In Quaking Hills

by Kate MacLeod

  Who was she becoming?

  Scout pushed the thoughts aside. She would have time later for self-examination. Right now, Tucker likely needed some basic first aid. Not that she wanted to linger to provide it to him, not after he had shot both her dogs, but she could at least call for help. She turned his wrist over in her hands. He was still wearing his comm screen like the others. Scout touched it to bring it to life, then scrolled through the list of names until she got to Joelle’s. She opened a text window and tapped away at the screen.

  JOELLE TUCKER IS HURT IM LEAVING HIM JUST UPHILL FROM THE MINING TUNNEL EXIT CAN YOU COME GET HIM

  While she waited for a response, she helped herself to the contents of Tucker’s pockets. That much felt like justice. He had nothing she needed. Her own utility knife was more elaborate than his and had been tucked into one of the belt pouches after they had taken it from her. His tablet was much like the one she had taken from McFarlane, nothing to compare to Gertrude’s which among other features contained its own compass. He did have a flask at the back of his belt, half empty. She took a tentative sip but found it to be just water. Not much, but she could make it last.

  She had just secured the flask in a pouch on her own belt when she saw Joelle’s response appearing letter by letter on the comm screen.

  ILL GET HIM YOU BETTER GET MOVING KEN AND BENTE CAN ONLY PRETEND NOT TO FIND YOU FOR SO LONG BEST OF LUCK

  Scout responded with the single letter K, then climbed back up to the top of the ridge.

  She could hear engines in the distance. She looked to the south, across the narrow canyon to the ridge she had stood on with Tucker less than a day before, then beyond that to the canyon where she had left her rover smashed into the canyon wall. She could just make out two plumes of dust. Ken and Bente, looking in what they knew was the wrong place.

  Scout looked down at her dogs. How long would the darts’ effects last?

  She didn’t have time to waste finding out. She had to get moving. Sooner or later Ken and Bente would have to check this canyon, and when they did she wanted to be already deep into the cover of the prairie grasses.

  Scout took off her long sun-protective shirt and spread it out on the ground, then laid Gert’s limp body in the center of it. The shirt looked thin, even felt thin in the way it let air pass through it, but it was far sturdier than it looked. It would get Scout through one more morning, if not serving quite its intended purpose.

  Scout laid back without crushing Gert, then found the sleeves and tied them tightly across her chest. It took a bit of adjusting to make a sling Gert wouldn’t slip out of, and it was a struggle to get to her knees and then stagger to her feet with the heavy dog across her back, but once she was up it wasn’t too bad.

  She had to crouch down again, this time to gather Shadow up into her arms. Her thighs ached at the strain of rising up with the weight of one dog across her back and another clutched close to her chest, but she managed.

  Then she turned toward the rising sun and started taking one step after another, keeping her head down. She regretted the loss of her hat not just for sentimental reasons; she had no way now to block out the light.

  One step after another. That was all she needed to do. Keep putting one foot in front of the other until her journey was done.

  22

  Scout grew more and more stooped as the hours dragged on. She kept putting one foot in front of the other, the entirety of her plan, but neither dog was showing any sign of waking. Shadow’s fur clung itchily to her sweaty skin and Gert was a dead weight on her back.

  The mere fact of Gert’s weight wasn’t the worst part of having to carry her. The worst part was that she had used her shirt for the sling, which left her arms and chest unprotected from the harsh rays from the sun. Her lower legs were exposed as well. All of her clothes were shorts because long pants didn’t work out well for her on her bike, but until today she had always been meticulous with her use of sunscreen.

  But that sunscreen was in her saddlebags, with her bike and her father’s hat, back in the crashed rover.

  She had begun to feel the first tingles of impending burn mere minutes after she had started walking. It was better here in the tall prairie grasses, but now that the sun was climbing up near its apex, she once more had no shade. Only this time the rays were pounding down on already bright red skin.

  Her only hope was that when she reached Liam he had some sort of medical equipment that could help her. She would never be able to sleep; she was burned deeply from every angle.

  At least the sounds of motorcycle engines were gone now. They had drawn closer not long after she had waded into the grassy sea but they were focusing their search on the canyons, not the prairie. And now that she was in the depths of the tall grass, they would have to be on top of her to find her. Even burdened with two unconscious dogs as she was, barely plodding along, she left very little wake behind her. The grass fell back into place without bending or losing a grain and her boots left no mark on the hard packed ground.

  Scout’s mouth had gone from sticky to completely dry, and she was not replacing the sweat that had evaporated off her skin. She wanted very badly to take a sip from Tucker’s flask, but she was afraid if she set Shadow down she would never get him up into her arms again. She would just melt down to the ground and give up.

  She would never let herself do that.

  She put the flask out of her mind and focused on the toes of her boots, all she could see past the dog in her arms. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, over and over.

  Her brain bounced between those two thoughts on an endless loop for some time. The plethora of insects that lived in the sea of grass around her began to fall silent as they always did in the middle of the day. It was too hot now even for them. In her bike delivery days she would have stopped before now, either found shelter or created her own shade with the blanket she carried in her saddlebag. Then she and the dogs would sip water, nap, and wait for the heat to begin to abate.

