Hostage To The Stars: A Sectors SF Romance (7 page)

The day passed in a blur, as she followed in his footsteps. She could tell he attempted to set the easiest possible path for her and he called numerous breaks, usually as she verged on collapse. He had to be keeping a keen eye on her condition, to be so accurate about when she needed the rest. The idea was oddly comforting. Despite his encouragement, however, she didn’t want to keep asking for rest stops. She wanted to get home, out of this nightmare.

“How are your feet?” He stowed the canteen in its place.

“Not as sore as I’d expected. I would have worn much more sensible shoes on the ship, if I’d known there’d be cross country hiking involved,” she said.

“We’re nearly to the cave I have in mind for tonight’s camp. Another hour at the rate we’re going.”

“How come there are so many convenient caves?” she asked, continuing to trudge along the path he set.

He shook his head. “I ain’t a geologist, no idea. Whole planet is riddled with them. When I was stationed here we used to joke the place probably had a hollow core, all the caves leading into one big pit. We had a mandatory briefing once about the geology and the way the continents formed here – I’m no expert so I kinda let it go in one ear and out the other. Not useful to the mission, too much like school.” He grinned at the memory. “Mike and I used to do a lot of patrols in this general area.”

“Is Mike your usual partner on these missions? You’ve mentioned the name before.” She liked the conversation, distracted her from the endless marching. Johnny didn’t seem too worried about anyone being nearby to hear them, although they both kept their voices low.

“We’re a two man team, or were, back in the day. Special Forces uses teams of all sizes but the two man unit can slip in and out of tough spots; do recon, wet work, all sorts of jobs. Mike’s my cousin actually. We grew up together on Azrigone. We always had each other’s six, from the first, even as kids.”

She wondered about the term wet work but something kept her from asking too many specifics. Wet implied blood, which implied unpleasant possibilities. “Why was there such a military presence here?” She scrutinized the scrubby brush surrounding them and the rocky hillsides they were hiking through. “What could the Sectors possibly have cared about in this place?”

“The Mawreg had a couple of their client races trying to infiltrate. Farduccir was a good jumping off point for them and for us too, at the time, close to where the front was then. We had to deny them use of the planet.” Johnny held out his hand to assist her in climbing past a boulder in their way.

His hand was warm, callused, strong. She clung to his fingers a moment longer than necessary while she clambered onto the trail a moment later. “I’m glad you came back here.”

“The war shifted,” he said. “Mike and me got shipped out before the place closed down, reassigned to hotter spots. A long time ago. Never expected to see this ball of dirt again.”

She got the impression he didn’t want to talk about his military experiences. Fair enough. “I wasn’t much of a traveler before this trip. And when I get home, I’m staying put.” Sara made herself laugh. “I’m a researcher. I got a chance to do field work with one of my professors at a major Ancient Observer site in Sector 60 for a year. Then I did a little sightseeing on the way home. No one told me about the perils of traveling by cheap freighters. I thought I was being so frugal, having so much fun, storing priceless memories.” And she would
not
cry again. She bit her lip against the flood of emotion.

“Hey, you’re doing great.” She realized she’d stopped walking only when Johnny retraced his steps to reach her. “You need a break or can you push through for another half hour or so? We’re nearly there.”

What she wanted was another one of those big, reassuring hugs. He made her feel safe. But she couldn’t expect a tough soldier like Johnny to be her personal teddy bear and security blanket. “Sure, I can keep walking if you promise we’re about at the cave.”

“Sun’s going to set in a couple of hours,” he said, nodding to the west. “I want to be under cover by then.”

“Do you think the warlord is searching for us?” She walked past him, realizing it wasn’t a good idea to stop for too long, as her joints stiffened up.

“Probably not but I don’t want to be found by a routine patrol either.” He took point, moving smoothly ahead.

“Why would the warlord bother patrolling here? Doesn’t he just go out and take over space ships? Kidnap people for ransom?”

