Jules found the latch and pulled on it. The hatch was heavy but opened on rusted hinges. It was damp, the heat of the room meeting the icy ground below the camp, and she grabbed a flashlight from a shelf before advancing into the hole. Yeera claimed power outages were a frequent thing around her base, which was why Jules had seen so many spare lights around the location. The hole was a few feet deep, and she had to duck to keep from hitting her head. She shone her light, finding more samples, ones that likely needed to stay frozen. “Nothing.”
She was about to leave and climb out when she saw the white jacket. Jules pressed aside a stack of crates and dropped the flashlight, the beam aiming right at the dead body’s head. The Shimmal man was frozen, his snout bending to the ground, his eyes caked with ice. She picked up the light, shining it on the name sewn into his lab coat. Doctor Selen.
Jules almost slipped trying to leave and used her arm strength to climb from the icy grave. She returned to the desk in the lab, hoping to find some evidence of what Doctor Yeera was up to before she figured out how to rescue Dean from the same fate as Selen.
Seventeen
“Another fifteen light years.” Slate showed me the map on his suit’s arm screen.
“It’s unbelievable. If we had this technology…”
“What? We’d move around faster? We have the portals,” Slate said. He passed me another protein bar, and I accepted it with gratitude.
“The portals have limitations,” I told him.
“So does having some alien beam you up and cram some DNA crap into you.” Slate bit off half of his bar and chewed it sullenly.
“Don’t lose it now. Not after we’re so close.”
Our helmets were on the floor of the drone ship between us, and he toyed with his, not meeting my gaze. “Sorry, Boss. I’m just worried about all those drones we sent off. What if they make another hundred victims? A thousand?”
“We can’t control that now. I screwed up,” I admitted. It was my job to fix things.
“It was a mistake anyone could have made. I wish I could talk to Loweck. Let her know we’re okay.” His chin hung to his chest, and I patted him on the arm. We’d attempted to communicate with home, but nothing worked. We were in a dead zone, far out of reach.
“Mary’s going to be mad at me for weeks.” I laughed, and Slate’s eyes crinkled at the corners.
“We’re in for a lashing, aren’t we?” He laughed too, and I was glad to hear the sound.
“Why do we always arrive in these situations? I mean, look at someone like Sergo. How come he cleans up his act and living his best life, while we’re forced into scenarios where we’re screaming across space in a mentally-controlled drone aliens use to abduct unwitting victims?”
“It’s not fair,” Slate agreed.
“It sure isn’t.”
“I know you’re worried about the kids, but they’re with Magnus. Loweck’s hanging around too, so they can rely on her for help, and don’t forget about Natalia,” Slate said.
“Thanks. Jules can take care of herself, I know that much. The question is, can we?” I stopped laughing and looked to the screen. Stars. “I wish we could see a timeline. This thing may read our minds, but the system doesn’t give us any insight into the drone’s system.”
“I can’t believe all of this.” Slate pursed his lips and sighed, letting go of some frustration.
“We haven’t talked about the future for a while,” I said, changing the topic.
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” Slate muttered.
“Enough of that. I’m not going to hang by silently while you sulk.”
This seemed to spur him on, and he sat upright, finishing his bar of food. “Okay. I’m done with feeling sorry for myself. I like your attitude, Boss. What did you want to discuss?”
“With the new academy at Terran Thirty, and the Alliance expanding further, we need you to step up. I didn’t want to spring it on you, but I’ve suggested to the Board that you’re the logical fleet commander, should the opportunity arise.” I took a bite of my food and watched him to gauge a reaction.
“No way. That’s your job.”
“It won’t be, Slate. I’m older. I have my daughter back, and Mary’s growing tired of my misadventures.”
“Are you?”
“What?”
He pointed around the room. “Tired of… the messes?”
