“Jace!” he shouted to the leader of Zulu. “I need you to do me a favor.”
The Mingot raised his weirdly hairy eyebrow. “You want my help?”
“Yes.” Jager thumbed the button for the WHM in his suit pocket. “I need you to brief my squad and take them with you.”
Without giving the Defender a chance to object, he pressed the button on his device, already programmed to take him to the same location as Echo, and created a wormhole in the middle of a stand of Terran trees. Then he jumped through. If he was going to catch Katrina, he couldn’t waste any time. Upon landing, he scraped one knee across some kind of black stone forced together to create a solid surface. A mild discomfort, but the layer managed to rip open the material of his suit. He stood with a sigh and examined the surrounding area for Echo squad and their stowaway.
One hundred steps away, a slim figure resembling the princess ducked behind a building. He raced after her, but by the time he reached the spot he’d seen her, she’d vanished, leaving only her blue Defender uniform tucked behind a refuse can. Cosmos, he’d lost her. She was loose on a planet she knew far better than him.
Jager activated his wrist com unit. “Bryce, I caught sight of her,” he recorded. “She stowed away on Echo’s shuttle. She’s on Terra now, but she’s evading capture. I will find her.” After pressing send, he turned off the unit, not wanting to hear the retired Defender’s response. Until Jager had better news for him, he would stay incommunicado.
***
At Naf’s order to exit the shuttle, Katrina removed the cold metal panel that had held her in place during the journey to Earth and unfolded her body. She flexed her fingers and toes, willing the pins and needles to go away. From her hidey hole, she’d overheard Echo squad’s orders, knew exactly where to find the Erebus, and how to beat the squad there. After all, they were in her territory now.
When she reached the door of the shuttle, she saw Rebnaan, the Nevad squad member, disappear through the wormhole. She didn’t have much time before it would close behind the other Defender, so she took off as fast as she could to catch it, not caring who saw her. By the time anyone realized she was there, she’d be through, and the hole would already be closed.
Landing with her knees bent, and head down, she was ready to blast from the exit location so Bryce’s old squad didn’t catch her. They’d all be pissed if they found out she’d avoided returning to Hemera. Their respect for their former leader went way beyond seniority. They were still his family, his brothers and sisters. And she was his bratty kid, trying to run away. She had to get out of there before any of them spotted her.
She planned to arrive at the location the Erebus had been spotted before Echo squad, take down the enemy, and make the Alliance see how valuable she was as a Defender. Make them see she didn’t deserve to miss her first mission and be sent to a place she hated.
Without looking behind her, she dashed around the corner of the nearest building. No one had yelled her name, made any motion she’d been spotted. She was safe. Before leaving, she’d changed into her old Earth clothes, wearing her Defender uniform over them to help her blend in if she was caught. No one would know she was there unless they saw her face-to-face. But, now, the mission blues had to go. After tucking the foreign clothing behind a garbage can, she took off down the main street. No other Defender could do that without being noticed. Spikes, tentacles, exoskeletons, and even a prominent brow ridge would make any Terran look twice. Gaspra. Now she was calling her own kind Terrans like all the other Defenders.
Katrina ducked down a dark narrow alleyway that led to a parking lot. Across the street was the middle school she’d attended. No playground equipment on the schoolyard, but she’d played tetherball and basketball on the asphalt. Behind the school lay the factory where the Erebus had attacked a human and left its slimy, stenchy trail. Though the attack had happened on the planet a couple weeks prior to their arrival, the Erebus wouldn’t have strayed far. They never did. She was surprised there hadn’t been more attacks, especially at the school.
She sneaked toward a dark corner of the property where many intermodal containers sat, the area blocked from the sun by a recent addition to the building. As she inched closer, her nostrils picked up the stronger, more recent stink, making her eyes water. No matter how many times she fought an Erebus, real or holographic, she never became accustomed to the sinus-burning odor of them. There was definitely one nearby.
