Chapter 11 Harb’k

We realized our mistake as we approached the manmade reservoir. It was swarming with scourge.

“I can go without water for a little while longer,” I decided out loud, both for my shuttle’s sake and for Zoey. Even with my ship's ability to clean the water, I had no interest in bringing any of it on board. Not when the water from the mountain springs was so much cleaner.

“Well, if you need to look for strange scourge, this is the place to be. Looks like we found their watering hole. Ugh! They’re so nasty.”

The worst part was that unlike in other parts of the continent where I could park my shuttle and watch the scourge from safety, I had to hover over the masses here, hoping that the flyers didn’t detect my presence. I was about to fly off when Zoey stopped me.

“Wait. Look over there.”

I looked to where she pointed to see a group of scourge fighting over something. At first, I thought it was food because that was the only thing individuals fought over, but something about the way they were behaving was different. For one thing, the scourge were from different nests. This wasn’t too strange on its own, but many had sustained visible injuries and several were dead, and that was peculiar.

Squabbles over food usually weren’t fatal until the planet, or the nests themselves, were running out of resources. That wasn’t the case here.

“I think we found your anomalies,’” Zoey said. “Didn’t you say a piece of some shuttle fell to Earth? Maybe it’s that hunk of junk they’re fighting over.”

The singed and crumpled chunk could be anything. If it had been a piece of the shuttle, it no longer looked it. To my eyes, it was no more than a piece of useless scrap.

“Shuttle, send the recording to our Tech Wizards. And make sure to get a detailed shot of the article.”

“Look over there.” Zoey indicated another group off to the side. “That one looks striped, and the one behind it has a bright red spot on its butt. And are those wings? On a scuttler?”

From afar, the group had blended together, looking rather normal, but I saw the mutations now.

“Incoming communications from Tech Wizard Sam.”

“Accept communications.”

Sam appeared on the screen with Lenny behind her.

Technically, Sam was only one half of our Tech Wizard duo, with Lenny being the other. The two weren’t a couple, though. Sam, a female despite her male name, was mated to Kan’n, the very hunter who’d been imprisoned inside Sanctuary.

A Tech Wizard was an official Xarc’n military role that had been unfilled until we came to Earth, where we found humans who understood our technology and how to adapt it for our ever-evolving fight against the scourge.

“Harb’k, are you still at the location?” Then Sam did a double take as she looked beyond me at Zoey. “There is a woman in your shuttle.”

“I did not kidnap her, I swear,” I immediately replied.

Zoey frowned at my reply.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Sam said. “You’re not Nov’k.”

“This is Zoey. Zoey, this is Sam and Lenny.” I gestured to the male behind Sam.

After a quick introduction, we focused our attention back on the scourge and their strange prize just as a flyer swooped down and caught the lump of twisted whatever in its claws before climbing back into the air.

Zoey’s eyes met mine, and she said the words before I could. “It’s taking it back to the nest.”

“Shit!” Lenny swore.

“You have to stop it,” Sam said. “You can’t let it take it back to its nest.”

“I think maybe it’s already been in a nest before,” Zoey said.

“What do you mean?” Sam and Lenny asked in unison.

“Shuttle, show them the strange-looking scourge over there.”

To my surprise, my shuttle obeyed even though the command hadn’t come from me.

“Oh fuckity.” That was Sam.

“Unless that wasn’t the only piece,” Lenny said.

“Double fuckity.” Sam disappeared off-screen for a moment.

“Bailey from the lab just called,” Lenny said. “Sam’s talking to her now. Stay on the line, and follow that flyer. But don’t get too close.”

I did, until another flyer slammed right into it, and the two tumbled out of the sky. As the two fought on the ground, a scuttler with a bright red patch on its rear picked up the prize and started scurrying away in the opposite direction.

