by Brandon Barr
“I saw that thing walk by outside,” said Pike, his tone informing Aven that nice Pike was gone. “What happened?”
“You saw,” said Aven. “It got out.”
“But what happened with you? I thought they were going to feed you to it?”
“They tried.” Aven bent beside Piz to examine his head, then glanced up, suddenly aware of someone missing in the room. “They took Daeymara?”
Pike nodded, then stepped away from the cell door. The pounding of metal continued in the distance. “They took her to cryo freeze. That’s what they called it. Your VOKK will translate it.”
Aven stared down at the empty cot, his VOKK interpreting cryo freeze…they were preserving her body.
“Maybe one of us should go find some food,” said Pike. “While that thing is distracted.”
“You want to go?” asked Aven.
Metal shrieked in the distance as men shouted from a distant corridor.
Pike’s eyes met Aven’s. A silent understanding passed between them. They wouldn’t be safe staying inside the cell.
“I’m getting out of here,” said Pike.
“Where are you going to go?”
“Open the door, now!” Pike demanded, suddenly sounding unnerved.
Aven drew out the key and undid the lock. Pike hurried through, and without hesitation, went in the opposite direction of the kiehueth.
Aven looked around. Pike was right. This room was a cage, and if the creature could break the metal grate down, there was nowhere to go.
Aven turned a quick glance to the empty cot.
Metal ripped and tore in the distance. The echo of a scream resounded down the hall.
Aven hurried out the door and shut it behind him. It made a loud click as the lock sprang closed, sealing Piz inside. Only Aven could get in or out. Pike was on his own now. Aven fingered the keys through the material of his Guardian shirt. If he needed back inside, the key would only need a quick turn, and he could hurry in.
Aven looked down the corridor, in the direction Pike had gone. Something inside told him to go the opposite way. Toward the kiehueth. Pike had gone to the back of the starship, where the mercenaries had unloaded them off their landriders. If this ship was like the Guardian’s ship, then the bridge would be at the front.
But the creature had taken that hallway and was out there, somewhere. Aven had never seen the forward part of the ship. Were there more junctions with corridors? If it was simply one long hallway, then he would have to turn back or he’d come face-to-face with the animal.
He wondered if his VOKK might help him when—if—he reached the bridge. He imagined it might provide information on how to steer the ship. He might even be able to return to Loam. It seemed a fragile hope, but he’d never know unless he tried.
Aven forced his legs to move, quietly making his way down the corridor. A distant clanking of metal was the only sound ahead. As long as he could hear the creature, gauge how far away it was, he could keep moving.
Aven continued down the hallway. At a bend, he cautiously leaned his head around the turn.
An empty corridor. And the sound of distant clanking—only slightly nearer.
Rolling his feet from heel to toe, he walked quietly forward, as swiftly as he dared. Another bend in the corridor lay up ahead. When Aven peered around the corner, the clanking had momentarily stopped.
There were doors down this new hallway. Each had a small porthole, but they were dark. Aven’s heart was pounding. Did he dare go forward in the fresh silence? Before he could think any further, he darted around the bend and stopped at the first door. Frantically he pushed a button panel to the door’s right. It slid open and a light glowed to life inside. The room was very small, with a disheveled bed. Clothes were strewn about on the floor. Clearly a mercenary’s personal quarters.
The clanking sound resumed. It was not too distant, and Aven was almost certain it was the sound of the animal’s heavy feet warping the metal as it walked about.
Aven hurriedly stopped at the next door and opened it. Again, another bedroom. This hall appeared to be the living quarters on the ship. Aven counted eight doors. He stared at the end of the hall, where another bend appeared.
If he went to the end and looked around the bend, a bunkroom would be just behind him and he could duck inside.
Nimbly he moved his feet forward…until he’d reached the end. Here he paused. The clanking abruptly stopped. In his mind he knew the nearest door was only a few steps behind him. Slowly he put his head into the new corridor.
It wasn’t a corridor at all, just a small rectangular box with a door at each end.
One of the doors had been ripped free, and as Aven stared through the opening, he saw a large transparent window that looked out onto a bright swarm of stars. It was a sight he’d never seen. The brightest starlight imaginable. A large form suddenly disrupted the pinpoints of light.
Aven froze. The tip of the kiehueth’s snout stuck through the opening, and a pair of nostril slits expanded and contracted. Aven spun back around and nearly fell against the closest door. The metal floor squeaked beneath his feet. He pressed the button and the door opened with a soft whirr. He slipped inside the room and it glowed to life. Immediately he palmed a button next to the door, and it dropped back in place.
“Room lights off,” said Aven, his voice trembling.
The room went dark, and the porthole at the door glowed faintly with the green-tinted light from the corridor outside. Aven hugged his cheek against the metal door frame, just beside the porthole and watched.
For a time, he saw nothing.
He strained his ears. Heard only his heart beating at his throat.
Then the kiehueth was there.
The great head suddenly twisted around the side of the opening where he’d stood moments before, then its full bulk moved into the corridor outside his door.
