Woodland area, Dresse, Dresse system
‘Gatas!’ exclaimed Bache, shaking his head. ‘That explains where the name purrers comes from.’
‘What are they?’ asked Malic, squinting through her rifle optic. ‘He’s got fur on his face!’
‘Yes,’ said Bache. ‘Human-feline hybrid originally from a planet called Lynkas. They have many clans now and populate several worlds on the fringes of GDA space.’
‘Very unusual to find them off their own worlds too,’ said Zaphir. ‘It’s very remote and they’re normally extremely shy and don’t involve themselves in anyone’s business except their own.’
‘I’ve seen a few of them on mining planets like Krix’ir,’ said Bache. ‘But I’ve never seen them with weapons before.’
‘Or gunships,’ said Zaphir.
‘No wonder the locals are good at hiding and being quiet,’ said Bache, glancing up at the treetops. ‘Gatas have vastly superior senses, so I’m glad we’re downwind from them, otherwise they’d probably hear or smell us.’
Watching closely through his optic as another of the creatures came into view, Bache realised something unusual about these Gatas that he hadn’t seen before.
‘They have very dark fur,’ he said.
‘You’re right,’ said Zaphir. ‘I thought it was the shadow of the trees, but they’re a dark grey colour aren’t they?’
‘Is that strange?’ asked Malic.
‘Yeah,’ replied Zaphir, quietly pulling out her tablet and tapping away with a thoughtful expression.
Malic nodded and pulled her optic up to her eye again.
‘They’re not doing much,’ she said.
‘I imagine they’ve called for backup,’ said Bache. ‘They’re down one man and they don’t know how many of us there are.’
As they watched, the three remaining Gatas gathered together on the near side of the clearing and stared into the trees almost straight at them.
‘How do they know we’re in this direction?’ whispered Malic.
‘Their hunting skills are extremely acute,’ said Bache. ‘That, and the fact we’ve left plenty of signs in our haste to get away from the ship.’
‘Wow!’ said Zaphir, staring at her tablet screen.
‘What is it?’ asked Malic.
‘I was going through the GDA’s data files on the Gatas.’
‘What have you found?’ asked Bache, dropping his optic and looking across.
‘Dark grey Gatas are a mythical clan from their folklore called the Nkris. Aggressive, meddling, violent and a Gata society-wide catchword for anything that goes wrong.’
Bache raised his eyebrows.
‘Seems their folklore was correct then, looking as to what these grey ones have been up to,’ he said.
They all ducked out of instinct as another two ships roared overhead, the sound of their antigravs changing pitch as they scrubbed off speed and turned to land.
‘We need to get out of here,’ said Zaphir. ‘There could be dozens of them roaming through here in a few minutes.’
Bache watched as the original three Gatas looked up and turned away as their backup arrived.
‘Come on,’ said Bache. ‘Let’s go while they’re preoccupied with the arrivals.’
Staying crouched, Bache led then off to the right and circled around for about fifty metres, before straightening up and heading away from the clearing again, this time in a completely different direction. The lighter gravity was enabling them to move extremely swiftly.
He could hear the crashing of trees being flattened as the two ships didn’t waste any time and clearly sounding as if they were taking no prisoners getting on the ground to disgorge their personnel.
‘We need to hustle,’ hissed Zaphir. ‘They’re not messing about.’
‘I know,’ replied Bache. ‘Just stay amongst the trees, If I remember rightly, it should be a bit more rocky in this direction and maybe…’
The local man they’d been conversing with moments ago suddenly appeared on their right-hand side. He beckoned them to follow him and as quickly as he had materialised he vanished amongst the shadows of the undergrowth again.
‘How the ancients did he get here so quick?’ Zaphir panted as the three of them turned and plunged in after him.
Bache slowed as it took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. The smell of rotting flesh assaulted him in this dark, narrow passageway of vegetation.
‘What the fuck is that stink?’ he heard Zaphir hiss behind him.
They quickly found out, as they had to step over the decomposing corpse of some indigenous four-legged animal. The local man was stooped by a small opening in the base of a rock escarpment that stretched steeply upwards and disappeared through the tree tops.
He had a small branch in one hand and ushered them down and into the opening with the other. Once inside, Bache turned and watched as the man scurried back over the dead animal and disappeared for a few seconds before returning, walking quickly backwards and dusting the trail with the branch.
