“Seven point eight three minutes.”
Like that pinpointed the location. “I was asleep then.” So much had happened in such a short time. “Where was the ship located? General terms, not coordinates.”
“Near the Guy-N Sector Asteroid Field.”
Great, that put him at least one zone off course and smack dab in the middle of the forbidden zone. No one in his troop would risk demotion to save him. About the only traffic through Guy-N Sector were Kalamaran fuel freighters. Guerreterre’s high fuel consumption should rate a favor. “Is the homing beacon still functional?” Was another ship close enough for it to matter?
“The beacon activated upon impact.”
Finally, something positive. Not much, due to its short-range signal and the odds against a freighter assisting a stranded Guerreterre Shadow Warrior, but something, no matter how minuscule was better than nothing.
Suddenly, the control panel lit up with an eerie pale green glow. “What is that?”
“An ion turbulence is passing nearby.” The light slowly faded. “It gave the ship a negative charge and shorted out the beacon.”
“Wonderful.” Was Kues testing him? “The hull is ruptured. My oxygen supply is limited. And now, we’re near an atomic storm.” There had to be a way to overcome these odds. “You might be able to survive, but if the radiation comes closer, I can’t. Any suggestions?”
“Prior to impact, I observed a shelter point-eight-two nautical miles from this site.”
He strained to disengage the restraint’s coupling. “Would this shelter protect us from ionization?”
“Probabilities are high in its favor.” GEA-4’s calm, sensual tone assured him.
“Why didn’t you say so before?” Suddenly the restraint’s latch clicked. He yanked the harness aside. Gravity pitched him to the ceiling with a bone-wrenching thud. Larwin got to his feet, slipping many times before he stood on the rounded surface. "Let’s run for it.” He caught an emergency grip and, again, wondered why a charred planetoid would have gravity. Furthermore, how was he going to get out of the mess the worthless machine had put him in?
Still, he’d trained for worse.
Larwin crammed emergency gear inside his haversack. Next, he grabbed the largest box of rations he could find. “Can you get the hatch open?”
“I will try.” The grinding sound of metal against metal accompanied her words, followed by a muffled bang.
Something streamed into the cockpit. Soot! Larwin thrust two boxes of emergency supplies at GEA-4. “Carry these to the shelter.”
She gave him an abrupt nod, tossed the heavy boxes out the opening, and then pitched out his haversack. Larwin resented her strength, grace, and dexterity as she exited with the ease of a first-rate gymnast.
When Larwin emerged from the wreck, he turned on his light projector and swiveled to look at his ship, but suspended dust shrouding the crash site defied all his efforts to see more than a meter. Except for GEA-4 and a few panels of the Pterois Volitan, his world became shades of black. The site conjured up images of doom. He shook his head at the unwanted thought. “Perhaps it was the trace of sulfur in my canned oxygen,” he muttered.
Larwin switched off his useless light-projector and ignored the cold knot in his gut. Next, he adjusted his oxygen mixture to the lowest percentage he could endure, yet sustain life. Then, he settled his bag on his back and refused to speculate how long his supplies would last or how far away rescuers were. Last, he turned his back on the crash-site and followed the only distinguishable thing in his matte-black world: GEA-4. Her alabaster form headed away from him at a brisk pace. Her behavior denoted a software fault. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed her application discrepancies earlier.
Crossing the shifting black particles, Larwin wished he possessed the dexterity of an android. Though half his size, the android’s weight doubled his and she had ten times his strength. Even more annoying, she could exist on cosmic energy. Larwin stumbled through the shifting dust, and wished he didn’t need exotic things like food, water and air.
When they emerged from the dust cloud, the harsh black landscape looked no better than the shroud. If only he hadn’t needed sleep. That human failing had given GEA-4 the opportunity to kill him. So what if he still lived? It was temporary. Even if the short-range distress beacon had survived ionization and someone traced him to this remote dust heap, survival seemed doubtful. Any structure, which shielded him from ionization, would also conceal his personal-locator.
