Sarah hesitated, fists clenched in indecision. Then she whirled and ran toward the equipment shed. Moments later she was skimming across the fields in a floater-tractor, aiming for the notch between Roxy Knoll and the west hills. The low ground there was a kilometer-long deep ravine, cut by a small meandering creek and thick with tree cover. The locals knew it as Dark Hollow.
She found the outflow point of Byre’s Creek and eased into the hollow. Her floater made no distinction of traversing land or water, allowing her to follow the stream’s twisting path between the forested hills. Almost immediately the vegetation crowded in on both sides, and she was swallowed in a twilight gloom. It was markedly cooler in here than out on the grasslands. The sun peeked down between the hilltops for only an hour or two each day, and even then was filtered through the heavy canopy. Venerable Ironwood trees, for which the region was famous, reared their naked lavender trunks, streaked with black, hundreds of meters into the sky, with feathery tufts of emerald vegetation exploding outward at their tops like giant ferns. Their massive gnarled roots were covered with small moisture-loving plants resembling bluish sea anemones. Rustles and chitters of unseen wildlife emanated from the deep shadows around her, falling silent as her vehicle approached, then resuming their secret livelihoods when she had passed. Once she heard the deep haunting cry of a Glimmer Owl echoing from far back in the forest.
Sarah had always found Dark Hollow’s eerie beauty captivating, but today her attention was focused solely on the task at hand. While the floater’s bulk made it ideal for towing and hauling, it was not intended for exploration, and she encountered several tight spaces where fallen trees crisscrossed the water. Add to that the fact that floaters could achieve a maximum height of only a few meters above ground level, and it made for tricky maneuvering. But Sarah was an experienced hand with all the heavy equipment on the farm, and she eventually made it through to the other side of the hollow without incident.
Once out on the flats beyond Roxy Knoll, she grabbed her farscope and scanned the countryside. After a few moments she stopped and focused. There, about a kilometer to the southwest, was a long straight line that she couldn’t recall having seen in the past. By her estimation it stretched for hundreds of meters; it could easily be a landing scar. She quickly followed the strip to its termination, and there she caught the glint of something reflecting the late afternoon sun.
She put her scope away, and checked the sidearm she had donned before leaving the house. Its energy charge showed full. Sarah hoped she would have no need of it this day, but she had been taught to never take chances. Slapping it back on her waist, safety off, she gunned the floater toward the distant ship.
A ripple in the land caused her to lose sight of her goal as she got closer, and the floater ended up intersecting the landing stripe close to its midpoint. She turned right and followed it. The channel cut into the earth by the ship was at least two meters deep, and easily wide enough to accommodate two floaters. Raw soil had been thrown up on each bank, and she could swear that she saw wisps of smoke or steam rising here and there.
Even proceeding at a cautious pace, it was only a minute or two before she saw it: a silver arrowhead buried nose-deep into the massive dirt pile that it had plowed before it. The left rear section of the craft was blackened and fused as if something had actually melted the hull. The gaping hole was pretty impressive, too.
The clear canopy on top sat open, and there was a human figure standing next to the ship, also dressed in silver. Her pulse pounding in her ears, she eased her vehicle closer, and the pilot made no threatening move. When she got to within shouting distance, she stopped the floater and slowly dismounted.
“Hello,” she called out tentatively. “I saw your ship coming down. Do you need help?”
The figure was facing her, but it wore what appeared to be a heavy flight suit with helmet, and she could see nothing but reflection in the visor. After a tense few heartbeats, the pilot reached up and did something at the neck, and then pulled the helmet up and off.
The person inside was male, and he was quite handsome in a rough-hewn way. His face was long and rangy, like his build, but his strong jaw line and straight nose gave his features an appealing symmetry. He had a full head of dark brown, almost black, hair, though it was currently plastered to his skull from the combined effects of helmet and sweat. Yes, if you took away the stubble on his face and the haggard look of fatigue he currently wore, Sarah thought he would make a decent catch. Not for her, of course—he was way too old, must be at least thirty if he was a day. But her aunt, for instance....
