The Ven Hypothesis (Kepos Chronicles Book 2)

by Erica Rue

  Lithia did not want to run back into the Ven-filled town, but she didn’t have much of a choice. Part of her thought that this was a stupid idea. They would all die out in the open. The other side of her, the side who liked to play the hero in their holo games, knew she had to help these people. This was her fault. She couldn’t forget that.

  Lithia saw bodies. So many bodies. Most of them were human, though a few Vens lay among them, absolutely riddled with holes. This could have been prevented.

  The thought made her angry. Stubbornness. Ego. All of it got in the way. She knew firsthand. These were her flaws, too, and it made her hate Victoria even more.

  When they entered the next street, two men charged toward them.

  “Where are the others?” Melanie yelled, but they didn’t reply. Their eyes were unfocused.

  “Ven-bitten. They’re Berserkers,” Lithia said, aiming her stun rifle and firing. Each man took two hits before falling.

  Melanie knelt next to one of the unconscious men. “They were part of the group we sent. We’ll get them on our way back. The others must be up ahead.” Melanie called over her communicator, but received no answer. She put one hand on her hip and wiped the sweat from her forehead with the other.

  “Do you know where they were checking? Going for family?” Brian asked.

  Melanie snapped her fingers. “The Bear Complex.”

  “The what?” Lithia asked.

  “Look at the doors,” Brian said.

  Lithia obeyed. She’d been too distracted by the Berserkers to notice it, but all the housing units had images painted on their doors to distinguish them. A lily, a rodent of some kind, a bug. She didn’t see any bears, though. Melanie was already leading the way through an alley to another row of buildings.

  The chaos that had felt distant only moments ago was now before her eyes. The screaming got louder. They were running toward the gunfire. On the ground was a door painted with a bear standing upright on its hind legs. Lithia presumed it belonged to the building that had a gaping hole for an entrance.

  She looked down at her knife. This was not going to go well.

  As soon as she entered the building, she could smell the blood. It was dark despite the glowglobes. She couldn’t hear anything. The Vens should be making more noise than this.

  “Split up. Look for survivors,” Melanie muttered. The complex had housed four families, so the six of them split into teams of two. Brian and Lithia took the lower left apartment and two of the Ficarans took the lower right. Melanie and the other Ficaran headed upstairs.

  After a thorough search, Brian and Lithia returned to the base of the stairs. They’d found no one, but the others had found a family hiding across the hall.

  “Let’s head upstairs and help Melanie check the other apartment,” Brian said.

  Lithia nodded, but didn’t say what was on her mind. If there was still a family hiding here, the other team had probably never made it. They were more than likely dead.

  Lithia gagged when they reached the top of the stairs. She had never seen so much blood in her life. One of the families had tried to escape, and had been cut down at the top of the stairs by the Vens. Lithia heard Melanie’s voice coming from the apartment on the right.

  “It’s not safe outside, but it’s not safe in here either. We’ve got to go.”

  Lithia couldn’t hear the response, but she could hear Melanie getting frustrated.

  A call came from downstairs. “Vens in the street! We need to move.”

  Brian raced past the grisly scene into the apartment, leaving Lithia at the top of the stairs. There was crying, then a shrill scream, but Brian reappeared dragging a young woman behind him, followed by Melanie and the other Ficaran, along with several children.

  Lithia ran ahead of them. One of the Ficarans downstairs was glancing around the corner of the doorframe, motioning for the woman to quiet down. Brian put a hand over her mouth, but that only alarmed her into another high-pitched, albeit muffled, scream.

  That was all it took to attract unwanted Ven attention. The Ficaran popped out of the doorway and began firing into the street. Melanie and her team swept into action.

  “Lithia, stay with them,” Melanie ordered.

  Lithia was about to object, but she got it. Someone had to keep these people relatively calm, and she was the least armed of them all. It made sense. She knew it made sense. It still bothered her how relieved she felt to be out of the fray. Then she came to her senses. It would only delay the inevitable. The sobbing woman was too loud. Lithia slapped her hard across the face.

