Tag froze in awe for only a brief second. He rammed the air car’s throttle forward and stiffened his grip on the controls, curving madly around the monster.
Maybe, maybe if he got to the canyon, they’d lose the beast in the tight turns and narrow passages.
The monster slammed onto its belly, scrambling on at least a dozen muscled legs. Its tail whipped, and its jaw opened, unleashing another roar. The resulting bellow rocked the air car with a gust that rivaled the stormy winds in strength.
“We need to move faster,” Coren said, strangely calm now.
“I’m trying!” Tag shouted back.
The monster’s teeth loomed larger, and its tongue tickled over its fangs. Its antennae, much to Tag’s dismay, bent forward, reaching for the air car. He wasn’t sure what those appendages did, but he wasn’t eager to find out. The entrance to the gorge still appeared miniscule on the horizon, too far away for Tag’s comfort, and the monster’s typhoon-like breath rolled over them from mere meters away.
They couldn’t outrun it. Not in a straight-out sprint like this.
Tag veered to the left. Sofia and Coren slammed against the side of the car, unprepared for the maneuver. The ice god slipped, carried by momentum, and crashed into an icy pillar. The structure gave way, shattering and falling in a million broken pieces as the creature scrambled to correct its trajectory and continued its dozen-leg gallop at the air car.
“Get ready!” Tag shouted above the rumbling growls of the creature. He twisted the controls hard right, and they shot in a new direction. This time the creature didn’t succumb to clumsiness. Its whole body curled, cornering on the ice with gracefulness befitting a practiced dancer. A hundred-thousand-pound, carnivorous dancer.
Its flesh rippled with the flexing and stretching muscles powering the creature’s limbs. Teeth snapped. Antennae grasped desperately for the car, missing by mere meters.
Tag swerved the vehicle hard to the right, abruptly changing course between a couple of snowdrifts each larger than the Argo. Again, the monster followed, plowing through the drifts and sending a spray of white into the air. It threatened to close the gap between them and followed his every move as if it could tell where he was going. Quick turns and winding between ice-and-rock stalagmites wouldn’t thwart it—the creature followed or simply plowed through obstacles that would’ve left the air car a fiery wreck.
The canyon grew closer, but not close enough.
Tag eyed the mini-Gauss racked in the car. A desperate plan coalesced in his head. He wracked his mind for better solutions but found none with the ice god figuratively and literally breathing down the backs of their necks. “Sofia, you ever drive one of these things?”
“Maybe a decade ago.”
“It’s easy enough. Throttle here, turn here,” Tag said, nodding to the controls.
“You serious?”
“Deadly. Take the controls.”
Sofia undid her harness and grasped Coren’s and Tag’s seats to steady herself in the rocketing vehicle.
“On my count, we’re switching,” Tag said, still staring straight ahead between the stalagmites. “Three, two, one, now!”
He jumped from the seat, and Sofia flopped in. The air car shuddered, shaking and curving to the right. Sofia overcorrected the vehicle, and they skimmed a stalagmite. The edge of the car chipped off a light spray of ice, but they didn’t crash. The car straightened, and Sofia’s eyes narrowed. Her jaw clenched as a vessel bulged across her forehead.
“Keep heading to that canyon,” Tag said, pointing straight ahead. “We need to get through it.”
“Whatever you say,” she replied.
A quaking jolt almost sent Tag sprawling. The creature had pounced but came up short, with only snow and ice crunched between its teeth. It had been only meters away from smashing metal and flesh between those fangs.
Tag used the overhead handholds to guide himself to the weapons rack. “Coren, you want to prove those guns you brought are useful? Grab your EVA suit and come on.”
The Mechanic snatched his rifle. Tag clicked his helmet into place, and Coren latched his on.
“You have a plan?” Coren asked, his voice tinny through the suit’s comms.
