Trailblazer

by Michelle Diener

  At Ben's suggestion they gave each person a five minute lead.

  They kept to the order they'd fallen into during the day, so Tally was left alone with Ben after Frangi disappeared over the side.

  “Am I right that it seems there's more smoke now, less fire?” Tally asked.

  “Yes. Whatever was flammable seems to have almost burned out.”

  “It's a good thing the forest didn't catch fire.”

  Ben's mouth quirked. “Fortunately, everything is wet. It was raining for almost two weeks straight before we started yesterday.”

  “You checked the weather before you got here?” She hadn't even thought of that.

  He flicked her a glance. “I always check the weather.” There was amusement in his voice.

  “I'm so seldom in a place that has weather.” That explained it. He must be planet-side a lot.

  “Lots of ship's hours?” he asked lightly.

  “Too many.” She couldn't think when last she had walked on solid ground. She hadn't liked the special treatment she'd received to put her on the Trail ahead of others, but she was suddenly, deeply grateful that she was here.

  It felt good to have the soft breeze on her face. Although this particular breeze brought with it the stink of burning ship.

  He reached out a hand and cupped her shoulder. “I just wanted to say something about earlier. Nothing I've been through is worse than you had to endure on that ship. I have no right to your sympathy.”

  She raised her face to his, startled. “It's not a contest.”

  “No, but you intervened for me--”

  She shook her head sharply. “You don't have an obligation to share your pain. However much or little there is of it.”

  He watched her in the silver moonlight, his face shadowed and hard to read. Eventually, he nodded. “I just wanted to make that clear.” He glanced at his wrist unit. “You better get going.”

  She realized she hadn't been keeping track of the time, and swung down onto the first rung of the chain ladder.

  “Tally.” He crouched beside her, his face just above hers.

  “Yes?”

  His position put him almost completely in shadow.

  “Be safe. See you down below. And shout if you get into trouble.”

  She nodded, her hands gripping the ladder tightly, her heart suddenly accelerating in her chest.

  She thought for a moment he was going to lean forward and kiss her--that's what her little symbiotic friends were telling her.

  As she started down, she wondered if they were finally wrong.

  Chapter 9

  Ben rose up, fists clenched, and stared blindly out over the landscape below while he waited his five minutes.

  What the hell had gotten into him?

  For a moment there, crouched beside Tally, he had almost leaned forward that tiny, negligible distance and brushed his lips over hers.

  This was serious business. He had a satellite to find, crashed just off the Trail path, and now a downed space runner, as well.

  There was no way getting involved with Tally Riva would be wise in any way.

  And yet . . .

  She drew him like a magnet. There was a wariness about her, and yet she clearly enjoyed the company of her companions, and her sense of empathy ran deep.

  He felt another twinge of guilt at her response to him when he hesitated to speak about why he was here, and again when he tried to make it right with her.

  He didn't want to deceive her, and the fierceness of the feeling should worry him. He had deceived people before in the name of a mission, and he had never had a moment's pause about it.

  The smoke from the burning runner suddenly blew straight into his face as the wind changed direction, and he coughed, then dropped down to a crouch and swung himself over the side of the cliff.

  Time to get on mission. Tally Riva deserved someone who could focus on her, who wouldn't disappear in a few weeks.

  And he was not that man.

  * * *

  He climbed down quickly, eager to get moving, and had almost caught up with Tally by the bottom.

  They climbed down in silence, although he caught the drift of conversation between her and Frangi a few times.

  Less than a minute after she stepped off the ladder, he dropped beside her and frowned when he realized someone was missing.

  “Where's Irwin?” He expected the guide to be with everyone else.

  “No idea.” Soo's voice was more than a little cool. “When I got down, he was gone, and so was my comms equipment.”

  “What?” Ben flicked on his wrist unit. It could register heat signatures within a small radius on its own. When he was linked to the warship which usually transported him and his team, its reach was a lot further, but he would take what he could get.

  Something moved on the edge of the unit's limit, and he turned to face that direction.

  “Irwin?”

  “I'm here.” Irwin's voice was faint, and slightly out of breath, and then Ben didn't need his unit, because they could all hear the guide moving through the bush.

  “He was gone by the time you got down?” he asked Soo.

  She nodded. “I didn't know what to do. I decided to wait for Lenny, and then the two of us realized it was crazy to go searching for him when we didn't know which direction he'd gone in, so we decided to wait until everyone got down before we made a decision.”

  Tally made a sound under her breath but when he glanced at her, she was looking in the same direction as everyone else, waiting for Irwin to appear, a thoughtful expression on her face.

  “Sorry, didn't mean to scare you.” Irwin was carrying the comms equipment on one shoulder. He drew up short. “Everything all right?”

  “No.” Ben held out his hands, and Irwin hesitated a moment before he handed the equipment over. “You were supposed to be watching at the bottom in case anyone needed help.” He set the equipment back on the supply hover.

  Irwin shrugged. “Soo was clearly much more experienced than she said. I tried the comms again while I was waiting for her and I got a faint signal. I saw she wasn't struggling and I thought I'd see if I could get a better signal at a different spot.”

