Dragon Team Seven

by Toby Neighbors

  “Why don’t you do it?” Nick asked.

  “Because you won’t learn anything if I do it,” she said, as if his suggestion was ludicrous.

  “We won’t learn anything if we’re dead, either,” Jules teased.

  “Nick can handle it,” Ember said.

  “You don’t sound convinced,” Kal challenged her.

  “Cut the chatter and focus,” Tveit said. “We’re at least six hundred klicks from the nearest evac zones. That means we have to focus on finding our way out of here. Nick, any suggestions?”

  “There’s something to the north of us,” he said. “Maybe a river?”

  “Rivers are good if you want to find civilization. Where there’s water, there will be people eventually, but we aren’t looking for that kind of rescue. Use your helmet’s map and find the nearest evac zone.”

  Nick looked down again and saw a map icon at the lower limit of his vision. He brought up the program, which showed an aerial view of their location. There was indeed a river to their north and what looked like a swamp to the south. The nearest evac zone was six hundred and twelve kilometers south by southwest.

  “I found the closest,” Nick said.

  “Good, let’s get moving,” Tveit said.

  “I wouldn’t go that way,” Nick replied.

  “It’s the closest way off this world, Nick. We don’t get bonus points for covering more ground than we have to.”

  “Why wouldn’t you go that way?” Kal asked.

  “It’s a swamp that way. A really huge one. We’ll have to slog through it,” Nick explained.

  “We can do that,” Tveit said. “Your armor and BIO-suits will keep you dry.”

  “But it will be slow and arduous,” Nick argued. “If we go north, we’ll hit an evac zone in eight hundred and six kilometers.”

  “Through jungle,” Tveit said. “It won’t be much faster, and you’re talking an additional two hundred kilometers. We have fourteen days to finish this mission. If we move fast we can cover forty klicks a day. Fourteen days mean seven hundred kilometers is our maximum distance.”

  “Unless we can move faster,” Nick said.

  “Humor him,” Jules said. “Once he gets an idea in his head, it’s hard to dissuade him.”

  “Alright, Private,” Tveit said, sounding annoyed. “How do we move faster than forty klicks a day?”

  “You said the escape pod is filled with survival supplies, right?” Nick asked.

  “I said they normally are, but this one isn’t,” Tveit replied.

  “But most escape pods are designed to land in water without sinking.”

  “We can’t carry the pod to the river, Nick. That’s impossible.”

  “True, but the cushions in here double as flotation devices. If we remove them all, we could cut down some trees, build a raft, and float the river.”

  “We might be able to,” Tveit said. “There’s no guarantee. It would have to be a sturdy raft to haul all six of us.”

  “We have the paracord from the pod’s chutes,” Jules said, holding up the sturdy parachute lines she had collected as they scavenged for supplies.

  “If the current is moving in the right direction, we could save a lot of time and effort,” Ember agreed.

  “It’s worth a shot,” Ty said. “There are plenty of trees in the jungle.”

  “There are other things in that jungle,” Tveit said. “Not to mention the river. This isn’t a friendly world, remember.”

  “And I’m sure there are plenty of nasty things in the swamp, too,” Nick said. “Let’s take a look and see what the better course of action is.”

  “Fine,” Tveit said. “But if the cushions don’t float, we aren’t using the river. I’m not failing this mission.”

  “No, Sergeant,” Nick said.

  They hiked out of the field heading north. Nick led the way. He had his D-Gar knife in a sheath on his hip and the karambit in a slot on his chest armor. He carried his backpack and three of the cushions from the escape pod. At the tree line, Nick and the others looked up at the towering trees. They looked somewhat like pine trees, with tall, straight trunks, but they were much larger around and the leaves were wide like palm leaves.

  “We’ll have to find smaller trees,” Kal said.

  “Or branches,” Jules pointed out.

  “Let’s find the river before we make a final decision,” Tveit said.