“Aim and fire,” Tag replied. He closed the driver’s chamber to the car, and the front cabin, along with Sofia, was separated by a shutting polyglass shield. Then he pushed open the top hatch of the air car. Freezing air rushed in around him, and his HUD reported plummeting temperatures in flashing red numbers. He poked out of the open hatch, and Coren joined him. Wind rushed against the helmet, threatening to pull him out of the car. He braced himself against it and wondered if this was all a terrible mistake.
But he ignored those thoughts of self-doubt. Pressing the stock of the mini-Gauss to his shoulder, he sighted up the ice god. It wasn’t difficult. The colossal beast blotted out any view of the horizon beyond it.
“Fire!” Tag yelled. He squeezed the trigger, and a slug whistled from the barrel. The round punched into the creature’s flesh, but the monster made no indication it had even noticed the slight injury.
A salvo of bright pulsefire flew from Coren’s rifle. The rounds splashed against the ice god’s hide, bursting like fireworks and leaving black singes marring its fur. But none pierced the scaly white flesh beneath the thick pelt.
Tag fired a flurry of powerful slugs that sliced into the creature and punctured the scales. Thin rivulets of blue blood trickled from the holes, but each wound seemed no more than a pinprick to the ice god. No amount of fire from either of their weapons persuaded the monster to turn around. Tag glanced over the front of the car. At their speed, the canyon still stood a minute, if not more, away from them.
An enormous roar shook him, reverberating deep in his bones. The creature’s hot breath washed over him as it snapped at the air car, and Sofia jerked right. Tag lost his hold and fell, slamming into the roof. Pain burned through his ribs, and he started to slide over the back of the car. Coren shot out one skinny arm and yanked Tag back into position then promptly resumed firing.
“Watch yourself,” Coren said.
Tag grunted and shot another useless slug into the creature. “It’s like we’re throwing pebbles at the damn thing.”
The creature kicked up snow, ice, and rocks as it continued biting and slashing at the air, its antennae brushing over the rear of the car. The monstrosity raced close enough that Tag could make out each individual strand of fur, each crack in its serrated teeth, and every haunting black eye.
Those dozens of eyes now locked on to Tag. The beast’s jaw opened wider, its whale-sized tongue tickling the roof of its mouth as if to tease Tag and beckon him to jump into its grinding maw.
“What do we do?” Coren said, his voice strangely emotionless, as if he had resigned himself to the increasingly likely chance they were about to die.
Tag readjusted his grip on the mini-Gauss. The ice god let out another rattling bellow, and globs of spittle splashed over the air car. But Tag’s determination only grew. This monster might be a god to the Forinths. But he knew better. He was a medical officer, a trained scientist.
This was no god. It was a creature. A monster. A beast.
And those things didn’t live on indefinitely, meddling in immortality.
No, those things died. And Tag would make sure this one did.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“Go for the eyes!” Tag yelled, readjusting his aim. He sent a salvo of slugs flying for the creature’s craven eyes.
Several shots punctured the white scales covering its skull. But more connected with the small black orbs. Each hit with a sickening pop. Viscous fluid oozed from the wound, and the creature winced. For the first time, it had shown a reaction to the puny fire from Tag and Coren. Tag’s confidence swelled. It was mortal after all. It felt pain. It feared death.
Coren straightened, his orange visor glowing against his black suit, and he fired a long volley of pulse rounds. The rounds spattered the creature�
��s face, burning fur and bursting eyeballs. The monster recoiled and tumbled over its muscular limbs. Another roar flew from its mouth. But this one sounded more agonized than angry. Its head twisted, and it renewed its charge, but the firing had afforded the air car precious seconds.
“More!” Tag commanded, squeezing the trigger again and again. “More!”
No vocal acknowledgement came from Coren’s comms. Instead, the Mechanic dropped his rifle. Small barrels protruded from his wrist-mounted guns, and he raised his arms. Each gun exploded to life with a stream of screaming rapid pulsefire that formed craters in the ice god’s eye sockets.
