I gasped. The other man was ready, was bigger, and had a wickedly jagged knife, as long as my forearm. But he seemed a little large for the cramped space in the body of the aircraft. Sam on the other hand, was lithe and wiry and quick. Just the same, I wanted to cover my eyes and hum something cheerful and entirely inappropriate for this situation.
After a tense moment, the burly man lunged. Sam was too quick. Awkwardly, the attacker and I ended up on the same side of the aircraft. He took a look at me and started to move.
“Now!” shouted Sam.
Having no idea what I was supposed to do, I ducked and flattened myself to the floor as the military aircraft careened a little to the right, the side that I was now closest to. The heavy man was caught by gravity and noiselessly yanked out of the transport, over my flattened back, and into the air.
I didn’t look after him.
Sam came quickly to my side and wrapped an iron-like arm around my waist to keep me firmly within the transport, and not rolling out after our mutual friend.
I glanced up into his eyes. We silently congratulated each other on being alive. I even managed to grin. A glint surfaced in his eyes and a corner of his mouth was turning up. He pulled me over onto my back and yanked me unceremoniously up to my feet with him.
That’s all the respite we had before the pilot and co-pilot started to get the picture. There were yells and then Sam and I were smashed together right behind their cockpit, in the only place within the cargo area of the aircraft that they could not fire upon without exposing themselves. They had no idea we were unarmed, except for the useless pocketknife, and were scared.
I felt a little smug.
Sam pressed his mouth to the side of my head and I was surprised to be able to hear him so well, even with all the wind noise interfering.
“You’re going to have to jump; I’ll stay and distract them.”
“What!” Was he out of his mind? “Stay and do what?!” Be target practice while I skin every part of my body on the sharp, gritty ground?
“Distract.” He continued patiently. “The pilot is unbalanced and erratic; he’s getting closer to the ground every minute. If we time it right, you’ll be able to roll down one of those sandy hillocks with just a minor road-burn. Trust me, Natalie, you don’t want to be in the aircraft when it goes down.”
“It’s going down?” I yelled over the low roar of the engine and the screaming wind through the open compartment.
“I’m taking it down.” His eyes were dark, determined. There was no way he’d take no for an answer. “You really should know by now that I’m not going to let you have any part in this.” He almost grinned. “Don’t worry- I’ll jump out as soon as I disable them.”
“You better!”
He squeezed my hand and helped me turn around and assume a crouched position near the open hatch. “On my signal!”
He doesn’t have to tell me. I know exactly what he wants me to do, and I’m not going to hesitate. Even when he tells me to jump out of a flying transport. Because I trust him with my life.
His hand rests on my spine. “After you land, get up as fast as you can and start running in a zigzag pattern and dive for cover.”
“Got it!”
He gives my shoulder a squeeze and yells, “Now!”
I’ve been eyeing a decent-sized mound with sand-weed clustered on top of it, and I jump, knees bent, arms flailing to keep myself upwards-aligned. My feet hit and I feel the air knocked out of my lungs, my knees jarring upwards into my ribs as I collapse in on myself and roll to a heap at the bottom of the knoll. I can’t breathe- I feel like I am about to die. I’m a Tera Lander and a Hecta Walker. That’s what I am. I am smart, capable, and strong. I will not only live through this, but I will enjoy every minute of it. I am going to survive. I promise you, Natalie.
Heart pulsing, head pounding, I force my lungs to contract and take a blessed breath of air, sucking in the pain as well as the glory of being alive.
Time to run.
I pick myself up and skitter along the rocks, hearing the bullets ping off of boulders. I feel my heart beating out of control like it’s a time bomb; I fight for breath as I push my legs into a run. I am not a strong runner- I feel like I am standing still. I can barely refrain from panicking. Shut up! I will myself, the raggedy, gaspy sounds of breathing irritating my throbbing ears.
The bullets are getting closer.
All of a sudden I seemed transported away from the situation. My legs were still running, my pulse still racing, but my mind was somehow lifted above it all. I couldn’t have explained what happened next, not with words. Not with physics or with anything I’ve ever studied in academe. Somehow, there seemed to be a light under my feet and my legs were propelled faster than normal. If I hadn’t known better, I would have considered myself in the midst of a dream. I couldn’t explain what it was, but I could feel it. It felt like something was picking me up, pushing me along, and carrying me away from there.
“Amaranth?” The question slipped out. There was no vocal answer, but there was something strange going on, and by strange I mean supernatural. Not witchy, but rather something spritely and electric. Something organically powerful, as if physics had suddenly turned inside out, just for me, to wrap me up in a safety cloak or something; as if it wanted to save my life.
The transport was coming up behind me, but instead of me getting splattered all across the bleached white rocks, the hot hail of gunfire missed me and spent itself on the pebbles.
