by Theresa Kay
Not bothering to give him a chance to respond, I storm off toward the medical tent and leave him sputtering behind me. What an absolute jerk. None of these people are trained for anything like this. If Alex is just going to fumble around doing nothing, then someone’s going to need to do something about this. I doubt the rest of them are doing anything but cowering now. What if the thing comes back? Are they even making any preparations for it?
When I reach the medical area, I push the tent flap aside and walk in. As expected everyone is bunched up in here, standing around the beds where the two injured are. “Has anyone secured the perimeter?” They all just look at me. Most with hostility in their eyes, but there are one or two who just look lost. “Well?”
The tall one— Stasia— steps forward. She’s a little more put together than the last time I saw her, but the strain shows in her dark brown eyes and tendrils of brown hair have escaped her ponytail to curl around her face. “Secure it with what exactly? It’s not like we were a military transport. All the ship had was the basic survival kit, the tents, the med supplies…none of the portable perimeter alarms or defenses.”
I roll my eyes and speak slowly. “I understand that. Have you taken any precautions to prevent any other injuries? Posted any guards? Interviewed the witnesses?”
She gestures toward the two injured. “I’ve been too busy taking care of the injured we already have.” She huffs. “I doubt the thing will be back. Kerrick managed to get off a shot and scare it off.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Oops, I hadn’t meant to say that out loud and judging by the look on her face my commentary wasn’t very welcome. I clear my throat. “If it was a solitary predator, it might have been scared off, but what if it’s a pack animal and it just ran back to regroup with its cohorts? Not to mention it dragged someone away, right? How do you know it isn’t just securing its meal until it heads back for more?” She opens and closes her mouth a few times and I just raise one eyebrow. “That’s what I thought.”
I run my eyes over the eight people still left standing. None of them look like much as far as fighters go, but they’ll have to do. “You and…you.” I point a finger at the two biggest guys. “Head outside to patrol the outer perimeter of the camp. You’ve got blast guns or something right?” They straighten up and nod, then head for the outside. The next biggest guy rolls his shoulders in, slumps down and averts his gaze. “You. What’s your name?”
“Kyle.” His voice cracks on the word and, as I step closer, I cringe a little. Tall he may be, but this one’s just a kid.
I don’t have time to coddle these people, though. All our lives could depend on what happens next. “Do you have a blast gun, Kyle?”
“Yes…ma’am.”
“Do you know how to handle it?” I purposely add an edge of condescension to my voice. I might not know much about teenage girls, but teenage boys are suckers for challenges like that.
I get the exact result I’d been hoping for when he pulls his shoulders back and pats the holster on his side. “Yes, ma’am. I’ve been shooting since I was old enough to hold one.”
“And how old are you now?” I ask.
“Almost fifteen.”
I nod. He’ll have to do. “Okay Kyle, I want you to guard the entryway here. No one else in or out without my say so. Got it?”
He nods eagerly and strides forward. Once the tent flap swishes shut behind him, I breathe out a quiet sigh of relief. People instinctively recognize command. Get a few to listen to me and the rest will probably follow. Of course, those left in the tent are all female. I’ve never been very good at handling other girls. Here goes nothing.
I step forward and give them all what I hope is a reassuring smile. Every single one of them looks to Stasia, so I start with her. “I’m sorry for snapping at you. It’s been a pretty rough day for all of us. I’m trained in situations like this and I just want to make sure everyone is safe.”
She gives me a cold look and crosses her arms over her chest. “Where’s Alex? He’s the one who gives orders around here. Not you.”
“Look I—”
“I’m right here,” snaps Alex from behind me. He ushers Liz and Kyle past me and over toward the others. “Sit.”
Her shoulders slumped, Liz gives me a guilty look as she slinks past. With her hands folded in her lap, she looks down at the ground like a chastised child. Which she probably is.
Alex turns on me with one finger out. “You.” He stalks forward. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? This is not some regiment for you to command. These are my people. They are my responsibility.”
I clench my teeth together and breathe out slowly through my nose. I’m not going to yell. I’m not going to yell. Oh screw it… “Craptastic job you’re doing with that too, huh?” I gesture over to the two injured. “You’ve lost one, let two more get injured and those were just out of the ones who survived the crash brought on by your amazing flying skills. Maybe there’s something to be said for being a mindless drone. At least I know what I’m doing.”
He takes a few quick, deep breaths, his face twisting with an enraged smile. “You sent children out as guards and you know what you’re doing?”
From the corner of my eye, I see Kyle scowl. Well, I guess I have him on my side. “I didn’t send children out to guard. I don’t know where you found her, but I told Liz to stay put,” I shoot her a pointed look and she averts her gaze, “and him…He’s not a child. He’s fifteen that means—”
“Almost fifteen,” snaps Alex. “Meaning he’s barely even—”
“That’s old enough. When I was fifteen I was—”
“Already a corps puppet.”
