Thetis--The Deep Sky Saga--Book Two

by Greg Boose

  They roll backwards out of the gate, the electric engine barely making a noise. The guard gives a tired wave as he speaks into his walkie-talkie. The gate closes as soon as the hood is clear.

  The inside of the rover is like a control center; there are over a dozen screens lining the ceiling, headrests, console, and windshield, showing green graphs and red sonar blips and glowing blue charts, all flanked by scrolling numbers that mean nothing to Jonah. He takes a bite of a homemade protein bar from Vespa’s backpack and keeps watching. One screen appears to show the weather with little blobs of clouds moving along the eastern coastline of their small continent, while several others show live feeds of the sleepy village and alien landscape: a vast stretch of a valley bursts with thousands of geysers shooting high into the sky, while black dots—birds or huge insects—hover and then fly straight through the spouts; on another feed, fast-moving waves lap a rocky beach; and then another screen shows a mountainside covered in huge, stacked pools of water that spill and empty into each other, creating a beautiful, seemingly endless waterfall. Seeing all the water across the screens reminds Jonah why the planet was named Thetis in the first place: In Greek mythology, Thetis was known as the goddess of water. She married a half-god, half-man named Peleus. Their son: Achilles.

  Jonah’s eyes shift to a drone feed slowly sweeping through a group of a purplish trees. At the base of the trees, boulders surround the trunks like clumsy pyramids, some piles reaching halfway up the trunks. The camera swoops left and right until diving and landing on the ground with a slight bounce just as a herd of large shadows appears.

  “Watch this,” the woman whispers as she presses the screen. “Just watch.”

  The camera zooms in on the shadows, which quickly become turtle-like creatures with smooth, domed backs. Jonah doesn’t remember these animals from the Thetis Bible; they must be newly discovered. They’re as big as horses and move quickly, scrambling up to the boulders on tall, narrow legs with wide feet; they look like walking tables, Jonah thinks as he watches them form huddles around the different trees. While the others remain still, one from each huddle falls onto its side. The others crouch behind the fallen member and lower their heads, and then together they push the creature toward the tree trunk, bulldozing the boulders farther up the trunk.

  “That’s kind of…” Jonah starts, but the woman holds up her finger for him to hold his thought.

  Each of the creatures being pushed by its huddle dives its feet into the cracks between the moving rocks. It doesn’t take long before the shoved creatures start pulling long snakes out from between them, and it doesn’t take long for Jonah to realize that they aren’t snakes they’re grabbing, but instead they’re long tentacles or arms attached to fat, hairless animals being violently pulled to the surface. As soon as the sideways turtle-creature has a tentacled animal in each claw, the others stop using it as a plow and take the fat animals in their mouths.

  The woman taps the screen and zooms in tight on one of the huddles. “And then…”

  The turtle-creatures strip the animals of their tentacles and toss them into a pile where the sideways member rolls back onto its feet and dives its head into the tentacles with fervor.

  “Apparently, the arms are the best parts,” the woman says. “The others reward the one they use as a plow with the meatiest bits. They’re the leaders of their little clans amongst the herd. There’s a hierarchy. To be used is to be respected.”

  Jonah thinks about that phrase, to be used is to be respected. He’s been used all his life, by foster parents who simply wanted the monthly government stipend for keeping him under their roofs, by older kids on the streets of Cleveland who used him and his baby face to beg for food and loose change, by the academy and by Tunick and the Splitters on Achilles, and never once has he felt respected.

  “That was interesting and all,” Vespa says, “but can we focus here? A crazy woman has our friend somewhere out there.”

  The man with the scar turns around with a smile. “You got it, captain… Captain what again? I should know my new captain’s name, don’t you think?”

  In the passenger seat, the man with the ponytail chuckles and nods and turns a few knobs on the console between them.

  With venom in her voice she reports, “My name is Vespa Bolivar, and I’m a fourth-year cadet who just survived a crash landing, a bunch of bloodthirsty animals, a sadistic group of teenagers, and three nights of sleeping on your shitty hammocks. I’ve earned some stripes. Now, let’s—”

  “We’re here,” the woman says matter-of-factly.

