The Dragon Circle (25 page)

“Let's go scout the territory.” Duggan stretched up and stood. He looked at his bowl quizzically. “We supposed to wash these or something?”

“Big cauldron beside the fire. Filled with warm water and a root that makes good suds. Also a fine antibacterial.” Konner stood and added his own empty bowl and spoon to the mix. “Uh, rinse your spoon and keep it. Along with your utility knife. We all carry our own utensils. That way we don't deprive someone else of theirs if we happen to be away from home.”

“We've got mess kits aboard the lander . . .”

“Ditched it.”

“In the ocean?” Duggan looked pained. “We could have cannibalized it for tools, bedding, canteens, rations . . . survival.”

“I know. Hurt like hell to kill a machine, but it had to be done. I couldn't let
Jupiter
find us too quickly by locking sensors onto the lander. But now I can't even steal fuel from it.”

“Shit! Now what do we do?”

“Set a trap for the next lander?” Konner grinned at his new friend.

“Guess we better find something to do away from camp before Pettigrew starts bellowing orders.” Duggan rotated his shoulders and surveyed the perimeter of the tidy village.

“And Arthur Singh, Ph.D, tries to convert us to the joys of rejoining civilization.”

They both grinned at the man who stretched groggily on the other side of the fire. His turban tilted over one eye and his uniform looked as if a dragon had stepped upon it. He held his head in his hands and moaned.

“Hangover,” Duggan said and pointed the anthropologist toward the bright-eyed medic who was dispensing analgesic sprays to all comers. “His first, I think. Guess he didn't recognize your local brew as alcoholic since it didn't come with a label. He's big on putting labels on everything, including people.”

“Pryth has taken Lieutenant Pettigrew to . . . ah . . . her bosom so to speak. We won't worry about him for a while.”

“Pryth?”

“Local wisewoman and healer.”

“Big—?” Duggan held his hands in front of his chest, cupped.

“That's our Pryth. Earth Mother personified. She won't take any nonsense from him and she'll probably keep him restrained to let his wounds heal.”

“Can't exactly call her an ‘Earth Mother' since we aren't on Earth.”

“We've been thinking about that. Haven't agreed on a good name for this planet yet. We certainly need something better than MKO-IV.”

“Something close to the heart.” Duggan grew silent for a moment while he stared at the flames beneath the cereal cauldron. “
Jupiter
is very close to Captain Leonard's heart. As long as there is a ship in orbit and a chance to fly it home, Amanda Leonard will not leave
Jupiter
.”

Was he envisioning his ship going down in flames?

“All we have to do is get the orbit to decay. Once it passes through the outer layer of atmosphere, the green diatomaceous plants will eat the hull beyond repair. We have to bathe
Rover
every time we return from visiting
Sirius
.”

“Not enough.” Duggan shook his head. “She's smart. She knows that ship inside and out. You don't have enough firepower to take it away from her. You have to destroy the king stone before Leonard communicates with civilization. As long as the king stone is intact, this enterprise is in danger.”

“I have to destroy a king stone,” Konner muttered.

The giant blue crystals that communicated along transactional gravitons to mother stones and kept the rest of the crystal array working as a unit lived. All life was sacred. He'd already had a premonition about killing a human being. Killing a king stone . . . “I'd rather rip out my own heart.”

“Maybe we should uncloak again,” Loki suggested, nervously tapping his fingers against his thigh. The three brothers and Dalleena lay prone beneath
Rover
, waiting, watching the sky.

“Patience,” Kim counseled him. He, too, felt the urge to move. He settled for running his hands through his unruly red hair. He tugged at the leather thong that tied the mane at his nape.

“How long has it been?” Loki asked.

“Less than ten minutes,” Kim replied. He looked up at the sun's position and checked it against the length of the shadows. The Tambootie in his system told him more precisely the time, their location, the nearest magnetic pole, and that he needed another dose to keep those senses enhanced. But he could not determine the location of the lander
Jupiter
had launched just after dawn local time.

“If we uncloak again, they'll know the blip on their sensors isn't a fluke,” Loki said.

“It takes more than ten minutes for a lander to fly from the volcano to here,” Konner spoke up at last.

He'd seemed very moody this morning for a man who had found his soul mate. At least Kim presumed Konner and Dalleena had found each other last night. The way their shimmering auras merged when they leaned their heads together told him more than the whispered confidences they shared. Dalleena had no business on this adventure. But Konner had insisted.

Kim should have brought Hestiia with him. His wife had more right to accompany them than the Tracker.

Right had nothing to do with it. Skill and talent decided the duty roster, he reminded himself. He winced at how his vocabulary returned to the jargon of space farers and how his speech seemed more clipped and rapid after only a few hours in the company of the newcomers. The lazy dialect of the locals lingered on his tongue and he savored the poetry of the idea behind the words. Efficiency lost importance among people who measured time in moons, seasons, and generations rather than digital femtos and metric minutes.

“They come,” Dalleena said. She held her right hand up, palm outward, facing south.”

“How far?” Konner asked.

Dalleena raised her left shoulder in a half shrug. “Far. They come closer.”

“They must have emerged from the shadow of the volcano,” Kim mused. Communications, sensors, magic went haywire within the confines of the crater. The meadow outside, where the water was sweeter than in the cave offered marginally better electronic performance. “So what do we do when they get here?”

