by Barry Kirwan
He was staring at the viewscreen facing the forest and the ship, trying to see the first signs of the advancing group, when the perimeter alarm went off a second time. The display showed two new figures moving fast towards the Lander, not coming from the newly arrived ship, but from the hills. With a sickening feeling in his stomach, he realized it was a chase scenario – a hunt. It had to be Kat or Blake, with a predator clearly gaining ground. He searched the cockpit and the second module frantically, but there were no heavy weapons left – the ‘cannon’ was depleted, and Blake had taken the smaller rocket launcher.
For a moment he considered staying put, but dismissed the idea – it was not in his nature to desert a comrade. In any case, he doubted it would take the Q’Roth long to break in or disable the ship. He figured he might as well die doing something his ancestors would be proud of. Grabbing his pulse rifle, he checked the magazine was fully charged, and headed for the airlock. He kicked the emergency release and leapt through the hatch, coming down faster than planned, landing heavily at the bottom of the stairs. He knew the knock he had taken in the tree was still affecting him, but he had to try to save whoever was coming. He then heard Kat yell a single word, "Zack!" A shout not far short of a scream.
Rashid knelt down to get a more steady aim, and then observed the scene unfold in slow motion. The flare was nearly down, casting a macabre light on the rapidly approaching figures. He could half-see Kat’s face as she tore free from the bushes into the stretch of desert between her and the Lander, straining with every step, contorted whether through fear of imminent death, or pain from the exertion – or both. The creature was just behind her. Rashid saw the raw power in the beast, never before having seen one hunt. Even as he raised his rifle, he knew he had no clear shot, and they were too close together for him to use the rifle in free-flow mode. He watched helplessly as one of the creature’s legs spread out sideways and then swept at Kat’s back leg. Her forward momentum propelled her headlong through the night air, before she crashed down into the dust like a wounded gazelle brought down by a lion.
He fired two rounds as the creature pinned her down with one of its claws. He fired again three times in quick succession, barely gaining its attention. Kat struggled desperately to get free, while the creature pressed her into the ground. A shrill shriek burst forth as the creature raised two of its legs into the air, and Rashid knew it was about to take her life. He fired one more time before the rifle was knocked out of his hands and he was thrown to the floor. He looked up to see a short girl, a fierce look in her eyes. Confused, he turned back towards Kat to see another figure run towards the creature, shouting a warrior’s death-cry and brandishing a blade of blue fire.
Rashid watched the man – suicidal it seemed – leap from the ground as the creature swung its two raised legs at him. The man rolled in mid-air, and Rashid could not tell if the legs hit him or not, but as he landed in the dust behind the creature, it was stilled. Its legs wavered once, twice, and then its legs buckled as it split clean in two, the top half falling backwards, the front half crashing over Kat.
Rashid jumped to his feet, following the girl, who was already sprinting toward the scene. She ran to the man in the dust, he ran to Kat. Three other men followed Rashid and, as he arrived, helped him heave the steaming, stinking carcass of black intestines and dark blue blood off her back. Without turning her over, Rashid knelt and patted her hard on the cheek.
"Kat, Kat! Can you hear me?"
She groaned, and appeared at best half-conscious. Rashid checked her back and neck for any obvious breakages but found none. "Support her head and get her back to our ship!" he shouted to the other two men. They hesitated.
"Now!" he shouted, and they jerked into action, lifting Kat carefully. Rashid glanced over to the girl kneeling next to the other man, who was sitting up, carrying a short silver cylinder. Rashid recognized the tell-tale electric blue of a nano-blade before it vanished into its sheath, as the girl helped the man get up. Blood was weeping from a line of six gashes across his stomach where the claws had caught him.
Rashid intercepted them. "You are a Sentinel, aren’t you?"
The man spoke with obvious difficulty. "How do you… know of us?"
Rashid considered his priorities. He turned and jogged to catch up the other men and Kat. As he reached the hatch, Kat was coming round.
"You’re alive! Kat, you survived your nightmare." He laid a hand on her shoulder. She looked like she’d just aged ten years.
