12

HOSTILE TERRITORY

“WE HAVE A problem.”

My eyes fly open and I’m off the cot in a flash. Sauer’s already beside me. I scan the ship and then remember that Caden is up top with Sylar. We’re taking three-hour shifts for now—two on watch, two on drive duty, and two resting.

“Report, Arven,” Sauer commands. He walks over to the instrument console, where Arven is standing with Bass.

“The scanners are picking up interference. I think we’re being followed, but every time I try to get a lock on it, the signal disappears, almost as if it’s anticipating our tracking.”

Sauer’s eyes narrow. “How long?”

“Since we left the edge of the Outers, at least,” Bass says. “At first, we thought it was radioactive interference, since this is uncharted territory for us, but it’s too consistent.”

“Same frequency?”

“Yes.”

Sauer goes silent, mulling over the possibilities. There’s no way we can afford to lead a tail straight to Avaria. The consequences could be deadly. I consult the panel on my suit. “Sun’s up in a couple hours. We could try evasive action while we still have night on our side.”

“Not sure that would work,” Bass says. “They’re locking into some kind of homing signal on the vessel. Even if we took evasive action, they’ d still be able to locate us. We’ d have to find the beacon on the ship and destroy it.”

“Then we search every inch of her,” Sauer says.

“We don’t even know what we’re looking for, Commander,” Arven interjects. “It would be a futile effort.”

I try not to send an I told you so look at Sauer. Of course this machine would have homing signals that only other Machines could lock onto. I exhale, frustrated, just as something clicks in my brain.

“Wait,” I say slowly, “maybe I can locate it.”

“How?”

“Like I did with the Reptiles back in the Peaks. I can patch in to the ship manually and try to override it.”

Bass nods. “That would buy us some time. If whoever is tracking us tries to get a line of sight once the signal goes out, we can take care of them. It’s worth a shot.”

“What’s going on?” Caden pops his head through the hatch. “Why’ d we stop?”

“We’re being followed,” Sauer explains. “Arven will relieve you—we need your station battle ready.”

“But—”

“My Lord King, I must insist.” Sauer nods at Arven. “Tell Sylar to be on alert. Do not hesitate. Do you understand me?”

“Understood.”

Arven climbs out, and I nod to Caden. “Guess you should strap in just in case things get rough.” I turn my attention to Bass. “Let’s go.”

“Wait, where are you two going?”

“Engineering.”

“I’ll go with you.”

I shake my head. “You’re staying put.”

“Riven—”

“My Lord King, your safety is paramount. You’re better off here with Sauer. Bass and I will be fine.”

Caden arranges his expression into an unemotional mask. His eyes flick to Bass and then back to me before he nods. If it weren’t for the muscle ticking wildly in his jaw, I’ d believe his performance. But Caden is angry. More than angry. I can see it in the rigid slope of his shoulders and the frigid glint in his eye. He doesn’t trust Bass—especially when it comes to me, but I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself.

Bass quickly follows as I lower myself through the engineering hatch. The space is narrow and lined with sleek-looking access panels. At the far end, I study the antimatter/matter generator warily. It’s a ticking time bomb, the magnetic storage rings of the device glinting as it separates antimatter from matter, awaiting the command to combine the two and create the propulsion energy powering the craft. Antiprotons are mighty things—and dangerous enough to obliterate this entire ship.

“So, what’s up with you and the king?” Bass asks, making me jump.

“None of your business. Make yourself useful and ensure that that generator doesn’t make a peep while we’re down here.”

“I don’t think he approves of you being down here with me,” Bass comments.

“What makes you say that?”

“He looked pissed. I mean, you guys looked pretty cozy back in the dome. Seriously, what’s the deal? Are you shacking up with the Lord King of Neospes?”

“You have some nerve.” I turn to lay into him when I see the panel above his right shoulder. Bass is waggling his eyebrows suggestively, and I shake my head. “You have a sick sense of humor, and no one’s shacking up with anyone. Now move.”

I tap on the panel, watching it slide back to reveal a blue-hued command board along with some hardwired ingress ports. Engaging my suit, I sync the operations panel on my wrist to the one on the ship before plugging in the lead connection. Within seconds, I’m patched into the main operation controls of the ship. Information is flowing faster than I can process it—operating parameters, mechanics, flight data, maintenance, and finally, tracking capabilities. I isolate the data and zero in on the various frequencies, trying to find the one that’s transmitting out. The androids developed a tracking system for all their ships so they’ d be accessible remotely, no matter the location. Late in the war, once a ship found a rebel pocket, scores of fellow ships would home in on the outbound signal to annihilate the threat.

