Wando’s instructions came rushing back. Don’t look out the window. Trust the controls. The controls will not be tainted by glare or indecision. As she glanced down, small bubbles of light floated behind her eyes. Sun glare. In a moment they dissipated. Atop the panel, the hologram displayed the horizon just as if she were looking out the windshield. They were speeding across a flat desert at—aww hell, she tried to remember the ratio, but it was too complex a math problem. They were about 20,000 feet above the surface. This display was more than a hologram. It was like a living picture, complete with color and texture. In the midst of the endless desert loomed a thin scar. Pinching her pointer finger and thumb above the display caused it to zoom in on the feeble remnants of a river. This was the mighty Zargoll?
Looking ahead she observed a mountain crest in the distance. Wando informed her that everything would be on autopilot until they reached the foothills, when the merciless winds would attack. It would not be long now. She wished she had something as mundane as a steering wheel to grab onto, but the terra duster was controlled by the dexterity of her fingers. After that, it was just a cunning joust of woman versus wind.
Chapter Eight
It was evident the moment the initial lick of a breeze tickled their belly. It was like riding the swell of a wave that gently lobbed them back into place. The next assault was not so mild. The craft shuddered, which jerked Aimee’s hand, causing the terra duster to drop rapidly. She drew her fingers tight together over the panel and hauled the ship back up to a safe elevation.
Whew. This was a maneuver she could not simulate in the safety of the launch bay. It gave her a boost of confidence to know that it had worked.
“We’re still clear in back,” Gordy announced in a shaky voice. “I don’t know where they went. You would think you could see them by now. Maybe you’re right. Maybe we’ll be down before they break through.”
Confidence was missing from that assessment.
“Forget what’s behind us for now. Wando told me to keep focused on the panel images, but I still trust eyes over gauges. You look out that window and tell me if we are about to hit something.”
Wind sheared the terra duster as the fuselage rattled like a tin roof in a tornado.
“Well, we’re going to hit the side of a mountain very soon.”
It was a remarkably calm declaration. She hoped it meant he had faith in her.
Belligerent currents funneled around the craft, hauling it like a lassoed cow towards the starboard side. On that side, an austere granite mountain face loomed closer. Instinct dictated that she should veer left, out of the path of danger, but instead, she relaxed her fingers and surrendered to the wrench of the wind.
“Uhh, Aimee, what are you doing?”
“Gambling.”
“Gambling?” he hesitated. “Now is not a good time to gamble.”
The elephant began to spiral—an evil harbinger. Aimee was resolved with her decision, though. Steadfast fingers remained flat above the grid. Hold the course.
Another lesson you could not simulate was how to land this craft. Wando had been over it with her time and time again, but just like parallel parking—until you executed it yourself, there was no way to gauge where the vehicle would end up. And as with every attempt to parallel park, she was afraid she was going to hit something. It was plausible that they could crash and still survive—but this old terra duster was their transportation back to the Horus. If it was damaged, then they were stuck.
“Anything behind us?”
“Still clear.”
Strange.
There was no time to think. The wind sucked them into a downward plunge. Her hand trembled with the effort to keep the elephant level.
“Aimee, the mountain!”
Perspiration clung to her neck. It made her collar itch. Ahead, the broad face of the volcanic mountain looked like a yawning mouth, ready to swallow. According to the calculations on the screen, if she was to hold her course, they would slip just around the edge. For poor Gordy who was staring agape at the stark palisade, she didn’t think he cared about calculations. As imperceptible as they may be, she was beginning to see results on the monitor. The elephant battled the winds and held its starboard position. On the hologram, empty sky formed at the far right side of the grid. She locked on to that, using her left hand to grab her seat and hold her steady. The effort made her arms tremble, but the terra duster began to clear the rotund base of the mountain.
Trees dotted the foothills like green leopard fur. At the end of the fir line, golden-grassed knolls sloped down to meet the desert. This was the best she was going to get. Yes, the flat bed of desert sand would have made an easier runway, but if there was vegetation here—then here is where she would find life.
“You cleared it!” Gordy yelled. “Wooooo!” He punched the air.
Aimee allowed herself one brief smile.
“Alright,” she said, composed. “We’re going in. Make sure you are secure.”
“Yes, mother. You’ve only said that to me five times now.”
She squeezed her hand into a fist and the elephant responded by decreasing its speed. For as much as the terra duster obeyed her orders, the wind tried its best to undermine her. Clasping her fist tighter, the spacecraft shook with the effort to respond, but it was still moving too fast to land.
Aimee jolted when she felt a hand on top of hers.
Gordy had reached across the space between them and he was squeezing her fist. The combined effort was working. The duster began to reduce its speed. In a gradual descent, she lowered their joint grasp towards the black panel. In response, the elephant dipped close to the surface—maybe only a hundred feet above the grassy knolls.
Down. Down. Slow. Down.
Cold air hit her hand as the fingers clasped about hers slackened.
“You’ve got it, Aim.”
Down.
