Haven 6

Haven 6 Page 5

by Aubrie Dionne

  The team spread out, sur­round­ing the ship. Tank strut­ted down the ramp with a hand­ful of metal poles and thrust the first one into the ground. A blue light flickered on, sig­nal­ing the en­ergy field ac­tiv­a­tion. The ar­ti­fi­cial light cast the mis­ted ferns around it in a spec­tral glow, mak­ing them seem sen­tient.

  “Ten-meter ra­dius,” Litus called over his shoulder. He lif­ted a leaf with the tip of his laser and turned to Eri. “Ms. Smith, have a look at this.”

  Eri jumped off the ramp, her boots sink­ing into the soil. The ground crushed un­der­neath her feet, like a cushy blanket. She stumbled, trip­ping over a root, and caught her­self be­fore her face crashed into a fern. The edges of the leaves looked so sharp, they could slice her skin. Her cheeks burned. How would she ever get used to un­even ter­rain after a life­time of walk­ing on chrome?

  Not want­ing to look in­cap­able, Eri straightened up and tensed her legs. As she ap­proached Litus, he handed her a hol­low round pouch. “What do you make of this?”

  Eri smoothed her fin­gers over the rough leather. Caked dirt stained her pale hand dark brown. She ran her fin­gers over the top. Us­ing her nail, she dug out a hole the size of her thumb. The in­side was slick. She over­turned the pouch and a drop of wa­ter leaked out. “Looks like some sort of prim­it­ive canteen.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Litus raised his eye­brows. “Skilled hands made this.”

  His gaze flicked back to her. “The ques­tion is, who?”

  Chapter Six

  Memory Liquid

  “We have to go after it.” Striver poun­ded his fist on the meet­ing-room table, rat­tling a line of clay chalices long emp­tied. Two rows of eld­ers on either side jumped in their seats. The torches, burned to stubs, cast a dim glow in a los­ing battle with the shad­ows creep­ing from the high cris­scross­ing rafters, each one thick as a girth of tree. Al­though the thatched roof blocked the view of the sky, the pres­ence of the mother ship pressed down on Striver, and the sands of time ran thin.

  “And put ourselves in danger to save ali­ens we don’t even know?” Carven shook his head, set­tling back into his wicker chair. The dried cush­ion of swamp reeds creaked un­der­neath him. “We’re safe here be­hind the wall.”

  Striver picked up his fallen chalice with forced calm, run­ning his fin­gers along the nicks in the rim. He ex­pec­ted as much from Carven. His loy­al­ties lay with his large fam­ily. The hard­est people to per­suade were those with greatest risk.

  Find­ing the ship might be the best way to pro­tect all their fam­il­ies. How could he make them see?

  Striver scanned the coun­cil. The table stretched the length of the meet­ing room, as long as the red­woods from which it was carved. The ex­pres­sions of the farthest coun­cil mem­bers were hard to de­cipher in the dwind­ling fire­light. “If every­one stayed where they were and lived with min­imal risk, our an­cest­ors would never have left Old Earth. They would never have battled to live on Out­post Omega or boarded that alien ship to a para­dise planet only heard of in le­gends. If our an­cest­ors hadn’t taken risks, none of us would be here today.”

  A few mem­bers of the coun­cil nod­ded with re­luct­ant ac­ces­sion. Sev­eral more held tight­lipped frowns. Beckon, an elder from Striver’s grand­father’s gen­er­a­tion, fur­rowed his wiry gray brows from the head of the table. “What if they’re hos­tile? Their tech­no­logy is far more ad­vanced than what we’re cap­able of right now. The Law­less can fend for them­selves.”

  Ig­nor­ing the shouts of protest, Striver poin­ted from across the table. “Ex­actly. Do you want that tech­no­logy fall­ing into the hands of the Law­less?”

  Carven spread his palms. “If the Law­less can take it from them.”

  Striver pushed down his rising frus­tra­tion. An un­known force within that ship called to him, and ig­nor­ing his in­stincts meant trouble. But a leader couldn’t let his own emo­tions get the bet­ter of him. “We don’t know they’re even at­tack­ing. What if they can help us?”

  “What if they want to take over? Shouldn’t we be run­ning for our lives? Find­ing a safe place in the moun­tains?”

