Hybrid: A Space Opera Adventure Series (The New Dawn Book 4)

by Valerie J Mikles

  Danny tested the yoke, turning inland. He felt the blast of a thruster, and let out a breath of relief. With their path steadied, the drones seemed to part and make way for them, but the proximity sensors told him they were sticking close.

  “Saskia?” he called.

  “The landing gear is stuck,” Saskia reported, ever terse.

  “That’s what the grav-drive is for,” Sky commented.

  “There’s nowhere. It’s all trees!” Hawk cried, slamming the console with his fist.

  “Keep calm, Hawk. Don’t decide against hope. Keep hoping ‘til you die from it. Keep your eyes open, and a way out will present itself,” Danny said, forcing bravado for Hawk’s sake. He sniffled and looked sadly at the world, seeing emptiness where he’d once found wonder. The cycle of depression and exhaustion had left him emotionally raw.

  “Without landing gear, how are we going to glide in?” Hawk ranted. “We’ll break the ship!”

  Danny blinked away clouds of moisture in his eyes. The green trees blurred and a pale brown circle appeared. The land was open and barren—a plateau in the midst of the hills. “I see the plateau.”

  “Where?” Hawk demanded.

  Danny turned the ship toward the brown spot on the hillside. There was a black dome in the middle of it, like a scorch mark on the surface of the planet. The barren land extended for a few miles, encircled by a forest.

  “There, where the trees are leveled,” Danny said. “It’s small, but it’ll do.”

  “What is that?” Hawk asked. Danny worried that it would be steeped like a crater, but there were no trees, and that was the best option he had. He sniffled again, the peace he felt at sacrificing himself shifting into a firm resolve to live.

  “Nothing’s growing there. It’s like a beach was put there just for us,” he said.

  “Captain, if nothing’s growing there, maybe we should think twice about going, too,” Hawk said. “It could be poisoned, like the one that got you sick before.”

  “Help Saskia with that landing gear,” Danny suggested, keeping his eye on the goal. “Sky, I’ve found your city.”

  “It’s filled with ghosts,” Hawk said, backing off of the bridge.

  “I think those are more drones, Hawk. Sky, can you control the grav-drive enough to get us down?” Danny asked.

  “We’ll be going down like a feather,” she promised. “Possibly a feather in a vacuum tube, but a feather.”

  The blast through the Spirit Realm felt like a gust of wind. Kerris instinctively clamped his hands over the greens he was chopping so that they wouldn’t get blown away, and felt stupid when he realized the wind gust wasn’t physical.

  “Liza?” he called, checking to see if she’d felt it too. The inexplicable breezes and energy waves gave Kerris hope that something else was moving through there and one day they’d find others like them.

  “Liza?” he called again, going to her room. The bed was empty, and Kerris smiled in relief. Wherever she’d gotten off to, at least she was out of bed, though she’d left her shoes behind. Kerris noticed movement outside. The airship had circled back and was visible through the crack in the Dome wall again.

  Cocking his head, Kerris marveled at the unnatural motion of the ship. Rather than the linear path it held before, the ship wobbled in the sky, swaying side to side like a toy on a string. Then he saw the drones colliding with its hull in tiny explosions of light and debris. Kerris pushed the drones aside, but still the ship careened toward the Dome. He moved a cloud under the ship and it spun about, leaving a corkscrew of smoke behind it. Biting his lip, Kerris decided that he did not know enough about what kept the airship aloft to help. The ship was falling out of the sky and headed straight for the Dome!

  “Liza!” Kerris shouted, leaping out the window in his sister’s bedroom and scanning the dirt for her footprints. A janitor droid must have wiped them away.

  “Droid, emergency! Isolate the newcomers!” he shouted. A greeter bot at the corner of the block took notice of the command, but didn’t respond with urgency. Kerris reached out telepathically. Liza, they’re coming! Hide!

  No response.

  Feeling ripples of hot air as the ship raced toward the Dome, Kerris threw a mass of air at the ship to keep it from crashing through the gate. The airship somersaulted, then began a lazy, swaying decent, like a feather falling to the ground. It touched down with a rumble and sent a shockwave through the air that knocked Kerris off his feet. The already copious spider fractures in the Dome wall spread higher and wider, and a piece of the gate broke off.