She stirred. "Rashid!" she panted, "Nobody’s more surprised than me. But I feel like a house fell on me. What happened? Where’s Zack? He killed it, right?"
"Later." He checked her over, seeing if she could get up. With some effort, she spread her feet and stood on her own. She stared toward the mass of the creature some twenty meters away, but said nothing.
The girl and the man arrived, as did one more man and a woman. Rashid felt the warrior’s eyes boring into him, but it was the girl that spoke.
"Sorry I pushed you by the way, but I didn’t want you to shoot our stunt-man here. My name’s Jennifer."
Rashid looked her up and down. "I’m Rashid. You pack quite a punch. But… you came in the ship? The Q’Roth ship?"
She nodded. "There’s about thirty of us. But what about you? You’re not one of the Ulysses astronauts. Where are the others?"
Before he could think of where to start, Kat piped up. "Rashid. I need to talk to you a moment – alone."
He crouched down, noting the hooded look in her eyes.
She did her best to whisper. "The Q’Roth will be coming, Rashid. That wasn’t a guardian – that was a newborn. They’ll flood down this hill. We have to take off."
He stared at her, and then up towards the hill, then addressed Jennifer.
"I’m afraid we are all in terrible danger. The hatching has started. There are likely to be thousands like that one coming this way very soon." He glanced at the warrior. "Even your nano-sword will not help us this time."
"What are we supposed to do?" said the young woman who had stayed in the background until now, a trace of an Italian accent. "We can’t take off! Let us come with you!"
Before Rashid could answer, Jennifer cut in. "Sophia, they can’t take us. It’s a four-man craft, at best, if I’m not mistaken. We should go back to the ship and make a stand there."
Sophia turned on her. "You gotta’ be crazy! We’re – what did he say?" She pointed to Cheveyo, "corralled sheep! You can go and get eaten with your boyfriend if you like. This ship could damn well try and take us!"
Rashid smelled rising panic in the air. These people, he realized, were not trained astronauts or military, they were civilians. With alarm he noticed the woman was armed with a pistol. Without warning, it was out and she was waving it around.
"Listen, I’m not going to die on this fucking planet. I’m getting on board, and anyone tries to stop me is cooked meat". She backed nervously toward the steps.
Rashid noticed that the warrior was too far from her to do anything, and was bleeding heavily in any case. As she reached the bottom rung of the ladder, still aiming the gun at them, a hand dropped down from inside the ship, and pressed something silver onto her neck. Her body sagged and her eyes rolled upwards. The hand from the ship caught her neck and held her, and a strained voice shouted. "Well for Christ’s sake somebody take her, she ain’t as light as she looks."
Rashid turned to Kat. Sure enough, just after two men took her slack, anaesthetized body, Zack showed himself.
"Anyone like to tell me what the hell is going on?"
Before they could answer, the long range perimeter alarm sounded off. It rose in pitch, indicating multiple incursions.
Rashid took control. "Prepare for take-off, Zack – they’re coming." He turned to the others. "I’m sorry. We can take one, no more, or else we cannot lift off."
Jennifer spoke for all of them. "We understand. Take her." She pointed to Sophia. "I for one don’t want to be caught while trying to carry that bit
ch’s body on my back, and try as I might, I can’t quite bring myself to leave her as a distracting morsel to slow them down."
Rashid nodded. "Good luck." The small group turned to leave, breaking into a jog, led by the warrior, evidently in severe pain. Together with Kat he hoisted Sophia onto the ship.
"For the record," Zack said, "she’s with you guys, ‘cause my wife don’t tolerate any hanky-panky. And you both look like shit, by the way." He dragged his bad leg off to the cockpit.
Rashid was relieved once they retracted the ladder and sealed the hatch. They dumped the girl in a stasis pod and he activated it, then he joined Kat in the cockpit where Zack was already strapped into Blake’s seat, shivering, a side-effect of rapid stasis exit, and no doubt the pain in his leg. Zack shrugged, and held up an empty trimorph phial.
"Don’t feel a thing. Come on, Rashid – let’s see if you can really fly."
"Stasis, my friend."
"After take-off, not before," he retorted.
