A small smile returned and she reached up and lightly touched his cheek. The temperature of her fingers was stone cold. “Thank you… thank you for freeing my soul, Adam Roh.”
His mood soured. “I have hardly freed you,” he replied helplessly.
“Yes, yes… you have,” she insisted. “You have truly set me free.”
And then she died right there, cradled as she was in his arms.
*
Adam’s next move was to locate the Captain’s quarters. He knew them on site – the lavishness of the interior was inescapable, especially when compared to the other officers’ cabins. There were very few personal items – nothing to indicate what kind of man had lived here. There were so few officers left on board, and his crash through the command shuttle was responsible for most of the problem. But it had thrown the entire, larger warship’s operations into complete disarray and given the Pyrhh crew the time they needed to capture it. Wordlessly he removed the body armor that supposedly protected his chest and torso, but in reality was simply window dressing to make him appear to be just another soldier.
He dropped into a seated position on the colorfully decorated bed for a moment and then laid down into a fully reclined position, pulling the red and blue sheets over his body. Considering all that he had been through recently, he expected to fall asleep almost immediately. Nevertheless, sleep eluded him and he frowned in response, disgusted that he was wasting the three or four hour opportunity to rest. Tossing and turning didn’t help – the bed was very comfortable but he was simply still too emotionally wired from all of the adrenalin rushes. His first battle aboard the small Crasel ship had been an intense one, and at the time it had seemed like the only action he would see for a while in the Wasteland.
How fast things can change in war.
A presence touched his mind using the implant link, announcing that someone was ‘clocking out’ as his Sentinel and another person rotating in. It was a formality built into the programming so that he wouldn’t be caught by surprise when someone wished to communicate with him. [“You can’t be Dr. Simmons,”] he decided, sending a transmission to the newcomer. [“She’s fast asleep by now. Thomas and Denny are done, at least until morning too. So who do I have the opportunity of working with tonight?”]
The response caught him completely by surprise. [“Your wife.”]
[“Nori?”] He smiled inwardly, feeling her presence more intensely now, instinctively knowing that it was her. [“I can’t believe you allowed yourself to be fitted with an implant. You must have accepted an olive branch from Kaufield. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you until I got back.”]
[“Yes. Our esteemed President stopped by the other day and told me how well this form of communication was working. Since Glen is needed back up in orbit to work on the Pathfinder, and since our kids sleep very well during the nighttime, I decided to accept the fill-in offer for night shift. Thomas recommended me.”]
[“Please tell Thomas that I will get even with him upon my return.”]
Noriana Roh snorted with laughter. [“He’s not afraid of you at all. His wife, now that’s a different story.”]
This time it was Adam who chuckled with amusement. [“It’s hard to imagine little Kari Roh scaring anyone,”] he replied, fond memories of her surfacing. [“Although Thomas thinks she’s become almost as fierce a mother with her three boys as you are with our kids.”]
[“Flattery will get you nowhere husband, not when you’re that far away from me.”] They both paused for a moment as she laughed lightly in his mind. Then her mood softened noticeably. [“You did very well with that poor woman,”] she told him warmly. [“Denny and I watched the entire thing from here.”]
[“I wish I could have saved her.”]
[“Everyone does. Unfortunately, you’re trying to function in a war zone.”] Tears appeared at the corners of Adam’s eyes as he listened to his wife, remembering all their time together. But she wasn’t done. [“Just think of all you’ve accomplished since you first boarded that Crasel ship. Forty-eight hours ago the Wasteland was a complete mystery to us, and we had no idea where even to start. So Noah just threw a proverbial dart on a map and it happened to land in Crasel territory.”]
