Terra Mortem

by Ethan Proud

  With a sigh, not of exasperation but excitement, Rhea twisted and planted her lips against Aqi’s.

  Chapter Eleven

  Lepiro tousled his short blond hair and sand came falling across his shoulders and chest. He wore a pair of goggles and a handkerchief tied around his face. Around him, Taiga, Rio, and Jarrod moved. Their gonis floated in the air around them, sometimes squawking at the hideous sand dingo that was at the center of the group. Its snuffling nose and beady eyes were perpetually pointed at the gelatinous forms drifting in the air.

  The air was hot and dry, no different from any day on AE625, and the Exos were used to it. Every inch of their bodies were covered, minus the skin between the cuffs of their weathered jackets and the fringe of their gloves, and the tops of their cheeks and noses. Jarrod’s head was obscured by a hood pulled tight around his face, due to his short hair that offered little protection to his scalp.

  “How do we know he isn’t leading us into a trap?” Lepiro’s eyes narrowed from behind his goggles, but the gesture was lost on the group due to the tint.

  Jarrod opened his mouth, but Rio interjected. “Because the Shrikers murdered his entire company. He has no one to lead us to.” Apparently Jarrod’s tryst with Deirde had struck a chord with Rio and he wasn’t the forgiving type. Jarrod didn’t grace the trio of Hydras with a response, but instead looked at his feet.

  “Rio…” Taiga said gently. “If he leads us astray you can kill him.”

  She said it in such an assuring fashion that it took Jarrod a moment to comprehend her meaning. The stranger considered objecting to that fact that he would consider leading them astray, but instead held his tongue. He was no fool.

  “How do you plan on defeating the Shrikers if they beat us to The Source?” Jarrod asked, once again trying to force his agenda of uniting the Hydra Colonies before searching for the water.

  “You worry about leading us to The Source. Once we get eyes on it, we can form a defensive plan and track down the other colonies. It will do us no good to have an army that is clueless of the terrain if we need to storm a Shriker fort. They clearly have better technology than us,” Taiga said in a commanding tone. “We’ve been living on scraps for years. If we control The Source, we can barter an agreement with the Original Settlement and perhaps avoid being annihilated.”

  “What if the Shrikers recruit the other Hydra Colonies to their cause and demonize us?” Jarrod asked firmly.

  “Silence,” Lepiro said coldly. “You are a demon and brought ruin upon our people. Don’t let me catch you using collective phrases such as ‘we’ or ‘us’ again. You are the enemy, and so are they.”

  Taiga nodded her assent and Rio bristled, his broad form seeming to rise up several inches. Jarrod knew that if the other two weren’t there to protect him, Rio would beat him until all that remained was meat paste and gristle. Despite the impossibility of it, Jarrod felt an icy rivulet of sweat run between his shoulder blades.

  “The only way you get out of this alive is if you get us to The Source before anyone else reaches it,” Rio said as he turned, drew his machete and ran it through the sand dingo’s flank. The creature let out a final snuffle that sounded more like a gurgle and blue, effervescent blood frothed from its mouth. It slumped on the ground and didn’t move again. As ruthless as he was, Rio made a direct hit with the thing’s heart and it had felt only a moment of pain. Jarrod, on the other hand, let out a strangled gasp and didn’t try to hide the tears that rolled down his cheeks.

  He hung his head and saw Rio nudge Mycka’s body over to him with his toe.

  “You can carry it if you’d like, but we need to get moving,” he growled through his teeth.

  Taiga and Lepiro exchanged a worried glance. Perhaps none of them would be reaching The Source if Rio couldn’t keep his anger in check.

  The Exile shuffled to his feet, stepped over his last companion’s dead body and didn’t look back. Rio fell in step behind him, and Taiga and Lepiro shared one last sordid moment of eye contact before following. The gonis around them settled onto their symbiotic’s shoulders and seemed smug and at ease now that their predator was a corpse.

  The sand whipped into a frenzy as the Exos trudged between the dunes.

