“So everyone here is single?” Sky asked, surveying the twelve people traveling with her. All were teens and twenties and physically fit, but the range of facial characteristics showed their origins spanned the coastal tribes.
“Few are exclusively coupled. All are without children,” Kraven said, his gaze flickering just enough for her to know he was one of the exclusively coupled. “That has been our way for many decades.”
“That explains why you couple so freely,” Sky said, bumping elbows with Honor and exchanging a smile. Despite her warning of needing clothes for this, she hadn’t put on much. Nelka attire seemed rooted in ribbons and body paint. Within their camp, it looked decorative, delicate, and beautiful, but out in the wild, they blended easily with the draping vines and jungle flowers.
“Normally, it’s a fee-based service. But I wanted you so much from the moment I saw you, I nearly offered to pay you,” Honor winked.
“I’m glad we could come to a mutually satisfying arrangement,” Sky said, taking her hand and kissing it. “What do you do if someone has a baby before you’re able to shuffle them off?”
“We don’t have unplanned pregnancies among the Nelka,” Kraven said. “But with so many tribes disappearing from the land, some of us who want to return home to have families can’t. It has become a topic of conversation.”
“A topic of scorn, you mean,” another woman spat, striding past them. She was tall with rounded features, the strips of fabric covering her body thick enough to create a tunic. She appeared to be in her late twenties, and had the air of a tribe elder. “Just say it, Kraven; I’m a threat to the Nelka way of life.”
“No one is saying that Madricka,” Honor said quickly.
“Some are,” a smaller man scoffed. His clothing was comprised of more animal-fur ribbons and less body paint than Honor’s, and he had knives and pistols strapped to his muscular calves.
“Dex, we are all the family she has. We will not turn her out!” Honor snarled.
“I know,” Dex retorted, backing down. “It doesn’t mean her presence isn’t altering things.”
“How soon until you have your baby?” Sky asked, looking the woman over again, realizing the curves her thick tunic meant to hide.
“I am almost four months along,” she said. “The baby will come in her own time.”
“Madricka has been with the Nelka since she was fifteen. We’ve grown up together,” Honor explained.
“My tribe was wiped out by the destroyer many years ago, shortly after I joined the Nelka,” Madricka said. “We had planned a rendezvous with my mate’s tribe—the Gavameti. But they failed to meet us. Then three months ago, the destroyer returned to Boone, and we learned that the Gavameti had been wiped out. So you understand, we are wary of anything or anyone who comes from that city.”
“I am sorry for your loss. And I thank you for being so accepting of me,” Sky said.
“Not all of us are,” Madricka frowned.
Kraven held up a hand and the group stopped. Oriana’s avalan-streaked hull glimmered between the leaves. The clear spot Oriana had found to land happened to be a prime cooking area for the tribes that came through. It was the only place open enough to have a fire without burning down the forest.
“Yep. That’s my ship,” Sky said, pulling back a curtain of vines to.
“Your ship?” Honor asked. “You left a ship like that in Boone?”
“Well, Tray owes me a ship, and he’s either on this one or it’s mine now,” Sky said. “Can you tell if anyone’s on it?”
“One human heat signature. Looks like a flock of birds landed on the nose,” Honor laughed, consulting her scan. Some of their scavenger party fanned out, creating a net around the ship to get clearer readings.
“Only one?” Sky said, her stomach dropping.
“One survivor is incredible for an expedition that crossed through Boone.”
“I’m worried that girl Liza stole my ship,” Sky shuddered. “Can’t have the destroyer escaping. Come on. Let’s see who’s inside.”
She tapped a command on her Virp, but the back door didn’t open for her. Frowning, she tapped a few more override commands in, but it wasn’t until she approached the bay and touched the latch that the door opened.
Things in the bay had shifted from the unfortunate landing. The glider was twisted in its tethers. The makeshift shower had tipped and collided with a dilapidated couch frame, soaking the detached cushions. Any loose crate, tool, or soiled clothing article was smashed against the forward wall.
