by Craig Allen
“So where is this Dutchman anyway?” Sonja asked.
“Fifty klicks northwest,” Deveau said.
“That’s pretty far,” Cody said.
“Could’ve been a couple of thousand klicks,” Bodin said. “We got lucky.” He nodded to Sonja. “What do you wanna do, Gunny?”
Sonja peered toward the northwest. “Deveau, can you contact the bridge-sat?”
Deveau shook his head. “Negative. And now I know why. This isn’t our bridge-sat.”
“What?” Sonja stood by Deveau and stared at his viewer. “Whose is it? Not…”
Deveau pointed at a corner of the image on the viewer. “This bridge-sat has been deployed for over ten years.”
The chronometer ticked off seconds, minutes… and years.
“We’re looking at Kali’s bridge-sat?” Anne said. “Why is it contacting us?”
“Looks like an automated response,” Deveau said. “I think the bridge-sat waited until it detected a UEAF device trying to access. Once it detected our signal, it sent a response notifying us precisely where it is.”
“That ain’t right,” Bodin said. “They wouldn’t set it up like that in a time of war.”
“Why not?” Cody said. “Wouldn’t they want to be found?”
“Look, clue,” Bodin said. “When you’re at war, you don’t just announce yourself to every swinging dick, ‘hey, I’m right here.’”
“Must have been unusual circumstances,” Deveau said. “Don’t know what, though.” He looked at Sonja. “If this is the Kali’s bridge-sat and the Kali is here, then maybe we can use the transmitter on board to send a rescue signal. It won’t accept commands from me for some reason. Whoever set it up designed it that way.”
“So we have to go there if want to contact home,” Jim said.
Sonja gazed northwest again. “Looks like we’re going on a little nature hike.”
~~~
Cody kept the visual representation of their course on his HUD on the interior of his visor. The distance readout ticked down ever so slowly, and they had covered only two of the fifty kilometers. Cody switched the display to meters. The number shrank significantly more quickly, and it comforted him briefly. He winced at the five-digit number that was scarcely smaller than it had been before.
Light amplification and spectrum sweepers helped filter out much of the haze. Sometimes, small yellow clouds dropped to the ground then drifted upward again, regardless of the wind patterns. The suit, Cody had learned, sent out sonar, radar, and lidar, plus full spectrum passive systems. Those systems recorded every hill, bump, and pebble within a hundred meters, or they should have anyway—his didn’t.
Anne said something in the rocks was causing his suit’s malfunction. Iron and similar elements saturated everything, giving the ground a reddish color in addition to creating magnetic anomalies that interfered with their suits’ scanners. Cody did a quick scan. Gigantic chunks of iron, intermixed with iridium and other heavy metals, riddled the interior of the hill. Harmonic scans and spectography revealed numerous rare metals, as well. A few hundred years ago, it would have been a prospector’s dream.
Sonja insisted that they march in two columns, staggered about five meters apart. It seemed a sensible formation. No one blocked anyone else’s field of vision. Cody took a position in the middle of one column, keeping an eye out on his sector, which meant everything in a ninety-degree arc to his left. Bodin chastised him every time he looked elsewhere.
A warning flashed up on Cody’s HUD. Potential precipitation. He turned to the direction indicated on his HUD. Starting on the horizon, the yellowish clouds turned a deep green along the edges and dark gray along the interior. The gray marched across the sky like an infection, consuming the yellow clouds as it moved straight toward them.
“Oh, God,” Anne said. “Look at the hopper.”
Cody fumbled with the magnification. When he managed to get it zoomed in, the view jumped back and forth a few times before Cody figured out how to stabilize it. Once he did, he almost wanted to swear himself.
The tide had crept inward, nearly covering the hopper. As amazing as it was that the tide came in so quickly, it didn’t compare with what happened around the hopper.
The water churned, creating waves that his HUD measured at around twenty centimeters high. Spilling from the ocean, thousands of the dart creatures swarmed the hopper. And the sea itself seemed to boil, but the tiny dart creatures weren’t causing it. Sand stirred along the shore, shooting up into the air in columns. The force behind the disturbance moved inland. Red dust flew a meter or more into the air, and the commotion moved closer to them. Finally, Cody’s HUD finished the analysis. He could scarcely believe it.
