Haven 6

Haven 6 Page 9

by Aubrie Dionne

  “I’m just re­lieved he’s okay.”

  “You shouldn’t have gone so far, Weave.” Dad’s voice was more plaint­ive than angry. “We can’t watch over you if you run away.”

  “I don’t need any­one to watch over me.” Weaver’s voice came out as a weak cry and he winced. “I can do things by my­self.” But the truth nudged him in his gut. He needed them more than they needed him.

  Weaver bur­ied his head in his arms and curled into a fetal po­s­i­tion. He hated Striver for catch­ing the trot­ter, for be­ing bet­ter than him at everything, and for sav­ing him. He would al­ways live in his older brother’s shadow.

  “Sure you can, Weave. I’m just here to help if you need it.” Striver placed a hand on his shoulder. In­stead of com­fort­ing him, the ges­ture heightened Weaver’s ag­grav­a­tion and he pulled away.

  “Come on, help me carry him back to the vil­lage be­fore he catches cold. Mom can brew him one of her herbal teas and wrap him in blankets.” Dad’s voice was tired and agit­ated, mak­ing Weaver feel worse. “She’s go­ing to whip us into swil­low wisp stew.”

  Arms reached un­der­neath him and he melted into their em­brace, wish­ing he could climb un­der the wa­ter once again and freeze forever.

  …

  “Put them here.” Jolt’s rough-edged voice cut through Weaver’s foggy mind. He sat up, eyes blurry from deep sleep. Rem­nants of his dream sent a shiver of dis­quiet through his gut. He felt like he’d traveled fif­teen years into the past and back again in only mo­ments. But some­how, the past wasn’t ex­actly as he re­membered it. His father’s stern re­proach from that day burned in his memory. Look­ing back through the dream, Weaver knew his father had just been wor­ried about him and what his mother’s re­ac­tion would be when he came home soak­ing wet. He’d prob­ably got­ten his old man in a bunch of trouble. Guilt and shame burned in Weaver’s heart. He had gone too far down the river.

  Crusty, Snipe, and a few other Law­less men car­ried two people wear­ing strange cam­ou­flaged uni­forms into the cav­ern. Weaver stared, open­mouthed, as they lowered the tied bod­ies to the cav­ern floor.

  “Sleep­ing on the job?” Jolt turned to­ward him with a sly look in his dark eyes.

  “No, I was rest­ing.” He wanted to tell Jolt how the golden swirls had af­fected him, too, but he didn’t want to speak of such per­sonal things in front of the other men, and he didn’t think Jolt would be the best listener, any­way.

  “Now you’ve got some friends to keep you com­pany.”

  Weaver stud­ied their pale faces. A man and a wo­man, al­though the wo­man looked more manly than any wo­men he’d seen be­fore. They were massive, with well-de­veloped muscle tone, but their skin was soft and pasty like a baby’s. “Who are they?”

  “These are the vis­it­ors who fell from the sky.” Jolt circled around them like a vul­ture around prey.

  “But they look hu­man.”

  Jolt bent down, hov­er­ing over the pris­on­ers’ faces. “My spies tell me these pale-faced new­bies even speak Eng­lish, which could only mean one thing.” He poin­ted to the ceil­ing of the cave. “That mother ship hov­er­ing over us like some rasp­wasp’s nest is a colony ves­sel. Those Lifers have traveled hun­dreds of years through deep space to reach what our an­cest­ors did us­ing their secret worm hole.”

  Weaver tried to wrap his mind around the thought of sev­eral gen­er­a­tions liv­ing on a ship. “Im­possible! After all those years, they’re only just ar­riv­ing now?”

  Jolt felt the pulse of one of the men and nod­ded. “Yes, and gen­er­a­tions on a ship have not been kind. Look at them. They’d die of sun­burn and spi­derm­ite poison in one night out in the jungle. My spies tell me they even tripped on sticks and stones.”

  Weaver shif­ted un­com­fort­ably. This whole setup didn’t feel right. It was al­most as if by stash­ing them here with their guards, Jolt was also keep­ing his eye on Weaver. He’d never glean the secret of the golden sludge and hoard it for him­self with Snipe and Crusty breath­ing down his bow. “What do you want me to do with them? Why do they have to stay here?”

  “Be­cause I don’t want any­one ques­tion­ing them be­sides me. They’re suf­fer­ing from the ef­fects of coma darts, but when they wake up, they’re gonna tell us how to use these.” Jolt walked over to a plastic con­tainer brought in by one of his men. He pressed a front panel, and air wheezed as the lid rose. He reached in and brought out a laser gun two sizes big­ger than the one he coveted day and night. This one shone like the eye of a pred­ator and buzzed with activ­ity.

