by Viki Storm
I can’t feel it through my suit, but the wind must be blowing hard because small rocks tumble and scatter across the ground. The microphone in my suit must be shorted out too; it’s way too sensitive. It’s making the tiny rocks blowing around sound like heavy scraping, like a sword on a rock face.
And then that’s when I see it.
Right out of the corner of my eye. I would have seen it sooner, but my helmet covered most of my peripheral vision.
It’s a spider, huge, its massive carapace oily black and bulging. The legs have so many points of articulation that the thing is able to coil and pounce with surprising speed. It’s on top of me, the eight legs easily pinning down my four limbs. Its eight eyes are in two tidy rows of mindless, soulless orbs, unthinking and only concerned with feeding.
I struggle, but right when I think I have a handhold, I feel my arm get plastered back in place on the ground. Wet, sticky silk covers the arm of my suit. Then the other arm.
Then my legs and torso.
Before I realize it, I’m covered like one of the mummies of old Earth lore.
And the final insult: I hear the comm device beep and proclaim, ‘signal found.’
But none of that matters, not now.
Now I am only food.
I push Qeb out of the way and start to run up and down the rows of fighters and ships, looking for Suse’s little ship. Looking for her, standing around with her helmet resting on one hip, hair sticking up in sweaty clumps.
She’s not here. Her ship’s not here. Our flight controllers kept track of who was going out, who was staying on the ground, who was piloting what ships, who was going solo and who was in a team. And Suse wasn’t on their list. They didn’t even dream of adding her to the battle roster.
Because they assumed that I was a worthy and admirable mate. They assumed that there was no way an honorable Zalaryn male would let his tiny human mate go alone into a fighter ship. Even if her father was a pilot, even if she does have a blood feud with the Guuklar and Rulmek. That shouldn’t have mattered. I should have clonked her on the head and used a collar with a geopositional lock to keep her in our small room until the siege was over.
Had I been so stupidly naïve to think that flying into battle was going to give her some sort of emotional closure?
Had I been so stupidly naïve to think that she was going to return to me, that our bond was somehow going to guarantee her safe passage and return? That the Universe wasn’t going to go to all this trouble to align our paths and put us together just to turn a blind eye and not offer her any sort of protection during the battle?
The elders have a saying, that there’s no worse fool than a fool in rut, and that’s true indeed. It was like I’d been under the influence of too many cups of strong freykka. Happy and optimistic and not sufficiently paranoid.
I grab the nearest warrior by the shoulder and spin him around. “Have you seen the human female?” I ask. He gives me a puzzled look and a shake of the head.
I run further down the line to where another group is clustered together and ask them. My shame is acute, asking around for my lost mate the way a child asks around looking for a favorite lost toy.
That’s what they must think about me. That I was as foolish as a child. And a part of me can’t help but wonder: is it because she’s a human? If she was Zalaryn, would I have been more cautious? Or—the sneakiest, self-loathingest part of me says—if she’d been Zalaryn, she’d have felt the bond more deeply and wouldn’t have wanted to go.
Did I subconsciously think her life was less valuable because she was a human? I deny that vehemently; she is my mate and that is all that matters… but part of me can’t help but wonder if my attitude about humans isn’t so deeply ingrained that I don’t even realize it.
I keep asking, despite my shame. No one has seen her. Only a few even knew that she was flying, but none of them saw her once the battle started.
After making several rounds of the camp, I go to the flight control center and demand that they check the logs and the navigation records. But since they don’t know what ship she was on, they can’t check the flight records.
“That’s nonsense,” I say. “Get up. Let me check.”
“Out of the question,” the controller says. I don’t know him, so he must be from one of the other Zalaryn settlements.
“I’m not asking,” I roar. I grab his arms and throw him out of the chair. He staggers and hits an instrument panel, sending a confused symphony of beeps into the air.
“Stop this,” the other controller says.
“I need to find her ship,” I say. I open the defense program and read through the list of connected devices.
