Haven 6

Haven 6 Page 10

by Aubrie Dionne

  “So no lifemate pair­ings?”

  “Def­in­itely not.”

  In­ter­est­ing. Eri had wanted Haven 6 to evolve into such a world once they’d aban­doned the strict con­di­tions of the ship.

  Striver’s lips thinned. “You don’t agree with our sys­tem. I can see it in your eyes.”

  “No, it’s not that. Be­lieve me, I have my own com­plaints about our sys­tem. But your world is so dif­fer­ent. To tell you the truth, it’s scary.”

  He ap­proached her, pla­cing his hand gently on her shoulder. He felt solid and cer­tain, the one thing that made sense on this en­tire world. “Any­thing new is scary, but as my father used to say, you don’t gain without tak­ing risks.”

  Eri felt the urge to lean into his hand. She wanted to be­lieve him, but after what happened with the scout team, she didn’t know if she could. “Seems a big risk to me. I mean, people run­ning around without laws? Do­ing whatever they feel like?”

  Striver leaned in, his face a breath away. “Tell me the truth. Are you happy with your job aboard the Her­it­age? Your lifemate pair­ing?”

  Eri backed up against the con­trol board as the truth smacked her in the face. I’m not happy with either.

  A shadow moved across the meadow on the sight panel be­hind Striver, draw­ing her at­ten­tion away. He fol­lowed her gaze as the shadow traveled over his face. “It’s Phoenix.”

  “I thought none of the ships could fly.”

  Striver gave her an imp­ish smile, green eyes spark­ling. “They can’t. Too bad he’s here. I wanted to show you the cham­ber that held the eggs.”

  “The eggs the Guard­i­ans hatched from?”

  “Yes. There’s a neat stor­age fa­cil­ity in the belly of this ship. Thank good­ness Ar­ies and Striker kept the eggs in­tact and car­ried them out to the meadow to hatch. I guess they felt ob­lig­ated be­cause they used their ship. Be­sides com­ing to Refuge, it was the best de­cision they could have made.”

  It soun­ded like a bed­time fairy tale. Haven 6 had such rich his­tory, and Eri felt like she’d only seen the tip of the ice­berg. She wanted to ask more ques­tions, but Striver took her hand.

  “Come on, we should get out­side to meet him.”

  As they rode the plat­form to the fresh air, Eri titled her face up to the sky, shield­ing golden rays with her hand. A winged creature spiraled down in el­eg­ant circles. His feath­ers shone with pearly iri­des­cence in the morn­ing sun.

  He landed swiftly, turn­ing from a glide into a jog on spindly legs. Eri froze, blink­ing hard, as if she’d ima­gined it. He jumped to the top of the hull in one leap.

  The bird­man had long, branch­like fin­gers and slender arms. Gray eyes with no pu­pils stared back at her. A beak-like mouth trilled a shrill note on the wind. He re­minded her of an an­gel from an­other world.

  “I see your ward has awoken,” Phoenix an­nounced in a more manly voice than Eri ex­pec­ted, mak­ing her gawk even more.

  The bird­man talks?

  “Yes, and she speaks Eng­lish, Phoenix. She’s from a colony ship, de­par­ted from Old Earth five hun­dred years ago.”

  Phoenix bowed and his feathered back ruffled in the breeze. “A pleas­ure to meet you.”

  Striver nudged Eri’s arm and nod­ded en­cour­agingly to­ward Phoenix. She quirked an eye­brow. You mean you want me to talk to it?

  His face grew sterner, the wrinkles around his eyes say­ing: You were the one who wanted our help.

  Phoenix waited, his blank gaze un­nerv­ing her. Did he feel the same emo­tions as hu­mans? Could he sym­path­ize? Eri took a deep breath and offered her hand. “Erid­ani Smith. Call me Eri.”

  His clawed fin­gers wrapped around hers, and she res­isted the urge to pull away. Fear wasn’t the most dip­lo­matic emo­tion to con­vey. The claw was smooth and cold, re­mind­ing her of the ivory ship be­hind them. “Phoenix High­land at your ser­vice.”

  Did they al­ways speak like an old Eng­lish book? Eri shook his branch­like hand. “Nice to meet you, Phoenix.”

  “Are you go­ing back to your ship?” He leaned for­ward and she could see her re­flec­tion in his eyes, a frightened and ex­hausted young wo­man who had stumbled upon a world she’d never dreamed could ex­ist. Think­ing about Litus, Tank, and Mars, she summoned cour­age and held her head up high to meet his emo­tion­less gaze.

