Ruins of Talamar (Syrax Wars Book 2) Page 7

  "Auri, are you okay?"

  Chen jumped at the question then turned to face Wilde. "Yeah, of course."

  Wilde frowned. "Auri, your face is nearly as pale as mine."

  "I'm sorry." Chen averted her eyes and took a deep breath. "I didn't think it would be so hard to see one again."

  "Those things terrorized us on a distant world." Wilde rested a hand on Chen's arm. "It's okay to be scared."

  "But I shouldn't be scared, damnit!" Chen snapped, and her fists clenched involuntarily. "I'm supposed to be able to deal with this sort of thing."

  "Trauma doesn't exactly listen to how you think you should react." Wilde sat on a piece of broken wing. "My mother died when I was a teenager. She was hit by a skimmer right in front of me. The pilot was drunk, and she didn't stand a chance. For the longest time, I thought it was my fault for not warning her, and I was afraid to even cross the street." Wilde sniffed and wiped the back of her palm across her cheek. "In the end, I just had to get back out there. I knew I couldn't live my life blaming myself."

  Chen hadn't known Wilde's mother had died, but then the total sum of their history extended only to the wayward Arcturus mission. Chen had never paid attention to any of the stories about Wilde plastered through the tabloid media. "I'm sorry, Katrina. I didn't know."

  "You had no reason to." Wilde shuffled closer to the remains. Her eyes remained firmly locked on the creature, but she held out a hand for Chen to join her. "Come on. Maybe getting up close to one will help you, show you they're just as mortal as we are."

  Even though her heart screamed for her not to, Chen grasped Wilde's hand and allowed herself to be drawn toward the armored hulk. They edged past a bloody, hoof-like foot and gathered beside the thing's ruined chest. Chen eyed the third arm warily, memories of the matriarch clasping her skull with its own foremost in her mind. She wondered if the warriors had any of the psychic power that the matriarch had wielded; the power that had torn through Chen's brain with ease.

  While Chen was fixated, Wilde crouched beside it and held out a hand.

  "Katrina, don't—" Chen hissed, but it was too late.

  - 14 -

  2208.10.19 // 16:27

  Nova Terra Colony

  Wilde ran delicate fingers across the thickly armored carapace that covered the beast's head like an ancient horseshoe crab on Earth.

  When nothing happened, Chen breathed a sigh of relief. It was definitely dead.

  Wilde tilted her head and peered at details on the warrior's armor, tracing the outlines of brutal scars. "As fearsome as they are, they are clearly highly evolved for their purpose. Assuming their purpose is destruction, that is." She glanced up at Chen. "Feel how tough this armor plate is. It's remarkable."

  Chen chewed on her lip a moment before she ducked down next to Wilde. "Maybe we can figure out how best to kill them. Someone here must have fought back, at least." She reached out a finger and laid it on the arm plating with a grimace. A relieved laugh escaped her lips when it didn't lunge at her.

  "See?" Wilde grinned. "What's it gonna do?"

  Chen's hand relaxed, and her palm rested on the creature for a moment before a flash of pain seared through her head. She staggered forward with a gasp, and light filled the edges of her vision. Chen saw a glimpse of Wilde's concerned face mouthing something she couldn't hear before her vision turned to black.

  A semi-transparent window pane stood before her, and glyphs and runes floated down each side, mapping what was beyond. The edges were oddly angled—faceted, and not human. She turned to get her bearings, but the rest of the room she was in faded into black like it didn't exist. Chen shook her head and peered through the window in an attempt to see what was on the other side. She had to blink away violet tendrils of light that continually crept into the edges of her vision. A discordant alarm blared in her ear, and something bright swung slowly into view. The way things moved, Chen guessed she was on board a ship, but any stars were obscured by a foggy mist.

  Pain ripped through her head, and suddenly, the object came into view. A bright portal of blues and purples swirled in place. Massive energy bursts crackled and forked off it to impact the immense ring-like structure that surrounded it. With a surge, the ship she was on rocketed toward the churning rip in space, and Chen clamped her eyes shut just before they passed into it but impossible colors and patterns assaulted her closed eyelids, regardless.

