The Seek, page 16
part #2 of New Earth Series
***
Kyn closed her eyes, willed her body to relax and tried not to curse Symon for being the master of understatement.
Messy?
More like ugly as hell.
Twelve Avengers and one Explorer sat facing each other as the pod battled the fierce entry fire of Eden 13. Kyn had been briefed on it. She understood that this hostile atmospheric skin was part of the star’s appeal. It made it less attractive to settlers and visitors, providing a natural shield. It also made entry perilous. The last mission had sustained serious fleet damage on landing. Their pod broke on entry; they would need to take this one back with them, so their ship must make it in one piece. Let alone that the fifteen souls on board would really prefer that outcome as well.
Kyn was not afraid of flying. She knew there were far scarier things in the universe than trusting in the relatively simple science of space travel. And she felt safe knowing Symon was at the controls. He’d always been so clever — physically and mentally — and navigation made sense for someone with that combination of skills. She’d also seen the bars on his Nav Purple. He’d flow some tricky missions. If anyone could get them through this inferno and down safely, he could.
So she wasn’t afraid, but it didn’t make the bone-jarring descent any more enjoyable. She flicked a look over at Mirren, mentally berating herself for the way she found herself seeking her out, checking she was okay. The girl was sitting upright and relaxed, her gaze straight ahead and composed. Then Kyn’s eyes sought the other one, her partner. Kendis sat opposite Mirren in the lockdown circle, and his eyes were also on the girl. A tremor of something slid through Kyntura as she watched Mirren again. A particularly vicious jolt shook the ship as a large ‘roid bounced off its hide. There — Mirren’s eyes flicked to Kendis. And he smiled at her; the smallest, most secret smile. Not lascivious, not intimate. But still. And Mirren smiled back — the first time Kyn ever remembered seeing her so unguarded. He nodded at her, a tiny gesture of encouragement. And she returned it. Then they both resumed looking elsewhere.
Had anyone else seen it? The thing that was going on between these two?
Kyn doubted it. Eighteen-year-old boys were not highly attuned to nuance.
She smiled. And Mirren would doubtless kick their asses if they said anything.
Kyn closed her eyes again. She would worry about Mirren and Kendis later, if they all survived.
Add it to the list of things to worry about. If they all survived.
As if to underline the improbability of that outcome, a screeching wail pierced Kyn’s ears, and she braced. Attack. The low whoop-whoop sounded and Kyn watched as thirteen sets of eyes shut and thirteen bodies tensed. Asha sat close to Tabi. She was sure she could almost smell his desire to reach out to her but they were both well schooled in this. He could not flaunt their relationship in front of eleven newbie Avengers. Everyone knew the rules.
The ship weaved drunkenly as something glanced its side — hard — like a mosquito knocked off course by a frustrated hand. It corrected quickly, though, and Kyn felt the ship drop into an evasive manoeuvre. Her brain scrambled to recall what she knew. They were to land on the east, near but not too near the existing encampment. They could not risk revealing the Eden HQ to the Haitites, so her team would travel overland for the extraction, and lead what was left of the group back to the pod before taking their place.
The pod was dropping fast, probably to evade the lasers that were firing on it. It was also banking west to Kyn’s reckoning, and she realised the plans would have to change. Symon and Krysto would have to work together up there, not only to fight off the attack, but to lose the baddies that were firing on them, and lead them away from the team on the ground. The most dangerous thing of all would be to let the Haitites know where the New Earth base was. If they found it, they were all toast.
The tactic seemed to be working, because the ship dived and corrected, careened in one direction and then the other; but there were no more direct hits. The pressure in Kyn’s ears told her they were close to the surface now, and she squeezed her hands into fists, knowing an uncharted landing location would be even rougher than usual.
The impact when it came was worse than she had imagined. The pod juddered uncontrollably, like one of those super-bouncy children’s balls, ricocheting up from whatever surface they had landed on, then smashing into the hard ground again, before rolling twice.
Not one of the Avengers — nor Tabi — made a sound, until finally they came to a sick halt.
