Tracked on Predator Planet (Predator Planet Series)

by Vicky L. Holt.

  “I am here. I have found another human.”

  A shout. Voices. Someone threw out a ‘kathe’.

  “Are we under attack?” Raxthezana asked at last.

  “No,” I said without hesitation. “These humans are not prepared for war.” Then, my mind turned to the weapons firing upon the pazathel-naxl and killing them with ease. I swallowed a lump the size of a jokapazathel. But Pattee lay just a few veltiks away, recovering from the air of my planet. “The humans cannot live here without extreme measures,” I said. “Their arrival was an accident. Of this I am certain.”

  “Are there others?” he asked.

  I looked at the skies above. “I suppose there could be. We must be vigilant, Raxthezana,” I said. “If the Ikma Scabmal Kama learns of these fragile travelers …”

  “She will kill them all, and any who harbor them,” he said, finishing my thought.

  “Do you find it repugnant, Esra and Naraxthel?” I asked before I could bite my tongue and cease the question. A burning sensation in my chest fired my nerves. I struggled to catch breath.

  Silence.

  “I do not understand the works of the Goddesses,” was all Raxthezana said.

  “Ha. Nor do I,” I said on a laugh. “Will you wait for me then? I will bring Pattee with me. She is a mighty hunter. Mightier than Esra.”

  Raxthezana barked a laugh. “Mighty hunters that are ill-prepared for war? At least they do not require much by way of provisions. Should you stumble across any other soft travelers, why do not you bring them along as well. We shall have a veritable hunting party. The more dead, the better the Eternal Fields of Shegoshel will be.”

  I grunted. “May the life of Shegoshel shine upon us and our offspring,” I said.

  He sighed. “May the death of our enemies bring you peaceful slumber.”

  31

  “This way,” Naraxthel’s voice said in my helmet. He led us across the edge of an expansive moraine, an impressive deposit of glacial waste that made for difficult hiking but was desolate and free of most predators. “The rokhural nest below us. Up here we will be safe. For now.”

  Red was always honest with me, even if the truth was frightening.

  My ankle didn’t bother me anymore, but I took extra care clambering over the softball-sized rocks. I recognized a glacial plain when I saw one and wished I had a core barrel tester. I could age the rocks here, figure out when the planet’s last ice age was, and otherwise geek out over being one of the first humans on Ikthe.

  We were headed to find Pattee. Hearing her message made me realize my first guess about other survivors had been right. The Lucidity was a six-sided vessel, a mothership for IGMC. The pods would have released simultaneously but weren’t piloted, per se. The AI was programmed to jettison away from danger in a straight line. Pods on each side of the hexagon would have shot out into space. The farther away they drifted from the Lucidity, the exponentially greater the distance between them all. I would never see my shipmates and fellow miners again. However, the pods from my sector? At least one other had joined me. There could be more.

  “Red, about how far away are we from Pattee’s coordinates?”

  He paused and flipped a panel on his forearm.

  I admired his height and the breadth of his shoulders as his red armor gleamed in the sun. I caught up to him, mindful of the rocky ground, and stood close enough to wrap my arm around his hip. I didn’t come up very high on him.

  “Three days,” he said. “How fares your ankle? I can carry you, should you desire.”

  My face heated at his attention. “Thank you, but I’ll walk for now. I’ll let Pattee know where we are.” I accessed the new application VELMA had installed in my IntraVisor.

  “This is Esra Weaver, K90-Miner 105. Boy, do I have a story to tell you, Pattee! I’ve sicced VELMA on the task of fixing up our communication. Without a DSN tower, we can’t send and receive radio waves.” I looked over the unblemished moraine and to the distant black mountains. “VELMA’s going to patch into the transospheric nanosatellite array. Anyway, Naraxthel and I are headed your way. He says we’re about three days out. He’s my, um, we’re … I’ll explain when we get there. Hang tight, okay? You’re not alone.”

  I signed off and looked up at the sky. The nanosatellite array was invisible to the naked eye, but with VELMA using it, along with her Super Low Orbit “nosecone” satellite, we would be able to communicate with everyone who landed. If anyone else did. Maybe someone else was already here. Maybe Pattee and I weren’t the first.

