Tundra 37

by Aubrie Dionne

  Luna pulled a wispy strand out of the snow crust. “This must be what the mam­moths eat.”

  “It’s not as cold here.” Tech un­zipped his coat. “Must be a warm jet stream blow­ing up from the south.”

  “Which would ex­plain the melt­ing snow and the pres­ence of ve­get­a­tion. Too bad I left my sample bags in the landrover.” Luna sniffed the strand and stuffed it into her pocket. “This means there may be other spe­cies of ve­get­a­tion around. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to eat this as well.”

  “Great. I just love salad.” Tech’s words dripped with sar­casm. “Test the mam­moth meat first, and we’ll have bar­be­cue.”

  “I’m go­ing to test it all.” Luna glanced at him with dis­dain.

  Tech held up his hands. “I’m just say­ing you should have some pri­or­it­ies.”

  Stay­ing out of the ar­gu­ment, Gemme searched for Brent­wood. He stood on top of the next snow­drift wav­ing his hand.

  “Hey, guys, I think we should see what the Lieu­ten­ant wants.”

  Brent­wood met them halfway down the snow­drift. Huff­ing, he poin­ted back to the landrover. “We’re al­most there. It’s just over that next ridge.”

  “We’ve come to our fi­nal stop, people.” Brent­wood’s voice had a ring of fi­nal­ity that sent a shiver down Gemme’s back. This was it. They’d reached the end of the mis­sion. Now her ana­lyt­ical skills would be tested. She wondered if she could cal­cu­late the ex­act di­men­sions and com­pos­i­tion of the min­eral de­posit. Num­bers and data she could do without ques­tion, but hy­perthium and other min­er­als?

  “The screen says the min­eral de­posit is two hun­dred meters away, just over this hill.” Brent­wood turned the landrover to the right.

  “What are all those dots on the screen?” Tech sat up in his seat try­ing to glimpse over the edge. They were still too far down the hill to see any­thing.

  “Don’t know.” Brent­wood’s voice was even as if he fought to stay calm. “Let’s find out.” The vehicle climbed slowly, tires work­ing on over­drive to haul the min­ing equip­ment up the steep in­cline. Gemme’s hair fell back be­hind her neck as her seat went from ho­ri­zontal to ver­tical. She gripped the arm­rests, feel­ing as though they’d topple over back­ward.

  “Sir.” Tech’s voice caught in his throat. “The dots are mov­ing.”

  Luna spoke up. “With that alien orb, we don’t know what’s over there.”

  Brent­wood stopped short of the cliff top and put the vehicle in park. “That’s it. I’m go­ing out to take a look be­fore we re­veal ourselves and the equip­ment over the top.”

  “You can’t go alone!” Luna screeched.

  “I’ll go with him.” Tech pulled out his laser and re­in­ser­ted a charged en­ergy cell.

  “I’ll go too.” Gemme sur­prised her­self with the de­term­in­a­tion in her voice. Wait­ing in the landrover would only make her anxious. She’d sat in that small com­part­ment all day. The urge to get out and do some­thing over­whelmed her.

  “Well, you’re not leav­ing me alone in here.” Luna zipped up the front of her jacket, sur­pris­ing Gemme. Was she fi­nally com­ing around to do real work? “I’m com­ing too.”

  “Every­one goes.” Brent­wood brought out his own laser. “Fol­low me and don’t make any noise. Don’t shoot un­less I give you a sig­nal.”

  “Yessir, chief.” Tech put up his hood so his face was a mass of beard and fuzzy cot­ton.

  Brent­wood cast a glance at Gemme and she nod­ded, ty­ing her own hood tight around her neck. “Got it.”

  He turned to Luna last, his face wary as if he avoided all con­tact with her. “Ms. Leg­acy, you all set?”

  “Sure thing.” Luna’s voice soun­ded less con­fid­ent than usual and Gemme wondered if the threat be­hind the hill caused the tremor, or if their kiss had strained their re­la­tion­ship. She didn’t have time to think fur­ther be­cause Brent­wood pressed the panel and the hatch buzzed open, stray snow fling­ing in to melt on the plastic seats.

  Luna whispered as they stepped out. “Tech, how much mass did each dot rep­res­ent on the screen. Just how big are they?”

  Tech nar­rowed his eyes as he stared up the in­cline. “Big.”

  “Shhh! No more talk­ing.” Brent­wood ges­tured over his shoulder and they climbed the last meter of the drift. Gemme’s heart beat so fast, she thought the muscle would con­vulse and she’d drop dead be­fore they reached the top. The snow sucked at her boots as if it re­fused to give her up.