“You, Kim, surrender to them. Offer to lead them to where the others are hiding. Loki and I will take the lander back to
Jupiter
.” Konner did not look happy about that.

“The rest of the crew will have to evacuate once we break the king stone.” Loki looked positively gleeful. “Once we do that, the crystal circles will lose connections and stop working, their orbit will decay, and the ship will crash. The crew will have ample time to evacuate with adequate supplies.”

“You should take Ross Duggan and Paola Sanchez with you. We should cannibalize as much as possible from the ship. Like fuel for
Rover
,” Kim suggested

“No.” Konner put on his stubborn face, jaw thrust out, eyes narrowed, and shoulders reaching toward his earlobes. “If something goes wrong, they'll be tried for mutiny. Maybe treason. I won't let them take that risk.”

“Not your choice,” Sergeant Duggan said. He walked boldly up to their hiding place beneath the cloaked shuttle. Corporal Sanchez stood right behind his left shoulder where she was in a good position to protect his back.

“You can't see us,” Loki choked.

“I can if I know what to look for and where. Besides, you three are making so much noise even Pettigrew could find you.”

“The Others wander,” Dalleena said. She held her hand out, more to the north.

“They are probably following the signature of the lander. Salt water will confuse the signal. What part of the ocean did you ditch it in?” Ross Duggan asked.

“Deepest trench I could find,” Konner grunted.

He and Kim got to their feet at the same time. Both reached to open the hatch.

“Time to uncloak again,” Kim said.

“I can do this, little brother,” Konner muttered.

“But you don't want to. Let me help, Konner.” Kim tried to place two fingers from his dominant left hand upon his brother's temple. Experimenting with Hestiia had helped him find this the best way to enter a person's mind and soothe disturbing dreams and thoughts.

Konner ducked away from his touch.

“I know what I have to do, Kim. You can't ease that burden.”

“It should not be a burden.”

“But . . . a king stone?” Konner shivered.

“Maybe Loki or I should dismantle the king stone. Neither of us is atuned to the crystals as you are.”

“That is just it. One cannot remove a crystal from the array unless one is atuned to them. Especially the king stone. It has its own defenses.”

Kim gulped. “You should not do this alone. I'm coming with you and Loki.” And he'd take a stash of Tambootie with him, in case he had to intervene with more than his wits and his strength. He fingered the dry leaves in his pockets. Was it enough.

A roar approached from south by southeast.

No more time to think. The IMPs had found them without uncloaking again.

“We have to do this. To preserve our home. To save Hestiia and all the rest,” Kim muttered to himself.

“Amen,” echoed his brothers and their two new allies.

“Something is wrong.” Dalleena looked at her tracking hand. “There are two landers.” She shifted her palm to face due east as well as south.

“We need two distractions now.” Kim pounded his fist into his other palm.

The first vessel approached slowly from the south. It circled three times and hovered before settling to the ground thirty meters from the cloaked shuttle. The long tubular vessel, painted black with white IMP insignia looked alien and menacing in the waving grassland. Five heavily armed Marines poured out of two hatches. They surveyed the area with weapons at the ready. Three techs holding sensors emerged more slowly. They sported holstered pistols, and rifles slung across their backs.

“That's Lieutenant Commander M'Berra. Executive officer of the
Jupiter
.” Sanchez pointed to the ebony-skinned man with tight black curls clinging to his scalp who jumped down and surged forward, pistol cocked and trigger finger itchy. He had the tall stature of a man raised on a bush planet. Unusual for a bushie to rise so high in the ranks. His family must be very important back home.

Another ten Marines followed him out of the lander. Immediately, the vessel lifted and hovered.

The second lander touched down, deployed another twenty Marines, and took off. The two craft circled the area, one clockwise, close in. The other circled higher, in the opposite direction two kilometers out. Both ships opened ports for pulse cannons.

“Now what?” Kim slumped down and stared at the grass. “They are smarter than we expected.”

I
RYTHROS
,
I need your help,
Konner called with his mind. If only he had a bit of the Tambootie that Kim touted so highly.

“Loki, your telepathy is better than mine. Call a dragon,” he whispered.

One of the techs jerked his head and his instrument in their direction.

Konner held his breath. No one moved. The tech shook his head and moved his instrument around. Lieutenant Commander M'Berra waved his troop forward in the direction of the shuttle. They, too, remained silent.

Only a matter of a few steps before they ran into
Rover
, even if they could not see it. Upon contact, their instruments would penetrate the cloak, understand it, and never again be fooled by it. With that information,
Jupiter
's crew would be able to find
Sirius
.

He needed to act. Fast.

“Just be ready to disappear.” Sanchez scooted out from under the shuttle. Before Konner, or anyone else could stop her, she ran around the vehicle and approached the IMP squad from an angle at a fast trot.

“Hurry,” she said, breathless. More breathless than she should be after such a short sprint. “They're after me. They . . . they have a dragon!” She pointed to the east and north, across the river.

Instantly, all the techs shifted their instruments away from the shuttle to the direction in which the corporal pointed.

“Calm down, Sanchez,” Lieutenant Commander M'Berra said. He placed a comforting hand on Sanchez's shoulder. “You must be hysterical, Corporal. There are no such things as dragons. Now report. Slowly. Calmly. And rationally.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Sanchez took two long slow breaths. The techs and their protective phalanx of Marines edged a little to the north and away from Konner and the others.