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Rescue

A comfortable enough hierarchy is more liberating than any freedom.

-Emperor Raljesh III of Regulus

It took a bit of time for us to haul the one living doctor and the Officer into the full-body, metal containers that mere minutes ago, held me and Aldor in place. Both of them were heavily muscular Regulians and their fur and uniforms were hopping with static electricity. It was all good and fun when Yaleen’s silky coat of fur puffed out, but when I felt my heart stop for a moment after getting zapped from the Officer’s belt buckle, it got a little tiresome.

Rashar was busy leaning in the corner, eying up Yaleen and occasionally taking a sniff when she paced close enough. Yaleen didn’t seem to pay him any heed and had her long snout inches away from her datapad’s screen as she scratched away at it, having decrypted it with some secret command.

“How long do we have?” I asked, hobbling towards Rashar while keeping myself upright by leaning against a metal table. My legs were starting to get feeling again but they were screaming in agony as if awoken from a nightmare. I was in better state than Aldor though, who was sitting on the floor and leaning up against the wall like a sack of potatoes

Rashar began running a comb slicked with pomade through his brown mane, “Plenty of time. No alerts on the comms yet and probably won’t be anytime soon,” Rashar broke away from his corner to fiddle around with the screen by the exit and the door grunted as it locked. “Most of the grunts know better than to bother Commander Legar when he has such precious guests.”

I used my free hand to pick up one of the tiny vials. It was cylindrical with red fluid sloshing around in it and the label on the front said, “Pawel Lis.” I saw the back of a label on the other side of the glass and began to spin it around when Yaleen suddenly spoke up.

“Don’t!” she leaped over and wrapped her paw around my hand. Her pads were soft and warm, but her grip was tight. “I think your real name is on the other side!”

“My real name?”

With all the excitement that had happened in the last while, I had almost forgotten that I was not really Pawel Lis. Who was I really? Not even I knew, the Regulians made sure of that. I looked over at Aldor, who was staring at the ground with vacant, green eyes; his limbs and tail were limp, idle with shock. Even just a small restoration of his memories was enough to alter him drastically.

How much of a stranger was I to myself?

Yaleen’s emerald eyes were filled with worry, but I finally let go of the vial and her black paws gently placed it atop the table, proudly displaying my fake name once again.

My gaze turned to the vial on its left. It was identical in shape but the liquid inside was a pale, translucent blue, and the label proclaimed itself to be “Dondrae.” No surname, for Dondrae was not a Lupiad noble. Perhaps the individual on the other side of the vial was a noble, but I did not know him, I only knew Dondrae.

The sound of medical tape tearing broke me out of my contemplation. Rashar was covering up the Officer’s, or rather Commander Legar’s, eyes and holding his muzzle shut with tape.

“This one’s starting to wake,” Yaleen announced, holding her paw just under the Regulian doctor’s nose. “In fact, I believe he already is.”

The corner of the doctor’s mouth twitched, betraying his deception, but he continued to keep his eyes shut.

Growling loudly, Rashar strapped his gas mask to his face, stormed up to the doctor and slapped him across the face with the back of his paw so hard I feared the doctor’s neck would snap. Instead, the doctor merely screamed with shock as he was forced awake.

“I’LL TALK! I’LL DO ANYTHING!” he shrieked loud enough that even Rashar took a step back.

Rashar slapped him across the snout again and again, until the doctor finally ceased his screaming and opted for silent whimpering.

“We have a few individuals who need their old memories back,” Rashar hissed from behind his respirator, muffling his voice “and you need to tell us how to do that.”

“I-I-I-I can perform the p-p-p-procedure, j-j-ju-”

“You will instruct us how to do it.”

“W-why?”

I heard the click of Rashar’s pistol cocking before I even realized that Rashar had, with one paw pried open the doctor’s jaws and with his other, shoved the muzzle of his gun into his mouth.

“Because we gave you an order and you will comply if you wish to live.”

The doctor mumbled something in response but all that came out was a thick trail of drool and spit that slicked off the barrel of Rashar’s pistol as he pulled it out. His mouth finally free, the doctor repeated himself, “It’s a complicated procedure!”

