“You did the right thing.” Striver sat up slowly and hunched over. “It had to be stopped.”
“One thing’s for sure.” Riley walked to the beast and patted its hide.
“What?” Eri helped Striver up and braced him against her until he regained his balance. He clung to her as if she were the last pillar on Refuge.
“We’re going to feast tonight.”
Chapter Fifteen
Faith
Eri awoke to the flashing light of her locator. Grogginess from a grueling trek and a belly of boar’s meat faded when she saw the sender. Commander Grier hailed her from the Heritage.
She wiggled out of her blanket and checked on the others. Striver and Riley lay asleep several meters down the mossy incline—one perk of being a woman was getting more privacy. She didn’t want to accidentally wake them, but ignoring the commander would be toying with disobedience, as stated in section four of the Guide. Eri climbed farther up the ledge to ensure secrecy. She pressed the receiver button.
Commander Grier’s face floated above her arm like a ghost. “Ms. Smith, you haven’t reported to me.”
“I’m sorry, Commander.” Eri felt her face blush with embarrassment. “I don’t have much to tell you. I’m getting to know them, as you said to do.”
Grier’s lips thinned and her features hardened. “I need numbers. How many people live on Haven 6? How many are of fighting age? Do they have an army? What is the extent of their weaponry?”
“I don’t know. I’m on a mission to save the other members of my team.” Because you won’t do it. Eri put her hand through her hair and tugged until her curls straightened and fell through her fingers before bouncing back again. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to tell the commander anything. Giving her any more information was betraying her new friends, people who were putting their lives on the line to save her and bring back her team. She’d procrastinated contacting the commander for those very reasons. Everything Eri did felt like a conflict of interest.
“I can’t just ask direct questions without seeming suspicious. I’m supposed to be gaining their trust, aren’t I?”
“My patience wears thin, Ms. Smith. The Heritage can’t hover in orbit forever. Our biodomes are overtaxed due to unfertile soil, and the colonists grow anxious to start their new life. I must take action, whether you supply me with information or not.”
Guilt plagued Eri like a disease. Aquaria and her parents counted on what she did on Haven 6. Her people waited up there, and here she was, exchanging ghost stories and romancing their leader. “I’ll try to do better, Commander. I promise.”
“Project Delta Slip is top priority. Don’t expect me to tell you again.”
The image flickered out. Eri sat under the moonlight, gazing at the massive mother ship through open patches in the jungle canopy. What was she going to do?
She breathed in deeply, calming her prickly nerves. Rescue Litus and Mars first, and then think about how to handle the commander. If only she could speak with Aquaria. She’d know what to do.
“Eri, what are you doing up?”
She whipped her head around. Striver stood behind her, framed in moonlight. How long had he been standing there? The shadows on his face concealed any emotion.
“My commander hailed me. I had to check in with my status.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“There is no day or night for her. She’s a brain in a box.”
He sat down beside her and shook his head as if rejumbling her words would allow them to make more sense. “What?”
“She’s from the generation that left Old Earth. She’s got to be at least five hundred and seventy years old. When her body started to fail, they connected her brain to the mainframe.”
“Wow, and you chose the little girl ghost story as the scariest one?”
Eri laughed, the tension easing. “I guess growing up with something like that, you take it for granted.”
“Let me tell you, that’s not a common thing here on Refuge.”
“Neither is living your life on a colony ship, but my ancestors did it for generations, and here I am today.”
She shivered outside her sleeping blanket and he put his arm around her. “Yes, here you are.” The silence thickened. Did he think her arrival was a gift or a curse? Judging from all the problems she gave him, probably the latter.
Striver squeezed her shoulders and released her. He stood up, offering his hand. “Come on, let’s get you back to sleep. Tomorrow’s another long hike into the mountains.”
Eri took his hand, glad he didn’t ask what the commander had said. She didn’t know if she could lie to him. As he led her back to her blanket, she wondered if she should just come clean and tell him the truth.
“Striver?”
He bent down and tucked the blanket around her, making sure the edges were sealed so snakes and insects didn’t crawl in. His face hovered over hers. “Yes.”
If she told him, would he still help her rescue her friends? Would he cast her out? She felt like she’d swallowed a rock and it stuck in her throat. She wasn’t ready to say good-bye. “Thank you for everything.”
“Thank me? You saved my life, remember? Every swamp boar from here to the mountains fears you now.”
Eri smiled. “Thank you for helping me rescue my team.”
Striver’s face crinkled. “I’m going for the weapons also, remember? We can’t have such technology in the Lawless’s hands.”
“You say technology as if it’s a dirty word, but it’s what saved your life today.”
“Technology can be dangerous. It brought about the fall of Old Earth.”
“Yes, but it can be helpful when used the right way.”