Rashid sighed, and strapped in, trying hard to ignore the perimeter alarm, which instead of individual beeps was now a steadily rising whine.
Zack addressed Kat. "Blake and Pierre?"
Rashid, sitting in Zack’s usual seat, turned around as the engines started their pre-burn. Kat shook her head once. "They’re in the cavern, but by now hundreds of Q’Roth have hatched."
Zack stared resolutely at the control panel in front of him, his jaw set.
Rashid needed to focus on their imminent plight. "How close are they, and how many?" he said to Kat, who was studying the perimeter radar screen. It was still not yet light enough to see very far, although dawn was approaching.
"At least a hundred, maybe more… the first ones are just about to arrive."
"Then to hell with the pre-checks, we go now!" Rashid waited a fraction of a second to see if Zack objected, but Zack pushed back in his chair and folded his arms.
"You’re in the chair," Zack said.
Rashid punched a final key sequence and the roar of the thrusters shook the entire ship. At the same time, there was a loud bang as the first Q’Roth hit the side of the ship.
As he eased forward on the engine throttle, Zack shouted above the din in the cockpit. "Toast them, Rashid. A spin take-off should do the trick."
Rashid bit his lip and rammed the engines full throttle, thrusting him back into his seat as they tore away from the ground, then squeezed a side-bar on the joy-stick, causing the Lander to rotate as it ascended. It was a well-known illegal war maneuver, spreading a curtain of flame over a hundred meter diameter beneath them, and scorching their hull. At least this may give our new friends a little time. But as they struggled to take off, feeling Eden’s gravity pulling at them, he thought of Blake and Pierre being consumed by these monsters. He heard a roaring scream and felt a clunk as something tore off the side of the ship, and they catapulted upwards. Now he had to focus on only one thing – warn Earth. He glanced over to Zack, who was drifting in and out of consciousness, having far exceeded the safe trimorph dosage.
"Should we put Zack into the stasis chamber?" Kat asked.
"No – I may still need his advice while I’m trying to dock with only one thruster." He concentrated on the nav track to find the orbiter, and noticed a new alarm on the central pilot’s panel. The young Q’Roth who had tried to hitch a lift had inflicted damage before being incinerated.
Kat spoke as Eden fell away beneath them, and the grav unit kicked in to dampen the acceleration effect. "Rashid, the thought that Zack would be there ready to save me; it somehow kept my fear from overwhelming me. But in fact he wasn’t there for me."
"That is the beauty of friendship, the beauty of faith, of hope."
"But –"
"You’re alive. Without that trust in him, you would not be. That’s what matters: the bonds between us. That is what makes us strong. Now, we’ve little time. Go and prepare a stim for Zack."
She complained. "But that’s dangerous, he –"
"The Q’Roth damaged the last maneuvering thruster when we took off. I’m not sure we can dock without it. The stim, please."
As Kat unstrapped and headed back to the second compartment, Rashid thought to himself, looking over to Zack’s unconscious frame. In fact, my large friend, it is time to see if you can really fly as well as I have heard.
Chapter 45
Plan B
Micah fell to his knees and dry-retched as the pseudo-liquid evaporated. He gasped several times and coughed so hard he could feel the bronchioles straining in his lungs. But he was relieved – he’d been sure he would drown. He noticed that only three men remained upright, Vince, Commander Vasquez and the new arrival. Everyone else was bent double, or on all fours. Vince still had a gun pointing at the drenched man.
"Name?" Vince demanded.
Micah was impressed that Vince spoke so clearly, as if unaffected by the transfer.
"Ramires," the man said, "I knew Ralph. A good man, and a former partner of yours, I believe. Very clever, managed to infiltrate the Alicians. He died uncovering the secret of that key."
Vince’s trigger finger flexed. "For all I know, you killed him."
Micah got to his feet, though his throat still stung from the coughing. All eyes that weren’t still watering were on the face-off. Ramires was equivocal, a non-mocking smile spread under his black moustache.
"If that’s what you believe then pull the trigger. Otherwise we had better get moving. And I could do with some dry clothes."
Vince’s pulse pistol remained fixed on its target, his arm steady. "Where are we?"
