Burning Bright

by Michael-Scott Earle

  There weren’t any handles to steer my descent, and even if there were, I wouldn’t be able to grab them. I found with a bit of trial and error I could twist my torso a bit as I dangled to somewhat change my trajectory. I did this a few times so that I landed back in the burnt field where the slaver ship landed. The landing was rough, and I felt every bone in my body scream with the impact.

  Then I went numb everywhere.

  Nausea hit me once more.

  I didn’t have time to puke. Blood was pouring out of my arms, and I needed to get cauterizing salts onto the wounds or I would bleed out before my body could heal and regenerate my hands.

  I reached for the mini med-kits I kept in my ammo pouches, but of course, I had no hands to open up the bag. And my wrists continued to spray blood across my waist.

  “Fuckkkkkk,” I growled as I blinked away tears. I couldn’t afford to waste a second now. The only hope I had was to get back to Persephone and try to intercept the slave ship when it visited other cities on the world.

  But I didn’t have hands to steer the dark starship. I couldn’t man the cannons or laser array. I didn’t even know how to open communications with the slave ship. Even if I did, I couldn’t attack them because my friends were onboard.

  I couldn’t stop the slavers from using their hyperdrive.

  There was a mountain of problems that I didn’t know how to solve, but I couldn’t afford to think about them until I stopped my bleeding. I should have died in the fall, but my suit had given me a second chance, and I needed to take advantage of it the best I could.

  The parachute was still attached to my back, and my submachine gun was still hanging over my right shoulder. The gun had a handle on the slide and a few edges on the stock, but I didn’t think I could get it off my shoulder and at an angle that would let me open the ammo belt. I looked at the chute and saw it was attached to my back with micro-filament lines. They were nearly invisible because of their diameter, and I came up with a plan that might work.

  I stepped back and put my foot on the chute. Then I found a section of line where I could leverage my bloody arm stumps under and over. It took me a few precious seconds to get the tension right, but then I was able to use the taut string to pull open the flap of my ammo belt. The magazines and med-kits were packed tightly in there, so I jumped up and down to try to loosen them. The tactic didn’t work as well as I hoped. So, I threw myself on the grass and lifted my legs up above me while my shoulders pressed into the dirt. Then the ammo pouch emptied, and the two med-kits fell on the grass. They looked somewhat like shotgun shells, only a little wider and longer.

  I rolled over, pinched one of the kits with my bloody forearms and bit into the end of the tube. I was starting to get dizzy again, but I focused on moving the mono-filament parachute line against the lid. I could have easily opened it with fingers, and I growled with frustration. The line slipped once, twice, three times, but the fourth produced the result I wanted, and the container opened abruptly. The various packages and syringes scattered onto the grass, and I bent down to find the coagulant salts.

  There were three bags of the stuff, and I tried to figure out how I could open them without hands. I wasted two seconds trying to think of a solution, but then I just bit one with my teeth to pick it up from the ground and began to chew on the container. My molars crushed open the package, and the salts started to solidify with my saliva, but I spat some onto my right arm as soon as I could. Then I rubbed the rest of the paste into the wound by scraping my bloody stump against the armor on my leg.

  That felt all sorts of fucking terrible, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from screaming.

  The salts did work well though, and the blood pouring from my wound slowed to a trickle almost immediately.

  I kneeled on the ground again and gobbled up the next salt packet. I was able to spit the paste on my left stump with better coverage this time, and the bleeding stopped within a few seconds of me applying it. I chewed on the last package, spit part of it on my right stump to ensure the bleeding there was taken care of, and then I spat the rest on my left wound and knelt back on the grass. The pain was beginning to radiate up my arms, and it combined with the nausea I was feeling in a very unhelpful way. I felt close to fainting, and I knew that passing out right now was the wrong answer to the hundreds of problems I needed to solve.

