by GARY DARBY
“Which way?” asked Sami.
Bianca jutted her chin toward the valley’s upper reaches and ordered, “Head for that ridgeline. Take it slow so that we can scan below, but I want to make for high ground and find a place to set the tracker up.”
Sami nodded his acknowledgment and heeled the ship over to skirt above the tree line toward a high prominence.
Leaving the other three ships behind, Sami headed the scouter toward a high sloping ridge free of trees which seemed to offer a clear sky view.
Bianca turned and motioned Anyar forward. She gestured toward the high hills and asked, “Will that do?”
Anyar looked the terrain over before replying, “That works.”
Bianca pointed toward a flat-looking area on the crown of one high hill. “Sami, head upslope; I want to set down on that ridge.”
“You’re the boss,” Sami returned and moved them upslope. Nearing the top, he motioned toward a small plateau that straddled the sharp ridge line. “There?” he asked.
Bianca gave Sami an approving nod. Opening the communicator, she said, “Stinger craft, this is Six. Report your status.”
The other teams responded that they had had no success in locating the Stinger One crew from the air, and there had been no response to their repeated calls over the communicator.
“Break off the search,” Bianca ordered. “We’re up the valley about five or six klicks from the Celeste, follow our beacon in and set down.”
Sami steered the ship down to the landing site and settled it off to one side to allow enough room for the other scouters to land. “Power down,” Bianca ordered Sami.
A few minutes later, the other scouters grounded and the group gathered around Bianca. She waved a hand in a tight circle while saying, “Let’s get a three-sixty perimeter up. Anyar, get the tracker going.”
Sternly, she ordered the novices, “You four stay put.”
Precision-like, the renegades peeled off from the group to set up a defensive perimeter around the scouters. Off to one side, Bianca and Anyar worked setting up the sky watch equipment.
“Did you see anything of Nase?” Shanon asked in a small voice.
“No,” Dason replied in a hard tone. He gestured toward Bianca. “She wouldn’t land or let me rappel down, either.”
“Sure would like to know what they’re discussing,” TJ whispered.
“Bet it’s not good,” Sami muttered.
Glancing around to make sure no one was listening, Dason whispered, “I’m going to find out.”
He took a short step back while his three teammates closed ranks to shield him from view. Using the brush and small boulders that crowned the hilltop plateau, he moved toward the unaware outlaws.
Creeping low, Dason edged closer until he heard Bianca ask Anyar, “Calibration correct, search parameters all inclusive and set to wide angle?”
“Yes ma’am,” Anyar replied. “It’s all locked in. If she’s in synchronous orbit per the ops plan, we should be picking her up. She’s just not there.”
Bianca glanced skyward. “If for some reason she slipped into a low orbit and was doing orange slices around the planet, we wouldn’t pick her up until she was above our horizon, right?”
“Right,” Anyar replied. “A set interval that would only give us a brief window for comms. And without knowing the orbit she’s in, I can’t tell you when we’d spot her. It might be in a few minutes; it might not be for a couple of hours or more.”
“And if she landed, we wouldn’t get anything, right?” Bianca asked.
“Doubtful with this equipment,” he replied. “We’d need something to bounce the signal off, first.”
“And the communicator?”
“I’ve set up the robocall. It’s sending, but not receiving a return signal.”
Bianca then asked, “If we left the tracker here and operating, could you remote it to our comms so that we would know if it picked up anything?”
“Can do. It’ll take me a few minutes, but I can rig it so that it will pop an alert to us.”
“Good. Make it so.”
Bianca turned to walk towards an outlaw who stood guard near a landing craft, not seeing Dason rejoin his teammates. “Well?” TJ demanded in a whisper. “What did you hear?”
Dason made sure no one was in earshot before quietly saying, “Not good. There’s no sign of the Queen. I have the feeling that this is not a comms failure, but something more serious like it’s really gone.”
“Gone as in crashed?” Sami whispered.
“Gone as in crashed,” Dason replied.
“That means—” Sami started.
“That means,” TJ interjected, “we’ve gone from being on board a spacer with outlaws to being marooned on this planet with a gang of Gadion Faction terrorists.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Star Date 2433.060
Unnamed Planet, Inside the Helix Nebula
Marooned!
The word conjured up stories of Star Scouts stranded for weeks, even months on uncharted worlds in the far reaches of interstellar space. And of course, there were the tales of missing scouts who were never found.
“What about that S and S distress call?” TJ asked in a low tone. “Do you think anyone heard it?”
“I’d like to believe it’s possible,” Dason returned at the same voice level. “But we’re way off the beaten path. I’m not sure if there are any Imperium forces of any kind within several hundred light-years or more.”
Shanon started to speak, but shook her head and remained silent.
Sami whispered in a fierce manner, “Doesn’t matter! What matters is that we’re stuck here with these desperados and—”
“Keep your voice down, Sami,” TJ demanded. She turned to Dason. “Besides, what’s more important is that we get you off this planet and to medical help.”
She turned to Sami to say, “Or had you forgotten about Dason?”
