Star Cruise: Marooned (9 page)

Kneeling at the edge of the sand, hoping the spot was close enough, she took aim and a blaster bolt sizzled, striking a glancing blow. The cage popped and disappeared in a shower of sparks. Immediately, Red was sprinting toward her, carrying Callina, the other two humans doing their best to keep up. He held out one hand. “Weapon?”

She tossed him the blaster, turning to flee herself.

“Lady, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” he said, not breaking stride.

“We can climb—” she said in between breaths.

“No time, better to get as far into the forest as we can, then go aloft.”
 

He led the way, plunging into the underbrush. Meg ran right behind him, as fast as she could, along a creek bed. After a few moments of this, Red veered inland away from the waterway.

Behind her, she heard angry yelling in an alien language and a barrage of blaster shots. The aliens were shooting into the forest somewhat eastward of their true location.

As if the fusillade had been a signal, Red stopped at the base of a giant old growth tree, forty feet in circumference. “Now we climb. Lead the way, Meg.”

She didn’t hesitate, leaping to catch the first branch, getting her balance atop the limb, Meg looked down. “Come on, come on.” Impatience and fear made her jittery and brusque. Trever made the ascent with surprising speed and kept going without saying a word to Meg as he brushed past her.

There was no one immediately after him. Hand clenched on a sturdy bark protuberance, fighting a touch of vertigo, Meg forced herself to check on the people below. “What’s the delay now?”

Callina was on her knees on the ground, one hand pressed to her side. “I can’t climb a tree, are you people crazy?”

“Climb or die; it’s simple.” Tilting his head, Red told Meg, “Don’t wait, keep going higher. I’ll need room on the branch for these two.”

“Right.” She followed the route Trever had taken, hard as it was to make herself leave Red.

Taking a break at the next branch to check on the passengers’ progress, she was encouraged to find Bettis had his wife’s arm, trying to get her to her feet. “You can do it, honey. The stewardess is doing it.”

Red made it easily to the first branch. Kneeling, one hand locked on the bark, he stretched the other hand toward Mrs. Bettis. “Last chance, lady. Take my hand now and I’ll get you started. We’re not going to carry you and I’m not waiting for you. You can try running through the forest if you want.”

She stared to the north, as if staying on the ground appealed to her. She took a half step.

Her husband restrained her. “But we’ll die, right?” Bettis said, craning his neck to stare at Red.

“Or get recaptured, and I don’t think the Shemdylann are going to be in a good mood.” Red turned to follow Meg and Trever.

The idea of him abandoning them seemed to galvanize the reluctant Mrs. Bettis. “Wait, wait, I’ll do it, I’ll do it.” She stretched one hand toward Red beseechingly, rising on her tiptoes.

“Keep your voice down.” Red grabbed her arms as her husband boosted her, and a moment later she was on the branch. Bettis scrambled awkwardly, his flimsy beach shoes slipping on the bark as he sought footholds. “You might do better barefoot than with those.” Shaking his head, Red pointed his finger at the man for emphasis. “Your wife’s your responsibility. I can’t set a slower pace for the two of you.”

“I understand. We’ll do our best.” Bettis puffed his chest out. “I jog every morning in the executive exercise suite back at corporate HQ.”

Not answering, apparently having said all he was going to on the subject, Red ascended the tree. Meg had already walked carefully along a huge branch to the next tree and was waiting for him. Trever stood off to the side, tapping his foot impatiently. Red ran across the branch like it was nothing and caught Meg by the waist, giving her a smacking kiss on the lips before releasing her. “I thought you were dead.”

“I was afraid you were,” she replied, a little dazed. “Then I worried about you all day, stuck in that cage.”

“It was like being in an old fashioned zoo, or a jail from the history trideos.” Callina gave a nervous-sounding giggle from where she clung to the tree, taking a break from climbing. “But scary.”

Red sighed. “No time to talk right now. Keep moving, don’t wait for the Bettises if they can’t keep up, and don’t wait for me. I’ll double back on occasion to see what the enemy is doing but I’ll rejoin you, no problem.