“So what do they call you?” Honor asked, keeping a step behind Sky, a pistol drawn. “Just figure I should know. It’s not Flavia.”
“This is a transmitter,” Madricka said, picking up a twisted metal box and antenna. “It looks like it broke off the ship, but what would it be doing down here?”
“It was mounted to the glider,” Sky realized. They were trying to get a message home, and she’d run off with the Bobsled. “They couldn’t get the ship off the ground, so they were going to take this plane up to get a signal.”
“I’d love to meet the person who got this scrap of metal to fly,” Madricka smiled.
“I’d love to introduce you,” Sky said. “Let’s check the bridge and see if he’s here. Up those stairs.”
“That pathway is completely exposed,” Dex protested.
“Well, it’s either completely exposed or completely enclosed,” Sky said. “This is more defendable. Trust me. Keep climbing until you reach the top. Anyone who wants ‘enclosed,’ follow me.”
She trotted to the lower deck hatch, glad when none of the others followed. When she reached the front closet that accessed the forward ladder, she was surprised to find mattresses lined in there and feel a blast of cold air. Seeing the silhouette of a droid, she drew her grav-gun and switched on the light. The breeze came from an inanimate cooling unit. It looked like the crew had been sleeping down here. Hurrying up the ladder, Sky cringed when she saw a bleeding hand dangling into the crawlway.
“Hay nah,” Sky whispered, taking the cold hand, guiding it back onto the bridge. Amanda lay crumpled on the floor between the forward console and the front window, her face smashed and bleeding. A few inches right and she would have fallen down the hatch.
“Hey, you,” Sky greeted, checking Amanda’s pulse, worried about moving her too much. “Did you try to steal the ship?”
“Mom, my face hurts,” Amanda murmured, her eyelids fluttering. Sky was glad she was moving on her own, and hoped the cry to her nurse mother was part of a dream and not a hallucination. Groaning, Amanda crawled into Sky’s lap, cradling her bleeding nose.
“Amanda, look at me,” Sky said softly. She didn’t want to force Amanda from a hallucination while the Nelka were here. If Amanda went ballistic and started attacking, Sky might lose any claim she had on this ship.
“Sky? Are you here?” Amanda asked, her eyes fluttering open and closed.
“Yes.” Sky reached for her satchel, but the strap was pinned under Amanda’s arm. “Where is everyone? Do you know?”
Amanda shook her head, lifting her face when she felt the pressure of Sky trying to move. “Long, long episode. Why are you here?”
“I saw the ship go down, silly,” Sky smirked, feeling inside her satchel for the knitter she carried.
“We don’t have enough fuel to fly home. Didn’t have enough to land,” Amanda murmured.
“Then you did an excellent job,” Sky said, turning Amanda head so that the blood dripped off her face instead of back into her throat. Amanda hacked and rolled onto her hands and knees.
“Liza took Hawk,” Amanda gasped, urgency striking her voice, though she was devoid of strength. “She took him. I thought I could distract her long enough for Danny to save him, but I couldn’t. She moves through memories. She teleports. She can take over a body. She’s too powerful. I couldn’t stop her.”
“I know she is. The Nelka call her the destroyer,” Sky said, holding Amanda’s hair cl
ear of her bleeding wounds. “Are the others dead?”
Sky heard the Nelka climbing the stairs, but they went quiet and she saw a pistol before she saw a person.
“Honor! We’re in here!” Sky called. Honor came in, gun raised, but when she saw Sky with Amanda, she motioned Dex in after her.
“Not a former lover,” Sky assured.
“Didn’t guess she was,” Honor smirked. “You hold her like a daughter.”
“She’s definitely not that,” Sky laughed. “Be careful with her. She’s schizophrenic; she can get violent without warning.”
“You know that’s curable, right?” Honor asked.
“We’re still trying to get her to a doctor. All the one’s I knew…” Sky choked up before she could finish the thought.
“Let’s do it,” Dex said, sliding into the pilot’s chair, glancing over the controls. “Let’s take the ship back to Boone and plunder those blasted machines.”
“There are no weapons on this ship, Dex,” Sky said.
