And now I have to lead them away, Dane thought, as he jumped to his feet and ran—not in the same direction that the elder alien scout had, but this time, deeper into the wilds of the forest.
WHOOOSH!
Another plume of burning orange plasma fire exploded against the trees behind Dane—but it was a good hundred and fifty feet behind him and more to his left.
It’s working, he thought, breathing hard as he felt a stitch in his side and hunkered down behind the bulging trunk of a bulbous, large tree.
The marine was exhausted. He did not know how long he had been running and firing, dodging and zigzagging, but it felt to him as though it must have been most of the night (only he remembered that he had no idea how long a night was on this planet).
Either way, his body felt as though it had been pulverized, and tiredness ran through him in waves that threatened to drive him to the floor. He realized that he hadn’t actually eaten since he had landed on this planet—and he didn’t remember eating since he had been imprisoned on the Exin mother ship.
If I don’t stop soon, I’ll drop, he told himself, looking ahead to where the ground sloped down. He could hear the gurgle of water over there and saw a gleam of something sparkling that cut between the trees.
Good. I’ll follow that and use it to cut back to where the alien camp was, Dane thought, judging that he must be going in the same basic direction as he had come in.
BWAAAR!
Another blare of one of the Exin hunting horns, but they were getting further away now. The last time that Dane had fired up at them (he had yet to hit the fast-moving platforms) had been a good six hundred feet away by his reckoning. Then he had changed direction as he ran, low and crouching, through the forest undergrowth. The Exin believed him to be holed up over there, and now he had a stream to hide his movements as well.
Dane stepped out from between two trees to find the forest stream. It had a stone bed and a fast flow, but it did not seem to be very deep. The best part was that it cut into the forest floor to form a natural bank, with ragged tangles of tree roots and boulders on the edges, which would afford Dane a little more cover.
With a hiss of shock, he eased himself into the stream and crouched, the chilling water reaching almost to his waist as he started to edge forwards, holding the Exin gun and the strange handheld device in the air as he did so.
Several more times, he heard the Exin hunting horn, and at least twice, he saw the whoosh of orange plumes in the night. But he did not hear the screeching of alien victims any more.
Good. I may be damn near lost, but at least they’re safe, Dane was thinking as he forced his way through the stream, freezing step after freezing step.
After a while, it felt as though his entire body had gone numb with the cold, and Dane struggled to hear any signs of the Exin or the forest fires. It appeared that this stream didn’t swing back toward the alien camp or the alien ruins, he dimly realized. But by then, he was too exhausted, starved, and sleep-deprived to care. His thoughts had taken on a surreal, sleepy quality as small phosphorescent lights flashed past him in the current.
Fish, a part of his not-yet-dreaming mind thought, watching as another shoal of bright phosphorescence eddied and then swam past him.
“Ptah!” Suddenly, Dane was gulping and spitting water. He only woke up because the temperature had been freezing as it went into his mouth. He saw that he was sitting down in the stream, and he could no longer feel his body . . .
And there was an underwater cloud of bright phosphorescent fish around him. As he blinked, he could make out their multiple fins beating and batting furiously to stay in place as they darted forward toward him.
“Whoa!” Dane suddenly lurched to one side as he felt a tiny pinprick of pain on his bare hand under the water, and another calming sleepy wave washed up through him.
Have to get out . . . Dane thought, imagining a pristine bed of white linen, and him crawling into it.
Wait a minute . . . A more rigorous, argumentative part of his unconscious prodded him. What was a perfect white linen bed doing in the middle of an alien jungle?
Dane forced his eyelids to open. He could see how he was half slumped in the water, and that the entire area of forest stream that he was currently lounging in was alight with the glowing fish, which had rippled back at his movement—before starting to edge forwards again.
No. No, no, no . . . Dane started to shake himself slowly as he felt another pin-jab of pain on his wrist, followed by another soporific wave.
But a part of him was alive to the danger now, and that part of him was the same part that had charged into battle against the Exin, and the same part that had kept him alive under the Mech-Brawler Stadium Dome after it had collapsed.
I’m not going to die here, he told himself. Then he forced himself to say the words this time.
“I’m not. Going. To die. Here!” He kicked out with a boot, and the fish rippled backward in fear. He did it again and again, buying himself precious moments to wake up.
“Get the frack up, Williams!” He could hear Bruce Cheng or Staff Sergeant Lashmeier roaring at him, only using his own voice, as he shoved with one hand against the riverbed, forcing himself into a sitting position.
Another kick at the fish, keeping them at bay, and Dane was growling as he heaved his body half onto the opposite bank with a mighty splash. Most of his body felt like a sack of potatoes, numb and unwilling to do anything but to give in to the inevitable.
It felt to Dane like it was the hardest thing to do in the world, like he was dragging one of the trees itself on his back, but he managed to claw his way up onto the bank—and finally, out of the water.
He was dimly aware that he had landed in an alcove of sorts beside the river. It was deeply wooded all around, but here there appeared to be a natural hollow beside a gorge or a cliff wall. Dane saw a hazy swath of midnight-blue color, like metal or dark-colored steel, and then his body finally gave up, and he collapsed into unconsciousness.