Jim must’ve done a similar analysis. “That’s some big goddamn raindrops.”
“Contact.” Deveau stood on the hilltop and pointed. Cody rushed up the side of the hill, trailing behind the others. Not a hundred meters away stood more of the dish-like trees. His HUD indicated they rose over sixty meters in the air, and the large dish leaves turned slowly to face the storm rushing toward them. They were large enough to provide cover.
“Double-time it.” Sonja sprinted, and the rest followed. Everyone breathed heavily. Anne’s breathing was the most noticeable, but she didn’t sound exhausted. Glancing over her shoulder, she started to hyperventilate. Cody dared a glance himself. The storm cloud created a shadow that was sweeping closer and closer. The rain kicked dirt into the air as it came closer.
The inside of Cody’s helmet started to fog up, but his suit compensated. Cody tried not to stumble as he darted around rocks that the others jumped over. Even with the nanos in his system trying to provide more oxygen and the suit actuators trying to compensate for the higher gravity, he couldn’t get up enough speed.
The red reeds pulled themselves into the ground, leaving a bare landscape ahead. The locals obviously knew what would happen when the rain came. Cody hoped he wouldn’t find out.
“You gotta hurry, Doc!” Jim slowed a bit to let Cody catch up.
Cody tried to spit out words while wheezing.
Jim pointed at his thumb. “Adjust it to point eight g’s! Do it now!”
Cody rubbed his thumb against his index finger. The gravity display appeared on his HUD, and he adjusted it. As he did, his feet became lighter. He leaped over a half-meter-high boulder with ease and then charged forward, catching up with the others.
The shadow of the storm washed over them like an eclipse. Lightning arced between clouds. His suit filtered out the deafening thunder even as the rumble rippled through his body. The excitement of the run had evaporated completely. Only the mad dash for cover remained. Raindrops thumped behind Cody, like baseballs falling from the sky.
Sonja shouted at him on his comm. “Move it, Cody!”
The others had already reached the forest. Something smashed into his shoulder. The impact gel hardened in response, but it still made Cody stumble. Rain kicked dust into the air around him as it started in earnest.
Cody reached for the small indicator on his thumb. He took three more steps toward a large rock in front of him. On the other side, he placed his foot against the rock and activated the controls, dropping the effective gravity to half a g. He thrust himself forward. The suit actuators launched him through the air like a ballista bolt. He sailed in an arc for the cover of the dish-trees.
Bodin swore as Cody flew past and into the depths of the forest. He crashed into the thick trunk of a tree. His suit froze as the gel absorbed as much of the impact as it could. Reeds under the trees retreated into the ground. He lay there, trying to catch his breath.
“Cody!” Footsteps bounded over, and before long, Sonja stood over him. “Doc, you all right?”
“Unh,” Cody remarked. He started to stand, but the pain changed his mind.
“Guess you got the hang of running.” Jim reached down and picked up Cody. “Now you have to work on stopping without getting yourself killed.”
“No
shit,” Bodin said. “Clue, you definitely pushing the limits of that suit.”
“Hey, he made it okay, right?” Anne went over to him and nudged his shoulder with her fist. The gel hardened briefly in response. Cody gave her a smile and then adjusted the simulated gravity of his suit back to point eight, in case they needed to run again.
The dish-tree above them provided cover from the rain, which poured like a waterfall from the sky. Dirt washed away in the torrent, revealing reddish brown rock underneath. Cody wondered how much metal rested under their feet.
The tree that sheltered them sat on the edge of an immense forest of large dish-trees. Its massive leaf was cupped toward the rainstorm. The tree did, in fact, consist of a single leaf, rather than many smaller ones. Its underside rippled as rain pounded the leaf. The black trunk at the base of the leaf cover seemed unaffected, but about five meters below the leaf, the trunk changed color. Patches turned red, then purple, and then red again. Cody put his hand on the truck, feeling the tree vibrate steadily.