  “And could you?” Soo crouched beside the comms unit and fiddled with it. “I'm not getting anything now.”

  Irwin shrugged. “I couldn't get anything either.”

  “But you did, you say?” Ben crouched beside Soo.

  “Very faint. Couldn't catch anything. But there was something there, so I didn't think it would hurt to try from a different spot.”

  “You should have waited for the rest of us first.” Lenny's deep voice was a quiet rumble.

  “You're big girls and boys, I knew I didn't need to baby you.”

  “It's not about looking after us.” Tally was watching him with that thoughtful look. “It's about everyone's safety. If you had fallen or hurt yourself, we would have had to look for you. And we already have one emergency on our hands.”

  “She's right.” Frangi slid her hands into the pockets of her pants. “I would have thought you'd have known that better than anyone, Irwin.”

  Irwin lifted his hands. “Sorry. I thought time was of the essence. I decided if I could try to get a signal while I was waiting, it would save us wasting time when everyone got here. Even though that's exactly what we're doing right now.”

  They were all silent a moment, and then Ben felt the tug of urgency. There was no sense harping on about it any longer, and Irwin had a point.

  “Then let's go.” He stood. “You going to lead the way?”

  Irwin gave a nod. “We'll take the path at least half of the way. Things will get a little harder after that.”

  He programed the hover, then turned and walked off.

  Everyone fell into their usual order, but before Tally could follow Frangi, Ben touched her shoulder.

  “What's wrong?”

  He couldn't work out the expression she had on her face when she watched Irwi
n, and it bothered him. She glanced at him, and he could have sworn for a moment she looked both guilty and afraid.

  “What is it?” His grip on her tightened.

  She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and shook her head. “Nothing. Really, it's nothing.”

  He dropped his hand and let her turn and start down the trail.

  But he couldn't shake that it wasn't nothing. Something was worrying her, and he wanted to find out what.

  * * *

  Tally's senses said that Irwin was lying.

  She remembered how pleased he was to be going down the ladder first, and she wondered as she walked if he had planned to grab the comms unit and sneak off to use it from the beginning.

  Except, why?

  What could he hope to gain?

  They were alone until the Verdant String sent someone to find out why their satellite was suddenly down, and that could be weeks. Until then, the only group left to communicate with was the Caruson warship that had shot the runner down.

  She wondered what the Caruso would do about the Trailers. Would they care they had witnesses to their attack, or did they plan to be gone long before help arrived?

  She stopped at a particularly big tree that lay across the trail, another victim of the earthquake from the day before, and waited for Ben to come up beside her. “Do you think the Caruso will come looking for us because we witnessed what they did?”

  “Maybe.” He waited for her to climb over the trunk, pulled himself up beside her, and they jumped down on the other side together. “If they know we're here.”

  “Surely they do. It's why the runner was here, and the Trail is well-known.”

  Ben gave a nod. “But finding us will take a lot of time. Time I'm not sure they've got to spend. There's nowhere obvious to land. They have to know someone's going to wonder what happened to the runner, especially if they got off a warning call. The Verdant String will send someone to investigate. And even if the Caruso hope the VSC will assume they can't contact the runner because the comms satellite's not responding, that will only speed up the VSC response, not slow it down.”

  “I don't know why they'd invite this kind of trouble.”

  They were walking side by side in the darkness, the path was wide enough to accommodate them both, and she liked it, despite the topic of conversation. Exhaustion dragged at her, but his presence gave her a little zing, a boost of awareness that she was too tired to examine closely.

  “They must think they have a good reason. You're right, they wouldn't take this kind of risk lightly.”

  He suddenly went silent, his hand forming a fist, an order for her to stop. He glanced at his wrist unit and then subtly relaxed.

  She felt a quick wave of fear tingle through her.

  She hadn't noticed what he had, that everyone was waiting for them up ahead.

  Nausea rose up in her and she fought it back. Whatever had taken up residence inside her was overreacting. Was compensating for not realizing what lay ahead.

  Almost immediately her night vision improved, her hearing sharpened.

  It had been dulled--no, normal--while she'd been walking. She'd been in control, but the spike of fear she'd felt when Ben had signaled her to stop had her senses heightening again.

  Her stomach dipped in dismay.

  She wanted to rake her nails over her skin, to dig whatever was in her out.

  “You all right?”

  She drew in a sharp breath, forced herself to take more note of what she was doing, how she was behaving.

  She'd been rubbing her arms in agitation, she realized.

  Ben was watching her, and she didn't mistake the worry in his eyes.

  “Fine.” Her voice wavered a little, and she cleared her throat. “Just having a bit more difficulty with the dark than I thought.” The lie tripped off her tongue, even as it shamed her to use her trauma as an excuse.

  Although, she comforted herself, her trauma had led to this sense of panic. It wasn't a complete falsehood.

  “This is where we leave the path.” Irwin pointed to a narrow break in the undergrowth.