“Seemed to me like you guys just mixed two chemicals together and injected it,” I said.

“Into the brain!” the doctor exclaimed. “It’s very precise! Not just anyone can perform it!”

“You’re going to have to show us.”

“I-I’m right here, I can do all of you, okay?”

“We’re not all here,” I muttered, letting my emotions carry me away a little bit when I thought of Dondrae. Rashar said that he was fine for now, but was elsewhere in the prison, “and we’re not dragging you around to meet our friend. You’re going to have to tell us.”

“And said friend just happens to be Prisoner...” Rashar’s voice broke off into something that sounded almost like Lupus, which caused the doctor’s small eyes to go wide with fear, before switching back to Regulian, “...so you’d best get the procedure right.”

“Mix one part from the prisoner’s vial and then three parts from the stabilizer, then inject it into the brain,” he paused, swallowing painfully, “we’ve drilled a tiny hole in the back of every prisoner’s skull and there’s a flesh-colored socket, you can feel around for it, it’s soft; that will allow the syringe to enter the brain. It will also constrict around the needle to prevent it from going too far and will eject it once the injection is done.”

The room went silent for several seconds until Yaleen broke it with a stressed sigh. Even Rashar, despite his face being obscured, looked visibly irritated with his armored tail swishing sharply.

“It sounds...” I muttered, “...like the process is mostly automatic.”

“W-well, uh, the dosage could be done wrong!”

“Even a bartender could do that!”

“N-no, you have to be a doctor! The instruction manual says so!” his eyes shifted to the side. “W-well, technically I’m just a medical technician...”

“Kurwa!” I snarled and pointed at Yaleen. “Look around for that socket!”

I grabbed one of the large, and frankly horrifying, needles along with the tiny vial that stored Aldor’s memories and drained it entirely into the syringe. I then added the matching three parts of stabilizer. I was not looking forward to this. An itchy feeling grew at the back of my skull when I imagined injecting this into Aldor’s head.

Of course, it was more than a mere injection, it was an execution. Talos would cease to exist after this and we would be the ones murdering him. Talos was a wretched creature, the galaxy would be better off without him, but it was still an uneasy prospect. He couldn’t fight back at this point, his partial memory restoration having left him a paralyzed wreck and he didn’t even attempt to resist when Yaleen began probing around the back of his skull.

“I’ve found it, Pawel,” she whispered.

I blinked out of my trance. Duty called. I had to do this, whether I liked it or not. My legs were beginning to work again, I had no excuse. It would be some small comfort that the Regulians had already partially killed Talos. It made it a little more comfortable.

Yaleen showed me the tiny plug hidden among the red hairs on the back of Aldor’s head. The needle slipped in and I felt my stomach churn when the first sign of resistance was felt as it entered his brain, but the socket did most of the work. Aldor’s back braced but unlike before, he did not scream as I injected the contents of the syringe. Once it was empty, sure enough, the needle popped out and I was able to remove it effortlessly.

Aldor went still, the pupils of his dead eyes dilating until there was no green left. For a moment, I thought that he had died, but I could feel shallow breaths exiting his nostrils.

“What’s going on!?” Yaleen shouted at the tech. Her hackles were raised and unlike other times she was angry her voice was eerily calm.

“I-it’s fine, this is normal! Just wait! Watch the eyes!”

Sure enough, Aldor’s pupils began to slit until they were as thin as string, before growing to a normal width for the dimly lit medical room. I nearly jumped when he began to move, slowly moving his face until he was looking at his sister.

“Yaleen? W-what are you doing here?” he whispered.

The Princess said nothing, only embraced her brother tightly, rubbing her muzzle up against his. Her tail wagged happily behind her. Despite all her pragmatic talk about having a contingency plan for her brother in the event of his death, she was happy that he was back. I couldn’t stop a smile from growing on my lips. I wiped away the moisture forming in the corner of my eyes.

“Sister! S-stop it!” he weakly struggled against Yaleen’s hug. “I’m a soldier now, you’re embarrassing me!”

Like a flash of lightning, Yaleen’s mood switched. She pulled away and slapped her brother across the muzzle.

