Gemini decided that if there was anyone still on board, they didn’t know she was here. Not yet at least. Which was not to say they wouldn’t soon enough. She would simply have to chance it and approach the ship. And to do that, she would be best placed to head to where the craft came down, approaching it away from the cockpit or portholes.
Making her way through the vegetation just beyond the laser light, Gemini rounded the clearing that had been made by the vessel, until she was facing the rocket engines. By now a beam of rusty moonlight was spearing through the pathway the ship had created as it had come down to land. Briefly, Gemini lowered her glasses and stared up into the night sky. Miria, Terevell’s only moon, glowed ruddily in the darkness. She could also make out the intermittent beacons that made up the belt of the Border Gates, visible even from the ground. Then, she slipped her glasses back up her nose, turned to the clearing again, and using one of the fallen trees as a boost, lightly hopped over the visible perimeter and landed with barely a sound beyond the sights of the guns. Here she waited for a few seconds, tensely, swivelling her pulse rifle off her shoulder. But no movement or sound attracted her attention.
This is weird, she thought as she stalked forward again, stepping up to the airlock. It was closed fast. A ladder was lowered halfway to the ground. Gemini tightened her grip on her weapon, worrying that she was being lulled into a false sense of security. A very real possibility.
Looking up at the airlock, Gemini considered hailing whoever might be within to try and flush them out. Alternatively, she could try and sneak aboard, under the assumption her light work of the perimeter had gone unnoticed. Neither was very appealing, but she couldn’t wait in the dark forever.
Making the decision to try and enter the ship, based on her growing certainty that nobody was inside, Gemini swung her rifle onto her back again and regarded the ladder. With another quick check around her, she eventually jumped and clung onto a mid-rung. Then she scaled the ladder and tried the airlock, only to find it sealed. This re-enforced her view that the ship had been abandoned. Perhaps the crew had even decided to find some way of obtaining parts to make it airworthy again, and so had set up the perimeter to guard the craft for their return? If that were the case, they would be sorely disappointed. There would be nowhere within reach to find the components they would need. Terevell was not exactly a primitive planet, but the elves had become increasingly Luddite in the last few decades as the borders had been tightened. They maintained a fleet of space vessels for trade and to defend their interests, located in various underground bases in hidden locations. Nevertheless, they were wary of new technology in all its forms. High King Zerian, for one, had long maintained that most aspects of outside advancement had brought his people nothing but turmoil and disaster.
Gemini clung to the ladder thinking for a moment. Then she lifted her eyes and thought that there might be another way inside the ship. There was usually an escape silo on these types of crafts which might allow her entry. It was worth a shot, so she continued to climb and scrambled onto the wing.
Standing for a moment in the cooling breeze, the heady scents of the forest around her, Gemini decided to pull off her glasses and take in her surroundings without the aid of her night vision. After the RV had torn a rent in the canopy, it was bright enough to see pretty clearly. It allowed her to easily pick out the empty elevator bay and the welding gear that had been left abandoned on the shield tiles.
Casting a brief glance back into the forest, as if the answer to these curiosities was somehow out in the trees, Gemini pulled her pulse rifle back into her hands and crept over to the elevator. The gate had been pulled open. And there, lying on the floor, was a slim, shard of metal glinting in the moonlight.
4
Gemini recognised what it was almost as soon as she bent down to pick it up. Perfectly mirroring the shape of a golden birch leaf, its point was nevertheless as sharp as a needle, and clearly employed as an effective dart. There was also dried blood on its tip, although it was difficult to see what colour it was in the soft, scarlet light. Either way, it meant whoever had been working on the ship’s fuselage with that welding gear had probably been targeted.
Craning her ears, and looking into the treetops again, Gemini wondered if the threat was still present. It was possible—whoever had thrown this dart was obviously stealthy—but Gemini doubted it. Otherwise, she would have been attacked even before she could reach the ship. Still, it was unnerving that other players had now entered the game. Locals by the looks of things. Wood elves perhaps? Possibly.
Slipping the dart into her pocket, Gemini stepped on the elevator platform, closed the gate, and engaged the lever. The hydraulics kicked in and the aperture of the escape hatch opened. Slowly, she lowered into the RV as white lights bloomed to greet her.
The silo was silent save for the low-level buzzing of the ship’s systems coming on line. Gemini kept her pulse rifle cradled loosely in her hands as she stepped off the elevator platform and past two escape pods. There wasn’t much to see here. One of the lockers had been opened and there was a pair of abandoned mag boots by a bench. Otherwise, the room was largely undisturbed. She headed for the doors.
However, as she stepped out into the corridor and more lights soaked into life above her, it immediately became obvious this wasn’t the same story throughout the ship. Two doors ahead of her were open, and whoever had been inside the rooms had decided to make a mess. Trays and smashed bottles and pieces of scientific equipment had been flung into the passageway. It was worse in the rooms, with drawers flung open and instrumentation and papers scattered across the floor. Gemini did not enter the rooms, carrying on until she reached another entrance and found herself in an assembly area. Everything was dark until she stepped across the threshold, then more fitful lights came on. A hologram of Terevell fidgeted into life. It cast intermittent shadows on the walls. There was more debris, too, littered around the floor. Whoever had once been so covert outside, had not been so circumspect inside. Clearly these acts of vandalism showed whoever had been in the ship before her had been looking for something, and most probably the very same something Gemini was interested in too: the identities of who had chartered the ship.
