Stars of Charon (Legacy of the Thar'esh Book 1) (7 page)

“Well,”
she looked over to me thoughtfully. “I have no idea if you really know what you’re
talking about, but at least that sounded clever.”

“Thanks,”
I paused. “I think.”

“Let’s
unpack this gear, get some scans of this place and get out of here. If we hurry
we can be back at the Downs in time for breakfast.”

I slipped
the heavy pack from my shoulder and started to assemble the tripod while Ju-lin
configured the scanning sensors. As Ju-lin had explained to me on the hike up,
the sonic resonance scanner would do more than take pictures. By using a
combination of ultrasonic waves, and full spectrum visual scanning the scanner
is able to take and store a full holographic image of the area, including
subsurface features, Lee had figured that we would have one chance at getting
in, so he wanted us to capture as much data as we could.

“Just
about set,” Ju-lin said as she snapped the last of the panels in place.  “There
we go, hold the tripod, and activate.”

The
scanner, which was roughly the size of my head, began making a series of high,
then low pitched buzzing noises and flashing lights in all directions.

“Here,
stand back so we don’t get in the way,” Ju-lin grabbed my arm and pulled me
several steps back.

As we
stepped quietly back, our eyes met for a moment. For the first time, inches
apart. I felt a rush of warmth as the blood rushed to my face. I quickly turned
back to watch the scan. We were back in the shadows now. Hopefully she didn’t
see that my face was flushed.

“How long
will the scan take?” I asked.

“I’m not
sure,” she said quickly, and more loudly than usual. “The indicator on the top
turns green and it’s supposed to give a long and even tone when it’s done.
That’s what the instructions said at least.”

“You’ve
never used one of these before?”

“No, Dad
had to borrow it from the surveyor group, we’re lucky we had one on the colony,
they are mostly used for-”

There was
a series of distant but distinct
thumps
above us. Each thud brought a
burst of dust from the roof of the cave. We glanced at each other nervously.

“Earthquake?”
I asked nervously. The colonists had talked about how there were earthquakes
back on Lagrange IV. They said that the earthquakes became more and more
frequent as the mines gutted the precious minerals from the ground below. They
had told one story about six miners who were trapped in a cave for five months
after a quake before they were rescued and found. Only two had survived, the
story had given me nightmares.

“Shh,”
Ju-lin stood still, her hand up to silence me and her head tilted to the side.

They came
again, three more
thumps
they sounded closer.

“That’s
no earthquake, those are charges.”

“Charges?”
I asked, not understanding. “You mean they’re mining in here already?”

“No, I
mean
charges
,” she said. “Bombs.”

“Bombs?!”
I couldn’t contain my panic. “Why would the colonists be bombing us?”

“They
aren’t,” she said. “Those are a few klicks off. I think somebody is bombing
them.”

Another
series of charges went off, a huge cloud of dust rose from the floor and small
rocks were falling from the ceiling.

“Okay now
they are bombing
us
,” she said as she looked back toward the cave
entrance.

“We need
to get out of here.” I said.

“And go
where?” she said. “If we run out there, then all we are is just moving
targets.”

I looked
at her; she had a fine layer of dust on her face. Like earlier that afternoon
in the skiff, she lit up as danger grew near. Her eyes were wider, and her lips
slightly apart. And, in spite of myself, I couldn’t help but think that she was
incredibly beautiful. I shook off the thought.

Another
charge sounded, the air grew thick with dust.

“On
second thought,” she said. “Being a moving target sounds better than being
crushed in a cave-in.”

I looked
back at the symbols on the wall. I couldn’t read them, but I knew they meant
something. They were a clue. A story. A truth. Something that would tell me
more about where I came from.

“We can’t
leave without the scanner,” I said urgently.

She
opened her mouth to say argue but stopped; she must have seen that I was
serious.

There was
a low whistling sound coming from the mouth of the cave and getting closer.

“What is
that?” I asked, taking a step back.

“That’s—ah
hell!” she once again grabbed my arm as we stepped back against the wall.

The sound
grew louder, then we saw a flashing light at the entrance of the tunnel. Ju-lin
drew her plasma torch and crouched down, but she didn’t fire.

The
blinking light was coming from a smooth silver orb the size of a fist that was
whooshing down the tunnel and across the room. With a crash the device imbedded
itself against the far wall near the symbols with a deep thud.

“The
Sower be damned,” Ju-lin said as she jumped up and ran across the room to look
at it. “Um, we need to get out of here. Now.”

“What is
it?”

“You
remember how I said my plasma gun works?”

“Yes.”

“Well,
this will be like that, but a whole helluva lot bigger,” she grabbed the
flashlights and began running toward the cave entrance.

The
plasma charge began beeping.

I looked
back at the scanner as it continued to flash and buzz.

“What are
you waiting for?” She screamed back at me. “Forget the scanner, we have seconds
before that thing blows.”

The beeping
was becoming more frequent.

“Do you
hear that?” She yelled. “Faster beeps means it’s about to turn us into vapor,
we need to go,
now.
”

“But I
need-” as I said it the scanner on the top of the light flipped green and it
started sounding a soft tone. “There!”

