by Jean Kilczer
“This is Lord Aburra,” Aburra said from the link. “If you think you've made your escape, you are mistaken. I will follow your comlink signal and be waiting for you when you reach the land. My soldiers are stationed all along the eastern shoreline. Come to me, my Terran infidels, and I will cleanse your souls of sins with glorifying, purifying fire.” He laughed. A sound that sent chills up my spine, and broke the link.
I shivered, within the temp-controlled suit. Souls, I thought, as in plural. He wants us all!
“Let's run south, Chance,” I said hoarsely. “Maybe we can outrun the storm.”
“I think,” Bat said, “we just found a new meaning for a rock and a hard place.”
Chapter Twenty Four
“General Ara Saun,” Captain Justrop handed the general a note inside his command tent, “we just got this message, sir.”
Ara Saun stretched a forearm across his desk, still sleepy in the early morning, his eyes slitted, he took the note and opened it. It was from a forward guard post that had instructions not to carry comlinks as the enemy could trace them even when turned off.
Ara Saun's eyes widened. He sat up straight, bared his teeth in a grimace, took his five-star general's hat, and rammed it on his uncombed head. Strands of white fur stuck out from under the hat. “Did you read this, Captain?”
“No, sir, I'm not supposed to. For your eyes only, you know.”
Ara Saun got to his feet and began to pace. “One of our returning ships saw them, but then lost them in the storm.”
“Them, sir?”
“The Terran team and that rocket scientist, Huff. Contact our troops on the forward positions, Captain. I'll announce it to our forces stationed here.” He scowled at Justrop, who stepped back a pace, his snout tilted to one side. “Well, go, Captain! This is urgent.”
“Uh, what is, sir? I don't exactly know what to tell them.”
“Oh, that's right.” Ara Saun slapped the note. “The Terran team and their Slattie companion Huff are in a skiff, headed south, with Aburra's Cultists chasing them in the team's own boat. And they're caught in a nor'easter!”
“Oh my. A nor'easter.” Justrop crinkled his brows. “Well, what should I tell our Rebels to do, sir?”
“How about 'Head them off at the pass'!”
“Sir?”
“Tell them to be prepared for a Cultist attack, and have Lieutenant Fuz send them reinforcements.”
General Ara Saun strode out of his tent and into the glare of morning light. He stared at an approaching bank of black clouds from the northeast. “This could be the deciding battle of the war.”
Captain Justrop snapped to attention. “Then good luck, sir.”
“Why then lead on,” Ara Saun shouted. “Oh, that a man might know the end of this day's business ere it come!”
Slatties sitting around a fire close by eating breakfast stopped and looked up.
“Uh, excuse me, sir?” Justrop said.
“Farewell, Captain Justrop! If we meet again, then we'll smile.” Ara Saun put a forepaw on Justrop's shoulder and drew back his lips. “If not, then this parting was well done.”
“Well done…” Justrop glanced at the pan of fried meat sizzling over a fire, and watched Slatties picked up pieces and eat them. “Yes, sir. Well done. I'll go…I'll go tell them, sir.” Captain Justrop saluted, turned, and trotted away, shaking his snout. “He had to go to school on Earth!” he muttered. “Princeton! Physics and Shakespeare. What a schmuck!”
Chapter Twenty Five
“They're not swimming!” I shouted above the banshee wind. Pellets of hail stung my face like bee stings. The taste of salt from flung spume was in my mouth. Joe, Bat, Sophia and I tried to hold onto the thin canopy, but it ripped in our hands and flapped like a desperate bird. Finally, we let it go. “They're coming after us in our boat,” I called.
Chancey tried to steer south, but waves smacked the hull broadside and we were in danger of turning over.
Huff was sprawled across our gear and the sous, holding it all down. The skiff was not a lifeboat, and there was no way to tie down our stuff.
“What the fuck is that?” Chancey shouted as the sea reared up from its bed.
“Rogue wave,” I yelled. “Rogue! Turn the bow into it. Chrissake!”
