Horizon Alpha: Predators of Eden

by D. W. Vogel

  “Maybe the other shuttles are on another continent, wondering why they can’t contact us,” I suggested.

  Ms. Arnson smiled. “Maybe there aren’t any dinosaurs there, and they’re all sitting around getting fat on fruit.”

  Brent chimed in. “I bet they’re sitting out in the sun, fishing by a river that’s not full of monsters. I bet they’re . . .” He stopped abruptly and held up a fist like the General calling a halt.

  We all stood still, listening, looking over our shoulders.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up when I heard the click. It came from behind us. It was answered by another click off to our left. And then another, to our right. My hand shook as I reached for my pistol. A Wolf pack had found our trail. We were surrounded.

  Chapter 22

  We crouched down with our backs together, each facing a different direction.

  “What do we do?” Ms. Arnson hissed.

  Brent and I spoke at the same time.

  “Shoot at the neck,” he said.

  “Get up a tree right now,” I said.

  We each realized what the other one had just said.

  “We don’t have time to get up a tree,” he whispered. “They’re close. You need two hands to climb, we’d have to put the guns away.”

  “We don’t know how close they are. And we don’t know how many. If there’s more than three, we’re dead even if we all hit one on the first shot. They’ll be on us before we get a second one,” I argued.

  The clicking sounded again, closer. Still only three clicks, but that didn’t mean anything. Wolves were coordinated. They listened to their leaders, unlike humans.

  I didn’t wait to hear what Brent said next. I holstered my pistol and took Ms. Arnson’s arm. We ran for the nearest tree. Brent knew he couldn’t take a Wolf pack alone; he had no choice but to follow us.

  Ms. Arnson was carrying the power core and it weighed her down. I swung up into the lowest branch I could find and reached down to pull her up. She was struggling to get a leg over the branch.

  “Drop the pack!” I told her, and she did. It made a soft sound when it landed in the soil. Lighter without it, Ms. Arnson made it up onto the branch. I climbed higher to make room and Ms. Arnson followed me up.

  Brent jumped up behind us, grabbing the branch. And out of the brush, the Wolves appeared.

  A streak of gray shot past me under the tree and Brent screamed. His panicked face looked up at mine and I scrambled down to try to reach him.

  The lead Wolf hung from his leg, shaking its head. The ‘saur stood on its hind legs, and the front ones pawed the air as it tried to pull Brent off the branch.

  “Help me!” he yelled and I crashed past Ms. Arnson in the tree. She was screaming, too, scrambling up higher.

  I reached Brent and locked my hands under his shoulders. I pulled with all my strength.

  The Wolf was stronger. It whipped its head from side to side, tearing at the flesh of Brent’s leg. He lost his grip on the branch and started to slide away from me. I gripped him as hard as I could, but his arms slipped through my hands. I made one final lunge to grab his wrist, but only managed to graze his skin with my fingertips as he made a gargling cry and fell to the ground.

  I lost my balance and pitched forward. Two more Wolves lunged at the trunk of the tree just beneath me. My shirt tightened as Ms. Arnson grabbed at my collar from above, preventing my fall to the snapping jaws below. I hooked my arm around the branch and we climbed for our lives.

  At the base of the tree, four more Wolves had appeared. There were seven in the pack, and I turned my head away from the horrific sounds beneath me.

  Ms. Arnson and I climbed and climbed, and when the trunk began to narrow and the branches got dangerously thin we stopped, panting.

  She looked at me with wild eyes.

  I grabbed her shoulder and held her still. “It’s okay, we’re okay. They can’t climb.” She had taught us about Wolves. Now I was telling her. “They can’t get us up here. We’re safe up here,” I kept repeating it over and over. “We’re safe.”

  Finally her eyes cleared and her hands stopped shaking so hard. She swallowed and looked down.

  “Don’t,” I warned her. “Don’t look down. He’s gone. There’s nothing we can do. It’s just you and me now.”

  She wrapped her arms around the tree and closed her eyes.

  “You were right,” she whispered. “You said it was too dangerous by day. The General knew it, and you were right.”

  “The General was always right,” I agreed. I took deep breaths, trying to steady myself.

  “And you were right about the Wolf pack. There were too many. If we’d stayed down there and tried to shoot, we’d all be dead.”

  It was true. Instinctively I had known that our only chance was to flee. Brent had hesitated, and it had cost him his life.

  I had one of the canteens around my neck, and I took a long drink, then handed it to Ms. Arnson. It seemed to calm her.

  “So what do we do now? We can’t get down?”

  It took me a second to realize she was talking to me. She was asking me what to do. Because I was the only soldier left.

  Oh, scat. It’s up to me.

  I thought for a few minutes.

  “They’ll eat, and then hopefully they’ll move off. We’ll wait until well into the night when they’ll be too cold to chase even if they’re close by. Then we’ll come down and move on.”

  “But I dropped the power core.” Her eyes were filling up with tears.

  “It’s okay. It’s not food, so they won’t eat it. We’ll find it when we go down and we’ll just keep going. It’s all we can do. Just keep going.”