  “Get a grip and shut up. You’re going to get your family killed.”

  The slap seemed to shock her into silence, right before she threw up at the base of the stairs. She was quiet after that.

  “Stay here,” Lithia said. She was going to look out into the street, see if she could do anything to help.

  Out in the road, there were three Vens. Three against five, but her friends were surrounded. The Vens absorbed a few shots, then all charged inward at the same time. There was nothing Brian and the others could do but dodge. It became clear that the Vens were expecting this. A Ficaran fighter dodged the Ven that headed straight toward her, but didn’t see the one coming from the other direction. It struck her in the head with its club, and she fell to the ground. Lithia watched for movement, but the woman didn’t stir.

  Lithia looked around the street. There were other bodies. It was hard to tell in the dull yellow light of the glowglobes, but… yes. There. Two buildings down, a dead man, his handgun on the ground near his outstretched hand. Lithia sprinted for it.

  It wasn’t until the weapon was in her hand that she stopped to wonder how much ammo it still had. It looked like the Ven closest to the Bear Complex had been momentarily distracted by her break, and had opened its position to keep an eye both on her and the four remaining fighters. It was just enough to give Brian and the others the chance to fall back into a more favorable position. They were no longer surrounded. They each took a few more shots, except for Brian, who had only the pila blade, but clearly they were trying to conserve ammo. Lithia joined them and took two shots of her own. Both found purchase, but barely they made a difference in the Ven she hit. One of the men had managed two head shots in the same Ven, enough to disorient it. Another Ven charged, but Melanie sent it reeling backward with a bolt from the harpoon gun.

  Unfortunately, she had only hit it in the shoulder, and it looked angry at this new wound. The others did, too. Even the disoriented Ven looked like it was about to rip them apart.

  At that moment, Melanie’s communicator came to life. It was Colm, calling a retreat. Then Lithia heard the shuttles coming in overhead, and she felt cautiously hopeful. Victoria was on her way back.

  It had been enough last night to send the Vens into a retreat. Maybe they would get lucky again.

  A shrill growl, impossibly loud, rang out through the town. The three Vens before them joined in before rushing off into the darkness.

  “What just happened?” Melanie asked.

  “They’re retreating again,” one of the fighters said.

  “I don’t think so. We need to go now. Victoria might buy us enough time to get out of here,” Lithia said.

  They herded the two families out of the complex and retraced their steps. They picked up the two Berserkers she had stunned earlier. They had reached the edge of the square when Melanie stopped them.

  “Victoria set down a few Flyers in the square, but it looks like most of the Vens came here, too,” she said. “It’s impossible to get inside the Temple. We’ll have to go around.”

  Lithia remembered well how the hangar opened up from the back of the Temple, but it was a long way down. The closer they stayed to the Temple, the steeper the incline. Further out, the slope was gradual, but there were more people and more Vens.

  She peered ahead into the square and took a few steps forward as Melanie and Brian argued about their plans. The lighting here was bett
er than in the streets, and the omnipresent Vens were a terrible rainbow of green interspersed with Ficarans. There were many more Ficarans. Lithia grimaced when she realized that was true of the fallen bodies as well. On the opposite side of the square, Victoria and Colm were fighting back to back, holding their ground in front of one of the remaining Flyers as Ficarans flocked inside. It wouldn’t be long before they joined in the retreat.

  That’s when Lithia saw him. A monstrous Ven, his sharp teeth bared, claws fully extended, his straight-edged plating black as tar. he was the same Ven from last night, and he seemed to be staring at her again.

  Lithia tightened her grip on her stun rifle. The Ven moved purposefully in her direction as if he remembered her. In the lighting, she got a better look at him. His plates looked thicker than most, and she noticed a small pale spot on his chest, lighter and greener than the rest of him. The scar from an old injury? What had broken straight through Ven plating? She stood paralyzed for a moment before stepping back.

