by A A Warren
Taking a deep breath, he stepped through the shower of ice and snow, and stood before the hatch. The ship groaned again, and skidded further down the edge of the chasm. He felt the deck tilt beneath him.
“Victory or death,” he whispered.
He bent his knees, braced his legs, and reached forward. With a loud thud, he slammed the pommel of his blade on the flashing red light.
A hiss of air rushed from the hatch. The mangled frame of the skimmer rattled as the series of charges erupted along the edge of the side panel. A blast of cold air rushed into the cockpit, as the panel exploded away from the ship.
Talon stumbled backwards, as the angle of the deck grew steep. The sudden vibration dislodged the tiny craft from the ice. He fell backwards into the control panel, as the ship skidded over the edge of the cliff.
Suddenly, the vibrations ceased, and he felt his stomach leap into this throat. They had gone over the edge… they were falling!
Talon planted his feet on the ground and surged forward, charging towards the opening in the ship’s side wall. Bellowing a fierce battle cry, he leapt through the air. He sailed out the open hatch and flew towards the towering wall of ice.
As he struck the cold, hard surface, his arms pistoned forward. Using every ounce of strength he possessed, he dug the two blades into the frozen cliff. The razor sharp crystals that lined each weapon were the sharpest substance known to man… they cut through the frozen surface as if it were paper, and gouged deep channels into the ice.
For a brief second, Talon hung off the cliff side, suspended in the air. Then, with a loud snap, the line clipped behind him drew tight, and B’Turo swung beneath him, tugging at his harness. The blades began to slice though the ice, as the weight of the unconscious man tugged him down the wall. He began to pick up speed, sliding faster and faster down the frozen cliff.
Grunting with exertion, Talon dug his boots into the surface. A spray of ice chips flew up beneath him as he slowed his descent. Finally, he skidded to a halt. Turning his head, he glanced down. B’Turo hung from the line beneath him, swaying back and forth in the frigid breeze. The sheet of ice below was still kilometers away. They were two insignificant dots, suspended above a vast plane of white. A fall would mean certain death for both of them…
Talon paused for a moment, panting for breath. His muscles throbbed and ached. Even with the regulator field active, he felt the chill of the cold air sting his skin.
After a few seconds passed, he took a deep breath, and grit his teeth. He dislodged one of his blades from the ice. The muscles in his other arm throbbed, as the both their combined weight tore at his shoulder. His breath was a pained hiss, as he swung his body higher, and chipped at the ice with his free blade. When the weapon was lodged in the frozen cliff, he repeated the process with his other arm. Slowly, he pulled himself up the ice wall, dragging B’Turo behind him.
After about thirty minutes of the painful, grueling climb he crested the wall of ice, and heaved his body onto the snow-covered ground. Rolling onto his back, he sprawled along the edge of the cliff and gasped for breath. For once, he was glad of the freezing cold ice beneath him… it numbed the aching of his throbbing muscles.
“Hey!” A faint voice called out from below. After a few sputtering coughs, it shouted up again. “Hey, don’t leave me hanging here, you kusan yaveto!”
Talon clenched his jaw, and braced his feet against the edge of the cliff. His shoulders and arms rippled with cords of muscle as he hauled the line up. Finally, a gloved hand reached over the edge of the ice. Talon grabbed the old man’s arm and hoisted him up.
B’Turo staggered onto solid ground, and crouched, panting for breath as he found solid footing. He glanced around the frozen wasteland and shivered. His fingers gingerly probed the gash on his forehead. “Damn… that’s gonna leave a bruise.”
“It could be worse,” Talon muttered.
B’Turo glanced at the line that joined the two of them together. He looked up at Talon and narrowed his eyes. “I remember the explosion… then I blacked out. We must have crashed, but… did you carry me out of there?”
Talon nodded. “We fought together. I don’t leave my allies behind.”
B’Turo whistled. "Well I’ll be damned. A man of honor, eh?"