"You know where we are. They will come. Soon."
Micah moved over next to Sandy. He thought about trying to intervene, but she put a steadying hand on his elbow.
Vince lowered the weapon, and picked up the microphone to the PA system. As he clicked it on, there was a brief whine to gain everyone’s attention.
"Okay – Listen everybody. We’re on Eden. We’re here to stop an invasion. Centre of Ops is tower level four. We have five airborne units prepped, so we spread out in cardinal directions, one stays here in reserve. I’m handing over detailed military operations to Colonel Vasquez."
He passed the microphone to the Colonel, who set about issuing crisp orders as if he’d been born doing it. In amongst them, he sent an orderly to find some dry fatigues for Ramires. Vince walked over to Micah and Sandy.
"The rest is up to the military guys for now, you two need to stay out of their way. Vasquez is a good tactician – my CO in Black Ops more than once in the War."
Sandy cocked her head at Vince. "You’re actually going to take orders from someone? This I have to see."
"Dream on. I’m still in charge overall, but he’ll get them on the move – he’s more up to speed on the hardware and mil-ops than I am. But we need to work on Plan B."
"How to get home?" Sandy asked, momentarily distracted by Ramires unceremoniously stripping naked on the other side of the room.
But before Vince could answer, Micah surprised himself and them by answering.
"No. How to escape from both Earth and Eden." As soon as he’d said it, he wished he hadn’t, because he knew it was right. It was booster-enhanced lucidity, enabling him to make an inferential leap. But he needed to unpack it.
"Look, Vince, Sandy, we’re stuck in the Alician’s game, and they’ve been moving our pieces for centuries. What are our real chances of winning or even surviving? Earth is going to be in dire straits, maybe doomed." His gut tightened, as if only now catching up with where his mind was headed. He rushed on, needing to get it all out while he had the mental clarity. "And Eden is a trap, a Q’Roth nest. We have to get off their chessboard." Something from his last Optron experience surfaced. There had been a presence there – alien – but not malevolent. And then the realization shook him: the Q’Roth – this wasn’t the first time; humanity was just next on their list. Which meant… "Another planet! There must be other planets. We have to find one!"
> Vince stared at him hard, and then turned to Ramires.
"Is there somewhere else?"
Ramires paused as he buckled his belt. "Rumor has it. But we have no maps, if that’s what you mean. We also understand from our one off-worlder encounter centuries ago that it is a vastly advanced place near the inner ring of the galaxy."
"Meaning?" Vince asked.
Ramires put his tunic and jacket on, and zipped it up. "You eat meat, I presume. Many do because it comes from animals that we consider unintelligent."
Micah had understood this implicitly during the Optron feedback from the alien presence. He jumped in. "You mean that there are intelligences vastly superior to our own, so we’d be in serious danger."
Ramires’ nod was solemn. "We have never had a credible ‘Plan B’ as you call it, not for centuries."
"Great," Vince said flatly.
Micah stared hard at the ground, concentrating. Suddenly his mind broke through.
"That’s it! Of course!"
Vince folded his arms.
Micah beamed. "We need to find a planet the Q’Roth have already been to, one they’ve already… harvested."
Sandy butted in. "But Micah, there won’t be much left of it, will there?"
"Doesn’t matter. It’ll probably be deserted, but it will be safe. The Q’Roth would have no reason to go back, and other races won’t be interested."
They all stared at Micah for a while, before Vince cleared his throat and spoke.
"Well, Micah, as plan B’s go, it’s a long way from what I’d hoped for, but at the moment I don’t have a better one. You work out a way to find such a planet. Vasquez and I are going to introduce the locals to hell while we can. Ramires, care to join?" He and Ramires walked over to Colonel Vasquez.
Sandy stared at Micah. "You know, a few days ago when you breezed into my office demanding to see Kane, I thought you were a complete nerd."
He dared a smile. "And now?"
She grinned. "Well, let’s just say I think I’ve seriously underrated how useful nerds can be." She touched his shoulder, her smile fading. "Find a way to this other planet, Micah. I have a bad feeling we’re going to need it."