“It’s funneling the water through the trunk,” Cody said.
Jim gestured at the dense fauna within the forest. “Looks like these guys don’t mind.”
“Well, they probably benefit from it,” Cody said. “But why would the tree do it?”
“Who cares?” Bodin asked.
“Well, I do, for one,” Cody said. “We are on an unexplored world. Doesn’t this fascinate any of you?”
Sonja stared out over the landscape as the rain hammered it. “This unexplored world killed most of the crew. Kind of ruins my sense of wonder, you know.”
“I understand,” Cody said. “I do, really. I lost friends, too, remember? It’s just that… well, it just seems like a good idea to get to know this place.”
“Know your enemy and know yourself.” Anne raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I get that.”
“This place’s got some mean critters,” Deveau said. “That’s all I need to know.”
The torrent slackened to a dull roar. After a few minutes, it stopped. The dark sky grew brighter, and then finally, the gray gave way to the yellowish-white it was before.
“Well, shit,” Jim said. “That was fast.”
“Yeah, I’m not going to complain.” Sonja gestured at Deveau. “Get us back on course.”
“I’m on it.” Deveau stepped out from under the tree and then stopped. “What the—”
Jim glanced over Deveau’s shoulder. “What, you break it?”
Deveau glared at him. “No, it just started.” He brought up a holo of his readouts.
Cody interfaced with Deveau’s suit. Small, three-dimensional bars danced on a chart in his HUD, indicating magnetic anomalies. All bounced minimally, except for a few that towered some eight centimeters high. The indicators glowed bright red.
“What is that?” Anne asked.
“Magnetic disturbance,” Deveau said. “I’ve been reading that all day, but not like this. Planet’s probably got one hell of a core.”
“There’s so much metallic ore around, I’m not surprised,” Cody said.
Deveau shook his head. “That’s the thing, though. The activity just now started.” He frowned. “And now I’m having trouble locking in on the Kali signal.”
“Is the signal being jammed?” Sonja asked.
“I don’t think so. I don’t see a pattern, but… shit, where’s it coming from?”
A trilling started as a low rumble just above human hearing then slowly grew in pitch. It seemed to come from everywhere. The magnetic readings increased with the sound. Cody put his hand on the tree again, and it quivered in response.
“Well, shit,” Deveau said. “It’s the trees.”
The rumble continued to grow, spreading from tree to tree. It sounded almost like growling. Above, the dish leaves swayed, but the wind had died down completely once the storm disappeared. The swaying grew more pronounced, as did the trilling.
“Uh, Gunny,” Jim said, “May I suggest we un-ass the area.”
“Yeah.” Sonja stared deep into the underbrush of the forest. Not only were the trees shaking, but the undergrowth was also. Everything shivered. “Yeah, let’s—”
Something wrapped around Cody, pinning his arms and squeezing so hard that he couldn’t move. The impact armor stiffened, protecting him from the crushing grasp. With his eyes, Cody traced the tentacle as it pulled him closer to the tree trunk.
The black portion of the trunk before him unraveled, showing the purple-and-red portion of the tree trunk underneath. That black canopy wasn’t part of the tree. It was another creature altogether.
The black creature stretched out to the sides. It resembled a ten-meter-wide bat. Two claws held on to the trunk tightly, and a larger third claw held Cody fast. The wide, flat body—almost like a single, giant wing—relaxed, drooping to either side of Cody. The creature hanging in the tree didn’t seem to have eyes or ears, or anything resembling sensory organs. It had a sort of mound that might have been a head. Light reflected off a thin part of the creature, as if it had a metal plate attached. An opening appeared in the middle of the mound, revealing rows of reddish-black teeth. Its mouth was large enough to swallow him.
A staccato rattle shook the air, and then Cody fell to the ground ten meters below. The impact gel locked into position when he hit the ground. He lay there, trying to catch his breath. Something grabbed his suit. He swatted at it wildly, until he heard a familiar voice.
