by S M Briscoe
Traug smiled to himself. Luckily, that was a prediction he could easily make.
Chapter 5
Rolling sand dunes stretched out seemingly forever, in all directions across the soon to be blistering desert landscape, the sun just beginning to break the horizon between blue sky and white sand. It was a sight Jarred had intended to view from a much higher altitude, as he now found himself trudging over the crest of one of the dunes, lugging a heavy backpack. Coming to a stop, he glanced over his shoulder to find Elora close behind him carrying a similar pack, followed by Ethan and Orna. Looking further back, he caught sight of the plumes of black smoke rising from the crash landed remains of his ship and scowled inwardly.
He hated being wrong.
The old freighter had taken too much of a beating escaping the wasteland outpost. It would have been incapable of making it off world with all the breaches in the hull. He’d only just managed to keep them going at minimal power for about a half hour before the ship’s few functioning systems began to fail. With the main propulsion drive shutting down, it had been more luck than skill that he was able to set them down, though roughly, but in one piece.
All he could do now was decide the next best course of action. The spaceport he had hoped on making it to before going down was to the north and he estimated that it was only about a standard days walk or so from where they were. What would happen once they got there was something else entirely. Taliss wouldn’t exactly be thrilled with him when he showed up empty handed, especially after having communicated that he’d secured his bounty. Not that he really had much of a choice at this point.
Jarred took a final look back at what was left of his ship. He had salvaged everything he could use from the wreckage, which was really very little, but as he stared back at it, he suddenly felt an odd sense of loss. It almost felt as though he was losing a companion in a sense. He’d spent so much time alone in the rusted bucket, traveling from place to place, it had become the closest thing he’d had to a home in years.
He silently said his last farewell to the old freighter and turned away from the crash site, noticing that Elora was observing him from off to one side.
“Did you want to say something?” he asked.
“Well, I hate to say I told you so,” she replied, a bit sarcastically.
“Then don’t.” Jarred frowned, all the more annoyed as he could see Elora smirking out of the corner of his eye. “Nobody likes a gloater,” he added, before turning to walk away.
If there was anything he hated more than being wrong, it was having someone else inform him of the fact. He knew he was wrong. He didn’t need this woman, who had forced and guilted her way into his company, rubbing it in. Glancing back to find her still smiling to herself, he scowled, more at himself for letting her get to him than anything else. He had more self control than that. At least he thought he did.
He cast aside his wounded ego and refocused his mind on the moment. The most important thing now was to make their way to the spaceport and put as much distance between themselves and the crash site as possible. If any Sect patrols were searching the area, they would see that billowing tower of smoke from kilometers out. That not withstanding, these desert wastes weren’t the friendliest of places to wander. The sooner they made it to the spaceport and got off this rock, the better.
Jarred put a hand to his brow and squinted up at the blazing sun that continued to rise slowly overhead, the intense heat rising with it. Something told him it was going to be a very long day.
* * *
Elora stared out at what appeared to be endless waves of shimmering gold, stretching out into the horizon. It was the same unchanging landscape she had been staring out at for the last few hours, and the site was beginning to grow more than a little tiresome. Every dune they crossed over lead to another, nothing but hot sand expanding outwards forever in all directions. She was beginning to wonder if this bounty hunter even knew where he was going.
What had she been thinking? She didn’t know anything about the man, apart from the fact that he hunted people down for money. What kind of a person did that? He could be a vicious killer for all she knew. She observed him from a short distance back as he led the group on their blistering trek. He wasn’t an overly large man, being of average height, though even beneath his garments she could see he was well muscled. Even so, his physical appearance didn’t quite match what she would have envisioned of someone in his trade. She supposed it was naive of her to think all bounty hunters would look a certain way, large and imposing and intimidating. Appearing not much older than herself, he was actually fairly pleasant to look at, with piercing blue eyes and a handsome face, though it was covered in a few days worth of stubble, his brown hair cut short. If not for the weaponry he was clad in, all of which he seemed quite capable with, the man in front of her could have passed for any average bystander. That was probably the point. It would be easier to sneak up on someone if they never saw you coming.
Obviously, looks could be deceiving. Just because he didn’t look like a cold blooded killer, it didn’t mean he wasn’t. She had witnessed him kill a half dozen soldiers only hours earlier. Yet, he had also helped them escape the outpost when he could have easily just left them behind. It had taken some persistent arm twisting on her part to convince him not to leave them in his wake, but she wouldn’t have been able to win him over if there wasn’t some kindness to him. From that she felt fairly certain, whoever this man was, he wasn’t some knife wielding berserker.
That still left her wondering who he was. A kind hearted mercenary? It didn’t seem a likely fit. She had spent the last while trying to glean an answer to the question, but staring into the back of the man’s head had revealed very little, but for the fact that he wore a tattoo of sorts on his neck just below his hair line. A peculiar marking, it looked oddly familiar, though she could not say she had ever seen the design before. It was basically round in shape, two distinct crescents, one sitting with the other, giving it an almost planet-like appearance. She had become fixating on the marking after first seeing it, and with little else to occupy her, she had burned the image into her mind.
