Base Zero, page 6
part #2 of Captured Earth Series
The deep vibration, it’s coming from him, and once I sense it, it’s all I can focus on.
It draws me in, dimming the problem around us. Dimming the terror going through my veins.
It seems he was waiting on this calm, because Ga’Var suddenly moves once more.
I don’t know how he does it, push himself upward with such force when there’s nothing to brace against, but the action of his movement takes me with him.
I can only clutch onto the arm that’s draped across me as he moves, praying he knows what he’s doing, praying he can get us out of this.
When my head breaks through and fresh air hits my face, there’s a moment where a wave of tension releases from me and if I was standing, I would have collapsed.
“Oh my god.” My chest is heaving, my entire body is shaking.
I pull in deep breaths, still not believing that we’re not underground anymore.
“We made it!”
Disbelief threads through me.
“Of course we did, little one.”
Ga’Var’s deep voice sounds distant as he pulls my upper body through the soil and my hands are finally free.
I struggle to pull myself out of the dirt as he helps me the rest of the way, and when our bodies are finally freed, we stumble away from the hole we made to collapse on top of what’s left of the mountainside.
My ankle is a throbbing ball of nerves, and I don’t even want to look down at it.
I know it’s sprained, or worse, broken.
“Fuck…” I breathe, looking up at the sky above us. It’s already turning gray.
Night is coming.
“Fuck!”
I can’t take in enough breaths, as if air is suddenly scarce, and it takes a few long moments before my lungs calm down.
There is an almost transparent veil over my eyes, marring my view, and I raise my hand, brushing it over my eyes, my nose, my mouth.
It feels like the mask moves, in much the same way I felt it move over my skin when he first put it on me—as if I’m brushing my hand through a fluid slightly thicker than water.
Ga’Var is suddenly above me, his blazing eyes searching mine.
“How do you feel?”
Like shit, I want to say, but all things considered, things could have gone much worse.
“I’m going to live for another day.” I’d have smiled after saying those words, but my mouth won’t cooperate.
Breaths still shudder from me, my heart is still tempting itself into cardiac arrest, and the shock of it all still hasn’t worn off.
“You are wounded,” the alien says and his hand brushes over my ankle.
Pain shoots through me even with that slight touch and I wince.
Ga’Var clicks something in his language.
“We have to find shelter,” he mutters. “Quickly.”
I rise on my elbows before pushing myself into a sitting position.
My ankle looks like it can’t decide which color it wants to be. It is slowly turning into a mashup of red and purple.
Shit.
It looks even more painful than it is.
“I’m not sure how fast I can go, to be honest.” Coupled with the pain in my leg, I’m covered in scratches and bruises.
This body of mine has been through a lot.
I’m surprised I’m even conscious.
“Well, little one, we have to move.”
For the first time since coming to the surface of the dirt prison, I sense something in Ga’Var’s tone, and the hairs at the back of my neck rise.
When my gaze meets his, there’s a beat where I just know he’s about to relay bad news.
“We are not alone.”
The alien’s words send a bolt of ice down my spine and I stiffen. My lungs stop working.
I don’t dare to breathe, as I’m suddenly aware of everything around me.
But we’re underneath the trees. The landslide took us almost to the bottom of the mountain, and the remaining trees here that stopped the flow of dirt block most of what I can see.
I gulp as my gaze turns back to the alien.
“What do you mean?” I whisper.
So caught up in actually coming out of this alive, I didn’t even notice the blades still pointing outward all along his arms and back.
Underneath the shield of his suit, his eyes flash.
His teeth are bared and his muscles tense.
If I wasn’t aware of what had just passed over us, I would have thought he is about to attack me.
“They are among us.”
His words chill me even more.
I don’t have to ask.
I know exactly who is he referring to.
What he is referring to.
My gaze darts to the surrounding area, trying to spot the aliens, our enemy in the growing shadows.
I only saw one alive once.
The thing that controls the machines that walk across our world, draining our lakes, destroying civilization…taking us prisoner.
I remember when the medic had opened Mina’s stomach. When the alien had crawled out.
Long-limbed. Fleshy gray head. A cross between an octopus and a spider.
I shudder at the thought that one is somewhere in the forest with us.
“Where?” I don’t know how I say the word so calmly when everything inside me is screaming.
“Above,” he says.
I raise my gaze to the heavens, searching through the leaves above, my heart hammering a rhythm that is too fast for it to uphold.
It takes me a while to spot it, but when I do, my breath stops in my nose.
There.
Off in the distance, through the trees, I see the light reflect on it like a bad omen.
An orb.
Standing still.
“What is it doing?”
“Nothing good,” Ga’Var growls the words, and I realize that even though he looks like he could tear something apart right now, he’s exercising restraint, probably for my benefit.
