dripped like the sweat pouring down his face. He wanted to beg them to stop. No more! No more! But he couldn't form words, just pathetic sounds. He kept his face covered. He didn't want to see.
"Kiy," said that voice he had been waiting on. Was it a trick?
"Sir, is he alive?" Maddox. He recognized her voice. Always the military officer.
He heard someone approach. "Colonel, we haven't got much time. We need to go." Zimmer. He almost wanted to smile. Were they really here?
"Right." He felt the hand back on his shoulder. Soft and coaxing. "Kiy, can you walk?" He knew the touch as he felt it against his cheek. "Come on, Scarecrow."
He looked then. "Linx? Really you?" Slowly he reached up, his hand caught by Linx. He smiled.
"Really me. Come on, we gotta go. Can you walk?" He helped him to stand. "Good. Here." Linx hands him his weapon. The weight feels good in his hand. Then they're sneaking around the corner, trying at all costs to avoid a fight. But they all knew, people were going to die today.
They made it to the compound without incident. Zimmer peaks around another corner before pulling back. "Colonel, this feels like a trap, sir. Where is everyone?" The place did seem deserted.
"I agree. Plan B, Zim. Maddox, go." They both slink around the corner, guns drawn and aimed at an enemy they couldn't see. As Linx and Kiy followed, gunfire erupted. Kiy, his training fully kicked in, returned fire and taking down two. The two that dragged him to the healing chamber. That meant he was close. Wherever he was, those two followed.
The compound seemed to be an old defensive hold from a war long ago fought, long ago forgotten. A convenient place to take him for their own wishes mapped out and used as their stronghold for crimes against humanity.
There he was. Suddenly standing in front of him, blocking him from Linx and the others. His heart raced behind his ribs, though not one sign of his panic read from his face. He smiled. A sickening smile that made Kiy's stomach turn. Keep his attention.
Linx, always the poster boy of stealth, paying no mind to the constant danger of kinetic-driven bullets, coming up behind. Kiy drew the man, a large and intimidating man, his ice-colored eyes boring straight into Kiy's soul, off to the right as Linx came from behind to the left. Suddenly his image began to shift. Kiy's breath caught. Don't lose it now. Focus! Focus! It isn't him. Then the image was gone. And he was falling, dead. The sound of his neck snapping as Linx twisted it nearly completely backward was sickening, yet satisfying. The crunch echoed in Kiy's memory.
"Kiy. Let's go." Linx grabbed Kiy's hand and dragged him toward cover where the other half of their team waited. In a look, they communicated they leave how they got in. Linx covered everyone's six, Zim taking point, and keeping to the shadows they jumped through a manhole and entered the underground. "We go east two clicks then cut north. There is a ladder that comes up into the woods about six clicks from the main city. Zim, can you get us to the caves from there?"
"Without a problem, Colonel, " Zim answered, his voice lower than his typical quiet gruffness.
"Good. Let's move out." And they were off. Zim. Maddox. Kiy and Linx. As they moved in silent procession, Linx kept a close eye on Kiy. He didn't know what was done, but more than meets the eye. There wasn't a scratch on him, but even as they searched for him underneath the compound, Linx heard each scream that emanated from the man standing in front of him. His screams are what led the team to him. Linx didn't want to contemplate the horror Kiy endured while they scoured the planet looking for him. If the screams he heard only two hours before were any indication of his treatment while prisoner to this unknown enemy, it told him everything. And nothing. They said nothing until they reached the top side.
"Zim?" Linx inquired as Zim mapped out where the team was in the stars. Zim was quiet for several heartbeats, yellow eyes scanning the velvet inkiness expanse of the sky.
"This way." They headed northwest. It was dark now, the suns winking out like a blown-out candle, descending the planet into tar-like blackness.
As they walked Kiy stuck close to Maddox, clinging without touching her, sending sporadic, almost desperate glances behind him. Why do you seem so afraid of me? What did they do to you?
They found the caves just over two hours later, the trail behind them cold and dark and empty. No one followed. Linx swept his weapon around in a perimeter sweep, his eyes scanning through the darkness as if it were daylight. Satisfied the area was clear, he followed his team into the shelter they had procured over the past three months while they were searching for and planning out a rescue for Kiy. He followed them around corners and caverns, masking the firelight for warmth or cooking. When he entered their shelter he nodded to Maddox and Zim, before his eyes scanned over to Kiy, who was curled up in the corner, his head and body leaned against the wall.
His face looked blank, but his eyes...those violet eyes that in their private moments he could get lost staring into. Linx felt his chest constrict as he watched him suffer silently at whatever happened while he was captive. Slowly he moved over to him, kneeling next to him. Maddox watched him, her own heart clenching at the agony on her friend's face. She walked over to Zim, her arms wrapping around his, her head leaning against his shoulder.