“Doc, it’s me.” Jim lifted Cody and then holstered his coil rifle in his bandoleer on his back. “Time to move.”
He pulled Cody to his feet. Cody followed Jim and the others as they raced out from under the satellite tree. Behind him, something heavy flapped in the wind. All reason left him. He was being controlled entirely by the most primitive part of his brain, a part he shared with all lower animals. Fear drove him—fear of being eaten alive.
A squeal from behind prompted his suit to automatically sort through a database of countless sounds recorded on God knew how many worlds. The suit’s AI couldn’t even come up with a basic profile of what had made the sound. Curiosity gradually overcame the fear that had hold of him, and he turned.
One by one, dozens of black bats far larger than any creature had a right to be rose above the forest. Each hovered over the dish trees, as if waiting for the others to become airborne. Their wings fluttered lazily in the thick air, steadily carrying their bodies higher, to make room for the others leaving their perches.
Cody tripped over a piece of iron ore that had protruded from the ground after the recent downpour had washed away much of the topsoil. His suit detected his sudden loss of balance and helped him correct it. Even in the heavy gravity, he managed to catch himself. The others ran a few steps ahead of him. Adrenaline helped him keep up with them.
The giant bats had stopped emerging from the forest. Their large black wings flapped in unison, pushing them farther skyward. Cody’s suit analyzed their movement and placed trajectories in his HUD. The bats had risen over a hundred meters above the ground and moved steadily toward the group, not fast enough to overtake them in any meaningful amount of time.
“I think we’re going to be okay,” Cody said.
“That’s no reason to stop, Doc,” Jim said. “Look.”
The giant bats took up wedge formations as they opened into large oval shapes. A gust of wind caught them and carried them off like parachutes. They picked up speed quickly, heading straight for the group.
“Oh, God,” Cody said.
“Don’t panic, Doc.” Jim held up the display on his wrist. “Check the topography.”
Cody quickly pulled up the suit’s sonar and radar. A map appeared in front of him. Past a large boulder ahead of them was a cave large enough for all of them to fit.
“We’re home free, Doc,” Jim said. “Let’s get moving before—”
The staccato of rifle fire cut Jim off. Sonja and Bodin both fired into the air, but not quickly enough.
Cody was staring rig
ht at Jim when a large black shape covered his vision for a split second, and then Jim was airborne. The bat sailed in its flattened shape just a meter off the ground, carrying him. He shouted, and then his head slammed against a large iron rock. His helmet popped off and flew ten meters before the heavy gravity pulled it to an unnatural stop. The bat opened up again into a parachute. The wind caught it and pushed it into the sky. Bright red covered much of the rock.
Cody slid to a stop and stared at where Jim had been. He vaguely heard the roar of gunfire as his eyes remained fixed on the red stain left by Jim’s head. Bile rose in his throat. The suit detected it and prepared its filtration system to absorb, process, and reuse the water from it, but Cody forced it back. Something brushed against him. He hit the ground to avoid it, his suit hardening with the impact. He struggled as a foot stood on his arm. The gel hardened in response.
“Hold still, goddamn it!”
A bat creature spiraled toward them. Sonja opened up on it with the coil rifle. Twenty rounds a second easily cut it in half. The purple blood and liquefied internal organs fell on them in buckets. The gore slid off Cody’s faceplate. By design, nothing stuck to the outside of the clear helmet.
Sonja pulled him to his feet. “Move it, Doc!”
“Jim,” Cody said. “My God, he—”
“I know. What the fuck do you want me to do about it?” Sonja fired her rifle at another creature, shaving off one of its wings. The wing unfolded into a semicircular veil as it fell away from the body. The dying beast spiraled downward and landed with a splash, spewing innards across the reddish rocks.
The rest of the creatures screeched in unison and then flapped their massive wings. They gathered into wedge formations once more as they sailed off into the sky, disappearing into the yellow clouds.
“Guess they learned their lesson.” Bodin grabbed Cody by the shoulder. “Doc, you hurt?”
“Jim,” Cody said. “You… you have to help him. He’s—”
