Primal Dawn

by Ryan Kirk

  The creature held up its hands, a gesture Tev recognized. It was the same gesture he would make to another hunter if he was surrendering or approaching in peace. It puzzled him, and Tev paused his attack. He couldn’t keep up with everything happening around him.

  He turned his head as he heard the battle behind him. Knives were clanging off the skin of the first creature, and Neera had planted herself front and center. The creature swung at her with surprising speed, but her reflexes were keen, and she dodged the attack. She struck back at the creature, but her knife was ineffective against it. The creature caught her with a short backhand, sending her skidding to the ground.

  Rage swelled up in Tev. He didn’t care what happened to most of the hunters they were with, but Neera was another matter. He would give up his life for her without thought.

  It was then the second creature in front of him moved. Tev didn’t think, he just reacted. He leapt forward, catching the second creature by surprise. He lashed out with his knife and was delighted when the blade cut through the thick skin on the underside of the shoulder. The creature howled, a sound as human as anything Tev had ever heard. What was he fighting?

  He didn’t have time to answer the question. The howl of pain focused the attention of the first creature on the battle happening behind it. The creature grabbed one of the hunters in its left arm and picked him up, swinging him around and using him as a club against the others. With one swing the creature cleared the space around itself and released the hunter, sending him crashing into the trees.

  The creature brought up its right arm, and Tev knew what was about to happen. He sprinted into the woods, terrified of the small black hole underneath the creature’s arm. There was a whine, just as Xan had described it, and the woods in front of Tev exploded. Tev couldn’t see what was causing it, but instinctively, he knew he didn’t want to be between the creature’s arm and the destroyed forest. He skidded to a stop and turned around, the destruction coming towards him as the creature adjusted his aim.

  The second creature was down on its knees, suffering from whatever wound Tev had given it. Tev didn’t stop to think. If there was one place that was safe, it was in the shadow of the second creature. There was no way the first creature would cause harm to the second.

  Tev sprinted the other way, but the creature didn’t stop its assault. Tev didn’t know if it wasn’t aware of what it was doing, or it didn’t care. Either way, it continued to track Tev. The destruction licked at his feet, and desperate, he launched himself towards the second creature. As he did, he was punched in the gut with incredible force. Tev had never felt a power like this before. It was both sharp, as if he was being stabbed, and general, imparting a tremendous amount of energy into his body.

  He lost all focus, crumpling in a heap behind the second creature. The first creature kept tracking, and the sound of screeching assaulted Tev’s ears. The second creature fell backwards against Tev, crushing him underneath its weight. With a grunt, Tev managed to shift away from the creature, but when he looked down, he knew he didn’t have long. There was a hole in his stomach, and blood and viscera were coming out. Tev was a pragmatist. He had seen the same injury dozens of times in animals and knew he was in for a slow death. Fortunately, he would pass out from blood loss soon enough. He just wanted to see if there was anything he could do for those who remained.

  Tev managed to raise his head. The first creature was writhing around, and at first Tev thought perhaps one of the other hunters had landed a fatal blow. But as he watched, he noted there wasn’t any sign of damage to the first creature. It seemed as strong and as healthy as ever. But it was still in pain. Some of the hunters, those not yet injured, crept closer to the creature. They had seen Tev damage the second one. They wouldn’t give up until there wasn’t any other choice left.

  The hunters didn’t have a chance. The creature, aware of their presence, raised both of its arms, and the whine started again. The hunters scattered like flies disturbed from their meal of a corpse. Tev caught a final glimpse of Neera. Their eyes locked, and Tev nodded at her. She understood what he was trying to say. She bowed slightly to him and summoned the hunters to her. Together they disappeared into the forest.

  Tev watched Neera’s back as she left. He had always loved her, but it was time for her to go on without him. This next journey wasn’t one she should join him on. He understood what Lys had told him in his dream. She had been trying to warn him about his own end. Tev smiled. He looked forward to a never-ending hunt.

  Tev didn’t have any strength left. He laid his head down on the ground and closed his eyes, waiting for Lys one last time.

  Kindra stared at all of her monitors, trying to understand what was happening. One moment the situation had been tense but peaceful, and suddenly all hell had broken loose. Kindra could see that Kenan was powering up his weapons systems despite Derreck ordering him not to. The people, whom Kindra couldn’t think of in any way other than human, were swarming all over Kenan. But their attack was primitive, and if Kenan opened fire, it would be a massacre.

  She was trying to track the action through both viewpoints, but wasn’t able to. She had heard stories of commanders in fleet who could monitor multiple full-view displays at once, but she wasn’t one of them. In desperation, she narrowed the two screens down to field of view for both Derreck and Kenan. That way, she was only looking forward. She felt like she could handle that much better.

  Kenan’s screen was still swarming with people, and when she looked over at Derreck’s she could see he was running towards the action.

  “Kenan, don’t arm your weapons. I’m coming to help.”

  Kenan didn’t respond. Kindra checked his vitals and saw that everything was spiked. She didn’t think Kenan could hear Derreck even if he was screaming right in his ear. All Kenan was experiencing right now was a threat.

  “Derreck, I don’t think he can hear you.”