Talon shrugged. “I didn’t have much choice. I need your help to finish this fool’s errand.”
The old man chuckled. “Son, I don’t think there’s a soul in the entire colony who would give up a cut of his shares to save his own mother. You risked your life and saved me, just to help Katara?”
“I gave my word. Besides, she has Vaki.”
B’Turo nodded. “Yeah. Listen, I haven’t made it this far by running my mouth off, but after what you did… Look, there’s something you should know. Your friend, the girl?”
Talon stared at him with his crimson eye. “What about her?”
B’Turo sighed. “She may be in danger. The queen, Katara…” His voice trailed off, lost beneath the cold, moaning wind.
Talon grabbed the man’s shoulder. “Go on, tell me.”
“I don’t know. There’s something… not right. Something strange, happening at the colony. I feel like I’ve seen things. Terrible things. But I just can’t remember. I have nightmares about this place. When I wake up, it’s all a blur, like a distant memory. But there’s one thing I know for sure.”
“And what is that?”
B’Turo looked him in the eye. “Katara is dangerous. And your friend… she’s not safe. The sooner you two get off this planet, the better. We should get moving.”
The old man shrugged away from Talon’s hand and tapped the screen of his wrist display. “Interference from that pulsar is getting worse. Now it’s jamming surface comm frequencies as well as hyper-transmissions. So much for calling the colony for another skater.”
Talon checked his regulator belt. The cells were all fully charged. “Can we make it on foot?”
B’Turo nodded, as he called up a map on his wrist unit’s display. “We’re in Zigra territory now. There’s a ravine a few clicks west of here. If we can climb down, we should be able to make it to their mining complex by nightfall.”
As he shuffled away from Talon, the freezing wind grew more intense. A swirling haze of ice and snow filled the air. Talon stared at the old man for a moment, then scanned the frozen canyon behind them. He saw nothing… they were alone on the ice.
He turned and followed B’Turo into the frost-filled haze.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Talon planted his foot in the ice and took another step down the side of the ravine. The slope was steep, and the shimmering ice was as slippery as polished glass. The grueling trek had been slow going, but he could see the ground leveled out after this next slope. If B’Turo was correct, the Zigra colony lay beyond the craggy ice walls that surrounded them.
“So let me get this straight,” B’Turo panted, huffing for breath as he slid a few inches down the ice. “That thing in your eye detects dark energy?”
“Among other things,” Talon said. He kept his eyes on the treacherous ground as they continued their descent.
“Guess that's why Katara sent you, instead of Makor.”
“I don’t pretend to understand her motives,” Talon replied, taking another cautious step. “I'm eager to finish my business with her, and leave this forsaken planet.”
“You’re assuming Katara will keep her end of the bargain.”
Talon glared at the old man. “I’m not a fool, B’Turo. I have no intention of turning the black jade over to Katara until she proves her good intentions. If you think you can stop me—”
B’Turo laughed and held up his hands in a gesture of mock surrender. “Me? Hell, I’ve got no loyalty to Katara or the Toho Clan. Bunch of corporate blood-suckers. I worked on one of their factory worlds, years ago. The med-techs there found Ch’irox disease in my lungs. Caused by all the plasma gas residue we were breathing… they used cheap filters in their life support sys
tems.”
Talon glanced at the old man as they slid another few inches down the ravine. “Ch’irox? I thought there was no cure?”
B'Turo nodded. “There wasn’t. But the Toho Clan are big into medical technology. Their bio-mancers used some kind of machine on me… a prototype they called a bio-harvester. It replaced the cancer cells in my lungs with healthy tissue. Edited the disease right out of my DNA.”
“So they saved your life?”
"Yeah. But I didn't read the fine print. The treatment cost more than I could earn in a lifetime. When I couldn’t pay their blood money, I had to turn to smuggling to make ends meet."
Talon grinned. "I take it your masters didn't approve?"
B'Turo shrugged. “Guess I wasn't very good at it. I got caught, and the Toho Clan threw me in a forced labor camp. A few years later they transferred me here, to the mining colony."
