CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Aiden

I kept a close eye on Bidge as we trekked across the open desert. His broken arm shouldn’t stop him from walking, but either shock or pain could easily derail our plans to put distance between us and the transporter. So I was relieved when an hour passed and he showed no obvious signs of slowing down. Associate Nors, too, was moving at a reasonable pace, though she was sweating more than the rest of us. But though her breathing was a little laboured, she never once suggested stopping for a break. I was starting to think I’d got the wrong impression of her back in Adavi, with her fancy gardens and expensive meals. She might be accustomed to the finer things in life, but she didn’t expect them as an automatic right.

The sun was sinking in the western sky, warming our backs and casting long shadows out ahead of us, and leaving aside the ongoing threat of the Geshtoch, it was actually quite beautiful out here. But with nightfall coming on rapidly, we had some important decisions to be making. “We’ve got about half an hour of daylight left,” Bryce said, as he glanced over his shoulder at the sun. “Between now and then, we need to find somewhere to hole up for the night. The bigger the rock, the better.” A large outcrop would give us something to put our backs against, so that we didn’t have to worry about being attacked from all angles.

About fifteen minutes later, Kade announced, “Big outcrop over to the south.” He was walking at the head of the group, with Bryce bringing up the rear. “Want to head over that way and check it out?”

I’d noticed that about him, all the way through this mission. Whenever he had a suggestion or an opinion, he phrased it as a question. He would never say ‘I think we should check it out.’ Rather, it was ‘Do you want to check it out?’

But at the same time, he’d acted without the need for any kind of micromanaging. When the transporter went down, he’d retrieved weapons, shot Geshtoch, rescued our one surviving passenger and helped us get our supplies together, on the back of little to no instruction. So if this was a test of his suitability for life as a soldier, he was passing with flying colours.

“Let’s take a look,” Bryce said, and we veered to the right, quickening our pace as the light began to fade. There were a couple of emergency glow sticks in our packs, but once the sun set, we were going to have little to no light.

Five minutes later, we stared up at the large rock tower. It was about four metres high and twice as wide, peaked in the middle and sloping downwards on either side. On the western side, the prolonged action of wind and sand had worn a curving alcove into the rock, giving us protection on two sides.

“It’s as good as we could ask for,” Bryce decided, but then glanced my way to check my opinion anyway. “Hill? This okay?”

“Works for me,” I agreed. That was another thing I liked about Bryce. He never let the power go to his head. In a situation where one person might overlook a risk, or where the cooperation of the whole team was needed to achieve a goal, he always let other people voice their opinions.

“All right, folks,” Bryce announced. “Let’s get the beds set up and some food sorted out. I want two people on guard at all times. Two hour shifts. Me and Vosh will take the first one. Bidge and Associate Nors, that means you two get to take a bed each, and then Vosh and I will take Aiden and Kade’s beds when they’re up. Vosh, I want you watching westward right now. I’m going to go take a walk around this chunk of rock and see what the lay of the land is.”

He dumped his pack on the ground, checked the ammunition in his rifle, then set off. Vosh did the same, taking up a sentry position a few metres away.

With Bryce gone, that left me in charge of getting our injured pilot and civilian tagalong settled. “Okay, folks, we’ve got four meal packets between the six of us for dinner, and the same again for breakfast. Kade, can you fish them out and start dividing them up into six portions? Associate Nors, can you give me a hand to get the beds set up? Bidge, I’m giving you a one-time-only pass to sit down and watch the rest of us work.”

That got a grin from Bidge, and I was relieved to see that he wasn’t in too much pain to appreciate the bad joke. It was going to be a rough night for him, trying to sleep on a thin mat on hard ground, but Bidge had been military trained, just like the rest of us. And to be fair, no one was going to be having a good night. I told myself that we only had to last until dawn, which was at about oh-six-hundred, and then another two hours to walk the rest of the way to the outpost. Unless, of course, the Hon base managed to get a transporter out here before that to pick us up. And after that, there would be the luxuries of hot showers, fresh meals and some heavy duty painkillers for Bidge, until they could get him back to the base and fixed up with some proper medical attention.

Thirteen hours stood between us and safety. But we had a good team. We’d been trained for this. And once again, Kade had blown all my expectations out of the water, back in the battle with the Geshtoch. He’d somehow managed to blow three of them up with their own grenade , and then shot one who was literally standing behind a rock . It was no wonder his intended master, whoever they happened to be, had spent such a ridiculous sum of money on him.

Associate Nors helped set up the beds willingly, though it was clear she was feeling sore from the long walk – likely not something a parliamentarian often had to go through. By the time we were done, Kade had the meals arranged, and he handed out the portions, taking one over to Vosh as she stood guard.

I ate slowly, attempting to pretend there was more food than there actually was. Just as I was finishing, Bryce came wandering back, from the opposite direction from the one he’d departed in. Presumably, he’d gone all the way around the cluster of rocks we were camped beside.

