Kastori Revelations (The Kastori Chronicles Book 1) (17 page)

Celeste nodded and limped ahead. Crystil ran a few feet ahead of her, and the two went into the forest, running as fast as Celeste could pace them. Crystil had her gun cocked as she kept an eye on her surroundings. Nothing appeared, but the darkening sky offered no reassurances.

Then she heard Celeste speed up. She felt optimistic.

But something else reached her ears that should not have. Multiple footsteps.

Crystil jerked around with her gun cocked. She grabbed Celeste with one hand, threw her to the ground, and fired her rifle with her other hand at the giant green arachnia. The creature squealed in anger, and Crystil fired another series of rounds. The arachnia climbed into the trees, vanishing from view, but its screams still echoed through the forest.

“Come on!” Crystil yelled, adrenaline pulsing through her.

The arachnia’s pained cries still came, but it knew the forest better than either human, and took advantage of that fact. Her eyes still in the sky, Crystil told Celeste to stand up.

“Stay directly on my back,” the commander said. “Yell if you see the creature.”

The two rushed, not needing silence. Crystil knew the arachnia knew their location. It was just a twisted version of predator-and-prey, where they were the target. Except the food, in this case, had weapons that could turn the battle. She’d seen the monster bleed. She knew she could kill—

“UP UP UP!”

Crystil raised her gun as the creature leaped from the trees. Without any hesitation, Crystil pulled the trigger, firing into the abdomen of the giant arachnia. The creature’s squeals hit a higher pitch as its momentum tackled both humans. Crystil hit the ground with a thud, and knew immediately she’d broken something in her free arm. The pain was intense, but not overwhelming. She scooted on the ground and found the animal’s face. It had hideous fangs, plenty long enough to gore her, and disgustingly large brown eyes. Crystil loaded the gun between the creature’s eyes and fired off three seconds’ of machine gun rounds, laying waste to the creature.

She found Celeste on the ground to the right of the arachnia, groaning.

“My head…” Celeste murmured.

“Come on, Celeste, get up,” Crystil said, grabbing her arm and yanking her up. “Just move forward. Don’t worry about anything else. I’ll take care of you.”

Woozy, Celeste moved forward, guided by Crystil. She regained enough sense to move toward the ship, but it became apparent she would need Crystil’s hand nearly every step of the way.

The blow to the head also slowed their pace down, and by Crystil’s estimations, they would spend at least another hour out, assuming they ran into no more dan—

A giant thud came, followed by the all-too-familiar growl. Crystil put a hand on Celeste’s mouth and dropped her to the ground. Crystil closed her eyes and tried to calm her breathing, but she heard an awful scratching sound, like metal getting crunched apart.

Omega One…

The ship is being destroyed.

Or is it?

The damage sounded more like a scratch, not full-scale destruction.
Just don’t hurt the medical bay. Take out the cockpit. Destroy our living quarters. Anything but the med bay.

The two laid on the ground in silence. Crystil still had her gun on her in case another arachnia appeared, but she wanted nothing to do with it. She’d sooner wave a knife around than sound a dinner bell for the giant monster.

Finally, the creature emitted a furious roar and flew into the sky. It wasn’t until Crystil could no longer hear the flapping of wings and the monster’s cry that she grabbed Celeste. She would believe
Omega One
functioned as it had until she saw otherwise. To give up now was the ultimate sin.

“Come on, let’s go,” she said, her voice still quiet.

But when Crystil stood up, Celeste did not join her. She still moved, but she had entered into a barely conscious state, one in which her body would not walk.

“Son of a…” Crystil mumbled to herself.

She reached down, grabbed Celeste, and thrust her onto her shoulders. The position meant her firing accuracy, if she had to use her gun, would be compromised.

“Don’t give up on me,” Crystil said, a pause coming before she mumbled quietly, “Please.”

She began moving as fast as she could. She shed her backpack and rations, leaving her with just Celeste, her rifle, and her knife in her pocket. If they’d misjudged the location of the ship…

No. Focus on the mission. Return Celeste home safely. Nothing else matters.

Celeste yelped in pain at intervals, and Crystil knew if she lost consciousness, her body would shut down shortly after.

“Talk to me, Celeste, what’s going on?”

Celeste had no coherent response, instead blabbing and groaning about something incomprehensible. But it meant she was awake. Crystil kept up conversation as if she understood entirely.

Suddenly, she found the opening of the forest. But no
Omega One.
She cursed herself out and looked to the right. There was the ship, about half a mile away. She’d misjudged the path, but had gotten close enough.

“There it is! Celeste, you’re going to be OK. We’re going to get you better.”

Celeste had no response. Crystil could still hear her breathing, but that half mile could not go by quick enough. She sprinted with nothing but purpose driving her. She’d used up all her adrenaline, all her endurance, and all her strength just to get to this point. Her body ached, and her vision started to blur.

“Come on Celeste, stay with me, don’t go anywhere.”

Omega One
, from what she could see, did not have any structural damage. That brought relief since it meant the beast had literally just scratched the surface, and nothing more.

She sprinted further, and estimated that she was about two hundred yards away.

Then her left foot failed to plant properly. Crystil felt one of the most painful, sharp sensations she’d ever felt from her shin. She fell forward as Celeste crumpled off her, rolling forward. Crystil, never one to react to most pain, screamed in agony as she reached down to her left leg. When she felt it, she felt the jagged edges of something extremely hard, almost like…

Bone.

She felt nauseous and refused to look down. She looked ahead and saw Celeste lying on the ground. Crystil was in too much pain to see if Celeste was still breathing or not. She tried dragging herself to the young girl, but the pain was turning to shock. Crystil was losing control of her body. She tried biting into her suit to grit it out, but it only slowed the shock, not prevented it.