‘Well, that was fun,’ Rexas said, blowing his breath out dramatically. ‘Who says Avengers never get any thrills?’
***
The exit lock slid open, Kyn breathing a sigh of relief that it still worked. Symon had briefed her that he wasn’t exactly sure what she would see upon exit. Their vis had gone done during the crash landing, but he had aimed for a cave system that looked to offer some ground cover. A good place to hide the pod while they could assess damage and chart the next course. Symon had advised that the pod had smashed into the cave mouth as they’d crashed through, mostly closing it off behind them. They would need to find another way out.
As the lock opened, Kyn blinked out into blackness. She strapped her infrared to her forehead over her breather, and inched out, motioning Asha, Rexas, Kendis and Mirren into position behind her. They crept down the ramp like the pirates they were, Kyn feeling something soft crunch under her feet as she connected for the first time with the ground of Eden 13. She knelt slowly after turning a full circle. The low red light revealed little — clearly the inside of a massive cave. Symon had managed an impressive manoeuvre; getting the ship down and hiding it from view so expertly. Kyn could only imagine how difficult it had been to make the cave mouth while the ship was damaged and knocked off course. She reached down to touch the surface. Grainy and soft. Sand?
Asha tapped her shoulder and motioned behind him. She squinted in the direction he was pointing. Yes, a dim light. A series of gestures and the little group fell in behind her as they moved towards the light, swift but careful. As they approached, it became evident that there was small second opening in the cave; like a keyhole the size of a large child. Kyn motioned the others into laager behind her, and knelt carefully, before extracting a scope from her geo pack and poking it through. Her breath caught high and hard in her throat. ‘Clear,’ she whispered to the others. ‘Stand back.’
They did as they were told and Kyn aimed a small charge at the opening. The blue fizz that ensued broadened the gap a little — enough that you could step through if you bent low. She went first, feeling the rock scrape against her back. It felt good; she was alive, her skin could still register pain. She stood as she exited and tried to take it all in. Then she motioned for the others to come through.
She knew the vista in front of them would cause problems. It would not be as wild for Asha, who had a longer set of memories. But for the kids…
Kyn was standing on a slight rise, overlooking a valley. Some kind of wild moss and grasses grew at her feet. A very pale blue sky stretched overhead, lit by three bright suns. The hole in the cave seemed to have been made by a water system, as a small trickle flowed down near their feet to join a broader stream winding down the hillside. Mountains ringed the horizon and an insanely dense forest carpeted the ground at the base of the valley. Kyn’s nose was assaulted by a riot of smell through the breather. The air, for a start — it had a hot pungency that reminded Kyn of fruit and suntan oil. The ground itself also seemed to emit fragrance; sweet and spicy. Floral. As Kyn’s brain struggled to keep up, a shrill yarping sounded overheard, and before she could duck, a flock of creatures sailed low and close, their blue wings banking in perfect formation. Birds. The whole thing was wild, and perfect, and stunning, and so like a more exotic, lush version of the earth she could remember that Kyn the Avenger had to stop herself from falling to her feet and kissing the ground.
‘Fuck.’ Kyn felt Asha’s exhaled reverent profanity right down to her toes.
She turned to the others, needing them to focus right now, not to get too caught up in all of this. Mirren was blinking rapidly, turning on the spot with her sabre held and cocked in two hands. Kendis was turning a slow circle, trying to take it all in, and Rexas was kneeling, examining the grass. ‘What is this?’
‘It’s grass, jackass,’ Asha said, motioning for him to get up and stay with the program. ‘I’m sure you read about it in the V-tomes.’
But Kyn knew they didn’t talk a lot about earth. Didn’t want to make the poor PA babies feel they’d missed out on too much. They wanted them just wistful enough to continue The Seek, but not so angry and robbed as to give up. Well, now they knew just how good it could be. At least, these three did.
