“Stop now,” the soldier commanded.
A drone patrol swooped up over a neighboring hill, the hum intruding on the drama. Criss looked into the sky, and as he did, he acted. Exploiting the speed and agility of the synbod, he sprang at the lead soldier. In rapid sequence, Criss grabbed his outstretched arm, pulled him forward, and deflected the weapon to the side.
Swinging his elbow, Criss connected with the side of the Kardish soldier’s head. The alien went limp and began to fall. Criss held him upright with one hand while he placed his fingers over those of the unconscious soldier. Manipulating him like a puppet, he swung the weapon up and shot the other two Kardish. It was over in seconds.
Criss let the lead soldier slump to the ground, ran to the barn, and yanked open the door. He gripped Juice’s arm above the elbow and propelled her toward the woods.
“Run,” he said, following next to her and guiding her through the night. Knowing her night vision was poor relative to his, he watched the ground as they ran and chose their path with care. They couldn’t afford to have her fall or injure herself at this critical juncture.
They made it most of the way from the barn to the woods when Criss heard a grunt and felt a weight on his shoulders. Glancing back, he saw a Kardish soldier had jumped him from behind and now had a firm grip on the backpack. Criss swung his arm and knocked the alien unconscious.
The soldier fell, and the weight on the backpack increased, confusing Criss before he realized he was dragging the unconscious Kardish behind him. Somehow, the soldier’s hand had become tangled in one of the straps.
Criss let the pack slide from his shoulders, and the soldier fell to the ground. He turned and, using his synbod strength, yanked the strap from the pack, freeing the soldier’s hand. To his dismay, his aggressive action also split the backpack material along one side. When he picked it up, the contents spilled to the ground.
He looked back in the direction of the barn and could see movement. More Kardish were coming. He crouched and fumbled through the scattered goods. The majority of the articles were clothes and toiletries. He found a water pack for Juice and one tube of milk.
Pushing the clothes around, he searched for more milk tubes. He saw the corner of an energy bar and added it to his stash. Out of time, he scooped up a handful of clothes, turned, and bounded across the grounds to catch up with Juice.
They ran into the woods together and came to a trail that angled up the hill and away from the farm. Hurrying along the pathway, he sought to put as much distance as possible between them and the Kardish.
They made good progress on the path, then they heard the unmistakable hum of a drone patrol. Juice dove near a rock outcropping, pulling the thermal blanket from her waistband as she did, then lay on her side and covered herself.
As the whine of the drones faded into the night, Criss reached out his hand. “Come.” He helped her to her feet and led her to a spot where a granite ledge slanted up and out, providing concealment from anything looking down from above.
They sat under the stone canopy, and Juice sighed as she lowered herself to the ground.
Criss lifted a corner of the blanket off Juice’s lap and studied it. “Did Crispin teach you that?”
“He was very helpful in getting me to you.”
“He’s a capable crystal.” He tugged gently on the blanket. “May I?”
She released her hold on it, and he spread it on the ground. He dropped the scavenged items he’d grabbed from the torn backpack onto it and searched through the jumble. Beyond a random assortment of clothing, the final inventory included two energy bars, two water packs, and one milk tube.
He tore one of her shirts into strips and fashioned ties that joined two edges of the thermal blanket. “Let’s try this on.” Standing, he helped her to her feet and draped the blanket over her shoulders. He then flipped a corner up to form a hood, tying a looping knot around her neck and three more down her front. “Not bad,” he said as he stepped back to admire his handiwork.
“So I don’t need to duck and cover anymore?” As she said this, the hum of drones rose and then fell behind them.
Criss walked a circle around her and satisfied himself that the blanket provided an effective shield, at least to the things he could see with his vision. “Your face is exposed, so look down when you hear the drones. The blanket will shield the back of your head.”
