She ducked inside and he twisted sideways to follow. Several smaller jagged edges made it narrow for his bulk.
“It reeks in here,” she said, gasping. “I’m getting no life signs anywhere in the Rockpile. Well, no larger ones. There are lots of smaller animals that have moved in already.” She shined her light into a corner and a thing that looked like a hairy six-legged spider with a monkey glued to its back screeched and darted for cover behind a cabinet.
“It’s probably a scavenger,” he said. “I’m sure that’s what most of the things in here are at this point.”
“That’s decidedly creepy looking,” she said.
“My body is in a shielded closet along the right side wall in the next room,” Marti said. “The video that Director Parker provided us shows that as where the majority of the fighting occurred.”
“That’s also where most of the monkey-spiders are,” she said. “They don’t seem aggressive, so we should be alright.”
“Let’s just get Marti’s body and get on with things,” he said. He was swinging his light back and forth making sure there weren’t other creatures that might not be so timid sneaking up on them.
The main gallery looked like a bomb had gone off. Bodies, and pieces of bodies, littered the floor. A dried, red-brown goo covered the walls like a horrifying coat of paint. Some of the corpses had arrows through them, but the vast majority were crushed to a pulp. Or ripped to pieces.
When they swept the room with their handbeams, the spider things bellowed, leaping away like the light was painful. They were scavengers, and there were several other smaller animals also feeding on the carnage.
“Frak, what a mess,” Ammo hissed, struggling not to shiver despite the relative warmth in the room. “This is unbelievable.”
“Try not to look at anything that doesn’t need your attention.” Quinn eased up beside her and pointed at the door. He took her hand and put it on the strap to his pack. “Nothing else matters. To us or to them. Just stay with me and focus on what we have to do. We need to get that table out of the way and then we can get out of here.”
She nodded, following him across the room. Between them, they dragged the conference table far enough that they could get the locker opened. A body, pinned against the wall behind the massive table, collapsed onto the floor as they pulled it away, and several of the scavengers lunged for it. A sweep of Quinn’s light sent them scurrying back with a wave of indignant howling.
Ammo grabbed the door handle and jerked it open.
“I am online,” Marti said, its voice coming from inside the room rather than over the comm.
“Good, then let’s get out of here,” she said, already turning to dash for the door.
“The PSE locker area is through the other door in the entrance room,” Marti said increasing the volume of its voice. She was almost to the exit but stopped.
“You’re not so good with violence, are you?” Quinn said, coming out of the main gallery with Marti following in his shadow. He closed the door behind them. Firmly.
“I can deal with it,” she said. “It’s just that there’s so much.”
He nodded. “I’m arachnophobic, so as long as the scavengers have monkeys screwed to them, I can almost pretend they’re not spiders.”
“What’s in the locker room that we need?” she said, jumping back to Marti’s comment.
“The recording ended when the power went off, and that was the last known location of the captain and crew,” it said. “Nothing has indicated that they were taken prisoner other than the word of Director Parker.”
Pulling out his scanner, Quinn took a deep breath and walked up to the other door. “No life signs. Not even small ones.”
“I can do this if it is easier for you,” Marti said. Its automech face showed an expression of concern.
He shook his head and opened the door. Shining his light inside, he let out a slow hiss. “One body, mostly intact. And it’s not one of ours,” he said, pushing the door closed again and setting his hand in the middle of it while he hung his head and just breathed.
“Then let’s get to it,” she said. “How do we track them fastest?”
“We should be able to pick up their PSE power signatures.” He turned away from the door and leaned back against it.
“Only from close range with the hand-held scanners,” Marti said. “The shuttle would be able to detect them for several kilometers, but if the Ut’arans or any of the other creatures that live in the jungle see a shuttle, the reaction could be unpredictable and violent. Appearing with a blatant display of technology to rescue them might adversely affect their survival chances.”
“I figured we’d have to track them on foot,” Quinn said. “I used to hunt badgers in the back woods on the farm as a kid. A badger rarely leaves much to follow, so I know how to track fair.”
“They have a full day head start,” she reminded him.
“So, we move fast, but according to what we saw on the recording, they’re traveling with at least one person who has no PSE,” he said. “That should slow them down a lot, and if the cap’n is hoping for a rescue party, he’ll be doing everything he can to drag his boots. It will be in his mind to stay as close to ground zero as possible.”
“That is logical,” Marti said. “Additionally, the Ut’arans will not travel at night under almost any circumstance. They have excellent night vision, but the jungle is not safe after sundown. You will need to travel only during the day as well, as all the known predators are nocturnal. Several of them are substantial.”
“You’re sure there’s nothing to worry about during the day?” she asked.
“There are several smaller creatures that might be dangerous if cornered, but the only one you will need to worry about is the wakat.” Marti’s face disappeared and an image of one of the wakats they’d seen just before they entered the Rockpile took its place. “It is not a predator, but it is easily agitated, extremely fast, socially organized, and capable of lethal violence. It is comparable to an Earth chimpanzee in size. There are feral wakat, but some of them live symbiotically with the Ut’arans. They also have a rudimentary language that some of the natives speak and they appear to operate as spies or sentinels.”
