by Elin Wyn
“You worry too damn much, Stasia,” he said, sighing in a manner that had me thinking he was trying to mimic me.
I didn’t know if that was on purpose or not, but his attitude was leaving me even more frustrated. I felt like tearing my hair out.
“We have everything we need right here. We’ll start by using the forest to our advantage, then we can figure something out with the rest of the settlements where the aliens don’t have a presence. We won’t need Nyheim… or those damn aliens.”
“Whatever you say,” I breathed out. I wasn’t in the mood for another fight, not in the situation we were in. And as much as I didn’t want to be a part of any of it, I had to keep my head on my shoulders. Our lives depended on it. “What’s the plan now?” I asked, looking up at him. “Are we going to camp here for the night?”
“We are.” He nodded, hands on his hips as he watched the group unpack. I followed his gaze and, for a moment, said nothing. Most people had brought some backpacks with them, probably the only thing they managed to carry during our hasty escape, but no one seemed to have brought any kind of camping supplies.
There wasn’t a single tent in sight.
“Is this everyone?” I continued, doing my best to come to terms with the situation. “Or are we waiting for more people to join us?”
“No, this is it,” he replied. For the first time since our conversation started, I noticed a shadow in his smile. “There were supposed to be more of us, but I figure not everyone managed to get out of the city. Some must’ve been captured during our escape.”
“You don’t seem particularly concerned.”
“Should I be?” He shrugged. “If we’re going to do this right, we can’t worry about those weak and stupid enough to be caught. The ones that didn’t make it here… well, maybe they didn’t deserve to be here in the first place.”
“Now that’s a real leader talking,” I scoffed, barely believing what he was saying. “Don’t let the others hear any of that bullshit, or else they’ll tear you to pieces.” I stood up then, ready to walk away, but couldn’t resist throwing Roddik one final snide remark. “Not that you don’t deserve a beating.”
With that, I stalked away from him and headed toward the group. People were starting to cluster in small groups, and I tried to make a mental inventory of what everyone had brought. There were some cooking utensils, and everyone seemed to have brought whatever food they had at home. Not that it meant much — judging from what I was seeing, we’d be out of food in a couple of days. But that wasn’t my main concern for the night: aside from some blankets, no one really seemed that ready for a night outside.
I groaned inwardly as I realized that a few pans and blankets were all that we had. If Roddik thought we’d be able to build a settlement out of that, he was in for a rude awakening.
I doubted we’d be able to survive for more than a couple of weeks.
To make matters worse, I hadn’t brought anything with me. Roddik had kept me in the dark before this, and that meant I hadn’t packed a damn thing. Thankfully, he had packed a bag for me before we left, so at least I had a blanket and whatever clothing he had managed to cram in there.
It would still be a long, cold night, no doubt about that.
For a moment, I thought of helping Roddik out. Maybe I could organize something with the group. We desperately needed to know what kind of skills everyone had and leverage that for our advantage before it was too late.
“But that’s not happening tonight,” I muttered under my breath, raking one hand down my face. My head hurt like hell, and I was still feeling exhausted from all those hours of running. Maybe I’d be able to help the group, but that would have to wait.
With a blanket under my arm, I moved away from the group and toward the edge of the clearing. Roddik was now happily chattering with everyone, and I simply couldn’t stand his presence. Somehow, I didn’t feel as if Roddik was still my brother. It felt as if he was...a stranger.
Even if only for the night, I needed to be by myself.
My life had changed, after all, and I still hadn’t processed any of that.
Finding what I hoped was a good spot to lay my blanket on the ground, I curled up against a tree trunk and closed my eyes. With my jacket thrown over my torso, I tried not to think of the cold and focused on the gentle rustling of the leaves in the wind.
My mind drifted back to the life I’d had in Nyheim, and I sighed as I accepted that the life I used to have was now more than gone. After all, I was pretty certain that the government would think I had been an accomplice in the attack.
I had no choice: I would have to survive here.
I thought about Iq’her. He’d never believe I wasn’t a part of this. He’d think I was one of Roddik’s loony followers. He’d never touch me again.
He’d never hold me.
I’d never feel that thrill at his touch again.
Never.
Iq’her
If I was going to infiltrate this group of humans, I was going to need gear and tech that was decidedly human. I headed to the guards’ storehouse and raided their equipment.
I didn’t gather much, but enough to make myself seem useful to Roddik’s group of malcontents. It had been one night already that Stasia had been in the forest. I was worried about her.
I was beyond angry at Roddik for placing her in this danger.
I grabbed a small, ordinary tablet loaded with maps and a couple of flashlights, stuffed them all into a bag with a couple spare changes of clothes, and made my way to my office. In there, I stored all my gear, including my sleeve… which hurt more than I had anticipated, emotionally speaking…and grabbed the only three pieces of K’ver tech that I was willing to risk taking.
I put on my holobelt, quickly entered in a disguise, and turned it on. With the Xathi war on Ankau, neither I nor Tu’ver had ever gotten the chance to fix the holobelts to be more stable during hand-to-hand combat. But it would have to do for now.
