First Life, page 32
part #1 of River Saga Series
Miya stood, her blonde hair caked to her brow with sweat. She held the tablet, her hands shaking as she muttered to herself. “Come on. Get into position.”
The area grew quiet while a cloud blocked the sunlight from the colony. The Stingers must have sensed a shift, because they became more agitated. Perhaps the Queen knew what was about to happen, because everything changed.
“What are you waiting for?” Penelope shouted at it. “Come get me!” She waved her arms feverishly and shot more rounds at the Queen. It finally snapped, charging the woman who was trying to save our lives. It bit down, swallowing her in one fell swoop. We stood frozen in horror.
“Now!” Desmond yelled at Miya, and she pressed the button on the tablet.
I braced for the explosion, but none came.
We turned to look at Miya, and she handed Des the tablet. “It didn’t work. The link’s been lost.”
“How?” Des asked.
“We’ll do it manually,” Indie said, jumping to her feet. “Colton, you’re faster now. Des, I need four grenades.”
“We don’t have four,” he admitted, and pulled two from his pocket. “This is it.”
“It’ll do.” She passed one over and frowned at me. “Get to the nearest flag. Set the timer, drop it in. Five seconds. Run.”
“It’ll kill us,” I said.
“Have faith in me.” Indie hurried from the rooftop, practically flying down the steps. I charged after her, unsure if I could actually trust her as she suggested. Indie had kept so much information from me, but time was of the essence. The Queen was in position, screeching and flailing her tail around in anger. It knocked a few of her own horde aside, splatting them against the central building’s blue walls.
My mind was reeling with everything, but I tried to concentrate on my task. All I needed to do was toss the grenade into the drill-core’s hole, and the plethora of fuel and energy cells would do the rest on the unstable ground supports.
Indie ran faster than she should have been able to, shale kicking up in her wake. She bounded over a Stinger, landing with ease on the other side of it, and kept moving. My own feet traveled quickly, and I pushed my boundaries, almost shouting in joy at the speed. Warm air brushed against my face as I sprinted to the flag, skidding to a stop.
I slung the weapon over my shoulder and tapped the frag grenade on, setting the timer. Five seconds. With a final glance up at the Queen, I dropped the grenade and ran.
I didn’t stop when I heard the rumbling explosion, and a second later, another one rocked the ground under my feet. Indie had been successful.
The Queen shouted, sending the horde into a panic. They began jumping, flailing their stingers and scrambling away from the cracking landscape. A lengthy tear formed, shooting across the flagged area. The Queen looked both ways as the hollowed opening revealed itself, swallowing her along with thousands of her horde into Dicore.
“Attack!” I heard Desmond’s order and searched for Indie. She was nowhere in sight.
The ground continued to crack and sink, and I watched two nearby buildings slip into the opening with a resounding crash.
“Indie!” I called.
I ran to the edge of the crevasse, finding the Queen latched on to a ledge, her claws keeping her upright. Dozens of Stingers clung to her, and she batted her tail at them, sending them askew. They fell the forty feet down, landing on the rocks with a slap.
“Indie, where are you?” I couldn’t see her above ground, or below.
“Colton!” Her voice was strained, and I finally spotted Indie on a rocky overhang a few feet above the Queen. Somehow the Stinger had managed to survive.
Everything was covered in shale, and it was difficult to see through the dusty haze. The Queen pulsed, her blood permeating her gigantic body. It slowed as her tail extended, and I glanced from it to Indie, who was trying to pull herself to safety.
Desmond and Gordon Tremblay arrived at the edge, but they were twenty feet above her. They wouldn’t have time to save her.
But I could.
I breathed deeply, calming my nerves. Indie was too important to lose. A leader for our people. The only person that understood what the hell was going on with the Angor, and they appeared to trust her too. Besides that, I loved her, in my own way, and she deserved better.
Indie had lived with the pressure of having Xeno, and I empathized with her. Now she was free from it for the first time since meeting the Angor. We couldn’t squander that.