“There’s a bit of a canyon over on the eastern side,” he said without preamble, as he took the offered meal and ate standing up, keeping an eye on the desert around us. “If we need a bolt hole, that would be more defensible than anywhere else. And there are plenty of nooks and ridges, if we need cover for a gunfight. Anyone know what the moon is doing tonight?”

“Three quarters full, rising at about twenty-one thirty,” Kade answered immediately. How the fuck did he know that? I knew we were coming up to a full moon in a few days, but that was as much help as I would have been.

“That should help us a bit,” Bryce said. “We’ll at least have a little bit of light if we need to move.”

That was about the extent of the conversation for the evening. After we’d eaten, we all crawled into our beds to get what sleep we could.

It felt like I’d only been out for about five minutes when Bryce’s firm hand was shaking me awake. “You’re up,” he said simply. I gave a token grumble, but got myself out of bed and into my boots, while Bryce set his weapons neatly beside the sleeping roll, toed off his boots and took advantage of the warm little cocoon I was leaving behind. I immediately grabbed one of the spare blankets and wrapped it around myself. On a clear night, the desert was fucking cold.

Kade appeared beside me a moment later, a gentle nudge of his shoulder against mine his only greeting. I bumped him back, then made a point of checking the position of the stars and the moon. With our comms fried by the EMP, we were back to using the sun, moon and stars to track the passage of time and to navigate. Kade took a short walk around, checking the nearby area, then he wandered back to my side. I felt a hand on my arm and turned to face him.

“I’m going to change colour,” he said quietly. For a brief moment, I wondered why he was bothering to tell me, my tired brain assuming he was going to revert to his natural blue. But instead, he flashed to pitch black, just like he had in the jungle that first day I’d found him. And I was suddenly glad he’d warned me. In military grey fatigues and black scales, and with the moon on the far side of the rocks, leaving us in shadow, he was damn near invisible, and given what I knew about his combat skills, I wouldn’t have liked to run into him unexpectedly in the dark – regardless of the fact that he was on our side.

He glanced up at the rock tower above us. “I’m going to climb up there,” he said, with total nonchalance, as if scaling a four metre rock wall without any sort of attachments was a perfectly normal thing to do. “I’ll be able to see further, and in more directions. Can you whistle if you need me?”

“Sounds good,” I said, noting once again that the part that was giving me instructions was phrased as a question. Then, because I couldn’t quite help myself, I added, “Be careful.”

I wasn’t sure in the darkness, but I thought I saw him grin. “Always,” he murmured. He stepped over to the side of the tower, and I forced myself to turn my back on him and pay attention to the desert. It would have been awe-inspiring to watch him climb, I was sure, but this was no time to be admiring my boyfriend’s physique.

Huh. Boyfriend. Fuck. Had I really just thought that? But honestly, what else was I supposed to call him? I wasn’t going to go around referring to him as my slave. He was more than a friend or a colleague. I certainly couldn’t call him a brother, if I was sleeping with him. So apparently, boyfriend was it. Or partner, maybe? Did that make it sound a little more professional?

Pay attention , I scolded myself. There were creatures out in the desert who wanted to kill us, and I wasn’t na?ve enough to believe that they would all be asleep, just because it was dark. From what we knew of them, Geshtoch appeared to be cathemeral; they could be active at any time of the day or night, depending on the circumstances at the time.

Leaving Kade to watch the eastern side, I paced in slow strides up and down the length of the rock, using not just sight, but sound and smell to pick up any hint of trouble. While not always true, quite often, the Geshtoch smelled heavily of solvent and smoke, which came from maintaining old or rundown machinery and cooking their food on wood fires.

Tonight, the light breeze smelled clear and fresh, and there wasn’t even a hint of footsteps or rumbling engines. But I didn’t dare take our safety for granted, not even for a second. Things could change all too quickly out here, and I was not going to be caught off guard.

Roughly two hours later – or as close to it as I could tell from the position of the moon – it was nearing the end of our turn on guard duty. I turned around to look up at the rocks and see if I could spot Kade. I hadn’t heard from him for the entire time I’d been out here, and if I hadn’t been quite so confident in his skills, I might have been worried.

I spotted him after two or three sweeps of the rock tower. He was mostly lying down, but propped up on his elbows and staring at something to the south. I drew in a breath to whistle at him, but something in his body language made me pause. He was still, but he was… listening? Or watching something? Either way, he was not merely scanning the horizon. He was keenly focused on something, and I felt a cold chill run down my spine.

Acting on that instinct, I moved swiftly and silently over to where Bryce was sleeping, waking him and Vosh at the same time with a hand on each of their shoulders. If it turned out I was overreacting, it was more or less time to swap places with them anyway.

“That time already?” Bryce asked groggily, but I silenced him with a soft ‘Shh’.

“I think Kade’s spotted something. Get up.”