Gemini followed in the wake of the disarray. Not that it offered her much clue either. If there had been anything of significance to be found in the chambers branching out from the central core of the ship, it had either been taken or never been found. The only comforting thought was that she had discovered the dart by the elevator. At least this gave her an idea as to who these interlopers were. And they, in turn, hadn’t given much thought to anyone who might follow after. Perhaps they had rounded up the entire crew and whisked them away? Had she been preempted in stopping the hunt entirely? Would all her efforts be for nothing? If that was the case, then she would have all the trouble and none of the gain.
You’ll be out on your ear for sure, Gem, she thought with a hollow feeling in her stomach, conjuring up images of Hanaway’s glowering face.
The last place to look was the cockpit. The instrument panel had been powered down, although she was familiar enough with the layout to coax it back to life. Urgent alarms began to buzz and lights flash, prompting her to shut off the noise with an impatient cluck of her tongue. Then she turned the nav channels back on; the databanks, the logs, casting her eyes across the instrumentation, until she made a discovery that pulled her up short. The tracker was missing.
Pulling her hands back, Gemini stared. Usually, the tracker was pinned in its slot just below the altimeter and could be used to gain an insight into the ship’s promised destination. But someone had taken it. And that meant she didn’t even have evidence to support the claim that the party had been here at all.
Muttering an oath under her breath, Gemini began to scroll through the logs, listening to extracts of the communications between the Border Gates and those on board, hoping to find some helpful clue. She didn’t expect to find much and wasn’t disappointed. The voice spe
aking to the Cypher Golem could have been anyone. The codes wouldn’t tell her who the pilot of the ship was either. What she needed was a roster: evidence of all the souls who had been on board. Except she doubted she would find it. If it did exist, she expected those who had been before her might have taken that already too.
For a while, Gemini checked other aspects of the control panel, reading nav read-outs, studying damage reports. After a while, she gleaned some measure of what had happened to the ship to bring it down. They had been attacked. Not by anything mechanical, she reckoned. Rather it was likely a large creature of some kind. If it had been a dragon, Gemini would have expected to have seen scorch marks across the hull. That suggested to her that it had probably been a wyvern. They were known to be very aggressive and territorial. Large enough, too, to achieve the necessary damage. It was a good job the pilot had been experienced, possessing the skill to land the craft without suffering a complete disaster. Then, one of the crew had been in the process of bringing the ship back up to scratch when they had been attacked and taken away. That was all. The damage reports revealed nothing about the crew’s purpose, which Gemini needed, in categorical terms, to prove why they were here.
Leaning stiffly back into the pilot’s chair, Gemini turned over what little she had learnt in her mind. Her thoughts drifted back to the necessity of establishing whether the hunting party was still pursuing its goal or whether they had been captured or even killed by those who had wielded the silver dart. It was now vital to her job to find out one way or another, and so she leaned over the instrumentation panel, kicking on the floods.
Bright light from under the wings swelled in the darkness outside. Gemini hopped out of her seat and headed smartly to the airlock. She threw the levers and pushed open the door, climbing down the ladder and dropping lightly to the ground.
The red-tinged night around the RV had been pushed back by a fierce white glare. Had she not been so impatient, Gemini knew this was probably not the most sensible course of action. The lights would doubtless attract attention in the deeper reaches of the forest. But such restraint had never been in her nature, and she had to have some clue as to what the next few hours might hold for her.
Creeping slowly away from the RV, Gemini kept her eyes firmly trained on the ground. It didn’t take long before she saw the boot prints: some of them heavyset, and quite clear in the damp ground and mud. There were four of them she estimated, and a congregation of activity, as expected, at the gun towers and the perimeter. Then, as she worked her way back to the nose cone where a mound of earth had been pushed up when the ship had landed, she saw the prints struggling up the rise. She followed them, held back by the perimeter lasers, only to take a torch from her pocket and shine them into the trees. The prints were trailing away into the dark and heading south. A group had left the area. It looked as though they had continued into the forest, leaving behind perhaps just one poor unfortunate soul to fix the ship.
Which means they’re heading farther south, Gemini thought to herself. And the hunt is still on.
SEVENTEEN
1
Blake choked. Acrid smoke was invading his respirator, burning his throat, searing the insides of his nostrils. His vision was so blurred, it made it almost impossible to penetrate the great barrier of black smoke that roiled and heaved before him. And he could feel the heat, too, beating against his face, burning his skin. He stood before the poisonous fumes impotently, weaponless, every muscle in his body aching and unresponsive.
“Kaylen!” he cried. “Kaylen!”
He’d abandoned her. He’d left her to fend for herself against all this fire and darkness. She was helpless, tortured, probably choking as he was in the clouds of poison. Was he too late? Was she dead already?
But then he heard it: a faint, thin weeping carrying through the darkness. She was there! She was still alive!
