UNKNOWN PLANET, KURU SYSTEM
“Day five, fifteen twenty-three Kedalion Universal Time . . .”
Sevtar “Rhinn” Crafter had no idea if that mattered on this planet, with its unusual day-night revolution. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get a bead on time marking with his chronometer. Maybe it was damaged. Or he was crazy, losing his mind after dropping from the Prevenire.
Definitely a possibility.
Voids—he couldn’t unsee what happened to Bashari at the hands of those Draegis monsters. Then there was the horror of finding Marco wired into the ship. What kind of sick slag does that to another being?
Visor autodarkening to shield his eyes from the sun high in the sky, he glanced to where he’d last seen the Prev. It’d jumped, though he had no idea how Marco managed that with the ship’s damaged systems and his wrecked body and the Draegis piggybacking like parasites. But they’d been there one minute, gone the next.
“What’re you doing?”
At the voice whining through his comms, he lowered his gaze to the horizon of this blank-slate-of-a-planet. Nothing out there. Just cold, white. How there was this much snow with that sun confounded him, but what did he know about this alien galaxy except that it sucked?
“We need to keep moving,” Gola Tildarian snipped.
He gritted his teeth. Ignoring her hadn’t worked for the last two days, so he wasn’t sure why he thought it would now. “You need to remember your rank.”
“Rank? You want to fight over rank?”
Rhinn rotated and slammed his visor against hers. “Excuse me, Shepherd?”
She wasn’t backing down. “There’s no Command here. No HyPE. Therefore, no shepherds. In fact, there are no other people. No point—”
“Stand down,” Rhinn growled. “It’s even more important now to maintain chain of command. Obey orders, or I’ll leave you behind. Now, grav down.” He scanned the empty landscape again and huffed. “We’re taking a break.”
“Again? But we’ve only—”
“What’d I say?” he barked.
She drew up but wisely kept her mouth shut.
“Voids, why couldn’t it have been Zacdari or Jadon who dropped with me? At least they’d be useful!”
“How dare—”
A strange howl bellowed on the cold wind, making Rhinn draw up short. Yeah, he had snagged a pulse pistol and rifle from the weapons locker on the Prev before dropping, but—
“We’ll be fine,” Tildarian squeaked. “We have weapons.”
“Nothing big enough for whatever made that noise.” And anything that survived out here had to be hard to kill.
Tildarian glowered. “You’re just trying to scare me.”
“Only if it worked.” Crouched by the pod sleeve and cradling an unconscious Shad, Rhinn ran diagnostics to be sure the kid had what she needed until they could get help.
If help existed out here.
The crash landing had destroyed her pod, leaving her with a goose egg on her head. Although the swelling was going down, her brain activity wasn’t coming up.
“C’mon, kid,” he grumbled, tapping the panel. Didn’t need another death on his conscience.
Small and quiet, the kid had a name bigger than her one-point-five-meters—Ildanis Shadrakrian. She’d earned his respect after the way she’d dealt with the sabotage, crewmate illnesses and death, and then fast-dropping without complaint.
Unlike Tildarian.
He dug into his ruck for a ration bar, and his gloved hand thrust out the bottom. “What the—”
With a soft thump, a critter screeched away, its hairy, spiked backside vanishing into the snow.
“No.” Those ration packs were all they had left, and with no civilization in sight, he needed every one. Especially if Shad ever came to.
“You idiot! That’s our food!”
Rhinn slammed his forearm into Tildarian’s chest. “Call me that again!”
She stumbled back, her face thick with shock and fear.
Soft ploofs of the escaping creature yanked him around. He sprinted after it. Within a few meters, he leapt headlong into the snow as the thing dived. Must be a vole or something, digging tunnels for safety from the elements and predators. He shoved his hand down into the depression after the creature.
Frozen earth dug beneath his nails and soaked his fingerless gloves. Rhinn felt the brush of coarse fur and lurched to grab the thing, groping blindly for the thief. “C’mon, you scuzzer!” On his knees, he swept away snow to get a better angle on the tunnel.
