All was forgotten when the sound came.
Imagine the loudest waterfall, and increase its speed three-fold. Some warriors covered their ears, some dove behind trees for cover. Two Mountains thought it was the roar of a temulen, angry and approaching on its hind legs. But he saw no such animal and the sound grew louder. At its peak, a violent wind blew through the trees. Then the second became more distant, reducing to a low rumble and finally disappearing. Heads looked in all directions for its source.
“I saw something,” one of the female warriors said. “There was a giant bird in the sky.” Two Mountains grabbed his bow, aiming it upwards, scanning the stars. To him, nothing appeared to have changed. A giant bird would explain the wind, though, since some of the larger englens were known to send leaves and dirt in the air as they swooped low to catch prey in their talons.
“I saw the giant bird as well,” another warrior said. Two Mountains believed both were telling the truth and accepted that a bird, or something large and winged, flew over them. But nearly all winged creatures made use of the sun sky, not the moon sky. He knelt and sunk his head in thought.
All Roar came close to Two Mountains’ ear and whispered. “Two Mountains, I fear this bird was a warning. I believe he was even the Messenger from God himself. By flying over our position, he meant to warn us to turn back and not try and find him. Why do you think he let out that great call?” Slightly trembling, the second darted his eyes around the forest, and in the sky, as if expecting a sudden attack. “We should return.”
“Frightened, All Roar?” Two Mountains asked. He was skeptical that this bird was the Messenger of God, and this could be of some advantage to him. By being fearless and curious, he could spur the group to continue on without hesitation.
“Yes, Two Mountains, but not of battle. Of God.”
“God is not something to be afraid of,” Two Mountains chided. He stood and gestured to the thick foliage before them. “We must press ahead. If this bird was from God, he was not clear in his intention. If he meant to warn us, why only pass over us once? If he wanted to welcome us, why make such a big deal out of it? Obviously, there are too many questions to continue debating. Forward it is.”
“So you don’t think it was a warning?” a female warrior asked.
“If it was, God didn’t make a very good job of it.” This provoked some laughter, and Two Mountains let his feet do the leading. He quickened his pace just a tiny bit, which encouraged the others to follow suit. Dry leaves crashed beneath their feet, clattering as they marched ever closer to the Sun Valley.
Chapter 36
Located precisely at the coordinates indicated by the Hanyek’s computer was the crashed hulk of a shuttle. Grinek assumed the shuttle had escaped the exploding Colobus but had been so egregiously damaged that it impacted hard against the surface. The tactical cruiser circled the remains, detecting no thermal readings of life, and then landed on Grinek’s orders at a clearing in the brush a half-mile from the crash site. Some trees were felled in this process, but Grinek believed they wouldn’t harm the aesthetic value of his first steps.
As before, the exit ramp lowered and the crew gathered to watch Grinek set foot on this planet. Just ten minutes previously, they were in the sand and the searing hot of the savannah; now, they were in the darkness and cool of a more moderate climate. Grinek wasn’t going to let any jarring disparities ruin the ceremony, however, nor was he going to tolerate any further unexpected announcements. Interruptions would be punished with death. With bated breath, the crew watched, camera rolling, as Grinek struck a pose at the top of the ramp.
“For the glory of the Emperor, for the glory of Kotara, and for the glory of the future,” he said, deliberately facing the camera. Grinek had decided this was a much simpler phrase, and his own construction, not one based on old proverbs. History would likely judge it less clumsy and more succinct than the last one. He turned to face the surface and descended the ramp, the surrounding nightscape illuminated by the bright landing lights of the Hanyek. These were images that would not be ruined by bad lighting.
His first steps on the planet were in mud.
Grinek checked the bottom of his boots. They were caked in sludge. Each soggy step made a squish that was audible up the ramp and on the film, and Grinek clearly had inadvertently ordered the ship to land near some swamplands. No matter. He wasn’t going to let on what his feet were experiencing and he was sure the sounds of the mud could be edited out later. The urge to make another historic statement was upon him, and nothing would deter that.
The cameraman had become the second Kotaran to set foot on the planet, followed by Roh and a small group of Kotaran officers. They gathered around their Commander and waited in anticipation for his next statement.
“We have landed on Somoresh,” Grinek said, instantly naming the planet and thus claiming it for Kotara. That mincing Nyden had given him the idea to use the name Somoresh. In ancient Kotaran mythology, that was the name of the land where life originated. Every schoolchild learned it, even as modern science proved the marsupial ancestors of Kotarans evolved on the Yel continent. But it was a calculated name, destined to stir passion among the populace yet devoid of any overtly religious connotations.
“Cut the camera,” Grinek ordered, and the cameraman responded immediately. Now he was free to speak with candor to the assembled men. “We’ve landed in some despicable swampland. Godsdamn this fucking planet. Why wasn’t this filth detected from orbit?”
“We could film this again, Commander, at a better location,” the cameraman said.
“No! We’re not doing it a third time. What we have recorded is what the propaganda films will show. We can always film more later. Right now, we have to find those Earthmen. I want them dead without hesitation. I won’t allow any prisoners.”