  My IntraVisor started blinking.

  Naraxthel stopped walking. I caught up to him and grabbed his hand.

  A chart blinked in the upper left corner of my IntraVisor.

  “Foreshocks detected throughout the northwestern region of this continent. Take cover. Microtremors increasing. Earthquake imminent,” VELMA warned.

  A queasy sensation rolled throughout my midsection, and I held my hands out, steadying myself.

  Red grabbed me and lifted me, then began running.

  “There’s nowhere to go!” I said.

  He was heedless. He ran across the moraine at a dizzying pace.

  I watched the line of trees to our left. The black mountains were to our right as we ran along the edge of the glacial plain. With my eyes glued to the tree line, I waited. Sure enough, some animals bounded out of the woods. Where were they headed?

  Naraxthel raced forward.

  I saw no notable destination. “Red, where are we going?”

  “As far away from the nesting grounds as possible,” he answered.

  I felt my face blanch and looked over his shoulder. I could see a fault line developing several yards away. It was as if the edge of the melted glacier silt marked the place for cosmic scissors to cut.

  The crack widened, and it raced after us. I couldn’t tear my gaze away. I screamed and gripped Red tighter. I felt his arms tighten around me, as well, and when the fault reached us, it swallowed us. We tumbled together, dirt, gravel, and rocks caving in all around.

  ***

  When I came to, I saw stars. They were bright, considering everything else was black. “VELMA, auxiliary light.” The soft orange glow emitted from my helmet, and I patted around, trying to find Red. Confusion clouded my mind, but I knew I needed Red, always.

  “Red? Naraxthel?” I grimaced when I tried to move. My legs were trapped under rubble. My heart raced. Rubble. “Red?” My voice raised in pitch. “Where are you?”

  I started digging at my legs. They didn’t hurt, but pressure squeezed on all sides, and I recognized the pall of panic falling over my shoulders. No matter how fast I dug, it was slow-going. He had been holding me. He should be nearby. He would never have let me go. I knew this.

  Growing tired, I laid back against more dirt and rocks. I tried to relax the bunched muscles in my arms and shoulders while I closed my eyes. If I shifted my legs, I could loosen the dirt around them. Maybe, if I kept at it, I could pull them out. I bent forward and tried to dislodge more rocks. Rocks as large as grapefruits. Gravel, pebbles, stones, black dirt. I dug and tossed rocks and dug some more. Fleeting memories of our short time together passed my mind’s eye, but I refused to believe anything bad could have happened to my heart mate.

  “VELMA, where is Red?”

  “Rebooting. Please standby.”

  “VELMA, you’re in Super Low Orbit. All due respect, you didn’t just fall into a cavern like we did.”

  Silence from VELMA for several minutes. I wriggled and managed to pull my legs a couple more inches from the pile.

  “VELMA? Locate Red.”

  “Interference detected from my neural network in SLO. Red is located within forty-five feet.”

  My heart jumped to my throat. “Is he …? Is he all right?”

  “Red’s systems are functioning.”

  I blew out a huge breath. Okay. A good sign.

  “Naraxthel? Why aren’t you answering me?” I debated toggling my mic and shouting in
to the darkness, but thankfully my reason prevailed. I had had enough of the things that go bump in the dark on this planet. I steeled my trust in Naraxthel. He always had a good reason for everything he did.

  My light reached a couple feet in front of me. I couldn’t see any walls, so whatever kind of cavern I was in must be huge.

  I continued to dig. Maybe he was unconscious. I swallowed a lump. Maybe I was growing to rely on him too heavily. How did I strike the balance between independence and being part of a companionship? I guessed we would learn that together. He treated me as an equal. If he was unconscious, I would help him just as I knew he would help me. Our strength came from working together.

  After another short break, I dug some more. I thought I heard something and cocked my head.

  Nothing.

  I leaned back again and rested my weight on my arms. I took a couple deep breaths and then pulled at my legs. The rock and dirt pile was heavy. The more I pulled, it seemed more weight pushed against them. But I had loosened a lot of the dirt. I grunted and yanked at my legs.

