Tundra 37

Tundra 37 Page 13

by Aubrie Dionne

  “Sounds like the laun­dro ma­chines on over­drive.” Luna re­leased Gemme’s arm and cringed be­hind the tent, leav­ing her to face whatever came at them. The pound­ing ac­cel­er­ated, rum­bling the earth so hard an icicle fell off of Luna’s tent and shattered in the snow.

  “Grab what you can!” Brent­wood urged Gemme in the dir­ec­tion of the landrover. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “What about my tent?” Luna com­plained as Gemme jogged to her back­pack and tent bag. “All my things, my samples—”

  “Leave them.” The fi­nal­ity in Brent­wood’s voice made Gemme’s heart skip and she quickened her pace.

  Thank­fully, she’d already packed her be­long­ings. As Gemme stuck her arm through the straps of her back­pack and tent bag, an­other pound­ing racked the snow be­neath their feet, mak­ing her stumble. This time it came in rhythmic thuds, like four gi­ant hooves clomped down on the tun­dra. An­other thun­der­ous wail re­soun­ded over the moun­tains be­hind them.

  Brent­wood shouted, “Go!”

  Gemme sprin­ted to the landrover, look­ing back over her shoulder to make sure Brent­wood and Luna fol­lowed. Her gear weighed her down, but she had a head start and reached the hatch be­fore they did. She threw her bags in and turned around. Her knees gave out as a moun­tain­ous shape claimed the ho­ri­zon.

  She squin­ted, mak­ing out massive, hairy shoulders, a crown of tusks pok­ing the sky and trail­ing down between two enorm­ous black eyes to a curved snout. The beast was four times big­ger than their landrover and clos­ing the dis­tance to them fast.

  “Run!” Gemme screeched.

  Luna stumbled over her own feet, bring­ing Brent­wood down with her. Gemme watched in agony as she slowed their pro­gress and Brent­wood pulled her for­ward, half car­ry­ing her to the landrover. The alien-mam­moth charged be­hind them, stir­ring up a cloud of snow in its wake.

  Strong hands pulled her back­ward and she real­ized Tech yanked her in.

  “We’ve got to wait for them.” She bat­ted his hands away, but his grip held firm.

  “I know. But we’ve got to save time. And you’re safer in­side.”

  Judging from the size of one of the beast’s legs, she didn’t think so. But she took Tech’s ad­vice all the same. She wished she could make Brent­wood and Luna run faster. Wait­ing, nerves on a razor edge, pre­cious seconds dragged like hours.

  Tech climbed over the seat and revved the en­gines. The landrover roared, then sputtered out.

  “Damn pro­to­type.” Tech hit the dash­board with his fist and tried again. The en­gines screamed as the tires lurched for­ward. Gemme grabbed his shoulder. “You have to wait!”

  “I’m just gain­ing mo­mentum. This hunk of junk’s sat in the load­ing bay for a hun­dred years. Who knows if it will work when we need it to?”

  “Looks like it’s work­ing now.” As the vehicle ac­cel­er­ated, Gemme held out her hand.

  “Come on!”

  Brent­wood handed Luna to her. Gemme grabbed Luna’s arm and the bio­lo­gist teetered on the plat­form, her toes on and her heels dangling. Gemme tugged with all her weight and pulled her in, think­ing Luna weighed more than she looked. Luna col­lapsed on the floor, heav­ing as the landrover gained speed and Brent­wood sprin­ted to catch up.

  “You’re go­ing too fast!” But even as Gemme yelled at Tech, she knew it was the only way to keep them and the min­ing equip­ment safe.

  She reached out for Brent­wood, stretch­ing so far she thought her arm would rip off in the wind. Her fin­gers brushed his, and he fell back. Be­hind him, the lum­ber­ing beast gained, its steam­ing breath plum­ing at Brent­wood’s neck.

  If he stumbled and fell, the clawed paws would squash him to death. Gemme’s heart sped against her chest as if it would burst through her skin and run away. She shoved her boot un­der­neath the seat and leaned out over the rush­ing snow, bra­cing her­self against the landrover’s hull.

  “Grab my arm!”

  The hairs on the alien-mam­moth’s back moved of their own ac­cord, twirl­ing through the air to­ward Brent­wood. His chest heaved as he leaped for­ward to stay out of their grasp. He grasped Gemme’s arm and she clamped her fin­gers down around his wrist. The beast’s stench over­whelmed the landrover, smelling of musky sweat and dank, moldy fur. The hairs on its back ex­ten­ded like a thou­sand arms and Brent­wood ducked. The strands missed his head by mil­li­meters.

