Slowly, she kneeled next to the pod and tugged at its tentacles. They shivered at her touch. Fear, Ramya sensed. The forest had turned very still. She continued nonetheless, pulling the long tendrils out of the knot until they were all free.
Leaves rustled in relief. The pod pulled its tentacles near, flexing them slowly back and forth. Then it raised its head as if to look at Ramya. She scuttled back a little just to be safe, but the pod didn’t move toward her. Instead, it opened up like a flower, unfurling in layer upon layer of color until its core lay exposed. The pod bowed a little, then a tentacle reached into its core, pulled out the dark center, and held it out for Ramya.
Ramya flashed a confused look at Ross. What was she supposed to do? Take the black center the pod was offering? A thought nudged her forward. It was Temihula again. He wanted her to accept this—a gift from his forest perhaps.
Ramya reached out, fearfully, hesitantly, until her fingers touched the dark stone and curled around it. The tentacles withdrew, and in the flash of colors, the pod closed back up. Then, as suddenly as the ground had parted to release the pod, it parted again and swallowed the pod back in. Ramya stared disbelievingly at the ground. It was shut seamlessly, no one could tell it split apart a second ago.
The carrier’s hatch opened with a clang and Ahool streaked out, waving his arms wildly, followed by the Berkari chief and his men. The Mwandans rushed down the stairs and fell to the ground, touching it with their foreheads, over and over again and muttering something in Mwandan. Ramya put the black stone into her pocket and trudged over to Ross as the Mwandans continued their ritual.
She held out a hand for Ross and flashed a grateful smile at him. “Thanks for coming after me. You saved my life. Are you all right?”
Ross grabbed her arm and struggled to his feet. “I’m fine. I should’ve come out earlier,” he said, nodding distractedly. “This mission is my responsibility, and I let you take the fall. That’s not right.”
“Hey! You didn’t. I got myself into this hole when I challenged the forest god. I had to dig myself out of it.”
Ross opened his mouth to reply but didn’t get a chance to say a word. Chief Dal, a glittery-eyed Ahool in tow, strode up to them.
“Temihula has opened the road for us. Let’s go to your ship and get your friends out.”
“I’m all for that,” Ramya said. “Let’s go.”
As soon as they had all stepped inside, the carrier started off again. Ahool, however, seated Ramya on a stool and inspected the mobility of her arms and legs. Then he busily examined her scratches and dabbed a clear liquid on her gashes. The cool medicine soothed the burning pain quite quickly. “You need some wraps,” Ahool announced after he had attended to each wound.
Ramya raised a questioning brow. “Wrap?”
“Strong medicine. It helps you heal. I get you wraps when we reach Berkari colony.” He walked away toward Ross but stopped midway and looked back at her curiously. “Keep your Drigganstone safe, all right?” he said, eyes glittering.
“Drigganstone?”
“The jewel Temihula gave you,” Ahool said somberly. “Drigganstone is soul of ancients. Very powerful. Government steals Drigganstone from reliquary groves and makes weapons. That not good at all.”
Ramya slipped a hand into her pocket and pulled out the stone the murderous pod had offered her. It was fairly large and looked nothing like a jewel. Dull, dark, almost a hexagon, it was not remotely attractive. How the Mwandan government made weapons out of it Ramya couldn’t fathom, but the reverential look Ahool cast at the stone made her treat it with more gravitas.
“What do I do with it?” she asked.
“Keep safe,” Ahool said simply. “Temihula blesses you with Drigganstone. You are lucky. You Temihula’s chosen.”
Ahool moved on to examine Ross after that. Ramya slipped the Drigganstone into an inner pocket of her jacket and joined the chief’s behind the pilot’s chair.
Chief Dal was watching the carrier zip through the forest. He turned to smile warmly at her. “Your ship is close. We just picked it up on our scanner.”
Ramya breathed a sigh of relief, but even as hope surged in her heart, she couldn’t ignore that tight knot of fear at the pit of her stomach that kept growing larger every second. Until she saw the entire crew of the Endeavor alive and well, Ramya wasn’t going to have a moment of real peace.
