Survivor (19 page)

She chided and cursed herself for being
ridiculous. And yet here she was, standing in front of a message
she hadn't written yet.

She turned and walked away from the
disturbing helmet and the giant letters. She wondered how long
they'd be there, and whether future archaeologists would curse her
for ruining the ancient text. Probably.

She shuffled through the tunnels, back the
way she'd come. She only had one idea for how to get back home. It
was less a plan and more a vein hope. She stumbled out into the
desert.

The night wind was no more forgiving. It
beat at her and threw her coat out in whipping waves, trying to tug
her off balance. The wind brought pelting grains of sand which
slammed into Nova's exposed flesh, trying to pierce her eyes. Tears
welled to the surface in a meagre attempt to get rid of the
sand.

She stumbled to a stop. There was more than
the wind howling. There was something else. It sounded like a dog
wailing in the darkness. Her heart beat faster and she turned in
rapid circles.

A shadow darted to her right. She turned to
face it, and was met with sand. Something ran past her left, she
felt a brush of air as it went by. She turned again, but it was
already gone.

Her hands shook and teeth chattered. The
hairs on the back of her neck stood on end and every part of her,
every muscle, was poised to spring. There was something else with
her in the darkness but the planet was abandoned.

Her imagination supplied a terrifying image
of a massive black dog howling at the moon. Saliva dripped from its
teeth and its yellow eyes glimmered. The black fur was raised up as
it howled. Its sharp claws gouged into the sand.

Nova shook her head. It was just her
imagination. But the howling was still there. She could hear it
coming for her, getting closer.

She ran without thinking. Her torn clothing
streamed behind her as she pushed forward. She ran up a hill of
sand, her legs aching with the effort. She wouldn't be able to keep
running for long.

The beast's claws sunk into her back. A
massive weight slammed into her spine and sent her sprawling. She
was pinned to the sand, the creature's weight holding her down.

Its claws and teeth sunk into the small of
her back. She cried out in agony. She could feel every movement as
it dug deeper into her vertebral column. It tore out her nerves;
stringy tendons came lose. The creature ripped out her spine and
she felt every section as it was pulled out of the gaping hole in
her back. She lost all sensation in her legs.

This was it. This was the end. She was
paralysed and dying, being mauled to death by some massive
creature. She'd fought for so long that it was almost a relief to
know that the end was near. She couldn't even run anymore, not
without her legs.

Her shirt was soaked with blood. Claws tore
down from her shoulders. Her skin broke apart and hung in tattered
flaps.

She screamed into the night.

Her back was being crushed and the massive
weight compressed her chest, making it hard to breathe. She drew
one ragged gasp after another. She couldn't crawl away; her hands
scraped futilely in the sand.

The rabid beast tore through her back with
its teeth. The wet tongue lapped up her blood and scraped against
her intestines. It worked its way deeper, devouring more of her
body as it went. It was excruciating torture but she couldn't do a
thing to stop it.

She closed her eyes and waited for it to be
over.

A cool wind blew over her face and body. Her
lower spine tingled.

She frowned. It shouldn't tingle. She should
be dead.

She opened her eyes and found herself lying
face down in the sand. There was no sign of the beast.

She lifted her hands and patted them down
her back. It was all in one piece. There were no gaping holes or
trails of blood.

She rolled over and sat up. The sand around
her body had claw marks in it, but they were from her. There were
no massive footprints to suggest a creature had walked away. She
looked over herself. The only blood on her clothes was the dried
patches from Tobius.

She let her head drop into her hands and
curled into a ball. The cool wind brushed over her, leaving a
chill. It was impossible for her to get up. She wanted to sit right
where she was until she was covered in sand and became another
relic of the cursed planet.

The wind howled and her mind filled with
images of black dogs. She could feel the thing at her spine. She
couldn't go through that torture again.

It was getting closer.

She pushed herself to her feet. Her legs
shook under the strain. She stumbled forward, desperate to get away
from the creature in the night.

Her skin was covered in bumps, chilled to
the very bone. Her muscles ached and so many parts of her cried out
in pain that she'd lost track of all her injuries.

Despite the pain, she ran forward. If she
could just get back to the ship then she'd be safe. It never
occurred to her that she could be trapped on the desolate desert
planet for the rest of her life, with no way off, and no one to
know she was there.

She climbed the sand dune against the side
of the ship. It made so much more sense now. If she was somewhere
in the future, who was to say how long the sand had had to build up
and grow its way up the ship. It could have taken centuries.

Her thighs moaned against the uphill climb.
Her cold muscles refused to work and every step felt like ten. It
was an eternity before she reached the ship's door and stumbled her
way inside. She slammed her fist onto the close button. The door
creaked and groaned but barely moved.

She cursed and grabbed hold of the manual
handle. She heaved and strained. Shadows leapt across the sand. The
black dog.

She heaved harder.

The door was rusted and fixed in place.

She had to put every ounce of energy into it
before the door budged. Her fear fed her strength. She pushed
harder and the door fell closed, leaving the ship in deeper
darkness.

She sighed, relaxing her shoulders.

The lights were out, just as she'd left
them. She had to navigate her way through the debris and pieces of
furniture until she came to the command room. In the middle of the
room, the only object not covered in dust, was the chair she'd
woken up in. It was like an old friend recently reunited.

She stepped to the chair and lowered herself
down into it. It accepted her with soft cushions. Her legs were
grateful for the break as she stretched them out in front of her
body.

If this didn't work, she was out of
ideas.

She tried to push that thought out of her
head; it certainly wouldn't help her get to sleep. She forced
herself to close her eyes and take three deep breaths. She let her
imagination wonder. It was an exercise she was used to practicing.
Sleep had always been difficult for her to find. It wasn't helped
by having to grow up with a knife under her pillow.