  When they got close enough, Brent­wood crouched down and crawled up the edge of the ridge, peek­ing over the top. He waved for them to join him. Gemme fol­lowed with Tech be­side her. As her eyes cres­ted the ridge, all she saw was a dark cen­ter to a snowy val­ley. She squin­ted against the glare of the dis­tant sun. The ground moved, a writh­ing mass of hair.

  “Oh no.” Her eyes widened des­pite the bit­ing wind.

  “It’s a mam­moth horde.” Tech whispered un­der his breath as if he’d draw their at­ten­tion from meters away.

  “Why can’t we go around it?” Luna asked, join­ing them.

  “Be­cause the min­er­als are loc­ated at the val­ley’s cen­ter.” Brent­wood whispered be­side Gemme, clutch­ing the edge of snow with his gloves. “They’re stand­ing right on top of it.”

  “Why in all of Tun­dra 37 did they pick the one spot we needed for a home?” Luna’s ques­tion came out as a whine.

  “Prob­ably warmer than ly­ing on the ice.” Tech quirked an eye­brow. “Rock is a bet­ter con­ductor of heat. And you saw that grass sup­ply nearby.”

  “That means they won’t give it up eas­ily.” Brent­wood stretched his neck to see fur­ther.

  “That’s it.” Luna slid down. “We’ll have to go back and get re­in­force­ments.”

  Tech shook his head vi­ol­ently. “We don’t have that much time. The Ex­ped­i­tion needs an al­tern­at­ive en­ergy source, and min­ing and pro­cessing the hy­perthium will take time. It’s already taken us twice as long to get here, and we have the only landrover. Ima­gine how long it would take on foot if we garnered an army. Be­sides, I’m not leav­ing the equip­ment out here alone.”

  “Then you can stay here with it.” Luna huffed. “I’m not go­ing down there.”

  “I’ll do it.” Brent­wood in­ter­rup­ted. “If I take three en­ergy poles with me, I can set up an elec­trical peri­meter fence while you cre­ate a di­ver­sion. It’s the only way.”

  Luna’s mouth dropped open. “That’s sui­cide. You saw what one of them did to the landrover.” She pushed past Gemme and grabbed his arm in a me­lo­dra­matic ges­ture that made Gemme want to roll her eyes. “You’re not go­ing to risk your life.”

  Gemme wor­ried about Brent­wood as well, but she didn’t reach out and grab him like in some Old Earth ro­mance movie. As much as she didn’t want him to go, he could make de­cisions for him­self. He was a lieu­ten­ant, after all and they should all be fol­low­ing his com­mand.

  Brent­wood pulled his arm away, ig­nor­ing Luna. “You three start a com­mo­tion, scare away as many as you can with laser fire. I’ll sneak down and put up the en­ergy poles. All I need is three to make a tri­an­gu­lar de­fense. Once the peri­meter is in place, Tech, you drive the min­ing equip­ment down.”

  Tech shook his head. “I don’t like it, sir. I’m not even sure the elec­tro­mag­netic pulse will hold them back. Won’t they be able to run right through?”

  “We’ll set the con­duct­ors to max­imum. If they cross the beams, they’ll get an elec­tric shock strong enough to stop the heart of a whale.”

  “Yeah, but is it strong enough to stop an alien mam­moth?” Gemme wondered out loud, want­ing to stop him be­fore it was too late. “What if they have more than one heart?”

  “Then they’ll all stop.” Brent­wood winked at her and stood up. His bravery im­pressed her.


  Brent­wood walked back to the landrover and pulled out three en­ergy poles. “Pre­pare your lasers. I’m go­ing down.”

  Gemme’s throat tightened as Tech and Luna took po­s­i­tions be­side her on the cliff. There was so much she hadn’t said to Brent­wood, so much she still wanted to ask him. Her stom­ach flipped as she real­ized this might be her last chance. She’d thrown away so many chances to speak up on this mis­sion; dur­ing the Au­rora Borealis, when Luna handed her the sample trays, and so many times while driv­ing. She wasn’t about to do it again. “Wait.”

  Brent­wood’s face flashed in sur­prise and he gave her a ques­tion­ing look.

  “I’m sorry I doubted you last night.”

  His face softened, as if she’d touched upon the one is­sue he had yet to re­solve in his own heart. “There’s some­thing I have to tell you too.”

  The ten­sion in the air heightened as Gemme froze, her heart ham­mer­ing against her ribs.

  Brent­wood took a long, deep breath and stared at her as if no one else ex­is­ted on that snow­drift. “Gemme, ever since I found you in the emer­gency shafts, I knew you were spe­cial. I’ve been drawn to you every minute of this mis­sion since then, and I want you to know I love you be­fore I go down there.”