The Stinger managed to lift its tail, twitching it toward Indie.
I ran along the crumbling rocks, pieces of the city falling into the gaping hole. I almost slipped, but bounded up the rolling stones, landing on my feet. Indie was right. I could run fast. She was a hundred yards away, and I pushed myself. Without thinking, I reached for the blade strapped to my leg and leapt into the opening just as the Queen flung the tail forward.
My aim was off, and I crashed into the Stinger’s torso, right under her neck. My knife sank into her carapace, breaching the hard exterior, and I buried it as deep as I could, past the hilt. Ooze slimed my hand, but I kept pushing, right at the bright, pulsing circulatory system’s broadest part.
She thrashed, her right claw sliding off the ledge. The Queen screamed, dripping saliva on my neck. This was it. She was about to drop.
I couldn’t wipe my face, so I jumped off her blindly, hoping to catch the outcropping of rocks, and landed hard as the Queen tumbled. I rolled as far as I could, and her tail managed to hit me in the process, knocking me off the ledge.
“I got you!” Indie was there, clutching my wrist. She hauled me up, and we watched the Queen plummet the remaining distance, her head slamming against the bottom, killing her with a sickening snap.
“We did it!” I said, kissing Indie. She tasted like blood and iron. And I was covered in Stinger slime, but we didn’t care.
“If you two lovebirds are almost done, you might want to evacuate the pit. The Stingers aren’t too pleased with today’s outcome,” Des called, and a rope smacked the rock wall behind us.
“You first,” I told Indie.
I took one final glance at the deceased monster, then up at the clearing sky, and decided it was good to be alive.
____________
“Two hours, and they won’t leave her side,” Franklin said.
The Stingers surrounded the pit directly in the center of what was supposed to be the starting point for our colony on Dicore.
“They can’t stay,” Indie said.
“How do we get rid of them?” Bull asked. “We don’t have enough ammo.”
“We could try to burn the lot of them,” Tremblay offered.
Willow scratched her buzzed head. “How will we justify that? Plus, we’ll destroy the city.”
Indie stared at the hundreds of thousands of Stingers. “If only we could lure them away.”
“That’s it!” I jumped to my feet. “They followed the Queen wherever she went.” I smiled at Leruf, who had returned with the pod a couple of hours ago.
He seemed reserved, worried about what would happen to him, or perhaps his people, for his betrayal.
“What are you suggesting, Colton?” Desmond asked.
“The pod ship. Let’s use it as bait,” I said.
“How?” Miya was defeated after her issue with the tablet, and she kept peering at me like I was a ghost.
“We strap the Queen to it,” I told them.
“Like a puppet?” Franklin shrugged. “I think it might do the trick.”
“Good. Let’s get started.” Indie stood up and stretched. We were sitting on a handful of crates filled with supplies, and I observed the rest of our camp. No one was settled, not with such a terrible force lingering a mile away. We were perched at the highest ground in the colony site, anxious to be rid of the Stingers.
Then we could start to figure out what the future held for us.
The future. I came here expecting to find a colony world, then perish. Now I could think about tomorrow again, and it left me feeling exposed. Oddly enough, the changes in me seemed natural, like I’d been living in someone else’s body for my entire life and I’d finally released from the cocoon, embracing my destined form.
The others were chatting about what to use that could hold the Queen’s weight, and they marched off, leaving me with Desmond and Miya. Neither of them looked pleased with me.
“You should have told us,” Miya muttered.
“It was his choice. I still have no idea how you managed to secure a spot on the colony.” Desmond crossed his arms, as if expecting the story.
“I had some help.” I glanced at Indie as they departed with Leruf toward the small spacecraft.
“It’s absurd.” Des peered around, ensuring we were alone. “The Angor did this on purpose. All of it. Xeno to make warriors. The colony ruse to make soldiers. How does it all connect?”
Miya booted a rock. “I think it’s bigger than we can even imagine. The River.”
