by Henry Vogel
The next time I opened my eyes, the sun was three-quarters of the way up toward noon. Desert heat surrounded us but did not beat directly down upon me. At some point, someone dragged me into the meager shade provided by the bush. I rolled onto my back and found Callan sitting beside me, taking advantage of some of the shade, as well.
“Good morning, darling.” She bent over and kissed me.
I sat up and looked around. The wreck of the Vanguard still smoked as the last of the fires burned themselves out. Other than the rising smoke, nothing else moved. The smoke, though, told a tale I definitely did not care for.
“Where is Chris? You didn’t send him running into the desert in a panic over the idea of calling you by your first name, did you?”
“Of course not, David. He insisted on scouting ahead and, once I was certain he wouldn’t do anything foolish, I allowed him to go.”
“How, pray tell, does one convince a teenage boy not to do something foolish?”
“I teared up a bit at the way his mother would react when I visited her to tell her of her son’s untimely death.”
“And that did the trick?”
“I may have also mentioned two or three young ladies I felt certain would find him fascinating, should he live long enough to return to the palace with us.”
I shook my head in admiration. “You play dirty, my dear.”
“I play to win, darling. In this case, winning means surviving.” Callan rose to her feet and I followed suit. “I told Chris that we’d follow if you awoke before he returned.”
We set off toward the rock-strewn mountain, that proved just as difficult to scale as I thought it would. The trogs’ trail proved dead easy to follow, though. It headed up at an angle and out of sight around a pile of large boulders. Reaching the boulders, we found Chris on his way back.
“Did you find the trog village, Chris?” I asked.
To my surprise, Chris shook his head. “The trail doesn’t go to a village, David. It ends at a strange cave.”
“What’s in the cave?”
“That’s what is so strange, sir,” Chris said. “The cave is empty.”
“Did you go into the cave?” I asked.
“Of course, sir, though not very far.” Chris bowed slightly in Callan’s direction. “I promised Her Highness I would be careful.”
“I told you to call me Callan,” my wife gently admonished the boy. “And thank you for honoring your promise.”
“How long did you stay in the cave? Did you give your eyes time to adjust to the darkness?”
“Yes, sir. I stayed inside for five minutes. The cave is less than thirty feet deep and only ten to fifteen feet wide.” Chris shrugged. “I don’t think I missed anything.”
A trog trail leading up to an empty cave struck me as far-fetched in the extreme. As a race, trogs are very direct with an almost in-your-face approach to life. That lack of subtlety had led humans on Aashla to assume the trogs were simply stupid. Since Aashla made contact with the wider galaxy, properly equipped researchers have shed a lot of light on the race. The short version is that trogs are genetically disinclined to such deception. The two missing human researchers, on the other hand, were probably quite skilled at deception.
“I don’t doubt your observations at all, Chris, but I’d like to check out the cave for myself.” I motioned back the way the Ensign had come from. “Would you lead us to it?”
Chris snapped off a salute, spun about, and all but marched down the path. Smiling and shaking her head, Callan took my hand and we followed the boy.
“He’s quite an earnest young officer, our Chris.” Callan leaned close to me and kept her voice low. “Doesn’t he remind you a bit of Milo?”
“If by ‘remind’ you mean ‘is the complete opposite of’ then I’m right there with you. Though, like Milo, he does have the good taste to be smitten with you.”
“Oh pish and tosh, David. I’m just an old married woman from Chris’s point of view.”
“If I may be so bold,” Chris said over his shoulder, “Her Highness does herself an injustice. I have already earned the envy of a fellow ensign for yesterday. If the rest knew I was serving you directly… Let’s just say I won’t have to pay for drinks the next time we’re in a tavern.”
I grinned. “Okay, now he reminds me of Milo!”
“You heard everything we said, Chris?” Callan asked.
“Yes, Your Highness. An officer in the Royal Navy must be aware of all that goes on around him—especially the mutterings of the men in his command.” Chris looked back at us. “I’m also the youngest of seven children. Keen hearing is a survival trait in such a large family.”