He smiled, tears running down his cheeks as fatigue and overwhelming positive emotions got the better of him. [“Have you seen my guys yet… my band of brothers? Tran Wuu, Cren Hollis, Arte…”]
[“Just videos of them,”] she interrupted bluntly. [“I’ve been playing catch up here after ignoring Denny for almost a month. Leave it to YOU to find four poker buddies in the middle of a war zone. God Almighty, if there was ever an indication that men are the same wherever in this universe they live…”]
Adam lost control of his emotions and laughed out loud, unable to continue suppressing feelings slowly accumulating during his adventures within the Wasteland. [“You can tell Thomas that I’m going to need to get a pet cat when I get back,”] he informed her. [“This time it’s ME who can’t sleep. Please tell him that I can finally relate.”]
Her sympathy for him was proving to be extremely limited. [“Well, that’s probably because you helped win one successful battle and suddenly got delusions of grandeur.”] He imagined her face in front of him as he listened to her words and laughed uncontrollably, still lying on the bed. [“Do you know how long it took Denny and me to become Captains? And then if we take into account the fact that YOUR position was acquired solely by mutiny, well there’s another dark spot that’s going to blemish the family name.”]
Recovering some of his dignity, his mood turned suddenly serious. [“I have to address the crew in a couple of hours,”] he informed her. [“If I don’t get some sleep before then, our entire plan could come crashing down. I’m seriously flipping out here, so wired by adrenalin that it’s impossible to relax. My thoughts are racing back and forth, completely out of control.”]
Her tone softened somewhat. [“Honey, we’re going to help you.”] On his eye HUD, a message informing him that an incoming file packet was being received flashed for attention. [“Thomas and Noah have adjusted the implant’s software so that you can sleep at will. It can adjust your mind’s neural activity subtly enough to put you to sleep or to wake you back up if we need to.”]
[“What if somebody on the ship calls me?”] he asked with concern. [“Worse, what if someone comes in?”]
[“Then you’ll wake normally. Trust me, honey.”]
At first there was nothing, but he slowly began to feel a growing blockage in his mind. Adam’s thoughts were still racing, his mind fully active, but he could feel those racing thoughts colliding with something unseen and vanishing completely. It seemed as though he was still thinking about quite a few things, but each and every thought trail would just cut off in mid-stream. He tried to remember his line of thought from only seconds ago, a plan he had been considering of some sort, but the details of it now escaped him. A new idea popped into his head, but it too seemed to vanish into some sort of mental abyss. This is awesome, he thought triumphantly to himself. I can literally feel my mind slowly beginning to relax, even though my conscious mind doesn’t want to let go.
Mere moments later, he was out like a light.
PROJECT WASTELAND
Pathfinder Series: Book Two
Chapter VIII: Stolen Nightmares
Aboard the Ali Rinai…
Adam’s dream about Bok began on his home world, during the alien’s ‘Right of Ascension’, also known as the Kuth initiation ritual. Since the memories transferred into his brain by the implant were imperfect, a great deal of the information was incomprehensible to him. His mind focused primarily on the sights, sounds and the smells that were most closely associated with long-term memory retention. For starters, the creature’s home world stank to high heaven – but then, that was because the current setting was in the outdoors. Memories of the planet’s cities were easily accessible, especially their tall, alien-looking spires that stretched upward for hundreds of stories an
d looked, from a distance, like the sharp teeth of their builders. The cities, what few of them were left, were the only protection from the outside world and its unending flow of blood thirsty predators. Bok’s presence outdoors was involuntary on his part… he was there because those in the Caucus had determined that his time had come.
It was night time, the most dangerous part of the day for sentient life to be outdoors and usually the time when the vast majority of those who failed the ‘Right of Ascension’ died horribly. The predators were hardly the only danger to worry about – over ninety percent of the planet’s plants and trees were either poisonous or otherwise lethal in some manner. Everything in the Kuth version of nature did not survive for long if it did not know how to disguise and defend itself – or better yet – attack other life forms first. The sharp, brightly colored trees and plants were as dangerous as any insect or beast, which is why Bok had not moved since the shuttle from the city had dropped him into the deepest section of a forest area only an hour before sunset. There was no time limit for this test, but in order to win he had to not only stay alive, but also make it back to the city walls alive. No one cared if he lived or died out here, his life was over unless he managed to somehow find his own way back safely.
