Haven 6

Haven 6 Page 6

by Aubrie Dionne

  “Don’t worry, straw­berry curls; we’ve got it covered.”

  Startled, Eri whipped around. Mars smirked, and then re­turned to the fluor­es­cent min­is­creen in her lap. She ran her fin­ger along the keypad and passed it to Tank. “Ha! Beat that, star­ship des­troyer.”

  An­ger simmered in Eri’s throat. They weren’t re­view­ing base camp con­di­tions like Litus had in­struc­ted. They weren’t even pay­ing at­ten­tion. Who knew when the ali­ens would find them?

  Tank’s fin­gers grazed the screen as he hurtled comets the size of rais­ins at vir­tual space­ships. The faint tri­umphant, techno mu­sic of Galaxy Bat­tle­field played in the back­ground.

  Stu­pid thugs. Grier had hand­picked these people to meet a new in­tel­li­gent spe­cies and rep­res­ent hu­man­kind? Eri walked around the back of the scout ship and found a con­tainer wide enough to sit down. At least they wouldn’t bother her there.

  Her legs kicked in rhythm against the plastic. Thump, thump…thump, thump. Litus had in­struc­ted the team to rest to­night so they could get an early start when the sun came up. She didn’t think she’d sleep a wink. In fact, all she really wanted to do was get back on the ship and seal the hatch.

  Branches snapped. Eri checked over her shoulder, ex­pect­ing some gray hu­manoid to dart from the forest. In­stead, Litus roun­ded the corner. He brought an ex­tra packet of soy­bean wafers and a bottle of min­eral wa­ter.

  “Feel­ing okay?”

  “As okay as I can in a strange jungle with un­known beasts sur­round­ing us on all sides.” Eri took the bottle and the wafer. “Thanks.”

  “No prob­lem.” Litus ig­nored her sar­casm and settled be­side her. He un­wrapped his soy­bean wafer and held it in his hand without tak­ing a bite. She tore open her wafer and the wrap­per crinkled in the wind. A stray piece of foil flew into the dark­ness, mak­ing Eri shiver. Would the jungle swal­low the team just as eas­ily?

  “Have you talked to Aquaria?”

  Litus’s ques­tion caught her off guard. Was it il­legal to re­port to fam­ily mem­bers? “I just sent her a mes­sage on my loc­ator say­ing we landed safely.”

  “Has she writ­ten back?”

  “Only to say good luck.”

  “Oh.”

  He checked his own loc­ator and the screen re­mained blank. For the Her­it­age’s Sake! He’s not check­ing up on me; he’s try­ing to get ahold of Aquaria. Her sis­ter had writ­ten to Eri be­fore writ­ing to her lifemate. Guilt trick­ling through her, Eri shrugged and pre­ten­ded not to no­tice his dis­ap­point­ment. “She’s prob­ably stuck in the even­ing Guide ce­re­mon­ies.”

  “Of course.”

  An un­com­fort­able shiver crawled up her back, and she felt like she’d spit out the bite of dry wafer that res­ted on her tongue. She’d rather wander alone with the jungle than talk with Litus about Aquaria. Her mind scanned all the dif­fer­ent ex­cuses she could come up with: I have to get my coat in the ship. My feet are asleep and I need to walk it off. Mars wanted me to re­view the read­ings with her… But Litus spoke first.

  “Aquaria’s been dis­tant since our pair­ing ce­re­mony.”

  The thin beam of light buzzed in the si­lence, mak­ing it seem like eons passed be­fore Eri could think of an ap­pro­pri­ate an­swer. “Give it time. You need to get to know each other.”

  Litus sighed, his broad shoulders slump­ing for­ward. “I wish she’d speak with me as openly as she speaks with you.”

  Eri fid­geted with her wrap­per. Of course. Aquaria was a closet rebel, and she couldn’t voice her thoughts to do-gooder Litus. Es­pe­cially when he hadn’t opened up to her yet. The guy was destined for lieu­ten­ant-hood. He prob­ably stud­ied the Guide every night be­fore bed. What could Eri tell him? Loosen up and you’ll be fine?

  She shrugged. “We’re sis­ters.”

  “Yes, but you have a spe­cial bond.”

  Heat blos­somed on Eri’s cheeks. “I guess I’ve never thought of it be­fore. Or I didn’t think any­one else could see it.”

  The corners of Litus’s mouth curved with envy. “Her love for you is plain as black space.”

  “Aquaria’s taken a so­cial beat­ing to as­so­ci­ate with me, il­legal pair­ing and all. I owe her so much.”

