Void Star (17 page)

     "What the…?" Nathan began. He looked his nephew up and down. Sweat poured from the young man's forehead, his eyes were red, and his body wavered like he could faint at any moment.

     Trev sat back into his copilot's seat and concentrated on breathing. Not up to discussing it, he said simply, "Now you know." He paused.

     "Scott was working on a cure for what?"

     "I have toxi-parasitic strain C."

     "You've had it this whole time?" Nathan couldn't hide his bewilderment.

     Trevor nodded.

     "But the sickness and the episodes…"

     "With the exception of a few close calls, I've been able to hide it." Then Trev added, "Epherus knew. Glade figured it out too."

     ”I don't know what to do here." He really didn’t. Though looking back on the past with this new knowledge filled in a lot of answers; the odd moods and the drinking. What he understood of toxi-parasitic strains is there were only two, A and B.  There was no C.

     "Just let me see this through." Trevor said in the silence they found themselves in.

     Nathan looked him over. He should sit him out and get him medical attention. But that was the old him thinking. If Trevor wanted to see this through to the end, he would let him.

     "All right," Nathan agreed. He patted his shoulder. "All right."

     "I'm going to get us some lunch," Trevor said weakly and left his uncle to his own thoughts.

    "That's…that's fine." Nathan watched him go. The realization of what he'd witnessed slowly dawned on him. His last remaining family member was dying. He didn't even get a chance to tell him this was his last flight. Now it didn't matter. It most likely was
his
last. If the TPC was giving him fever symptoms, he had less than twenty-four hours to live.

     Trevor finished up at the galley and polished off the sandwich he had made. He downed it with something caffeinated.

     Now he knows,
he thought to himself. When he was a kid, his father had taught him not to reveal it. Those with the parasite were outcasts to modern society, destined never to see their thirtieth birthday. Now at age twenty-nine, Trev realized they would have been right to cast him out—all the years of schooling and an apprenticeship to a job specialty, only to have him perish before his first day. It was wise for his father to teach him that so he could have a shot at a normal life. But they still weren’t were what this strain did.

     But his dad had also told him he had been working on a cure, not a weapon—not
the
weapon, the one that had shattered their world.

     What was Nya trying to tell him? Why did she haunt him? There was an answer right at the brim of it all—something embedded in his subconscious, attempting to break through.

     He grabbed up his uncle's lunch and made it back to the cockpit. He handed the food to Nathan and sat in his own seat. He could see his uncle lacked the verbal resources to cope with the new revelation, and this was welcome. Trev didn't want to discuss it. There was nothing to talk about anyway. It was the way it was.

     Nathan kept his feelings inside. It was clear the kid didn't want to talk about it, which was convenient since he didn't even know where to begin. He had never even suspected he had the disease, but it made sense…Why hadn't Scott ever mentioned it? He would have to deal with this new information later.

     After a little while, the force drive popped off, and they burst into the Charkus-3 System. The quantum engines hummed as the
Wrath
floated toward the yellow planet they were aimed at.

     Trevor flicked the NAV off and looked over his controls. "Loffgannon is in sight." The landing guide showed a safe trajectory toward a meeting point. "Enter the atmosphere at point A-two-two-seven-decimal-three."

     "Copy." Nathan double-checked the landing data and disengaged the autothrottle. He did a course correction and rechecked his numbers. For a second, he felt an odd sensation, like he was missing something. But it passed.

     A red-eyed Kaida found her seat and gave Nathan a quick peck. She wanted to know how the talk had gone, but she knew during landing wasn't the best time. Boost stood behind them looking out over the desert world they were approaching.

     Nathan brought the ship down into an approach. The world looked like it was experiencing massive sandstorms. The topographic analyzers had warned them it was only through the top layer. The ship bumped and shook through the dust clouds. Nathan did the best he could to hold her steady through the worst of it, and they finally came out. The ground didn't look as promising. It was all sand dunes and hills. They burned across the empty terrain.