“This particular one, yes, but I do love the thrill of a good mission. When we’re done with this one and you have nothing to worry about, I know I’ll miss the escapades, but it can’t go on forever. Can it?” I hadn’t formally spoken with Mary, but we were on the same page. I wasn’t getting any younger. I’d wanted a comeback, and I’d done that with captaining Light for a few years. Jules was going to be eighteen soon. That made me… old.
“I can’t believe so much time has gone by, Dean.”
I looked at my friend, seeing the wrinkles forming at his eyes, the lines near his lips. It was difficult to think that we wouldn’t be teaming up indefinitely. That there had to be some end to our partnership, but never our friendship.
We sat in silence for a while, neither of us knowing how to deal with life’s eventualities, and jumped to action when the screen showed the drone slowing as it approached a planet. I spied more space stations flush with drones, but each of them looked completely powered down.
“Let’s try not to send these ones on their merry way, okay?” Slate nudged me in the arm, laughing.
“I can’t make any promises,” I joked.
I was glad when the drone continued on past the space station, moving for the world’s atmosphere. I picked up Slate’s helmet, shoving it into his chest. He let out a grumble, and we secured the suits, ready for depressurization and whatever the planet’s air might offer.
The drone continued for the ground, and we observed the screen inside the round interior of the craft, watching as the landscape appeared. It was bright, with no clouds to impede our view. Below, I saw what looked like a sprawling city built into a mountain range.
“This is new,” Slate said, mirroring my thoughts.
“Scan for signs of people,” I said. Nothing moved from what I could see, but we were some distance from the ground.
The drone began a rapid descent, stopping short of the city. It landed without so much as a bump, and the exit opened, lowering to the dirt.
“After you,” I said, dropping our packs.
“Fine. If some alien blasts a hole in my suit, avenge me.” Slate exited, climbing down with one hand so his gun remained at ready. “Clear.”
That was my cue. I hopped out, landing next to Slate, and the round platform reappeared, the drone sealed tight again. I was happy to see it staying put as we walked away from the circular disk-shaped craft.
A lake blocked our passage to the mountains, and we noted the peaks in the distance, me wondering how the hell we could traverse this expanse in our spacesuits. “At least we still have our jetpacks,” Slate said, and I kicked myself for forgetting. They were waiting inside the bags at our feet.
This was the world we’d been searching for, and despite the obstacles we’d faced, we’d found it. It had only been a couple of days since we’d been at a young Carolyn Lauder’s home, trying to find a scrap of evidence.
I walked toward the water, seeking any signs of the locals. It felt like they were gone, but why? Their drones were active. Maybe they’d moved on. But why leave a space station full of their creations in the process?
Slate had crouched low, putting the jetpacks into one piece, when I heard the screech of a thruster. A spacecraft lifted over the mountains, flying above the turbulent lake water as it aimed straight for us.
“I guess we’re not alone,” Slate shouted. “I wonder if they’re friendly.”
Pulses erupted from the front end of the craft, striking the dirt between us and the water. Rocks and soil cascaded all around us. For a moment, we were affixed to the ground, staring in fear as the ship flew overhead. I
craned my neck to see it looping wide. “It’s coming back!”
Without a second thought, we ran for cover.
____________
Jules found their weapons after an exhaustive search through the camp. She located a cubby in the bay, near the mechanical tools used to repair the Snow-Tracker, hiding under a toolbox. Jules kept a pulse pistol and a few thermal detonators, wanting to be able to conceal the weapons in case she ran into Yeera. Any moment of surprise could help Jules fend off the disturbing doctor.
She returned to the desk, using the database to determine the nearest Sub-Base, and found another two point five kilometers away, in the opposite direction of where Yeera had taken Dean. She didn’t have any other choice but to make for the camp.
Trying to walk out of here to Dean would only result in her own death, long before she found him. If there was ever a time to have her old abilities, this was it, but they were gone and she had to be resourceful.