  X

  Deirde and Yuto hunkered down as the sandstorm intensified. They had found a hollow in a rock face that had been eroded just enough to fit the two of them comfortably. Their gonis clung to the ceiling above them. The sand laden wind took on the appearance of a viscous wall as the wind reached dangerous speeds. The two Exos were nestled into the tight space, Yuto painfully aware of Deirde’s hand placed high on his thigh. He wasn’t sure if it was intentional, and his subconscious response to it definitely wasn’t.

  Of course, Deirde was aware of the growing situation and she wasn’t sure what to make of it. Yuto had hardly spoken to her in days, and yet here they were, both stirring from mild physical contact. Deirde sheepishly looked up at Yuto. She could see the muscle in his jaw clenched, and he was intentionally looking away from her. She wondered what was going through his head, as she pulled away from him and leaned against the rock wall just to the other side of her. It wasn’t as comfortable as Yuto’s shoulder, but she believed that Rio was still alive and sleeping with his best friend was not a secret she wanted to keep once they were reunited. She already had transgressions to remedy. Yuto flinched and shifted his eyes to meet hers, though his neck didn’t move.

  “Sorry,” she murmured, though she wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for…or if it was even meant for Yuto.

  The pair didn’t say another word, despite the croons and warbles of Deirde and Aileen in the crevice above them. Unlike the gonis, the exos were not enjoying each other’s company. As the seconds stretched into minutes and the minutes stretched into eternity, the sand wall before them began to dissipate in long forlorn tendrils as the wind died down to a mere grumble. The last of the sand fell with gravity and didn’t move, except for a slight rustle with each of AE625’s lonely sighs. Deirde gracefully leaned forward, her knees leading the way, followed by her hips as she propelled herself into a crouched position. With her left hand she pushed against the rock wall and exited the meager cave. Yuto felt his joints protest as he moved to follow his female counterpart. He stumbled and barely managed to catch himself when he felt the pins and needle sensation of a snoozing limb shoot through his left foot.

  “Which way now?” Deirde stared at the landscape before her which was nearly unrecognizable from the view mere hours earlier. Before it had been a relatively flat plain that extended for miles in any direction, except for the small crag behind them and two pillars that led to a canyon directly before them, but the pillars were still a half day’s march from their current location. Now, a myriad of dunes lay before them, scattered where the wind had deposited the sandy mounds. Some of them stood nearly forty feet high and were nearly as sheer as the rocky cliffs. The two pillars were still visible, though they were only a fraction of the height they had been. The altitude shifted with the winds on AE625.

  “That way.” Yuto pointed to the pillars. “There was an aquifer at the base of the canyon. I’m sure it’s all but covered now. We will have to make it to the third aquifer with the water we have on us.”

  Deirde nodded grimly. Her eyes met Yuto’s own dark orbs for a moment, but little emotion passed between the two of them. It was more of a mutual glower than anything.

  “When we find Rio alive, are you going to apologize?” she asked earnestly.

  “I will after you apologize to him,” Yuto said firmly, and Deirde nearly flinched from the verbal rebuke.

  “Our entire colony is polyamorous, and here I am being crucified for my actions. How do you justify that?” Deirde asked, fuming.

  “That’s not the problem, you kept a secret that nearly killed all of us. Why didn’t you tell us the truth? Why didn’t you tell Rio the truth?” Yuto asked, his voice almost pleading.

  Deirde’s chest constricted. “I was too
embarrassed,” she said sourly. Deirde looked down at her feet and missed Yuto’s features softening.

  His hand twitched at his side, as if he was about to place it on her shoulder but changed his mind. “We should get moving. We have a long ways to go,” he murmured and pulled his scarf up to cover his mouth. He stepped passed Deirde and she fell in line a pace behind. The gonis flipped languid acrobatics around her, like seals in the air.