     "This doesn't look right. What's the landing point again?" Nathan barked, his eyes on his own controls. He stole a glance and saw Trevor was out cold and drenched in sweat. Nathan did his best to control their fall. Without the proper landing data, the
Wrath
struck the ground hard. The right landing gear indicator showed it was out of place, most likely broken off.

     Sand and dust rained down and caked the ship. Hoof clumps sounded as Glade reached the cockpit. "Is everything all right?" He looked at them each in turn. His eyes, like Nathan's and Kaida's, stayed on Trevor.

     He was breathing shallowly and mumbling deliriously.

     Realizing they weren't going to explain, Kaida asked, "What's wrong with him?"

     Nathan and Glade exchanged a glance, like they weren't sure who should vocalize the truth. Then Nathan shook his head and answered, "He's in the final stage of toxi-paratosis. He's slipping away from us."

     Boost and the other three looked in on him as the color drained from Trevor's skin. He was already slipping deeper and deeper.

Chapter 18

     Glade and Nathan worked together to get Trevor onto his cot. He only seemed to heat up worse as time went on. Kaida took his temperature, and sure enough, he was climbing steadily over one hundred. She put a moist towel over his forehead.

     "He should be all right for now," Nathan said resolutely.

     A look passed between Glade and Nathan, two warriors who had seen their share of death and those on the brink of it. They looked away before Kaida noticed.

     “Shouldn’t we get him medical attention?”  Kaida asked.  She injected Trev with a booster shot to ease the pain.

     "He’ll be fine.” Nathan said gruffly.

     “But-“

     “He wanted us to see this through.  He’d want us to get this thing first." Nathan led the way through the passenger compartment and down to the cargo hold. Kaida saw the young man sleeping soundly and then followed after. Boost operated the door for them as they left and then followed after them. Nathan left the jet on idle.

     As soon as Boost dropped the ramp on the ground, Nathan blew through the opening on his CTV. The wheels met sand, and he spun it to a stop. "Get in." Glade got shotgun while the Kaida and Boost climbed in the armored back. Then off they went in a blur. They screamed toward the oasis that stood a few clicks ahead.

     The CTV was a hybrid of an antiground striker and an all-terrain, which was why Nathan liked it so much. Reflective nanite technology changed the color to match its surroundings. A heavy machine gun was mounted on top. The CTV tore across sand like it was concrete. On any other day, this ride would have been fun, but not now, not with what was happening to Trevor.

     Loffgannon appeared to be a dead, desert planet. Oddly, sparse chunks of trees grew between long distances by watering holes. And the one they were aimed at was like a miniature jungle, thick and overgrown, and the edges were roughly the diameter of a half mile. It was hard to tell what lay inside besides the small lake Nathan had seen on their approach.

     He parked the CTV at the forest edge. He told Boost to stay with the car. Then the three of them entered. Kaida was walking between the two former soldiers when a gun appeared before her. Nathan gave her a serious look that said it wasn't up for discussion. She held it and clicked the safety off.

     "Be careful not to spook the target," Nathan warned, and the others nodded back.

     Boost watched as the three of them made their way past the jungle edge, which was oddly overlayed with a dirt floor. Strangely, the sand blew up to it but wasn't able to get far. A counter wind blew from within. It was shady under the canopy of the trees, almost dark. The sounds of the minihabitat ceased as they entered, and Boost could see them no more.

     Nathan had a handheld GPS, which pointed them straight ahead. It was most likely a point right next to the lake.

     Bushes and twigs crunched underneath their feet. Small animals jumped through. It was hot and moist and smelled strongly of animal feces. Odd-colored fruits grew on the branches overhead.

     "We're being watched," Glade warned.

     Nathan felt it too. The hairs on the back of his neck were on end. But he didn't see anything, and neither did Glade. What lived in this place? Why did Raxus choose such an odd stop?

     Cautiously, they continued on. The deeper they got, the more it seemed like they had never seen the desert beyond. This was an ecosystem unto itself. Nathan did wonder who the highest was on this food chain.

