by A. R. Knight
Not that I think I have any chance of outrunning this thing, but if I can knock it away, make it hesitate, that might be enough to flee.
The Fassoth, for its part, seems to be content waiting. It paces me, following along the middle of the cavern. At first I wonder what it’s doing, but then I recall the fight with the juar, in Damantum’s Pits. The Fassoth is a predator, I’m it’s prey, and it wants to figure me out.
Well, it’s not the only one learning.
When my boot brushes the first bone, I reach down, press away the pain in my side and pick it up with my right hand. I throw it back across the cave, towards the wall near the fur. It clacks off, hits the ground, and sure enough the Fassoth jerks its head back that way.
I stay perfectly still. Don’t even breathe. And in a second, the Fassoth takes a couple of steps towards the thrown bone.
I toss another bone. Then a third, without taking another step. When the last one bounces with a hollow clack, the Fassoth can’t resist anymore and it launches towards my trick.
And now I have it.
It’s a lumpy, lurching run but it’s the only one I have. T’Oli waves through the air - attached to my left arm - as I scatter bones with every step. With my right, I scoop up and throw one after another, flinging them at random around the cavern.
Clattering noise from everywhere, and I’m hoping it confuses the beast.
For a moment I think it’s working. I hear the Fassoth jump after the last bone I throw, hear the beast bounce off of a pillar and see the light change as blue fungus goes flying. But apparently the Fassoth isn’t as easy to fool as I thought - the very next second brings clattering claws racing up behind me.
“Now!” T’Oli says, its eyestalks peering over my shoulder, behind me.
I turn, swinging my left arm in a wide slash. T’Oli manages to harden itself into a razor’s edge, and the cut goes right across the front of the Fassoth’s head. The slash leaves a bright red line in the fur, and the Fassoth rears back.
What it doesn’t do, though, is run.
Instead it plows forward, even as I get T’Oli oriented so the charge costs the Fassoth another gash. The beast plows into me, pushing me back and knocking me to the ground. The world blurs as my nerves overload at the impact, and I’m thankful, because now I can’t really see as the Fassoth’s toothy foot descends towards my face.
I feel a cold flash from my left arm. As the Fassoth’s foot crashes in, T’Oli slides in front of it. The Ooblot catches the strike, wrapping itself around the Fassoth’s foot. The creature stops its attack and stumbles back, probably wondering why its front right leg is covered in hard rock.
My head sits back against the stone floor - I can’t keep it up anymore - as the Fassoth commences to panicked battering, hitting its front leg on the ground, whacking it into the pillars and the walls to try and get T’Oli off.
I want to help. Want to find some way of rescuing T’Oli. Only I can’t move, and my head’s blowing up with pain.
So I do the only thing I can.
I scream.
The sound surprises everyone; the Fassoth, who pauses its crazed whacking of the Ooblot to turn towards me, T’Oli, whose rock eyestalks flip my way, and even me, as I didn’t think I had that much air left in my bruised lungs.
I guess fear can do amazing things.
T’Oli’s the first to recover, climbing up the Fassoth’s leg. I sit up as the Ooblot makes its way towards the fassoth’s monstrous neck. The beast, though, isn’t fooled and rolls. Bones fly everywhere as the Fassoth wriggles on its back before continuing upright. When the white-furred creature stands again, T’Oli’s nowhere to be seen.
Stand up, Kaishi. You’re not going to die lying down.
I don’t really succeed. The best I get is a stumble against the wall, near the cavern’s exit. I try to throw another rock, and this time actually hit the Fassoth, which ignores my efforts completely.
The beast grumbles towards me - still favoring that right foot I cut - and I start to pray. There’s nothing else to do. Nowhere I can run. So I call to Ignos, and ask, if not for his help, then for his courage.
I don’t hear an answer.
The Fassoth raises its left foot, and I try to duck, but it catches me with its claws and throws me to the ground. The foot lands on my back, cutting into me, and I fall into the pain.
I’m coming to you, Malo.
“Not her.” A crack - impossibly loud - shatters the cavern after the words.
