Vitalis Omnibus (50 page)

“They’re not searching for us anymore,” Tarn said in the lowest tone his voice would go.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Elsa whispered back. “Unless we beat the new breeds here. Even then, why would they just give up?”

“They’re animals. They ain’t known for doing much more than eating and shitting, even if Kira thinks there queen’s got some smarts.”

Elsa frowned. The spitters that she’d run into, the four legged kind, had shown some cunning and animal intelligence but that was it. The hybrids, on the other hand, seemed like a different species. They looked different and they appeared to think for themselves. “They just gave up?”

Tarn shrugged. “Why not? Just like hunting one of the grass eaters on that plateau you crossed. When they know we’re there they run but a minute or two after they don’t see us they forget all about us. These things took longer, that’s all.”

“Maybe,” Elsa admitted, watching the distant movement and occasional activity as the spitters patrolled the plains looking for food. “Doesn’t mean they won’t remember us if their scouts make it back.”

“Yeah, and what about Fiona and Kira?” Tarn shifted to give himself a better vantage point over the rocks they crouched behind. Elsa opened her mouth to respond but stopped. She lifted her head and sniffed the air, flaring her nostrils. “One of them’s near us,” Elsa said. “I can feel them.”

“You can feel them?” Tarn turned his scowl on her. “You drink the same—”

Elsa turned around, not surprised in the least that Tarn had stopped. Kira stood there, a spear in her hand that looked nothing like any of the other spears she’d seen before. The woman was streaked with dirt naturally, rather than an intentional painting of dye and mud to camouflage her skin. She also had a sack peeking out from where it was tied to her back.

“You smell better,” Kira observed.

“Tarn made me take a bath.”

Kira’s eyes narrowed briefly, then she glanced beyond them towards the plains below. “They’re oblivious to what’s happened.”

“What’s happened?” Tarn asked her.

“The new breed. They’re intelligent. The one I went after laid a trap for me. What of Fiona, have you seen her?”

“No idea. It got dark so Fiona sent me back to warn the others to be ready to evacuate. I ran into some problems and it took me until the next morning to deliver my message.”

Tarn snorted, then glanced down the ravine. They were at least a quarter mile away from the edge of the plains and nothing moved in the pass below them. “She had a spider-monkey tear a hole in her gut then she wrestled a big prowler and reached down its mouth to tear out its throat!”

Kira walked closer to Elsa, her nostrils flaring when she came close and knelt before her so they were the same height. She reached out, her fingers brushing over the crusty skin on Elsa’s stomach. Her hand slid up to the another rippled section of skin over Kira’s ribs before she looked at Elsa’s shoulder, where only a pink scar remained.

“It’s mostly healed, I pulled the stitches out on our way here. There are stitches on the inside but they’ll be absorbed.”

“The ocean?” Kira asked, glancing at Tarn.

He nodded. “She was fucked up. Seemed the only way.”

“Good,” Kira stated. “I’ve never seen anyone take to Vitalis this quickly, but no one has ever been so badly in need of Vitalis. She’s shared her spirit with you, you’re one with Her now.”

“You’re fucking kidding me.” Tarn cursed.

Kira shrugged. “Believe what you will. It’s not a religion, it’s respect for this world. It’s alive, you can feel that much, can’t you?”

Elsa nodded without realizing it. Tarn groaned softly beside her. “She’s right, I do feel it. And you know it too, otherwise you wouldn’t have done what you’ve done to save me.”

Tarn sighed.

“So what’s the rock?” Elsa asked.

“Tarn, keep watch,” Kira instructed. He scowled but turned to do as she bid.

Kira brought her spear up between them and reached up to touch it. The light grew so rapidly it was nearly instant. Elsa gasped, drawing a glance from Tarn that turned into a surprise curse. Kira’s lips were curled into a smile. “Touch it,” she offered.