“NOOOO!” she screamed as her body shook.

The last thing she saw before passing out was Celeste, eyes closed, lying on the ground, dying, followed by a sudden flash of white, blinding light.

28

“Won’t die, huh?”

Cyrus kept saying the phrase to himself over and over. He kept waiting for Cortanus to laugh and say it was a joke. He said it in the lab, in the bedroom, in the cockpit, and in the mess hall. The fact never changed.

Deciding he might as well get a good view of the sky, Cyrus trudged over to the cockpit. He assumed the commander’s seat and sighed.

“So, really, it won’t die?”

“As I’ve said many times, Cyrus, it can die. But it won’t die on its own. It would have to be killed with brute force. I suspect a mild virus would not bring it down.”

“Won’t die,” Cyrus said.

But this time, as he looked up at the sky and saw no stars blotted out, he allowed Cortanus’ caveat to sink in. They could kill the monster. Such a task seemed impossible, but it was not actually impossible.

But he couldn’t do it alone. He had to have the two women with him. He tried to imagine fighting the creature by himself and instead tragically laughed at the image that came to mind, that of him pricking the creature’s toe before getting stomped to death.

“How would you do it, Cortanus?”

“Do what?”

“Defeat the greatest monster you’ve ever known when you couldn’t even kill a precora?” Cyrus said.

“Such a probability would seem low,” Cortanus said. “I—”

“I’m just messing with you, Cort. Don’t actually use your processing to imagine such a scenario. It’s not going to happen.”

Cyrus sighed and started to fall asleep in the chair. Maybe he could dream up a way of defeating the enemy. At worst, maybe if it were so imaginative as to be considered, it would make for a fun discussion.

Slowly, he started to drift off. Some time passed—he didn’t know how much, but it didn’t feel like a lot—before he heard a jarring scream.

But it didn’t sound like an animal. It sounded like… a woman?

He looked over the edge and saw nothing. It was too dark to see far ahead, though he thought he could see the outline of something moving. Perhaps two creatures had fought to the death, and one was nearing its final seconds of life.

A very familiar, feminine, “NOO!” echoed through the air.

“Cortanus, shine lights ahead!”

Immediately, he saw them. Celeste and Crystil. Both of them laid on the ground, writhing in pain. Crystil shook uncontrollably while Celeste barely moved.

“Cortanus, send me down! I will break this cockpit window if you don’t!”

When he got to the airlock, the door had already opened. It dropped more than it descended, and Cyrus took a second to regain his footing. He sprinted to Celeste. He kneeled beside her and saw how swollen her entire body had become. She looked drugged and, worse, her breathing was so shallow he had to put his ear up to her mouth to make sure she was still breathing. He saw Crystil shaking as if in a seizure, but in the moment of decision, he picked Celeste up and rushed her back to the ship, promising to come out for Crystil next.

“Cortanus, open up a medical pod and do whatever it takes to treat Celeste!”

He ran with Celeste in his arms, too much adrenaline pumping for him to consider any possibilities. Her boots collided on the wall, but Cyrus ignored that. A pod had just finished opening when Cyrus dropped his sister in. He waited until it had closed before he sprinted back out for the commander.

When he reached her, he saw her tibia broken through the skin. The sight made Cyrus vomit. He took a deep breath when he finished and turned to Crystil, grabbing her. He took the same path back to the medical bay and dropped Crystil in. When her pod closed, Cyrus collapsed in a chair, watching as the ship inserted different tubes and gasses, beginning the recovery process for each woman.

“Will they recover?” Cyrus asked, out of breath.

“I have the best medical knowledge from Monda in my programming, and I know how to handle all sorts of problems,” Cortanus said. “But I cannot promise anything. There are no guarantees in medicine.”

Cyrus grimly nodded. He stood over Crystil’s pod first, given it was closest. The wound was a nasty one, one that he would never forget. But she seemed fine otherwise. Her vitals were steady. Cyrus figured she’d need crutches or a wheelchair for a while, but she could guide them from the cockpit.

But Celeste…

He walked over and saw her vitals were critically low. Her heart rate was below thirty beats per minute, and her oxygen intake was extremely low. Cortanus had set up an environment making it easier to breathe, but…

“How long until you can pump the poison out of her?”

“I cannot say, Cyrus. We are already pumping it out now, but some of it will take days—if it can be removed at all. I am sorry.”

Cyrus nodded. With no more tasks in front of him and no adrenaline to push him, he broke down in tears, lying on top of Celeste’s pod.

“I’m sorry, Celeste. I’m so sorry,” he said between sobs. “Come back. I need to make this right. Please. Please!”

He remained by her side for the next several hours, never glancing at anything other than his sister and her vital readings. They did not worsen, but they did not improve.

Cyrus braced himself for the question he did not want to face but one that not only seemed possible, but probable.

“Should we let her die?”

29

The sound of a saw buzzing furiously jolted Cyrus out of an unintended slumber. He cursed himself out for falling asleep while standing over his dying sister. He looked inside Celeste’s pod and saw nothing. He took two steps toward Crystil’s and saw a saw heading for a marked line about an inch below her knee. He quickly turned away, but he’d seen enough to know what was coming.

Even with the nauseating sight, he knew Crystil would be fine. He didn’t spend more than a couple more seconds lingering by her pod, glancing at her vitals while avoiding looking at her actual leg. They were lower than normal but, given her medically-induced sleep, were at healthy levels.

“A new foot to kick my old butt with,” he mumbled groggily, turning his attention to Celeste.

His sister’s condition gave him too much angst for him to handle. He went over to her pod, his hands gently on it, as if trying to comfort her through the glass. Her eyes remained closed, her face was still swollen, and much of her body was discolored from whatever had happened. He tried to stifle tears, but it did no good.