Hoff smiled and held her new, even more beautiful face between both of his hands. He kissed her ruby lips and pulled her close for another hug. “Everything will become clear to you in time, darling,” he whispered beside her ear. “You’ll have all of eternity to discover what wonders await you here.”
He felt Destra relax against him, and moisture grazed his neck where Destra’s cheek touched his skin. She was crying. “I missed you so much, Hoff,” she said. “After the Sythians executed you . . .”
Hoff shook his head. “Shhh. You won’t have to worry about the Sythians anymore. Omnius is sending the drones to deal with them.”
Destra withdrew sharply from him. “There are Sythians in the after life?”
Hoff regarded her with a patient smile, realizing that she hadn’t finished processing where she was and what that meant. “This isn’t the after life you were expecting, Destra. You’ve been resurrected in the Adventa Galaxy, on a world called Avilon, by a god named Omnius.”
Destra’s eyes flew wide at that and she began backing away from him, shaking her head, her hands raised as if to fend off his words.
“You said this is Etheria.”
“The real Etheria, Des. The one in Avilon, the one that the Etherian religion came from. Omnius is an AI. If you can believe it, he’s Etherus. He’s the one who secretly implanted you and everyone else with a Lifelink so that your consciousness could be transferred here when you died.”
Destra gaped at him, still backing away. “This is a dream,” she said.
“Not a nightmare, I hope,” Hoff replied, frowning at her.
“The after life isn’t in our universe, Hoff!” she said, sounding suddenly panicked.
“Daddy, what’s wrong with Mommy?” Atta asked.
He left Atta’s side and started after his wife. “Des, calm down.”
“Stay away from me!” she screamed. Then she tripped over her own feet and fell, hitting her head on the deck.
She lay worryingly still, and Hoff rushed to her side.
“Destra?”
Chapter 36
One month earlier . . .
Destra eyed the Star of Etherus, holding it up in the light of her glow stick to get a better look. The metal remained white, but no longer shiny—the surface was scuffed and beaten, the edges worn away. Despite that, it was still recognizable. How many millions of years had it been here? She was shocked to discover that the Etherian religion had been around so long.
“Torv . . .” She said, looking up to find him gazing down the icy corridor, impatient to get on with his search for surviving Gors. “I need to tell the Tempest about this. I have to go back.”
Torv turned to her with his big, slitted yellow eyes, and fixed her with an unsettling stare. Destra looked away, back up the tunnel they’d been walking down—a tunnel she now knew to be formed by the ruins of an ancient human civilization.
“These tunnels could go on forever,” she explained. “We’ll have to come back, this time with proper supplies. We’re going to need food and water to continue the search.”
To her surprise, Torv relented. His big shoulders slumped, and he turned back the way they’d come. “I am anxious to see that Matriarch Shara is well. By now our hunters must bring back fresh meat for the crechelings.”
Destra grimaced at the mental image that provoked—baby Gors chowing down on thick steaks of raw meat. “Let’s go,” she said.
When they came to the icy chasm they’d slid down earlier, Torv turned to her with arms outstretched. “Climb on, Matriarch.”
She did so, being careful to secure her artifact in a magnetically sealed pocket first. Then she climbed Torv’s torso and wrapped both arms around his neck. Then Torv bent his legs and sprang off the ground. Destra’s stomach lurched as they shot straight up, more than ten feet. When they came alongside the opposing walls of the chasm, Torv thrust out his arms and legs and pushed. Destra heard ice scraping as Torv dug in with his claws. She watched, awed by the Gor’s strength, as he climbed.
Near the top of the chasm he began grunting with the effort, and his arms began to shake. Destra heard other sounds coming from just above them—Gors hissing, footsteps crunching in the ice, wet tearing sounds that she didn’t like to think about, and a low murmur of what might have been human voices.
Destra’s heart began to pound with anticipation. She thought of the Gor they’d sent back with instructions to fetch the others from the landing site. Atta would be with them.