“Perhaps I should whisper my most intimate comments into your ear, dear,” I said to Callan. “I’d hate to embarrass the Ensign.”
The back of Chris’s neck turned red and his back stiffened. “I would never intentionally listen to a private conversation, sir—especially not one between a husband and wife!”
“We know, Chris.” Callan quickened her pace and put an arm around the boy’s shoulders. “You have our complete trust.”
I watched Chris’s right arm twitch and almost wrap itself around Callan’s waist. The lad caught himself, though, and turned to see if I had spotted his almost-move with my wife. I quickly looked off into the distance. The boy had enough to worry about right now without worrying about attracting my disapproval, as well. Seventeen was nearly half a lifetime ago for me, but I still remembered what it was like.
Then we rounded a turn and spotted the cave entrance less than fifty feet ahead of us. It was right out in the open where anyone walking the trail would see it. That didn’t mean much, seeing how the mountain was at the edge of a desert. Probably only a handful of people in the history of Aashla ever laid eyes on the cave mouth.
“You two wait here,” I said, striding past them. “Ensign Marlow, if anything happens to me your one duty is to get Princess Callan to safety. Is that clear?”
Marlow responded, “Absolutely clear, sir.”
“Aren’t you being a tad melodramatic, David?” Callan asked.
I gave Callan a brief but tight hug. “No, I’m not, Callan. Besides, you ought to be used to it by now.”
“It’s been six years since our last adventure, darling. I’d rather hoped you’d have gotten over your ‘Captain of the Princess’s Guard’ fixation.”
“And risk having Rob come back to haunt me? No thank you!”
“Fine, darling. I promise to do everything Ensign Marlow tells me to do.” Callan pecked me on the mouth. “Do you feel better now?”
“Immensely.”
I trotted over to the cave entrance, stopping outside and listening. Once I was satisfied all was quiet inside the cave, I slipped through the opening and stepped to the side of the entrance and out of the direct light. My eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness but I still waited a half a minute after that before moving deeper into the cave.
There wasn’t much to see inside. A lot of rocks—ranging from fist-sized to ones three or four feet across—were scattered over the floor. Near the back, one huge rock leaned against the left side of the cave. That was the only possible hiding place in the cave, though I dutifully checked all around the larger rocks on the floor as I worked my way to the boulder in the back.
Once I reached the leaning boulder, I squatted down and looked into the space between it and the cave wall. It was even darker than normal under there and I almost stuck my hand in to check the wall. Then I remembered the poisonous many-legged desert creature that almost bit Callan during my very first night on Aashla. I drew my sword instead and tapped along the wall, neither finding an opening nor flushing out any creatures.
I slowly walked around the boulder, pushing against it to make sure it wasn’t precariously balanced. The thing was firmly wedged in place, so I stepped around the far side of the rock and into the small space between it and the back of the cave. I was so certain I’d find nothing besides cave wall that
I actually jumped back a couple of feet when I spotted the entrance to another cave hidden behind the boulder. More surprisingly, dim light flickered deep inside that cave.
CHAPTER SEVEN
David
A few feet past the entrance, the tunnel took a sharp turn to the right and headed deeper into the mountain. Wanting to get a look around that turn, I sidled into the new cave quietly and carefully, keeping my chest pressed against the right-hand wall. I cocked my head, alert for the slightest indication that someone was coming. That is what saved me.
I heard the sound of fabric against rock, the barest of unnatural susurrations, but it told me I wasn’t alone. Without a second thought, I dropped into a backward somersault. Just as I tucked into the roll, a trog jumped into view. He fired his blaster rifle from the hip and the bolt ricocheted off the wall I’d been pressed against half a second before.
The barrel of the rifle tracked my way as I came up out of my roll. Planting both feet against the left wall, I leveled my sword and lunged at the trog’s chest. My blue-skinned opponent brought his blaster rifle up in an attempt to parry my thrust. He deflected my blade up and away from his chest—and into his throat! Hot blood sprayed from his neck as my sword ripped veins and arteries.