“Hadn’t forgotten,” Sami answered in a low rumble. “Matter of fact, we were alone for several minutes in the scouter and I offered to pilot him to that Star Scout transport. He wouldn’t let me.”
“Is that right, Dason?” Shanon asked softly.
“Yes, but—”
“No buts, Dason,” TJ declared. “If you were thinking of us—thanks, but stop. We can take care of ourselves. You, on the other hand need something that we can’t help you with, and you need it soon.”
In an emphatic voice, she continued, “We need to escape, it’s that simple. Before, we didn’t have the opportunity, now we do.”
“Amen, sister,” Sami quipped and asked TJ, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
TJ returned Sami’s look. “And what are you thinking?”
“We bug outta here,” Sami asserted. “Make for Stinger One, grab it, and make for that scout transport. Simple as that.”
“No,” TJ stated.
“No?”
“No, Sami,” TJ answered patiently. “We definitely don’t make for Stinger One.
“Huh? Then, just how are we going to—”
“Sami, Sami,” TJ responded shaking her head, “Didn’t you ever play hide ‘n’ seek when you were a kid?”
“Is that where if you did something wrong, you hid from your folks, and they sought you out to whack your behind?”
TJ cocked her head sideways, opened her mouth as if she couldn’t believe what she had just heard. “Never mind. Stinger One is the first place these yahoos will look for us because that’s the closest scouter, and it would make the most sense for us to go there.
“No, we make a big show of heading that way.” She jutted her chin toward the nearest scouter. “Then we double back and take one of these.”
Shanon said, “You’re assuming that they will leave a scouter here.”
“Oh, I know they will,” TJ replied. “Look behind you.”
They turned and saw why TJ was so confident. Anyar had fibo cables running from a scouter to the sky-tracker, no doubt to
tie it in with the ship’s onboard systems.
“TJ, you’re right,” Dason replied. “That one is definitely staying here.”
Shanon asked, “But will they leave any guards behind?”
TJ blew out a breath. “I don’t know, but that’s something we would just have to deal with, isn’t it?”
Dason looked at each of them before asking, “And what about Nase?”
Shanon, Sami, and TJ exchanged glances among themselves before TJ murmured, “I think that if Nase were here, he’d say go for it if we have a chance.”
She looked straight into Dason’s eyes. “Dason, in case you hadn’t noticed, you’re running out of options, and this might be the last one you have.”
Brushing a toe across the sandy brown dirt, TJ muttered, “Besides, if we can get to that transport, we might be able to call in the cavalry, and that would be the best help we could ever get for Nase, don’t you think?”
No one spoke until Shanon said, “To be frank, I’m not all that keen on this notion of trying to escape. We might want to consider waiting a little longer. There might be other—”
“We don’t have the time, Shanon,” TJ argued, “besides—”
“I have my reasons, TJ,” Shanon interjected, “to think so, and no, I haven’t forgotten about Dason for one second!”
She drew in a deep breath and turned to Dason. “Listen, there’s something I need to share with all of you. I was going to wait, but—”
“Looks like you’re out of time to wait,” Sami murmured, “here comes da boss lady.”
Boots crunching in the gravel-like soil, Bianca strode over to stand in front of the novices. She let her eyes rove over the group before saying, “You’re entitled to know the score.
“We’ve lost contact with the Queen. Why, I don’t know and frankly there’s not much we can do about it right now.
“Once Anyar has the sky tracker up and running, we’re going to move down off this hill and into the forest to search for our missing comrades. So listen carefully and remember what I have to say. Your life may depend on it.
“This is not some training preserve. This world may look and feel Earthlike, but it is not Terra! The dangers will be real, possibly fatal, and unknown until we find out the hard way what they are.
“You’re going to want to act like six-week-old puppies, sticking your noses in everything. Don’t!
“Be suspicious, trust nothing. That purple bush over there may be nothing more than that, or it could be this planet’s equivalent of a Portuguese Man O’ War.
“That tiny insect-looking creature flitting around could be some flesh-eating parasite that will burrow into your body if given the chance.
“That pretty rock that you want to pick up and examine may be an organic life-form just waiting to suck your life blood out.”
She took in a breath. “Trust me. I know what I’m talking about.”
With that, she turned and marched toward Anyar, who was assembling the sky tracker’s last components.
Dason agreed with her somber message. Though the air tasted like Mother Earth’s sweet mixture, and the ground underfoot felt like Terra Firma, nevertheless this was an alien world.
Would it turn out to be tranquil and forgiving, or hostile and lethal? The answer to that question could well cost them their lives.
He glanced up at the dark gray cloud of the nebula that covered the sky from one horizon to the other and recalled a lesson from Scoutmaster Tarracas.
“Out There, presupposing that all is well can be deadly. An ill-advised assumption could kill you as fast as the strike of Marsten’s Razor Hawk. Assume if you must, but if you must assume, select your next footstep most carefully.”
Sami leaned over to whisper, “Trust her? No way. But I admit, I didn’t know she cared.”
Bianca had only taken a few steps before she turned. “Oh, I care, Sami. After all, if you go missing, who would we laugh at?” With that she strode over to Anyar.