Unceremoniously dumped from the shuttle by a team of his peers, Bok had landed hard, injuring his left ankle before falling in the dirt. Opening his crimson eyes, the sight of one of the planet’s most lethal life forms lay directly in front of him. A bed of orange and crimson flowers with bright yellow petals known as hthewii curled in a large semi-circle around the trunk of a tall tree. Everything was poisonous down to the bark on the tree, but the flowers were even more deadly. They were capable of sensing movement, specifically the vibrations in the ground from approaching paws or footsteps. Once agitated they immediately released a pollen so deadly that it could kill an animal or Kuth within seconds. His journey toward Ascension had nearly ended before it could begin. Freezing his body in place, his instinctive chameleonic abilities adapted within seconds, turning his body into a mirror of the flowers in front of him. The soft hiss of pollen being released into the air was unmistakable, but a strong wind blowing toward the east caught the deadly particles and drove them away.
His life temporarily preserved by a chance breath of wind, he hadn’t moved since.
Rather than risk his life against further random gusts of wind, Bok figured that he was safe in his current position, at least until morning. In reality, he was safe even after that, as most of the animal life that walked on all fours would instinctively shy away from the hideously lethal plants. Admittedly there was no time limit to his test, but failing to move and find food or water before his strength waned would accomplish nothing. The objective for this mission was to return to the city alive and relatively unharmed. There were night predators about, their wild challenging cries echoing through the forest. Periodically he also saw their glowing gold and green eyes, reflecting the dim light from the nearly starless sky above, blinking at him from well concealed locations in the nearby undergrowth. The sound of other, unfortunate prey crying out in their death throes was also audible. Anything passing near to him could smell the strong, perfumed fragrance indicating the presence of the hthewii, even in the black of night, and knew to stay well away from this most dangerous of plant species. Even if they were starving and picked up his scent too, meat eaters would still choose to keep their distance.
He was lying on his back, looking straight up at the sky above. Far to the north and east he could see the tiny, occasional sprinklings of the few remaining stars and galaxies that still burned brightly in the overhead sky. Given the relatively slow speed of light, even many of those are likely gone by now, he thought grimly. Other than that, the night sky was virtually empty except for the occasional rogue stars here and there. Brightly lit orange and purple nebulae took up the rest of the sky to the south and west, their huge dust clouds illuminated by the sparse, remaining clusters of stars that still burned somewhere deep within their centers. These were the areas in the local galactic rim where most of his ancestor’s experiments had taken place, where entire stars had once been sacrificed in order to discover entry points into other universes.
That is where the effort began to save our people from this dying universe, he remembered.
Historically there had been no choice, since entropy in this particular universe was gradually winding down. Theirs was an extremely old universe after all, nearly 92 billion years old by most estimates, and most of its galaxies had long since cooled to the point where they could no longer support biological life. Suitable stars capable of holding habitable planets in orbit were in short supply, and the danger only accelerated with each passing century. Everything out in space was mostly dark matter, dead stars and black holes by now, supermassive gravity wells inevitably gobbling up everything that remained. There simply weren’t enough hot stars remaining with the energy needed to produce new ones. And in order to save their people, the Kuth were forced to deliberately destroy even more of those few that remained.
Bok decided he had no choice but to move just prior to dawn. Still pondering how and when, he noticed a very large, six-legged beast with a body covered in sharp quills move past him, its long snout low to the ground and searching for signs of smaller animal life. Searching for its morning meal like everything else out here, he thought to himself, surprised that he had never heard of this particular species. Having chosen to enter the wilderness naked except for his thick, heavy-duty work boots, he prided himself on a decision that had already allowed his body’s natural, chameleonic abilities to save his life. That would all end soon if he didn’t move and move swiftly, so he impulsively kicked out with his right foot until his boot came in contact with the sharp, undoubtedly poisonous quills on the rear of its body. Some of the quills detached, but others did not and Bok’s body lurched suddenly into motion as the creature moved away, dragging him right along with it.
