by S. J. Bryant
"Stop it," Wren said. She tried to read the woman, but her face was like a stone mask.
"You don't have to do it you know."
"I said, stop it."
"The Guild doesn't control you. If you don't want to kill your friends, then you don't have to."
"Of course I do!" Wren said. "Or I'll end up like you. Some outcast on a backwater planet having to constantly look over my shoulder."
"Still better than killing a friend."
"No. I owe the Guild everything. I was nothing. I would have died on the streets of Zenith if it wasn't for them."
"They're using you."
Wren shot to her feet so that she towered over the woman, but Hong didn't stand, didn't even turn to face her.
"Stay away from me." Wren stormed from the room, uncaring that she'd drawn attention. What did Hong know? What did any of them know?
She owed it to the Guild to get the job done. She was no traitor.
CHAPTER 12
Kari's boot sunk in another patch of wet leaves, giving off a strange, moldy smell that filled the air beneath the canopy. Trees rose around Kari like monoliths to create a thick layer of foliage that blocked out most of the sky and kept a trapped layer of hot, wet air inside.
Trudging through a wall of water would have been less uncomfortable. Sweat trickled down Kari's forehead, mixing with the humidity that clung to her skin, making it feel as though she was breathing through a thick layer of fluid.
She'd never had trouble walking long distances before, but this forest seemed to be pressing in on her, suffocating her with hot, muggy air that she couldn't escape. Branches and leaves reached out and caught on her shirt, with tiny spikes that dug into her clothes and skin, forcing her to stop every few minutes to untangle herself.
Ryker strode at the front of their group, breaking a path through the undergrowth, but it was slow going.
"These bloody trees," Ryker said. "They might be nice enough to look at from a distance. But I'm starting to be glad that Zenith doesn't have them."
Kari had to agree.
Leaves rustled overhead and both Kari and Ryker crouched, guns pointed at the branches. A large bird jumped from one tree to another, shaking the leaves and knocking berries loose, which fell through the foliage and landed with soft thumps on the leaf litter below. Other animals scurried and jostled through the undergrowth. The low drone of insects was like a constant buzz inside Kari's head.
She'd never imagined a place could be so noisy without people in it. On Zenith, the only wildlife was the rats, and they didn't make much noise. But here in the forest it was like living in the middle of a bustling city, only the residents weren't human.
Atticus followed Ryker, back bent under the weight of his tool bag.
"Why don't you leave that behind?" Ryker said.
Atticus stumbled to a stop, gaping at Ryker as if the other man had just asked him to chop off his own hand.
"Okay, okay," Ryker said, holding up his hands and returning to the job of slogging through the trees.
Kari didn't mind. The tools could come in handy, as long as it didn't slow them down.
Piper came next. Quiet, but at least she didn't have the same catatonic, glazed look that she'd had after Kari's fight with Wren.
Kari brought up the rear and when she looked behind she winced. They'd left a clear trail through the undergrowth. Broken branches and leaves pointed out the way they'd gone and their footprints made clear tracks in the leaf mulch.
A blind person would be able to track them, let alone Wren, a trained Guild assassin. They might as well be inviting her to follow.
"I've got to cover our tracks," Kari said.
The others paused, gathering as close as they could. The noise of birds and animals continued around them, interspersed now and then by a gust of wind that shook the trees.
"Do you want me to come?" Ryker said.
"No. It's best if you keep going, try to get as far in as you can. Your footsteps are the heaviest anyway. I'll go along behind and try to cover, or at least confuse, where we've been."
"You're the one she's after," Ryker said.
"But I'm the best at covering my tracks. Just keep going. I'll be fine."
Ryker didn't look confident, and Kari didn't feel it either. But the only other option was to get them all to stop and try to cover their tracks and that would be pointless. She'd hurry back, lay some false trails, and be done with it.
"Be careful," Ryker said.
"Always."