  “Pull me back in!” Gemme shouted over her shoulder, doubt­ing Luna could hear any­thing over the en­gines. She’d lost feel­ing in her boot, and she wondered how long her ankle would hold be­fore it snapped.

  Brent­wood grabbed her torso with his other arm. He clung to her, his legs skid­ding against the snow. She wrapped her arms around him and held him tightly as the mam­moth hair wrapped it­self around his ankles, trav­el­ing up his legs. The beast yanked and Brent­wood rose up, slip­ping from her grasp.

  Gemme shot him a fierce glance, dar­ing him not to give up. “Hold on.”

  His grip tightened around her as he kicked at the strands. A piece of thermal fab­ric from his leg ripped off, free­ing him.

  Gemme yelled, “Now!”

  Luna pulled her in, and Gemme gained foot­ing in the landrover. She yanked, every muscle in her arms scream­ing. Brent­wood fell on top of her on the floor, his weight press­ing against her chest. Be­hind them, the hairs probed the air where he’d hung. Luna yelled at Tech, “Close the hatch!”

  Tech slammed his fist down and the hatch lowered, block­ing out the ra­ging wind. She looked up at Brent­wood, si­lence ringing in her ears. “You okay?”

  He nod­ded, pant­ing. “You saved my life.”

  Gemme smiled and quirked an eye­brow, try­ing to dis­reg­ard the fact that he lay on top of her. “Guess we’re even now, huh?”

  “Yeah, but it’s not over yet.” Brent­wood pulled him­self off her and raised his voice, ad­dress­ing Tech. “Open the up­per hatch.”

  “What?” Luna shouted as she belted her­self in the seat next to Tech. “Are you crazy?”

  “We’re not go­ing to out­run it.”

  Luna twis­ted in her seat to con­front him. “What are you go­ing to do, ask it po­litely to leave us alone?”

  “No.” He pulled two lasers from his belt, hand­ing one to Gemme. “We’re go­ing to drive it back.”

  The laser felt heavy and cold in Gemme’s hand as she wrapped her fin­gers around it. She’d never used one in her life. Fer­ris had al­ways wanted to take her to the fir­ing range, but she’d told him a data ana­lyst would have no use for it.

  Boy was she wrong.

  The hatch lif­ted and Brent­wood climbed the seat. He stood on the head cush­ions, his torso pok­ing out of the vehicle. Gemme joined him, emer­ging from the safety of the cabin back into the furi­ous wind. Her hair whipped around her face and her eyes watered so much the snow­flake-filled sky blurred. The beast towered over them, hairs squirm­ing wildly. The strands rose up above their heads as its tusked snout snapped, teeth grat­ing.

  Brent­wood star­ted fir­ing. Gemme gripped the laser in her hand and shouted, “Where do I aim?”

  “Any­where.”

  She clicked the safety off and pulled the trig­ger just as Tech swerved. The landrover bumped her back­ward. A shaft of light ca­reened over the ice, nowhere near the beast. She flailed her arms, clutch­ing onto the hatch.

  “Nice shot!”

  She couldn’t tell if Brent­wood was be­ing sar­castic or en­cour­aging. After all, she was a com­puter ana­lyst turned ice world ex­plorer. For someone that had sat at a desk her whole life, she thought she was do­ing pretty well.

  She re­gained her foot­ing and fired again. Each shot dis­ap­peared into the beast’s gi­gantic hide as if they fired wa­ter drops at a lake. She aimed for its black eyes, its tusks, its toothy mouth, but noth­ing seemed to slow it down. The beast roared and the sound re­ver�
�ber­ated in her stom­ach, curd­ling the soy wafer she’d stuffed down that morn­ing.

  Gemme shouted over the wind, “We’re mak­ing it mad.”

  Brent­wood con­tin­ued to fire. “We’ve got to do some­thing.”

  The mam­moth’s head swung side­ways and the beast hit the min­ing equip­ment with its crown of tusks, ivory pier­cing metal. The wheels on the right side came off the ground, and for a mo­ment, Gemme thought they’d all crash into one big heap. Brent­wood pulled her over to his side.

  “Shift your weight.”

  Some­how, Tech re­bal­anced, and the wheels fell back onto the ice.

  “That’s it. I have an­other plan.” Brent­wood stopped fir­ing and climbed on top of the landrover.

  “What are you do­ing?” Gemme screamed her voice hoarse, scram­bling to catch his arm.

  He slipped from her grip. “I’m go­ing to stop it. Just keep fir­ing.”

  She watched in ter­ror as Brent­wood bal­anced on the metal bridge con­nect­ing the landrover with the plat­form of the min­ing rig. The landrover hit a bump, and he pitched for­ward, sprawl­ing in the air be­fore land­ing on the drill.

