Reesa felt her stomach flip and did her level best to focus on Matt's face. Matt's handsome, calm face. Arrogance or confidence, or maybe both, leant his features a passive and serene look. He had no doubts in his mind that they would reach the other side of the wormhole.
"Well," he said after a moment. "We do have one thing working for us."
She tilted her head, wordlessly watching him and trying to adopt his demeanor and confidence.
"We have you," he strummed the arm of his chair. "You mentioned that Celeocia is searching for patient zero."
Reesa perked, fully alert now, "She is."
"Let us see if we can't work that to our advantage."
"You want to bluff?"
"No," Matthew grinned at her. "No, I want you to bluff."
***
Something sharp pinched at his jugular and Hedric jolted awake. Without thought or preamble he shoved himself upright and took stock of his surroundings. The metallic room spun three times in his vision before he was able to concentrate.
He was on the Lothogy.
How had he gotten on the Lothogy?
Jellison was kneeling just beside him, frowning and scrutinizing him at the same time. "Quiet Cap'n," the soldier said. "I was under orders to keep you drugged."
"What?" Hedric's temper flared. "By who?"
"Myron, sir," Jellison glanced at the door.
Hedric swore. "Mutiny."
Hedric's fingers did an involuntary twitch. Blasted Myron and his heroic need to get Kate home, the twit wasn't Mesa and never would be. She was no concern of theirs.
"I'm also supposed to keep you away from Kate."
His mind went to static for a moment.
What if Myron was so adamant about Kate because he'd been in love with Mesa? What if this was the poor man's way of keeping Mesa alive.
Jealousy grabbed him full force.
"Where are they now?"
"Checking the damage on the ship," Jellison reported. "Freeman's setting the perimeter. Keats is with them."
"Good. Let's get armed. This has gone far enough."
Jellison grunted agreement and helped him to his feet.
***
Kate hovered close to Myron, trailing him around the ship and trying hard to ignore how much he looked like Ben. The Martian jungle hung heavy around the crash site, massive rounded leaves making a broken canopy overhead. There was a hole in the leafage above where the ship had touched down, allowing the late day sunlight to warm them.
It was insufferably hot.
Apparently the perimeter around the temple regulated the temperature because outside, in the thick of Mars, the heat and moisture pressed heavy on all sides. It sunk into her skin, beaded through the air so thick she could feel herself breathing. Sweat soaked and uncomfortable, Kate glared up through the branches. The sky was a heavy blue color, almost as oppressive as the heat, with bright clouds drifting lazily through the atmosphere. There were no signs of the Plexiglas orbital panels from here, and it looked so similar to Earth that her heart ached.
She looked down and saw a bright yellow flower, obnoxiously large, tangled in a mesh of purple leaves and frowned.
Not Earth.
Her eyes found Myron as he was yanking something out of the hull of the ship. He'd stripped to the waist and his muscles were doing something nice as he strained against the branch stuck in the Lothogy's undercarriage. He was fairly aglow with sweat, dark eyes focused on the repair and as appealing as he was she frowned some more.
Not Ben, she thought. Close, but not Ben.
Ben would have been humming something obnoxious like the Oscar Meyer song as he worked. He knew how easily little songs like that could catch in her head and she couldn't get rid of them for days. Sometimes she thought he did it out of spite.
Ben also didn't have a half-moon scar making a crescent around his ribcage.
An earsplitting crack jolted her out of her thoughts and Kate half-ducked. It almost resembled a gunshot, only there was a distinctive humming sound that followed. The left sleeve of her robes tore open as something whooshed past her. An instant later the tree line just ahead of her exploded with ripping branches and torn foliage.
Startled beyond coherent thought, Kate glanced over her shoulder.
Hedric stood on the loading dock of the ship, his weapon aimed in her general direction.
Myron cursed and tackled her, rolling them both into a crevasse between the ship and the ground. Then he was scurrying under the ship, one arm looped around her waist to pull her with him.
