Hierax: Star Guardians, Book 4 Page 7

  “Anybody have something we can throw on it?” Hierax asked.

  He had some rations in his supply kit, but wasn’t sure he wanted to lose a packet of dehydrated zetrandi into the bowels of this planet.

  “We could throw Hammer,” Mikolos offered.

  “Hah hah,” Hammer said, “everybody knows ensigns are more throwable than lieutenants.”

  “Your promotion isn’t official until next month, and I weigh ten kilos more than you do.”

  “Only because of all those tattoos.”

  “We could throw them both,” Treyjon said.

  Hierax sighed. He’d brought the brawn along in case they needed to do battle with high-tech robots or whatever security the Wanderers had left behind, but he much preferred the company of people with brains. Even Korta would have been preferable.

  He reached for his pack, intending to sacrifice some jerky if need be, but a thrum reverberated through the floor, and he paused.

  The silver circle closest to the ramp brightened, glowing and pulsing of its own accord. Treyjon, Mikolos, and Hammer were closest to it, and they took several wary steps back.

  The thrumming grew more pronounced, the floor almost throbbing under Hierax’s boots. His armor’s sensors warned him of a draft in the room, a powerful one.

  With a pulse of silvery light, the circle by the ramp disappeared, leaving a hole similar to the one that had been in the wall. Temporarily.

  Suspecting this would be a temporary opening, too, Hierax did not take a step toward it. He wasn’t about to jump in without knowing if he could get back out again. Or so he thought.

  Abruptly, the draft turned into a gale of wind. It shoved him across the floor, his boots skidding toward that opening. He dropped to his knees, trying to grip the flat white tiles, but there was nothing to grab on to. He ordered the magnets in the bottoms of his boots to activate, but the floor must not have had any metal in it. He only picked up speed.

  The others were also being blown toward the hole. Indi cursed from right behind him. She, too, had dropped to her hands and knees, fingers scrabbling as she sought something to hold on to. But there wasn’t anything. Further, it seemed like more than wind was forcing them toward the hole. Hierax felt a tug at his suit in addition to the gale pushing him, as if something magnetic pulled him toward the opening.

  Treyjon had been closest, and he reached the hole first. He twisted so that he could grab the edge. But his fingers, as strong as he was and as much as his armor enhanced that strength, couldn’t hold on against the powerful pull. They slipped, millimeter by millimeter. Then Hammer reached the hole, inadvertently kicking Treyjon as he struggled to remain free. Treyjon’s fingers fell away, and they both tumbled out of sight. Mikolos lasted longer, fingers locking around the edge, but Woo and Nax crashed into him, neither having any luck at staying free. All three disappeared.

  Jets, Hierax mentally ordered as he tried again to find a grip on the smooth floor.

  The jet boosters in his boots ignited. He did his best to angle them so they would push against the wind, even though he knew it was pointless. They lacked the power to counteract the effects of the pulling and pushing acting on him, but he had some vain hope that he would last long enough that the wind and the magnets might turn off. Maybe they were on a timer.

  Something bumped into his shoulder. Indi.

  She had lost whatever grip she’d had, and she tumbled over him, her armor clacking against his. She sailed for the hole, her shoulder bumping against it. Though she flailed and tried to grip the edge, she was pulled through quickly.

  Off, Hierax ordered his boots, having some notion that she needed his help, that he couldn’t let her be taken off to a trash incinerator or prison without trying to keep her from that fate.

  The others he’d assumed could handle themselves, but she was a civilian and barely knew how to work her suit. She needed him. Besides, he liked her humor better than that of the others.

  When he stopped struggling, he picked up speed rapidly. He zipped through the opening and into a tunnel that wasn’t as dark as he expected. Blue lights glowed on the walls, blurring as he zoomed past them. He thought he might bounce off the sides as the wind tunnel blew him along, but some force kept him hovering in the middle.