  Liza? He kept calling with his mind, but Liza never responded. He knew she’d brought them here. The giant vessel outside smelled of fire and chemicals, and he could feel the heat radiating from the hull. It reminded him of Boone in the height of the war. There were holes in the hull and exposed mechanics everywhere. Kerris’ hope for rescue disintegrated. He pushed the gate closed to keep the smoke out of his city.

  “Liza, what have you done?”

  4

  Danny massaged his neck, fighting to get enough air to keep his head up. This was the third emergency landing they’d made since yesterday. The landing gear extended miraculously when they were ten feet off the ground. Hawk had a knack for convincing the system to work. As promised, Sky set them down light as a ten-ton feather. Danny closed the sunscreen on the forward window, and powered down everything except for lights and air.

  “Everyone alive?” Sky asked over the Vring.

  “Amanda’s with me,” Danny said, rolling out of his chair and onto his knees, dizzy from fading adrenaline. Amanda’s body sagged against the jump seat harness, and Danny rested his forehead on her knee, both catching his breath and trying not to think about how willing he’d been to sacrifice himself a few minutes ago. There was hope in that their ship could limp along home without help, but the journey had been one setback after another and Danny was tired of it.

  “Please, let there be help here,” he whispered, summoning his strength and raising off his haunches to help Amanda. The strap on her makeshift sling had twisted, tangling with her long hair, creating a rope around her neck. Quickly releasing the harness, he pulled Amanda from the chair, but her body flopped limply, turning the rope across her neck into a noose. Using his hunting knife, he cut through the sling strap, releasing the tension. Amanda wheezed at the fresh influx of air, but her eyelids fluttered like she was in a REM cycle.

  “Anyone have eyes on Tray?” Saskia called.

  “Tray, you can unstrap now, we’re down,” Danny said, tapping his Feather. When he didn’t get a reply, the panic began to rise. “Tray?”

  The cries of the others spilled from the neighboring ward room, and Danny peered across the threshold. One of the chairs had ripped from its pivot joint, flown over the table, and wedged into the doorway leading to the lower deck.

  “Hawk, I need a neck brace and stretcher!” Saskia ordered, pointing toward the forward access hatch when Hawk couldn’t make it over Tray’s body.

  “Oh, Zive,” Danny murmured in prayer, setting Amanda on the floor, then crawling over her to get to Tray. “How bad is it?”

  “He’s conscious, but out of it,” Saskia reported, using the hand rungs on the ceiling to navigate over Tray and land on the other side. “Hold him still. Hold the chair still.”

  The gliding chairs in the ward room were designed to work in reduced gravity. The impact of repeated landings on the surface must have weakened the joint. Danny helped Sky stabilize the chair in the doorway. Saskia supported Tray’s head and neck, but left him strapped into the chair.

  “Help,” Amanda groaned, rolling onto her belly. She glanced, bleary-eyed into the ward room, then crawled away from the hatch, keeping her splinted arm braced against her chest.

  “I’ll get her,” Sky volunteered.

  “No, stay with Tray,” Danny said, going after Amanda. Sky’s method of dealing with Amanda (i.e., shooting her) was the reason Amanda had a broken arm.

  �
�I was flying the ship.” Amanda murmured, stumbling around the bridge, checking the forward exit, then collapsing into the pilot’s chair, eyes closed. Danny was glad she was awake.

  “You were. Hawk says you collapsed,” Danny said, leaning heavily on the console, worried he’d pass out from exhaustion if he sat down.

  “No, that’s not how it happened! I saw something. Someone. Someone attacked me,” she whimpered, rolling side-to-side. “I had an episode?”

  “Maybe,” Danny said. Her psychotic episodes usually led to screaming and violence, not narcolepsy. He couldn’t be sure if the ‘attack’ was a dream or a hallucination. “You gave Hawk a good scare.”

  Tray cried out and Danny felt his brother’s pain like a knife through the chest.

