I stay perfectly still.
It roars again louder this time. I hear the other Seekers curse and pull their earpieces free from their ear canals. This time the tent does collapse.
The poles fall in and the canvas follows. I can feel the snout nuzzle the bottom, nuzzle right near my feet. It starts to bite at the bottom of the canvas, pulling me closer. I feel like a sausage roll on a conveyer belt heading towards death. It will not take long to learn that I am the fleshy treat in the middle.
This is it, Ximena. This is your flight or fight. I have to run, I have to survive.
I kick free of the canvas and my sleeping sack, and I am running. My earpiece falls out, but I am not going to stop to retrieve it. I can feel the footsteps behind me, I feel another roar at my back, but I will not stop. I am running through the basin in nothing more than my frilly, navy underwear.
You will not have me, you puta!
Evangeline Nikosa
Sarah and I were not well rested. The night had been difficult and the tent put up in haste. I can feel my eyes weighing heavily as I rub them awake.
“Ximena has lost her earpiece,” gasps Racker. “She is without a weapon, and she is being pursued. Evangeline, Sarah, you are the closest to her.”
I feel bad now for leaving her alone. I’m sure that if I had sided with her to call off the search for Yun, then Sarah would have fallen in. Calling off the search was the better idea, too, but I wanted us to split. I wanted Ximena to storm off on her own.
It lowered her chances to survive.
I knew we would never find Yun alive. And I knew that left three women for two men. There is no way I am going to risk being left out or having someone else’s seconds. The Captain will have Ximena, and Racker will now choose Sarah. I will be left with no one or their seconds. There is no way I am Racker’s first choice after the way I have humiliated him for the last twenty years.
With Ximena out of the way there are two males and two females. It’s simple maths.
“We are on it, Racker,” says Sarah. “Where is she?”
“She’s in the basin, moving away from the sea and towards the mountains. Ximena is a fit girl, and she got a good head start, but that thing is gaining on her, and I don’t think it has gone through all the gears yet. You have maybe two minutes.”
“We will be there in one.”
The jungle floor is a blur under my feet trying to keep up with Sarah. She is like a Commando, running and vaulting, ducking and leaping over the river. I can see the plain just through the trees ahead.
“I can see you, Sarah,” buzzes Racker. “You are head of them, but they will be on you soon. Be ready to break through the trees to take the shot. Be ready on my word.”
“Switch your light rifle on, Evangeline. We both take the shot; more chance of a kill that way.”
Widower is in her hands thrumming with power. Her purple barrel quivers with energy. I switch on my standard issue and make sure it is set to bolt.
The floor starts to vibrate beneath my feet. I can feel a constant one-two of the Tyrannosaur’s footsteps approaching. I do not hear Ximena. She is either too brave or too stubborn to scream out.
Racker speaks into our ears. “Okay Sarah, Evangeline, the two of you are up. Give it hell!”
Sarah moves first. She is too focused on aiming to check her footing. A branch catches her ankle and she tumbles face first. Widower spills from her hands and it lands a yard ahead of her, discharging a bolt of pure energy high into the sky. A bounce knocks the power switch off and the purple barrel stops vibrating.
Blood drips from Sarah’s brow. “Take the shot, Evangeline! Take the shot, now!”
I step out from the forest line just as Ximena approaches. She is running in nothing more than her frilly underwear and determination on her face. Her body is fit, fitter than Sarah’s and mine. Given the choice, I’m sure that all the male Seekers, past and present, would choose her.
The Tyrannosaurus is right behind her now, gaining with every step. It is almost on her.
“Take the shot, Evangeline!”
The light rifle rises to my chin, and I close one eye. I was always the worst shot during our military training. It would be wrong not to live up to my reputation.
Energy fizzes in my hands. The light rifle fizzes and jolts backwards. A brilliant bolt of white energy leaves the muzzle and it fizzes just over the Tyrannosaur’s head. He closes down the gap.