  The rover comes to a stop. The first thing Jonah sees out the window is a grouping of gray, twisted trees. The same ones Armitage Blythe pulled the bark from in his infamous video shared around the Earth at lightning speed. He can still picture the cadet tearing the bark away, revealing a nest of white, bat-like creatures that took flight in a misty cloud of ink. The second thing Jonah sees is the blood smeared across several of the trunks, leading down an embankment.

  “Everybody out,” the bald man says.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The gray grass under Jonah’s boots pops and shatters with every step. He follows the adults into the trees, stepping where they step, bracing his hands where theirs just were. It’s hot and sticky, and his gray jumpsuit clings to his skin like wet tissues.

  “We found the yellow jacket right over there,” the woman says, pointing to the bottom of a large, twisted tree. “Showed up in our headlights while we’re headed back to camp.”

  Jonah stares at the tree and the blood on its trunk, wondering why they didn’t leave the jacket where it was for evidence, or immediately investigate once they found it. He also wonders whose blood it is. Did Paul wake up and attack Dr. Z, ripping her jacket off and then chasing her into the forest? Or did Dr. Z carve up Paul’s skin with some new message to warn the others?

  He stumbles past everyone, making his own path, and soon finds himself standing on the edge of a cliff. Half a mile below, thousands of geysers erupt in the valley, creating an enormous cloud of green mist that hovers overhead, blocking out the sun. The cliff Jonah stands on goes on for miles and miles, almost completely circling the valley. Way off on his right, a series of waterfalls descend the cliff into a giant pool that narrows and funnels into a twisting stream, cutting right through the geysers on the valley floor.

  “You see those little black dots in all those waterfalls?” the woman asks as she comes up behind him.

  Jonah thinks he might see some black specks in the water when he squints but can’t be sure.

  The woman holds her sheaf out in front of Jonah’s face and turns on the camera. She raises her chin, triggering the zoom function, and suddenly it’s as if they’re hovering right above a waterfall halfway up the cliff. On her screen, small horned animals with squashed, pig-like faces bob up and down in the water above one of the falls. There are hundreds of them, maybe thousands. And they go over the falls seemingly without worry, plummeting with their short arms held above their heads. The woman zooms in even closer on a couple of the animals, following them all the way down the cliff, down waterfall after waterfall, and when they finally reach the giant pool at the bottom, they go underwater and never resurface, disappearing without a trace. Her sheaf scans the pool’s surface and then follows the stream cutting through the valley. Not one of the animals floats through. Thousands keep coming down the falls, and then they’re gone.

  “Are they…dying? Are they killing themselves?” Jonah asks.

  “Maybe,” the woman answers. “But we don’t know for sure because we can’t find any bodies. They just,” she snaps her fingers, “go away. Even with our drones, we can’t figure it out. Yet.”

  Jonah watches for a few more seconds before his eyes are drawn to a splattering of blood near his feet. There’s more to his left, and he quickly starts to follow it down a ridge that hugs the cliff’s edge.

  “Yo, Firstie,” Vespa says behind him. “Wait u
p.”

  The man with the ponytail suddenly pushes past Vespa and then Jonah, descending the ridge in a jog with series of loud, hacking coughs, his head still nodding, his rifle bouncing on his back.

  “He lives for this kind of stuff,” the woman says as she drops in line behind Vespa. The bald man takes up the rear, whistling and clicking his tongue as if this is just a walk in the park.

  “Does he keep nodding because of the… What’s wrong?” Vespa asks.

  “It’s from the wormhole,” the woman says. “He hasn’t been able to stop moving his head ever since we went through two years ago. Even does it in his sleep, from what I’ve heard.”

  The ridge continues to descend and curve left, ending at a large, circular space dotted with cave entrances. As Jonah comes down the final steps of the ridge, he doesn’t know where to look: at the half-circle of black doorways punched into the stone, or at the small sculptures all around him; rocks of all sizes and shapes are stacked on top of each other, balancing and wobbling in the swirling wind that sweeps through the area.