The mistake the others will make, he decided, will be in assuming that THEY are still the hunter out here. It was truly surprising how fast city life could dull one’s animal instincts.
He could hear the sinister hissing sound of additional pollen being released by the flowers, but there was no other choice and luck was with him on this occasion as he held his breath longer than ever before. After finally gasping for air and realizing that he had escaped the poison, he allowed himself to relax a little bit. Even so, carrying the full weight of a Kuth proved to be no easy task, even for the huge animal currently towing him. The beast paused momentarily, glancing briefly over its shoulder in curiosity at the unmoving burden attached to it. Again Bok remained completely still and the animal sniffed the air for a moment and then pawed at the ground. It took a few tentative steps forward, paused, then a few more cautious steps before pausing for a second time. Finally, the creature resolved itself to the fact that it was carrying more weight than usual and resumed its lumbering trot, otherwise completely unaware of his presence.
This stupid, dumb beast is saving my life! Bok thought elatedly. This thing, whatever it was, obviously moved primarily by scent and did not appear to be vulnerable to other predators. He had no definitive proof that the quills were in fact poisonous, but really… why else would everything else leave it so completely alone?
So Bok continued to relax, allowing the creature to haul him along through territory that it obviously knew very well, along the relatively safer trails that beasts of its kind used. He watched the thickness of the forest begin to recede, trees thinning and the bright oranges, greens and yellows eventually fading gradually away. He began to see less deadly, dully colored purple and blue foliage, indications that the terrain was growing a bit friendlier and relatively free of the ground-based predators. And then his fingers unexpectedly touched soft mud as his body continued to be dragged along, and he looked long and hard at the surface of one of the large sinkholes that could haul a life form down beneath the surface and into its depths i
n less than a treffing.
What an easy way to die, and he hadn’t even noticed that it was there until his fingers touched the soft mire! His current situation was ideal, more than he could have hoped for, and he was perfectly willing to allow this strange, six-legged creature to unwittingly haul him all the way back to the city, if it could.
Its quills pulled loose a moment later, leaving him once again lying motionless in the soft dirt. Exotic hoots and howls pierced the quiet of the morning and he could see the soft, orange glow of the rising sun to the east. Had the situation been under his control, Bok would have kept the creature as a pet and fed it plentifully for the rest of its natural life. The beast had dragged him safely along, almost entirely through the worst of the forest and into areas that were at least slightly more hospitable. He stood up, dusted himself off, and watched it trundle away, still snuffling along and following an unseen scent trail. Reaching out toward the wooden skeleton of a long-dead tree, he broke off one of its branches and then pulled out the quills still sticking in his boot. Removing the laces from his right work boot, he used them to tie the quills tightly to his makeshift lance with their deadly, poisonous points sticking out at various angles from its own sharp point.
Glancing up a moment later, he spotted the older strands of millimeter-thick webbing hanging from the tall trees and briefly considered retracting his earlier goodwill toward the six-legged beast. This was proving to be the territory of the miklied – a ten-legged creature nearly twice as large as the six-legged beast and just as dangerous as the hthewii flowers. That was the trade-off for being on turf with less of a forest and milder plant life – predators of the worst kind made their homes here because it was safer and everything with any intelligence would see the webbing and know to stay well away. A rustling of leaves spooked him and Bok backed up against the trunk of a large tree, feeling his body reacting to its presence. The color of his thick, durable skin transitioned into the dark brown of the trunk and he waited patiently for whatever was making the noise to pass by. Not yet able to shape shift, he nonetheless appeared to be a part of the tree.
The Pathfinder Trilogy Page 54
