by Erica Rue
“All right, Dione, I want you to take the Marauder,” he said. “You’ve been on it before. You’ll be heading to the energy hub, pulling the power, and making sure you’ve taken out back up power to the transmissions array.”
“Bel, you coming with me?” Dione asked.
“No, I’m going with the professor. I want to download the datacore from the Invader.”
“Can’t you just download the Marauder’s datacore?”
“No,” Bel said, “its datacore is much more limited. I want to see if we can find evidence to support my Ven hypothesis.”
Once again, Dione tried to imagine what a creature that hunted Vens would look like. She shuddered. “No offense, but I hope you’re wrong about it.”
She looked over Bel’s shoulder to Brian, who gave her a hopeful grin. Dione rolled her eyes. Guess there’s no escaping him now.
They arrived near the tree line and crouched behind a copse of trees. There was a group of Vens patrolling directly in front of the ships. A few of them looked like they were sparring.
“I thought you said a handful. There must be a dozen,” Dione said.
“Baker’s dozen,” Bel corrected. Dione had missed one hanging back closer to the ships.
“That’s what Sam said. It’s possible she missed some,” the professor whispered.
“We need a diversion,” Brian said, running his hand through his loose hair, pulling it back into a bun. “Looks like you won’t have to put up with me after all.” He looked right at Dione before jogging off down the forest line.
“Brian,” she whispered, but she didn’t dare shout. He was going to die. He didn’t even have Canto! Was this her fault? Was he trying to impress her or make amends? She might not want to kiss him anymore, but she didn’t want him to die.
Heart-pounding minutes passed while she watched the hulking, green monsters. She wouldn’t be able to see Brian, but she would be able to tell from their reaction when he reappeared from the woods.
One of the Vens’ heads snapped up, and he growled. The others joined in his growling. She still didn’t see Brian on the open plain, but maybe they had spotted him in the woods. Before he was ready. Please don’t let him die.
The Vens formed up and armed themselves with their clubs. A few even put on strange-looking helmets. They were black and gleamed in the late morning sun with long, cape-like attachments fitted to the back. Their thick straps fastened in the front, creating a giant X, a useless bull’s-eye on the Vens’ impenetrable chests.
“What is that? It’s like a breastplate, except…” Dione began.
“It’s a back plate. Vens know where their natural armor is weakest,” Bel said. Dione realized that with the armor, it would be nearly impossible to shove a blade between the typically vulnerable back plates to sever the neural connections like she had done before.
The Vens rushed off to the right, in the same direction Brian had gone. A dozen Vens. Dione could barely breathe. They would kill him in a heartbeat once they found him. Was there something she could do? Create a distraction, perhaps, that wouldn’t give them away? Her mind raced, and she was so engrossed in her planning that she jumped when Brian reappeared between her and Bel.
“What are you doing?” Dione yelped. She turned to see if the Vens had followed Brian back. They were still charging in the opposite direction. “What are they doing? I thought they were chasing you.”
“You’re not going to believe it,” Brian began, but before he could finish, her eyes told her the story.
Sprinting across the field was a group of twenty maximutes, maybe more, each with a rider. This must be the Aratian cavalry. At their front was a dark-haired man whom she assumed was Michael.
They were chasing a few Vens across the field, determined in their pursuit, and she dared to hope. She had seen what maximutes were capable of, and she thought the cavalry could take care of these Vens. If the cavalry was surprised to find more enemies here, she couldn’t tell in the darkness. The maximutes pressed on, and the dozen Vens who had been blocking the way to the ships rushed to meet the approaching force.
“Come on, this is our opportunity,” Professor Oberon said. Without further discussion, he led Bel to the Invader, while Brian and Dione dashed to the Marauder.
***
She felt cold. She was about to go back onto the Venatorian ship that had attacked them a few days ago, but this time, she was prepared. Dione led the way through the vessel’s twists and turns. The layout was beginning to make sense to her since she’d actually had the opportunity to study it.
Dione stopped when they emerged in a large, circular room. The energy hub. It was the heart of the vessel, pumping power through every ship system. She felt exposed under its high ceiling and overwhelmed by all of the monitors and control panels.
“First, we disrupt power to the transmissions array,” she said, standing in front of a panel with a lot of alien symbols on it. The professor had the only holo interface, and therefore, the only working translator. Dione had studied the few symbols that were public record by now, and Zane’s translation program had provided her with specific sequences that she would need. Actually using the program was tedious, though, because she had to input each individual symbol. Hence all the time spent the time memorizing what sequences she could.
Figuring out what everything did was still a nightmare. She scoured the console for the right sequences, but it was like trying to complete a word search of hieroglyphs. There was no pattern recognition that helped the words jump out at her.
Brian was staring over her shoulder at the panel. It was annoying. He didn’t have to be so close.
“What’s that one?” he asked, pointing to a cluster of symbols.
She recognized them. “How did you find them? That’s part of what we’ll need to shut down the power. Can you read that? When did you learn Venatorian?”
“I didn’t read it,” he replied. “I was looking for patterns.”
“But the Vens are completely alien. We don’t think the same. There shouldn’t be any patterns to pick up on.”
