Stowaway (Redleg in Space Book 1)

by Z D Dean

  After agreeing on the plan, Zade used his improved low light vision to quietly move into place. Once he was perched atop the rocks, he sent a message to Jorloss’s interface telling him to start driving the pig. Being from a species commonly identified as prey on their home world, Jorloss approached the animal with a cautious timidity. As he approached the dangerous animal, Zade could see that although it noticed Jorloss it didn’t identify him as a threat and stood its ground. Zade knew that if the pig was startled while Jorloss was within striking range there was a good possibility of injury, so he sent another message to Jorloss instructing him to start making noise.

  Jorloss stopped walking as he read the message. After which he looked in Zade’s direction, unable to see him through the gloom, with a look that bordered on terror. Before Zade could start moving towards the pig, worried that Jorloss had frozen in fear, Jorloss clapped his hands and the boar started towards the small exit directly in front of Zade. The pig stumbled as it picked up Zade’s scent, the perfect opportunity for him to strike. Zade launched himself off the rock, landed astride the 400-pound beast and buried his combat knife to the hilt, top dead center just in front of the animal’s shoulders. The strike severed the animal’s brain stem, killing it immediately. It was the cleanest kill Zade had ever achieved, rifle, bow, and shotgun included.

  As he started field dressing the animal, Zade looked over his shoulder to see Jorloss, once again, frozen in fear. It was only the second time he had seen Zade work, but it was the first not driven by self-defense, and was clearly trying to process the brutality of his actions. As he finished skillfully cleaning the animal, he called Jorloss over and handed him his assault pack not wanting to get it messy. With the fresh kill balanced across his shoulders, Zade led the way back to the cave. The men walked in silence, Jorloss immediately entered the cave while Zade prepared the fire and meal. As he made up the meal, Zade kept an eye on the scientist.

  Jorloss was exhibiting an emotion he knew well. Zade had seen it on the faces of his newest soldiers during their first contact and had experienced it personally during his first battle. It was the look of shock that every man wears the first time he realizes that he has just taken a life, or someone was trying to take his. The shock is born from a sharp, sometimes painful, reminder that he is mortal. For noncombatants time dulls it; for warriors repeated exposure desensitizes them to it. Not because they wish for death, not because they feel invincible, but because the warrior accepts that life is fleeting, and everyone has an expiration date. Now, Zade knew Jorloss had to decide. He could choose to question his actions and let the events destroy him or he could choose to accept the events and grow stronger from them. Zade stayed quiet knowing that no outside comfort or third-party rationalization could make Jorloss’s decision any easier.

  After finishing the most delicious bacon he had ever eaten, Zade set to securing the meat for the night. He used a trick he learned while hiking in the Rockies. Walking a short way away from the cave entrance, he found a large branch that would support the weight of the pig and threw his spool of cord over it. Positioning the cord far enough from the trunk to prevent a predator from climbing the tree to get at the meat, Zade tied the pig up and hoisted it into the branches. Hikers often did this with their packs to prevent bears from destroying them while looking for the food inside.

  Zade returned to the cave. Jorloss was nowhere to be found. Zade emptied his assault pack of everything but the empty water bottles before striking out to find him, and ultimately get water from the village. He found the scientist pacing back and forth just north of the cave entrance and extended the useless platitude he knew would not help Jorloss make his decision.

  “You okay? We had to eat,” he said, attempting to keep it simple.

  “I don’t know if I’m okay. My people have never preyed on other living things, ever. You just killed an animal and I helped. What does that make me?”

  “Honestly, it makes you a person who, while in a difficult situation, chose to eat and live instead of starve and die. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  “It can’t be that simple. I’ve seen you take on worse situations with a smile on your face. How do you deal with it?”

  “For most people, like you, it is that simple. Your actions were borne out of necessity. You only have to question yourself once you find yourself enjoying the kill.”

  “You don’t enjoy combat? Your smile suggests otherwise.”