Kari raced down the trail they'd created, much easier now that they'd already forged a path through the undergrowth. She only had to stop a couple of times to untangle herself from the thorns. Her thick jacket and pants protected her some, otherwise she would have been scratched half to death. Although the heavy fabric made the heat even more unbearable.
They'd got some water bottles off of the innkeeper, but the heat of the forest was so intense that Kari had already drunk most of hers. She hadn't considered where she might get more.
She retraced their steps for ten minutes—a distance that had taken them thirty minutes to travel the first time around—and then set off to the left, creating a fork in the path. Her small frame didn't bend and break the leaves the same way that Ryker did. Wren would take one look at it and know it was a fake.
Kari cast around for anything that might help and spotted a large branch which had fallen to the forest floor. She hefted it in both hands, the rotting wood leaving a coat of dirt on her hands, and used it to push through the branches and leaves ahead and to either side of her. It wasn't quite the same as Ryker, but it was the best she could do.
She kept going along the side path for twenty minutes—as long as she dared—and then hurried back, doing her best not to bend the branches in the opposite direction. She jumped between logs and dry pieces of ground so that her footsteps weren't so obvious.
When she broke onto the main trail her heart sank. It stood out like a giant red flag. They may as well have left a neon sign pointing to Wren which way they'd gone. The trained assassin wouldn't be fooled by a fake trail.
A headache formed behind Kari's eyeballs, pounding in time with her heartbeat. Why had she wanted to come into the forest in the first place? She'd thought it would be easier to hide, that they'd be able to lure Wren into a trap, but it was turning out to be the opposite. They couldn't move fast enough and they couldn't hide their trail. It was only a matter of time before Wren caught up with them.
Kari needed another idea. She wracked her brain as she hurried after the others. The heat made her headache worse and she struggled to think. She just wanted to be out of the damn forest! Out of the humidity. It was like being trapped by the very air. How did people live in places like this?
Far too soon, she caught up with the others. They'd only covered a short distance in the time she'd been gone and based on the glimmer of sunlight Kari occasionally caught through the trees, it was already midday. Wren could be right behind them and she'd be able to move fast on the path that they'd created.
"This isn't good enough," Kari said, her voice making her head ring.
"Your idea," Ryker said.
Kari couldn't blame him for being snippy. It had been her idea and the heat made her want to lash out too. "We've got to set a trap."
"I thought that was the whole point of coming into this hell?"
"Exactly," Kari said. She stopped short. The others stumbled to a stop, peering back at her through the trees. "We build a trap."
"What kind of trap?"
"Keep it simple. Drop trap."
Ryker snorted. "You hoping she'll break a leg?"
"No, we'll need something more than that. You've got explosives, right?"
"Might do."
"Put a pressure sensor in the bottom. As soon as she falls in…"
Ryker raised an eyebrow. "Brutal."
Kari shrugged. It was brutal, and she tried not to think too much about the details, of what it would be like
when Wren fell in and her legs were blown to small hunks of meat. "It's all I've got."
"What if other people come this way?" Atticus said.
Kari gestured to the thick undergrowth. "People clearly don't come here very often. We dig the trap on our trail. The only person that will come this way is Wren. And if she doesn't set it off… well, we'll dismantle it as soon as this is all over."
Atticus looked uncomfortable but didn't say anything more. Piper kept silent.
"If you think it's best?" Ryker said.
"I do."
Kari fell to her knees on the path and clawed at the leaf litter with her bare hands. It came away in thick globs of dirt and rotting leaves that she piled to the side. The others knelt beside her and together they dug a hole in the middle of the path—one foot wide and one foot deep.
Sweat poured off of their faces and dotted the dirt and leaves. It soaked through their clothes, clinging to their bodies, similar to the feeling of being drenched by rain the night before, except far less pleasant.
Once they'd dug the hole, Kari took a flat log from the ground nearby and laid it in the bottom to create a firm base. "You've got the sensor?" she said to Ryker.
He held up a small device.