He arranged the other clothes into a nest and held Juice’s hands as she lowered herself down onto them. “Let’s wait until morning to travel. You’ll be able to see as we walk, the natural heat of the day will make us less visible to thermal detection, and you could use some sleep.” Criss gathered their meager provisions into a pile and snuggled up to Juice to keep her warm. She sighed again.
As she calmed down and drifted off to sleep, Criss’s mind raced. While in the underground bunker, he’d not realized the intensity of the Kardish presence on the surface. Drone patrols zoomed nearby, and he had no doubt that Juice and he were the target of this effort. He cupped his hands over Juice’s ears to provide her some peace during what would likely be a fitful bout of sleep.
At this point, they had two big challenges—avoiding discovery by the Kardish, and rationing their meager food supply. Juice burned a lot of energy on the run up the mountain and could stretch her two bars and two water pouches out for three days, and longer if need be.
His single tube of milk could fuel the synbod for two days, and then functions would start to degrade. Given the circumstances, Criss was forced to consider a short list of high risk options. He could obtain sustenance for Juice from a neighbor’s mountain home. There were many within a day’s walk.
But only three places held stashes of milk for the synbod—the farmhouse, the Crystal Research complex, and the lodge. And the Kardish infestation at the farm took that option off the table.
Chapter 26
Sitting in the pilot’s chair, Sid primed the pulse repeater while Lucy guided the scout on their final approach. She navigated to the coordinates provided by Lenny, who now sat behind and to the right of Sid. When they reached the designated location, she slowed them to a hover above the surface.
Sid studied the image display and seethed as he internalized the damage to Lunar Base. But he refused to be distracted by his outrage. For now, anyway.
“Confirm target,” he said, referring to the point on the surface where he’d focused the weapon.
“Confirmed,” said Lenny, his eyes flicking back and forth between the large image of the lunar surface in front of Sid and a small image projected from his com that would track their penetration through the layer of moon rock above the hallway.
The pulse repeater served as a defensive weapon for the scout, and its list of intended uses didn’t include digging holes. Sid engaged it anyway, sending a stream of energy packets at the moon. Each pulse followed so close behind the next that it looked like a steady beam. He stared at the projected image as the pulse stream slammed into the moon’s surface.
Not unlike a jackhammer, the packets of energy shattered the rock, throwing rubble up and out of a deepening hole. The pulsing nature of the discharge shook the ship, and Sid took comfort in knowing that every tremor of vibration signaled progress in excavating deeper beneath the surface. His eyes remained locked on the image display, even though a thick dust cloud obscured the view.
“Power down!” shouted Lenny. “We’re through!”
Lucy disengaged the pulse repeater, and Sid saw a tall plume of soil puff up and out from the hole they’d just created. He watched as life-giving air vented out of a zone of Lunar Base. As he’d done many times before, he compartmentalized his feelings, this time over the possible deaths the air loss might be causing.
With the hole complete, he leapt from the pilot’s bench, ran aft, scrambled down the steep steps, and entered the small room with the hatch leading out the bottom of the scout. Grabbing the tether line dangling from an overhead spool, he hooked it to his space coveralls th
rough a loop designed for that purpose. He lifted his hood and fastened it in place, hefted his pack onto his back, and secured his weapon to his wrist.
At the same time, Lenny slid into the warm seat Sid had just vacated. He plopped his com on top of the bench, reviewed the array of displays now surrounding him and, moving as fast as he could, tapped and swiped to start the drone on its journey.
One level beneath Lenny, the bay doors in the engine room swung down. The drone lowered through the opening, powered up, and started its descent. Transmitting a vid feed from its nose, Sid watched through his suit visor display. The forward-looking perspective gave him the sensation of riding the machine as it navigated down the narrow hole.
The drone neared the bottom of the shaft, and Sid saw a pile of dirt blocking access to the corridor. He realized the lowest layer of rock had caved in and fallen downward rather than being expelled up and out by the pulse repeater. He was about to tell Lenny to use the drone to blast open a channel into the hall when he saw a silent, bright flash. Good work, Len. The settling dust revealed a hole big enough for the drone to slip through.