Like a silent monster out of nightmare, the gigantic wave rose up to block the sky as it drew nearer, its crest seething with white teeth.
“Inflate your life vests!” I shouted.
The wind was stuck behind this demon wall. An eerie silence dropped around us as the surreal mountain barred the storm.
“Holy shit!” I muttered and realized I was holding Sophia's wrist so tight she couldn't move as the wave crested above us. “Holy shit.”
The sky roiled black, slashed by the white summit of the rising mount. The black sea held us in a death grip.
“Great Mind,” I whispered as the skiff rode up the flank of the devil wall and into the crest, “help us!”
Sophia screamed as swirling white water slammed us like slaps from Satan's own hand.
I grabbed the short tow line, and held Sophia's wrist. But the tow line was torn from my hand as the skiff leaped up in the maelstrom, and was swept away.
“Hold your breath!” I called as white water pummeled us and dragged us under, despite our life vests.
My stomach was behind my teeth as the wave plunged past us and we dropped down to storm waves. Water and swirling sand got past my suit through a broken valve and I felt the icy trickle across my chest and head.
“Sophia!” I realized I still gripped her wrist. She gasped in a breath and clung to me.
Storm waves lifted us and drove us toward shore in the easterly wind and tide.
“Joe!” I yelled into the darkness, “Chancey, Bat, Huff!”
“Here,” Joe called.
“Here,” Chancey and Bat yelled together.
“I am Huff.”
“Thank you, Great Mind,” I whispered. “Thank you.”
We came together and grabbed hold of each other. My face was wet and frozen, my teeth chattering, but my body was warm and dry with the temp-controlled survival suit and the life vest holding me afloat.
“We all made it.” Bat choked on water. “My God, we all made it!”
“Take it easy, Bat,” Joe said.
“This way,” Chancey told us.
“What?” I asked.
“The compass, man. I stuffed it into a pocket before the wave hit.” He pointed. “This way to shore.”
“Hold me,” Huff said.
“Hold you?” Sophia asked, her voice shaky and hoarse.
Lightning flashed and I saw the frightened look on her face. “It's OK,” I said soothingly. “The worst is over, Soph. We're not that far from land.”
“Hold me and I will swim us to the land!” Huff explained.
We gathered around him and grasped handfuls of his fur.
“Wish I had my fins,” I said as Huff started toward land, pulling us all with powerful kicks of forepaws and muscular hind legs.
We rode the wind, the shore-bound waves, and Huff, until we saw land as a pale strip across the horizon. Huff didn't need a compass. I think he had one in his head.
“Huff,” Chancey said as our feet touched bottom, “I'll never mean-mouth you again.”
“Then,” Huff replied and pulled us closer to shore, “this fur-ripping was worth my bare skin.”
We've lost more than Huff's fur, I thought as I studied the barren sand and dunes. Our gear, the sous, our bottled water, even our digestall tablets, were all gone. I felt exhausted as I walked up the beach, my head lowered in pounding rain, and held up my own weight again.
We were truly aliens now, lost on a world we were never meant to inhabit.
Spirit? I sent. Spirit? Are you there?
Where else would I be when you are in trouble? Perhaps with my lifemate Syl 'Via, or perhaps developing the myriad lifeforms to fill the niches on my own planet?
Yeah.
Appreciate it. Can you guide us so we avoid the Cultists' outposts?
I will advise you if you venture near them. Would you care for some further advice?
Sure. Why not?
Next time, try remaining on the planet where your ancestors evolved.
Yeah, thanks. Big help.
It could be, Terran
How about next time, I thought but didn't send, you don't develop a lunatic animal-plant called blackroot, that eats everything in sight, including what's tied down!
I heard that, Terran.
Oops.
* * *
We slept the night beneath a frozen dune in a narrow hollow that Huff dug out with his claws, while the storm raged above our heads and sent probing fingers of wind, as though seeking us in this shallow hideout. I fell into an exhausted sleep with Sophia by my side, and dreamed of rogue waves.