  He craned his neck and spotted Indi ahead of him—below him. Or were they moving along a horizontal path now? He couldn’t tell. In the distance, a couple more armored Star Guardians were visible, but he couldn’t be sure who was who.

  A dark hole opened to one side.

  He zipped past it so quickly, he barely got a look in, but it had been another tunnel, one without any lights. And maybe one without a supercharged air current to blow people along?

  If there were more tunnels like that, and if he timed it right, maybe he could maneuver to the side and pull himself into a passage. To take back control of his fate and this mission.

  But not without Indi, the thought popped into his mind.

  He twisted in the tunnel, performing a clumsy half somersault so that his head pointed toward her. He fired his jet boots, going along with the air stream this time instead of against it. That was far more effective. He zoomed closer to her and stretched a hand above his head. She flailed, clearly not enjoying the ride, and he managed to catch her arm. He gripped her wrist and peered past her, hoping to spot another side passage.

  There.

  Indi looked at him, her face partially visible through her visor. Her expression wasn’t so much thank-the-gods-and-you-for-saving-me as it was what-the-hells-are-you-doing-Hierax. Oh, well. Nobody ever said being a hero was gratifying.

  He shifted his hips, trying to point the jets of his boots toward the opposite side. They didn’t do much against the current, especially when he also gripped Indi, but he inched closer to the wall. His fingers brushed it. The hole was coming up fast.

  It occurred to him that even with the strength and insulation his armor provided, he might tear his shoulder out of the socket if he tried to grab the edge of the hole and stop the two of them. As they approached it, he twisted once again, balling up his legs with his feet pointed in the direction the current was carrying them. He fired his boots, hoping to slow their passage. Indi jerked back as all of this happened in front of her face.

  The hole came up, and there was no more time to tinker. He stuck his arm out and tried to fire them toward it. He was only marginally successful, and when his arm struck the wall inside the side passage, he almost bounced right out. Once again, there was nothing to grab on to.

  Boosters! he ordered his suit.

  The boots fired a three-second burst, burning through all of their reserves. It was just enough to carry them both into the dark tunnel.

  There was no draft inside, no airstream blowing them along, and Indi flopped down on top of Hierax as gravity reasserted itself.

  He grunted as her suit blocked his view, and started to shove her off, but maybe that would be ungentlemanly? Instead, he tried to wriggle out from under her, but their new tunnel was more of a maintenance shaft, perhaps only meant for one person—or one alien. And probably not an alien wearing bulky combat armor.

  Indi wriggled on top of him, but soon stopped. “I’m stuck.”

  “You’re smushing me.”

  “I know. It’s a good thing you like womanly curves.”

  “I like them when they’re not hidden behind formless combat armor. I also like it when that armor isn’t pinning me in a tunnel.” Hierax tried to shift to the side. If he could get onto his hands and knees, maybe he could crawl away.

  “I’d say you’re fussy for an engineer,” Indi said, “but you’re actually a lot like the other engineers I’ve known. Except you have more prodigious muscles. Either your diet doesn’t consist of Mountain Dew and Air Heads, or you spend a lot of time in the gym. Or both.”

  “I’m glad you’ve admired my prodigiousness, though I’d rather be admired for my gifted hands.”

  “What do your gifted hands do?” />
  “Fix things.”

  “Ah, I thought you were going to suggest that you’re a skilled and thorough lover.”

  “If that were the case, you would never let me squirm out from underneath you.”

  Twisting and pushing, he finally succeeded in using his prodigious muscles to slip free. He decided not to mention that he’d been scrawny all through school, and even as an adult in the space fleet, where he’d had to do a lot more physical training. He’d started taking GrowthGain when he joined the Star Guardians, partially because a superior officer had recommended it and partially in the hope that numbskulls like Hammer would leave him alone. It might have helped with that a bit, but gaining rank had done the most to lessen the amount of verbal and physical hazing he endured.

