A line in the ice, p.4
A Line in the Ice, page 4
“So I was out saving your ass from falling back into the rift just for shit and giggles, is that it?”
“Then why won’t you listen to me?”
If he meant to placate her, he’d failed miserably. “Because I’m under orders to make sure you sleep, not turn into Chatty Cathy. Julius wants you under wraps until he’s convinced you’re not still suffering from hypothermia. And if I’m not jumping through hoops to hear your bedtime stories, it might be because my toes are still numb, you sound like you’ve stepped through the looking glass, and I don’t know what to think about a guy who looks like you do and talks like that.”
“Do you always sound angry when a person wishes to help you?”
“No, I only get this angry when someone refuses to listen to me.”
“Then I wish to speak to your ranking officer.”
“Ha. That’s the same doctor who wants you to sleep.” She couldn’t hide her smirk. “Good luck convincing him to listen to you right now.”
With a sigh, he turned on his side, facing away from her. She almost sighed as well—with relief. The Tylenol Julius had given her might have helped more if Lysander wasn’t giving her a fresh headache.
“I only hope you do not wait until the crack of doom to hear me,” he murmured.
“Nah, we’re partial to quarter to crack of doom around here.”
She waited for another argument, or for him to try and get up, but nothing happened. Hopefully, he was asleep. After the day they’d had, he needed it.
He would need a lot more than that, though, if he stuck with this crazy story about some leviathan sending monsters through the rift.
Chapter Four
Nobody wanted to touch the strange weapons. Though Theo and Eduard had handled them out on the tundra, they’d had no choice then. Now, both refused to pick one up and examine it more closely. Lisa probably would have done it, but she remained in the hangar, going over the fuel tank that refused to stay sealed.
“Now we have a machine gun,” Charlie said, just for the sake of saying something. “Ho, ho, ho.”
Julius frowned at her flippant tone, but Soren squatted to get on eye level with them. “Not a machine gun. There’s no ammunition.”
“If you had been out there getting fired at, you wouldn’t say that.” Theo dropped down beside him. “Something definitely hit us. Lisa has the busted fuel tank to prove it.”
“What’s the triggering mechanism?” Julius circled to the other side of the table. “There’s no trigger.”
Eduard squinted at what looked to be the muzzle. “That thing held it like a gun. There has to be a trigger.”
“Well, if you see it, point it out to us,” Soren said. “Because I don’t.”
“Maybe it’s a sensory thing.”
“That’s stupid.”
“No stupider than it leaving a hole in our fuel tank without using ammunition.”
“It could use energy of some sort,” she offered. “Fuel instead of an explosive.”
The weapon was only slightly smaller than their rifles, but unlike their rifles, it wasn’t broken into several obvious components. It was a single, smooth tube, slightly bulbous on one end, unbroken by anything resembling a trigger, a hammer, or sights. Charlie hadn’t picked it up to test the weight, but she’d barely noticed it in the glider, and the monkey-thing had wielded it like it weighed nothing.
Theo reached out, his fingers skimming over the fat end. “Maybe. They could store the fuel here.”
Soren brightened. “Or maybe they’re attuned to the weapons. You said you’d never seen those creatures before, and they’re the first ones to be armed. It could be a psychic thing.”
Eduard stared at him in disbelief. “And you thought my sensory idea was stupid?”
She refused to look at either of them. Lysander claimed the monkey-things were soldiers for something called the Yellow Cross. He would probably know why they were the first creatures to be armed. But he was still asleep in the spare bunk, going on ten hours now. Julius had finally abandoned guarding him when it became obvious he wasn’t going to stir. And she wasn’t going to admit he’d told her anything about his so-called world. She’d get crap from the others about not sharing the information sooner.
“Maybe we should take them outside and experiment with them a bit. I mean, if some sort of animal can figure it out, we should be able to,” Theo said.
Julius rolled his eyes. “And then you accidentally blow off your foot because you don’t know how to operate it, go into shock, bleed out and die.”
“We’re not exactly amateurs here.”
“When it comes to these things, we are.”
“None of this bickering is getting us any closer to figuring out how this thing works.” She had to raise her voice in order to get all of their attention. “Do we really want the next report to Benson to say we’ve retrieved a weapon, but we’re too big of babies to actually test the thing?”
“Then we test it,” Eduard said firmly.
When he reached for it, however, Soren slapped his hand away. “Julius is right. We don’t know what we’re doing.”
“Oh, but if it’s a psychic connection, it shouldn’t be a problem for me, should it?”
She snickered. “It’s about time you finally admitted you’re all brawn and no brain.”
“It’s foolish to use the piercer if you do not know how to operate it.” Every head in the room swiveled to where Lysander stood. “It is designed to cause maximum destruction.”
He was taller than she’d thought, though any true assessment of height would have been impossible earlier. He still wore several layers of clothes, but his bronzed skin had lost its ashen tone. His eyes were bright, too, sharp and assessing as he glanced from them to the weapon, and back again. He looked like the sort of man who didn’t back down from something once he’d made up his mind. So why had she won their earlier argument, even temporarily?
“What did you call it?” Soren asked.
