by Dan Oakley
I scanned the room and felt like I’d been punched in the gut when I saw Cartwright’s half-eaten body to the left of the door.
Slowly, I moved closer. He was sprawled on his back, his unseeing eyes staring up at the ceiling through his visor.
I knew what I had to do, but I didn’t like it. Cartwright was dead. There was no doubt about it. No man could have survived having his innards ripped out. Still, I kneeled beside him and checked his vital signs. When I was sure he was dead, I muttered an old Terrano prayer, removed his headset and closed his eyes.
“Rest in peace, Cartwright,” I muttered as I took off my headset.
The smell of rotting flesh was overwhelming as I fumbled with Cartwright’s headset. I pulled it on as quickly as I could and then tested the comms.
“Is anyone there?”
“Cartwright?” It was Draylan who answered.
“No, it’s me, Tomas. I’m using Cartwright’s headset because mine is broken.”
“We thought you were dead, Tomas. Where are you?”
“I’m in the room where we found the scientists. I found Cartwright’s body. Is everyone else okay?”
“We are all in the lobby, except Trella… She’s missing.”
My stomach clenched. “When did you last see her?” I walked over to the door, preparing to go and meet them in the lobby.
“The same time you did,” Draylan replied. “She left saying she just needed a moment but never returned. She isn’t responding to us over the comms system.”
“I’m coming to the lobby now.”
“Roger that.”
When I found them all in the lobby, Draylan greeted me with a slap on the back. Bobby pulled me in for a hug and Bayliss managed a weak smile. Zarak was pacing back and forth.
“So we’ve been working on a plan,” Draylan said.
“To find Trella?” I asked.
“We don’t need her now you’re back,” Zarak said. “All you have to do is work out how to channel the energy of those crystals, and we’ll be able to communicate with the K.S. Morellic.” Zarak sneered at me. “Surely even you can manage that.”
I shook my head. “We’re not leaving her behind.”
“We’re not suggesting that, Tomas,” Draylan said. “We’re going to search for her while you work out how to use the crystals. Bayliss can help you. He’s seen the jump protocol initiated many times.”
I wanted to refuse and insist I join them looking for Trella, but Draylan was right. I was the only person here who had any magical ability.
“Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll give it my best shot, but I’m not initiating the jump until we know what has happened to Trella.”
“Fair enough,” Draylan said.
“You’re a fool,” Zarak scoffed. “If she’s not here with us now, that means she’s dead.”
I shook my head again, not wanting to admit Zarak might be right. “She could be hurt. Maybe her comms system is down like mine was.”
Zarak turned away in disgust.
“Let’s move out,” Draylan said. “We’ll start the search for Trella, and Tomas and Bayliss will go to the communication suite.”
He handed me the four oblong crystals marked with runes. They were lighter than I expected and felt warm beneath my fingers.
Bobby, Zarak and Draylan headed to the left, and Bayliss and I took the right-hand corridor.
Bayliss tapped his wrist device. “It’s on the top floor. Up three flights,” he grunted.
I followed him, keeping my weapon handy just in case. Though I knew they didn’t do much against the lizards, it made me feel better to feel the weight of the gun in my hands.
I followed Bayliss’s broad, hulking form up the stairs.
“So, you think you know what to do with these crystals?” I asked.
“There should be a console somewhere in the communication suite where the crystals are inserted. Your job is to make them vibrate so they will amplify the transmission signal. At least, I think that’s the idea. I can help you with where to put the crystals, but I’ve no idea how to activate them. It’s magic so that bit is down to you.”
I hoped I would be able to get the crystals to function correctly. There was no way I would go as far as initiating the jump even if I could, though. Not until we found out what had happened to Trella. Even then, I wasn’t jumping without the spiky-haired girl. We couldn’t just leave her here on this planet with predatory lizards. It was amazing she’d survived alone for ten years. Adjusting to life in the Kingdoms wouldn’t be easy, but it would be a flaming sight better than staying here.
There was no harm in getting ready for the jump, though. If we got everything in place, we’d be prepared to go. If Trella had been hurt and needed treatment, the quicker we got back to the ship, the better.
The commander was an evil man who’d sent his sister to her death and refused to help her, but we could sort that out once we got off the planet. There had to be some way to report him and make sure he paid for his crimes. I made a mental note to ask the spiky-haired girl for a copy of the recording to use as evidence if we needed it.
The third floor had suffered some damage. Chunks had been taken out of the corridor walls, and large scratch marks ran parallel to the floor. I suppressed a shudder. Lizards had definitely been up here.
We found the communication suite quickly. It was a large room with multiple workstations. Bayliss identified the console we needed to use, but it appeared to be dead. Like the rest of the building, the power to this room had been cut.
“The crystals need to go in here,” Bayliss said, scrunching up his eyes and peering at the console. There were holes for each of the four crystals above an array of buttons. Under normal circumstances, when the power was connected, I imagined the buttons would be illuminated.
“So, do I just put them in the holes?” I asked.
“No, they need to be charged up first. Every time I’ve seen this happen, the mage does something to the crystals to make them glow. Something about vibrational energy, I think.” Bayliss looked at me hopefully.