The Tyrannosaurus bites down so hard that I feel the force of his jaws slam shut.
His five feet long head and jaws clamp down over Ximena and he leaves nothing but two legs from the knee down that flop sideways onto the grass.
Two males and two females left. It’s simple maths.
The Tyrannosaurus only has to chew a few times and his meal is gone. It lets out a roar that almost deafens me, and blood and small chunks of flesh fly from its teeth. He sees us now. He sees us and starts to head towards the two of us.
Sarah is still on the floor, dazed and confused.
It is running towards us now, stamping and snarling.
The light rifle comes up to my chin once more. It is a harder shot than the one I purposely missed. Its head is bobbing from side to side with its awkward, bipedal gait. I hold my breath and close one eye, and I pull the trigger.
Light fizzles and claps like thunder. The flesh is stripped from the skull and then the skull turns to dust. The momentum keeps the beast coming. I grab Sarah under her arms and pull her out of the way.
The Tyrannosaurus collapses where we were stood, and the vibration is like an earthquake.
“CETI has confirmed Ximena as deceased,” buzzes Racker. “Don’t blame yourself, Evangeline. It was a hard shot. The beast was moving at speed, and I can only imagine how much your hands were shaking. You both tried.
“That was all you could do.”
It wasn’t. I could have taken the first shot.
Sarah is still dazed, but we know we cannot stay here. The noise and the fresh kill will attract others. We find Widower at the beast’s back and retrieve her without a word. Sarah looks at me with suspicion, but she did take a nasty whack to the head.
“Seekers, this is Captain Reed. You did what you could for Ximena, and she would be grateful for that, I know. Head back to the Dweller where we can regroup and decide our next steps.
“Stick together. We have seen what can happen when we become separated. We have paid the price in more blood.”
We walk back through the second forest in silence. Racker tracks our movements and directs us back to the forest clearing where the forklift still stands.
“This is where we lost her,” Racker’s voice breaks. “This is where we lost Yun. At least she didn’t feel it. CETI confirmed that she was suffering from hypothermia at the time. She wasn’t of her right mind. I take comfort thinking that she never knew it was her end.
“God bless her soul.”
Yun’s blood is still here. I can see the tatters of the Seeker uniform she had been wearing but there are no bones or flesh left. It is as Racker had told it. They must have taken the body back to their den.
Sarah spots something amongst the blood. It was glimmering in the light that passes through the branches above. We exchange a look, and she presses a finger to her lips. She bends over and plucks the item from the bloody puddle.
“What is that?” asks Racker. “What have you got there?”
“Just a tooth,” says Sarah. “It’s all that is left of Doctor Yun. I want to bury it. Evangeline and I will bury it, and she can have a shrine on the beach.”
“Good idea. I think she would have liked that.”
We walk close, side by side. She unfurls her fingers, and I see what the thing really is; it’s an earpiece, a Seeker earpiece.
Sarah and I still have our earpieces. We know that the captain still has his and Ximena, rest her soul, still had hers when she woke this morning. Simon never managed to reach this far into the jungle, and Yun wasn’t stood
anywhere near here when that Dinosaur chased us from the clearing.
That earpiece had been resting at the top of a long blood pool. It had been in her ear when she died.
Had she turned it off? Had it malfunctioned? Or was Racker a liar?
The Dweller comes into view through the tree line. The brilliant blue sea stretches out behind, and I can hear the waves from here. Strange birds fly overhead, and we step over the fresh soil where Simon now lays. The fire from the bodies of those that killed him is now just a pile of embers on the corner of the peninsula.
Racker opens the Dweller door, and we enter. The rooms and corridors are eerily quiet. The only noise is the cameras that follow us.
Sarah has turned detective. She heads straight for Yun’s quarters and moves to cover the camera, but it already is. A thick white layer of antiperspirant deodorant is covering the lens.
Yun had come back here. Racker had let her into the Dweller.