We’ve both stepped forward and only inches separate us, our faces etched with a similar stubborn anger. Well, his is stubborn. Mine is justified. “Call me what you want, but I went to boot camp on a planet much like this. I’ve been trained for this while you were coddled in whatever civvy encampment you hid in.” I throw my arms up. “Look around you. This isn’t some resort planet where you get to pretend to ‘rough it’ with the rest of the privileged few. This is a half-assed terraformed survival hell. There aren’t going to be any scouting parties. There’s not going to be a town or settlement to hike to. If— and that’s a big if— whatever beacon you had on your now demolished ship is even functional, the communications on places like this are, at best, subpar. At worst, there’s no possible way anything off that ship would be able to transmit a signal far enough to reach whatever people you might have out there looking for you.”
His nostrils expand with each angry breath and redness covers his neck and cheeks. “You don’t know anything about me or my life. How dare you—”
There’s a yell from outside and I push past him. I’m outside running toward it before Alex can make a move to grab me.
My feet pound down the narrow aisle between the tents. Those idiots didn’t set them up in any sort of easily defensible configuration. They’re set up like some residential street. And that just makes it take longer for me to get to the opposite end of the camp where I heard the yell.
I stumble over a rock right as I reach the edge. Good lord, they didn’t even clear the obstacles. No time to worry about it now, though. The two men I’d sent out to patrol the perimeter are standing over something on the ground. As I get closer, I recognize the shape of a body. And it looks like it’s been practically folded in half. What the hell could do something like that?
“Is this the one it took? Did you see it?” I shoot the questions at the men rapidly. They hem and haw but eventually come up with a ‘yes’ to the first question and a ‘no’ to the second. I scan the area around us. They didn't see it, so that means it just set its prey back down and took off? That doesn’t sound right. Not like any predator I know of anyway. I walk away from them and closer to the edge of the trees to study the foliage. I look back to ask the two men another question and they’re fleeing back toward the medical tent. Goddamn civvies. If they�
��re that cowardly, I’m better off without their help.
I step closer to the body. It’s female and definitely not going anywhere. The spine has been bent backward until its head almost touches the backs of its legs. Snap. What was that? It probably wasn’t the best idea to run out here with no weapons.
I jerk my attention back to the trees and step closer. After a few steps along the edge of the woods, someone walks up behind me and I tense. I’m really not in the mood for another confrontation with Alex’s ego.
“I’m sorry for getting you in trouble,” says a soft voice.
Jesus, does Alex have any sense? Why would he let Liz follow me? Without pulling my attention from the tree line, I say, “Kid, get back to the tent. It’s not safe out here.”
“But…”
What is that? I step closer. The plants at the edge here are trampled, as if something used it as a path to enter the clearing. Maybe to drop off the body. But then where did it go? It probably wouldn’t be smart enough to cover its tracks by going out the same way…but then where? My gaze moves to the tree nearest to me, the one Liz is standing under, and I pause. Are those claw marks? Oh shit.
“Liz! Get the hell out of here!” I shove her out from under the branches just as a large dark form drops down and wraps a simian-like arm around my waist, trapping my arms against my sides.
I’m dragged backward until my spine slams into the tree truck and pain jolts through my nerve endings. Digging my fingers into the muscled appendage wrapped around my middle, I struggle to pull it off, do some damage, do something. It doesn’t move except to swing me forward and bring me to crash back against the tree again. This time, my head smacks against the bark too and the world spins.
My brain gives me a double image of Kyle standing a few feet away with a blast gun in his hand. I hope it’s just the double vision making it look like it’s wavering. I don’t know what happened to the other guys, but looks like the kid is the best I’ve got right now.
“Shoot it.” I push the words out between clenched teeth as the thing in the tree draws me forward and slams me back again. Kyle’s face is white and it’s definitely him trembling that’s causing the gun to move, but I don’t know how many more hits I can take. Blood is already dripping down the back of my neck and each time my head cracks against the tree, the spots in my vision get bigger and bigger. And that’s nothing compared to the hyperextension of my spine as the thing tries to mold it into the shape of the tree. “Shoot. It.”
There’s a red flash from the barrel of the gun and then a searing pain in my side. The squeal from the thing above me is like music, though not as blissful as finally being released from its hold. I crumple to the ground and drag myself away from the tree. It might be injured, but still better to not let it get a hold of me again.
After a moment’s hesitation, Kyle rushes forward, grabs me by one arm, and pulls me farther from the tree. I’d love to stand so that my legs aren’t dragging along the ground and I open my mouth to tell him that, but the world takes another turn and doesn’t stop spinning until I close my eyes and welcome the blackness.
Chapter 5
I wake up in the medical tent... again. I can’t have been out too long because it’s still dark outside. I’m not too thrilled about the fact that, at some point while I was out, someone must’ve changed my clothes and bathed me but at least I’m clean. The back of my head throbs in time with the wound in my side. Patting at my hair, I determine it’s still there. Thank God, they didn’t have to shave it off or something. I push the blanket down and pull up the edge of my shirt to assess the damage to my abdomen. A hiss escapes my mouth as I pull at the edges of the tape and peel the gauze away. Not too bad. It will sting for a while, but it looks like the blast just grazed me. I’m gently putting the dressing back into place when my eyes stray to the jagged knot of scar tissue just to the left of my bellybutton.
