A small fire burned in the darkness. Jack didn’t care who lit it. Right in that moment, it meant safety.
“Faster, Jack!” Tuner’s voice leapt into his helmet. Jack could see the little guy peering back at him over Rogan’s shoulder. “It’s getting—”
“I don’t want to know!” Jack snapped, his throat already hoarse from screaming. He found one last reserve of energy inside him and powered onwards, ignoring the giant, armoured bug burrowing only metres behind.
They were close. So close. He could almost feel the warmth of the fire against the palms of his hands, almost breathe in its reassuring smokey air. Everything else turned black, fading into non-existence as his vision soloed in on the flicker of orange in a world of steadily darker blue.
Then suddenly they were climbing rocks, their feet and boots slipping against loose pebbles as they clambered up towards the cave. Klik scarpered across them with ease like a wild animal. Rogan bounded up the boulders, Tuner still clutched in her arms. Jack came just after them, convinced that at any second the worm would bury its mouth over him, rocks be damned.
Jack threw himself into the cave mouth. He frantically rolled onto his back, sat bolt upright, and then sighed.
The spider-cum-worm had veered off to the right, bypassing the cave completely. It may not have had eyes, but its remaining senses were strong enough not to send it burrowing into a giant rock, it seemed.
Jack pulled off his helmet and sat there, first hyperventilating, then coughing. The night breeze felt cool against the sweat streaming down his face.
Rogan inspected the campfire.
“The flames are low, but the scraps of dead wood are fresh. Whoever lit this hasn’t been gone long.”
She checked out the rest of the cave, making sure nobody was hiding inside its many cavities or outside one of the other, smaller exits. Jack remained sat by the mouth. He didn’t care. Whoever built the fire couldn’t be half as bad as the bug they just ran from.
“Looks clear.” Rogan came and stood beside Jack. “I’ll keep watch in case they come back. Everyone should get some rest.”
He looked over his shoulder at the fire, feeling anything but tired. They’d almost been eaten, for crying out loud. Who could—
Huh. Of course.
Klik was already curled up beside it, fast asleep.
10
Stars in the Desert
Klik may have been dead on her feet, but Jack had a far harder time falling asleep.
Perhaps it was the adrenaline still pumping through his veins. Perhaps it was because he wasn’t acclimatised to Paryx’s miserly day-night cycle. Or perhaps he simply had too many hopes and worries rattling around in his brain, hanging up celebratory banners with one hand and holding lighters under the sprinkler system with the other.
Tomorrow he would find out if Sek could hold up his end of the bargain. Tomorrow…
Jack sighed. Tomorrow, everything would change.
He was sat in the mouth of the cave again, looking out across the starry midnight sands. All was quiet, save for the crackling of the campfire. Tuner came and sat down on a rock beside him.
“Mad, isn’t it?” said the automata, after a moment.
“Hmm?” Jack turned to look at him. “What’s mad?”
“Everything.” Tuner shrugged. “We’re hiding in a cave on the Mansa home world, on our way to deliver a stolen Solar Core to the Krettelian resistance. Only a few months ago, Rogan and I escaped from Raklett captivity, found you suffocating in space, and then discovered a secret automata sanctuary. And soon you’ll be heading back to Earth through a flipping wormhole. What about all this isn’t mad, really?”
Jack laughed.
“Well, when you put it like that…” He raised an eyebrow. “I guess I thought all this excitement and danger was par for the course out here. In space, I mean.”
“In space. Ha!” Tuner waggled his legs off the edge of the rock. “Space is pretty boring, really. Most people are just trying to survive. Get by. Be happy, if they’re really pushing their luck.”
“Is that what you want? To go back to Detri and ‘get by?’”
“Bolts, no. I much prefer exploring the galaxy with you and Rogan. Maybe a few less space heists in future, though.”
Jack smiled. They watched the glacially slow rotation of the stars in the Paryx night sky.
“Back home,” he said, “we only have the one set of constellations. Orion, Ursa Minor, the Big Dipper. But each time we fly to a new planet, the stars are always different. Billions of new ones, everywhere we go.”
“Yep. That’s sort of how the galaxy works.”
“I guess… oh, I don’t know what I’m trying to say. The galaxy is an insanely big place, that’s all.” Jack kept staring out at the stars. “There are endless worlds to explore, none of which have ever been seen by human eyes before. I’d love to be the first.”
“But you can’t.”
Jack shook his head.
“A few months ago, my most notable achievement was failing to become a pilot. Since meeting you guys, I’ve blown up warships and flown the Adeona through a damn planet. It’s incredible. I’ve never felt more… me. But if I don’t go back, I’ll never see Amber again. If I don’t go back, there won’t be any humans left to go see those worlds for themselves.”
“Yeah. I get it.”
They fell into a silence together.
“Though it was me who blew the warship up,” Tuner added, shrugging. “Just saying.”
The smiling crescent of Krett – Paryx’s green moon – gazed down at them from amongst the stars.
“You could come with me, you know. To Earth. They’d love you there. You’d be famous. And you know all about skip drives – you could help get my people back out here without using wormholes.”
Tuner continued to stare out at the stars and sand.