  “No. I’ve come to ask for your help.”

  Just as she wondered how she’d ex­plain everything, Striver stepped in. “She’s loc­ated the sur­viv­ing mem­bers of her team, and she wants to res­cue them.” He gave her a re­as­sur­ing nod. “The Law­less cap­tured sev­eral of their weapons, and I think it would be­ne­fit us both if we con­fis­cated them be­fore the Law­less have a chance to use them. Be­sides, they’ll tor­ture those col­on­ists to death, and that doesn’t look good for our in­ter­galactic com­mu­nic­a­tions.” He poin­ted to the mother ship, still hov­er­ing in the sky like a gi­ant eye.

  “Well thought-out, Striver.” Phoenix ex­ten­ded one of his fin­gers to the other one, mak­ing a circle. His large, pla­cid eyes blinked.

  Striver shif­ted, his gaze dart­ing to the rising sun in the sky. “We don’t have time for an­other one of those town hall meet­ings. If we de­cide to save them, we must act now.”

  Phoenix dis­con­nec­ted his two fin­gers as if he’d come to his con­clu­sion. “You know this may an­ger mem­bers of the coun­cil?”

  Striver re­garded Eri as if she were worth it. “I’ll take my chances.”

  “And you know the Guard­i­ans can’t help you carry out any act that may in­duce war or trans­fer any­one across the wall without the coun­cil’s con­sent.”

  Striver didn’t wait one beat to reply. “Un­der­stood.”

  “Very well. I’ll send word to the other Guard­i­ans. You or­gan­ize an­other in­fantry force.”

  Be­fore Eri could thank Phoenix, he turned away and launched into the sky. A single feather drif­ted to the ground and Eri picked it up, feel­ing the soft hairs against the slender quill. Pure white fluff at the stem turned into a pink­ish iri­des­cence at the tip.

  “That was easier than I thought.” Striver slumped back against the hull and sighed. “The hard part lies ahead.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Looking Back

  Touch­ing the keypad on the laser gun re­minded Weaver of the an­tique min­eral loc­ator passed down for gen­er­a­tions in his fam­ily. His dad, as his father’s father be­fore him, told him Ar­ies Ry­der used the device to find the miss­ing piece of the S.P. Nautilus while on Sahara 354. As a boy, he’d hold it in front of him and pre­tend the loc­ator still worked, try­ing to find pre­cious min­er­als in the rock bed of the dried-up stream by their tree hut.

  The way the laser gun’s keypad clicked un­der his touch made him feel like he had power at his fin­ger­tips. If only he could find the code to ac­tiv­ate it.

  “I bet the kid’s bluff­ing. He can’t fig­ure out any­thing at all.” Snipe spit on the rock wall, and the drool trickled down, scar­ing away a spi­derm­ite.

  Crusty waved his hand. “Give the kid a chance. What have we got to lose?”

  “All our secrets taken back to those tech­no­hoarders, that’s what.” Snipe drew out his flint blade and sharpened it along the side of a rock with a swhang.

  “What secrets? That pool of dreamy re­gret? Lasers we can’t use? Colony Lifers who won’t wake up?”

  Weaver ig­nored them, punch­ing in an­other series of num­bers as he ran log­ar­ithms in his head. He’d al­ways been good at math. But des­pite his pro­gress, an ill seed of anxi­ety grew in Weaver’s chest. Was it Snipe’s teas­ing? No. People in his vil­lage had badgered him all his life. He was ac­cus­tomed to snide re­marks about not meas­ur­ing up. Be­sides, no one was his friend on this side of the wall. Crusty and Snipe knew he was com­pet­i­tion, and they’d take any chance they g
ot to put him down.

  This was a new feel­ing, an un­com­fort­able mel­an­choly tain­ted by re­morse. The feel­ing had star­ted like an itch he couldn’t scratch after the dream. Plunged back in time, Weaver felt all the same feel­ings he’d ex­per­i­enced as a boy. But new feel­ings along with the old put the memory in a dif­fer­ent light.

  Striver and his dad weren’t hold­ing him back that day. They never had. In fact, they’d con­vinced his mom to let him fish with them, and all he did was get them in trouble. Why did it take ten years to see his own selfish­ness?

  Shak­ing his head, he tried the next set of num­bers he’d sys­tem­at­ic­ally de­rived. 66459…

  The laser gun buzzed in his hands, and the screen flashed on.

  Weaver stared, hope rising in his chest. I did it. I cracked the code.

  His eyes flicked to where Snipe had been sit­ting against the rock wall. The floor was bare. Crusty stood, hold­ing out his black flint blade.