"Cap'n!" Freeman yelled from somewhere at their left. "I don't think it's wise to be killing the pilot!"
"You choose your side right now, Freeman!" Hedric shouted back.
He was closer now and she caught her breath in her throat. Myron froze, his arms tightening on her body and Kate made an effort to breathe softer.
He'd shot at her, she thought. The crazy man had actually shot at her.
Her heart rammed hard against her chest. The air was already difficult to breathe but in her panicked state it was becoming almost impossible.
"Side?" Freeman called. "What side?"
"His or mine!" Hedric's voice took on a guttural tone. "Either way, this mutiny is over!"
"Mutiny?" Freeman said. "Cap'n, you went nuts over there! You were shooting at civilians! What me and Myron did was a rescue!"
Two shots fired, followed by the humming noise and Kate's mind snapped to life.
Reesa had come to her about weaponry since she'd been in the military. Or rather, she'd come to Ben and Ben had helped her create a suitable weapon for the Field Arcs to carry. Bile seared the back of her throat as she remembered it.
R413. That's what she'd named it; handheld rail guns.
If she'd had a breath to hold she would have. She heard Freeman curse and saw a streak of movement toward the tree line. Several more shots, a crossfire if she wasn't mistaken, and Myron began to move. Carefully grabbing the holstered weapon at his thigh, he snaked deeper into the crevasse before he whispered to her. "There's a way through," he said. "When I say so, run for the tree line. Do not stop. If you trip, get the hell back up. I will be right behind you."
Kate nodded once and began to squirm under the ship, following his direction. The shooting kept going, Hedric and Freeman shouting at each other, metal smacking into trees and leaves and ship. She had to concentrate on Myron's hushed voice telling her where to put her foot, when to arch her back and how much space she had to maneuver in.
Mars might smell like honeysuckle, she thought, but it tasted like shit. Her left cheek smeared across moist dirt, welcomingly cool against the humidity of the planet. Were she not squirming her way under a space ship, she might have paused to enjoy the sensation, but a combined threat of a million tons of ship crushing her and Hedric's continued rant kept her going. She heard Myron's grunts of effort as he negotiated the tight space until finally they squeezed out on the other side. Her robes ripped on something and she felt a scrape against her back but kept moving.
"Hedric Prosser! You arrogant fool!" Keats' voice joined the argument and Kate faltered.
She pulled herself from under the ship and crouched beside Myron as he checked his weapon. From their new vantage Kate could just see the loading dock of the ship, half hidden under the smooth contours of one of the wings. They still had good cover, but the fight was more visible. She couldn't see Freeman but she could see Hedric, back facing them, with Jellison just beside.
Keats stood halfway between the ship and the tree line, and Kate caught her breath in her throat. His left hand was raised to prove that he was unarmed, his right arm was held securely in a sling, but something told her that wouldn't be enough. Hedric was far too pissed off to care anymore about who he was shooting at. He was a maniac with a big gun, she thought. And he didn't seem to care that he was shooting at the very men he'd served with for years.
Kate glanced at Myron and he met her eyes.
Kate had never seen
combat but she had been a soldier. She'd dug trenches and trained in fox holes and conformed to that unspoken bond that fuses between people in uniform. For a breathless moment they communicated without words.
Myron knew it was pointless to confront Hedric. He knew that his Captain was lost, at least for the time being. And they both knew that Hedric Prosser would shoot them down if they revealed their position.
"This is insane!" Keats yelled.
"Whose ship is it, Alexander?" Hedric shouted by way of answer.
Even from a distance, Kate could see the shock on Keats' face. Myron whispered a curse. The moment dragged on, tense and unmoving and Kate's fear for Alexander Keats increased exponentially. The man had to know the danger he was in. He couldn't really fight the captain while unarmed, exposed and surrounded by a crash site.
"Now," Myron muttered and stood up.