  “Okay.” She turned away from me, and I could tell she was crying. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just kept quiet.

  Hours passed. We tied ourselves to the tree with the rope from my pack and took turns trying to sleep. The Wolf pack clicked and fussed at the base of the tree far below, looking up into the branches where we waited. Eventually they gave up and moved off into the jungle, clicking in what sounded to me like a satisfied way.

  You got Brent. You got Jack and Shiro and the General. But you won’t get Ms. Arnson. And you won’t get me.

  Chapter 23

  We stayed in the tree for a few more hours. I wanted to be sure the Wolves were far enough away and torpid enough in the cool air for us to get some distance between us and them. They were scent trackers, and they were faster than humans. We needed to move quickly.

  The Wolves left nothing of Brent behind, for which I was grateful. I hadn’t wanted Ms. Arnson to have to see the remains of someone she knew. She wasn’t a soldier. It would have upset her.

  It took us a few minutes of searching to find the power core. The Wolves had torn holes in the bag since it smelled like us, but as I hoped, they had no use for the heavy, solid metal core. We put it into our one remaining pack and I hoisted it on to my shoulders. I would carry it the rest of the way.

  Ms. Arnson carried what remained of our supplies: some rope, our ammo, and the canteen. I had two pistols and Ms. Arnson had one.

  “Do you know how to shoot?” I asked her.

  “I know how. I’m not great, but I can hit a stationary target.”

  I didn’t answer that any targets we had to shoot at out here were not likely to be stationary. She knew it.

  “Well, let’s just hope it doesn’t come down to shooting.”

  I had watched where the sun set and we headed off to the west. Maybe Brent had been right, that we should be heading north toward the open hills to make contact, but so many days had passed since we spoke to Eden base. I felt the pressure of those days. Did they still have power? Were they still alive? Hours could make the difference, and I didn’t want to waste any time.

  We talked quietly as we walked, alert for danger. The peaceful noises of the jungle reassured us, and although the pack felt heavy on my back, I didn’t complain.

  A shallow, fast-moving
stream rippled through the jungle and we waded in. The water was cool from its mountainous origin, but this time I didn’t mind it soaking through my socks. If the Wolf pack woke up tomorrow morning and decided to follow our scent trail, they should lose us right here. Ms. Arnson wasn’t happy about filling our canteens again, but we had no choice. At Eden base we had water purification chemicals. Out here we had nothing. But we’d die of dehydration before any water-borne parasite could kill us. We continued walking in the stream bed, stumbling over rocks in the dim light. It was leading us farther north than I had intended, but the danger of the pack tracking us made it worth the extra time.

  “Poor Malia,” Ms. Arnson said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “This is the second dad she’s lost in her six years.”

  “The General wasn’t her dad,” I replied, out of habit. But that vehemence was softening in his absence. Our dad, Horizon’s captain, dead this three years, wasn’t actually her father, either, nor mine. But the General had loved Malia just like he had loved our mom. He’d been a father figure to my little sister since we landed here. And to me, I supposed, though I hadn’t wanted a father figure.

  “No, but she thought of him as her dad.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “I’m her teacher, just like I was yours on the ship.”

  I thought about that as we walked. Malia had been so little when our father died. She probably didn’t remember what he looked like. The only father she had really known was the General. As much as I’d pushed him away, she had needed him. She’d still need him. Our real father had died to ensure we all got safely off Horizon. And now the General had died trying to ensure that my father’s death wasn’t in vain. We had to survive. And if I made it back, I had to make sure Malia knew that the General had died for her. For all of us.

  “Malia’s going to be crushed,” I said.

  Ms. Arnson nodded. “She’ll need her big brother. She’s just as bright as you and Josh.”

  The mention of my brother’s name still brought a stabbing pain to my chest, and a memory came through, as vivid as the moment I experienced it.

  I sat across the table from Josh as we breakfasted on honey and fruit.

  “So what’s your mission this time?” I asked him, licking my sticky fingers.

  “Scouting and hunting, just like always.”

  I always wanted to hear all about his missions. My training was almost complete and soon I’d be heading out on my own, maybe on the same team as my brother. I couldn’t wait. I lived for his stories of the adventure outside the fence.

  “Bring back a T-rex this time,” I teased him.

  “No problem. What else would you like?”

  I thought for a moment. “Three Brachis. Maybe one of those smaller ‘saurs with the big frill on the neck. And a snake as big as the shuttle.”

  He pretended to consider my request.

  “We’ll have to bring the Brachis back in pieces.”

  “Yeah, they’re too big to fit through the gate,” I laughed.

  “But the snake we can just drag right through long ways,” he said.

  My mom broke in. “If you see a snake out there that’s as big as our shuttle, don’t get anywhere near it. It would swallow you whole.” She smiled like she was joking along with us, but she was also being serious. She worried the whole time Josh was out, no matter how many armed men he was with. I worried, too. Too many men hadn’t come back.

  After we finished eating, Josh hugged Mom and Malia and tousled my hair, which he knew I hated. It was such a little kid gesture, and I was almost a full soldier. But I let it slide, like I always did when he was heading out on a mission.