Then he smiled, and said in a deep masculine voice, “Hi there. I’m sorry for the intrusion. As you can probably tell, I didn’t have much choice.”
Sarah smiled back, relaxing a bit. Over the years she had learned to trust her instincts about people, and this person didn’t have a bad feel to him. His expression was open and honest, though his eyes...his eyes seemed older than the rest of him, somehow.
She walked slowly toward him, keeping her right hand casually near her hip just in case. Not casually enough, apparently, because she saw those deep-set eyes dart briefly to her weapon before coming back to her face. A hint of amusement crossed his features, and she felt herself blushing. Never mind; if he wanted to think she was a scared civvy, then that was his right. She was not going to let herself get careless.
“Who are you?” she asked when they were only a few strides apart.
Now the pilot looked abashed, and replied, “My apologies, ma’am. I am truly forgetting protocol. I’m Major Simon Roy of SpaceForce, Alpha Squadron, 2nd Fighter Division, under the command of Colonel Hastings, currently assigned to Eden Task Force. And may I ask your name?”
“Sarah McKinley, sir,” she replied formally.
Simon laughed, and it was a very pleasant sound. “No ‘sirs’ here, if that’s all right with you,” he said. “I get too much of that in the Service as it is.”
Sarah grinned and nodded, then allowed herself to shift focus away from this man for a moment and take in his ship. Up close it was amazing to see. Damaged, yes, maybe critically, but a thing of beauty it was nonetheless. Sleek lines, built for speed and handling, not a wasted curve anywhere. The twin engine ports to the rear were disproportionately large, suggesting a high power-to-weight ratio. Her practiced eye recognized a highly engineered machine, even though she’d never flown so much as a commuter shuttle.
“So, this is your ship?” she said, and felt stupid the moment the words left her lips. Like, who else’s ship would it be? Cripes, what was wrong with her? Just take a breath and calm down!
Thankfully the pilot didn’t miss a beat. He just nodded and waved his hand at the downed vessel, smiling ruefully. “Yeah, that’s my fighter, or what’s left of her. Bloody shame, too. She was a sweet ride, the best SpaceForce has come up with. It’ll take a lot of human-hours and resources to replace her.”
“What happened?” Sarah asked, walking around the rear of the ship to view the damage. The hole blown out of the stern was large enough to easily crawl into. A light breeze blew whiffs of smoke across her from the still-smoldering hull and she coughed as it tickled her throat. She could hear the pop and creak of hot metal beginning to cool. Whatever had done this must have been powerful. As small as the craft was, she had imagined a thin shell and more space inside, but the open wound revealed a hull thickness that astounded her. It had to be at least as deep as the length of her forearm. That didn’t leave much interior room. Yet it was obvious that fuel, engines, weapons, life support, and a passenger all somehow fit into this thing. Her admiration for the minds that had engineered it went up another notch.
“What happened?” Simon echoed her question. “I’ll tell you what happened, little miss. I got my butt kicked by a Knacker, that’s what. Well, the whole fleet did, I fear. At least that’s how it looked last I saw. Radio’s dead, so I’ve got no way of knowing, really.”
“The damage looks pretty bad,” Sarah c
ommented as she viewed the fighter from yet another angle. The hull was scored and smudged with black along the leading edges and on the visible portions of its undercarriage. But that might have been from the heat of reentry.
“It’s worse than it looks,” Simon said, shaking his head as he trailed her. “The energy hit took out my weapons systems and main engine. I was dead in space up there.”
“And you landed this thing?!” Sarah asked in astonishment, her eyes wide. This guy must be a damn good pilot.
Simon chuckled again. God, it felt good to laugh after so long. “Well, I sort of glided it in, actually. And most of the credit goes to the navicomputer, anyway. I just handled the final approach and touchdown, such as it was.”