In her adult life, when she found safety
on-board Crusader, she'd learned to calm her nerves, to throw the
worries of the day out, and let her body relax. She put her mind to
it now. She pictured a serene ocean planet, like Mistylake or
Selene. The entire surface covered with a sloshing ocean of blue.
The water was pure, fresh and welcoming.

She felt the warm sun engulf her in its rays
as she dived from Crusader's door into the ocean below. The water
was warm. It soothed her skin and her hurts, washed away the pain
and the dirt of the day. Sometimes her friends would swim with her,
but today she needed to be alone.

She relished in the cool water and dived
below the surface to watch the many fish swim back and forth. She
imagined being able to swim like them, moving her tail as she shot
through the water. It was like flying, but without the fear of
falling.

Before she knew it, she was asleep.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Nova blinked. Bright lights shone in her eyes. She squinted
against the glare and looked around. She was still in the
Confederacy ship's command pod, but all the lights were on. It
looked almost new, if it weren't for the angle and the piles of
debris stacked against the wall.

"Codon?" she said.

"Oh I see you've finally woken up," Codon
said, stepping into Nova's field of view.

"How long have I been asleep?"

"About an hour. I was about to pull the
chair out from under you to wake you up. There's been a lot of
movement."

She blinked a few more times, clearing the
miasma from her mind, and pushed herself higher in her chair. She
looked up at the screen taking up most of the wall. It showed the
view outside.

The Ancients had been busy. There were
half-built ships scattered across the sand, and many imposing
weapons. The creatures were still bent over their work, intent on
their tasks.

"It won't be long before they're ready to
go," Codon said. "I don't suppose you're ready to pull a miracle
out of the air?"

"I had a dream of the future. I have to go
back in there."

"Whoa, hang on. You had a dream and now
you're going to give yourself a death sentence?"

"No. Yes. Maybe," Nova said, standing up.
Her back and limbs were stiff, but some of the exhaustion from
before was gone.

"What if it was just a dream?" Codon said,
giving voice to Nova's biggest fear.

"Do you have a better plan?"

"No."

"Then I'm going in."

"And once we impossibly get past them,
what's your plan?"

"I don't have one."

"So you're relying on luck?"

"It wouldn't be the first time." She
massaged her temples as she spoke. Sharp jabs of pain shot through
her brain every few seconds.

"Well better to die fighting I suppose,"
Codon said. "Because this damned thing isn't getting off the ground
any time soon."

"Lock and load," Nova said.

She pulled the pistol out of her belt and
checked it over. As she turned it on its side, a trickle of sand
fell out and clattered to the floor. It spread out across the
metal, tiny shining crystals.

"Sand!" she said. "From the tomb. See? It
wasn't just a dream!"

"Nova," Codon said, looking at her with
stern eyes. "You spent the last two days in a desert. That sand
could have come from yesterday. There's no reason to assume it came
from the future."

Nova frowned. She'd thought she'd found
proof, but Codon was right. She couldn't ignore the possibility
that her trip to the future was just another hallucination. Hell,
she could be hallucinating right now. All the other images had
seemed so real, only to toss her back inside the cell with Tobius's
body when consciousness struck. A part of her expected to run into
one of the walls at any moment and be rudely awoken back in
reality.

"I'm ready," Codon said. He had a
Confederacy issued side arm and a less-conventional heavy-duty
shotgun.

"All right." She put her gun back into its
holster and led the way through the ship.

The path was familiar, right down to the
dangling pipes and pieces of torn wiring. They climbed over fallen
furniture and avoided the mangled bodies. They were almost at the
exit door when Nova tripped on a loose piece of piping and stumbled
against the wall. Her arm scraped along the jagged metal. Flesh
tore from her arm and clung like limp cloth to the sharp steel.

She cried out and gripped hold of her wrist.
It stung. The pain coursed up from her wrist, through her arm,
elbow, all the way to her shoulder. The wound burned hotter as she
gripped tighter.

She forced her eyes down to look at the
damage. It was even worse than she'd thought. Blood spurted out
from around her fingers. It seeped over her hand and dropped to the
floor. It had flicked all over her clothes, which were already dyed
red from Tobius's blood.

The chunk of flesh that had been scraped off
dangled just behind her, taunting. She looked at it, disbelieving.
She turned back to her hand; there was no way to stop the blood.
She gripped tighter but her heartbeat kept pulsing, pushing more of
her life-blood between her fingers.

She turned to Codon, her mouth hanging open.
Her eyes begged him.

"Do something!" she yelled.

He stared at her.

She felt weak. She'd lost too much blood and
the effort of standing was too much. Her legs wobbled, her knees
collapsed, and she slammed onto the metal floor, shins first. Her
head snapped forward with the sudden drop. Her eyes were locked
again on her arm.

So much blood.

It created a pool by her legs, reflecting
the dim lights of the ship. The red was deep, crimson.

Codon was beside her. His hand was on her
shoulder and he was talking. She couldn't make out his words. Her
hearing and sight were failing. It wouldn't be long now and the
last drop of blood would fall out of her veins. She'd be dead.

Codon pulled on her arm.

Couldn't he see that she was dying? Couldn't
he let her do it in peace?

She gritted her teeth and pulled her
shoulder out of his grasp. She desperately held her right arm
closed but it was no good. The wound was too big, too deep.

The pool on the floor got deeper.

She gave up holding the wound together and
let it go. Without the pressure, the blood flowed faster. It
cascaded from her arm and into the pool like a red waterfall. She
was mesmerised by it. Her eyes locked on the rapids and ripples
which splashed away from the waterfall's base.

Then she was there.

She stood next to a red lake. A waterfall
dropped sticky crimson droplets into the pool. There was a smell in
the air, like rust.