Aven stepped back and sank to the floor, fearful the creature might see him peering through the glass. He groped with his hands, frightened he’d bump something and make a sound. Kneeling, he looked up at the porthole. The shadows outside changed, and he knew the creature’s full mass must have moved into the corridor and was blocking some of the lights.
A tug pulled at the back of his mind. He fell backward onto the floor with a loud thud. He thrust his hands against the side of his head, but was helpless as his consciousness slipped into another place, no longer in his body.
Filling his vision was the mouth of the kiehueth, its sickle teeth sliding open. The tongue came out toward him, as if he were right there before the animal. On its tip was the small blue wing of Winter’s butterfly. Whisper.
The tongue slid back into the gaping mouth. The wet muzzle drooped down toward Aven, but he couldn’t move. It pressed up against the side of his face, dragging its moistened gums down under his neck, to the soft, vulnerable skin of his throat, then it hung there, pressing lightly under Aven’s chin. He felt the hot saliva dripping down onto his face, then sliding down to the back of his head.
Suddenly it moved away. Leaving him lying there...wherever there was. Aven focused his mind and found himself drawn back. Back to the small room. The light of the porthole window glowed green above him.
Aven sat up and ran his hand over his neck, expecting to find the creature’s wet mucus covering him, but his skin was dry. He stared at the door. It was still intact. The animal had not come inside.
Shakily, Aven stood.
He forced himself to look out the door’s small round window. When he did, the corridor was empty.
CHAPTER 21
AVEN
Aven looked out the porthole a fourth time and took another bite of the chewy stick of sweet meat he’d found within the small living quarters. He was extremely hungry. How many days had it been since he’d had the meal Piz gave him in the cell? How long had he been inside that holding pen with the monster? A day? Two days? It was impossible to know when there was no daylight or night.
And e
very time that creature did something to his mind, pulling him out of himself into some horrific dream world, that was another block of time he could not account for.
He sat back on the comfortable bed. There was a temptation to simply stay in the room. A sleek metal wash basin opposite the door even gave him water to drink. He had everything he needed here for a long time. But how long would that last? And where would the ship take him?
He knew he had to get to the bridge—if only to find out if the VOKK could help him navigate the instruments that moved the ship. If he could find a way to turn back to Loam...to reunite with his sister...that was a powerful hope.
Could he survive in these living quarters for the journey back? He had no concept of how many days it would take. Was he even safe in this room? He’d glimpsed the doors to the bridge…the kiehueth had torn them down.
Doors were not an impenetrable barrier for that monster.
Aven glanced at the porthole. The sooner he turned the ship around, the less time he’d have to spend trying to stay alive.
He stood and searched the room quickly. He found a knife, a device that created a single flame when a button was pressed, a handful of food wrapped in thin paper material. There was plenty more food in a box that he’d found beneath the bed.
He stuffed these into a pack that was in the room. Two straps fitted over his shoulders so that the pouch hung behind his back comfortably.
His stomach was beginning to rumble again, and he reached for one more food item from beneath the bed before he headed out for the bridge.
As he knelt, a tremor shook the room. Then another.
Aven moved up carefully to look outside the door’s porthole. The corridor outside was still empty. A violent quake shook the room. Then Aven noticed something had changed in the corridor outside. The pale green lights had turned red.
Green to red. The VOKK gave him the impression that red meant something like danger, or be cautious. Aven couldn’t guess what had caused the change. That animal had been roaming around, killing men, and the lights hadn’t turned red. What could be worse than that?
A violent shudder knocked Aven to the ground. He struggled to stand, bracing himself against the door as the entire ship seemed to be convulsing. Aven looked out the porthole once more and saw that the corridor was still clear. He pushed the button that opened the door and it slid up just as another tremor rocked Aven’s feet out from under him, spilling him into the corridor. He braced himself against the opposite wall, hardly able to stand. Quickly, he moved himself along toward the small rectangular room just a few steps away. He glanced around the side, holding onto the wall for support. The walls rattled and his ears were filled with agitated shrieks of metal contorting all around him.
Beyond the door that lay crumpled and destroyed was a strange sight filling the large bridge window. Where before he saw swarms of bright, shining stars, all he saw was a colorful horizon of brown, blue and white. These colors formed strange and different shapes upon the spherical horizon.
Aven let go of the wall, his hands out, feet wide, to balance himself through the twisted ruin of the door. He stumbled over a piece of the frame and fell facedown onto the floor.
Red lights blared all around him, bathing the room in flashes of crimson. From his position on the floor he saw a hand lying beside him. Just a hand. And a smattering of blood at the severed end of the wrist. It had to have belonged to one of the two mercenaries who’d fled in this direction. Whether the hand’s owner was Captain Mhadrees or the other man, it was impossible to tell. Aven pushed himself up and knelt, keeping his palm on the ground for support as the violent shaking continued.
The bridge was not too large. He spotted the instrument panel before a row of three chairs. It looked similar to the Guardian starship. Aven crawled toward the chairs, carefully maneuvering around the bloody hand. The entire bridge was a crescent shape.
