by Autumn Dawn
“Why? What can possibly be so precious about this place? You’ve seen it—it’s one step removed from hell.”
He glanced at her tray. “Finish up and I’ll take you to the lab. There’s something you should see.”
Xera translated for Rysing, who grimly gagged down her dinner, minus the mashed potatoes. In minutes they were walking into the labs where Ensign Trevor worked as a technician. He nodded to the lone woman on staff and took them over to a bench. “We’ve all been taking turns bringing our buddies in here, showing them why the GE wants this ‘stinking hole of a planet.’ You won’t be seen as unusual.”
He said it in such a way that Xera wondered if he’d be questioned later. Maybe he was pushing his luck to be inviting her in, explaining. Maybe he was trying to make amends for their misunderstanding on the desert planet.
“Watch this.” He put on gloves, then took a big tube full of murky water and showed it to them. “This is the toxic water from one of the oceans. Now look what happens when I pour it through this filter into this other beaker. You see this sediment forming? We’ll get back to that.” A clear drip of liquid was slowly filtering into the tube. He set it back out of the way and reached for another tube. “This liquid is already filtered. Now we use a nanofilter to separate out the oil and water.…” He repeated the process with a new beaker.
“Oil? I thought the two didn’t mix?” Xera said.
“Not unless they have an emulsifier, but this is special stuff,” he agreed. “Okay, this is now separated. You can see the value of the water without my explaining it. As for the oil…” He stuck a wick inside and set it on fire. “Ta-da! Fuel, ladies. Oceans of it, enough to power a whole civilization for a long time. But wait! There’s more.”
“I’m afraid to ask,” Xera said. Clean water and a cheap fuel source were bad enough. Her home world of Polaris had started out with much less, dragging asteroids into orbit around a gas planet and using lunar ice to form lakes. This planet didn’t even need that much effort. Sure, it was overrun with pests, but varmints could be trapped and killed.
“You should be,” Ensign Trevor confirmed, “because this sludge rivals tranium as a fuel source.”
Xera gasped. Tranium was the most efficient fuel source ever found for starships. If a rival source were found, the GE would shed blood to get their hands on it. Suddenly cogs started clicking into place. “You didn’t just discover this. The GE has been here before.”
“And lost ships to the Khun’tat,” he confirmed. “Nobody will admit it, but I’ve got a friend on the inside who says it’s true. You know what? I think those monsters are out here in this sector because they’ve spotted a new food source.” He looked her in the eyes, his expression deadly serious. “You went through all the trouble to send a message out, but you didn’t tell the GE anything they didn’t know, Lieutenant.”
“And they’re willing to risk everything for the fuel,” Xera said softly. She felt sick. Countless lives were being thrown away, and for what? So some rich guys could get richer. She also had to warn Ryven.
Rysing demanded to know what was up. Her brow furrowed in concern as it was explained, and she looked thoughtfully at the tubes on the bench. “If all this is so, why are they here now? Why not attack already?”
“Specimens,” Trevor explained after translation. “They want some live critters this time, and more soil samples, weather data, etc. We also have to study the bugs and fungus we ate in the cave. Unless we find other native prey animals, future colonists might have to live on them.” He looked disgusted.
Xera’s lips curled in memory, too. “Ugh!”
Rysing didn’t look horrified by the description of the situation, just thoughtful. “I’d like to see this place,” she said when their fortress destination was described.
Xera started to argue with her, but was interrupted when the ship intercom announced their impending descent. All personnel were to prepare themselves for landing.
“I think we’ll ride this out in our room,” Xera told Ensign Trevor. “I’ve got a lot to think about. Thank you. I hope we’ll get another chance to talk.”
He gave her a jaunty salute. “My pleasure. Remember, stay clear of Khan. The current commander is all right as they go. Stay on his good side and you’ll be okay.”
Xera shook her head slightly as she left. Would she be able to stay out of trouble? Considering her goals, she doubted it would be for long.