11
THE DULL METALLIC gray of the Endeavor peeked through the trees ahead and Ramya’s heart leaped. Then it sunk like a stone again. Who knew how the crew had fared until now? What had the grove done to the ship? Temihula didn’t say he had caused damage to the ship, and that was the only thing that kept Ramya clinging to hope.
The carrier slowed as it neared the Endeavor, circling around until they reached the main entrance of the ship. Chief Dal barked orders and the carrier came to a stop some distance away from the Endeavor’s hatch. The Berkari chief led his men out of the vehicle, and Ross followed. Ramya lingered at the rear of the procession, studying their surroundings as she stepped out.
The trees in the area looked strange. Ramya had seen trees on Morris II change shape, but this was more extreme than she had encountered so far. Here they had bent, forming a wrap of sorts over the Endeavor. The way the branches curved, curled, and elongated to enclose the Endeavor reminded Ramya of a large closed fist holding a fly. This was probably why the surface of the vegetation had shown a depression and why Ross had picked up the shape of the Endeavor from the mountaintop. This was also a problem. The Norgoran scout ship, if it was still circling the skies, could also just as easily notice the resemblance.
“I don’t see critical damages to your ship. Nothing from where we stand,” Chief Dal reported. Ramya had to agree.
The Endeavor looked just as dated as it had looked the first time she had seen it in Nikoor, and while there were plenty more dents and scratches on it now from the assault of the Drednots, none looked bad enough to have crippled the ship entirely. She walked up and stood below the entry hatch, its outline in the shape of an upside-down trapezoid easily recognizable. It was tucked up and closed.
“Ross,” Ramya called, looking askance at the commander. Ross had been poking at his wrist-mounted comm. His jabs had grown impatient swiftly and his frown turning deeper every passing second. Ramya had held back on the questions until now but it was time to find out. “Any luck?”
Ross pursed his lips and shook his head. “The main unit is still working.” He pointed at the bright green light that indicated a working status of the communication channel.
“What’s the problem then?” Chief Dal asked.
Ross threw a worried look at them. “No one’s responding.”
“Why wouldn’t they?” Chief Dal asked.
Ross shook his head and shrugged listlessly. “I don’t know. Anything could’ve happened since the Drednots attacked. Maybe the life-support module was damaged and they’re all—”
“Or maybe the comm is damaged,” Ramya cut him off desperately. “The Endeavor’s comm system isn’t the best in the universe. I’ve seen it fail before.”
“I’m hoping that’s the case,” Ross replied. He kept jabbing at the buttons. “I’ll keep on trying all the open channels.”
“Is there any other way to hail them?” Chief Dal asked.
Ramya shook her head. “No, the Endeavor’s system is too outmoded for the Stryker. Not that the Stryker’s near or available anyway.”
“Then we climb up there and pry the door open,” Chief Dal said.
That had to be the next step. And not an easy thing to do. For starters, the hatch wasn’t level with them; it hung about two stories above ground. The ship’s surface didn’t offer many niches or curves to climb up the side either.
Chief Dal hovered for a second or two longer before marching off into his carrier. He returned quickly. “I’ve summoned my engineers. They’re on their way with equipment. I’ll ask my people here to walk around and check the periphery of you
r ship. In case there’s a visible breach somewhere . . .”
Chief Dal didn’t complete his sentence, but he didn’t have to. Ramya clearly understood what he meant. A visible breach of the hull could mean life-threatening damage. Perhaps Flux had been the only survivor and now he too was . . . dead. Deflated like a pricked balloon, Ramya watched blankly as the chief’s men started along the periphery of the Endeavor.
Chief Dal hovered near Ross. “Anything?” he asked from time to time but Ross only replied with a hopeless shake of his head.
Tiredness swooped over Ramya, her lids suddenly too heavy to keep open. She wanted to curl up somewhere and sleep. This was all for nothing. They had fought with the behemoth Drednots, fought with Mwandan gods and reached the ship. They had overcome so much, but to what end?
“I’m going to sit down for a bit,” Ramya declared sullenly and found a largish log to perch on. Her mind kept dawdling, like a blind person in a maze desperately seeking a way out but only finding dead ends.
