by C. W Tickner
Harl almost fell backwards as the mesh that was Vorock’s clothing twisted in front of him. Like a living thing it rearranged itself. It became like the links of a chain mail suit, each ring folded over another until a crude ladder was ingrained in the mesh. He reached a hand out, scratching his nail across it making sure it was as hard as it looked before reaching up and hauling himself step by step to the platform above.
‘Hi,’ the woman said as he clambered under the rail, half stumbling onto the surface. The balcony’s floor was also made from the same material as the Aylen’s clothing.
‘It’s safe,’ she said, seeing him test the floor with his toe. ‘We helped design it.’
‘We?’ he asked.
‘The Alphas,’ she said. ‘Although we haven’t called ourselves that in a long time. Together with Vorock we developed similar technologies. Those of us that enjoyed such things. We weren’t prisoners. I heard about the others in your shop but for us it wasn’t like that. He encouraged us to try new things. Creative pursuits, technology and entertainment.’ She sighed, ‘at least before all that was destroyed and we were taken.’ A tear streaked down her face and Harl looked out towards the road.
‘What’s that?’ he asked pointing to the red haze hoping he wasn’t imagining it.
‘It’s a resonance shield,’ she said regaining her confident composure.
‘A shield?’
‘It identifies anything that passes through it. If we go through, we get caught. Or chased,’ she added as a more hopeful option. ‘What do you want up here?’
‘I need to speak with Vorock,’ he said.
‘About what?’ she asked as if she could judge it’s suitability.
Harl was put out by the question but he pushed on. ‘I need to get back to our ship.’ He turned to face the Aylen and angled his head up as if speaking to the face looming over them its eyes cast down at the platform. To his surprise the Aylen spoke and the bracelet on her wrist translated.
‘Why?’ Its voice was rich with human concern as it emanated from the device.
‘The bracelet translates?’ Harl asked, perplexed.
‘It needed adjusting,’ the Alpha said, ‘but yes, it allows easier communication and works both ways.’
‘You may not understand,’ Harl said stepping back to the rail and looking up at an awkward angle. ‘But I wish to recover the bodies of my family. From above.’ he said the last as if Vorock wouldn’t understand him demanding to use the ship.
‘Body?’ Vorock said, as though confused. ‘They are not dead, if what you told me is truth.’
‘I didn’t lie,’ Harl said, feeling anger boil inside at the ignorance of a creature who brain was bigger than a house. He imagined the dreaded final days, scared, alone and surrounded by others who would do anything for a drop of water.
‘They have water,’ the voice said simply.
Hope stirred in him. ‘Why do you say such things?’
‘I sent the water up as you asked,’ Vorock said. ‘We had a bargain and I am of my word.’
Harl wanted it to be true but it made no rational sense. ‘How? When?’
‘I attached a remote control to it,’ Vorock said, ‘like the drones, and programmed it to fly up on the autopilot course already embedded in the software. When you were in the processing plant.’
Harl didn’t understand it all but if the dropship could be controlled like the drones then maybe Vorock was telling the truth.
‘I must go up and see them,’ he said. ‘Can you bring the dropship down again?’
The Aylen smiled as if pleased to be one step ahead. ‘You will be glad to know it has already returned by itself to my home.’
‘They flew back down? They were all on board? ’ He felt ecstatic.
‘I do not know.’ Vorock said. ‘I was not there but the remote device returned once I left.’
They were already waiting for them, hopefully safe and sound. He had to tell the others. ‘What are we waiting for?’ he asked the Alpha woman.
‘The shield,’ she said, raising her eyebrows.
Harl apologised, remembering what she had said. ‘Does it track anything through it?’
‘If Vorock passes through it,’ she said, ‘the units stationed as security for this sector will be on our trail before we make it halfway home.’
‘What will you do?’ Harl asked, his mind racing through the ways to get home as soon as possible. Could they risk it.