Torv pulled them up into the tunnel above the chasm. Clambering off him, Destra saw not the dark, relatively narrow tunnel that she remembered, but a much wider room, recently excavated by Sergeant Cavanaugh’s Black Rictans. Their drilling equipment lay scattered around the edges of the space, their work lights flooding it with a welcome radiance. They stood to one side watching the Gors rip into a giant, furry white carcass.
The room was alive with hissing.
Destra took a few steps toward the squad of sentinels. When she didn’t immediately notice the bright yellow of Atta’s vac suit, she began to worry. Where was she?
“Mommy!”
Atta came tearing out of the group of Gors. Destra’s brow furrowed at that. Her daughter had chosen to be with aliens rather than her own kind. Atta ran right into her, knocking her over. They rolled around on the ground hugging each other. Atta laughed and grinned behind the foggy faceplate of her helmet, and Destra smiled back.
“What have you been up to, little monster?”
“Talking to the Gors,” she said, as if they were her playmates. “They say there’s plenty of food. The grumpy soldiers don’t want any. They said it’s no good to eat.”
Destra frowned and sat up. “Why do they say that?”
“Because it’s raw and they have to cook it first.”
“Well, we’ll be back on board the Tempest soon, so you’ll be able to eat something then.”
“Okay.”
Destra took her daughter’s hand and started toward Cavanaugh’s squad. “Why are you all the way over here?” she asked as she approached. They stood watching the Gors carefully, their armored hands close to their sidearms. “Don’t tell me you still think of them as the enemy?”
Sergeant Cavanaugh turned to her. “No, Ma’am, but we haven’t had as much exposure to them as you. There weren’t any Gors in the prison complex on Etaris.”
Destra nodded. “Well, it’s time for you get used to them. We may be here longer than we expected. I’ve confirmed that the ruins are definitely human.” She reached into her pocket for the pendant she’d rescued from the ice and held it up for the sergeant to see.
Cavanaugh gave a long, slow whistle. “A Star of Etherus,” the sergeant breathed. “That’s a sight for sore eyes. Where did you find it?”
Destra slid it back into her pocket and replied, “It was sticking up out of the ice—down there.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder to indicate the chasm. “The tunnels past this one are all hollow spaces formed by the ruins.”
“Very interesting.”
“I’m surprised your expedition didn’t already find all of this, Sergeant. You came to Noctune, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but we didn’t stick around to go crawling through tunnels. We verified the nature of the Gors’ civilization and went on to explore the surrounding planets and star systems.”
Destra nodded. “We’d better contact Admiral Hale.”
“We’re out of comms range down here, but I’ll send a team to the surface,” Cavanaugh replied. He nodded to his squad and said something over their comms that wasn’t broadcast by his external speakers.
A pair of soldiers went jogging up the tunnel, back to the surface. Destra watched them leave. Then her weariness overcame her and she sat down. Atta sat beside her.
“Mommy,” she said. “I’m thirsty.”
That reminded Destra of her own thirst. She turned to look up at the sergeant. “Did you bring any supplies with you from the surface?”
&
nbsp; “A few, but they weren’t designed for these temperatures.” He unclipped a canteen from his belt and passed it to her.
She accepted it and unscrewed the top. The water inside had frozen solid.
“We could make a fire and melt the ice if we had some fuel, but the only thing around here I can think of to burn is that carcass over there.”
Destra grimaced. “I don’t think the Gors will appreciate us burning their food.”
“Neither do I.”
“We could use a cutting beam.”
“And melt the canteen, too,” Cavanaugh said, laughing. “Even on the lowest power setting, cutting beams are far too hot.”
Destra sighed and resigned herself to her thirst.
“Mom . . . I’m—”
“Shhh. We don’t have any water right now, Atta.”
“When the team I sent comes back, I’ll send another one to fetch more supplies from the transports,” Cavanaugh said.
