Flare

by JC Hay

  The ground shifted, cutting her off mid-word. Ax braced himself against a tree, while with an enormous groan of metal, what looked like half the forest floor stood up.

  Fifteen

  Kayana watched the giant war machine unfold itself from the forest floor. Despite being covered in thick layers of moss, algae, and ferns like a second skin, she could still make out its rough shape. For whatever reason, fate, threat, or amusement, its creators had fashioned it to resemble the great chanoth beasts; predatory, bipedal reptiles that had hunted her people at the dawn of history.

  A tiny part of her brain wondered if every humanoid culture had stories of such beasts. The rest was overcome with a base terror that weighted her limbs with deep-rooted, ancestral fear. Her stomach clenched as her body tensed. The flame she’d been using to clear the woods flickered and died as her v’tana snuffed out. There would be no fighting the beast. The only choices were to flee or be eaten.

  On either side of its torso, just above the hips, were twin sets of pods like the one Ax had fallen into. Weapon bays of some type, she imagined, though they were long since emptied in whatever war had driven the thing’s creation.

  Not that it needed the weapons to be dangerous. Even if it didn’t attack them directly, the weight of it stepping on them or knocking over a tree in passing would be enough to cripple or kill either of them. She tried to sneak backwards, and a twig snapped under her heel.

  The thing’s giant head snapped around and focused on her. Blue-white light flared in the space where its eyes should be just before it opened its gargantuan mouth and a metallic roar thundered from somewhere in the middle of its chest.

  Shit. Kayana didn’t need any more of an invitation. “Run!”

  Ax turned on his heels and sprinted into the heavier woods. As the broad-snouted head swiveled to track him, Kayana snapped the spark-glove Ax had given her. The first effort didn’t ignite, and she took a deep breath, forced herself to calm down and sense her inner flame.

  On the second spark, her v’tana caught the flame, and she shaped it into a tight ball. She could feel the flame, different from the magnesium of the flare, push against her constraint. Her lessons had been so long ago. What had her teacher said? Turn the fire in on itself, tighten it until it can’t help but break free.

  She twisted her hands together, compressing the ball. Each press made her control more tenuous. When she worried she might not be able to contain it further, she hurled it at the massive robot. The sphere exploded when it struck the robot’s chest, but before the smoke had cleared, she could see that all it had done was burn away some of the plant life. The gleaming metal armor underneath didn’t look like it had been waiting centuries to fight.

  The robot roared a second time, whirling toward her, and Kayana ran in a different direction from Ax.

  Panic and speed prevented her from raising a new flame to clear the underbrush. Without it, she was assaulted by the combination of lashing branches, tangling vines, and ankle-snagging roots. At every step, something else slashed at her exo-suit and tried to maim her. The war robot had no such hindrance—its massive size allowed it to slam through smaller trees, shattering them into flinders.

  “Ax! Cut toward me!” She turned to run toward him, trying to match his speed so that they crossed almost in front of the robot.

  It worked. The war machine kept moving in one direction, while its head and torso turned to follow Ax. It tangled up in its own feet, slamming into a tree too thick to atomize and bringing the robot to a sudden stop.

  She didn’t look back. Instead she again crossed paths with Ax, hoping to confuse the robot once it had righted itself.

  “Get to the big trees!” Ax sounded as out of breath as she felt. He pointed toward a copse on the far side of a small rise. “They look too big for it to knock over. And if we can limit its mobility, we might have a chance.”

  As ideas went in the heat of the moment, she’d heard worse. She turned to head in the direction Ax had indicated and risked a glance behind them to check on the war machine. The automaton had already regained its feet, tearing a huge gouge in the soil in the process. The alien light of its eyes scanned the woods for a second before spotting them, and once again the chase was on.

  They were almost to the copse when the hill in front of it raised itself up on ten scything, segmented legs. Sickly green light seeped out from between the joints, washing the plants nearby with unhealthy pallor. Nine legs, she corrected. One of the thing’s enormous claws had been torn off in some previous battle. The same light that leaked between its joints poured out of the wound as though it were fresh.