‘We will take the long route,’ Vorock said, ‘the shield will not go on forever. It will take a long time though. You are small enough to pass through.’
He’d already considered that. No matter how fast they travelled on foot, the Aylen could cover ground faster walking backwards, blindfolded and hopping on one leg.
‘Take the drones.’ Vorock said and the Alpha woman flashed her gaze up to the face.
‘You can't,’ she said. ‘We need to communicate with you.’
‘Pass him the bracelet,’ Vorock said. His yellow eyes squinted down at her in disapproval.
She unclipped the device where it hinged together and handed it to him. ‘Don’t lose this,’ she said.
He placed his wrist in the bottom section and she folded the top over, snapping it shut. ‘I won’t.’
She took a few moments to show him the basics and Vorock trudged his mech suit closer to the road until they were a hundred metres from the red shield. If he wanted, Vorock could reach out and touch the haze.
‘Take the others and go.’ Vorock said. ‘Unless you go alone?’
Harl had assumed he would go alone. He hadn’t considering whether others would want to join him. Whatever happened he had to get back to Sonora and Elo as fast as possible.
Chapter 25
Huge-bidepal-humanoid shape. I am currently hiding because I have just witnessed the largest living thing a human has ever laid eyes on. At least three hundred metres tall it walked out of the building like a giant from a fantasy novel and we are nothing but insects trying to avoid being squashed.
‘It returned?’ Kane said once Harl had explained. ‘But how did he get it up and down again?’
‘Remote control,’ Harl said holding the bracelet out for him to see. ‘Like the drones. You don’t have to come, you can just wait until Vorock takes a longer route.’
‘Would be good to get a lay of the land‘ Damen said, ‘and Yara wouldn’t shine upon me taking the long route,’ he added as an afterthought.
‘I’d be interested in what we see from above,’ Kane put in. ‘So many discoveries, too little time. But this is a perfect opportunity. Plus I would like to make sure they didn’t wreck the ship.’
‘You and that ship,’ Tess said shaking her head with a smile. ‘I guess the plants would be worth studying as we pass over them,’ she said, staring at Kane.
They all looked at Dana. She held her drone in a hand and dropped it to the floor where it hummed, hovering at knee height. She hopped nimbly on, spun three hundred and sixty degrees to face the door again and nodded.
‘Then what are we waiting for?’ Damen asked, rolling aside the door to reveal the shield in front.
‘No way,’ Troy said clutching his stomach, looking queasy. ‘Not back on one of those…things. They’re bloody death traps.’
‘The fresh air will do you good,’ Tess said. ‘Better than the constant sway in here. I doubt it’s good for your leg.’
The drones were hovering just outside the door as Manny blocked the view with his large frame.
‘The bracelet will lead the way as Ulane showed you,’ he said.
Harl realised he meant the Alpha woman from the balcony.
‘But you should find somewhere to wait on the other side of the shield until first light.’ He peered out, ‘trying to navigate in this gloom will be a recipe for disaster and the security mechs will be searching this roadway.’
Damen moved to a side room and came back holding five rifles with one strapped across his back.
‘We
might make it there without trouble,’ he said handing them out. ‘But on this planet I doubt it.’
‘Have you seen another then?’ Tess asked and was rewarded with bearded a scowl from the hunter and a smile from Kane.
Damen checked his rifle and stepped to the door. Placing a foot on the nearest drone he hopped on top, manoeuvring a short distance away from the bag and turned to watch them.
Harl stepped out and one careful toe at a time, eased his weight down feeling the wobble of the drone but ready to trust the vehicle. He sped across to Damen as Kane and Tess zipped away, leaving Troy and Dana at the door.
‘Come on lad,’ Damen called.
Troy was hanging out the door attempting to get one foot securely on. Dana gave him a shove laughing as he waved his arms for balance and took an unwilling second step.
‘You witch!’ he said, crouching and locking his fingers on the triangle’s sides as they all laughed.