I awoke when the sun was already on its journey west, and scratched my head. Salt had crusted on my body when water came through the broken valve. I would've given a Denebrian android hen's gilded egg for a shower and clean clothes.
Chancey and Bat had gathered a small mound of rocks, heated them with their stinglers, and were frying fish fillets that they stirred with knives. Sophia and Joe were still asleep.
I went to the beach side of our dune to pee. The ocean was serene and blue, as though last night's storm had been a mere flicker in God's great blue eye.
Huff was eating dead fish that had washed ashore, along with broad-leafed plants ripped from their holds. Large empty shells lay strewn across the wet sand.
I watched sea birds squabble over morsels of fish. I think it was more a power play, the desire to be king of the hill, with their pick of dead fish on the beach. I thought of Aburra, with all his followers, and so much unclaimed land for the taking. What need did he have to make war on his fellow race of Slatties? Yet there were the birds, quarreling over a strip of meat when fish were plentiful.
“You can't eat that.” I gestured toward the frying fish as I approached Chancey and Bat, “not without digestall tablets.”
Chancey grinned as he took a bottle of digestall from his survival-suit pocket and extended it to me. “Care for one?”
I took the bottle and sat beside them. “Chance, it's great that you thought to save these, but this fish is from an alien ocean. We'd need to run a sample through the bio-lab unit.”
Bat smiled, took a small unit, the bio lab, from out his medkit and held it up. “Tested out OK, Bubba.”
“You tags covered all bases.” I smiled, took out a tablet, and swallowed it.
Chancey extended a fried fillet to me on the end of his knife. “Breakfast is served, Superstar.”
“Thanks.” The fish tasted spicy. The meat was flaky. “My compliments to the chef. Too bad you didn't save some coffee.”
“Fresh water could get to be a problem,” Chancey said.
“Maybe not,” I told him.
“Well, speak O muse,” he urged.
“If we fire a hollow of sand with our combined stinglers,” I said, “we can turn it into glass. Then we melt snow in it. Great Mind knows, we've got snow.”
Chancey winked at Bat. “Yeah, OK, but what do we use for stemware?”
“Funny you should ask,” I said. “The plants that washed ashore have broad leaves, and I saw some pretty big shells.”
“Bat,” Chancey chewed a fillet, “I knew there was a reason we took him along.”
Huff approached from the beach. “What reason?” He sat beside me and I stroked his shoulder.
“Oh,” Chancey scratched the stubble on his cheek, “to keep you happy, fur ball.”
“How you feeling, big guy?” I asked Huff.
“As good as a price tag.”
“I think he means as good as new,” I explained.
Chancey smirked. “If he only knew.”
“Now, Chancey.” Sophia had awakened and was walking toward us. “You gave your word of honor you wouldn't mean-mouth Huff anymore.”
“Morning, hon,” I said.
She leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Good morning, Babe.”
“Did I say I wouldn't mean-mouth the fur ball?” Chancey asked. “Are you sure I said that?” He threw some more fillets on the hot rocks. “Must've been a moment of downright insanity.”
“Your life's a moment of downright insanity.” Joe got up, brushed off sand and came to sit with us. “I'll give you this,” he told Chancey and nodded at Bat, “you two get gold stars for saving the digestall and the bio lab.”
I opened the bottle and handed two tablets to Sophia. There weren't many left. She swallowed one and passed the other one to Joe. I speared a fillet and held it out to her.
“Thank you, kind lord.” She slipped it off the knife and began to eat.
Joe took Chancey's offered fillet. “We'll be approaching enemy territory soon,” Joe said. “I think it prudent if we travel by night.”
“Joe,” I started, “I've been in touch with Spirit. He's agreed to warn us if we're approaching Cultist outposts, so traveling by day should be all right.”
Joe nodded. “That's another reason we brought him along, Chancey.” He bit into the crusty fillet. “This isn't half bad.”
“What is the other half?” Huff asked.
Chancey opened his mouth to say something. I glared at him and he shrugged.
“It's just an expression,” Sophia told Huff, “that means it's all good.”
“Then why not say it is all good?” Huff asked.