  “Jorloss, I don’t think my reasoning will help, but here goes. Yes, I do enjoy… lethal interactions… but I have a personal code that allows me to live with myself after I am done,” Zade explained. “I never knowingly hurt innocents. I never engage with individuals who cannot defend themselves. I never kill without a need to. If I meet those three rules, I sleep just fine at night.”

  “Thank you,” Jorloss said as he turned and headed back to the cave.

  Zade turned his attention to the task at hand. He brought up his map and identified the route he would need to take to the village. The village was just over twenty kilometers away, a distance he could cover in just over an hour with his improved sight and musculature. Night had just begun, giving him ample time to get the water without being seen. The run was quick, and the villagers kept the jungle edge cleared, meaning that he could observe every angle of the village from the cover of the jungle before heading to the well. After a quick patrol around the village Zade found a good vantage point overlooking the well and waited for the foot traffic to cease and hut lights to go out before he entered the settlement.

  Hours passed, but when the planet’s twin moons were directly overhead, the village was completely quiet. Zade did a quick thermal scan of the houses surrounding the well and was pleased to see all but one of the occupants were lying on the ground, presumably sleeping. Before entering the village, he unsnapped the clips on his assault pack so he wouldn’t have to make noise while he was exposed. He crept quietly towards the well; his movements catlike. At first glance the well appeared to be a rope and bucket affair with the obligatory stone knee wall surrounding it. Upon closer inspection Zade saw that the well, although built like an old fashioned one, had a small spigot and valve on one side.

  After dropping his pack, he opened and lined up all of his water bottles. By having them ready he would only need to turn the, possibly squeaky, valve twice; once on and once off. This was an unneeded precaution as the valve was mercifully quiet. Turning the water on as low as possible, to prevent splashing noises, he began filling the water bottles. As he capped the second bottle and reached for the third, the sound of a door opening behind him caused him to freeze. A glance over his shoulder showed a woman walking towards the well with a pitcher in one hand and a torch in the other. Unable to escape into the jungle without being seen in the torchlight, he quickly gathered his things and moved around to the side directly opposite the woman.

  With his back pressed against the well he held his breath and anxiously waited for the woman to go back inside. The torchlight spilled around the well, unnervingly close to him, as the woman filled her pitcher. Zade finally took a breath after he watched the torchlight recede and heard her hut door close again. Not wanting any more excitement for the night, Zade expeditiously filled the last water bottle and headed back into the jungle. At the cave he saw that Jorloss had gone to sleep and let the fire burn low. Noting that the entrance to the cave faced south, away from the village, Zade stocked up the fire before bedding down himself.

  The men spent days with little more than scavenging for food to fill their time. Zade had taken to hunting, while Jorloss focused on gathering edible plants and berries. As the days passed, Jorloss seemed to recover from the identity crisis he had been plagued with since the pig kill. The men could never finish the entire amount of meat from one of Zade’s kills It spoiled quickly in the jungle heat and humidity. It meant that Zade had to hunt almost daily. With the daytime hunting over and evening meal consumed, Zade would wait for nightfall before heading to the vi
llage to refill the team’s supply of drinking water. By the second night he had gotten his timing routine down and had not encountered a local since the first time visit to the well.

  After a meal of game and the purple and red berries, on the third day, the men sat around the campfire idly chatting as they waited for night. Jorloss’s arm had almost completely healed, and his energy levels were steadily rising by the day.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you, why didn’t the nanites close off your wound when we were attacked by the SSILF?” Zade asked the scientist, who was grabbing more wood for the fire.

  “Like the amphibians of your world, my species has rather robust regenerative properties,” Jorloss responded in a matter of fact tone. “That fact coupled with my role as medical officer, caused me to remove the trauma repair programming in my nanites to allow them to run more efficiently. I figured I would never be in danger, so the repair code wasn’t necessary.”

  “You didn’t think you would be in danger? How exactly was this mission briefed to the crew? I’ve only been on the ship for a couple of weeks, and it has been the most dangerous time of my life.”