  I looked through the yellow grass and spotted one of the syringes. I didn’t know what it was, but this was a combat med-kit, so I guessed it was a happy cocktail of synthetic adrenaline and painkillers. It took me two attempts to pinch the syringe between my stumps, but I was finally able to bring it up to my face. Then I pulled the safety tip off with my teeth and slammed the thing into the side of my neck. The needle stayed stuck in my neck when I pulled my right arm away, and I used the side of my forearm to push in the plunger. Warm ecstasy filled my body, and the nauseous feeling retreated.

  I pinched the spare kit and pistol magazines with my arms and deposited them back in the ammo pouch. Then I stood from the grass. The pain in my forearms was disappearing, and I only felt a surge of raw energy. I was sure that I would crash hard later, but it was another problem I didn’t need to address now.

  Now, I needed to get back to Persephone.

  My first few steps were hesitant, but my legs quickly gained their steadiness back. Soon I was running, but I only made it fifty or so meters before a small breeze rolled across the plain of grass. It caught the parachute trailing behind me and ripped me off my feet.

  I slammed back onto the ground and let out a scream of frustration, There was likely an easier way to get the cords released from my back, but I was sure I needed fingers to do it. I pushed myself to my feet and then gathered up the thin parachute in my blood soaked arms before I started running again.

  This is when I noticed the group of men running toward me from the adobe town.

  Shit.

  The men and their city were in-between the APC and me. If I had a single hand, I would be able to gun them all down in a matter of moments. Instead, all I had were stumps, weapons I couldn’t fire, a bloody parachute, and body armor. I had turned from the hunter to prey in just a few minutes.

  I’d always been a fast runner, so I could play the role of prey if it meant that I would escape.

  I turned to my right a bit and started sprinted toward them. Running away from the direction of my APC might buy me some time to heal, but it would also cost me the time I needed to use to get onboard Persephone. I was going to have to run through these fuckers and hope they were stupid enough to try to attack me with their melee weapons instead of shooting their darts at my head.

  The men shifted the direction they were running so they were moving toward me across the field. There were eight in total, but only two of them had their blowguns in their hands. The others carried a combination of clubs and axes.

  I tried to shift again. The beast roared in my belly, but the change didn’t happen, and my efforts only rewarded me with an ache in my skull.

  Then the men and I collided.

  The first asshole took a swipe at me with his axe, and I raised my arms to block him at the elbow. He shouted when he smashed into my armor, and then he gasped when I hit him in the face with my right shoulder. He fell into the grass, but two more men were swinging their axes at me.

  I took the hit from one of the axes on my stomach, but my armor shrugged it off without issue. The second man’s swing was aimed at my head, but I ducked under it while I continued my run. I heard the blowguns puff, but I didn’t feel the darts dig into the flesh around my head or bounce off my armor.

  An asshole swung his club at my chest, but I surprised him by delivering a jumping knee to his face. His jaw broke with a loud crack, and he went down under me. I rolled free before I could get entangled by his arm, and then shrugged lose of someone’s hands.

  Then I was on the other side of the group and running.

  Next, I felt a tug on my back, and I realized one of the para
chute cords must have gotten tangled up with one of the fuckers.

  I spun around to see the cord wrapped around the chest of the man I’d taken down with my knee. I yanked hard on the parachute wrapped around my stumps, and he let out a scream as the mono-filament line twisted around his torso, arms, and shoulder. I was ensnared with him, and I wasn’t going to be able to escape unless someone cut me free.

  One of the axe-wielders came at me, and I shuffled back to avoid a chop to the face. My movement yanked on the rope tied around the man, and our connection prevented me from dodging the axe swing as much as I would have preferred.

  The other men knew I was ensnared, so they moved to circle me.

  Fuck. This wasn’t good at all.

  The man with the axe made a horizontal swing, and I lifted up my parachute to block him. His blade slammed into the mass of rope and fabric before it bounced off my armor. He stepped even closer to me and chopped down with his blade. I also caught this one with the parachute and marveled at how strange it was that I didn’t have to worry about my hands being chopped off.