The shield was their first stop. There could be no way of telling for sure if they’d pass without discovery but if it meant seeing Sonora and Elo again he’d do anything.
‘I wonder how they project it so far?’ Kane said waving his hand back and forth through the laser bean.
‘Could be aerial,’ Tess suggested, looking upward at the stars as they shone faintly in the twilight.
‘Whatever it is,’ Damen said, gliding around behind Kane, ‘we got to get through it.’ He gave the scientist a small push, propelling Kane through the shield with a startled cry.
Harl leant forward and followed Dana as she whipped passed him. He felt a little heat as the red beam washed over him but nothing happened.
On the far side was a fence as high as Vorock’s waist over which lay a low blanketing of shadowy grassland. The bracelet gave him a route to follow and he led the group over the grass until they found a small death strip expanding left to right below them.
The black soil had been churned by machines, leaving nothing but lifeless ground. In the gloom on the far side was a wall of vegetation, shooting up like a cliff into the air and creating a canvas of tangled and silhouetted branches. Harl stopped and waited for the others to catch him up.
They dared not spread out too much and in a moment they were on the ground each holding their drone and looking up at the hundred metre high wall of twisted plant growth.
Troy held his rifle by his hip and pointed it at the wall of plants and shadows as if ready to shoot it. ‘Don’t like the look of this,’ he said
‘We need to be close to cover if an Aylen comes passed‘ Harl said, ‘and being out in the open beside this means we can just as easily fly up and away if we need to.’
Damen struck up a small fire as the others found comfortable positions close to the timid blaze. Dana plucked a charcoaled stick from the flames and pulled a wrap of paper from one of the pockets sewn in the armour under her cloak. Once it had cooled she began to lightly scrape the burnt end across the paper. She was sketching something paying no mind to the others who watched fascinated.
‘Who would have guessed,’ Troy said, laying a series of meat strips on stones beside the fire and uncorking a water skin that Harl knew would hold some form of alcohol.
‘Where’d you get that?’ Damen asked, coming to the same conclusion.
‘Get what?’ Troy said, innocently looking around at everything but the drink.
Damen thrust out an open hand and Troy sighed slapping it into his meaty palm.
‘Pale gave it to Manny,’ Troy said, ‘and Manny let me borrow it.’
‘A likely tale,’ Kane said.
‘And what do you mean by that, Mr know-it-all?’ Troy said catching the skin as Damen lobbed it back.
Harl stood as they began to quibble and walked to where Tess was collecting fuel for the fire a short distance from the group. She had heaped the dead branches together and using a rifle sling had tied them into a bundle. He could see she took the time to avoid catching her fingernails on the wood as she plucked branches from the bare ground.
‘Harl?’ she said keeping her voice low.
‘It’s me.’ he said hoping she hadn’t noticed him staring.
‘I know it’s you, I’m not blind.’
‘Sorry,’ he said sensing a nervousness in her voice. He’d rarely spoke to her during their journey. ‘Is everything alright?’
‘I wanted to thank you for coming back to get us but its been one thing after another ever since.’
‘It was all of us really.’ he said snapping off a low branch, the loud crack made him freeze. He felt uncomfortable so close to the dense weed. ‘Kane wouldn’t leave without you.’
‘He’s a good man,’ she said, ‘but you could have refused. The choice between someone you didn’t know and your family…must have been difficult.’
Harl chuckled. ‘Don’t forget Troy. As messed up as he seems, he’s been there for me all my life. Not to mention the debt we owe you.’
‘Debt for what?’
‘Other than delivering my child? Healing those who came from our ship with the limited supplies you had on Orbital.’
‘Anyone would have done it,’ she said.
He sensed she was still concerned. ‘Something else wrong?’
‘I’m worried.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s strange,’ she said, looking away from the plants to the stars above. ‘Why would the dropship have landed.’
‘What’s strange about it?’