‘Covering our spoor,’ he whispered, noticing Malic’s puzzled expression.
Joining them in the cave, the man threw the branch to one side as two other similarly bearded locals, who’d up to this point been completely hidden in the darkness, moved in to help the man roll a sizeable boulder across the entrance.
Once done, the man beckoned them on again. Bache noticed him get worried glances from the other two locals. Nodding at Bache, Zaphir and Malic, the man uttered a couple of words that neither he nor the translator picked up. Whatever he said seemed to placate his colleagues somewhat as he got small nods in return, before they quietly fell in behind and the group of six made their way off into the gloomy darkness.
As they rounded a corner, the low ceiling disappeared and the passageway became much higher enabling them all to stand fully upright. Bache realised where the dull glow had come from, as the local man grabbed a hand lamp out of an alcove. It emitted a low yellow glimmer, just enough, as your eyes adjusted, to see your way along the narrow rock-strewn corridor.
The ground became a little more uneven shortly after and began winding gently uphill and pebbles replaced the gravel floor. Bache realised water must have formed this cave system many millennia ago.
‘How bloody long is this thing?’ griped Malic, after about fifteen minutes of zig-zagging upwards.
‘Long enough to get you away from the purrers,’ said the local man in front. ‘Or you’d be dead by now.’
The adaptive translator was getting much more accurate with the local’s particular dialect of Guasse.
‘Why would they want us dead?’ asked Zaphir.
The man stopped and turned to face them.
‘If you’re really off-worlders like them, then you could tell others. They won’t allow you to do that.’
‘They might have taken them to work at the Ballenhyght caverns,’ said one of the other locals.
They all turned to face him.
‘Where’s that?’ asked Bache.
The locals looked at him as though he was insane.
‘You’re right, Kolde,’ said the second local a moment later, after they’d all exchanged raised eyebrows. ‘They’re definitely not from this world.’
‘They had a flyer unlike anything I’ve seen before too,’ said the third local.
Bache turned to the first local seemingly known as Kolde.
‘Kolde,’ he said, pointing at the man. ‘Bache, Zaphir and Malic,’ he continued, pointing at himself and the other two in turn.
Kolde pointed at the other two locals.
‘Geerten and Weltronicas, although we know him as Welt.’
‘Thank you for taking the risk with us,’ said Bache. ‘We fully understand you could’ve left us out there, with what would’ve been a pretty futile chance of escape.’
The three locals nodded and Kolde pointed up the passageway.
‘We continue,’ he said ‘Not much further.’
‘When did you leave the cities?’ Zaphir asked.
Bache noticed the locals glance at each other again.
‘You know about those?’ Geerten asked.
‘We scanned your planet before we came down here,’ said Bache. ‘So we know your society was a lot more advanced at one time.’
Geerten nodded as he walked.
‘It was when we were children, about twenty years ago,’ he said. ‘I was too young to remember it, so I’m going on what my parents told me. They said the purrers crash-landed in a spaceship that badly needed repairs.’
‘And they’re still fixing it?’ Malic said cynically.
This time Geerten shook his head.
‘At first they were friendly,’ he said, pensively. ‘Our ancestors helped them dismantle the ship and transfer it into a large cavern in the Ballenhyght Mountains region. It had to be under cover for some reason.’
Bache and Zaphir exchanged a glance.
‘I think we know the reason for that,’ said Zaphir. ‘But go on.’
Geerten shrugged and continued.
‘From what I was told, it was shortly after this was done their attitude suddenly changed and they started forming forced labour squads to mine a rock that they seemed very excited about.’
‘What was it?’ Zaphir asked.
‘No idea,’ said Kolde. ‘We just call it the rock of the dead.’
‘There was an uprising and several purrers were killed, which was quickly put down quite brutally,’ said Welt. ‘They have these powerful death ray weapons, hundreds died and then the females began getting sick.’
‘Just the females?’ Bache asked.
The three locals nodded, their expressions hardening. Kolde swallowed hard before continuing.
‘The purrers found out it was the wives and mothers of the forced labourers that organised the revolt. Over two million females died within a week.’
‘Oh, no,’ exclaimed Zaphir, slapping her hand over her mouth in shock. ‘That’s horrendous.’
Bache’s expression hardened.
‘A crime of that magnitude cannot go unpunished,’ he muttered through gritted teeth.