She slowly removed her breather, motioning to the others to wait until she was done. She sucked in a very shallow experimental breath, just as Tabi had briefed her. It was so clear and sweet she almost laughed out loud. But she wasn’t done. Two more, three. Wait, monitor. Check her pulse quickly, watching her comms. Forty. Perfect. Then she schooled her features and signalled the others to remove theirs.
She watched Mirren and Kendis exchange a brief smile as they pulled their breathers off before falling in behind her. She motioned to a rocky outcrop high on a small hill, just before the jungle proper began.
‘We’ll camp there while we reccy,’ Kyn snapped. ‘I’ll go and brief the others; we’ll scout, then they can join us.’
Asha nodded. ‘How far off course are we?’
Kyn frowned. ‘A little, we think. It’s hard to tell; some of the navs were damaged. It might be a day’s journey.’ She squinted at the sky. Depending when night falls, we may need the night down there before we go get them.’ She pointed to the outcrop again. ‘We need to take some more readings.’
She turned to go back into the cave, squeezing Asha’s arm as she went. ‘Stay close, stay low. Monitor what you see. I’ll be back in five.’ She moved a little closer to him, talking quietly. ‘Should you come back too? Maybe stay with the ship? I can bring Tyrin back with me?’
Asha shook his head, knowing what Kyn was thinking. ‘No,’ he said, quickly and as low as her. ‘She’ll be safer in there, until we know what we’re dealing with.’
Kyn looked back and considered the cave they’d emerged from. Then she scanned the sky. There seemed to be no sign of pursuit, no indication that they’d been followed. The mouth to the cave was closed; it was as good a hiding spot as any. ‘Check,’ she said. ‘See you in five.’
***
A small team had stayed with the pod. It should have included Symon, but she needed his nav skills to work out what they were dealing with and the best way to get to the encampment.
There had been a moment of dissent as Kyn had ordered them to make camp on the rocks. Their sleepskins were thin and the grass by the stream looked so inviting. But one sharp look from Kyn and they had fallen silent. They needed vis; they needed camouflage. She didn’t need to explain that to them. Even if they were acting like a bunch of kids on their first camping trip.
She ordered Mirren and Kendis to take first watch. She tried to tell herself it was nothing, but she knew she was protecting them. Maybe it was just superstition, but nothing ever happened on first watch. She checked her comms. It had fallen dark quickly once the suns had disappeared, and it was cool on the rocks. With so much to take in, sleep would be hard won, and from the work she and Symon had done once they reached the outcrop, she knew they had a hard slog ahead of them tomorrow to reach the base. She must sleep. She reached into her pack and extracted a Som, downing it quickly with a hydro. She lay down, knowing she had two minutes before she was out for two hours. She would wake, alert and refreshed, unless something more sinister woke her before. The Som didn’t prevent your body’s natural reflexes waking you if you required it, and for that, it was an Avenger’s best friend. Necessary rest without dulling your fighting senses.
She took one last reccy of the group before she put her head down on the sleepskin. The group had fanned the outcrop as instructed, in a careful imitation of the defensive laager. Mirren sat atop one edge of the highest boulder; Kendis the other. Between them they had a three-sixty outlook. They knew the signals; and everyone knew the drill. As she checked, she could see Asha had already taken his Som, and that the others were reaching for theirs, taking the appropriate dosage for when their watch was scheduled.
All was well with the world; whatever this mad new world was. They would sleep, and then go to collect the others. And Kyn would not, as she took one last look across the wild green world before her, let herself believe that this new Eden could possibly be theirs.
She reminded herself, as the Som reached its sticky fingers out for her, that there was a reason it was called Eden 13. There had been twelve other times The Seek had gotten this far before failing.
And there was no planet in the universe on which 13 was a lucky number.
Chapter Eleven: Reconnecting
Pietr always said the first battle was the hardest, the second the saddest, and the third the most brutal. Kyn didn’t know what that meant about your tenth, except that she felt numb inside as she faced down the three huge Tyverian warlords that confronted her.
Tyver was well and truly over the refugees of Earth stealing its vientamite, trading with its established partners and generally being a right nuisance. And who could blame then? Certainly not her. She absolutely understood how annoying it was to have people from far away come and want to steal what was yours. So she had no particular beef with these warlords.