  Gemme yelled down into the landrover, “Watch where you’re driv­ing. Brent­wood’s on the drill.”

  “Damned snow mounds come up outta nowhere,” Tech yelled back.

  She heard Luna ask him, “Are you trained to drive this thing?”

  Tech didn’t reply, or she didn’t hear him. Either way, Gemme guessed his an­swer was no.

  She poked her head back out, chan­cing a peek. Brent­wood clung to the drill, press­ing open the con­trol panel and Gemme real­ized what he planned to do. His fin­gers flew over the touch­screen and Gemme waited for the drill to spin, but noth­ing happened. Someone tugged her leg and she ducked her head back in.

  “He needs the key.” Tech handed Luna a plastic card and Luna slipped it to Gemme.

  “What am I sup­posed to do?” Gemme thought about throw­ing it to him, but with the wind, they’d prob­ably lose it forever.

  “You’ll have to climb on there with him.” Luna spoke as if she sug­ges­ted Gemme join him for af­ter­noon tea.

  Bit­ing a re­tort, Gemme stuck her head back out of the up­per hatch. The hairs had wrapped around the drill, and the beast pulled, slow­ing the landrover down. The tires skid­ded against the fric­tion.

  Gemme slipped the card into her pocket and took a deep breath.

  You can do this.

  She climbed on the roof and crawled to­ward the bridge us­ing the top lug­gage bars as hand­holds. Un­der­neath her, the snow sped away, crushed by the gi­gantic tires of the min­ing rig. If she slipped, she’d be a pan­cake.

  Brent­wood waved her back, but she lowered her­self down the curve of the rear and ca­joled her­self into tak­ing the first step on the bridge. Nar­row enough to only walk one foot in front of the other, she bal­anced by hold­ing out both arms.

  She felt as though she flew on thin air as she lif­ted one foot, pre­cari­ously poised on the other like some Old Earth tight-rope walker. A layer of ice had formed on the metal, and she probed each step with her boot be­fore placed her full weight down. Tears froze on her cheeks, and her ears throbbed. Her lower lip split open, warm blood trick­ling down her chin.

  You’re halfway there. Keep go­ing.

  She’d never been the most grace­ful in her class, and now each step coun­ted. The wind ripped through her and she leaned into it, hop­ing the gale wouldn’t blow her away. Her breath hitched in her throat as she ran the last few steps and col­lapsed on the min­ing plat­form, bruis­ing both her shins.

  “What are you do­ing out here?” Brent­wood shouted, cling­ing to the con­trol con­sole and fir­ing up at the alien-mam­moth’s head.

  Gemme reached in her pocket and brought out the keytag. Brent­wood’s eyes widened with re­cog­ni­tion. Ig­nor­ing her aching muscles, she climbed to­ward him, grasp­ing any hold she could find. He reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her to­ward him. To­gether they gripped the keytag as if it were hu­man­ity’s last hope and stuck it in the con­sole.

  The screen be­low them lit up as the mam­moth-hair tightened its grip. The mam­moth slammed down its hind legs and the en­gines revved as the tires screeched. The smell of burnt rub­ber tain­ted the air. A sense of sick­en­ing dread spread over Gemme as she fell into the mam­moth’s shadow. The beast would pum­mel their equip­ment and swal­low them whole.

  Gemme grabbed his shoulder. “Quickly, be­fore we stop.”

  Brent­wood pressed the code and the drill hummed to life, turn­ing slowly at first. The hairs stretched un­til the drill ripped them out and blue-black blood sprayed over them. The beast roared, its foul breath steam­ing the air around Gemme. The landrover took off and she and Brent­wood fell back­ward onto the metal grat­ing.

  He shot up and raised his laser to fire, but the mam­moth col­lapsed on its front legs, a bald patch where the hair had been seep­ing blood onto the snow. It clawed at the ground, try­ing to gain foot­ing, but it was los­ing too much blood. After a few stag­ger­ing steps, the beast fell on its side.

  Even though the alien-mam­moth would have killed them and jeop­ard­ized the en­tire mis­sion of the Ex­ped­i­tion, Gemme felt sorry for its death. This planet was its home, and they were the alien in­vaders. Heck, they’d prob­ably send the en­tire spe­cies into ex­tinc­tion in the next hun­dred years if they fol­lowed the ways of Old Earth.

  “Good job, Ms. Reiner. Al­though I’m sad to see such a majestic an­imal dead, it was ne­ces­sary.” Brent­wood shut off the drill and offered his hand and helped her up. The in­tens­ity in his eyes made her cheeks burn against the fri­gid air and she looked away.