“The planet is sparsely populated, divided between a bunch of tough guys who fight over turf, over resources, you name it. When we were stationed here the local situation was fairly stable but my understanding is things got worse when the Sectors pulled out. The overheated economy collapsed and the dogs had to scrabble for scraps.” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “The Sectors ain’t exactly popular around here. Made a bunch of unfulfilled promises.”

She considered the information. “Does that happen often? Reneging on our word?”

“The Sectors wants to keep the Mawreg out of the core of human civilization. The government will do whatever is required— the ends justify the means to Command. Places like this–” He waved one hand at the desolate surroundings. “Collateral damage.”

“Things I was blissfully unaware of.”

“Most civilians live in that state. No reason the ordinary citizen should know more, I guess. The cave’s up there.” Johnny pointed at the hillside.
 

“Steep.”

He must have heard the misgiving in her voice because he flashed her a grin. “Piece of cake. Just follow me.”

An hour later, Sara collapsed gratefully inside the mouth of the cave, leaning on a boulder and trying to catch her breath while Johnny camouflaged the entrance. “I hope the descent is easier than the ascent.”

“Gravity assisted,” he said cheerfully. “Have a cup of water. I’ll get a fire going in a minute.”

“We get to have a fire tonight?”

“I think we’re far enough away from what passes for civilization on Farduccir. I’ll go hunting later; maybe we can have fresh cooked meat for dinner instead of those cold rations.” He cast an eye at the setting sun. “You rest and I’ll set up camp.” Taking the handlamp and tossing her the canteen, he walked past her deeper into the cave.

She pried the container’s lid half off when motion from the corner of her eye made her hesitate. A small flock of oddly menacing creatures were crawling into view on the boulder next to her. “Johnny? What are these?” She heard a strange buzzing sound as more gathered, clicking their front claws and curling and uncurling their arched tails.

“Stand absolutely still,” he said. “Rock scorps. They should be in deep hibernation at this season. Our amazing bad luck to find an active nest. Don’t worry; I’ll get you out of there.”

Unsure how much danger she was in but guessing from his tone the rock scorps were a threat to be taken with utmost seriousness, she followed his orders.

He moved toward her, motions smooth and flowing, keeping his attention on the creatures on and at the base of the boulder near her. Putting himself between her and them, he said, “Back up slowly.”

“Can’t you shoot them?” She forced herself to take one step and then another.

“The rocks in here have magtenatrite veins, blast’ll ricochet and kill you and me if I take a direct shot. We’re going to find another cave for tonight, let them have this one.”

“No argument from me.” She was even with the cave entrance and a moment later breathed a sigh of relief as she took two more cautious steps. “I’m outside.”

“Good.” He took a step to retreat.

Sara screamed as several of the creatures leaped from the ground, attacking his legs with their claws and arched stinger tails. He swept his own legs with a low blaster charge, swearing as he did so, and the scorps fell away from his body like charcoal hail. “Hit the dirt,” he yelled. In one continuous motion he dove sideways while sweeping the boulder with the blaster charge amped up full. True to his prediction the beam rebounded from the rock and streamed into the sky above her, where she lay prone, cheek pressed to the ground.

“Johnny? Are you ok?” She got to her feet but before she could take more than a step or two in his direction, she heard the blaster go off again and then he came staggering out of the gloom.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” she asked.

Leg bleeding, he limped toward her, the fabric of his utilities ripped below the knee. “I burned them all and the nest, didn’t see any more. Should be safe now.”

She cast a nervous glance at the recesses of the cave but then did a double take when she swung her gaze to Johnny. Pale, he was sweating, and leaned on the cave entrance wall with one hand. “You got bitten? Stung?” Putting her blaster away, she ran to his side, taking his weight as much as she could, while he leaned heavily on her.
 

“Twice,” he said as he eased onto the cave floor with her help, leaning a bit sideways against the rock wall. “Boots deflected a few but two found their mark. Might have burned my leg a bit too.”

“How bad is it?” He didn’t look good to her untrained eye. Sara stared at his torn, bloody left pants leg. “We—we better examine the bites, yes? Let me get the lamp so we can see.”