  She staggered, the alarm stopped, and the lights dimming into nothing. She finally dared to open her eyes again, to be greeted by a vast field of rocky debris that stretched into space. In the distance, a star burned—faint but strong. An insistent twitch drew her attention to her forearm, and she recoiled when she saw it was an armored, alien limb.

  Chen cried out in horror and stumbled forward moments before her vision exploded into white light. She fell back hard, the air completely knocked out of her lungs. A worried cry cut through her muffled ears, and she opened aching eyes to once again see the smoke-filled sky of the colony world.

  "Auri, answer me!" Wilde shook Chen's shoulder, hunched over and staring down at her.

  "What?" Chen struggled to push herself up off the hard ground. She wiped her face with a dirty hand and tried to adjust the pressure in her ears. "What happened?"

  Wilde frowned. "I was going to ask you the same question. You touched the alien and then had a seizure or something. There were...sparks of light coming out your fingers. Did it give you a vision like the technology on the alien planet was doing?"

  "Apparently the damn things can imprint on your mind even when they're dead," Chen spat, glaring at the beast. "Wait, sparks?"

  "Yeah, like little purple fizzles or something." Wilde's mouth twisted in concern. "Is that normal?"

  Chen hesitated. It wasn't something she'd noticed before, but if it only happened when she was out of it, who knows. "I don't know. It's not like I really have a 'normal' these days."

  The sight of the warrior's arm sparked something in her mind. "Katrina, do you have a knife or something?"

  Raising an eyebrow, Wilde nodded. "Yeah...what for?"

  "Just a hunch," Chen replied.

  "Okay..." Wilde reached down to the side of her boot and unlatched a sturdy utility knife that was integrated into the side. She flipped it up and handed it to Chen.

  Chen knelt forward and cautiously tapped the alien with her finger. Relatively sure it wasn't going to give her another vision, she shifted the arm toward her. Whatever juice it had left in it seemed to have gone now that it had blasted Chen's mind. Perhaps it was some sort of residual black-box style memory? She wiggled the edge of the knife under a small armor plate on the inside of the creature's arm and levered at it until it popped open, hinged in some inconspicuous bio-mechanical way. Chen grimaced before she shoved her fingers into the exposed musculature and dug around until they latched onto something. Withdrawing, she held it up, her hand now covered in blue-black viscera.

  "What the hell is that?" Wilde's nose was curled in disgust at the appearance of the object.

  "This, I think," Chen flipped the thing over, "is some sort of location beacon." She shrugged. "Or at least, that's what it seemed like in my mind."

  Pounding feet distracted her, and she looked up just in time to see Bennett hurtle around the shuttle. He caught sight of the two of them and wheeled in their direction, pulling up short with a wheeze. "There you are. You had no business sneaking away from my supervision."

  "Sneaking away?" Wilde snapped indignantly. "You were zoned out back there. We just kept walking."

  Chen ignored the argument and poked at the locater with the tip of the knife. A faint light pulsed from one end, but it seemed weak and underpowered.

  Bennett noticed the blade in her hand and fear flashed across his face. He scrambled for the remote to Chen's neural implant. "Put the knife down! Now!"

  Chen rolled her eyes then tossed Wilde's knife down on the ground and slowly stood, hands in the air. "Christ, Bennett, I was just using it to get so
mething off the Syrax warrior."

  Bennett's eyes snapped to the beast, and they widened, as though he had just realized what was there. "Step away from the alien."

  "It's dead," Wilde objected.

  "Move away immediately!"

  "Bennett, calm the fuck down—" Bennett triggered the neural implant, and Chen's hand shot to her neck in agony, her skin aflame from exploding nerves. A choked cry escaped her lips, and she collapsed to the ground, landing roughly on the metal debris from the shuttle explosion.

  The pain stopped as fast as it had begun, and Chen lay there, breaths ragged while stars faded from her eyes. She stiffly moved her head to see Wilde being restrained by one of the NI guards, practically being lifted off the ground as she tried to land a fist on Bennett.

  "The hell's going on here?" A man's voice interrupted the scene, and Lieutenant Scott appeared with several Marines.