  “Listen.” Litus turned to­ward her and his voice grew low. “Like every­one else on the ship, I know about how your par­ents…” He looked like he had trouble even say­ing it. “How they paired out­side of the sys­tem. But their ac­tions have noth­ing to do with you. You make your own repu­ta­tion. Not them. Be­sides, I think it’s kinda neat you were born of some­thing that doesn’t al­ways hap­pen in lifemate pair­ings.”

  “What?”

  “What I’m try­ing to find with Aquaria: love.”

  Eri al­most fell off the sup­ply con­tainer. Litus talk­ing blas­phemy against the sys­tem? Had the uni­verse turned up­side down?

  It must have, be­cause he’d just told her he ac­cep­ted her for who she was. She smiled tent­at­ively at Litus. Maybe Aquaria had un­der­es­tim­ated him. All of a sud­den she wanted to help him win Aquaria’s heart. “You know, you could be a little more—”

  Move­ment blurred the leaves be­hind Litus’s head. A slender black shaft pierced the air, ca­reer­ing across camp to lodge in one of the soy­wafer boxes.

  Litus stood and whipped out his laser. “Take cover.”

  An­other shaft whizzed through the air, knock­ing one of the peri­meter poles to the ground. An ear-crack­ing zap made Eri cover her ears as the en­ergy stream broke. A sec­tion of blue light fizzled out. Litus turned to Eri, his eyes alert. “We need to get back to the ship.”

  This isn’t hap­pen­ing. Eri ducked be­hind the sup­ply con­tainer and fumbled with her laser, yank­ing the gun out of the hol­ster. What was the code? Her brain blanked. Ar­rows rained from the sky, three pier­cing the plastic where she’d just sat with sick­en­ing thumps. That would have gone right through my leg.

  Litus re­turned fire, his laser light il­lu­min­at­ing the dark­ness. Leaves and branches moved as if the trees them­selves re­leased the ar­rows. Maybe they did. Who knew what the ali­ens really looked like? They could have been spy­ing on them this en­tire time while Mars and Tank played Galaxy Bat­tle­field.

  And we’re sup­posed to be the more ad­vanced so­ci­ety.

  The code: 66459. Eri fi­nally re­membered and keyed it in. Her laser buzzed un­der­neath her fin­ger­tips. Now or never. She peeked around the side of the con­tainer, chan­cing an­other foray of ar­rows. Two more peri­meter poles had gone down, mak­ing a gap­ing hole in their de­fenses, big enough for an alien the size of her wall­screen to run in.

  “I don’t see them!” Tank shouted from the other side of the ship. “What are we fir­ing at?”

  “Any­thing!” Litus shouted. “Just hold them back. Get to the ship.”

  Ar­rows hit the hull with clicks and bounced off, rain­ing on top of Eri and Litus. She covered her head with her arms as the shafts fell around her. One of the ar­rows bounced on the ground at Eri’s feet. She picked up the slender wood and ran her fin­gers over the carved rock tip. It looked so hu­man, like some­thing right out of her texts about Colum­bus con­quer­ing the New World. But these nat­ives were con­quer­ing her team.

  Dark fig­ures trail­ing leaves dar­ted into the peri­meter and rolled be­hind a stack of sup­plies. Eri nudged Litus’s arm. “Over there.”

  Us­ing the sup­ply con­tainer as a shield, two sets of feet car­ried it back into the jungle. Feet. The bunches of leaves had feet.

  Eri whispered, “What are they do­ing?”

  Litus’s voice hardened as his laser fire wove straight through their feet. “They’re steal­ing our sup­plies.”

  Tank howled in pain from the other side of the ship. Litus gave Eri a hard stare. “We have to make it back. Are you with me?”

  Her hands gripped
her laser so tightly, she’d have to pry them off later. Eri nod­ded. “I sure as hell don’t want to stay out here.”

  “On the count of three, we make a run for it. You stay on my right and use me as a shield.”

  “What about you?”

  “You’re much more im­port­ant to the mis­sion. Be­sides, Aquaria made me prom­ise to pro­tect you.” Litus gave her a wink. “We can do this. One, two…three.”

  Litus pitched for­ward and tugged her with him. They ran against the hull as the ar­rows whizzed past, click­ing when they hit the metal. As they roun­ded the corner, a mem­ber of the team lay on his back with two ar­rows pro­trud­ing from his chest. Blood pooled around him. Eri’s stom­ach clenched as she real­ized she hadn’t even learned his name.

  Litus crouched and felt for a pulse. He looked up at Eri and shook his head.