I set the crystals down beside the console then selected one. It was marked with a water rune. I had no idea why. The crystal was pale pink, and its surface was smooth. I ran a finger over the rune engraved into its side. It already felt full of energy to me. I could feel it faintly buzzing against my skin. I tightened my grip and tried to imagine increasing the vibrational energy.
“That’s it!” Bayliss grinned at me just a moment later. “It’s working.”
He was right. The crystal was glowing.
I grinned back and put the crystal in the top slot. I tried again with a slightly smaller, stubby crystal and again it began to glow within seconds. I inserted that one below the first and grabbed the pale blue, thin crystal next. It felt good to have something go right for once. After the crystal was glowing brightly, I inserted it and picked up the last crystal. It was tapered at one end and a soft muted purple. It didn’t glow as brightly as the others, but I hoped it would do.
As I put my hand over the base of the crystal to push it in, I felt a jolt. Power and strength seem to flow through my veins. It felt good but slightly unnerving.
I withdrew my hand.
“Is that it?” I asked.
“That’s the preliminary stuff. We should be able to hook up to the power of the crystals and communicate with the K.S. Morellic now. Do you want to try?” Bayliss asked.
I frowned. “I think we should wait for Draylan and the others.”
“Fair enough,” Bayliss said. “I’ll see how they are getting on.”
He called them over the comms, and Draylan answered quickly.
“Tomas did a great job with the crystals. We are ready to initiate communication with the ship. How’s the search going?” Bayliss asked.
There was a pause, and I waited with a lump in my throat for Draylan’s reply. “It’s not good news,” he said. “We found Trella’s headset. It’s been smashed, and it’s covered with blo
od.”
Bayliss’s eyes met mine as he gave a low curse.
“I’m certain Trella is dead,” Draylan said.
“Did you find her body?” I asked. “If you didn’t, then there’s a chance she is still alive and injured. We can’t leave without her.”
“Tomas I know this is hard to accept,” Draylan said firmly. “But from the amount of blood we found I don’t see how Trella can still be alive.”
“It may not be her blood,” I said, clutching at straws.
“We tested it. It’s definitely hers. We’re making our way to the communication suite now,” Draylan said. “Wait there for us, and we’ll initiate contact with the K.S. Morellic when we get there.”
My legs felt weak, and I collapsed into a chair beside the console. Bayliss put his large hand on my shoulder but said nothing. There was nothing he could say.
Chapter 25
My mind was reeling. Was Trella really dead? She was such a powerful mage and could easily destroy a single lizard, but had multiple creatures attacked her at once? I’d seen how vulnerable she was when unconscious. Perhaps she’d been knocked out again and was unable to defend herself.
It was hard to believe she was gone.
I stayed beside the console with my head in my hands until the rest of the team arrived.
“Is the system working?” Zarak asked, striding up to the console and smiling when he saw the tips of the glowing crystals.
“Tomas has done well,” Bayliss said gently.
“Let’s initiate communication with the K.S. Morellic,” Draylan said. “We won’t mention the recording of Commander Taggert. We’ll deal with that when we get back on board. We’ll put in a request for the K.S. Morellic to move closer to Tor. The jump mages on board should be able to initiate the jump once the ship is in range.”
“But what if Trella was right?” Bobby asked. “What if Commander Taggert doesn’t want us jumping back onto the ship. What if he expects us all to die here?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Draylan said. “There’s no reason the commander should know we’ve discovered his secret. If anything, our stories could corroborate that the science team met their end in an unfortunate attack by the lizards before they had a chance to send an SOS. Let me do the talking when we contact the ship. I’ll tell him how sorry we are about his sister’s death. I won’t mention the useless weapons. If I’m convincing, he’ll let us back on board because we’ll back up his version of events.”
I’d worked my magic; now it was Bayliss’s turn. He keyed in the code, even though the buttons looked like they weren’t functioning. After he pressed the individual buttons, each one lit up. They had to be drawing energy from the crystals somehow.
His face creased in concentration. “Nearly there,” he said. “I’ve set the transmission sequence. Now we have to wait for the K.S. Morellic to respond.”
It was unsettling when they didn’t respond to our call immediately, and Bayliss studied the console again, checking to make sure he hadn’t made any errors. The crystals were still glowing so they weren’t at fault.
Draylan sighed. “That bastard better not be ignoring us.”
Zarak began to pace the control suite, and Bobby stood with his arms folded staring at the glowing crystals as though he was willing them to work.
Finally, a screen rose from the console. I hadn’t noticed it before. It was small. Less than three inches in diameter. The screen flickered, and then a man wearing the Seven Kingdoms’ insignia on the breast of his blue uniform came into view.
“Identification.”
Draylan spoke for us. “Ensign Draylan, calling on behalf of the rescue crew that went down to Tor. We are requesting assistance to jump back to the ship.”
“One moment please.”
He disappeared from the screen, and tinny music began to play.
“That dirt wipe has just put us on hold,” Bayliss growled.