I’m surprised that this one hasn’t been disabled, given how long the previous king had it after the war, but maybe our engineers hadn’t even realized it was functional. Or maybe the magnetics of the Peaks deactivated it and no one realized the signal was there in the first place. Now, it’s broadcasting to whoever’s listening.

“Did you find it?” Bass’s voice sounds like it’s coming through a tunnel.

“I think so. It’s some kind of repeater. Hold on a sec.”

The outbound signal is small, barely discernible, but I find it. Time to shut it down before it does any real damage. I enter the kill script on my suit panel, but suddenly the screen fades to black.

“Shit.”

“What happened?” Bass asks.

“Stupid piece of—” I power down the suit and repower it, watching it boot up and feeling the swift responsive surge in my nanobes. “Give me a sec. Suit’s on the fritz. I fell while hoverboarding.”

Bass grins. “Heard about that.”

I glare at him. “Seriously, is everyone in Neospes a raging gossip?”

“Only when it’s really juicy.” Bass smirks at me, and I roll my eyes.

“Asshat.” The suit comes back online, but the kill command hasn’t worked. I unplug the device. “Looks like I’m going to have to do this the gross way.”

“Gross way?” Bass looks confused until I pull back the sticky flap of skin on my scalp and shove in the metal lead. His face turns a pale shade of green.

Blue lights shimmer along my skin as my brain connects with the ship’s computer. I smirk at him. “You’ll be fine, princess.”

This time, when I enter the kill connection script directly into the computer controlling the ship’s wireless frequencies, it processes the command immediately. I disconnect from the computer and slump down against the opposite wall.

“You okay?” Bass asks, looking wan. “Did you get it?”

“Yes, and I’m fine. All that operating system information is overwhelming. I need something to eat—that usually helps.”

“Riv?”

“Yeah?”

“That seriously was the nastiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

I laugh. “In all your years working with Vectors, me plugging in a little old wire into my brain is what sends you scurrying?”

“Because you’re a girl. I mean you look like a girl.”

“I am a girl.” I grin wolfishly. “Just one who can slice open her skull.”

Bass makes a puking noise. “Yeah, well, you could have warned me or something. Seeing that almost made me lose my breakfast.” He shudders theatrically. I’m grinning as we climb back into the hull. “There’s payback in your future, you know.”

“Just try it.” Bass lunges for me, swinging me over his shoulder. My head narrowly misses the ceiling. His fingers tickle my ribs, and I’m laughing so hard that I start snorting upside down. “Quit it,” I gasp, thumping his back. “Or I’ll electrocute you.”

“You can do that?” he asks, lowering me, his hands still around my waist.

“No, but I can do this.” I crouch and swing one leg out, catching Bass in the back of the knees. He goes down like a sack of stones, at the last moment catching hold of my vest. I lose my balance and tumble forward, sprawling right on top of him, my head crashing into his. “Ouch,” I say wincing. “That didn’t go as planned.”

“Did I get you?” Bass asks, brushing his fingers across the tender spot on my brow.

I squint, feeling the nanobes beneath my skin rushing to the affected area. “Your head is like rock. I may actually have a concussion.”

Bass smiles up at me. “I might have a remedy for that.”

In that moment, I’m all too aware of him lying beneath me, and the expression on his face becomes intense. Suddenly, the playful mood evaporates.

“Bass, I’m not—”

“What’s going on?” Caden interrupts, watching us with narrowed eyes.

“Nothing.” I scramble to my feet and notice his frown. “We were just playing around. Bass never saw me plug in. He freaked out like a baby seal, and wanted to prove his manliness.”

“Did not,” Bass protests.

Caden doesn’t respond, but his hostile expression speaks volumes. There’s no explanation I can give that won’t cause a scene, so I say nothing. We have a bigger situation to deal with, and it doesn’t include pacifying two testosterone-fueled boys.

Ignoring the skyrocketing tension, I move toward Sauer and give him the thumbs-up. “It’s done. Now, for Part B.”

“Part B?” Caden growls, his scowl threatening to go supernova.

“We wait until whoever is tracking us shows up, and get rid of them.”

“But you got rid of the signal.”

“Doesn’t mean they aren’t close. They could still be tracking us. We need to find out who or what they are. Sauer, what’s the game plan?”

