“What’s the average life expectancy now?” Blake asked.
“Four hundred and ninety-two years in the USO.”
“For every species?” Darius asked.
“It is an overall average, so yes. With Phantom nanites, no one dies from old age or disease anymore. The only way to die is to have a fatal accident, or to get sent to one of the Phantoms’ hunting grounds.”
Cassandra appeared on Darius’s other side. She ducked under his arm and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Is that a giant spider?” she said in a trembling voice.
Darius smiled and tightened his grip around her shoulders. She had a phobia of spiders. “I’m sure it’s not dangerous.”
“That’s not the point!” Cassandra said.
“Oh, they’re all dangerous,” Gatticus said. “Most USO member species train and arm the people they send away as prey—with the exception of convicted criminals, who are left to fend for themselves.”
“They send criminals here?” Darius asked.
“Of course.”
“Makes sense,” Blake said. “Why send away law-abiding citizens when you can get rid of the troublemakers instead.”
“Are they dangerous to us?” Lisa asked.
“That depends whether or not they like what we have to say,” Gatticus said. “Speaking of which, we’d better go explain why we’re here before they decide to blow open the airlock and find out for themselves.” Gatticus turned and walked out through the open door of the cockpit.
Darius watched him leave, and traded a worried look with Lisa.
“Still think it was a good idea to come down here?” Blake asked.
Lisa scowled and pushed by him on her way out of the cockpit.
Darius glanced down at Cassandra, who was still clinging to him. “Maybe you should stay here.”
She shook her head and let go of him to stand up straight. “No. I want to meet them too. It’s just a phobia. I’ll be okay.”
Darius frowned. It wasn’t the phobia he was worried about. Those people out there were all trained soldiers and hardened criminals. And beyond the walls of the settlement, in the jungle, there’d be Ghouls and Banshees lurking behind every tree.
This was no place for a twelve-year-old girl.
Part Two - Hades
Chapter 16
As they crowded into the airlock of the Osprey, Blake pointed out that they didn’t have any weapons. They’d left them in the other Osprey, back on the Deliverance.
“Are there armaments in those lockers?” he asked, nodding through the inner doors of the airlock to the troop bay.
“Yes, but it would be better if we didn’t greet the locals with weapons,” Gatticus explained.
“Better how?” Blake asked. “You said they were dangerous.”
“And that’s precisely why we don’t want to look threatening,” Gatticus replied as he shut the inner doors and moved to open the outer ones.
But he hesitated before opening them.
“Is something wrong?” Darius asked.
“Do not mention that I am an android,” he said.
“Oh yeah, and why’s that, Slick?” Blake demanded.
Gatticus flashed a grim smile. “Because I believe they will kill us if you do.”
“What? Why would they do that?” Lisa asked.
Before Gatticus could answer, a banging sound started outside the airlock. Someone was knocking on the doors, hard.
“We’re out of time,” Gatticus said, and triggered the doors open.
A human man and a tall, skinny biped covered in short black fur appeared standing there below the airlock. Darius was surprised to find that he recognized the black-furred humanoid: it was a Lassarian.
Both the man and the Lassarian jumped inside the airlock, one after the next, and stood blocking the open doorway. The furry biped had piercing green eyes and a ragged, hairless scar running at an angle across his round face from his sloping brow to his jutting, tufted white chin. Pointed ears twitched restlessly. The human shifted his feet to a wider stance and scratched a hand through his shaggy black beard. He had a broad jaw, and a thick, muscular frame, with tan skin and intense blue eyes. Both of them wore hide coats and sturdy-looking brown pants, and both of them were holding large black pistols, aimed casually from the hip.
“Who are you?” the black-furred biped asked in a deep, purring voice.
“What’s it to you, Catman?” Blake asked.
Darius winced, as both the man and the cat-man turned to Blake with flashing eyes. Their weapons swept into line with his chest.
