Talina watched the airtruck drop toward the Briggs pad to land beside her aircar. Dust swirled up, blowing out in curling clouds to dissipate as the vehicle settled onto its skids.
Capella’s harsh light gleamed on the sialon and metal sides, glinted from the windshield up front. Airtrucks weren’t masterpieces of elegance, being built strictly for utilitarian function.
As the fans spun down, a thin woman opened the door, climbed wearily down. She was naked but for a wrap around her waist; her ratty brown hair was confined with a tie at the back of her neck. Talina could see the lines of scars crisscrossing her pale flesh. Some sort of spirals—centered on the nipples—covered each of her small breasts.
“Pus-sucking hell,” Chaco whispered where he stood beside Talina. “So that’s a cannibal?”
A rail-thin man appeared in the door behind the woman and stepped carefully to the ground. He, too, only wore a breechcloth; his bare feet, like the woman’s, looked so incongruous on the raw dirt. No one went barefoot on Donovan. At least not if they wanted to avoid a most hideous death as slugs slithered around their insides, eating their guts and muscles. The man was dark-skinned and the scars stood out—lines of them running down his torso, arms and legs, and around his face. They’d been patterned like triangles to accent his broad nose.
“Hello,” the woman called, starting forward, a hand shielding her eyes from Capella’s strong light. “I’m Shyanne Veda, and this is Tamil Kattan. Thank you for the beacon. We didn’t know what to do.”
Talina stepped forward, hand on her pistol, wary eyes on the airtruck. The thing could carry up to fifteen, maybe twenty people if they didn’t mind being packed in like sardines. “How many of you are there?”
“We’re all that’s left. We started with six. Batuhan’s First Will got the other four. Tamil, here, he was the important one, he could fly the airtruck.”
“Where’s Supervisor Aguila, Dr. Simonov, Talbot and the marines?”
Shyanne had a panicked look on her face. Her lips parted, and she was panting. From the heat? From exertion? Or fear? “One of the marines, the one they left to guard the airtruck, he’s dead. The others got away. At least I think they did. The Messiah had people searching everywhere. Even sent teams down into the forest. Batuhan sent so many after them, it gave me and Tamil our chance to break away. But damn him, he knew. Tried to stop us. We shook Hakil and Svetlana off as we were climbing from Tyson.”
“Who are Hakil and Svetlana?” Talina asked.
“They’re some of the Messiahs’ ‘Will.’ That’s what he calls them. Police. Enforcers. The ritual executioners. They ensure that what he wills is done.”
Chaco made a wait-a-moment gesture with his hands. “Hey, I’m Chaco Briggs. This is my place. So relax, huh? Start at the beginning. You’re not making a lick of sense.”
Tamil had stopped a couple of steps behind Shyanne, dark eyes glancing uneasily from Talina to Chaco and back. The guy kept licking his lips. Couldn’t quite figure out what to do with his hands, so he started wringing them.
Shyanne fought down what looked like a surge of panic. Swallowed hard. “Listen. I’m a veterinary tech Level I. There were six of us. With scientific backgrounds . . . or maybe just the kind of people who didn’t buy the bullshit, you know? But it was survival. Who the hell wanted to have their throats cut and be eaten? The things we did to . . . to . . .”
When she couldn’t finish, looked on the verge of breaking down, Talina snapped, “We know. What happened at Tyson?”
Tamil told her, “Shyanne was listening from the kitchen. Hoping to get back to see her daughter. Understood the moment the Supervisor said it was a prion that was giving the Prophets their visions. Shyanne explained it to us. Not that we’d bought the clap-trapping holy prophet shit. We’d already figured that once we got dirtside, we’d get away. Figured that out clear back on Ashanti. Then, seeing where we were? Surrounded by wilderness? It was like being crushed.”
“Then Aguila shows up with the science.” Shyanne had found her voice again. “There were six of us who thought we’d finally gotten our chance. Here was proof that would debunk the whole ‘we’re chosen by God and the universe’ thing.”