  “Holy Refuge.” Weaver stared. “Have you tried it?”

  “It’s locked.” Jolt’s grin turned into a scowl.

  “Can’t you fig­ure it out?”

  Jolt gave him a mean glare. “It’s harder than you think. There’s some type of re­cog­ni­tion code you have to type in to turn it on. Even the ones they were shoot­ing don’t work for us.”

  “Let me guess; you want me to fig­ure it out as well?”

  “You’re the des­cend­ant of the fam­ous De­coder from Out­post Omega, aren’t you?”

  An­ger rose in Weaver’s chest. Be­ing com­pared to his an­cest­ors was worse than be­ing com­pared to Striver. He al­ways came out lack­ing. But if he wanted to live, he had to play along. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Good.” Jolt smirked like someone with all his game pieces in place, ready to launch an at­tack. “Crusty and Snipe will stay here to guard. Send one of them if any of these moon­calves wakes up.”

  Weaver nod­ded, only half listen­ing. If he could fig­ure out the code and get those weapons, he wouldn’t need the golden sludge. He’d already spent too long in its pres­ence and the ef­fects were play­ing with his mind. “Sure, Jolt.”

  “And one more thing—don’t be get­ting any ideas of your own. Crusty and Snipe would slice you up like a roas­ted boar.”

  Snipe raised his hooded lips and Crusty nod­ded his head.

  “Where are you go­ing?” Weaver asked as Jolt turned his back on him.

  He twis­ted around and grinned, teeth glow­ing in the golden light. His scar seemed to writhe with life. “I’m think­ing up a way to shoot that mother boar of a ship out of the sky.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Blank Eyes

  Eri slid her hand into Striver’s and wondered if she’d made the worst de­cision of her life. He was con­sid­er­ing res­cuing her team, and meet­ing the elu­sive Guard­i­ans seemed like the only way. Be­sides, Com­mander Grier said she had to get to know the nat­ives, so hold­ing his hand was ac­tu­ally a dir­ect or­der.

  His skin felt like fire against hers and heat blazed in her cheeks. She looked down, try­ing to hide her re­ac­tion. “Where are we go­ing?”

  “To the S.P. Nautilus, the ship our an­cest­ors pi­loted to Refuge. Phoenix is on guard duty today.”

  Guard duty? Why did the jungle seem more men­acing with every hour? “Guard­ing it from what?”

  Striver par­ted the ferns and held them up so she could step through without the palms touch­ing her. “The Law­less.”

  She ducked, try­ing not to brush too close to him as she passed. “Oh, so they bother you, too?”

  He looked away into the early morn­ing rays of sun, his face fall­ing into a grim­ace. “You have no idea.”

  Eri knew enough just from the edge to Striver’s voice not to broach the par­tic­u­lars on that topic. In­stead, she changed the sub­ject. “How long have you lived here?”

  He un­coiled a rope lad­der and lowered it to the forest floor. “Sev­eral gen­er­a­tions. The year is three hun­dred twenty-two.”

  She pushed away her fear and lowered her­self onto the first rung. The rope lad­der swung with her weight, and she tightened her grip, fin­gers turn­ing white. Cy­ber­hell, I miss the el­ev­at­ors.

  Striver stead­ied the lad­der and held his hands over both of
hers. His skin felt warm and rough on hers, mak­ing her heat level spike. The rope lad­der stilled, and he let go. “Try it now.”

  Eri chanced the first step down, mak­ing sure her boot fit snugly into the next rung. “You’ve aban­doned Old Earth time?”

  “We’ve aban­doned al­most everything from Old Earth. Look around you. No tech­no­logy of any kind.”

  “Why?”

  “For all the same reas­ons that des­troyed Old Earth. We don’t want his­tory to re­peat it­self.”

  Wow. What must he think of her with her loc­ator, her laser gun, and their scout ship? Did she rep­res­ent blas­phemy it­self just by show­ing her face?

  Eri climbed down an­other rung, breath­less from the height. She tried not to look at the ground. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry about what?” Striver swung in an el­eg­ant arc and fol­lowed her down ef­fort­lessly.

  Sorry that I’ve come to steal your home? No. She couldn’t say it. “Sorry you have to go back into the Law­less lands.”

  “It’s not your fault. You’re just do­ing your mis­sion, fol­low­ing or­ders.”

  Seven more rungs to go. “Yeah, but I’m sorry all the same.”