  He said the same thing he always said to me when he left. “Take care of them.”

  And I answered the same as I always did. “I will.”

  He headed off toward the gate where his patrol was gearing up. I went the other way to my training class. The General was training all of us who were even close to old enough to go out. There were fourteen boys in my class. I was the oldest and the closest to graduating. In a few short months I would be joining Josh at the gate, boarding a tank or a shuttle or gearing up for a night mission on foot.

  I looked over my shoulder and saw his back as he disappeared around the side of the downed transport that marked the edge of the fence-line.

  His mission should have been back in five days. They had been with Commander Richards, one of the General’s top men. He should have been able to keep them safe. They were only supposed to go two days’ ride out, scouting for anything that might help us survive here and to bring back meat. They never called in, and they never returned.

  So I did what Josh asked me to do. I took care of Mom and Malia as best I could.

  The heavy power core on my back was digging into my hipbone, but Eden needed it to survive. Mom and Malia needed it. I hitched the strap up higher on my shoulder and walked on through the darkness.

  Chapter 24

  Ms. Arnson and I walked on. The stream curved as it flowed down from the distant hills, and I concentrated on our direction.

  When the first rays of sun illuminated the highest branches of the canopy, I knew we had gone off course. We were heading northwest, not due west as I had planned. We had lost valuable time and were no closer to Eden.

  “We need to head more that way,” I said, pointing in what I hoped was the correct direction. If we had walked straight, we would have been there by now. I didn’t know how far away we were, but I knew if we kept moving west, we’d hit the deep wide river that flowed past our base. We were certainly too far north by now, so if we turned south when we hit the river’s bank, we’d run right into Eden.

  “Shouldn’t we be looking for a tree soon? It’s getting awfully light.” Ms. Arnson’s shoulders sagged and her head was low. We needed to find Eden today. With no food and not enough water, we were running out of energy as surely as our home base was.

  “Let’s push on a little way. We must be pretty close by now.” I strained my ears, hoping to hear the rush of flowing water, but the sounds of the forest drowned out any hope of that.

  We walked on, sweating out fluid we couldn’t afford to lose. We shared the last of the water in the canteen. Ms. Arnson looked at me as she passed it to me for the final drops. She said nothing, but her sunken eyes told the story. She was losing hope.

  “We just need to get to the river,” I told her, putting as much enthusiasm into my voice as I could muster, which wasn’t much. “Then we’ll follow it right down to base. They can hook up the core and it will all be okay.”

  She nodded, eyes lowered.

  It felt strange to be talking to her like this. She had been my teacher, too. But now it seemed our roles had reversed. She knew more about the plants and animals here than I did, but I was the soldier. Our survival was up to my training, and that thought made me smile a little. I turned away from her. I didn’t want her to think I was not taking this seriously. But I had to admit, I liked being talked to like an adult. Like a soldier. Like someone who had something to offer. I couldn’t let anything happen to Ms. Arnson or the power core. Eden was depending on me. I straightened up under the weight of the heavy pack.

  “It will be all right, Sara,” I said.

  A tiny smile quirked her lips.

  “Lead on, soldier,” she replied.

  ***

  The jungle was brightening. Sunlight streamed into a small clearing ahead. I stopped at the forest’s edge, peering out through the thick tree cover. A great hulking shape sat silent in the middle of the grassy field. It was already starting to overgrow with vines, but the rusty metal showed through the planet’s attempt to swallow it up. A tank.

  It ran on thick treads that chewed up the underbrush and clawed through the trees. Eight men and their supplies fit inside and a large top-mounted weapon fired a missile powerful enough to take down a Rex in full charge. This one couldn’t have been here too long. We brought two dow
n from Horizon on the last transports. One sat in Eden base—

  I froze. The other was last seen growling away through the gates, heading off on a scouting mission. Josh’s mission. My brother Josh had left Eden aboard this tank.

  Why had they abandoned it here? What had made them leave its safety, venturing out into the forest to their deaths? It stood in a large enough clearing that its communications equipment would have been able to reach the satellites. If anyone had survived and hidden in the tank, they could have called in to base. No call had come, no word from Josh and his team of soldiers who ventured out that morning three months ago.

  “Let’s get to the tank. Even if it doesn’t have power, we can still get a trans signal from there. We’ll see where we are and let Eden know we’re coming.”

  Sara agreed with my plan.

  I stepped out into the bright sunlight and a mist of tiny insects swarmed my sweaty face. Batting them away I took cautious steps through the grass. Clearings like this were dangerous. We couldn’t see predators hiding in the trees, but they could see us out in the open. Crossing the field in daylight was risky, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the tank, the last connection I had to my brother.

  Halfway across the field I heard the sound.

  Click.

  Behind us in the trees.

  Click, click.

  To our left.

  Click.

  To our right.

  I didn’t know if it was the same Wolf pack that had killed Brent. If they had tracked us through the morning, loping along with their heads low to the ground, sniffing out the hated scent of the prey that had evaded them the day before. Or if this was a different pack, lucking in to an easy kill, stupid food walking through a bright clearing in plain view. It didn’t matter.