Aftermath (24 page)

“That doesn’t bode well.”

“Check your comm,” he says.

I tap it, and nothing happens. No juice. No signal. Wherever we’ve gone, it’s far the hell enough away that our technology can’t keep up. Frag me, that’s terrifying. This is the farthest I’ve ever jumped, no question about it, and I didn’t even do it on purpose. I guess that sums up my life, when you come right down to it.

“You have to question what she thought this would accomplish,” I say, shaking my head.

“We are destined,” he repeats with a mocking twitch of his mandible. “It is written.”

But Mary, I’m relieved to see him finding humor in anything. He got so cold and distant after Gehenna, pulled back to a place where I couldn’t reach him. And that hurt because he’s mine. The connection between us makes no sense on the surface; you’d think I would drive him crazy.

“Funny. In the absence of functional technology, I’m thinking we can only guess which way to go. Unless you have some idea?” I eye him hopefully.

Unfortunately, he shakes his head. “This is all new to me though I think it may become quite an adventure. Provided we survive it.”

“There is that.” I turn in a slow circle, studying the slant of the light, the way the trees are growing, and the tilt of the plants. “If my old science lessons can be believed, then the sun sets that way.”

“Your recommendation?”

I shrug. “Hell, I don’t know. If anyone was monitoring this gate, they’d have come to see about us by now, wouldn’t they?”

“I would think so.”

“But there has to be a working gate somewhere, doesn’t there? This can’t be the only one.”

Vel appears thoughtful. “I surmise that they used these gates for transportation, and if that is the case, then it is only logical to deduce that the star-walkers to whom Dace referred required more than one access point.”

“Do you have any clue how we might find one?”

“Not without working tech, Sirantha.”

Dammit.
I feared as much. If we had the capability to scan the area, he could pinpoint energy signatures, and we’d head that way. Unfortunately, our gizmos are fried for the time being. We’ll have to be clever.

“Let’s look,” I say with grim determination. “There has to be way back where we came from.”

“If so, we shall find it.” His calm, as ever, reassures me and makes it possible for me to take the first step of what might be a thousand-kilometer journey.

 

 

Still haven’t found him. As I feared, they deleted all references to Svet in the records, which means they’re screening male students of appropriate age at all the training academies, a process slowed by the fact that many of these kids still have parents, but they’re buried in bureaucratic layers. It takes a ridiculously long time to get a straight answer about a student’s status, let alone whether he’s a candidate for genetic testing.

I’m telling myself to be patient, but it’s hard—and complicated by the fact that people remember me here. I’ve deflected four attacks now, but I didn’t kill any of the hitters. I turned them over to the Nicuan imperial guard. How do you convince people you’ve changed when they’re trying to stick a knife in your neck?

You’re not on the bounce anymore, so until I hear from you, I won’t know where you are, or what you’re doing. I sent this message to your barrister and asked her to forward. I assume you’ve left your comm code. I’m sorry we’re out of touch, but I’m including my new code here. I’ve taken an apartment in the capital while the officials deal with my request. So strange to find myself living here of all places. It doesn’t feel like home, but
you
are home.

Hon and Loras have moved on. I didn’t expect them to stick around, though. Hon’s got itchy feet, but now I’m very much alone in this. I know I chose this course, but it’s odd how alone you can feel, surrounded by people. This is a huge city by any standards, and there’s nobody here who gives a damn about me.

I’m afraid of forgetting how you feel in my arms; I’m afraid I dreamed you. I play that message you left before you jumped from Venice Minor sometimes, and I see how much you love me. But unless I’m watching your face, it gets hard to remember how we are together, if it can be as good as I remember.

Reply soon, Jax.

 

The jungle sprawls around us like a carnivorous plant.
Strange noises, chattering and growling, echo within the dense undergrowth, making me feel like predators lurk all around us. I glance back at Vel, braced for the worst.

“Do our weapons work?”

