“Doctor!” Ensign Forshan yelled, motioning her over. As she ran to him, she lifted up the hem of her long dress that normally skirted the ground but here did nothing but collected dirt.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Movement.” Forshan indicated to the woods beyond. From the edge appeared a face Xax hadn’t seen since before leaving Tempest.

  “Riley!” She ran over to meet him. “You’re okay!” He looked at her with haggard eyes, and he’d somehow grown a full beard in the few hours since she’d seen him last. “What happened?”

  As if to answer, more of the crew from wave one came pushing through the trees, all of them looking exhausted. “It’s been a while, doc. How are you?” Riley asked.

  “I don’t understand,” Xax replied. “What’s going on?”

  “Fucking time travel, that’s what.” Xax turned to see Ensign Tileah come out of the woods with everyone else, including the spacewing pilots from wave one.

  “I’m sorry?” Xax wasn’t sure she’d heard him right.

  “Time’s all screwy on this planet,” Tileah replied. “In the two hours between when wave one and wave two came down, about seventy days passed. Or that’s what they’re telling us anyway.”

  Xax turned to Riley. “Seventy days?”

  “Seventy-three actually. More than a season.”

  Xax surveyed the groups of people emerging, reuniting with their fellow crewmates. “Is this all that’s left?”

  “It’s been a rough time,” Riley replied. “I did the best I could, but when people survived the attacks, it usually wasn’t for long.”

  Xax’s expression softened at her nurse’s words. She knew he’d done his best. “What kind of attacks?”

  “Animal. There are bear-things out there. And believe me when I tell you they’re lethal.” She rubbed his arm with one of her upper hands.

  “Go, find somewhere to rest. I’ve got Zaal in that shuttle over there, there’s a few extra bunks. I’ll bring you some provisions in a few minutes.” He nodded appreciatively and headed off for the shuttle. She turned back to Tileah. “Where’s the captain? And Caspian?”

  “Something happened to the captain. The commander went after her.” She hesitated.

  “What is it?”

  Tileah exhaled. “The team the captain took with her didn’t make it. I’m sorry.”

  Xax was speechless for a moment. “Wait, the whole team? Lieutenant Uuma? Carson?” Tileah shook her head. “Was it this…bear thing?”

  “Something else. The commander is investigating. But we need to get this place fortified. They were telling me how once those bears found their camp they never stopped attacking. I think we should douse all the lights and go into stealth as much as possible.”

  “But we have weapons. Can’t we just—”

  “Wave one had weapons too,” Tileah snapped. “I watched four people shoot one of these things and it didn’t blink. Our weapons do nothing against them. If we had power, we could create a compound force barrier, but…” she shrugged.

  “And there’s no chance of getting it back online?” Her thoughts returned to Zaal, slowly dying in the shuttle not more than fifty meters away.

  “I don’t know. We’re supposed to sit tight until the commander returns. Hopefully he’ll have Captain Diazal with him.”

  Xax nodded. “Tell everyone from wave one to form a line over by my shuttle. I need to check them over, make sure there aren’t any serious injuries. I’m sure they’re all exhausted.”

  “Yeah, everyone’s kinda on edge.” She gave Xax a sheepish look. “Sorry about snapping. I’m not meant to be in command.”

  “Looks like you did a pretty good job to me. You got all these people back safe.”

  She smiled. “Yeah, I guess—”

  A bloodcurdling scream pierced the air. Over Tileah’s shoulder Xax saw a massive, hulking black form emerge from the woods and wrap its jaws around one of the security officers guarding the edge of the camp.

  “Shit!” Tileah yelled. “I should have fucking known. No wonder they didn’t attack the whole way back. They were waiting for us to lead them to our camp!” She ran off toward the munitions shuttle while the camp erupted into panic. Xax began herding as many people as she could toward the medical shuttle. She should be able to close the shuttle doors manually once people were safe inside.

  “This way!” Xax yelled, waving all four of her arms. “Come on, over here!” A bunch of the crew ran in her direction, while others took up firing positions against the bear, taking shots at its head, body and legs. But as Tileah had said, none of the shots seemed to affect it. Xax saw Forshan grab a pulse grenade and launch it at the bear. It exploded, knocking the creature off its feet, but it righted itself immediately and began running for Forshan. Xax was mesmerized by just how fast such a large creature was.

  Before she could even yell out, the bear swiped at Forshan with a claw the size of a human torso, Forshan’s blood painting the nearby shrubbery. He fell in a gurgling mess, and Xax understood what Riley meant when he said they didn’t last long once injured.

  Suppressing her desire to run to Forshan anyway, Xax continued to herd people in the camp toward her shuttle when she saw a second hulking figure emerge from the jungle. Her heart dropped. One they might be able to avoid, but two…

  “Get those people inside!” Tileah yelled, running past with a rifle in her hands. She turned, firing at the creatures, then resumed running. She was drawing their attention. In fact, it seemed like that’s what all the security officers were doing. They knew they couldn’t beat these things, but they were doing their best to keep them occupied.

  Xax continued to usher people inside. It would be cramped but they could make it. She peered into the crowd of people now filling the cargo area of the small shuttle. “Riley! Someone grab Riley!”

