by GARY DARBY
“Well, we thank you,” Shanon replied. “If you hadn’t, I’m not sure how long the Faction would’ve kept us alive. I think they were about on the cusp of doing something horrible when you showed up. They were getting pretty nasty and antsy.”
She paused for a second and glanced over at Nase. “In fact, they threatened Nase with the same thing they did to Bianca. Kept questioning us about the aliens being asleep. I don’t think they believed you.”
“Like I said,” Dason answered, “we got lucky.”
Shanon crossed her legs and leaned forward while eating the last crumbs of her ration portion. “How were the little aliens doing? Still in that strange sleep of theirs?”
Dason nodded while replying, “They roused once, talked amongst themselves and then went back to sleep or whatever it is they’re doing.”
He then turned to Nase. “TJ told me about your suspicions regarding Alena’s hyper craft.”
“Suspicions?” Shanon questioned. “What suspicions?”
Dason quickly recounted what TJ had told him and then their angry confrontation with Alena. He frowned deeply at the end. “For now, we keep a close eye on her. I agree with TJ, I think she’s trouble and we can’t trust her.”
Finished, he glanced outside while saying, “I’m going to climb a little higher and take a look. Check to see if anyone is on our back trail. You two scan from the ledge.”
The three crawled from the small recess and gazed up at the spectacular night sky. Roiling the firmament were the nebula’s glowing innards with its trails of violet-colored gas amidst pockets of light and dark sea-green wisps.
Being this close to the star cloud was almost hypnotic, and the young scouts stood transfixed for several seconds.
Shanon whispered to Dason, “How can something so beautiful turn out to be so dangerous and ugly?”
Dason gave a knowing nod in response. He felt the same way. He turned to scan the dark hillside above their lookout point. He spotted another ledge that jutted outward several meters above them.
“Did they take away your LS or do you still have it?” he asked Shanon.
In response, she brought out the little device, activated it, and did a slow sweep while saying, “Took our weapons and comms, but let us keep most everything else.”
She completed her scan and said, “No human, no Alpha Prime spikes, seems clear.”
Dason gestured uphill. “I’m going up there for a look around. Let me know if anything pops on the LS.” Slogging up the steep incline, he used the exposed roots of small bushes for handholds until he reached the outcrop.
With a final firm handhold, Dason pulled himself up and over the shelf. He scooted forward on one knee before a faint rustling from above caused him to hold in place.
Not wanting to chance the bright scarlet beam of his laz-gun, he crouched and slid his knife from his scabbard while peering upward into the night sky.
The sound seemed to float across the hillside. From high above came a sharp slap! Like a small child had just clapped her hands together. Seconds later a tiny squeal came from the hill slope further down.
A night hunter. Moreover, by the sound of its prey, not much bigger than a Terran hawk or owl. He blew out a breath. The hunter had been practically invisible against the darker patches of the nebula.
He screwed his mouth to one side thinking that if it had been another of the giant eagle like creatures, he might not have been so fortunate as last time and his companions too far away to help him.
After a bit, satisfied that there weren’t any other sky hunters in the air, he slid a little further out on the flat rock to lie prone and scan the dark valley below.
For several long minutes, he surveyed the lengthy basin using both his natural sight and his night vision device. What little movement he saw came from native fauna that roamed the forest floor. It didn’t appear that anyone followed their back trail.
He pushed back from the rock and began his climb down to his teammates. Minutes later, he sidestepped toward the small cavern’s craggy portal.
A soft, “Dason?” broke the stillness
“It’s me,” he replied.
Nase and Shanon stepped out of the grotto’s thick darkness. “Anyone following?” Nase asked.
“No, it looks pretty quiet down there.”
He paused before saying, “I don’t know if that’s a good sign or bad.”
Shanon touched his arm to say, “I’m going to be an optimist on this one and take it as a good sign.”
Dason turned to examine the dark forest below before saying with a slight gesture toward the dusky overgrowth, “If we decide to make for the cave tomorrow, it should be a pretty straight shot across.”
Nase cleared his throat before saying dryly, “If we can stay clear of the Jakuta.”
Dason nodded. “Especially after the fight they had with the Faction. I—“
Shanon’s shh! Stopped him. “Do you hear that?” she asked.
Dason held still and listened. “Yeah, but what am I hearing?”
The three moved farther out on the rocky, shelflike ledge. Dason turned his head upward to a faint, deep, basslike throbbing that seemed to be coming from the hill’s backside.
“That’s no animal,” Shanon stated.
“Better hope not,” Dason answered, “because if it were, it would be as big as a mountain.”
The muted rumbling came closer and closer. The sonic vibrations almost seemed to pulse through Dason’s body. Shanon reached out with a hand to steady herself against the grotto’s stone edge.
“There!” she gasped just as an enormous dark shape began to pass over the ridge, high above their heads. No light showed anywhere on the massive vessel. It sailed, serene and majestic, against the stars, only a deep, slow throb-throb marking its passing.
It descended until it came to the valley’s head. The ship then made a slow, graceful arc before it disappeared behind a far distant ridgeline.