  “Sit here and don’t touch anything. I need to help Tray,” Danny said. “Okay?”

  He waited for a nod from Amanda, and prayed her lucidity would last a few minutes. Back in the ward room, Saskia and Hawk had extracted Tray out of the chair and strapped him to a stretcher.

  “Take a breath,” Saskia coached, her cheeks tight with worry. “Sky’s getting the morphine.”

  “Saskia,” Tray gasped, swallowing his pain, adopting an air of authority. “Is the ship okay? Can we still get home?”

  “Of course,” she said, exchanging a look with Danny. He could tell by the sweat stinging her eyes that she was feeling as weak and worn as he.

  “The signal we found—”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Saskia said.

  “I need something to do tonight, right? Can’t imagine I’ll be taking long walks on the beach,” Tray murmured. His bravado faltered, and his breath quickened. “I don’t feel well.”

  “You’re hungry,” Saskia said. “Captain will get you an apple. An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”

  “Is that what’s doing it?” Tray panted, coughing to cover a pained sob. “A doctor wouldn’t be so bad right now.”

  “All you have is me,” she said.

  “You’re nice to look at,” Tray smiled.

  “Let’s get you patched before you embarrass yourself,” Danny chuckled, mopping the sweat from his brother’s face. Tray’s head lolled, his eyes losing focus as they rolled back into his head.

  “Tray?” Danny whispered, shivers coursing through his body as his brother twitched and seized.

  “Morphine!” Sky announced, charging up the stairs with the medicine. Saskia took the jet and injected Tray’s arm, then motioned the others to help her lift the stretcher.

  “She did this,” Amanda said, her voice high-pitched as she stared in horror. Her skin paled, her eyes getting glassy as she swayed in the doorway, cradling her broken arm. “She killed him!”

  “Amanda, he’s not dead,” Danny said.

  “She attacked him!” Amanda cried, charging toward the stretcher. Danny let go of the stretcher, catching Amanda with one arm, spinning her away. Sky, Saskia, and Hawk were fast enough to compensate, and hurriedly got Tray out of the ward room.

  “You don’t understand!” Amanda raged, kicking at the air so hard her borrowed shoes flew off her feet. The crusty, giant shirt she’d taken from his closet reeked with stress sweat. “He’ll sleep forever. That’s what Galen did to me. He’ll starve! He’ll die!”

  Gritting his teeth, Danny increased the pressure of his grip around her torso. “Sky is not like Galen. She didn’t attack Tray. Do you mean someone else?”

  “He’ll die,” Amanda whined, going limp in Danny’s arms, yielding the fight before he squeezed the breath out of her.

  “Talk, don’t act. Talk to me. Let me help. Just talk,” Danny coached.

  Those were the words he used when she had a knife—when she sliced her skin or tried to slice his.

  “I had an episode,” she repeated, saying the words to remind and convince herself. It was a bad sign in that it meant she was actively hallucinating, but good in that she knew what she saw wasn’t real. “I need to see where we are,” she said.

  “We will. Sky says there’s help here,” he promised.

  Liza woke up in a cold sweat. She slouched on the front steps of the bell tower at Boone’s town center and the setting sun made the cracks in the Dome glow red. The horse-man in the dark cave loomed in the corners of her memory. Panicked, she scrambled to her feet, out of the street.

  “Shoes are required,” a greeter bot stated, rolling up to her. Liza kicked it out of the way, then swore. Stumbling over broken pavement, she ran for home, but her foot caught in a pothole, and her ankle twisted. She bit her tongue to keep from crying out, and threw her hands in front to catch her fall. She never made it to the ground. Strong hands came around her waist and she screamed as her foot was wrenched from the hole in the ground.

  “Shh,” her brother hissed, throwing her over his shoulder and darting into the nearest house. The north side of the bell tower had fewer surviving structures, and it had taken them awhile to realize it was because they’d been made of wood, not because the blast was centered here. Stone foundations and partial walls, most less than four feet high showed where the houses used to be.

  “Is someone chasing you?” he asked, peeking over the broken wall and into the street.

  Liza shook her head, too winded to speak. Once Kerris was satisfied they weren’t being chased, he pulled her arm around his shoulder and helped her stand. Her ankle ached every time she put weight on it.

