Torran

by Leslie Chase

  My knife struck up almost without conscious choice on my part. If the monster had a moment to adjust, all it needed to do was stamp on me and I’d be dead. Everything hinged on my gamble that the creature’s underbelly wasn’t as tough as the rest of it.

  Hullmetal blade met leathery hide, sliced through, bit into organs beneath. The animal roared, in pain rather than anger this time, and I cut with all my strength. Blood and guts rained down as I opened its stomach and the mighty creature spasmed above me.

  And collapsed.

  Dropping onto me.

  My last thought before it struck was of Lisa. If I’d saved her, being crushed like this would be worth it. If not, then an ignominious death was all I deserved.

  I don’t know how long I lay trapped under the monster before the darkness moved above me. With a heave, I pushed at the vast weight lying on me and felt it give. Distant voices, muffled and unintelligible, called out as I struggled, and then the weight shifted. An engine roared and the corpse rolled away, uncovering me.

  Suddenly I could breathe again. I sucked in air, tasting the sweetness of oxygen and laughing.

  I hadn’t expected to survive that. A quick check told me I hadn’t even suffered a major injury. Lots of bruises but no broken bones, no damage that wouldn’t heal quickly. Lisa and Malcolm looked down at me, as amazed as I was. For a moment none of us moved, then I cautiously stood.

  As I rose, Lisa hit me in a tackle-hug that nearly took me off my feet again.

  “I thought you were dead under there,” she sobbed, arms wrapped around me tight enough to squeeze the breath from me.

  “Careful,” I gasped, lifting her up and grinning. We both lived! There was still hope that this cursed planet might hold a future worth fighting for.

  Her grip loosened a little, letting me get some air. We held each other and I looked around, counting the cost of that fight.

  The rover, thank the ancestors, still functioned. Chains linked it to the corpse of the creature I’d slain, explaining how the humans moved that incredible weight. The creature’s horns had torn the hull but nothing that would stop us driving on.

  Good. We’d need it more than ever, because I wasn’t the only one injured in the animal attack. Malcolm limped aside, his leg bleeding where the beast’s horn caught him through the rover’s hull.

  “It’s nothing,” he said, catching my look and straightening up. “I can manage.”

  Of course he put a brave face on his injury — he had my mate’s blood, it was no surprise he shared her courage — but I knew that he lied. The bloody wound needed medical attention, more than we had to offer here. The autodoc back at the colony pod would work. Hopefully the humans at our destination had one available.

  “We need to get you to a medic as soon as possible,” I said, Lisa nodding quickly. “In the meantime you should rest.”

  “I’m fine,” he protested, only for Lisa to fix him with a glare.

  “You’re not,” she said, voice shaking a touch. “But you will be, just as soon as we get you to the valley.”

  She hid her worries well, but not so well I couldn’t see them. I put an arm around my khara’s shoulders, comforting her.

  “We will set off at once,” I told her. “Don’t worry. We’ll make it, and your brother can rest his leg on the way. It will be fine.”

  It has to be fine. I had to take it on faith myself — humans were fragile compared to prytheen and had no healing trance to help put themselves back together. But there was nothing else I could do beyond support her.

  She nodded, smiling unsteadily and pulling herself up into the driver’s seat. I lifted Malcolm up beside her, pretending not to notice his wince of pain. No need to embarrass the boy.

  While Lisa bandaged her brother’s wound, I checked the rover’s cargo space. A quick look showed that the stasis tubes were untouched by the violence. Green lights showed that all was well. Good.

  Stepping out, I began to forge a path off the trail, leading the rover into the woods. That had always been the plan, though I’d hoped to follow the trail a while further before leaving it. That wasn’t an option anymore, not when it took the risk of running into more of those shaggy monsters.

  Our progress was slow now: not only were we pushing into completely unexplored terrain without even an animal path to guide us, but I had to make sure we didn’t leave an easy to follow trail of our own. Gurral might have given up the chase but I didn’t want to bet on it, and the last thing I wanted to do was leave him an easy path.

