No Words Alone (2 page)

Chapter 2

Commander Ryven Atarus watched the aliens
arguing with a jaded eye. They had about five minutes until he took
his party to the shelter and left them to their stupidity, but he
hadn’t been lying: the greater their numbers, the better their
chance of survival. It was the reason he’d allowed them to remain
armed. This upped the risk to his men, but they would all need
weapons if they were to survive long enough to get to shelter.
Until then, he’d let the humans maintain their fragile taste of
equality. Once they reached the fortress, things would be
different.

“They don’t like each other,” his brother
Toosun murmured. “See how the woman stands? She is defying their
leader.” There was a note of satisfaction in his voice. He’d
clearly found the human captain stupid, too.

Ryven had to agree with his brother and
second in command; he hadn’t missed Captain Khan’s move to strike
the translator, though perhaps he’d been provoked. The woman had
certainly seemed cocky enough while striding up to them earlier,
neatly sidestepping her fallen comrade. It was her act of courage
in dragging away the body that had reluctantly impressed him,
though. Not many males would dare such a thing, putting their back
to an enemy.

Odd, too: from what he’d seen she was angrier
with her captain than she was with him. Not that he regretted
killing the man; he and this woman’s people were at odds, and he
would use every advantage to intimidate his enemies.

Toosun absently rubbed his left bicep,
probably trying to build heat. The planet’s atmosphere had been
cool to start with and was getting colder. By nightfall, the desert
would be dangerously cold. Toosun’s dun-colored hair was short like
his brother’s, and it caused an unwelcome draft.

Ryven turned to his men. “We’ve waited long
enough. The anti-grav sleds are loaded; let’s move.”

They hadn’t crossed two dunes before the
aliens caught up, many of them breathing hard. Ryven kept his gun
loose in its holster but said nothing as they joined the column,
following two lengths back with Khan and the woman in the lead.

She was attractive, in an exotic way. Even
with the blood smeared on her face, she showed well. Short, black
curls framed a determined face. He’d never seen blue eyes before,
and they’d take some getting used to, but her body...the height and
strong shoulders hinted at stamina. He hoped the trimness meant
she’d conditioned her muscles; she was going to need it.

It was just after noon and they had five
hours of hiking through sand ahead of them. His men had plenty of
food and water, but he didn’t know about the humans. The men he
didn’t care about, but the woman....

“Brirax, Delfane,” he said softly over his
crew’s communication network. “You will keep an eye on the woman.
She’ll tire by the time we are done, and there are the other
dangers to watch for.”

“Yes, sir,” they responded at once. Covertly,
he watched them slowly drop to the rear of the group. By the end of
the march, they’d be walking next her.

Satisfied he’d kept the demands of his
conscience, he turned his mind to keeping his men alive.

They’d been walking half an hour when the
first man went down. Xera watched in horror as their galley master
sank out of sight, sucked down a sinkhole. Screaming, the man
begged for help until the sand closed over his head; too rapidly
for them to save him.

“Avoid that spot,” Atarus called out, and
walked on. Too stunned to translate, Xera stumbled forward when the
guy behind her prodded her.

“B-but shouldn’t we…,” she began, trying to
look back.

“No time,” one of the aliens said. Their two
groups had slowly closed the gap between them as time wore on, and
now there was barely any space between them. Like Atarus’s second,
this Scorpio had brown and gold eyes and dun hair. “Here, take this
rope. Tell your people to pass one among them, too, if they have
it. If another goes down, we may save them.”

May save them.
She wasn’t sure if this
was just the Scorpio way of speaking, Scorpio idiom, but she would
have been more comforted by a
will save them.
This didn’t
stop her from grabbing the cord the aliens had strung amongst
themselves, however. They had more than one, she saw, which kept
them from being forced into a single file. She began to especially
envy the ones pulling antigravity sleds: as long as they held on to
the tethers, they would be safe from sinkholes.

“Your name?” the alien asked who’d passed her
the rope.

She drew a breath. “Lieutenant Xera
Harrisdaughter. Harris-d for short.”