The sensation I felt was… nothing. The holobelt did absolutely nothing to us physically that we could actually feel. All it did was project a holographic disguise over our bodies. The distance between the disguise and our real skin was less than one-quarter the depth of skin, so it was about as impossible to see through as reality was.
The second piece of my own personal tech that I’d grabbed was the small tracker that I needed to follow and find Stasia’s signal. The plan was to follow the signal until I found the group, bury the tracker so that it couldn’t be found on me if I was searched, and make myself known to the group. Hopefully, I would be able to convince them that I was one of them and then I could slowly get information.
The third… well, I’d hope it stayed hidden and unused. It didn’t look like much, wouldn’t look like anything to unknowing eyes.
My tracking bugs were one-way only, unfortunately. I wouldn’t be able to use it to both send information to Rouhr and receive orders. The tracker and holobelt would already be a risk.
I’d have to chance finding a human comm unit with Roddik’s group and modifying it.
I headed out of my office and went to a nearby cleansing room—or bathroom, as Tobias insisted on calling it, despite it not having a bath in it. Humans.
I looked at myself in the mirror and was unhappy with the disguise it had picked. I quickly made some alterations to the disguise, settling on one where my normally bald head was covered in dark hair, my black eyes were more human-shaped, and I had a deep tan.
Satisfied with my choice, I went back to the warehouse I’d visited just a few days before, when furnishing a home had seemed the most pressing issue.
I looked around with new eyes. Any of the homes or apartments that remained empty due to the occupants never coming back had been cleaned out and their items brought to the warehouse where they were cleaned, categorized, and labeled. If any of the previous occupants did return to Nyheim, they were brought here to retrieve their possessions.
The possessions of tho
se unable to return were later resold or used for the communal good.
It was to this section of the warehouse that I headed. I grabbed another bag, something that looked well used, and put in whatever gear I thought I could get away with as camping supplies.
I grabbed two blankets, a sleeping bag, a small three-person tent, a cooking stove and some fuel, and some rope. I then grabbed a hatchet, two hunting knives, and a small pot and pan set along with a plate, a cup, and a set of eating utensils.
Everything was carefully organized and packed into the large duffel bag and strapped across my shoulders, just above the other pack that I had with my clothes and tech. I tested my movement, made a small adjustment, tested it again, and I was finally satisfied with it.
All I needed was another old looking bag, something I could tie to my hip. I looked around, spending more time than I liked searching before I finally found one. It looked much newer than I preferred, but I could always claim that it had been purchased recently to replace an older, broken one.
I left the warehouse, went to a market, purchased a small amount of food, and put it into the small bag. Finally set up, I made my way out of the city and slowly into the surrounding forest. Using the tracker, I continued to head northwest, in the direction of Vidia’s old city of Fraga.
I walked for nearly three hours, the thin light creating long shadows through the trees, before I finally started to get close. The tiny beacon on the tracker was suddenly bright. That meant that I was within a mile of the bug I had placed on Stasia’s neck.
I slowed my walk, taking my time. I had to keep one eye on the forest floor, one eye out for rogue plants trying to kill me, and one eye out for any possible lookouts that the humans had put out.
I understood that that meant I needed three eyes, but I was reasonably confident that the humans hadn’t put anyone out as a lookout. This entire enterprise didn’t seem to be well thought out enough to provide for lookouts and patrols.
Maybe one or two of the humans would have thought of it. I’m sure Stasia would have if she was running it. But with Roddik in apparent control… I highly doubted that he had thought that far ahead. Once again, I worried about Stasia. I didn’t know what dangers she was facing.
With a shake of my head, I put my worries out of my mind. I’d see her soon enough and then she would be fine.
And if she was harmed...then I would have vengeance on her brother.
To be honest, it seemed unlikely that Roddik had thought very far ahead at all. I was willing to bet they were going to set up a temporary camp for tonight, then try to get as far away from Nyheim as possible in the morning before trying to find a place to create their new ‘settlement’.
If I had been running this, I would have already had people setting up a campsite, ensuring that there were supplies and gear ready. Then, with a map and a definitive direction and location in mind, we would have headed out, resting a few hours in the evening and morning, walking the rest of the time to ensure that we would be able to get away from Nyheim and any pursuers.
As the tracker began to blink brightly, telling me that I was only a few hundred yards away, I ducked down behind a large tree and dug a hole. I put the tracker into the hole, covered it, and stood up.
After a deep breath, I started walking again. I was wary of my surroundings, yet nothing moved towards me, or even away from me. I knew that not all the plants and trees were sentient and mobile, but I also remembered back to when we were dealing with the Xathi. This part of the forest had been teeming with life, and we had been forced to defend ourselves multiple times from trees that whipped at us and animals that tried to stab us or poison us with their hooves.
Now, there was nothing. It could have been due to the large number of humans that had come rushing through here. It could also have been because the Puppet Master killed off the vegetation. Thinking about that, I stopped and studied some of the trees around me in the pale light. They looked healthy, as did the vegetation on the forest floor.
