Shattered Dawn (The Eternal Frontier Book 3) Read online

  “Captain!” Sumo’s voice called through the comms.

  “We’re okay!” he boomed back. “We’re okay!”

  Sofia grinned, wrapping her arms around him. “Oh my gods, we’re alive! We’re actually alive!”

  Bull’s voice growled, “Glad to hear it, Captain. But a bunch of those things fell down there with you. If you’re alive, so are they.”

  Even as he spoke, Tag heard the swish of talons scything through the vines. Growls and shrieks surrounded them, but he couldn’t see the scorpioids through the mess of strange foliage.

  “This way!” Sofia said. She yanked on Tag’s wrist, and they began sprinting through a narrow clearing in the vines.

  Rustling sounded from ahead. At first, he thought it was more scorpioids. Nothing pounced at them. Instead the vines moved as if blown by a wind he could not feel. They quivered. Any other time, Tag might be alarmed by such movement. With the scorpioids moving fast behind him, there was no time for luxuries like caution. Onward he and Sofia ran. More brown gunk covered the floor, threatening to make them slip. Several of the scorpioids followed the curve of the clearing after Sofia and Tag.

  They fired as they ran. Orange rounds of pulsefire streamed from Tag’s pistol. His shots connected with one of the scorpioids. Another leapt over the fresh corpse and flicked its tail in one fluid motion. A spike flew straight at Sofia, but Tag tackled her. The spike flew over her head and disappeared in the darkness.

  Tag stood, helping Sofia to her feet, and they kept moving. The clearing led into another corridor, where the brown vines traced the bulkhead and decks. A few hatches offered potential routes of escape, but all were clotted with vegetation. The vines there were thick enough that Tag didn’t bother trying to cut them away. The vines seemed to part just a little wider, beckoning him. There was only one path forward. The uncanny thought that the vines were guiding them somewhere passed through his mind. He forced it out just as quickly; no use ruminating on things like that with the scorpioids in dogged pursuit.

  They cleared another corridor with only a single red emergency light at the end to guide them. Dim amber lights summoned them from the end of a side passage illuminating a much larger space. Maybe they would find ladders that weren’t rusted out there. They needed to reach higher ground and reunite with the rest of the crew.

  “How are things going up there?” Tag asked over the comms.

  “Captain,” Bull said, “we’re trying to find a way down to you, but we’re getting blocked off.”

  “The vines stretch meters deep,” Coren added. “We’re having trouble cutting through.”

  Alpha spoke up. “You may be forced to engage the hostile aliens, Captain, in which case your probabilities of success are—”

  “No need for probabilities,” Sofia said. “Just get your asses down here!”

  “But be careful,” Tag said. “I don’t want anyone to do anything reckless!”

  “You mean like fall ten stories off a ladder?” Sumo asked.

  A scorpioid pounced at Tag, preventing him from making a smart reply. He caught it in the chest with pulsefire, and it somersaulted to the deck, yowling as blood bubbled out of its mouth.

  Tag and Sofia burst out of the corridor and into the chamber with the dim amber light. Brown vines, some as thick as the trees in the Forest of Light, crisscrossed the room.

  “Where are we now?” Tag asked, searching for an exit. A quick glance at his wrist terminal showed they were in what once was the Hope’s central computing and comm center. He didn’t see any readily accessible terminals, much less a hatch other than the one at their backs.

  Just more vines. Vines every gods-damned direction he looked.

  Once again, they were cornered. This time there wasn’t a ten-story plummet for a desperate escape, and there were no marines to hold back the scorpioids with gunfire. Sofia aimed her pulse pistol at the corridor, standing shoulder to shoulder with Tag. The first misshapen silhouettes of the scorpioids appeared, clambering against each other as they rushed toward their prize.

  “It was a valiant effort,” she said. “The others will carry on without us.”

  “But I hate to miss out on the fun,” Tag said, acting braver than he felt.