More than half an hour passed. Atta began moaning softly to herself, miserable with thirst. Destra was just about to head back to the surface and get the water from the transports herself when a sound like thunder drew all of their attention to the far end of the tunnel.
A pair of zephyrs appeared, rushing down the tunnel toward them.
“Report!” Cavanaugh roared as his men skidded to a stop in front of him.
“Sir!”
“What took you so long?”
“The Tempest is not responding to our hails, sir!”
“What? Are you sure you were out of range of the interference?”
“Yes, sir. We also tried contacting our transports at the landing site. They’re not responding either.”
A loud hiss sounded behind Destra and she whirled around to see Torv standing there, baring his teeth at them. “Sythiansss,” was all he said.
Sergeant Cavanaugh ignored the Gor. “Did you check that your comms are working?”
“Our comms are working fine, sir. We double-checked.”
“Frek.” Sergeant Cavanaugh pounded the nearest wall with an armored fist and the ceiling shuddered, sending snowflakes tumbling to the ground. “All right, Black Seven, on me, the rest of you—guard the entrance. At the first sign of trouble, you take the councilor and her daughter and fly down those tunnels. If need be, we’ll catch up with you later.”
“Yes, sir.”
Destra stood up, her eyes wide and blinking. “Where are you going?”
“To the transports. We need to see what happened up there.”
“What if Sythians got the transports, too?”
“Then be glad we’re on good terms with the Gors.”
Another hiss sounded behind them. “We go with you,” Torv said.
“What was that?” Cavanaugh asked.
“He said they’ll go back to the transports with you.”
“Tell them to stay here and keep a lookout.”
Destra shook her head. “You should send them back to the landing site. They can cloak; you can’t.”
“The Sythians can see through cloaking shields now. You heard what happened in Dark Space.”
“That’s a recent development, and I’m willing to bet the technology isn’t everywhere yet.”
Cavanaugh grumbled, but he nodded to Torv. “How long for you to get someone to the landing site and back?”
More hissing. “We are fast on our feet. You shall not have long to wait.”
Destra translated.
“All right, send them. We’ll stay here.”
This time the waiting was far worse. Every little sound drew Destra’s gaze to the other end of the tunnel, where the Black Rictans had taken up guard positions in teams of two, spread out all the way to the surface. Like that, they’d managed to tether their comms so they would have advance warning from the surface. Another half and hour passed before Destra saw Cavanaugh come running toward her. He slid to a stop on the icy floor of the tunnel, his expression grave in the light of his HUD.
“Well?”
“The landing site is gone. It’s a crater.”
Destra gaped at him. “Sythians?”
“No sign of who or what did it, at least not as far as the Gors can tell.”
“Then . . .” Destra blinked, realization dawning.
“We’re all alone down here, Councilor.”
“What about our supplies?” she said.
The sergeant shook his head. “I’m hoping whatever took out our transports didn’t take out the Tempest, too. With any luck they managed to escape, and they’ll be back for us later. The Sythians can’t know that we were down here with all the interference on comms and sensors. They wiped out the only signs of life they could see and then moved on.”
Destra took all of that in with a numb sense of shock. She turned to look around at the Gors. Slitted yellow eyes stared back at her from all sides, as if they’d overheard everything, and they understood what it meant.
Destra saw one of the adult Gors, his stomach bulging and distended from all the meat he’d eaten, sink to his knees and throw up. Others came along to help him. They set the crechelings they were carrying down, and the baby Gors crawled over to his vomit. The one who had thrown up sat back and watched, looking pleased with himself.
Destra’s stomach did a nauseated flip as she understood how the crechelings ate. Their mothers died in childbirth, so of course there was nothing as wholesome for them to eat as milk.
Shuddering, she looked away. Cavanaugh was watching the same thing with a wrinkled nose and curled lip.
“Disgusting creatures,” he said.
Destra shook her head. “Those disgusting creatures are the only thing standing between life and death for us.”
Now he turned to look at her, his eyebrows raised behind his faceplate. “How’s that?”