  He moved to chop at me again, but I delivered a shin kick to his knee, and my strength, combined with my armor, broke the joint with a satisfying crunch sound. He screamed and dropped to the ground, but there was little time to celebrate; one of the other blowgun dart fucks had loaded his weapon again, and I brought up my arms to keep the dart from hitting my face.

  I knew there was an asshole behind me with a club, but I couldn’t dodge out of the way of his overhead swing. His blow produced a loud cracking sound when it connected with my shoulder, but the plated armor prevented me from feeling more than the slightest of impacts. I spun around, and my elbow produced a crater in his face where his nose once was.

  My attack pulled on the thin ropes wrapped around the man on the ground, and a few of the lines made sharp guitar plucking-like noises when they tore loose from the parachute wrapped around my bloody stumps. I had hoped the axe attacks would have cut loose some of the lines, and I yanked hard again on the parachute so I could block another one of the fucker’s axe swings.

  This one cut the remainder of the taut lines free from the nest in my arms, and I yanked myself free of their anchor. I still had some of the lines attached from my back to the parachute, but thankfully, I wasn’t attached to the fucker on the ground anymore. I made a last kick at one of the blow dart men before I turned to run.

  The men shouted with surprise when I sprinted away, but they quickly took up the pursuit. I had a good eight hundred meters to run before I reached the APC, and I still didn’t know how I would get inside of the vehicle. I didn’t really have fingers to grab the door latches. I would have to use my mouth on the handle, and I knew it would take a few minutes to figure it out.

  I glanced behind me as I ran and saw that I was putting distance between myself and the group of men. The adrenaline shot was giving me a boost of energy, and I almost felt back to my normal capabilities.

  I just hoped it would last long enough for me to get back to Persephone, figure out how to get her off the ground, and chase down the ship who had taken my friends.

  My legs screamed from my previous bouts of sprinting, but I told them to shut the fuck up and keep running. They did as I ordered, and I ran into the courtyard of the town a good hundred meters ahead of the fuckers chasing me.

  There were people out and about now in the city courtyard, and they screamed when I ran into the clearing. I saw mostly women wearing primitive looking dresses or rawhide pants and tunics. No one moved to intercept me when I ran past them, and I plowed into the grassy area beside the cliff face and forced my burning legs up the slope of the hill where I parked the APC. I crested the hill and then raced down the other side before I reached the large vehicle.

  I leaned down toward the handle and tried to grab it with my teeth. The slot was too wide though, and I couldn’t get my mouth around it. I tried a few more times, but each attempt further convinced me I wasn’t going to be able to get into the cabin without fingers.

  I looked over my shoulder and saw the group of men cresting the hill some hundred and fifty meters behind me.

  I had half a minute to get into the truck.

  The parachute was still wrapped around my stumps, and I thought about pushing one end into the loop of the handle, wrapping both sides around my stumps, and then yanking it open, but it would take me a few minutes, and I’d need a way to ramrod the fabric through the loop. The only item in my possession that could do it was one of my guns, but I couldn’t draw my revolver or pistols without my hands.

  My submachine gun was still hanging over my shoulder, though, so I used my left forearm to position the barrel into the door loop. I hammered it in a bit with the side of my right forearm. Then I yanked on the strap wrapped around my shoulder to pull the gun away.

  The door opened with a satisfying click, and I pulled the gun free before I leapt up into the seat.

  There was an armrest on the inside of the door, and I hooked the heel of my boot in the slot there before I pulled my leg back. The motion closed the door as I rolled over to look at the controls there. I found the button to lock the doors easy enough, and I pressed my left elbow on it a half moment before one of the fuckers chasing me slammed his axe into the glass of the window.

  “Fuck you,” I growled at the man after his weapon bounced off the armored glass. Another man slammed his club into the door, but the APC was covered in armor, and it would have laughed off the slugs from my shotgun. These primitive men didn’t know that though, and they all proceeded to beat on the vehicle.