Chapter Twenty-one
“I want to go outside.”
Xera stared at Rysing like she’d lost her mind. “Why? There’s nothing good out there.”
“I need to see it,” the Leo-Ahni said quietly, but her face was determined. At times she could be every bit as stubborn as Xera herself. “I understand if you are afraid. I will ask the commander to allow me to go with his party.”
Xera drew breath. She didn’t want the girl wandering around alone; she felt responsible. “You won’t understand what anyone is saying. You could get hurt if someone called a warning you couldn’t understand.”
“So you’ll go?”
Xera sighed. “I guess. I’m going to request a gun for the outing, though. It’s too dangerous for even one of us to be unarmed. I don’t suppose you can shoot?”
“I was never taught.”
So they ended up going out in the chill desert sun. Xera felt like a bodyguard as she hovered near the small Leo-Ahni and surveyed the rocky plateau. While Rysing looked around with curious eyes, Xera scanned the skies and ground for danger.
“Relax, Lieutenant, we’ve got you covered,” one of the accompanying marines drawled, smiling a lazy and confident smile. His big blunt face was tolerably good-looking, but his attitude grated.
“When you’ve marched for a day over these sands with things jumping out of the sky and the sand buckling under your feet, we’ll see how well you can cover me,” she told him grimly. “I think I’ll stay on guard until then.”
He shrugged, thick-skinned enough not to mind her attitude. She noticed he stayed close, though, and she caught a subtle nod between him and Ensign Trevor, who was also part of their party. Was Trevor pulling favors, having his friend watch over her?
She’d have to be careful—she was really starting to like him.
Captain Khan was also there, cane and all. He sent her one cold look then pretended she didn’t exist. She wasn’t fooled into thinking he’d given up his revenge.
“A woman could run for miles over this sand,” Rysing said longingly, her eyes on the horizon. “I need to go down there.”
“Don’t get any ideas about going for a jog,” Xera warned her. “Running for miles in this stuff is deadly.”
Rysing looked at her with dignity. “I’m not a fool.”
“Thank God for that, because I must be to let you talk me into this.” Xera muttered in her own language. She nodded to the far end of the plateau. “Look, they’re getting ready to go now.”
She kept her breathing even as her group moved away from their massive ship toward the nearby fortress, reminding herself that they were fully armed. It wasn’t night, so flyers weren’t a threat, wouldn’t be even if it were pitch dark, because they didn’t like the lights spraying out from the ship. She’d had all the precautions explained to her. In addition, the men ahead of the party had equipment capable of detecting the other dangers, were even setting traps for them. There was no reason for her feeling of doom.
“Easy now, ma’am. It’s a short walk, and you’re surrounded by guns.” The marine sounded like he was calming a skittish animal.
“A happy thought,” she assured him, but she made herself walk tall as if she felt no fear. There was a moment of déjà vu as she remembered her first meeting with Ryven. She’d walked tall then, too.
Rysing paused on the sand and breathed deep. Her eyes half closed as she took in the scents. She’d never looked more like a cat than when she knelt down and splayed the fingers of her right hand over the sand. She knelt very still, as if li
stening. “There’s something coming under the sand.” She pointed to the southeast, toward the sun.
Xera translated rapidly.
“Naw, the sensors aren’t picking up any—whoa! Incoming! Sandworm,” yelped one of the technicians manning the sensors.
“The traps aren’t ready,” Ensign Trevor said grimly. “Better shoot it.”
Rysing watched the chaos calmly. “Hold still and it will stop,” she murmured, but no one was listening. She placed a hand on Xera’s arm when she tried to pull her away. “Be still. It hunts by vibration. If you are still, it is blind.”
Xera didn’t want to experiment, but she told the marine with them what Rysing had said.
“How does she know?” the man asked softly, but he held still, his gun trained where he thought the worm would be.
Their care was unnecessary. As soon as the beast got close, it was shot. Rysing shook her head. “Silly.”