“It’s a piercer.” He approached the table as though he had nothing to fear. As though they hadn’t argued whether or not they should throw him back in the rift, or tie him down so he couldn’t move. Unlike the five of them, Lysander touched it without fear. “It’s used to pierce crowds.”
She edged over to be in a better position to block Eduard, who looked ready to try to knock Lysander over. “Dispersing a crowd doesn’t sound so bad.”
Lysander lifted the weapon, holding it with an eerie sense of familiarity. Everybody around the table tensed, but Lysander didn’t seem to notice. “It doesn’t disperse. It destroys. You point it at a group of people, or a herd of leviathan, and it’ll obliterate everything in its path.” He gestured with his free hand. “Down a straight line.”
Theo rose to his feet, his sidearm exposed. “Why don’t you put that down?”
“I thought you wanted to know what it is,” Lysander responded.
“And now we know.” She curled her fingers around his forearm and squeezed. Eduard was going to lose it in about two seconds, Theo’s response notwithstanding. “Please do as he asks. Remember what I said about what everything from the rift kept trying to do to us?”
Lysander sighed, but he relinquished the piercer, returning it to the table. His dark gaze slid around the room, surveying each of the men. “I am Lysander Davies, from Illyria. I know what you faced. The Yellow Cross forces them through the rift.”
“The Yellow Cross?” Soren frowned, his eyes shifting sideways as his brain worked. “I’ve never heard of them.”
Eduard grunted. “Never heard of this Illyria, either.”
“Yellow Cross is mustard gas,” Julius said. “That’s what they called it in the First World War.”
“Illyria…” Theo tilted his head. “The kingdom in Twelfth Night?”
Lysander smiled broadly at the reference. “Are you familiar with it? Do you have a copy?”
“Um…” Theo’s brows came together, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to make of Lysander’s excitement. “No, we don’t have a copy here.”
She waited for an explanation, but when nobody offered one, jerked lightly on Lysander’s arm. “What’s this Twelfth Night you’re talking about? You didn’t mention it earlier.”
“Is that what you two were talking about?” Eduard cut in before Lysander could answer.
“Well, no, otherwise I wouldn’t have to ask, now would I?”
“It’s a play by the great Shakespeare. I’ve never read it, but my great-grandfather spoke of it often, and would quote several of the passages.” The smile still lingered on Lysander’s face. “I’ve always wanted to read it. Read all of Shakespeare’s work, actually. The only text we have is A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
That one, she’d heard of. She’d never seen anybody light up like a Christmas tree over something like Shakespeare, though. Eduard looked just as confused as she felt, while Theo and Julius seemed intrigued.
“Why don’t we wait on the weapon?” she said. “If Julius says it’s okay, I think it’s time we got Lysander’s story.”
“You’re prepared to hear it now? You seem to be missing a person.”
Eduard shot Charlie a dirty look. “How does he know how many of us there are?”
“Is that really the point? He’s about to tell you he came out of the rift. I think that’s a little more important than what I might have mentioned to him when he was half-frozen.”
“Sit down,” Julius instructed Lysander. “I’m going to take your temperature, make sure you’re back to normal. Theo, will you please get some food for Lysander? He’s going to need nourishment. You can give him my rations for the day. Soren, call Lisa in from the hangar. I don’t want her to miss any of this.”
Lysander hesitated, his gaze tracking the way the others obeyed the barked orders. After a moment, he sat in the nearest chair, his hands a safe distance from the weapon. “It is not necessary to give me your food. I have dry meat in my bag.”
She frowned. “You didn’t have a bag when we found you.”
“Oh.” His shoulders slumped. “That’s…that’s unfortunate.”
“Why? We’ll figure something out about the rations.”
Eduard narrowed his eyes. “He probably had a weapon of his own in it.”
“There was a sort of weapon in it,” Lysander said. “But it was not for my use. I attempted to bring it for your sake.”
“Hold still.” Julius put the digital thermometer in Lysander’s ear. Though Lysander stiffened, he allowed the intrusion without argument. “It’s a perfect ninety-eight point six.”
“I want to hear more about this weapon,” Eduard said.
“Lisa’s not here yet,” Soren reminded.
“Lisa’s a mechanic. She won’t care.”
She smirked. “I dare you to tell that to her face.”
“Maybe you’re blasé about it because he already told you.”
“Jesus, Eduard.” She flopped down in the chair nearest Lysander and propped her head up in her hands, running her fingers through her hair. “Let’s not do this today, okay? This isn’t about you, or me, or how big your dick is. Trust me. You want to hear this story.”
“So you have already heard it.”
“No, she has not. She refused to listen to me without everybody present. No matter what I said.”
“Refused to listen to what?” Lisa asked as she entered the room, peeling gloves from her hands. “Wait, what is he doing out here?”
“He’s recovered. And we’re all going to sit down and listen to what he has to say.” Julius looked squarely at Eduard. “Without interruption.”
“I thought we were going to tie him down?” Lisa asked.
Eduard perked up. “Yes, I think we should do that.”
“No.” Julius pulled up a chair, nodding at Lysander. “Please, go on.”
