Terra Mortem

by Ethan Proud

  One man began seizing, his body twisting violently as foam frothed at his mouth. His innards were wracked with another bout of pain and he evacuated his bowels right into his pants. He was dead. It didn’t take long before the other Hydras began bemoaning their symptoms, clawing at the cage that trapped them amongst each other.

  The guards tucked their humanity away and watched with the indifference of war as the Hydras began dying, some going easier than others. Only the police and palace guards were patrolling the Hydra Pens, the scouts dispatched to collect samples from the Hydra Aquifers, while the infantry was running drills. It wouldn’t be long before they were plunged into another war, this one on unfamiliar terrain.

  As they had been instructed, the guards made a show of calling the medical teams to check on the welfare of their new slave population. Then they began pressing the spectating Shrikers back, shouting instructions.

  “This is a quarantine area!”

  “We need to make sure you don’t get infected.”

  “Ma’am, you need to go to med bay.”

  “Take your son with you.”

  “You, get away from there.”

  When the last Hydra stopped seizing and their veins shone blue and their chests settled, masked men began hauling bodies to the quarries and dumping them. Six hundred and forty-eight bodies later, the only Hydras left in the city were Deirde and Yuto. Mertensia’s plan had worked, now any Shriker who died of chronic toxicity would blame it on the sickness brought by the Hydras. With any luck, the onset would begin before the Earth 2.0 ship arrived to save them, but after they had taken the Greyling settlement.

  The theatrics of the guards and medical staff were truly impressive. They had been briefed on the new mission to The Source, and the sacrifices that had to be made. The only objection to it was from the soldiers who frequented the commoner brothels, though they had the good sense not to mention it aloud. Most of the soldiers at some point had visited one of the establishments, some more often than others.

  The shock from the carnage wrought by the Hydras had yet to wear off; add the public execution, and top it off with a mysterious illness, and the result was a population of numb Shrikers. With the looming Exodus and Greyling War, it would be months before the Exos had proper time to process the events and grieve for their old lives.

  Standing in the airlock near med bay and the hydroponics, a pale figure stood next to another darker form. Rhea had recovered well enough to move around, though sudden movements still made her nauseous and her breath rattled from pulmonary edema. Her greenish pallor was accentuated by her lover’s dark skin. Rhea appeared as the personification of death, while Aqi looked as if a god had graced the surface of the lonely planet. Her arms were bare as she basked in the sun while Rhea was wrapped in an emergency blanket and still shivered. Her Mohawk was messy and hung to one side, both the purple and red washed out and faded, showing her roots and her natural hair color, black. She leaned on Aqi for support.

  “You know that the other Family members will be upset if they see us like this,” Rhea said as her teeth chattered in their sockets.

  “They can pound sand,” Aqi said with a smile. “Why should we hide anymore? Our position of power is precarious and you, being on the Council of Warchiefs, have more true power. You control the army. If the army decides that the time of the Commanding Family is over, there is nothing we can do.”

  “Are you suggesting another coup?” Rhea asked incredulously.

  “No, but if push comes to shove, we can insulate ourselves. Our love has never been safer,” Aqi said and felt Rhea snuggle closer under her arm. Probably simply because she was cold.

  “Even though our existence hinges on surviving a suicidal march across the desert,” Rhea scoffed. Always the pragmatist.

  “To stay here is suicide. Ellie and Treya managed to screw everything up. I still don’t see their end goal. I could see such angsty behavior from the youth but from the Hydra Elders? Ridiculous,” Aqi mused.

  “The Hydra Elders are scum,” Rhea said heatedly. “They’ve watched their own people suffer knowingly, all for personal gain. The entire Hydra Movement was wrong and disgusting, but for those within the Colonies to subject their people to such miserable lives, it sickens me. I pity the Hydras who didn’t know better.”