Worse, he didn’t have enough air to survive until help arrived.
Larwin needed a miracle.
A movement to the left caught his attention. Distant, but fast approaching, came a swirling green funnel-cloud. Another ion turbulence! What kind of tribulation was this dust heap?
No wonder the high commander classified this Sector forbidden.
Larwin hurried after GEA-4’s shimmering silhouette.
Several minutes later, GEA-4 abruptly stopped then revolved in a complete circle. Her pose reminded Larwin of a ballerina he’d once known. Coryphée had been petite, too. Like GEA-4, she’d moved with grace and had light coloring. Unlike GEA-4, Coryphée had blue eyes, blond hair worn in a tight twist at her nape and a brilliant mind. She’d also had a voice that sounded like shredding metal.
“My readings indicate this shelter extends several miles below surface level. We will be safer farther down.” GEA-4 turned to him. Her perfectly coiffed tresses brushed her shoulders. “This structure is not natural. It and several adjacent large, geometric areas have—”
“Are you trying to say this used to be a mine of some sort?” Larwin turned on his analyzer, which verified her assessment, but the unit seemed unable to ascertain what had been extracted. Then he turned it on himself and verified what he’d expected—his head ached because of oxygen deprivation.
Though tempted to increase the mixture, he knew such an act would be suicidal.
“A mine is a possible explanation.”
Larwin gritted his teeth and wondered if he had escaped ionization and walked straight into a radiation fire. “Can your scanners pick up traces of mineral deposits that indicate what was mined?”
“No, Colonel Atano, I can not.”
Gazing down at his companion, Larwin didn’t feel strong, manly or in control. He didn’t feel like a grown man, over six and a half feet tall. The last time he’d felt this way, he’d been three years old and had left the security of home for military school.
“Have you done a self-diagnostic program on yourself since we crashed?”
“Yes, Colonel Atano, I have.”
“Were any of your systems damaged?”
“No, they were not.”
Would her defective programming show faults? “Calculate our safest course of action.”
“We should go deeper underground to avoid the ion field.”
At least she seemed consistent. Since it appeared like the best choice, he tilted his head toward the sloping path. “Lead on.”
GEA-4 guided him from darkness into deeper darkness. This demon hole seemed filled with unending piles of rubble. With every step, Larwin promised himself that if he returned to Guerreterre, he would do everything in his power to stop the manufacture of android pilots.
Perspiration filled Larwin’s environmental suit until sweat saturated the air filters and each breath tortured his lungs. Beads of moisture fogged his visor and made the dark tunnel appear ominous. Worse, the deeper he trudged into the bowels of the unknown planetoid, the more wreckage he needed to climb over. No sooner had the thought flashed through his conscience than Larwin tripped over an unseen obstacle and fell into a heap of debris.
He lay there for a moment, too tired to care.
“Do you need assistance?”
“No.” He forced himself upright. After regaining his balance, Larwin looked for the haversack he’d dropped. His light revealed that the pile consisted of dust-covered furniture, a small, odd wheeled vehicle and a tiny human
oid face.
His heart skipped a beat.
Larwin refocused the beam and spotlighted a remarkably life-like doll. Where had it come from? Why leave it here? Had a child discarded it or had it been ripped from her hand? The doll looked back at him with a wide-eyed expression and dirty cheeks that reminded him of Tem-Aki, his younger sister, who had always played with dirt and rocks as a child and recently graduated from the geological academy. Since she’d been suited for such a dull academic future, he’d always made snide remarks. Now, as he faced death entombed by rock. Larwin’s perspiration ran cold.
Radzuk, but he missed Tem-Aki and he’d never be able to tell her how proud he was to be her brother.
Larwin bent over to pick up the toy, but the moment his glove touched the hem of the doll’s tattered dress, the entire figure disintegrated into a puff of powder. His breath caught in his throat. He choked down a sob.
