Hierax: Star Guardians, Book 4 Page 9

  Still not sure if the noise had come over the comm, where it might have been recorded, or entered directly into her head, she made an attempt to hum them, to memorize them while they were fresh in her mind.

  “I don’t suppose it would be as easy as you entering those notes in the keypad?”

  “I’ll try it.” Indi closed her eyes, remembering the keypad sounds and trying to match the notes that had played in her head. It had been a fairly long sequence, maybe thirty notes. This alien AI was asking a lot from her.

  Still, when she tapped it in, she was fairly certain she replicated it correctly. As strange as the music sounded, there was a melody—no, a pattern—of sorts. An incomplete one. It had sounded like the beginning of a song.

  When she lowered her hand, Hierax looked at the door. But nothing happened. At least a robotic alligator pit didn’t open up underneath them.

  “Maybe it was a clue, rather than something to be replicated,” she mused.

  Could she guess the notes that would complete the pattern based on what she’d been given?

  Indi hummed to herself, taking some stabs. Hierax watched and listened, probably thinking she sounded like a huge dork, but he didn’t comment. Maybe he was thinking about the fine qualities of the Trevibia Z-caster 5000. Or the 6000 that he hadn’t tested yet.

  “Let’s try this,” she finally said, and tapped on the keypad.

  Hierax’s lip curled at the unappealing buzzes.

  Indi had no idea how much of the “pattern” would be required. The farther out from the end of the original melody she went, the more likely she would screw it up.

  After she punched in five keys, the silver keypad pulsed, and a much louder buzz sounded.

  She looked down, certain she’d finally tried too many times and that the trapdoor would open.

  Instead, the door slid open.

  “That’s it,” she blurted, too shocked to move at first.

  Then she hugged Hierax, an action that was exceedingly awkward with both of them in armor. Their faceplates clunked against each other.

  He stuck his boot in the doorway to hold the door open and patted her on the back. “Good work. I never would have thought of music stuff.”

  Indi grinned, pleased by the simple praise. As cocky as Hierax was, she wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d taken credit for their joint victory, but he seemed willing to acknowledge that she’d helped.

  “I never would have heard it if you hadn’t been able to make some air for me,” she said.

  Feeling silly hugging him while they were both wearing the bulky gear, she lowered her arms and started to step back, but the glow of the panel had faded, and she could see through his faceplate more easily than before. His dark eyes crinkled with a smile, and she noticed how handsome he was.

  He gazed back at her, meeting her eyes, though his expression was tough to read. Had he ever looked at her and thought her attractive? Or was he, even now, thinking about some tool or another? Or, more likely, about the mission they still had to succeed at?

  “We better get out of here before you have to play for the door again,” he said, tilting his helmet in that direction.

  “Right, after you.” She gestured for him to lead the way.

  He patted her again before stepping outside. She decided that had been a comradely pat and nothing more. Unlike the majority of the male species, he didn’t seem to have sex constantly on his mind. Or maybe he just wasn’t attracted to her. It wasn’t as if the armor accentuated her feminine assets.

  Indi stepped outside, the starry sky visible above them and more of those tall train tracks running past.

  “Sir, can you read me?” Hierax asked.

  “We read you, Chief,” came Lieutenant Coric’s voice over Indi’s helmet. “Where have you been?”

  “Underground and cut off. We were inadvertently split up, so I’m not sure where Nax, Woo, Treyjon, and the others are. Have you heard from them?”

  “No.” Coric's voice sounded grim.

  “I’m sure they’ll find a way out. I’m with Indigo. We’re heading for the energy source again. We were diverted by some drones before.”

  “Do you have weapons?” That was Sagitta speaking, maybe leaning over Coric’s shoulder.

  “I have tools.” Hierax patted his satchel and put the lifter away.

  “I suppose for you, that’s synonymous.”

  “If you’re complimenting my creativity, Captain, I accept your praise.”