  Derreck’s voice was desperate. “Kindra, you need to remote override his weapons systems. We can’t let him fire on them.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Kindra’s fingers flew to the controls and she started entering the commands for a remote override. Her attention was distracted when Derreck’s voice came into her ear again. “Oh, shit!”

  Kindra looked at the readouts and saw Kenan’s weapon system was active. She watched him throw off the last of the people on top of him. It was almost silly how much stronger Kenan’s exosuit made him. Kindra couldn’t tear her attention away.

  She pulled her focus back to the boards. She had to finish sending the command before Kenan could do even more damage.

  Derreck’s grunt grabbed her again. She looked over at his screen and watched as his world twisted. Someone had hit him hard. She glanced down at his vitals, but everything seemed to be fine. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from Derreck’s screen. He was struggling back to his feet, but there was a person in front of him with a long and wicked-looking knife.

  Her eyes darted back and forth between the screens. Too much was happening to keep track of. Kenan was throwing someone, and then Derreck’s vital readings started going haywire. Derreck swore. On Kenan’s screen, Kindra watched as Kenan tried to kill the person who had attacked Derreck. The man moved with a strength and grace Kindra had never seen before. He stopped right before he ran into Kenan’s crosshairs and sprinted back towards Derreck.

  Kindra watched in horror as her brain tried to process what was happening. The man dove, trying to use Derreck as cover. Kenan’s crosshairs floated over him and kept track, and Kindra’s time froze as Kenan shot Derreck right in the chest. Derreck’s vitals immediately disappeared, and Kenan stopped firing.

  There was a moment of silence. Kindra couldn’t believe what she had just seen, and Kenan seemed to be processing what had happened. And then a scream came over the channel, a primal yell. It was as though a man’s soul was being ripped from his body. Kindra slapped at controls, trying to turn off the audio, but Kenan’s scream ec
hoed back and forth in her mind, a perfect reverberating chamber. After a few moments she wasn’t sure if he was still yelling or if she would just never get the sound out of her head.

  Then Kenan lost it. He started firing at the trees. Perhaps there were people out there, Kindra didn’t know. Her eyes were too blurry with tears. Derreck had been with them just a few moments ago. Only a minute, maybe two, had passed. How could this have happened? In the back of her mind, she knew there were all sorts of procedures she should be going through, but she couldn’t process any of the checks she was supposed to be doing.

  Slowly, her mind reasserted itself. The first thing she had to do was take care of Kenan. He needed to stop. His exosuit had enough ammo to wage a small war, so there was no chance of him being forced to quit there. She needed to shut down his weapon systems. She punched the code into the console and watched as his weapons powered down.

  “Kenan, can you hear me?”

  Kenan shook his head, and Kindra knew her voice was coming through, even if he didn’t want to acknowledge it.

  “Kenan, I need you to come back in.”

  His voice came through the channel, a voice she had never heard before. It was higher pitched, and the voice cracked. “They killed him.”

  Kindra’s mind reeled. She had watched as Kenan shot Derreck, but she also knew the human mind reacted strangely under pressure. What had happened out there was in danger of cracking his sanity, if it hadn’t already. As calmly as she could, she replied, “Kenan, I need you to come back in. Please.”

  There was no response, and Kindra saw on the screen that he was shaking his head again. Her mind raced, trying to think of ways to get him to come back. She had already decided that once he was back, she’d put him under sedation. He was too unstable right now to have running around the ship. He had already done more than enough damage.

  Kindra saw him reach back towards his neck, and her heart raced. “Kenan, don't!”

  If he heard her, he didn’t care. With a quick yank, every screen she had on Kenan went dark. Kindra swore. He had pulled out every transponder he had on his suit. She didn’t have any information on him. No visuals, no vitals, and most worrisome, no control over his suit anymore. Her first reaction was to try to scream at him, but she stopped herself. It wouldn’t do any good. He had made his decision, and he couldn’t hear her anymore.

  Kindra rubbed her temples and took a deep breath. Her captain, her friend, was dead. Their soldier was off the grid, probably with a blood vengeance. It couldn’t get much worse.

  Kindra was pacing the room, her eyes closed as she tried to think her way forward. The mission had gone so far south, she couldn’t think of any way to recover. She had called a staff meeting that was supposed to start in an hour, but everyone shared her sense of shock and loss. They needed time apart to process this.

  Her breathing was ragged and harsh, and it echoed softly in her ears. She frowned. That wasn’t her breath. She opened her eyes, but she was alone in the room. Doubting her own sanity, she held her breath. Then there was a cough in her ears, and her eyes went wide. She looked at the screens. There was no way it should be true, but it had to be.

  “Derreck?”

  The only answer she got was a grunt, but it was more than enough for her. She let out a small squeal and a jump before getting ahold of herself once again. “Derreck, what’s your status? Your vitals aren’t coming through.”

  Derreck swore. “One minute.”

  The view on Derreck’s screen, which had shown nothing but the sky of the planet, started to move, and Kindra’s breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t believe Derreck had lived through a direct hit on his suit. What had happened?