“What about the River?” I asked.
“It connects their allies. They’ve done it eleven times. Why Dicore? They want to create a Checkpoint here, but that takes time. Resources. So they get us to come, clear the planet, and build their precious River tributary. They sent the Angor to Earth for the same reason. I believe that Dicore and Earth are strategic locations for intergalactic space travel.” Miya seemed pleased with her analysis, and I guessed there was probably some truth to her theory.
“It makes sense.” Desmond put a toothpick in his mouth and shook the container. He was out. “The end of an era.”
“But why the Xeno?” We were missing a lot of pertinent information.
“Like we said. They wanted warriors,” Des said.
“When I was a kid, my doctor was replaced by an Angor man. Later on, I did meet with human doctors, but they suggested we use the Care Facilities when the time came.” I recalled the vivid memories of the San Diego Care facility a short time ago. “They are alive. All of them.”
“Where do they go?” Miya asked. “I mean, there’s no documentation on resurrected Xeno patients, right?”
“Not to my knowledge.” I considered that. There were thousands of humans with Xeno, but no new cases since the first year.
“That’s one hell of an army,” Des sighed.
“I guess that means Colton and Indie have been conscripted.” Miya’s comment made me turn my attention to Franklin.
“His wife…”
“And so many others,” Des added, hinting at something deeper, but not delving into it.
Franklin walked with Bull, helping secure long lengths of heavy rope over the pod. “He hasn’t connected the dots,” I said.
“Tell him later. We don’t know where the Xeno patients went. Maybe they aren’t alive after all. You wouldn’t want to give him hope, then take it away again.” Des gaped at his own boots.
“Regardless, I’m sorry for keeping it from you. I was trying to live before I couldn’t.”
They both smiled to match mine. “We’re glad you came.” Miya cleared her throat and blinked away a tear. “If this works, you’ll be a hero for the third time.”
“Third?” I asked.
“At least.” Des gave me a light rap on the shoulder, and the pair of them stalked off.
I was alone. My breathing was different since my return. The sunlight still cast a blue glow over the landscape. I noticed shifts in vibration, my fingers and toes tingling with the breeze. But mostly, I was healthy and awake. Aware of my surroundings. Prepared for anything.
Instead of dwelling on it, I joined my friends.
I looked to the skies, wondering what Director Ulison thought of our progress on Dicore so far. I suspected we’d find out soon enough.
TWENTY-FOUR
“Easy… easy.” Desmond clung to the side of the pod, me on the opposite end as the Queen lifted from the bottom of the pit. The thrusters sounded challenged at the added weight, protesting a bit, but still managed to raise the beast up.
The Stingers had been dormant until we’d flown in to disturb their Queen’s corpse. She was undoubtedly dead, with sticky ooze and poison dripping from the end of her tail. We avoided it while rushing to secure her to the ropes. By the time we were finished, the Stingers had crowded around the pod, which was hovering twenty feet above the Queen. A few of them plunged from the ledge, almost knocking us off the pod, but they missed and landed in heaps.
“Take her up!” Desmond clapped the side of the ship, and Leruf began to increase the thrusters. The Queen’s neck cracked as it spun at an odd angle, and the length of the tail dragged along the rocks until we were clear of the hole. The Stingers raced to follow their leader.
“It’s working,” I exclaimed. Desmond and I had no choice but to stay on the exterior of the pod for the entire journey, but it would give us a chance to explore more of the world from an elevated vantage point.
Leruf went slowly, trying to give the impression to the Stingers that their Queen was still alive and leading them to a safe haven.
We’d mapped it out as best we could, using information from each of the drop points. Instead of bringing them to the mountains a few miles from the colony, we were going to a second range, far away. It gave us the best chance of survival.
The trek was slow, but Desmond and I were able to talk over the duration, nearly shouting to hear above the sounds of the pod’s struggling thrusters. The Queen was rotting below us, hanging from ropes, and the scent took some time to grow used to. We found out the Stingers could move faster when urged, and Leruf increased his speed.