  They hiked another kilometer into the forest. The shadows from the towering trees cast the jungle in gloom, and the ground felt spongy under their feet. It was obviously a very wet and rainy world.

  “Is this the rainy season, Sergeant?” Nick asked.

  “It’s always the rainy season on Delphi Green,” Tveit said.

  Near the river they found younger trees, little more than saplings, stretching out over the water in hopes of soaking up unobstructed sunlight. The river itself was a broad band of brown water, with a strong current that flowed north.

  “Well, the river looks right,” Kal said.

  “Man, that’s some nasty-looking water,” Ty replied.

  “So don’t fall in,” Ember said.

  “Will our armor weigh us down if we do fall in?” Jules asked Gunny Tveit.

  “No, the armor has built in systems for water safety. The protection plates are buoyant, and if needed your helmet can pump air into special pockets of the BIO-suit that inflate and keep you afloat.”

  “That’s good to know,” Jules said.

  “Very reassuring,” Ember agreed.

  “Unfortunately, there are creatures in the rivers here,” Gunny Tveit went on. “Big fish with lots of teeth. They will take a bite out of you if they can.”

  “Yeah, but our armor is supposed to stop that, right?” Kal said.

  “Maybe this raft idea isn’t so great,” Ty suggested.

  “We aren’t getting in the water,” Nick said. “There’s danger everywhere on this world. It’s better if we work together and use the river to advance toward an evac zone.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Kal asked. “You ever built a raft?”

  “No, but it isn’t hard,” Nick said. “We lash logs together and use the cushions from the escape pod to add more buoyancy. Let’s chop some trees.”

  Nick drew his D-Gar and began hacking at the base of a tree. The trunk was about as large as his thigh, and fortunately the wood wasn’t dense. He worked up a sweat cutting down the tree with his knife, but he managed it. Once it was down, Ember and Jules stripped away the limbs. Nick measured off five meters, then cut the tree again. They used the narrow end near the top to make a pole to help guide the raft.

  Cutting trees and measuring them out took well over an hour. Once they had a dozen trees down, Gunny Tveit laid out the design and they all began lashing the logs together using the paracord recovered from the chutes on the escape pod. Finally, with the raft assembled, they added the cushions, tying them in place with wire ripped from the escape pod.

  “It’s too late in the day to sail her now,” Kal said, looking at the sun that dipped below the trees on the far side of the river. “We should make camp for the night.”

  “We need two things,” Gunny Tveit said. “Fire and something to keep us off the ground.”

  “We’ve cut plenty of limbs,” Ember said. “We can pile them up to make pallets to sleep on.”

  “Fire is going to be more difficult,” Nick said. “Everything is wet.”

  “And we don’t have weapons,” Ty said.

  “But I have a battery from the escape pod,” Jules said, pulling out a hand-sized power pack from her pocket. “It was just meant to run the emergency lights, but with the salvaged wires we could get a spark.”

  “We need tinder,” Kal said.

  “I saw an animal nest in one of the trees,” Nick said. “Chances are, the interior is perfect. It’d be dry, at least.”

  “How the hell does he know that?” Kal asked.

  “Beats me,” Jules said.

  �
�Survival shows from the Golden Century,” Ty said. “We found some in the school’s archives junior year.”

  “And you didn’t watch them with us?” Jules complained.

  “You were too busy flirting with Tavis Mambry,” Ember teased.

  “He was cute,” Jules argued.

  “And you made the basketball team,” Nick said to Kal. “Coach Smith had you busy every day after school for months.”

  “Okay,” Tveit said. “How do you propose we get up the tree and collect the nest?”

  “We could just cut the tree down,” Kal offered.

  “The big trees are too thick to chop down with knives,” Ty said.

  “And it would be dangerous. But I can climb the tree,” Nick said.

  “How? Are you suddenly part squirrel?” Kal asked.

  “No, but we have just enough paracord to make a harness. I think it will work.”

  “It better—I’m not carrying you out of here with two broken legs, dude,” Kal insisted.

