Guardians (Caretaker Chronicles Book 2)

by Josi Russell

  Kaia felt a pang of worry. If Aria got caught, what was Saras likely to do? There was only a small incarceration building in Coriol, as most real criminals were shipped out to the prison in Minville, on the other edge of the settlements.

  Kaia felt her mind fogging as she tried to pull her focus back to what Aria was saying.

  “. . . some kind of herbicide, maybe? Or pesticide? Neither make sense, but I just don’t have any other ideas.” Aria must have sensed that Kaia had something on her mind because she asked, “How was your day with the kids? Did they behave?”

  Kaia pulled back to the moment. “Aria, there’s something you need to know about Rigel.”

  Aria’s green eyes grew scared. She glanced at the little boy on the rug, assessing that he was all right before catching Kaia’s eyes again.

  Kaia hurried to reassure her. “Rigel is telepathic, Aria. I’ve been having rudimentary conversations with him all afternoon.”

  The fear in her eyes changed to confusion. “What? Are you sure?”

  “I am. He can receive and broadcast thoughts. They’re pretty simple right now, though.”

  Aria put her head in her hands. “Oh, no. One more thing they’ll mark on his chart.”

  Kaia took the younger woman’s hands in hers, pulling them away from her face gently and looking into Aria’s eyes.

  “But you see, all those things on his chart are tied into this one.”

  Aria’s face showed confusion.

  “See, he doesn’t talk because he sends his needs to you telepathically, and you get him his drink or his bread. It’s like magic to him. He doesn’t need to learn to say ‘drink,’ he just shows you. And when he wants something he can’t reach, he just sends you or Polara to fetch it for him.”

  Understanding was dawning in Aria’s eyes. “So I can hear him?” she asked.

  Kaia shrugged. “I’m not sure, exactly. I can hear him clearly, but without telepathy, I’m not sure what it would feel like for you.”

  Aria listened, trying to clear her mind, but only her own thoughts were in there. “I’m not getting anything.”

  “He may have to initiate it. Just be aware of it, and tell Ethan when he gets home from the survey trip tonight. Maybe he can start working with—” and then his name was gone again, and Kaia took a quick breath, embarrassed, “with the baby on learning some basic words. I think it will make a real difference.” She had covered up the lapse well, she thought, and Aria seemed too lost in this new information to have noticed.

  Chapter 6

  Ethan squinted into the dim interior as he climbed onto the craft at the rendezvous. As they lifted off and the late afternoon shadows fell, his thoughts turned to home and the evening that lay ahead with Aria and the children. It had been a pleasant day, but he was ready to go home, anxious to see how his family was doing. He pulled out his missive and typed a message, but there was still no connection. He’d probably be home before the missive connected and the message sent. Especially at the speed this pilot was flying. As they rose, Ethan heard the missive connect and send the photo from this morning and the last message.

  The pilot wove in and out of the mountains. Ethan saw Schübling, next to him, pull out her Suremap and take some readings. “Are we takin’ a different route home?” she asked, a strange tone in her voice. The Suremap reading did look different from the terrain they had seen this morning.

  “I’m just fightin’ some strong air currents between these towers,” the pilot said. “I’m seeing if we can loop around a different way to have a smoother ride.”

  Ethan glanced up from the screen just in time to see the tower that clipped the ship and sent it spinning. Metal ripped and screeched as the wing caught on the edge of the karst formation and flipped them upside down. Leaves and branches tore through the broken windows, raking Ethan’s face and arms. He didn’t breathe—couldn’t breathe—as the smoke from the engine surrounded them. He heard one of the men wailing, and Brynn, behind him, screaming. Schübling, beside him, was silent.

  The crash lasted only seconds, but time seemed to slow as the ship slid the last fifty yards down the peak and crashed to a stop on its side in the thick foliage. Ethan felt a sharp pain as he turned to see if the survey team was okay. Ndaiye sat in shock, blood streaming from cuts along his face and neck. Carlisle, who appeared unhurt, unbuckled and staggered over, pulling his jacket off and pressing it to Ndaiye’s face.