Sami looked down and muttered, “Didn’t know she had such great hearing either.”
Shanon commented, “‘Mother’s hearing,’ Sami.”
Sami grunted, “Her? A mother? I don’t think so, and heaven help us if she’s breeding.”
Shanon shook her head. “It’s just a saying. A new mother has heightened senses so that she’s aware of even the tiniest sounds her infant makes.”
An odd expression crossed her face. “Same thing happens when we’re anxious about another person.” She glanced at her teammates. “Or in this case, persons.”
She nodded to herself. The pieces were definitely falling into place. First chance they had, she would share her suspicions with Dason.
Anyar gave a quick nod to Bianca who stood and called over their comms, “Everybody to me.”
The four novices joined the semicircle in front of the outlaw leader. She gestured toward the modular-looking equipment.
“The tracker is up and running and tied into Stinger Six’s onboard computer and power. The lasers are calibrated and synched so if it detects the Queen or another ship, it will alert us through our comm's system.
“We’re headed down into the valley to look for the Stinger One crew. Now’s the time to check your gear.
“Make sure your rations and water are full up, and you’ve stowed extra power clips for your L-guns. We’ll do short teams for now, with teams by craft assignment.
“Craft commanders are team leaders. My team will lead. If I go down, Brant is in charge. Trail formation until we can spread out. Lara, your team has rear over watch. Tam, as soon as you can, put out short-leash flankers.”
Bianca waited while everyone checked and rechecked their gear. A few minutes later, each team commander indicated they were ready. She motioned for the four novices to come forward.
She gazed at them as if she weighed something in her mind, then reached into her vest and brought out four L-guns and four Life Sensors. She held them in her hands, staring as if she were still wrestling with some decision on her part.
Letting out a deep sigh, she held them out to the novices. “Here, you might need these. Besides, the L-guns are only at half charge, guess you can’t do much damage with that.”
With that, she turned and ordered, “Anyar, take the point.” To the rest, she commanded, “Move out.”
Anyar slipped over the small plateau’s rim, picking his way down the brush-filled slope. Standing at the lip of a small overhang, Bianca directed, “Dason, LS on free search, Sami, team over watch.”
Dason nodded and followed Anyar down. After everything else, Dason wasn’t too surprised to see Anyar pull out a Life Sensor and start his own scan.
Though it had rained just hours before, Dason found his footing firm enough on the steep incline. He threaded his way, watching both the LS and the surrounding terrain.
His tense stomach came from the realization that this alien world no doubt harbored its own unique extraterrestrial life as well as its hazards.
But the greater part of his anxiety came from the fact that something had happened to Nase, and now Dason and the remaining novices were thinking of escaping, a dangerous move considering the company they kept.
The thought of leaving Nase left a bad taste in his mouth, but TJ had a valid point. All the signs said this might be the only opportunity they had to break away from their captors.
Dason’s one hope was that this was the right thing to do, for them and for Nase. If so, the novices would be able to find help to rescue Nase and afterward, get Dason the medical treatment he so desperately needed before his time ran out.
The ridge’s steepness forced the group to do several diagonal switchbacks and delayed their progress, but a steady march brought them to the valley floor and the dusky forest.
Overhead, small flying creatures flicked through the tree branches and leaves. Some seemed to be avian in nature with puffy bodies and oversized heads held aloft by a set of bi-wings.
Others appeared to be more inse
ct like, with segmented bodies and flowing, filmy wings on which they drifted with the air currents. So far, everything left the encroaching humans alone.
They had landed in the late afternoon, and now the sun began to slip behind the far line of hills across the valley.
The last, faint light beams pierced small openings in the tree canopy to form dim pools of radiance on the forest floor. The shadows in the dense undergrowth began to darken.
Dason’s LS display showed several life-form readings, but they were all in the low-band range. The flying creatures had lighted up the sensor several times.
Once he got a midrange spike on a life-form, but just as quick as the reading appeared, it vanished from the display.
Dason guessed that the unseen creature had sighted the humans and sped away in the opposite direction.
Anyar stopped and with his back to the group raised his arm up in the age-old sign to halt. He knelt and motioned for Bianca’s group to come forward. Dason hurried to join the young outlaw.
On one knee, Bianca asked, “What have you got?”
Anyar held up his LS to her. “Multiple hits and from the way they’re acting, my guess is hunters on the prowl.”
“Where?” Bianca asked and swung her head side to side.
“Front and to our right. They’ve shadowed us for the last five minutes. One or two will come in close, and then scoot way before coming back. But each time they come a little closer.”
He tilted his LS to Dason. “Beta scale, four point five.”
Dason nodded. “Got it. Saw it a while back but it never registered again. Did you get a visual?”
Anyar shook his head. “No. They keep to the undergrowth, and they’re good at staying unseen. One passed through the bushes near me, and from the way the brush moved, we’re looking at creatures about the size of a large dog or wolf.”
“Okay,” Bianca replied. “We’ll close up and shorten our intervals. Dason, lock your LS on this signature and track it. Anyar, keep yours on free search.”