Sam was back on the screen. “We need you to isolate the fragment and bring it somewhere for pickup. They are sending a team. But do not, I repeat, do not let it touch any part of your shuttle or anything with Xarc’n technology in it. And for God’s sake, don’t touch it. Don’t even get anywhere close to it. We’re fucking serious, Harb’k. Don’t get all heroic and try to sacrifice yourself for the greater good or anything like that. You saw what happened to the mining detachment. We don’t need mutated hunters switching sides on us.”

I flinched at the thought of being manipulated to join the scourge. How horrific. I’d rather die.

But it was Zoey who replied. “Let me get this straight: you want us to secure it and bring it somewhere, but we can’t touch it or even get close to it, or else we might turn into bug-loving mutants?”

“Something like that.” Sam combed her hair out of her face nervously with her fingers. “We don’t actually know what will happen because it’s never happened before. We’re being hypercautious.”

“Understandably so. Better safe than sorry. I’m guessing those ones have had that thing in their nest for a while, and the second group is trying to steal it. All the weird bugs are on the same side.”

“We should send someone to check out their nest. Just in case,” Lenny suggested.

“There is another hunter looking for anomalies,” I said. “Turr’k from the Rockies. I’ll send him this way.”

“And we’ll send all the information we got here and the warning from Bailey to their Tech Wizard,” Lenny said. “Aaron from the Rockies group should know about this.”

Just then, another flyer joined the fray and made off with the fragment. This time, there wasn’t another scourge in the sky to stop it, so it flew away eastbound.

I didn’t know how we were going to isolate the fragment and get it to the location on the map, but the chase was on.

***

My shuttle sounded an alarm and automatically backed off as we approached the now-dead flyer and the fragment still in its claws. I’d shot it down before it could get too close to any of the nests and was now figuring out what to do next. I tried to inch the vessel forward, but it refused to get any closer.

“We are thirty-one imperial feet from the target. Tech Wizard’s orders were to stay at least thirty feet from it.”

My shuttle might not be a PIP model, but it had a sense of self-preservation. It had seen what the mutagen had done to our mothership, twisting it beyond recognition until the scourge could use it as a weapon against us. And it didn’t want to join that ship in the big garbage pile in the sky.

“Smart shuttle,” Zoey said. “You might not be one of those special models, but you’re plenty smart.” She patted the nearest surface.

The cabin brightened.

“What do we do now?” I asked, not expecting an answer. “How do we remove it from the flyer’s claws and get it to the location without touching it or even getting near it?”

“Don’t tell me you hunters have all this technology and no tractor beam?”

“Tractor what?”

“Never mind. But who says we need to get it out of the flyer’s claws? It might even make it easier for us if it holds on with a death grip. We can move the whole damn thing.”

“You have an idea.” It was less a question and more a statement.

“Kind of. But I need to think about it.” She approached my navigational screen, wedging herself between me and it.

Unable to resist, I hauled her up onto my lap.

“Hey!”

“I am helping. You can reach better now.”

She twisted around to narrow her eyes at me. “Fine. But only because this really is easier.”

She reached for my screen and started navigating it; she must have learned just by watching me.

Again, as before, my shuttle obeyed, letting her scroll across the map. I wondered if my shuttle started being more autonomous after spending time with Pip. Could interaction with a PIP model affect other shuttles’ behaviors? Pip had mentioned that he enjoyed spending time with my shuttle more than some of the others.

When the map passed over the bright orange marker, I said, “I’m sorry we never got to your last safe house.”

“Don’t worry about it. Corey is an asshole, but this is more important. We don’t need more stinking mutations. The centicreeps are bad enough.” She marked something on the map, then scrolled over to the location where we were supposed to bring the fragment before twisting around in my lap to look at me. “I still need to go to Sanctuary, though. I need to know that Riley is all right.”

This meant that after this detour was over, we’d still have to say goodbye.

I closed my eyes, trying to memorize the feel of her in my lap and the scent of her in my lungs. The soft purring started up again, but this time, there was a slight aching I’d never felt before. I didn’t have the time to process it, though, because Zoey had finalized her idea.

“Alright. I think I have it figured out. This is what we’re going to do.”