But before they could do or say anything, Gatticus stepped up beside Blake and delivered a sweeping kick that broke the mag lock of his boots and knocked him on his rear.
“Hey!” Blake roared, already struggling to get up.
But Gatticus planted a boot on his chest and gave him a deadly look. “Shut up.”
Blake appeared to take the hint, and he subsided under Gatticus’s boot.
The locals shifted their aim to Gatticus. Cassandra shuffled closer to Darius, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
In the background, a mixed group of aliens stood watching from the edge of the landing pad.
“Who are you, and what is your purpose here?” the catman asked.
Gatticus told them truthfully exactly who they were, but he left out the part about his being an android.
“That is... an elaborate tale,” the catman said, his emerald gaze flicking between them. “But you still haven’t told me why you are here.”
“We are here to trade.”
The catman growled softly. “What do you have to offer, and what do you want?”
“Do you speak for this settlement?” Gatticus asked.
The catman bared a horror of long, pointy white teeth and lifted his tufted white chin. “I am one of those who do, yes.” He nodded sideways to indicate the burly human beside him. “He is another.”
“We are honored to meet you... may I know your names?”
“I am Primus Kathari Ra Sievros but you may call me Ra. And this—” He broke off to indicate the man beside him with a long, skinny black index finger. “—is Captain Riker. What should we call you?”
Gatticus introduced himself, and then the rest of them, ending with Blake, as if he’d almost forgotten about the man lying pinned beneath his boot.
Darius smiled at that.
“What do you offer us?” Ra asked again.
Gatticus hesitated. “Perhaps there is somewhere more comfortable where we can discuss that?”
Ra hissed and lifted his chin until he was literally looking down his nose at them. “I am comfortable. Are you not, Captain Riker?”
“I could stand here all day,” the captain replied in a gritty voice.
Gatticus nodded. “Very well. We need your help stealing antimatter from the Cygnian fuel depot here on Hades.”
Ra and Captain Riker traded a look, and Ra jerked his chin to Gatticus. “What have you to offer in exchange?”
“We can take some of you with us when we leave. Maybe even all of you.”
Ra and Captain Riker appeared to consider that for a minute.
Then Riker burst out laughing, and Ra joined him with a stuttering mixture of hisses and growls.
Chapter 17
They all stood there in shock, listening to Ra and Captain Riker laugh.
Blake finally had enough. He pushed Gatticus’s foot off his chest and jumped to his feet. “What’s so fekking funny?” he demanded.
Ra and Captain Riker abruptly stopped laughing and spared a momentary glance at Blake before returning their attention to Gatticus. “Why would we want to leave?”
“You don’t?” Darius asked. He was also tired of letting Gatticus speak for them.
“Where would we go? We can’t return to our worlds. If we did, we would only get sent back here.”
“Or tortured and executed,” Captain Riker put in.
“You don’t have to go ba
ck to the USO,” Gatticus said, and Darius nodded along with that.
“You mean join the Coalition?” Ra bared his teeth and hissed.
“Why not?” Lisa asked.
Ra’s gaze fell on her next. “The Coalition is worse than Hades. Down here the Phantoms hunt us, true, but it is merely a game, and there are rules. Up there—” Ra glanced at the ceiling. “The Coalition is fighting a war, and there are no rules in war.”
“What if we offered you weapons in exchange for your help?” Blake asked.
“Weapons?” Ra’s head tilted to one side, and he stroked the tuft of white fur on his chin. “You have weapons?” He hefted his pistol. “Like this?”
“Even better,” Blake replied, nodding.
Ra appeared to consider that for a moment, rocking his head from side to side. “It is a tempting offer, but we cannot risk attacking the fuel depot. As I said, there are rules. We are not allowed to attack, only defend.”
Darius squinted at that, and scratched the side of his jaw.
Blake was less subtle and gave a loud snort. “So how come we detected weapons fire around the depot on our way down from orbit?”
Ra’s eyes widened and he growled softly. “Gurhain.”