  The world around her was getting hazy. Some of that was the sun, but some of it was starting to scare her. She absolutely couldn’t afford to faint now. She focused back on her feet.

  A low rumble rolled across the prairie. Scout’s first thought was that it was another earthquake, but the ground beneath her was quite still. Then she thought thunder, but there was not a cloud in the sky.

  By while she was looking up at the sky, she saw a white arc tracing across the deep blue, growing thicker as it curved down. She thought at first it was going to arc down to the horizon, but it didn’t. It was growing thicker and something was flashing brightly. Reflecting the sun or creating its own white heat? She couldn’t tell.

  A stab of fear made her stumble and she fell to her knees, spilling Shadow to the ground. She gripped her own thighs, forcing herself to take deep breaths.

  She had been near enough to her city when it was destroyed to be blown off her bike by the shock wave, but she had been pedaling away from it. She had never seen the rock as it fell from the sky as Tucker had. But how could it have looked like anything but what she was staring at now?

  The object in the sky flashed again. Were the Space Farers now just dropping the magnetic shield satellites down to the surface rather than simply dismantling them? Two attacks in one?

  But the object in the sky suddenly changed its trajectory, the arc becoming a straight line as it slowed down. The rumble became a roar and the fear in Scout’s heart became grateful joy.

  It was Liam. It had to be. He was landing his spacecraft at the rendezvous point.

  Scout took out her tablet to see how far away she still was, glancing up again and again as the flashing light drew closer and started forming distinct parts. Definitely a ship of some sort, metallic with several small engines firing to slow its descent.

  She was nearly there. She opened the messaging part of the tablet and told him so, and asked him to please wait.

  She was just tucking the eyepiece back in her poc
ket when Shadow made a little whimper. Scout gently lifted his head to see him groggily opening his eyes. She took out the flask and poured just a bit into her cupped hand and held it out for him to lick it clean. He was becoming more alert by the minute.

  Gert on her back was stirring as well, and Scout sat back until the dog was on the ground and then untied the sleeves. Gert struggled out of the sling, crawling over to get her own sip of water. By the time they were both done there were only a few drops left for Scout, but she didn’t mind.

  The roar was loud now and the dogs couldn’t see where it was coming from. From their perspective, the whole world was grass. They cowered close to Scout even as she got to her feet up on tiptoes to see over the grass.

  She had seen pictures and videos of spacecraft in her history classes when she had still been in school. The craft before her was nothing like those. Its metallic hull gleamed dully in the sunlight all along its needlelike fuselage.

  Like the rover, the spacecraft her ancestors had favored had been utilitarian and built to last. This delicate thing looked like a strong wind would blow it away. And as she watched, three little feet extended out, one at the nose and two at the mildly wider rear. It settled down to disappear in the grass.

  Then there was silence.

  “Come on, dogs,” Scout said, picking up her shirt and leading the way through the grass. She set a pace they could keep up with—not as fast as she’d like to be moving, but there was no way she was going to try carrying them again.

  She was expecting to find the large, flattened circle in the grain that happened when a ship from space made an emergency landing, but clearly this craft differed from what she was familiar with in more than just cosmetics. Its engines had been firing, she had seen the glow as it descended, and yet nothing on the ground was singed or even bent over from the blast. One minute she was surrounded by grass, and the next she was still surrounded by grass but with one hand pressed against the burning hot metal of the craft’s hull.

  She yelped and snatched her hand back.

  “Hello?” a voice called.

  Both of the dogs started barking at the potential danger the voice might be bringing with it. She shushed them, then shouted, “It’s me, Scout Shannon.”

  “Scout Shannon!” the voice called back. Then a man suddenly appeared beside her in the grass. He had the palest skin Scout had ever seen and thin wisps of ginger-blond hair that left far too much of his scalp exposed.

  “You need to get out of the sun,” Scout said.

  “It looks like you needed to get out of the sun some time ago,” he countered. “Are you all right?”

  “I will be,” she said. “Can we go inside? I could really use some water.”

  “Of course. The ramp is over here.”

  He guided her around the nose of the craft to a small ramp, really a staircase, so steep that once more Scout was compelled to lift her dogs to get them up it.

  The inside of the craft was chilly; that was her first impression. It was also very small, smaller even than the rover. Liam climbed up behind her, brushing past her to touch the back wall of the craft’s interior. Something slid out of the wall. Scout only realized it was a sink when he made water start pouring out of it. The dogs, still thirsty, ran to investigate. He slid open a panel and found a bowl to fill for them, then a glass to fill and bring to Scout.

  “It’s just you?” Scout asked, looking around the ship as she sipped her water. There was only one seat at the controls in the front and nothing else to be seen in the back but the chrome walls crisscrossed with lines like a grid. She guessed anything you needed would slide out of certain parts of the walls like the sink and the cabinet had. Very space-efficient.

  “Yes, I had to come alone,” he told her. “This planet is off-limits.”

  “To marshals?”

