Metamorph: The Outbounder Chronicles

by Chris Reher

  “Go! Watch for some damn weird weapons.”

  Even from here, they saw the indecision on her face, torn between staying to fight, likely her first instinct, and obeying Ryle’s order to make the daunting trek back through the dark on her own.

  “’kay,” she said finally, the curtness of the confirmation making no secret of her feelings about this.

  Ryle rose and fired to where the Kalons hid, giving her time to scramble up and through the cleft in the rock to reach the tunnel. “Let’s shed some light on this,” he said between clenched teeth. He fired his weapon at the ceiling, holding it there until it gave way to drop a torrent of dirt and boulders down onto the cave floor. Instead of illuminating the cave, the collapse stirred a dense fog of dust from the ground. The haze turned impenetrable when daylight fell through it to create a dazzle of glints like sunlight on snow. “Visor, Laryn,” he said, grinning over this windfall. “Heat sensors.”

  She pulled her filter wrap over her nose to keep the fine grit out of her lungs and adjusted her visor to detect shapes moving in the murk. Ryle now appeared in a reddish glow while Toji, cooler, looked yellow.

  Ryle gestured for her to flank left. “Toji, stay with me. Don’t get lost in this.”

  Laryn followed his directions and they moved forward, using their weapons only when they detected movement. The cloud made the lasers less effective and so they pressed on, moving closer to their quarry, until they jogged after the last of them before bringing them down.

  Ryle bent to inspect a dead Kalon for weapons when another slid from the rounded roof of one of the habitats beside him. Laryn cried out a warning and rushed forward to shove Ryle out of the way. Both of them tumbled over the uneven ground and rolled out of the way when Toji rushed at the metamorph.

  Frozen in surprise, they watched as Toji crouched and then leaped forward to thrust his balled fist into the Kalon’s midriff, just below where a Human’s rib cage protected internal organs. His hand seemed to disappear entirely to tear a ragged hole through the skin. The Kalon’s rasp grated in their ears but it lasted just a few moments before he crumpled to the ground.

  “That,” Ryle said when, breathless, dust- and sweat-streaked, they came to their feet again, “was weird.”

  Laryn looked at the puncture in the metamorph’s torso. A clear fluid seeped there, but whatever damage Toji had wrought was deeply internal.

  “A vulnerable area,” Toji said, placing his hand on his own sternum. “Perhaps an error of our evolution.”

  “You might want to armor that spot,” Ryle said. “Just a thought.” He looked around. “Let’s make sure there aren’t any more of these. Can you do your sound-detecting thing and see if anyone else is creeping around here?”

  Toji nodded and clambered up on the rocks.

  Ryle peered at the torn metamorph on the ground. “Think he’s dead?” He lifted the alien’s shoulder and found a gun beneath the body. It was connected to a backpack slung around the Kalon’s shoulders, and he took that as well. He pushed his visor up to inspect the gun more closely and then showed it to Laryn. The round grip was obviously meant to fit a Kalon’s many-fingered hand. “Never seen anything like it,” he said. “You?”

  “No. I’m not a weapons expert. It’s not a file I’ve ever had to ask for.” Laryn pulled a hand-held scanner from one of her many pockets and surveyed the cavern. There was no sign of Human life from where they had seen Denzloe fall from the ledge.

  Ryle grinned, teeth flashing in the dusty face. “If you’re going to hang out on the Nefer, that could be a useful file to get. I doubt this one is in the archives, though.”

  Toji dropped down from his perch. “That Kalon over there is not dead. I will question him.”

  Ryle and Laryn exchanged a puzzled glance but followed him to another of the fallen metamorphs to kneel beside him. Silence followed although they heard a few burrs and whines as they had when Iko had spoken to Toji on their way to this planet.

  Ryle walked away to peer into the gloom of the tunnel the Kalons had used. It seemed the only way out of here now. His lips moved as he tried to hail Jex.

  Laryn scanned the area around them but the report showed little but solid rock. She looked up, but both the broken ceiling and the cleft into the lava tube were out of reach now. “I don’t suppose anyone brought some rope.”