If the Endeavor was crippled and its crew dead, how would they get out of Morris II? Yes, they still had the Stryker, but with the Confederacy and the Kiroff spies on their tail, how far could they go? If the Mwandans had spacecraft, they could’ve traded in the Stryker for a more normal craft. But Mwandans didn’t believe in traveling out of their planets.
And then there was the biggest problem of all: the Locustan threat. How were they going to find out what was really going on with the Locustans and the missing Strykers? And how were they going to convince anyone of the impending invasion Dakrhaeth spoke about? Without Captain Milos, they were nothing. She was a pampered brat of an heiress whose best achievement in life was sneaking out of CAWStrat. And Ross? He was a nobody. The galaxy’s fate was as good as written off.
Ramya jumped to her feet and shook the worrying thoughts away. She couldn’t give up. The galaxy’s fate was not a small thing to give up on so easily. She had to find a way out. She scanned the surrounding one more time, her eyes desperately seeking a means to access the hatch.
She was deep in thought when the shout drifted across the grove. It made Ramya jump. Instinctively she stepped closer to Ross and the chief.
“What the hell?” Ross said.
“It’s my people,” Chief Dal said breathlessly. Ahool and the rest of the Berkari burst into view from behind the trees, waving wildly as they ran. Chief Dal rushed toward them, as did Ross and Ramya.
Ahool frantically pointed toward the sky. “Look,” he mouthed.
A shape—a dark torpedo with a rotating fish tail—glided into view.
“The Glasspointe,” Ramya whispered. “It’s still here.”
“What has the world come to?” Chief Dal spat. “They’re allowing Norgoran scout ships in now?”
“We think it’s been sent by the Confederacy to find us. It’s scanning for sign of life,” Ross said.
“Stay under here,” Chief Dal instructed as they scrambled under the flaring midsection of the Endeavor. “This will give us some shelter from their scans. I hope,” he added.
“Can they see the Endeavor from up there?” Ramya asked. The canopy of branches over the ship was still in place, so she hoped they missed it.
“It’s a Norgoran scout ship,” Chief Dal replied. “What do you expect?”
Nothing escaped the eyes of a Norgoran scout ship. Nothing!
“They’d have dispatched the Confederacy already,” Ramya said, releasing the breath she’d been holding. “We’re running out of time.”
“You’ve run out of time already,” the chief said, his glittery eyes fixed on the scout ship hovering above. “You should leave now. Take my carrier, get back to your Stryker, and leave. Get yourselves out of Morris II while you can. I’ll see if I can break into this ship when my engineers arrive. But you shouldn’t linger. The Confederacy will block off escape routes as soon as they find out. Perhaps they already have.”
Ross’s gaze was dark with worry. “The Stryker’s still offline,” he said with a quick look at his watch. “So we’re stuck here anyhow. As long as we’re stuck here and until the Confederacy forces arrive, we’ll keep trying to get into the Endeavor.”
If only the Glasspointe would leave them alone! But no matter how badly Ramya wished for it to go, the scout ship kept circling above. Most likely, the damage was already done. The Glasspointe had probably notified the Confederacy, but if it spotted people milling around the Endeavor, the urgency of the situation would multiply in a heartbeat. Glaring at the scout ship, Ramya scooted backward into the Endeavor’s shadows some more.
Chief Dal had rested his head against Endeavor’s hulk and closed his eyes, perhaps trying to sense the forest. Quickly he opened them with a start and shook his head.
“The forest is trying to help us. It’s shielding your ship.”
“Then we have time,” Ross said.
“No, we can’t linger here,” Chief Dal said with an air of finality. “We don’t know the capability of the Norgoran ship. We don’t know if they can look past the forest’s shield. Let’s keep our heads down until that scout ship leaves. But after that I will retreat. I don’t trust the Confederacy. I can’t risk my men’s lives.”
Ramya held her breath. She stole a glance at Ross who stared, rock-jawed at the chief.
“I can’t command you, but I can advise,” Chief Dal said. “My advice for you is to leave also. Just the two of you can’t fight a Confederacy platoon. It’s suicide.”
Ross didn’t say anything. He simply jabbed his comm a few more times. Ramya wanted to tell them both that she’d fight until the end, but looking at Ross’s drawn face she held her tongue. He looked just as distraught as she felt herself, and truth be told, she didn’t want to slight him. He had risked his life trying to save her from Temihula’s clutches, and if she decided to fight the Confederacy he’d probably stay by her side again. And putting his life at risk wasn’t fair.