  “Noth­ing any or­din­ary data ana­lyst wouldn’t do.”

  “Trained for this in your gradu­ate classes along with dif­fer­en­tial quant­it­at­ive ana­lysis?”

  “Cer­tainly, didn’t you?” She couldn’t be­lieve the hu­mor in her voice, es­pe­cially after such a dan­ger­ous turn of events. Brent­wood coaxed it out of her, calm­ing her. With him she wasn’t a bor­ing, up­tight com­puter ana­lyst.

  They watched in si­lence as the landrover circled the beast. As the vehicle ground to a halt, Gemme jumped off the plat­form. Cov­er­ing her nose from the metal­lic reek of blood, she stud­ied the beast. Some of the re­main­ing hairs still twitched, spiral­ing out into the snow around it. She stared at its black eye, the pu­pil lar­ger than her head. How many years had it lived on this planet be­fore the beast met its end with hu­mans? Did she really want to know?

  Brent­wood fol­lowed her, still hold­ing up his laser. When she gave him a ques­tion­ing look, he shrugged. “You can never be too care­ful.”

  Luna and Tech stumbled out of the landrover, gawk­ing.

  Gemme ges­tured to Luna. “How’s that for a spe­ci­men?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Priorities

  Vira’s sleep pod opened be­fore her alarm went off, re­veal­ing her dad’s smil­ing face ha­loed in the auto­matic wake-up light.

  “Rise and shine, peaches.”

  She rubbed her eyes, feel­ing as though her head was still stuck in dreams. “What time is it?”

  He checked the di­gital clock on the lid of her pod. “I have an hour be­fore I need to go to work. Let’s see what we can do about get­ting you a new hov­er­chair.”

  “Really?” Ex­cite­ment bubbled in­side her. A new hov­er­chair would mean not ask­ing Rizzy to lug her around all the time or hav­ing raw el­bows from spend­ing so much time on the car­pet. Plus, she loved spend­ing time with her dad alone.

  “You bet.”

  He bent down and she climbed on his back, wrap­ping her arms around his neck. “Mom’s made some break­fast if you want to take a minute to eat.”

  Eager­ness rushed through her as if the world would end be­fore she got her chair. “No. Let’s
go now. I’ll eat when I come home.”

  “Okay.” Her dad bounced her on his back, mak­ing her giggle as he car­ried her into the kit­chen.

  Her mom looked up from stir­ring some aw­ful, sludgy oat­meal. “Who needs a chair when you have a ride like that, eh?”

  Vira laughed, but her dad re­spon­ded in a ser­i­ous tone, “She needs her in­de­pend­ence, Nat­alie. When I was her age, it would have driven me crazy to sit in the same spot all day.”

  “You were a little hel­lion.”

  He kissed her mom on the cheek. “I still am.”

  Laugh­ing, they took off to­ward the en­gin­eer­ing bay.

  Dim emer­gency lights lit the cor­ridor, and the air stung even colder than in their fam­ily unit. Vira tightened her grip, glad for her dad’s warmth un­der­neath her. She didn’t feel like laugh­ing any more. The ship was spook­ier than the last time she’d gone out, track­ing Rizzy and Daryl be­fore the crash. At least then the lights shone brightly, and the tem­per­at­ure was a steady sev­enty-two de­grees. “When will the reg­u­lar lights come back on?”

  “As soon as the away team finds an al­tern­ate en­ergy source. Don’t worry; they’re work­ing on it right now. Pretty soon things will be back to nor­mal.”

  Vira didn’t think any­thing would be nor­mal ever again. Not only were they not in space, but the Seers weren’t the people she thought they were. Her dad’s blind faith dis­turbed her.

  “What if the Seers didn’t want to help?”

  “Non­sense.” He craned his neck to see her eye to eye. “They’re do­ing the best they can. It’s their job to keep every­one safe.”

  And scare little girls while they were at it?

  Vira opened her mouth to dis­agree when her dad poin­ted up ahead. “Here we are, En­gin­eer­ing Bay Six.”

  They passed flick­er­ing lights and vent­il­a­tion tubes wheez­ing stale air. The portal to the en­gin­eer­ing bay lay open, the panel fizz­ling like it had short-cir­cuited. As they walked in, her stom­ach sank like the ship when it crashed. A line of people wrapped all the way around the room while work­ers scrambled be­hind the desk tak­ing re­quests. Some of them looked like they hadn’t changed clothes in days. The man stand­ing in front of them wore a band­age around his head. Vira squirmed as she thought about his wound.

 

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