The Fassoth’s foot jumps off me as a second crack breaks out. Then a third and a fourth in quick succession. I brush my face against the floor to look up, to see the Fassoth back-pedaling as shot after shot pours into the thing.
Viera comes into view, a pistol in each hand, unleashing one crack after another until both weapons click empty. She holsters the left one, then reaches into her pocket and pulls out a handful of bullets. Starts reloading the pistol in her right. The Fassoth, for its part, is moving around, trying to keep the pillars between it and the Lunare.
“You still alive, Empress?” Viera says without looking back at me.
“For the moment.”
“Try to keep it that way.” Viera snaps the chamber back. “Vee, you’re on her.”
“As ordered.” The hiss comes from above me, and I twist further to see the Oratus, bleeding from plenty of his own cuts, missing a pair of claws from his right foreclaw, and holding two torches, standing over me.
Viera begins a dance with the Fassoth, keeping her distance while slowly reloading her second pistol, bringing both weapons back to ready. She makes enough noise, kicking at rocks and bones to keep the Fassoth on her, but the creature’s not quite so reckless anymore. Its fur is blossomed with red, and it’s moving slow.
At least, that’s what I think until the Fassoth bursts forward, scrambling on its back four legs while raising its front limbs to bat towards Viera.
I shout. Vee hisses.
Viera pulls the triggers. Both pistols work again. One after another. Four cracks, five cracks, their fiery flashes sparking over the blue glow. I see her face, her set, grim, look beneath her white, tangled hair.
And then she’s gone, buried beneath an unmoving Fassoth as it collapses onto her.
“Go! Help her!” I manage to croak, though Vee’s already moving.
The Oratus goes to work, pressing with his legs, with his claws, and then Viera’s there, crawling out from beneath the beast and coated in the results of her handiwork. She’s as beaten and battered as all of us, but Viera’s able to stand. Able to walk to me and, after putting her pistols back, help me up.
I point, then, towards the spot where the Fassoth ran T’Oli into the ground, and Vee goes to check. Retrieves the stone slab of the Ooblot. Still in one piece, T’Oli’s eyestalks are flattened into the surface of its body. None of us knows if T’Oli’s alive, so Vee settles the stone Ooblot into his midclaws.
“I’ll carry T’Oli until it’s ready,” Vee hisses.
“And Diego?” I ask.
“First one took him,” Viera replies, pats the pistols. “That’s where these came from.”
“How?”
“He didn’t run fast enough.” Viera throws a look at Vee. “Then he held its attention long enough for me to take it out. Thankfully, Diego was a bit paranoid, so he brought a ton of ammunition.”
Losing Diego is a hard blow. Not because I have any fondness for the man - he was, generally, a jerk to all of us - but because we’re now lost down here. We’ve got no guide, and no way to convince any Lunare we come across that we’re friendly.
“How about you?” Viera asks. “How bad are you hurt?”
Rather than list off my injuries, I break into a half-hearted laugh. “I’ll survive. May need new ribs, though.”
Viera nods. “Then we should head back. They’ll have medical supplies at the gateway.”
“No.” I almost fall over, but Viera catches me. “We keep going. We’ve lost too much time already.”
<
br /> But we do go back a little, to our ditched campsite, where the rest of the food and other supplies sit. I’m tempted to return to the pool, but instead hold still while Viera wraps cut up clothing around my ribs. Tries to keep them in place. It doesn’t help much, but I appreciate the sentiment. The effort.
“You didn’t give up,” I say to Viera as she finishes the wrapping.
Vee looks like he’s asleep already, T’Oli still cradled in his claws.
“We fought through space, through other worlds, Kaishi,” Viera says, using her torch to set the fire pit, full of dried fungus and other random growth, alight. “Dying to a Fassoth now would be a stupid way to go.”
“We were close.”
“But we’re alive.” Viera steps back from the small fire. “That scream, you know. That’s what let us find you.”
“I was trying to scare it. For T’Oli.” I tell my version of the fight.
“You used T’Oli as a spear?” Viera asks when I’m done. “Clever.”