  Malcolm and Lisa took turns driving and sleeping, Lisa shouldering most of the burden. But she couldn’t stay awake forever, and Malcolm wanted to be useful. His injured leg didn’t keep him from driving, and that let us keep moving with only short breaks.

  I’d learned enough about Crashland to avoid the obvious dangers, skirting the territories of dangerous predators where I saw their signs. Again, that slowed us. But it made our path unpredictable, and a less skilled hunter trying to follow us might blunder into the lair of a hunting beast.

  Despite the danger of our journey, I started to relax into it. Now I could use my skills as a scout to find us a safe route to our destination, it felt like this was what I’d been born for. If it hadn’t been for Malcolm’s injuries, I’d have even enjoyed the journey — but they gave us an urgency that stripped the joy from the trip.

  I ranged further and further ahead seeking the fastest route for the rover, then ducking back to cover our trail. We moved slowly, but the hovering vehicle left few tracks and our hunters weren’t skilled trackers. Once a day passed, I started to feel safe. Anyone behind us would surely have lost the trail.

  Two more days passed before our path reached the top of a cliff. Below us a fast-running river rushed past on its way down from the mountains, and I grinned to see it. We were near our goal now — this river would lead us to the valley if we followed it.

  All we had to do was follow the river until we met the border of the human settlement we were looking for. How they’d react to my arrival was an open question, but I was content to leave that for the future. As long as Lisa got there in one piece I’d be happy, whatever happened to me.

  Snow-capped mountains rose on either side of our destination and I grinned, estimating the distance we had left to cover. In half a day, Lisa would be safe, Malcolm would see a doctor, and Maria, Alex, and Tania could be woken from their sleep.

  Sundered space, we’ve really made it, I thought. And that was the moment that the rover’s engine cut out, dropping it to the forest floor with a crunch.

  19

  Lisa

  I woke from a dream of flying with a scream as the rover dropped out from under me, Malcolm shouting a warning from the driver’s seat. For a moment I didn’t know where I was, everything was chaos, and I was falling.

  Then I remembered.

  We were on the run. Malcolm was taking his turn driving. And he’d crashed our only hope of getting to safety.

  “What did you do?” I demanded, pulling myself up and scrambling for the controls. Red warning holograms floated in the air above the dashboard and the controls did nothing.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Malcolm protested, yanking the start lever with unnecessary force. The engine stayed obstinately silent and the rover refused to rise from the ground. “It just stopped!”

  I looked up, out of the window, and saw the drop down to the fast-flowing river only a few inches away. My heart skipped a beat and I thanked my lucky stars we hadn’t skidded over the edge into the white water below.

  Torran bounded back out of the trees ahead, sliding to a stop and looking at us through the windshield. I waved to show we were okay, and he relaxed a touch. Not much though, and I couldn’t blame him for that.

  Without the rover we were stuck. The stasis tubes were far too heavy to carry out of here, and on our own we couldn’t open them. Alex, Maria, and Tania were trapped until we got them to a facility with an autodoc.

  I pushed the d
oor open, looking at Torran, then at the mountains. They weren’t that far away… maybe we could manage the rest of the journey on foot.

  “How close are we to the valley?” I asked, carefully leaving the cab.

  Torran cocked his head to the side, looked at the sky though the trees, then back at me. Shrugged. “A few of your hours at the speed we’ve been traveling. I could do it in half that, alone.”

  I sighed in relief. Close enough. “Okay. In that case we can trek in and get help if we can’t get the rover started again.”

  Torran nodded reluctantly, looking at Malcolm. I winced. With his injured leg, he wouldn’t be able to make much speed. Fine. Time for a new plan.

  “You can get there fastest,” I told Torran. “Hurry there, hurry back. We’ll wait here — we’ll be safe in the rover.”

  The tears in its hull put a lie to my words, but it was still the best idea I could come up with. Torran disagreed, shaking his head emphatically.