The sun’s about to come up and we’re in an uncharted area. It’s not like we have many options, and we could probably outrun our pursuers if we tried. But I’m of the opinion that it’s better to find out what we’re dealing with—whether it’s Cale or a harmless rogue signal. It looks like Sauer feels the same. He brings up a holographic map in the center of the room. A blue dot in the middle shows our position about a thousand miles south of Neospes. Doesn’t seem like much, considering how long we’ve been gone, but I’m guessing Sauer doesn’t want to push it on the first day.

He jabs at a thin range of mountains to the right of our location. “We could head to this ridge and trap them. It’s not too far off our course, and looks like there may be canyons for cover. Lure them in and take them out. An hour tops. Arven? Riven?”

“Sounds good to me,” I say. Arven agrees.

Sauer points to Arven. “You and Sylar will stay on the ship with the Lord King.” He glances at me. “Riven, you take the west quadrant. Bass, you’re going to be here.” He stabs at a location opposite where I’m supposed to be. “You’ll take the hoverbikes.”

It doesn’t take long to make the detour to the crest of mountains. It’s a perfect spot. Sauer was right—the weird U-shape of the range will be good cover, and once we trap our hunters, they’ll have nowhere to go as Bass and I herd them toward the ship.

“Do you see that?” Sylar’s voice is thin through the communications headpiece. I remember that she’s still up top on watch. “Looks like grass, or moss, or something.”

“That’s not possible,” I say, bringing up the landscape on screen. But Sylar’s right. It does look like vegetation, which would mean an available water source. I study the lush undergrowth. Water hasn’t flowed on this world’s surface for years—in Neospes, our treatment plants dig deep, scouring the bedrock for residual aquifers.

Sauer shrugs. “There used to be hidden underground springs. Maybe this is one.”

But something seems off to me. The mossy area is only concentrated in one spot, and around the foot of the mountain the area is gravelly and dusty. If there were actually water, wouldn’t the rest of this region be flourishing, too? And if it were safe, wouldn’t there be a colony of something living here? I shake my head—much like the Outers, nothing is as it seems.

“I’ll be right back,” I say. “Need to change. This suit’s malfunctioning and I don’t want to take any chances with whatever’s out there.”

Caden follows me into the narrow lavatory at the back of the craft. I let him. “What’s the matter?” I ask, shimmying out of my suit and pulling a clean, unripped Vector suit from my stashed gear.

“What’s going on with you and Bass?”

“Nothing.” I lower my voice. “Caden, I don’t know what’s up with you, but you need to get it together. We both agreed that what happened wouldn’t affect us.”

“I know, but seeing you with him… he’s too familiar with you.”

“Bass isn’t being too familiar with me. That’s how it is in the legion. We’re friends, nothing more.” I snap the fastenings of the suit in place, blinking as it comes online. It feels different from my other suit, like an extra layer of skin—not as user-friendly, either.

“You were on top of him.”

“I fell.”

“I didn’t like it.”

I turn to face Caden. “What does it matter? In a few days, you’re going to have your hands full, and I’ll be the one feeling jealous.”

Caden’s eyes narrow in frustration. “What are you saying? You’re doing it purposely?”

I turn to stare at him, bristling at his accusation. “Doing what? Distancing myself? Cade, I have to. You know what’s at stake. I can’t afford to let my emotions get in the way of doing my job. To keep you safe, not make you jealous.” I take a breath, softening my words. “You have absolutely nothing to worry about with Bass.”

“He’s into you.”

“But I’m not into him. Caden, please. We agreed to let each other go, right? Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” He reaches for me and I slip under his arm to exit the space. Letting him touch me will disrupt all my carefully compartmentalized thoughts.

“I can’t.”

His hand flutters to his side. “Be careful out there.”

“I will.”

“And Riv, for the record, I never agreed to let you go. Those were your words, not mine.”

I nod mutely and climb outside. Bass is already unloading the hoverbikes. I don’t want to think about Caden’s parting words and what they mean. I inhale deeply to clear my head. He doesn’t think sometimes—he says what he feels. He’ll have to let me go in a couple days, whether he wants to or not.

“Bass,” I say into the comms device built into my headpiece before hopping on the bike. “Keep an eye out for that green stuff. It doesn’t look right.”

“Got it.”

