Read Hera Online

Authors: Chrystalla Thoma

Tags: #adventure, #young adult, #science fiction, #suspence, #novelette, #parasites, #chrystalla thoma, #rex rising

Hera (3 page)

BOOK: Hera
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As soon as she pulled him to the surface, he
started coughing and flailing. Cursing out loud when he tried to
latch onto her, she twisted around and managed to grab him from
behind, an arm encircling his waist. Ignoring his panicky, jerky
movements, she dragged him toward his makeshift raft and lifted him
as much as she could, hoping he had enough presence of mind to
heave himself up.

The man grabbed onto the raft and coughed
water, his movements finally calming.

“Stop your friend,” he wheezed, not looking
up as the weeping boy grabbed his arms, trying to pull him onboard.
“Stop her.”

“Why?” Hera held onto the raft, trying to
catch her breath. Her boots and wet uniform were weighing her down
and the cold made her teeth chatter. This was turning into a truly
shitty day.

“The black pillar.” He finally turned his
bloodshot gaze on her, and it held no rancor or malice. “It’ll zap
her. Kill her.”

Zap her?
Incredulous, Hera turned her
head toward the pillar. “What are you talking about?”

“Lightning. Shock. The pillar kills.” He
stared steadily at her, his eyes pleading, huge in his gaunt, pale
face. His body was wracked by shivers.

She looked again but could not see Sacmis.
Nunet’s snakes.
“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Fish die. Dolphins gather here to eat.”
His voice cracked on a cough. “I go and gather the dead fish, too.
I’m telling the truth.”

It could be a plot to get Hera off his back.
Maybe he would go to her boat, grab her gun and shoot them both
dead. She should return—

“Your boat.” He pointed over her head to
where the wavebreaker was. “You’ll never catch it. It’s the
currents, they’re strong.”

The hells?
Clinging with one arm onto
the raft, Hera turned, her heart painfully beating against her
ribcage. The wavebreaker was drifting away, toward the cliffs.
“Dammit! How come your boat does not move?”

He climbed onboard, his whole body trembling,
and tugged on a rope. “Anchored.”

Sobek.
Why hadn’t she thought of
anchoring the wavebreaker before jumping? She had panicked. Her
first patrol and she was screwed.

“Climb on, girl,” he said.

She blinked, her ears buzzing, and looked up
at the man, her mouth empty of words as surely as her mind was of
thoughts. She just stared at him, at the dark stubble covering his
square jaw – Hera had rarely seen men from up close before – at his
shoulders, too wide, too strange. Still struggling with what she’d
heard, she fought the urge to call this a dream – no, a nightmare –
and pinch herself to make sure.

“What did you say, mortal?” she asked,
certain she’d misheard.

“I said, climb up. We go together, get your
friend, then your boat. Hurry.”

Speechless, she watched as he heaved the
anchor, then grabbed two paddles and looked expectantly back at
her. There was even the shadow of a smile curving his lips.
“Come.”

Her world was capsizing. She had failed in
her duty, had not managed to discipline the single Gultur who was
under her command, and a mortal was offering help.

Her wavebreaker was drifting farther and
farther away, toward the cliffs.
Do it
.
No other
choice
. She exhaled and reached up. His fingers wrapped around
her wrist, thick and strong, and he pulled her onto his sad excuse
of a boat. She scrambled on the uneven deck and it creaked and
threatened to fall apart under her feet. She crouched down as the
man grabbed again the paddles, gave one to the boy, and together
they began paddling toward the black pillar, the boy casting her
murderous looks.

“Why are you doing this?” she whispered,
shivering with cold. “Why are you helping us?”

“We are all human, aren’t we?”

She shook her head, not knowing what to
answer. “Are we?”

Dammit, but her mother’s message returned to
haunt her thoughts.
‘The Gultur are hiding something. The answer
is in the sea. They have discovered something and they are guarding
it. Go north, go to the beginning. And tell them Tefnut sends you
to say this: we are all human.’

No
. It was too horrifying to
contemplate. Doubt made her weak and susceptible to manipulation by
this man. Mortals were treacherous, for they had started the War
and brought this on themselves. Sacmis was right; she’d seen the
photos and the documentaries and it was about time she decided on
whose side she was.
We are not all the same, mother.

