by Dan Oakley
“Can’t you just magic us to the other side of the lake?” Kira asked looking at Trella.
“I’m using a vibrational blocker to stop them tracking us,” Trella explained. “Any use of magic will draw their attention. The mage they have working for them will easily be able to pinpoint our location if I use any kind of magical energy.”
I swallowed hard. “So if we need to defend ourselves against a lizard…that will lead the pirates straight to us?”
Trella nodded uneasily. “Yes, but don’t forget they’ll have to deal with the lizards, too. And we have a head start. We know how they hunt.”
“I really thought magic would be more useful,” Kira said, her voice thick with disappointment.
Trella studied what little we could see of the landscape. “No matter how powerful you are, magic can’t solve every problem.”
“I’m starting to see that,” Kira mumbled.
“Come on, you lead us. You know this place better than Tomas and me.”
Kira took a deep breath and nodded, then began to lead us through the dark vines. Our plan was to head to the lake. There were no buildings there and little to interest the pirates. We could only hope, they would decide we weren’t worth the trouble of following.
We’d been walking for half an hour, when I tapped my wrist device, planning to get a scan of the area and make sure we were headed in the right direction. The thick tree canopy blocked out the sun and made navigating by traditional methods tricky.
But Trella snapped at me. “Stop. The energy can be traced.”
Surprised, I turned to her. “But it’s not magic.”
“It doesn’t have to be.” Trella shoved a thick tendril from a curling vine out of her way. “In theory, any energy source could be traced.”
“But that means…” I put my hand against my chest. “There’s no way to stop them tracking us. We are all emitting energy of some kind.”
Trella gave me a thin-lipped nod, but she didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. Now I understood there was no way we could go completely undetected. I hoped Trella’s energy blocking was more effective than the pirate’s mage’s tracking skills.
In the end, we relied on Kira’s navigation. She’d grown up here, and the jungle had been her playground until the mutant lizards had become an overwhelming problem. Since the creatures had reproduced to life-threatening numbers in the past few years, Kira hadn’t ventured into the jungle much, except for a few expeditions to get supplies. So she wasn’t as confident of the route as she would have been a few years ago. It didn’t help that the trees and plants masked almost every identifying feature in the area. The jungle grew so fast and was constantly changing. The vines and greenery smothered any potential landmarks.
That was hardly surprising in a hot, wet climate. It was unlike the slow-growing forest I was used to on Terrano.
We’d been walking for at least an hour and a half, and the constant buzz of insects had set my teeth on edge. I began to climb over a fallen tree trunk when I heard another noise. It wasn’t an insect.
I turned sharply to my right and saw the leaves on a bush a few feet away rustle ominously.
It was only a slight movement but enough to get my attention, I motioned at Trella and Kira to get their attention and stayed in a crouch, watching carefully as I slowly reached for my plasma weapon.
I could hear and feel Kira’s harsh breath against my shoulder.
“Straight ahead,” I muttered, powering up the weapon.
I heard a low hissing sound.
It was a sound I would never forget as long as I lived. Lizard.
I saw a sudden blur of movement, a flash of brown and green scales, and then the foul creature’s bright amber eyes as it raced toward me.
It was almost on top of us when I discharged the weapon. My shot slammed into its target, hitting the lizard’s fleshy stomach area. Its flesh sizzled and burned before it toppled over and hit the ground hard. Within seconds, tiny yellow ants were crawling all over the carcass.
I pulled a face and turned back to Kira and Trella. We had to get out of there quickly. The energy discharge from the plasma weapon would tell the pirates exactly where we were if Trella’s energy blocking wasn’t able to shield us from the pirate mage.
But as I turned, to my horror, I saw another flash of green and brown scaly skin, contrasting vividly with bright white teeth.
Flaming fires! There was another lizard directly behind Trella. It was slightly smaller than the first one but looked just as crazed with bloodlust.
It swung its meaty tail around, swiping Trella’s legs from under her before she could take aim.
I swivelled around, heaving the heavy weapon upwards to fire again as I screamed a warning, but it was too late. The creature reached out with its short front legs, viciously slashing the side of Trella’s torso with its elongated claws.
A look of shock flickered over her face as she tumbled sideways. As soon as Trella moved, I fired, but the weapon was slow to charge up. Acting on instinct, I dropped the useless weapon, raised my right arm and sent an energy bolt straight at the lizard’s head.
It exploded in a thousand pieces, its flesh and blood covering the trees and leaves around us. The smell of charred lizard flesh made my stomach turn as I staggered over to Trella.
I could see the deep red grooves on her side from where the lizard’s claws had cut through her uniform and sliced her pale skin.
She was still awake and moving.
“We need to heal that wound,” I said and reached for Trella’s sack because I knew she’d put the crystals marked with runes in there.
She pushed my hand away and struggled to prop herself up with an elbow. “No time for healing. They could have tracked our location. We need to move on.”
“But you can’t trek through the jungle like this,” I said. “It will only take as a few minutes to heal you.”
But Trella shook her head stubbornly. “We don’t have a few minutes to waste.”