He scrambled out of his bedroll, Vosh close behind him. “Where is he?” Bryce asked, once he was on his feet and had his boots on.

“Up there.” I pointed up the rock tower. But Kade wasn’t where he had been. Instead, I saw him slithering down the side of the tower, little more than an inky stain in the darkness. Once he reached the bottom, he strode swiftly over towards the camp.

“Woah, shit,” Vosh squeaked, seeing Kade’s black colouring.

“It’s fine,” I told her. “He can change colour, is all.”

“What’s the story?” Bryce asked Kade, ignoring Vosh’s reaction.

“They’re coming,” Kade said simply. “From the south. I’m not sure how many. Maybe five?”

“Show me,” Bryce said, then as a second thought, told the rest of us, “Wake the others and grab all the gear. We need to move.”

He and Kade slunk off around the edge of the rock, while Vosh and I woke Associate Nors and Bidge. “We need to move,” I told them both. “Shoes on. Fi, grab a pack and your bed. We don’t have time to pack them up properly.” I messily rolled another bed into a cylinder. “Bidge, can you carry this with your good arm?” He nodded and took it. I slung a pack onto my back and grabbed a third bed, while Vosh did the same.

“Doesn’t look like they’re hunting,” Bryce announced, arriving back at the camp, Kade close behind. “If we lie low in that crevice I found earlier, we might get lucky and they just pass us by. ”

“Lead the way,” I said, while Kade moved to grab the last pack. But I stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Bryce, can you carry this one? I’d prefer to have Kade free to move.”

Bryce gave a slight huff. “I’m the Commander here, Hill. I think I have more experience than a man who’s-”

“No,” I cut him off. “Please, Preswood, trust me on this one. And I’ll explain it properly when we’re safe.”

He looked Kade up and down, then shrugged. “Fair enough.” He swung the pack onto his shoulders, then led the way around the north side of the cluster. The crevice was narrow; a metre across at the widest points, and about half that at a few bottlenecks. We all squeezed in, staying nearer the northern end, since we might have to make a hasty exit from here if the Geshtoch spotted us.

“Go check where they’re up to,” I told Kade, pointing down the end of the canyon. He slipped away, silent as a mouse, and then Bryce shrugged off his pack and followed Kade. I completely understood his wariness. If I hadn’t seen Kade in action, I would have felt the same way.

“What do we do if they find us?” Associate Nors asked in a whisper.

“Kill them,” I said.

“Isn’t there a better way to deal with all of this?”

I raised disbelieving eyebrows at her, though I doubted she could see me in the darkness. “That’s a question for the Parliament. I’ve been told they’ve been reviewing the Geshtoch treaty, but nothing’s changed so far.”

Nors huffed. “The instant I’m home, I’m going to look into that. It’s ridiculous that we can’t walk across our own planet without being shot at.”

“Please do,” I said, then returned my attention to the two dim figures at the far end of the canyon. Long minutes passed, while neither of them moved… and then they were suddenly dashing back towards us, Bryce pulling his rifle off his shoulder.

“They’re coming our way. They said they’re going to camp next to this rock.” It was a common strategy for the Geshtoch to camp near rock towers, though their reasoning was for protection from the wind, rather than attackers.

“Fuck,” I muttered, shrugging off my own pack and grabbing my rifle. “You said there was cover up the top?” I asked Bryce.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Nors asked. “If they said they’re just camping…”

“If they find us, they’ll kill us,” Bryce told her. “No amount of reasoning with them ever seems to work.”

“This is ridiculous,” she grumbled, and I didn’t disagree with her. But unfortunately, none of us had a better solution.

“Let’s get up onto the- ”

An ear-splitting boom shattered the quiet, and bright red light flashed in a staccato pattern as the far end of the canyon caved in.

“Move, move,” I yelled at Bidge, who was closest to the near end of the canyon. “What the fuck are they doing?” I asked Bryce, not expecting an answer. “How did they know we’re here?”

“Infrared scanners?” Kade guessed. “If we have them, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t.”

“If they’re so stupid, where do they get their technology from?” Nors asked, as she scrambled after Vosh, heading out of the canyon.

“Don’t know,” Bryce answered her. “Trade, maybe? Culrads? Rentrals? Who the fuck knows? Fi and Bidge, stay here, but retreat if they get too close. Vosh, Hill, up here.” He vaulted up onto the nearest boulder, making for the top of the stack. Vosh followed him, but I paused.

“What do you think?” I asked Kade. If I told him to go up there, he would, but he might have a better idea.

“I can probably get around behind them,” he said, then flinched as another boom cracked open a slab of rock further down the canyon. He huffed out a breath, then said, “If they’ve got rockbreakers, the rest of you are going to be toast up there. If I can get behind them, I can take them out.”

“Do it,” I told him, then headed up the rock face. He would need us to keep the Geshtoch distracted while he slipped past them. I could only hope we survived long enough to do that.