A sharp call pierced the silence, reminding her of the sound computer-generated raptors made in the movies she’d watched as a child. She froze. If one Erebus called out to others, she wouldn’t be alone for long. Reaching down, she lifted her pant leg and pulled her zuranium blade—a family heirloom—from her boot. No matter how many came at her, none of them would survive the attack.
With a roar, an Erebus burst into the open from behind one of the containers. It lumbered toward her, red, glaring eyes focused on her. She returned its stare, muscles tense and ready to react. Before the creature reached her, she charged, holding up her blade, striking it right through the twisted vines covering its trunk. It fell back, taking her down with it and bounced when it hit the ground. Katrina pushed off the creature so not to get further tangled in its limbs. This one had thicker and fewer limbs than any Erebus she’d fought before, but she didn’t have time to contemplate the difference. Another struck, knocking her to the ground with one of huge limbs. How had it snuck up on her? She jumped to her feet, looking for an opening to jab the Erebus.
The creature kept waving its tentacles in front of its body, giving her no chance to strike. So, she pivoted behind it, catching the Erebus off guard, and ramming the blade into its back. Two down. How many more waited around the corner? And why were they keeping to the shadows? Erebus loved the sunlight, needed it to survive.
Two came at her from behind. They moved faster, struck her at the same time. She flew forward, skidding across the asphalt. The blade slipped from her hand, spinning as it sailed out of reach. She jumped to her feet, ignoring the sting of her scraped hands, and lunged to grab the blade. She leaped and spun around, slamming the blade into the closest Erebus. It hadn’t even hit the ground when she ducked away from its flailing tentacles and killed its friend. She leapfrogged the creatures to avoid getting tangled up in them. This new generation may be faster than the others, but they were dumb, hadn’t given her much of a fight.
“Is that all you got?” she yelled, hoping to attract the rest and end them quickly. There had to be more. The Galactic Alliance wouldn’t send three squads to deal with such a small Erebus threat.
“Hello?”
Katrina spun at the unfamiliar female voice. The last thing she needed was a Terran hanging out where the Erebus lurked. Great! She’d used the word Terran again. She hid the blade behind her, sticking it in her back pocket. “Um, hi. Can I help you?”
The woman, about the same age as her mother, maybe a bit younger, swiped a curly blonde lock of hair away from her face. “I just wanted to say thanks.... For killing these monsters. They’ve been hanging around here for weeks now. But, every time I phone the police, they either don’t believe me, or the monsters are gone by the time they arrive.”
“Monsters?” Katrina glanced over at the bodies she had felled. They resembled nothing more than stinky piles of brush now, having started to disintegrate the moment their rotten hearts stopped beating. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m only here to clear the yard of these fallen trees.”
“I know what they really are.” The woman placed her hands on her hips and tilted her head to the side. “They’re aliens.”
“Aliens? O-kay.” Under no circumstances could she reveal the truth. As a Defender, she’d sworn to keep the existence of life in space from planets ignorant of that truth. A Defender was there to protect the planet, not trigger a war. Until the cleanup crew arrived, she was on her own, had to tell some tale the woman would believe. Picking up one of the Erebus by its tentacle leg, she dra
gged it across the asphalt. “Believe what you want, but that windstorm last night pulled out these cotton trees and whipped them across the yard.” Thank goodness the creatures’ eyes no longer glowed. That would be hard to explain away.
“Whatever.” The woman marched to stand in front of her and held out her hand. “I want to thank you. They were a definite eyesore, and I’m glad you’re here now cleaning them up.”
Katrina wiped her hand on her pants then reached out to take the woman’s hand. “Just doing my job, ma’am.” She went to let go, but the woman’s grip was stronger than she expected.
The woman yanked Katrina forward and jammed something sharp into her neck. The piercing pain was the last thing Katrina felt before her ears started to ring. Her eyes lost focus, and her head spun. The ringing grew louder, so high pitched she slammed her hands over her ears. “What did you do to me?” she screamed.