Swallowing hard, he picked up his haversack, turned his back on the pile and followed GEA-4, slowly at first, then with an increasing urgency. Soon, the muffled thump of his footfalls matched his pounding heart. An hour later, his boots created a new, emptier tone, as if they’d entered a large subterranean chamber. Larwin’s back ached, his arms felt ready to separate from his shoulders and he could barely see past the condensation in his helmet.
“GEA-4, take a break.”
She stopped as abruptly as if he’d cut her power.
Larwin fanned his light ahead and squinted at more piles of rejected humanoid possessions. In the one closest to him, antique cooking pots were topped by a deflated beach ball; none of the items colors were truly identifiable through layers of black dust.
Larwin hoped the ball’s owner had met a better destiny than he anticipated for himself. He peered around the chamber, piled with every sort of household goods. He frowned and then fanned his light around the cavern. Odd that he didn’t see any corpses.
Why leave everyday possessions in this cursed hole?
How much time did he have left?
GEA-4 watched him, her glittering silver eyes alert and accessing his failing body. From the top of her perfectly designed head, with its heart shaped face and full lips, down to the soles of her dainty feet, GEA-4 appeared female perfection personified. And her voltage-storage capacity provided her with enough power to last for weeks.
His teeth gritted in outrage. Larwin wouldn’t have felt as annoyed if he’d been walked into the ground by a male android.
Larwin put down his haversack. Spears of pain shot like shrapnel through his shoulders. With a groan, he sat on his gear and willed himself not to think about his situation.
Chapter Three
Nimri stepped from the numbingly cold mist into a fragrant thicket of magenta leaves, which swayed in an unseen breeze. She stopped. Awe filled her as she gazed at the hallowed trees. Though the trees were merely twenty or thirty feet in height, they appeared too unsubstantial to contain their purported power. Despite that, she could feel their myst-energy crackling in the air.
Tiny, fragrant flowers formed panicles of golden ginger-scented bells. Only mature plants bloomed. She frowned. Perhaps the balata were actually shrubs, instead of trees. Despite being twisted, the trunks had smooth, silvery bark with emerald dots. As the branches swayed to some unfelt wind, her fingers itched to touch the sacred twigs. Her hand moved toward a panicle of new leaves topped by purple buds, which were unfurling into lacy magenta fronds.
Legends claimed that the Ancients had planted these trees after their deliverance from Solterre, but folklore failed to tell if the plants were put here in consecration of their deliverance or if their magic had facilitated it. Looking at such tiny trees with such exotic coloring made the millennium-old legends believable.
“Well, Kazza, shall we spread Great-great-grandfather’s ashes here at the edge of the grove or at the center?” Even as she asked the question, she recalled Rolf’s insistence that she take his ashes all the way to The Guardians. At the time, she’d thought her great-grandfather’s unheard of request sounded like a way to gain distinction or a technique to show her how unworthy her powers were to follow in his moccasins.
Kazza’s long banded tail twitched, the fur on his back rippled and his great head moved from side to side as if he seriously considered her question, but when Nimri watched his eyes, she realized a magenta frond dancing in the breeze held his attention.
Something tickled the back of her neck. She shivered and swatted at thin air. “Do you feel it, too? Maybe these trees really do have some sort of magical power.”
Did Guardians still watch the magic bridge that linked the stars?
Maybe she should have considered the possibility of their existence earlier, but she had not, because she had never truly expected to reach the grove, much less imagine that she might survive to keep her vow.
The Chosen's oral history went back 1,064 years, and in every tale, a Tramontain had saved the Tribe. Before that, legend told of their race living on Solterre, a world where mighty, energy-absorbing dragons devoured sun and soil until great solar flares from the dragon-infested sun incinerated the first world, causing Solterre’s citizens to seek refuge anywhere they could find it.
Nimri’s ancestors had initially hidden in a tunnel. Then as they realized Solterre was doomed, her ancestors had magically energized the Star Bridge’s formation. Thus, her early Tramontain ancestors and all those who had sought their protection had arrived on Chatterre.
Chills raced up and down her arms. She shivered.
