As Litsa turned and sprinted toward the fields, Jeremy called her name.
“For God’s sake, Litsa,” Jeremy said, “be careful. Don’t get yourself killed on account of me. I’m not worth it.”
She ignored the pain she felt from Jeremy’s words and screamed at Colin, “You get him to the haven, do you hear me? Move!” She hesitated for a second, watching the two of them hobble away. She wasn’t planning on dying today, but if it was her time, doing so to save the two of them would be worth it. She would lay her life down for any of the 125 people in the Dak. They were all worth it.
Litsa turned and, holding her torch high, ran headlong into the rows of crops, toward the swarm approaching from the east.
Toward the Riy.
Chapter 3
Sif’s capsule opened with a hiss. Gooseflesh covered her exposed skin, and she could see her breath. She pushed herself out into the darkness, keeping one hand on the capsule’s edge to ground herself. The unmistakable tang of burnt wiring filled the crew compartment, but there was no fire. Thank God.
“Lucas?”
“I’m right here,” Lucas replied, his voice also gravelly. “Hunter’s capsule isn’t responding.”
Sif heard him banging against the capsule with the palm of his hand. She couldn’t see a thing. Absolutely pitch-black.
“I can’t get it to open,” Lucas said. “I think the control circuits have shorted out.”
The lights flickered again. With each flash, she glimpsed a confused mess—pieces of random equipment floating about, tie-down straps reaching out from the walls, snaking through the air—and Lucas floating above Hunter’s stasis capsule, his face nearly pressed against the view port glass. Sif pushed away from her capsule toward Hunter’s.
“Emerg—ife sup—alfunc—” It was Liv—the AI program—coming through the speakers. A burst of static from the overhead speaker cut her off.
Hunter’s bio readout didn’t look good. His heartbeat was racing, erratic.
“He’s going into cardiac arrest,” Lucas said. “We’ve got to get him out of there.”
“Try the emergency release,” Sif said. “Left side, beneath the rail.”
“Got it.” Lucas grabbed the handle and pulled. “Dammit. I can’t get it to budge.”
Sif grabbed the handle, too, and they braced themselves against the side of the capsule with their feet. “On three,” Sif said. “One, two, three!”
The handle released with a screech, and Sif went tumbling, bouncing off Lucas and into the padded wall of the crew compartment. She reached for a loose tie-down strap, missed it, and floated across the compartment until she bounced against the far wall. This time, she was able to get a handhold and orient her body so she could push off the wall with her bare feet, back toward Hunter’s capsule as it slid open.
His skin was pale, his eyes open a crack. His mouth was slack, a small string of saliva twisting into the air above his face. “Hunter!” Sif shook him. “Dammit, wake up.”
“Whatever happened to the ship screwed up his waking sequence,” Lucas said, glancing again at the bio readout. Hunter’s heartbeat was still erratic, and growing weaker. “It wasn’t balanced, the percentages were all wrong.” He ripped the IV lines out of Hunter’s arms and thigh. “We need the defibrillator. C7, lower.”
Sif pushed herself away from Hunter’s capsule and floated down the passageway toward stowage compartment C7, located below a red line delineating the upper and lower halves of the tunnel. The lights were steady, so at least she could see where she was going.
It’s not supposed to happen this way. She, Lucas, and Hunter would be the first humans to set foot on another planet. Hunter couldn’t die. Especially not now, when they were so close.
But, were they close to Mars? Or were they somewhere else, knocked off course, drifting? The pang of fear she felt moments earlier returned, and she fought to suppress it. She had to get to the control module, and soon. But Hunter needed saving first.
Sif ripped open the Velcro covering from C7. Inside was a portable defibrillator, which they were trained to use but hoped would never be needed. She gathered it up and pushed away with her feet, rocketing down the tubelike passageway, which ran the length of the ship. The lights went out again, and for a second she was flying through total darkness, hoping she wouldn’t pass right by and slam into the far bulkhead. She reached out and let her fingers slide across the padded surface. She had pushed off too hard—adrenaline rush—and was going too fast.