“You idiot! How could you do this to me!? The Regulians said you were dead!” she growled and slapped Aldor again. “What did you do!?”

“I...” he paused, eye’s twitching in confusion, “...I’m not sure. I, uh, I think I might have committed a bit of treason, maybe…?”

“Treason!?”

“I think that’s what they call fragging your officer, ha ha ha...” his laugh was weak and a little dazed.

“Kurwa!” Yaleen cursed.

“What’d you say?”

“Never mind!” she snapped, wrapping her arms around her brother once again. She pressed her snout into his shoulders and mumbled. “I should kill you for this!”

“I’m sorry but...” Aldor rubbed at the back of his skull and winced, “...but he was ordering us to go on a suicide mission to storm a fucking fortified hill of no value on Gliese 581g from the Lacertans with no orbital support or intel. His Lieutenant rescinded the order as soon as his body hit the floor, but I had to answer for my crime. I’d do it again.”

Aldor’s eyes were sharp with conviction. It was something I never saw from him when he was Talos, save for when he was under a delusion of grandeur. This man was a Prince, both in the literal and figurative sense. I trusted him more after a minute than I did for all the days I knew Talos.

I wasn’t even looking at Aldor, but I felt his eyes on me and for once, it wasn’t lecherous, just a firm acknowledgment, “This your boyfriend, sister? Didn’t take you for a skinny!”

She peered back at me and shook her head, “No, he’s a dear friend. We’ve saved each other’s lives a hundred times over.”

“I’m her boyfriend,” Rashar stated from behind his respirator. Yaleen did not pay him any heed.

“Any friend of my sister is a friend of mine,” Aldor pushed himself up from the ground. He walked with a numb limp towards me, grabbing my hand in his paw and shaking it. He proceeded to lean in and we smelled each other’s cheeks. Somehow, it seemed that his scent had even changed slightly, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

“My name is Aldor Yi-Pah, at your service!”

“Pawel Lis.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

We broke off the handshake. The difference in his manner was getting a little surreal and uncomfortable, despite being a positive change.

“Pawel, it’s your turn,” Yaleen said, motioning towards the medical tray, “we need to hurry.”

“Right, right,” I nodded, “we’ve got to get off Planet.”

“What planet exactly?” Aldor asked.

There we had it. I knew it would have come to this, but I was now seeing the full effect in person. Talos and all his memories were dead. Pawel was next on the chopping block.

“Pawel Lis,” “Pawel Lis,” the label said and every time it did, the name grew more and more meaningless. Pawel, Pavel, Paul; common name. Lis, not uncommon for a name, but perhaps it was a mere joke by a Regulian officer, naming my surname after a scavenging predator that they learned about on Earth. A little ironic that I would find myself in the company of two aliens that looked like Lis’s just now.

But my decision was not made based on how my name sounded. The Regulians might have made Pawel Lis, but I was still Pawel Lis.

I grabbed a medical bag and gently stuffed the jar of stabilizer into it.

“Yaleen, please cover up my real name.”

Yaleen grabbed a length of medical tape and slapped it on the back of my vial. I didn’t think for a second about grabbed Dondrae’s vial and placing it in a pocket of the bag. I had made the decision not to revert back to whoever I was before, but I would sure as hell give Dondrae the choice to do so.

I hesitated more with my own vial. I wanted to dash it against the wall and proclaim myself for all to hear that I was Pawel Lis, but instead I carefully slipped it into the bag as well. If Dondrae decided to take his old memories back, perhaps the pain of it might be a little too much and I might want the option to forget.

My thoughts were so engrossing, that I didn’t even notice Rashar putting the medical tech in the sleeper hold. By the time I broke out of my ponderings, the tech was now fast asleep.

“We need to get moving,” Rashar ordered and marched up to Yaleen, “have you finished downloading the map?”

“Affirmative,” Yaleen tapped the screen of her datapad.

“Good,” Rashar shoved his silenced pistol into my chest and I shakily grabbed it by the butt. He produced a matching one and passed it to Aldor, but had something far more personal for his lady-love. Yaleen’s engraved, golden needler fit her paw like a glove once again.