  The scorpioids poured out of the corridor like water from a faucet. His fingers shook slightly as he aimed at the scorpioids. He squeezed the trigger as fast as possible, trying to bring down as many of those spike-throwing bastards as he could. He and Sofia backed up until they were pressed against a thick wall of vines. There was no chance to say anything else to her as they faced death. It was all Tag could do to shoot and duck as spikes and scorpioids came at them in a relentless tide.

  Then something tapped his shoulder.

  As he turned, he saw brown vines wrapping around his arm and Sofia’s ankles.

  “Sofia!” he yelled.

  She looked down at her feet, firing at the vines until they retracted.

  “Oh, gods,” she muttered. More vines shot from the walls.

  Tag tried to help, but the vines wrapped around their wrists and ankles, holding their limbs in place. A larger vine enveloped around Tag like a boa constrictor, covering his body from toe to neck. He struggled, but the vines only pulled tighter.

  They were stuck, imprisoned by the living foliage so that they could not fight back against the scorpioids. But then more vines wrapped around the scorpioids, dragging them by tail and limb before slamming the aliens into the bulkhead. The creatures hit the walls with such force that their flesh burst open. Their insides spilled in a foul mess.

  Each time one of the scorpioids charged into the huge atrium, another vine wrapped around the creature. Struggle as they might, desperately scything at the vines with talons and tusks or impaling them with spikes, the vines grabbed the monsters and dashed them against the walls. Soon the scorpioids began pausing at the edge of the corridor, and at last, the remaining creatures retreated. But the vines pursued them like an octopus’s deft tentacles, grabbing them, hoisting them in the air, and sending them to a fate just like the rest of their brethren’s.

  “No more scorpioids,” Sofia said softly.

  Tag heard the words she hadn’t said because he was thinking, too: We’re next.

  They were lifted into the air. Tag struggled to breathe as the vines tightened around his chest. He opened his mouth, gasping, desperate for the little bit of air he could still choke down. His fingers wriggled, itching to reach the pulse pistol, but he couldn’t move his hand far enough.

  He closed his eyes, ready to be splattered against a bulkhead.

  And then it stopped. The vines loosened slightly. Not enough for him to use his pistol to escape but enough for him to breathe. He opened his eyes again and saw Sofia suspended next to him. They were at the top of the atrium, maybe four or five decks up from where they’d entered.

  “Bull,” Tag managed, his voice coming out in rasps. “We’re...about to be killed by some...some...plant. Go on without me. Coren, you’ve got command of the ship.”

  “No, Captain!” Bull replied, his voice filled with fierce determination. “We’re on our way.”

  “I’m afraid...it’s going to be too late.”

  Tag stared at the deck below, prepared to find himself plummeting in freefall for the second time in mere minutes. It was as if fate meant for him to die smashed against the filthy, grime-smeared deck, and it was now seeking revenge for him cheating death before.

  “Skipper, it’s been a pleasure,” Sofia said.

  “We’re looking at death, and you’re going to give me clichés,” Tag said.

  “It’s a bit hard to be creative when I think about my brains splattered against the deck.” She inhaled sharply as she slid half a meter out of her viny cocoon, then stopped. “Right now, I’m missing the Forinths and that colorful jungle of theirs more than you can imagine.”

  “My only regret is that we didn’t all settle down there,” Tag said. “I was learning to like their singing. And the pl
ants there were ten times friendlier than here.”

  The vines around his ankles slithered as if they were readjusting and loosening. He had to remind himself to breathe as apprehension crept under his skin, still waiting to fall, waiting for the deck to rise up and meet him.

  “It really was nice knowing you,” Tag said. “I only wish we had more time.”

  “Now who’s the one with clichés?”

  Tag opened his mouth to respond. Something moved in his periphery. He fought to twist his neck just enough to see what it was. He expected to see the talons of a scorpioid descending upon them.

  It wasn’t a scorpioid.

