by James Wisher
Marcus estimated they’d walked over a mile when he picked up a faint squeak. “Did you hear that?”
“I didn’t hear anything,“ she said.
Of course she hadn’t heard it. He only heard it because of his audio enhancers. “I’m picking up sounds near the ultrasonic range.“
“Good. We must be getting close. The natives use shrieks in that range for sonar. We haven’t passed a side tunnel so this path must lead straight to their village.”
It was about time. Marcus had had his fill of trudging through the dark. “So what happens when we find them?”
“I’ll attempt to speak to them and convince them we want to help.”
Marcus laughed. “Good luck with that. The only human’s they’ve seen have captured and tortured them.”
“I didn’t say it would be easy.”
The tunnel opened onto a domed cavern. Marcus looked up and his light glinted in hundreds of little eyes. The bats went nuts, flying in every direction when the light hit them. Great, they hunted down a colony of actual bats.
“What now?” He asked.
“Turn around, slowly.” Iaka spoke in a low, even tone. Like someone trying to calm a puppy.
He did as she asked and found himself chest to face with six hairy bipeds pointing stone tipped spears at them. He doubted they could even scratch the enamel on his armor with those things. The natives shrieked and raised their arms when his light hit them. He powered it down to five percent and they fell to the ground, hands stretched toward him.
“What’s that all about?” Marcus asked.
“I suppose I should try and talk to them.”
Iaka squatted down beside the closest one and began to make a strange combination of squeaks and grunts. As she spoke the natives’ wide eyes got even wider. When she stopped they crawled into a little circle and began to confer.
They waited in silence for a minute. “What did you tell them?” Marcus asked when he couldn’t stand the waiting any longer.
“I said we meant them no harm and that we’re here to help.”
“What did it say to the others?”
“I didn’t catch it all,” Iaka said. “But it mentioned that it didn’t realize the pale demons could speak their language.”
“They think we’re demons?”
Iaka nodded. “Me at least. With your armor on, who knows what they make of you. Anyway, given the differences in our technology levels and the circumstances of out first contact it’s hardly surprising that they think of us as demons.”
The discussion broke up and one of the natives, Marcus thought it was the same one Iaka spoke to faced them and began to squeak at them. It babbled for several seconds then looked at Marcus.
“Well?” he asked.
“They say they’ll take us to the tribe’s shaman. It’s up to him to make any other decisions.“
Marcus frowned. “Does it seem odd to you that they’re willing to trust us considering what’s been happening here?”
She raised her eyebrows and laughed. “They say the god of the dark depths will protect them. They think that’s you.”
Marcus blinked. Perhaps he misunderstood. “They think I’m a god?”
She nodded and her smile grew.
“Well, whatever. Let’s go.”
They followed the natives through twisting tunnels for a good fifteen minutes before Marcus picked up new ultrasonic vibrations. He could identify several dozen distinct voices. The village had to be just ahead.
“We’re getting close,” Marcus said. “The ambient radiation has increase fifty percent. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
“I’ll be fine. I’m more worried they’re leading us into a trap.”
“What are they going to do, throw rocks at us? I’ve got a pair of vortex cannons built into the gauntlets of my armor. I could blow away hundreds of the little guys if it comes to that.”
“Let’s be sure it doesn’t come to that. We came to help, not commit genocide.”
Marcus nodded. The now familiar native approached and tugged on Iaka’s shirt. She looked down and he pointed toward the cavern just ahead. A small group of natives stood huddled together. The little guy squealed and ran toward them.
“What was that about?” Marcus asked.
“He said we should wait here while he speaks with the shaman.”
“Which one is that?” The hairy little things all looked the same to him.
“I’d guess the one in the middle.”
Marcus used the suit’s optical zoom to get a closer look at the group. He couldn’t differentiate between age groups as they all looked short and wrinkly. He watched them speak and they all deferred to one native, the one in the middle, no doubt the shaman.
The shaman pointed at the spokesman and began waving his hands. “Looks like our little friend is getting chewed out,” Marcus said.
“They could have endangered the whole tribe bringing us here. I’m sure the shaman is just pointing that out.”
The spokesman began waving and motioning them forward. “I guess that’s our cue,” Marcus said.
They walked over to the natives, slowly and making no sudden gestures. Even so the natives cowered away form them. Considering what had befallen them Marcus couldn’t blame them for feeling afraid.
When they reached the group the shaman began to speak. Iaka listened, nodding several times. The shaman pointed at a large boulder a short ways away and waved his hands again. When he finally fell silent Iaka turn to Marcus and said, “He doesn’t believe you’re their god of the dark depths. He says if you really are a god you should have no trouble destroying that boulder.” She nodded her head at the boulder the shaman indicated earlier.
“So I blast the rock and we can get the hell out of here?”
“Yeah, if they think you’re their god this should go much smoother.”
“No sweat. You want me to make a big show of it?”
She nodded. “It’s a religious event for them after all.”
“Got it. You might want to move back.”
Iaka moved away from him and Marcus began to power up his vortex cannons. The palms of his gauntlets began to glow as they approached full power. He heard the natives hissing behind him. He hoped that wasn’t the local equivalent to boos. Here goes.