“Of course we’re all human,” he said, as if
hearing her thoughts, the low timbre of his voice so unlike
anything Hera had ever heard. “No matter how much we change, deep
inside we are the same.”

She kept her face down, trying desperately to
calm herself, observing with some sort of sick fascination how the
man’s muscles moved in his arms, much more pronounced than in any
Gultur she had ever seen, and found herself both repulsed and
enthralled.

“You have not answered my question yet,” she
said. “Why are you helping me?”

“You saved me first,” he pointed out, gently,
as if not to frighten her.

But it was too late for that. She was
horrified. Indeed she had saved him. What was she doing – letting
the mortal go?

After we save Sacmis and catch the
wavebreaker
, she told herself.
Then I will punish him, and
the boy.

The child stared at her with wide eyes, a
liquid brown full of curiosity and fear and rage.

Yes, I will. I’ll do my duty and punish
them. For breaking the law and the treaties.
She pressed a hand
to her chest. It felt too tight, as if her lungs could not draw
enough air.
For ruining my first patrol
.

The pillar was huge, taller even than the
thirteen-story administration building in Dakru City. As they
approached, Hera gaped at its polished sides like a child would,
and scowled when she realized she was doing it.

She was practically an adult Gultur now.
About time she started acting like one.

“There,” said the man. “Look.”

A dead seagull floated on the water among
small fish and squid. Hera gripped the edge of the raft, not
trusting herself to speak. What sort of natural phenomenon would
produce this and why had nobody warned them?

Because you were supposed to shoot the
mortals, Sacmis was not supposed to fall into the sea, and you were
not supposed to veer off course.

“Can you see Sacmis? My partner?” Hera
swallowed. “Go closer.”

“We can’t go much closer or we’ll die
too.”

“I said get closer. Now.” She’d let her own
doubts and a strange message written by her mother cloud her
judgment, and allowed herself to interact freely with a mortal.
Hells
. “We find her, or you’re a dead man.”

“You don’t have your gun,” said the boy and
she turned to him, surprised. His eyes blazed. “You can’t kill us
like you killed my mother.”

What in the five hells?
“I have other
ways to kill you if you do not shut your mouth,” she snapped, but
her heart beat so fast she felt faint. At least the boy did shut
up, face sullen, and turned back to rowing.

But now she had to know. “Why is he saying
that?” She tried to sound disinterested, kept her voice level.
“That we killed his mother?”

He did not look her way. “Gultur police did.
They thought we belonged to the resistance. They came in shooting.
They killed almost everyone in my neighborhood before even asking
any questions. We hid under a bed. We were spared.”

“You’re lying. You must have broken the law
in some manner.”

“The law isn’t always just.”

“Really. You admit then that you did commit
some illegal act. The police would not just shoot at everyone like
that, not without a valid reason.”

The man said nothing, did not insist, but
Hera’s stomach twisted regardless.
Would they?
If they did,
was that not murder in cold blood – what the Gultur accused the
mortals of during the War?

The choppy surface of the sea was not helping
to locate Sacmis, and the spray stung Hera’s eyes. A dark shape on
the silvery sea caught her attention. Sacmis was floating, face
down in the water. “There!” Swallowing her panic, she grabbed the
man’s shoulder and pointed. “Quick.”

“I can’t see anything, girl, are you
sure—”

“Yes.” So painfully obvious that he did not
possess the Gulturs’ sharp eyesight. “Move.”

Without another word, man and boy sped up
their paddling against the rising waves as Hera struggled to keep
her friend in sight, gripping the edge of the raft in a
white-knuckled hold. Was Sacmis still alive?

Hera fought the urge to jump into the heaving
sea; she held back until they were next to Sacmis, then she reached
down from the raft and grabbed her arm. The man put down his paddle
to help her and together they hauled Sacmis onboard.

Hells
. She wasn’t breathing. “Back
off.” Hera breathed into Sacmis’ mouth, then pressed on her chest.
Then again. “Come on, Sacmis.”

“Daddy, is she dead?” the boy’s voice floated
to her ears as if from a great distance.

Come on, Sacmis. Come on. Who will drive me
crazy if not you?