13
Defense Mechanism
When Dane woke up, he was surprised to see that he was not alone.
Well, if a dish of alien fruits counted as company, the marine had to consider.
He was lying with his back on the soft forest floor, and beside him was a woven grass bowl with large fruits of fantastic purple, yellow, and orange colors, and another carved wooden bowl containing water. Dane groaned, feeling the aches awake in his body as he reached first for the water, and then the fruit. These were surprisingly tasty, fresh and with a powdery citrus flavor, although some had a hint of banana or cinnamon.
“Chk!” He heard a low voice as the elder alien female stepped out of the side of the forest, this time carrying parcels wrapped in long green fronds. Dane smelled something cooked, and instantly, his stomach rumbled.
“Krr . . .” she said, setting down the leaves and teasing them open to reveal what appeared to be something like potatoes, steamed so that they fell into a slightly sweet mush.
“Thank you,” Dane mouthed as he burned his fingers and his tongue, but he didn’t mind as he ate the food greedily. The alien watched him warily, then pointed at his hands, and then at the river.
“Yeah,” Dane groaned. “I almost became fish food. You really should warn a tourist about this place,” he was saying as he stretched, turned . . .
And saw the midnight-blue door, half hidden by the vines that fell down the cliff face.
“Ah.” It was the same metal that the Exin used. It was undoubtedly their construction, although it had become overgrown with a thick mat of forest vines.
“Tk! Tk-tk!” The alien woman made a spitting noise as she regarded the door and pointed back through the forest.
Dane’s chewing slowed, then stopped as his gaze moved between the alien door on his left and the forest on his right where the alien was pointing. It felt as though the sustenance of food and water had given him the strength to face his predicament. His real predicament.
> “I’m stranded here on this planet,” Dane murmured, looking at the alien elder who merely cocked her head and regarded him strangely.
“I think I am beginning to understand this better now, this place.” He said the words with great gravity before looking up. He saw blue skies and red clouds and could not see the stars or the mother ship, but he was suddenly very aware of the trap that he was in.
“The Exin come here to hunt. Probably to hunt your people,” he said seriously with a nod to the alien who was silently regarding him. “And sometimes, for the queen,” he said out loud, “they conduct special hunts, like the one they held for me. They probably never thought I could survive the wild creatures or the other Exin hunting me. They probably thought one of their hunting parties would catch me, eventually.”
And they will, won’t they? he thought. It was only a matter of time. Even if he learned to live here in this place like these people, sooner or later, something would get him. That, after all, was life.
“My only option is to go through that door,” Dane said. “Unless you have a spaceship hidden around here somewhere?”
“Tk-krr,” the alien elder said rather doubtfully, pointing up at one of the nearest trees.
Dane shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. I just don’t think I can spend the rest of my life living with you guys. There would be problems with getting any of your clothes to fit me, to start with.”
“Tk-krrr!” the elder jumped up, pointed at the nearest tree, and, with a skill that defied the silver in her hair, jumped to and had already moved across several branches by the time she turned around and beckoned to Dane.
“If you think this is really going to help.” He sighed, reaching up to start climbing the tree alongside her. They didn’t get very far up when the elder whistled for him to stop, and Dane saw what she had been so eager to show him.
They were perching on the giant branches of the tree, and the elder was pointing through a gap in the canopy to where the rocky outcrop broke and started to lower itself.
Toward a distant line of blue.
“A sea,” Dane said, blinking. He could make out distant clouds of sea birds dipping and glistening as the sun caught them. It was very refreshing to not be looking at the forest for a change, but Dane wasn’t entirely sure what good a sea was going to do him.
Until he saw the gleam of silvered blue on the edge of the sea. Domes and towers. A town. An Exin town.
The metal buildings were a mixture of the midnight-blue material that the Exin used, as well as the brilliant flash of glass or crystal, shaped into domes and pyramids. They were huddled together against the rolls and humps of green forest around them and seemed to stand taller than the forest and shoreline. When Dane squinted, he thought he could see struts and lines, as if the entire town was built on stilts.
“Krr!” The elder was pointing as a shape started to break free from the town. Dane saw that it was vaguely pyramidal and made of the same deep-blue metals. It rose from what looked like a hazy heatwave, but which Dane knew was actually the glow of pulse engines. He held his breath as he watched it rise higher and higher silently, becoming smaller and smaller until it vanished from view completely.
“Ch-tk? Chk!” the elder said, as if she had proven a point to him. She pointed back into the forest, in the complete opposite direction from the city.
“You still want me to go and live in the forest with you guys?” Dane sighed and shook his head. “You don’t get it. I have to go,” he mimed the ascent of the Exin pyramid ship, “up there. Back to where I came from.”
Back home. His heart hammered in his chest.
“Chrrr . . . ! The elder made a warning, disapproving sound, but Dane could not listen to it. He had seen a way to get off this planet, somehow. He would worry about how to find Earth after that. He swung himself back down to the floor as the elder scout did the same a few moments after him, and Dane was more certain now than ever of what he had to do.
He began to walk toward the door to look at the hieroglyphs that ran down one side, but paused, and turned back to the alien.