“Promise?” The idea of losing him again made Meg nauseous.

“Don’t worry; I’m a hard man to lose. Go generally west.” He shook a finger at Callina. “And be quiet.”

“Right.” Meg pointed to the next branch and the woman started walking.Red touched her elbow. “And, Meg? This was an inspired idea. Shemdylann aren’t too smart and may never think to check in the trees.”

Warmed by his praise, she followed Trever along the maze of interlocking branches, high above the forest floor. Sneezing occasionally, the athlete stayed ahead of her, complaining when he had to backtrack if Meg decided another path was safer to follow.

Meg’s thighs ached as if she’d hiked along the branches for hours before Red called a halt. She tried to stay fit while on the cruises she worked, but clearly she hadn’t been exercising hard enough. Of course, she’d never expected to be called upon to traverse the planet on foot.

All five of them huddled against a massive tree trunk, hundreds of feet in the air. She distributed what plain liquids she had in the pack she’d grabbed, giving Red the only other energy drink. She needed him to be at his best or none of them might survive.

Trever curled his lip at the small packet she handed him. “Water? Hardly my usual choice of beverage.”

“Fugitives can’t be choosers,” she said, twisting the old adage in an attempt to lighten the mood.

“Next time you escape a burning building, grab the feelgoods, would you?” The businessman drank his serving in a single gulp and handed her the empty container. Meg couldn’t decide if he was joking or not.

“It’s getting dark,” Callina said, craning her neck to peer through the leafy canopy far above them. “Are we going to sleep here, in the branches?” Her husband rubbed her shoulders and guzzled the juice Meg had handed him.

“I want to get a little further to the west today, but yes, we’re going to camp in the air.” Red’s tone was decisive. “Even if the Shemdylann find us, it’ll be hard for them to recapture us. We can scatter along the branches. When I reconnoitered, the enemy hadn’t made much more than a token effort at a ground search. Their beach party was going full steam, more raucous if anything, in alien style. I guess shore leave matters more to them than a few escaped prisoners at the moment.”

“I’m surprised they haven’t flown over, done scans, something,” Meg said.

“Their inattention to escapees works in our favor. Five more minutes and then we move.” Finishing his drink, Red crushed the packet and stuck it in his pocket. “Don’t leave anything behind to provide a trail for the enemy in case someone higher up issues orders to venture deeper into the forest, tracking us.”

Eyes wide, Bettis stopped in the act of crumpling the container in his hand. “Oh, yeah, of course. Good precaution.”
 

“I dropped mine already,” his wife said, eyes downcast and shoulders hunched, as if afraid of what Red might say or do.

“Can’t be helped now,” Meg said hastily. “Please be more careful from now on.”

“Our survival is going to depend on how much the Shemdylann commander’s personal honor is invested in losing us,” Red said. “The big money for him is the ransom Finchon’s going to pay. How many times did you hear him say we’re not worth much?”

“He said you were,” Callina pointed out.

“That’s why the pirates took poor Harelly to feed the eels instead of you,” Bettis said.

“Yeah, I’d forgotten, the enemy passed right over you.” Trever spun on his heel and rejoined them. “What makes you so special, Third Officer Thomsill? Something we should all know perhaps?”

“Maybe the Shemdylann like tattoos.” Eyes narrowed, Red gave him a hard stare, and the man subsided. “I guarantee you I’m not worth a massive effort to find us in this place.” He gestured at the trees. “And I suspect the foliage may block the enemy scanners to some extent, if our pursuers do a cursory search. These trees must absorb quite a few trace minerals. Root systems are usually two to three times the size of the tree’s crown, so the circulation in the trunk will draw nutrients from deep in the soil. I’ve seen the botanical mechanism before on other worlds.”