Except they stood between her and the pod.
And her wounded Magister lay behind her.
They advanced the way Tyverians do, unprotected this time by their Hunter Gatherers — slow but enormous, the poison glinting on their inbuilt weapons, their massive claws, circling her in a tight formation designed to make up for their lack of stealth and speed. They may have been big and slow, but they weren’t stupid. And they had developed a rock-solid method for survival in this brutal universe. Their enslavement of the ice vampires, the Hunter Gatherers, was pure genius. Their military tactics were old school but effective. And their bodies themselves were the stuff of child’s nightmares. Or even grown-up ones, Kyn reflected.
Kyn may have been alone, and compromised by her need to protect what lay at her back, but she had one thing they didn’t. Maybe two. Speed, and grace. She leapt almost without thinking once they were in her kill zone, landing on the shoulders of the largest and using her scythe to swipe at the head of the one to his left. She caught his eye and his enraged bellow ricocheted across the ice. But the big warlord wasn’t taking her use of him as some kind of launching platform lying down. He swept at her with an enormous poison claw, narrowly missing her inner thigh.
She jumped again, this time back flipping to land at a spot just behind the third alien. He spun, but too slowly. She punctured his delicate internals through the soft spot just above his buttocks and wiped her sabre clean before he had even turned. When he did, he could only slide to the ice in front of her, bleeding out yellow on its pristine canvas.
The one with the injured eye charged her like a bull, skirting around his slain comrade, while the one she had mounted lumbered beside him. She delayed a fraction of a second too long and the uninjured beast slashed at her face, missing, but catching her across her breastbone, just above the place where the guardvest began. Almost instantly, she felt the poison start to work its horror on her nerve endings and she knew she had to be quick. She would be incapacitated in around five minutes.
She grabbed the creature’s claw before it properly withdrew and wrenched it maliciously across its body, breaking the bone in the arm before using the claw to tear the thick hide of the one with the injured eye. Warlord skin was tough, but their claws were sharp. The assaulted creature screeched in agony before joining his comrade on the ice. That only left one, but he sure was pissed.
Poison infiltrated her blood, blurring her vision, and starting a ringing in her ears. She had to get him down, pick up her Magister, and get to the pod before she lost the power to move. But now she was so slowed down that even this lumbering thing could get the jump on her. She needed wiles. She feinted sluggishly to the left, and watched the creature reach out to swat her. But she rolled as she went down, tackling his legs and pulling him down onto the snow. Before he could react, she drove the sabre she held into his upper thigh, before pulling it out again and going for the soft spot.
It was done, he was down, but the adrenalin from the battle and the bitter aftertaste of fear rushed her. She stabbed him twice more, hearing his death moans but finding she couldn’t stop. Again, again. She wanted him dead, she wanted him down. The weapon made ugly sucking noises as it ripped in and out of his flesh. So many things, so many things that wanted to kill them, kill her.
So many enemies. So much blood.
It rushed at her — all the fear and loneliness; all the years out in space. And now, this. A whole year as an Avenger. Ten missions and the end of any innocence she ever had left.
Die, you fucker. Die, die, die.
She stabbed him three more times.
Until.
‘You done there yet?’ Jedro’s voice was ironic, even through his agony. ‘ ‘Cause they might have some buddies, y’know, and I’m kinda paralysed here.’ He was making light, but Kyn could hear the crisp edge of pain in her Magister’s voice. ‘And I’m thinking you might want to use your energy to haul our asses over to the pod, rather than taking it out on poor old dead-as-a-doormat there.’ He wheezed this last, and Kyn awoke from her kill-fever with a start, realising he didn’t have long.
She skated over to him on the ice, awkward and ungainly as the poison ravaged her balance. ‘Sorry, Magister.’
‘I reckon you’ve got two minutes,’ Jedro said, his face the unnatural purple of Tvyerian poisoning. He pointed to the pod, sitting a hundred yards away on a little ice shelf. ‘Can you do it?’