  Gemme’s cheeks burned so hot, she’d thought she’d melt the snow around her. Her world turned up­side down. It was like play­ing that silly child’s game when they plucked petals off a syn­thetic flower and stuck them back on again: Lovesme, loves­menot, lovesme, loves­menot.

  Be­side her Luna’s voice hitched in her throat, com­ing out as a weak cry. Tech grunted. “’Bout time.”

  Be­fore Gemme could re­spond, Brent­wood leaped over the edge.

  They fol­lowed him, turn­ing their heads to the val­ley be­low. The lieu­ten­ant skid­ded down the cliff us­ing the sides of his boots. Once he reached the bot­tom, he held up an arm.

  “Come on, gals, let’s do him proud,” Tech muttered un­der his breath. They propped their lasers up in the snow with their fin­gers hov­er­ing over the trig­gers, wait­ing for his sig­nal to fire.

  Brent­wood crouched down, ten meters from the horde. He was an en­tire head taller than Gemme, but com­pared to those beasts, he looked like an ant and it made her heart creep up to her throat. Gemme leaned for­ward, res­ist­ing the urge to fol­low him down the in­cline. She could keep him safer if she covered him from above. Her fin­ger shook against the trig­ger.

  Brent­wood’s arm came down in a def­in­ite move, and Tech nod­ded. “That’s the sign.”

  Tech opened fire, his shots aim­ing for the edge of the horde where Brent­wood hid. “Aim down here. Drive them away,” he shouted, and Gemme in­stinct­ively pulled her own trig­ger, aim­ing at the mass be­low them.

  The mam­moths bel­lowed a warn­ing cry and the herd scattered in panic. The dark cen­ter to the val­ley spread thin and Gemme caught a glimpse of the gray rock sur­face un­der­neath.

  “Keep them away from Brent­wood,” Gemme shouted, pulling the trig­ger so hard her fin­ger numbed. The white light didn’t come out fast enough. There were too many beasts to keep at bay.

  Brent­wood zig­zagged through the horde as if they didn’t even see him. He stuck the first pole in the ground and ducked around to the other side of the val­ley. Gemme watched him un­til his blue thermal hood dis­ap­peared between two mam­moths and didn’t re­sur­face. A cur­rent of fear sprang up in­side her. “I don’t see him.”

  “Brent­wood can take care of him­self. We’ve got other prob­lems to worry about.” Tech re­dir­ec­ted his fire to a head of tusks poin­ted in their dir­ec­tion. The mam­moth’s coat was a shade lighter than most of the oth­ers, its hair the same color as Gemme’s. It would have been beau­ti­ful and majestic if it wasn’t so hell bent on killing them.

  “It sees us.” Luna’s voice rose in panic. “It knows we’re the source of the com­mo­tion.”

  “It can’t be that smart, can it?” Gemme’s fin­gers shook so hard she fought to hold her laser straight. Luna was the bio­lo­gist. She’d know the dif­fer­ence between in­tel­li­gence and chance.

  Steam poured out the mam­moth’s tusked mouth as it bel­lowed, the sound rip­ping through Gemme’s ears and re­ver­ber­at­ing in the pit of her stom­ach. The hairy hide charged to­ward them, bar­rel­ing up the in­cline. It was too late to run.

  “Fire!” Tech shouted. Gemme squeezed down the trig­ger, aim­ing for its head. The white shafts of light dis­ap­peared into the mass of hair. The mam­moth picked up speed as if their fire fueled its an­ger.

  “Brace yourselves!” Tech covered his head with both arms.

  Be­fore Gemme could re­act, the snow un­der­neath her ex­ploded as the mam­moth pushed its head through their snow bank, throw­ing her through the air. She rolled down the in­cline, an ava­lanche slid­ing on top of her. Gemme fought to keep her head above the snow, dig­ging her way up as the force pushed her down. Snow stung her eyes and choked her, lodging in her throat. The weight squeezed her chest and she fought for breath, gag­ging.

  Dark­ness sent fear rip­pling through her body. Would she ever see the light again? Tossed about so many times, she couldn’t tell up from down. She moved her arms through the loose snow un­til her hand broke through the sur­face to her right side, feel­ing clear air. Lungs about to burst, she forced her head up and sucked in breath.

  The mam­moth stood above her, the dank scent of wet, moldy fur clog­ging her nose. Her head had poked out inches from its massive paw. The blue claws curled into the snow like gnarly tree roots in the biod­ome by her cheek. Every hair on the mam­moth’s body probed the loose snow. A few ends from the paw squiggled to­ward her and she jerked her face away, watch­ing the tiny muscles con­strict and stretch as the hairs thrust into the snow and wiggled back out again.