“They know how to survive on Noctune, Sergeant, and we don’t. If we really are all alone down here, we’re going to have to learn what they’ve learned, and fast.”
Destra felt a tug on her arm, and she turned to see Atta staring up at her, her cheeks streaked with tears behind her helmet. “Mommy I’m—”
“Thirsty, I know. Sergeant—pass me your cutting beam, please.”
Cavanaugh reached behind his back and drew the weapon from its holster. “Careful, it’s heavy.”
She took the bulky black weapon from him, and almost dropped it. Her back arched painfully with the burden. She flicked off the safety, dialed down the power, and aimed it at the ground. She pulled the trigger and a bright red stream of energy shot out with a resonant hum. It hit the ice with a crackle and hiss of steam that rose in billowing white clouds. Destra held the weapon there for a long minute, drilling straight down. When she was finished, a gleaming black puddle lay shimmering before her.
Setting the rifle down, she reached up and twisted her helmet off, breaking the seal and letting in a gust of frigid air. She gasped, feeling like the air was choking her as it burned her throat and constricted her airways. Her nostrils stuck together, and her exposed skin began to burn. Destra grimaced and bent down to scoop up some water with her hands and lap it up like a wild rictan. The water was warmer that the air, recently melted by the beam, but it still felt like ice as it burned down her dry throat.
Atta kneeled beside her and took off her helmet. “It’s freezing!” she cried, hurrying to scoop water into her mouth.
Destra straightened, replacing her helmet with wet gloves. By the time her helmet was resealed around her head, her gloves were already crackling with ice, the water having frozen in mere seconds. Her suit was airtight, so the water hadn’t reached her skin.
“We’re going to have to make a better shelter than this.” Cavanaugh said, turning in a quick circle, taking in the size of the space where they were standing. “Something big enough to fit the eight of us.”
“We’d better see if the Gors will let us cook some of their meat,” Destra said. Once again, she felt an insistent tug on her arm. She looked down to see Atta
shivering, looking up at her with round eyes and blue lips.
“I’m c-cold,” she said.
“Put your helmet back on, Atta!” Not waiting for her daughter to respond, Destra picked it up and secured it over her daughter’s head once more. Her suit sealed with a soft hiss of pressurizing air.
“We’d better get started,” Cavanaugh said. “We’ll dig a sleeping chamber off this one, with some windbreaks to keep out any drafts. I don’t think we should go too far from here. The Tempest knows these coordinates, and they won’t be able to find us if we go somewhere else.”
Destra nodded and sat back with a sigh, feeling suddenly weary from the day’s excursion, and even more weary with the knowledge of all the excursions yet to come. Noctune was a solid ball of ice, utterly inhospitable and unforgiving. Destra’s gaze flicked from Gors to sentinels and back again. The Black Rictans looked plenty warm and comfortable in their zephyr assault mechs as they went about gathering up their equipment and taking inventory of their supplies.
But beneath their mechanized armor they wore thin ISSF uniforms, not insulated vac suits. Once their mechs ran out of power, and their heaters grew cold, they would freeze in a matter of hours. They wouldn’t even be able to move when the power-assist failed.
Destra reached out and pulled Atta into her lap for a hug.
“I’m scared,” she said.
“Shhh. There’s nothing to be scared of, Atta.”
“Yes there is, I heard you talking. We’re all alone.”
“No, we’re not.”
Atta twisted around to look up at her. “Yes, we are,” she insisted.
“We’ve got each other, don’t we?”
“I guess . . .”
“And the grumpy soldiers,” Destra added with a smile.
“And the Gors!” Atta said, smiling now, too.
“See? We’re not alone, so there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Atta nodded agreeably, turning to watch the Gors eat and the sentinels work. Destra watched, too, thinking that no matter what she told Atta, there was plenty to be afraid of. If the Tempest didn’t come back for them soon, no one else would, and sooner or later they would all die of exposure.
Dark Space: Avilon Page 44