by Jack Halls
Devereux stared at Joseph for what seemed like an eternity without saying a word. “Joseph, Joseph, Joseph,” he said finally, shaking his head. He walked over to Joseph and whipped him viciously with the pistol. “Stop lying to me!” he said, bending over and spitting the words in Joseph’s bleeding ear.
Then, before anyone could react, he turned, took three steps toward Alexia, put the gun to her forehead, and pulled the trigger.
Gideon jumped at the sound of the gunshot. Deafening silence followed, interrupted only by the sound of Alexia’s lifeless body slumping to the ground. The blood drained from Gideon’s face as he watched her limbs twitching in the mud.
Joseph screamed and threw himself forward with such violence that the soldier holding him lost his footing and fell. Before Devereux could even turn around, Joseph had crossed the distance between them and tackled him. In a blur of arms and legs, Gideon caught sight of terror on Devereux’s face.
Momentarily stunned, the other soldiers rushed forward to help their leader. They grabbed Joseph and ripped him off of Devereux, but not before the latter cried out in pain. Joseph came up with blood dripping from his mouth. Devereux stayed on the ground, clutching the side of his head, blood oozing out from between his fingers.
Before the soldiers had a chance to do anything else, a new sound froze them where they stood. From the edge of the forest, not fifty yards away, something made a terrifying, alien bellow that vibrated all the way to Gideon’s bones. As they turned their heads in the direction of the roar, a great black mass exploded out of the trees.
The only thing more frightening than the size of the creature was its speed. It was another pesadilla, smaller than the one they’d killed, a juvenile, maybe, but at fifteen meters tall, that didn’t make much of a difference. It crossed the gap between the forest and the shuttle so quickly, no one had time to react before it was on them. It lunged at them on all six of its legs, each one ending in claws nearly a meter long. In the twilight, all Gideon could make out of the features on its black head were rows and rows of dagger-like teeth.
The men holding Joseph scattered, taking full advantage of their Sentinel Armor. Still holding a hand to his bloody head, Devereux raced to join them. Without armor, the rest of them were no match for the creature’s speed. Tawny stood and tried to run, but the creature caught up to her before she’d taken three steps. It knocked her to the ground with a swipe from its clawed hand. She rolled over and screamed as the jaws engulfed her.
Gideon grabbed Takomi’s arm and yanked her to her feet. She didn’t resist, even when he ran directly at the beast. “To the shuttle!” he yelled over the pandemonium. “Get into the shuttle, quick.”
The creature seemed momentarily confused by all the people running around below it in every direction. Gideon and Takomi ran right beneath its belly, saved only by the fact that the beast was too large to maneuver quickly. It snorted and pawed at the dirt, sending chunks of sod flying as Gideon and Takomi dove into the shuttle’s rear hatch.
Gideon turned to see Sophia scrambling between the creature and the shuttle, nearly to the door. The monster didn’t seem to notice her, and Gideon could see why. It had spotted Alexia’s lifeless body, and had bent down to sniff it.
Joseph darted forward to protect his mother’s remains, but Gideon grabbed him, slowing him down just enough to save his life. The creature opened its jaws and ate Alexia in one bite.
It was over so fast that it didn’t seem real. Gideon stood frozen, eyes wide, until the creature turned its head to look back at him. Its stare was somehow more terrifying since it had no visible eyes, and Gideon suddenly found the use of his limbs. He fell backward into the shuttle’s holding area, yanking Joseph in with him.
The shuttle’s engines roared to life, then it shuddered and lifted off the ground. The creature roared and sprang forward. As the shuttle accelerated, Gideon slipped back out toward the opening. He flailed, desperately trying to catch his fall, when a hand closed around his wrist. Sophia leaned out the door, gripping him with both hands.
The creature came forward and banged its nose on the back of the shuttle. The vehicle shook and jerked violently, but they stayed in the air. Soon they gained altitude, and Gideon crawled back into the shuttle as the rear hatch closed.