“It will be done swiftly, My Commander,” Roh breathed, with relish.
“Well, perhaps they can suffer a little, Roh. It is up to you.” Grinek moved away from Roh and addressed the rest of the assembled men. “The next plan will be to find any natives and analyze them. I would have thought we’d have been greeted by hordes of them by now. But if we need to collect a dead specimen, so bet it. Next we must collect some native animals, some for eating and some for analysis. When that is finished, we will take soil samples. I want this planet dissected in our science labs.”
“Yes, Commander,” came a chorus of replies.
“Excellent. There isn’t any time to waste. The shuttle was in that direction, correct?” He pointed to an area in the forest, and one of the crewmen from the bridge responded with an affirmation. “Good. I want to go there and investigate myself. Roh, come with me. You and you…” He pointed to another crewman and the cameraman. “Come with me. The rest of you head back to the ship and start scanning for any signs of life.”
Everyone did as they were told. One of the crewman had been so helpful as to actually think ahead, and brought along several pistols and a few of the pulse rifles that the military had been so eager to test. At the moment there weren’t any signs of anyone to use them on, but that Grinek had a suspicion that would change soon. Grinek, Roh, and the two other Kotarans cut through the foliage, making sure not to snap a twig or branch to let their presence known. Such things were taught at the academy, but Grinek knew them from his days under the sylvan canopies of Degmorra.
Exhilaration overcame Grinek. A voyage into the unknown, a trek through the savage jungles of another world. Such a throwback to the hikes of his youth—no, this was much greater, much more significant. Now his hikes had the weight of history and the promise of glory. No Kotaran had ever been so far from home before, scouring a wild wasteland where anything could be the enemy. His body tingled with the thrill of danger.
They reached a clearing. The remains of the shuttle were visible through the trees, its silver shining in their searchlights. It appeared to be a luxury craft, a ten-seater, with a sleek design now ruined by mud and blackened by fires. There was no
question the shuttle was inoperable, but was there anyone inside? Grinek noticed the cameraman was acting timid, hiding in the back and perhaps wary of an Earthman ambush. If he didn’t need his film for propaganda purposes, Grinek would admonish the man for being a coward. The Commander charged his pulse rifle and moved unflinchingly toward the shuttle. The whine of the rifle’s energy pack should have been enough to scare anyone inside.
He reached the craft and found a depression that indicated a door. It was partially open, but appeared stuck in the mud. Grinek tugged on it, and Roh came up alongside to help him dislodge it. With a heave, they forced the door open. Lights blazing at the front of their rifles, Grinek and Roh charged inside, ready to meet fire or find the corpses of Earthmen and Bauxens.
There was no one. Just wrecked seats and broken glass.
Grinek kicked a cushiony chair and it fell off its hinges. Either the shuttle had departed on its own, which was unlikely, or the Earthmen had crawled out of its wreckage and into the woods. Looking at the floor, he saw signs of that now: depressions in the carpet, scratch marks on the ground, and a door partially open on the opposite side of the craft. He went through it and jumped to the swampy soil, and when he inspected the dirt with his gun light, he saw faint tracks leading to the woods. Some were smeared in the mud. They had tried to cover their tracks.
From around the craft, the cameraman appeared, his own light searing into Grinek’s eyes. The Commander gave the signal to cut the recording off. This would be another event edited for content. Such humiliations would not reflect kindly on him.
“What now, Commander?” Roh asked, hopping down from the craft and hoisting his rifle over the shoulder. There stood the four of them, embarrassed by the absence of their enemies and alone on an alien world. This was something that was going to be corrected, and soon.
“Now, Roh, we hunt.”
***
Two Mountains spotted the light first. He wanted to say it resembled the light of campfires, but the intensity of this light was far greater, and there was no swaying associated with dancing flames. Therefore, the light on the treetops had to be stationary, had to emit from some object. The closest approximation he could think of was the light from the moon and the sun, which changed only as the object moved through the sky.
The hunting party was camped for a midnight meal at a clearing in the woods. Some of their hunters had managed to capture and kill four matangas, small ground critters that were slow enough to meet the pointy end of a spear. At the moment, they were being roasted over a crackling fire. Such a meal was not enough to fill the more than two dozen stomachs that made up the party, but it nicely supplemented the dried meat they had brought along on their knapsacks. With any luck they could find more creatures along the way. Two Mountains’s teeth tore at a particularly tender leg of matanga as he studied the light in the distance.
A female warrior came to his side. “Two Mountains,” she said, “I don’t believe we are going to discover what this heavenly being is trying to tell us on this journey. Clearly, if it wanted to tell us something about God, it would have talked to us directly and not waited to come find us. When you want to be alone, don’t you walk out in the woods to be away from other people?”
Two Mountains remembered his brother and his death by the kegars. He swallowed his matanga leg and stayed focused on the distant light. “My warrior, if what we are dealing with is a Messenger from God, he could easily have made himself invisible. God can do anything, can he not? And yet he chose to be visible to many witnesses in the camp. As far as we know we are the only settlement in the area, so we are the object of his attention. Either he wanted us to be seen, or he’s not from the Heavens.”