He repeated the name, mangling it. “Brirax,”
he said by way of introduction. He gestured to another alien, a
red-eyed one, who’d dropped back beside them. “Delfane.”

“What do they want?” Captain Khan asked
suspiciously. He’d stayed in Xera’s vicinity, an unusual move for
him.

“They suggested we pass around a rope.” She
held up the end she’d been given in illustration.

Captain Khan grunted and immediately barked
out an order, only to find his men had already found a rope and
were forming a line. He growled in annoyance at that sign of
independent intelligence, but took hold himself.

Xera looked around at the desert. Other than
a few dun rocks scattered here and there, she could see no danger,
but that meant nothing. “Brirax, besides sinkholes, what other
perils do we look for?”

“Biters,” he said, looking grim. “Our eyes
can see them, but yours will not. Even we can be caught if we crest
a dune and come right on them. It is almost too late then.”

She looked at his bright eyes and wondered,
“How is it you can see them when we can’t?”

“Camouflage, for you see only colors. We see
heat and colors.”

“Heat and colors? Infrared?” she mused aloud
in her own language. That information had never made the GE intel
website. Maybe no one had ever noticed.

“What’s that?” Captain Khan demanded
sharply.

She blinked at him then explained. His eyes
narrowed, and he muttered something under his breath.

“What’s one look like?” she asked the
aliens.

Brirax’s eyes shuttered. “Small, like a man’s
fist. They travel in families and attack at once. Flame or laser
spray is the cure, but one bite will paralyze a man for hours. They
eat him alive. And quickly.”

Xera shuddered. Even Captain Khan looked
horrified when she translated. “Pass on the information to the
men,” he began.

Brirax spoke quickly, interrupting. “You’d be
wise to keep this to yourself if you’re contemplating otherwise.
Your men might flame each other trying to kill something they can’t
see. Let us deal with the biters.”

Xera stared at him, unsure.

“Our Commander is serious about making shelter,” the
alien added. “We can’t waste any men, not even yours.”

Captain Khan started to yammer at her, but
she shook her head and held up a hand so she could listen to
Brirax’s next words.

“Tell your people about the larger menace,
the flyers. They have leathery wings and round mouths full of
teeth. These they can watch for, and they will start to fly at
dusk. There are also burrowers, armored worms you can wrap your
arms around. We can sense these coming, so if you see us shoot the
ground…”

He’d barely gotten the words out when one of
his companions swore and blasted the earth. There was a screech, a
hump of sand shivered, then stillness.

“A burrower,” Brirax confirmed over the
hubbub. “If you feel the ground vibrate under your feet, jump
away.”

Xera rapidly translated to her crewmates,
yelling to be heard over the group’s clamoring. Men started
watching the ground and the skies.

“Keep moving,” Commander Atarus called out
from the front of the line. “We don’t want to be unprotected in the
desert when night falls.”

Their pace quickened. Nobody thought sleeping
on this sand was a good idea.

“I still don’t see why we left the ships,”
Captain Khan complained. “These things wouldn’t have been a danger
to steel hulls.”

Xera passed on the question.

“The flyers secrete acid that can eventually
eat through a ship’s hull. The only thing impervious to it is solid
rock. The shelter we’re going to is carved into a mountain. There’s
fresh water there, also.”

The mention of water temporarily mollified
Captain Khan, but Xera had questions of her own. “Do you expect to
be rescued?”

Brirax was silent, letting her draw her own
conclusions. Her captain wanted more information about the shelter,
but Brirax would only say he’d never been there.

Xera decided to save her breath for walking.
Her situation wasn’t good, and it wasn’t just the sand working its
way into her boots that worried her. If they were stuck for weeks
or longer in this sandbox, she had a problem; and as the only
female on the planet, it was a rather big problem. Men got lonely
in space. This was bad enough normally, when at least they had hope
of pulling into port. She’d had practice fending off horny
crewmates for years and had learned to brush off their suggestions
and flirtations; it was expected that females who signed on with
the GE learn to take care of themselves. Oh, outright harassment
was frowned on, but captains overlooked anything else.