  “I’m sure you do. I’m getting a second team ready to send out to help you.”

  “You should send them to find the rest of my team, sir. We’ll handle finding the energy source. But make sure you put someone smart in charge. There are a lot of quirky dangers here, and shooting and blowing things up isn’t going to be the right solution.”

  “We already sent the smart people out,” Sagitta said. “And now they’re missing.”

  “I’m not missing.”

  “You weren’t responding to communications for an hour.”

  “Yes, but now I’m back. You needn’t pine for me any longer.”

  “I’m sending the team to collect you,” the captain said and closed the channel.

  “As I said,” Hierax told Indi, “we’re not that close. He doesn’t always appreciate my brain.”

  “I’m not sure your brain is the problem.”

  Indi tapped a finger to his faceplate—if it hadn’t been in the way, she would have tapped it to his lips.

  “Come along,” Hierax said, waving for her to follow him down the tracks. “Let’s finish our mission before those drones find us.”

  She thought about pointing out that the alien AI had helped them, or at least her, but she kept her mouth shut. It was possible there were multiple AIs out there or other entities that she had no name for. She couldn’t assume that everything on this planet was on her side.

  Thinking of those drones, she jogged after Hierax. What would happen if they showed up again, and she and Hierax chose not to let themselves be herded?

  7

  Hierax watched their surroundings carefully as he followed the map on the scanner. It displayed the buildings and various other structures of the city, but as he’d noticed before, it didn’t show those drones. He’d been caught off-guard when they showed up. It wasn’t until they had been almost on top of the group that he had detected their compact energy sources. They had to have some shielding. As much of the city was shielded against comm signals.

  Indi walked at his side, and he caught himself glancing at her almost as often as he looked toward the sky for drones. He’d enjoyed trading puzzles and riddles with her—she’d shared ones he hadn’t heard before—and was tempted to start the game up again, but he needed to focus. Later, he decided. Once they made it back to the ship—and hopefully back to a civilized system—he would ask her to visit him in engineering and share some of the wine Treyjon had gotten him before they left Dethocoles. And he would let her try out some of his favorite tools. Also the gadgets he made. Maybe she’d like the cleaning automatons. Women liked cleaning, didn’t they? They at least liked things to be clean. And his dusting and sweeping automatons kept engineering immaculate.

  “What’s that big open area up ahead?” Indi asked, pointing along the tracks.

  Hierax blushed, both because he hadn’t been paying as close of attention as he should be, and because she had noticed something first.

  “I thought there weren’t any open spaces in the city,” she added. “And that’s why we landed on a roof.”

  He could see the area she meant—the omnipresent structures cramming the city disappeared about a kilometer ahead, right in front of their tracks. There were more buildings in the distance, but there was definitely a wide gap before they started up again.

  “The scanner shows… a pit,” he said. “If the sides slope, it wouldn’t have been a good landing spot. Not that Zakota couldn’t put us down anywhere, but we don’t keep the artificial gravity running
if we’re planet-side, and the decks all would have been like this.” He tilted his hand sideways.

  “Is our destination that way?” Indi peered at the holographic display hovering over his scanner.

  “On the other side of the pit, yes.”

  His rear camera caught movement, and Hierax spun in time to spot one of those drones sailing over the tracks a half kilometer behind them.

  “Damn,” he whispered, and gripped Indi’s arm briefly. “We need to go for a jog.”

  Or a sprint. He pointed and led the way toward the pit.

  “A jog?” Indi glanced back. “You’re not recommending exercise for the fun of it, are you? Because I’m going to need some chocolate dangling on a stick ahead of me if I’m going to run when nothing’s chasing me.”

  “I saw one of those drones. We might find ourselves chased very soon.”

  Indi cursed and picked up the pace.

  “Activate your boots’ spring soles,” he said, though he didn’t bother to do the same. He wasn’t an exercise enthusiast by nature, but Sagitta was a tyrant about fitness, so he had little choice in the matter. “It’ll add some bounce to your step and make running easier.”