“Why indeed,” Chancey murmured, and flipped a fillet over.
“Because,” Joe told Huff, “it gives you something to think about.”
“Oh,” Huff said, “I think that now I am thinking about.”
“You know,” I said, “I think we all owe Huff a debt of gratitude for getting us safely to land.”
“Here, here.” Chancey tapped his knife on the rocks.
We all tapped our knives and thanked Huff. He drew back lips in an imitation of a human smile. In truth, it looked more like the bared teeth of a powerful predator.
I peered south at the empty beach and dunes that met sea and sky at the horizon, and wondered if we'd find Ara Saun and his forces, or Sarge and his mercs, before Aburra found us. “As though we don't have enough to think about,” I said.
Chapter Twenty Six
After breakfast, we folded our survival suits into the bags they came in, and slung them over our backs with the attached straps.
Chancey squinted at the Southern snow plains and white dunes. “Like the poker player said when his luck ran out, 'I'm heading south, man'.”
I walked with Sophia on one side, and Huff, down on all fours, on the other side. “We play the hand we're dealt, Chance,” I said, “and there's no picking up your chips and going home.”
“Six of a kind.” Joe smirked.
“Six?” Bat asked. “Oh yeah, six of us.” He thickened his Southern drawl. “Somebody been messin' with the deck.”
“How about down and dirty?” Sophia shifted the pack on her back. “I itch all over from the salt water.”
“It got into your suit, too?” I asked her.
She nodded. “One of the seals ripped when that wave dumped us.”
“I'm sorry, Soph.” I put my arm around her shoulder as we walked.
“You must shake your bare skin, Sofa,” Huff advised, “when first you first leave Mother Sea.”
“Mother, all right,” Chancey muttered.
“Dammit, Huff,” she said, “it's Sophia. A sofa is something you sit on.”
“I would not sit on you.” Huff lowered his head.
“That's comforting,” she said, and patted his shoulder. “It's OK, Huff.”
We laughed as we walked south, for all the world a group of friends out for a day of hiking. The team was together and safe, for now. But we didn't know if we were walking into the devil's own den.
* * *
We walked for most of the day, with intermi
ttent rest stops. The dead-fish supply was running low as we trekked past last night's stormy sea. We sliced fish fillets, and carried them wrapped in broad leaves tucked into our makeshift backpacks. More than a limited supply would rot, and we needed a better diet than just fish to sustain us on our long southward journey.
I pictured a juicy mock steak, mashed potatoes, dripping with butter, and a rich salad. My favorite fare, along with a couple of cannoli for dessert, though mudpie would also do. I shook my head. The body focuses on what it needs like a petulant child kicking and screaming inside our heads.
The snow became patchy as we walked south. We slept that night in a dune hollow again, and I dreamed of Terran meals. Perhaps we all did, except for Huff, who probably dreamed of candy bars.
It was still night when I heard a voice inside my head. Jules!
“Go away,” I mumbled and tried to return to sleep.
Are you certain you want me to go away while a Cultist patrol is approaching your sleeping quarters?
“What?” I jumped up. “Cultists?”
Chancey made a grab for his stingler and banged his head on the roof of the hollow.
“What is it, Jules?” Joe whispered.
“Cultists! Patrol coming this way! Spirit just warned me.”
“Let's go.” Joe was awake, and focused, all in a quick moment. The rest of us looked to him. “Calm down and take the backpacks,” he said. “Jules, which direction are they coming from?”
“I don't–” I started. Spirit!
They're moving north, from the beach and the dunes. They are spread out and there is a vehicle armed with a laser cannon.
Anything else?
Isn't that enough?
I relayed the message to my group as we scooped up our backpacks. We trotted inland, away from the dunes.
“Sophia,” I said, “stay close to me.”
“I'm not going anywhere without you!”
“How many?” Joe asked.
Ten, Spirit sent. Lord Aburra is not among them.
“Ten,” I told Joe and the group. “Ten. Aburra's not with them.”
“Do you think they have infras?” I asked Joe as we moved inland.