That was odd. Why was this untouched when so much more was dying?
I moved on, knowing that I wasn’t going to answer that question tonight.
It wasn’t long before I came upon the campsite. There weren’t as many people there as I expected. This was even more of a haphazard venture than I had thought.
I slowly made my way through the trees, making sure to step on a few branches as I did so to alert them that I was near. As I stepped into the small clearing they had chosen, Roddik and four of his people advanced on me.
“Hi,” I said innocently, even waving as I came in sight.
I don’t think I did that right. Two of Roddik’s friends grabbed me forcefully. I resisted. I didn’t resist terribly hard, but I didn’t want to look like a complete pushover, either.
“Hey, hey! Let me go,” I cried as I shrugged out of their grips, pushing the one to my left. The one on my right punched me, a decent blow that caught me on the side of the head. I stumbled back, selling the moment a bit, and swung at him, making sure to pull my punch a bit.
It was a solid connection with his nose. Blood spurted out as he let out a yell and grabbed at it. The one that I’d pushed kicked at me, catching me in the leg. It was a solid kick, knocking my leg out from under me. I dropped to one knee, blocked his punch, then… as Roddik and the other two advanced, I let him hit me again.
I started pleading with them, yelling out that I was there to help. One of them caught me in the face with a fist. I could feel the blood starting to well up at the top of my nose. I could stop the bleeding, but I snorted in order to make it bleed more.
I kicked out and struggled, but not enough to break free when they grabbed me again.
“You made a mistake,” Roddik said as he walked up and punched me in the jaw. I gathered he meant for the punch to knock me unconscious — he had certainly watched too many human movies — so I pretended to be dazed and barely hanging on.
“Tie him up,” he ordered the others. “And can someone tell me where the fuck my sister is?”
My mind reeled.
Why was Stasia missing?
For the first time in a long time...I was afraid.
Stasia
I woke up startled.
Even though I had kept some distance from the group, I was close enough to hear all the shouting in the clearing. I sat up immediately, ears perked up as I tried to process the shouting and turn it into discernible words. My first thought was that the aliens had found us. It wouldn’t have been hard for them to follow after us, and now I feared a massacre. Roddik had acted like a terrorist, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if a strike team simply rappelled down from a shuttle into the clearing and opened fire.
“Crap,” I muttered as I jumped to my feet.
Before I even knew what I was doing, I was rushing through the forest toward the clearing. Twigs and branches whipped at my arms and face, but I didn’t let that stop me. As much as I hated what my brother and his friends had done, I couldn’t stand aside and let them be gunned down.
“Roddik!” I cried out the moment I saw some shadowy figures in the distance. Without even caring if they were humans or aliens, I just made my way toward them as fast as I could. “What the…?”
There were no aliens to be seen there. Aside from Roddik and a few of his friends, the only newcomer was a man I had never seen before. His skin was tanned, and he had black eyes and hair as dark as a raven’s feather. He didn’t seem to be much older than me, but there was something about him that made it difficult to pinpoint his age.
Also, he had been tied to the base of a tree.
Blood trickled down slowly from his nose, but he didn’t seem particularly concerned with that. Even though Roddik was cracking his knuckles right in front of him, almost as if he was readying himself for another punch, the stranger seemed completely relaxed.
“What the hell’s going on?” I asked, still struggling for air. Adrenaline had made me faster, but my lungs were still recuper
ating from the mad dash I had done on our way here. “Who is this?”
“He’s an intruder,” Roddik said with a frown. His friends simply followed his lead and nodded their agreement, none of them bothering with looking me in the eyes. “We caught him trying to sneak into the camp.”
“I wasn’t trying to sneak,” the stranger finally spoke up. “I greeted you and announced myself. Would I have done that if I wanted to cause any trouble? The only thing I want is to join you.”
There was something about how this man carried himself that was so familiar, something about how he spoke that made me think I knew him. But every time I tried to think about it, Roddik spoke and ruined any thoughts I was having with his inane chatter.
“You want to join us?” My brother echoed, surprise stamped on his face. It seemed that even he couldn’t help but be surprised people would consider flocking to his cause.
I didn’t blame him — the fact someone was actively trying to join us without having taken part in the attack had me completely floored.
Just how dumb was this new guy?
“Why the hell do you want to join us?” I asked him, taking a step forward. I glanced down at him, looking straight into his eyes, but couldn’t read his expression. There was something off about this guy, but I couldn’t really tell what it was.
“It’s simple,” the man shrugged. “Life isn’t the same after the aliens’ arrival. People have died, and we’re never given the whole story. The way I see it, it’s only a matter of time until Nyheim falls. The rational thing to do was to join a group like yours. I believe that I’ll have the best chance at survival if I’m around like-minded people.”
Once more, I had that feeling that something was off about him. His arguments were rational and calculated, and while they aligned with everything my brother liked to espouse … they simply didn’t seem to fit with the man’s whole demeanor.
Why would a rational guy join a group that was being chased down by the authorities?