  Striver held out his hands to settle the anxious mur­murs in the crowd. The last thing they needed right now was mass hys­teria. Be­sides, run­ning away would only delay the in­ev­it­able. If those be­ings in the sky wanted to con­quer, Striver had to make a stand and fight, per­haps con­vince them to co­hab­it­ate. Shar­ing Refuge was his vil­lage’s only chance, since their an­cest­ors de­cided to forgo tech­no­logy. “They could be del­eg­ates, mis­sion­ar­ies. Do you want the Law­less to be the first hu­mans they meet?”

  “Let the Law­less deal with them. We have our own prob­lems.” Beckon waved his hand and sat back in his chair as if he’d said the fi­nal word.

  Striver held Beckon’s gaze, chal­len­ging him to stay in the dis­cus­sion. “If they in­tend to con­quer, wouldn’t you rather know now so we can plan ac­cord­ingly?”

  “You just want to go back over the wall be­cause of your brother!”

  Striver whirled in the dir­ec­tion of the speaker. Ri­ley, Riptide’s older brother, glared at him from across the table. Ever since Striver had denied Riptide’s af­fec­tions years ago, the young man had been breath­ing down his bow.

  Ri­ley gripped the table with white knuckles, look­ing like he’d flip the whole thing. “You’re not go­ing to con­vince him to come back. He left be­cause of you.”

  An­ger and hurt rose up and churned in Striver’s chest in a sour brew. For a mo­ment he ques­tioned his own motives. Was it be­cause of Weaver?

  No.

  This situ­ation did not con­cern his brother. A cur­rent of ur­gency in his gut drew him to that ship. Striver straightened, swal­lowed bile creep­ing up his throat, and spoke softly. “Weaver has noth­ing to do with this.”

  Ar­gu­ments flew over the table, and the heat from the torches seared the back of Striver’s neck un­til his skin dripped with sweat. This meet­ing had turned ugly, dig­ging into his weak­est places. His father’s voice echoed in his thoughts. Vul­ner­ab­il­ity makes you hu­man. When you’ve lost that, you’ve lost your true self.

  Carven gave him an apo­lo­getic smile and stood. “We’ve said our ar­gu­ments. If we draw this out, the meet­ing will last un­til morn­ing, and there’ll be no de­cision at all. We must vote.”

  Striver nod­ded, ac­know­ledging the rules set in place by his an­cest­ors. “How many say we don’t get in­volved?”

  Four out of seven hands rose and his stom­ach sank. They’d never know who or what was on that ship un­til it was too late. Anxi­ety tugged on his nerves. How could he lead if he didn’t know what he was deal­ing with? Ever since they’d elec­ted him, he’d feared los­ing the colony his an­cest­ors had worked so hard to build. He didn’t want to be the broken link that severed the chain, the gen­er­a­tion that sent the world to hell just like on Old Earth.

  He had lost Weaver, and then the Law­less at­tacked the wall. Now his greatest fear threatened to come true. A ship full of tech­no­logy was head­ing into the en­emy’s hands.

  Al­though he knew the out­come of the vote, in or­der to fi­nal­ize, he had to ask the other side. “And how many say we go after the scout ship?”

  Two hands rose be­sides his. Striver ex­er­ted all his will power not to pick up Carven’s hand and make him change his mind. This was it. He’d said his ar­gu­ment and they’d out­voted him. All he could do was sit tight and wait. Every nerve in his body screamed for him to go after the scout ship, but he si­lenced all his in­stincts.

  One of the torches flickered from the back of the room as a shadow walked past. Phoenix stepped for­ward and held up four long fin­gers, cast­ing a branch­like shadow across the table. The shadow grew un­til a golden glow il­lu­min­ated his whole feathered body.

  The coun­cil turned to­ward Phoenix, s
i­lent. Guard­i­ans didn’t usu­ally in­volve them­selves in the vote. But, when one did, people listened.

  “Ig­nor­ance is more dan­ger­ous than curi­os­ity.” His large eyes met Striver’s, and he seemed to wink in the glint of fire­light. “I say we go.”

  Warm pride flowed through Striver’s veins. He grinned at Phoenix be­fore turn­ing to the rest of the coun­cil. “That makes a tie.”

  Slowly, every hand rose un­til Carven was the only man with both palms on the table.

  Striver shook his head. “I’m sorry, old friend.”

  Carven sighed and peeled his hand off the wood. His fin­gers shook in the fire­light. “If you’re go­ing, then I’m go­ing with you.”

  …

  Weaver fol­lowed Jolt into the jungle, won­der­ing if the leader of the Law­less had brought him to the edge of their grounds to fin­ish him off. They’d walked for hours, into the foot­hills of the north­ern moun­tains. Dark­ness had fallen, and Jolt had lit a torch, the flick­er­ing shad­ows bring­ing out the ghoul­ish­ness in his crooked fea­tures.