“I am a descendent of Major Arnold Davies. Though I never met my great-grandfather, I have learned all his stories. He told so many from Earth. Not just the plays of Shakespeare, but the stories of men like Dickens, and John Milton, and something he called the Good Book. He also told stories of the family he left behind, and the war he fought with his brothers. The other men who came with him.”
Nobody spoke. She didn’t know about the others, but the sudden influx of information choked off anything she might say. Shakespeare might not be her thing, but military history was, especially when it was directly responsible for the unit that had stationed her and the others at the icy edge of the world.
Major Arnold Davies. British soldier. Born August 2, 1896. Disappeared April 19, 1918. One of a dozen Allied soldiers who’d gone missing when they’d fought off a wave of unknown creatures. Their disappearance instigated the formation of a secret unit within the Allied powers, professionals trained to handle threats exactly like the ones emerging from the rift for the past eight months. Though the creatures disappeared when Major Davies did, the unit had survived the Great War. Over the years the number of soldiers recruited to the unit dwindled, until now there was just the six of them, representing the United States, Canada, England, France and Russia.
Only those within the organization knew Davies’ name. He was just a footnote in a history book. No children. No siblings left behind. And now there was Lysander. Claiming to be a descendant. A threat, regardless of who might have sent him.
She glanced at the weapon. The piercer he’d willingly put down at her request.
Maybe the original Davies had survived when his team had gone after the first invading creatures nearly a century earlier. A far more logical explanation, because what kind of idiot would drop a man into an unknown fissure in Antarctica and think he would survive long enough to infiltrate their squad?
“I did know my great-grandmother,” Lysander continued. “She passed into Paradise when I was eight. When she took care of me, she told me about the time she met my great-grandfather. He was wandering through her forest, clad in strange clothes, holding a strange weapon, leading a group of strange men. She said they both frightened each other, and he called her a sprite. His sprite. She took him back to her family, and he became their great hero. He and the other eleven fought the horde and named it the Yellow Cross.”
“How did he get there?” Soren asked.
“A rift. Much like the one you watch. They traveled through it to protect your world.”
“And found Illyria?”
“Eventually. They found my great-grandmother’s people first. There weren’t many. They had to hide from the horde to survive. After the soldiers drove the Yellow Cross back, they set out in search of someplace to live in peace.”
“He’s lying.” Eduard’s grim face would have scared her if she didn’t know him so well. “Without an enemy, why wouldn’t the soldiers have returned when they had the chance?”
“The Yellow Cross is responsible for opening the rifts. When my great-grandfather met them in battle, he stole the texts they use to create the passages. He took his family and his men, and everybody else who would follow him, and they fled far beyond the reach of the Yellow Cross. That’s when they settled Illyria.”
“So Illyria is the name of the village you’re from.”
“It’s more than a village.” Longing flashed in Lysander’s eyes. “Illyria is a vast valley. Over the years, others found sanctuary there. The leviathan, other clans like my great-grandmother’s. We numbered in the tens of thousands when the Yellow Cross descended upon us again. Perhaps even more.”
Soren frowned. “If Major Davies stole whatever makes the rifts, does that mean your family made this one?”
“That can’t be right.” She leaped to his defense before a simple question turned into a full-blown attack. “He said the Yellow Cross drove these creatures through the rift. If his family has been fighting them, why would they give them the means to attack even more people?”
“They laid siege on Illyria, stole the texts, killed…” Lysander paused, his throat working as he swallowed. “Killed many, and took many more as prisoners.”
She started to reach out to him, to squeeze his arm in reassurance, but the heavy attention from the others checked her instinct. “Were you a prisoner?”
Lysander looked down to his hands, his dark eyes shielded by long lashes. Regret lined his face, and before he opened his mouth again, she knew his voice would be uneven. Cracked. Threatening to break completely. “No. A small number of us were hunting at the time of the attack. We managed to avoid capture. Fighting would have been useless. So we decided we would try to go through the rift. I am the only one who made it.”
“I think we should follow through on Theo’s suggestion about General Benson,” Soren said. “He needs to know we rescued someone in need of assimilation back into society.”
“No.” Her protest came out sharply, but she didn’t care, not even when everyone looked at her. “You know Benson won’t do that. Lysander won’t see the light of day for months if we just hand him over.”
Eduard scowled. “They’ll find out sooner or later. And sooner is better, considering our rations supply.”
“Please…don’t worry about me.” Lysander’s eyes sought hers, pleading and shining with sincerity. “You can send me wherever you please, and do whatever you need to do. I didn’t come here to save my life. I came to save yours.”
“How is that even possible?” Eduard said. “You had to be carried out of the rift, and you lost this bag you said you had. What could you possibly have that we need?”
“Information.” Julius appeared thoughtful. “Am I right?”
“Yes. Exactly. The Yellow Cross…they call themselves Aquorians. They are travelers. They use their power to open rifts to travel from world to world, attacking and destroying until there’s nothing left, and then they move on.”
“Wait.” Soren held his hands up to cut Lysander off, and turned to Julius. “We should record his testimony. That way, we’ll have something as reference in the future should we need it. As well as something to send to General Benson.”