I ran
over and grabbed the scanner from the tripod and started running toward the
entrance of the cave. Another bomb struck the surface nearby. Dust was so thick
in the air it was sticking to my lips. I could see Ju-lin, about ten yards
ahead of me scurrying up the rise out into the open air.

I threw
the scanner up through the cavern entrance and I began to climb. My hand
slipped and I slid back down, I fought my way back up. Again my hand slipped as
the handholds came loose. I fell hard against the jagged floor. I got up once
more to see Ju-lin leaning back over the top.

“Get up
here!” she screamed as she offered me her hand. I pulled myself up once more,
desperate as the echoing beeps seemed to meld into a continuous sound. She
caught my hand and, with her help, I pulled myself the rest of the way up.
After one final heave, I was clear.

We laid
on the grass under the great grey stone, panting to catch our breaths through
the cloud of dust. For a moment, the sky was still and silent. Too silent. I
realized that the beeping had stopped.

The cave
started to whistle as if taking a deep breath, and then it exhaled fire.

Chapter
10.

“We
keep our stories in song, and we protect our Charon to pass on the truths of
life and the stories of our past,” the voice said. “We discarded the written
word long, long ago.”

“But
why?” I asked. “Wouldn’t it help us preserve the stories? We could record our
thoughts, build upon our knowledge.”

“Eli,
you answer your own question,” he cut me short. “For what purpose would we need
to keep our knowledge beyond our stories and songs? Our people came out of the
darkness to live on the surface of this world. We left our records, our words,
and our machinations to burn in the stars. There are few now who recall the
symbols and language, and they keep the most sacred of our Charon. They are the
keepers and guardians of our past. Both to keep it safe from destruction and to
keep it safe from discovery. We do not want to slide back into the darkness.

A pillar
of flame shot up out of the mouth of the cave. The heat was scorching. Sweat
ran down my face, and I could feel the metal on my belt and the buttons on my
shirt growing hot. Too hot. Scalding. I crawled away from the fire, frantically
looking for cover. My eyes stung from the smoke and salt of my sweat, blurring
my vision.

“Here!”

I
followed Ju-lin’s voice to my left, I felt her grab the tail of my shirt and
pull me to the ground. After a few seconds, the cave coughed twice more, and
the flames disappeared. There was a backdraft as the cool night air returned,
followed by silence.

I wiped
the sweat and dust from my face and blinked as my eyes readjusted to the dim
light of dusk.

“You
alright?” Ju-lin asked as she got up, dusting herself off.

“I think
so,” I responded. My eyesight was returning. Ju-lin had pulled me to the cover
of one of the nearby stones. “You weren’t kidding about that plasma.”

“Next
time maybe you’ll listen when I say run,” she retorted. “You almost got us
cooked going after that scanner.”

“The
scanner!” I scrambled to my feet and ran back toward the cave.

The ground around the
mouth of the cave smoldering red, the white stones surrounding the site were
blackened. My heart sank.

“Where is
it?” I yelled, frantic. “I tossed it up in front of me.”

“There,”
Ju-lin pointed to a lump of slag. “Not much left of it.”

I ran
over to where she had pointed and fell on my knees. I reached for the scanner
and yelped in pain. It was searing hot. The sensor panels had melted and the
metal components were charred.

“It’s
wasted,” I felt my stomach drop. Whatever secrets that those symbols hid were
gone. I lowered myself to the ground, sitting next to the remains of the
scanner and hung my head.

“Wow,”
Ju-lin commented. “That’s toast. Still, here, let me see it. There could be
something left of the memory card.”

Ju-lin
pushed me aside. She pulled a spanner from her belt and began poking and
prodding at the still smoking pile of melted plastic and charred metal.

“Come on
you little bastard,” she muttered as she shoved in the spanner next to a small
slot and twisted. A small card, the size of a fingernail popped up from the
slot.

“Brilliant!”
a wave of relief swept over me.

She
turned with a smile “It’s charred a bit, but something may be recoverable.
Here.”

“Thanks,”
I said as a surge of relief and excitement ran through me. “I’m surprised there
was anything left of it.”

“I’m
surprised there is anything left of
us
. I thought we were—” she stopped
and narrowed her eyes, tarring into the dark sky. “Wait, they’re coming back.”

I
followed her gaze. There were a series of three lights in the sky to the north,
moving fast.

“Interplanetary
fighters. Those signal lights don’t look like any Earthborn ships I know.”

“If they
are coming back—” I began.

“—we need
to get some cover, fast.” She concluded.

I slipped
the memory card in my pocket, and we began scrambling through the maze of rocky
outcrops. We pressed ourselves against the closest stone as they made a low and
slow pass overhead.

Though
I’d seen the hulking colony ship land, and spent quite a bit of time studying
starships on the Slate, I couldn’t help but be in awe of the small, agile ships
as they soared overhead. Unlike the ships I had studied, which were fearsome steel
behemoths designed by the Earthborn, all of them bristling with weaponry. These
ships were sleek and angular, even beautiful.