  Ryle returned to them, wiping dust from his visor. “Azah’s still in the tunnels,” he reported. “Although she buzzed Nolie to say she’s on her way out.”

  Toji stood up again. “These Kalons were sent back when they realized someone was in the tunnels. They have ships in the crater. That’s why we didn’t see them on our way to the surface. You were right. They’ve been waiting for Iko to deliver the interface chips. They’ve joined the interface chips to the… the brains of four Kalons. Now they’ve left to take them to Pendra Station.”

  “How many are there, total?”

  “Dozens. But they don’t just want the station.” Toji gestured to encompass something growing in size. “There are many more. Hundreds. Bred on Ophet. They’ve built an army there.”

  “Right under our noses,” Ryle said with a grimace. “And we let them. There aren’t more than a dozen Humans there to help with the project. It’s a massive planet.”

  “An army? I thought our weapons are superior to theirs,” Laryn said.

  “If we had weapons,” Ryle said. “There’s been nothing worth shooting at for a hundred years. Only the prospectors and the science vessels are decently armed. And the Pendra patrols. Who knows what ships the Br’ll have by now. They can modify DNA in a converted lab designed for our technology. How easy is it for them to design superior weapons and engines? What if the Kalons are using those old EM engines on their ships to keep us thinking our technology is superior? They have biochemical processes we haven’t even begun to figure out. Their current arsenal could be unimaginable.”

  “They are coming to the station to murder your people. And then Terrica.” Toji’s eyes stared at nothing as he continued to listen to the injured Kalon. “They want to destroy Humans. For what you did, for taking the Hub, for murdering Br’ll. There is only one filament to your planet and they will guard that entrance. The Hub will be theirs.” He blinked, as if startled out of a daydream. “Those are the thoughts of this Kalon.”

  Laryn frowned, trying to absorb this news. “So then why wouldn’t they just attack the station, then?”

  “Maybe they want the station for themselves,” Ryle said. “Not damage it. They know it’s fragile. Shielded only against debris impacts. Maybe they can adapt it to suit the Br’ll and go back to using the Hub like they did before we kicked them out. But they need a brain and a neural interface to operate the station itself.”

  “Then what will become of the rest of the Kalons?”

  Toji unfolded his legs to stand up, moving fluidly despite his gangly limbs. “Kalons are of no importance to the Br’ll. Drones, soldiers, workers. Perhaps they will stay on Terrica until they die out. They… we will have served our purpose.”

  An uncomfortable silence followed until Ryle exhaled a deep breath. “Let’s find our way out of here. Our only job now is to get to the station to warn them. Keep your eyes and ears open.” He glanced up at Toji’s forehead. “Or whatever those are.”

  Laryn peered at the metamorph on the ground. “Did… did you kill that… person?”

  “No,” Toji said. “I made him sleep.”

  Ryle squinted at him before turning to head for their crawlers. “That’s starting to sound like a pretty weird euphemism.”

  They jogged to where they had left the crawlers near what used to be the steep slope to the ledge. Laryn kept her eyes away from the foot of the cliff in case they came across what used to be Denzloe. “Oh, great!” she cried when they saw that one of the crawlers had stood in the way of the rock slide from above. It lay on its side in a tangle of legs and torn hide.

  Ryle leaned against it but soon gave up trying to get it
back on its feet when the main sensor on its belly fell off, dangling broken and useless by its wires.

  “I can walk,” Toji said. “We haven’t seen any of those tunnel creatures in a while. Perhaps it is safe.”

  “Who knows what’s waiting for us in that tunnel,” Laryn said, remembering Denzloe’s boasts about the wildlife in the northern valleys. “We can all fit into this crawler. You fold up pretty well, if I recall.”

  Ryle turned to the other crawler. “Yeah, let’s give that a—”

  They felt the deep rumble an instant before they heard it. The ground shook in a violent tremor that had them all lurching like drunkards on the unstable ground.

  “Get down!” Ryle grabbed her arm and pulled her to take cover under the crawler. Toji flailed his long limbs and then crashed to the ground. Behind them, more of the unstable ceiling collapsed into the cavern. “Cave in!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Jex!” Ryle rasped. He squinted through the dust, listening for more rumbling in the hills. But only the drizzle of soil and pebbles from the ceiling disturbed the silence now. “Are you receiving me? Are you monitoring?”