  “Lithia, behind you!” Brian’s voice broke her out of her daze.

  Two Vens had found their way behind her, separating her from the rest of her group.

  Dammit. She was such an idiot. How did she let this happen?

  Another team of Vens was closing in on her friends and the families they had rescued. Their options were evaporating.

  “Go! I’ll meet you down at the bottom,” Lithia shouted.

  “You can’t take them by yourself,” Melanie said.

  “I know. I’m not going to try to fight them. I just need to dodge them. Go, before it’s too late.”

  “Melanie, take them to the hangar,” Brian said. “We’ll be right behind.”

  Before she could tell Brian to get the hell out with the others, the black Ven was on her. She wasn’t ready for him. The two Vens at her back at least seemed to be there to keep her contained rather than to attack, because her dodge was sloppy, putting her directly in their path. Around her, the Ficarans were disappearing into Flyers, leaving more Vens unoccupied. Most ran off into the town, but some stayed to besiege the final Flyer.

  Focus. You don’t need to win. This isn’t a fight. This is an escape. Get to the edge, and gravity will do the rest.

  Brian didn’t seem to have the same plan. He was trying engage one of the Vens at her back. By himself.

  The black Ven attacked again. This time her dodge took her in the right direction, but he gave her no time to recover before moving again. He was fast. How could something so large be so fast?

  Brian cried out in pain. She turned. He was still standing. Just a scratch.

  Another mistake. She was caught unawares, and the black Ven charged, swinging with all his strength. He would have hit her straight in the chest if something hadn’t hit him first.

  A bullet.

  Colm. She couldn’t believe it.

  He fired again, this time at the Ven fighting Brian. The Ven fell at once. This was their chance. Before the black Ven could recover, she sprinted toward Brian, taking a moment to glance down at the fallen Ven. Colm had hit it straight in the eye. Effective. There was no time for gratitude. Colm was inside the final Flyer, and the door was closing.

  She hit Brian, who was stationary, at a run and the two stumbled over the edge, tumbling and rolling a good part of the way down.

  Lithia groaned. Her body felt like one giant bruise, but there was no time to lose. Shuttles were leaving the hangar, one after the other. They needed to be on the next one.

  Lithia was dismayed to find that the hangar was practically empty. Just a few shuttles remained to take the Ficarans away. There were a few people arguing with one of the soldiers. Now that Lithia and Brian had arrived, Melanie ran up to join the conversation.

  “These are for the soldiers. Victoria’s orders. We can take you and those four,” the soldier said, gesturing to the two fighters and the two unconscious Berserkers. “The other Flyers will be coming back for a second run.”

  “There won’t be a second run. If we don’t all get out of here now, we’ll die,” Melanie said.

  “I have my orders,” he said. He tightened his grip on his gun. That wasn’t a good sign.

  “Fine,” she said. She turned to the two fighters. “Take the other two and go.” Each fighter supported one of the unconscious men and dragged them on to the shuttle.

  Melanie threw up her hands and stalked away.

  “Melanie,” Brian said, waving her back towards him.

  “Don’t even start,” she said as she marched up. “I’m not leaving you here.”

  “But—”

  “We’re getting out of here together.” There was a finality in her tone that reminded Lithia of Dione. Melanie was a true friend.

  “What about that one?” He nodded over toward a battered-looking shuttle in the corner.

  “That thing is as likely to crash as fly,” Melanie said. “I needed more time to fix it.”

  “So you’re saying it’s fifty-fifty?” Brian said.

  “I’m saying we need to be on one of those working Flyers,” Melanie pointed back toward the well-guarded shuttles. “We could try the stables, but the maximutes are gone, I’m sure, and the machi, too. We could try on foot…”

  “That’s suicide. Maybe Victoria’s Flyers, in the square…”

  “We’d never make it. What is she doing?” Melanie asked.

  Lithia was already heading over to damaged shuttle. She could not believe that this mess would fly, until she saw its designation. N-8.