The surreal experience continued as Sid “rode” the drone down the hallway. It approached the lift doors, and as Lenny had predicted, they sagged and tilted in a twisted ruin. He watched a silent flash, followed by another. The impact of the energy bolts from the drone drove the mangled doors inward. They pivoted, teetered, and careened downward into the abyss of the lift shaft. The drone followed.
The descent was quick because the shaft was clear. For the first five floors, anyway. At the bottom of the shaft, the lift’s passenger car lay crushed under a daunting pile of twisted beams, fallen supports, and other debris, blocking the first-floor exit.
The view rotated and Sid saw out into the hallway of the floor just above the lowest level. The lift doors were nowhere in sight, and the drone glided into the hallway.
“I’m going to see if the stairs will get you down the last level,” said Lenny. The drone moved toward the door at the end of the hallway, and Sid assessed the damage along the way. Even five floors down, cracks in the floor, gaps in the wall, and sagging ceilings stood in testament to the overwhelming devastation of the Kardish attack.
The drone reached the end of the hall and approached the stairwell door. Two more bright flashes produced a gaping hole, and the drone crept through. As it turned to descend, Sid saw that the stairs to the bottom were cracked and cluttered with rubble, but they were intact and passable.
Sid now had a pathway to Cheryl, and he didn’t hesitate. “Position me. I’m going.” He opened the bottom hatch and held on to a wall mount as the scout centered over the hole. He’d performed plenty of crazy stunts in his life, and this fell somewhere near the top of the list.
The scout was still completing its maneuvers when he jumped. The sight of a rock wall flashing by his faceplate less than an arm’s length away quickened his pulse.
* * *
Criss helped Juice to her feet and collected their belongings. The first rays of morning sun had just broken the horizon, and he concluded that enough light filtered through the trees for Juice to travel safely. He told her about his need for milk and their limited options for securing more.
“We know they’re at the farmhouse.” She paused and Criss could see her shiver. “And I fear they’ve destroyed Crystal Research. If there’s hope, it’ll be at the lodge.” She looked down the path. “Maybe we make a big loop and go around them.”
Criss looked at the sky and sought to lighten the mood. “It’s all downhill from here.” He smiled. “Pun intended, by the way.”
She maintained a fixed expression as she tightened the ties on the thermal blanket.
“This way,” he said, pointing off to the left. They’d no sooner started when drones flew past, forcing them to hide. Patrols brought the machines overhead at frequent intervals, making it impossible to travel down the mountainside as fast as he’d first planned. And Kardish troops, traveling in groups of twos and threes, thrashed through the woods on what he assumed were search missions.
As long as we remain vigilant, thought Criss, the Kardish tactics aren’t much of a threat. But since Criss—constrained by the synbod—couldn’t detect anything until it was almost upon him, his travel strategy devolved to scrambling from rock face, to sturdy tree, to the occasional man-made structure. There he’d wait for a clear path before running to the next spot.
Being limited to the sensory inputs of Crispin’s body bordered on the traumatic for Criss. He knew only of things the synbod could see, hear, smell, and touch. A tremendous portion of his intellectual capacity sat idle because there wasn’t enough information for him to process or actions he could take.
Juice tapped him on the shoulder and pointed. “There,” she whispered.
He followed her finger to see two of the aliens in the distance, walking downhill and away from them.
I was daydreaming, he admitted to himself. He’d drifted off to explore unproductive what-if scenarios. What if the Kardish are planting monitoring devices in the woods that I can’t see? What if they’re waiting for us at the lodge? What if they’re destroying Earth piece by piece until I surrender?
A drone patrol swooped by to their left. He pulled Juice close, and together they rotated around a large tree, always keeping it between them and the death machines. The two had become so practiced at the technique that his mind drifted again as he waited for the dance to play out.