Vision blurred, she put her hands out and dropped to her knees before she fell down. Through the fog, she could barely make out the woman’s outline. “What did you do?”
The woman grasped a handful of Katrina’s hair and yanked her head back. “I told you, they’re aliens. And so are you. And now I’m going to prove it.”
Katrina groaned. She was in trouble. But she couldn’t react, her limbs too heavy to move, her head too dizzy to find any focus. No hope. She was at the woman’s mercy. And she had no idea what to expect. Jager had once warned her to never underestimate her enemy. She had greatly done so in this instance, not even able to identify her enemy until it was too late.
“Sweet dreams,” the woman whispered in her ear.
Another prick in the neck. Then everything went black. Done. Gone. The end.
Chapter Three
Fornax! Jager couldn’t walk down a street filled with Terrans. His brow ridge made him different from the beings of this planet. But, if they didn’t notice that or the scar across his face, they would definitely notice his crossbow. While it wasn’t foreign like his plazer, the crossbow wasn’t commonly carried by Terrans living in large populations. He had to find Katrina another way.
Darting through back lots, past abandoned buildings, and across a set of ancient tracks, he reached the target location for Echo squad. No one. But at least one Defender had been there to leave four Erebus on the ground. He kneeled to examine them. Though the bodies had started to rot, each one had a blade wound, a straight cut, not the star-shaped puncture if killed with a zuranium-tipped arrow. Katrina’s kills. But where was she?
Jager activated his wrist com and contacted Naf. “Hey, do you have Katrina with you?”
“Katrina?” The Mingot tilted his head. “Why would she be here? She’s supposed to be on Hemera with her family.”
“Supposed to be.” Jager rolled his eyes. “But it seems she missed her flight and snuck onto your shuttle instead.”
“No.” Naf shook his head. “I would have seen her.”
If only that were true. Then he wouldn’t be hunting for her now. “Bryce contacted me to say she hadn’t arrived. And I saw her sneak off your shuttle after you jumped through the wormhole.”
“Cosmos! Bryce is not going to be happy. His wife will have another reason to hold over his head as to why they should never have let her become a Defender.”
The queen of Hemera wasn’t proud her daughter served the Alliance? On Kalara, children didn’t have a choice. If they didn’t become a Defender, they had to work for the training facility, making and serving food, and cleaning up after the trainers and trainees. Otherwise, they were shunned, kicked off the planet with no contact or aid from either parent. Though he didn’t have a parent to make proud, his mother having died delivering him. The identity of his father disappeared when her heart stopped.
“Well, where are you now?” He’d reached their enemy’s strong point already. Why hadn’t they?
“Caught up in an Erebus fight with Zulu and the rest of your squad. They are easy to take down, but they just keep coming. There’s hundreds, maybe thousands of them.”
“Okay, I’ll keep looking for her then.” As much as he considered leaving her on this planet even farther away from the carrier’s usual route than Hemera, he wouldn’t. Bryce had trusted him to find her. He turned off his com and returned to the Erebus bodies. Maybe they would give him some hint as to where she’d gone.
He crouched in front of the closest Erebus, for some reason dragged away from the rest. It almost looked like it had limbs, arms and legs rather than a multitude of tentacles. What had caused that evolutionary change? No other bipedal planet he’d been sent to had Erebus resembling this one. He scooted over to the next, its body already starting to deflate from the inside out, like skin hanging off a skeleton. It had the same bipedal look, with an extra tentacle here and there, but only four with any muscle mass. The eyes were the strangest part. With no eyelids, nothing covered them up. And they weren’t red. He’d never seen an Erebus without red eyes.
“Like what you see?”
He spun too late. A sharp pin pierced the back of his neck. A loud buzzing noise invaded his head. He reached out, grabbing for someone, something. But there wasn’t anything to grab hold of. Only blackness. And then there was nothing.
