Mick forced herself to walk slowly as she navigated boulders, heading in the direction of the smoke. Dr. Garcia toddled behind her in a flaming yellow hazmat suit that could probably be seen from orbit. Five planets away. There was no way they would sneak up on anyone, so Mick hoped it wouldn’t be required.
She kept looking skyward, though the hulking salvage ship had still been circling the area at thirty thousand feet when they left the Viper. She had no idea what its crew was waiting for, but she imagined nukes descending to finish off the crashed ship—and any other ships within a hundred square miles.
“The lighting here is odd,” Dr. Garcia said over the comm.
Mick shrugged. “Not all suns are the same. My suit’s sensors say the air is fine though.”
In addition to temperature, other environmental stats flowed down the sides of the liquid-glass display of her faceplate, not interfering with her view but delivering an amazing amount of information, including her suit’s integrity. If she started getting shot at, that would be good to know.
“Air isn’t the only thing to consider when choosing a planet to colonize. It’s interesting that there’s so little flora. Fungal colonies here and there, but no trees, no bushes, no flowers. Nothing similar that occupies those ecological niches.”
“Must be something edible around for those lizards,” Mick said.
“It’s likely they thrive off the fungi.”
Something skittered through the ruins to her left, and she jerked her weapon, a Dethocolean bolt bow, in that direction before she stopped herself. Her sensors reported some of those lizards in the ruins, cold-blooded, rat-sized creatures that scurried among the broken walls and rocks. That must have been what she’d seen.
No need to fire at a little lizard.
The ruins themselves were in fairly good shape, stacked-rock walls rising up one or two stories. Some structures still had roofs, also made of rock, flat slabs that must have been creatively placed since there wasn’t timber or anything like it to use for beams or supports. Wide roads and narrow alleys were laid with something akin to cobblestones.
Mick chose to walk through the old settlement instead of skirting it, both because it was a more direct route and because the buildings offered cover. Just in case someone showed up and started shooting.
More movement to the side prompted her to swing her weapon down an alley. She halted herself again, certain it was another lizard. Between the orange sky and the wind and the ruins, the place had an eerie, desolate feel, and it had her more on edge than she wanted to admit. Or maybe it was that she’d witnessed one ship shooting down another not twenty minutes ago.
Her sensors didn’t show the lizard she thought she’d seen.
Frowning, Mick stopped for a longer look down the alley. Sand lay piled against walls, and crumbled rock scattered the old walkway, but nothing stirred.
“What is it?” Dr. Garcia asked.
Mick hadn’t taken a close look at the hazmat suits, other than helping the scientists hook into the same comm system that the Viper used, but she doubted it had any sensors for detecting life forms.
“Nothing.” Mick turned back to her path.
She lengthened her stride, hoping Garcia could keep up. She wanted to reach the ship quickly.
“There are animals of some kind in here, right?” Garcia asked a minute later, his hood swiveling from side to side as he peered into the ruins.
“Yeah, I’ve only caught glimpses of movement so far, but my sensors show them to be the lizard-like creatures we were told about. Nothing unexpected.” Mick didn’t mention the movement she’d caught that hadn’t matched up to anything on the sensor display. She figured the suit wasn’t perfect with its detection. Or maybe the creature moved extremely quickly. “There.”
They had reached the far side of the ruins, and she pointed over a crumbling half wall that surrounded the settlement in fits and starts. Beyond it, heavy gray smoke rose from the remains of a ship about the size of hers. Someone had tried valiantly to keep the nose up as it came down, but it was clear the craft would never fly again. The front half had skidded a mile or more, leaving the back half in pieces sprawled across the tan earth. A boulder the size of a house had ended its skid, or the ship might have continued into the ruins themselves.
“It’s hard to believe anyone is alive in that,” Garcia said, stepping up to her side. He took another step, heading toward the wreckage, but their comm came on first.
“Mick?” came Dev’s voice. “Two small ships just launched from the big ship.”
Garcia cursed.
“Come on,” Mick said, jogging for the wreck. “It’ll take them a few minutes to land.”
She was halfway to the crash when she realized, thanks to the rear camera in her helmet, Garcia wasn’t following her. He’d turned toward the pyramid towering over the settlement on the north side, a large portion of it visible now that they were out from among the ruins. Its walls stair-stepped up toward a stone hut at the top, and Garcia was staring at it.
“Doctor? This is your mission. What are you doing?”
“I saw someone.” His yellow hood did not turn away from the pyramid.
“Someone? Doc, the only someones are in the wreck and need your help.” Mick couldn’t see the shuttles yet, since the hazy sky limited visibility, but she could hear the roar of engines far above. They didn’t have time for dawdling.
“No, I saw a person in the shadows at the top. They—someone—must already be out here.”
Mick double-checked her sensor display. The suit’s scanners weren’t as powerful as the Viper’s, but she had a range of a good mile, maybe two. The pyramid lay well within that range. She detected more of the lizard-like life forms, but nothing larger.
“Nothing there, Doc.” Mick jogged toward the shuttle.
“Maybe the stone is blocking your scans. If that’s similar to a Mayan ziggurat, it could have a hollowed out inside.”