He threw his hands forward and shouted. “Fire!”
Twin spirals of energy lanced out and struck the boulder dead center. It exploded in a shower of gravel. Marcus turned to see the reaction and found all the natives on their knees, heads touching the ground.
“Looks like that worked,” he said. “Can we go now?”
Iaka spoke to the natives, every once in a while pointing back at him. No doubt explaining it was his divine will that one of them accompany them. He moved a short distance away. He picked up a distant, rhythmic thumping. The sound of hard soled boots on stone. Shit.
“Time to go,” Marcus said.
“The shaman has decreed that the spokesman from earlier will come with us.”
“Great,” he said. “But everyone has to move, now.”
“Why?”
“Soldiers are coming.”
“Are you sure?” she looked around as though expecting to see them running down the tunnel.
“I can hear them.”
“All right. What do you want to do?”
“Find out if they know of any hiding places. The higher the radiation the better. It’ll screw up any sensors they’re using.”
She bent down to speak with the shaman. After a moments thought he spoke and waved his hands about. She nodded. “He knows a place that might do. It’s a ways from here though.”
“You’d better get moving.”
“Me? Aren’t you coming?”
“I’ll be right behind you. I’m going back to try and collapse the tunnel leading to that big cavern we went through earlier.“ Marcus removed a homing beacon from the suit’s utility belt. “Take this. If you get too far ahead I can use it to fi
nd you.”
“Won’t the Earth Force soldiers be able to find it as well?”
“If they happen to be scanning that particular frequency, maybe, but what are the odds of that? Now get them moving.”
Marcus watched Iaka usher the natives out of the cavern. Of all the stupid ideas he’d had over the years, starting a cave-in on purpose ranked up there among the stupidest. His hands shook slightly in his gauntlets. Some god of the dark depths he was.
He left Iaka and his new congregation behind and hurried back up the tunnel. With his antigravity generator on about half power he could cover yards with each stride. It took only minutes to retrace their steps to the large cavern where they’d first met the natives.
The roof looked stable to his untrained eye but he let the computer scan it for structural weaknesses. After a minute three points appeared in his heads up display. He raised his arms and fired vortex blasts into the weak spots. The powerful streams of energy ripped huge chunks of rock form the ceiling. When the dust cleared a huge pile of rubble blocked the passage but he hadn’t managed to bring down the whole ceiling the way he planned. Apparently it wasn’t as easy to cause a cave-in as he assumed.
Well, that would have to do. His battery gauge read half power after those blasts and he didn’t want to waste anymore juice. In the distance, but approaching at a run he could hear the enemy.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Adam glared at the cave entrance. He stood just outside the cave beside the cleaner’s six man ground assault team. They’d wiped out the camp but found no sign of Dr. O’Hare. Probably fled into the jungle. Adam hoped something ate him.
“There was definitely someone here before us.” The team’s tracker, a slim, dark skinned man about thirty, stood up. “Two people, one much heavier than the other.”
Adam nodded. The smuggler and his lost agent. It had to be them. Somehow they snuck down to the planet while everyone was distracted by the battle. If they could catch and eliminate them it might make up for Adam losing the doctor. If they escaped with a native and made it back to the council nothing would save Adam’s neck.
“I believe the two new arrivals are a pair of high value targets. A man about my age and a younger woman. They need to be captured or killed.”
“Sir?” The unit commander, a middle-aged veteran of many years named Colin, stepped forward. “Are these two a higher priority than eliminating the primitives?”
“Absolutely. If they manage to escape with a native we lose, it won’t matter if the rest are gone or not.”
“Understood. Sten, take point. Everyone activate your dark-vision goggles.”
Adam stepped into the cave and activated the goggles he’d borrowed from one of the soldiers left behind. Everything turned green but at least he could make out the walls and floor. The soldiers set a quick pace, leaving the entrance behind, the darkness swallowed them.
They trotted through the dark for some time, Adam didn’t bother keeping track. This would take as long as it took. He focused on putting one foot in front of the other and trusted the soldiers to take care of everything else. “We’ve got a problem, sir.” The voice of the point man, Sten, came through his com. It sounded staticky. Something interfered with the signal.
They reached him a few seconds later. The soldier stood in front of a massive pile of boulders. It looked like the ceiling collapsed. Damn it. Adam hadn’t seen any side passages on the way down so if they couldn’t get by he wouldn’t be able to catch up with his prey.
Colin approached the rock pile, studied it a moment, then turned to a short, skinny man and said, “What do you think, Spider?”
Spider studied the pile. “Don’t think we better try and climb it, to unstable. Going to have to go up and over.”
Spider took a pistol out of his pack then what looked like a foot long spear trailing a coiled line. The little man fitted the spear to the gun then fired it into the ceiling. He yanked on the line a couple times and nodded.
“I’ll take a look.” Spider fitted the line into a pulley and pushed a button. He went slowly up the line, finally reaching the ceiling. He looked back down at them. “I can see another tunnel on the other side.”
“Get down there so we can send the next man up,” Colin said.