  “I will not abandon you here, my khara,” he said. “The wildlife is too dangerous. Besides, it would not work. A human approaching the valley will be greeted with caution. A prytheen warrior? They’ll shoot me as soon as I make myself known.”

  I put my hands on my hips, exasperated. He wasn’t wrong, but that didn’t make what he said any less frustrating.

  “Okay then. I’ll go, you two stay here.”

  “You will not.” Torran’s tone brooked no defiance. “The journey is too dangerous for you alone.”

  “There’s no other way forward, Torran,” I said, desperate for a solution. “Malcolm can’t walk that far, even if we’re willing to leave the rover behind with the others. We aren’t leaving my brother here on his own.”

  Bad enough for both of us to wait here, but I would not abandon Malcolm. Especially not with an injured leg.

  “I can carry him,” Torran said. He didn’t sound happy with that plan, and I didn’t blame him. The forests of Crashland weren’t safe, and he’d be our only defender on the journey. It would still mean abandoning Alex, Maria, and Tania. I chewed on my lip, trying to think of a better option.

  “Hey,” Malcolm called from the cab. I turned, hoping the rover had come back to life, but no. The control lights were still all red, warning after warning. Malcolm wasn’t looking at them, though. He’d brought up the communications display, the one we’d ignored since leaving the colony. With no one in range, there’d been no point — but unlike the controls, the comms lights glowed green.

  “I’ve got a communicator contact,” Malcolm said, talking quickly. “I thought maybe we were close enough to the valley to reach them and call for help.”

  It was a miracle. I grinned, a weight lifting from me. If we were close enough to one of the valley colonists to contact them, our problem was solved. They could send a rescue party and whatever was wrong with the rover wouldn’t matter. Giddy with relief, I pulled myself back up next to my brother and reached to open a channel.

  Paused.

  Something was wrong. It wasn’t an unknown signal.

  I switched Henry on, looking at the contact on my own display to check. Henry barked and my jaw tightened.

  “That’s Carrington’s comm,” I said, staring at the display and blinking quickly. “How can we be picking that up this far from the colony?”

  I knew the answer as soon as I asked the question. No way the comm’s range stretched as far as we’d traveled — which meant he was close by. I spun to look at the forest, half expecting to see him striding out of the trees.

  My mind raced. He was close enough to contact the rover, and that explained the sudden stop. Carrington had the authority to stop the vehicle remotely — I might be able to override that, but it would take time we didn’t have. If he’d kept himself logged into the vehicle, he’d been able to follow our path, the safe route Torran had scouted.

  He’d be close on our heels, but he wouldn’t be alone. For all that he liked to think of himself as a ranger, Crashland’s wildlife would have eaten him alive. If he was here, then so were the prytheen.

  I didn’t need to tell Torran. He worked it out as fast as I did, stepping between me and the forests, knife in hand and eyes searching for enemies.

  “Run,” he hissed. “Take your brother and go while I hold them off.”

  Torn, I stared at him. Abandoning him like this seemed impossible but if I stayed I’d just be damning myself and Malcolm to slavery or death. On the other hand, did we even stand a chance of making it to the valley on our own?

  We had to try. If it had just been me, I’d have stayed and fought alongside Torran — however futile it was, better that than leaving him behind. Malcolm was my responsibility though, and I had to get him to safety.

  “Come on,” I said, pulling myself together and grabbing my brother’s shoulder. I’d carry him if I had to. “We’re getting out of here.”

  “No you are not.” Gurral’s cold, hard voice stopped me before Malcolm had clambered out of the rover. “As amusing as hunting you in the woods might be, I will not take the chance that you’d get away.”

  Half a dozen Prytheen warriors emerged from the woods, grinning at us. Behind Gurral followed Mr. Carrington, his ruddy face strained and sweat-stained. Keeping up with the hunters hadn’t been easy for him and I wondered if the aliens had carried him part of the way.

  More important than his company was the rifle Gurral carried. He rested it easily across his shoulder I knew it would take only a moment for him to get it ready to fire. Two of the other prytheen carried rifles too. I swallowed. Against these odds, fighting would be suicide.