  Blisters formed and popped on their feet as they wound their way between, up, and over dunes, keeping their eyes on the pillars that barely stood above the windswept grit. Each time a pocket of serum, plasma, lymph, and blood was forcefully ruptured it was a small wave of relief as the gnawing pain ceased, before the sweat mingled with the open wound and caused yet more irritation. Finally they breached the threshold of the monoliths and a causeway of gravel spilled between the rocky teeth and filled the canyon nearly to the brim. Deirde and Yuto cautiously traversed the deceptive footing and each step sent a cascade of sand tumbling down the steep incline, fifteen feet to the false canyon bottom. With each movement they felt the ground shift beneath them as the sand settled deeper to the canyon floor. Depending on what rock formations were beneath them, a pocket of air could collapse and they would be sucked beneath the surface.

  “How deep was this canyon when you found it?” Deirde asked as the ground hissed and filled in an air pocket just to her left.

  “Hundreds of feet deep,” Yuto said, his brow furrowed with concentration.

  Deirde didn’t say another word, but instead took a mental inventory of the rock walls jutting above them, going higher with each step they took down. The walls couldn’t have been more than twenty feet above them right now, and maybe forty feet at the highest. That meant that one misstep and she would be dragged many times the depth of the canyon now, to the true bottom.

  The gonis, sensing the danger, squawked loudly and landed before their respective Exos and began taking awkward leaps of several feet before returning to the ground with a soft ‘thwump’. They repeated this deeper and deeper into the canyon mouth and sometime their weight would send sand hissing down a fissure, or reveal solid footing. If the ground gave way beneath them they would flap their jelly-like wings until they were airborne, and dive bomb the next proposed footing.

  Despite the gonis acting as guides to their Exos, Deirde and Yuto still sank ankle deep in the soft ground they were traversing. With a sudden hiss, the footing beneath Deirde gave way and she felt the suction rush up her calves as the airborne Deirde shrieked in alarm. Yuto dove for his companion, his arms wrapping around her waist and tackling her to the ground, before she slipped into the earth like a needle dropped down a drain. Their bodies lay flat against the sand and slowed their descent, but the ground beneath was still being sucked to the bottom of the canyon after an errant air pocket burst. Like sand tumbling down an hourglass, they were being pulled closer to a widening mouth appearing in the desert.

  Yuto kept his right arm wrapped around Deirde and began to slog doggedly towards the rocks that jutted from the canyon’s edge. His left arm sank to the elbow each time he planted it and his legs were buried up to mid-thigh as they desperately churned to keep himself and Deirde afloat. Recovering from her shock, Deirde twisted onto her belly and began kicking herself along. Yuto’s right arm snaked across her waist as he released her and she felt as though a life preserver had been taken away from her, though she recognized the practicality of the gesture.

  Together the two kicked and flailed out of the sand, their bodies thrashing against gravity until they finally reached the canyon wall and clung to it with all the strength their fingers possessed. The sand dragged against their hips and tore at their feet for a few more seconds before ceasing. They were both buried to the navel, but the surface of the canyon was perfectly still. A single grain rolled before coming to rest. Yuto used the rock wall to heave himself out of the sand and felt particles tumble uncomfortably between his clothes and bare skin in places he would rather not have sand. He lent a hand to Deirde and lifted as she pulled herself free of the gravelly prison. Their gonis warbled happily in the air above them before landing on their masters’ shoulders, their gooey suction cup like skin squelching as the animals wriggled exuberantly.

  “I could use some molla right about now,” Yuto said and wasn’t surprised when his voice held a slight tremor.

  “I have some dried caps,” Deirde said and pulled her pack off her back with shaky hands. She leaned against the rocky outcropping and sat down, her feet barely drifting along the ground, the canyon wall looming above the cleft they sat on. She dug a pouch made of a thick fabric from the smallest compartment of her pack and proffered it to Yuto. He opened it and found that the bottom of the pack chock full of spores. He took the end of the spoon Deirde handed him next, dug out a precious amount and held it to his nostril, snorting the black powder back and letting out a little gag as it hit his esophagus. He felt a shudder run down his spine as he handed the pack to Deirde, who took a massive spoonful and inhaled deep enough to pull it all into her sinus in one attempt. She shook her head and made a noise in the back of her throat when the spores slid down her gullet and into her stomach.

  “Let’s not try to cross that again,” she said and gagged a little bit a second time as more molla dripped from her sinus.