"Kiy," Linx whispered, gently setting his hand along his upper arm. "Easy, a stòr. You never have to fear me."
A small sob tried to bubble up from his chest at those words. He closed his eyes against the look Linx carried in his own. "They've made me fear you."
Linx disconnected his grasp of Kiy's arm as the quaking in his body increased. The look in Linx's eyes made Kiy's guilt compound. "I'm sorry."
Linx sighed sadly. "Oh, my love...you have to nothing to apologize for. We'll get you through this." Linx swallowed compulsively, dropped eye contact, and stood. Slowly he stood and turned away from him. He stopped next to Maddox, addressing Zimmer, but looking at either of them. "Stay with him."
Maddox followed him into another chamber and then another. Over the past three months, they'd learned these caves well, each team member having a map imprinted in his or her mind. When Linx finally stopped walking they were far enough from the main cave they encamped in to be out of hearing distance if they didn't yell.
Maddox came into the opening a few moments after Linx and found him leaning against the wall, his head reclined backward the slightest angle, arms crossed as if his hold could keep himself together, his face a mask of what he was really feeling.
Maddox didn't speak. She didn't need to. She adopted his position against the wall, bringing her leg up to press her foot against the cave wall. Linx sighed. "How do I deal with this?"
"We don't know what happened yet, Colonel," Maddox spoke gently, aware their voices had a chance of traveling back to the other cave.
Linx looked at her then. "I know what happened, Sam." Maddox looked at him. She could count the number of times in their life he'd used her first name. "I have a pretty good idea, anyway." Maddox didn't question it. She had grown up with her team. They'd always been a team. From day one of being made into a four-man team, it had been them going through it all together. Each as a whole knew their teammates, as well as they, knew themselves. Linx and Kiy had been as one as long as she could remember. If Linx said he knew, she didn't doubt him.
"Is it something we've dealt with before, Colonel?" Maddox asked.
"No. But he has in a sense. Another lifetime ago." He paused. "You remember back at the CTC when they first brought Kiy into our group? They stuck us all in a single cell. Kiy was the last of us to arrive."
Maddox nodded. "I do. He was a tiny thing. No more than five. The youngest of us. Scared, skinny, little thing."
"Kiy...he was used in other ways before he was old enough for training at CTC. Before CTC selects us for training, you're at the mercy of whichever scientists have possession of you. The three of us were taken care of. He wasn't. Do you understand what I'm saying?" Maddox nodded. "I worked very hard to get him out of that scared, abused mindset. He's afraid of me now."
"What do you mean?"
"Just what I said. He told me they made him afraid of me. Just by how he was acting I know what they did, but what I don't know is how they made him think I..." He trailed off unable to complete the thought. "I don't know. I need some time to think, Maddox."
She nodded once and pushed off the wall with her foot. "Yes, sir."
"Maddox," Linx called as she reached the opening to take her back where they came from.
"Yes, sir?"
"Keep an eye on him?"
"Yes, sir." She turned and followed her footpath that leads back to Zim and Kiy. She wanted to do more for Linx, but she knew all she could do was what he asked. As the team leader, he wouldn't show his emotions in front of her. Those moments in the last twenty-five years were few and far between.
Zim approached her as she walked toward them. "Maybe you can get him to talk." He glanced back at his friend. "He won't say anything except that it's all his fault. I don't know what's his fault cause he won't say anything else. You've always had a way with him. Maybe you can help more than I." She nodded and the two of them sat back down next to their friend.
Maddox leaned into Kiy, her head resting against his shoulder. "Hey, kid." Kiy smiled. It was something she always called him. The first thing she ever said to him.
He leaned his head against hers. "Hi."
They'd all learned long ago that Kiy was more on the emotional side when off the battlefield and in effect, learning how to coax him into calming down. On the battlefield he was unstoppable. "How ya doing?"
Kiy sniffled and wiped his eyes. "Did I upset him?"
"No. He's upset because you're upset. But not at you." Maddox ran her fingers through his hair. "You should go talk to him soon though. He's worried about you."
"I know. But I can't. They..." Kiy laughed bitterly, his outrage making him choke. "They made me drink something. They...tortured me in there. But it was always Linx I saw doing it. I knew it wasn't him...but they used him to get to me. They got inside my head. It was his voice. His face. His smell. It was Linx. Only that it wasn't. But now...whenever I see him...it's all I can think of." Kiy squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath, willing himself to be stronger than this. "Listen, I think I need to lie down for a while." Maddox kissed his head and stood, Zim, following her over to the fire a few feet away.
Linx watched him sleep. They didn't need sleep often. Just to recharge their batteries so to speak. He sat close but not close enough to touch. "I'm sorry, Kiy. I failed you. And I've now broken the first promise I ever made to you. And my first broken promise in twenty-five years. Perhaps my most important one. I'll never forgive myself. Kiy..." His hand reached out to touch him but stopped just short of contact. His hand fell uselessly into his lap.