  Aqi pursed her lips. Though she knew that it had been centuries before her birth, she still felt responsible for the Hydras poor living conditions. In reality, the Commanding Family could have done something but altering the status quo was always risky. “We are no better. We’ve all known about the wandering nomads and done nothing.”

  “Out of sight, out of mind.” Rhea laughed. “I never said we were innocent. But we didn’t watch it every day with casual indifference.”

  Aqi squeezed her tighter. Rhea was right, but she was also wrong. Choosing not to help their fellow Exos but benefitting from their pains was equally despicable. Either way, Aqi and the Commanding Family had to live with their choices. Their constituents followed orders and that was it. Jarrod was to be commended in all honesty, he had followed his moral compass and tried to bring the Hydras out of exile. He had a good heart, Aqi realized, despite that the destruction of The Wreckage was a cascade event, started by his good intentions. Aqi snorted humorously.

  “What?”

  “We should have done what Jarrod did years ago,” Aqi said wryly.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Beneath the surface, the three survivors of Hydra Seven wearily crawled from their hiding place. Their cramped muscles cried out for joy as they finally stretched after what could have been mere hours or days. Without the sun to track it, time meant little. The Exos operated like animals, waking when rested and sleeping when tired. It was a glorious existence, only worried about survival. They didn’t need a purpose to justify their existence, the will to be was enough.

  Their eyes had only slightly adjusted to the darkness, or at least it seemed like they could detect shapes. Lepiro wordlessly opened his bag and Icharus crooned as he flew out, illuminating the cavern. As he flew, his body was reflected by the lake that spread out before them. The boats still rested on the near shore.

  The Greylings hadn’t pursued their runaway captives. Whether it was from apathy or an appeased god, it was hard to say. The boats rocked gently as the three stepped in and fumbled around for the oars. The first blade to break the water seemed loud enough to echo back to the Greyling City and herald their departure. Yet after the paranoia of being hunted and the anxiety of sharing Rio’s fate subsided, the hair on the back of their necks lay flat and they continued across the lake. Icharus idled just before the boat like a lantern. His small reflection grew in size as something came from the depths.

  Icharus veered out of the way and crashed into the water as a goni the size of a horse broke the surface. The molla boat rocked, threatening to throw its occupants into the lake. The goni’s skin seemed to swirl like oil and trapped the light within its body. It continued to rise sinuously until its tail flicked clear of the surface tension in a spray of droplets. Lepiro was at the prow of the boat and struck the thing with his oar, but little good it did. The lake goni’s eyes settled on Icharus and it gave chase as its much smaller counterpart darted around the boat in figure eights.

  “Jarrod, shoot it!” Taiga shouted as the Shriker began fumbling with the .40 cal in his belt. He brought it level and squeezed the trigger. The bullet found its intended target and ripped the creature between the head and the neck, and it fell to the surface with a loud slap. The body didn’t sink for several long seconds as water pooled over the flat expanse of its wings. With a gurgle, the corpse was pulled to the benthic.

  Icharus wasted no time returning to his companion’s side. It wasn’t a graceful return either. The frightened creature slapped into Lepiro’s face and wrapped his wings around the man’s head, nearly suffocating him. Lepiro laughed a muffled sound as he unglued Icharus from his face. He held him in his lap for a second and ran a finger gentl
y from the length of the goni’s nose to tail. The creature warbled as its breathing slowed from its frenzied pace. Taiga felt a sharp pain in her chest as she recalled that she would never again share a moment like that with her familiar. A still silence settled over the lake as the echo of the gunshot faded away into nothingness. Not even a ripple remained to bear testimony.

  “There might be more,” Jarrod said, looking over the water with darting eyes. It seemed like lights had appeared and the surface tension bowed as gonis surrounded the boat. Or were his eyes playing tricks on him. He blinked furiously, trying to convince his brain to show him the truth.

  “We need to get off this lake,” Taiga said, her voice sticky. The moving lights were not a trick of the mind.