Captain Riker scowled. “Kak,” he muttered. “That son of a vix is going to get us all killed.”
“Who?” Lisa asked.
“Tanik Gurhain. He is the leader of the exilesss...” Ra trailed off with a hiss. “Only he would be foolish enough to attack the Phantoms.”
“Sounds like we should be talking to him,” Blake said.
“Gods be with you then,” Ra replied. “Even if he survives the assault, the Phantoms will find him and have their revenge.”
Captain Riker nodded to Ra. “We’d better send an emissary to tell the Phantoms that it wasn’t us.”
“Yessss,” Ra said, hissing. “Send a messenger drone. We don’t want a repeat of what happened to Gifba.”
Captain Riker nodded and jumped down from the airlock, leaving Ra alone with them.
“This is absurd!” Lisa said. “You should be fighting the Phantoms with everything you’ve got, not tip-toeing around them like terrified gibs!”
Ra’s gaze sharpened once more. “You are welcome to leave. In fact, I insist.”
“We can’t leave!” Lisa blurted out. “That’s the point!”
Ra’s green eyes glittered with intensity. “Maybe you should try anyway.”
Gatticus held up a hand to forestall further argument. “Would you at least be willing to help us find Tanik and these exiles? As Mr. Nelson suggested, we could offer you weapons for your trouble.”
Ra rolled his head from side to side, as if he were suddenly uncomfortable in his own skin. A chilling growl built deep inside his chest and shivered out slowly. He stopped rolling his head and bared his pointy teeth. “Fine. It is agreed, but you will have to wait until morning. Night is falling, and the Phantoms will be out to hunt soon.”
“Thank you, Ra,” Lisa said. “You’re doing the right thing by helping us.”
Ra regarded her quietly for a moment, and then grinned, as if enjoying a private joke. “In my experience, doing the right thing can get you into a lot of trouble, Miss Lisa.”
Darius frowned, unnerved by the Lassarian’s expression.
Glancing briefly at Blake, Ra turned and raised one hand over his shoulder, waving all four of his fingers one after the next in a cascade. Darius understood the gesture to mean follow me.
They followed Ra wordlessly out of the airlock, jumping down to the landing platform one after the next. Darius grabbed Cassandra’s hand to keep her close. She didn’t object.
Ra headed for one side of the metal landing pad to a jutting wooden platform, surrounded by log railings. Feeling watched, Darius glanced to his right at the multitude of aliens looking on from a wooden walkway running around the tree trunk. Higher up, he saw shadowy alien faces peering down from windows inside a wooden structure built around the trunk of the tree.
“It’s amazing what you’ve built here,” Darius said. “What do you call this place?”
“Karkarus—it is named after an animal from my homeworld,” Ra explained as they followed him onto the wooden platform. Ra walked over to a control box tied to one of the railings and pressed a button. As soon as he did so, the platform began slowly dropping down to the town below.
“I’m not familiar with that animal,” Gatticus said.
Neither was Darius. Apparently the lexicon they’d downloaded didn’t include everything.
“The Karkarus is a slow, fat creature that sits in the trees of Lassar eating leaves all day. It was nearly hunted to extinction by my species, among other predators, but over time the Karkaruses learned to throw themselves from the trees before they could be caught.”
“Genius,” Blake said sarcastically.
“Oh yes. You see, the Karkarus is hunted for the unique flavor of its meat, but the meat turns foul soon after the animal dies, so by killing itself before its hunters can get a bite, the Karkarus makes itself a distasteful meal. Today, the Karkarus is one of the most populous species on Lassar.”
Darius whistled appreciatively. “Genius indeed.”
The wooden platform reached the base of the tree, and Ra led them down a stone street with grass growing between the rocks. Actual lamp posts lined the street on one side, shining bright against the deepening blue haze of Hades’ dusk.
“Where are you taking us?” Lisa asked.
“To your room. You will be our guests tonight.”