“We’d better get nonessential personnel inside,” the commander ordered. “I want those samples double-quick.”
Since it was built for keeping out animals, not people, the security was easy to overcome. All too soon they were entering the tunnel that led to the main room.
The fortress was everything Xera remembered, but the circumstances were vastly different. She’d expected fear, but oddly the place gave her a rush of melancholy. She missed her husband. If she wanted to see him again, she was going to have to do everything in her power to get herself back to him. If an opportunity came up, she was going to have to run for it.
Rysing didn’t seem in a hurry to leave. She inspected every inch of the main cave as if it were a house on the market. She even followed Ensign Trevor below to look at the worms and mushrooms.
Xera stayed topside with the marine. There was no way she was going back down in that hole. She caught Khan looking at her once, but she knew there was nothing to fear yet. He wouldn’t make his move in front of witnesses.
Rysing came up munching on a mushroom. She carried a jar full of bugs in her other hand.
Xera looked at her in horror. “What are you doing?”
Rysing popped the last bite in her mouth and licked her fingers with a slightly pointy tongue. “These are much better than ship’s food. I’m hoping the crawling ones will be as well. At least they’re fresh.”
Xera gagged. She had to turn away quickly to keep from embarrassing herself.
“I know the feeling,” Ensign Trevor said as he came up carrying his own jar. “Nothing like squishing through the…say, you’re not going to puke, are you?”
She came very close. For a moment she had to close her eyes and breathe very carefully. To comfort herself, she murmured, “I could understand it if she were the one who was pregnant.”
Suddenly it registered what she’d said. Her eyes popped open. Ensign Trevor was staring at her with a particular, frozen expression. Pity or horror? She couldn’t tell, but it was time for fast decisions. She shot a look at the marine. His gaze was across the room, as if he hadn’t heard a thing, but she didn’t believe it.
She looked at Trevor. “Could you escort me back to the ship? We need to talk.”
He nodded stiffly. “I’ll take a load of specimens.”
“We’ll watch your back,” the marine said, and he and Rysing fell into step a couple of paces behind.
She waited until they were climbing the stone stairs to the platform before she spoke. “The commander of the Scorpio, Ryven, is the father. If you saw the tapes from the conference, you must have known that.”
He nodded. “Yes. It’s just…I’m so damn sorry for you. No woman should have to suffer that.”
She shook her head. “No suffering here. However he behaved with you all, he’s different with his family, with women. I want this baby to have his father.”
The silence was thick. The ship was getting nearer. Had she made a mistake?
“I see. What do you want me to do?” Trevor said finally. “You know better than to ask the commander to let you go.”
“Can you help me? We’re leaving in what…two days? I can’t go back, and Rysing…I’ll ask, but I think she wants to stay with the Scorpio, too.”
There was a heartbeat of silence. “I’ll see what I can do.”
She sent him a look of gratitude. “Thank you.”
He sighed. “Yeah, I’m a sucker. I know.”
The time passed quickly as the GE party collected their specimens. Xera worked on her report and Rysing played games on the computer, or pestered Ensign Trevor in the lab, armed with a handheld translator he’d found for her. She was insatiably curious, particularly about the planet. She told everyone it was because she’d never gotten to see anything but a small portion of her own planet and a confined space of the Scorpio world. She was so childlike and cute, she got away with it, especially since she was free in telling anyone who asked about her own world. On a ship full of explorers, she was in constant demand.
Even so, she assured Xera privately that she wanted to return with her. She had hope of seeing her own people again someday. Not all of them were ready to let the Khun’tat rule, and she hoped to help the rebels in some way.
Xera didn’t spend too much time thinking about the girl’s motives; she had her own hopes and worries to occupy her—and other people’s motives. Time was getting tight. She needed off the GE ship, and soon, and she needed Trevor’s help. Would a man she’d once spurned really help her escape?