“It does, and my scans are working just fine. I see a nice lizard colony living in there.”
An eerie moan reached Mick’s ears as she closed on the wreckage, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. It reminded her of background sounds played at a haunted house, but she realized it had to be someone moaning with pain.
The door on the side of the fuselage was warped and half buried in sand, so she walked to the rear, the part torn wide open. Inside, equipment, bent metal, and seats were torn up and scattered everywhere. Holes in the ceiling let rays of orange light inside.
“Hello?” Mick called, looking for movement among the wreckage.
Whoever’s ship this was, they wouldn’t speak English, but translation chips seemed ubiquitous in the galaxy, at least among humans. She had one embedded in her ear canal. Some other species didn’t care if they understood anyone else or not, but she’d already identified this ship as from a human planet. Thanks to the women who’d been kidnapped from Earth two years earlier, English had already been entered into the Confederation languages database.
Another moan drifted back from the cockpit.
“Garcia, someone needs you.” Mick called before crawling into the destroyed fuselage.
“Coming.”
She peeked out a porthole and spotted the doctor striding her way, though he kept glancing toward the pyramid.
“Take your time,” Mick muttered, climbing over a row of seats.
She checked her sensors again, close range this time, and halted with a start. They weren’t registering signs of life from within the wreck anymore. Was she too late?
Another moan drifted back from the cockpit.
“What the hell?” she whispered, her hand tightening on the frame of her bolt bow.
The weapon was slung across her torso on a strap so she didn’t have to hold it, but she decided to keep it in hand as she advanced.
“Dev?” she said. “Give me an update on those shuttles.”
“They’re getting close. Are you on your way back?”
“No.” Mick hurried to climb over another set of destroyed seats, her neck hair up again. She imagined those shuttles taking aim right now, about to fire.
But what was the point of shooting at a ship that was already wrecked? Unless they wanted to utterly destroy all signs of life within it…
Mick came down on the tilted deck and almost stepped on a man.
“Shit,” she whispered, jerking her foot back.
The man’s legs had been torn off. He was extremely dead.
With her own leg still dangling in the air, Mick looked around. Three women also lay dead in the area. They looked like they had been trying to get to the hatch—a couple of them wore what might have been parachutes. The hatch must not have opened for them.
Another moan came from farther up, from the cockpit.
An intense feeling of déjà vu washed over her: a hot desert, tan sand, the scorching sun yellow instead of orange. Bodies and wreckage everywhere. A baby crying in the distance.
Mick gripped a beam, struggling to push away the memory. Whoever was left alive in here needed her.
Swallowing, she maneuvered past the dead bodies, careful not to step on anyone. Her sensors still did not show life in here, making her question whether they were fully calibrated. Was it possible Garcia had seen someone at the pyramid? Where was Garcia, anyway?
She glanced toward the opening behind her, but didn’t see his yellow suit. Her sensors showed him standing outside. Was he waiting for her to declare it safe?
“I hear someone moaning, Doctor,” she said, squeezing into a short corridor lined by smoking computer equipment. Pieces had fallen free, littering the deck.
A dented door marked the cockpit. She tried buttons on a panel, but with no power left in the ship, the door did not open. She bent her knees, leaned her shoulder against it, and shoved.
Normally, her shoulders weren’t burly enough to force open doors, but the armor enhanced her movements, and she heard the servos working in her leg pieces as she pushed. Metal groaned, then warped. The door gave way, though it did not open fully. It caught against something.
Mick peered around it. One pilot was belted into a seat, a beam thrust all the way through his chest and into the seat back. He must have died instantly, or damn near. A second person lay on the deck by the door, his leg twisted awkwardly and blood plastering his face. His eyes were open—frozen open in death.
She looked around, but there was nobody else in there, nobody else alive on the ship, according to her sensors.
“Then who was groaning?” she whispered.
Had the man on the deck just died? And one of the people out in the main cabin too? Maybe two people had been alive when she’d started over here, but they’d died before she and Garcia reached the ship.
“The shuttles are landing,” Dev blurted, her voice squeaky with alarm. “One’s almost on top of us.”
Cursing, Mick backed away. This had been a fool’s errand to start with, and now she was stuck out in the open a mile from her ship. She could sprint back quickly in her armor, but Garcia wouldn’t be fast. He was lucky to do more than waddle in that hazmat suit.
“Stay there and hold tight,” Mick ordered as she jumped back over the seats and rubble. “Keep the shields up. Garcia and I will hide in the ruins and make it back to you as soon as we can.”
Mick reached the opening but stopped to peer out before leaving cover. A good thing. One of the shuttles roared past overhead and landed thirty meters away.
She spotted Garcia as she backed into the shadows and pointed her bolt bow toward the shuttle, a blue craft with a wedge-shaped nose. Garcia had chosen to run back toward the ruins instead of into the wreck with her. Probably not a bad idea. She had to run a couple hundred meters to reach that half wall. Was there time?
A hatch opened on the side of the shuttle the instant the landing skis touched down onto the dust. Six men leaped out, some wearing mismatched combat armor and others wearing clothing. They all carried weapons, bolt bows and other energy weapons Mick couldn’t name.