“Do you believe in the God?” the warrior asked. Two Mountains pondered this question. He’d been asked it before, and had wondered about it since. Much that had happened this day had made him question the roots of his beliefs. He decided to give the only answer that thought appropriate.
“Yes, I do. But God, after all, makes sense. What we have just witnessed does not. We have to investigate further—that is the only way to proceed.” The female warrior nodded and turned to rejoin a group gathered around a fire, warming themselves and eating. Two Mountains returned to gazing at the light.
***
They were talking. The Nyden and Sundar Kher.
Obviously, they’d seen something.
Roan checked the energy reading of his Bauxen rifle. Its charge was good. Its condition was excellent. The thing was bulky, but Roan knew he could handle it. He had lots of experience.
And he wanted to kill.
David gave the binoculars to Sundar. Slid his body back down the angled dirt mound into the mouth of the cave, where Roan had his back to the wall. The Nyden’s head reflected the pink of the sky, the pink of the sunrise that was slowly makings its way across the forest.
“There’s no question, Mr. Roan. It’s the Kotarans.”
Roan nodded. Of course. They’d heard the ship overhead.
Roan checked the rifle again. Once again the power pack whined. The thing was ready to go. He noticed a smudge on the power gauge. Wiped it a little bit. There, now it was fine.
Sundar moved down the mound to the beginning of the cave. Brushed off his clothes. He was turning out to be a competent officer.
“They must’ve found our shuttle,” Sundar said. “We’re safe sheltered in this cave, but it won’t be long until they find us.”
Roan nodded again. Nothing the two of them were saying was anything new. The Kotarans were after them, still. With all their technology, it was only a matter of time before they found the cave. With daylight fast approaching, the odds of the survivors being found only increased.
No matter. Roan clicked the power pack a third time on the rifle. It again whined in an affirmation of its charge.
“I’m ready,” Roan said.
David gave him a strange glance. Tilted his head. “Pardon?” he asked.
“I’m ready for whatever the kangas throw at us, David. We all should be.” He speared the butt of the rifle into the dirt. Looked out at the sky, where the stars were fading away into light. Yes, the Kotarans were coming. Roan hoped they would. The killing should have ended on Bauxa. But it continued in orbit. With the Colobus. With Kel.
There was going to be blood.
Chapter 37
Sunrise brought a heavy mist to the valley. Grinek feared an attack during these conditions, possibly from the Earthmen or from the silent natives. But as he scanned the vaporous fog before him, which turned trees to shadows, he saw nothing moving. He did not know the definition of eerie—that feeling being mostly alien to Kotarans—but he did feel that the mist could provide the Earthmen with the perfect cover to escape detection.
“We have to use the operations vessel,” Grinek said to Roh, referring to the disguised human freighter that sat in the Hanyek’s shuttlebay. “It makes more sense to have a few ships searching the planet rather than one.”
“I agree, Commander. Shall I order it prepared?”
“Do it yourself, Specialist. Take a team and scout the area. We must make sure we have superiority in the air and the ground.”
“Of course, Commander.” With a bow, Roh slinked away.
Grinek speculated as to what Roh thought about being on a planet that may turn out to refute his beliefs. The specialist had been somewhat reticent after their arrival and possibly filled with conflicting emotions. While they hadn’t proven anything about the origins of life yet, Grinek knew they were close—and Roh did as well. Grinek made a mental note to keep watch over Roh and make sure he didn’t do anything too hasty. He wasn’t in league with Vorjos, but the two were aligned spiritually. That could be a very dangerous combination.
There were footsteps on the gangplank. Grinek turned to see four commandos descending with heavy rifles. Each took a proud step when they came off the ramp; the novelty of being on a new world still had not worn off for much of the crew. For Grinek, t
hat excitement was all in the past. The time had come to hunt. He motioned for the men to follow him into the woods, and they did so, entering the fog behind their superior. With the reduced visibility, they had to put all their senses on alert.
They walked for twenty minutes, finding the foliage especially virgin and tough to navigate. Grinek had a pistol, but he kept it holstered—instead, he used his hands to swipe away branches and other obstacles. He knew that the commandos behind him would defend him if the need arose, and he was not afraid of death. Being in the lead, he knew, only made you a more fearless leader and imparted courage in your men.
Rustling. Leaves crunched close by, then silence. Something was moving in the brush. There was no telling where the sound came from, because the fog was still lazily clinging to the ground. Tree trunks began to look like figures, branches like weapons. Grinek’s ears twitched and rotated. Someone was watching them.
“Commander!” whispered a commando, pointing to the right. Grinek cast a glance slowly in that direction, his hand reaching for his pistol and his nose searching for a scent.
What he saw was a creature, perhaps as tall as himself, standing on four legs and watching the Kotarans. It did not move. Grinek immediately identified it as an ungulate of some kind, a creature that most likely demonstrated no threat to them. He dismissed the thought that it was an intelligent being and concluded it would be a wonderful source of nourishment for his men. Their first taste of an otherworldly creature! He would have to tell the cameraman to record the first bites of this new delicacy. And to think that for a month and a half they considered roasted liver a treat.
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