  Shitshitshit. She glanced to confirm that Ax had also seen the new threat.

  “Well, that’s just great,” he muttered. “I was just thinking, ‘You know what would be really nice? Another war machine, that’s what.’” Ahead of them, the crablike machine raised its remaining claw above its head and snapped it in angry agitation.

  There were no two ways around it. This had just become genuinely bad. If only Al’kheri had a maxim for giant alien war machines. She’d have to improvise. “Go under it!”

  “Are you mad?” Ax looked at her as though she had suddenly grown an additional head. Despite his protest, she noticed he had changed direction to match her recommendation.

  “I sure hope not.” Her throat burned from how fast she was breathing, and her legs ached from fighting against the underbrush. She forced herself to push even harder, picking up speed as she raced toward the new robot. She just hoped that the different design ethics indicated that the two machines were on opposed sides of the conflict.

  And Al’kheri did have a maxim for that. The twelfth. Let your enemies exhaust themselves against each other.

  She charged beneath the metal crustacean, threading between its legs as the claw carved a furrow in the soil behind her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ax thread in as well. Before she could call out to him, the reptilian mecha slammed into the crab and tangled up with it. No further agitation between the two giants was needed. Each lashed out at the other in a destructive display of gouged terrain, showering sparks, and the scream of metal on metal.

  Ax waited for her a few meters away, out of range of the destruction. “I didn’t expect that to work,” he said between breaths.

  Neither had she, frankly, but she wasn’t about to let him know that. “There is a maxim for everything.” After confirming the two robots hadn’t decided to begin some kind of unholy team-up, she led Ax away from the conflict and in the direction of the gemstone. Hopefully. The last thing she wanted Ax to do was check and draw the war machines’ attention with another ping from the tracker.

  With luck, the rest of the challenge would go easier, but somehow, she doubted it.

  Sixteen

  Kayana wondered if she had been right to doubt.

  An hour after their encounter with the robots, she and Ax had settled back into a platonic silence. They each kept primed for another disaster, but they’d also fallen into the easy rhythm of being around each other. If anything, it seemed like things were finally going in their favor.

  She was about to have him check the tracker again when the rumble-whine of trans-atmospheric thrusters split the air and silenced the forest sounds around them. Ax dashed into` a hollow space under the roots of a giant tree, and she charged after him. The smell of damp earth pressed around them, and she sought out his hand in the gloom. He squeezed her fingers as they held their breath. With her other hand, she activated the spark-glove, her v’tana sedate as she shaped the flame to a dull golden-orange glow.

  The engines pulled closer, the ship slowing as it passed over the forest. Her comm unit crackled as someone hijacked the emergency band to transmit on all channels. A woman’s voice cut through the static. “Anaxagoras, I know you’re down there. I’ve been sent to collect you. Turn yourself in, and I promise that your transport will be painless and comfortable.”

  Ax looked like he’d seen a ghost. He’d
gone cold and still, his breathing quick despite the lack of exertion. When he recovered, he squeezed her hand again. “Actually, there’s a couple of things I should tell you. I wanted to put this off, but circumstances...”

  She glared at him. “Your full name is Anaxagoras? I can see why you changed it.”

  Her attempt to make light of the mode got a smile from him, but the mirth never reached his eyes. “So, remember those criminals I told you I might have robbed?”

  “I remember less ‘might have’ when we were discussing it, but go on.”

  He swallowed, the sound loud in the small space. “Unless I’ve forgotten the sound of her voice, that was Marjon Shamoun. I believe her title was regional head of marketing for Bellerophon Pharmaceuticals. Which mostly meant finding street dealers to peddle narcotics for them.”

  She narrowed her eyes, “Bellerophon? That sounds awfully legitimate for a criminal organization.”