  Soo looked up at the clear night sky. “Let's try the comms one last time because once we go in there,” she pointed into the thick undergrowth, “it'll be much harder.”

  Irwin made an impatient movement. “Waste of time.”

  Soo shrugged and crouched beside the comm unit. “It will only take a few minutes.” She fiddled for a bit, but then closed it back up and stepped back in disgust. “Nothing.”

  “It's always worth trying, but it's not like we didn't expect it,” Lenny comforted her, and she gave a sigh and a nod.

  Irwin huffed. “Going off the path, we'll need to walk closer together. Always keep the person in front of you in sight. The big predators on Veltos are out on the plains, but there are small mammals here with teeth, and while we've got a full medkit, a bite won't be pleasant.” Irwin sent the supply hover ahead and then pushed a branch aside and stepped off the trail.

  They followed him in silence, and when Tally looked up, she could just see the black column of smoke above the treetops.

  They were heading right for it, she only hoped there was something--someone--left to find.

  Chapter 10

  The forest was alive around them.

  Not that Tally hadn't noticed it on the trail, but off the path, where the massive ferns that grew beneath the trees brushed constantly against her, and the ground was spongy with dead leaves and damp earth, it was far more obvious.

  She had to fight against her heightened senses as well as try to navigate the dense undergrowth.

  The fright she'd gotten when Ben had made her stop had overstimulated whatever it was inside her that tried to keep her safe.

  Every drip of water from the leaves, every rustle on the ground, caused her heart to accelerate and her skin to prickle.

  She stumbled more than she would have normally, starting at insignificant sounds.

  When a branch caught at her jacket, she jerked away, stubbing her toe hard on an exposed root.

  The pain brought tears to her eyes, and she hopped a few steps before fetching up against one of the massive tree trunks and leaning back against it, bracing her hands on her knees.

  “Enough. That is just enough.” She said it out loud, and winced, because Ben was already beside her, crouching down, and Frangi had turned at her cry of pain.

  “What is it?” Frangi put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Nothing.” She squeezed her eyes closed. “I just stubbed my toe. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Did you sprain it?” Frangi crouched on the other side to Ben.

  Gingerly, Tally wriggled her toe in her boot. She could already feel her body responding, she could almost feel the little . . . things . . . racing to her toe, repairing the damage.

  It still hurt, though. She sucked in a breath. “I don't think so. Just gave it a really hard rap.”

  And whose fault is that? She thought to her invaders. Whose fault is that?

  “Your face is pale.” Ben was watching her with concern, and she wondered what she'd looked like to him before she'd stubbed her toe, flinching and shying from every little noise.

  “I'm just tired, and unused to being planet-side.” She cringed that he must think her nervous and weak, but really, that wasn't far from the truth.

  She wasn't the same person she had been the day she'd stepped onto the ghost ship with Rew. That calm, collected woman was gone.

  Tally missed her.

  She drew in a deep breath, blew it out. She was tired. Tired of being afraid of her own body, tired to the bone of carrying the secret of it, and yet, there was no way she'd admit to being the carrier of some kind of alien thing.

  They'd most likely think her mad.

  Even a thorough blood test had come up with nothing.

  As far as the Raxian military were concerned, she was just a little mentally scarred from her time on the ghost ship.

  She straightened. �
��I'm already feeling better, thanks. Sorry I'm slowing you down.” And she did feel better. Her toe almost didn't hurt at all, now.

  But she was hungry.

  She pulled out three of the bars she'd stuck in a pocket before they left the bottom of the cliff, and offered them to Ben and Frangi.

  They each took one.

  “You sure you're all right?” Ben watched her with careful eyes.

  She smiled brightly. “All good.”

  “You coming?” Lenny called from further up the path.

  “Yes,” Frangi yelled back, and they started walking again.

  Tally took stock as she followed Frangi, chewing on her bar. She felt closer to normal, now. Her resident aliens had pulled back. She suspected her hearing was a little better than usual, but she wasn't in the constant state of fright or flight that she'd been in earlier.

  She'd clawed back some control. Or they'd ceded it.

  She glanced behind her, caught the severe line of Ben's mouth and quickly turned back.

  Whatever he thought of her, it could be nothing close to the truth. And she would make sure it stayed that way.

  * * *

  Dawn was a few hours away by the time they reached the crash site.

  Ben upped his pace as they started working through the splintered trunks and ripped up undergrowth caused by the runner's landing. He passed Tally and the others, moving until he was in line with Irwin.

  “You're acting like we should expect trouble.” Irwin gave him a sidelong glance.

  Ben shrugged, pulled ahead of Irwin as well.

  He was trained to expect trouble, but he didn't think there would be any up ahead. He just felt the need to get there first, to survey the scene.

  He slid down a short slope, which looked untouched, as if the runner had ramped over it, and then, there was the ship.

  It still smoldered sullenly, the black smoke almost impossible to see in the darkness, but the smell was overpowering.

  Ben lifted the hood of his jacket, activated the air filter protocol, and the thin light strips embedded around the edges of the hood's fabric activated, lighting up his face and creating a barrier to filter the surrounding air.