The image of her boyfriend’s square jaw, his lopsided smirk, and his loving eyes kept her moving quickly. She found her parka and something to strap to her feet. They were fancy versions of the old snowshoes Papa had kept from his childhood in their shed on Earth. These were oval-shaped but snub-nosed, and not much longer than her feet. She tested them inside the bay, lifting her legs high as if she was in the deep snow. She was balanced, but trudging two and a half kilometers through this mess was going to be a challenge.
Jules wrapped herself with all the clothing she could find, and by the end, had no visible skin showing. The cold air would find a way inside, she didn’t doubt that, but she was protected for the time being. It was the best she could do.
She patted her pocket, ensuring the weapons were concealed, and opened the door. She had a pack on her shoulders, with a few supplies stowed like food and water, but she didn’t take a tent. There was no camping out in this storm. It was life or death. She was choosing the first option.
Jules paused by the door. What if she was wrong? What if Doctor Yeera was coming back with Dean, and she’d hidden their weapons… Wait, that didn’t add up. She’d killed Selen and impersonated him in emails.
Jules leaned against the wall, hardly able to move her arms with the multiple layers wrapping around her, and she took the Locator from her pack. It was powered on but still didn’t show a red dot. Jules walked toward the door and tripped on the snowshoe she forgot she was wearing. The device fell from her grip, landing with a clang on the floor. She struggled to bend over to pick it up, and when she did, the indicator was flashing.
Dean must have left something loose, and dropping it had reattached the wiring. The dot blinked right where Yeera had taken Dean. Yeera was their target all along.
Jules shoved it beside the palm-sized sphere that had miraculously assisted her with the passcode and closed the pack, rushing for the exit. Her goggles pressed tightly against the scarf shrouding her face, and she set them to tint as she went into the open air. It was bright, the middle of the day, and snow continued to fall. It was nowhere near as bad as Yeera had suggested, and Jules saw the drones clearing the snow away from the Sub-Base.
That meant it wasn’t deep near the camp but would be far worse when she left the vicinity of the base. She had an odometer running on her goggles, and she stared at the number: 2.5.
She’d accomplished many astonishing things in her life. Walking a couple of kilometers through snow wouldn’t be the most difficult.
Jules kept telling herself this as she broke past the camp’s snow clearing, and she gawked at the expanse of white powder. Her first step into it sank her to her waist, but she didn’t let it dissuade her. Dean needed her help, and she was going to give it to him.
Jules went on, almost wading in the snow, and by the time the odometer told her there were 1.8 kilometers to go, her legs burned fiercely. About a half hour had passed, and already she was starting to feel tingling in her feet and hands. This wasn’t good.
She kicked out at the snow, using her arms to create standing room in the pile of powder, and looked at the snowshoes. Weren’t these supposed to help? She stomped them, wondering what was the matter with the shoes, and snow kicked loose, revealing a button she’d missed. Jules managed to crouch enough to press it, and the snowshoes hummed with a current. White lines danced through the openings, and she advanced forward. She felt lighter, and somehow the base of the paddle lifted her onto the snow.
She laughed as her steps carried her upwards, allowing her to spring over the snow’s surface. These were nothing like the ones Papa had made her play with when she was a young girl. Without the burden of the deep snow, she ran uninhibited, the flakes and wind pushing at her back. She caught sight of the camp ahead, but her heart sank at the sight. It looked barren. There were no lights on, no snow removal drones darting through the region. Nothing but a white building with snow drifts up to the roof.
But maybe they have a Snow-Tracker. The new thought spurred her on, and she ended up at the edge of the building less an hour after she began. Everything was cold. She searched for a doorway, trying to use the layout of Sub-Base Eleven as her basis. She dug a tunnel through the drifts, and after three exhaustive attempts, she found the entrance.
Jules suddenly worried the door would be locked, that she’d come all this way for nothing, but it opened for her on the first try. Tears of joy seeped into her goggles as she fell into the bay. A Snow-Tracker sat right in the middle of the room.
Something stirred nearby, and Jules pulled her goggles off. “Hello?”