The lights blinked back on as she exited the tunnel. Spying Lucas, she shoved the defibrillator toward him, hoping she judged her momentum and the distance correctly. She floated by just as Lucas snatched the defibrillator out of the air.
Sif tucked her legs and brought her head to her chest, remembering her zero-g training. She rolled forward and extended her legs at just the right moment to stop her rolling momentum. She stepped against the far bulkhead, let her knees flex to absorb the impact, and then twisted her body to turn herself toward Lucas and Hunter. She pushed off and stopped herself beside Hunter’s capsule. The lights flickered again.
Lucas ripped open Hunter’s thin shirt and placed one pad below Hunter’s right collarbone. The other he placed lower on the left side of his body, right at the edge of his rib cage. Sif noticed small beads of sweat on Lucas’s forehead, and a couple were starting to float away.
The defibrillator’s electronic voice announced, “Analyzing rhythm” as it read Hunter’s heartbeat. “Shock advised. Charging.”
“Don’t touch him, Sif,” Lucas said as he let himself float away a few inches. Sif did the same.
She didn’t want to see Hunter die like this. They needed him. Come on, Hunter. The electronic voice announced, “Shock in three, two, one . . .”
Hunter’s body convulsed, the electricity flowing from electrode to electrode, through his heart, trying to jump-start it. It seemed to last forever, then his body relaxed.
Hunter’s eyes were open wide, but vacant. He wasn’t breathing.
“Analyzing rhythm,” the machine announced.
“Sif, what the hell happened?” Lucas asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know, but we’re alive and the ship is intact, at least for now.”
“Shock advised. Charging,” the machine said.
“Dammit, Hunter, come on,” Sif yelled.
“Shock in three, two, one . . .”
Again, they watched Hunter’s body convulse, and again, no response.
“Analyzing rhythm.”
“I think we’re losing him,” Lucas said.
“Shock advised. Charging.”
It wasn’t working. Hunter was going to die, and there was nothing Sif could do. She had to make sure she and Lucas at least had a fighting chance. “I’m heading to control,” she said, pushing away. “Do what you can, Lucas.”
“Shock in three, two, one . . .” the machine announced, but Sif was already halfway down the tunnel toward the control module.
She had a spacecraft to take care of.
Chapter 4
Litsa crouched at the edge of the crops, watching the Riy approach. From the speed of their advance, and the manner by which they were moving, she knew they were drones, searchers sent out by an active hive.
Almost a year passed since a hive had ventured this far north. The last one was relatively small. They destroyed enough of it to force it to retreat, but they lost three fighters in the process. As a result, they nearly abandoned their home and moved to another refuge, but thankfully, as far as Litsa was concerned, they decided to stay put. Over the past year, they lived their lives without having to fight the Riy, and even some of the animals returned. But now, once the council learned another hive was nearby, the arguments for moving would rise again. No, Litsa told herself, not this time. The Dak was their—her—home, and she would fight to keep it. They would find this hive and kill it, before it found them.
The sunlight was warm on her skin as she moved forward
, planning her line of attack. Even though the sun’s warmth was somewhat soothing, she felt exposed. The rising sun hurt her eyes, too, even through darkened goggles. She didn’t want to be out here, but had to buy time for the gatherers to get back to the safety of the Dak and for Colin and Jeremy to reach the middle haven. She also had to avoid being detected by the drones, the outer ring of the hive’s nervous system. If they sensed her presence, or worse, attacked her, the hive would react, send out jumpers, and slowly move straight toward their home.
She sprinted to a group of boulders and placed her quiver on the grass. She had eleven arrows, each tip tied with strips of fabric soaked with the sticky petrol from the lower caverns. It might be enough to shock the things into moving away.