The fleshy ball of her palm grazed the grid and the terra duster skidded over a flat patch of grass. She opened her hand and laid it palm-down on the black surface. A slight jolt shook the craft as it connected with the ground. Aimee eyed the windshield. To her left lay the slope of the mountain. Before her was a crop of spindly trees with tufts of ferns that looked like dust mops. Silence possessed the craft, and for a moment they sat in that void, listening only to their erratic breaths. Reality finally sunk in. They were safe.
“Aaaaaahhh,” Aimee screamed. “Oh my God! We did it.”
She reached over to give Gordy a high-five. He looked quizzically up at her hand.
“Smack it,” she instructed. “It’s a gesture of celebration.”
Gordy reached up and slapped her hand. He laughed and then slapped it again.
“Aimee, you’d make a fine Warrior.”
“I couldn’t have done it without your help.” Her smile fell. She had so wanted to be able to achieve this one feat.
“It’s called a team,” Gordy grinned, his eyes secreted behind the silver shield. “Had we been out on the desert you could have brought it down by yourself, which was exactly what the Warriors did. They couldn’t have landed here because they don’t travel in teams.”
Hmmm. “When did you get to be so smart, Gordeelum?”
“I’ve always been smart,” he replied smugly.
Aimee laughed. With a tremulous quiver, she withdrew her hand from the control panel. In response, the engines shut down, and the grids fell dark. In the shadows, one panel still throbbed a green light. It was the communication system.
She called out, knowing it picked up on their speech.
“Hello, is anyone there?”
“Aim—ee.Vo—du here. —you—alright?”
“Vodu! Yes. We are safe.”
“—will talk about this—you return. Start take-off procedures.”
She glanced up through the windshield again. In order to launch, they needed a vacuum.
“Umm, that is not possible right now.”
There was a long pause.
&n
bsp; “—sure your location sensor is on.” His deep voice was filled with static. “Will—Warriors find you.”
Aimee stared down at the blinking beacon. Her eyes slid towards Gordy. After a pause, he nodded.
“It is not functioning,” she announced. “We lost it in the landing.”
“Say—again.”
She cleared her throat. “We lost the sensor in the landing.”
Silence.
Gordy scratched the back of his head.
“—do not leave—ship.”
Wavering over the sensor, her finger dipped. The blinking ceased. The elephant was silent.
For a moment Aimee and Gordy stared forward, grasping the magnitude of their next step.
“Well—” Gordy drew in a deep breath, “—let’s go find Zak.”
And just like that, the weight abated.
They were on Ziratak.
Zak’s planet.
The last place he had been seen by anyone—
“Yes,” she agreed. “Let’s do that.”
* * *
“There’s no doubt in my mind that you have gone completely mad,” Zuttah muttered.
The claim disturbed Zak because he felt it might be valid.
They were nearing the foothills. It was a good thing too, because the sun was wreaking havoc on his sight. Even with the aid of the shield, he still had to squint. He hated the obstruction of the shield, but one more solar ray blast would mark the end for him. Still, he rationalized that once he reached the foothills it would be safe to haul the gadget off.
Zak held a hand over his eyes as an additional visor. Walking backwards, he scanned the desert to ensure the rebels were still in tow. Zuttah carried the inert woman over his shoulder. Her pallor concerned Zak, but she could not be looked after until they reached the safety of the caves. The younger rebel, who he estimated to be about his age, crossed the desert with surprising agility considering his malnourished state. The older man trailed a few steps behind. It was hard to gauge his age. His body was remarkably fit, perhaps a result of self-preservation. But, the gray strands in his shaggy hair, and the scores of pain that lined his face revealed his maturity.
Zak glanced again at the unconscious woman. Her long black hair cascaded over Zuttah’s shoulder. It reminded him of Aimee’s—
“Zak,” Zuttah cut into his thoughts, “did you hear that?”
Wind kissed the sand with a soft whistle like the sigh of a zere serpent.
“Hear what?”
“I swore I heard a ship.”
“A ship,” Zak snorted. “Who’s gone mad now?”
To be certain, he sought the faces of the two men. The older man stared off into the desert, while the younger one shrugged as if to say, I heard nothing.
The desert was taking its toll. They needed to reach the cave…soon.
* * *
“I’m thirsty.”
“We haven’t even been gone from the duster for more than a half hour,” Aimee huffed as she stumbled up a pebble-strewn slope.
“I’m not sure what a half hour is, but it sounds long,” Gordy griped.
Reaching the top of the hillock, she held her hand to her brow, searching the land below. An orange blanket stretched as far as she could see until it meshed with the cobalt horizon. Behind her lay the austere slate face of the mountain. A 10,000-foot obstacle. There was no route to scale it, and the slopes that flanked it were made impassable with scattered boulders the size of office buildings.
“We’re going to have to ration our water, Gordy. As best as I can see, we need to climb down to the bottom of this slope and hopefully come back up on the other side of these boulders.”
Gordy’s short blond hair withstood the assault of wind. The silver ring around his temples concealed his eyes, but she could tell from the angle of his head he was seeking options other than her suggestion.
“I guess you’re right,” he conceded.