  “To anyone. That’s why I had to be so terse in my messages to you. I was doing all I could to disguise where you were sending from and where I was replying to. It seems like it worked, but . . .” He broke off with a shrug. Scout could see his pale skin beginning to pinken with an impending burn.

  “If you got caught you’d be fired?”

  “Fired and likely thrown in prison.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s disputed territory. It’s forbidden for galactic citizens to take sides, and coming here makes it look like I’m choosing sides.”

  “Because you came down to the surface?”

  He looked at her with deep puzzlement for some time before shaking his head. “I see. Gertrude mentioned a little altercation going on here. No, that’s not the problem. The surface-versus-orbit dispute isn’t what I’m referring to.”

  “What are you referring to?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Liam said briskly. “You’re here now. I can disappear with no one the wiser, so it really doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh,” Scout said, realizing he must be in a hurry to go. She set the glass on the edge of the sink, then took off Gertrude’s belt to hand it to him. “I’m sorry, someone stole the gun from me, but I can return the rest of her things.”

  Liam looked confused again but took the belt and set it behind the pilot’s seat. “Thanks. Having that back might take a little of the heat off with my boss.”

  “Before you go, I have something else,” Scout said, digging in her pocket for the two disks. “These were stolen too. I got them back, but the data fell into the wrong hands first. I think . . .” She had to stop as her throat tried to close on her. She hadn’t realized she was this upset about it, but when she heard her own next words she knew they were true, even though she had not been allowing herself to even think them until now. “I think I may have just started a war.”

  “I see,” Liam said, taking the disks from her. He summoned a computer terminal out of one of the walls and plugged both data disks into it. The decryption was instantaneous, and in a flash they were both looking at gun specs, status reports of satellites being taken down, and census data. “War has been brewing for a while now here, hasn’t it?” he asked as he scrolled through the data.

  “Yes,” Scout said, her voice still thick.

  “And this all just fell into your lap?”

  “Two of the women Gertrude and I were trapped with were dabbling in espionage,” Scout said. “On opposite sides, I think. There seem to be at least three sides. I don’t know. It’s all very complicated.”

  “Clearly,” Liam said, his eyes still on the data-filled screen. Then he switched it off with a click and turned to her. “I’m not very familiar with the situation here, but it’s evidently far worse than the picture I’ve been drawing from what little info I had. But don’t fret. We will figure something out. But we definitely can’t fix this from here.”

  “Okay,” Scout said miserably.

  “I have connections back at the galactic center who can help. Who will want to help,” he added, trying to catch her downcast eyes. “Sometimes war is inevitable, but sometimes it isn’t. My friends are working hard to avert this one. And they can do amazing things. They got me here, beyond the blockade where I was never supposed to be. They can help with this.”

  “Okay,” Scout said, a bit more surely.

  “Now, they are anxious to meet you, and I’m anxious to get out of this no-man’s-land. So, Scout Shannon, are you ready to leave all this behind and come to the galactic center with me?”

  The fear for the fate of the people on her planet didn’t leave her, but she managed to tuck it further back in her mind and give him a genuine smile.

  “I am. I’m so ready to go.”

  He touched another wall and summoned a second chair for her to strap into. It was built for someone much larger than she was, larger even than Liam was, so there was room for Shadow and Gert to both hop up beside her. She wrapped an arm around each and gave them each a kiss for good luck.

  Finally, finally, she was going into space. An entire galaxy waited for her. And she was so ready for it.

 
; She was ready for anything.

  Special Excerpt

  If you enjoyed this novel read on for an exclusive excerpt from

  * * *

  Among Treacherous Stars

  * * *

  Chapter 1

  * * *

  Scout Shannon had never been off the surface of her home world before. She had never even been to the spaceport by the capital city, although she had been near enough to see the starry brightness of the rockets charging up into the sky. Once there had been many—or so she had been told—but since the war that had broken out before she was born, very few ships were launched up into orbit anymore, the domain of the Planet Dwellers’ enemies the Space Farers.

  On the infrequent times when she had heard the low rumble of rocket engines, she’d always stopped wherever she was—usually on her bike making a delivery or carrying a message—and turned to watch the shimmering pinpoint of light rising up from the prairie. She remembered the rumble being so low it almost couldn’t be heard, but she could feel it vibrating in her chest. Even kilometers away, she had felt the awesome power of a human-made machine battling gravity.

  But until a few days ago, she’d never seriously thought about leaving her home world. Few Space Farers lived on the surface, and even fewer Planet Dwellers lived in space. Plus, she was just an orphan, alone in the world with her two dogs and her bike.

  And yet here she was inside a ship as shiny as chrome, a ship from the galactic center, where they had technology far advanced of anything on Amatheon.

  She still had her dogs with her. Big, black Gert was leaning against her right side, her head on Scout’s thigh but her warm eyes rolling up to look at Scout time and again to make sure everything was still okay. The smaller rat terrier Shadow was buckled against her left side, preferring to stand with his body rigid as he looked around. His name was a misnomer, his fur being mostly white with just a few black spots. But then her father had named him Shadow not for his looks but for his behavior, as he always trailed after Scout wherever she went.