  “Not necessarily,” Indi said. “I’ve known men with gifted hands—and tongues—who ended up being users and assholes.”

  “So, what do you look for now in a man?” Hierax wasn’t sure why he asked. What did it matter, especially while they were in the middle of this mission? Still, he wouldn’t mind having her point out that he had been noble to risk himself to pull her out of that tube. And that nobility was appealing in a man.

  “I’m not looking for a man.”

  So much for appealing nobility.

  “So you were just smothering me for fun? Not to claim me as your own?”

  “Correct. I wouldn’t want to compete with your wonderful Trevibia Z-caster 3000.”

  “It’s a 5000. And it is wonderful. Did you know the 6000 releases this week? I can’t wait until we get back home so I can get mine. I’m a little bitter that they didn’t send me one to beta test—who better than a Star Guardian engineer to test your new products?—but I still pre-ordered it. And I’ll report any bugs in the software that I find. I’m magnanimous like that.”

  “I’m definitely not looking for a man,” Indi grumbled, shifting farther away from him and pointing her helmet down the tunnel, to whatever dark alien place it led to.

  Once they weren’t stacked atop each other, there was more room to maneuver. Though not much. Hierax clunked his helmet on the ceiling three times as he shifted around to peer back into the transit tube.

  Air rushed past his helmet. Stats scrolled down the side of his faceplate, letting him know they remained in an area with a breathable atmosphere.

  He might have found that comforting, but all of his colleagues had disappeared around a bend dozens of meters farther along. The lights in the tube winked out, though the air continued to flow. He debated whether he’d made a mistake. Had he truly saved himself and Indi from some undesirable fate? Or had he foolishly broken up the team, leaving the rest of the men without a leader? With him gone, Treyjon would be the highest-ranking officer. And he was a svenkar trainer, not an engineer or scientist. Hierax hoped he would bow to Nax’s and Woo’s wisdom.

  “Hierax to Nax,” he said over his comm, backing away from the dark tube. “Where did you men end up?”

  He didn’t receive an answer. His suit showed the channel as being open.

  “Woo? Treyjon? Mikolos?” After a pause, he added, “Hammer?”

  He would take any sign that the rest of the team was out there and alive.

  But nobody responded to him.

  He switched channels. “I don’t suppose you can hear me, Korta or Coric?” he asked, trying the ship.

  His comm didn’t show as being jammed, but something was blocking the signal. He chose to believe that was the only reason the rest of the team wasn’t responding, not that they had been blown to their deaths.

  “What do we do now?” Indi asked, on her hands and knees in the shaft, looking back toward him.

  “Find a way out. The others will have to find their own way out. We still have a mission here. Even if we have to do it by ourselves, we have to find a way to fix the gate so the ship can go home.”

  Hierax thought of those drones on the surface and how they had been determined that the team not head toward that energy source. Would they still be up there? Waiting to herd them again?

  Maybe he could find a way out of here that would bring him and Indi up close to their target and far from the local security.

  “Are the aliens still serenading you?” Hierax waved to Indi’s helmet.

  “No, I haven’t heard anything from anyone for a while.”

  “Ah.”

  He wondered if, in failing to respond to the transmissions, they had caused the AI to write them off as unworthy of further communication. Disposable.

  With that grim thought in his mind, he squeezed past Indi and headed down the dark maintenance shaft.

  6

  “How long have you been a Star Guardian?” Indi asked as she crawled through the shaft after Hierax.

  The ceiling was so low, the walls so close, that her claustrophobia had gone from a five—she’d been uncomfortable ever since she stuffed herself into the form-hugging armor—to a nine or ten. She had no idea how far they had traveled through that transit tube. A mile? A hundred miles? How far from the surface were they now, and would they find a way back up?

  The day before, she had been worried that the ship would run out of food and water before the month was out. Now, she worried that she and Hierax would run out of food and water before the week was out. They had some supplies along, but not enough to last long. And how was one supposed to eat while sealed in a spacesuit, anyway?