  Some­thing moved be­hind the mam­moth and Gemme saw Luna wak­ing up a meter down from her be­hind the hairy flanks, her legs free of the snow.

  In front of her, the mam­moth waved its trunk through the air, sniff­ing. Gemme struggled to free her­self, but the snow held her lower torso and legs like a vise grip. If she could wiggle out, she could dart right between its back legs and get away un­noticed. She clawed at the ice with her gloved hands, try­ing to gain trac­tion. Mean­while Luna watched with wide eyes.

  “Luna, help me,” she whispered as she reached out to her. “I’m stuck.”

  Luna had the same cold, glassy stare she had when she’d cornered Gemme against the re­cyc­ling chute all those years back. If any­thing, she looked more cal­lous. Gemme’s heart beat fiercely as she whispered, fin­gers dig­ging grooves into the snow. “Luna, please.”

  Without a word, Luna took off, scram­bling up the in­cline to­ward the landrover. Gemme’s life­line snapped away, and a riptide of an­ger rose from the bot­tom of her stom­ach to her throat. It would only take mo­ments for the beast to real­ize it stood right on top of her. Through the hind legs, Gemme watched Luna climb the snow. As she ran, her boots skid­ded, send­ing chunks of ice down the in­cline. One chunk bounced by Gemme’s face and hit the mam­moth’s paw, draw­ing its at­ten­tion away from Gemme. The beast turned and blue snot sprayed out of its trunk, splat­ter­ing on the crust of snow. Gemme slammed her face into the snow as it jumped over her and stomped off in pur­suit.

  “Luna, watch out! It’s after you!”

  Luna screamed as she gained her foot­ing back and ran. Gemme scraped to­gether a ball of snow and threw it as far as she could to get the beast’s at­ten­tion, but the snow­ball fell short. She swal­lowed a lump in her throat. She’s not go­ing to make it.

  Dread gripped Gemme’s stom­ach as the beast closed the dis­tance be­fore Luna reached the landrover. Gemme wanted to shut her eyes and pre­tend she lay in her sleep pod on the Ex­ped­i­tion.

  This can’t be hap­pen­ing.

  In­stead she stared as if someone had taped her e
ye­lids open.

  The beast’s head dipped, ex­pos­ing its tusks.

  Gemme clutched snow in her fists and shouted, “Luna get out of the way!”

  The hairs reached out and wrapped around her foot, pulling her down. Luna fell back into the tusks in a tangle of dark hairs and limbs.

  “Noooooo!” Gemme screamed. The ad­ren­aline flowed through her. She pulled her­self up un­til the muscles in her arms tightened like they were go­ing to snap and yanked her­self free of the snow. At the same time, Tech shot at the beast from the top of the landrover.

  “Over here, you bas­tard!” he shouted, mak­ing a racket with his boots on the roof.

  The mam­moth took the bait, leav­ing Luna’s crumpled body alone. Gemme scrambled up. Numbed by the weight of the snow, pins pricked her soles of her feet as the blood rushed in. Work­ing through the pain, she stumbled ahead to Luna.

  The mam­moth turned its at­ten­tion to Tech as he fired and cursed like he’d had too much wheat beer. Hop­ing he could keep the beast oc­cu­pied, she col­lapsed on her knees against Luna’s huddled body. Luna’s chest still rose and fell and she breathed in re­lief. Gemme turned her over care­fully and gasped. The snow un­der­neath her had spots of bright red. Blood seeped from five punc­ture wounds in her chest and stom­ach.

  Gemme’s an­ger cooled and her em­pathy stripped any re­main­ing re­sent­ment away. “I’m so sorry.”

  Drag­ging Luna into her lap, Gemme pressed her gloves against the largest of the holes in her coat. Sud­denly all the bick­er­ing between them seemed trivial and she wished she’d done more to make amends.

  Cough­ing, Luna gazed up at her. Blood trickled down the corners of her mouth. “You win.”

  Shak­ing her head, Gemme spoke softly. “This wasn’t ever a game. I didn’t want to com­pete against you, not in school and not for Brent­wood.”

  “But you did.” Luna’s voice grew weaker and she spat blood on the snow. “You beat me on every test, and now you’ve won him.”

  Gemme thought back to the con­ver­sa­tion she’d over­heard with Luna and Brent­wood. Luna was right. She had taken everything from her, and she hadn’t even meant to. If only they’d been friends all those years, if only Luna had pulled her out of the snow. They could have helped each other get away. Gemme could have kept her from fall­ing. Maybe, in an al­tern­ate uni­verse, they could have made it back to the landrover to­gether safe.