Elsa reached out and brushed her fingers against the flat edge of it. She gasped, feeling the gentle hum. The crystal flared brighter as she did so, bringing a childlike grin to her face. Tarn reached out as well, ignoring his duty. He touched one of the edges.

“Fuck!” Tarn yelped, jerking his hand buck. Blood dripped from the cut in it. “What the fuck is that thing? Why’d it cut me?”

“You touched one of the edges,” Kira said calmly. She peered past him, making certain his outburst hadn’t roused the attention of anything they might not have seen.

“Ain’t nothing that sharp except a medical laser!”

“There is now,” Kira said. “It fades without anyone touching it. I found a cave in the pits full of these. I brought several that had broken free of the walls.”

“They’re amazing,” Elsa breathed.

Kira nodded.

“Great, you can make earrings out of them,” Tarn muttered. “What about these fuckers?” Tarn jerked his bloody thumb over his shoulder towards the spitters.

“We need to know what happened to Fiona,” Kira said. “The one I fought tried to capture me, not kill me.”

“Me too!” Elsa blurted. “On our way to the ridge one stalked us and surprised us as we left the jungle. It grabbed me and tried to take me away.”

“What did you do?”

“I hit it in the balls with a stick, then Tarn stabbed the fuck out of it.”

Kira nodded while Tarn chuckled. “Looked a lot like a man,” Tarn observed.

“And not just the penis,” Elsa added.

Kira’s chuckle was short lived as the severity of the situation came back to them. “I think we’ve introduced something new to Vitalis. The spitters are on the verge of an evolutionary change unlike anything they’ve undergone.”

“Is this more Mother Vitalis bullshit?” Tarn asked.

“No, they’ve becoming the dominant race. Thousands of years ago humanity did the same thing on Earth.”

Tarn and Elsa looked at one another. After a moment passed Elsa nodded. “Okay, what do we do? Stop it?”

“What if humanity had been stopped from evolving?”

“Fuck that,” Tarn growled. “This ain’t about us. We’re here, we make the rules for us.”

Kira frowned, then nodded.

“You agree with Tarn?” Elsa whispered.

“If we have a choice, yes, we must protect our lives and our species.”

Elsa nodded. “Can’t argue that. All right, so Fiona?”

“Fiona has to protect herself or she’s dead,” Kira said. “Either way, we can’t help. We need to get back and prepare Treetown. I killed the hybrid I went after and it seems you killed the one that you and Fiona went after. We need to strengthen the defenses first and utilize these crystals. Then we can search and see if there are any more hybrids out there.”

“And if there are?” Tarn said. “They’re fast and strong. If there are enough of them it’s not going to be an easy thing.”

Kira shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, we have to kill every last one of them.”

Chapter 14

“The jungle is quiet,” Elsa said softly. They’d returned from the ridge, heading back towards Treetown, and had entered the humid rainforest only a few minutes before her realization.

Tarn glanced around, his lips pursed. Kira nodded. “The animals hiding or they’ve already left. They’re afraid of the storm that’s coming.”

“Storm?” Elsa asked. “Like a rainy season or something?”

“That’s months away yet,” Tarn grumbled. He turned to Kira before asking, “What are you talking about?”

“War.”

“There’s not enough Marines left on the
Desperado
to start a fight!” Elsa blurted out. “Even if they did, the ones that made it to the ground would end up joining us.”

Kira shook her head. “Not that kind of war. I mean the spitters.”

“They didn’t seem too interested in us anymore.”

“Maybe, maybe not. The new ones are.”

“There’s only two of them, and we killed ‘em both,” Elsa said. She grimaced as a new thought occurred to her. “There might be more that hatched, but how would they find us?”

Tarn made a sour face and mouthed the word, “Hatched.” From what they’d seen it wasn’t the right word. Birthed or emerged would have been better. At least that sounded better than chewed-their-way-out.

They fell silent, no one having any original thoughts to offer. Kira led the way, her long legs setting a pace that would have been brutal for anyone not accustomed to life on Vitalis. Elsa, still fresh to the world, found her body working better than ever.