Kari took it and placed it on top of the flat log. "Don't activate it till we've moved some distance away. Just in case."
"You bet."
They placed explosives around the sides of the hole, enough to blow anyone stumbling into the trap to pieces. Kari took thin twigs and sticks and placed them over the top of the hole to create a lattice, and then used leaves and clods of dirt to hide the lattice, making it blend in with the rest of the forest.
"What do you think?" she said, head tilting to study her work.
"Still looks churned up," Atticus said.
Kari had to agree. The area was darker than all the rest and Wren was sure to notice as soon as she saw it. Kari took some dryer leaves from the side of the path and dropped them over the hidden hole. Still too obvious. She scuffed her boots across the path on both sides of the trap to churn up spots of darker dirt. "Better?"
"Maybe," Ryker said. "It all looks the same to me, but Wren has some unnatural senses."
"Piper?" Kari said. "You see things better than any of us."
Piper turned her dreamy gaze to the forest floor, then along the path from which they'd come. Without speaking, she pulled a vine from beneath a nearby tree and laid it over the path, just in front of the hole. Its shadow fell across the disturbed area, concealing it.
Kari grinned. "You're a genius."
"She definitely got the brains of the family," Ryker said.
Kari scowled. "Come on. We have to hurry up. Wren could be right behind us."
They stood and kept pushing through the forest, careful not to step on the trap. Ten minutes later, Ryker activated the pressure sensor. As soon as Wren—or anyone—stepped on the hidden hole, their foot would fall through and activate the sensor. Then the explosives would go off and…
Well, and then all of Kari's current problems would be over.
CHAPTER 13
"It gets dark quickly in the forest," Atticus said. "If you want to make any kind of camp, we should do it now."
Kari looked back at the path they'd made through the trees. All afternoon she'd been expecting the distant boom of the explosive trap going off, but it had been silent. Did that mean Wren hadn't got that far yet, or that she'd seen the trap for what it was, and stayed well clear?
There was no way to know for sure.
Kari itched to keep moving. As soon as they stopped, they gave Wren more chance to catch up. She could be creeping toward them through the trees at that very moment. The thought made Kari's skin crawl and she couldn't help peering over her shoulder again, scanning the shadows and the trees for Wren's familiar face.
"Captain?" Ryker said.
"What?" Why was she in charge? It wasn't like they were on board Ghost anymore.
Ryker raised his eyebrow. Heat spread over Kari's cheeks. It was her life on the line, technically her fault that they were all in danger. The least she could do was call the shots.
"You really think it will get dark that quickly?" she said.
Atticus squinted up at the sky, which was a light purple where it shimmered through the thick leaves. "Half an hour at most and then you won't be able to see your hand in front of your face."
"Right," Kari said. "We'll stop here for the night and build a shelter. Ryker, you set up some trip traps back the way we've come, and around the perimeter too."
"Aye, aye," Ryker said, shambling into the trees. His broad shoulders left a clear path through the foliage.
Kari sighed. Even if they weren't trying to run away from a trained Guild assassin, they'd be easy to track. Still, what choice did she have? She'd already tried to leave Ryker and Atticus behind, and look how well that had turned out.
She sighed, dropping her bag on the ground near Atticus' tools, then bent to clear a patch of ground of twigs and rocks. The trees huddled in close together, leaving little room between them, but it would have to do.
Together she and Atticus collected bigger logs and large leaves to create a triangular shelter.
"If it rains like it did last night," Atticus said. "It won't do us any good. But it'll be better than nothing in a light shower."
Kari slumped onto a rotting log and pulled her bag close. She rifled through it, finding four ration bars just as Ryker returned. She handed them around and peeled the plastic off hers.
The dry bar tasted vaguely of chocolate, but it was a bitter, dry chocolate. Kari would have preferred it tasted like nothing instead of a pale imitation that only highlighted what they were missing out on.