  Brynn was quiet and pale. Ethan glanced at the pilot, who had climbed out to see if it was safe to get his passengers out. He seemed unhurt. The other members of the team were stirring, gasping, and regrouping. Still, Schübling lay silent in her seat beside Ethan. He turned to her and put a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t stir. Looking up, he saw the pilot walking by outside her shattered window. “Hey,” he called to the pilot, “we’ve got a problem here.” But as the pilot turned to look inside, Ethan saw him drop downward, impossibly quickly. The last Ethan saw of him was the terror on his face.

  Ethan tried to comprehend what had happened, and then felt the ship began to shift. “Hang on!” Ethan called as the craft slid off into a deep chasm that yawned below.

  The craft rolled and plummeted, thudding into rocks with the sound of ripping metal. The light from outside disappeared as the little ship was consumed by a shaft deep enough to fit the entire Colony Offices building in. Carlisle wasn’t strapped in, and he flipped forward as they fell and slammed into the wall near Ethan. Ethan reached out and grasped the other man’s arm, hoping to stop his wild tumbling, but the moment the ship shifted again and began to nosedive into the dark, Carlisle was torn from Ethan’s grasp and thrown past him to the back of the craft.

  Ethan braced himself for another impact. It came, and the screeching metal tore away from the side of the ship next to his seat. He had a quick glimpse of stone and darkness before the ship flipped again, freefalling. There were more impacts, more sudden jolts, more tumbling, until Ethan could not tell up from down or the way they’d come from the way they were going.

  When the ship stopped falling, there was an immediate, eerie silence, as if the cacophony of sounds had been swallowed up by the immense and unknown dark outside. And then came the anguished sounds of the passengers.

  A fine dust rose through the pale glow of the emergency cabin lights. Ethan breathed against white-hot pain in his chest, willing it to abate as he peered outside the craft.

  “Breathe,” he told himself. “Breathe.”

  He glanced at Maggie Schübling, and saw her looking back at him. Her face was still as stone, but her eyes were open, and there was pain behind them.

  “What is it?” he asked. “Captain Schübling, are you hurt?”

  She didn’t speak, but her eyes darted down to her right leg, and Ethan looked to see the pilot’s seat crumpled over her shin, which was bent at a startling angle. “Okay,” he said slowly. “We’re gonna get that off.”

  Ethan looked around. Outside was darkness, ominous and solid. The little craft was tipped slightly onto its side, and he could see the ground pressing through the hole next to him. He reached through the gaping side of the ship and ran his fingers along the ground. Crumbly, sticky dirt coated his fingers like cake crumbs. He hastily wiped them on his pants. He shifted in his seat, carefully at first, then more vigorously. The craft shifted slightly, but seemed to settle in the soft dirt. It was solid. Ethan reached up, pausing to take a sharp breath as he felt a catch in his shoulder, likely caused by being thrown against the harness. He braced against the pitch of the floor and released his safety harness. Turning, he saw others carefully moving around between the scattered seats and wounded survey crew.

  Other than Ndaiye’s cuts, the cousins seemed to be all right, and they were pulling emergency first aid equipment out of an overhead compartment, passing it to Collins and Jade, who were attending to Carlisle.

  Kneeling beside Schübling, Ethan ran a hand down the pilot’s seat. Gently, he tried pressing it forward, but it didn’t move. He p
ut a shoulder against it and pushed. It wasn’t going anywhere. Schübling, still silent, was looking at him with pleading eyes.

  Pain in his shoulder and chest made him wince as he lay down in the aisle and peered under the seat. The emergency lights on the floor illuminated the space and he saw some hope. This was an ejection seat, made to release from the floor. He pulled back, glanced up, and saw the lever that would activate the charge and shoot it skyward. That would free her leg. But he paused, leaning in to look carefully at the tangled mess of seat and bone in front of him. It was obvious that the seat had broken her leg. What if the leg was caught on the seat? The ejection would do far more damage. He’d have to come up with something else. She was in shock, and the floor below her was sticky with blood—he’d have to move quickly.