The two men paused for breath, resting along the edge of a giant ice outcropping.
Talon checked his regulator belt, then looked up at the old man. “Doesn’t the Consortium government have laws? Rules to protect its citizens?”
B’Turo laughed. “Laws? Look, the Jotoru Emperor controls the military. Everything else… schools, trade, law enforcement, local governments… he turned those over to the citizens of the Consortium. But the clans had so much wealth, they bought them out. Now, the clans are the law. Only law that matters, anyway. The Emperor just sits on his throne and collects his shares. The clans run everything in this damn kingdom. And each clan cares about one thing… their own slice of the pie. People like me?” The old man spat into the ice. “We’re just the fuel that keeps the whole rotten engine running.”
Talon looked the man in the eye. “Then maybe it’s time to tear the engine apart.”
The old man took a deep breath and stretched. “Maybe. But jabbering out here in the cold won't change anything, that’s for—”
A low rumble rose from the ground. Chips of ice cracked and fell from above as a tremor shook the ravine. Talon froze, crouching low to maintain his balance as the ice crackled and broke around him.
The tremor died down. The cold air was silent and still once again.
“We’d better get moving,” Talon said.
B’Turo eyed the towering ice above them with suspicion. “Yeah… you’re right about that.”
They resumed their trek, rounding the craggy ice structures that blocked the end of the ravine. As they stepped out onto clear ground, Talon shielded his eyes from the sun. He gazed across the vast plain of ice.
“By the haunted stars!” he gasped.
A bluish haze hung just over the horizon. Giant cracks ran through ice before them, ending at the edges of a vast sinkhole. The depression stretched as far as the eye could see.
Mangled, twisted fragments of metal rose from the gaping crater. The skeletal frames of collapsed buildings and rusted equipment creaked and swayed in the breeze.
“Is that…” Talon began.
B’Turo was silent for a moment, drinking in the stark image with his squinting dark eyes.
“The Zigra colony. What’s left of it, anyway.”
Talon surveyed the devastation. “What happened here?”
B’Turo shook his head. “I have no idea.” He glanced down at his wrist unit. “Surface comms are still jammed. And no transmission has left this planet in months. I wonder if the Zigra Clan even knows what happened here?”
Talon took a step towards the edge of the sink hole. “I can’t imagine— Arrrgh!” He suddenly bent over, as if he were ill. He clutched his head, grimacing in pain as a spasm ran through his body. He closed his eyes tight, and grit his teeth, fighting to clear his head from the sensory overload flooding his nerves.
B’Turo grabbed his arm. “Hey, you okay? What’s wrong?”
Talon’s eyes shot open. He shoved the old man away as he staggered to the edge of the depression. His panting breath sent trails of mist into the air.
“What the hell happened?” B’Turo asked.
“I felt… something. Pain.”
“Are you hurt?”
Talon shook his head. “No, it’s not that. This thing, the crystal in my eye… I don’t understand how it works. But sometimes, it forms bonds with people. It shows me their memories, their thoughts. Dark energy can trigger it sometimes. And the pain I felt… it wasn’t mine. It came from something down there.”
B’Turo followed his gaze, staring at the devastated colony. “Well one thing’s for sure. The black jade must be nearby.”
Talon glanced up at him. “How can you be so sure?”
"You said dark energy reacts with your eye somehow. Well, look... it's reacting now."
The old man fished a small metal box from his utility belt. He flipped it open, revealing a tiny mirror and shaving supplies. He held it out.
Talon peered down at the mirror. He could see his crimson eye, peering back at him from behind a sweat-soaked lock of hair. The crystal was glowing bright, pulsing with energy.
Talon handed the mirror back to the old man. “We have to get down there.”
B’Turo hesitated. “Hold on a sec. A couple things are still bothering me.”
“What are you talking about?”