More black liquid gushed from its sightless eyes and stained its fur. Each connecting shot made the creature falter. Its tongue lolled out the side of its mouth, and its steps grew staggered. It wasn’t dying. Tag was sure of that. But it was hurting. He recognized the actions of the predator. Its simple mind was contemplating the benefits of continuing the pursuit of prey or rushing back to its underground home to lick its wounds.
It settled on the former.
Its legs pumped faster, and its body waved. The ground shook under its heavy, galloping gait as ice and rock spires exploded when the beast slammed through them. The air car sped closer to the canyon, now only seconds away, and still the monster caught up to them again.
“No,” Tag said, sighting the ice god. “Not today.”
The monster opened its mouth to bellow or snap. Tag wasn’t sure, and he never gave the creature a chance to show him. He fired a half-dozen slugs. The rounds punched through the roof of the monster’s mouth, sending its jaws slamming shut, and it fell face first. Carried by its momentum, the creature’s body crashed forward, gouging up earth and ice. The air car shot onward to escape in the safety of the gully.
The ice god shook itself off, sending small quakes rumbling through the canyon walls, and threw itself against the entrance of the canyon. Snow and ice tumbled over the car, but with the recent avalanche, most of the loose debris had already piled on the canyon bed. The creature crashed against the canyon’s entrance while it let loose a frustrated roar. Sofia pushed the air car forward, never letting up on the throttle, and the slamming and roaring were lost in the distance.
Tag and Coren slipped back inside, and Tag punched a button to close the top hatch. He racked the mini-Gauss.
“Nice shooting,” Tag said to Coren. He might not trust the Mechanic, but the alien had at least helped them survive for a bit longer.
“The honor is equally yours,” Coren replied in his slightly stilted accent.
Another button push opened the driver’s compartment, and Tag undid his helmet from his EVA suit. Coren started to settle into one of the rear passenger seats.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Tag said, gesturing to the front seat. “I’d rather you not be sitting at my back with a gun.”
Coren stared coldly at Tag but took the front passenger seat anyway. Tag stood behind Sofia and Coren, gripping an overhead handhold. The car swerved back and forth around piles of dumped snow and rocks, winding between the stalagmites.
“It’s a bit rougher than when I first came through,” Tag said.
Sofia pulled back on the controls, and the car climbed a new hill that had been formed by boulders and snow from the avalanche.
“No kidding,” she muttered with tight-pressed lips. “Wrecking the landscape and angering the ice gods. Eta-Five will be a better place when we get you off it.”
Coren’s thin lips seemed to curl slightly at the corners. A mischievous grin, maybe.
“Didn’t the Forinths warn you about the ice gods before we left? Are you sure they didn’t know something?” Tag asked.
“They warn everyone about the ice gods. I told you that drum wasn’t just a superstition. I’m betting it heard that little shootout between you and the Mechanics. Probably decided to wait around outside for something to show up again.”
“Great,” Tag said. “Any chance we’ll find one by the Argo?”
“Sure, there’s a chance,” Sofia said. Then she glared at Coren. “Might be a better chance of slipping around unnoticed since you don’t have trigger-happy Mechanics firing on your car, though.”
Tag grinned this time. Sofia’s ire wasn’t indiscriminate in its target.
“We thought he might be a Drone-Mech scout,” Coren said.
“Your guards mixed up a lowly human vehicle for one of your all-powerful, far-superior technologies?” she asked, her tone dripping in condescension.
They continued silently. Snowflakes drifted and curled around them, dancing on the wind. Hazy light shimmered through the cloud coverage and gleamed off the walls of sheer ice, tingeing them in a slight blue glow. Green lightning cracked, followed by distant waves of rolling thunder. The tension between the trio was as thick as the perpetual storm encompassing Eta-Five.
Tag realized his mistake in those silence-filled moments. He’d been so skeptical of Coren that it had been difficult to appreciate the Mechanic’s importance. And despite Tag’s distrust, Coren had come to the Argo alone, with no protection from his comrades, placing his fate in Tag’s hands, just as Sofia had.