  Dead. Eri’s whole body shook with fear. She’d just seen the same man walk­ing around camp twenty minutes ago. An­ger sizzled in­side her. These were the best the Her­it­age had to of­fer, and they’d already failed.

  Was it really their fault? They were col­on­ists not sol­diers. For all their tough de­meanor, her team had no real ex­per­i­ence in com­bat. They’d lived their en­tire lives in a bubble in the sky.

  Whoops and calls of tri­umph echoed from the forest around them. Litus grabbed her arm and dragged her for­ward. “We have to leave him.” He shot his laser side­ways into the jungle as they ran. Ar­rows whizzed from all angles, and Eri ducked as best she could, feel­ing like a big tar­get was painted on her back.

  The front of the ship was empty, con­tain­ers spilled on their sides with debris blow­ing in the wind. Smashed en­ergy cells tain­ted the air with an acidic smell. Eri stepped around the glit­ter­ing pools of bat­tery acid. Two hours into their ex­plor­a­tion and they’d already con­tam­in­ated the scene.

  The ramp lay open and un­guarded. Eri huddled with Litus be­hind a row of wa­ter jugs.

  “Where is every­one?”

  For once, Litus looked over­whelmed, and his wide eyes scared Eri more than the ar­rows shoot­ing from the trees. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think they made it?”

  He shook his head. “They would have closed the ramp, or at least de­fen­ded it.”

  Eri couldn’t ima­gine those sav­age creatures fir­ing ar­rows at their con­trol screens or tear­ing through the wir­ing of the scout ship. There would be no way for them to get back to the Her­it­age. They’d have to wait in the jungle, in the dark, with no cover or re­in­force­ments for who knew how long? “One of us has to get in­side.”

  “Over there.” Litus poin­ted to the edge of the jungle where a tangle of leaves dragged Mars’s and Tank’s limp bod­ies away.

  “They’re tak­ing them!” Eri’s voice croaked as fear suf­foc­ated her throat. “We’ve got to do some­thing.”

  Litus’s face turned sol­emn. “Head for the ship. When you get in­side, close the hatch and buzz Com­mander Grier.”

  Eri paused. That all soun­ded like the kinds of things Litus should be do­ing him­self. “What about you?”

  “I’m go­ing to buy you time.”

  The thought of an ar­row pier­cing Litus’s heart flashed in her mind. “No. It’s too dan­ger­ous.”

  “Someone has to re­port and get help.”

  Scan­ning the empty camp, she and Litus were the only mem­bers of the team left.

  “Tell Aquaria I love her.” Litus’s eyes burned with in­tens­ity. “Now go!”

  He ran to­ward the jungle, fir­ing in all dir­ec­tions. Eri scrambled, trip­ping over her boots. When she looked back, Litus had downed three clumps of leaves with legs and chased the re­mainder into the jungle. Eri zig­zagged through the rem­nants of camp, try­ing not to look at the fallen bod­ies of her team­mates. The air was ripe with the smell of pu­trid jungle rot and sweat.

  Eri chanted the or­ders in her head. Get to the ramp. Close the hatch. No­tify the com­mander.

  One clump of leaves lay un­mov­ing at the bot­tom of the ramp. Eri circled around it, curi­os­ity get­ting the bet­ter of her. Legs, much like hu­man limbs, poked out from the leaves. The skin was tan as a leather hide, and its feet wore rough leather boots.

  Wait a second. Eri crouched down be­side it, yank­ing off a fern. The leaves had been plucked and re­as­sembled in a thick over­growth, woven to­gether with some sort of grassy reeds.

  Her hands shook out of con­trol as she dug into the leaves and pulled the cov­er­ing free. A hu­man face with a slight dust­ing of beard and brown eyes stared back at her, life­less. He looked like the man who served ve­get­ables in the cafet­eria of the Her­it­age, miss­ing a front tooth, with a very bad tan.

  They’re people.

  She felt be­trayed, tricked, hood­winked. The odds of an­other civil­iz­a­tion evolving ex­actly the same on an en­tirely dif­fer­ent planet were…al­most im­possible. If not en­tirely im­possible.

  Litus’s laser fire ab­ruptly stopped, and Eri jol­ted into mo­tion. Rain­wa­ter had made the ramp slick and she slipped, banging her el­bow as she went down. Grime and green muck stuck to her hands as she scrambled. An ar­row flew by her head into the load­ing bay. Al­most there.

  She reached the top, for­cing her­self not to look back. The panel glowed dim green in the night, beck­on­ing her. Sweat drip­ping down the sides of her face, Eri hid be­hind the corner and read the screen. Out­side, one of the leaf-covered men yelled like a hy­ena clos­ing in on its prey.

