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Heat billowed into the shuttle with a thin cloud of dust. Light glared onto Levi’s retinas. He couldn’t believe his luck. Jorvla’s a desert!
Stepping off the shuttle, Levi was grateful for his boots on the baked soil of the planet. He glanced at Cora’s bare feet, knowing she was about to have difficulty. “Shoes,” he muttered.
“What’s that, prisoner? Speak up!”
“The girl needs shoes.”
The guard snorted. “Worried about your girlfriend’s tootsies, are ya? It’s a short walk.”
Levi rolled his eyes and forced nonchalance into his voice. “Look, she’s just a piece of tail, but you said it yourself. I’m a Lorr. I know my humans, and her feet are about to melt to the gravel.”
“So? It’s a short walk. We’ll drag her.”
Levi shrugged. “Whatever. They just get infected like nobody’s business, and then the humans start to scream and smell, and it’s just a matter of time before they die.”
The guards looked at each other doubtfully. The nameless one hesitated and then shook Cora a little. “Are they really that fragile?”
Levi chuckled. “It’s a challenge not to fuck ’em to death.” Cora narrowed her eyes and scowled at him, but he couldn’t help it. He was trying to relate to these morons, and they were filthy and vile. Besides, it might help if she had a little spark under her ass when he broke her loose.
“I guess we have something around here…” the nameless one said as he handed Cora’s lead to his compatriot and rifled through the storage trunks on the shuttle. While his guard watched Cora, Levi slipped a knife from his belt and concealed it in his waistband.
Producing a shoddy pair of shoes that were way too big for her, the nameless guard returned and forced her feet into them roughly, tying them down using some cord he had found.
Cora winced as the guard pulled too tightly. Levi felt for her, but she was going to need shoes for this next part. “If they’re so flimsy, why do you like ’em so much?” the other guard was asking.
Oh boy. If ever there was a chance to make Cora mad, that was it. Here goes nothing. “Their ears secrete this gel at climax that tastes really sour and we’re into that sort of thing.”
“We do not!” Cora exclaimed right as the guards guffawed, disgusted sneers oozing across their warty faces.
Levi smirked. “‘Course you do, honey. Don’t be ashamed. You can’t help being born a nasty mess.”
“That’s putrid,” the nameless guard said, catching his breath. The irony was not lost on Levi, who could smell the guard from where he stood.
“Look, can we get on with this? It’s hot.”
“It ain’t any cooler in the cells, genius. What’s your hurry?”
“You’re right. Let’s just stand here chatting.”
The nameless guard slammed his blaster into the side of Levi’s face, opening a gash next to his horn. Cora gasped.
“Remember who you’re talking to and who’s got the gun,” the guard snapped. The Jorvlens shoved Levi and Cora down the gangplank and into the sand.
Levi surveyed his surroundings. Scrub brush clung tightly to the soil, offering no cover. The glaring metal and adobe brick of the prison facility, the only structure tall enough to elicit notice for miles, radiated heat waves.
Squinting, Levi looked further ahead. Dust storms pocked the landscape, and the horizon shimmered in a hazy mirage. The upside was they wouldn’t have to run very far before it would be impossible for the Jorvlens to see them against the stark blue of the sky.
Levi kept the guards talking long enough to gauge a rough idea of the wind on the planet that day. Just as he had hoped, it whipped all around them, drowning out their words and drying out his mouth every time he opened it.
Shuffling his feet in the dirt, Levi sent up a gritty plume from the ground that coated his legs to his waist. The gravity must have been less strong than he thought. This is gonna be easy.
“Hey, quit that!” the newer guard insisted as he continued shuffling. “Pick your feet up!”
“I can’t. The gravity is so much worse here!” Levi kept shuffling, increasing the cloud around the four of them until he couldn’t see the facility up ahead. Almost there.
“No, it’s not! I’ve been to your planet. It’s the same!” The guard smacked him in the head again, but he kept shuffling. “Stop it or I’ll shoot! I swear I will!”
“Just hold him and keep walking. We’re almost there,” the nameless guard chided.