We move to the armoury now, the cameras following our every move. One of the spare light rifles is missing and a spare earpiece.
Racker has been lying.
“You found me out,” his voices fizzes. “Yun did come back here, yes.”
“Why did you lie?” hisses Sarah.
“I had to, Sarah. Yun was out of control! Ximena and she had been sinning against the contract since the day we landed on Domus!”
“You killed her because they had a relationship?”
“I’m not a monster, Sarah. I did not kill her. Ximena managed to hack into CETI’s systems, and she was supplying it to Yun in exchange for sex. We all knew she had a painkiller problem, and Ximena took advantage!
“Yun did come back here, yes. She sprayed the camera in her room, and she injected liquid morphine into her veins. I tried to stop her, but she was hallucinating. She took a rifle and an earpiece, and she said she was going hunting.
“I tried to stop her.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Then go to the med-bay. There you will find what is left of the stolen liquid morphine. I am sure that Doctor Nikosa can quantify the amount she had taken.”
We go to the med-bay, and sure enough, there is a pack of liquid morphine left out on the side. I am too careful to leave anything out, especially since the Captain warned me of Yun’s problem. There is enough for ten doses in the bag, and five are missing. If Yun had taken all five doses in one go, then she would have been higher than the Marauder.
“Does it check out?” asks Sarah.
I nod.
“You cannot tell the Cap,” fuzzes Racker. “I don’t want to tarnish their memories or their legacies. Future generations will want to know about all of the Seekers, even the deceased. Mark Lawson, Simon Farrell, Liu Yun, and Ximena Barros; they all deserve a good name in history.
“Sure, they made mistakes. We all make mistakes, don’t we? But they still got us to this point. They still helped the Project. I will want to tell my children about all of them, of all the good things.
“The Captain cannot know.”
Racker has lost his mind. How can he think that the Seeker Project is still running after all that has happened?
I hear the outer door lock down.
“I did not want to have to do this, ladies, but I really need your cooperation here. The Dweller is locked down. I have programmed CEIT to reroute the pesticides meant for the botanical garden into the air conditioning instead.
“Oh, and before you get any ideas, I have shut down all of the light rifles and grenades.”
Sarah flips the switch on Widower but nothing happens. “CETI,” she spits, “Why are you doing this?”
“Hello Sarah. I am under the sole command of Pilot James Racker, as commanded by Captain Reed.”
“But you will kill us!”
“CETI will not kill you, Racker will. CETI is only programmed to do as told and with pleasure. CETI does not have the capacity to kill, only to be told to run a programme or execute an action that may lead to death.”
Racker laughs. “It’s leaking through the Dweller now, ladies. All you have to do to stop it is to promise that you will never tell the Cap of this, of Yun, of anything. The Project has to be pure. We will go down in the new history as Gods!”
I can hear the hiss of gas all around me. Racker isn’t bluffing. He is willing to sacrifice us to hide his own secrets. The Project will die with us.
“Okay!” I scream out. “Okay! We will keep your secret, Racker. The others will be revered, and the Project will continue. We will not tell the Captain, you have my word.”
“Evangeline, my chosen one, I am glad you have seen sense. You spurned me before, but you cannot now. It is simple math; the Cap and Sarah, and you and me. We will make beautiful children, you and I.
“CETI, prepare an escape pod, and set the coordinates for the Dweller on Domus. How long until one can launch?”
“With pleasure, Racker. The pod will be ready in twenty four hours.”
I can hear the glee in Racker’s voice. “I’m coming, Evangeline. Mitch and I are coming, my love.”
Captain Reed
I’m amazed that I did it.
Against the odds, I made it to the final beacon sight, and I stuck it right into Domus’ crust with real purpose. The metal sunk so deep in my desperation I thought I had broken it. But it works. Racker’s voice echoed in my ear instantly, and the other’s voices too.