  “Hello, Nate. It’s good to see you.” Lithia smiled. It wasn’t much, but it was something. And she could work with something.

  18. LITHIA

  Lithia scrolled through the battered Flyer’s systems. Things didn’t look so bad. Nate, you are wonderful. I may just name one of Dione’s unborn children after you. The Ficarans had done a good job of prioritizing system repairs.

  Stabilizers were fine, but high altitudes were still out of the question. Navigation was completely shot. She wasn’t sure how they would make it back to the Mountain Base, but really, anywhere but here seemed like an improvement.

  Lithia was feeling downright optimistic until she realized why Melanie had been so skeptical. Nate’s thrust was just barely in the green. Minimal power. She wasn’t even sure she could get them off the ground.

  She had tuned out most of the chatter behind her, but when she turned, she saw the back of the shuttle was full of others the soldiers had turned away. One passenger was holding a crying baby.

  Every single one of them was more weight.

  “Listen up,” she shouted over the din. Much to her surprise, all the noises, except the steady cries of the baby, softened. “Everything that’s not essential needs to go. That means that unless it’s breathing, you throw it out the back. Weapons, personal items, storage containers—all of it. Unless we lose a serious amount of weight, we’re not going anywhere.”

  One of the fighters looked down at his gun, as if debating whether it counted. Brian got to him first.

  “When we get into the air, you won’t need it. Toss it,” he said.

  After that, everyone began tossing or sliding anything they could out the back. It was like Lithia’s closet method of cleaning—where she would shove all the mess out of sight—just without the closet.

  She fired up the engines. This was going to work. They were still too heavy, but just by a hair. They could make it.

  At that moment, Roy, the boy with the machi, ran up to the shuttle.

  Lithia groaned. “There’s no room. We’re too full as it is,” she said.

  “There’s plenty of room,” he said. She could understand his confusion. There was indeed plenty of space, but even the sixty kilos he weighed could trap them on the ground.

  “See if the soldiers will take you. They must have room for one more,” Brian said.

  “They’ve all left. The Vens are right behind me, please!”

  Brian turned to Lithia. The question was in his eye
s, but he wouldn’t say it out loud.

  The answer was no. It had to be no. She could hear the Vens’ growls growing closer. They had to leave. They couldn’t afford any more weight. They might all crash and die as it was.

  Instead of answering him, Lithia turned and took them up before Roy could jump on and doom them all. There were a few gasps of protest, but no one did anything to stop her. They wouldn’t.

  Lithia flew them out of the hangar, trying to blink away the image of Roy, his bright, blue eyes and blond hair, his mouth open in fear.

  Fear. Roy reminded her of her little brother, not because they looked anything alike. Her own brother had dark hair and dark eyes, just like her own, but she couldn’t shake the thought. She imagined leaving her own brother to the mercy of the Vens.

  You could have made room. You could have found a way.

  But not in time. She knew that she had made the right choice. At least, she would keep telling herself that until she believed it.

  She felt tears well up in her eyes, but refused to let them fall. She didn’t cry, and she wasn’t going to start now, not when she had more important things to do like keep this shuttle in the air.

  She saw others fleeing across the plain on foot and on machi. She also saw the dark green bulk of Vens chasing them. This is what the Vens lived for.

  She could keep Nate airborne for a while longer at least. They had made it off the ground, but the shuttle was heavy and flying low. She had worried about the navigation, but that was irrelevant. They were slowly losing altitude. They were not going to make it to the Mountain Base, and she had ten, maybe fifteen minutes, to figure out the best way to crash. For the third time in just a few days. It was not the skill she had planned to improve this trip, but it certainly kept coming in handy.

  “Brian,” she said. She looked at him and could see the agony spread across his features. He felt responsible for Roy, too. “Brian, focus. We’re losing altitude. Where should we land?”

  “What?”

  “We need to land somewhere. Preferably not on trees. The thrusters are failing.”