Takomi had taken the helm. Joseph was crumpled in a corner, shaking with unbridled sobs. Waves of emotion pummeled Gideon. He didn’t know what to do, so he did the only thing he could think of. He walked over to Joseph and kneeled down, then leaned in to hug him as best he could in that awkward position.
Joseph shoved Gideon away. “Get off of me!” he yelled, voice cracking.
“Joe, I’m so sorry. I...” He could think of nothing else to say.
“You’re sorry? You’re sorry?” Joseph buried his head in his hands and continued sobbing. Gideon moved toward him again, but Sophia’s hand on his shoulder pulled him back. He took one last look at Joseph and moved to the opposite side of the shuttle.
“What now?” asked Takomi as she looked back over her shoulder from the pilot’s chair. Gideon was amazed at how calm she was, and not for the first time. He was beginning to understand that Takomi was at her best when things were at their worst.
Sophia went forward into the cockpit, wiping tears from her cheeks. “I guess the silver lining is that we now have wings,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “The question is, what do we do with them?”
The girls looked back to see Gideon and Joseph sitting on either side of the vessel. Gideon walked forward to stand between Takomi and Sophia in the cockpit. “I guess the best thing to do is find the others. They’ll hide from the shuttle though.”
Sophia sat in the copilot’s chair next to Takomi. “It’s getting dark. We can take turns piloting the shuttle while one of us searches the forest in infrared. The other two can get some rest until it’s their turn.”
It was the only sensible thing to do. Takomi and Sophia took the first shift, so Gideon tried to make the most of this time by curling up on the floor and trying to get some rest. He stole a glance at Joseph, who had stopped crying, and now stared straight forward with fire in his eyes. The blood on his chin and all over the front of his chest made him look absolutely savage. Gideon looked away, knowing his friend would never be the same again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The Others
IN THE MORNING, Gideon was stiff from sleeping on the floor of the shuttle. Yet for the first time in ages, he felt rested. The shuttle had a supply of fresh clothes and some food. His spirits were improving, until he saw Joseph sitting at the back of the shuttle gazing out the window. A lump formed in Gideon’s throat as he got dressed and ate breakfast in silence.
The sun’s fingers were just crawling through the trees when they finished their meal. He had slept too long, but no one said anything about it. Gideon felt guilty for the indulgence, given that their friends were still in danger.
Now that the sun was up, their plan was to search for the place where Connor, Vincent, and Padre had separated from them the day before. They’d land the shuttle and continue on foot in the direction they had last seen them go. It was a long shot, but it was the best they could come up with.
The simple plan turned out to be nearly impossible. After an hour, they had still not found the spot they were looking for, though they had found dozens that looked just like it. It was frustrating trying to pinpoint a spot from the air that they had only known from the ground. After each false alarm, tempers would simmer a bit closer to the surface.
They debated alternatives. Gideon and Sophia thought they should go back to the tundra and retrace their steps, but Takomi thought it would be dangerous, considering that Devereux and his men were still out there. Joseph stayed in the corner of the shuttle, staring out the window in silence. Gideon was considering talking to him when a beep at the console interrupted their discussion.
Takomi breathed a curse.
“What is it?” asked Gideon from the back seat.<
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“Radar,” whispered Sophia.
“I can tell it’s the radar, but what is it picking up?” said Gideon, louder than he had intended.
“I don’t know,” said Takomi, staring at the screen. “Four objects, coming from the southeast, but...”
“But what?” said Gideon and Joseph at once.
“They’re coming fast, and they’re way too big to be shuttles,” said Sophia, eyes glued to the console.
Gideon unbuckled his safety harness, picked up a pair of binoculars, and moved to the front of the cockpit. At the edge of the horizon, he could just make out several brown blobs. He lifted the binoculars, trying to find them in the telescopic lenses. He swung past them, then back over them again. Finally, he steadied himself against the console. As the binoculars auto-focused, he could see the objects clearly. Four ships, shaped like spiked teardrops, and they were heading right for them. The last time Gideon had seen those particular ships, they were chasing the Luzariai ship down to the surface of the planet.