  “Unity space has been peaceful for the last 14 centuries. No one in the fleet has experienced anything more than police action, let alone open combat. I guess we just figured that space outside the Unity would be just as civilized as space within.”

  “That is amazing. My planet can’t go more than a few decades without armed conflict, and that’s just a planet. How has there been no power struggles in your whole galaxy for over 1400 years?”

  “It just happened that way. The founding species of the Unity came to power because they were more technologically advanced than other species. Everyone played nice to get space travel tech. The prosperity that accompanied the ability to spread out into the galaxy stopped any infighting. Now, the Unity is very proactive, dealing with threats before a shooting war can develop.”

  As the light faded Zade entertained the thought of how Earth would be if man could travel the stars. He hoped for an ideal situation, where different countries would turn their focus outward, colonizing to meet their needs. He feared that the reality was countries would use advances in technology to destroy each other without even batting an eye towards the stars. Only after one country or coalition claimed the entire Earth would they look to expand outward.

  Night had finally fallen, enveloping the men in impenetrable darkness before Zade headed out for the water resupply. Like the previous nights, movement through the jungle was easy and Zade circled the village waiting for the last inhabitants to fall asleep. With all but one cottage dark, Zade watched a young woman, the one who had almost caught him on his first visit, walk to the well. Halfway to the well something caught her eye and she stopped. She turned to peer into the jungle to her right, the direction from which he initially approached the village every night. Zade thought nothing of it since she wasn’t interested in his current location. Her curiosity now peaked, the woman slowly progressed towards the tree line torch outstretched in front of her.

  With a blood curdling scream, she dropped the torch and ran back to the safety of her home. As the other villagers heard her, lights came on and people rushed outside to see what had terrified the young woman. Those that did come out to investigate were armed, a sign that threats to the village were commonplace in the jungle in which they lived. Having no direct line of sight to the thing that startled the woman, Zade began backtracking until he could see it. As he cleared a dense patch of large trees, Zade saw the unmistakable silhouette of Jorloss standing just inside the jungle.

  What the hell are you doing here? he asked Jorloss via interface.

  I wanted to see how you got the water so we could take turns. Didn’t think it was right that you had to go every night.

  Well it looks like we’re going thirsty tomorrow. Get back to the cave as quietly as possible and douse the fire, Zade instructed as he himself began heading back to the cave.

  The villagers had begun lighting more torches and throwing them towards the patch of jungle that the young woman identified. It was a smart tactic to try and get a visual on the threat before blindly rushing towards it. Zade turned to watch his crewmate’s progress into the depth of the trees. He prayed that their direction of travel would go unknown. But he could see Jorloss, now fully illuminated, working his way towards the cave. Lacking any kind of knowledge on misdirection, Jorloss was headed directly towards the cave as the villagers watched him recede into the jungle. Based on how the villagers were armed, Zade figured that they would be hunted by morning light.

  Zade met Jorloss at the cave. The trip back was slow, as he stopped often to look and listen for anyone following him. Jorloss had doused the fire then headed up a large tree nearest the cave entrance to watch for Zade. The crewmen quickly packed everything they needed in the event that they had to suddenly abandon their hide. Knowing that trouble could be following them, Zade organized an impromptu guard schedule so that the men could get some rest. As the cause of their current predicament, Jorloss volunteered for the first watch. Zade closed his eyes but sleep was evasive, he was awake when Jorloss signaled the change of shifts.

  Zade couldn’t simply sit stationary as he guarded. Sleep’s siren song was calling to him louder and louder as the night stretched on. Instead he began patrolling the perimeter of their campsite, straying farther from the cave with every lap. As he had anticipated the night was quiet, but at first light he could hear a large group of men gathering at the edge of the jungle. His patrol had taken him kilometers away from the cave entrance, and by morning he was equidistant between the cave and village. More disturbing than the sound of the men was the sound that accompanied them, the sound of tracking animals.