  She de­bated jump­ing the rest of the way down and de­cided against it, cling­ing to the rope lad­der like she stood above the re­cyc­ling com­pactor, sharp teeth grind­ing away. She could tell Striver waited for her, but he didn’t seem im­pa­tient. If any­thing, he kept reach­ing down to make sure she was steady.

  The ground squished un­der­neath her boots, but at least it felt more solid than the tree hut or the lad­der. And to think—I’ve been in a metal bubble in the va­cuum of deep space my whole life. Which world was safer? At the mo­ment, she wasn’t sure.

  “So, you’re the star girl come to con­quer us?”

  Eri whirled around. A jungle beauty, a whole foot taller than Eri, stood be­side her. Glisten­ing black hair flowed to the beauty’s feet and ap­prais­ing cat eyes stared with a taunt­ing grin.

  Boy, word traveled fast. Had the whole vil­lage gos­siped about her as she lay un­con­scious?

  Striver’s voice was al­most a growl. “Leave her alone, Riptide. She’s just woken up from a coma dart.”

  Riptide’s gaze traveled from her curly-haired head to her plastic boots. “The vis­it­ors are cer­tainly dain­tier than I thought they’d be. Never mind freckle-faced and pale.”

  Striver jumped the re­main­ing feet down. He looked at Eri and sighed. “Eri, meet Riptide. She’s the vil­lage gardener and an ex­cel­lent chef.”

  Riptide glowed from his com­pli­ment, her tan skin re­flect­ing the early rays of sun­light fil­ter­ing through the trees. “Thanks, Striver. You have im­pec­cable taste in chefs. I’m still wait­ing for you to stop by and try my latest cre­ation.” Her face grew ser­i­ous. “So, I hear the Guard­i­ans have a lock­down on the whole fence. What’s go­ing on? Are the Law­less act­ing up again?”

  “Not yet. But it seems they may have stolen valu­able equip­ment from Eri’s team, as well as some of the sur­viv­ors. We’re con­sult­ing Phoenix be­fore de­cid­ing on a course of ac­tion.”

  Riptide stepped to­ward him and placed her hand on his arm, her fin­gers climb­ing over his muscles. Large glit­ter­ing stones, some dark as space, oth­ers light as the moon, dec­or­ated her fin­gers. Eri couldn’t ima­gine how im­prac­tical they were, along with her cur­tain of hair. No one on the Her­it­age would have had enough wa­ter ra­tions to wash that rug.

  “You know I get nervous any time you go out. I can’t af­ford to lose both you and Ri­ley.”

  “We’re not go­ing any­where at the mo­ment.” Striver pulled away. “And it’s Ri­ley’s choice whether to stay or fight.”

  “Yes, but he al­ways chooses to fight. You know that. He’s very much like you.” Riptide’s fin­gers moved as if she itched to touch him again, jew­els click­ing to­gether. Eri felt like a third wheel, once again the spec­tator of oth­ers’ re­la­tion­ships and love. Were these two lifemates?

  “We do what we have to.” Striver soun­ded gruff and Eri wondered if he was angry with Riptide, but she couldn’t see why. Riptide was only con­cerned for his safety, and boy was she beau­ti­ful—even though she could use some les­sons in man­ners.

  Striver glanced at Eri, his eyes chan­ging from hard em­er­ald to soft vel­vet. “Come on, we should keep mov­ing.” He nod­ded to Riptide as he star­ted walk­ing. “I’ll keep you and Ri­ley up­dated.”

  Riptide called after him, her voice low and lusty. “Of course. I’ll be anxiously await­ing our next meet­ing.”

  Eri fol­lowed Striver, shut­ting her mouth tightly against all the ques­tions brim­ming in her mind. It wasn’t her place to in­ter­vene, and yet the urge to get to know him bet­ter al­most over­powered her good reason.

  In­stead, she settled on an in­no­cent ques­tion. “Who’s Ri­ley?”

  “Riptide’s brother.”

  Oh, that’s why she was wor­ried about him. Maybe she felt the same way about Striver, like a sis­ter watch­ing over a brother or a cousin.

  The ques­tion slipped out be­fore she could stop her­self. “Are you re­lated to her as well?”

  He gave her a curi­ous look and re­turned to the path ahead. “No.”

  His an­swer piqued her curi­os­ity even more. Push­ing branches out of her face, Eri wondered why Striver kept Riptide at arm’s length. Did he not want a lifemate of his own?

  The forest thinned, re­veal­ing more golden sun­light. The trees tapered off to a meadow with long thin grasses white as the dual moons and dust-sized in­sects that spun on the wind. A tor­pedo-shaped ivory ves­sel sat in the middle like an egg. Green vines wove around the outer hull. It looked as though it hadn’t flown in eons.