That was right before their mother ship had destroyed the Leviathan.
Gideon dropped the binoculars. They clattered to the floor as he lunged for the controls. “Go! Go! Go!” he yelled, seizing the throttle and shoving it all the way forward. The sudden acceleration threw him back into the cargo hold. Joseph snatched his arm, saving him from cracking his head open on the hull. Takomi swung the shuttle around to the north. It was all Gideon could do to stay on his feet.
As she leveled out, he slammed into the opposite bulkhead. The side of his head made contact with the hull, causing bright stars to flash in his vision. He crumpled to the ground, feeling sick. Joseph grabbed him and pulled him to his feet, but then a deafening crack rocked the shuttle, sending Gideon skidding out of Joseph’s grip.
Gideon couldn’t tell if the bells he heard were coming from the cockpit or from inside his head. He managed to grab onto some webbing as the shuttle lurched back and forth. Takomi was taking evasive maneuvers, oblivious to Gideon’s plight from the cargo hold. He flew up into the air as the shuttle dove. The webbing slipped through his fingers, and he slammed into the ceiling, only to crash back down a second later.
Stunned, he managed to find the webbing again. He slid his arms through it and wrapped them around several times. Blood trickled into his eyes, and he started losing consciousness. Takomi and Sophia shouted to each other, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. The sound of shouting and alarms assaulted his ears. At one point, the ground outside the window seemed to be above the shuttle. He wondered if he was imagining things.
Something exploded, and the hull ripped open inches from Gideon. Wind and debris buffeted him, pulling him out of the shuttle. Inertia tried to rip his arms out of their sockets as the world below spun faster and faster. His right hand lost its grip, and the webbing slipped through his left hand as he fumbled for something else to hold onto. But before he found it, the last of the webbing tore free from his fingers, hurling him out into open air. The wind in his eyes blinded him as he spun around and around. He sensed, rather than saw, the ground coming up to meet him.
The impact took his breath away. His back exploded with pain as it made contact. Cold and darkness engulfed him. He wondered for a moment if his consciousness had been ripped from his body, and he was now dead. But no, the pain was too intense for him to be dead.
He reached toward a shaft of shifting light he spotted in the distance and could see his hand in front of his face, shimmering like it was underwater. He was sinking, thrashing upward with all his strength, clawing for the surface. Pain surged through him, but the panic overcame the pain. He struggled to move up and up, but the surface seemed to stay just out of his reach, and he had to fight the burning in his chest, the urge to inhale.
Then his head broke through, and he could suddenly breathe again. He continued to kick and thrash, the water tying to pull him back down. Something brushed up against his arm, and he reached for it. A vine.
He was in a river. The swift current was threatening to sweep him under.
With his last ounce of strength, he gripped the vine. The current slowly released its grip as he pulled himself hand over hand. Closer to the bank, the water slowed down. He could see that the vine originated from a strange plant that looked like an upside-down mop. More vines spread out across the water and into the current like tentacles from a sea monster.
He continued to pull himself toward the shore. It seemed easier now, like the shore was coming to him. In a sudden panic, he realized that he was not pulling on the vines, but that the vines were pulling on him, dragging him closer to the strange pod of the plant. He tried to yank himself away, but the vines tightened around his wrist. Before he knew it, the plant had pulled him up onto the shore and was working to pull him into itself.
But now on solid ground, he found that the plant didn’t have the strength to drag him anymore. He pried one of the vines off his wrist, then the other. The plant tried again to grab him, and he kicked at it, sending it away.
He rolled over onto his hands and knees, crawling away from the plant. He avoided several more tentacles, occasionally having to kick one away. One of the vines pulled an animal that looked like a six-legged salamander out of the river. The creature squirmed in its grip, but eventually the plant pulled it into its center. Gideon was glad that he was bigger than a salamander.