  He hurried back to the cave to inform Jorloss about the current situation, knowing that if the villagers were using animals to track them, their escape had become infinitely more difficult. The scientist was alert and ready when Zade returned to the cave, so the men set off trying to put distance between them and the scared villagers. Before leaving their site, Zade quickly affixed his last smoke grenade to one side of the cave entrance, and using the expandable pin, stretched a trip line to the other side. The locals would come to the cave first and he expected that once triggered, the smoke grenade would hold their interest allowing the crewmembers to increase their distance from them. Initially Zade had thought about planting the thermobaric grenade but felt it could serve him better in an emergency. The villagers were no real threat to the crew, just a scared group trying to track the monsters in the woods.

  With the villagers still gathering, and not in active pursuit, Zade set off on a south west heading at breakneck speed. Surprisingly, Jorloss didn’t have any trouble keeping up. Zade should have expected no less since the scientist didn’t like to fight. It made sense that he was competent in flight. The men quickly reached the rocky outcroppings that delineated the arid region to their south from the jungle region to their north. The rocks would make the crewmen’s trail more difficult to follow, and in a last-ditch maneuver Zade planned to crawl down the rocks, run along their sandy bottom, and climb back up to reenter the jungle. As the men shadowed the outcroppings Zade heard the distinct pop of his smoke grenade being triggered, the local inhabitants had found the cave.

  The men slowed their pace to recover slightly. Even with the genetic modifications, they couldn’t maintain their fastest speed indefinitely. As day turned into night, the crewmen had begun to feel that they had shaken the search party. While they sat and ate a quick meal of berries and vegetables, Zade started hearing rustling in the underbrush behind them. The villagers had continued their search long into the night, and the tracking animals had closed with their quarry.

  After grabbing his assault pack, Zade lead Jorloss down onto the arid flats towards the south. Reinvigorated by the meal, he hoped that on the open terrain of the desert both he and Jorloss could use their modifications to outrun the search party. Again, at full sprint,
Zade listened through the wind whipping past his ears to the receding sound of the search party. Although his plan to outpace the searchers had worked, the team now faced the greater problem of being caught in the desert with little food and no water.

  The barren stretch of land had become exceedingly cold during the night. Zade knew that although the cold was helping them maintain pace, during the day the desert would become almost unbearably hot, halting their progress almost entirely. As the night progressed the men continued south. By first light, they had become so exhausted that neither could move more than a few hundred meters without stumbling or falling over. As Zade watched the planet’s red sun crest over the horizon, Jorloss collapsed unable to go any further. While Zade ensured that Jorloss was not injured he noticed that he could no longer hear their pursuers.

  Throughout the night the men had transitioned from running on barren hard packed ground to a landscape filled with rolling sand dunes. Zade helped the scientist to the backside of the nearest dune in order to utilize as much of the natural shade as possible. Zade contemplated a new plan as Jorloss rested, when suddenly he felt a tingle in the back of his mind.

  You gentlemen need a ride? Samix’s voice echoed in Zade’s head.

  Damn! It’s good to hear your voice. What took you so long? Zade asked, astounded by the change of events.

  You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. We are 15 minutes from orbit. Stay where you are at and I will bring her down, right next to you. Hopefully your stay on the planet has been less exciting than ours aboard the ship.

  Well it was pretty mundane until Jorloss scared the locals. We’ve spent the last eighteen hours being pursued across the planet.

  I can beat that. After we took off, Mur tried to kill me.

  Shit. When it rains it pours.

  Zade woke the sleeping scientist and informed him that rescue was minutes away before turning his attention to his equipment. Jorloss didn’t believe Zade at first and after three attempts Zade finally broke through to him. Clearly the scientist had given up hope. The good news was almost too much for him to handle. He just sat, knees tucked up under his chin, quietly rocking back and forth as he waited. Zade cleaned the nonessential supplies out of his pack, and in the process saw that the original plant specimens were still in good shape. Throughout the whole ordeal the men had maintained the initiative, and with the plants soon to be aboard the ship, Zade chalked the mission in the win column.