It was almost sun-high by the time Georgianna left the compound, once again searched by the guard to make sure she was not taking anything out of the blocks. No matter how many times she visited, the guards still didn’t trust her not to break their rules. It didn’t surprise her. They barely trusted any Veniche, and she wasn’t really any different.
Walking back towards the tunnel entrance, she shrugged off her outer shirt, splattered with blood, and stuffed it unceremoniously into her bag. She knew the dangers of going bare-skinned under the sun, but as she was only going a short distance, she didn’t see the danger in being a little more comfortable. There was next to no breeze, even outside the city, leaving the heat to lie dormant, baking from above and radiating out of the hard ground in visible waves.
It was a welcome relief when she stepped over the threshold and began descending into the tunnel, leaving the direct rays behind her and disappearing into the shadowed underground. The tunnel was deserted this far east, and as pity for those held fast in the compound began creeping up on her, Georgianna shook it off and began humming a tune her mother used to sing while doing chores. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to feel pity for the poor souls buryd, but pity would do them little good, and it would only make continuing on after the death of a patient that much harder.
By the time she reached the main line, she was singing softly under her breath, letting her arms swing back and forth as she walked. After a moment’s pause, instead of turning right to travel north towards Belsa territory, she took the left turn onto the main line, joining the flow of people heading down underneath the Oprust district.
Up ahead, two Adveni in full military gear walked side by side, large copaq guns at their backs. While the men were walking slowly, far more slowly than the pace most in the tunnels would choose, nobody moved to slip past them and hurry onward. Even Georgianna found herself slowing her steps to keep a safe distance behind. It may not have been a crime to overtake and walk in the large space they had created before them, but nobody wanted to risk angering Agrah Adveni when it could be avoided by hanging back.
As the Veniche had learned in the first wave of attacks, the Adveni were a highly militaristic race. Trained from childhood to fight and work for a common goal, they joined one of the branches of their military once they had proven themselves by receiving their nsiloq mark, a painful design drawn into the skin over their ribs.
There were the Agrah, who fought best on land at close quarters with their enemy. The Nyrahby fought from the air in small ships fitted with powerful weapons. Those who commanded the bigger ships that travelled between worlds were classed as Tzelik, and then there were the Tsevstakre, the most dangerous of all. The Tsevstakre were the Adveni elite, their best trained and most skilled, ruthless killers. Georgianna considered herself lucky that she met any of them but rarely.
She slowed her steps further, letting people overtake her and slipping seamlessly back into the crowd. She couldn’t risk taking an exit into hidden tunnels anywhere near an Adveni, let alone two attack-ready Agrah. She didn’t plan on going back to the compound just yet. Giving such a wide berth to the Adveni, it took twice as long to reach the entrance to the Junkyard, home of the Carae. She took one last glance around before she began moving to the other side of the tunnel, finally walking along the wall before a single step sideways had her disappear through a hidden opening into a dimly lit tunnel.
The tunnel into the Junkyard was slim, just wide enough for a single person to walk comfortably. There were only two entrances to the Junkyard, one in the south-east and one in the west, both ending in these bottlenecked tunnels, preventing a swarm of attackers from any direction. It was a long walk through the small tunnel. The ground, uneven and off kilter, was difficult to navigate unless you walked it every day and knew the places to step. It wouldn’t have been the first time that Georgianna had returned from the Junkyard with skinned knees and bruised elbows when she had relaxed and tripped on a hidden rock.
YOU ARE READING
Dead and Buryd
Science Fiction"You are an inmate, not a medic. You should get used to that." On the planet Os-Veruh, the native Veniche have endured a decade under the oppressive rule of a race of invaders, the Adveni. When Georgianna Lennox, a Veniche medic, discovers her child...