We zoom off in opposite directions and I watch as the ship hovers into stealth mode, mirroring the stone face of the mountain behind it. With my enhanced vision, I can see the slight haze of its outline, but if I didn’t already know it was there, it’ d be undetectable. After stashing the bike on the far side of a large boulder, I crouch down and wait. The instrument panel on my wrist says it’s nearly a hundred degrees and climbing, but the suit does its job, wicking moisture away from my body and keeping me cool. I scan the horizon, but there’s nothing but hazy bands of heat flickering through the morning sunlight. I finger the hilts of my ninjatas. Something is off. It’s too quiet.

“See anything?” Bass’s voice buzzes in my ear.

“Not a thing.”

“Me, either.”

“Weird, right? I mean, you’ d think we’ d see something. A beetle or a bug, but it’s all gravel.” I glance down at a small round orb and prod it with my toe. It rolls to the side and three gaping holes stare up at me. It’s not gravel. It’s a skull.

Add bones to the list, I think as a similar white sphere catches my attention—this one slightly bigger than the first. Frowning, I squint through the reflection of the sun and kick at the pebbles beneath my feet. A dozen more skulls roll out along with limb bones of all sizes—all picked clean.

“Bass—”

“Wait, my sensor’s picking up something. Whatever it is, it’s fast. On your ten o’clock. I’m sending you the coordinates now.”

Bones forgotten, I focus on the area Bass has highlighted. I count five seconds before a shape comes into view, then two shapes. I recognize the saucer-like discs immediately. They’re trackers, sent out to collect and remotely return information. But for who? Cale? Or something more ominous tied to this ship?

“On my mark,” I whisper.

Bass leaps out at the same moment I do, brandishing a staff with blades at either end. He takes out one of the trackers with a swift strike. I unsheathe my ninjatas just as the ground trembles below my feet and something else appears… something big, and not a tracker at all.

The Reptile that bursts from the earth behind us is like a giant arachnid, red and black and shiny metal. I swipe at its legs but it’s too fast, hopping out of the way and slamming down a barbed-wire, hairy limb on top of me. Bass isn’t faring any better as the thing shoves him into the side of the mountain with one jab of a leg. Rolling out of the way, I barely get to my feet before it spits a sticky net of webbing toward me. I twist to the side, but I’m not quick enough as the glob glues half of me to the ground. Hacking at the viscous webbing with the ninjata in my free hand, the Reptile spider hovers above, ready to deliver its deathblow.

Then, before I can blink, something green snakes into the body of the beast from the right, and then another from the left. Confused, I look up toward where the ship should be, expecting to see laser fire bursting from the cannons, but nothing is there. Another green tentacle wraps around the creature’s body, dragging it to the ground, not two feet from me, pulling it into the maw of green moss.

And what a maw it is, full of jagged teeth! The Reptile tarantula disappears, hissing and screeching as limb by limb the tentacles feed it to the hungry, gaping mouth in the ground. Green shimmers with red for a minute as the last of the Reptile is consumed before the remnants of metal and bone are ejected to the side… just like all the other skulls and skeletons littering the gravelly earth.

Hacking off the last of the webbing, I shudder and scramble out of reach. The moss is alive—some kind of organic monster, luring in its prey with its luscious promise of water and food. Bass was lucky he didn’t get thrown in that direction—he would have been devoured in a second.

He staggers to my side, staff in hand, and slightly dazed. “Did you see that?” he gasps. “Swallowed that thing whole.”

“Carnivorous moss,” I mutter. “Who would have thought? Did you get the tracker?” Bass nods. We should be able to get some good intel on what it was recording and sending back to whoever is watching. “Take it back to the ship. I’ll take care of the other one.”

“No, it’s too dangerous.”

“We can’t afford to leave it.”

I watch as Bass gets on his bike, the first tracker in tow, and heads back to Sauer. Movement catches the corner of my eye and I spot the second tracker, lurking on the west side of the mountain. It must have been recording everything that happened, feeding it back. Sheathing my ninjatas, I pull the electromagnetic gun from my belt and line the tracker up in my sights. As much as I prefer ninjatas, guns can be quite useful at times.

Crouching, I take my time with the shot—missing now would cost us more than we are ready to lose—and pull the trigger. My aim is true and it’s only moments before the tracker falls to the ground, completely fried. Pushing to my feet, I pocket the gun and head toward my hoverbike when something snakes around my ankle and smashes me to the hard ground. Dazed, I see stars. Sharp rocks and bits of bone cut into my skin as I’m dragged along, my fingers scraping futilely for a hold. A glistening strip of green winks into my peripheral vision, just before a second tentacle winds around my left wrist, burrowing into my flesh.

I’m moments away from being swallowed.