The Cyber Chronicles VI - Warrior Breed (4 page)

Tassin shook
Sabre again, trying to keep him awake. "Hey, what's happening?"

"It's... the
atmosphere; it's burning the pod's outer skin. But it's designed
to... remain intact. Don't worry."

"I'm more
worried about you. Please stay awake. If you fall unconscious, the
cyber might take over."

"I'm...
trying."

"I'm going to
put the helmet on you again."

"No." Sabre
shook his head. "You've only got a few minutes of air left."

"That's all I
need."

"No. I'll be
all right."

"You look
awful."

"I'm
okay."

The broken
panel rattled against the wall, and Tassin crouched on the floor
beside Sabre as gravity increased. The medical kit vibrated off the
couch and fell with a clatter. Sabre's head jerked up and his eyes
opened, revealing their glazed expression. His breathing was
stertorous now, rapid but laboured, as if he was running out of
energy to power his lungs. Realising that he might be unconscious
by the time they landed, she shook him.

"Sabre, how do
I open the pod?"

His eyelids
flickered. "Check... the atmosphere first. You... don't want to die
from a lungful of toxic gas... most unpleasant."

"How? How do I
do that?"

"The... panel.
Readout... words."

Tassin turned
to the panel and studied the screen in it, which contained strange
words.

"It says E
class, prozene additive... two unidentified gasses. What does that
mean?"

"It's... good.
Probably."

"So I should
open the door?"

He nodded.

Tassin gasped
as she was crushed to the floor with bruising force. Pain flared
from her ribs, forcing a groan from her as she gritted her teeth.
"What's happening now?"

"Antigravity... unit's kicked in."

"How do I open
the pod?" She shook him. "Sabre? Sabre!"

Cursing,
Tassin struggled to breathe as the extra gravity crushed her lungs.
It had been the last straw for Sabre, robbing him of consciousness.
The crushing force went on and on, and a red haze obscured her
vision, making her fear that she would pass out too, and they would
die within reach of safety. She concentrated on clinging to
consciousness, noticing that the red light was flashing in her
helmet again.

At last the
crushing eased, and she drew in a deep breath, her ribs aching. She
waited for the thud or bump that would indicate that they had
touched down on solid ground. The pod whirred and clicked, beeping,
and she crawled towards the door. An alarm buzzed, and green lights
flashed on the panel. The pod whirred again, then the hatch handle
turned of its own volition and the door swung open.

Tassin
unclipped her helmet and pulled it off, drawing in a deep lungful
of warm, moist air scented with flowers and musk. She turned to
Sabre, whose skin had regained its colour, his lips a healthy shade
once more. She shook him, alarmed. He appeared to have stopped
breathing. She felt for a pulse on the side of his neck, finding a
slow one just as he drew in a shallow breath. Relieved, she sat
back on her haunches and glanced out of the door at a strange
orange sky and grey-blue foliage.

The landscape
moved slowly past, as if they drifted in the wind. Gently
undulating meadows of pale yellowish-grey, grass-like vegetation
stretched between belts of spreading trees with drooping branches.
Long, grey-blue leaves hung from them, relieved by an occasional
pinkish flower or fruit, she could not tell which. The tree trunks
were a deep burnt umber, and a few taller trees had black trunks
and darker leaves, with white flowers or fruit. A third species had
pale yellow leaves and striped silver trunks. A few bushes with
greyish-green leaves and yellowish puffballs grew at the edge of
the copses.

A distant
hooting made her shiver, wondering what manner of beast made it.
Her stomach growled. She had been unable to eat for twelve hours.
She dug in the food locker and consumed the sweet ration bars she
found. Sabre remained unconscious, his breathing gradually speeding
up, and she decided that he needed the rest now that the crisis was
over. The open door made her nervous, and after she had eaten she
pulled it closed, leaving a narrow gap for ventilation, then
settled down on the couch.

Something
jerked her from her uneasy doze, and she sat up. Sabre crouched
beside the hatch, gazing out at the alien landscape.

He looked at
her and smiled. "We made it."