“Dantaralon has troops of arboreal mammals,” Meg added, recalling bits and pieces of the rangers’ briefings on previous stops on this world. “We just haven’t met any. Better hope we don’t, as the primates can be fierce in a pack. Of course, enough of them might confuse the alien scanners too. Oh, and did I mention there are some gigantic tree snakes, by the way?”

“Better and better.” Callina shivered. “Can we get going now?”

By the time Red signaled a halt for the night, visibility was limited. It might only be sunset above the trees, but under the dense canopy, the light cut out sooner. Meg came to a place where a tree had branched into two massive, joined trunks and there was extra space where the branches met the trunk. “How about here?” she said. “Plenty of room.”

“Fine. Any restless sleepers in the bunch?” Red asked.

Meg wasn’t surprised when Mrs. Bettis raised her hand. Red retraced his footsteps along the last branch he’d traversed and returned with some vines he’d slashed free with the knife Meg had salvaged from the ranger station. He handed some to Bettis. “Here, lash yourselves together.”

The five of them sat, close together for warmth, Red in the middle, with Meg curled under his right arm and the Bettises on the other side. Trever maintained his distance from them, and still there was quite a bit of room on their makeshift platform. Meg did a quick survey of the remaining food in her pack and set half aside for tomorrow. She gave Red a double serving, telling him as he protested, “We need you to be at full strength, so eat. That’s an order.”

He subsided, grumbling but with a grin. She saw him tuck some of the food into his pants pocket, but she chose not to say anything. He knew what he needed and what he could do without. “We have a full day of travel tomorrow, and by midafternoon the day after we should arrive at the research station,” he said. “I’m not expecting much there besides shelter. The scientists probably didn’t leave anything behind, especially since the place shut down a few years ago, before whatever caused this crisis we’re stuck in. I’m assuming the owners left in an orderly fashion. So, no cache of goodies. But if I can get the systems activated, we might be able to call for extraction. And the place appeared pretty well built on the maps, a lot of it below ground, so even if the Shemdylann find us somehow, burning us out won’t be an option for them.”

Lower lip quivering, Callina appeared to be counting the noodles in her small serving. “If the people who were working there took all their equipment and food, what are we going to eat? How will we survive?”

“Dantaralon is a lush planet,” Meg said. “We can forage for nuts and berries once we’re on the ground.”

“There are small mammals to hunt,” Red added. “I bet tree snake is pretty tasty if you cook it right.”

Thinking about how helpless she’d been while the one crawled over her at the burned-out ranger station, Meg repressed a shudder.
But if I get hungry enough, I probably could eat it.
“We’ve had survival training,” she said, indicating Red and herself. “We’ll manage.” Of course, her survival training had been one day in the middle of general cruise readiness training, but the lessons had come back to her pretty handily over the past forty eight hours. And she was sure Red could have been marooned anywhere with absolutely no resources and emerged unscathed, given his military training.

“So, you’re telling me it’s an adventure.” Eyebrows raised, Callina seemed dubious.
 

“That’s one way to think about the situation,” Trever agreed, his tone sour.

Although it grew dark, Meg was surprised how much moonlight filtered through the leaves. Of course, Dantaralon did have four moons. Small iridescent insects flitted over their heads, the buzzing an annoyance once the novelty of the pretty glow wore off. The Bettises talked between themselves quietly for a bit and then settled to sleep. Trever continued his pattern of keeping pretty much to himself and was soon snoring on the edge of the group. Fortunately, his noise blended in with the calls of the night creatures.

Curled against Red’s reassuringly warm bulk, Meg could tell he was awake. Although his breathing was even, his muscles were tense, as if he was poised for action. “I can split the night watch with you,” she whispered. “You need sleep too.”

“I’ll be fine, cat naps, remember?” His voice held a hint of amusement. Then his tone dropped into a serious register. “Meg?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t reach you, there in the cabin, when it was on fire. I was going to regret my failure to my dying day.”

She patted his hand and then curled her fingers around his. “I survived. You rescued Callina; that’s not trivial.”

He hugged her closer to him and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “I’ve been wondering all day—how did you get out?”