He reached up and grabbed the arm of the chair, fighting the powerful tremors. Once inside the chair he noticed the straps. The VOKK revealed their purpose in a rapid succession of information. Suddenly, several confusing things became clear.
The shuddering was not a bad thing. It was normal.
The straps were used for when a ship was entering a planet’s atmosphere.
The atmosphere was a protective layer of elements, the chief one being an element called nitrogen.
Elements were extremely small things that could not be broken down any further. Aven didn’t fully understand, and the VOKK tried going deeper, but Aven’s attention drifted up to the viewscreen, and the implications of what the VOKK had already made clear.
Aven clicked the straps into place around his waist and over his shoulders. He kept his pack on, leaning back against it. Outside the large window was a massive sphere—a planet, another world. At the edge of the massive disc, he saw stars and the blackness of space. The stars were receding into the fringes of the viewscreen as the planet grew larger.
A sinking feeling came over Aven. And then outright fear.
He had to turn the ship around. If this was the first stop the mercenaries had talked about, then the planet he was looking at might be a Beast world, and even if it wasn’t—there was that bizarre king they’d spoken of. He didn’t want any part of it.
Aven’s eyes ran over the instrument panel, seeking direction from the VOKK. Every button and toggle he looked at, every switch and indicator his eyes passed over, had some purpose that was so far beyond his understanding, learning just one of the hundreds of items on the panel would have led him down an endless path of hearing one definition after another. It was far too much.
Aven noted that the ships’ shuddering was dramatically easing. He also noticed that the stars were entirely gone from sight. He remembered traveling aboard the Guardian ship and looking down at mountains and green valleys. What he saw before him was similar, only he could tell he was much higher up, but for how much longer? The ship seemed to be heading toward a certain point, down on the planet. He could see the shape of a very tall thing in the distance. Mountains. Black smoke flowed from some of the peaks, stretching off to the east. Volcanoes reported the VOKK, giving him a description of their fiery insides. Other parts of the mountains looked man-made, like a wall. Walls the height of the mountains themselves. These filled in the gaps between ridges and bluffs, and it all seemed to blend into a crude, impenetrable circle.
The ship was heading straight for that place. It was then the VOKK helped him understand that a starship could travel on its own, to an exact location it was programmed to go.
If the mercenaries had wanted to go to this place, then Aven wanted to be as far from it as possible, and there was one thing Aven knew to do. He leaned forward, pushing against the straps, and took the steering controller in his hands. At his touch, the entire panel glowed yellow.
Suddenly, his stomach lurched as the ship seemed to sag. Carefully, he pressed left on the controls, and he both saw and felt the ship turning.
A smile touched his lips. It was incredible. He was flying a starship. The viewscreen continued to pan left, away from the strange mountains with enormous walls. One side of the mountain range was green, the other a massive swath of barren land. Beyond the barren stretch lay more mountains in the distance, and green. Aven headed in that direction.
He noticed the ground was getting nearer. The shapes of hills stood out now, and winding lines that the VOKK told him were trails. These lines ran all over the barren landscape beneath him.
Spread out across the dirt-brown horizon were what looked like settlements. He even spotted a large structure that might be a castle of some kind, but it was impossible to tell from this high up. The mountains that had once been distant were growing close now. He could see, far to his right, a flat green space interrupted by rolling hills, and to his left, stretching into the horizon, a maze of tall, intimidating peaks amidst a wide range of forest and mountains.
He turned the steering control to the right, hoping to make
for the distant green flatland. In the back of his thoughts, he noted that it would be promising farmland. If there were any good farm people living on this world, that green land was his best chance to find them. But his hopes of reaching the rolling green hills began to dim. The ground was coming up fast. To get to the flat green space, he’d need to go over several mountains that were already higher up now than his ship. Aven tried pressing gently up, and then down, on his steering controls, but nothing happened. His eyes searched the instrument panel for an answer. He knew there was a way to make the ship go up, but he was running out of time to discover it.
Perspiration broke out across his forehead as a second problem materialized. He was moving incredibly fast.
He turned the controls hard, away from the mountains, toward the flat brown stretch that lay at their base. Unless he could slow the ship’s speed or figure out how to stop his downward angle, he was going to crash.
Trees flew by just under the girth of the ship as he came down out of the mountains’ foothills. He was falling rapidly now. The bottom of the ship struck a tree as he skirted the top of a low hill. His heart pounded in his chest, eyes fixed on the viewscreen. He maneuvered left, away from a jagged outcropping of rocks to a smooth sandy basin.
A sharp ping sounded from the ship and a strong male voice said quickly, “Brace for impact—Immediate impact.”
At once the ship’s speed lulled, thrusting Aven’s entire body hard against the straps of his chair.
The ship was attempting to slow down on its own.
He heard a loud crack and felt a jolt. The VOKK made him vaguely aware that the ship had discarded a part of itself, but he didn’t understand why, nor did he care at present.
The oncoming dusty landscape filled the entire viewscreen. Aven released the controls and gripped the straps that held him.
All at once, the ground was rushing up like a fist. He closed his eyes.