“They were all over the video of the attack,” Quinn said.
“That means if one of them notices us, we’re in trouble?” Ammo asked.
“Yes,” it said.
“Then you shouldn’t go with us,” she said. “A shiny metal midget would definitely attract attention.”
“I am approximately the same height as the native Ut’arans,” it said, sounding insulted at the implied inadequacy of its stature.
“But you do shine,” Quinn said, looking down at their slick synthetic coveralls and tugging on the fabric. “If we’re going to get close enough to rescue our people without setting off the werecats, we should go naked. There’s no way this won’t attract attention.”
“Even nude, I should point out to you, that unless you walk on your knees, you are nearly double the size of a native Ut’aran,” it said.
“There is that,” Ammo said.
“Momma fed me well, what can I say?” He grinned.
“You aren’t serious, are you?”
He nodded. “Only issue in my mind is that it will also make hiding our gear challenging.”
“The Ut’arans wear utility pouches and shoulder packs,” Marti suggested.
“You’re not helping,” she said, glaring at the automech. “Our utility belt and packs are as obvious as our jumpsuits.”
“There are several examples of their pouches in the PSE locker room in a small display cabinet to the right of the door.”
Quinn pulled it open and stepped inside. She heard plasglass shattering and he reappeared carrying two brown bags with long belt like straps attached to them. He held one out to her and swung the other over his shoulder.
“We’re amped up on all these vaso-regulators, so our clothes are optional. If we don’t sm
ell and look synthetic, then we stand a better chance of getting closer before they spot us.”
“Did you hunt baggers, or whatever you called them, naked?”
“Badgers,” he said. “I didn’t, but I had an uncle that did. He said it was easier to get close and it made it a lot more exciting.”
“You’ve got to have the strangest family in all of human civilization, you know that don’t you?”
“What? Are you growing a timid streak?” he teased, ignoring the insult to his heritage.
“No, but… frak, I guess it doesn’t matter.” She shook her head.
“At least this way, if we run across any werecats they won’t freak out and kill us instantly,” he said.
“They are called wakats,” Marti corrected.
“I’m sure they’ll still get bendy when we can’t say hello,” she said.
“There is a linguistic database in the computer here. Since you appear to have decided that I am a liability to your stealth, I will endeavor to get the power operational and download the information. I should be able to provide limited translation capability.”
“You don’t think an earpiece will upset the locals?” she said, shooting Quinn a glare that bounced off with no effect.
He was busy transferring the contents of his pack into the Ut’aran pouch.
Finally, she shrugged. He was right. As insane as it felt, if they could blend in, the chances of getting close enough to rescue their people would be a lot better.
Shoving her gear into the pouch he’d handed her, she peeled down her coverall and thinskin with a sigh. Facing a jungle, and who knew what else, naked was playing her senses hard. The vaso-drugs made the air around her feel much colder than it was, and she shivered again.
Tying the belt pouch around her waist, she slid it around to the front like an apron. “Is this how they wear them?” she asked, turning to face Marti
“Females wear them to the side and males wear them to the front,” it said. “However, you both appear to have the version worn by females since the belt straps are equal length.”
“Wonderful,” Quinn said. “Even nude, I get to go in drag.”
“Can we just get on with this?” she said, walking over to the door and looking outside. “It looks like the sun is up, so we should be good to go.”
Stepping up behind her, he smiled. “One naked man with a knife can do more damage in a night, than an army, though clothed and heavily armed,” he said.
“What?” She waggled a finger in her ear. She was sure she hadn’t heard him right. “Never mind, it’s probably something your momma used to say.”
“Yup. And she was good with a knife too.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ethan spent the night staring up at the sky with his suit powered down and his mind wandering restlessly, even as his body lay pinned to the spot by his own crushing weight. Just before sunrise, a fireball shot overhead. On its own, it would have been an impressive sight, except that as he watched it arc across the sky, it began to deflect off its original trajectory.
It wasn’t a meteor. A pilot was flying it!
Nuko slept on the ground beside him and he flopped his hand over against her, rattling her awake. “Help is on the way,” he whispered.
“How do you know?”
“I saw a shuttle on a ballistic reentry,” he said.
She rolled her head in his direction and there was just enough light from the coming sunrise that he could see her face. “Too late for Toby.”
A knife of guilt slashed through him and he swallowed hard. “But not for the rest of us, maybe,” he said. “We’ve got to hang in there and they’ll find us.”
“Hopefully,” she said.
“I saw it too,” Angel whispered. “Why would they be doing a freefall dive? That’s got to be like sending up a beacon.”
“Apparently it got the Ut’aran’s attention, too,” Tash said as she sat up and powered her visor.
“Can you follow what they’re saying?”
“Just that they’re arguing about the shiny one not being good with them,” she said. “See how they’re sitting back to back while she talks to them? That means she’s arbitrating their disagreement. When she finishes listening, she’ll decide which perspective is right and which is wrong.”