  Her mind raced as she tried to re­mem­ber the hatch re­trac­tion code. Seven seven eight two. Wait, no. Seven one-one-eight-two…

  She wiped her slimy hands on her pants and punched in the second code, her fin­gers shak­ing as they pressed the screen. The hatch moved above her head and she felt a wave of re­lief. I’m go­ing to make it. I’m go­ing to get help.

  A beep­ing sound vi­brated the bot­tom of her stom­ach and the gears stopped. The com­puter’s mono­tone voice came on. “Warn­ing. Ob­ject ob­struct­ing hatch re­trac­tion pro­ced­ure. Please re­move to con­tinue.”

  Freak­ing neb­ula! Eri scanned the portal frame. A single ar­row had lodged in­side the space where the hatch closed. She chanced one look at the jungle. Leafy men poured from the trees, all run­ning to­ward the ramp. Even if she stood out in the open and jumped, she’d never reach the shaft.

  I’m doomed. We’ve all failed.

  The ship was too small to hide. They’d find her. But maybe she’d hide long enough to con­tact Com­mander Grier. As Eri backed away from the ramp, an­other chorus of war cries joined the rest. Ar­rows flew across the bat­tle­field, and the first wave of at­tack­ers fell head over heels, tum­bling to trip the oth­ers in a massive crash.

  What was go­ing on? She stuck her head out­side the ship. An­other tribe of men with white feath­ers threaded in their hair emerged from the jungle. Their leader, tall, tan, and bare-ches­ted, wear­ing simple leather pants, ran ahead of the pack like a gazelle, shoot­ing ar­rows from a long black bow. His wavy brown hair shone deep chest­nut in the ramp’s emer­gency white lights.

  He was gor­geous.

  Pain pricked Eri’s neck. Had a jungle bug bit­ten her? She raised her hand and felt a small dart pro­trud­ing from her skin. Hor­ror crashed through her. I’ve been hit. She plucked the dart from her neck and stud­ied the thick black sub­stance coat­ing the tip. Poison. The sub­stance mingled with her blood like oil on wa­ter.

  The load­ing bay blurred, little red lights blink­ing at her like devil’s eyes. She col­lapsed to the floor. Her mouth dried and she coughed back nausea, bring­ing her loc­ator up to her face. The num­bers swam on the screen. Must…con­tact…Grier.

  Shrieks and other war calls rode the wind as pain ex­ploded be­hind her fore­head. Her world closed in un­til she could only see a pin­prick of light. That pin­prick blinked, wink­ing at her be­fore it went ou
t.

  Chapter Eight

  Survivor

  Striver ran to­ward the mass of Law­less men and wo­men pour­ing from the trees. Dim lights il­lu­min­ated the ar­ti­fi­cial clear­ing where the ship had crushed a semi­circle of fo­liage. The hull sat in a crater like a metal egg, re­pelling the ar­rows. The belly lay open, a ramp stick­ing out like a black tongue. The vis­it­ors must have already dis­em­barked.

  Striver stifled the doubt he’d ar­rived too late, shout­ing be­hind him, “Aim for the front. Drive them into the forest.”

  He checked the sky for Phoenix. Black shad­ows spot­ted the second moon in an arc. The bird­man led an army of Guard­i­ans in battle-flight form­a­tion, their arms filled with reed nets to quell the Law­less. Un­til now, Striver’s tribe had an ad­vant­age with the Guard­i­ans, but if the Law­less seized the ship’s tech­no­logy, the nets would be use­less.

  “We have to pick out the lead­ers.” Carven ran be­side him, un­sheath­ing his cook­ing knives. He gave Striver a side­long glance and headed for the front line. Striver covered him, felling the first few men be­fore they could pump air into reeds filled with coma darts. A shiver ran up his spine. Coma darts meant one thing: they wanted to cap­ture the ali­ens for in­ter­rog­a­tion, maybe even tor­ture. Not a good start to in­ter­galactic re­la­tions.

  Striver didn’t see any­one be­sides Law­less refugees. Where were the vis­it­ors? Their camp lay ran­sacked, con­tain­ers spew­ing sil­ver gad­gets and tat­ters of golden foil. Had the Law­less beat their su­per­ior tech­no­logy and taken them already?

  Carven swung his blades at two Law­less men as they jabbed at him with flint dag­gers. Al­though he had size over them, they were fast, and Striver struggled for a good aim. Just as the one on the right lunged, the other backed up enough for Carven to fire at him without en­dan­ger­ing him­self. Striver pulled the bow­string back and aimed. Carven’s arm swung, block­ing him.

 

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