Phantom Planet (Galaxy Mavericks Book 2)
Page 14
Boots.
The smell of strong musk, body odor and crusted sweat.
Devi looked up slowly, past the boots, past the potbelly covered in leather and rings, past the chains and shackles hanging from a belt, past the chainsaw gripped by two bulky arms… to the face of an Argus.
A pink-skinned pig with floppy ears, a silver ring in his nose and a two sawed off, broken tusks. Its orange eyes were like fire in the rain and it snarled at them as it revved its chainsaw.
Devi and Rajinder screamed.
Devi jumped up and found herself on her feet, running down the hill as the Argus swiped the chainsaw at her.
She glanced back.
The beads had sunk into the mud.
Gone forever.
She wiped away tears as she ran, following Rajinder between trees.
The Argus squealed as it ran after them.
The trees tumbled in the pig’s wake, the chainsaw’s roar louder than the squealing.
“Bok, bok, bok, bok!” the Argus said.
Rajinder tripped over a broken branch. Devi bumped into him and they both fell to the ground, tangled in each other. They scrambled up, holding hands.
“Bok!” the Argus cried.
“What’s he saying?” Devi asked.
“Who cares!” Rajinder said.
“The city isn’t far,” she said, pointing through the trees. “As soon as we get out of the trees, the police will see us, and—”
The Argus squealed again and the two children yelled, running side-by-side.
The rain fell harder and faster now. The thunder growled. The chainsaw whirred and screamed. The Argus’s footsteps quaked the ground below them. The slanted trees looked like they were about to fall over.
Lightning struck, illuminating the forest ahead for a split second.
“We’re almost out!” Rajinder said.
One more hill… one more slant downward.
And then the sound of rushing water. Like a river.
A creek had flooded, and a river of sticks, rocks and debris intersected their path.
“No!” Devi said, tears in her eyes.
“We’ve got to swim,” Rajinder said.
Behind them, the Argus cut his way through the trees, and they toppled in his wake.
Devi froze. “I-I can’t swim.”
“What do you mean you can’t swim?” Rajinder asked.
“I never learned.”
The Argus reached them. Lightning struck again, and its yellow teeth gleamed in the rain.
“Bok-bok pa-bwok.”
Rajinder took Devi into a hug.
“I won’t leave you, Devi.”
She hugged him back and closed her eyes.
She couldn’t lose him.
He was the only one who understood her. He wasn’t even her brother, yet in these past nine months he’d acted like one as they lived like paupers in the streets.
The Argus turned off the chainsaw and cast it into the mud. It motioned for them to come.
“Leave us alone!” Rajinder said.
The pig motioned for them again.
“Bok bok chain bok,” the pig said, unhooking the chains from his belt.
“You’re not going to take us!” Rajinder said.
Branches snapped. Water splashed.
Rajinder gasped. Devi, who had her head nustled against his chest, heard his heart skip a beat.
Two more Arguses emerged from the woods, grunting and snorting.
“I won’t let you take us,” Rajinder said, grabbing a stick.
Devi grabbed his arm. “Raj, don’t—”
“Devi, run. And don’t look back.”
The boy ran at the Arguses, yelling.
Devi screamed as the Argus backhanded him, sending him into a nearby tree.
“I told you to run!” Rajinder said, sliding down the bark.
An Argus grabbed him by the ankle and slammed him on the ground, knocking him unconscious.
“Raj!”
The tears came. Her entire body trembled.
Her heart raced. She backed away as the three Arguses approached her, grinning.
She had to do something.
Behind, the orange lights of the city glowed. She wished she were there.
She wished someone would save her.
She took several more steps back.
Her feet landed in water.
Rushing water.
The creek. It flowed behind her, impenetrable and strong.
The Arguses laughed at her. On the ground, Rajinder lay unconscious.
“I hate you!” Devi shouted to the pigs.
She turned and dove into the water.
She held her breath, but water entered her nose and mouth.
She speared her arms and legs at the water like she’d seen other people do. She kicked her legs rapidly, imagining them propelling her forward.
She wished she could be like a fish or a dolphin or anything that would carry her across the water and back to the city where she would be safe and warm and protected.
But her throat filled with water.
Her nose burned.
And then she felt two thick, leathery hands on her ankles.
The Arguses pulled her out of the water.