  Without further ado, the trio began paddling as fast as they could. They weren’t very good at it. The boat would twist one way too far, and then too far the opposite direction. Each time they tried to correct course they nearly capsized. The other lake gonis disappeared only meters from the boat, presumably to fight over the carcass at the bottom. The turmoil of their conflict was evident as waves and bubbles churned. The Exos took advantage of the temporary reprieve and rowed faster than before.

  A smaller goni, chased away from the scavenged kill, rose lazily to the surface. Its dark eyes lit when it saw the struggling boat. It slowly propelled itself closer, only the top of its head and spine visible. Jarrod spotted it and raised the gun again. Dipping its head, the goni dove beneath the boat and out of sight. A moment later it breached on the other side, and before Jarrod could aim, it ducked back beneath the vessel. With an experimental bump, the goni sent the craft spinning like a top and thrashing through the water. Its luminescent skeleton was visible just inches below the water. It made a quick circle before heading back to ram the boat just a little harder this time.

  Taiga and Lepiro hadn’t stopped rowing, and with only two of them it was much easier to keep the rhythm. They could begin to detect the far shore, growing nearer. With their limited eyesight, distance was hard to gauge, but they couldn’t have been more than twenty-five feet out. The crack of gunfire sounded, and the goni and its glowing cartilage blinked out of existence. The sound echoed back many times, and with each rebound another goni surfaced. Taiga and Lepiro didn’t have to look directly at the gonis to know they were in trouble. So many of the creatures had surfaced that the cavern was aglow. Like alligators surrounding a single pig struggling to stay afloat, the gonis lazily closed in.

  Droplets of spray flecked the boat each time the oars dipped into the water and once again when they broke the surface. The boat bucked violently, but on course nonetheless. Jarrod fired another shot and another of the amphibious beings sank. He checked the clip. He had five rounds left. He lurched forward as the prow of the boat connected with solid land and fumbled in the bottom of the boat, looking for the clip he had just held. His fingers closed around it, amid a pool of water. Hopefully the gunpowder wasn’t wet, but luck hadn’t been on his side lately.

  With a scream a goni erupted from the water. Its jaws led the way. Jarrod squeezed the trigger and was greeted with a latent ‘click’. A hand closed around the nape of his shirt and yanked him from the boat, and the goni missed and smashed its face against the rock beneath the vessel. Lepiro half-dragged Jarrod to the shore and down the nearest tunnel. Behind them, the lake was a writhing mess of wings and tails as the gonis devoured their injured kin. The Exos had been forgotten for the time being.

  The reprieve lasted for only a moment before the screeching of the hunters reached their ears.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “What about these two?” a guard asked and jabbed a finger at the glass window of the cell. “Are they Hydras?”

  The Commanding Family glanced amongst their ranks for a brief moment. They had forgotten about Dierde and Yuto when they culled the nomads.

  “Kill them,” Mertensia said absentmindedly. Her only concern now was reaching The Source and orchestrating the return journey for the rescue by the Second Earthlings.

  “Don’t be so barbaric,” Aqi disagreed. “These two are from Hydra Seven, we massacred their village and they had barely escaped their cells when the rebellion was put down. They can serve us.”

  “What do you mean?” Mertensia said crossly.

  Kilo and Fleet rolled their eyes as the women argued.

  “They can literally serve us,” Aqi said with a leer.

  “Servants. So be it,” Fleet said dramatically. Now the other three rolled their eyes. “Put them in restraints and load them into our royal rover.”

  The guard nodded and the Commanding Family left to oversee the rest of the last-minute preparations.

  X

  The rover jostled and Yuto’s face thudded against the headrest twice. His hands were bound to the roll cage directly overhead. Deirde was likewise indisposed. There were seven available seats in this rover, all facing inward, and all but one occupied, not including the driver and shotgun seats, taken by two of the palace guardsmen. The Commanding Family made light conversation while passing around a large bowl filled with boiled molla caps, tomatoes, corn, and cooked squash. Yuto refused to look at the scrumptious food, despite his mouth watering to the brink of drooling.