Draylan put up a hand to urge him to be quiet. For all we knew, they could be listening to us.
A moment later Commander Taggert appeared on the screen. His features were pinched and tense. I stared at the man who’d cold-bloodedly sent his sister here to die and clenched my fists.
“Report, Ensign.”
Draylan told the commander an abbreviated version of what had happened since we’d arrived on Tor. He offered his condolences for the loss of the commander’s sister and gravely reported the deaths of Ensigns Borrack, Marteen and Cartwright.
“Were there no survivors of the original science expedition?” The commander arched an eyebrow.
“I’m afraid not, commander,” Draylan said.
I wouldn’t have liked to play poker with Draylan. He seemed truthful and sincere even though I knew there were many details he’d left out of the story.
“Anything else I should know?” Commander Taggert asked.
“Only that we believe our mage, Trella, perished on the mission also. We haven’t located her body but found the remains of her headset.”
“I see. Very unfortunate. You still have the rookie mage?”
Draylan turned to look at me. “Yes, commander. Tomas is fine. He was able to use his magic so we could use the crystals to communicate with the ship.”
“That’s good to hear. Anything else to report about Tor?”
Behind me, Zarak made an impatient tutting sound. Though we had shut the door to the communications suite, we knew mere doors were not enough to hold back the lizards and every moment counted. We needed to get the jump initiated as soon as possible, and I needed to find the spiky-haired girl so we could bring her back to the ship.
“Everything went as expected, I’m afraid, Commander. Sadly, we weren’t able to rescue any of the science expedition crew. Ensigns Borrack, Marteen and Cartwright fought bravely, but the mutant lizards are dangerous predators.”
The commander’s face softened with relief. He believed his secret was safe. “You and your crew did well, Ensign. I will transfer you back to the jump tech to sort out the details.”
The commander cut the screen, and a moment later we were looking at the same crewman who had first answered our call for help.
He sorted through the details with Draylan and told us the jump would occur in thirty minutes.
As they went over the details, I turned to Bayliss. “I need to find the girl. We can’t leave her on this planet with those predators.”
Bayliss looked at the time on his wrist device. “You need to be back here in time for the jump, Tomas. They won’t wait for you if you are delayed and then you’ll be stuck here. Do you understand?”
I said that I did, and we synchronized the time on our wrist devices.
As I moved across to the door, Zarak grabbed my arm. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To find the girl. We can’t leave her here.”
“You think you’re some kind of hero, Tomas. But you’re just a common mage. I think those powers have gone to your head. We need to save ourselves.”
“We will.” I yanked my arm away. “I’ll be back in time.”
“You’d better be. If you screw up this jump, I’ll kill you.”
I left the communication suite before anyone else could think of stopping me. I checked the layout of the building on my wrist device and headed back toward the spiky-haired girl’s safe haven. I hoped she’d still be there. I didn’t have much time. Only half an hour to persuade her she needed to come back to the ship with me, despite the fact our commander was a murderous dirt sucker.
Part of me hoped I would run into Trella, too. I still found it hard to accept that she was gone, especially as we hadn’t seen her body. If I’d seen her die or seen her remains that would be a different matter. Then I’d have no choice but to accept she was dead.
I’d gone down the stairs and was walking through the lobby when I heard a voice behind me.
“Hey, wait up.” It was Zarak.
Great. I really didn’t have time for this. If h
e wanted to talk to me, he would have to keep moving because I wasn’t slowing down for a chat.
“What’s your problem?” he shouted when I didn’t slow down for him.
“I’m in a rush. We only have half an hour.”
“Well, I was going to offer my help… But I guess you don’t need it.”
I gave him a sideways glance. It was hard to tell with Zarak whether or not he was sincere but since we were so short on time, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.
“All right then. I’m going to check the room where I saw her last, why don’t you check the other rooms on this corridor just in case.”
“Sure,” he said. “I can do that.”
His friendliness surprised me and caught me off guard. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
I took off at a run, leaving him to search the corridor, but before I got to the double doors at the end, I heard him call out in surprise.
I turned to see him standing at the doorway to one of the rooms, bracing himself against the sliding door.
“What is it?” I asked.
“You have to see this,” Zarak said, not bothering to turn and look at me.
“What?”
Why couldn’t he just tell me what he was looking at? I didn’t have time to mess about.
Zarak turned slowly, his eyes wide. “It’s Trella.”
Trella? Was she still alive? Injured? Did she need our help?
I ran back to Zarak and pushed in front of him to look inside the room. I couldn’t see what he’d been looking at. My gaze bounced from object to object. It was a small storage room with a variety of different sized boxes and supplies. There was no sign of Trella…
I opened my mouth and turned back to Zarak to ask what he was playing at when I felt a sharp pain in between my ribs.
It took a few seconds for my brain to process what was going on. I reached around to feel the back of my armor, and when I drew my hand away, I saw it was covered with blood.
I looked at Zarak in horror.
He smiled coldly. “Trella is dead, and you’re not messing up my chance to get off of this hell hole of a planet by searching for some feral kid. You can’t say I didn’t warn you.”