“That’s the key.” Striver put up a finger. “Who’s to say what the right way is? Some people can’t be trusted. When faced with power, they lose sight of their own humanity.”
Eri thought about his words. The idea of Lawless men with uncontrollable power scared her, but she still wasn’t able to shun her own world and their ways. “I still believe people can harness power and do the right thing.”
“Then you’re an optimist.” Striker gazed at her. “I wish I had such faith. Good night, Eri.”
“Good night.” Eri smiled, hiding her trembling lips under the blanket. She watched as Striver walked down the incline and settled under his own blanket. It took all of her self-discipline not to follow him.
…
Striver tossed under his blanket until his face stared up at the mother ship in the sky. He traced the outline of the hull with his finger. He liked Eri, and he wanted to believe she and her people came to coexist. Something about her conversations with her commander stuck a thorn in his side, though. What did they mean by ‘Project Delta Slip’? And why all the secrecy?
At first he’d wondered why the commander herself hadn’t come to establish contact, but after talking to Eri and hearing about how she was confined to the ship, at least that made sense.
What was the commander doing up there? Planning an attack? If so, how did that affect his relationship with Eri? Would they be enemies? Could he convince her to stay on his side?
No, that would be selfish. If it came to war, Eri would have to choose for herself where she belonged. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that.
But could his people live with technology? They’d shunned it for so many years, living in a healthy relationship with the land. Could he stand by and watch the colonists strip the planet’s resources like humans had on Old Earth? What would Aries and Strik
er have done?
All of the unknowns stirred in Striver’s mind until the first rays of dawn touched the sky.
Riley rolled onto his back beside him, yawning. “Today’s the day.”
Striver nodded, eager to focus on something other than his turbulent thoughts. “We’ll reach the mountains by nightfall. Perfect timing to cover our escape.”
“Should I wake Ms. Boar Hunter?”
“No, let her sleep while we pack.”
Riley turned and shoved his blanket into his backpack. “You favor her, don’t you?” His voice was soft and low, almost a growl.
“What?” Striver froze, feeling like he’d been caught with his finger in the pearl-berry jam.
“The young woman.”
Maybe he did, but he hadn’t treated her any differently than anyone else who would have dropped out of the sky. “I’m just trying to make her feel at home. The last thing we need is an angry colony ship hanging over our heads.”
“Sure. You always do the best thing for our people.”
Why did he sound sarcastic? “I try to, yes.”
“Just like the raid on the drop ship?”
Anger simmered inside Striver and he pushed it down. “You were there. We decided as a council it was the best thing to do.”
“Riptide tells me you’re a great leader. She believes in you more than anyone else. You could at least show her the same attention you show to this space girl.”
Striver glanced back at Eri to make sure she was still asleep. Why was Riley bringing his sister into this? Why now? Somehow he had to turn the conversation away from Riptide.
Striver stood, challenging him. “Is this why you came? To look over my back and judge my decisions as a leader?”
Riley backed down, returning to packing the leftover boar meat. “No, no, no. I’m just suggesting, be careful. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I won’t.” Striver turned back to packing, shoving his knife and their cooking tools into his bag with a clang.
“What are you guys arguing about?” Eri stood, hugging her blanket around her shoulders, a large pinkish curl falling in front of her face and making her look so adorable Striver had to turn his eyes away.
“Nothing. We’re preparing for the hike ahead. We should reach your coordinates by nightfall. That is, if they are still in the same place.”
Eri pressed a few buttons on her locator. “Yup. They are.”
“Good.” He threw her a package of salted boar meat. She weighed it in her hands and gave him a questioning look.
“A snack for the journey.”
“How much do you think I eat?”
Striver shrugged. In his village, a woman who ate well was a blessing. “Consider it a trophy, then.”
“Enough flirting!” Riley threw his hands up in the air. “I’m sick of the both of you.” He strapped his backpack on and started down the incline to the path of muck.
Striver blinked in dazed confusion. Flirting? Was he flirting?
Eri watched Riley leave with daggers in her eyes. “What’s gotten into him?”
Striver tied up his backpack and brushed away the ashes from their fire. “I don’t know. He thinks he knows what’s best for the colony, what’s best for me.” He didn’t know how that last part slipped out, but it did, and he couldn’t take it back.
“What do you mean, what’s best for you?”
A memory of Riptide running from his tree hut in tears flashed through his thoughts. “Never mind.”
He helped Eri fold her blanket. “Looks like we’re all packed up. You ready for another day of sludge?”
“If it’s going to get me to my team, yes, I am.”
They slid down the incline together and splashed into the swamp. Sunlight filtered through the trees, creating golden splotches on the water’s surface. It reminded Striver of Soren’s tale. He didn’t think any part of the story was true, but after meeting that boar, he had reason to rethink everything.
