Chapter 7 Big, Monstrous Naga
SEVEN
BIG, MONSTROUS NAGA
Sabrina
With a scream on my part and a quick burst of movement on his, the naga catches me mid-air by the material across my shoulders, ending my escape attempt as swiftly as it began.
I jerk backward, and my shirt bunches and pulls in his hands as I slide toward the ground, the cloth tugging at me, ripping in his claws.
I scream again, kicking my legs backward, but he twists his tail out of the way, throwing me away from him before I can deal any damage.
I land on my feet. Stumbling forward several steps, I catch my balance and pivot to face him, shaking out my hair and body to regain some shred of dignity. I wince from the pain in my head but try not to let it show, flattening my features as I widen my stance and brace for his next move.
The naga grabs the rope dangling from my wrists with his tailtip and hauls me upward before I even have time to notice him move, yanking my arms above my head. I struggle to catch the rope with my fingers and hold on before my feet leave the ground.
“Oww!” I yell, trying not to sway and hurt my wrists further. Rubbed raw from all my struggling earlier, the pain is far from pleasant.
The naga lowers the rope enough to let my feet touch the ground. Tugging my arms, I ignore the chafing sting as I try to regain control of them, but he keeps the rope pulled taut. Growling, I pull harder, hoping to make him work for it.
He doesn’t have to work at all. There’s not even a wrinkle of effort lining his otherwise smooth features. It looks like subduing me takes no effort whatsoever on his part.
This is the one thing I hate most about males of my species, and now his—it’s not biologically fair that they get to be bigger than their female counterparts. It’s such a scam.
“I see trying to best you won’t be easy,” I say, huffing out another breath, breaking the silence first.
He peers down, eyeing me curiously. “Besssst me?”
“Beat you in a fight, big guy. How did you learn to speak the common tongue?” I grit, holding back the moan of pain that wants to leave my lips every time the rope jerks my wrists.
He nods at something to his left, and I crane my neck to see what’s there, spotting a white ball that was hidden behind a boulder upon my first perusal. I also see one of my knives on the ground near it. Good to know. “The ball…” I narrow my eyes at it, “taught you?”
“Yessss.”
Is the ball a radio? Is he speaking to someone through it? An AI?
Whatever it is, I want it. If he has old technology that still works and he knows where more of it is.
.. That could be The Wreck’s ticket off this planet and back to civilization.
Finding a silver lining to my capture, I flick my eyes back to him.
“Please release me. The rope is hurting my wrists. I promise I won’t run or attack you…
” I lie, knowing now that he’s intelligent enough to be reasoned with.
His gaze lifts to my hands and to the red skin starting to bead with blood in some parts. He grunts and lets the rope go slack, freeing my arms to drop in front of me. “You are hurt.”
“Yeah. It really hurts,” I lie again, emphasizing the discomfort. Sure, I’m in pain, but it isn’t anything I can’t deal with until I’m somewhere safe. I’ve had worse. Way worse.
Slithering forward, he cuts the rope off of me with his claws. The rough material slips from my skin to the floor, and I immediately pull my hands to my chest to protect the wounds. “You’re going to let me go?” I take a step back.
He tenses, and I go still again.
“Do not try anything and I will not have to restrain you.”
I cock my head toward the tunnel he emerged from. “And if I try to run?”
“I will stop you.”
Eyeing him warily, I ask, “So, what are you going to do to me then? If you won’t let me go?”
I might as well know what I’m in for… Because who knows what he wants? Although I’ve been captured and hurt before, it’s an alien being, not a human, who has me this time.
The naga’s ears move like an animal’s, pricking up as if he hears something, and he turns his head slightly to the side. A moment later, the distant sound of a spaceship, followed by several others, can be heard. We’re both quiet as we listen to them fly far overhead.
An idea forms when he looks back at me after the ships pass out of earshot.
“I do not know yet,” he answers. “But I will ssssoon enough.”
I nod and lower to my knees on the ground, making my body as small as possible. “How long?” I ask when he doesn’t elaborate.
“Soon.”
It’s not the answer I want but I nod again anyway. Curling his tail up, he shifts away to the wall behind him and gathers the many weapons there, hauling them into his arms. My anxiety spikes. “Do you plan on killing me?”
He tosses the weapons into the pool.
I jump, scared by the sounds of their loud splashes.
They sink out of sight and into the semi-clear water beneath.