She nodded.
"Only just."

"But we did."
He held out his hand, and she took it, embraced him and kissed his
cheek.

"Do you know
where we are?"

He gazed at
the alien landscape again. "No idea."

"Why are we
still moving?"

"The pod's
antigravity keeps us a metre above the ground, so the wind's
blowing us along. I could set an anchor, but we might as well drift
for now."

"I like this
little pod. It saved us."

"Well, that's
good, because we're going to be living in it for a while. It's
designed to serve as a shelter, and I've opened the vents and
started the fans that blow air in. Unfortunately, it has no
propulsion, it only had enough fuel for one landing, so we go with
the wind, or I could push it."

"How are you
feeling?"

He sighed.
"Really weak. I used a lot of energy to survive the lack of
oxygen."

"What does the
cyber's bio thing say?"

"Fifty-four
per cent."

"You should
eat. There's plenty of food."

"That might
have to last a while."

"You need to
get your strength back; you might need it to..." She bit her
lip.

He smiled.
"It's okay. You're right; this could be a dangerous place."

She fetched
some ration bars from the food locker for him. "How will we find
Tarl and Kernan?"

"That's not
going to be easy. The pods will drift downhill, so if they've
landed in the same area we might meet up at the bottom of the
nearest hollow."

"How are we
going to get off this world?"

"That's the
really tricky bit. I don't know. If the pod's beacon is on the
wrong frequency, no one will find us." He glanced at the bracelet
on his left wrist. "This is a sealed unit, impossible to fix."

"So... we're
stuck here?"

"Could be,
unless there's civilisation of some sort. Quite a number of
uninhabited planets have mining or farming operations on them."

"That would
make them inhabited."

"Technically
yes, but no one lives on them permanently, just drilling crews that
rotate periodically, or, in the case of farming operations,
harvesters or slaughterers that visit once a year."

Tassin gazed
at the strange landscape. "How will we find them?"

"Again, with
difficulty. I'll try with the cyber. If they've got sophisticated
enough equipment, they might pick it up, or I might be able to
receive their communications when we're close enough. But we've got
a whole planet to search. It could take a while."

"Then I hope
we find food here."

Chapter Three

Fairen looked
up and pushed aside his half-finished plate of grilled steak,
sautéed vegetables and gravy as his commander stopped in front of
him and bowed. A servant came forward to take it, shooting
Commander Shrain an accusing glance. The commander looked guilty,
studying his shoes, and Fairen's brows drew together. He always
found his crew's overzealous concern about his welfare, in
particular his eating habits, irritating, and today he was more
irritable than usual. He missed Sabre, and Pryan's endless
questions had started to wear at his nerves, although the youth's
company made a refreshing change from the dumb subservience of his
crew.

"What is it,
Commander?"

"You asked me
to notify you if anything unusual happened concerning the link with
the... ex-cyber, My Lord."

"Yes, I
did."

"Well... the
locator beacon has stopped."

"When did this
happen?"

"A few hours
ago." Shrain frowned at his shoes. "We waited to see if it was just
a glitch, or interference from a comet, space storm or anything
like that. It hasn't re-established the link."

"What was the
location of the last signal?"

"The area
where we left them."

"Go back
there."

The commander
bowed. "Yes, My Lord, at once." He typed on his com-link's keypad
and read the words that scrolled across the tiny screen, then
glanced up. "The ship is in translocation configuration.
Translocation in fifteen seconds."

"When I want a
running commentary, I'll ask for one, Commander."

"Yes, My Lord,
sorry."

A flash of
weird purple light shone in through the screens, and a familiar
tingling sensation prickled Fairen's flesh. Shrain keyed his
com-link and read the screen.

"No sign of
the scavenger ship, My Lord. All that's here is... debris. A
spreading field of it." He hesitated. "It looks like the ship blew
up."

Fairen stood
up, his brows drawing together. "Any survivors? Any life pods?"

"No, My
Lord."

"Who did it?
Find out what ship attacked them. I want to know."