We should’ve checked that first thing. He digs into his pack and brings out a shockstick and laser pistol; neither will power up. I take the former and shove it through my belt, as we both know it’s better than nothing. Without the shock aspect, it can still be used as a baton or a club, and I’m trained in its use for close combat. He has his twin, curved blades, which require no juice at all, and he’s deadly with them. I’m sure we’ll be fine. Probably.

“Transport shorted out all our devices.”

“Can you fix them?”

He spreads his claws in an
I don’t know
gesture. “I would need a clean, dry place to disassemble them and assess the damage. If replacement parts or wiring is required to affect said repairs, then no, not unless we locate salvage.”

Glancing around at the impenetrable wall of greenery, that doesn’t seem too likely here, wherever here is. I wish I knew whether we’re still on Marakeq or if we’ve gone elsewhere entirely. That would be the difference between teleportation and a gate between ’verses. The former would be amazing enough, especially discovered on a class-P world. Humans have been unable to perfect that technology, despite finding snippets of ancient schematics. The closest we’ve come is the disruptor, which scrambles the molecules in the body for a hideous death.

As for the latter, I’ve speculated that other realities might exist, but it’s never been proven.
Until now, maybe.
Of course, delivering that evidence depends on us getting home. Maybe people passed over before; they just never found their way back.

March. Shit.
If I don’t return, he’ll think I left him for good and with no explanations, no good-byes. Surely he’ll know I’d never do that of my own free will—just disappear on him. Urgency possesses me, and I quicken my step, bounding over spiky-leafed plants. Vines writhe on the ground, snapping at my ankles, likely attached to some sentient flora.

Running doesn’t solve anything, though. It just makes me tired, and when I finally have no more breath, and stop, panting, we’re still in the middle of this Mary-forsaken jungle. So far, nothing has attacked us, but I sense things stirring in the undergrowth, circling us to determine our weaknesses. Fear percolating anew, I spin to face Vel. He’s already got his twin blades in hand, so I guess he feels it, too.

“Back to back, Sirantha. We are about to meet our first natives.”

Without speaking, I ready my weapon and fall in behind him. I’d feel better if I had the live hum for insurance; as it is, we must win this fight on skill and strength. Monsters burst out of the bushes from all sides. I have only seconds to take in an impression of green mottled fur, razor-sharp talons, and long, yellow teeth. There are holes where their ears ought to be, and their eyes are oddly placed. They’re also convinced we’re their next meal.

Four of them, which means taking two at once. My time in prison has left me stronger than ever, even more than when I graduated as a combat jumper, and I haven’t forgotten any of my training. In a way, it feels good to have an enemy I can fight instead of the tide of public opinion or a jury’s good graces. When the first one lunges at me, I crack it soundly across the skull with my shockstick, a two- handed swing. If I had any juice, the thing would be twitching on the ground, its nervous system blown to hell. Instead, the beast reels back with a high-pitched sound.

Dark fluid trickles from its maw, brown-black, much darker than human blood. The viscosity is different too, stickier, more like tree sap. Could these creatures be evolved from the native flora? Shit, that’s not fur. It’s . . . moss. I don’t have time to ponder as it communicates with its hunting partner, and they both dive at me at once. I counter with another hard swing and a snap kick aimed at the vulnerable throat.

In response to the strike, tentacles flares from the creature’s throat and twine around my ankle. I slam to the ground because, despite their slenderness, these tendril- vine things possess a terrible, tensile strength. I wish I had blades like Vel’s, but I don’t, so I roll, trying to twist them. If these things can move, then they have nerve endings, and I can hurt them.

Vel vaults me, twin blades gleaming, and slices the cords binding me. His monsters follow in unnatural bounds. They don’t move like anything I’ve ever seen; they have too many legs, for one thing, and they
leap
, not run.

Now free, I flip to my feet. I have some sense now of what these creatures are trying to do. Once they get us bound and helpless on the ground, they will devour us while we’re still alive. Like the Morgut, they prefer fresh prey; maybe they savor a screaming-terror taste in their meat.