“Those
are Celestrial fighters,” Ju-lin gasped. “Celestrials attacking a colony!
Blowing up the cave? What in the void do they think they are doing?”

As she
spoke I saw another trail of fire coming from the darkness somewhere above the
strafing Celestrial fighters. It was coming in fast, heading straight for the
lead Celestrial. Before I could say anything, it struck. There was a flash of
light and a burst of flames as the fighter disintegrated into fire.

“What was
that
?” I asked.

“A
missile. Someone else is here! Look, there,” she pointed, another ship was
descending through the cloud. This one was much bigger than the others, and, I
thought, much uglier. “A Carrack. Thank the stars, someone is looking out for
us.”

Carrack,
I recalled, was a large Earthborn-designed, four-man fighting and cargo ship
used throughout the Protectorate. The huge ship lumbered forward, though it was
slower and less maneuverable than the Celestrial fighters, it more than made up
for it in firepower and armor plating. The ship’s four, large, rear-mounted
engine pylons burned as it thundered down from the clouds.

Two
smaller vessels shot out through the clouds on either side of the Carrack,
moving fast toward the Celestrial ships. The two newer ships were different
still than the others. While the Celestrial ships were sleek and rounded, these
two were sharp and asymmetrical. The core of the ship was a long, smooth
fuselage with a second stunted wing jutting from the base. Even in the dim
light, the ships looked seamless, as if they had been molded out of a single
piece of metal.

As the
ships flew closer and began firing, I saw that I had had it backwards. The
fuselage was a large rocket engine with a weapon system, and the smaller,
stunted wing was the cockpit. It was as if the entire vessel was designed to be
a weapon. While the Celestrial ships were designed to hide their weaponry, the
newcomer’s ships seemed to be designed around theirs.

As I
watched, a name came to my mind.

“Draugari,”
I said softly.

Ju-lin
spun around to look at me, stunned, then back up at the ships. “Can’t be, the
Draugari never come out this way. Their territory is on the far side of the
Protectorate passed the wild worlds, light years away. But, damn. Those are
Slires.”

Slires, I
recalled the name as well. Back in the hospital there had been talk of the
Draugari, they had been one of the first things I studied on the Slate. The
Draugari were a half-human hybrid race of unknown origins that lived on the
fringe, feeding off of the civilized worlds. Though the bulk of Draugari craft
were stolen and pirated and retrofitted Earthborn, Celestrial, and Collective
vessels, they maintained their own, highly advanced long-range fighter craft,
the Slires. According to the Slate, the Draugari were migratory with no known
homeworld, how and where they built their own fighters was a mystery.

“Why are
they attacking the Celestrials?” I asked.

The two
remaining Celestrial ships broke from their tight formation as they moved to
engage the Draugari. There were flashes of light and explosions crackled like
thunder. I couldn’t tell who had come out better from the encounter.

We
watched as the four fighters continued to engage. Stray shots struck the ground
nearby, trees erupted in flames. I remembered the thudding explosions back in
the cave and looked to the west toward New Haven. All I could see now was a
pillar of smoke.

“The
Carrack,” Ju-lin searched the sky. “Where is it? Those Slires must have been
chasing it.”

“I’m not
sure, I lost it,” I paused. “Did the Slires shoot it down?”

“No,” she
said. “Not that I saw anyway. A Carrack wouldn’t go down that quietly. It
looked like they flew right past it. Wait! Look there, to the north.”

I looked
to where she was pointing, there were lights on the ground just over the slope,
and out of view.

“They
must have set down,” she said. “They probably picked us up on the scan and are
trying to get us out of here, let’s get moving. We have some time while the
Celestrials and the Draugari are having it out.”

I nodded
and followed her as we took off in a run across the clearing toward where the
Carrack had landed. As we ran, there were explosions as the Celestrial and
Draugari ships continued to their dance.

“The
Celestrials are winning this,” Ju-lin said breathlessly over her shoulder as we
ran. Just then one of the Slires flew overhead. As it passed, the Celestrials
fighters closed on one on each side. Lasers lit up the sky as the Celestrial
gunners found their mark. The first Slire disintegrated violently into a shower
of blue-green fire and debris began raining down on the aspen grove.

Too late,
the second Draugari fighter came to the other’s aid, sending a stream of fire
across one of the Celestrial ships. The Celestrial faltered as one of its three
rear engines blinked dark, but it continued to fight.

“Here!”
Ju-lin was waved her flashlight toward the landed Carrack as we closed the
distance. Two of the crewmembers were outside of the ship. They stopped and
looked toward us.

Looking
up, I saw that they wore full space suits, helmets still on. They saw us and
began running toward us. Something was wrong. They had weapons in hand, and
were tall. Unnaturally tall.

 “Ju-lin!”
I called as I looked back at the Carrack. The exterior of the ship was covered
in wiring and extra plating. There were two large scars across the hull that
looked as if they had been welded together.

Ju-lin
looked up with a flash of realization.

Before
she could act, the lead of the two figures drew a weapon and fired. Two flashes
of light struck Ju-lin in the chest. She crumpled to the ground in a heap, and
then the figure turned toward me. There was a flash of light, then, darkness.