“Thank you. For saving my life. For everything you have done for me. But I have to do this, and you should go. If this doesn’t work, it might sound an alarm.”
“Tk!” The elder rebuked him, dusting off her fur, looking from Dane to the door, and then spitting once again on the floor. It was clear just what this small alien thought of Dane’s decision, and Dane was sure that she was going to disappear into the darkness of the forest without saying anything else. But instead, she pulled from her pouch one of the stalk whistles that her people used, threaded on a long hoop of woven plant twine.
Dane watched as she loped forward a few paces and reached up. Dane had to bend his head to allow her to place the whistle around his neck before she was bounding back again.
The elder paused on the eaves of the forest to look at him balefully once more, but before Dane could open his mouth to thank her, she had slipped into the darkness between the trees and was gone.
“And here I am, alone again.” Dane heaved a sigh, looking down at the simple stalk whistle and turning it over in his fingers. It appeared to be hollowed out of hardened wood or something very like bamboo with an angled piece for the mouth, a couple of holes on one side, and one on the back. He was oddly touched by the gesture. These people had little to give him, a human used to much more advanced technologies—but somehow this little thing seemed just as important.
Hope you all survive, Dane wished after his alien friend, before adding, I really hope I do too . . .
He stepped toward the door, raising a hand to the hieroglyphs before pausing. He felt like he had just remembered something. Several of those hieroglyphs looked familiar to him, and he wondered where he had seen them for a moment before he realized.
The handheld device!
Dane reached into the trousers of his suit to pull out the pebble-shaped slab of metal, and yes, there were the same Exin hieroglyph patterns running down one side of the device. He held the end up. It had what looked to be sensors and small antennas.
“Now, how do I get this thing to work?” he was saying as he brought it toward the door, for the Exin handheld device to make a sudden beep, and for an answering sound to come, muted, from the door within the rocks.
There was a tremor through the earth, and then the door was shuddering inwards, pulling and breaking apart the vines as it did so, to reveal a darkened passageway leading under the forest itself. Dane took a deep breath and stepped inside.
His feet splashed in dark water, but it was shallow and so didn’t even get past his boots. The handheld Exin unit was more helpful than Dane had at first realized, because as soon as Dane had stepped into the darkness, the end started to glow with a dim green light, illuminating a few feet around him on all sides.
He was in a rounded tunnel that had clearly been cut by some high-tech equipment. He deduced this when he noticed that it was almost perfectly flat on the bottom and formed a semicircular dome over his head. The only things marring the shape were veins of glittering crystal up and down the walls, as well as what looked like large ceramic pipes stapled to the interior.
“Well, it can’t be that far away, right?” Dane muttered to himself as he gripped the handheld glorified “flashlight” in one hand and the captured alien gun in the other. He had been walking for what he guessed was the best part of the day, and so far, little had changed apart from the soggy feeling in his still-soaked boots.
Just as there was a movement from out there in the darkness, beyond the reach of his flashlight.
Sssss!
It wasn’t an animal sound that Dane heard. And it also wasn’t an animal light that appeared in the darkness ahead of him, a green-blue neon sweep that flowed across the darkened tunnel and hit his body . . .
“Ack!” Dane was momentarily blinded, but before he was, he saw the gleam of metal scales, rows upon rows of metal plates that glistened in the wet.
Ssss!
Another thrumming mechanical sound, and the blinding light shot toward him . . . Dane threw himself to the wall of the tunnel, his shoulder hitting it with a thump as he sensed a large shape moving past him in the glare, spraying water.
A damn snake!? Dane was thinking as he turned, raising the stolen Exin gun. He wished that he was still wearing his Orbital AMP suit, with its light detraction and diffusion, his electronic and thermal sensors. But such wishes were no use to him now as he pressed down on the trigger and saw a trio of purple bolts shooting out of the gun and down the tunnel . . .
Their momentary light revealed indeed a large python-like snake, but one that was entirely made of metal and had a head that was comprised of two curving and scissoring blades. Instead of eyes, it had one central green-blue floodlight.
It was immense. Dane’s heart thumped for a moment. He saw that it had to be easily three times his length. Although it narrowed toward the head and tail, its central bulk was almost as wide as he was.
Sssss!
As he was firing blindly, only one of the three shots hit the creature, with the other two exploding into sparks against the opposite wall. Dane saw it recoil and smelled burning ozone, rubber . . .
Ssss! But with another whirr of hidden machinery, it had turned back against him. Its bladed head darted forwards at almost impossible speeds.
Dane dodged to one side, but then something struck him low against the back of the legs—the tail of the drone creature! Dane had taken his eyes off of it, and, with a flash of pain that felt like he had been kicked by a horse, he went down in the wet, turning over and over and dropping the Exin gun as he did so . . .
“No!”
Ssss! There was a glaring flash of light, and Dane rolled, as the bulk of the creature slammed into the water where he had been. Dane turned around, saw the half-submerged lip of the Exin shell gun a few feet away. He prayed it hadn’t been ruined by being soaked as he dove.
Metal Warrior: Steel Cage (Mech Fighter Book 6) Page 8