“Don’t use these unless you have to, understand?” Rashar ordered. “We can escape from here and we can get away, I can assure you. The Claw is overstretched with the war right now and they’ll probably just try to cover up the military’s blunder here, but not if we cause a goddamned massacre!”

Rashar jumped up a little, grabbing hold of a hatch in the ceiling and yanking it open, revealing a dark tunnel.

“The vents are designed to be just big enough for a Regulian engineer to fit inside. It should be no problem for you three,” Rashar grumbled, “your friend is marked on the map. If it were up to me-”

“It’s not,” Yaleen said.

Rashar’s armored tail lashed, “Go get him and we’ll meet up at the rendezvous point. I’ll give you a boost.”

“Wait,” I interrupted and walked up to Yaleen, peering at her datapad, “do you have the coordinates for the Catacombs?”

“Yes, I can look up our positioning records, why?”

“We need to give it to him,” I motioned my head towards the unconscious Commander, “if we don’t, they’ll destroy Planet. Kill everyone on it.”

Yaleen nodded and began scratching through her records.

“We don’t have time for this,” Rashar growled, “let the scum die!”

Sighing, Yaleen continued her search, “Under normal circumstances, I would be inclined to agree with you, my love. But Pawel has asked me a favor and I owe him a thousand favors at this point.”

Every minute she searched was rank with tension. Rashar never stopped pacing, his armored boots clanking the whole while. At one point, I even feared he was going to snatch the datapad from Yaleen, but her ears perked up before that could happen.

“Found it,” she whispered and grabbed a sticky piece of paper from a side-table: a Regulian post-it note. She scribbled the coordinates down and stuck the note onto the armored container that the Commander was locked into.

“Are you finished?” Rashar grumbled.

“Yes, let’s go.”

“Males first,” he ordered. No doubt he didn’t want anyone, sibling or otherwise, catching his love’s scent from behind as we crawled in the vents.

I was the first to go up. Rashar grabbed me by the sides and lifted me up like I was nothing. I grabbed the rim of the vent and pulled myself up. It was dark, almost pitch black.

Aldor nearly crashed into me, his nose thudding into my rear, forcing me to scramble forward into the vent.

“My apologies!” he whispered. I don’t think I ever heard Talos say he was sorry, not even once!

“Keep it down in there!” Rashar hissed. “Sound travels far in the vents!”

Yaleen clawed her way up in the vent much more delicately and we both had moved out of the way by that point.

“I can’t see anything,” Yaleen whispered. Even with the Vulpeculan’s low-light vision, there was limits to what they could see, especially if there was no light at all.

“Pawel Lis, there’s a button on the side of your pistol, on the left by the hammer, press it,” Aldor whispered.

I obliged and with a small click, a tiny beam of light shot out from the pistol barrel and illuminated the vents. The tunnel stretched down for what seemed like forever, an endless corridor of cold metal.

Once again, I was surrounded by steel.

The vents had more than enough room to allow us to crawl comfortably in them, being designed for the far bulkier Regulians. Even Dondrae, larger though he was, would still be able to fit in relatively easily, though he might have trouble with the sharp corners, which although us skinny humans and Vulpeculans were able to slide by with ease, he’d likely have to take his time.

We didn’t dare utter a word the whole time. Every ding and rattle traveled a mile in the metal snake; the occasional thud from inside a vent was nothing unusual, but people whispering would be cause for alarm.

When we caught sight of a glowing, square vent cover, the flashlights went off and we held our breath as we slowly inched by. Sometimes there would be guards under us in full combat gear, patrolling the area, and we’d freeze until they were out of sight before continuing.

Yaleen would tap Aldor when we reached a crossroads and he would then tap me on the right or left side shoulder if we were to turn, or on the back of the neck if we were to continue forward. It was a useful system that we rarely had to divert from.

A bigger issue that arose was a natural result of crawling through a duct in a tower full of animal-people. It was not a problem at first, just a consistent coating of fur on the walls, but there were certain areas where the dust and hair formed massive clumps. It got so bad that at one point we had to claw through a wall of fur as silently as possible and without sneezing.