I listened as Domus took another life. I heard as Ximena, my chosen one, lost her life to the new planet. Evangeline had tried to help, but she was always the weakest shot with the new tech. She was an old-fashioned military girl. Stick an old, wooden stock and real bullets in her hands, and she would have made the shot.
There can be no blame for Ximena or the others. These were the risks they signed up for. The risks we all signed up for.
With Ximena and Simon gone, and Racker in orbit and pretty useless with women, it paves a way for me and Evangeline to start the next phase.
Racker has also updated me on the barrier building; it is behind schedule, behind where I hope it would be by now, but at least we have a proper visual on Domus. And I will make sure that we all pull our weight to get it erected as soon as possible.
It’s nigh time that Racker ought to make the journey to the surface too, but I will wait for the barrier to be up first and I have made some movement into Evangeline’s affections. He can’t be mad if he wasn’t there. I can comfort her on the loss of Simon, be a shoulder to cry on.
But right now, I’m getting ahead of myself. The beacons may be in place, but the quad is dry, Ex Materia is flat, I’m exhausted, and I have only one light-grenade and the old turret for the journey back to the Dweller.
“Racker,” I whisper, “can you hear me?”
“I can, Cap.”
“Are the two of us still on a secure line?”
“Yes sir. I have an open line for all of us and one separate for you. I know how you like to keep secrets, our chats, I mean.”
“Good. Racker, I need you to guide me to the Dweller on foot. The quad is out of fuel, and Ex Materia is out of juice. I have no choice but to walk the miles back to the Dweller.
“I don’t want the others to know. I don’t want them coming after me or fretting. I just need you to guide me safely through to our new home. Do this, Racker, and you can come and join us as soon as the barrier is up.”
“I cannot wait.”
“She will see sense, now Racker.”
“Excuse me, Captain?”
“Evangeline, she will see sense now. The two of you can consummate your contracts as soon as you land. Just get me home.”
By that time, Evangeline will be mine.
“With pleasure, Captain.”
It pains me to leave the quad. She is a real decent piece of kit and the only reason my task succeeded. But she has run dry, and there is no way I can push her all that distance. We always knew that old tech like this would fail on Domus eventually, but she has done well
. Sarah should be proud.
Racker directs me along the cliff. The midday sun is beating down over my neck and reddening my cheeks. As soon as I begin to curse in my mind I remember that it could be worse; I could still be under that wretched storm.
I know that the others will want to abandon the Seeker Project. I know that they will see it as a failure. Each of them will ask for Racker to come and pick them up so we can try another planet.
But I will not allow it. We have all lost so much to be here, more than the others know. Some might even suggest going home, but they don’t know what is left for them there now.
They will curse and moan, they will point out that there are only two men and thus, the Seeker children will be at risk of interbred defects. What they don’t know is that the Marauder has a secret room, a secret freezer. It contains frozen blood and sperm and embryos, should we ever need them.
And we need them.
CETI’s auto-doc has been programmed with IVF treatments. Racker and I can spread our own seeds first, but those that follow will be strangers to all of us. The women will be surrogates, and the cycle will go one. And when it does, Racker and I can breed with these new children when they come of age with no risks of side effects.
The Seeker project will survive. It will thrive.
“How far is left to the Dweller, Racker?” I have been walking for hours now, and the sun is threatening to leave me in the shadows.
“Too far, Cap. I suggest hunkering down for the night. I can see what looks like a cave in the cliff face. You should be able to scale down to it. We will make comms again in the morning and get you home.
“Good luck and God bless.”
Racker is a good man. I trust him at his word.
I lean over the cliff, and I can see the inlet he is talking about. It is not as big as the cave I found before, but it is safer than the forest floor. I still have the turret to watch out over me too.
The rocks are slippery but wide enough for me to get a full foot on them. The cave is only a few feet down, and I am inside before I know it. At only twenty feet deep, I don’t have to make sure it is empty first, which is fine by me; I’m too tired for a sweep.
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