Dason stared at where the gigantic ship had disappeared. His “Wow” was more of a gurgling croak than an actual word.
Shanon stood statue-still, her eyes never leaving the distant hills. “Double-wow,” she breathed.
The young scouts stayed mute for several minutes until Nase said, “You could put two or three brigade transports inside that thing and still have room for a starliner.”
“And then some,” Shanon answered.
Dason said with a slow shake of his head. “That wasn’t an Imperium ship was it? I wouldn’t pretend to know the configurations of all Imperium deep-space craft, but—”
“It wasn’t,” Nase replied with a resolute air. “That huge teardrop-shaped superstructure that stretches back to the rounded aft portion? There’s no Imperium ship with that outline. No, that was definitely extraterrestrial.”
They scanned the night sky to see if any more ships sailed high overhead, but nothing blanked out the stars. Dason gestured upward. “Who do you think it belonged to?”
Neither Nase nor Shanon responded at first. Then, Nase muttered, “If I had to guess, from its size, I’d say Jakuta.”
“My guess, too,” Dason replied. “Maybe, between the Gadions and our resistance they’ve decided we’re a bit more than they bargained for and decided to bring in reinforcements.”
Shanon asked in a somber tone, “To hunt us from above as well as on the ground?”
Dason set his mouth in a hard line, and though he didn’t answer, his eyes said it all.
“Great,” Shanon replied. “Just when I thought maybe we’d cut them down to size.”
No one spoke until Dason gestured to where the little cavern ended in an uneven nook. “It’s been a long day. You two get some rest. I’ll take the first watch.”
With quick nods, Shanon and Nase moved under the overhang and settled down for the night. Using the sleep-inducing techniques taught early in the novice program to counter the hazards of sleep deprivation, it didn’t take long before their eyes closed and their breathin
g deepened.
Dason eased himself into a sitting position with his back to the rock wall. A single, flat call from an unseen avian creature high above caused him to turn and peer upward.
The plaintive note seemed so alone, so lost, as if the creature was the last, solitary member of its kind on the planet. It was too dark for Dason to see what had made the lonesome sound that almost mirrored his own feelings.
Laying the back of his head against the cool stone, Dason tried to calm his churning emotions. Bianca was right. It was easy to make decisions when little was at stake.
However, when someone’s life was on the line, it was gut-wrenching, especially when you knew you had failed. Then, it felt as if a hand reached deep inside and tried to rip your heart out.
He had tried to save Captain Ruz and the others, done everything he could, only to lose them, to fail, at the very end.
Not even the discovery of Alpha Prime could counteract the fact that a whole team of brave Star Scouts and perhaps the Nav crew on the Queen were now missing and presumably lost.
Dason listened to the soft breathing of his teammates. He had never had real friends on Randor. The farm that he and his mother had lived on was too isolated, too far away from any others. His few acquaintances were schoolmates, but that was only for a few limited hours a day.
He had never counted anyone in his scout novice class as “friends” and before now, not these four. But over the last few days, he had felt a particular closeness and in a way, a sense of bonding with them.
When they hurt, he hurt, when they were in danger, he was in danger, and when they were happy, he was happy.
Dason turned to look at Shanon. The moon’s angle cast pale moonlight in the small grotto, catching Shanon’s soft features with a silky luminance that brought a tiny smile to his lips.
He took a deep breath and his heartbeat quickened. He could accept his own death but if something were to happen to Shanon, or to any of the others . . .
Shaking his head vigorously to clear his mind of such horrific thoughts, he brought his mind back to the business at hand. He stood and did a quick scan of the area with the LS and his natural eyesight.
All seemed quiet enough. Putting his back to the rock wall, Dason wondered if any of them would be able to get back and tell their story. Or would he and the rest go down in the Star Scout annals as “Missing, unaccounted for, and presumed dead.”
That was the official status of his father. Dason thought how ironic it would be for both father and son to end up on Star Scout Command’s rolls with the same designation.
His eyes grew hard and he bit down on his lower lip. He hoped that was as far as the comparison between himself and his father would go.
Thinking about his father caused him once again to reflect on the images he’d seen after his contact with the extraterrestrial. His father had looked so natural, so lifelike and that intrigued him.
Dason had been little more than a baby when his father went missing and therefore he had no memories of him. How then did he acquire such a clear, almost living memory of his father?
Had it and the other mental images come from his contact with the alien? If so, how? More so, were the images in his mind real or somehow a product of his imagination?
A sudden rustling in the bushes brought him back from his reverie. The forest was coming alive with night creatures who either hunted for food or were hunted themselves.
Dason scooted a little closer to the entrance to put himself between any forest denizen and his sleeping comrades.
He pushed aside any more reflections on his father and the mind pictures. Just as his father’s disappearance on Veni was a mystery, uncertainty mired the myriad images in his mind.
For now, he was no closer to solving the one than the other.
Chapter Sixteen
Star Date: 2443.063
Unnamed planet in the Helix Nebula
Jadar Marrel opened bleary eyes and surveyed his lofty perch. It had been a while since he had had to sleep in the leafy boughs of a tree. In fact, it had been a long while since he’d slept monkey-style, and his cranky muscles told him so.