  I needed to get out of this.

  Red might need me.

  Gasping for breath, I pulled again. The gravel around my legs shifted and rolled. The ground tremored in an aftershock, and I felt nausea bubble in my gut as bile rose in my mouth.

  The rubble trembled, and my heartbeat hammered in my chest. More soil could cave in from above me! Frantic, I clutched at the dirt and pulled my left leg with all my might. If I broke that one free, I could use it for leverage to yank my other leg out.

  Another tremble. More dirt rained from above. The defile sloped and shook, and I used the loosening dirt to my advantage. I heaved again. Urgency crippled my finesse but lent me extra strength.

  My left leg slid out, and I pressed my boot against the gravel encasing my right leg up to my knee. I pushed down with my boot, pulled from my hip, and cried out in my efforts.

  It slid out. I couldn’t feel my right foot, but I scrambled off the rocky bank and down to the earthen floor.

  “VELMA, which direction is Red?”

  She marked a path in my IntraVisor. I followed along, shining my flashlight against the walls in an erratic fashion until I forced myself to slow down. It was a humongous cavern that narrowed into a Theraxl-sized tunnel. Red was this way. My flashlight dimmed and flickered. I stopped to bang on it, not watching where I was going, and bumped into a solid mass.

  “Whoa. Red?”

  He stood still, his weapons poised in both hands, and faced away from me. I heard a shush noise in my ear. I peeked around him and stopped breathing.

  A crack in the cavern ceiling allowed scant daylight to seep down over its occupants. I counted five huge rokhural and a dozen huge gray eggs.

  I froze in my tracks. I dared not breathe, move, or blink. My hand cramped around my flashlight. I saw now why Red hadn’t answered me when I had called. He must have been scouting the area and found the nest. At present, the reptiles stumbled, dazed. I spied fallen rocks and stalactites. Some had speared through eggs, but not all.

  Once the rokhural shook off their disorientation, they would perceive us as threats to their young, and the terror of the earthquake would have put them all on high alert.

  We needed to escape this cave.

  Aftershocks kept rocking the ground. I could hear gravel scattering as it fell. And as soon as the rokhural spotted us, we were trapped.

  “VELMA, turn off auxiliary light.” My mic was off; I could talk to Red through his helmet.

  “I’m going back.”

  He didn’t respond, but I knew he heard me.

  I let my eyes adjust to the dim light, then picked my way through fallen rocks and blasted stalagmites. I found the cave-in. There was not an opening above, but I knew that already. Ground from the entire area had collapsed in this one place and sealed the crack. I swallowed.

  The west way, where we had headed originally, was blocked. If we wanted out, we had to go via the rokhural nest.

  I turned back around to see Red blocking the tunnel. His glowing red eyes were menacing in the darkness, and a spike of fear sparked in my breast. I needn’t fear Red, though. He was mine.

  We stared each other down. “There’s no other way,” I said. “We’ll have to fight our way out. Unless there is a passageway on the other side of the nest?”

  “Perhaps. We will rest. The rokhural cannot enter the tunnel. We are safe. For now.”

  Nausea hit me, and then the ground shook to punctuate his statement.

  He came to me and held me, letting a shower of stones hit his helmet and armor to shield me from the debris.

  VELMA wasn’t communicating. I had to assume there was a problem with her SLO because we had been talking just moments ago.

  “If that wasn’t an earthquake, then it was a bad aftershock.”

  “We will be safer in the tunnel,” Red said. “Come, Esra.” He led me to the tunnel where the arched ceiling would indeed protect us. But we were that much closer to the rokhural.

  “They can’t fit in here,” I told myself.

  Red’s voice came quietly into my ear. “This is a defensible position. We may slay them at will should they attempt to enter the tunnel.”

  I controlled my breathing. “Okay.” I trusted Red with my life. On this planet, it was something I did daily.

  32

  “Hivelt requests to communicate.”

  “Yes! Hivelt!” I said from my suspended position inside the EEP.

  His voice, along with VELMA’s translation, came through. “Are you well? I will pull you out.”