  “Over five years,” Hierax said. “Been with Sagitta the whole time.”

  “So you’re pretty close?”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  When he didn’t volunteer more, Indi debated whether she should ask more questions. She was mildly curious about Hierax, since he did seem a curiosity among the crew full of fighters, but mostly, she sought to distract herself from thoughts of dying of thirst in the bowels of some alien planet, where it was unlikely that anyone would ever find her body. Her family would have no idea what had happened to her. Would anyone on the Star Guardian ship care that she had disappeared? Surely, they would miss Hierax, but she was just another one of their female guests, guests that had inadvertently caused the captain to defy his superiors and risk his career. Maybe he would be relieved if a few of the women disappeared.

  “I believe he finds me brilliant, dependable, creative, and extremely trying,” Hierax said after a while.

  “What about modest?”

  “I don’t recall him using that word to describe me.”

  “Weird.”

  He glanced back, his helmet nearly bumping the low ceiling. “It’s hard to be modest when you’re smarter than everyone around you.”

  “Really.”

  Her tone was dry, but she silently admitted that she’d occasionally experienced that kind of thing. Her parents and her two older sisters were good people, but extremely average when it came to intelligence. She had occasionally wondered if she’d been adopted, and nobody had shared the big secret with her. She’d had a touch of arrogance as a kid, since she’d been the smart one in her family, had earned great grades, and had impressed her teachers, but when she’d gone on to Georgia Tech, everyone had been smart, and it had been much harder to impress the professors.

  “You have family back on your planet?” Hierax asked as they continued on.

  The question sounded forced, and she sensed that making small talk wasn’t easy for him. Maybe he could tell she was uncomfortable, so he was trying to continue the conversation. Or maybe the place had him a little on edge too. A headlamp shone from his helmet, illuminating the dark blue sides of the tunnel, but not showing any end in sight, or any place where they could climb toward the surface.

  “No kids or anything. I’m divorced, and Jace didn’t want kids. They would have crimped his freewheeling hop-a-motorcycle-at-any-moment-and-take-off lifestyle. I do have two sisters and my parents, though I haven’t seen them for a while. They live on the other side of the country, and we don’t have a lot in common so I don’t go home as much as I sh
ould.”

  That wasn’t the whole truth. She had some common interests with her sisters, but the rest of her family was deeply religious, and somehow, she had ended up more on the agnostic spectrum. Every time she went home, her mom expressed grave concerns over the fact that Indi hadn’t found a good church and wasn’t attending regularly. Clearly, her soul was in danger of being seduced by the devil. Sometimes, Indi wondered if she’d gravitated to Jace only because he’d driven her parents crazy. The devil had seduced him long ago.

  “Do you like puzzles?” she asked, mostly because she didn’t want to talk about her family—and definitely not about her ex. She also wouldn’t mind stumping Hierax. Was he truly as smart as he thought? He couldn’t be a dummy and be a spaceship engineer, but it might be fun to knock him down a couple of notches.

  “What kind of puzzles? Math ones?”

  “Sure.” Indi remembered a few from school that she could trot out. Though she debated if one that took place in a high school setting would be puzzling to him because he had no common frame of reference. What kind of schooling did they have on his world? Were there lockers?

  “Go ahead.”

  “In a school on my world, there are a thousand lockers and a thousand students. The principal tells the first student to go to every locker and open it. He tells the second student to close every second locker. He tells the third student to go to every third locker and, if it’s closed, open it. If it’s open, he closes it. The fourth student does the same thing at every fourth locker, and the same pattern continues through to the thousandth student. At the end, how many lockers are open?”

  He looked back at her, and she expected he would give her an incredulous look, or say this wasn’t the time for silly puzzles. It wasn’t as if it was the kind of thing most people could figure out in their heads anyway. She remembered getting that puzzle as an extra credit assignment in a high school math class.