Concluding she would learn nothing more from her current vantage point, she left the rear of the group, where she had been walking with Ethan and Orna, quickening her pace a bit to catch up with their reluctant rescuer to walk along side him. She stared at him a moment, receiving only a quick glance in return, as she thought of what she should say to him exactly.
“I was thinking,” she began, waiting for him to look over at her before continuing. “Here we are, hiking across a burning desert, away from your crashed ship that you helped us narrowly escape almost certain death in . . . and we don’t even know your name.”
It was an odd way of asking the question, she knew, but that had always been her way, and for a while, it seemed as though he wasn’t going to answer. Maybe he hadn’t understood her. It was possible. Likely, actually. Beginning to feel like a bit of an idiot suddenly, she opened her mouth to rephrase the question.
“Jarred,” he said finally, and she felt a great sense of relief wash over her, so much so that she realized she hadn’t even absorbed his response.
“Jarred Archer,” he continued, as if having heard her unspoken thought.
“Jarred Archer,” she repeated, letting the name sink in. “A good name.”
He gave her an annoyed look and she couldn’t help but grin.
“Well, Jarred,” she began again, a little awkwardly, her next admission coming out of her with some difficulty. “I wanted to say thank you. You know, for what you did. Helping us, I mean.”
Jarred looked at her, seeming a bit surprised, and even somewhat amused, which only made the whole thing that much harder.
“For both times,” she continued, reluctantly. “You know . . . with those men on the street.”
He gave her a crooked grin. “Nah. Like you said, you had that taken care of.”
Elora rolled her eyes at herse
lf, then smiled.
“Well, anyway,” she continued. “Thanks for helping us.”
“No need,” Jarred said, shaking his head. “We’re not out of anything yet. Tell you what, though. If you really want to, I’ll remind you to thank me later once we’ve made it off this rock.”
Elora grinned. “You mean if we make it off this rock, right?”
“Right,” he answered, grinning back at her.
Elora kept smiling, holding Jarred’s gaze for a few moments longer, suddenly looking away as she began to feel her cheeks flush. She struggled to come up with a quick change of subject, her mind suddenly numb with embarrassment.
“So,” she began slowly, thinking of only one question to ask. “What is it like?”
“What is what like?”
“Being a bounty hunter?” she prodded. “You know, traveling all over the system, meeting new and interesting beings, and vaporizing them.” She laughed at her own joke and looked over to Jarred expecting him to be as well. His good humor seemed to have left him though and his mood had become cold and serious again. He stopped walking and stood motionless, staring out at seemingly nothing as far as she could tell. They stood there for what felt like ages to her and she immediately regretted having asked the question.
“Listen,” she began. “I didn’t mean to pry. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. It’s really none of my business.”
Elora realized she was babbling, but couldn’t help it. It was just something that happened when she got nervous. She forced herself to stop and take a deep breath. To her surprise, Jarred slipped his hand around his back and removed his rifle, bringing it up into both hands.
“What are you doing?” she asked, completely thrown off by his inexplicable actions.
He had managed only a glance in her direction when suddenly the sand in front of them quaked, sinking in on itself briefly before exploding upwards into the air, a dark figure shooting out of the ground with it, lunging straight for Jarred.
Elora jumped back in surprise and saw Jarred raise his rifle to fire at his attacker, but being caught off guard, was too slow. The creature knocked the weapon from his hands as a shot blasted out of it. She saw Jarred take a few cautious steps back, the vicious looking sand creature leaping at him again, letting lose an ear piercing screech. Reaching back, he drew a short, but broad bladed weapon from a sheath strapped to his back; the blade’s apparently mechanical sections splitting and shifting apart in a split second, snapping back into place to form a longer narrower sword; and spinning in a circle, swept it horizontally around his body, dropping the creature as the blade sliced through it.
Elora’s peripheral vision caught movement to her right and she turned to see another of the creatures bursting up from beneath the sand. Expecting the creature to attack, she was already turning to run, but stopped when it began charging away from her. Following its movement, she was horrified to see it barreling towards Ethan and Orna, who were standing only a short ways off from her.
Elora screamed out for Ethan as the creature leaped straight at him, only to see it vanish in a blur as Jarred intercepted it less that a meter away from her brother, impaling it with his sword. Not even a second later, while still standing over the dead sand creature, he pulled a knife from a sheath behind his waist, turned and hurled it back towards her.
Shocked by the action, she stood frozen, only to see the blade skewer a creature that had just burst up out of the sand behind her. It dropped to the ground in a dead heap at her feet. She looked back in time to see Jarred dive and roll across the sand, picking up his rifle as he came up to one knee, before taking aim and discharging a spray of plasma rounds in the direction of the new sand creatures that seemed to be emerging from the sand in all directions.
Elora spotted another of the creatures barreling towards her, and reacting quickly, dropped to the dead creature beside her, pulling Jarred’s dagger from its body. The screeching sand creature was already over her when she turned back around, barely thrusting the dagger outwards before being toppled over by it. The creature’s war cry turned into one of agony as it began thrashing about on top of her, the dagger having buried itself deep in its midsection.