  “Got it.”

  After that, they ran in silence. Hierax didn’t sprint, not when it sounded like Indi might have trouble keeping up, but he did assume a long loping stride in the hope that they could reach their destination—their indoor destination—before drones converged on them. He refused to be directed away from the energy source again. It was already intolerable that they’d been down here for hours and hadn’t been able to walk two kilometers to reach it.

  The tracks they were following ended at the edge of the pit, which turned out to be a gaping crater more than a kilometer across. A meteor impact, Hierax realized as soon as he saw it.

  Mangled and broken structures lay all over the slopes and the bottom, and some buildings along the edge were half-standing and half-annihilated, torn open by the huge meteor that had crushed them. The meteor itself was half-buried in the bottom of the crater, the lumpy rock a mix of browns and reds that contrasted with all the mangled blue metal around it.

  “I see why your ship didn’t land here.” Indi waved at the wreckage that sprawled across the slopes.

  Hierax started to respond, but he caught movement behind them again. Two drones.

  This time, they didn’t simply sail past. They flew down from the sky and headed straight for them.

  “This way,” Hierax said, pointing, though there wasn’t a clear route along the lip of the crater.

  Almost as much wreckage and debris cluttered the top as the inside of it. He thought about running straight across the crater. On the other side, he could make out the structure that held the energy source, interesting twelve-sided smokestacks stretching up toward the stars.

  But the route would be too precarious, and they would be out in the open. At least by running around the crater, he and Indi could find cover behind the half-toppled buildings.

  “I see them,” Indi said, following behind him without objection. “Two drones out over the pit too.”

  Hierax grimaced. He hadn’t even seen those. They must have risen up out of the wreckage.

  Like the other two, they headed right for him and Indi. And they came in fast. All four of them did.

  He wanted to activate the spring soles on his boots to max his speed and sprint away, but he was already struggling not to out-pace Indi. He couldn’t leave her behind. She might get lost, or, if the drones turned out to be dangerous, she might be an easy target.

  Not that he had a great number of weapons with which to protect her. He’d brought the muscle—Treyjon, Mikolos, and Hammer—along for a reason.

  He dipped his hand into his satchel as he ran, finding the stunner he’d tossed into his gear by habit, but he doubted it would be useful against a drone. His fingers brushed the lifter he had used earlier. It was still programmed to make a forcefield around them.

  As they hopped over rubble and ducked under warped beams thrusting out of collapsed structures, he debated whether it could protect them from the drones. Earlier, all his field had needed to do was keep air in. Keeping enemy fire out was another matter, and the lifter was designed to move cargo, not withstand bolt bows or the alien equivalent.

  “You’re over-reacting,” he whispered. So far, the drones hadn’t done anything except herd them. There was no reason to believe they would open fire.

  Nonetheless, he pulled out the modified lifter.

  “You all right, Indi?” Hierax asked, forcing himself to slow down.

  The drones were right behind them, but Indi was struggling to keep up, and he could hear her ragged breathing over their comm channel.

  “I’m—” She tripped on the uneven ground and sprawled face-first into a pile of rubble.

  Hierax winced, hoping her armor would protect her from injury, and ran back to help her up. As he reached for her, the four blue-black drones zipped closer. They were only about a half a meter in diameter, but they were as ominous as Poseidon’s trident as they clumped together and hovered at head height.

  A white light glowed on the front of one. Was it going to fire?

  Cursing, he turned on the lifter.

  A white energy beam lanced out as his forcefield came on. The beam bounced off, but that didn’t keep Hierax from further curses. Especially when white glows formed on the fronts of the other three drones too.

  “I’m all right,” Indi said, pushing herself to her feet. “Are we—” She broke off with a startled squawk when one of the drones fired at her.