Kate's feet were moving before the shots fired. Her left foot tangled in her heavy robes and she had to yank the fabric up, hiking it high over her thighs so she could run. Forcing herself to focus only on the run, the push of her body for the jungle line, Kate ignored the whoosh of something just past her left arm, the intensifying battle behind her, and just ran. When she reached the jungle line, Kate threw herself forward, jumping between two massive trees and ducking to avoid the overhang of vines and leaves.
As she leapt into the thick of the jungle she became suddenly and acutely aware of a gravity difference. Why she hadn't noticed before was beyond her, but when it took several extra seconds for her feet to connect with the ground again her mind tripped on the revelation.
Mars, not Earth, she reminded herself.
Realizing that the gravity issue could slow her down, Kate tried to keep from jumping. But it was a heavily wooded area and there were many plants, bushes, felled trees and other such hindrances that forced her off the ground.
The sounds of battle distanced. In her prime Kate could run a mile in just over seven minutes. She wasn't certain how long she'd been running and she was no longer in her prime so she kept on running, praying Myron really was behind her. Until her lungs couldn't stand it and her legs had pushed to buckling point and try as she might she couldn't hear Myron's feet behind her.
Another large, yellow flower bloomed in a thicket of brush and she dove for it, rolling to a sitting position as she gasped for breath. Back pressed to a log, Kate shut her eyes and coached her body into cooperating. When the slam of her heart finally lessened she realized that she still couldn't hear Myron. She couldn't hear anything beyond the lazy creak of branches overhead.
Kate turned, keeping low and hidden, to peer over the log.
At first there was nothing. No shouting, no rustling of leaves.
And then, to her immense relief, came the report of gunfire in the distance. It sounded as though it was coming closer and Kate began to search for something. Anything. The last thing Hedric would expect was an ambush from her. But time was severely limited and the only thing she could find was a hefty branch sunk halfway in mud.
A soft woof from just behind her sent a rocket of fear down her spine. It was so close she felt it rustle the hair at the back of her neck. And it was warm.
Terribly warm.
Kate froze as another sound sent every instinct she had roaring to life.
Mars or not. Alien or genetically altered or whatever, Kate recognized a growl when she heard one.
The log in front of her began to move, the yellow flower coming into sudden focus. Not a flower, she realized. A cluster of vibrant yellow spikes that looked absolutely deadly as she began to make out its true form.
The log was really a tail, her mind registered. The spikes were at the end of it. And the head ...
Another soft woof at the back of her neck and it growled again.
Kate had nothing. No weapon, no knowledge that she could remember; nothing to combat whatever massive beast was preparing to make her dinner. She knew it was big, though. Anything with a tail the size of a felled tree had to be substantial. She had the sense, that indefinable, instinctual sense that it was about to pounce. Or bite. The knowing of it sent a quiver of fear through her body and put every little hair she had to standing stiff. Her mind went blessedly blank and she found that she could move again.
Kate dove to the right, directly over the creature's tail. Only she'd forgotten the whole Martian gravity thing and found her descent excruciatingly slow. It roared and something sharp raked across her back, tearing through layers of robes and space suit. Pain seared into her skin and she gasped, ducking her body as the ground finally got close.
"Kate!" Myron's voice called out just as she hit the dirt.
She rolled over her shoulder, tucking her body in a well-practiced roll that would have made her instructors proud. Every damned inch of her flayed back pounded pain into her as she curled over pebbles and fallen brush, but she forced herself to finish the roll until she popped up onto her feet again. At the same moment she heard the hum-crack of a weapon, but didn't have time to breathe her relief. The tail crashed down in front of her, barring her escape route.
More shots rang out, and even in her dazed state she could tell this was from more than one weapon.
Whirling to the left, Kate caught sight of Myron, Hedric and Jellison, their animosity for each other apparently put on hold as they all dealt with the Martian creature. Her back ached but she battled her mind into functioning. She had to get clear of the creature.