"My Lord, the
debris is travelling at two hundred times light speed, so they were
underway when the ship blew up."

Fairen glared
at him. "So?"

"It's possible
that it was an accident, My Lord. That was an exceedingly old
ship."

"Find out,
Commander. I want to know what happened, and whether any escape
pods left the ship. Find the bodies."

Shrain looked
glum. "My Lord, an explosion like that would have vaporised any
bodies. All we'll find is biological matter, but how many people
died and who they were we'll never know. Even with DNA
reconstruction -"

"Would the
explosion have vaporised a cyber unit, or the barrinium plating on
his bones?"

"No, My
Lord."

"That's all
I'm concerned about."

"But finding
such small objects in a debris field this size, which is expanding
at a rate of -"

"I don't
care!" Fairen glowered at the hapless man. "Do a DNA
reconstruction. It should be pretty easy to find out if a cyber
died in that explosion."

"Yes, My
Lord." The commander bowed and retreated.

****

The pod
drifted through a forest of strange, tiger-striped trees with large
fleshy leaves and drooping, foul-smelling flowers, moving down a
gentle slope. It would encounter a tree trunk and come to a
standstill, then roll around it and continue on its way. Sabre
walked outside, exploring the foliage and odd fruits, fungi and
roots, looking for something edible.

Tassin sat on
the edge of the hatch, her feet dangling, watching him. The strange
antigravity unit under the pod had fascinated her for a while, with
its rotating silver ring that had no connection to the pod other
than, Sabre assured her, an electromagnetic tether. The pod had
deployed silver boards to catch sunlight, and would run forever, or
until something broke.

Sabre yanked
out a scrubby bush and scanned the bulbous roots, broke off a piece
and tasted it. He spat it out with a grimace and glanced at
her.

"Edible, but
nasty tasting."

"Why haven't
we seen any animals?"

"Could be
there are none, or very few. This isn't a rich ecosystem. It's
actually very poor."

"Not even
insects?"

"Possibly."

"So what
pollinates the flowers?"

Sabre glanced
at a drooping bloom and shrugged. "Wind, maybe."

"Something
makes a hooting noise."

"Yeah."

"Nothing on
the scanners?"

He looked
vague for a moment, then shook his head. "Nope."

"This place is
too quiet."

"Can't say I
like it much either."

"And two suns.
Weird."

"A binary
system. Quite rare that it has an inhabitable planet."

Tassin swung
her legs. "Can't the cyber tell us where we are based on that? A
binary system close to Toron?"

"There isn't
one."

"That's odd,
isn't it?"

"Very." He
plucked an orange fruit, scanned and tasted it, then smiled and
brought it over to her. "Try this. It's not bad."

She took a
little bite and pulled a face, spitting it out. "Yuck. Tastes like
shit."

"It's better
than the other stuff I've been tasting, and how do you know what
shit tastes like, anyway?"

"I'm pretty
sure that's what it tastes like. You eat it, if you like it so
much."

Sabre took the
fruit and tossed it away. "There may come a time when you'll be
happy to eat it."

"I'll wait
until then."

"Fine." Sabre
pulled a piece off one of the drooping flowers and tasted it, his
brows rising. "This doesn't taste like shit."

Tassin tried
it, discovering that it had quite a pleasant, if tart, taste. "This
isn't bad."

"It's not much
good nutritionally, though."

"Maybe you
need to try the less obvious things, like leaves and bark."

"Why don't you
try them?" he asked.

"I don't have
scanners."

"There's
nothing toxic in these trees."

Tassin slipped
off the hatch and walked over to a tree, digging at the bark. "It's
too tough."

Sabre came
over and ripped off a chunk, handing it to her. She sniffed it,
wrinkling her nose at its strange scent, and then nibbled it. "Hey,
this is nice."

Sabre tried
it, nodding. "Yeah, very nice, but again, not good enough
nutritionally."

"It's better
than nothing."

"Actually,
it's not. It's mostly cellulose, so you'll use more energy
digesting it than you'll get out of it, therefore it will be bad
for you."