“That’s a lie,” he snarked. “We heard from scouts in Fox Run that this ship took out the Drava. Set their whole city on fire.”
“There’s a difference between knocking over a few tents and taking out a cloud of drones,” Sky said. “Drone damage is why we were forced to land in Boone in the first place.”
“There’s also no fuel,” Madricka said, gliding onto the bridge. “I just came from the engine room. This ship is beyond dead. It’s scrap.”
“It’s still our ship,” Sky said, shifting Amanda to one arm and drawing her grav-gun. “I won’t let you scrap it until I know what happened to the crew.”
“The parts aren’t exactly compatible with our wagons. I don’t think,” Madricka said. “The ship’s AI refuses to even call up a manual for us, because we are not listed as crew.”
“I’m sure you will figure it out, Madricka,” Kraven said. “Let’s see what resources we can salvage.”
“Kraven, no,” Sky demanded.
“We’re evaluating, not stealing,” Kraven said. “If you cannot fly the ship, then let us help you salvage it. The tribes in this area have fought since the destruction to take the technology of Boone, and they will fight for this as well.”
“Are they going to kill us?” Amanda whispered in Terranan.
Sky cradled Amanda’s face. “Honor, can you help her?” Sky asked.
“Yes,” Honor said gently. “If you wish to help her, I will help you help her.”
28
The rain stopped in the night, but Tray, Saskia, and Danny did not. They’d sat for an hour, wrung out their clothes, and took turns napping. When the rain stopped, the small, biting insects came out, and the only promise of reprieve lay with Oriana. Assuming it wasn’t crawling with insects.
The morning sun brought foraging animals and a cacophony of bird calls in the trees. Tray wondered if they could smell the food he and Danny carried. They’d put the bird meat in an insulated pack and reduced the temperature as much as could be managed with the thermal circuit, but they were meant to be home by yesterday. He hoped they hadn’t hauled ten pounds of spoiled meat.
“Tray?” Danny murmured, stopping suddenly. Tray nearly plowed into him. Tray was used to walking in between his brother and Saskia, but Danny was still processing the shock of what happened and lagged behind if Tray wasn’t there to give him a push. Saskia was several yards ahead, moving in sweeping arcs, searching the best path.
“Right behind you. Want a snack?” Tray asked, offering Danny a bite of the starchy fruit he was munching on. It might have been a vegetable, or it might have been a rotting lump of wood. It sat in Tray’s stomach like a lead weight, but Tray figured it’d be okay boiled.
“What if she’s dead?” Danny asked, straying off the path and putting a hand on the nearest tree.
“Bugs,” Tray warned, sweeping away the red mites that hopped onto Danny’s arm, and pushing him onward. “Amanda flew the ship. She landed it. It was a rough landing, but the thrusters fired. She did something, which means there’s a fighting chance. And she wouldn’t care if the broth spilled, she was just going to eat the potatoes out of it anyway.”
Danny nodded and scratched the fresh bug bite on his hand. Tray pulled the grub box from his belt.
“Here, eat something,” he said, handing Danny the lukewarm grub roll. “You haven’t eaten anything all morning. So fresh, it’ll crawl right down your throat.”
“It’s bad enough you do it to Hawk,” Danny said, swatting at something flying around his face until he knocked the roll out of Tray’s hand. Tray made a face, figuring Danny had done it on purpose.
“You ate the bugs I roasted in Fox Run,” Tray pointed out.
“Roasted,” Danny said. “They were cooked. And the bugs at Fox Run were bigger, crunchier, and tastier.”
“Then here. You can finish this bland piece of straw masquerading as food,” Tray said, offering the half-eaten whatever-it-was.
“Shh!” Saskia called back to them.
Tray and Danny stopped and listened, then crept to her. The broken branches and smell of burnt avalan grew stronger, and Tray realized they were home. The trees were so thick they couldn’t even see the ship until they were on top of it. Breaking into a wide smile, he ran for the bay door, but Saskia grabbed his pack, and the weight threw him off balance.