“Don’t know if T’Oli liked it, but we didn’t have much choice.”
“You could have chosen to die,” Viera says. “But you didn’t give up.”
I catch the sentiment. Offer up a smile. “No. Though I think I might pass out now.”
“Do it. I’ll keep watch.”
Part of me wants to offer to do the same. Or tell Viera to wake me in a bit to take her place, but the truth is that I can’t bring myself to say the words. My body’s demanding sleep, and as soon as my head hits the mat, I’m gone.
Our progress is achingly slow, but the nutrient goop is filling and we have a lot of it. T’Oli wakes up by the second night, more or less the same as always, though the Ooblot mentions no desire to become my spear in the future.
At first I’m afraid we’ll be stuck lost in the tunnels forever, but it seems Diego exaggerated the difficulty; the Lunare didn’t carve a dozen routes through the Earth. There’s only one main path and a number of tiny diversions, most leading to pools or small storage caches with emergency supplies.
We avoid any smooth tunnels, anything that doesn’t bear the telltale marks of Lunare picks and their crude hacking. No further Fassoths come to hunt us down, though we’re also quiet, keeping to soft murmurs as we move so that the cave’s natural rumblings tend to be louder than we are.
My damaged ribs never fade, but familiarity turns the pain manageable and I gradually pick up my pace. We’re all hurt, though, so speed is never a serious concern. We won’t be much help to humanity if we die en route, anyway.
Viera, more than myself, Vee, or T’Oli, takes over the lead as we go. She holds a pistol in one hand, a torch in the other, and strides with confidence I haven’t seen before. Maybe because Viera feels this is, more than any of us, her home. Maybe because she knows nobody else is willing to take up the leader’s burden right now.
I’m certainly content to let her have it.
Especially when, late in the third day, we stumble upon a small village, built around a lake that would have been considered tiny if we were in the jungle. Our tunnel spits us out over the lake, where a man-made path leads us across the water and towards a dozen houses and a few accompanying buildings.
I’ve never seen Lunare homes before, and these are built from the ground up to the ceiling, the structures blending into the rock at both ends.
“They’re support and shelter,” Viera says when I ask why. “We have to hollow most of these areas out, so the buildings help keep the ceiling from falling in.”
There are other pillars cast around too, including a few lunging out of the lake, rising to smash into the top of the cavern. They remind me of trees, in a way, only deep gray rock instead of wood.
The first Lunare to notice us are a pair of fisherman, casting their nets into the lake. I can’t imagine what fish make it down here, and how they manage to reproduce if they do, but there’s a woven basket between the two men, so I assume they must catch something.
When they see us, though, their net comes in fast and the closer one reaches for a pistol holstered around his belt, keeps his hand on it as we draw near. I’m expecting panic when he notices Vee, but the man’s eyes only widen a little. His partner takes the gear and makes a speedy walk away, leaving his friend behind.
“You came from the other side,” the man says once we’re in conversational range.
“We did,” Viera says, then nods back at us. “We’re tired and hurt. Is there a place to stay here?”
“You think you’re just going to walk in with that thing?” the man nods to Vee.
“Yes,” Viera replies. “We are.”
“Viera,” I interject. I’m too tired for another fight. “Please, I don’t know your name, or your home, but we’ve come a long way and only need a place to rest. We mean you no harm.”
“That’s what they said too,” the man replies. “The ones we’re fighting back to the west. They said they came with nothing to hide, no reason to hurt. Didn’t last long. How do I know you’re not with them?”
Viera sighs next to me, brushes away a dangling bang with the back of her wrist. “What lies beneath?”
I’m about to ask what she’s talking about when the man squints at her. “Our truest self.”
“Why do we go?” Viera continues.
“To find what we must.”
“And who do we carry?”
“All who carry us.” The man relaxes his pistol grip, shakes his head. “Been a long time since I’ve heard that one.”
I’m looking back and forth between the two, and notice Viera’s wearing a small smile.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve said it,” Viera replies. “Good to know the old verses haven’t been forgotten.”