“Your kind has never seen an automata before, has it?”
“No.”
“Then something’s telling me it wouldn’t be a good idea. We always end up somebody’s possession, and I’ve been doing fleshies’ bidding for too long already. Sorry.”
Jack went to argue that humans would never enslave a robot possessed with the knowledge required to save their species, that he’d never let it happen, and then realised how stupid an argument it would be. Of course they would, and he’d be powerless to stop them.
“I understand. Tomorrow might be goodbye, then. Or the beginning of it, at least.”
“Yes, I guess it might. I’ll miss you.”
“I know, buddy.” He patted Tuner on the back. “I’ll miss you too.”
Away in the distance came a low wailing noise, followed by a thunderous boom. The giant spider creatures were on the move again. If Jack squinted through the gloom he could just make out their enormous rocky heads carving great channels through the sand.
“Colossal Paryxian Sandspinners.” Jack jumped. Rogan was suddenly stood right beside him. “Incredible. Did you know they gather sunlight through those big crests on their heads in a form of photosynthesis, then use that energy to move about come the night once it’s cooler? Max told me about them once. I never thought I’d live to see one.”
“Max?” asked Jack.
Rogan shook her head.
“Doesn’t matter. Long time ago. You really should try and get some sleep, you know. There isn’t much night left.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Jack climbed to his feet. Every muscle in his body ached. “Sure you’re okay keeping watch?”
“We don’t sleep. What else are we going to do?”
That didn’t sound much like a yes to Jack, but he was in no mood to press the matter further. Now that Rogan mentioned it, he could feel tiredness tugging at his temples. He lay down on the opposite side of the fire to Klik and shut his eyes.
By the time Tuner came round to check on him, Jack had fallen into a deep slumber.
A pair of dark, goggled eyes watched as the party of four
enjoyed his precious fire.
He’d worked hard to find that wood. Snapped it off a dead tree. Carried it back. Always hard to get wood to light, dead or otherwise. Took him ages.
Then those four had come running towards his cave, bringing the great sand beasts with them. He’d had to run also, lest he be seen. Couldn’t be seen, not by them. Nobody out wandering the desert could be trusted.
And now they had his fire, not him.
They made him cold.
The sorry figure peering through a fissure outside the rear of the cave was tall and malnourished. Much of his clothing amounted to a set of tightly wrapped leather straps, plus a shawl so stained and tattered it made Klik’s cloak look like a royal ceremonial robe. His nose was a nub. His teeth were naturally long and pointed.
His stomach raised a complaint about the portion size of his last meal – the innards of a single scarab beetle. He angrily whispered at it to shut up.
He cautiously peered through the crack again. Two of the strange party were mechanical in nature. They sat by the entrance, watching the sand beasts. One of them, the small one, wouldn’t be worth its weight in scrap. But the other looked to be a custom job. A fancy one at that. Fetch a good price with a trader. Maybe even buy him a trip off-world.
Not his fault he got stuck on Paryx. Not by choice. Bunch of filthy raiders left him there.
His stomach rumbled again, and his eyes fell to the two people sleeping by his fire.
The girl was closest. She looked like the bug folk the Mansa kept inside the cities. What was she doing outside Ankhir’s walls? Strange. Didn’t matter. Didn’t care. Crunchy shell no good for eating. Just like scarab beetle.
But the one lying on the other side of the fire… he couldn’t see beneath its spacesuit, but the pink skin of its head promised flesh that was fat and juicy. Saliva ran down the stranger’s teeth. Kill it without the others noticing. Then he could eat for weeks.
Would have to deal with the bolt buckets first though.
Tricky.
He crept around to the nearest crack wide enough to squeeze through, then paused. Something ate at his belly, and it wasn’t just his hungry stomach. Nobody walked through the desert without a reason. Not for very long, at least.
Fiddling with the numerous catches and slides on the rims of his thick, black goggles, he adjusted the magnification of their lenses and scanned the midnight horizon.
Something way off in the distance caught his eye.
The wanderer cracked a wide and dangerous smile.
He had himself an idea.
11
Sewers and Subterfuge
Jack was the last to wake. He sat upright, groggily rubbing his head where it had been pressed against the hard stone floor. His helmet lay to one side.
It was light again. The dunes lay still outside the cave. Suspiciously familiar outcrops of rock stood motionless along the sandy horizon.
He got to his feet and approached the cave mouth. The sandstorm had vanished with the night. Shielding his eyes from the bright sun with one hand and holding onto a pillar of rock for support with the other, Jack squinted out across the dry and empty vista.
Far off to his right, a shimmering mirage of gold danced in a heat haze. It had to be Ankhir. Unless they’d drifted really off-course somehow, it couldn’t be anything else.
Jack shivered despite the intense heat. The gravity of the situation wasn’t lost on him. Even putting aside the fact this was probably his best chance of getting back home – when he handed the Solar Core over to the Krettelians, their lives would be irreversibly changed.
He hoped for the better. Knowing his luck, probably not.
The Core.
Panic kicked in. Where was Klik?
He spun around in terror while his hand darted to the pouch on his hip. She wasn’t in the cave. Nobody was. Where the hell were they?