  Ax’s smile was wan in the dim light. “The most successful criminals cloak their enterprise in respectability. Is that in those maxims you always cite? Because if it’s not, it should be.”

  There was a similar sentiment, actually, but she resisted the urge to quote Al’kheri. It’s not like it would comfort him at the moment. “I guess I don’t understand. Just how much did you steal that they would chase you across the galaxy and scour a planet trying to find you?”

  “It’s not how much. It’s what.” He took another deep breath, steeling himself for whatever he planned to say next. “The head of the company, Gobnait Xanthopoulos, was my fiancée. The money I stole was her dowry.”

  Darkness rushed in as her v’tana snuffed out, taking the small flame with it.

  Of course it did. After all, her skill wasn’t high enough to keep connected with her v’tana during times of emotional distress. That was why Endarion had walked away from her; how he’d stolen her family away with his discussion of how embarrassed they must be to have her in the House.

  For several moments, she couldn’t hear anything but the blood rushing in her ears. “What happened to ‘no more secrets’?”

  “And you told me everything about your past?”

  “Yes!” She dug her fingers into her thighs to keep from strangling him. “That was the whole point.”

  “I just thought bringing it up might be painful for you. I was afraid it might awaken some unpleasant memories for you, what with your past.”

  “Or, you know, that I might sympathize with someone whose fiancé turned against her, broke truth, and stole away with her most prized possession.” She wanted to scream, wanted to find some way to beat the realization into his thick skull, but she couldn’t muster the energy. Her v’tana collapsed in on itself until her chest felt like the cold center of a dead star. How dare he bring up her past like he could protect her from it. When he was just dragging her through it all over again.

  He dragged a hand down his face then changed direction to stab his fingers back into the spiky mop of his hair. “I wanted to tell you...”

  “You. Craven. Larf!” She didn’t care if her voice drew the attention of every death machine on the planet. “How can you lie to me like that?”

  “I’m telling the tru—”

  “You didn’t want me to know! You wanted the whole sordid thing to blow over. Me knowing was the last damn thing you wanted, or you’d have opened with it, instead of waiting until you didn’t have a choice and needed me to pull your ass out of the fire.”

  “Trust me, the last thing Gobby deserves is your sympathy. She certainly wouldn’t spare any for you. Ask me how Bellerophon is so successful.”

  “I don’t care why.”

  He cut her off. “The mining contractors she hires have to work men extra shifts to keep her supplied. At the prices she offers, the men are willing to do it. Extra shifts require staying awake longer, and the money she pays them comes right back to her through the illegal stims trade. And if they get hurt on the job? She sells the drugs to fix that, at artificially high prices.”

  She didn’t care. Couldn’t care. “Tell me the truth. Would you have told me about your fi...about her, if they hadn’t found you?” Her mouth wouldn’t form the word fiancé.

  Ax looked at his hands, forgetting that she could see him in the dark. His non-answer told her everything she needed to know. She crawled out from under the tree roots and started walking.

  He followed her, swearing as he got caught on a branch. Good. He reached for her, but pulled back at the last moment. “Several teams have yachts in orbit, right? Marjon doesn’t know which one is ours. All we need to do is transport back to Algol, then jump out of the system.” He inhaled, like he’d had an idea. “Or, you know, we do the piracy thing. Take over one of the other yachts. Just in case Marjon matched up the transponder signals. We could blame it on confusion or whatever, but by the time it’s all sorted out we could be three or four jumps away.”

  Unbelievable. “That’s not how any of this works. It can’t happen like that.”

  “Well, obviously not.” He sounded almost manic in his desperation to convince her. “We would have to get the stone first, otherwise we won’t have a chance at winning the competition.”

  Her eyes burned. Stupid. She’d been so stupid. No wonder Endarion hadn’t wanted her. She was always the means to someone else’s end. Even now. “Are you even hearing yourself?” She stared at him, dumbfounded. “There’s a person out there who wants to kill you. And every minute of this conversation, I sympathize with her a little more.”