  “Ty can spot me. Why don’t you gather wood for a fire?” Nick suggested to his friend.

  “Fine, but don’t take too long. It’ll be dark soon.”

  Nick found the nest again. It looked like a clump of foliage near the trunk of the tree, about twenty meters off the forest floor.

  “That’s a long way up,” Ty said.

  “Yeah, let’s hope this works,” Nick said.

  They doubled the paracord and wrapped it around Nick’s waist and thighs. Once they were certain the harness was secure, they wrapped the remaining amount of paracord around the tree.

  “You know the dude that did this on that show had spikes on his boots,” Ty said.

  “Yeah, I thought about that,” Nick said. “I’ll have to grip the tree with my legs.”

  “Well, don’t do it if it doesn’t work, man. You could really get hurt if you fall.”

  “Here goes nothing,” Nick said with a nervous smile.

  He slung the rope up the tree trunk, then leaned back into the harness. It tightened, pinching his thighs until his armor compensated by hardening around his groin. Nick slowly began to pull himself up the rough bark of the tree’s trunk. His legs scrambled for purchase, his boots scrapping on the sides of the tree. To his relief, the climb wasn’t all that difficult. The hardest part was holding onto the tree as he raised the rope that surrounded the rough bark. It took a few tries, but eventually he discovered a system. He scrambled up to the lowest tree branches before taking a glance down at his friend.

  Ty was near the bottom of the tree, looking up at him. Nick felt a sense of victory as he reached for the nest—but he wasn’t prepared for the hiss that came from the bundle. He drew back his hand and leaned away from the limb. The light was fading quickly, but Nick could see four glowing eyes peering at him from the round nest of pine needles and debris. There was something in the nest—something that didn’t want him messing with its home.

  Chapter 30

  “What are you waiting on?” Ty called up to him.

  “There’s something in here,” Nick said, trying not to attract any more attention than he had to. The eyes were staring at him, watching. He couldn’t see what was in the nest, but something was there. Still, their need for dry tender to get a fire started was greater than his fear.

  Nick drew his D-Gar knife and poked the nest. It was wedged between a thick branch and the trunk of the tree. The creature inside hissed again. Nick, his heart pounding with fear, threw caution to the wind and shoved the nest off the branch. He felt the weight of the animal inside—not overly heavy, but substantial just the same. The ball-shaped bundle of twigs, pine needles, and jungle debris seemed to fall in slow motion. As it toppled backward off the thick limb and away from Nick, there was a flash of green skin. The creature in the nest had jumped free. It was shaped like a lizard and had bright green skin. Nick saw it dash up the trunk of the tree and felt a wave of relief.

  “I got it, Nick,” Ty said.

  “Good, I’m coming down.”

  He descended in a slow, shuffling motion, but finally reached the bottom of the tree and breathed easier. He untied the paracord as Ty slapped him on the back.

  “This is good stuff,” Ty said. “Very dry inside.”

  “Thank goodness. There was a lizard living in there,” Nick replied.

  “Not exactly what you want to come face-to-face with twenty meters up,” Ty said. “I’m glad it was you and not me.”

  They hurried back to the camp. Darkness had fallen, but Nick’s helmet adjusted automatically to night vision. The others had been busy as well. A ring of tree limbs had been set up and two large bundles for fire were on either end. In the middle, the soft branches with their tender evergreen needles had been piled together to make a place to sleep.

  “You made it,” Ember said, obviously happy to see them.

  “And you didn’t get hurt,” Kal said. “It’s a miracle.”

  “Bring that nest over here,” Gunny Tveit said.

  She had a ferro rod and used her D-Gar knife, sliding the blade along the narrow rod in quick succession until several sparks jumped off. She waved the nest of tinder material through the air, and suddenly flames crackled to life.

  “Would you look at that,” Jules said.

  “The gunny knows her stuff,” Kal agreed.

  Tveit stuffed the burning nest into one of the piles of wood. It took the flames several seconds to spread through the damp wood, but soon a fire was burning bright enough to shift Nick’s night vision back to normal.