“What does he mean by flirting, anyway? I don’t seem to recall the word in my old texts. Not all vernacular words make it into my files.”
Striver pushed aside a mossy branch. Thank goodness this one didn’t. “It’s kind of like fooling around, shooting the breeze, in a way, so to speak.”
“I think we’ve been fairly serious and on task.” Eri sloshed beside him, adjusting her backpack.
“We’re making good time.” Striver wondered if she had any idea how much she distracted him.
Chapter Sixteen
Abductee
The swamp water dribbled off into thick mud and long grasses that tickled Eri’s thighs as they hiked north. Jagged rocks took the place of mossy knolls, and the jungle thinned into patches of spindly trees. The blue sky overhead gave Eri a naked vulnerability. Could the commander spot her from the control deck?
The ship hovered over her like a parent over a child, and she avoided glancing up. The commander still awaited answers, but giving her what she wanted might bring an attack on Striver’s village. Either way, Eri wanted to know what they faced, whether she’d tell the commander or not.
“Striver, how many people live on Haven 6?”
“Haven 6? Oh, you mean Refuge?”
“Yeah, whatever your people call it.”
Striver jumped from one rock to another and held out his hand for her to follow. “I’m not sure. We do a rough census of our village frequently, but who knows how many Lawless have multiplied throughout the years.”
“Do they have an army?”
His face darkened. “More like a horde of mercenaries.”
She jumped onto his rock beside him. “Jeez. Have you ever tried to control them?”
He scanned the landscape in front of them, searching for the best route. “No. It was my ancestors’ dream for everyone to have the luxury of choice.” He jumped down to a patch of sandy ground and waved for her to follow.
Eri steadied herself by gripping a gangly tree trunk as she slid down to join him. “Aren’t you afraid they’ll overwhelm your village at some point and take over?”
Striver nodded, helping her up as she fell against him. “It’s a growing concern. We have the wall and the Guardians, but if the Lawless’s numbers continue to rise, someday it won’t be enough.”
Eri noticed his hands linger on hers, and she struggled to keep her mind level. “Who built the wall? The Guardians?”
“They helped, in part.” Striver let go and a small current of disappointment swam through her.
“What do you mean?”
“My ancestors, Aries and Striker, built the wall with the Guardians’ help. They wanted everyone to be able to choose for themselves, but they also didn’t want their choices ruling others.”
Eri put a hand on his arm. “They were brave and wise. But what will you do if the Lawless breach the wall?”
A black tuft of fur took off beside them, its wings fluttering like a butterfly’s. Eri watched it disappear over the horizon, farther into the Lawless lands. Poor animals have no idea what awaits them with so many factions vying for their resources.
Striver shook his head. “I’m not sure. The council is hard to budge in any direction. They follow our forefathers’ wishes to the letter.”
“But what if your ancestors couldn’t predict the Lawless’s rise? I’m sure they’d change the bylaws to save the colony they started.”
He climbed up a ledge to another series of rocks. “True. But how? By cultivating technology? Then we’d be just like our predecessors on Old Earth, using weapons against each other until we destroyed our new world.
I’m not willing to lead them down that same path.”
It was like trying to reason with her linguistics program. Frustration boiled inside her. They had technology in the palms of their hands and they refused to use it. How could she teach him that people can change, learn from the mistakes of their past? That technology did more good than harm?
Striver stopped on the ledge and gazed down at her. “Tell me about your commander.”
“Commander Grier?”
“The woman whose brain sits in the box.”
Eri nodded, climbing up to join him. “I don’t know much about her, really. I’ve only met her face-to-face one time, if you could call it that. I spoke to a computer screen, an image of what she used to look like on Old Earth.”
“What did she do on Old Earth?”
“She held a bunch of political offices before the planet’s collapse. When she left, she was governor of a place called New York City. Gangmen attempted to assassinate her, and she managed to survive, but her family died in the firefight. Commander Grier believed in furthering humanity, that we shouldn’t have to die out along with our world. She used all of her life’s savings to build the Heritage and follow her dream.”
“Do you have faith in her as a leader?”
“On the Heritage, she’s revered like a god. Commander Grier’s the only one of us who remembers the Old Earth days, giving us a singular vision for our future.”
“But you didn’t answer my question. What do you think?”
Anxiety rushed up Eri’s legs. They were already far behind Riley, and standing around wasn’t getting them anywhere. “To say anything against the commander—”
Striver put a gentle hand on her cheek, holding her face to his. “You can trust me.”
His touch, the closeness of his face to hers, and his smell of fire smoke and pine disarmed her. She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek into his hand, feeling the warmth spread through her face and down her neck.
Who cared about the commander? Why couldn’t they just stand there like that forever?
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