Tamil added, “But Batuhan had members of the Will in place, waiting. Tricked the marine guarding the airtruck. Killed him. Closed the doors to the dome, figured he had the Supervisor trapped, right? But they pulled guns. Shot some of the First Chosen. Those are the ones who carry the throne and attend the Messiah. The Supervisor and her people managed to get down into the basement.”
Shyanne said, “Stalemate. Batuhan can’t attack them head on. They’ve got enough firepower to kill everyone in that stairwell. Meanwhile, the rest of us, the disbelievers, we’re waiting for rescue. Someone’s going to come for the Supervisor. But it gets dark.
“So we plan. Come morning, with Tamil at the wheel, we’ll fly out. Find help.”
“But somehow Batuhan knows; he has the Will grab four of us.” Tamil chuckled in what was clearly gallows humor. “Cuts Jilliam’s and Cumber’s throats right there. Starts butchering them for feast. Don’t know what happened to Kleo and Troy.”
“We play the game.” Shyanne’s eyes had gone dull. “But we’re being watched. Then, at daybreak, there’s a cry. Turns out that the Supervisor and her people have found a way into some tunnel. It takes a while to figure out, but this tunnel goes down somewhere on the west side. So maybe they’ve escaped into the forest.”
Kylee—a fastbreak over her shoulder—with the panting and sweating Dek Taglioni stumbling behind her, rounded the workshop and pulled up. The way Kylee fixed on Shyanne and Tamil was like a mongoose on a cobra. Talina gave her a hand signal to wait and listen.
Shyanne might have been oblivious. “First thing this morning Batuhan sent search parties to hunt them down, and we made a break for the airtruck. Thought we had a chance. Barely got if off the ground. And that was with Hakil and Svetlana clinging to the side, swearing they’ll kill us.”
Tamil spread his hands like a supplicant. “If you hadn’t heard us on the radio, sent us that beacon, we’d have never found this place.”
“Get back to the Supervisor.” Talina stepped close. “She, Dya, Talbot, and one marine escaped into the forest, right? So, they’re still out there?”
“As of when we left.” Shyanne nodded.
“There’s about thirty of the chosen hunting them,” Tamil added. “More than enough to chase four people down.”
“Shit on a shoe,” Chaco muttered.
Kylee stepped close, shooting the scarred woman and man a scathing glare. “So my mother and father, Kalico, and some marine are out in the forest? Being hunted?”
“Yeah, kid,” Talina said softly, the quetzals in her blood having quickened. In her mind she was seeing forest trails, smelling the scent of prey, vision going keen in the infrared and ultraviolet.
“How much chance can they have?” Tamil asked, almost pleading. “There’s only four of them. With the airtruck gone, Batuhan has nothing to keep him from sending everyone in pursuit.”
“It’s not the Unreconciled I’m worried about,” Talina said.
“We’ve got to go get them.” Kylee’s gaze had gone vacant. Her eyes seeming to enlarge.
Yeah, she was sharing the same images Talina was.
“What about the rest of Batuhan’s people?” Tamil asked, a look of desperation in his dark eyes.
Kylee—in a voice thinner than wire—said, “Sorry. They had their chance. Nothing we can do for them now.”
“What does that mean?” Shyanne’s gaze flicked from face to face.
“On Donovan, stupidity is a death sentence,” Talina told her. “Let’s tell Madison what’s coming down and get packed.”
“Not me,” Shyanne cried, on the verge of tears. “I’ll die before I go back there.”
“Me, too,” Tamil said in a hoarse whisper.
From the look in Kylee’s eyes, she was more than ready to help them along.
“We’ll take care of you until this is over,” Chaco said.
“Let’s beat feet.” Talina turned, images of deep forest playing in her head. Four people, without armor, in unfamiliar territory. And just because they were among the best on the planet, this was still Donovan.
They didn’t have much time.