B’Turo unclipped a pair of range-finders from his belt. He held the goggles up to his eyes and dialed up the magnification setting. “Katara’s been digging ore out of this planet for years. The Zigra’s raided our storage facility a few weeks ago, sure. But no matter how much black jade they stole, it's nothing compared to what she already has. She could have left Neros at any point, but she’s stayed here, despite the danger. There must be something else down there she wants, besides her precious black jade.”
“I don’t care what she wants. I said I would return her stolen cargo. That was our deal.”
"There’s something else," the old man mumbled, peering down at the devastated colony.
Talon slid his axe from his battle harness and held it by his side. Despite the cold, his skin still burned from the wave of agony that had overwhelmed him. “What is it, B’Turo? Speak your mind.”
The old man adjusted the magnification of the goggles. He made another sweep of the wreckage.
“You said you were sensing someone’s pain just now… pain that wasn’t your own.”
“I said it was possible. I don’t know for sure.”
The old man lowered the range finders. His breath misted the air as he turned to face Talon.
“Well, I don’t see a single living soul down there. Not on the surface anyway. So who’s pain were you sensing?”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
Talon turned and descended the steep wall of the sinkhole. A shadow moved towards them across the ice as the sun dipped behind the canyon walls.
B’Turo slipped the range-finder goggles back into his belt.
“Yeah, I was afraid you’d say that,” he muttered. He followed Talon down the precarious trail into the wreckage below.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Vaki’s head slammed into a metal bulkhead, sending a jolt of pain through her skull. With her eyes shut tight, she couldn’t see what had struck her. As she gasped in pain, a stream of bubbles exploded from her lips and nostrils.
She forced herself to open her eyes. The strange, viscous fluid surrounding her stung, but she had to get her bearings, find an escape route before she ran out of breath. Her hair floated around her face, obscuring her vision. She swatted a few dark strands aside.
She was floating, tumbling along a corridor flooded by the refuse she had unleashed from the tanks. Beams of light reflected off the rippling surface. There were glow spheres overhead. She glimpsed a sudden movement to her right. She spun around in the liquid, paddling with her arms and kicking her legs.
A chunk of white, stringy flesh drifted by. The remains looked almost as big as she was, and shimmering ivory scales lined its surface. She squinted, struggling to see in the hazy liquid. She could make out
surgical tools and torn sensors, still embedded in the putrid mass of flesh.
The worms… what the hell was Katara doing with them?
A burning sensation filled her chest. There was no time to worry about anything else… she needed air. She spun around and kicked, letting her legs propel her to the surface. The fluid was thick and viscous, and her clothes weighed her down. She unzipped her jump suit top and shrugged it off, then tore it free from her pants.
The flimsy tank top she wore underneath was soaked through, but losing the outer layer made it easier for her to swim. With a final stroke of her arms, she broke the surface of the flooded corridor.
Her head slammed into the roof… she dipped back under the water, sputtering and gasping. She surfaced again, slower this time. Her eyes were wide with panic… there were only a few centimeters of space between the fluid and the corridor roof… she angled her head, struggling to get her face out of the water.
Finally, she could gasp for breath, filling her lungs as the fluid swirled around her.
She spun her body in the water, glancing left and right. She couldn’t be certain, but it seemed like the fluid level was rising. And if this tiny gap of breathable air disappeared…
Taking one last deep breath, she pushed off the ceiling, and dove back under the surface. Through the murky haze, she saw a pair of sealed blast doors. A red light blinked on the security panel, lighting the dim fluid with a faint crimson glow.
She swam closer, darting past chunks of torn dura-plas and other floating debris. Bubbles streamed from her mouth as she positioned herself in front of the door. She held her wrist unit up to the panel and tapped the glowing screen.
Nothing happened.
More bubbles streamed from her lips as she muttered a string of Aoshun profanity.
She kicked back to the surface, filled her lungs with air, then dove back down. Glancing around the debris floating next to her, she grabbed a spinning surgical knife, and wedged it under the edge of the security panel.