  Surely if he wanted me gone he would have killed me in the ship. Un­less he didn’t want to foul up his floor.

  Weaver pushed the thought away. He’d had nu­mer­ous op­por­tun­it­ies to run away on this me­an­der­ing jungle trek, enough to won­der if he should blindly fol­low Jolt. Be­sides, spilled blood on the mud­died, rusty chrome plates of that an­cient wreck would make no dif­fer­ence. The ship would never fly again.

  The ter­rain grew steep as they ap­proached the foot­hills of the moun­tains, trees grow­ing side­ways to reach for a sliver of light. Hard rock jut­ted from the soil like broken shards of pot­tery, sharp enough to slice his pants leg open. Us­ing a branch for sup­port, he wished Jolt had waited un­til day­break.

  The jungle gave way to a val­ley of rocks. Jolt’s torch flickered be­fore a veil of black­ness. A crum­bling cave led into the bot­tom of a crag. Weaver stifled his doubts as he ap­proached. “We’re go­ing in there?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re afraid.”

  “I’ve got more cour­age than ten of your men com­bined.”

  “Good. Be­cause it takes a real man to see what I’ve found.” Jolt stepped into the cave, and the dark­ness en­gulfed his torch un­til it was only a small, quiv­er­ing light up ahead. Afraid to lose him in the crux of night, Weaver scur­ried ahead.

  Cool air stung his cheeks, mak­ing him shiver. The floor reeked of stag­nant wa­ter and fungus. Weaver dis­liked any place away from the sur­face, away from the light. He slipped on the in­cline as he struggled to keep up. His night vis­ion wasn’t as acute as some, and the walls pressed in, suf­foc­at­ing him.

  The cave nar­rowed, and Weaver held his arm out in front of him to slip by the rough edges. The ceil­ing had par­tially caved in, and he kicked away stray rocks to find firmer foot­ing. Spi­derm­ites clutched his shirt and he brushed them off, their hairy legs tick­ling his skin. What had he got­ten him­self into?

  “Jolt, you still there?”

  Wa­ter dripped, break­ing the si­lence. Jolt’s gritty voice res­on­ated from deep within the cave. “A little ways farther.”

  Push­ing aside a rising cur­rent of fear, Weaver forced him­self deeper into the cave. Jolt’s torch had burned to a stub, and he wondered how much light they had left. Had Jolt gone crazy?

  Weaver squin­ted in the dark­ness. Could he feel along the walls to find his way out? If he got trapped, Striver wasn’t there to res­cue him. Not this time.

  Just as the em­ber of fire­light died, a golden ra­di­ance il­lu­min­ated the cave farther in.

  Was it Jolt’s torch? Weaver strained his sight to peer ahead. No. This light shone stead­ily without the flick­er­ing reds and or­anges of flame. Curi­os­ity out­weighed his fear, and Weaver pushed ahead. The light grew stronger, mak­ing Jolt’s torch un­ne­ces­sary. Weaver ex­pec­ted warmth on his skin, like when he stood in the sun­light, but the tun­nel grew colder and damp moss clung to his pants legs. What kind of light had no heat sig­na­ture?

  The nar­row tun­nel opened to a room lit by a golden glow­ing pool. Swirls moved on the sur­face, blos­som­ing and dis­ap­pear­ing like the sub­stance moved with life. Jolt stood at the edge, his torch a weak flame com­pared to the ra­di­ance en­vel­op­ing them.

  Weaver stepped for­ward, lean­ing over the pool of light. “What is it?”

  “Who knows? That’s why I brought you here.” Jolt poin­ted to the rim of the pool. The rock had been smoothed down. Strange scratch­ings and loops were carved into the stone in a lan­guage Weaver had never seen.

  “You said you could read the sym­bols and work the con­trols of the S.P. Nautilus. Is this any­thing like those hiero­glyphs?”

  Weaver bent down, tra­cing one with his fin­ger. Def­in­itely not. The width of the scratch­ings was too skinny to match any­thing he’d traced on the S.P. Nautilus.

  Weaver paused, think­ing quickly. He knew bet­ter than to deny the re­semb­lance. His fa­mili­ar­ity with the S.P. Nautilus and the lan­guage of the Guard­i­ans was why Jolt kept him alive. Es­pe­cially after Weaver’s at­tack with the Death Stalk­ers had failed. He’d have to find a way to prove the bows were still use­ful.

  “It’s pos­sible. I’ll need some time to study the sym­bols.”