“Not yet. Not by all of us.” The man seems to see us again for the first time, only now, instead of suspicion, he gives a steady look of trust. “Head to the common house. They’ll have room for you. Refugees haven’t made it this far yet. Tell them you talked to Anjo.”
16 Make A Stand
Leaving Sax alone in a room designed for rest and not, say, keeping a dangerous weapon captive, leads to poor results; Sax takes a running leap, bounces up the door and makes it to the ceiling, his claws catching in the slats of the air vent. With a kick, Sax digs his talons into the silver tiles on the ceiling - punching his sharp feet through the thin metal.
With his foreclaws, Sax tears the vent away and sends it rattling to the floor. The duct behind it isn’t nearly large enough for Sax, at first, but when the Oratus peers through his new-made hole, it’s clear the small duct intersects with the much larger, main one feeding this portion of the ship with sweet, sweet air. What’s life-sustaining for the crew is going to bring them a very fatal surprise.
Sax rends the small duct sides to widen the path, pushing away streams of wires. He tucks in his midclaws close to his chest vents as he starts climbing up, stretching his talons and tail out behind him to create as thin a form as possible.
If Bas saw him now, half-stuck in this mess of metal, she’d laugh so hard. Sax can’t quite suppress a hiss of his own at the situation - he’d never have thought he’d be scrambling through the innards of a Vincere ship.
But he squirms anyway, because knowing the circumstances are ridiculous doesn’t help Sax get out of them. It’s a centimeter by centimeter crawl, with Sax’s foreclaws doing the work of clearing the way. He has to test every pipe, every section of wire for give so he doesn’t damage or break something that might burst hot liquid or fiery electric sparks all over him.
“Sax? What are you doing in there?” it’s a Flaum voice this time - Rav probably has better things to do than babysit a prisoner. “We’re hearing a lot of noise.”
Sax doesn’t try to respond. If they burst in now, they’ll know where he is in a moment, and have stunning bolts blasting his tail in the next. And if Sax gets on that Chorus ship, he’ll never see Bas again.
So Sax picks up the pace. Scrabbles forward towards the wide d
uct. He leaves plenty of claw marks on the ship around him, and the frigate leaves a bunch of small cuts on Sax’s scales as his body bends and warps.
There’s no warning when the door to his cabin opens. Just a beep and a shunt - guess destroying the door’s panel didn’t help - and there’s a half-dozen footfalls as the Vincere guards run beneath Sax into the room.
“Sax!” One of them shouts, as if calling his name is going to get Sax popping out from behind a curtain, laughing and declaring the whole thing a joke.
What Sax does instead is finish tearing his way into the breezy main duct, where warm air rushes by and an infinite silvery corridor goes both to his left and right. He has to make a choice now, as the Flaum have performed the minimal detective work to figure out where Sax has gone and are attempting to climb up into the vents.
Problem is, Flaum are small creatures and Sax doubts they’ve brought a ladder with them.
Which way?
There’s only one thing on this ship that really matters, only one way Sax can come close to completing his original mission. Rav. Sax bets she’s still on the bridge, so that’s where he goes.
Sax doesn’t have a map, has no easy way of telling the layout of the frigate, but he knows Vincere ships and knows, too, that the heat keeping the ship warm comes from the bank of batteries back by its main engines. The bridge, kept far away from those same engines - a means of keeping the commander at the farthest spot from the area most likely to blossom into a fiery death at a malfunction or well-placed shot - is at the opposite end.
The Oratus follows that warm breeze and clambers through the ductwork. Here it’s plenty wide for Sax, though it’s short enough he has to keep crawling. Small and medium offshoots dot his path as Sax moves, and he manages to ignore almost all of them until, bouncing off the walls, comes a voice that makes Sax wince.
“You’re running old systems! I could do better, if you give me just a few minutes!” Nobaa’s speaking to someone. “The Oratus used me as a hostage. I love the Vincere. Love you guys!”
It’s coming from Sax’s right; a cramped offshoot that’s still larger than the one he tore up to get here. Navigable. But is Nobaa worth risking his mission for?