“Wow. Just...wow.” Sarah was at a loss for words, and that wasn’t common for her. She stretched to peek into the open cockpit, a feat achievable if she stood on the wall of soil the fighter had kicked up. The space occupied by the pilot was even more cramped than she had imagined. The black flight chair and harness took up most of the cockpit, and instrument panels occupied much of the rest. There was little more than elbowroom laterally. To be trapped in there for countless hours, maybe days, and in a sealed environment suit, under combat conditions...she felt claustrophobic just considering it. It would take a highly disciplined mind to do what this man did. Finally she shook out of her reverie. Turning to Simon, she inquired, “Well, what now? What do we do with your ship?”
Simon frowned and answered, “Now we leave the ship and get to shelter. She’s junk at this point, and won’t be easy to move. I don’t know what’s happening up there in space, but I’ve got a feeling we’ll have company before long. Have you heard any news on the planetary network?”
She shook her head. “Just patchy reports, nothing solid. But if the battle just happened, then news of the outcome might not have reached the surface yet.”
He nodded, one hand scratching his chin stubble. “The Crabs will track my vessel to its resting spot, most likely. If they do, then they will send a scout down at the very least. Let’s not be around when they get here.” So saying, he leaned into the ship’s cockpit and rummaged behind the flight seat. When he straightened, he held a SpaceForce issue sidearm, a slightly more powerful version of the weapon Sarah carried, though against Knackers, it had been mediocre at best. A well-placed shot might disable one, but in a real fight against numbers it didn’t pack a lot of punch. Alpha squadron had jokingly dubbed it the “suicide gun,” meaning that its best use might simply be to prevent oneself from being taken alive.
Along with the weapon, and a couple of spare charge packs for the gun, he packed a small pouch of high energy pilot rations. That, along with his know-how, was all he could contribute at this point. He tossed his helmet into the cockpit, and gently pried the photo of his family from the instrument panel. Then he slammed the canopy closed, and gestured for Sarah to lead the way.
Simon followed the girl to her shuttle, not quite able to ignore the sway of her slender hips as she walked in front of him. It had been too long since he had been around civilian women, or thought of females as more than comrades-in-arms. That part of his life had ended, and he had deliberately tucked it away, dead and buried. He intended to keep it that way.
* * * *
The ride back to Sarah’s home took under an hour, even at a less urgent pace than her outbound trip. While the young woman piloted the floater, Simon gazed around with interest at the landscape of this new planet. The dense forest in the hollow was primeval looking, and he imagined Old Earth might once have resembled this. When they exited the woods and flew over the savanna beyond, he took note of the wide-reaching lands, dotted with sparse trees and subdivided here and there by neat stone fences. But the fields appeared mostly undeveloped, containing neither crops nor livestock, except for a distant herd of unidentifiable animals in the far distance.
Sarah was flushed with excitement as she neared home. The two-story house stood out clearly across the flats, framed by several large trees in front. As the floater glided high over the garden crops in its final approach, she saw from their vantage that both her father’s vehicle and that of Aunt Katie were parked in the carport. Her family had already returned.
Simon took in the wood and stone building with a trained military eye. Solid construction, small windows on the ground level, and heavy shutters on both stories that looked to be made of metal or plastalloy. Its large yard was surrounded by a stone wall taller than the height of a man, with a sturdy metal gate where the driveway ran through. Not a castle, but potentially defensible.
Sarah burst through the front door with Simon in tow, calling, “Momma! Papa! Come quick! We have a guest!”
A comely brunette woman in her mid-forties came bustling through a doorway to their right, and stopped short in surprise when she saw the strange man in military garb standing in her foyer. “Why, Sarah, who is this?” she blurted out, and then looked apologetically at Simon and added, “No offense, young man, but we don’t get many visitors out here, and never someone from the Service. You are in the Service, yes?”