  “Nice job, Weasel.” Snipe’s voice echoed from be­hind him.

  Weaver whirled around to the tip of an ar­row aimed at his fore­head.

  “Give the gun to Crusty and we’ll let you live.”

  He squashed down his fear. Think. You’ve made it out of tough situ­ations be­fore this. Weaver swal­lowed, keep­ing his tone even. “You have to let me live. I’m the only one who knows the code.”

  Snipe lowered his ar­row to the right. “True. But you can live without your right arm.”

  Weaver’s heart sped up, the muscles in his arms tens­ing. He needed his shoulder to use his bow. Without it, he was noth­ing.

  “Wait!” Weaver placed the laser on the cave floor. His fin­gers lingered on the trig­ger be­fore he slid it to Crusty.

  “Good.” Snipe grinned. “Crusty, take the gun to Jolt. Tell him Weaver cracked the code. I’ll stay here and watch the pris­on­ers.”

  The way he said pris­on­ers made Weaver think he was one of them. Great. I’ve man­aged to fall from dis­graced brother to lackey to cap­tive.

  “Sure thing.” Crusty stumbled to his feet and dus­ted off his pants. He bent down to pick up the weapon, hold­ing it away from his body like it was a bomb. Some pir­ates on Refuge still feared tech­no­logy. Ig­nor­ant idi­ots. Tech­no­logy’s the thing that’s go­ing to make me fam­ous. All I have to do is steal back that laser.

  The back of the cave stirred with move­ment. Weaver checked on the pris­on­ers. The man with light blond hair coughed and squirmed against his re­straints. His voice was hoarse. “Where am I?”

  “In­ter­est­ing,” Snipe muttered un­der his breath. He strut­ted over and crouched down to the pris­oner’s level to meet eye to eye. “You’re in hell.”

  …

  The wall rose in a slab of mold-coated con­crete like the struc­ture of a long-for­got­ten civil­iz­a­tion, re­fus­ing to crumble. Eri tilted her head up, try­ing to de­cipher how tall the wall stood. The con­crete ended in a tangle of branches and leaves.

  Striver placed his hand upon the sur­face gently, al­most in rev­er­ence. “Here it is—the one obstacle that stands between us and the Law­less lands.”

  “How do we cross it?” Eri scratched her arm, the new cloth­ing Striver had given her ir­rit­at­ing her skin. He said she wouldn’t make it ten meters in the jungle without be­ing spot­ted in her old gear, but she didn’t know if she’d make it ten meters without stop­ping to scratch her back un­der­neath the rough weave of the fab­ric. The em­broidered green tu­nic made her look like some me­di­eval min­strel from her old Celtic texts, and the tight leather leg­gings didn’t ex­actly help. Thank good­ness they let her keep her boots.

  “We have to climb over it.” Striver pulled back a cluster of ferns, re­veal­ing lad­der rungs stuck into the ce­ment. “There’s only a few places on the wall equipped with these, and the rungs are only on our side. We’ll have to use ropes to scale down.”

  Be­hind them, a small party of four of the vil­lage’s strongest men and wo­men scouted the area. Eri cast a glance over her shoulder, tak­ing ad­vant­age of their mo­ment alone. “Do you think three people are enough?”

  “Phoenix thinks a smal­ler party can in­filt­rate the camp and steal your team and their weapons without caus­ing a ma­jor battle and any fur­ther loss of life. Be­sides, they out­num­ber us three-to-one.”

  Eri swal­lowed down a cur­rent of panic. “Not many people want to live by the rules, eh?”

  “We lose more over the wall every year. Faced with a choice, I guess not.”

  “Cy­ber­hell. Your rules don’t seem as bad as the ones aboard the Her­it­age.”

  Striver grinned. “You’re telling me.”

  Eri caught Striver’s green gaze and they froze, her gaze locked on his. Maybe he isn’t all that dif­fer­ent after all?

  A bird rustled the can­opy above, and the branches rained leaves. One fell in Eri’s hair, and Striver brushed it off. A warm glow surged in­side her.

  “Striver, the coast is clear.”

  Eri and Striver whirled around. Ri­ley stood with his arms crossed. Sud­denly, three people seemed one per­son too many.

  Al­though it took her a few seconds to re­cover, Striver didn’t miss a beat. “You sure?”

  “Phoenix did a sweep of the area. There’s no Law­less on the other side.”

  Striver turned back to her. “Ready?”

  She felt her laser on her hip and nod­ded.

  “Good. I’ll go first.” He gave her a ser­i­ous look. “When you’re climb­ing, don’t look down.”