Her tremors grew into a nervous snigger. The sound echoed over the rocks and mingled with the breeze. She rubbed her gooseflesh-covered arms, grateful that no one could witness her self-doubt.
Common sense told her the tales were told to entertain children, not based on reality. Star Bridges to other worlds were as likely as dragons, complex machines and life on the tiny points of light that gleamed in the night.
Nimri straightened to her full six feet and squared her slender shoulders. She feared spreading Rolf’s ashes at The Guardians’ feet, which legend claimed were at the heart of the balata grove. Yet she had vowed to do just that. She’d come this far, and lived. Rolf’s remains would be scattered where he’d wished. Gingerly, she pushed a sacred branch aside and maneuvered through the twisted trunks.
As the branch swung back in place, a complaint issued from deep within Kazza’s chest.
“Stay there. I won’t be long.”
His moan intensified.
Nimri adjusted her pack and stepped into the thicket.
Kazza howled.
She glanced back through the cavorting magenta lace. Her beloved giant feline paced between the grove’s edge and the sheer drop off, his fur stiff with fear. His wild kin lived high in the mighty trees at the edge of the valley, and raised their offspring in dens hollowed out of the immense trunks. He’d seemed to enjoy the climb until now. Nimri shook her head at Kazza’s baffling attitude change, then she resolutely turned her back on him and headed deeper into the thick, ginger-scented tangle.
The dense twigs scratched her face. A limb hit her stomach. Perspiration trickled in rivulets down her back. It felt hotter than any mountain peak should. Nimri resolutely plodded on. Ten minutes later, her face felt afire where perspiration washed the nicks. She blotted at the injuries with her torn shirt sleeve. Abruptly, she tripped over an unseen root. She fell and hit her forehead on a flat wall of rock. The temptation to smash Rolf’s urn against the impenetrable wall spiraled within her. Nimri yanked her pack forward and felt inside for the crock, yet as her fingers closed over the urn’s familiar form, something stopped her.
Nimri turned to her right and shouldered aside a balata bough. A large boulder obstructed her.
Where had she gotten the idea that once she reached the grove it would be easy?
As if from a great distance, she heard Kazza mewl.
Nimri felt like crying, too. Glancing back, all she could see was an impenetrable wall of vegetation.
“I’m all right,” she called.
He made a crying sound, which he usually reserved for danger.
“Relax!” Despite her admonition, her spine prickled with anxiety and she wished she could follow her own advice.
Suddenly, the surrealistic trees ceased their movement and everything became supernaturally quiet.
It felt like someone or something watched her. Nimri spun around, but saw no one. Still, she could sense a presence. She squinted through the still foliage until her eyes watered from the strain, her parched throat constricted and her lungs burned for air.
Kazza yowled. Her sense of doom became suffocating.
Nimri concentrated on the one tangible thing she could improve; she groped for her water bottle. Just as her fingers brushed against the flask’s familiar chipped neck, she spotted a pair of golden eyes staring at her.
She froze.
The lacy leaves rippled.
Now, there were two pairs or eyes
A chill shook her.
Nimri straightened her spine and returned their unblinking intensity while she felt for her dagger.
The confrontation lasted forever, or so it seemed.
Nimri noticed that between the pairs of eyes lay darkness blacker than midnight. She thought she saw the blackness pulse and grow. Her skin turned into a mass of painful gooseflesh.
Kazza howled.
She remained locked in the intense staring challenge until her eyes felt parched. The golden eyes never blinked, never turned aside. Her own eyes became dehydrated as she stared back. Yet, she feared to flicker so much as a lash, lest the darkness devour her.
Stealthily, her fingers felt through her pack. Finally, she touched the dagger’s carved bone handle. Her confidence returned as the Hawks image pressed against her palm. Quietly she removed it from her pack and raised the blade. Weapon poised to strike like a ripping talon; she eased aside a clinging bough and advanced toward the foe.
Star Bridge (Chaterre Trilogy Book 1) Page 3