  The forcefield deflected it, but the beam would have struck her in the faceplate if it hadn’t.

  “Hurry,” Hierax said, pointing for her to keep going along the edge of the crater, “but stick close. This can only generate a very tiny bubble around us.”

  He ran backward as she ran forward. More beams struck their forcefield, and the sensors in his suit showed the lifter warming in his hand, despite the freezing temperature outside. It wouldn’t take much more to overload it.

  Two more drones appeared in the distance, also flying toward them.

  Hierax groaned.

  “Look for a place where we can take cover,” he said, turning his back on his mechanical enemies, even though he didn’t want to. He scrutinized the area ahead with his eyes and also the scanner. “We’re not going to make it to the energy source.”

  “Are they… shooting… to kill?” Indi gasped, sounding surprised.

  “I can’t tell how much energy those beams are using. The lifter wasn’t made for this.” His armor warned him that the device had grown even hotter in his hand. “Our forcefield may fail soon, but don’t worry. Our armor can take some damage too.”

  “Don’t worry?” Indi shot him an incredulous look as they ran around the corner of a building, all that remained standing of it. “What happens when the armor fails?”

  “Hopefully we’ve found cover by then.” He mentally ordered his comm to switch channels. “Captain, is that backup team almost here?” He was breathing hard now, too, and he could hear the hitch in his words.

  “The team you didn’t want?” Sagitta asked.

  “I changed my mind. I want it now.”

  “They’re heading your direction. ETA two minutes.”

  “Do you need me to fly over there and save you from those insects buzzing at you?” Zakota drawled over the comm.

  Hierax gritted his teeth, imagining the bridge crew watching this on the view screen—and finding it entertaining.

  “No,” Hierax said, finding the idea of the Falcon 8 cruising over the city to shoot at the small drones ludicrous. He had no doubt that Killer’s aim was good enough that he could take them out, but using the ship’s weapons would be overkill. Besides, Hierax would never live it down. He had a reputation for using his mind to get himself out of trouble. This was silly.

  “Yes,” Indi blurted, apparently less worried about her reputation. />
  “Just send the team,” Hierax said, and pointed at a hangar-like building ahead of them. “That one has an open door that looks like it could be dragged shut. Veer toward it, Indi.”

  He hoped that door could simply be slid shut. He doubted the drones would give them time to press notes on a keypad.

  “With luck, the drones won’t shoot up their own city,” he added.

  As they sprinted toward the hangar, their forcefield flashed weakly, then failed.

  “We’re no longer protected,” he warned Indi. “Try to zigzag your path. Make it harder for them to target us.”

  He demonstrated, lunging to the left and over some rubble, then ducking and rolling as energy beams streaked over his head. To his side, Indi also tried to zigzag, but she tripped again, landing in a tumble. A beam shot over her prone form.

  “That works too,” Hierax said, jumping to his feet.

  One of the beams struck him square in the shoulder, and alarms lit up on his helmet display. As he’d expected, the drones weren’t hitting them hard, probably not having a great deal of power in their compact bodies, but even small bites would wear down the armor eventually.

  He ran toward Indi as she pushed herself to her feet again, but the ground quaked underneath him. A thin piece of sheet metal bowed under his weight, then gave away.

  Startled, he tried to spring to the side, but it collapsed, leaving his boots nothing to push off from. He fell into darkness.

  He expected to hit the bottom right away, landing in some forgotten basement, but he kept falling. What was this? A pit? Alarm flared in his chest as the light slashing through the hole above grew fainter and fainter. Debris tumbled down with him, pieces striking his arms and shoulders as he fell.

  Finally, with the help of his scanner, he spotted the ground below him, still thirty feet below.

  He twisted, getting his feet underneath him and bending his legs to brace for impact. And it was going to be a hells of an impact. Maybe there was time to slow himself down.

  Hook and chain, he ordered silently, pointing his arm upward and imagining his miniature grappling hook shooting out.