  “Once you’ve removed the dark looks from your faces, we will release you and you can partake in this food,” Fleet said with a voice laced with generosity.

  Yuto didn’t grace him with a response.

  “If only the same courtesy had been extended to our people,” Deirde said dryly.

  Kilo chuckled at the comment, which earned him a glare from the Hydranian woman.

  “You’ll come around eventually,” Kilo said with assurance.

  Yuto still refused to speak and Deirde gave up. They didn’t make a single noise for many more hours. The Commanding Family took no notice.

  “Are we positive that none of the radios will work to reach the Second Earth ship?” Fleet asked as he popped a cherry tomato into his mouth.

  “Drips assured us that they would not,” Kilo answered.

  “Don’t use such a vulgar nickname. It’s not becoming of our status,” Fleet said with mock sincerity.

  “Don’t play coy, when it was you who started it,” Kilo said and elbowed Fleet lightly.

  He almost dropped the bowl, but instead passed it to Aqi.

  “Johan pulled the satellite comms from the mainframe and is trying to boost its signal by wiring into one of the rovers,” Aqi answered. “But as he said, without a powerful enough antenna the signal will never leave the atmosphere, and certainly will not penetrate the rock that will be overhead when we reach The Source.”

  “So we leave the rover outside, and a team of engineers to monitor communications,” Fleet said and gestured with his hands vaguely. “It will work. It must.”

  “That is when things tend to not work,” Mertensia said as she fished through the salad to pick her favorite vegetable, squash.

  “With that attitude, nothing will work,” Fleet waxed philosophically. The other three snorted.

  “We will make it off of this planet one way or another,” Kilo supplied.

  Aqi absentmindedly left the conversation and her mind wandered to Rhea. The Warchief was finally starting to look less peaked and claimed that she felt stronger. Strong enough to drive a rover. Aqi let out a titter of a laugh.

  “What?” Fleet asked suspiciously.

  “Thinking to myself,” Aqi said with a smile. The look in Fleet’s eyes suggested he knew damn well what Aqi had been thinking about. Let him, once they had been rescued or were forever stranded at The Source, the time of the Commanding Family would be over. It would be Aqi and Rhea’s time.

  The vehicle jolted to a halt and snapped Aqi from her pleasant reverie. Immediately the sound of squabbling and chaos erupted.

  “Stay in here,” one of the palace guardsmen said as he opened the passenger side door and stepped into the sand.

  Fleet, Kilo, and Mertensia tried to see thro
ugh the windshield and craned their necks without getting out of their seats.

  “As if,” Aqi said as she flowed from the vehicle. Despite crawling over the two shackled servants, she was quite graceful.

  It didn’t take her long to see what the matter was. One of the rovers towing a trailer full of water sank into the sand, resulting in it tipping and spilling its precious contents. The water drained through the greedy sand in seconds, while what was left on the surface evaporated in just as little time. The guards had managed to save some of the water by righting the containers but only a few gallons remained in each. Around the wrecked rover stood a crowd of commoners, yelling and shaking fists at the men who had just wasted their precious resources.

  Aqi made out the number ‘16-21-18-5’ and she sighed. It was the uncontaminated barrels that had been lost. The number was a code, not a very cryptic one, and likewise the drums fouled with hydrazine were marked ‘4-9-18-20-25’. If only those had been lost instead. The guards were trying to de-escalate the scenario, with little success. Their attempts to calm the crowd only infuriated it. Aqi parted those seeing red and stepped between the soldiers and the plebs.

  “We can’t get the water back. It has been taken by the sand, like so many things in our lives. Our only choice now is to hasten to The Source, where we will have enough water to last the rest of our lives. But if we hesitate now or fight amongst ourselves, we will never make it.” She surveyed the crowd as she spoke. Initially, she had to shout to be heard, but as she continued the din lessened until all she saw was nodding heads. “Help right the rover, and we will be on our way once more.”