Litsa wedged her torch between a couple of rocks, and, satisfied it was secure, peered around the boulders and saw the line of drones, much closer now, steadily moving her way, each one an echo of what once was a living, breathing human being.
Horrid, ugly things they were, blackened corpses, thin and ungainly, usurped flesh and bone transformed into walking shadows. At one time, each of the drones had a name, but they were now no more than vehicles for the black mist they carried in their chests. Up close, one could discern the remnants of a face, see exposed patches of white bone—the skull, or teeth—glaring brightly, peeking out from behind strands of hair still clinging to a blackened scalp. And then there were the small ones, the children. What used to be children. They were all people once, but there was no life, no soul inside. They were just things that reached out from the hive during the daylight hours and retreated back to the hive before dark.
If the drones sensed a life-form nearby—either by motion or body heat—a lump in the center of the chest would peel open like the petals of a flower and expel a cloud of the black mist, spreading the spores. Once a drone was triggered, a signal would be sent back to the hive, as each drone had a long, fibrous tail it dragged behind, connected to another drone farther back. No matter how far a group of drones ventured away from the hive, there was always a connection maintained with the hive itself. The drones were sensory organs of a much larger organism, wired together by the fibrous tails. Once that signal reached the hive—or if a tail was severed, breaking the connection—the hive would produce jumpers. And if they came, this would be an entirely different fight.
The closest group of drones was fifty yards away, heading toward the crops. To her left, other drones stretched away in an arc, heading more west-northwest, away from the crops and the Dak. A gentle breeze was blowing west to east. Perfect.
Litsa decided to attack the ones closest to her, to try to block their advance and change the entire group’s direction. She wouldn’t have to get close enough to put a shaft into each one—a fire in front of them would work.
Litsa touched her torch to the first arrow, drew her bow, and let the arrow fly. She quickly followed with five others, each spaced about five or six yards apart, parallel to the closest line of Riy. She had handled the bow since she was a child and was one of the clan’s better archers. She smiled as the arrows arced through the sky and landed exactly where she aimed.
The grass was dry and ignited quickly. She knew she was risking a much larger fire, but the wind direction should carry it east and away from the crop fields. If she was lucky, Litsa mused, the fire would burn all the way to the hive itself. She crawled atop the largest boulder and watched the results of her handiwork.
The southern end of the drone arc stopped, sensing the heat to its front. The flames crackled as more of the grass ignited, and, as she hoped, spread eastward.
The drones swayed back and forth, as if unsure of what to do. As one, the long line of drones raised their arms into the air, sensing, feeling the heat. The line was trying to ascertain the location of the fire and determine which parts of the arc were in danger. Then, those closest to the flames began to retreat, backing away from the heat.
It was working.
Until they split into two groups.
A line of ten drones turned and headed south, moving fast to her right, trying to flank the lines of flames, to find a safe path. At the point where the arc broke ranks, the others headed north, trying to get around the other side of the fire.
They were going around it, moving fast.
She jumped down from the boulder and grabbed her remaining five arrows. She quickly lit two and let them fly to the north, hoping to delay the large group trying to swing around the flames to her left. Without waiting to see where they landed, she ran around to the south side of the boulders she was using to mask her presence, and stopped in her tracks.
The ten drones that split off from the main group were only a few yards away. Too close. And only three arrows left. It was time to run.
She turned—and from a crook in the rocks sprang, of all things, a rabbit. She spooked it, and it was running directly toward the drones.
The drones reacted immediately. Litsa watched as two of them belched black clouds from their chests, covering the rabbit in a dark, clinging dust. Litsa lost her footing, stumbled backward, and fell to the ground, instinctively covering her mouth and nose and holding her breath.
It was too late now. The hive would be alerted. And she would have to run for her life.
The closest drone sensed her presence and moved quickly toward her, the flowerlike petals peeling back from the mass on its chest.
Litsa scrambled to her feet and ran, the distinctive pop of the drone releasing its spores sounding just behind her. Close, but not too close. This time.
