Kastori Revelations (The Kastori Chronicles Book 1) (20 page)

Cyrus waved Crystil in. She took a seat near Celeste’s head next to Cyrus.

“I’m alive because of you, you know,” Celeste said.

“Stop, you’re alive because of Cyrus,” Crystil said.

“Nice try,” Celeste said with a compassionate smile. “But I know the truth. After the arachnia attack, you must’ve carried me home quite a ways. I just told Cyrus that I wanted him by my side, and that goes for you too, Crystil. Don’t you ever die on me. Get all the amputations you need to stay this way.”

Crystil laughed, but Celeste noticed the tears forming in Crystil’s eyes. The biggest surprise to her was that she was doing this in front of Cyrus without making any effort to stop.

“I will,” Crystil said, her voice wavering.

A single tear fell from the commander, who brushed it away gently. She cleared her throat and no more tears came, but the effect had taken place. Their mission had regained its legs.

“How are things in the lab?”

“Good, good. We got a new bone that we think is another lupi, but we’re analyzing just to stay on the safe side. We got a scale from the monster. We’re learning quite a bit.”

“Oh? Like what?”

Crystil started with, “ahh,” but she paused.

“About the creature’s composition and that kind of stuff. Nothing too crazy yet.”

Celeste knew Crystil was hiding something and not particularly well. Still feeling too weak to inquire for more information, though, Celeste settled for a disbelieving look.

“And the foot?” Celeste said after some time, knowing she’d find out everything eventually.

“Surprisingly natural. I can walk on it, I can run on it. I don’t even think about it if I’m not focused on it.”

Curious as to her own strength at the moment, Celeste tried to stand up, but she felt tremendously weak. Cyrus gently grabbed her shoulders and pushed her down.

“Rest, sis,” he said. “We got things under control here. You’re still a few days away from recovering.”

“I…”

“You don’t need to recover instantly, Celeste,” Crystil said. “Give it at least two days. After two days, we’ll decide how to proceed. OK?”

Celeste looked into the eyes of her commander, which still betrayed her emotions. Celeste understood, despite her desire to push through. She leaned back down in the pod.

“Go back to night-night sleep,” Cyrus said. “We’ll wake you up in 48 hours.”

“If it’s 48 days, you won’t need the monster to kill you,” Celeste said, drawing a loud one-off laugh from Crystil, who quickly tried to hide her laugh. Cyrus just shook his head in amused disbelief.

“Welcome back from the dead, sis. Ain’t nothing that’s gonna strike fear in you now.”

If only you knew, Cyrus. I al—

Before she could even finish her thought, Celeste went back into a deep sleep.

33

With night having settled in for barely an hour, Cyrus headed for his room and told Crystil to let him get his beauty sleep. The commander, a stickler for routine, at first argued the point but quickly decided to allow it. She, however, could not fall asleep, not feeling the slightest bit of exhaustion. Instead, she remained in the medical bay, watching Celeste slowly breathe as the pod analyzed her condition.

Just a few minutes after Cyrus’ door shut, Crystil entered an almost trance-like state. She stared at Celeste, but she did not see her.

Instead, she suddenly saw her brother, dead, lying on the bed, with their mother standing over him. The image felt too real, as if Crystil could literally touch her brother. His eyes suddenly opened, but nothing else on his body moved. She unmistakably heard him speak, but his lips did not move.

“Why couldn’t you save me?” he said in a menacing voice.

Her mind flashed to that fateful night at the swamp with Eve. Crystil heard Eve scream, and she dragged her. Then, in horrifyingly slow motion, she saw the nakar breach the water and begin to envelop her entire body. Eve’s eyes shifted to Crystil.

“Why couldn’t you save me?” she said in an angry tone.

She flashed to the last words she had with Emperor Orthran. Behind her, Cyrus and Celeste screamed as other soldiers grabbed them and carried them onto
Omega One.
Crystil begged for the Emperor to join, but he said Anatolus was his children’s planet to take on, not his. His rule stayed on Monda.

But then his eyes narrowed.

“Why couldn’t you save me?” he growled.

“I can’t!” she screamed as she stood and put her hands to her face, clenching them and her teeth. When she regained her composure, she looked down at Celeste. Crystil hadn’t truly saved her, either. Only the luck of Cyrus’ presence prevented her from adding another horrifying flashback to her list.

Crystil thought about that moment when her leg hit the branch, her tibia snapped in half, and Celeste went rolling. The bright lights… the lights of
Omega One.
She hadn’t felt Cyrus pick her up and place her in the pod. She’d gone too deep into shock too much by then. And yet, the pain didn’t burn as much as the other flashbacks.

Crystil did have a permanent reminder of the experience. She sat back down, still breathing heavily, and removed her boot. Cortanus worked wonders making the foot look and feel natural, even as she moved her toes. She would always know it was not real, but it would not hurt her as long as Celeste lived.

She looked one last time down at Celeste and gently kissed the top of her pod.

“You’re not going to die,” she said for her own self-assurance.

Crystil walked toward the cockpit and took her seat, even farther away from sleep. She looked up and saw the creature surprisingly close, though not dangerously close. It stood over the forest, probably a mile or two away. From this distance, she almost had to admire the beast.

Whatever had created it had built the perfect killing machine, something with no natural predators and the entire world available to eat. She hated the beast and wanted nothing more than to destroy it. But she also knew how much she feared it, and she didn’t fear what she didn’t respect. Fighting this monster would be the ultimate challenge, and it wasn’t one that she could get pushed away from.

It gave her a feeling of an epic showdown. It was just her, her two companions, their ship, and their wits versus the perfect organism. Politics would not dictate when they fought. Treaties would not be signed. Backdoor negotiations would not take place. Either they would die, or the monster would die. The simplicity of it gave Crystil an odd thrill, even as she wondered how in the name of Monda she’d even hurt the beast, let alone kill it. She had one idea in the back of her mind she hadn’t shared with Cyrus or Celeste, but if that idea failed, so would their entire mission and their lives.