No response. The lights came on at her movement as she passed a sensor, and she saw the bodies. Blood caked the floor behind the Tracker, and two Shimmali were on the floor. One was moving.
Jules ran to his side and crouched, flipping her hood off, and unwrapped her scarf.
He spoke in Shimmali, and she translated in her mind. “Yeera did this. Two days ago.”
She looked and saw his leg had been shot. He also had blood on his stomach. “What happened?”
“She came with a gun, right before the storm. Took our thermal generator fuel. She shot my partner. Me too. My leg got the worst of it.” The man’s snout was pale and drooping over his blue lips.
“What would someone do with thermal generator fuel?” Jules asked in a series of squawks.
“Other than heat her camp?” he asked, making her nod. “They’re used to break ice apart. In small quantities, we can detonate the bombs, freeing caches of resources where needed.” He didn’t look well, and Jules imagined he was on his way out. Two days bleeding on the floor. How had he even survived this long?
Jules was starting to understand what Doctor Yeera was attempting to do. She recalled the oddly hot device jammed into a tunnel behind the Catoleels’ nest. “And in large quantities?”
“Destruction.”
Eighteen
The blasts sent chunks of rocks flying all around, and pieces clattered against my helmet as I dove into the opening between the cliffside. Slate landed on me with a thud and rolled off, settling on his back. “We can’t stay here.”
More pulses struck the wall above, sending dirt and debris over our suits in a shower. “What do you suggest?” I asked tensely.
“We fight.” Slate jumped up, dusting himself clean. He grabbed my pulse rifle from the ground and shoved it to me.
“We’re going to shoot it down?”
“Why the hell not? It’s firing at us; it’s only fair we play the same game.” He smirked, and I was glad to have his optimism along for the ride.
“Fine. We do it your way.” I glanced through the crack in the rocky wall but didn’t see anything.
“It’ll be doing a wide and lazy loop, assuming we’re in hiding.” Slate left the relative safety of the cave and ran for the water’s edge. I hesitated, trying to hear the ship, but couldn’t make out its direction. A moment later, I darted after him, gun tight in my grasp.
“He’s going to come from there.” Slate pointed to a spot in the sky, and I
made a reference point based on a tree in the distance.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Trust me.” Slate stood tall, holding his rifle up. I joined him, ready to fire on his word. As he’d suspected, the vessel did come around right through the path he’d predicted, and I saw the blasters on the wings of the craft begin to burn a hot red. My finger tapped the trigger, and Slate and I sent a volley of pulses into the sky.
Some of them struck, but the ship kept coming. The ground shook as its blasts hit, but we stood our ground, giving the enemy everything we had. It was only fifty meters away when I saw the smoke, and Slate grabbed my arm, pulling me into the lake as the vessel arced toward the surface.
I sank into the deep shore, but my helmet bobbed up, breaching the water as waves sent me against the rocky edge. The ship crashed, skidding and bounding across the ground, and it settled in a smoldering heap. I kept expecting it to explode, but it refused.
“You okay?” I asked Slate, who was unmoving a few meters from me.
“Yeah. I’m good. You?”
“Never been better. Nice day for a swim,” I joked. I managed to grab hold of the lakeshore and hauled my heavy suit with me inside out of the water. I didn’t wait, securing my gun and aiming it at the crashed vessel.
Slate was out in a jiffy, running for the enemy.
“Be careful,” I said through my mic, but Slate didn’t slow. The thing was still smoking, but only from contained fires along the wings. It seemed otherwise intact. One of us must have made a lucky shot.
Up close, it was far smaller than I’d thought. A wing was cracked, and loose wires flashed and sparked where it connected to the craft’s hull. There was no entrance from under the ship, and we could tell it was meant for a single pilot. Slate found footholds on the edge and used them to climb the hull. I held my rifle up, aiming for the cockpit as he flipped open a hinged door.
The Survivors | Book 15 | New Beginning Page 17