But stranded for months, maybe years… Under
the right circumstances, some men would be tempted to take what
wasn’t freely given. She didn’t trust her captain to defend her
rights, and she wasn’t sure about the rest of the crew. Some of
them had been fairly aggressive in the past.

Ironically, Genson had been one of the better
men among the crew. Older, with a wife and daughters, he’d been a
casual friend. He would have been a good man to have at her
back.

She looked ahead, he eyes narrowed on the
alien leader, Commander Atarus. If he was capable of that kind of
random brutality, what else might he do? For now they had a common
foe, but there was no telling how long this fragile truce would
hold. She was going to have to sleep with one eye open. Six hours
later, she would have been happy to sleep at all. It was getting
cold, and they’d lost two more men, both human. It had been because
of the biters. The aliens had started flaming the sand and her side
had panicked. One man died, caught in the flame spray of his own
comrades; the other had run back the way they’d come, trying to
escape. He’d failed. By the time they’d reached him, his eyes had
already been savaged, he was paralyzed and bleeding from multiple
wounds. Captain Khan had refused to carry the “dead weight” with
them. The man’s buddy protested violently against his abandonment,
but had finally given in when the aliens started moving off, losing
interest in the drama. He gave his friend a mercy bullet in the
brain.

By this time, Xera was shivering with more
than cold. The ground had moved under her feet not an hour ago.
Delfane had swung her out of the way when she lurched, and Brirax
had fired into the ground. If they hadn’t been beside her....

She swallowed and focused on continuing to
move her feet. Sand was murder on the legs.

“We’re close now,” Brirax told her. “See that
huge rock rising out of the sand? Less than a mile to it.” He
glanced with concern at the darkening sky.

Xera eyed it too, thinking of flyers.

The Scorpio picked up the pace. Xera
staggered, her tired legs protesting. Delfane put a hand under her
elbow, steadying her. She didn’t have breath for thanks, using it
all to keep up the jog. Brirax scanned the sky while Delfane kept
his eyes on the ground. She let them have at it; at this point, all
she could do was run on.

The rock got closer, but then…

“Flyers!” The cry started out in Scorpio, but
was taken up in her language as her side caught sight of the
beasts. Winged terrors, black against the sky, swooped toward them
from the direction of the giant rock. There were scores of them,
spreading out like storm-tossed leaves coming from every
direction.

Xera tried to run, but her tired muscles
betrayed her. She tripped over a wind-rippled hillock of sand and
twisted her foot.

But her end was not to come so soon. Delfane
and Brirax snagged her arm and ran for it, firing at the sky. A
flyer crashed down right in front of her, delivering a glancing
blow that staggered Delfane. He would have fallen if Brirax hadn’t
reached over and steadied him. The beast thrashed, nearly tripping
Xera with its wings, but her two protectors lifted her over it and
they were away.

Thirty yards to the rock, and one of the
Scorpio went down under a flyer, screaming. The beast was shot, but
too late. Twenty yards, and another flyer latched onto a man from
Xera’s crew. This flyer was killed in time, and the man, though
wounded, staggered on.

Ten yards...and then they were there. They
put their backs to the rock wall and fired up at the flyers until
Commander Atarus yelled, “It’s open! Hurry!”

Xera was nearly trampled in the rush to get
inside. Someone turned on a hand torch, and somehow they got
everyone through. At last they slammed the door on the winged
creatures, safe…at least from the monsters outside.

Chapter 3

The sealing of the door triggered lights to blink on.
Squinting her unaccustomed eyes, Xera looked around.

They were in a tunnel, six feet wide and forty yards
long, its rock walls lined with a series of recessed tubes
providing illumination. The Scorpio were already moving forward,
sleds, injured and all. Unwilling to rest so close to the doors,
even the weariest of Khan’s crew followed.

Xera took a step and staggered as pain shot
up from her foot. She must have been too scared in the mad rush to
safety, or too pumped full of adrenaline, to notice how it hurt.
She was feeling the pain now, though, along with many smaller aches
she’d shut out in the madness.