  Coughing, Laryn slid out from under the crawler, wishing she hadn’t pulled down her filter mask after the battle with the Kalons. Dust swirled around them like smoke. She consulted her scanner, but none of its functions analyzed earthquakes, or whatever this had been. “I thought Jex said this hill was dormant.”

  “Let get the hell out of here,” Ryle said.

  They pulled Toji onto his feet and helped him fold his body into the back end of the crawler. Ryle stretched out with his feet on the Kalon’s legs, and Laryn curled up beside him. “Good luck to all of us,” he mumbled as he activated the crawler and turned it toward the narrow tunnel.

  “We are detecting a detonation above and to the west of your location,” Jex said, barely audible over Ryle’s com unit. “It was not a natural occurrence.”

  “What?” Ryle said. “What is it, then?”

  A silence followed and then Nolan’s voice came over their com tabs. “Ryle, get out of there. Are you receiving me? There’s a… a magma chamber up there. I think they blew it on purpose. The Kalons. It’s going to get warm in there.”

  Ryle and Laryn’s eyes met and read the sudden terror in each other’s face.

  “Azah,” Ryle said.

  “Not here yet. Get out, Ryle!”

  Ryle worked with the crawler’s controls to pick their way through the obstacles strewn across the floor of the cavern.

  Laryn poked at her scanner. “This thing is useless! Nolan, can you detect a magma flow coming this way?”

  “Yes, we sent a drone over the top. It’ll help us track you. There are high thermal readings going your way, probably also into the lava tube.”

  “Tell Azah to step on it,” Ryle snapped. “Maybe they’re doing this to destroy evidence of what went on here. Contact Sola Crow in the camp and tell them to clear out. Head uphill to the west, in case more of these chambers blow.”

  Another roar reached their ears, this time the sound of falling rocks. Ryle paused for a moment to turn the crawler for a look back.

  “Don’t do that!” Laryn yelled when they saw a mass of orange-red magma push through the gap to the lava tunnel, shoving loose boulders out of its way before pouring over the ledge. “Go! This stuff is fast!”

  “And this bug isn’t,” Ryle said, cursing under his breath as he set the crawler in motion again. The tunnel narrowed as it curved downward and left little room between the crawler and its walls. Ahead of them lay only darkness, and he lowered his visor to amplify what little light was shed by the weak beam of their single headlamp.

  Despite his words, Laryn thought they were moving far too quickly to see and avoid the stalactites looming out of the dark. Thin ropes of once-molten rock festooned the ceiling here, several of them long enough to scrape the crawler’s carapace. Lavacicles, she told herself, wondering when this bit of information had been installed in her brain. She cried out when one did not shatter on the crawler but instead sliced through the carapace to tear a hole into their flimsy roof.

  She shook her scanner as if that would improve the precision of its analysis. “It’s in the cave now,” she said, wincing when the crawler bumped over something and she knocked her head. “It’ll flood this tunnel in a minute.”

  Somewhere near their feet, Toji emitted a squeal of distress.

  “I was about to say that,” Ryle said, squinting into the tunnel. “Can’t see a damn thing. Nolie, did Azah get out?” He glanced at Laryn with a worried frown. “Nolan? Jex?”

  It was now clear that something illuminated the tunnel from behind them. A deep red glow lit the smooth cave wall, and now they smelled the acrid stench of the magma. Laryn pulled the flexible filter band over her mouth and nose again and then tugged Ryle’s filter up as well. He now pushed the crawler to its top speed and it scrambled like a centipede around obstacles and even up the curving sides of the tube. Their weight added to the momentum, squeezing them as if in some sort of demented centrifuge.

  They heard Nolan shout something and then another part of the crawler’s cover tore to let more of the red glow light their frightened faces. Her own cry of terror was drowned by Ryle’s.

  “Oh, crap!”