“Even if I let you,” the controller says, “it’s not like you could understand any of this. It’s highly technical and specialized. A common bruiser couldn’t possibly understand.”
“I wrote this Void-damned script,” I shout, “and if either one of you scrawny bastards says another word, I’ll give you more than a few so-called common bruises from a common bruiser. Get out of here now.”
They exchange a confused glance—probably not believing me when I said that I wrote the program for the defense system—but not wanting to risk it. They leave the command center, and I start sifting through the data.
My eyes are a blurry, stinging mess, but I read the on-screen data for hours. Finally I see an IP address that has to belong to Suse; it’s unassigned to any other of the pilots in the air. It’s her ship. It’s gotta be. I track the pings between her system and our command center.
This is tedious, mind-numbing work, combing through the long, long strings of zeros and ones. Even when I pause to write a script that will filter the data, I’m still left with seven hundred pages of coordinates, engine data, comm data and fuel consumption data.
But I keep going. I have to.
If there’s a chance that she’s out there, I will find her. A hundred possibilities run through my head while I sort the data. She had to eject, and she’s floating around the Void in her space suit. She was captured by the Guuklar. She spun out of control and was flung into another solar system. She crash-landed on any one of these uninhabited satellites or meteors in this system. My mind can’t comprehend, though, the thought that she’s dead, that her ship took a direct hit like the twenty or so other Zalaryns that we mourn today.
These scenarios flash before my eyes, each more horrifying than the last. But I know that wherever she is, she’s a fighter and a survivor. I imagine her somewhere, making a heroic last stand. It’s a vivid image—almost lifelike. It throws me for a moment while I get my bearings. She’s dusty but otherwise okay, staring some unseen foe in the eye.
“Now’s your chance, Suse,” I whisper. I know it’s nuts, but I get the feeling she can hear me. “Remember what I said when we were training? Hand-to-hand combat is mostly a dance of stalling and waiting, and it often comes down to a single chance to strike. The victor is always the one to recognize it—and be bold enough to use it.”
The door opens behind me, startling me and shattering the vision or daydream or delusion or whatever it was. I’m expecting to be thrown out of here, but I’m not going without copies of the data logs.
“Orlon.” It’s Qeb. Great, now he’s going to relieve me of duty citing reasons of mental incompetence and emotional instability. I copy the files and start the sync to my comm-panel. If he’s going to throw me out of here, then that’s fine; I’ll just continue my work from my room. “Orlon!” he repeats.
“Hold on,” I say. “I found her ship; I’m tracking the data. I can find out where it went.”
He doesn’t say anything, only takes a deep breath and puts his hand on my shoulder. My heart sinks, and my vision starts to fade black. He’s not here to relieve me of duty.
He’s here to deliver the bad news.
“No!” I say, meaning to shout it to the heavens, but my voice is only a hoarse whisper. “She can’t be.”
“I don’t know,” he
says, not unkindly. “We didn’t find her ship or… her remains. That’s not why I’m here.”
I let out a sigh of relief. Hope—there’s still hope. I’m encouraged. I was right about our bond; I would feel it if she was gone, and I haven’t felt it yet.
“Then I will find her,” I say.
“I know you will,” he says, but there’s something in his voice that worries me. I turn my head and look at him, and his face is drawn tight, his mouth a thin white line. “I do have some bad news, though. We traced Tos’s ship. He is still in possession of the fission beam.”
I curse. “How do you know?” I ask. “What intel have we gotten?” I feel a pang of guilt for monopolizing the command center when our battle still isn’t finished.
“We ran scans and found a deep concentration of cadmium headed in a trajectory towards Lekyo Prime.”
“We have to stop him,” I say.
“No shit,” Qeb says. “We’re getting ready to fly there now. But we’re low on fuel, low on weaponry. We depleted most of our fuel reserves and weapons charges during that battle. This hidden store you found was a gift, but I’m afraid it’s not going to be enough. The rebel group did a fair job amassing spacecraft, but they apparently struggled to find sufficient quantities of fuel and weaponry.”