In the midst of the chaos, I felt a sort of hand on me. A protection, a guide, a force. It turned me in a direction that I hadn’t planned on going, and I came to a hill and kept going until suddenly I was running down a hill that I hadn’t known existed. Unable to slow down, I passed through a bright flash of blue and entered a valley. The edges of my vision seemed to be ringed with a blue-hued energy force, like electricity, crackling, running alongside me. I had experienced something like this before, and the memory niggled at the back of my brain, but I didn’t bother to figure it out. I weaved once more and sprinted up the valley and into a cool, dark place of trees and shade and a little lake that was fed by a stream.
I could have sworn all this wasn’t there just a second ago.
I steered clear of the body of water since it would only produce muddy tracks, and was going to force my poor body to run some more when I literally could not go any longer. The buoyancy was gone; my legs were as heavy as the sacks of nibs the junkers dropped off at the back door of the Tumbler. I collapsed on the ground and listened as my fate hung in the balance. There was nothing but silence. The transport, the men, and Sam. All silent. What did that mean? What if Sam was…? I cringed, hearing sounds echoing around in the valley. I couldn’t tell which way they were coming from. Oh Deka they’re going to kill me while I’m down, when I can’t struggle…
In a panic, I scrabbled under the nearest rock that I could find. It was almost the size of a boulder, large enough for me to find shelter under, but not enough to hide me forever.
I didn’t want to die. I really didn’t want to. I wasn’t sure what that hand-light-buoyancy-thingy was, but it had to mean that I was supposed to live, right? Why else would it come out of nowhere and help me? Could it be God? I tried to calm my breathing, but I couldn’t. That fact alone caused tears to well and hang there, ready to pour down my face. I don’t want to die. I was afraid. I was afraid that one of their nasty faces would be the last thing I ever saw as they ended me.
I shuddered. “Please don’t let them kill me. Please,” I whispered, feeling a tiny bit of safety as I prayed. It was a real prayer, not a rehearsed one; surely if there was a god, he would feel the sincerity of it. “I don’t have anything to offer in return if you do.” Regret swirled in my head. “What do you want humans for?” Some confusion was there as well. “Why am I here at all, hiding from murderers?”
I lay there, wedged between a warm rock and the earth underneath it, gripping the heated stone with my finger
s. My legs refused to move- but they were fine other than that; still intact. They sprawled out in front of me as if belonging to another person. I couldn’t feel them except for a painful throbbing that emanated from my thighs and cropped up in unfortunate muscle groups all the way down to my toes.
Within another moment the energy haze around my field of vision began to dissipate and I could hear voices. I froze. Had I been found? Great. Now I was boxed into the valley with no exit. To make the situation even better, I was stuck under a rock to wait my pursuers out. But what I heard wasn’t the angry spitting and thick silence of my would-be captors, but the concerned, soft tones of a woman. My ears perked up. Huh?
“Ares!” The girl’s voice was attractive, a smooth, strong voice. I could tell that on a good day it would be clear and the tone would carry. But today sounded like the worst day of her life. Weary was the step that accompanied her speech. She sounded completely spent and used up; the opposite of what a voice like that was meant for.
“Jace, just stay strong for me. We’re okay. I promise you, we will get back.”
“No- no you don’t understand Doorway Theory, Ares. We could be anywhere!” Her voice was spiraling into hysterics. I could tell whoever “Jace” was, she was losing it.
His voice dropped into a more aggressive tone. I couldn’t see, but it sounded like he had shaken her a little. “Let’s concentrate on surviving this place and then try to find a way back home. Savvy?”
No reply; she probably nodded. A moment later the sounds of embracing was heard. Smooth indoor clothing against a toughly upholstered outer covering.
I held my breath. I didn’t want to interrupt. I looked up again, but whiteness had settled over everything, drawing me far away from my surroundings. I tried to expand my lungs, take in enough oxygen to stay cognizant, but I was already fading out.
~
“Natalie?”
I twitched, reacting to a spasm in my thigh. Ouch. The running…
The voice tried again, coaxingly. “Come on, Natalie.”
“Hmmmm?” I felt groggy, like someone hit me over the head with a club. Come to think of it, I felt just as mentally scrambled.
“Where does it hurt?”
“Uhggha.” Brilliant. Just brilliant.
A chuckle. “Natalie.” Another chuckle. “I take it you’re alright or you would be trying to hide it.”
“S-Sam?” Neither my head nor my mouth was working properly. Deka, this was embarrassing!
“I’m here. The question is, are you?”
“Very funny.”
“It is, now that I know you’re fine.”
“Hmmph.” I rubbed my forehead, still not brave enough to test my eyes against the dayshine. “So what happened?”
“I proved to be a distraction and they crashed. Not before trying to annihilate you, unfortunately. But I disabled their equipment and jumped out, managing to burrow myself partially into a sand dune before they exploded.”
“How?”
“By jumping in between them, messing up some dials and flicking levers and pressing buttons I didn’t see the point of, and then I took their frantic shouts for gospel and skipped out.”
I laughed. “You’re nuts.”
“Not as nuts as you are.” He ruffled my hair.