Gurgling, the trog dropped the rifle and clawed at his throat in a futile effort to stem the fatal flow of blood. He stumbled forward, eyes wide and glaring at me. The trog dropped to his knees then pitched face-first onto the cave floor.
Snatching up the blaster rifle, I waited for fifteen tense seconds but no more trogs leapt to the attack nor did I hear shouts or cries of alarm from deeper in the cave. Confident I was alone, I cleaned my sword on the trog’s tunic and sheathed it. Leaning the blaster rifle against the wall, I picked up the heavy corpse and draped an arm over one shoulder and a leg over the other. Careful with my ungainly burden, I grabbed the stock of the blaster rifle and staggered back the way I’d come.
I’d been in the cave for no more than ten minutes, but the sunlight was dazzling and felt almost unnatural in comparison. Callan and Chris rushed to help me when I emerged. Chris looked particularly pale, staring at the dead trog with troubled eyes.
“I swear I didn’t see the trog, sir!” Chris said as he took some of the trog’s weight off my shoulders.
“Are you all right, David?” Callan asked, her eyes flicking all over me in search of any wounds.
“I’m fine, Callan. All of the fresh blood on me is blue.” I gave an encouraging smile at Chris. “I know you didn’t see the trog, Chris. There’s another cave branching off behind that big boulder at the back of the cave. This guy was in there, probably standing guard. You couldn’t have seen him.”
Despite my words, Chris looked down, refusing to meet my gaze. “I should have found that cave.”
“You most certainly should not have, Ensign Marlow!” Callan snapped, her sharp tone catching the lad by surprise. “You were under direct orders from a member of the royal family to be careful and avoid unnecessary risks—such as exploring a cave by yourself.”
“Before you lay into him further, dear,” I said, handing the blaster rifle to Callan, “could we please find a place to stash this body? It’s rather heavy.”
“We’re on a mountain, David. I’m sure we can find dozens of places to hide the corpse.” Callan looked about quickly before leading us upslope. “Why did you even bother bringing it with you?”
“I don’t see any point in advertising our presence any more than necessary.”
“Won’t the trogs figure out what happened when they discover all the blood inside the cave?” Chris gasped, struggling with his half of the heavy burden.
“I’m going to go back and scatter dirt over all the blood,” I replied. “It might make a particularly dim trog think this guy came outside to relieve himself or something.”
Callan pointed beyond a jumble of rocks. “There’s a steep scree over here. If you toss the body down it, it should be pretty easy to push more rocks down on top of it.”
We did as instructed then spent the next thirty minutes pushing rocks down to cover the body. It wasn’t perfect, but it was far better than I’d hoped for.
When we were finished, the three of us settled down to rest in the shade of an overhang that was out of sight from the cave entrance. I took that time to take a look at the blaster rifle. A cursory examination showed the rifle wasn’t complete—much of the outer covering was missing, for instance.
The missing pieces didn’t affect the rifle’s function, but they might affect how long it functioned. The covering existed to protect the more delicate inner workings from the elements. Without constant cleaning, dust and sand could completely disable the internal electronics. Looking at this one sample, cleaning hadn’t been high on its owner’s list of things to do.
“Are you going to explain all of those murmured comments and grunts you’re making, David?” Callan asked.
“Sorry, dear, I wasn’t aware I was making them.”
“You never are, darling.” She smiled fondly to make sure I understood this fell under the category of ‘endearing trait’ rather than ‘annoying habit’. “So, explanations?”
“First, the rifle is rather crude by galactic standards. It looks like whoever built this repurposed a lot of electronics to function as a blaster rifle. The Federation restricts weapon components for this very reason, but someone quite clever figured out a way around it.” I pointed to different interior components of the rifle. “These are quite common electronic parts—you can probably find them at every Federation research station on Aashla—but they’ve been combined in such a way that they work entirely differently than designed. That explains how those two rogue researchers got this stuff past Federation inspectors.”