She stared at a twisted vine a short distance away and chewed, letting her thoughts drift. Halfway through her ration bar, a sharp sting on her arm brought her attention snapping back. A huge mosquito—as big as the nail on her little finger—sucked at the flesh of her upper arm where it showed through a slash in her jacket. The insect's lower half was fat and bloated with blood and yet it kept sucking.
Kari smacked the palm of her other hand down and the mosquito exploded in a sharp splat of crimson that stained her arm. With a scrunched nose she placed the unfinished portion of her ration bar on the ground, then used the sleeve of her jacket to wipe away most of the blood.
"Be glad we're not on Magradoon," Atticus said. "You should see the mosquitoes there. I swear, I once saw one that was as big as my thumb."
Ryker waved what was left of his ration bar at Atticus. "You're exaggerating."
"I'm not. The whole planet is swampland and these things grow and grow…"
Kari frowned. That was another good thing about Zenith—no mosquitoes. She might hate the planet most of the time, but she was starting to see that it had its perks. Nothing compared to flying around in Ghost though.
"You've been so many places," Piper said to Atticus, her face taking on a dreamy expression.
Atticus shrugged. "Some."
"In the Imperial forces, didn't you say?" Ryker said.
Atticus shifted and his gaze darted between Kari and Ryker as if he expected them to shoot him. "Not like you think. I swept the floors mostly. When I was younger, I wanted to travel and it was the only way I could get away from Zenith…" he trailed off, looking to Kari as if for some kind of reassurance, or maybe an argument. She shrugged. What did he expect? If she held it against every person who worked for the Imperium, then there'd be no one left.
Besides, Atticus didn't seem like the type who had been an enforcer, taking children from the beds of Zenith.
Atticus sagged. "Oh, you should see it all. There are so many systems and planets. Once you get out there, you'll realize how small Zenith and the Raxis system is."
"You still came back," Ryker said.
Atticus faltered, fiddling with the plastic wrapper in his hands. "Yes. Yes, I suppose I did."
"Why?" Ryker said.
Kari f
orced herself to finish her ration bar. She wanted to know Atticus' story as well. He'd traveled, he seemed relatively well off, so why had he purchased passage on her old ship, with no particular destination in mind?
"It's nothing really," Atticus said. "I suppose I just got a longing for home."
"After how many years?" Ryker said.
A red blush spread over Atticus' cheeks. "Many."
"And one day you just decided to come back?"
"I remembered," Atticus said. His eyes shimmered in the last dying light of the day. "I was on a planet, a poor planet, and it reminded me of Zenith. I realized I was having such a good time, enjoying a free life, but I'd left Zenith behind, unchanged. That's when I decided to come back."
"Why?" Kari said. "What difference does it make if you're stuck here being miserable too?"
Atticus gave a sad smile. "I suppose I'm an optimist at heart. I thought I could make a difference."
"Ha!" Ryker said. "Welcome to my life. It doesn't end well."
"No," Atticus said, twisting his wrapper so that the plastic foil crackled. "I had so many ideas! I was going to make such a difference. But then I got here… and it's so much harder than I thought."
"I'd drink to that," Ryker said. "If I had one."
"That'll teach you," Kari said. "Dreams will get you nowhere. And helping people? Forget it."
"Cheery," Atticus said, looking up at Kari from beneath his thick eyebrows.
She was glad that the dying light hid most of her face from him. She'd meant her comment to sound casual, sarcastic, but a little too much of her true feelings had come through.
Silence descended over the small group, broken by the buzz of insects—including a swarm of mosquitoes that kept settling on Kari's skin and trying to suck her dry.
"Here," Atticus said, pulling a thick root out of his bag. "I found it while we were building the shelter."
Kari took it and the strong smell of dirt, feces, and garlic all rolled into one hit her like a physical force. She held the root as far from her body as her arms would allow. "Uh! What is that?"
"Widow's bane," Atticus said. "Or at least, that's what the people on Magradoon called it. But if you rub it on your skin it will help keep the mosquitoes off."