There’s something about sharing a near-death experience with someone. It makes you much less inhibited. “This is true.”
“Come on.” He held out his hand and I took it. He hoisted me to my feet and wrapped an arm around my shoulders as I tried to steady myself from the aftereffects of blacking out. The world was a dizzying, dizzying place. My vision careened, so I just squeezed my eyes shut.
“We’ve got to find a ride.”
“Sure,” I murmured, being agreeable. We walked forward, but I remembered something I wanted to know. Where was the valley? “Where did you take me to?”
“What?” He looked like he missed something crucial.
“Where did you find me- and where is the valley where I collapsed?”
“Valley? There’s no valley here. You were lying here on the ground when I caught up to you.”
“What?” I felt a strange sensation rise within me. It wasn’t panic, it wasn’t foreboding. It was something entirely different.
“You were passed out on the ground. You were out, cold.”
I felt my chest constrict. “But the valley…”
His voice was worried. “Should we sit down and let you rest? Falling and hitting your head can do a lot of damage, even if you don’t feel it right away.”
“No, no.” I patted his warm chest through the shirt. Realization dawned on me. “Sam. I think I’ve had an encounter.”
“With what; who?” he stopped, looking me in the eyes.
I took a deep breath, reminding myself that he wouldn’t think me a spacer or out of my jacking mind. “With Amaranth.”
~
4812/2/2/9
Being back in my “old room” as Tom put it was pleasant. I didn’t realize how much like home it had become to me. I really loved it here.
Sam and I had an interesting journey back to Hecta. It was non-eventful, except for the evolving nature of our relationship. We laughed and joked and ordered each other around, telling each other to eat and sleep and just generally take care of ourselves. Things were suddenly a lot more lax between us; I don’t know if it was a good or a bad thing. I decided to take it in stride and soak up the friendship we had built. It felt good.
Simone and Ange welcomed me back to the Tumbler like a long-lost sister. They practically crushed me in an effort to hug me and reacquaint themselves with my particular charms, touching my hair and squeezing my hands in theirs. I had teared up. I didn’t realize how much I had missed them and their familial fussing until I came back and felt all the love I’d been missing.
No one knew of the safe-house in World City, so we were protected. At least as much as we could be sure of. All I heard of the outside world was from the news tubes Tom would bring home sporadically and the crazy social gossip that Simone spread so liberally. Sam was practically glued to his Comms when he wasn’t in discussion with either me or Tom. Something big was happening on the Federation space base. I suspected it had something to do with a not-so-honorable judge. After a few weeks of Sam camping out on the couch and the three of us melding into a sort of playful, military unit, the news confirmed my suspicions. Sam got a Comms call from his boss, Leo, who seemed over-caffeinated and edgy, but extremely intelligent.
Apparently, the days that Sam and I had scheduled our little excursion to lure out David were the very same days that Judge Conroy had decided to hold the entire Division of Peacekeeper Affairs hostage. For three whole days. After that, the entire Federation base had been on lockdown, nobody in, nobody out. No personal, commercial, or scientific communication had been allowed, nothing but the military divisions of patrollers and soldiers. The peacekeepers were under intense scrutiny and would most likely experience a purge. At least, that’s what the public outcry called for.
No wonder no one had gotten in contact with us. Sam thought he had been excommunicated and his witness hung out to dry. Leo had made a point not to contact him, due to his status of shielding me, the person everyone seemed to want dead. But now it was all over. Conroy was on house arrest and facing multiple charges, most of the criminals had been found and apprehended, the military transport kidnappers down in Myceania were dead or being tracked, David was in slow recovery at some hospital down in Cornish under heavy guard, the four warehouses of drugs and human samples had been found and were in the process of being labeled and set under lock and key (thank Amaranth), and only a few unaccounted for thugs from the cytoplasm cartel were still on the run.
And that’s when things got complicated over the Comms. Leo was going over some recent updates on the radio signals that the remaining criminals seemed to be communicating with. All of a sudden his voice sounded stressed and his words started garbling. I could practically hea
r his pores oozing sweat; I wanted to offer him a handkerchief. Sam frowned, glaring at the device with a pensive look. Static frayed the connection with Leo. His face buzzed in and out of clarity. I could make out the words, “get” and “out.” I turned to speak to Sam. Something felt very off about this.
The window glass in the kitchen shattered. I gasped. Tom palmed his gun from the holster and Sam snapped the Comms shut and shoved it into his pocket, readying for whatever came next. The clink and fizz of aerosol cans was heard on the kitchen floor. A gas started to rise in wisps, then grew stronger. I cried out; we all sprang into action. I launched up the stairs to get to the fire escape, losing a sandal in my haste. Sam did something really fast- I have no idea what it was, but I know that I was covered, as Tom whipped up his household 9mm and fired rapidly at the targets that seemed to pop up like outdated celebrity posters through the entryways between the living area and kitchen.
Fortune's Detour: Prequel of the Deka Series by Abigail Schwaig Page 20