  “Who the hell made those?” Vespa asks.

  A low groan comes from one of the caves. The man with the ponytail whips his gun off his back and looks through his scope, nodding and bobbing the barrel of the rifle from cave to cave until pointing at one on the left. “He’s in there.”

  “Who? Paul?” Jonah asks.

  “Better be.”

  Vespa and Jonah sprint into the cave and slide to a stop when they find Paul leaning against the cold wall. His eyes are closed, and his head is down, and right below his heart, blood stains his green jumpsuit.

  “Paul!” Vespa grabs his face and tips it up to hers. “Shit, shit, shit. Are you okay? What happened?”

  Jonah’s eyes bounce from the wound below the boy’s heart to the tiny, precise cuts all over his skin, covering his neck and face and even the palms of his hands. The lines are shallow, looking as if someone carefully dragged a paperclip or needle across his skin.

  “What the hell did she do to him?” the man with the ponytail asks as he approaches. He’s out of breath, hands on his knees. “Looks like the doctor went to town on him. Looks like she was…designing something.”

  It takes Jonah a moment to realize that the scratches aren’t random, but instead form patterns like a maze or a map. He immediately jumps to his feet and squints into the darkness, knowing that Dr. Z could be just out of sight and ready to attack.

  “Is he breathing or what?” the bald man asks. He stands just outside the cave, his back to the group, his rifle sweeping the open space.

  The woman takes a few photos of Paul with her sheaf before setting a canteen to his lips. Paul’s throat pulses and swallows, his head rolls over his shoulder, and his eyes flutter open until he focuses on Vespa.

  “Hey, cadet,” he whispers to Vespa.

  “Hey, yourself.”

  Paul’s eyes connect with Jonah’s, and then they crawl to the three adults hovering nearby. The boy plants his hands on the ground and tries to stand, but immediately clutches the wound on his side and groans.

  “Where’s your friend, the doctor?” the bald man asks.

  Paul sets his head back against the wall. “If she’s not dead, I’m going to kill her.”

  The woman rolls up her sheaf and sticks it into her pocket. “Come on, let’s get him back to the rover.”

  Vespa and Jonah duck their heads under Paul’s arms and gently bring him to his feet. They carry him out of the cave and sit him next to one of the wobbling stacks of rocks. In the sunlight, the scratches on Paul’s skin are clearer, easier to follow. Jonah studies the lines, trying to make sense of them.

  There’s a noise farther up the cliff, a slow clicking and clacking of falling rocks. A few seconds later, a curtain of black dust and debris rains down into the area, blanketing each of them from head to toe before they can find cover. Stacks of rocks tumble all around them.

  “Let’s move him! Hurry!” Vespa shouts.

  The men raise their weapons, whipping the barrels back and forth as Jonah helps Vespa pull Paul into the opening of the nearest cave, setting him against the wall. Jonah stands to leave, but Paul reaches up and catches him by the wrist. He pulls him down until they’re at eye level.

  “She keeps talking about you,” he whispers.

  Jonah looks up at Vespa standing above them with clenched fists and wet cheeks. She doesn’t even look at Jonah; she’s completely focused on Paul. The two cadets must have spent time together while Jonah was recovering in the hospital. It’s nice to hear that Vespa’s been talking about him.

  “The doctor,” Paul says. “The doctor keeps talking about you. Jonah, she’s going to—”

  More and more rock and debris rain into the open space. The rocks get bigger, breaking open and bouncing over the edge. A pumpkin-sized boulder grazes the bald man’s shoulder, spinning him around, sending him close to the cliff’s edge before the other man grabs his rifle strap and pulls him back. But then a rock bounces off the ground and hits the ponytail man’s legs, pushing them both forward. Jonah doesn’t hesitate; he dashes out of the cave and grabs each man by the arm and yanks them back. All three fall to the ground in a pile while the rockslide continues to punish the space all around them.

  “Come on!” the woman shouts as she sprints into the cave with Paul and Vespa inside.