“All we need is one clear shot,” I say.
“Yeah,” Qeb scoffs. “Sure. Come on, get your ass back in your ship. Let’s go get that motherfucker. Maybe you’ll be the one to make the lucky shot.”
“Alright,” I say, but my voice sounds faraway, distant, even to my own ears. I’m looking at my data screen again and I’ve figured it out.
I know where Suse is, what happened to her.
I convert the numeric data into text and read her ship’s flight log.
Target acquired.
Missile fired.
Laser guided target sequencing initiated.
Target acquired.
Missile fired.
Incoming projectile.
Damage sustained to Engine 2.
Nav coordinates altered to preprogrammed Escape Loc 1.
Engine 1 initiated, Corva coil activated.
Supra-light speed engaged.
Landing sequence advised.
Landing sequence advised.
Landing sequence input not received by user.
Emergency protocol initiated.
Impact.
“You’re coming back to me,” I say aloud, not caring if Qeb thinks I’m insane. “Summon the spirit of a Zalaryn warrior.”
She’s not that far away; I could be there in a few hours, twelve tops. She landed with the ship’s emergency protocol, so she’s most likely unhurt. And if the damage sustained to the ship was at Engine 2, then it wasn’t near the cockpit, so she wouldn’t have been hit by any fire or shrapnel.
My heart is pounding at the excitement, the relief. In a few hours, I could have her in my arms again.
“Come on, Orlon,” Qeb shouts from outside. “We’re leaving now.”
From the bowels of the Void, I feel a swelling surge of frustration. My duty is to this battle, to the thousands of Zalaryns and human settlers on Lekyo Prime.
How can I consider risking all that for just one life? Even if it’s Suse’s life, the equation just doesn’t balance. I know this in my head—with my superior Zalaryn intellect.
But in my heart it’s another story. Those irrational human emotions must be rubbing off on me, a consequence of the bond.
As I predicted, having a mate is making me a terrible warrior—a coward. I’m committing treason by even thinking of disobeying Qeb’s orders.
Even if I managed to save her, how could I live with myself, knowing I acted so cowardly? I’ve been avoiding the battle since the second I saw her, always justifying to myself that I can’t put her at risk.
But I have a duty.
And I know truly and honestly what it is. There is no kidding myself.
I know what I must do.
I get in my ship and program the coordinates, knowing I’m doing the right thing.
Aren’t I?
The beast works fast.
Its forelegs scurry to pay out the webbing from its bulging rear end, wringing its footless legs as fast as an old woman at her fireside knitting. It moves with the greedy grace of a creature eager not so much to devour but simply to own its prey.
I am completely immobilized, the silken tendrils as thin and translucent as a fiber optic filament but as strong as steel and sticky. Only a few strands around each limb are needed to glue me to the dusty ground. The fangs glisten; dewy droplets descend from each enormously sharp dagger. On either side of the curved, needle-like fangs are a pair of pedipalps, deviously articulated fingers used for scooping and cramming things into its gaping maw.
I stare the beast in the rows of its eyes, searching for weakness. It has no intelligence, only animal instinct and speed. It’s a hunter, a predator.
Did I say that this planet had no lifeforms because there was no vegetation? That was a stupid assumption.
Maybe this whole planet is a trap, a big web meant to suck in ships so the beast can feed.
That’s a crazy thought, but that’s how I feel right now, like I’ve been rooked into this, that all my actions and decisions were merely a ploy of this giant spider. That there is actually fathomless intelligence in those oily black orbs, that this spider is really the guardian of the Universe—and it feeds off of stupid, lesser lifeforms, guiding them into a series of events that will leave them stranded and plastered to the ground in a sticky mass of webbing.
I know I’m delusional, it’s a side-effect of the fear and adrenaline. My rational brain is shutting down.