  Ri­ley stepped in, his blue eyes gleam­ing with dis­trust. “You sure we should bring her with us?”

  An­ger blazed on her cheeks and Eri waved him off. She didn’t like him any bet­ter than his pushy sis­ter. “I’ll be fine. They’re my team and res­cuing them was my idea. Be­sides, I’m the one with the laser.”

  Ri­ley looked up at the trees in dis­dain. “Why Striver gave that thing back to you, I haven’t the slight­est.”

  Eri hated be­ing ques­tioned. Not only did she have to prove her­self, but he was right. They shouldn’t have given the laser back to her. She could turn on them at any time—not that she would. They were help­ing her save her friends. To shoot them in the back would break every rule of de­cency. Striver trus­ted her—she could feel it. He be­lieved in her, and that’s all she needed.

  She took a deep breath. She wasn’t about to go into some big speech. “Be­cause I can use it to de­fend us.”

  All Ri­ley did was har­rumph in re­sponse.

  Ig­nor­ing Ri­ley’s tone, Eri turned to the wall. She’d climbed the plastic rock wall on the phys­ical activ­ity deck many times, and that wall had no lad­der rungs for hand­holds. But it did have cables hold­ing her up if she fell.

  Eri breathed deeply, try­ing to calm the fury ra­ging in­side her. Why did she care so much about their opin­ions? Driven to show these tree-dwell­ers that she could sur­vive on their turf, she bounced on her heels be­hind Striver, wait­ing for her turn.

  What did they think the people on the Her­it­age did all day? Re­cline in their sleep pods?

  Striver climbed, skip­ping every other rung, as if he’d scaled the wall a thou­sand times. Ad­ren­aline pumped through her as Eri grabbed the first bar and leapt up. The metal was cold and slick un­der­neath her palms, and she wished she had powder to keep from slip­ping. Ri­ley fol­lowed be­hind her.

  The higher she climbed, the sweat­ier her hands grew. She kept wip­ing them on her new tu­nic, wrap­ping her arm around the rung for bal­ance. In between each set of ten, she took her time, catch­ing her breath. Re­mem­ber what he said. Don’t look down. The last thing she wanted to do was fall on Ri­ley’s head. He already dis­liked her and she hadn’t even said three words to him.

  Eri climbed through the branches ob­scur­ing the top of the wall. Twigs with spiral­ing thorns pulled at her curls, and furry, pin-sized
bugs kept fly­ing in her eyes, ears and mouth. She needed both hands to keep her death grip and couldn’t bat the in­sects away. Twenty or so rungs left to go. Striver had already reached the top and crouched down, of­fer­ing her his hand. “Al­most there, Eri.”

  It was the first time she’d heard him speak her name, and the way he looked at her, like he be­lieved she could do it, made her think of Aquaria. Home­sick­ness washed over her and she forced her­self to toughen up. I have to save Litus for Aquaria. I owe it to my sis­ter and my team. Eri in­creased her pace. The air thinned, and her heart beat hard, mak­ing her dizzy. She glanced down des­pite Striver’s ad­vice, and Ri­ley’s head popped out of the can­opy of trees. He fur­rowed his eye­brows and she whipped her face back up. Cling­ing to her goals, she cleared her head and stepped up an­other rung.

  Striver grabbed her arm with a firm grip and pulled her up. “Watch your step.”

  Jagged stalag­mites of rock and glass jut­ted from the top of the wall. Eri held onto his arm un­til she could find a place to land both feet. “Jeez. Don’t want any­one to come in, do you?”

  “It’s for our own pro­tec­tion. Law­less try to breach our lands all the time.”

  The jungle on the other side of the fence loomed darker than the side she left, even though the trees were the same tangled chaos of twis­ted vines and cris­scross­ing trunks that seemed to grow in every dir­ec­tion ex­cept up. Murky wa­ter sur­roun­ded the wall in a moat. A glit­ter­ing tail writhed just be­low the sur­face be­fore dis­ap­pear­ing into the darker depths.

  “Don’t fall in. The leech­ers will eat you alive.”

  “Leech­ers?”

  “Yeah.” Striver took a minute to think about it. “Long, worm-like fish with teeth.”

  “What a nice planet you’ve got here.”

  Striver gave her a sly smile. “Wait un­til you see the swamp boars.”

  “Hope­fully, we won’t run into any­thing too ag­gress­ive on our way.” Ri­ley hois­ted him­self over the edge, once again ru­in­ing their brief mo­ment alone.

 

‹ Prev Next ›