I slid down a decline, then rounded a corner and immediately switched the flashlight off and laid still. Only a few feet away from a side vent was a Regulian marine’s gas mask, its mirrored black eyes staring directly at me but giving no indication of realizing I was there.

Slowly, I adjusted the pistol until it was level with the Regulian’s face and waited. Time crawled, every second a breathless agony. My finger twitched against the trigger, ready to squeeze at a moment’s notice.

His arm moved and I pulled the trigger, just slight enough to avoid a discharge, which was a good thing for the Regulian merely snapped a salute. Armored boots clanked against the concrete floor, closer and closer, until they were right under the vent and then grew more distant until they were gone.

“Keep going,” the Regulian suddenly spoke, instantly recognizable as Rashar, “it’s not far. Hurry up.”

Feeling more than a little relieved, I flicked the pistol’s light back on and continued down the illuminated path.

The vents turned into a series of zig-zagging corners that were so sharp that it was, for once, a bit narrow even for us. The whole while, we would occasionally meet up with the clanking footsteps from before.

We crawled up a similarly acute incline and I flicked the light off once again as I caught sight of a glowing grate along the bottom of the vent. The footsteps suddenly stopped directly beneath me and I shimmied up towards the grate, carefully peering down.

Three Regulians were there: two were dressed in the full-body marine armor, complete with the gas-masks; while the third was wearing their armor but left the helmet and gas mask behind. His mane was bright blonde, delicately greased and dotted with gold beads in a single braid that trailed from his left temple.

They all saluted their officer silently.

“Is this the one?” the officer asked. “Dondio?”

“Yes sir, Lieutenant.”

“Very good,” the Lieutenant raked his paw through his mane. He was very proud of it, he made that much clear.

“Sir?”

“Take a break, soldiers,” the Lieutenant patted one of the marines on the shoulder and passed him a few coins, “thirty minutes in the recreation floor. Have a drink, fuck one of the pleasure prisoners, do as you wish, just spend thirty minutes there and return.”

“Aye, Lieutenant!” the soldiers saluted and began to move when the Lieutenant placed his palms on both of their chests, stopping them dead in their tracks.

“And when you return, don’t open the door. Just stay on guard until I come out.”

“Understood, sir!” once again, the guards began to move, but the Lieutenant blocked their path once again.

“If anyone asks...” the Lieutenant paused, his throat rumbling, “...tell them I gave you the order, but don’t tell them anything else. You saw me leave your post shortly before you did. Understood?”

“L-Loud and clear!”

Finally, the soldiers were allowed to leave the area. The Lieutenant peered back at them until their footsteps had vanished and he opened up a door and closed it behind him.

Worry grew in my stomach and I crawled forward, almost banging my knee against the floor as I went down the vent towards the door that the Lieutenant had entered. Another grate, this one on the side, greeted me and I pulled myself up to it.

My heart nearly stopped when I saw Dondrae, slumped over in a chair. He was completely naked and his gray, chest fur was free of any marks, which was some relief. Unlike the rest of us, he was constrained only by a pair of handcuffs that were chained to a metal bar that was welded to a steel table in the middle of the room.

“Well, well, Don...” the Lieutenant slowly came into view, his hulking frame looming over the smaller Lupiad-Sirian, “...Don-Don-Don...Dondrae, is that what they call you?”

Dondrae’s eye fluttered open and I caught a brief shimmer of his pupil in the light. His eye-patch was gone and he kept his left eye closed tightly. Sighing, Dondrae shrugged weakly.

“Do you know who I am?” the Lieutenant demanded.

Once again, Dondrae shrugged and his lips quivered as he exhaled sharply.

The large Regulian stomped forward and snatched Dondraes muzzle in his paw, extending his claws until they dug into Dondrae’s skin.

“My Father was stationed on Lupus, an honorable Regulian officer of fine, noble stock,” he squeezed his grip and tiny droplets of blood began to well up and trickle down some of Dondrae’s whiskers, “of far finer stock than a mutt such as you could hope to be.”