He felt his hand clasp the Core’s cool metal shell and relaxed. The artefact was still in the correct place, at least.
“Breakfast?”
Jack flinched backwards, fist raised. He found Tuner standing innocently behind him, rummaging through a small pouch of his own. He pulled out a small tin of rations and offered it to Jack.
“Christ, Tuner. You scared the life out of me.”
He accepted the tin and let Tuner slice open the top with a miniature laser torch. The lid popped off to reveal an unappetising hockey puck of meat beneath.
“Where did you go?” he asked, reluctantly digging out his first mouthful.
“Just did a quick scout of the area,” said Rogan, climbing up through the cave mouth. Klik followed close behind, her scarf hanging loose from her face now that the sand wasn’t kicking up such a fuss. “We didn’t want to wake you. It’s good you’re up though. We’ve still got quite a long way to go.”
“Yeah, I saw.” He quickly scooped the rest of the tin’s contents into his mouth, doing his best to ignore the taste. He exhaled sharply. It wasn’t smart letting an automata pick the crew’s food. “I guess we’d better make a start.”
He dropped the empty tin onto the blackened remains of the campfire, then bent down to pick up his helmet. He slotted it onto his suit and immediately felt the air around his skin turn a dozen degrees cooler.
They gathered up what little belongings they had with them and set off in the direction of the city.
Even with the sandstorm gone, traversing the desert plains was an absolute chore. The sand was often too soft to support his weight, and the patches of cracked earth too hard on Jack’s feet. And no matter how long they spent walking, neither the city of Ankhir or its gravitationally unchallenged skyscrapers ever seemed to grow any closer.
He shared some water with Klik when Rogan, much to Jack’s surprise, estimated they were over halfway there. They’d packed a second cylinder, but they had to make their supplies last. He more than likely had a whole other trek coming back the opposite way.
The outer wall of Ankhir rose incomprehensibly high.
Even though they were still hundreds of metres away from reaching its base, it hurt Jack’s neck to look up at the wall’s highest parapets. It was built from sand and stone. Jack could only imagine how ancient the wall was compared to the rest of the city, and how many Krettelian lives had been lost to its construction.
He was a little surprised, at first, not to find armed Mansa guards patrolling the perimeter. It was redundant, he supposed. He’d done his research – in over two millennia, nobody had ever breached the city walls. Not once. And if anyone were to attack now, they would almost certainly do so not from the ground, but the sky.
Speaking of which… dusk was already settling in for the second time that trip. The sun sank out of view behind the city, casting their side of the wall in shadow.
Jack lowered his gaze to discover that he’d fallen behind the other three. He hurried to catch up with them.
“So where’s this sewer runoff you told us about?” asked Rogan, raising a mechanical eyebrow.
“Don’t look at me,” replied Klik, taken by surprise. There was no longer any issue with communication between them now that the storm had passed. “Somewhere along the east section of the wall. That’s all I know. Never gone out this way, personally.”
“I don’t see any liquid anywhere,” said Tuner. “Sewage water or otherwise.”
Klik shook her head.
“You won’t. Those sewers haven’t been used in centuries. That’s why we built the resistance base there, obviously. They used to flow into channels that led the waste water away from the city. But those channels will have dried up long ago.”
“God,” said Jack, pulling a face. “I can’t imagine what the smell must have been like in this heat.”
Tuner shrugged. “Don’t have a nose.”
“Right. Let’s look for a dried up channel then,” said Rogan, continuing her impatient march towards Ankhir. “We find that, we find our secret entrance.”
They reached the foot of the wall
a minute or so later. Great statues, thirty or forty metres tall, were sculpted into its side. Famous figures from Mansa political and military history. They glared out across the desert, too grand to notice the tiny group sneaking past their feet. Rather typical of their species as a whole, Jack felt.
Rogan decided they would follow the wall around to the left. It would take days to walk all the way around the city limits. Jack hoped her hunch was right.
“Does that look like a dried up husk of a riverbed to you?”
Jack pointed at what looked like a long, shallow channel in the sunbaked earth, snaking out into the desert. The sand didn’t appear to gather this close to the city, and the ground beneath was as hard and dead as rock. Not even weeds grew between the cracks.
Rogan crouched down at the channel’s edge.
“Could be. It isn’t level. But if anything once flowed through here, it was far too long ago to tell.”
“I’m surprised it hasn’t been lost beneath the dunes.”
Rogan stood up and paused, thinking.
“Do you feel that?” she asked.
Jack froze on the spot. Now Rogan mentioned it, he could feel a gentle rumble beneath his feet.
“Not more of those sand things,” he said, eyes wide.
Rogan laughed and shook her head.
“Subterranean shockwave engines. They keep the sand from building up against the city walls during sandstorms. I suspect the Mansa turn up the power at night to deter the Sandspinners, too.”
“Hey!” Klik was standing by the wall. She waved them over. “Stop yapping and get over here.”
They hurried over. Tuner already stood beside her, fiddling with something Jack couldn’t yet see. Jack felt a burst of hope. Whatever they’d discovered, the relic of a storm drain appeared to originate from it.
Thief of Stars (Final Dawn, Book 2) Page 9