Elora struggled to squirm and kick her way out from under the writhing creature, suddenly crying out in pain as one of its sharp claws dug into her leg. She kicked at the beast and managed to free herself from beneath it, quickly scrambling away backwards, and watched as its wild thrashing slowly subsided before lying very still.
She heard a few more shots from Jarred’s plasma rifle and looked around to see the remaining creatures beginning to retreat back into the sand, appearing frightened by the loud blasts, and disappearing beneath its surface. Lying back in the sand, Elora struggled to catch her breath, feeling her heart nearly pounding out of her chest. Jarred was at her side within a few moments, kneeling down next to her.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his concern genuine, as he looked her over.
Elora only nodded in affirmation, unable to find her voice to say anything, trying in vain to raise her head off the ground. Jarred put a hand on her shoulder, holding her in place.
“Lie still,” he spoke softly. “Try to calm down. You need to breath.”
Elora could feel the tears welling up in her eyes now, the rush of adrenaline beginning to fade, being replaced by the emotional stress of the attack. She did as Jarred said and, remaining still and taking a few deep breaths, tried to regain control of herself.
“It’s over,” Jarred assured her, keeping his hand on her shoulder.
Her breathing began to return to normal again, though she was still a bit shaken from the whole ordeal, and made an attempt to get up, stopping short.
Ethan! Suddenly her fear returned as she lifted herself up enough to look around frantically for her brother.
“Ethan?” she cried, desperately trying to find him. “Ethan!”
“I’m fine, Elora,” came Ethan’s reply, as he stepped up to kneel at her side.
She took hold of his arm, breathing a sigh of relief and watched as Jarred stood back up, slinging his rifle over his shoulder, before walking back towards where his sword stood upright, buried partially in a dead sand creature’s chest. Pulling the sword free, he looked over to Orna, who Elora noticed, was still standing where she always had been, calm as ever.
“What about you?” he asked her.
“I am fine,” came Orna’s simple reply.
Jarred only nodded to her and walked back over to where Elora was still sitting in the sand. He held out his hand, helping her to her feet, at the same time noticing the wound on her leg.
“You’re hurt,” he remarked.
“It’s nothing,” she replied, the discomfort obviously showing in her expression when she winced at putting weight on it.
Jarred stabbed his sword into the sand, and tearing a piece of material from his own clothing, knelt down in front of her, carefully dressing the wound. Feeling a bit awkward, she stood still, allowing him to finish.
Standing, Jarred removed his sword from the ground, depressing a button on the hilt, which caused the blade to snap apart again and revert to it’s former dimensions, and sheathed it behind his back. “Are you okay to walk?” he asked.
“Yes,” Elora answered, rubbing her leg lightly. “It’s not bad.”
“We should keep moving then,” he suggested with a nod.
“What were those things?” she asked, her eyes locked on the dead creatures lying in sand around them.
“Radanks,” Jarred answered, looking around their general area. “Sand creatures, brought here back when this moon was being terraformed. One of the few species that managed to flourish on this rock. They were frightened off, but that doesn’t mean they won’t come back.”
That thought didn’t sit well with Elora at all and she nodded her head in total agreement of leaving. She wasn’t remotely interested in staying around long enough to see any more of these radanks. Taking hold
of Ethan’s arm, she moved right up alongside of Jarred, walking with a slight limp.
Orna hovered along just behind, calm and cool as ever, seeming completely unaffected by the incident. Elora found it annoying, considering her heart was still racing wildly in her chest. She took a final look behind her, just to be sure that none of the supposedly dead sand creatures was creeping up behind them, then turned her attention back in the direction they were heading.
The sun was beginning to set in the distance, transforming the desert into a reddish tinted sea of sparkling sand and making the horizon indistinguishable as earth and sky blended into one other. The strange sight brought a welcome close to a very long day.
Hopefully, the rest of their journey would be dull by comparison.
SECT FLEET COMMAND SHIP, BORS’CHA ,
ORBITING ISYSS
The High Commander’s flagship was colossally built, a wonder of technological destructiveness that wrought terror on all who gazed upon it, a fact that Traug was quite proud of considering he had negotiated its sale to the Dominion, along with most elements of the current Sect fleet. The heavily armored behemoth packed enough firepower to adequately devastate the surface of the small moon it was currently orbiting, had Durak so wished it done. If it had not been required of him to return this Orna to his superiors alive, Traug believed that he surely would have done so.
Durak’s displeasure with the current situation was easily apparent to Traug, as the High Commander had been sitting motionless in his command seat, staring at the moon through the front viewscreen with the same, unchanging scowl for the past few hours. The rest of the bridge crew had obviously taken notice as well, as they were all purposely avoiding actions that would draw any attention to themselves, performing their duties as discreetly and quietly as possible. The Gnolith were known for being a quite temperamental and volatile species, it not being at all abnormal for Durak to have officer’s put to death when disappointed with their performances.