He’d been leading them on a winding trek that began down the opposite side of the mountain from the lodge. High up on the hill, it was easy to walk a path with no discernable pattern, making their final destination difficult to predict. In the end, though, randomness would become more difficult as they converged on the lodge. He needed the Kardish off their trail before then.
They ran to their next destination—more tall trees—and after a pause for a threat assessment, dashed down into a gulley at the base of a rock face. Like a wall, the face rose vertically to more than three times their height. A wooded trail tracked along near the edge of the ridge above them. They both studied the forest while Criss picked out their next destination.
Voices. He snapped alert as he strained every sense to gather information. Since the sounds were on the edge of the synbod’s level of sensitivity, he suspected Juice couldn’t hear them at all. He looked at her and raised his index finger to his lips. She gave him a quizzical look as he reached out and pushed her near the rock face. He pointed to the terrain above them and repeated the signal for silence.
The voices grew louder. The intruders approached on the overhead trail from the left and were making no effort at stealth. Criss recognized the Kardish language and separated the conversation into two male voices, but he couldn’t tell how many others were present who chose not to speak. The sounds of footsteps sloshing through dry leaves on the ground suggested there might be three of them.
Criss and Juice pressed their backs flush against the rock. Juice held her breath and Criss listened. As they walked by overhead, he heard one soldier complain about the length of their march, about the stench of the forest, and about his desire to resupply with fresh provisions.
Criss caught sight of something falling and watched it land in front of them. It looked like a partially eaten piece of food. He pictured one of the aliens tossing something over the edge as he walked by.
The sound of their voices faded as they continued their march along the trail. Juice looked at Criss, waiting for his all-clear sign. When he nodded, she stepped up to the discarded food, squatted, and examined it. “I’m really hungry,” she said. She wet her lips with her tongue.
He squatted down next to her. Bizt. He heard the unmistakable sound of a Kardish weapon. The bolt of energy made an impact crater in the rock wall behind them, and a sprinkle of grit fell on his head and shoulders.
* * *
The tether line played out above him as Sid descended into the hole below the lunar surface. The low moon
gravity kept his descent to a modest rate, and he counted on Lucy and Lenny to keep him centered and away from the sharp rock edges.
Holding on to the line with one hand, he craned his neck and looked down. The bottom rushed toward him faster than he’d expected. He called out to Lucy to moderate his descent. “Half speed.” He felt a tug as the slack tightened. “Quarter speed,” he called as the bottom loomed. Seconds later, he flexed his knees as Lucy brought him to a smooth stop on top of the mound of dirt.
He peered through the hole the drone had blasted, then flopped onto his butt and slid through feet first. Standing in the hall, he called to Lucy, “Free play.” The tether line drooped loose in his hand. Pulling the slack behind him, he moved down the hall.
He reached the lift shaft and peered down.
“How’s it look?” asked Lenny.
“Clear.” Sid held on to the door frame and placed one foot onto a small sill inside the shaft. “Quarter speed, Lucy.” He jumped again.
With Lucy controlling the line, he stopped his descent after five floors, clambered out the open lift door, and stood in the hallway. Looking both directions, he unclipped the tether line from his space coveralls and looped it to a rail near the wall. He looked up and down the corridor. Nothing moved.
Following the path of the drone, he dashed down the hall, stepped through the hole in the door, and picked his way down the stairs to the bottom landing. The stark simplicity of the setting made it easy to find the door leading to the hallway and Cheryl.
He’d just started across the rubble-strewn floor when he detected motion off to his left. The drone, hovering in the far corner, swiveled so its nose pointed right at him. The hair rose on the back of his neck, and goose bumps flushed his forearms.
“Hey, Len. Why’s the drone drawing a bead on me?”
“That’s me. I’m watching.”
Sid picked his way across the floor. The drone pivoted slowly to track his progress. With no air in the room to carry sound, it hovered and turned in silence, adding ominous undertones to its presence.
Crystal Conquest Page 20