She sprinted back toward the crops, weaving her way through the rows as the leaves slapped against her face. She didn’t want to look behind her, because she knew what was coming. She emerged onto open ground and ran as fast as she possibly could along the trail leading back to the Dak and safety, but she doubted she would make it that far. She would be lucky to make it to the middle haven with Colin and—
A thump behind her. Then three more, to her left, and more to her right.
Jumpers.
Litsa ran. The middle haven was fifty yards away. Her lungs felt as if they were going to explode, and a sharp pain erupted in her side. She willed herself to move faster, then out of the corner of her eye she saw it.
Litsa tossed her quiver and bow to the ground and threw herself to the right, tumbling into the brush as a loud thump resounded right next to her.
The damn thing almost landed right on top of her.
She lay as still as she could, trying to control her breathing. Through the brush, she could see the entrance to the middle haven, fifteen yards ahead. It wasn’t closed. The heavy lid to the underground hideout was open a few inches. She could see Colin peeking out, and then Jeremy, their eyes wide.
She could hear the jumper as it moved, raising its tentacles into the air, trying to sense motion. She slowly turned her head and saw it, no more than ten feet away, right off the edge of the trail. Close enough that if it felt her presence now, she wouldn’t have a chance. The stench was awful, strong enough that she could taste it, and she struggled not to gag.
Litsa had seen jumpers at a distance before and sent flaming shafts into many of them, but never viewed one this close. Those who did never lived to tell about it.
It was a black, undulating mass, long spires extending from its body into the air, reminding her of a sea urchin from one of the old books. It was feeling the air around it, waiting to be disturbed. One wrong move on her part, and the thing would explode, releasing a cloud of spores for yards around it.
If she could only wait it out for a few more seconds, a minute at the most, it would leave, jumping to another place to extend its feelers and continue searching for whatever had triggered the drones. Litsa cut her eyes to the entrance of the middle haven once again, hoping Colin and Jeremy had enough sense to close the lid—and couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
It was Jeremy. The lid was all the way open, and he was scrambling outside before Colin could stop him
. “Hey!” he yelled. “Over here!”
“Jer—” Litsa caught the word as it left her mouth. She couldn’t yell. She was too close. She knew what Jeremy was trying to do.
The jumper’s tentacles stiffened and, one by one, they pointed in Jeremy’s direction.
It sensed him.
Jeremy was hopping away from the entrance on one foot, waving his arms. “I’m over here!” Colin, Litsa saw, was leaning halfway out of the haven’s entrance, unsure of what to do.
Litsa wouldn’t let Jeremy sacrifice himself for her. She grabbed a handful of dirt, stood, and threw it at the jumper. Just as it leapt at Jeremy.
“No!” Litsa screamed as the thing landed at Jeremy’s feet.
For a second, their eyes met. Jeremy smiled.
Knowing there was nothing else she could do, Litsa covered her nose and mouth with her hands and ran for the haven’s entrance.
And then the jumper exploded.
Chapter 5
“He’s going to be okay.”
Sif heard the relief in Lucas’s voice. It was close, but Hunter would pull through. There was something else in his voice, too, though. Sif had left Hunter for dead, deciding the ship was more important than her crewmate. She had left Lucas to handle it by himself.
“Good,” Sif said. “We’ll need him.”
“He’s resting right now,” Lucas said. “Whatever fried the electronics screwed up his waking sequence, too. Unsequenced injections led to a chemical imbalance. He’s lucky to be alive.” Lucas paused, then added, “And so are we.”
A string of garbled words slipped from the overhead speaker as Sif continued to work on Liv’s voice interface. She replaced a couple of ruined circuit boards and restored all of Liv’s autonomic ship control functions, but getting her to talk was proving a little more difficult. For now, they would communicate with her via keyboard input. “How long is he out of pocket?”
The Phoenix Descent Page 3