She screamed as a net collapsed around her. She grasped the net with her fingers as the pigs dragged her away, the orange lights of the city growing dimmer through the trees and the rain.
Her screaming was cut short when the Arguses slammed her head into a rock.
***
Devika woke up panting and covered in sweat.
Her long black hair hung down in unruly strands across her eyes.
She was in her bed. In her spaceship. In a cramped living quarter with no window and brown walls.
She wasn’t a little girl anymore.
But she felt like it.
She put her hand to her head. Parting her hair, she fingered a round, boulder-like scar where the scalp met the hairline.
She rolled out of bed and fell to the carpeted floor. Sputtering, she crawled into the bathroom and ran the faucet. She splashed water on her face and looked at herself in the mirror.
She was twenty-nine years old and the nightmares still tormented her.
She gripped the bathroom sink and shook. Her legs trembled.
Then she punched the glass, screaming loudly as she cracked it.
***
She dressed.
Jeans tucked into a GALPOL-issue blouse. She tied her hair up into a bun.
The humidity in the spaceship overnight had been unbearable. She was sweating like she had never sweated before.
The air-conditioning was gone, ruined in the descent. It was a miracle she had water.
She grabbed her black trench coat from the base of the bed and wrapped it around her waist.
Then she loaded her handcoil magazine carefully and methodically, and she hooked the gun onto her belt.
“Computer, are you online?” she asked.
No answer.
Computer was still down.
“Damn,” she said.
She exited her bedroom into the hallway of the ship. The acrid smell of smoke stung her nostrils.
The ship listed to one side, and somewhere, metal creaked and groaned.
A steel door covered a rectangular window in the hallway. She inspected it, sighing with relief when she determined that it had held and hadn’t been tampered with.
She had placed it there last night to stop someone—or something—from infiltrating the ship. And if the door had moved, she would have heard it and shot whoever was coming with her handcoil before they knew what happened.
She placed her shoulder at the edge of the door and breathed in several times to gather energy.
Then she pushed, straining against the weight of the door.
The metal screeched. She winced.
CRASH!
The door tumbled out of the window hole. It crashed through foliage and branches and clange
d after it fell several feet to the ground.
She stared through the open hole as birdsong swept through the inside of the ship.
Outside, a lush, green rainforest stretched out as far as she could see.
The trees and ground were wet from rain.
She jumped out of the window and landed on the door she had pushed out.
She looked back at her ship. An old corsair.
Completely destroyed.
Vines twined around the ship as if the forest were already swallowing it. Only now did she have the time—and daylight—to see the damage.
The cockpit had hit the ground first, caving in upon itself. The left wing was broken in half, the other half lying among a ragged path of felled trees behind the ship.
She shook her head.
There wasn’t much left, but it was her best chance at shelter. The ship had taken a massive hit in the planet’s orbit. All the critical systems had burned up on descent.
It was a miracle she was alive.
It was a miracle no one had coming looking for her.
Yet.
Someone was going to come sooner or later. Now that the night couldn’t protect her, and the severe thunderstorms of last night had passed, someone would almost certainly be coming to see her.
They would be coming to find out why she, a GALPOL agent, was sniffing around the laboratories of of the Zachary Empire, and why she had decided to make its lead scientist the subject of a human trafficking investigation.
She hadn’t even made an arrest yet.
But she’d made a bad choice in following her mark. She’d followed the guy into a quadrant of the galaxy where she shouldn’t have gone. The scientist spooked and called in private security. When they’d asked her to identify herself, she’d refused, and they’d shot her right out of space, down, down, down into the jungle atmosphere of Coppice.
She’d plummeted through a thunderstorm, and the ship had become a giant, falling lightning rod. The high voltage wrecked her heat shield and threw her systems offline.
And now she was here, on this godforsaken planet with no idea what to do next.
A purple parrot in a nearby tree looked at her suspiciously before flying away in a dazzle of violet.
She squinted through the trees.
She could hear water running.
Sighing, she started into the rainforest.
***
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About the Author
Science fiction and fantasy on the wild side!
Michael La Ronn is the author of many science fiction and fantasy novels including The Last Dragon Lord, Android X, and Eaten series.
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Season 1
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Nutrizeen
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Old Wicked
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Death Marked
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Decision Select Novels Series
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Table of Contents
Title
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Author's Note
Preview of Zero Magnitude, Book 3
About the Author
Also by Michael La Ronn