I try to rise but promptly collapse.
Pain shoots through my ankle.
My leg isn’t going to work.
My ankle is shot.
I bite my bottom lip through the pain, my eyes watering.
Pain can’t stop me, though. It won’t stop me.
I can hop.
That’s good enough.
Somehow, I will make it back to the base.
As if Ga’Var reads my mind, he says words I do not want to hear.
“We can’t go back to the base.”
No.
“The Scrit is in the way and we have a much bigger problem.”
I want to ask him what problem could be bigger than that—literally—when he looks at me. At my wrist.
The little transparent patch that’s on my hand is flipping between a blue light and a red one.
“Your energy signature is no longer cloaked.”
No.
I open my mouth to speak, but no words come out.
I can’t even stare at him as the reality of the situation falls on me.
“What?” I don’t even hear my whisper. It’s as if all I can hear are the gongs of doom.
Ga’Var’s words each ring in my ears, echoing.
“The Scrit is too far away from you to sense you right now. But as soon as we go closer…”
As soon as we go closer…it will sense me.
I glance down at the thing on my hand and pat it lightly…press it into my skin…shake my arm.
I need it to work!
But the lights don’t stop alternating.
“There must be something I can do.” I glance up at the alien before me. “I have to get the food back to the base.”
Vullan faces are expressionless, but Ga’Var’s slitted pupils narrow.
“That is what concerns you?”
I know. It’s like the silliest thing. But it’s probably one of those instances where your mind is so over-processed that you say or focus on the most random of things.
But even so, I realize one thing.
The cart carrying the food is nowhere to be seen.
The food.
It must be buried somewhere under all this loose dirt.
I glance down at myself.
Over my heaving chest are the threads of what’s left of my dress.
It’s ripped in so many places, it’s hardly recognizable.
Grabbing a bit, I rip a long strip and begin binding my ankle, my gaze flashing through the trees at the machine that’s far too close for comfort.
Ga’Var watches me.
“We have to find the food,” I pant. “And we have to get out of here.”
I wince as I pull the cloth tighter, binding the last bits around my ankle.
“I won’t slow you down. You don’t have to worry about me.”
I dart a glance at him, but I don’t allow him to say a word. “I’ll keep up.”
Because…if Ga’Var wants to leave me right here, right now, and sneak past that machine, he can.
I’m the reason he can’t head back to base.
I’m the liability.
He doesn’t say a word, worsening my fears, and a lump forms in my throat.
I can’t let him leave me here. So, I try to rise.
Pain shoots through my leg immediately and my knees buckle.
“It’s not as bad as it looks.” I shoot an unconvincing smile his way and try to stand again.
I almost fall one more time, but Ga’Var grabs me.
“Don’t protest,” is all he says as he lifts me over his shoulder in a sort of fireman hold.
Even if I wanted to yell, I couldn’t.
My entire body feels stiff with shock…and fear.
Ga’Var begins walking in the opposite direction of where we should be going, and I know he’s heading away from Base Zero.
Away from the Scrit.
Away from what we know and toward…what?
I have no idea.
But I’m wounded and my very existence is like waving a red flag at a raging bull.
We can’t head toward safety…so we have to go into the unknown?
It feels like the mask over my face pulses and I move my hand upward to touch it.
I swear it moves against my fingers.
There’s no longer a need for it and I try to find where it joins to my skin.
I’m swaying as Ga’Var carries me, but that isn’t the reason I’m finding it difficult to find the delineation between my skin and the mask itself.
For minutes, maybe an hour, he walks, and each step away from the huge machine is a step away from the safety of the base.
I stare in its direction and now and then, I glimpse the reflecting metal.
It’s not for a long while till I can’t see it anymore, but there’s still a lump in my throat.
With the visual gone, I begin to worry about other things, and I have to force myself to focus on something else—like the mask on my face.
I’m still trying to remove it, but it’s not budging.
I’m about to ask Ga’Var to take it off when he suddenly stops walking.
My heart thumps against my chest.
If he’s spotted another enemy.
But no.
Ga’Var is simply putting me down at the base of a large tree.
“Wait here,” is all he says, and I don’t get the chance to say a word before he disappears.
Chapter Nine
GA’VAR
The Scrit is standing tall in the middle of the clearing it has created.
Even as I head back toward where Sa’am and I fell within the earth, my ba’clan writhe uneasily.
I am on edge.
Everything within me wants to head toward the huge machine and take it down.
But I have no energy bombs.
And the weapons we work to create…the ore we mine…none of that is ready either.
Even if it was, I am without even a prototype.
The only thing I can do…is hide…and wait.
What’s worse, Sa’am is terrified.
I could scent her fear even as I moved away from her.
I had to leave her for that reason.
To head back to where we fell.