  The prytheen spread out, keeping their distance as they circled us. Gurral watched us with cruel interest, his eyes gleaming.

  “Let them go,” Torran said, shifting his weight from side to side as he tried to watch all the approaching enemies. “The humans are nothing to you.”

  “Oh no,” Gurral said with a laugh. “No, they are everything. If they escape, they’ll alert the other humans in the valley, and I can’t have that. Not when you’ve been kind enough to lead me so close to my prize.”

  I gasped, glancing in the valley’s direction. Yes, we’d cleared a path all the way here. Nearly to the gates of the unsuspecting settlement. It wouldn’t have mattered if Gurral hadn’t been able to follow us so closely — another day and the colony would be warned and ready for an attack. But without warning? They were in deadly danger.

  And that was down to one person.

  “How could you?” I shouted at Carrington, ignoring the prytheen for a moment. Oh, they were slaving bastards — but he’d sold out his own kind. “You led them here, you shut down the rover. Why?”

  He drew himself up to his full height, blustering and furious. “You don’t get to judge me, girl. I made the rational choice, and if you weren’t so blinded with lust for your alien lover, you’d see it too. Prytheen will conquer the valley — if it’s not Gurral, it will be someone else. Living in denial is pointless. We’re better off making our peace with the inevitable and getting in on the ground floor of the new order.”

  Gurral’s lips pulled back in what someone more generous than me might have called a smile. He might not speak English well, but he knew enough to follow Carrington’s words.

  “You see, Torran?” he said in Galtrade, making sure we all understood. “This human is clever. He’s loyal, and he and his family will be rewarded. You, on the other hand, are a mewling traitor and will die slowly in a ditch.”

  As soon as Gurral spoke, I knew how Torran would respond. But so did Gurral, swinging down his rifle even as Torran bounded forward.

  The distance was too great. Torran would never reach his foe, not before taking a laser blast to the face. I cried out, diving sideways, tackling my alien lover and knocking him to the ground.

  Hot light burned above me, the laser missing me by inches. My cheek stung from the sudden heat and my eyes watered, but I’d managed to turn Torran’s suicidal pounce into an undignified tumble
. We rolled to a stop as Gurral’s prytheen warriors leaped forward, one grabbing Malcolm, another covering us with his own stolen rifle.

  Torran’s arms folded around me and fresh tears well up in my eyes. This was not the embrace I’d longed for and it might well be our last one. I looked up at the weapons leveled at us and prepared to die.

  “Stop!” Carrington’s voice carried a familiar snap of command, sufficient to make even the prytheen freeze in their tracks. Gurral turned to his human follower, frowning, but the other two riflemen kept their guns on Torran and me.

  “You promised that the humans would be unharmed,” Carrington continued, a little less confident now that the alien warrior faced him. But to his credit he stood his ground, staring down Gurral. “That’s the price I asked for my help and you agreed, sir. What lesson will we humans learn if you don’t keep your promises to us?”

  “None, if I kill you too,” Gurral replied, swinging his rifle causally around to point it at Carrington’s stomach. Around us other prytheen laughed nastily. Carrington paled, swallowed, shifted in place. The moment stretched uncomfortably and then Gurral lowered his weapon with a laugh of his own. “A small joke, human. Don’t worry, I keep my bargains. I’m not a barbarian.”

  Carrington’s answering laugh was nervous, weak. The relief on his face was clear and he pulled at his collar as he looked at me. I glared back, wondering if he expected gratitude from me. If so, he’d be disappointed.

  “Get her out of the way,” Gurral said, waving at a pair of prytheen warriors. Torran squeezed me tight, kissed my cheek.

  “Do not fight them,” he said, voice taut and full of the same pain that filled my heart. “Beloved, do as they say. Live. Remember me.”

  How could I ever forget you? I tried to speak but no words would come, the agony in my heart too much for me. I turned to meet his eyes, hoping he’d see how I felt. Words wouldn’t have done it justice anyway.