Not waiting for his consent, she ran for the handlamp. Behind her she heard fabric shredding and as she raced to help him, she saw he’d pulled his knife and was cutting the remnants of the scorched pants leg open. Flicking the light on, she gasped at the two ugly lacerations on his shin. As he’d said, the skin in the area also showed signs of a first degree blaster burn. His uniform must have provided a bit of protection. Sinking to her knees in the soft dirt, she clenched her fists. “Let me get the medkit and the water. I’ll have to wash those bites and put salve or something on the burn. How could you stand to turn the blaster on yourself?”

“Only way to kill them. Low beam. ” He caught her wrist as she rose. “I’m sorry, sneaky crustacean bastards took me by surprise. We’ll have to stay here tonight after all. Not gonna be able to walk.”

“Chelicerates,” she said automatically, her librarian’s brain correcting the technical term.
I’m babbling.
He sounded a bit delirious to her. Could the poison circulate through him so quickly? “It’s all right, soldier.”

She rummaged in the pack for the medkit and brought it and the water, along with a T shirt she’d grabbed. Tearing it into strips, she got ready to clean the wounds, which had stopped bleeding but were becoming puffy around the edges and a scary reddish black. Swallowing hard against the nausea rising in her gut, she said, “I’ll try to be gentle but this is going to hurt.”

He laughed. “Can’t be worse than the bite and the burn.”

She poured water over the wounds and then daubed at them with a piece of the T shirt soaked in antiseptic from the medkit. “Is there antivenom in this kit?”

Johnny shook his head. “Only a generic. Keep the dose for you, just in case. I’ve had the injects for this planet and a buncha others. I’ll be ok.”

“You’re not acting okay. Let me give you the inject anyway.” She dug in the medkit, searching for anything labelled antivenom.

He pushed her hand away. “No. It’ll take time but I’ll sweat the poison out. Gotta extract the stingers though.”

“What?” Sinking back on her heels, she made herself scrutinize the puncture highest on his leg, right below the kneecap. A red needlelike spike in the center drew her attention. “What do I get this out with?”

“I’ll do it.” He tried to sit. His hands were shaking.

“Yeah, tough guy, I think this is my job.” Clearly he wasn’t going to be able to do anything as delicate as pulling out the stingers.

He fumbled at his belt. “Knife.”

She reached past him to pull the knife from its sheath. “What do I do?”

“Get the tip under the stinger, flip it out. Don’t touch it, still has venom.” He shut his eyes and put one shaking hand over them. “Can’t see straight right now.”

Sara did her best not to hurt him but she cringed at the way her clumsy efforts with the knife had to be causing him pain. He didn’t make a sound and finally she had the first stinger out. She looked at it on the knife tip for a moment, seeing how it had tiny prongs to help it stay in the wound once the creature had attacked its prey. Shuddering, she rose and stepped to the cave entrance, flinging the stinger into the brush. Going to kneel beside Johnny, she said, “I’ve got the hang of this now. Hopefully I can do the other one more easily.”

“Doing fine,” he whispered, so softly she could hardly hear him. “Burn salve next. Red tube.” He undid the fastenings of his combat boots and toed them off with a lot of false starts.

“I saw it in the kit, don’t worry.” Knowing what she was dealing with, she made quick work of extracting the second stinger, with less incidental damage to Johnny’s leg. Then she washed the wounds again, applied antiseptic, the burn salve and a bandage from the medkit. He was barely conscious. Sara staggered outside the cave and threw up, falling to her knees for a moment in sheer terror. Then because she feared he’d try to come find her, possibly hurting himself in the process, she made herself stand and walk into the cave with more confidence than she actually possessed.

She got the bedroll out of his pack, pushing the tab to make it expand and tried to arrange it smoothly, close to where he lolled drunkenly against the cave wall because she didn’t think she could move him very far, but at least not lying close to the cave’s entrance. “All right, my friend, time to lie down.” She got her shoulder under his arm and tugged to get him to rise. She was exhausted by the time he’d limped to the sleeping mat and lowered himself to the ground with her help.