“If they’re connecting a shuttle entering the atmosphere with the shiny man, then it sounds like they know where the shiny ones live,” Nuko said.
“We never do that kind of landing,” she said. “We’re careful to do all our approaches over the southern sea and come in slowly so we don’t attract exactly this kind of attention.”
“Alright, I’m tired of this,” he said, sitting up with a grunt and turning to glare at her. “We know about the natives on the station. We also know that you were traveling back from Proxima with one. So, you want to explain it to me?”
“I’m not sure what—”
“If you’re going to tell me anything but the straight specs on this, then don’t bother,” he said. “Our lives depend on knowing what’s really going on here. You have to know more than you’re telling us.”
“I don’t know what—”
“If I’m going to get us through this, I need the truth from you. Either start talking or I’ll have Angel hold your ass down, and I’m taking your battery pack and putting it in Rene’s suit and leaving you here.”
She opened her mouth to reply but just blinked several times. She glanced at Angel who had gotten up on her knees and looked ready to do as he’d suggested.
Nuko reached out a hand and put it on his leg. Her eyes begged, Please, don’t do this.
Shaking his head, he looked back at Tash. “I’m done being lied to. I know you’ve got Ut’arans working as slave labor on the station.”
“Not as slaves,” she whispered. “They’re containment accidents. We can’t let them stay here after they’ve seen us. So, we take them up to Watchtower and teach them enough to deal with our civilization.”
“What about the implants?”
“What implants?” she asked, looking shocked. “I don’t know about any implants.”
“Tash doesn’t know,” Sandi hissed. She kept her eyes closed as she hauled in a pained breath. She looked a half step from death with her skin ghostly white and her teeth shining in a hard edged grimace as the gravity pulled her face drum-tight over her skull. “Was… Morgan’s idea… nobody else… knows.”
“What do the implants do?” he asked.
“Teach…” she wheezed.
Ethan glanced over at Mir’ah. She was staring at him while the two members of her tribe were still arguing over the meaning of the shuttle. “That explains how she knows our language,” he said.
“No… only ones… up there…” Her voice trailed off into a slow hiss. Ethan watched for several seconds before he saw her chest rise again in another breath.
“Then somebody needs to explain her,” he challenged, flinging his arm toward Mir’ah.
Sandi’s eyes flickered open and locked on his. “Can’t,” she mouthed silently.
“Marat akUt’ar ta’eka sho’te caros ena’che.” Mir’ah’s words sliced through Ethan’s next thought as they echoed from across the encampment. She had her hand on one of the two who were arguing as if she was bestowing a blessing.
“She’s passed judgment,” Tash whispered.
“What did she say?”
“Something about the shiny man pouring down blood of the stars, maybe?”
“That sounds like a bad omen,” Angel said.
Judging from the reaction of Mir’ah’s people, the handler was probably right. They were all moving at once, packing up things and loading various objects into their wakat’s pouches.
“Looks like it’s time to move out,” Ethan said, switching his suit’s power on and standing up. His night vision arm swung into place and he blinked several times. Through the visor, the sky was brighter than daylight even though the ground was still dark.
&
nbsp; The rest of the humans, except for Sandi, all climbed to their feet. Tash bent over her and started to pick her up, but she shook her head.
“It’s… my turn,” she said, groaning as Tash tried to pull her up by her arms.
“I won’t leave you here,” Tash said, her voice cracking.
Angel leaned close to the captain’s ear and whispered, “If that was a rescue party and they track us on foot, leaving her here means they’ll find her first. We’ve been holding the Ut’arans back, so we’re probably a half-day from help getting here.”
“You think they’ll be tracking us on the ground?” he asked.
“I don’t think they’ll risk an aerial search.” She shrugged.
“That assumes they care at all,” he said. “Obviously, this isn’t the first contact the Ut’arans have had with us. Somebody’s left footprints all over this civilization, and they don’t seem to be overly worried about the natives seeing them. They risked a lot of exposure doing that hot entry.”
“It’s a hard call to make, but I think she’s got better chances of getting help faster if we don’t carry her farther,” she said, shrugging. “And if they do fly in, we can always lead them back to her.”
Staring down at Sandi, he nodded.
He reached out and pulled Tash back to a standing position by her shoulder. “She’s right. We know help is coming, so she’s better off if we leave her here.”
“We can’t—”
“Yes. We can,” he said. “They’ll be tracking us on foot, which means they’ll find her before they catch up with us. I need you and what you know about the Ut’arans with me.”
“Kep’tan Woh’kah,” Mir’ah said, startling him. She’d come up and stood outside the rope ring watching their exchange. “We go at new sun.”
“She needs we’ir sharrah,” he said, shaking his head. The more we can slow them down, the sooner we all get to go home.
She looked down at Sandi and made a noise that sounded like a grunt. “Marat akUt’ar comes. Is no good at Mir’ah.”
“No. She cannot go more,” he said. “We must give her to the jungle.”
Wings of Earth- Season One Page 54