“He stole all our food! You have to catch him.”
“No slag.” Rhinn wasn’t getting anywhere. He whipped around and snatched his collapsible shovel. He hacked at the hoary ground . . . only to find more tunnels. “When I catch you,” he hissed at the thing, “I’ll slice and dice you for dinner.” He grunted at the mouthwatering thought. Hadn’t had real meat in months. He’d willingly waste a whole power cell cooking the thing. It’d be worth it.
An hour and four additional unearthed tunnels later, Rhinn had to accept the blasted thing had escaped—with said rations. Pitching the shovel aside, he bellowed his frustration and fought the futility that wanted a voice, wanted to erupt with fury. He dropped back against the ground.
“Why are you giving up? Find him!”
Rhinn shot the shrieking shrew a look and flipped up his visor. He took more than a little sick pleasure when she shrank back. Swiping a hand across his cracked and blistered lips, he glanced at Shad’s pod sleeve. At least in there she didn’t have to worry about hunger, frostbite, or hypothermia. She’d die quietly, her O2 eventually running out.
Of course, he wouldn’t let that happen. It’s why they were hiking till their legs fell off every day, trying to find people or a village. He huffed as he squinted out into the emptiness. Just had to stay alive until the Prev returned. If it returns. Which depended on Marco surviving the jump. And avoiding the Draegis ambush on the other side of the Sentinel. And the slim possibility of Marco, Zacdari, or Jadon knowing how to navigate back to this planet.
We’re scuzzed.
If things didn’t change soon, they’d die on this rock.
Can’t give up. Not with two subordinates depending on him. Rhinn lumbered to his feet. After throwing another curse at the furry thief, he slung on his ruck, shouldered into the harness he’d rigged to drag the pod sleeve, and started trudging to Baru knew where . . . At least he wasn’t sitting idly by, waiting for Death to come.
“We’re leaving?” Tildarian whimpered, shuffling after him. “But I’m hungry!”
Rhinn walked for several minutes in silence. “Day fifteen million and five,” he subvocalized into his personal comms. “If I kill her, it wasn’t my fault.”
“Day seven: It’s been two days since the vermin stole our rations. I’ve dug for bugs and can’t even find that in this Baru-forsaken place. Tildarian’s complaints are endless. Where’s a good airlock when you need one?” He didn’t want this record of their journey to be all about the whiny shrew. “We . . . uh . . . we took shelter on the plain again—not that we had a choice. Built an ice hut like every other night. That’s when I noticed Shad’s pod sleeve freezing up, hardening the gel nutrients. Ya know, the ones designed not to freeze? Well, they froze.” He rubbed his eyes and fought off the exhaustion. “I hope she makes it.”
“Day ten: The kid—Doc—came to the same day the pod nutrients froze. So that was good. She’s good.” The repercussions if she hadn’t . . . “It was real nice to see those soft eyes looking back at me. She’s something else.” Since when do you care about that? He kept walking. “Anyway—that’s when we got attacked. This enormous elephant-mammoth thing snatched Tildarian right out of our ice shelter. It was . . . I . . . no time to prepare. But even that beast couldn’t stand her—found her a half klick out. Ripped up pretty bad. When I was rigging her to the stretcher, the thing returned and finished her off. Nearly killed me and the kid, too. Had to use my pulse rifle to drive it off . . .” Spent way too much ammo. His legs tangled and he dropped to all fours, narrowly avoiding a collision between a rock and his face. “Doubt we’ll survive till the Prev returns. Just a matter of who dies first and last.” He peered through the distance.
What was that? Light was breaking over the horizon, casting strange shadows. Probably the sun, idiot.
Man, he was tired. Dead tired.
His eyelids drooped. Felt himself sagging. He growled and pushed up. But his boot slipped, and he went down hard, head bouncing against the hardpacked ground. Light winked out.