“Some things transcend language,” he argued.
Dione put her hands on her hips. “Our differences go far beyond language. They have a completely different way of thinking, of looking at the universe.”
“Maybe they’re not as different as you think. One plus one is always two, right?”
She didn’t have time for this argument. “Whatever. Let’s just do this.” Now that she had the first sequence, she found the others easily. If anything about the Vens made sense, this would shut down power to the primary transmissions array and force any backups online.
Warning lights flashed on the panel. “It worked!” Dione said. “It looks like there’s a secondary array and… there it is! The auxiliary power.”
Dione smiled. This was going better than she thought. She’d be out of here, away from Brian, and back with the professor in no time.
Brian frowned at the panel. He looked around the energy hub, glancing in every direction.
“Did you hear something? A Ven?” Dione whispered.
Brian shook his head. “Here.” He pointed at one of the power readouts. “What’s this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Figure it out. It’s changed. Something else happened when you shut down the power. This is it.”
Of course she had to be the one to actually figure it out. It took Dione a minute to decipher enough symbols to get an idea of what was happening.
She stopped cold. There wasn’t much time. She checked the map in her manumed once to find her target, then sprinted out of the room. She could hear Brian’s feet pounding the floor behind her.
“What are you doing?” he shouted.
Dione didn’t bother to turn around. She just shouted back and hoped he could hear her.
“We tripped a failsafe. The secondary array is preparing to send a transmission. We can’t let the message send. It will lead more Vens straight to Kepos!
”
Brian must have heard because he blew by her in a burst of speed.
“Left!” she shouted after him.
He disappeared around the corner. They were almost there.
“Through that door,” she said, just before he passed it.
Panting, she entered the room. She pressed against the stitch in her side and advanced to help Brian who had barely broken a sweat.
The secondary array was in the corner.
“Argh! What does it say?” Brian pounded the console in frustration.
His world was at stake. Not his dreams, ambitions, or even his family. His entire world. If the colonists survived the current Ven attack, another assault would be too much. The Vens would know about the Icon.
Dione inspected the panel. She couldn’t read the symbols fast enough. This wasn’t about doubting herself. She knew her limitations. Based on her other translations, she’d need more than ten minutes, and they had less than one by now.
“I can’t,” she panted. “Not in time.”
He looked at her with such disappointment in his eyes that she broke his gaze. She looked down and caught sight of the pistol holstered at his hip.
“Brian, your gun!”
It had worked on the beacon in the woods. Maybe it would work now.
He drew the weapon and pointed it at the array controls, giving Dione just enough time to cover her ears.
He fired three successive shots, which clustered near the center of the panel. It went dark.
“Sam, are you detecting any signals from the Ven Marauder?”
There was a pause. Brian fired another shot before she had time to react.
“Stop it!” she said, flinching at the noise. Her ears were ringing. She wondered if he could even hear her, because her own voice sounded distant.
“Sam,” she tried again, shouting into her manumed. “Is the Ven Marauder transmitting?”
After a few moments, Sam replied. Her voice was muffled as if she was trying to talk to Dione underwater. “No, and the short-range communications have stopped as well.”
Dione smiled and gave Brian a thumbs-up. He looked relieved and rubbed one of his ears.
The moment of triumph was short-lived. If this had happened to them, would the same thing happen to the professor when he disabled the array on the Invader?
She called the professor and hoped she wasn’t shouting too loudly.
“Don’t disable the primary array. Over here it triggered the secondary array to start up automatically. It almost got a signal out.”
“Understood.” Professor Oberon’s voice, a little less murky than Sam’s, rang out over her manumed. “Dione, I need you over here if you’re finished.”
“On our way. What’s wrong?”
“There’s a Ven still on board, and I can’t reach Bel.”
35. LITHIA
The growling had started just before sunset. The Vens had arrived. Lithia could feel the vibrations on her skin, and when the growls crescendoed in volume and pitch, a shiver swept through her whole body despite the warmth of the night.
The moon was half full, and lights kept the darkness at bay with a patchwork quilt of illumination. The bright floodlights were aimed at the gate, and the town was lit by variously colored glowglobes. Most were softer yellows and pinks, though a few were blue. The green ones, however, gave Lithia the creeps. They reminded her of the infection that had nearly killed Bel.
Everyone who could fight was assembled by the gate, with the exception of the patrols walking the perimeter, watching for breaches. Luckily, the settlement was backed into an unscalable cliff, providing safety from that direction. Lithia couldn’t help feeling like they were backed up against a wall.
The fighters were divided into teams of four, and there wasn’t much mixing between Ficarans and Aratians. Despite death humming outside the walls, there was still mistrust and fear within.
Melanie found her staring hard at the ground.
“Want to partner up? No one should be alone,” she said.
“Sure,” Lithia answered. Zane was still tinkering away in the barn, and most of the others kept their distance from her. A few of the Ficarans had nodded to her, like they remembered her help at the Field Temple, but hadn’t asked her to join them. Lithia had never been picked last for any kind of team, and this feeling of isolation was almost as off-putting as the growling.
That’s when Lithia noticed that the growling had stopped. It won’t be long now.