Tarn and Elsa both had crystal fitted into the end of their spears. Kira promised to take them to the cave she’d found them in, but that had to come later. First they had to return to Treetown and report what they’d seen. By all accounts the immediate threat from the spitter colony wasn’t a concern. The new generation was something else entirely.

A shout carried through the thick air, silencing the few normal jungle noises that remained. Kira broke into a run immediately, Elsa and Tarn half a heartbeat behind her. By the time they leapt across the stream they saw two men facing with spears advancing on another of the hybrid spitters. Coral was held in its arms, her body slumped over and lifeless.

“No!” Tarn bellowed, pumping his legs faster and pulling his spear back to throw it.

Kira ran in an arc, slipping out of the spitters line of view even as Tarn occupied its attention. Elsa ran after him, more than happy for a chance at revenge. Tarn threw his spear but the spitter ducked under it, then stepped back and started to pick Coral’s body up so it could carry her more easily after it slipped around a tree.

Kira surprised it, her record-setting sprint allowing her to get beside it before it could escape. It began to turn towards her too late, she’d already begun the mortal thrust of her spear. The glowing crystal pierced the creatures neck and slammed it into the tree.
Coral’s body fell to the ground, rolling once until her face was pressed into the dirt.

The spitter hung against the tree, struggling briefly to try and grab the spear before it went limp. As it died and slumped down the weight pulled against the edges of the crystal, cutting what tissues remained and dropping the nearly headless corpse next to Coral.

“Get away from her you fucker!” Tarn swore, grabbing Crystal and pulling her away. He turned her over and stared at her glassy eyes and slack lips. “Fuck!”

“It’s the venom,” Elsa said. She reached down and felt for a pulse on the woman. She found one, slow though it was. “Be careful, if it spit on her you might touch it!”

“Fuck!” Tarn swore again. He jerked away from Coral and stared down at himself. He turned to the dead spitter and kicked it hard enough to make him grimace from the pain to his foot.

Kira yanked her spear out of the tree and glanced at Tarn, who was dancing on one foot. “You’re still standing,” she pointed out. She knelt beside Coral, then rolled her over gently. Coral’s left arm fell limp to the side and showed a bite mark on the underside of it.

Kira pointed at the arm and stood up. “These ones don’t spit, they bite. It might be in their saliva or it might be a venom, we’ll have to dissect this one to find out. Have Jeremy and your medic get on it.”

Elsa nodded and turned around. Gresham was one of the men who’d been trying to stop the spitter from escaping with. She saw Jess running up in the distance. “Radio, go find Jeremy,” she barked. He nodded and ran off. Others approached, including Captain Sharp and Klous. Lizzie held her son but Klous motioned for her to wait behind.

“Third attack since you left,” Sharp said when he reached them. “We’ve increased the patrols but it’s not discouraging them. This is the first one we’ve killed though.”

“Was anyone taken?” Elsa asked.

Sharp shook his head. Klous glanced back at Lizzie. “One went after Lizzie?” She asked.

“Yes, Lizze was first, then Jess, now Coral. Why the women?”

“Weaker,” Tarn mused aloud. “They’d take the children if they could. Just like animals trying to cull a herd.”

“No,” Kira said, turning the splitter over on the ground. Other than the obvious genetic similarities it had something else in common with the other hybrids they’d killed. “The new breeds are all male. They’re trying to take a female back to serve as a host.”

Elsa shivered at the thought, then stiffened her back to recover from the unprofessional display. “All right, so there’s more of these things out than we realized, that’s not good. We’ve killed three hybrids now. “

“What about the mound?” Sharp asked.

Tarn shook his head but Elsa was the one to respond. “They’ve stopped trying to find us. They’re busy looking for things to eat in their backyard. Whatever these new spitters are doing seems to be independent.”

“What are those?” Klous interrupted, pointing at the crystals in their spears.