The landscape remained much the same, but we did see the occasional body of water in the distance. This region had more vegetation, with unique trees growing in the sandy ground. Nothing appeared to be thriving, but we’d make do with what we had at the colony site. There was a reason they’d brought greenhouses and horticulturalists along for the ride, if the Angor were serious about leaving us here with the supplies stowed on Palora.
“Why do you keep everything so close to your chest?” I finally asked Desmond, several hours into the trip. So far, we’d only discussed mundane topics.
“What do you mean? I talk all the time.”
“Yes, you have a skill at dragging details out from others, and being a good listener, but you never speak of your own past.” I spoke loud enough for him to hear.
Desmond was always so composed, but his resolve evaporated. “I lost her.”
I swallowed. “Who?”
“I signed up for the Army at eighteen. Came from a small town, as you know. Nothing for prospects there. Family life wasn’t great, so I decided to do what I knew best. I could hunt, live outside in the swamps for days, stalking prey. I figured it wouldn’t be so different.” He stared ahead, and I let him talk, not wanting to break his attention. “Served for twenty years. Crossed paths with Tremblay occasionally. Saw a lot of the world. And every year, it broke my heart a little more.”
He stopped talking and adjusted himself on the edge of the pod’s hull. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, but we were making do.
“By the time I retired, things were rough. The power grid wars were beginning, and it made me ashamed to be human. I dropped out, and went to Indonesia to help. I fell in love.” He grinned at this, and turned to face me. “Needless to say, that didn’t work out long term, but… we had a child. She was a miracle. Dewi was my everything.”
I smiled despite the outcome I expected was coming. “That’s a beautiful name.”
“I suppose it is. She was twelve when the Angor came. I was living in the Philippines, working construction. I’d go to see her a few times a year, and kept in close contact with weekly video chats. She was the only thing keeping me going. Then the aliens arrived, and I rushed to her, ready to protect her and her mother. They let me in, despite our differences, and I stayed for that first year, while we learned of the Angor. Things were far less advanced at our village, and it wasn’t until most of the other Xeno sufferers had been diagnosed that we even heard of it. Dewi was so sick, and we didn’t know why. She struggled with attacks almost daily.”
I listened in silence, wishing his pain away.
“The Angor had a facility up in Manila, and they brought her, finally. Five years, Colton. We had another five years with her. Then she died.” He gazed at me with damp eyes. “Or so we thought.”
“She might still be alive,” I whispered.
“Yes. Dewi was a soldier like her father. She wouldn’t give up. If the Angor took her from me…”
“We’re going to find out. Together,” I assured him.
“Yes. We damned well are. Her mother is gone too. She went fishing one day and didn’t return. They found the boat a week later. Empty.” His head hung low.
“I’m sorry, Des.”
“So am I. But it’s all the Angor’s fault, not ours.” He pointed at the horizon. The planet’s star remained in the sky, reminding me how long each day was here. The Stingers were still following their Queen, swarming the terrain with a single focus. We were almost at the destination.
The hills were covered in blooming wildflowers, and I spotted a body of water centering the valley. We hoped the Stingers would accept the new home, but truly had no idea if they’d stay or not. Franklin believed they would, for a time, while their Queen decomposed. By then, they might have taken to the local area. It was our best shot. If they returned, we’d be prepared for it.
Leruf lifted between two hills and slowed while the Stingers all caught up. He lowered the Queen to the base of the largest hill, which might have been a small mountain.
“Ready?” Des asked me.
“Very.” I held the clasp, and we released the strapping simultaneously. The huge Stinger landed in a pile, and her horde rushed around her, skittering and clicking their claws.
I reached into the bag, and pulled out the packed meat. I tossed the half dozen chunks into the horde, watching the Stingers tear at the food. We’d placed small locators in each of them, and I watched the signals bounce to my tablet’s map. If they started to come for us, we’d have a warning.