  “I’m well, yes,” I said with a laugh. A tear dripped down my forehead, over my eyebrow and into my hairline. “You came back.”

  Silence.

  “I have been dishonorable to my brothers. But I will mend the breach. For now, let us get you out. Hold.”

  I heard VELMA speak to Hivelt in his language. I was able to blink a little, and within minutes, I could open my eyes.

  The pressure behind my eyes was great, and my heart sent blood pounding to my head with every beat. The emergency lighting cast a green glow on the inside of my ship.

  All the furs from my bedding piled in the narrow nose of the EEP. I wasn’t in the habit of leaving things out, so gratefully, there were no spilled containers. However, some of my tanning supplies and homemade weapons lay scattered among the furs. My bug-out bag was sealed to one of the walls via the magnetic reinforcement protocol. My CMM wouldn’t be damaged.

  I wondered how Hivelt was going to get me out.

  “VELMA, can you deploy any of the drones?”

  “Deploying. Patching video feed into the monitor.”

  It took a couple minutes to see the exterior of my pod. I gasped.

  Not quite half of the EEP was submerged under a deluge of rocks and boulders as it lay on its side. The front end leaned over the drop-off. One hatch was visible but would open onto a narrow fingernail of land. That was where Hivelt stood, staring at the ship.

  “Fly over the entire ship. Zoom out.”

  I studied what I saw. The outcropping that had housed the nasty, little, biting monster and the beacon had turned into an avalanche of boulders. I would have predicted it would sweep the EEP eastward toward the stream, but I was no geologist.

  If Hivelt were to dig out the ship, it would tip into the bottom of the ravine. The drone’s video showed a raging black river of felled trees and flotsam—not a good place to fall. The ship would be fine—its metal was virtually indestructible—but it would be a nightmare to try and extricate myself from it. Not to mention, there was no guarantee the baffle floats were still intact after the rockfall. Sinking to the bottom of a deep river was not how I wanted to die. Stable 1 or Stable 2 orientations would be difficult to egress from.

  Fleeting thoughts of Mishibizhiw capturing his drowning victims troubled my mind.

  I needed to engineer my way out of this predicament.

  “Hivelt, let me think about this for
a minute. I could use your help once I figure out how to lever the ship out of the rockfall and away from the ravine’s edge.”

  “I will not leave your ship’s side,” he answered.

  My heart melted a little bit. What did I do to deserve this loyalty?

  I mentally inventoried everything I’d requisitioned for the EEPs when I’d designed them. If I hadn’t figured out a way to include it as part of its construction, I’d made damn sure to compel the suppliers to outfit replacement parts or gear, and I had provided cubbies, drawers, and niches to store everything.

  The EEP had several assistive units built into the exterior. The stabilizer legs with rotational handles, the extendable-detachable Galvanite flex rod, nano-video drones, and the weapons. I grumbled to myself. I hadn’t wanted to include the weapons. That was an IGMC mandate.

  Although, Hivelt was alive and uninjured because of the RR weapon.

  The wedge-shaped pod widened at the base. The neural network for the Vector AI was in the detachable nosecone. I’d had cable rings forged into the Galvanite exterior at twelve different points. And I’d recquisitioned fiddle blocks, snatch blocks, carabiners, and meters and meters of rope to be stocked in every pod. I just needed to pass the gear to Hivelt somehow. And I needed a tree or boulder—something to anchor the rope and pulley system.

  I recalled Hivelt’s weight. Four-hundred and fifty-two pounds. I had enough rope and blocks to use a five to one mechanical advantage. That would give him 2,260 pounds of input force. The EEP weighed three thousand pounds with fuel—on Earth where it was built.

  “VELMA, how much fuel remains in the EEP?”

  “The solid-state EEP fuel exhausted during atmosphere entry. Negligible amounts remain in the tanks.”

  I thought of this planet’s weaker gravitational pull and about Hivelt carrying me—I was no lightweight—through the jungle. I bet he could do it.

  “VELMA, we need to pass the snatch and fiddle blocks and the rope to Hivelt.”

  “Very well, Pattee.” VELMA used the swiveling robotic arm to access the storage panels that contained the pulley system inventory.