  “I’m here,” he called back, his hand up as he moved through the throng.

  “Keep these people safe,” Xax said. “And take care of Zaal. I’m going to try to get the rest of the crew to a second shuttle.”

  “Are you sure? We can make room for a few more.” The crew moved back as if to prove the point.

  “It isn’t enough room,” she replied. “Someone would get left out. I need to help them all. We can’t leave anyone behind.” She pointed to the flashing beams of pulse rifles lighting up the darkened camp as the Coalition’s best security fought off two monsters the size of small shuttles. Riley nodded. “Stay in here until we come and get you,” she said, grabbing the shuttle door and drawing it down. “I’ll do as much as I can.”

  “Thank you,” Riley said. Some of the others expressed their appreciation as well. Xax nodded, then helped pull the shuttle door down until it was flush against the opening. She wasn’t sure if the claws on those creatures could cut through pure galvanium but she had done all she could.

  Xax ran over to the command shuttle, no longer bothering with her dress. Despite the shuttle being on its side, it had one of the strongest hulls, and it was big enough to hold everyone. It was just a matter of getting them inside and the door closed.

  Something exploded above her head, causing her to fall to the ground, crawling along as dirt and debris erupted around her. Xax covered her head, feeling the rumble of the ground as one of the creatures came roaring toward her. This was it; her entire life reduced to this one last moment on an unknown planet in unexplored space. She supposed it could be worse, she just hoped it was fast. The rumbling stopped while the gunshots didn’t. She glanced up to see bits of hair flying off the creature as it was shot by Tileah and the others from behind, but it had stopped short of attacking Xax. It sniffed the air around her once, then turned, resuming its attack toward the rest of the crew.

  “What the hell?” She scrambled up, grabbing whatever she could with two hands while pushing up with the other two; whatever it took to get on her feet faster. She ran for the shuttle as fast as she could, climbing into the side. Half the crates still hadn’t been moved while some had fallen from the “floor” and smashed open on the wall. Inside one were Aphellian Oranges. Xax glanced back to the security forces trying to fend off the bears, but having little luck. At best they were prolonging the situation; eventually they’d tire, make a mistake, and the bears would have them. But the bear hadn’t attacked her. Why not? Was it something about how she smelled? Or something else? Xax needed to test a hypothesis and even though she hated them, she could use the oranges to do it. She grabbed one and tore it apart, ingesting it as fast as she could. Never in her life had she needed to eat so fast but having such a small mouth made such tasks difficult. Finally, she got about half of it down and she could already feel the additional oil on her skin. It would have to do.

  She jumped out of the shuttle and ran as fast as she could toward Tileah. “Doc, what are you doing? Get out of here!” she yelled, waving her away as she took another few shots at the bear. One of the other personnel threw another pulse grenade at it, and it stuck on the animal’s fur. It detonated, knocking the creature about ten meters to the left, but it had just pissed the animal off. The second bear came up behind the security officer, smashing her head in its massive jaws.

  “Quick,” Xax said. “Come here.” She pulled Tileah into a hug, rubbing all four arms all over her sides and back as she undulated against her.

  “Doctor Xax, what the hell—?”

  “Shush,” Xax said, stepping back. “Hide behind those trees! Now!”

  “But—”

  “Don’t argue, I’m testing a hypothesis!” Tileah took another look at the creatures regrouping and Xax could see the internal battle in her mind. Stay and fight or follow a superior officer’s orders. She winced then ran behind one of the larger trees. Xax nodded, running over to Crewman Leif, performing the same hugging action. She gave him the same orders which he seemed more than happy to follow, hiding behind another tree. The bear approached just as he ran out of sight, sniffing the air. It reared up, sniffing again, but Xax held her ground, watching its massive body. Behind it the other security officers continued to fire on the other bear. “C’mon, c’mon,” Xax whispered. “They’re not here.”

  As if it heard her, the bear turned back toward the others, then rejoined the fight against them. Tileah came up behind Xax. “I don’t understand.”

  “I think they’re just targeting humans,” Xax said. “They seem uninterested in me. So my plan is to make you smell like me. If you’re out of sight they won’t find you. You two get to the shuttle, I’ll go help the others. And get me more of those oranges!”

  “What about the rest of the crew?” Tileah asked, looking around.

  “Secure in the medical shuttle.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  Xax eyed the bears again. “I guess we’ll find out.”

  29

  Daingne sat immobile, reading the data from the stone screen. She’d absorbed everything the Athru had on the humans, and yet something felt off. Even though she had a deep hatred for the inferior species, she felt like she had missed something. But she hadn’t. Everything made sense; their entire history, the plan to exterminate them, and how the Athru found them after thousands of years of searching. Though…there had to be more to this, didn’t there? It couldn’t be this simple.

  No. That was the other one thinking for her, the human within her. Evelyn. She would not allow her to regain control, despite the surprising strength she’d shown so far. She was far more resilient than Daingne had expected. From what she knew of humans they quit when things got too hard, or looked for the easy way out. The easiest thing for Evelyn would be to succumb to the oblivion, as Daingne had for over thirty years. There had been times when she thought she’d never be free, that she’d be stuck as a stupid human wretch for her entire existence. Once Evelyn had considered finding herself a familiar; little did she know she already had one in the back of her mind.