  Ethan scrambled underneath the seat, peering through the wires and metal. He saw the rails that the seat sat on and followed them back to the seat’s attachment point. Two release clasps shone back at him, holding the seat to its undercarriage on the rails. They were thick metal, but made to flip up and down to secure the seat to the carriage, or in this case, to release it. He reached back and released them both. The seat shifted and Schübling cried out in pain as he grasped it and shoved it forward, off her leg and out the broken windscreen onto the nose of the ship.

  He turned his attention to the leg.

  “Hey,” he called to Ndaiye, “I need an Emedic over here!”

  The man turned a bloodied face to him and nodded. “Comin’!” he called. In moments he was beside Ethan with the med kit. Ndaiye helped Schübling lean forward as he stuck an anesthetic patch on her lower back. Ethan watched as the medicine smoothed the pain from Schübling’s features.

  He pulled the Emedic from the kit. It was an oblong gray box, metal and heavy, much bigger than the one they had at home. Flipping it open he saw the screen and a number of attachments. Ethan pulled out the camera and checked both ends of the connecting cable, then aimed at Schübling’s wound. He tried to keep steady and pressed the green “Assess” button.

  Immediately, a full internal picture of the broken limb appeared on the screen. It was a bad break. Ethan pressed the yellow “Treat” button. The Emedic’s speaker buzzed with its calm voice.

  “Please attach the Instasplint at the indicated points.” The Emedic directed.

  Ethan popped open the compartment that said “Instasplint” and removed two thick, flat, flexible bars. He wrapped them around above and below the break, as shown on the screen.

  “Instasplint attached,” the Emedic said. “Alignment sequence initiated. Please do not touch the injury.” The screen blinked with a barred circle with the wound picture in the middle. The bars went rigid, pressing into the skin, and suddenly moved forcefully away from each other. Ethan winced as the bones cracked into place, the lower leg perfectly straight again. He glanced at Schübling, who only looked impatient.

  “Please connect the injection attachment.”

  Ethan found the attachment labeled “Injection” and plugged it into one of the ports.

  “Please insert the injection attachment at the indicated point.” The screen lit up with an external photo of the wound and an animation of the injection attachment sliding into the skin just below Schübling’s knee. “The green light on the attachment will glow when the correct insertion point is reached.”

  Ethan drew the attachment across Schübling’s leg, glancing at her face to be sure it wasn’t hurting her as he did so.

  “Keep your eyes on your work,” Schübling snapped.

  The pain medicine must be working.

  Ethan looked back to see the light switch from red to green. He pressed the long, pointed end of the attachment under the skin and felt the pressure of the vein wall release as it entered.

  “Delivering inhibitor,” the calm Emedic voice said. “Please do not remove the injection attachment from the patient.”

  Ethan heard a hiss and waited, watching as the flow of blood from the wound stanched.

  “Inhibitor delivered. Delivering matrix material.” There was a pause. “Matrix material delivered. Delivering bone morphogenetic proteins. Please do not remove the injection attachment from the patient.”

  Ethan’s arm ached, but he held the attachment steady.

  “Bone morphogenetic proteins delivered. Delivering time-dilated, enhanced Reagan cells. Please do not remove . . .” Ethan took a sharp breath. Reagan cells were lab-grown cells that had been enhanced with Kaia’s altered DNA. They sped up healing exponentially, though it was nothing like the healing in her own body. Delivering large quantities of them to a wound made it possible for the body to begin rebuilding damaged tissue immediately. Though he had known they were used in trauma cases, hearing the Emedic say her name jolted him.

  Ethan thought about what Kaia had told him about her condition and felt the old bitterness. It was patently unfair that she healed quickly, but she still couldn’t cheat old age.

  Schübling’s gruff voice cut into Ethan’s thoughts. “Get it outta me, already!” she barked.

  Ethan looked down to see the Emedic flashing red. “Please remove the injection attachment from the patient.” It was repeating. “Please disconnect injection attachment and place it in the injection attachment compartment.”