Callan and Chris exchanged a look before Callan said, “We non-technical lost colonists will happily take you at your word. That explains the muttering. What about the grunts?”
“That was just me expressing professional disdain for the trog’s weapon maintenance. This thing is filthy. Dirt can mess up the operation of weapons as simple as crossbows. It’s about a hundred times worse in something like this rifle. I’m surprised the thing works at all.”
Callan patted my arm. “Well, hadn’t you better get started cleaning it?”
“You know me so well, dear.”
Chris leaned in, keen interest written on his face. “Will you teach me how to clean this weapon, sir?”
“Sure. And how many times do I have to tell you to call—”
Suddenly, a trog voice rose in the distance. I didn’t have to understand the language to recognize the tone of someone issuing commands. The trogs must have discovered their guard was missing.
I handed the blaster rifle to Callan and whispered, “Both of you keep quiet and stay out of sight.”
Moving with caution on the scree, I crept up to the small crest over which we’d carried the trog’s body. Trog feet crunched in the loose stone outside the cave entrance. I tried to gauge their numbers based on the noise the trogs made, but it proved well beyond me. I turned onto my left side, closed my left eye, and carefully peered over the brow with my right eye. A hundred feet below me, something like two dozen trogs milled around the entrance to the cave. One stood aloof—their leader, no doubt— watching two more trogs scanning the ground for tracks of some kind.
Chris and I had left obvious tracks as we lugged the corpse up the hill but now our tracks were almost entirely gone. Callan must have smoothed out the stones behind us. Being far lighter than the combined weight of two men and a dead body, she’d managed to walk over the same terrain leaving hardly a sign of her passage. Would that prove enough to send the trogs off in another direction?
Two agonizing minutes crept by before the trackers returned to the leader and reported. He considered their report for a moment before issuing orders to his patrol. All but four trogs fell in behind the trackers and their leader, who led them off the way we’d originally come.
&
nbsp; I quietly released a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Four guards still blocked our only known path away from our hiding place, but I felt certain we could take out those four if it proved absolutely necessary. With the same caution I’d used ascending to the crest, I returned to Callan and Chris.
“A good twenty trogs are following the wrong trail in search of us.” I took Callan’s hand and kissed it. “That’s all thanks to you, dear. If you hadn’t covered our tracks in the rocks, we’d be prisoners of the trogs right now.”
Chris gave me a puzzled look. “Didn’t you battle at least that many trogs when you first met Her Highness? If you Boosted, surely you could handle them without any problems!”
“You’re a smart lad, Chris,” I chided gently. “Stop thinking of me as some invincible hero and start thinking about what’s different between then and now.”
“Well, you’re older now,” Chris said more to himself than to me, “so that might slow you down a bit. But even if it did, Her Highness or I could lend supporting fire with this blaster rifle and-. Oh.” The Ensign shook his head in disgust. “The trogs have blaster rifles, too. Even Boosted, there’s no way you could dodge that much massed fire.”
I gave Chris an encouraging smile. “Exactly.”
“How could I be so stupid? I should have realized that from the beginning!”
Callan placed a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I know quite a few Naval officers who wouldn’t have figured it out as quickly as you did. Why are you so hard on yourself over something little like this?”
Chris just shook his head and turned away from us to stare at the rock giving us shelter. Callan turned a questioning gaze my way. I had an idea what was bothering the boy, but only because of a comment from Dr. Mach, the expedition’s surgeon. Chris was plenty smart, but I got the idea he felt his intelligence was his only asset and put enormous pressure on himself to be quick on the uptake.
“You know, I remember my first Scout Academy expedition when I was a cadet. I had all the coursework down cold and was certain I was going to set some kind of record for the best first cadet cruise ever.” Chris didn’t turn around, but his head shifted slightly so he could hear my words better. “I was so busy imagining the honors that would be heaped on me that I hardly even paid attention during the tour of the ship and only noted my duty station in passing. After all, it was a three-week cruise. I’d have plenty of time to memorize the ship’s layout. Can you guess what happened, Chris?”