  Rockron admitted to her he didn’t know how she was possible, and that the presence of two personalities indicated she must have been engineered so her Athru nature would be completely suppressed. If so, the engineer could only have been another Athru, as they alone possessed the technology to accomplish such a feat. All signs pointed to her mother, whom she knew by name only: Esterva. It was a name built into the genetic coding of her chromosomes, like a name carved into the tablets before her. But if Esterva had engineered her child to suppress her Athru nature, it meant she had plenty of time to do it. And Evelyn’s memories suggested her conception and later birth within an escape pod wasn’t necessarily the true story.

  “Finished?” Rockron asked, coming up behind her.

  “I am.”

  “And?”

  “I am ready to kill some humans.” Daingne stood, drawing up to her full height. She hated the shortness of this form. Another weakness.

  “I am glad to hear it. I have already sent the car’nivacs ahead to deal the initial blow, but there should be plenty of bodies left for us to eviscerate. The second camp is only six kilometers away.” He walked over and placed his hand to the stone. It stopped glowing immediately.

  “The…car’nivacs. How do you control them?”

  “The same way you control anything without a soul. You synthesize a bionic implant in their brain, and send them instructions. It’s simple, old technology.”

  Something deep inside her found that to be repulsive, but she couldn’t be sure why. Her human stomach turned. Why would using animals as weapons bother her? They were inferior species, nothing to consider. They weren’t Athru, and anything that wasn’t Athru was beneath them. And in that vein, she still didn’t understand how a superior Athru could mate with an ordinary human. Part of her hated her mother for that. Even more than Evelyn hated her father. Daingne smiled. It was a good thing she hadn’t been out when the old human had attacked. She would have destroyed him piece by piece, leaving his pyre for the wildlings to feast upon.

  “Something funny?” Rockron asked, watching her face.

  “No. Just thinking about how I’ll be killing.”

  “Let us view something first. I think you’ll find it interesting,” Rockron replied. “This way.”

  Daingne stood and followed along beside him until they reached the far wall. He placed his hand on the stone and an opening dissolved away. “I’ve been keeping a collection since the first of the humans landed. It is fun to draw it out, especially when I can watch them squirm. The harder their blood pumps, the further it sprays when their heads are taken from them.”

  They entered a large antechamber, where rows up on rows of skulls sat, stacked on shelves like books. They were of all shapes and sizes, some with bones as white as snow, others dark as ash. Many species she didn’t recognize, though one stood out: a Bulaq with its tiny eye slits and sloping ridge. Daingne looked around until she found a shelf near the bottom with fresher skulls. These still had their skin, hair, eyes, all of it. And they were all human. “My memories recognize these people,” Daingne said. “Vostokov, Carson, Williams, Uuma. Their monikers.” Beneath each of the heads was a small pool of blood that had dripped down to the floor. Each of their eyes were still open, as if in surprise. The human stomach turned again and Daingne had to look away, otherwise the frail body would fail her.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “This…this body. It isn’t suited for this,” Daingne said.

  “Isn’t suited for looking? I thought you would enjoy this.” He approached her.

  “I…do, it’s just…I’m not sure this form has the constitution to deal with such things.” That’s all it was, the softness was weak and therefore not equipped to handle seeing such rampant death. It was nothing more.

  “I see. Perhaps we should perform another examination,” Rockron said. “I wouldn’t want it to fail you on the battlefield.”

  Daingne shook her head. “I’ll be fine,” though she could taste bile at the back of her throat. “I need a weapon.”

  Rockron seemed confused a moment. “Yes, of course. Your bare hands are much too frail to do any real damage. Once this is all over and we have rejoined the fleet, we will need to make some enhancements.”

  “What sort of enhancements?” She tried not to look at the skulls again, but it seemed almost as if they were staring at her. Accusing her.

  “We’ll remove some of the human junk from your genetic code. It should allow your true heritage to assert itself. No longer will you be trapped. Either that, or we’ll remove you completely.”

  Daingne liked the sound of that. But deep within, some part of her rebelled, seething at the thought. She needed a distraction, something to keep her mind off whatever was happening back there. “I do not want to waste any more time. Let’s begin the killing.”

  Rockron smiled. “Yes. Let’s begin.”

  ***

  “Do you think I should call for her?” Box asked as they walked along the dark passageway. He’d activated the halogen in his remaining eye while Cas and Jann had turned on their own lights as it was pitch black inside. The corridor was stone on all sides and the air inside was stale, as if it hadn’t been used in a very long time.

  “Do that and you’ll give away our position,” Martial said, walking beside them. They’d had no choice but to go into the pyramid after Laura had disappeared. Cas knew he should have kept a better eye on her, that she was too anxious to find Evie. He couldn’t blame her, but he also didn’t want to walk into a trap. He was just glad he had his gun with him for once. Because after just appearing from out of nowhere, he really didn’t trust his former bartender.

  “You said you’d tell us what’s going on, so talk.” Cas glared at Martial.

 

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