I sighed heavily and turned to ask Kira to talk some sense into Trella when I realised Kira wasn’t there…
I stood and turned in a quick circle, scanning the dark green surroundings, looking in every shadow for Kira, but there was no sign of her.
“Where’s Kira?” My stomach lurched in panic.
Trella pushed herself to a sitting position and looked up, scanning the trees.
Of course, Kira would have retreated for the safety of the trees as she had on previous occasions.
I stared up at the rustling canopy, pressing the green button on my headset. “Kira? Where are you, Kira?”
No answer.
I tried again, my eyes scanning my surroundings. Where was she?
I tapped my wrist device, switching it on, intending to track Kira’s location.
“We can’t use that, Tomas.” Trella clutched my arm. “It will lead the pirates directly to us.”
I pulled away from Trella and said stubbornly, “We have to find out where she is.”
Had the lizard knocked her off her feet? I searched the ground around us, expecting to find her lying injured or perhaps unconscious. But she was nowhere to be found.
Trella pushed her red hair back from her face. She was sweating and looked pale. The sweating was not unusual in this humidity, but her pallor had me worried. The toxin that coated the lizard’s claws must already be taking effect.
“I’ll need to turn off the energy blocker enchantment if we’re going to track her,” Trella said weakly. “But if I do that, the pirates will know where we are.”
I thought for a moment, then said, “It’s worth the risk. We don’t even know if they’re tracking us. They’re pirates and scavengers. They’re going to want valuable items. Maybe they won’t even bother with us.”
Trella gave me a look as though she couldn’t believe I was so naïve, but I held my ground. We couldn’t just abandon Kira.
Trella licked her lips. Her breathing was becoming raspy.
> I reached out to help her to her feet. “Can you walk?” I nodded over to our right where there was a grey slab of rock visible under the climbing vines. “We should be able to get some shelter there and perform the healing.”
Trella opened her mouth to argue, but I shook my head, interrupting, “No. We are healing you, and then we’re looking for Kira. If the pirates want to come and find us, we’ll deal with them.”
Trella slumped against me. The toxin raging around her body made her too weak to protest. I carried her the short distance to the grey rock and cleared a few vines away to reveal the opening to a small cave.
We sheltered just inside, not going too deep in case another animal was using the cave as its den.
I worked quickly, removing the crystals from Trella’s sack and then helping her lie down. I carefully moved the ripped fabric on her stomach to one side, but although my touch was gentle, she winced.
The claw marks were now angry and red, and the skin surrounding the scratches was very inflamed. After cutting away the loose fragments of her uniform with my laser knife, I grabbed a crystal with my right hand and then lay my left hand flat on her belly.
I felt the energy flow immediately, and the crystal began to glow with a pale purple light. Methodically, I ran the crystal above her injured flesh, using the water rune marked crystal to cleanse the wound.
I was impressed by how quickly it worked. In less than a minute, the inflammation had gone down and the broken skin had healed. All that was left of the injury were pink stripes against Trella’s pale skin.
She blinked up at me, moving gingerly. “I feel better.”
“Well enough to walk?”
She nodded and pushed herself to a sitting position.
I pressed the green button on my headset again. “Kira? If you can hear me, we’re coming to look for you. Just hold on.”
A thought struck me. “Is the energy blocking enchantment you’re using powerful enough to block the wireless signal from our headsets? Maybe that’s why Kira can’t hear me.”
“I doubt it, but…” Trella took a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll stop the energy blocker now so you can use your wrist device to try and find Kira. But be quick.”
I did as she asked, calling Kira over the headset again. I got no response. Then I desperately searched the area for any sign of our missing friend, using the scanner on my wrist device, but couldn’t find any trace of her.
“Nothing?” Trella asked.
I shook my head. “She’s nowhere near us. I don’t understand it. How could she be out of range already?”
Trella huffed with impatience. “Flaming fires, where has she gotten to? Here, let me try.” Rather than wait for her own wrist device to start-up, she grabbed my arm and began flicking through the screen. After a few moments, she looked up, her face tense. “I don’t understand it, Tomas,” she said. “There is no trace of a single human lifeform nearby.”
I rubbed my hand roughly over my face, trying to make sense of the situation. How could Kira have vanished?
“Oh no.”
I looked up sharply. “What is it?”
Trella awkwardly got to her feet, leaning on me. “We need to get moving.”
“What about Kira?”
“There’s no sign of a single person, but the scanner just picked up three separate groups of humans less than half a click away from us.”
I didn’t have to ask Trella what that meant. There were only two options. Either Kira was dead or the pirates had captured her.
Chapter 7
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked Trella after she lost her footing and fell against me. We’d been heading towards the first group of humans we’d detected on the scanner, but Trella was breathless and weak after the lizard attack.
She nodded, gripping my arm. “Just a bit dizzy, but it will pass. We need to find Kira.”
I put the travel sacks on the ground and pulled out my water container, handing it to Trella. She drank quickly.