His choice had been to either wedge himself in the notch of the tree trunk formed by three obliging branches or sleep with one eye open while on the ground.
And after the ferocious charge of whatever it was that had chased him up the tree last night, he was satisfied with his accommodations. Uncomfortable, yes. But he would take safe over comfort any day.
It beat the alternative.
Of course, it had been his own fault that the pseudo lion had caught him off-guard. Or rather, it was the fault of the enormous ship that had floated overhead and totally distracted him.
The sight of the huge craft had him so transfixed that he had momentarily forgotten where he was. He had stood there, his mouth open, just staring upward before he remembered where he was and began to move again.
He had only taken a few steps crossing a rocky knoll, looking for a suitable place to spend the night when the thing had attacked. The feline-like creature’s assault out of the shadowy foliage had been so swift that he hadn’t even had time to draw his stunner.
Only by sheer luck and a heavy dose of adrenaline had he been able to leap high enough to grab a tree limb and chin himself up to evade the night predator’s raking claws.
The thing had prowled the tree’s base sizing him up as its next meal for several minutes. Then, it tried using several low-hanging branches to get to Jadar by digging its claws into the trunk and climbing.
Jadar had given the animal a chance to leave and pursue other prey. However, when it refused to go away and continued trying to scratch its way up the tree he’d pulled his weapon and gave it a low stunner dose.
It didn’t have that far to fall and landed in a crumpled heap at the tree’s base. An hour later, Jadar had heard a muffled growl and watched the four-footed animal rise on unsteady legs only to collapse onto its rump.
The beast had sat for several minutes letting out a plaintive whine. On its second attempt, it managed to stand. Then, weaving like someone who was overly drunk, it slunk away into the nearby underbrush.
Slouching in his midair nest, one leg wrapped around a thick branch and the other hanging loose, Jadar had wrestled all night with the colossal craft’s image.
Sure, the ship was darkened, and he couldn’t make it out all that well, but he’d seen hundreds of deep-space craft in his lifetime, and not one even came close to matching that vessel.
He knew without a doubt that there wasn’t any Imperium ship that could equal the ship’s sheer mass. Moreover, the design of the superstructure was not anything close to conventional Imperium design.
It raised a whole host of questions and thoughts. Was the craft from this planet or another in the nebula? Or perhaps from outside the nebula?
The craft was obviously a space-going vessel—why was it so close to the ground? Had it landed somewhere near? Was there a spaceport of some kind, or a city close by?
More to the point, had he seen an alien craft piloted by extraterrestrials?
He couldn’t get the thought out of his head. What was more, the ship’s course was in the general direction of the Zephyr’s crash site. If so, had it spotted the damaged ship and set down to investigate?
The hair on the back of his neck rose at the thought that he and Shar may have crash-landed on a world inhabited by alien beings.
While those and other thoughts whirled around in his head like a gyrating pulsar, he’d tried to call Shar several times on his communicator, but either the high ground between them had blocked the signal, or something else had interfered with the transmission.
He hoped that Shar had seen the vessel too. Jadar’s skin almost tingled when he thought about the ship and he needed not only Shar’s opinion, but his confirmation that Jadar hadn’t imagined the whole thing.
Now, with the forest beginning to lighten in the early morning glow, Jadar climbed down out of the
willowy tree and took several cautious steps as he circled his savior tree, his stunner outstretched and shoulder-high.
He scanned the area both by eyesight and with his LS. There wasn’t any sign of his nocturnal animal adversary.
Patting the tree trunk that had saved him from a gruesome death, he muttered, “Thanks,” and holstered his L-gun. With quick steps set out toward the distant hills that were his goal.
Now, more than ever, he wanted to get to his destination. He took a deep breath through flared nostrils and settled his L-gun against his hip.
If that alien spacecraft were sitting on the ground, he really, really wanted to meet its pilot; almost as much as he desired to meet the Zephyr’s pilot.
Of course, with the first, he wanted to extend a warm and friendly greeting. With the second—well, a sociable overture was not exactly what he had in mind.
Chapter Seventeen
Star Date: 2443.063
Unnamed planet in the Helix Nebula
Tapping Shanon’s boot, Dason said, “It’s beginning to lighten outside, we need to get moving.” He gave her a little smile. “I know how much you like sleeping on hard rock but I’m afraid I can’t spoil you today.”
Shanon rose from her half-sitting, half lying sleep position. “Ouch,” she muttered and rubbed at her back. “A stone bed just isn’t my idea of comfort.”
“A little sore?” Dason asked.
“A little?” Shanon returned. “My aches have aches.” She pulled herself out of her cocoon blanket and stretched in an attempt to loosen sore and tight muscles.
Dason turned to Nase. “Ready to move out?”
Nase dipped his head in affirmation and swallowed a big swig of water from his mouth tube before saying, “Ready.”
With the two now awake, Dason said, “I’ve been giving this quite a bit of thought. I think we should head back toward the cave and rendezvous with TJ and Sami.”
After a moment, he added, “I thought about trying for the scouters, but with as many XTs as you saw up on the ridgeline, I don’t believe that we can get to them from this direction.