They time another leap, and this time, the lead plant- thing succeeds in biting me. It hurts like a bitch, and the teeth lock on like certain carnivorous fish, so that when I knock it away, it takes a chunk out of my side. Blood streams freely, driving them to greater excitement. I guess I’m tasty.

Vel’s not fighting at my back anymore since he broke to cut me loose, but they hunt in pairs, so his flora-beasts take no notice of me. But I still have mine to contend with, and though I’ve injured the first one, it doesn’t show signs of slowing down. But more blood drizzles from its mouth from where Vel severed its tendrils, and it moans as it moves to try to pin me.

Once more, they coordinate a leap; I knock the second one back with a swing of the shockstick. It is
not
sinking those long, curved teeth into my flesh again.
Frag that. Focus, Jax.
I concentrate on the wounded one, aiming a powerful roundhouse kick at what would be its ribs in a normal mammalian creature. Surely this thing has inner organs I can damage. It shrieks then, so high-pitched that I can’t hear all the notes, but I can tell by Vel’s reaction that it’s a horrendous noise.

The scream distracts his opponents, and he disembowels one with a scissor-sweep of his blades. Gray entrails spill out onto the foliage, but it’s nothing I’ve ever seen before—and I’ve killed some monsters in my day. Instead, it looks like coils of lichens, swimming in that awful black blood, and it stinks of rotting vegetation. His remaining enemy goes mad then, flinging itself at him in a fury and rendering it vulnerable to the grace of his knives.

Mine don’t cut and run, though. It’s as though these creatures form a family, and they will stand and fall together. I find that oddly touching even as I crush one’s throat with a final, lethal kick. That leaves only one, and it becomes quiescent, acknowledging its fate. I almost feel bad as I break its skull wide open with a two-handed swing of the shockstick. More mossy guts splatter everywhere.

“What the hell do you make of that?” I ask, palm to my side.

Red trickles between my fingers. Mary, I need medical attention. I hope Vel has some Nu-Skin. I don’t think that has any circuits to be fried in transit, so it should work, even here. My excitement at the adventure dims a bit; when I set out to chart new beacons with Kai, I was generally more prepared than this, and we have precious few resources.

“Cohesive unit, hunting as one. We merely had skills and weapons unfamiliar to them. Our next encounters may not go so smoothly.”

“Smoothly?” I show him my wound, and he moves at once for his pack, hurdling the corpses.

You wouldn’t expect Vel to be gentle, but his claws are remarkably dexterous as he cleans the wound and then seals it with a fresh pack of Nu-Skin. It bonds at once, relieving my fear. Hopefully, our antiseptic will kill the foreign microbes. The idea of growing that gray moss inside my body nearly makes me throw up—and the smell isn’t helping.

“We need to make you some knives.”

There’s no question cutting worked better on these creatures than blunt-force trauma. I’m not experienced with knives, but I don’t want to be eaten, either. I’ll work it out, somehow, no matter how steep the learning curve. And the
really
fun part? We don’t know this jungle at all, so those creatures might be the nicest things here.

“Do you know how?”

He inclines his head. “Trapper taught me.”

Ah, part of his bounty-hunter training.

“We need to move before their friends come looking for them.”

“I will look for usable supplies and a defensible place to spend the night.”

Now that he’s mentioned it, I can see the light is going. This definitely is not Marakeq, with its dreamy twilight. No, this world offers black velvet darkness unbroken by artificial light.

The long night is coming, and only Mary knows whether we’ll survive it.

 

Nola forwarded your message to the ship as soon as she got it, but we’d already put down on Marakeq by then. It sucks like hell to be the one to tell you this, but Jax isn’t here. Twelve hours after our arrival, her comm went dark. Hit and I hiked out to the settlement to investigate, but neither of us can understand the natives. They aren’t hostile, but Jax and Vel have vanished. No sign of them so far.

I’m so sorry. But we’re not giving up hope yet. We’re scanning and searching the surrounding swamp. I promise we’ll find her if it’s humanly possible.