  It was something much stranger and more terrifying.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The vines parted to reveal what looked like an enormous beak. It took Tag a moment to realize the beak was part of a much larger plant, rippling with scaly, flaking flesh from which all the vines seemed to originate. The vine-creature opened its maw, revealing an unexpected set of crooked, hooking teeth that appeared well-suited for tearing apart meat. A long series of grunts and other guttural sounds rolled over the thing’s whipping tongue. Spittle flew from the mouth, covering Tag’s visor and dripping down his suit. It was as brown and murky as the gunk coating the decks and bulkheads around the station.

  “What in the name of the gods is that thing?” Tag asked.

  “Wish I knew,” Sofia said. “But I’m guessing it’s carnivorous.”

  Once again the cat-thing appeared, tearing out of the curtains of vines. It arched its back and hissed at the monstrosity inching toward Tag and Sofia. A quick thwack with a vine made it duck, and it sprinted from the chamber before the other vines could snatch it.

  “Thanks for trying,” Sofia muttered.

  The beak opened as if ready to swallow Tag and Sofia whole. It let out a cacophonous growling cough. Then it began, for lack of a better word, to speak.

  It was speaking in English, the old United Nations standard language, but it still sounded horribly mangled by the creature’s beak. Tag tuned in his universal translator, which made short work of the creature’s strange accent.

  “Are you as dumb as you are puny, humans?” the vine-creature asked. “Or are you choosing not to respond out of insolence?”

  The vine-creature shook them. Tag’s joints popped. His muscles and tendons struggled to hold his limbs together.

  “What...what do you want?” Tag asked.

  “Oh, the little primate speaks!” the vine-creature boomed, its voice rattling Tag’s bones. “We should be asking you the same question. You come in here, bringing those vile little monsters in tow. Although, we suppose we should thank you. Most of them had learned not to bother me, which had prevented me from killing the rest of them. Until today. So, thank you for that. Most kind of you.”

  “You’re...welcome?” Tag said. The vine-creature was rambling like some poor soul left in a nursing home finally receiving a guest after weeks of solitude. It evoked painful images of seeing his dad wandering lost and confused, missing the son he could barely remember.

  “But that is such a little thing, really,” the vine-creature continued. “You also shot me up quite good. That was an unkind thing.” It held up two roping vines like fingers in front of Tag and Sofia. “One thing kind, bringing those monsters to me. Another thing unkind, shooting at me. But we should expect nothing less from you humans. Vile, selfish creatures, the whole lot of you.”

  “What do you know about humans?” Tag asked. This was the first time since his departure from the Argo that another race he encountered actually recognized his species.

  “What a silly, stupid, trite question.” The vine-creature let out an ear-splitting honking that might have been laughter. “We find it odd that you think you can ask us questions here. This is our home now. Not yours. Not for humans. No, no, no. And you have done one kind thing and may think you have earned favor with us, but you have not. Your kind thing and your unkind thing cancel each other out. You do understand the math, don’t you?”

  “We didn’t—” Tag began.

  “And if you think about it—which we know you humans like to do—we have done you a kind thing.” The beak paused, tilting slightly as if the vine-creature was lost in thought. “Actually, two kind things. We saved you from a fall, and we saved you from those pestering little monsters. That is two kind things, and by my math, you have canceled out your only kind thing and therefore have done us zero kind things.”

  “What do you want from us?” Sofia asked.

  “We want to know why you have returned. Why the humans are here again.”

  “This is the first time we’ve ever been aboard this ship,” Sofia protested.

  “We’re not that stupid, human. We know how short your lifespans are. We are asking why the humans are here again. We thought you had left us alone, left us at peace in our home.”

  “We’re looking for the crew of this ship,” Sofia said.

  “You mean the ship that is now the Hope Station?”

  “Yes,” Tag said. “We want to know what happened to the people here.”

  “Ah, we can certainly tell you that. We can tell you when they left and where they went and why they abandoned us.”

  Tag’s heart beat in anticipation. All the answers they had been searching for, resting in the vine-creature’s mind—or whatever it had instead of a brain.

  “Please,” Tag said, “what can you tell us about them?”

  The vine-creature roiled with that eardrum-piercing honking again, and Tag winced.