Flanking the tumbled rocks for stability and camouflage, they hiked down the hillside. At any moment, some granite creature might bound from the shadows for all she knew. Aimee refused to relinquish her eye shield. It was not her intention to come this far and lose to a solar ray.
“Look at that,” Gordy whispered in awe. “It looks like a sea of blood.”
Indeed, that is what the flat surface of the desert looked like in the distance.
“When did you get so poetic?” she mumbled.“Or macabre?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. The boulders are getting smaller. Maybe we’ll reach the bottom soon.”
“Aimee, you told me the mountains were the safest place in your opinion—that the Korons wouldn’t go up there. And yet, here we are hiking down to meet them.”
Aimee turned around and searched over his shoulder. “Do you see a way to go up?”
He followed her gaze. “No.”
“Do you see Zak?”
His head swiveled back towards her. “No,” he said.
“Then this is our only option.”
In several hours, futility began to settle in. They had reached the base of the mountain. As Aimee had hoped, the avenue on the other side of the avalanche was better, but not without obstacle. It was a rugged hike, loaded with loose rocks, narrow cliffs, and no sign of life.
Even with the shield on, Aimee could see the lines of dismay around Gordy’s mouth.
In tandem they turned towards the desert, a red tongue that licked at their feet. It shimmered under the heat of the two suns. Where it had been chilly in the high foothills—here the perspiration wormed between Aimee’s shoulder blades, amplifying her unease.
Deception lurked in the sand. She understood mirages now. On that gleaming stretch, imagination manifested creatures of all shapes and sizes.
“Are there people out there?” Gordy asked beside her.
She squinted, but the heat undulated wave upon wave of mystical layers.
“I don’t think so. It just looks flat.”
“No. Really—look.”
Oh well heck, if she stared long and hard enough she could perceive a thousand monsters with five heads lurking out there.
Wait. Maybe not a thousand. Maybe something like twenty, or ten, or...
“Yeah, maybe I do see something.”
Murky shadows. Anomalies of the desert. As they grew closer, her estimate of them dwindled. Were they Korons?
“Gordy, you have your star laser ready?”
“Y-yes.”
“Let’s climb back up behind that last boulder and wait this out. There’s still a chance we’re both seeing things.”
“Okay.”
Her heart was racing. Clumsy hands tried to pull the small weapon from her belt. It came loose, but fell to the ground. Instinctively she recoiled, fearing the impact would make it go off.
“It doesn’t work that way,” Gordy stooped to retrieve it and hand it to her like it was a candy bar. In his shield she could see tension etched on her face.
“It only reacts to the stroke of your finger,” he added.
Thank God he knew about this stuff. She had concentrated so much on making an elephant fly. Her lessons on galactic artillery were few and far between. Still, something about holding the sleek weapon in her hand restored a sense of control. She just prayed she didn’t have to use it.
Reprieve from the heat was welcome in the shadows of the lofty boulder. When Gordy moved to scan the desert, she restrained him with a touch of the hand. Instead, she leaned forward for a glimpse.
“You have to let me look,” he whispered, “I’m supposedly the better marksmen of the two of us.”
God help us.
She was older. She was in charge. As delusional as her intentions may be, she wanted the Korons to get past her in order to reach the teenager.
Poking out from behind the boulder, she squinted against the assault of the two suns. On second glimpse, the approaching figures did not look as tall as she originally estimated. Maybe their lengthy shadows cas
t across the sand enhanced their height. These figures appeared human, and nowhere near the total she originally guessed. Now she counted maybe ten...possibly less.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Look out there. Be careful. Don’t let them see you...but, tell me if you think they’re human, ummm, mecaws.”
Gordy peered around her shoulder. His head snapped back. “Yeah, they look human—well, except one appears deformed…maybe not a mecaw.” After a second, he added, “What do we do?”
What indeed?
Aimee crouched down with her back against the granite. One was not human. A Koron? Could the creature hold five or ten people hostage single-handedly? She swung her head out into the sun. Some of the shadows stumbled. Had they been blinded? Is that how the monster controlled them?
Okay, she was liking her odds better. One beast. Counting her and Gordy, there had to be at least ten humans. Blind or not, there was strength in numbers, right?
They drew closer, altering the wake of their shadows. Damn!
“Gordy, look again. Tell me how many you see.”
He moved to gaze beyond her and she grabbed his arm. “Careful!”
“Careful. Careful,” he muttered. He slipped half of his face into the sun and snapped it back. “There’s only about three or four of them. I thought it was an army.”
“The suns. They cast opposite shadows. Two shadows per person.” God, she wanted to take the shield off. It itched where it rubbed against the crest of her cheekbone. “So three or four humans—and a monster. Did one of the humans look armed to you?”
“Probably out of ammunition,” Gordy suggested. “That Koron is just making him carry it.”
“Maybe. Either way, we have to be careful. No matter what you do, do not take that shield off, Gordeelum.”
Had the shield been off, she would have probably caught his exasperated glance.
“I’m the better shot. You wait behind me.” He shifted into position.
Beyond : Series Bundle (9781311505637) Page 31