  “An ambulance bot will draw too much attention,” Kerris whispered.

  “I’m at two strikes for being shoeless anyway,” Liza muttered, giving a disgruntled chuckle. “I think we’re at negative two-hundred in fines now.”

  For the first time in weeks, Kerris’ lips twitched in a smile. Hugging him around the neck, she let him lift her and carry her home. She wanted to keep laughing with him, but she couldn’t muster the strength after the confusing horror she’d just escaped. The memory of the tunnel swirled in her mind, the black dust choking her, the green-eyed woman morphing into a goblin. Liza trembled harder with every loop, not wanting to let go when Kerris sat her on the kitchen counter to check her over.

  “This isn’t home,” Liza said, rubbing her eyes as she took in the disjointed surroundings. The huge kitchen opened to a dining area with a built-in banquet seat. The table must have been wooden, because it was gone, but Liza still sensed the ghost of its presence.

  “The other house is too close to the main gate. We’re living here until the airship leaves,” he said, sweeping her red hair from her cheeks and neck, letting the air cool her sweat-soaked skin.

  “But there are people here,” Liza said, her eyes locking on a family gathering at the banquet table. A mother passed through the kitchen chattering on a hand-held device, and two kids sat at the table, one playing with building blocks, the other one writing on a tablet screen. “People—”

  “There’s no one here,” Kerris said. “You’re seeing memories.”

  Liza swallowed hard, shaking the image from her mind. There were pockets of the city where the memory of Boone’s inhabitants were stronger than others.

  “We’ve stayed here before. You’ll be able to handle this place once you’ve settled down,” Kerris said, rubbing his finger down her cheek, as though peeling the memory off her skin. “Look on the bright side. The airship came. It’ll be fun people-watching for a few days. We can camp out in the bell tower and keep an eye.”

  Liza scratched her head. She’d woken up in the bell tower. It was where they often went to watch visitors because the six-story structure gave them a birds-eye view of the city center. Liza couldn’t remember going there. “Why didn’t you follow me when I went earlier?”

  “Didn’t hear you leave,” he shrugged. “Which is weird. You’re usually such a noisy klutz.”

  “Yes, and you’re usually a nosey snoop,” she said, wincing as he nursed her ankle. The ankle was swollen and deep red. There were long scratches on her arms and bruises on her hands and feet. Her fingernails were broken and dirty,
from clawing her way out of the cavern. Kerris didn’t see those wounds, though. Liza closed her eyes, then her mind, shielding herself from the images. She felt a cool compress on her face.

  “How close were you to the fire of the ship?” Kerris asked, his blue eyes crinkling in concern. “Did you inhale the smoke?”

  “No. I saw something,” she said, taking the cloth from him and dabbing the scratches on her arms.

  “Catching their memories already?” Kerris asked, squeezing a second cloth against the back of her neck, letting the water roll down her spine. He rocked her soothingly, trying to cool her with the water, but her tears welled hotter. “We’ll keep our distance if that’s what you need. I can help you if we keep our distance.”

  “I’d feel safer knowing exactly where they are than hiding from them. There’s something scary on that ship.” Liza coughed into her elbow, still feeling the sting of dust in her lungs. Reaching out to her brother, she clung to him, burying her face against his shoulder. The cuts on her arm stung, and looking at the injuries made the tunnels feel all the more real.

  “Let me steady you,” he whispered. There was so much confusion in the Spirit Realm, she couldn’t read him and find his comfort. It was like he wasn’t even there.

  Sky propped her Virp on the table in the galley, setting it to scan for local communication. She normally approached the plateau-based Dome of Boone on foot, and imagined that Oriana would be received with more caution, but she was surprised by the silence, considering the swarm of drones in the air above them. She could hear Hawk in the bathroom down the hall, retching. Since leaving Rocan, he’d had one infection after another, and that combined with stress and motion sickness meant he rarely kept anything down.

  A few minutes later, he stumbled into the galley and snuggled into Sky’s arms. She dipped a napkin in her water glass and held it to his cheek.