“Someone’s been here,” Saskia warned, pointing across to a game trail. She vaulted over a few branches, scouting the area for a minute before returning. “I count at least three sets of footprints, and probably more than five.”
“Nomads. I hate nomads,” Tray muttered.
“Are they on the ship?” Danny asked, dropping the food pack and drawing his knife from his boot.
“We should breach at multiple points,” Saskia said. “One of us should make it to the weapons locker.”
“And then what? Not a single weapon is charged!” Tray scoffed, strutting straight for the rear hatch.
“Tray, get back here. Tray!” Danny cried.
Tray was exhausted and hungry. He didn’t have time for complicated battle plans. What he wanted was a working stove and some pan-fried bird meat. The bay door was closed, but not locked, and when Tray entered, he had three weapons pointed at him almost instantly. They were energy weapons, similar to stunners, and Tray hoped that meant no shot would be unintentionally fatal.
Raising his hands to show he was unarmed, Tray continued to the middle of the bay, and only stopped when one of the women blocked his path. Although clothed, their bodies were by no means covered. The woman had animal footprints painted down her arms and legs, and across her chest. The others were similarly decorated, some with letters, most with symbols. The largest of the men seemed to be wearing a sash of animal tails, and very little covering besides.
The man with the animal sashes wrestled the fifty-pound food pack from Tray’s back, and opened it up. “Weapons?” he asked.
“Nope, just home from hunting,” Tray replied. The lights were on in the bay, and the air circulators working. They’d powered up everything they could. “Nolwazi, I have the con. Activate lockdown mode.” He spoke the last words in Terranan so the intruders wouldn’t understand, and said them kindly so they wouldn’t guess his intention.
The lights went out in the bay and Tray didn’t move, but he let out a breath of relief that the computer was active and responsive. The bay door closed and the intruders quickly activated their own hand lights to keep their bearings. The air circulators cut off and the bay got hot and muggy very fast.
“Home, sweet home,” Tray said in Lanvarian, kicking off his soggy boots. “Now who are you people and what are you doing on my ship?”
“My name is Kraven of the Nelka,” said the giant man with foxtail sash. “We saw this ship fall from the Boone mountaintop.”
“The ship wasn’t abandoned,” Tray pointed out. “I demand you withdraw.”
Kraven hesitated a moment, then touched a device on his neck and summoned his people
. All Tray could see of it was the moving pen lights. He hadn’t expected it to be so easy.
“We meant to help your pilot,” Kraven said. “She believed you were slain by the destroyer.”
“I take it you mean Kerris and Liza,” Tray said. “They’ve taken one of my crewmen hostage. I mean to go back and get him.”
Kraven stepped closer to Tray. “Are you prepared to find him dead?”
“No, I’m not,” Tray said, his cheeks tightening. “If they mean to kill him, it is all the more urgent that we get back there to help him.”
They were well into the night walking before Danny had come out of shock enough to tell them that only Amanda was on the ship and Hawk was still trapped in the city. But Liza meant to protect Hawk from enslavement, and as far as Tray was concerned, that was enough reason to hope she’d treat him well.
There was a commotion on middeck and more lights appeared. Then one of the intruders found a control panel to bring up the work lights in the bay. Four more of the intruders arrived, pushing Sky and Amanda in front of them.
“Hey, Skipper,” Sky greeted, keeping an arm around Amanda. Amanda’s bruises had bruises, and her head lolled against Sky’s shoulder.
“Did they hurt you?” Tray asked.
“No. The Nelka have been very kind to me,” Sky assured. “We found Amanda in this shape.”
“Actually found her in worse shape, but we patched her up,” a Nelka woman said, helping Sky and Amanda sit down on the catwalk. The care the woman showed put Tray at ease, despite the weapons still pointed in his direction.
“Tray, this my new friend, Honor,” Sky introduced.
“Liza took Hawk. We’re going back for him,” Tray informed her. He knew better than to reveal her name, but the more Sky knew of the plan, the more she could help him.
Hybrid: A Space Opera Adventure Series (The New Dawn Book 4) Page 25