  “Of course. Just don’t get too close.” Jolt circled the pool, and the swirls fol­lowed him, churn­ing at his feet. “A mem­ber of my crew fell in when we dis­covered it. He never re­sur­faced.”

  Weaver watched a golden swirl spin to­ward him and dis­ap­pear. “It doesn’t look very deep.”

  “Ap­pear­ances can be de­ceiv­ing, can’t they?” Jolt nar­rowed his eyes, the scar of his fore­head widen­ing un­til it looked like his skin would break.

  “I’ll be care­ful.”

  “Good. We wouldn’t want you dis­ap­pear­ing on us.”

  Weaver met his glare, his muscles tight­en­ing like the strings of his bow. “I told you once already. I’m here to stay.”

  “Then get to work. De­cipher the sym­bols and find out how we can use the goo to our ad­vant­age.”

  Jolt headed to the tun­nel. Re­lief flooded Weaver’s veins as he passed. Some­how, he had to find a way to beat this man and take con­trol of the Law­less. Maybe the pool of golden light was the an­swer to his prob­lems.

  Jolt stopped at the en­trance and craned his head to Weaver as if he could hear his thoughts on the wind. Weaver’s pulse quickened. Was he that easy to fig­ure out?

  “One more thing. I should warn you about the side ef­fects.”

  “Side ef­fects?” Weaver shook his head. That’s not what he ex­pec­ted Jolt to say. At all. He couldn’t tell if it was bet­ter than an­other ac­cus­a­tion of treach­ery or worse.

  “I call it memory li­quid. Seems to turn men sen­ti­mental over time. If you spend too long in prox­im­ity, the golden stuff will bring up all sorts of things you want to re­mem­ber.” Jolt tilted his head. “And some you don’t.”

  Weaver set down his ar­row bag. “What do you mean?”

  “Ever want to re­live a day of your life? Ever feel re­gret?” Misti­ness clouded Jolt’s eyes.

  Sure, there were a lot of memor­ies he wanted to for­get, but ones he could re­live again? Weaver pushed down the thought and lied. “Not that I know of.”

  Jolt shrugged and turned back to the tun­nel. “Maybe you’re too young for re­grets. But maybe there’s more to ya than you want people to know. You can’t keep secrets from the memory li­quid.”

  The sound of foot­steps echoed down the tun­nel, and Jolt flicked a warn­ing in Weaver’s dir­ec­tion. Weaver picked up his ar­row bag and took out a long, slender shaft. The foot­steps grew louder, soon be­com­ing two sets of heavy boots. Torch­light flickered in the dark­ness.

  Jolt slinked back along the en­trance and pre­pared to take the in­truders by sur­prise
. Weaver cocked his ar­row in his bow and pulled the string taut. The groov­ing in the handle re­as­sured his blistered palm.

  “Damn spi­derm­ites are crawl­ing all over me,” a tenor voice echoed.

  “Shake ’em off. We’re al­most there,” a deeper, grav­elly voice answered.

  Jolt’s shoulders slumped, and Weaver loosened his hold on the bow. He re­cog­nized the voices.

  Crusty and Snipe emerged into the golden light, look­ing like vag­a­bonds stum­bling upon the gates of heaven.

  “What are you two do­ing here?” Jolt growled. “I told you not to in­ter­rupt—”

  Snipe’s hooded eyes widened so much, they al­most looked nor­mal. “You’re gonna want to see this, boss.”

  “See what?”

  “A ship.” Crusty flicked a glance in Weaver’s dir­ec­tion. “Headed right into our lands.”

  “A space ship?” Jolt’s hand hovered over the sheath where he kept his ob­sidian blade.

  “Yes, sir. A big mon­ster, and it just sent a scout ship in our dir­ec­tion.”

  “Holy Refuge.” Jolt clapped both men on the shoulders and grinned. “Get the team ready. We’re gonna have an am­bush.”

  Chapter Seven

  Savior

  Leaves swayed in the wind above the thin beam of blu­ish light, the only thing sep­ar­at­ing Eri from the wil­der­ness. She stared into the dark­ness over the peri­meter fence. The jungle stretched around her forever, more sin­is­ter than the vast va­cuum of deep space. The dim lights of their trans­port ship only pen­et­rated so far.

  Rust­ling raised the hairs on the back of her neck. A stray leaf waf­ted to­ward the beam. The elec­tri­city zapped it and it sizzled, a burn­ing smell taint­ing the air. Eri hugged her arms around her chest. Would the beam work?

 

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