  I raised my aching leg and pushed the toe of my boot against the engine’s start button. Then I moved my right arm stump over to the drive control stick. I pushed it into the forward gear mode, wedged my left arm into the steering wheel spokes, and slammed my right boot down on the acceleration pedal.

  The APC shot forward and steamrolled over three of the fuckers. They let out a short scream of terror before they were brought down by the front ram-plow and chewed up by the massive wheels. I glanced out the side mirror to see the men chasing me, but I put a little more pressure on the pedal, and they quickly faded into the grass.

  I couldn’t roll open my transponder to see where I was in relation to Persephone, but I turned the wheel a bit to the left and drove until I found the original path of grass I took when I first drove to the city. I turned the APC back on the course and pushed the speed up to eighty kilometers an hour. It was way too fast a speed to be using through a grassy plain, but the vehicle was tough enough to take virtually any impact, and I had already driven this path before. I knew there were no sudden drops or cliffs to worry about.

  My friends didn’t have a lot of time. I suspected the slaver ship would make multiple stops, but I didn’t know for sure how their procedure worked on this planet. There could be dozens of ships visiting different territories, or the pick up where they got my friends could have been their last stop before they left.

  The odds of me saving them would drop to zero if the ship went into hyperdrive.

  I pulled up to Persephone and slammed on the brakes of the APC. I had to wedge my toe into the lever on the armrest to get it open, but it popped free after a third try.

  The remainder of the parachute got caught on the side of the door when I exited, and it cost me a few seconds of time unhooking it. Then I ran up Persephone’s ramp and moved to the lock panel. I didn’t have a finger to draw the manta ray shape to open the door, so I pushed my nose up to the panel and moved my neck around until the bay door opened. Then I ran back to the APC and drove the vehicle into the bay. There were ground locks in the bay which kept our drones and vehicles from being tossed around while in flight, and I somehow managed to park the APC over the latches.

  Paula had set them up when we were back on Uraniel, and I thought again about the sister she lost to slavers.

  I fell out of the APC and stumbled a bit on the floor of the bay. Once I got my balance, it was a q
uick run back to the hatch, and I elbowed the buttons that would pull up the ramp and close the door before I sprinted toward the elevator hallway.

  “They took them!” I shouted to Persephone as soon as I stepped into the elevator and hit the button for the bridge. I didn’t know if the ship heard me, or even if she cared, but she had already helped me with the video when I requested. I desperately needed her help to get my friends back so I put my faith in her being willing to assist me again if I asked.

  “I couldn’t get to them in time. A ship just took off from the landing spot twenty kilometers to our northwest. Can you track it? We need to fly after it! I have to try and communicate with them!” The elevator door opened to the bridge, and I sprinted past the gunners stations and map before throwing myself into Zea’s pilot seat.

  “Persephone, can you lift off? Can you show them to me on the map? We need to find them. Please?” I looked at the array of complicated controls and felt another bout of nausea hit me. Zea had been right, Persephone was much harder to fly than the shuttle craft. There were a hundred times more buttons, and the lump in my throat threatened to choke me.

  “Can you activate the engines? We need to go!” I shouted and then waited for Persephone to do something. For her to do anything that would show she was controlling the ship.

  “Fuckkkkkk!” I screamed as I moved to touch my elbow against one of the buttons which would have activated the engines on a shuttle. I let out a gasp when the terminal display flashed Atmospheric Engines On in green letters, and I moved the nubs of my arms to the thrust controller.

  The control didn’t seem to do anything, and I fought against the panic blossoming in my stomach.

  I didn’t know how to fly Persephone. I didn’t know how to do a damn thing on this ship, and I was about to lose the women I loved.

  “Please help me,” I whispered as I moved my bloody stump across another lever that might have controlled the thrusters. This didn’t seem to do anything either, and I thought again about how quickly Zea learned to fly this ship. Damn it, the woman was a genius, and I hadn’t told her how much I appreciated her.