“Lithia, wait!” A voice piped up in the silence.
Lithia sighed. Cora approached them, followed closely by the blond guy from earlier.
“Hi, Cora. This is Melanie.” Lithia turned to the blond guy. “And you’re Will, right?” He nodded, and she turned back to Cora. “I didn’t think they’d let you out for the fight.”
“This is my place,” Cora said, taking a deep breath. “With my people. It’s what my father would do if he were here.”
“Do you have any combat training?” Lithia asked. She felt ridiculous asking, because her own combat training amounted to a few trips to the shooting range and a lot of VR simulations.
“I have basic training with pila blades,” she said. Lithia could tell she was nervous.
Another guy with brown skin and intense dark eyes ran up behind Cora.
“Cora, you shouldn’t be out here,” he said. He gave Will a disapproving glance.
“And you are?” Lithia said. She might not think Cora should be out here either, but she wasn’t about to put up with the “girls are delicate flowers” crap, which is where it seemed like this was heading. Cora looked annoyed to see him.
“My name is Jai. I’m Cora’s intended Match.”
Lithia glanced from Jai to Will, then to Cora. She cracked a smile, which seemed to vex him.
“If you’re her intended Match, then it sounds like you don’t own her yet. So let her be,” Lithia said. “Sure, I think it’s stupid she’s out here, but everyone deserves the chance to be stupid, especially for a good cause.” Cora’s presence might give the Aratians confidence, at the very least.
“Own her? What are you talking about about?” Jai said.
Lithia put a finger to her lips. “Listen.”
Screams in the distance. One of the patrols.
“You don’t think they’ve crossed the walls already?” Will said.
“I won’t underestimate them. Come on,” she said to Melanie. Everyone followed.
A couple of teams were already on their way, but most stayed by the gates. Lithia was willing to bet that this was another distraction, just like the Vens had done at the Field Temple, but it was worth checking out.
Once they reached the edge of the buildings, there were no more glowglobes except those on the wall. Lithia couldn’t be sure, but she thought that a few were missing, because of their uneven distribution. She wished the Vens hadn’t picked this side. It was lightly wooded, which obscured any moving figures, while the other side of the settlement was open. Melanie had a headlamp, but other than that, they had only moonlight, which failed to penetrate the summer foliage.
“This is where the people in green cloaks left from,” Will said.
“How?” Lithia asked. “Is there a breach in the wall?”
“No, we sealed it earlier, after they left,” he replied.
“What were you two doing out here?” Jai said looking from Cora to Will.
This was getting awkward. “Jai, friend.” Lithia patted his shoulder. “Now’s not the time or the place.”
“We were with Evy looking for weak spots in the wall,” Cora said, all the same.
Lithia smiled at the mention of Evy, who was safe inside the Temple with her aunt.
They had just entered the wooded area, and Lithia could see nothing. She tripped over a root and nearly knocked over Melanie before regaining her balance on a nearby tree.
“Ow, what the—” Melanie said, turning back to look at the obstacle, casting the beam of her headl
amp on the ground. She squeaked in surprise and recoiled with the rest of them.
A body, Aratian by the look of the clothes. Lithia wished Melanie would look away. Her light illuminated the dead man’s fear-widened eyes and the blood still trickling from an open throat. It was clearly the work of Vens. Cora managed not scream, but Lithia could hear her sniffing, trying to hold in her tears.
“They’re here. Come on,” Lithia said. “Back to the others.”
“No,” Will said. “We need to check the gate.”
Melanie notified Victoria of the body on her comm device, but warned her it could be a diversion. “Another team is on its way,” she said.
Will forged ahead and pulled a miniature glowglobe from his pocket, examining the wall. “Here,” he said, pointing to a symbol, a triangle with a spiral, carved into the wall. Next to it was a hidden gate, still ajar. “We sealed this. These are tool marks! Someone must have come here after us and reopened it.”
“From the inside?” Jai asked. “Why would someone do that?”
“Vens aren’t the first evil that people have worshiped,” Lithia said. “And they won’t be the last. It doesn’t matter right now. We need to find those Vens. I don’t hear gunfire, so it doesn’t sound like they’ve gone to our main force.”
“Then what are they doing?” Will asked. “Why aren’t more coming in through this breach?”
As much as she didn’t want to, Lithia thought back to the attack at the Field Temple and quickly found her answer. “Sowing chaos. They’re going to find victims to bite and create confusion before sending the rest in.”
“But if they’re not heading for our soldiers…” Jai began, but stopped as he realized the answer to his question.
“The town. We need to go now,” Lithia said. As they ran back through the trees, Lithia got Victoria on her manumed. “Victoria, there’s at least one pack of Vens inside the walls. Do you see anything in the town?”
There was a long pause, and just before Lithia tried her again, she heard the sharp crack of Victoria’s sniper rifle before she answered. “Two of them just entered the market. I just shot a third in the chest, and that slowed him down. They’ve got on some kind of helmets, though, that extend down their backs. If you can lead them out in the open, I’ll be able to get a better shot. This new armor makes head shots nearly impossible, so you’ll still have to take them down while they’re injured.”