“He was an honorable official. Spent his entire life helping the worst of your kind, the low-ranked, the homeless, the orphans...” the Lieutenant suddenly grabbed the back of Dondrae’s head and slammed it snout-first into the table, “...he was a fucking paragon!”

Dondrae refused to whine or cry out, but his hand visibly shook with pain as his nostrils bled, the blood barely visible against his black nose and muzzle except for a telltale shimmer.

“But one day, when he was getting ready to host a Lupiad Orphanage gala, he got in his car and-!” the Lieutenant cracked Dondrae across the face with the back of his paw.

“The LMA claimed responsibility for the bomb,” the Lieutenant chuckled upon spotting some of Dondrae’s blood on his paw and daintily licked at it, “we never caught them. My family lost their titles, our prestige, our charities. All of it.”

The Lieutenant waited, staring at Dondrae as if he was expecting an answer. When he didn’t receive one, he continued.

“And I bet you don’t even remember why this concerns you, hm?”

Dondrae spat onto the table a glob of saliva and blood, “I haven’t caught an aneurysm yet, so I figure you got the wrong mutt who killed your dad.”

“No, no, no...” the Lieutenant hissed, “...oh the things I wish I could say...”

“But I’ll tell you somethin’, your story don’t add up.”

The back of the Lieutenant’s mane twitched suddenly. His tail was completely still but it carried a tension with it, as if he was fighting back the urge to lash it in anger.

“Can’t remember a whole lot before you fuckers scrambled up my brain, but I’ll give the Empire this much, they don’t seem the type to revoke the titles of a family that had its head assassinated unless they had a good reason.”

The Lieutenant was now unable to hold back his anger and his tail began to thud against the floor.

“What the hell was your dad doing with those orphans anyway?”

Roaring wildly, the Lieutenant unsheathed his claws and charged.

The Regulian hit the floor with a red dot in the back of his skull. The vent grate quickly followed, rattling against the floor.

I hadn’t even thought about it. Dondrae was in danger and I shot someone in the back of the head. I didn’t even feel bad about it and I still don’t.

That scares me a little, despite the circumstances. The feeling passes when I think about it and I would do it again.

But it still scares me.

I also didn’t think about leaping down from the vents and running up to my love and wrapping my arms around his neck. I kissed him on the mouth and the nose, even licking the wounds on his muzzle.

“S-stop it, Pawel!” he laughed. “T-that doesn’t help the cuts, you know!”

I didn’t stop. I was too overjoyed to stop and I buried my head in his chest, breathing in his earthy scent, something I almost feared I would never smell again.

“Princess,” he spoke as I heard someone land on the ground behind us, “good to see you again.”

Another pair of feet thudded against the ground and I heard Aldor speak, “Greetings, you must be...” the male Vulpeculan paused, “...I’m afraid I don’t know who you are.”

Swallowing, I pulled away from Dondrae and looked back at Aldor, then to my love. Dondrae’s single blue eye was wide open with shock.

“He’s...” Dondrae’s lips quivered, “...he’s different.”

“We’ve restored his memories,” I said.

“I see.”

“Dondrae, I...” I reached for the medical bag and began rooting around for the vial, but I was stopped when I felt calloused paw-pads against my skin. Dondrae’s unshackled paw was wrapped around my wrist.

“No, Pawel.”

I sighed, “I wanted to give you the ch-”

“I’m glad you did,” he whispered, “but I would have been just as glad if you hadn’t.”

“The whole reason we came here was to get this and get out of here.”

“That’s not why I came here,” he shook his head.

“What do you mean?”

“I came here to protect you, silly!” he said, darting his head forward and giving me a wet lick across the face. “And I would have followed you anywhere you chose to go, Planet or off-Planet. Didn’t matter to me, so long as you were there.”

Relief washed over me, but I still felt a little guilty, “The Regulians, they ‘scrambled your brains,’ though.”

“They made me into the mutt who fell in love with Pawel Lis!”

Smiling, I hugged Dondrae and pressed my lips up against his. Closing my eyes, I held our embrace for what seemed like an eternity.

It didn’t matter who we were. We were Pawel Lis and Dondrae, forever and always.

And we were going to escape Planet.