Anger surged through him to rid his mind of all other emotions. He stood quietly and turned from the cave. He knew Zim was following him but did not address him until he finally emerged from the mouth of the cave. "We leave at first light. I want to get as far away from here as possible before whoever comes looking for those bastards."
Zim nodded. "Yes, sir. Everything is ready to go soon as you give the order." Linx nodded and pulled out a puter flask that contained strong alcohol, swished it around before drinking long from it. "Colonel, if I may, sir?"
"What is it, Zim?" Zimmer noted how tired he sounded.
"Sir, before we landed on this planet, Maddox and I scouted an uninhabited moon on the scanners less than one light-year from here. Maybe we can find shelter. At least until Kiy is ready to move again."
Linx took another drink and offered the flask to Zim who took a drink before handing it back. "Between us, Zim, I'm tired of being on the move. I'm tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of us almost getting killed. Just...tired, Zim."
Zim nodded and took the flask from Linx's hands and took a drink. Looking into the dark depths that housed the drink he said, "Between us, Linx...me, too."
Kiy woke to a voice next to him. He stiffened before relaxing. His gut churned when he heard Linx's voice and his guilt compounded at not only the reaction, but the despairing sound his voice carried as he spoke, and his words as well. Maddox approached him, he knew her footsteps from anywhere. "Kiy, love. Time to go. Come on." He didn't respond verbally but met her eyes with his, curtly nodded once, and sat up. His eyes drifted over to Linx who was rolling up his pack across the room. It was the first time in twenty years he had not slept next to him.
Maddox kept her eyes on him, knowing where he was looking. "Don't let that fool you, little brother," she said gently. She smiled, a small upturn of the lips. "He sat with you all night. He didn't go lay down until a couple of hours ago. Come on, let's get off this rock."
They met no resistance as they made their way back to their ship, boarded, and began their take-off. Once they'd entered hyperdrive Linx set off to his private quarters. He had noticed the looks that Kiy had been side-glancing his way, and could take no longer the pain he saw there.
Kiy followed him after slowly counting to twenty, willing his heart to slow down.
"I hope they talk," Maddox said to Zimmer who just nodded.
"This divides us." Maddox could hear the displeasure in his voice. "There is unrest amongst us. And it can not be corrected separately." He looked in the direction they'd gone.
"We will play our part when it is our time to play our part. We are not divided." Gently she kissed him and walked back to the helm to watch the controls. Zim said nothing in argument, simply joined her at the helm.
Kiy found Linx sitting on his bunk, head in hands. Working up all his courage, he took several deep breaths before coming toward and taking a seat next to his life-long companion and friend. "You're upset with me," Kiy said without preamble, his voice low and raspy as if he had gravel lodged in his throat.
"No, Kiy," Linx told him not meeting his eyes. "I'm upset. But not with you."
Kiy studied Linx a moment. "I didn't mean to get caught. I didn't mean..." He trailed off and looked away.
"Kiy, it isn't your fault. It's mine." His voice was low, strained.
"Linx, no-" he started only to be interrupted.
"No?" He looked at Kiy, his eyes wide and guilt-ridden. "Kiy...I broke the first promise I made to you."
Kiy looked away. "You didn't break anything. I saw you try and get to me. You aren't responsible-"
"I'm responsible for you." His tone was sharp but Kiy didn't let it sway his argument. He had seen Linx in every mood imaginable. Including guilt. "I'm responsible for all of you. As the team leader, I..." He turned to him then. "But for you most of all." He reached for him but stopped when Kiy's breath caught. Linx's hand dropped to his lap, hard and heavy. "Look at you." Kiy looked away and closed his eyes. "You're terrified of me."
"Not really you, Li." At the use of the private nickname, Linx clenched his fists. "You don't know everything that happened."
"No. I suppose I don't. I can't figure out how I factor into it. You're not afraid of Zim." Linx's voice was low and heavy and he wasn't looking at him. Kiy closed his eyes against the images that flashed before his mind. "You can barely even look at me."
"I know it wasn't you... I know you would never hurt me. But it was so convincing, Li. Your voice. Your hands. Your smell...everything. I'm sorry, Linx."
Linx felt his heart break. Goddamn it he was a soldier, he should be stronger than this. But Kiy was his weakness and he knew it. His team knew it. He looked away with a small shake of his head. "Don't you dare apologize to me, Kiy." Linx was staring hard at his linked hands, holding fast, feeling the pain from squeezing his bones together to concentrate on a different kind of pain.
Kiy stood then, slowly as if in great physical pain, and walked to the hatch. Stopping at the door he half-turned, his hand lightly gripping the threshold. "I love you, Linx." And before Linx could reply or even look up completely, Kiy was gone.