  But before Jonah and the men can untangle themselves, a herd of brightly colored animals appears at the top of the cliff. They stand tall, shoulder to shoulder in silence, swaying left and right in haunting unison, their fat fluffy bodies shedding what look to be red feathers into the air. They have small, pointed heads with flat, pink faces, looking like mutant baboons who just raided a chicken coop.

  “Mimics,” the bald man says as he gets to his feet. “Fucking hell. What are they doing all the way over here?”

  “What are they?” Jonah whispers as he pats his pockets for anything that can be used as a weapon.

  “A bunch of assholes,” the man with the ponytail responds as he aims his rifle upwards. His head nods faster than before, his eye bouncing against his scope.

  “A bunch of assholes who can rip your body into a hundred pieces,” the bald man says. “But maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll just turn around and—”

  The animals suddenly stop swaying, and then at the exact same time, each one drops to its knees and begins to climb down the cliff headfirst.

  “Damn it,” the bald man seethes.

  The animals race to the bottom, crawling over each other, humming in wet, guttural voices. The humming gets stronger the lower they get, and soon it grows into a loud buzzing noise that reminds Jonah of a swarm of bees.

  The bald man readjusts his rifle. “Now?”

  “Just hold on. They might still just leave us alone,” the other man whispers. “Let’s not get them riled up any more than they already are.”

  When the animals reach the tops of the caves, they peek their tiny pointed heads inside to look around. Vespa gasps at the sight of them and jumps to her feet, but not before grabbing a large rock as a weapon. The woman pulls a blue pistol out of her pocket and aims it at the animals with both hands. Paul tries to get to his feet, but all he can do is roll onto his side and try to squirm farther inside the cave.

  “Vespa!” Jonah calls.

  In horrifying synchronicity, the animals on the cliff side rotate their heads one hundred and eighty degrees to look at Jonah. Each blinks their dark square eyes and bares a bottom row of sharp brown teeth. Then they take turns dropping to the ground where they squat and hum and wait patiently as the others rejoin the herd, one by one.

  “Now?” the bald man asks again.

  “Almost,” says the man with the ponytail. His nodding keeps getting worse, more erratic, and Jonah is surprised he’s able to hold his gun so steadily.

  The animals suddenly stop humming as if a switch has been flipped, and in unison they march toward Jona
h and the men until they’re just ten feet away. The animals form a half circle around them, their feathery red shoulders touching so there isn’t a space between them. Jonah kneels down and picks up a loose stone; he instantly remembers the black rocks on Achilles and how they turned into sharp blades. He hits it against the ground, hoping it’ll break into something he can defend himself with, but all it does is create an echoing thud. In response, the animals slowly squat in unison and slam their feathery paws against the ground, mimicking Jonah’s movements.

  “I’m shooting in ten seconds,” the bald man whispers. “So be fucking ready.”

  The animals don’t advance, though; they stand and stare and hum. Then, high up on the cliff above the caves, three more of the animals appear. They’re bigger than those circling the men on the ground, and their red feathers have dark tips, blue or purple, Jonah can’t tell exactly. In less than ten seconds, the three have descended the cliff wall and leaped to the ground. The half circle separates for the three to enter.

  The middle and tallest of the animals has a yellow face lined with open wounds. By the way the others give it room, it’s obvious this is the leader of the pack. Its square eyes land on Jonah and stay locked on him as it rolls its tiny head back and forth. Then the animal turns its attention to the man with the ponytail, studying his nodding head that just keeps getting faster and faster. In response, the leader begins to nod its head to the same rhythm. In seconds, all the animals do the same, matching the man’s movements exactly.

  The man with the ponytail drips with sweat, and when he brings his one hand up to wipe his nodding face, the animals do the same thing.

  “Stop moving,” the bald man whispers out of the side of his mouth.

  “You bloody know I can’t.”

  Jonah looks from the men to the animals, their bright red feathers practically glowing in the little sunlight piercing through the cloud of mist overhead. He can see tiny bits of fuzz lift off their bodies and float away in the wind.