Space Fairy Tales: Beauty and the Beast

Katniss

A cloud of white smoke billowed up into the air, and in an instance I heard the ping of phasers firing, the twang of some other weapon, and worse, shouting. I dropped to the ground as my heart jumped into my throat.

Oh god, I thought, as I flattened myself to the ground in horror. An ambush.

Then I realized what was worse: my father was in there, and he was not a warrior. I had to make sure he was safe. Hidden in the grasses, I began to crawl towards the camp.

I heard the yells of a strange tumbling language, angry voices, and then the voices in the language I knew, but they were afraid. Still I moved forward. Behind me, I heard yells as the men watching the bikes sprang into action, rushing into the camp. And then, just as I was almost at the edge of the camp lines, I saw them.

Tall, muscular figures with skin as red as blood. They leapt from the camp, running straight towards the advancing soldiers with crossbows raised. I flattened myself into the grass again, and to my relief they passed me, their eyes fixed on the line of soldiers behind me. I twisted my head around to stare at them--the spiraling horns on their heads, the thick scale-like armor that wrapped around their bodies. The Rogues started firing, and so did the Federation soldiers. I saw an arrow hit the solider I had been watching before. He fell.

I was paralyzed for a moment, but then I remembered my father. He was in there, in the center of it. I crept forward more, hoping that the Rogues would be focused on the soldiers behind them and the soldiers in the camp, not on the small woman creeping around in the middle.

I snuck around tents made of fresh leather, struggling to breath through the acrid smoke in the air. I realized that breathing the smoke made me lightheaded, dizzy. Was it a kind of gas, a poison, to disarm my father's soldiers? I pulled up my collar and breathed through it to filter out the smoke. Holding the fabric up with one hand slowed me down, but I could not pass out before I found my father.

I heard movement behind me and dropped to the ground, pretending to be dead. I heard the footsteps pass me, and then I opened my eyes. A Rogue had a Federation soldier held at knife point, and was leading him to the center of the camp.

They're taking hostages? I thought. This was strange. My father had never spoken of the Rouges taking hostages before. But if they were, that meant my father, the General, was in greater danger than I'd thought.

It took me a few minutes to get to the center of camp--I kept having to pretend to be dead whenever I heard footsteps. Some of the bodies I passed where those of the Rogues, but most of them... most of them were ours. We had lost. What if my father was dead, too?

But they're taking hostages, I told myself. He's clearly a general, and if they have any sense they won't kill him--he's more valuable alive. 

I clung to this thought and kept crawling, towards the sound of voices. This must be where they were taking the hostages, where I would find my father.... if he was alive. As I came closer, the cacophony of voices suddenly ceased, and one voice rose up in the quiet.

"I am Prince Adûm," the voice said, a low, rumbling sound. "I am the ruler of this land you invaded."

Wait--I could understand him? I clearly heard the words in Primary. But... the Rogues were savages! How had he managed to learn the language of the Federation? Had they taken prisoners, or....

But I was just outside the center of the camp, so I tucked my body behind a tent and peered over the side, keeping my head low to the ground so I could pretend to be dead if seen. My eyes widened at the scene.

At the center of the camp, all the remaining Federation soldiers were being held at knifepoint. There were only about 20 left, and about 50 Rogues--not only females and children, as we had been led to believe. I spotted Gaston somewhere in the middle, with two Rogues with their knives against his back. And at the center of the camp... I almost choked.