“We appreciate your hospitality,” Gatticus replied.
Darius nodded along with that sentiment and they walked on in silence. No longer distracted by their alien host, Darius’s senses clamored for attention: he noticed a periodic booming sound shivering through the air and the ground that made his heart jump in his chest. At first he thought it might be thunder, but the noise was too regular; then he remembered the towering waves he’d seen from the air. Those waves were crashing against the cliffs on which Karkarus was built. Unlike the oceans on Earth, it was not a soothing sound.
How do these people sleep?
Darius shook his head and took a deep breath of Hades’ cool air. It was perfumed with the tangy-sweet smell of wood-fueled fires and whatever was roasting over them.
A handful of stars sparkled in the darkening sky, competing with Karkarus’s silvery streetlights. To one side, the tree tops were gnarled black fingers scraping a golden sky.
Except it wasn’t the sky that was golden. Between the trees Darius saw that the gold color sketched a perfect semi-circle against the night. This was no splash of fading sunlight; it was a rising moon.
“Wow...” Darius breathed. “Does that even count as a moon?”
“Shebola is not a planet,” Ra replied. “But it is large and close. She is the heart that pumps the blood of Hades.”
“The blood?” Blake asked.
“She moves the oceans. Like a heart.” Ra thumped his chest loudly, in time to the booming crash of another wave against the cliffs.
Darius nodded to himself. He’d been right about what was driving those massive waves.
A group of shadowy aliens went jogging by them, some of them carrying gleaming firearms, while others carried glinting swords and spears.
“Is something wrong?” Lisa asked in alarm.
Ra stopped beside a three-story stone building and turned to face them. “Wrong?” he asked.
Blake pointed to the jogging aliens. As he did so, a giant spider skittered by with another alien standing on its back, manning a turret.
“Those guys are all armed,” Darius said. “And it looks like they’re in a hurry.”
“Ah,” Ra said. “Do not be troubled. That is merely the nightly patrol. They are headed to the wall. Come, we must get you inside before the first wave of Phantoms arrives.”
“Arrives?” Blake echoed, his voice rising in alarm. “There are Phantoms coming? How do you know that
, Catman?”
“I know because they come every night.”
Chapter 18
Ra led them up three flights of stairs, past wooden doors on each landing. At the top, he opened the door, and they walked down a short hallway lined with more wooden doors. The walls appeared to be made of bare concrete. Bright horn-shaped wall sconces illuminated the hallway.
When they reached the end of the hall, Ra turned to a door on the right-hand side and tapped a series of numbers and letters into the keypad. A beep issued from the pad. He swung the door open and walked inside. The lights came on automatically as they walked into what appeared to be a suite, with a living room and kitchen, as well as several doors leading to other rooms. Instead of furniture, the living room floor was lined with fur rugs and pillows. “Keep the door barred and locked,” Ra said as he pointed to three heavy wooden beams on a rack beside the door.
Darius nodded, but then he remembered the way Banshees had clawed their way through thick metal doors on the Deliverance, and he frowned.
“Do you have any weapons for us, in case they get through?” Blake asked, obviously worrying about the same thing.
Ra looked sideways at him. “Did you not say you have weapons to trade? Weapons even better than these?” He pressed, hefting his bulky pistol. “Why would you need weapons if this is true?”
“Because we left them on our ship,” Blake snapped, and glanced accusingly at Gatticus.
“That is unfortunate,” Ra said, just as a piercing scream split the air. He cast a sharp glance over his shoulder.
Cassandra came up and wrapped her arms around Darius in a sudden hug. “What was that?” she whispered.
“They’re here,” Ra replied. “It is too late to go back to your ship now. You will find basic weapons in there—” Ra pointed to one of the doors. “I must leave you now.”
Cassandra’s arms tensed around Darius’s waist. “You’re leaving?”
Broken Worlds: The Awakening (A Sci-Fi Mystery) Page 11