He left the vines behind and climbed a small incline along the bank. Free from immediate danger, he collapsed on the soft grass, relieved that it didn’t try to eat him. His eyelids grew heavy, and a moment later, darkness overcame him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Abducted
WHEN GIDEON AWOKE, he was trembling from the cold. He lifted his face out of the grass and looked around. The sun was high in the sky, and he was still soaking wet. A stiff breeze came from the other side of the river and chilled him right down to his core. He pushed himself up with a groan and sat for several minutes. The plant below still draped its vines out into the river, waiting for its next victim.
Finally, he stood and stretched, finding that he was bruised and bleeding but could walk. He decided to put some distance between himself and the carnivorous plant, even if it had saved his life. He decided to follow the current to the north, since that’s where he had been heading anyway.
Feeling returned to his body as he walked, but he wished it wouldn’t. Every part of him hurt. He distracted himself once more by observing the flora and fauna, noticing they were much different in this part of Valkyrie. Unarmed and alone, he made sure to stay clear of anything larger than his foot. He tried not to speculate about what happened to Takomi and the others, and instead focused on searching. The terrain was rough, with rolling hills interrupted by white cliffs. Dozens of small streams carved gullies and canyons down to the river, and he had to cross each one.
At the rim of a particularly steep canyon wall, he spotted something that made him drop to the ground. In the small watershed below him hulked a huge brown vessel. There was no mistaking the alien ship as it hovered over the ground. He peered through the grass at the menacing sight.
It was many times larger than the shuttles from the Leviathan, with a small ramp leading down to the ground. The rest of it hovered as if painted onto the scenery, without rockets or any sort of mechanism to keep it afloat, though the ground rumbled beneath it.
As he studied the ship, he spotted something beyond it, partially obscured by its mass. The shuttle, or part of it, lay in the bushes upside down. The entire back half was missing. Something was coming out, and it definitely was not one of his friends.
The thing had two legs, two arms, and a head, but that’s where its humanoid similarities ended. Its legs were barely stumps, connected to a long, “V” shaped torso. Its oversized arms propelled it along like an ape. Its head was little more than a flat dome, with no neck whatsoever.
As Gideon stared, mouth agape, another figure emerged from the shuttle. This one couldn’t have been mo
re different from the first. It was spindly and insectile, more akin to a praying mantis than a human. It skittered out of the wreckage on four legs, clutching something in its arms. Stifling a gasp, Gideon realized it was holding a body. It turned to follow the first creature, and he saw that it actually carried two bodies. Joseph and Takomi hung from the creature’s limbs, either unconscious or...
A moment later, a third figure emerged, identical to the insectoid but smaller. It dragged Sophia behind it as it followed the other two toward the ship. Gideon’s mind raced, grasping for ideas, but he could think of nothing. He could only watch as the creatures hauled his friends up the ramp and into the ship. They disappeared into the dark opening as Gideon looked on in a panic.
He expected the ship to take off, taking his friends and leaving him behind, but it remained. Minutes passed while Gideon pressed himself flat to the ground, yet the ship stayed still. The ramp was still down, as well. Gideon came up into a crouch, then crept slowly through the thickest parts of the foliage toward the ship.
He fought back the fear that tried to seize his muscles. Something deeper and stronger urged him forward. He continued inching through the brush, more exposed every second as he approached the ship. Its obsidian spikes were even more ominous up close, and he expected a bolt of energy to vaporize him any second. But nothing happened, and so he pushed forward.
When he was just meters from the ramp, he could feel the ground rumbling beneath him. The mechanism that kept the ship afloat was extremely effective, making the massive vessel look immovable. The thought of that level of technology frightened him more than anything else.
Soon, he was right under the ship and approaching the ramp from the side. He yearned for a rifle and armor, but forced himself to peer over the ramp and into the dark entryway. It was black inside, and he could just make out a high corridor at the top of the ramp. He touched the ramp’s surface, as if he expected it to bite him. It was ordinary metal, and his courage stirred anew. If this alien ship was made of metal, it could be broken and melted. They had done it once already on the Leviathan. It was a small consolation, but it was enough to get him moving again.