  "None of your concern, Lieutenant," Bennett snapped, staring at Chen before he turned to the Marine. "Report."

  Scott's eyes scanned Chen, and a hint of a frown traced across his face before he squared up to Bennett. "No living hostiles detected, sir." He jerked his head toward the Syrax corpse by Chen. "A few dead like this big boy here, plus a bunch of other smaller ones that are different." He paused and sucked in a breath. "No civilian survivors either, but there aren't enough dead for the entire colony's roster."

  Letting them discuss amongst themselves, Chen rested her head back against the dirt. If the Syrax hadn't butchered everyone, then maybe there was still some hope. Perhaps they had escaped into the mountains? The fact they had barely had time to get off a distress signal made that seem unlikely. A gentle touch on her shoulder opened Chen's eyes.

  Wilde gave her a faint smile. "Hey, let's get you up and back to the ship. Sounds like they want to clear out."

  Chen grabbed her arm and heaved herself up. If nothing else, maybe they could dig more information out of the Syrax corpses and the locater beacon she had found.

  - 15 -

  2208.10.19 // 19:41

  UVS Valiant, Nova Terra orbit

  "So, you're telling me this...blob is a locater?" The skepticism in McCann's voice forced Chen to bite back a sarcastic response.

  "I believe so, yes." Chen studied the faces of the group huddled around the navigation table at the rear of the Valiant's bridge. The surface was currently covered in an array of objects the ground team had recovered from the colony. McCann seemed uncertain, but Moreau and Wilde peered intently at the device. Captain Arnesen stood back, happy to let the junior officers say their piece before he stepped in. Bennett was thankfully nowhere to be found, but an NI guard leaned against the rear wall to keep an eye on Chen.

  "Can I look at it, Lieutenant Chen, ma'am?" Moreau's eyes never left the object.

  "Sure, just be careful." Chen nodded. "It's...sticky." Since her return to the Valiant, Chen had not yet had a chance to talk to Moreau. The ensign had been a major part of the Arcturus mission, no doubt impacted just as badly by it as Chen had been, at least emotionally.

  Moreau picked up the device and turned it over delicately in her hands, peering at tiny details on the surface. Even though Chen had wiped off most of the excess residue, it still had a sheen of gore that obscured any obvious connectors. A mix of nervousness and excitement prickled through Chen's mind, thrown off by the young woman.

  Arnesen peered over his beaked nose at Moreau and watched her examine it for a minute before he spoke. "Opinions, Ensign?"

  Moreau scrunched up her face, scratching it with the back of her hand so as not to smear alien goo across her cheek. "I'd like to take it to Chief Cartwright, sir." She glanced up. "I think we can tap into the data within it, but not with what we have on the bridge."

  Silent for a moment, fingers cupping his chin, Arnesen bobbed his head. "Lieutenant Chen, go with Moreau and see if the chief can figure out how to crack this alien nut."

  The assembled officers dispersed, and Chen was left alone with Moreau. The NI guard lurked in the background, suspicion radiating from him. Chen stared at the locater. "Maybe we should put it in something?"

  "Yeah, it's kind of gross." Moreau grinned, turned to an emergency medical kit on the wall, and removed a glove. "This will have to do." She picked up the object carefully then started for the exit. "The chief will love to get his hands on this."

  Chen followed behind her, and silence reigned during the short turbolift ride down to the engineering decks. Stepping out into the passageway, Chen cleared her throat as the NI guard shadowed them from a distance. "So, how have you been, Moreau?"

  "Oh, pretty good, ma'am," Moreau responded before she stepped out of the way of an oncoming crew member. "I was helping Lieutenant McCann for a while. We tried to find out what happened to you."

  "You were?" That surprised Chen. She didn't picture the young ensign doing anything that might get her into trouble.

  Eyes earnest, Moreau nodded. "Of course, ma'am. How they took you wasn't right after everything we'd been through." A hint of a scowl crossed her face, and she jerked a thumb back over her shoulder. "Of course, Naval Intelligence blocked our every attempt."

  "Of course, they did."