  He finally took the last step to close the distance, and he tugged her shoulder in an effort to turn her around. “But what about the prize money? What about getting your own ship?”

  “I already have a ship. I’ve just been letting you ride in it because I find the idea of spacing people distasteful.” She tugged herself out from under his hand and took a step backward.

  He didn’t follow. After a few more steps, she turned her back on him. It was like she’d found the event horizon that allowed her to escape his pull. Each step she took away from him allowed her to move faster.

  He called after her one last time. “Kayana, I’m sorry.”

  It gave her pause, not the least because it sounded like he meant it. In his own way, she supposed he did. “No, Ax. You’re upset that you have to own the consequences of your actions. You’re not sorry.” She took a deep breath. “Goodbye.”

  AX LOOKED AT THE EMPTY woods where Kayana had gone and tried to come up with any scenario that could be worse. A dozen different retorts he could hurl after her flitted through his brain, but since it had been upwards of fifteen minutes since she’d left, it was unlikely that she’d hear them. Plus, his heart wasn’t in it.

  His heart wasn’t really anywhere, if he was being honest.

  “At least she didn’t kill me for breaking the tracker.” There. He found one positive thing about his situation. See? He could be an optimist, when he put his mind to it.

  On impulse, he tugged the scanner up and checked it. Unfortunately, the screen hadn’t magically repaired itself, though it still gave off a strong ping when he pointed it in the right direction. Or what he hoped was the right direction.

  Fuck it. Beats standing around waiting for Marjon to find me. Ax started in the direction indicated by the tracker. If he kept walking, there was a slim chance that he’d move into an area she’d already scanned, and he’d be safe.

  Well, as safe as you could be on a deathtrap planet seeded with additional obstacles by a corporation that equated contestant mortality with high ratings.

  As if he needed a reminder of the planet’s lethality, a thin tripwire caught his ankle and snapped with a metallic pop. Ax immediately dropped to the ground. A pair of heavy blades spun out of the woods and sank into a nearby tree trunk at head and chest level. He glanced at his foot and unwound the nearly invisible wire from his boot.

  Sadly, the holovid drone had been out of the way when the booby trap went off. With a whirr of its
internal motors, it floated down to get a closeup of him face down in the dirt and moss.

  He glared at it. “Did you get the shot, Berniss?”

  The screen remained dark, no answer forthcoming. Ax rolled his eyes and shoved himself back to his feet, while the drone maintained a cautious distance just out of arm’s reach. He wondered if Berniss had reprogrammed them that way, or if they had figured out that bit of self-preservation all on their own.

  After the first encounter, he checked the trail in front of him for tripwires as he walked. He’d gotten lucky the first time, something he couldn’t rely on happening again. With a heavy branch, he tapped the ground in front of him, listening for the metallic tap of another pit while he tried to remember the specific rules about completing challenges. Without Kayana, he doubted he could do more than find the stone but there was nothing stopping him from doing that and then calling her to him. It made the overland travel slow, but he supposed it beat just walking. At least it gave him something with which to distract himself.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t sympathize with Kayana’s point of view. He did. They’d both been engaged to people who weren’t what they expected. She’d tried to keep her engagement out of a sense of family duty, he’d done it out of self-preservation. After two years with Gobby, he couldn’t approve of her methods. Gobby preyed on people whose only crime was wanting to feed their families.

  Finding a line he wouldn’t cross had given him strength enough to say no.

  A line he pissed away by betraying a pair of racers he’d never met. Ax added that regret to the list of things he wished he’d told Kayana. Maybe if he saw her again, he’d be able to.

  After a half-hour of walking, he began to wonder what would happen if he let the traps get him. The air remained cool, but it had also become frustratingly still the deeper he went into the woods. What little sweat he produced sat on his skin instead of evaporating, making him feel clammy and damp all over. The only reassuring sign he’d had was the steadily increasing chime for the tracker as he got closer to wherever Octiron had hidden the damn gemstone.