***
Cold. Katrina shivered as she slowly opened her eyes. Her head pounded, and goose bumps all over her skin, even on her scalp, made the pain even more excruciating. She moved her leg, her knee brushing across a rough surface. No clothing in between. Her heart hammered as her memories became clear and her awareness grew. She was naked. But where?
That woman had drugged her, stripped her of her clothes, and shut her away in what felt like a freezer. Katrina stretched her arm above her head, her knuckles scraping against a metal bar. She reached out to the side. More bars. Behind her, same thing. When she tried to straighten her legs, she was blocked by more at her feet. Someone had locked her in a cage, one too small for her to lie comfortably in. If comfort was even possible without clothing in the cold climate.
The bars weren’t very thick. She could probably kick her way out. But, she saved her strength, examining the area beyond her cage first. Many motionless figures stood around her, oddly human looking, though there was something else familiar about them. If only she had more light, she might be able to get a better look. Then one of them drew closer, peering through the bars.
Katrina reached for her blade but found nothing but bare skin. No clothes and no weapons. A shitty situation when the creatures around her were Erebus. Not those she’d battled in training. Not even the ones she’d just killed. The members of this colony had actual arms and legs protruding from their vine covered bodies. No undulating tentacles like the first Erebus she’d encountered. One outside her cage stared at her with human eyes. Yet, it still had a hole where its mouth would be, a cavity that released the same tarry black substance the Erebus used to kill their victims.
It hovered over the front of the cage, and Katrina backpedaled, even more cramped. Would they all eventually join this one, form a circle, and drool all over her to kill her? But how could the creatures stand the cold temperature? Erebus thrived in warm climates, would huddle in the last rays of sunshine before the sun set. There was something wrong with these creatures. Different.
She counted twenty of the new generation of Erebus. Though more may have lurked in the dark recesses of the room. She also spotted a door, or rather the outline of one, illuminated by a faint rectangle of light. If the creature at the front of her cage would step into line with the others, and sleep—or whatever they were doing—she’d have a chance to kick free of the metal bars and hope for the best when it came to the door. But it didn’t move, only stared, cocking its head to the side.
Katrina leaned a little closer, curious as to how it would react. It remained in place.
She lifted her hand. “Hi.”
“I.” The Erebus imitated her movement.
“What are you?” No Erebus she’d come across could imitate human sound.
“Wha ah ew.”
Not an answer. The creature probably couldn’t think the same as the various bipedal species she knew, form a response to her inquiry. But, it could echo her speech. New neurons were firing in this one’s brain.
Katrina moved forward a little more, hoping the Erebus would help her get out of the cage. She rattled the door. “Can you open this?”
“Owen?” It wrapped tiny branch-like fingers around the bars.
“Yes, let me out.” So she could destroy these freaky Erebus—though not the one helping her—and beat the shit out of the woman who’d drugged her and stuck her in a freezer. And then find some clothes. Her nudity didn’t bother her in front of the Erebus. Not when they didn’t seem to notice and had no clothing either. But she couldn’t very well run nude in the streets. One of the Terrans would definitely notice her then.
“Out.” The creature yanked on the bars, but instead of taking the front part off, he spun the whole cage around.
Katrina was thrown against the back of the cage, the metal bars puncturing her skin. She could feel the trails of blood.
The Erebus looked down at her, its eyes wide. Then, it dropped the cage.
Katrina’s head slammed against the corner. Her vision wavered, bright lights invading her mind. Not exactly what she’d hoped for. And if the creature couldn’t remove the door, she likely wouldn’t have been able to kick it open.
Bright light suddenly flooded the room. All the other Erebus came to life, rapidly blinking as they moved their heads side to side. Some stretched out their twiggy hands, while others stared down at their feet, wiggling stumpy toes. What in Gaspra? They were even more human-like than she’d first believed.
With a woosh, the door opened. Condensation swirled around the entrance, where the cold air of the room met with warmer air from outside.
Jager (Galactic Defenders Book 2) Page 3