Ensign Trevor finally asked her if she’d like to take a walk to the cargo bay. Rysing was welcome to come, too. He asked it standing in her doorway, acting as if nothing more interesting were going on than an invitation to see some of the new things that had been collected. It was such a common sight that it didn’t cause any interest.
Several crew members waved to Rysing as she passed. Cheerfully, she waved back. The girl had a sunny side when not burdened with fear, and everybody liked her.
Everybody but Khan. Xera’s old captain saw the group pass in the hallway and glowered. Everyone who associated with Xera was suspect.
“There’s not enough room in the labs, so some of the newest specimens are stored in the cargo bay. You’ve never seen anything like them, I promise,” Ensign Trevor said as a cover while they passed Khan and several others. “I hope we can keep them alive until we reach home.”
They didn’t go to the cargo bay, though. Xera and Rysing were escorted to the shuttle bay instead. The huge doors were open as men and equipment moved in and out. There seemed to be a problem at the doors. A machine was stuck on the ramp, belching smoke and blocking the exit. Xera thought she recognized their earlier marine escort as one of the shouting men swarming over it. Nobody paid them any attention.
Trevor walked casually to the Scorpio shuttle and let them in. Once inside, he spoke quickly. “Strap in and take off. It’s fueled and the controls are fixed. Preflight’s done. It’s now or never.”
Xera took a breath. Her throat felt tight. “You’ll be punished for this.”
He smiled grimly. “Hit me a couple of times, will you? Make it look good and things will go better for me. Remember, I have to stumble out of here looking banged up.”
She winced. “I hope you go to heaven for this.” She punched him in the nose, and it was a good shot. Bone crunched under her fist. He cursed and grabbed his face, probably seeing stars.
“Now this is interesting,” Captain Khan said. He was propped in the doorway, one hand supporting him on the wall, the other clutching his cane. “I see you’re still a traitor, no matter what the commander says.”
Xera stared at him. Trevor turned slowly, still clutching his nose. Blood ran between his fingers. “Sir, I tried to stop her.”
Khan smirked. “I heard. Lovesick whelp! Don’t you know she’s been rutting with aliens?” His hand tightened on his cane as he looked at Xera. “This time, it’s my word against yours, and you’re the one trying to escape on this enemy ship.”
Trevor rushed him. But though a he
ro at heart, Trevor was no warrior. One neat blow to the side of his head with Khan’s cane and he was stretched out on the floor, dead to the world. Khan looked amused.
Xera glanced around for a weapon. For her baby’s sake, she’d rather not get too near Khan. She knew he’d kill her and claim self-defense. It was the logical thing, given his hatred of her.
“Here.” Rysing must have raided a toolbox, because she handed Xera a heavy wrench. “Hurry. We need to take off.”
“No pressure,” Xera muttered.
Khan grinned and lunged for her. She ducked the cane and went to one knee, swung the wrench with all her strength. His cane connected with her shoulder and clipped her ear, but it lacked force. Her wrench didn’t. It kissed the man’s bad knee with gleeful fury. He screamed and went down on top of her. Somehow his hands wrapped around her throat and tightened. He was crushing her larynx.
Xera saw Rysing kicking his head, but still Khan didn’t let go. But she had trained for this. Xera encircled his arms with hers and grabbed hold of her right fist, locking them together. With a mighty jerk, she pulled, breaking his arms at the elbow. There was a wet crunch as the bones snapped.
Khan screamed, a sound that was quickly cut off by another crack. Trevor stood over him, the wrench clutched in his hand. He was weaving, but still hauled Khan off Xera.
“He’s dead,” Rysing said.
“Yeah,” Xera croaked. She crawled to her feet. She looked at Trevor. “Can you get him out of here? We’ve got to go.”
He smiled grimly. “Better hurry. This won’t go over well.”
“Thank you,” she said. He deserved a lot more, but she didn’t have anything else to give.
He held her eyes then nodded, dragged Khan from the ship. Mercifully, the ramp was out of sight of the main door, blocked by a huge crate, so no one saw. She knew the situation wouldn’t last.