Spider fired a second spike down to the cavern floor and attached the other end to the first spike. He slid down on the pulley. “Clear.”
It took about five minutes for all of them to make it over the rock pile. They started down the tunnel deeper into the mountain. They would catch up. Adam could feel it.
After causing the cave-in Marcus activated the tracking unit in his suit. Iaka and the natives had only covered about a mile since he left. He bounded through the tunnel after them. Something must have gone wrong. At the rate they traveled it wouldn’t take Marcus long to catch up. It wouldn’t take the soldiers long either.
In just under ten minutes Marcus caught up to the rear of the line of natives. They shuffled ahead like a bunch of hairy cripples. He spotted Iaka at the front of the line and threaded his way past the natives to reach her. As he passed they touched his legs and looked up in awe. He tried to ignore them and failed.
“What’s the hold up?” Marcus asked when he finally made it to the front of the line.
Iaka pointed to a group of children. “They can’t go very fast, so we had to take it easy.”
“We won’t make it at this pace. I couldn’t seal the tunnel. At best I slowed them a few minutes. Couldn’t they carry the kids?”
“We tried that, but it only slowed the adults.”
“Shit. What if they didn’t have to walk at the kids’ pace?”
“You aren’t thinking of leaving them behind?”
“Of course not.” What did she take him for?
Iaka gave him a searching look then spoke to the shaman. “He says if they ran they could make it to the hidden place in about an hour.”
“That’ll have to do. Round up the kids.”
Marcus activated his antigravity generators until he hovered about three feet off the floor. All the natives fell to their knees. Being a god was starting to get old. He adjusted the controls until he floated horizontally.
Iaka led four kids over to him.
“Put them on my back.”
She started setting them on his back and each time she added one he sank a little lower. He had to increase power twice before the last one settled in place. This wouldn’t do his power cells any good.
“Do they have a good grip?”
Iaka nodded.
“Let’s go.”
They took off at a run, Marcus following at ten percent thrust. It beat walking, he just hoped he didn’t run out of power before they got back to the ship.
According to the suit’s clock it took exactly forty seven minutes to reach a Y in the tunnel. Down the left the branch the radiation was off the chart. His suit could shield him but he needed to get Iaka away in a hurry. He could just pick up fresh air straight ahead. There had to be an exit.
“Get the kids off me. We need to go.”
She helped the kids off him then turned to throw up, not good. When she had herself under control Marcus asked, “Is there another exit out of their hiding place?”
She spoke to the shaman then nodded.
“Tell them to get going and I’ll seal it behind them.”
She spoke again to the shaman who faced Marcus and bowed deeply. Then the whole tribe hurried down the tunnel. Marcus gave them a full minute to get clear then fired a pulse into the ceiling. The mouth of the tunnel came crashing down. It’d take some digging to get through that.
He checked his power meter. Twenty-five percent left. He needed to get to the sun light so he could recharge. Iaka leaned against the tunnel wall, head bowed, body trembling. Marcus bent down. “Get on my back.”
“I can walk,” she said.
“You can barely stand. Get on.”
She staggered over and wrapped her arms around his neck
and her legs around his waist. He looked down at the little native who looked back up at him, big black eyes shining in the dim light. Marcus bent down and carefully picked him up. Then he ran.
When Adam heard the clanging steps of someone running in armor he knew they’d caught up. “After them!”
The soldier’s took off at a sprint. No way someone in power armor could out run them. They pounded down the tunnel, past a sealed side branch. In the distance Adam could just make out a dim light. He snapped a shot at it but missed.
“Come on, we’re gaining.” They rounded a bend in the tunnel, in the distance bright light streamed in, an exit from the tunnels. “No, no, no.”
Adams shot again as he ran. The blast gouged stone out of the tunnel wall but came nowhere near the fleeing figure. The armored figure reached the opening and leapt into the sky. Adam skidded to a stop. The tunnel ended in a vertical drop of easily three hundred feet. He spotted a black armored figure streaking away form them. He fired a few more shots but at this range and their speed he had no chance of hitting them.
“Damn it!” Adam just couldn’t get a break.
“Don’t worry, sir, I’ve got combat skiffs inbound. We can still catch them.”
“Good, commander.” Adam saw the skiffs approaching. Two of them took right after the fleeing figure, it had to be the smuggler, while the third came to pick them up.
The armored figure had a woman riding piggyback and a native cradled in his arms. The fact that he could even fly like that impressed the hell out of Adam. Still, no way someone so burdened could outrun their skiffs.
The little alien shrieked when Marcus leapt out of the tunnel. He didn’t know if the light hurt it, it was terrified of falling, or if was having some sort of religious experience. Whatever, when he fell silent Marcus gave a sigh of relief.
Iaka tapped his helmet. He turned toward her and she yelled over the wind, “We’ve got company.”
He looked past her and spotted the skiffs coming up fast behind them, no good. He carried too much extra weight. Hell, even unencumbered he couldn’t outrun those skiffs. At least his battery charge started coming back up thanks to the high efficiency solar collectors built into the suit. He flinched when the first wild shot screamed past.