‘Firstly, I can’t see them all coming down in one go. Over two thousand on that little ship?’
‘They could manage it at a squeeze,’ Harl said, thinking of them crammed into the cargo hold.
‘And all the supplies?’
She had a point. There was thousands of pieces of useful equipment on Orbital, perfect for starting a colony.
She cursed as the sling slipped and a lump of wood clipped her hand.
‘Secondly,’ she went on, inspecting the damage to the worn paint, ‘why would Marlin or Screw order it? Didn’t they say scouting for a decent place should take priority, it was the reason they didn’t all come down in the first place. And now they’ve suddenly decided to fly down exactly to where we landed without hearing from us first?’
‘You’re right,’ Harl said, something was wrong, his hope faded as fast as it had returned. ‘We’ll leave as soon as first light arrives. Tell the others what you’ve told me.’
They headed back to the dimmed fire. Troy’s snoring already matching that of the wild animal noises from the thick line of bushes.
‘Took you long enough,’ Damen grumbled, huddling close to the embers.
Tess explained her thoughts and they all agreed it was off-kilter.
‘Dana, can you take first watch?’ Harl asked ‘and wake me when you need rest.’
She tucked the charcoal drawing away and wrapped her cloak tighter then nodded twisting to face away from the glow of the fire. She scanned the wall of shadowy branches on one side as the light flickered and danced across them.
Harl opened his eyes to see Dana crouched above him, knife in hand. He tried to grab something to stop her and scrambled backwards unable to free himself from the coat he slept under. He stopped when she put a finger to her lips and beckoned him to follow. It couldn’t have been that long since her watch started and he wondered what she wanted as they crept into the darkness.
She crouched and moved silently away from the fire toward her scout spot facing the tangle of plants rising above them. She stopped and hunched over even lower as if waiting.
The sound of animals had faded as if a predator lured nearby. Harl looked from her to the dark mass unsure what she wanted. He was about to ask when she turned holding her finger up again for silence. Raising the hand slowly she pointed twenty paces up into the twiggy foliage. It was a mass of crooked thin shadows. Harl strained his eyes and waited patiently for his night vision to return. After a long moment he thought he could make out a dark patch. His heart leapt in the silenc
e. It was shaped like a person but hard to discern among the branches. Was it someone high up, perched on top a thick limb? He saw what could be two straggly legs with a lighter patch between and a hand stretched out holding on to a vertical offshoot. If so they were staying so still they were like a spider hanging between branches waiting…
Time drew out but neither they nor the eerie figure moved. There’d be no sleep for him tonight. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the apparition perched above, staring down at the group.
He heard the faintest scuff to his left and after staring long and hard at a shadow he recognized to his horror a second form squatting lower down in the branches, barely visible among the thicker growth.
Dana eased her finger up away further left and a third outline revealed itself. It slowly slipped along a branch on all fours to join another that had been standing erect as if to slim its profile from their eyes.
Two options, he thought, heart pounding. Either stay here and wait to see what happens when the dawn comes or rouse the others and have them brighten the fire. It might be enough to scare them off or at least give his group something to see by if they were attacked. He was supposing a lot but he didn’t want to be on the receiving end of Damen in the morning when he finds out they’d been watched all night.
He imagined the silhouettes all sneaking around the fire, slowly creeping up to a sleeper and throttling them to permanent sleep.
‘Stay here,’ he said keeping his voice barely audible and turned to wake the others. He regretted it instantly as his night vision spoiled under the glare of the crackling fire.
He leant close to Damen. ‘Psst,’ Damen’s eyes shot open and flicked a questioning look so fast that Harl was too shocked for a moment to say anything. Damen waited patiently, seeing something was up and must have sensed the danger of breaking the silence.
Harl looked at the rifle beside where he’d been sleeping then up to Dana. Damen reached out, slowly drawing the weapon closer, sat up and half crouched half slid towards Dana.