I go loose, let the spider flip me over and wrap me in its silk. I fear that if I struggle, it will inject paralytic venom into my veins. I flop around like a ragdoll, its pointy legs deftly spinning and flipping me over, its forearms working methodically and rhythmically as the arms of a factory machine.
The silk covers my body, binding my arms to my waist, pinning my legs together.
Then the silk covers my helmet. One strand at a time, my vision is getting gauzy, hazy.
There is no way out of this, I think. Even if I had a knife, I couldn’t reach it or wield it—and even if I could, the web would just stick to the blade.
There’s only one way out of this—and it’s probably going to kill me.
I wriggle my shoulder and pull my arm out of the sleeve of my spacesuit. The suit is a few sizes too big for me, so this is relatively easy. I pull down the inner zipper and get my other arm free. I know that this planet is cold, but I can survive for a little while in the cold. If I can get away, I can get back to the ship and warm up.
I just hope I can breathe the air.
Most planets have oxygen in the atmosphere—it’s such an abundant molecule, third most common in the universe. The problem is that usually foreign atmospheres are mixed with other toxic gasses like methane and sulfur.
Here goes nothing. I unlatch my helmet and pull it off my head. The air tastes sour, but I can probably safely attribute that to the foul creature on top of me. I raise my arms back and bring down my helmet on the spider’s spinneret as it’s trying to coat me with more silk. Its strands go askew and it reels for a moment, surprised. I use that moment to wriggle my legs out of my suit and get into a wobbly crouch.
The spider turns and lets out an ear-splitting hiss of rage. It’s nimble but not fast enough to spin around and pin me back down to the ground. It rears up, not unlike the wild stallions that roamed the plains of my childhood planet, but I spin faster and its barbed legs come crashing down on the dirt, kicking up a faint puff of dust.
I get to my feet easily, dodging another attack. This planet’s gravity is enhancing my movements. I’m lighter here, more agile. This spider, it’s used to the gravity, but me? I feel footloose and fancy-free. I feel like a heightened version of myself, stronger and faster.
The spider seem
s to move in slow-motion towards me, its legs bending in a rhythm that would be pleasant to watch if it wasn’t coming towards me for the purpose of exsanguination. I scan the ground, looking for anything to use as a weapon. I had a blaster on the belt of my spacesuit, but that’s completely wrapped up in the web and of no use to me.
There are rocks, plenty of them, but none are bigger than my fist, and I doubt that would make a dent in the thick, chitinous exoskeleton of such a beast. I need something sharp, something I can use to gouge.
Then it hits me, the only thing I have to use.
A shudder of revulsion passes through me, strong enough to cut through the adrenaline. What do they call it when you’re faced with a threat? Fight or flight.
I have to fight.
I lunge at the creature, knowing that hand-to-hand combat is my only option. I grab onto its forelegs, trying to restrain the beast, but for a thing made up of shell and gooey insides and not much muscle, it’s strong. But I’m stronger. I have the advantage of having trained with Orlon in hand-to-hand combat on Ureb-R’iora and its extreme gravity.
The spider rips its forelegs away from me, and I know that I don’t have a lot of time. I’ve got the creature in a repulsive bear-hug, but I’m a fool if I think I can overpower it. I only have the element of surprise; a spider isn’t used to its prey fighting back. But that doesn’t last long, especially when this spider probably hasn’t eaten in a long time, and there’s almost nothing more dangerous in any galaxy than a half-starved hunter pursuing its meal.
I brace myself, willing my disgust to go away, and plunge my hands at its gaping, slavering maw, clutching onto the pedipalps, the articulated mouth-fingers used to cram food into its mouth. These are smaller and not as strong, and I rip at them, tearing and twisting the way you rip a drumstick off a roast fowl. It lets out a screech of pain, and a gust of foul breath wafts over my face, dry and rancid as an old tomb. I wince but keep pulling, feeling the shell cracking beneath my hands. Its next scream is low and primal and reverberates within the hollow chamber of my overworked lungs. I almost feel sorry for it. It’s not a monster, not evil, but if it’s either it or me, the choice is clear.