But then the beast flew frighteningly close to the ship. Crystil dove under the control panel. The monster landed with a giant thud, and Crystil could hear the monster scratching and poking.

We’re running out of time. This ship needs to switch—

A loud, grinding screech of torn metal came, and Crystil clenched her muscles tightly. She waited for something to happen—lost power, fuel leaking, anything. The beast let out a ear-splitting roar and flew away.

“Cortanus,” Crystil said as she rose to her feet. “What just happened?”

“The beast pierced the hull of our ship. The ship can still fly, and our technology can repair the damage relatively quickly. Of greater concern, however, is that our water supplies are gushing out.”

Crystil swore relentlessly as she went to the airlock.
The one thing we couldn’t afford to have happen right now. Of course it happens. Our time here is about to get a lot shorter.
She exited and examined the damage—it gushed out like a broken dam, and though it took only a couple minutes for the ship’s self-repair system to kick in, it could not get the water back. Crystil swore more as she went back to the cockpit. Cyrus stood in the hallway but said nothing upon seeing the expression on Crystil’s face.

“Go back to sleep,” she said. “Nothing we can do now.”

He nodded, hesitated, and then headed to his room. Crystil took her seat in the cockpit and slammed her fists on the panel.

“Cortanus, only in this room,” she said. “How much water did we lose?”

“98.6 percent of our reserves.”

Figures.

“By my estimations, you now have about two weeks worth of water before you run out.”

Two weeks. Two weeks.

We can’t wait.

They would have to go back and explore the cave her and Celeste had barely examined. Finding water there seemed slim. But she knew where she wouldn’t find water—pretty much anywhere else

Crystil could no longer wait a couple of days for Celeste to heal. She couldn’t wait at all.

34

To Cyrus’ pleasant surprise, Crystil had let him sleep in. But she had not left him in his room by himself.

When he rolled over and looked at his couch, he saw a large rifle with a gas tank connected to it. He needed a few seconds to clear his mind from the fog of sleep, but as he got closer, he recognized it was a flamethrower. He laughed as he held it, examining it from the trigger to the fuel canister to the barrel. He carried it into the kitchen, where he found Crystil munching on a ration, and pointed it at her food.

“Need that heated up?” he said.

“At least make your jokes wittier than that,” Crystil said without looking up. “You’ll also need a knife and supplies for six days. Grab night vision goggles and anything else you want for hiking. We’re going to find some drinkable water. And we cannot fail this time.”

As soon as Crystil finished talking, he quickly grabbed a seat next to Crystil, pulled the chair back, and sat down, crossing his legs and emphatically placing the flamethrower on the table.

“Hey, easy,” she said.

“You do know what just happened when the two of you went out hiking without me, right?” Cyrus said, speaking over Crystil’s annoyance. “And now we want to repeat the process? No way. I’m not leaving Celeste here for longer than a day. Going to the ashes was bad enough. And besides, you said she’d be ready in forty-eight hours, now, what, thirty-six? We can wait.”

“Except we can’t,” Crystil said. “Do you want to know how bad the damage was last night?”

He snorted but eventually relented.

“Guess we lost over half our water.”

“I wish we only lost half our water,” she replied, creating a sinking feeling in Cyrus’ stomach. “We got about sixteen days worth.”

Oh no. No. Already…

“So… this is—”

“Use that when we get to the thicket of poisonous flowers and burn it to the ground. Understood?”

Cyrus saw that he didn’t have room for argument. Even if he wanted to, he would do so at the risk of dying a painful, thirsty death.

“Give me five minutes with Celeste,” he said, to which Crystil nodded in affirmation.

Cyrus walked toward the med lab, making a mental note that the test of their newfound relationship came not in happy times, but in stressful times.

Celeste had recovered so much that her heart rate had returned to a normal pace and only scars, not discoloration or poisoning, remained. The pod had a revised countdown of about twenty hours until she’d be released, a precautionary measure to make sure nothing else flared up, but if Cyrus kicked her out now, she would look completely healthy.

“All right, let’s roll,” Cyrus yelled out to the mess hall, buoyed by his sister’s condition.
Maybe we got sixteen days. But we’re going to make the most of those sixteen days.

He took a quick detour to the armory, grabbing a knife and other equipment. He passed Crystil in the mess hall as he grabbed rations and waited for his commander at the airlock. He didn’t have to wait long as the sound of her boots echoed.

The airlock opened and dropped them to the ground. When Cyrus had gotten space, he held his flamethrower to the sky and let out a quick shot of the flamethrower, a swift and short
fwoomph
from the barrel.

“Whoooo! Ain’t nothing gonna stop us now!”

“Cyrus!” Crystil said.

When Cyrus saw the anger on her face, he immediately lowered the flamethrower.

“Please do not waste ammo,” she said firmly. “And don’t get cocky. You don’t know what would laugh at your attempts to use that.”

Actually, I know exactly what would
, he thought. Crystil patted his arm twice and headed for the forest, Cyrus following closely behind.

“So what kind of things did you see in this forest of horrors?” he said, nervous.

“Nothing during the day. The arachnia came out at night, and besides that, I didn’t really see anything besides some precora.”

He did not feel assuaged, as he never lowered his flamethrower as long as the trees surrounded him. The association of having to face the monster while in the trees was something Cyrus could not quite overcome.

Finally, after a couple of hours walking through the forest, he found an opening and jogged out of the woods. He saw the thicket, swearing in admiration. In some ways, it was like the monster—magnificent, beautiful, and the most dangerous thing in their way.