“Kaylen! Kaylen!”
Blake tried to find some courage to head after the cries. Maybe he could reach her before the fire and fumes overcame him? But then a deep and monstrous snarl like distant thunder rumbled out to meet him and he froze again. There was a flickering of movement now in the depths of the flames and darkness. And for the first time, Blake became aware of a pair of huge, slitted golden eyes easing into view before him...
2
Blake came suddenly awake.
3
Heart pounding, his whole body coated in cold sweat, Blake let out a grunt of fear, as if he expected to be surrounded by coiling tendrils of smoke and fire. But even as he lurched to sit up, the black smoke of his dreams evaporated, and he saw forest and the campfire around him.
“You were dreaming.”
Blake snapped his head around. He had been so lost in his thoughts it hadn’t occurred to him that anyone else would be awake. Then he remembered that Nyara had taken the last watch. She was sitting with her back against a rock, her hood up against the light drizzle that was falling through the trees, here face obscured by shadow. But Blake could sense her studying him all the same.
Blake cleared his throat. “Was I…making too much noise?”
“Not really. Not enough to attract attention from the forest. So I decided it best to let you sleep.”
Flushing, Blake threw aside the thermal blanket, even though he felt cold and shivery. “It’s this damn place,” he muttered. “It always gave me nightmares.”
“Even in the beginning?”
“I can’t remember,” Blake lied. “It was a long time ago.” Then he turned his attention to the others. Uldo was still snoring softly, hugging his bottle of Brakiki moonshine, and Maddox was huddled under his own blanket, his brow furrowed. As for Cid, he was motionless, preserving his energy, his head dipped, his round eye barely emitting a flicker of light.
“How long before we reach the river?” Blake asked gruffly, keeping his eyes away from Nyara who hadn’t moved from her position from the rock.
“Maybe in the next couple of hours.”
“Good.” Blake clambered to his feet, slicking back his hair. He stretched his neck, expecting to feel the old familiar tightness, especially given the chill. Instead, after only a day on Terevell, these reminders of his mortality had lessened. He wasn’t sure whether to be thankful or spooked.
“It was a quiet night then at least,” he added.
Nyara shrugged. “The forest absorbs.”
“Huh?”
“Anything alien is often treated with suspicion at first. Yet after time, and so long as it is not considered a threat, the forest relaxes and may even offer acceptance.”
Blake thought about the miners digging up Deep Root in the Arivul Hills again. “We’ve only been here a few hours,” he said. “You think the forest absorbs that quickly?”
“That remains to be seen. We still have two days travel to the lair. Perhaps the Tree will be kind.”
Perhaps. But from what Blake knew of the World Tree, kindness rarely had anything to do with it.
“We should wake the others then. Keep moving.”
“Indeed.”
“You take the dwarf.”
4
They set out barely half a standard hour later. The fire had gone out due to the light rain, but Nyara covered it with earth anyway, and made sure that every other sign of the party’s presence was erased from the camp. This time Blake kept to the rear of the group, alongside Maddox. He said it made sense after their encounter with the dryads, but the truth was, he wanted to keep away from Nyara. It was as if her watching him dreaming, perhaps in his most vulnerable state, had unmanned him.
Not that she seemed to notice his sheepishness as she led them on. Her intent was only on the trail ahead, and they made good progress. The forest was less hemmed in than the previous day, as if it had decided to make their route less arduous. And once they had travelled farther south for a while, the rain having slackened, Nyara said, “You smell that?” and pulled back to fall in with the rest of the party. There was excitement in her voice.
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“Smell what?” muttered Uldo. “This place has had the same stink ever since we landed: wet earth and damp wood.”
“No,” Nyara shook her head. “It is the smell of the lifeblood of Terevell. The World Tree’s kin.”
“What’s she blathering about, Dragon Slayer?” Uldo complained.
“She means the Shilita River,” Blake answered, which was confirmed as they progressed farther along the path. Gradually, they began to hear a faint hissing and chattering in the distance, until eventually Uldo huffed: “Gods, is that what all the fuss is about? A damned river?”
The ground was sloping away beneath them, and the trees had begun to thin. Their way had become rockier too, and soon the faint hissing had become a roar. The glare of late morning sunlight greeted them as they picked their way out of the forest. Stumbling down a sloping bank, they were confronted by a powerful torrent of white water rushing past them, carving its way through the forest.
“Would you look at that!” Maddox cried above the noise. “Pity we don’t have any boats. We could have been at the lair in no time.”
“Too dangerous,” Nyara called back. “There are rapids much bigger than this farther down.” She then started to climb to the water’s edge, stepping onto a wide, flat rock and taking her canteen from her pack.
“Is it like this all the way?” Uldo asked Blake.
“I don’t think so. These are the end of the Wakatan Rapids. They’ll drop down through the Jyle Cauldron, before levelling out. But as Nyara says, there’s even more dangerous waters southwest of here, drawing down into the Sheerwater Falls.”
“You really are a tour guide, huh?” Uldo said.
Return to Dragon Planet: Book one of the Dragon Planet Trilogy Page 18