  "After that, though, I decided to take some leave." Moreau shook her head. "NI and command weren't happy about that, either, but they couldn't really refuse."

  Leave. That sounded nice. Chen felt like she'd been on duty in some form for years. Actually, she probably hadn't had any time outside of a uniform since graduating from the Academy. "Go anywhere nice?"

  "Katrina's cabin in the Rockies," Moreau replied off-handedly. Her eyes widened. "I mean, Ms. Wilde's cabin. In the Rockies. To help her research."

  A smile tugged at the edges of Chen's mouth. "Ensign, you're allowed to have friends." Given that Moreau had seemed so starstruck on the mission to find Wilde, Chen had a hard time imagining the pair as friends, but they were close in age and certainly had some serious shared experiences after Arcturus.

  "Yes, ma'am." Moreau nodded. "Christmas with my family was interesting..." She looked up, and her eyes brimmed with pride. "Even though I couldn't tell them much about the mission, my brothers had heard enough to put some things together, and they were all very impressed."

  "That's great, Ensign." Perhaps that was a big part of the change in Moreau since Chen had last seen her. Before, she'd been crippled with insecurities about being less talented and successful than her older brothers. Now, with their admiration, hopefully she was able to see herself for the remarkable woman that she was. Chen ducked under the burnished rim of a compartment door. Given that Moreau had been in the thick of the action at the Syrax outpost, she seemed remarkably well adjusted. Chen slowed her pace and glanced behind her to see the guard was keeping well back. She lowered her voice. "Ensign, don't you blame me for being dragged down on that mission?"

  Moreau stopped in her tracks, mouth opening and closing a few times before she frowned. "Why would I, ma'am?"

  Chen pretended to examine a loose maintenance hatch on the wall, wiggling the handle idly. "My mistakes put your life in serious danger."

  "That's bullshit." Moreau's eyes shot open when she realized what she had said. "I mean, sorry, Lieutenant..."

  "That's okay, Ensign." Chen paused. "Do you care to elaborate?"

  "I mean, there was no way to truly know what we were walking into. We had no precedent for something like we experienced."

  "Yes, but—"

  Moreau cut off Chen. "No buts, ma'am." She shook her head. "Even if you didn't do everything perfectly, there was no way anybody in Fleet could have dealt with the stuff we went through any better than you did."

  Chen chewed on her lip, digesting the ensign's words. Maybe she was right. Since her return to the Valiant, nobody she'd assumed would blame and hate her for the chaos of the mission at Arcturus actually had. She blinked and wiped away a bead of moisture from the corner of her eye.

  "You okay, Lieutenant?" Moreau queried.

  Chen
cleared her throat and chuckled. "When did you become so outspoken, Moreau?"

  A shy grin split Moreau's face. "I learned it from the best, ma'am."

  "Well, try not to pick up too many of my bad habits. I don't think Lieutenant McCann can deal with two of us."

  Moreau giggled. "I'll do my best."

  They resumed their trek, and moments later, the two women strode through the wide doors into main engineering. Chen stopped short at the organized chaos that greeted them. Hatches stood open; supplies and components rested in stacks all over the place; and engineers hurried around the room, a thousand tasks vying for their attention.

  There were few voices while the crew went about their duties, but the psychic din from the racing, technical minds made Chen's head spin, a hundred thoughts bombarding her from every direction.

  - 16 -

  2208.10.19 // 19:56

  UVS Valiant, Nova Terra orbit

  Overwhelmed, Chen braced herself against a stanchion and tried to shut out the voices, focusing on the strongest point in the crowd. She zeroed in on a cluster of technicians with dirty Fleet overalls gathered around someone examining a large data display.

  "Well, of course, it's fuckin' broken," a brusque voice bellowed from the middle. "You can't torque the emitters that bloody tight."

  "Everything all right, Chief?" The fog in Chen's mind had lessened.

  A burly head raised itself from within the group of engineers, who dispersed at a single jerk of the head. "Lieutenant Chen!" Chief Cartwright ambled across the gridded metal deck toward her, then wrapped her in a bear hug. "I'd heard you were on board. Good to have ya back."