“Sensors indicate nothing but dense jungle.”
“We spread out, search the ruins,” Scott orders.
Following JC through the door, Samantha leaps into the transporter cubical.
“Everyone transport down but Michelle. We don’t find Reynard, we head straight back to Australia and then—”
Kill the cat.
“I find new ways to extract information from a feline.” Amye taps her fingers against her blaster.
“Smerth, Amye, she’s a part of the crew.”
“I wasn’t in on that decision,” she snaps.
“None of us got a say when Reynard brought you onboard.” Doug’s spine pops as his back slams into the wall.
With Amye’s fingers at his throat, he stretches his feet, unable to reach the floor.
Joe—calm—places a hand on her forearm. “Never react in anger. It clouds your thoughts and prevents intellect from ruling your choices.”
Squeeze.
Amye releases Doug’s carotid artery. “William has to be on the surface.”
Doug rubs the purpling skin. “Smerth, Amye, save that drazz for the Mokarran.”
JC, Scott and Joe share a glance, all knowing Amye’s crossed a threshold they must address with their captain.
Amye tugs at the bottom of her jacket, straightening it out. “Why aren’t we landing?” she asks as if her assault on Doug never happened.
“The forest stretches to the ruins. There’s no clearing large enough for the wing span for fifty miles.” Scott types commands into the control panel.
The chamber floods with green light giving way to a brilliant flash of white illumination. The radiant glow forces JC to close her eyes.
Amye detects the blood coursing through her arm veins until her she becomes light-headed. The transport gives their bodies an extreme high as it separates them atom by atom. In a heartbeat, she floats around the cubical chamber as insignificant, invisible energy particles.
••••••
AS THE LIGHT subsides, the shapes of the crew reform among columns of crumbling stone.
“Any discernible humanoid life signs?” Amye asks.
Doug activates his handheld scanner. A quick adjustment and the detector indicates an undeterminable number of humanoids.
Amye dives behind a crumbling stone ruin. She drags Doug to protective cover along with her. Spears bounce off the rock, missing her by inches.
“Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers.” She pulls the energy clip from her blaster and jams the fully charged cell back into the weapon.
Blaster fire echoes to her left.
Howling savage screams permeate the tree line.
Samantha bounds over the rocks.
Amye aims. Releases her breath. A seven-foot hairy creature lumbers before her. She squeezes the trigger. The plasma beam smashes into the creature’s abdomen. It collapses to its knees. Amye views the forest through the monster’s midsection. The were-faced ape creature collapses on top of her.
Scott shoves JC behind a pillar. Spears bounce off the stone.
“What are those things?”
Scott slips his blaster from the backward holster on his left hip, offering it to JC.
“I’ve never encountered anything like them—read their thoughts?” Scott fires his rifle.
She takes the weapon. “I detect nothing. Even brute savages should have some thought waves.”
“They’re something else.”
Scott swings out from hiding, dropping to a knee. His blast incinerates the head of a creature. The charging monsters cease. Scott targets another. “They show signs of intelligence.”
“No.” JC points.
All the creatures’ eyes upturn. Fuzz zips around overhead.
Amye heaves the beast off her. The leg press maneuver sends the monster sailing toward Doug. He hurdles out of the way.
“Smerth!”
“Shut up.” Amye crawls up the pile of rubble to peek over the top. The creatures have dropped their guard.
“You can’t shoot them all.”
“They’re distracted.”
“You start smerth’n shooting and they’ll forget about Fuzz and roast us alive.”
Amye glares at him.
Doug pulls a leathery strap woven into the were-ape’s body hair. He tosses it to Amye.
She catches it, then drops it, wiping her hand on her thigh. “Nasty.”
“Osirian skin,” Doug says.
“I don’t even want to know how you know that,” Amye says.
A howling chant spins Amye around, ready to fire. The creatures sing to Fuzz.
JC checks her scanner. “I say now is our chance to beam back to the Dragon. Too many life signs to discern if one is Reynard’s.”
“I see why the IMC abandoned mining operations, but why not log it in their file?” Doug tinkers with the scanner.
“Just find Reynard.”
“I’m unable to distinguish our life signatures.”
“You’re about smerth’n useless, Douglas.” Amye locks her left hand to her right, command style, to quell the shakes and steady her aim.
Scott tilts the rifle just enough to check the power gauge—full charge. “Why are they so interested in Fuzz?”
JC closes her eyes and stretches out her thoughts. “If I didn’t see them, I would swear there were no creatures there. Even when I’m unable to read a mind like Australia, I still know it’s there.”
“And their life signs never showed on an orbital scan.”
The were-ape creatures chant in unison, waving their spears in the air.
“If they like dragons so much, autopilot the ship down here and let them worship it,” JC suggests.
“Not bad. Athena’s sensor might weed through all this life to single out one Osirian pattern.”
“Is the transporter still working?” JC pockets her scanner.
The were-ape creatures’ chanting becomes louder.
“Do you detect him?”
“No,” JC says. “I’ve been trying since we landed. I’ve touched the Commander’s mind a few times in the past, and now I feel nothing of it.”
“I knew the Sandmen killed him.” Scott pulls on his black fingerless gloves.
“No, Samantha was correct. They didn’t steal him away to kill him,” JC quickly defends.
“How close do you need to be to detect Reynard’s thoughts?”
“He doesn’t give off the kind of sexual energy your brain does, but on a planet with few readable minds…quite far.”
“We should transport out of here,” Doug suggests.
Samantha hops onto the dead creature. “Below the pyramid are miles of tunnels where your captain—”
Amye craves a drink. As if not in control, her gun arm swings in Samantha’s direction. In the millisecond before she pulls the trigger, Kymberlynn screams at her to stop. Amye jerks her body. The blue beam release smashes into rocks, sending a discharge of tiny pebbles into the cat’s freshly groomed coat.
Unsure why she missed. Such a close shot should not be considered a miss