Breathing into her friend’s lungs, pumping on
her cold chest, it all stretched into an eternity, tinged with the
desperate terror of a nightmare.

Then Sacmis coughed. It was the sweetest
sound Hera had ever heard. She sat back on her heels on the rocking
raft and laughed, tears stinging her eyes.
Thank you,
Nunet
.

Sacmis coughed seawater onto the deck, her
hair streaming. She looked like a half-drowned rat. “Hera?”

“I’m here, you idiot.” Once relief returned,
anger blared in her head. “You had to disobey me, did you not, and
try to take my gun. And then you went off to investigate this
pillar without my permission! What happened out here?”

“Something hit me, like a current.” Sacmis
wiped her mouth and eyes, and sat up. She frowned. “Like an
electric current. What’s going on?”

“An electromagnetic phenomenon.” Hera waved
her hand, telling herself there was really nothing to wonder about
or investigate. Investigating strange occurrences was not
encouraged, especially not if you wanted to rise in the hierarchy.
“We need to go back, before they send a search party.”

Sacmis nodded. Then she hissed, gaze fixing
on the man and the boy. “What are they doing here? What... Where
are we?”

The man cringed back, eyes going round. He
pulled the boy closer to him.

“Their raft.” Hera raised her hand to
forestall the heated argument she saw coming. “They helped save
you. They’ll take us back to the wavebreaker which is drifting
toward the cliffs.”

“But,
hatha
—”

“Shut up, Sacmis. See where your misbehavior
has landed us. I want you to remember that and not speak another
word, do you understand?”

Sacmis opened her mouth and closed it again.
She nodded, her bright eyes mutinous, and remained silent.

Good.
Things were complicated
enough.

“To our boat,” Hera told the man, and he
grabbed the paddle, shooing his boy to the other side to do the
same. They paddled in silence, broken only by Sacmis coughing from
time to time and seagulls and sea buzzards cawing as they circled
the dead fish floating near the Pillar. Hera glanced back at it and
shivered. Sinister, dark and humming with electric energy, it felt
malevolent like an angry ghost.

The raft started to turn again toward the
pillar. Startled, Hera glanced back. “What is it?”

“My son.” The man pointed at the child with
his head. “He’s getting tired, slowing down.”

Sacmis snarled but said nothing. Still
obeying.
Good, good
.

“Give me the paddle.” Hera grabbed it from
the boy’s hands and took his place, rowing fast, turning the raft
in the correct direction. The wavebreaker would soon smash into the
cliff, unless they got there on time. “Row faster.”

The man’s panting breaths were harsh enough
to be heard over the whistling wind and the breaking waves, but he
still rowed strong.

He could have stopped. He could have tried to
push them overboard and left to save himself and his boy. He could
have left them to die.

Just row, Hera.

The man matched her speed and the wavebreaker
loomed closer. The cliffs rose above their heads like giant walls,
blocking the daylight. Without need to speak, they maneuvered the
raft close and to the side of the silver wavebreaker. As soon as
they were close enough, Hera shoved the paddle back into the boy’s
hands and latched onto the wavebreaker’s side. She grabbed the
ledge and hauled herself up, breathing a sigh of relief when she
finally found herself standing on the familiar deck. Her gun still
lay on the seat where she’d left it.

She powered the engine so that the boat would
not crash. Then she leaned over the side and gave Sacmis a hand up.
From the deck’s height, the mortals’ raft was tiny, little more
than a random collection of flotsam.

The wavebreaker rocked as Sacmis took her
driver seat. Then a click broke the relative quiet.

Hera turned to her, her pulse leaping in her
throat, knowing what she would see.

Sacmis held Hera’s longgun and was aiming at
the two mortals below. The man raised his arms, face white. The boy
stared, clutching his father’s leg, dark hair plastered to his
small face.

No!

“Sacmis.” Hera grabbed the gun, wrenching it
out of Sacmis’ hands before her friend could react. “Stand
down.”

“They must be punished.”

“They saved your damn life.”

“You are not allowed to let them go, Hera.”
Sacmis’ voice was clipped, her frown dark. “It’s the law.”

The law, the law
. What if the law was
wrong? “And I told you not to speak another word.”

BOOK: Hera
12.14Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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