“Yes, ma’am, that is correct. Major Simon Roy, SpaceForce,” Simon replied, his hands clasped behind his back in the military at-ease position.
“Ah, I knew it!” The woman looked quite pleased with herself. “My husband was in the armed forces before he retired, strictly planetside, but we met some of the Spacer folk now and then. I recognized the lightning bolt emblem on your suit, there.” Then her expression abruptly turned fretful. “But why are you here? Are we being invaded? We’ve heard things, worrisome things. What’s going on?”
Simon sighed; there was no sense in glossing over the truth. “I was just involved in a military action over Eden; it may still be in progress, for all I know. But last I saw, the Knackers had the upper hand. My fighter crashed near here; I suspect the aliens may be visiting soon to check it out. We should prepare for the worst. Travel could become difficult, and dangerous, very soon. Your best bet may be to dig in and defend this site, or hide. How many people live here?”
The woman wrung her hands, glancing over at her daughter who smiled encouragement and answered for her, “There’s my dad, my three brothers, and Aunt Katie and her daughter. Besides us, of course.”
Simon nodded. “Do any of you have military experience, besides your husband?” he asked Sarah’s mother. “And what should I call you, ma’am?”
The woman blushed and said shyly, “Oh, you can call me Amanda, Mr. Roy.”
“Simon, if you please,” he replied with a grin. “Any combat experience in your family, Amanda?”
“Well, officially only my husband Tyrus; but the rest of the family has trained at home. I guess you could say we’re survivalists. Especially Tyrus. He’s been through this once already, and he’s always sworn to not be caught unprepared again.”
Great, Simon thought to himself. A family of would-be troopers, amateurs playing at war. They’ll probably wind up shooting me—or themselves—before the enemy does. Still, it was better than finding a bunch of soft city-dwellers who pissed themselves and curled into the fetal position at the first sight of Knackers. I wonder if we can gather more people to us.
“How isolated are you out here?” he asked the women. “Any close neighbors? Where is the nearest town?”
Amanda answered, “Altonia is about thirty minutes away to the south by floater; Ironwood is even farther, maybe forty-five minutes off to the northwest.”
Sarah added, “We’ve got no neighbors really close; the Towbridges live about fifteen kilometers down the road. This is pretty rural country; it’s a mix of farmland and private homesteads like ours. We raise our own food to supplement what we buy in town, but we’re not commercial farmers. No cash crops or livestock. Unless you include the Dire Bucks, but they’re protected wildlife. We just let them live on our land.”
She caught herself rambling and clamped her mouth shut.
Simon nodded thoughtfully. So they were likely on
their own for the duration. That wasn’t all bad; one thing he had learned was that cities were hit hard and early when the Crabs came calling. Unless there were major military installations, there was no safety there. In fact, they might last longer out here, where the invaders would not think to send as many troops.
Amanda seemed to read his mind, for her next words echoed his thoughts, “Tyrus felt it would be better living in the country when the aliens came. He knew it was only a matter of time; you can’t hide from them forever. We just tried to stay prepared.”
“Exactly what does that mean?” Simon asked. “You’re growing food out yonder, I saw that. Have you stocked supplies? What about weapons? Have you prepared hideouts or bunkers?”
The women exchanged glances, and Sarah looked like she was suppressing a grin. Her mother eventually said, “I think you should talk to Tyrus and the boys about that. They’ve done most of the work and planning since we moved here.”
“Good idea,” Simon replied. “I should introduce myself to the others, regardless. Where is everyone?”
The older woman looked thoughtful. “Well, I think my husband is out in the equipment shed. That’s the big metal building with the large doors; it’s out front just past the house. The boys are off checking the perimeter fences. My sister Katie’s upstairs washing away the road dust.”
“Well, I’ll wait to say hello to her later,” Simon said, somewhat stiffly.
“Yes, I think that would be best,” Amanda replied with a serious face, and then she and her daughter looked at each other and started to giggle.
The Battle for Eden Page 3