“Are you still blocking our energy signals, so the pirates can’t track us while we trace her?” I asked.
“I’m using vibrational energy to mask us, which basically means generating a lot of noise so they can’t zero in on us, but it also means we can’t get a proper lock on them.” She gave a heavy sigh. “I’m going to have to stop masking if we want to find her.”
I refused to believe Kira was dead. She’d been standing so close to me when the lizards attacked.
A deep scratch on the bark of a narrow tree nearby caught my attention. Had the creatures been using it to sharpen their claws? Or did this tree have poisonous sap? Was that where the toxin that coated their claws came from?
The lizards had short forearms and claws that were designed for slashing flesh, not climbing. Had Kira climbed a tree to escape and then fallen? But if she had, then we should have been able to find her nearby. If she was still alive, then she must be amongst the three groups of pirates Trella had detected.
It wasn’t pleasant to imagine Kira at the mercy of pirates and scavengers, but it was better than imagining she was dead.
“Do you really think the pirates have Kira?” I asked, looking ahead through the dense, tangled vines. “I wish I’d kept an eye on her, but it’s not easy when you have an eight-hundred pound creature snarling and snapping as it ploughs towards you.”
“It’s not your fault,” Trella said, wincing as a thorny tendril scratched her leg. “It’s possible the pirates have her. Maybe she ran towards them, fleeing the lizards…Maybe there was another creature we didn’t see that chased her deeper into the jungle.”
I shuddered, hoping that wasn’t the case. Then I tried the earpiece again and heard nothing but static. I guessed that was Trella’s blocker.
“We need to find her,” I said simply. “You’re right. We’ll have to give up on the energy masking for now.”
Trella nodded her agreement. She handed me the water container as her eyelids fluttered closed.
A short moment later, she said, “We are no longer masked.”
After I put the water away, I pressed the green button on the earpiece. This time there was no static. ”Kira? It’s Tomas. Can you hear me?”
I waited for what felt like an age, but there was no response. Only silence. I turned to Trella and shook my head.
Her face set in a mask of determination. “Then we have no other choice. We need to locate the pirates. If they’ve taken Kira… She won’t be able to handle them on her own.”
Trella didn’t say anything else, but she didn’t need to. Even on Terrano the tales of what pirates did to innocent people was spoken about in terrified whispers.
I reached down and picked up both mine and Trella’s travel sacks. She held out her hand to take hers, but I shook my head. “I can carry them both for now. You’re still weak.”
She opened her mouth to argue and then thought better of it, instead tapping her wrist device and bringing up the tracking page.
“There are three people in the group closest to us, just half a click north-west of here. If pirates took Kira, I imagine it was this group.”
We set off, heading north-west. I used my laser knife to hack through the vines, but it was tough going, and we made slow progress.
Ten minutes later, I wiped the sweat from my forehead and turned to Trella. “How many pirates are there in the other two groups?”
“I’d say no more than five in each. They’re further away, so it’s hard to be sure.”
“Could we track the lizards using that scanner?”
Trella shook her head. “Not on this setting. We probably could if we made some adjustments to the core temperature detection and the radiation signal, but this particular tracking program has been set up for humans only.”
We didn’t have time to alter it now, but perhaps it could come in useful later.
Our senses were on high alert as we struggled through the thick green growth, stopping every so often to check the tracking soft
ware.
Sounding slightly out of breath, Trella wiped her forehead and said, “It looks like they’re heading our way. They are definitely tracking us, too.”
Now that she wasn’t blocking their scanners any longer, I guessed the pirates knew exactly where we were. That knowledge generated an uneasy feeling in my stomach.
A sudden movement to our left caused both Trella and me to swivel around. Something large was coming towards us.
We crouched down, partially hidden behind a huge fern.
“Pirates?” I whispered.
Trella shook her head and then whispered back, “No, not yet. They are still too far away. This is something else.”
Probably a lizard. My muscles tensed. I set up my laser weapon ready to aim. Trella would probably be quicker with her magic. But as she was tired it was probably a good idea to rely on traditional methods.
Though every instinct I had told me to focus on the crashing sound in front of me, indicating that something large was going to break through the branches at any moment, I forced myself to look around. Last time, the creatures had tricked us, with one approaching from the front while the other ambushed us from the rear. I didn’t want to get caught out like that again.
This time there was no movement behind us. Nothing but heavy, crashing footsteps and rustling leaves and twigs.
Suddenly the branches spread apart, and the animal leapt towards us, but it wasn’t a lizard. It was another one of those strange deer-like creatures.
It bounded past us, the weight of its body causing the ground to vibrate, but didn’t pause. It leapt forward, using the pathway we’d cleared.
After the creature had gone, Trella and I remained crouched, hidden beside the fern, for a moment longer.
“It was probably running from something,” Trella said, voicing my fears.
I nodded and we stayed motionless, waiting.
We kept the same position for so long I began to get a cramp in my calf.
Eventually I stood up straight. I needed water. Muscle cramping was a good sign I was dehydrated. I pulled some water out of my sack and guzzled it down before offering some to Trella.