To find that crate with the food she worked so hard to gather.
I still have the tracker for it. Finding it is not my worry. What concerns me is the way my ba’clan are reacting.
Even now, my hackles are rising as I move and I have to inhale deeply to clear my head.
It’s the scent of Sa’am’s fear, not only the presence of the danger in our midst.
Her fear scent makes me want to hunt.
To rip something apart.
It makes me want to…claim.
I bite back a growl.
I have to calm myself before I return to her.
And so I run, moving through the trees as if they are not standing in my way.
I reach the spot where the earth collapsed on us in no time, my gaze moving through the branches above me to spot the Scrit.
It is still there.
I do not think I have ever seen one stand still, and I wonder if it is scanning.
Why would a Gryken pause in its unrelenting quest to harvest all the water and sentient life on this planet?
My lips pull back as I snarl.
I am sure the sentries must see it.
I can only hope that my womb mate and his female are also safe, because the enemy stands between us.
I cannot go to them, and they cannot come to me.
Focusing on the soft earth, it doesn’t take me long to locate the cart buried underneath.
It is heavy, filled with soil, and it takes some time to lift itself out.
When it finally appears, I dig out as much of the soil as I can and head back to Sa’am.
I don’t even get close to her before I smell her fear.
There is a writhing against me too, my ba’clan getting even more on edge, and I stop in my tracks.
My ba’clan pull against me in a way they’ve never done before and I’m unable to move as my thoughts gather.
I was mistaken.
They’re not on edge because of the danger only. Not on edge because of Sa’am’s fear scent.
There is a panic that shoots through them as they stretch in her direction before snapping back against my skin.
A wave of surprise runs through me.
They have never done anything like that before.
They writhe once more, pulse, then stretch in Sa’am’s direction before snapping back to me, as if they are trying to get to Sa’am but can’t leave me behind.
That sends a sliver of fear through me.
Is she in danger?
I extend my senses. But I cannot hear anything.
I do not sense any other creatures in the surrounding forest.
Still, I hurry back to where I left the little female.
“Sa’am?”
Her chest is heaving so hard, for a moment, I think her life organ is experiencing some kind of arrest.
“Ga’Var?!” Underneath the veil of the ba’clan that I lent to her, her big white eyes look back at me. “I can’t get it off.”
Her fear scent is so strong, I seal my nostrils and slap my hand over my nose for good measure.
But even if I can’t smell it, I can still see it in her eyes as I approach.
She wants the ba’clan off.
No problem. I will simply call them back to me. They have done their job of helping her to breathe.
Now it is time for them to return.
But when I touch my hand upon her skin, when I give them the mental command to return to me…nothing happens.
I blink as I watch them.
I can feel them, connect to them. They are still an extension of me, but they are not obeying.
They are still.
Of their own volition, they refuse to return.
Something in my gaze must have alerted Sa’am that something is amiss because her eyes widen even more.
“Ga’Var?” she whispers. “What’s wrong?”
I don’t answer.
I’m not sure what’s wrong.
This is new for even me.
“Tell me.”
I meet the hyu’man’s gaze, searching it as if I am going to find some confirmation there that she is stable enough to hear what I am about to say.
But a shudder goes through her as she gulps. “You can’t take it off…can you.”
A statement. Not a question. And I wonder how much she knows about the ba’clan.
“No.”
Sa’am gulps again.
“Ga’Var…this isn’t a regular alien suit, is it.” Her gaze moves down me. Down the hackles still extended around me.
“Is it?”
I don’t know how to answer that.
It doesn’t sound like a question even though it’s formulated as one.
“…no,” I finally say.
She gulps again, her breaths coming deep and long as she averts her gaze.
“It’s stuck on me?”
Vullan do not lie…but I do not know how to answer her.
“Maybe if I wait a little, it will come off on its own?”
Hopeful wide eyes search mine, but I cannot provide the little hyu’man with the answer she seeks because the truth is…
I do not know.
SAM
Everything is swarming in my mind and as I rock gently back and forth across Ga’Var’s shoulder, all I can do is think.
It feels like the world is slowly closing in around me again.
As if hope is a burning candle that is going dim.
And all I can do is stare behind us, in the direction of the orb, a part of me expecting the worst.
That the machine will start moving again.
That it will turn around and head this way.
That it will crush us.
Or worse, that it will kill Ga’Var and capture me once more.
Fear has me rigid.
But Ga’Var moves quickly.
He is keeping to the trees, avoiding the flattened areas, and keeping out of sight.
I don’t know where he is going or how far away from the thing he intends to go, but I don’t stop him.
As far away from that thing as possible.
I don’t object.
I’m so focused on what’s behind us, I don’t even notice the cart floating by Ga’Var’s side until far too late.