  Ethan did so and the compartment slid closed. The sterilization cycle initiated in the compartment.

  “Please connect the Sprayshield attachment.” Ethan found and connected it, then followed the Emedic’s instructions to position it in front of the wound. “Applying Sprayshield,” the Emedic declared, and then sprayed a thick, clear gel across the wound which hardened quickly into a transparent cast.

  Ethan was glad that when more experienced medical personnel arrived they’d be able to view the injury and check it’s healing through the transparent cast. He followed the Emedic’s instructions for sterilizing, then used it to treat the scrapes on Ndaiye’s face before the other man went to help Traore open a stuck compartment.

  He scanned his own shoulder and found nothing broken, simply a lot of bruising. He took a shot of Vein Complex to aid in the healing of the capillaries and turned his attention back to Schübling. “How are you feeling now?”

  She shrugged. “Fine. Can’t feel anything below my stomach, and I can’t get turned around to see my crew. Go check them and give me a report.”

  What he found was disheartening. Along with the pilot, three others were dead: Carlisle and Espinoza lay in the back of the shuttle, and Baker had been thrown out of the craft during the descent. That left Brynn, Ethan, the cousins Traore and Ndaiye, Schübling, Collins, and Jade. Seven people left. Two of them, Schübling and Ndaiye, hurt pretty badly, and the rest fighting at least shock. Ethan himself felt sick and shaky. He wouldn’t be the only one. In fact, he became increasingly worried as he looked at Brynn. Her skin was ashen and she was walking around, agitated. She kept approaching Schübling and then abruptly turning and walking away. He went to her.

  “Brynn, why don’t you come over and rest a little?” He gestured to a seat in the right side of the craft which had been bent to a nearly horizontal position and had her lie down. He raised her boots to the back of the seat in front of her and Traore brought over a blanket.

  “Just rest,” Ethan encouraged her. “You’re okay.” He left her with Traore and went back to report to Schübling.

  “Well, just try to make ‘em all comfortable,” she said. “Search and rescue oughta be here anytime.” She lay her head back against the seat and closed her eyes.

  Chapter 7

  As the afternoon sun washed the cottage kitchen with gold, Aria—using a cake pan as a seed tray—mixed another handful of dark loam into the blue Minean clay. Minea’s famed soil made beautiful houses, but it also bound roots and blocked water. And the seeds here were sub-par. In fact, she suspected genetic tampering, because yields on her test seeds had been lower than expected. She had long felt the need to grow things, but the seeds Saras sold in its gardening
section each spring were hardly more than ornamental. She couldn’t coax more than a few seedy peppers and some leggy broccoli out of any of them.

  But when she’d come back from Kaia’s, she’d been encouraged to see a few little shoots curling out of the trays. Some of them were wheat—real Earth wheat, her wheat—and they thrilled her with their brilliant green. She wanted to keep them growing, so she had to try a few more things, like abrading the clay with some more nutrient-rich soil. She’d kept a backyard compost bin going for months, and now the thick organic material was mixing nicely into the native dirt.

  The children were both still napping. They must have had an energetic day at Kaia’s. Aria needed to wake them and start supper, but she stole a few more minutes to indulge in her passion for growing things.

  Aria sifted the last of the new soil into the trays. As she glanced up she saw more of the little plants growing above the kitchen sink.

  Inspecting it, she ran her fingers over the soft leaves. These were very young seedlings, some of them just pushing out the cotyledons—the two first leaves. Their bases branched into the webby root system that attached to any smooth, hard surface and leached water from the air.

  She remembered Dr. Laar, one of her favorite professors back on Earth, who had studied a group of Chlorophytum plants to see how to increase the effectiveness of the way plants use water. She smiled as she remembered her favorite part of the class: his accent. A small, round man, he slipped words from his native tongue into his sentences in a charming, absentminded way.

  Before planting, he had said, you must listen to the taim.

  Taim meant plant in Estonian, Professor Laar’s native language. It took her nearly a semester to figure that out. Now, it came back to her as she realized she had started calling the ubiquitous little Minean plant “Taim” in her mind.