  “The S.P. Nautilus.” Striver waved his hand like a ma­gi­cian per­form­ing a trick. “I’m not sup­posed to show it to out­siders, mean­ing Law­less. But I don’t think you’re in­ter­ested in steal­ing its tech­no­logy.” He gave her an ap­prais­ing look. “You have your own.”

  “True, but I’d love to see in­side.” Eri walked to­ward it, awe spread­ing through her. “This is really an alien ship?”

  “As cer­tain as the twin moons. My an­cestor found it on the desert planet of Sahara 354. He re­built it and used it to es­cape with Ar­ies from the New Dawn. In ex­change, he brought out the eggs pre­served in its belly, and the Guard­i­ans hatched on this new world. To­gether, the races co­ex­is­ted. The Guard­i­ans taught us how to live peace­fully and lo­gic­ally. They are the main reason why we haven’t fallen into the gang-run chaos of the Law­less lands.”

  Their past in­trigued Eri. Every good lin­guist was also a his­tor­ian. “Are the Guard­i­ans happy liv­ing with hu­mans?”

  Striver pursed his lips. “Happy isn’t quite the right word. I’d say con­tent. Guard­i­ans don’t feel emo­tions as strongly as hu­mans; I think that’s part of the reason they lived on their planet in peace un­til its end. Whereas we des­troyed Old Earth be­fore its time.”

  She touched the ship’s hull, the ivory smooth against her fin­ger­tips. Al­though the ship sat de­com­mis­sioned, it still em­an­ated life.

  “The hull cap­tures solar power, which is why it’s out­las­ted all the other ships people used to col­on­ize.”

  “There are other ships?”

  “Oh yes, or what’s left of them, any­way. Oth­ers from Out­post Omega fol­lowed my an­cest­ors to Refuge. Un­like his mutin­ous crew, who wanted to keep it for them­selves, he provided the co­ordin­ates to every­one. It’s a le­gend here on Refuge. We tell it every year on the eve of the S.P. Nautilus’s ar­rival date.”

  Pieces of a puzzle fit to­gether, giv­ing Eri a glimpse into this mys­ter­i­ous world. Com­mander Grier had in­struc­ted her to find out as much as she could, and by talk­ing to Striver, she learned things they couldn’t dis­cern with the
scout droids. Aquaria’s voice res­on­ated in her thoughts. You’ll have to de­cide whether or not to warn them. Eri pushed the thought away. There was so much she still didn’t know.

  Striver traced a hiero­glyph in the hull, and a hatch opened on top. Eri stared, think­ing this prob­ably was way off from the tech­no­logy Com­mander Grier had ex­pec­ted. But should Eri tell her?

  Curl­ing his lips, Striver offered his hand. “In­side tour?”

  “You betcha.” She grabbed his hand and he pulled her up to the hatch. Walk­ing on the ship’s hull was like walk­ing on solid rock—it re­minded Eri of the chrome floors back on the Her­it­age. Strange how she felt more at ease on an alien ship than on solid ground. Be­cause I’ve lived on a ship all my life.

  They stood on a plat­form with geo­met­ric shapes carved into the hull around it. Striver traced an­other set of sym­bols on the hull and the plat­form lowered like an el­ev­ator. Eri shrieked as it moved and grabbed ahold of Striver’s arm.

  He laughed. “It moves slowly. Don’t worry.”

  She let go, feel­ing as fool­ish as a school­girl, and sobered. Keep your mind on what’s im­port­ant. Re­mem­ber, you need an­swers. “How do the Law­less fit in with all this?”

  The plat­form lowered and doors par­ted to re­veal white walls and sap­phire-blue light. Chirps, trills, and whistles echoed on the in­ter­com and Eri re­membered this was the Guard­i­ans’ ship. Striver took her hand and led her to a con­trol room where the en­tire meadow stretched out be­fore them in a V-shaped sight panel. “Most of the space pir­ates from Out­post Omega chose to take their own ships and fol­low Ar­ies and Striker to Refuge, but some of them didn’t want to live in har­mony with the Guard­i­ans. They didn’t want to fol­low rules.”

  Eri ran her hands over the blink­ing screens, which showed a hiero­glyphic lan­guage she’d never seen be­fore. “And your an­cest­ors didn’t force them to?”

  “No. Free will and choice are most im­port­ant to us. Ar­ies didn’t have either aboard the New Dawn, so she made sure Refuge was foun­ded on dif­fer­ent stand­ards.”

 

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