I shiver while I watch, spooked; I don’t like water in any amount larger than a small basin.
It only took one slip for me to nearly drown once, on a mission gone bad, fleeing through a particularly expensive suite that had a faux garden and pool built in.
Until then, I didn’t even know it was possible to be killed by so much water.
His entire tail unravels before he heads back toward me. “No.”
“So you will let me go eventually?”
“No.”
“You can’t keep me, Titanoboa. I’m a human being,” I say, playing to his obvious morals. He didn’t like seeing me hurt, after all. “I have a home… people who will miss me…”
Will anyone miss me? I think about Annora, Weston, Tata, and Mickie, their faces flashing through my mind, and frown. They’ll miss me as much as they’ll miss Blat...
Feeling abruptly less hopeful that a rescue is going to come, I strengthen my reserve for the fight ahead and give the naga my full attention.
He dwells underground and inside somewhere, with only a few streaks of light coming from above to illuminate his…
home. If one could call it that. Yet I’ve seen worse, lived in worse.
He has a nice big bed, that counts for something.
It’s clear he’s resourceful, if primitive.
Not unlike those that were born and raised in the deepest slums of the colony ships.
I glance at the white ball again.
I shouldn’t assume anything. Until I know more about him, all I can really put to fact is that he’s big, blueish-gray, and not human.
“That issss where you are wrong, human,” he says, closing the distance between us, looming over me. “I will keep you if I have too. It is too dangerous to trust you.”
“I haven’t seen anything, I promise,” I whisper, standing and rolling out my shoulders to pretend I’m at ease.
“I won’t tell anyone about you.” I should be reeling that I’m up against an alien naga, yet I can’t claim to be too surprised.
I have a history of unluckiness. “Are you afraid of us? Of being taken? I’ve seen your kind before, a few days back… ”
His chest puffs out and my lips part in awe, once again taken aback by his size. No ship could ever hold a being like him. Not him.
Maybe the other naga.
But not him.
“Taken?” he hisses, and it’s dark and menacing. “Afraid?”
Swallowing, I shake my head. “I didn’t mean it like that. Only that if you’re afraid of something like that, I’m not involved or interested—”
“You will not take anything!”
I lurch back, the blood draining from my face.
He darts down and grabs something, then rises quickly back to towering over me.
I spy the rope in his hand. As I start back up, he stops me with his tail, sliding it behind me and cutting off my path.
“Please don’t. I’m not your enemy. I think there’s been a misunderstanding.
We can work this out, I’m sure of it,” I protest, but he grabs my arms and spins me around. “Please!”
“You will stay like this until I return,” he growls, taking my wrists and retying them at my back. “Then you will tell me what you mean to take from me. Depending on your ansssswer, human, it may or may not mean your death. I do not want to kill you, but I will if I do not have a choice.”
Pulling the knot tight, he releases me and I fall forward onto my knees. With a scowl, I listen to him leave, waiting until I no longer hear him. Then I shoot to my feet and head up the stairs, hoping it’s my chance to escape.
I end up in another partially collapsed room below another, even larger room.
Peering up through the broken floors, I glimpse the sky.
The sun beams through a wide crack in both floors and into the space below as well, where the naga’s nest is.
This room, though, is entirely empty except for a few small crates.
Seeing no easy way up, I sigh and head back down.
Next I check the exit on the far wall from the nest, where the weapons had been, only to find it blocked off by chunks of concrete and rubble farther in.
Turning back for the tunnel posed between the first two exits, I peek inside, trying to see as much as I can.
There’s a bunch of rocks piled on top of each other, much like the farthest wall behind the pool that runs the length of the space.
Ascending, the tunnel bends to the right; I can’t see any deeper without going into it.
I debate my chances, knowing he went up that path minutes ago. I don’t know how long I have.
Deciding against it, I walk to the white orb and tap it with my boot.
It rolls over to reveal a small hole with a lens in it.
A holographic projector maybe. I get on my knees and lean closer, hoping to discover how it turns on and gets used.
Neither voice command nor my clumsy backward touch works: the orb remains lifeless.
Hearing the naga returning, I head back toward where he left me, meeting him standing when he appears from the tunnel.
Amazed once more by his massive appearance, I lose my breath. And before a scream can tear from my throat, he rushes straight for me, hauls me into his embrace, and lays me flat on the ground.