Ramya drew a long breath and watched the Glasspointe disappear from sight.
Chief Dal sprang to his feet and gestured to his men. They filed up and rushed toward the carrier. Ahool lingered, hesitantly looking at Ramya and Ross, until the Berkari chief shouted, “Ahool Petta, fall back. Now.”
As Ahool slinked away, Chief Dal nodded at Ross and Ramya. “We have to take cover until my reinforcements arrive. Waiting near the ship isn’t safe anymore.”
Ross nodded back yet didn’t follow. He simply stared at the comm on his wrist, and although Ramya waited, he didn’t look up at her either. Ramya decided she’d wait for Ross to make a judgment call. No matter how difficult, she’d follow his orders.
Ross pounded the comm’s buttons for the zillionth time. No sound came out of it. Ramya steeled herself as he turned at her.
“Your call, Commander,” she said, forcing her voice to hold steady. “I’m with you.”
She knew even before he said it what his answer was going to be. They had to leave.
Ross had just about opened his mouth when a terrifying clang sounded above their heads. Someone screeched, Ramya almost jumped, and the chief yelled, “Everyone, down.”
A second of heart-stopping silence followed before the clang sounded again. Then Ross sprang to his feet and gave a whoop of joy. His eyes sparkled and a smile lit his face like a thousand stars. “That’s the sound of the Endeavor’s hatch, Rami,” he shouted. “They’re opening it. They’re alive.”
Ramya hadn’t heard words sweeter than those. Her heart skipped a few beats before a wave of relief flooded her insides, almost like a Pax-induced surge of warmth. She forgot about the Glasspointe hovering above them, the Confederacy on their tail, and her father’s unseen presence lurking behind her. She fell back against the Endeavor’s cold, hard hulk and closed her eyes. Finally! They were home.
12
MAKING the Endeavor space-worthy again was the critical task at hand. People rushed around the archaic battlecruiser-turned-freighter, buzzing like bees. Even the reunion of Ramya and Ross with the re
st of the crew was hardly what it should’ve been under usual circumstances. This was no usual circumstance. The captain simply patted Ross and Ramya’s back. Wiz, the pilot, offered a fist bump or two and Fenny gave Ramya a quick hug, but that was all.
The Berkari chief posted a few of his men on watch for the scout ship. “They’ll be back with reinforcements, I’m sure,” Chief Dal commented when the Glasspointe glided away to the south a little after the Endeavor opened its hatch.
“We have to get out of Morris II before they do,” Captain Milos said, running a finger over his forehead. A huge bandage covered most of the captain’s head, yet another mark left by the battle at Totori.
Flux was cooped up in Engineering Bay. The fuel store had taken a hit, and Flux along with a couple of Mwandan engineers worked frantically to get it patched. Since Flux was wrapped up in that work, Wiz was tasked with getting the communication channel up and running.
Fenny promptly pulled Ramya over to the COM where she’d been working on some blown fuses. “It was hell, Rami,” she summed up the flight from Totori to Morris II. “Didn’t think we’d make it. But we somehow did.”
The captain had had what Fenny dubbed a minor accident with a dashboard during the battle with the Confederacy Drednots. Sosa, the medic, however, had termed it as a major concussion-inducing injury that needed proper treatment. The urgency of the situation nullified Sosa’s dire indictments, so the miffed Norgoran medic had retreated to her chambers, Pax in hand, and stayed there since.
“She’s very upset,” Fenny whispered to Ramya while the duo worked on the wiring and fuses. “The Stryker’s pilot passed away right after you guys took off at Totori. Sosa took it iffin hard.”
“It’s not her fault,” Ramya said, stretching out to reach the last broken wire under Fenny’s control station. “He was sick to begin with. Then he got beaten up by those thugs.”
“Yeah, well, tell Sosa that and she’ll lecture you on a doctor’s sacred duty and whatnot,” Fenny said. She thumped a few buttons on the controls to check on the repairs.
The First Covenant (Dark Universe Series Book 2) Page 11