The scar is a few inches in diameter, but it still doesn’t look like much. It certainly doesn’t look like the focal point of everything I’d ever wanted crashing down around me. For everything that wound represents, I expect it to be burning agony when I run one finger over it. It’s nothing but numb, though, the strange sensation of tissue that’s not quite the way it used to be. I close my eyes against the burn of tears and press my hands together over my stomach.
“How’d you get it?”
My eyes fly open at the sound of Alex’s voice and I yank my shirt back down. He wants to make conversation now? “None of your goddamn business,” I say.
“Hey…” He reaches out and places a hand on my shoulder. I shrug away from the touch and turn my head away. “I just wanted to say thanks. And I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
He runs his hand through his hair, making the dark strands stick up. “For keeping your head…well kind of anyway. For doing what needed to be done.” He swallows loudly before continuing. “For pushing Liz out of the way.”
“Anyone would have done it. I wasn’t going to let the kid get killed.”
He sighs. “Not anyone. Especially not someone who we have— who I have treated so poorly.” He walks around the bed until he can meet me eyes. “I judged you because of what you are and that was wrong. I lumped you in with the rest of the corps without even giving you a chance.”
“The corps is not the evil entity you make it out to be.” I hold his gaze with mine. “And neither am I.”
“I just can’t…” He sighs again. “Can we start over?” He gives me a small smile and holds out his hand. “I’m Alex the judgmental asshole.”
A chuckle breaks past my lips and I grasp his hand. “Eva, the not-so-mindless drone.”
He flinches. “Sorry about that. It’s just that—”
“Nope. Shut up. We’re starting over remember.”
He grins and it lights up his entire face, his brown eyes twinkling. “Yeah. So…” He shuffles on his feet. “What now? Any ideas on how to get us out of here?”
“Like I said before, terraforming, rudimentary or not, means there’s a signal station here somewhere. We need to find it.” I raise my eyebrows at him when he opens his mouth to protest. “Unless you’d like to be stuck here forever. But if that’s the option you’re going with, let me tell you, I spent six months on Urias and the novelty of running for your life wears off pretty quickly.”
“Urias?”
“Yeah, the biggest, meanest—”
“…hell hole the corps could come up with,” finishes Alex. “My dad went to boot camp there too.”
Huh, Maybe the guy’s not such a wimp after all.
The conversation dies and an uncomfortable silence slithers in. Exhaustion is pulling at me again, my wounds the only things keeping me awake. I haven’t had much downtime since I was jolted out of stasis and everything is starting to catch up to me again. The memories. The fear. The anger. Everything. Not to mention my head hurts like hell.
I’m opening my mouth to tell Alex I’d prefer to be alone when he sits down on the other bed. Actually, it’s more like he collapses, crumbles down and rests his head in his hands. I’m obviously not getting rid of him anytime soon.
It’s another five minutes or so before he speaks. “The corps will take her. My sister.”
“She’s thirteen,” I say. “What could they possibly want with her?”
“I’m sure you know once corps, always corps. But my dad’s not a deserter. He was discharged. Whatever deal he worked out with the higher ups gave me an exemption from service too. But Liz…she was unexpected.” He shakes his head and glances up to meet my eyes, his gaze boring into me. “Do you have any siblings?”
“A little brother, Ian. He’s…” It takes a moment for me to do the math. “He’ll be nine now,” I whisper. I don’t add that I haven’t seen him since I left for boot camp when he was seven.
“So you know about the requirement that the oldest child in a corps family serves in the corps.” It’s not a question, but I nod anyway. “They won’t take
me because of whatever deal my dad worked out. But Liz…They don’t care how old she is. They’ll just want to punish my dad for finding a way out, for getting around their mandatory service requirements.”
“So your family’s been on the run for over a decade?”
A wry chuckle escapes his mouth. “No. We’ve just neglected to register Liz’s birth anywhere. As far as the corps knows, she doesn’t exist. But if they come here…” He shrugs and glances up at me from beneath the hair that’s fallen over his face.
“They’ll find out.” I close my eyes and rest my hands on my stomach. “That’s why you ran. Their ship hailed yours and instead of answering you took off. And that’s why they shot at you. Is that also why everyone else was so anxious to let me die back on the ship? They know about Liz and they knew what I was.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, your friends are assholes but at least they’re a loyal bunch of assholes.” I hadn’t meant to be funny, but he starts laughing, the deep rumble working its way from his chest. I lift one eyelid and stare at him for a moment before letting out a chuckle myself.
Once his laughter has subsided, he stands back up and pats my shoulder. “I’ll talk to them. You’ve got a few people on your side now, so I think we’ll keep you around for a while.” One side of his mouth curls up in a smile and a dimple appears in his cheek. He brushes his hair out of his eyes and heads for the exit, waving at me over his shoulder. “Have someone get me if you feel up to talking survival strategy in a bit.”
The tent flap drifts shut behind him and I’m left blissfully alone. For about five minutes.
“Tell this big idiot that you aren’t mad at him.” I crack my eyes open to see Liz dragging Kyle along by the hand. She stops at the foot of the bed and crosses her arms over her chest.