  “We have camp, we have fire, and the raft is ready to go in the morning,” Nick said.

  “Now all we have to do is survive the night,” Tveit said. “I want two people on watch at all times. Nichols, get the other fire going, and everyone keep your backs to the flames so that they don’t ruin your night vision. There are animals in these woods that might cause trouble.”

  Nick had never been camping, although he had seen it in movies set before humanity’s first contact with the Proxy and had often imagined sitting around a campfire with his friends, looking up at the stars. This night wasn’t what he’d imagined; the atmosphere on Delphi Green wasn’t hospitable, and the jungle’s tall trees blocked the view of the stars—not to mention the threat of wild animals that had them all constantly on edge.

  Gunny Tveit showed them how to mix a protein drink that would give them energy for their float down the river in the morning. The liquid and powder from their packs was mixed together in a pouch and then connected to their helmets so that it could be sucked out through a straw. She also showed them how to remove the handle scales from their knives so that just the metal remained. They all split long shafts of wood and attached their D-Gar knives to make spears before the first group went to sleep.

  Nick shared the first watch with Gunny Tveit. They stood on opposite sides of the camp, just inside the wooden fence, with their backs to the fire. With his night vision enabled on his helmet, Nick could see nearly a hundred yards into the forest. Delphi Green had an eight-hour night, and they had spent two of those hours preparing their protein shakes and making spears and oars. With only six hours of darkness left, they would each take a two-hour turn standing watch.

  “You awake, Nichols?” Tveit asked.

  Nick was tempted to turn around, but he knew the sound was being broadcast into his helmet and that Gunny Tveit was on the far side of the camp.

  “Sure,” he said. “Won’t it wake the others if we talk?”

  “I opened a private frequency between us,” the Gunnery Sergeant said. “You know I’ve run this survival challenge twice before. I’ve never used a raft before.”

  “You always go through the swamp?”

  “The escape pod doesn’t set down in the same place,” she explained. “The first time we hiked through the jungle. The second time we followed a tributary, but it wasn’t big enough to float a raft.”

  “How long have you been in the PMC?” he asked.

  �
�Twelve years,” she admitted. “You really think this is going to work tomorrow?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Nick replied. “The trees certainly seem buoyant enough.”

  “What do we do if ten kicks down the river, it turns south?” she asked. “Did you think of that?”

  “It crossed my mind,” Nick admitted.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s a bad plan. You seem to have a knack for creative thinking.”

  “It just made the most sense to me. We could get farther with less effort.”

  “You might be right, but in recon we always have redundancy plans in place. You better spend some time thinking about what we’ll do if things don’t work out the way you hope.”

  “Roger that, Sergeant,” Nick said.

  He tried not to let pessimism creep into his thoughts. Growing up, he and his friends had gotten up to plenty of high jinks. They once spent the night in the school so they could break into the principal’s office and turn all of his furniture upside down. Another time, they built a cart from flat dollies with large caster wheels and pushed it off the sloping roof of the community center after filling it with confetti, which rained down in a beautiful display. The cart, on the other hand, fell hard and shattered. No one was injured, but the confetti didn’t wow people the way Nick had hoped it would after the cart smashed into the pavement below.

  In all the wild schemes he’d planned for his friends, there was always an element of doubt. If the raft didn’t work for some reason, they would be hard-pressed to reach any of the evac zones. The river would give them a significant boost, perhaps moving seventy or eighty kilometers in a single day. They might even be able to float at night with their helmets’ night vision capabilities. If something forced them off the river, Nick could only hope they would find themselves close enough to hike out the final portion of the challenge.

  His hours on watch always seemed to drag by slowly, but he was much more vigilant in the forest than he had ever been on the space station. His eyes roamed the spaces between the trees. There was movement at the edge of his vision, dark shadows too far to see. After an hour, he finally caught sight of eyes, reflecting the firelight behind him.