They spotted Garcia in his yellow suit. He’d almost reached the ruins, and Mick thought he might make it, but the men didn’t hesitate. Two of them lifted their weapons, aiming for his back.
Mick might have remained unnoticed in the wreck, but she reacted instantly, aiming at the two men. She fired rapidly, trying to hit both of them before they shot Garcia.
At the least, she hoped to distract them. Ideally, she would draw their fire. In her armor, she could take a few hits, but that hazmat suit would be worthless against weapons.
Unfortunately, she was too slow. The orange en-bolts from her bow slammed into the men, but not before their weapons hit Garcia, taking him fully in the back. He sprawled forward, his hood flying off as he tumbled through the dust, a giant hole charred in his suit.
Mick fired again, crouching behind the torn fuselage for cover. She’d need a hell of a lot more than that and her armor to survive a battle with six men. The two she’d shot at had been two of the ones in armor, and they weren’t injured in the least. They spun toward her and unleashed a barrage of en-bolts.
She sprayed her fire, hoping to get lucky. She caught one of the unarmed men in the shoulder, and he flew to his back.
But the other men unloaded on her, forcing her to back up. Red, green, and white energy bolts from different styles of weapons slammed into the fuselage, blowing holes in it. Some of the bolts slipped through and struck her armor. They might look like harmless beams from a laser light show, but they struck her like cannonballs. Even with the armor, the thuds knocked her back, and she almost lost her footing.
How had she let herself get into this situation?
As the men ran toward her, firing all the way, Mick knew she was doomed. She sprang backward over some of the seats and debris, hoping to buy herself time.
An idea flashed into her mind as she crouched behind cover, firing over the top of a bank of crumpled seats. Maybe if she got them inside, she could force that side hatch open, run out, and blow up the fuselage behind her. Except that she didn’t have any explosives, and she hadn’t passed anything that appeared flammable. The engine and fuel tanks were strewn across the desert.
She glimpsed one more man in armor jumping out of the shuttle.
“Great, reinforcements,” she muttered, firing madly, trying to keep her foes from getting inside.
One of them pulled something off a hook on a utility belt. A grenade?
Mick fired at it, hoping to blow it up before he threw it. But someone else’s fire hit his hand first.
She blinked as the man yelped and dropped the grenade. Had one of them accidentally hit one of their own men? Several of them glanced back toward the newcomer. Like the others, this one also wore patchy mismatched armor. He fired again. At his colleagues.
That couldn’t be a mistake.
Mick, hardly able to believe her luck, kept laying down fire, hoping to find a breach in someone’s armor. The unarmored men had hung back, but that made them easy targets for the crazy bastard shooting at his own people.
The men who had been approaching the fuselage darted to the side so they wouldn’t be in her sights as they returned the new person’s fire. He dodged some of their attacks with impressive speed, the armor—or maybe his own talents—making him almost acrobatic as he jumped, spun, and even somersaulted in the air to avoid bolts streaking toward him. All the while, he returned fire.
The unarmored men dropped, leaving only three others in armor.
For a moment, the men simply stood in the desert and shot at each other, en-bolts bouncing off chest and shoulder plating. From Mick’s position, she could only have targeted the newcomer, but she wasn’t about to shoot at him, not when he was doing a lovely job of messing with her enemies.
Maybe this was her chance to get out of there.
She sprang back again, toward the hatch this time. The dead people’s eyes seemed to watch her as she passed over them. Accusing eyes condemn
ing her for being too late to help.
It still chilled her that she’d heard those moans only seconds before finding them all dead.
As weapons continued to fire outside, Mick rammed her shoulder against the hatch. It took three tries, but she knocked it open, metal squealing and sand falling inside as it gave.
She winced, certain all those men had heard the noise, and also certain they would come to their senses any second and join forces to get her.
She jumped out the hatch, saddened that the people inside hadn’t had someone with an armored shoulder to force it open so they could escape. She only took two steps before an explosion ripped through the air.
Even her armor couldn’t protect her fully as the shockwave hit her. She flew away from the wreck, helpless to do anything but flail.
Her first thought was that someone had managed to throw a grenade at her after all. But as she tumbled back to the hard earth, she spotted flames off to the side. The enemy shuttle. The entire back end had blown off, and fire roared from the interior, flames shooting out the open hatch.
Mick jumped to her feet. Though she wasn’t sure if the men were still fighting each other, she risked racing across the open ground toward the ruins. She wouldn’t get a better chance.
As she moved away from the wreck, they came into view on her rear helmet cam. The newcomer—his patchwork of gray and white armor was a little different from the other men’s sets, so she could identify him—had closed to melee distance with them.
He punched a man in the faceplate, gauntleted knuckles striking like a battering ram. His foe reeled back as two other men grabbed at him, trying to take him down. But he jumped, kicking to either side as he kept his grip on the one he’d struck. Each boot caught an enemy in the helmet. It looked like something out of a Bruce Lee movie.
As the lone man landed, he caught his first foe by the crotch and an arm and hurled him twenty meters to land in the burning shuttle, crashing through the remains of the roof. Even Bruce Lee would have struggled to do that.
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