Its tail suddenly swept toward her, so fast she didn't have time to blink. She swiveled to the left, desperately trying to avoid the yellow spikes at the end, but the trunk of the tail caught her in the legs anyway and she was flipped off her feet. Kate saw a blur of yellow as the tail came again, while she was still airborne, and pounded full-force into her solar plexus. She slammed into the ground again, sharp lights peppering her vision.
It held her there with its tail and Kate was forced to finally look at it.
It was reptilian, the head and facial structure of a komodo dragon. Only it was massive, towering over her by a good eight feet. And it had sporadic patches of flesh and fur, as though the genetic alterations that had been done might have included some sort of mammal. Kate wasn't a scientist and her mind couldn't locate what sort of beast she was looking at. She defied even Reesa to know its damned name, author or not.
Three rounds struck it at its midsection and the creature staggered back. Within a breath it had righted itself and let out a terrible scream that made her skin crawl.
It looked, Kate thought with horrified clarity, like the love child between Grendel and the Swamp Thing.
Another barrage of weapons fire forced it to lift its tail again. Kate rolled to the left and scrambled to her feet. Her vision swam with dizzy pain, but she spotted when the massive head swung toward her. She ducked, smelled something rotting in its breath as it tried to bite her, and stumbled over a rock. Its teeth gnashed together, unnervingly close, just before she heard a weapon go off in front of her. She didn't have time to look up. The ground trembled under her feet as the creature was forced to step back and then she launched herself up, charging forward with all her might.
She heard the other men firing from somewhere on her right, but kept her focus locked on where Myron lingered at the edge of the jungle. He didn't fire again, not until she'd gotten to his side. Then he fired three times, turned and grabbed her elbow.
"Run!" He yelled.
They took off together, leaving Hedric and the others to deal with the Martian beast.
***
Hedric saw Myron retreat with the girl and for an insane moment considered pursuing. It was Jellison who gave him focus, shooting five more times at the Dromodus and giving the pilot sufficient time to run. Most of Hedric wanted to argue with his soldier, cursing Myron to a dinner date with the Martian dragon, but somehow he knew that would be a bad idea. So instead he aimed his R413 and took up the fight.
The dragon growled and charged.
Reverber
ating tremors rumbled under his feet as it ran for him and he fired again.
Freeman showed up just at his left, cursing and lifting his weapon for the creature. But it had momentum behind its two ton mass and wouldn't be stopping. Hedric held his ground, waiting. He knew he'd only have a second to leap out of the way without getting hit. If he moved too soon the Dromodus would have time to redirect. If he moved too late he'd be barreled through, likely caught by its teeth and chomped into dinner.
There was a slight chance that he could die before the bite. Sometimes the dragon was known to smash its prey against the ground several times to prevent escape.
He thought of Mesa. He could almost feel the sleek, cool brush of her hair in his hands. He could smell her, soft and clean. He could see her, supple mouth swollen from his affection, her smooth, feminine face clouded with lustful longing. There was the light touch of bed linen all around them and her voice - finally her voice - sultrily murmuring his name.
Several shots fired from Freeman and Jellison's positions and the vision vanished. The feel of her hair was replaced with the solid, cold contours of his weapon. Her voice was lost in the rageful howl of the beast as it charged past the shots aimed at it.
Hedric shouted back at it and prepared for the jump of his life.
But he hesitated. The beast was far larger than he'd anticipated, its muscled legs pounding so hard into the moist dirt that he had to brace himself from the aftershocks. Its leathery, reptilian tail crashed into several trees. He spotted Jellison leaping out of the way, the spiky end of its tail missing his soldier by a hairsbreadth. Hedric tried to aim for the back of its throat, but missed, hitting it somewhere in the jaw instead.
If the creature hadn't had so much momentum behind it, Hedric knew it would have stopped right then. But it couldn't. Hedric glared at the massive form barreling down at him and tried to resign himself to the fact that he was about to get crushed.
Freeman knocked him over, sending Hedric sprawling to the left just before the Dromodus reached them. Hedric hit the ground hard, something sharp piercing through his left elbow.
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