     He saw the little lake ahead through the trees. As they got even closer, he saw a makeshift shelter constructed from fallen branches and leaves. The smell of the water blew in from across its surface. When they had cleared the canopy and stood feet from the lake, he saw the black marks on the sand.

     "We missed him," Glade noted. "These are char marks from taking off."

     "Let's check out the area anyway." Nathan motioned for them to fan out. He wanted a quick sweep just to be sure; then it would be time to get Trevor to a medical professional. At least his last moments could be made peaceful. It’s the decision he should have made in the first place.

     Glade held out one of his massive alien guns before him and walked opposite the lean-to. Nathan went the other route; he cleared the little makeshift shack and peeked inside. Of course, it was empty.

     On closer inspection, he noticed it looked like someone had left in a hurry. There were scratch marks, footprints that indicated something running, and then there was the missing Eckelion.

     "Do you think the Ruverans got him?" Kaida asked, standing behind him.

     Nathan shook his head. "I think whoever was here left for some other reason—and quickly."

     "Look!" Kaida exclaimed suddenly. She was pointing to scratch marks on the tree used for the lean-to.

     Nathan gave her a confused look.

     "They're symbols. Another cipher." She pulled out her communicator and snapped a photo of it.

     "Let's get out of here," Glade said, having walked the length around. He used his best judgment to deduce the Eckelion hadn’t used a water-hybrid vehicle and parked it beneath the lake. "There is nothing here. And I feel something…is off. Deceptively hidden. I can smell an unnatural decay.  It is something…alive."

     Nathan wanted to tell him to calm down when he saw movement in the lake. It was so gradual, he almost missed it.

     Blending into the sand was a cask. Casks were serpent like creatures, with a snake's head and upper body; the rest looked like the body of a giant scaled lion. It was the same color as the lake bottom, except for its golden eyes, which had white slits through them. Those slits were fixed on him and motionless.

     Nathan looked past it, feigning ignorance of its presence, letting the creature believe it could continue sneaking up to them.

     "Cask," Nathan mouthed, barely audibly.

     Glade heard and gulped. He remained calm as he scanned and then saw it too. Unfortunately, he tensed involuntarily when he spotted it, and the serpent knew the game was up. The cask's head popped out of the water, and it pulled its body out of the lake. Its mouth opened to reveal a multidirectional set of razor-sharp chompers.

     The large animal came at them with wicked speed.

     All three of them pulled triggers at it while sprinted out. Laser fire burst out and struck the creature. It dotted the monster's body up and down. Bloody wounds opened, but it kept coming. Another one, which might have been sleeping when they arrived, came at the sound of the other's call.

     Both of the creatures charged at them.

     The forest immediately opened with sounds of other animals. Glade led the way out with Nathan at the rear. The old space captain saw the fruitless effort to kill it with body shots, so he started hitting the legs and feet.

     "Keep going!"

     The jungle felt like it went on forever. Trees snapped. The casks screamed. Hearts beat into eardrums. Laser fire shot blindly into thick foliage.

     The casks stomped down trees after them. The first one was thirty feet from Nathan and closing. He kept shooting at the legs, which helped somewhat, but the beasts were catching up. They must be desperately hungry to risk so much for a meal.

     At last, they cleared the jungle and hit sand. Boost pulled the car close, and just as they went to get back into the CTV, a cask slammed into it. The impact threw it back into the jungle. It was dazed by the hit allowing them to scramble past it. Boost disappeared along with it.

     "I'll hold them back!" Nathan yelled, now reacting in complete wartime survival mode. He would be able to buy them a few moments. He took off diagonally, but only one of the four took the bait. Hungry and wild with pain, it came. He guided himself back toward the ship, and now there were two groups making a dash.

     When Nathan turned again, he saw the cask's mouth filling the sky above him. Then a second later, a hole was running through it. He looked back around and saw the turret on top of the ship. It was firing on the other one. Someone was manning the
Wrath's
turret.

     Then his CTV appeared next to him, and he jumped in. They swept around and picked up the other two astonished individuals on the run. Altogether, they careened across the desert, wind blowing in their faces, backs toward the ship.