Even if he didn’t yet trust them, they’d demonstrated their confidence in him. His thoughts whirled back to the empty bridge of the Argo, back to the days when he’d lost his chance at flight-officer training. He might not have had the training necessary to take the helm, but he had learned enough to know at least one crucial element of leadership.
A leader worked with the team he had with the goal of unity, not division.
And all he’d done to his small team was break it apart. Pit them against him, pit them against each other. That wouldn’t help him get off this planet. And most importantly, it wouldn’t help him return to the Montenegro and warn the SRE of the lurking dangers in the Eta system.
He straightened as the car exited the canyon and flew over the open, rolling tundra. A small map on the holoscreen indicated their position in relation to a single red, glowing dot labeled Argo. Soon they’d be back aboard the ship, and Tag knew things needed to change with his ragtag crew.
Coren tilted his head. His brow furrowed over his good eye. “I’m getting a transmission.” He listened for a few more seconds. “Reports indicate another ship has entered Eta-Five’s atmosphere.”
“This isn’t good,” Tag said.
“Not at all,” Sofia agreed.
“Scratch that. It was a mistake,” Coren said.
Momentary relief washed through Tag. “Good. Was it a sensor error?”
“Yes,” Coren said. “It wasn’t one ship. It was six more.”
Dread bored its way through Tag, replacing any semblance of transient relief. Things needed to change with his crew. Fast.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“Three hells,” Tag said, watching their dot on the holoscreen drawing nearer to the Argo at a painfully slow pace. “Any ships headed our direction?”
“Looks like it,” Coren said. “But we should reach the Argo before they reach us.”
“But it’s not like that’s any safer,” Sofia said. “The Mechanic sensors can still find it.”
“Correct,” Coren replied. “Does your ship have any antilidar or -radar measures?”
Tag nodded. “Of course.”
“Even if they’re rudimentary, I should be able to throw together a quick masking algorithm that makes the Argo look like a chunk of rock rather than a starship. I don’t promise that it will be perfect, and we should prepare for a potential boarding, but it may, as you say, buy us some time.”
“Any time you can give us is time we didn’t have before,” Tag said. He thought to try his new tactic of bringing his unexpected team together rather than driving them apart. “Thank you.”
Coren cocked his head quizzically, regarding Tag with his single golden eye. He seemed surprised at the appreciation. Tag didn’t acknowledge the alien’s shock. It had been difficult enough to utter a thank you to the man from an alien race tha
t had slaughtered his crew.
Tag gestured over the holoscreen’s map, and it zoomed out to allow an expanded view of Eta-Five. “Can you have the coordinates of the ships transmitted to us?”
“Of course,” Coren said. “We can make that happen.” He relayed the request through his comms. A moment later, seven red dots—six representing the recent batch of ships and one for the original search vessel—glowed on various spots of Eta-Five.
None appeared on a direct trajectory to the Argo.
Coren, seeming to sense Tag’s relief, gestured to the nearest ships. “It appears we may have more than enough time for me to execute the camouflaging algorithms. That is, if your computer systems cooperate.”
“AI is completely down, so the whole ship is one big dumb computer. You’ll have free rein.” Tag wondered whether that would be a good thing or not.
“Look at you two,” Sofia said. “Getting along now. All it took was an ice god to bring you together, huh?”
“We’ll see,” Tag said, staring straight ahead through the air car’s windshield.
They glided past more towering structures. The wind calmed, and although the dark skies remained covered in dense gray clouds, no more green lightning flashed. The remainder of the trip to the site of the crashed Argo went smoothly, and soon they sat on top of the spot where the map indicated the ship should be.
“You sure you left her here?” Sofia asked, gazing over the white expanse.
“There might be a bit more snow on her than when I left,” Tag said.
“I’m not one to turn down a hard job, but I’m not sure we’ll be able to shovel our way out of this one.”
Eternal Frontier (The Eternal Frontier Book 1) Page 17