  Derreck worked himself into a sitting position. There was another cough and a wet sound, and Kindra worried that although Derreck was alive, he wouldn’t be for much longer. She watched as he flopped his left arm onto his leg and played with the command controls on the left wrist. Everything he did looked painful.

  “Kenan hit one of the processors on the vitals system. I can’t pull up any diagnostics for myself either.”

  Derreck pulled himself up a little straighter and swore. “Whatever happened, it can’t be too good. I can’t move my left arm at all except at the shoulder, and I feel like I’ve been kicked by a giant. I wish these scientific rigs were better armored.”

  On a hunch, Kindra pulled up the last known schematics of Kenan’s exosuit. “He changed the round type. Kenan didn’t have standard shells in there. He was firing full anti-personnel rounds.”

  Derreck swore again. “Well, that explains that.”

  Kindra didn’t know what Derreck meant, but now wasn’t the time for questions. She needed to get him back to the ship alive. “Let’s not worry about that for now. Can you stand?”

  In response, Derreck’s camera swayed again, and Kindra could see he was about to make the effort. He paused for a moment and then stood, and Kindra’s breath caught in her throat. He swayed from side to side, and the sound of his breath as he stood frightened her. It was ragged and wheezing, with an undertone of liquid that could only be blood. She figured he had to have a punctured lung. Without the first aid provided by the exosuit, he never would have lived.

  Derreck might be on his feet, but he wasn’t in good condition. Kindra wished she could get vitals on him, but she couldn’t figure out how. The suit had a number of chemical delivery systems available, but without knowing exactly what he was going through, she hesitated to take any action. The wrong move could kill him.

  “I can give you some painkillers if you want.”

  Derreck didn’t answer for a moment, and Kindra feared she had lost communication with him too. Then he shook his head. “I’m afraid that if the pain goes away, I won’t have anything to hold on to.”

  Kindra grimaced, but there was nothing to say. Right now, Derreck was the only one who knew what he needed. All she could do was be around to offer whatever support she could.

  One breath at a time, Derreck managed to stabilize himself. “It’s official. My left arm is useless, and I might be too if I don’t get back to the dropship now. Give me a sitrep.”

  Kindra shook her head. “That can wait, Derreck. We need you back now.”

  “Mission first.” Derreck’s tone allowed no room for argument. Kindra swore.

  “Kenan is out of touch. I have no idea what’s going on with him.”

  “Is he alive?”

  “I assume so. His physical health seemed fine. He tore out communications from his suit, so we have no location and no way of getting in touch with him.”

  “I should be able to track him.”

  Kindra overrode Derreck. “No, Derreck. This isn’t the time. Your life is in danger, and there’s nothing Kenan is going to do in the next few hours that hasn’t already been done. The damage exists. I’m more concerned about your life right now.”

  Derreck was silent for a moment. “I’m coming in.”

  Derreck scanned the ground one last time, and he came upon the native who had almost cut off his arm. Kindra gasped as Derreck kept his gaze on the creature. From everything Kindra could see, the creature was a young man, not much younger than Kindra herself.

  “Do you want me to bring him in?”

  Kindra shook her head. “There’s no way we can do that!”

  Derreck’s voice gave away his exasperation. “Look, this whole mission has gone to hell. We’re about as far from home as we can be, and in front of us we have what appears very much to be a human. We’ve fucked everything else up so far. Might as well try to get as much information as we can before we have to burn atmosphere.”

  Kindra couldn’t deny her own curiosity. So many indications pointed towards human, but it was still impossible. It would be the discovery of a lifetime. There was no way she could refuse. “Can you handle it?”

  “I think so, hold on.”

  Kindra watched as Derreck switched through his control schemes. The exosuits were controlled th
rough a complex interchange of physical and mental inputs. Typically, most of the exosuit simply responded to the pressure the pilot exerted with his own body. If a person wanted to raise their arm, they simply started the motion. The suit sensed the motion beginning and mirrored it. But the helmets of the exosuit were also special. The helmet molded itself to the skull of the pilot, pressing sensors directly up against the pilot’s head. They translated electrical impulses from the brain and moved the suit in accordance. The neural connections were primarily for balance and display functions on the helmet, but they could be used to move the suit. It just didn’t happen often. Most people weren’t very good at knowing how they were moving.

  Derreck was switching the suit over to complete neural control. Kindra caught her breath. “Derreck, are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  He kept working as he responded. “I don’t have a choice, Kindra. My body is giving out. This is the only way I have a chance.”

  “We can come get you.”

  “NO!”

  Tears sprang from Kindra’s eyes.

  “There aren’t any more exosuits, and we don’t know this environment well enough to let you out without one. Even if we did, this area is crawling with people who want to kill us. You have to stay in the dropship.”

  “At least leave the creature behind!”

  “Why? If it was me, physically doing it, sure, but it doesn’t matter at all to the suit. Might as well.”

  Kindra couldn’t find any fault with his logic, as much as she wished she could. Even though he was the one bleeding to death, he kept thinking clearly.

  There was nothing to do but watch. Once transfer to neural control was complete, Derreck just stood there. Every move was agonizingly slow, and Kindra couldn’t help but watch the mission clock. Depending on the rate of blood loss, Derreck might not have much time left.