  The tunnel dropped before them and daylight streamed into the cave. He punched the crawler’s controls in a desperate attempt to slow. It tilted dangerously as some of its legs strafed a rock ledge. The end of the tunnel met them and she squeezed her eyes shut. No time to stop, no time to peek outside to make sure they didn’t find themselves surrounded by hostile metamorphs.

  The crawler skidded, bounced once and then tilted forward, out of the tunnel.

  “Go left! Go left!” Ryle shouted at himself or maybe the crawler and they turned that way, away from the rush of lava spewing from the tunnel mouth behind them. They scrambled to the side of the cave mouth but the slope proved too much. She cried out when the crawler tipped and felt Ryle shift his body over her and fold his arms over her head. The crawler rolled sideways, again and again, and only the lack of space inside its frame kept them in place. Then it caught up against something and skidded to a halt.

  They lay still for a moment, not daring to believe they had stopped. Laryn moved her foot, wondering if everything was still where it ought to be and functioning as it should. She opened her eyes to see Ryle peering into her face.

  “You okay?” he gasped and pulled his filter mask from his face. Blood trickled over his cheek. He cradled her head in his hands, looking for wounds. “Are you broken anywhere? Are you all right?” He pushed a loose strand of her hair from her face with his thumb.

  She exhaled, not sure if she was about to faint or perhaps break out into sloppy, braying sobs of relief. “I’m here. Just shook up.”

  “Literally,” he said, apparently not quite ready to release her.

  She smiled up at him, content to remain here until her heart stopped pounding and the terror of the escape faded into the background of her perfect memory. Or maybe it wasn’t the chase that made her heart race, she fancied as he continued to stoke strand of hair from her dust- and tear-streaked face.

  “Help,” Toji groaned. “I’m stuck.”

  Ryle sighed. “Let’s take inventory.” He reached up to push the shattered carapace aside. They moved with care, making sure to take note of their injuries, as they climbed out of the wreckage. Laryn’s lip bled where she had bitten it and her body felt like one continuous bruise. Toji made high-pitched coughing noises as he unfolded himself but he looked unharmed.

  “Check that out,” he said.

  They stood in silent awe as they looked out over the cauldron. The opposite side had fallen away eons ago, and the ocean had made its way here to flood the valley to create a spectacular panorama. A dozen of the round Kalon shelters huddled on the rock-strewn shore near a cleared apron of gravel, likely a landing area for their ships. Scattered over the slope lay the remains
of dozens upon dozens of Br’ll chrysalis shells. All of it was disappearing from sight, inundated by lava that now touched the shore in a massive plume of steam. Its heat reminded them that they were not out of danger.

  “Let’s head up that way for air,” Ryle said, accepting a piece of gauze that Laryn had found in the small med-pack in her belt. He winced as he pressed it to his temple. “Hurry. This air is getting bad.”

  Laryn nodded and followed him as he scrambled up the slope of loose scree. Toji, behind her, reached out to steady her now and again and she was grateful for his strength and sure-footedness. Her own knees reminded her that she had perhaps been spending too much time lazing around the station. A climb like this would not have winded her on the long hunting treks they had made on Earth. She wondered if that was easier to admit than the fact that she was still badly shaken by what had happened over these past few hours.

  Something dark swooped over them and, while Laryn and Toji ducked, Ryle looked up with a joyful smile. “’bout time,” he said.

  “Kinda busy, what with Kalons shooting at us and all,” Azah’s voice crackled through their coms. “Need a lift?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  Laryn looked around. They still had a long climb ahead of them to reach the crest of the broken hill and below them the valley was filling with steam and gasses. “How are we going to get aboard?”

  Her question was answered, if not to her delight, when the Nefer hovered over their heads and her crew lift lowered toward them. Her landing struts remained folded against her broad belly, useless in this terrain. Jex had anchored the thrusters wider than customary to hover the ship, but Laryn’s hair still whipped wildly around her face. “This day is getting better by the moment,” she said.

  “I’ll go first,” Toji said. They waited until the platform came close enough for him to leap upward, at ease with the planet’s low gravity, and grasp the safety rail. He clambered aboard, a little awkward in folding his limbs around the supports and then stretched out to reach for Laryn. She saw Nolan waving his encouragement as she leaped off the side of the hill and into Toji’s arms.