  “Do you want to try to scale the cliff to get to the plains below the canyon?” Yuto asked, staring down the mouth of the canyon.

  “We can probably just slide down the dunes once we get to the end?” Deirde asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Yuto imagined it in his head, the two of them sliding down the sand on their rears and he laughed. “We might as well try it. Hell, might even be fun.”

  Another raised eyebrow, and Deirde clambered up onto the cleft, her booted feet mere inches from what would have been a death defying drop hours prior. Now, it was hardly a three foot drop. The planet AE625 was an inconstant as the seasons on the desolate Earth the Exos had left behind. She searched for a handhold to leverage her weight up higher as she scouted her route up the wall.

  Chapter Twelve

  Rhea scanned the horizon from behind the wheel of the rover. Her dark goggle rims and the tinted lenses made her grey-green eyes appear ghostly pale. She turned to the soldier in the seat next to her, Gana. His long hair hung to his shoulders, and despite being several shades darker than Rhea, his skin was sallow and appeared pale or yellow.

  “There can’t be much of Hydra Seven left,” Gana stated.

  “That’s not what I’m worried about,” Rhea said casually.

  “What then?” Gana asked, his dark eyes meeting Rhea’s striking orbs.

  “If war erupts, no one will be alive to be rescued,” she answered solemnly.

  “You are much too dire.” He laughed easily. “We will live to see the Second Earth. Right now we can see it in our own sky.”

  “Optimism is a luxury,” Rhea murmured and pressed her right foot down on the accelerator while her left worked the clutch. Out of her peripherals she could see the rooster tails of sand behind three other rovers. She crested a dune and saw four silhouettes on the next ridge over. It was impossibly steep, and it crested into a vertical lip the last twenty feet or so. The Hydra Seven refugees sure knew how to pick the high ground. However, they had never encountered high powered rifles until the downfall of their colony. Rhea slammed on the brakes and seven soldiers tumbled from the rover, landing nimbly on their feet, guns in hand.

  X

  Taiga turned, her mousy hair whipping across her face when she heard the sounds of engines. “They found us,” she whispered, audible only to her companions. The gonis in the air let out a skree of dismay. Taiga pulled a long knife from her belt and yanked Jarrod towards her by his bound wrists. She sawed the knife between his hands deftly, severing the rope. Rio made to squabble, but Taiga interrupted him.

  “We need to run. Feelings aside,” she said brusquely and Rio couldn’t tell if she meant it as a slight. Wit
hout further ado, they bailed down the opposite side of the sandy ridge, their feet sinking into the earth to the ankle. It was more of a carefully conducted slide than an outright run, but nevertheless it was quick.

  X

  Rhea blinked as the figures ghosted from the view of her scope.

  “They won’t make it easy,” Gana said and grinned.

  Rhea glanced at him. If she had been a different persuasion…and he less bloodthirsty, she may have been interested in him.

  “Get back in the rover,” she barked. “We can’t lose them.”

  The last of the soldiers was barely in his seat before she peeled out. She headed towards the tail of the dune where its expansive flank finally began to dip down, while in the other direction it traveled upwards for miles and miles.

  “Gana, make sure that you see them before they see us,” she said without looking.

  Wordlessly, he moved his left foot beneath his body and stood upright, gripping the roll cage as he lifted his torso out of the gap in the roof, his left arm tucked over the frame, his right arm nestling the stock of his rifle. He checked to make sure the safety was off and rested his index finger outside the trigger guard. No point wasting a spray of bullets every time Rhea jostled him on the uneven ground.

  Rhea twisted the steering wheel, cutting a bumpy course up the dune, her foot applying even pressure against the floor of the rover. Gana adjusted his stance and tucked his leg on the headrest of his seat behind him, keeping his body more level as the incline increased. Rhea crested the hill and grimaced when she heard the rat-a-tat spray of bullets. She wasn’t a pacifist and her grimace was because she knew Gana had missed his shot. The puffs of sand that accompanied each retort let her know that. Above her, the soldier howled with fury as the last head visible amongst the gritty sea disappeared into a fissure between two rocky outcroppings. The Shrikers could only hope it was a shallow one.