  “That would be another kind thing you ask of us. Another kind thing. The math does not please us. That would be an imbalance, a preposterous request. Most unfair!”

  Vines moved around Tag, some slipping and others tightening. He wasn’t sure if the thing was about to drop him or squeeze him until his ribs cracked and his organs burst.

  “All right,” Sofia said. “All right. I understand. That would be a kind thing from you. A very, very kind thing.”

  The vines relaxed, letting Tag and Sofia dangle once again, just secure enough to prevent them from falling.

  “Yes, you understand,” the vine-creature said. “This one understands.” It shook Sofia slightly. “We want to talk to her, to this one. She seems smart, intelligent, bright. All the things we remember liking about the humans, though there were so many humans we did not like at all. So many that were not smart or intelligent or bright and who preferred to do the unkind things. Not the kind things that Raktor likes.”

  “Raktor?” Sofia asked, almost cooingly. “Is that your name?”

  “Yes, that is our name. That is the name the humans called us. Names are such a peculiarly human thing. We never bothered with them before. Nor did my forbearers. Names are a distraction, an identity. Meant to discriminate one from the forest, the collection—”

  “Raktor?” Sofia tried, interrupting its soliloquy.

  Tag cringed and waited for Raktor to explode at being interrupted. Much to his surprise the beak closed, and saliva dripped from the corners of the giant mouth as it seemed to wait for Sofia.

  “I am Sofia,” she said. “This is Tag. We prefer to do the kind things. That’s why we were searching for the humans who once lived in the Hope.”

  “Yes, the kind things. That is good you say you prefer to do them, but we haven’t seen proof yet of this claim. We do not know that you are deserving of more kind things to be done for you.”

  “Then,” Sofia said, “let us do a kind thing for you. Then you would owe us one kind thing. That is how the math works, isn’t it?”

  “A deal. A negotiation. A barter for services,” Raktor said. “Raktor has made deals with humans before. Once we believed humans were the bringers of kind things, but we learned.”

  Tag tried to keep track of Raktor’s constantly switching references to itself from third to first person. He wanted to shake the damn thing, to tell it to slow down, to talk like a normal being. But Sofia seemed to be hav
ing a calming effect on it. Best to let her do the talking.

  “What can we do for you, Raktor?” Sofia asked. “What would be the best, biggest, kindest thing we could do?”

  Raktor’s beak retracted into the vines, tilting and twisting as it hummed. Then, without warning, the beak burst forward again, and Raktor began speaking, spittle spraying from its mouth anew, splattering against Tag and Sofia, the decks and the bulkhead, and even dripping over its own vines.

  “This is Raktor’s home now,” the strange creature said. “After everyone has abandoned it and left us to fend for ourselves, this is our home. Raktor’s home.”

  The beak drew close to Tag, and the stench of carrion drifted from its mouth, pungent enough to permeate his suit and make him long for a shower. When he signed up for this mission, he’d had no idea it would involve a schizophrenic talking plant with bad breath.

  “New people that have started tearing apart this station, our home,” Raktor said. “They have stolen from us and tried to hurt us and tried to take what is now ours. They want only to take and take and take and do all the unkind things.”

  “The Dreg,” Tag muttered.

  “The Dreg?” Raktor asked. “We do not know that name. They look like human excrement and they fly around and we want to squash them, but they are so many. So many little pests. So many out of our reach.” Raktor’s beak aimed toward the deck. “This makes us sad. Makes all of us here sad. The station is still functional because Raktor takes care of it as we can. As we have learned from the humans. We keep things running and working because without the air and the heat, Raktor would freeze. We would die. All our seedlings, everything we have built here would die. Our forbearers knew winter, and so we remember it. We fear the cold.

  “We do not want death. We do not want it at all. And you can do a kind thing by stopping the unkind Dreg.”

  Raktor shook Tag and Sofia, its beak clacking in anger once again.

  “Kill the Dreg. Remove the little pests from our home, and we will tell you what you want to know.”