Her admiration for theswift and agile Alba grew, as she continually buzzed thepeerazu before immediately rolling, flipping, or looping away froma direct collision while avoiding streams of saliva. After tenminutes of this deadly ballet, she was starting to ache with thefatigue and stress of the skirmish. Deck wasn’t sure if the peerazuwas distracted enough for her plan to work but she needed to beabsolutely on her game to see it through, so the time wasnow.
On her next loop aroundthe canyon, she swung abruptly skyward, with the peerazu followingclose behind. She needed to evade the animal and its saliva whilekeeping it close enough to ensure that its full attention was fixedon the Alba. Shealso wanted this trip to be quick enough to avoid drawing theattention of additional peerazu. With no margin for error, shecarefully tracked ever skyward, constantly monitoring the peerazuto ensure it stayed exactly where she wanted it.
It was impossible tocompletely avoid occasional hits of saliva. After each one, sheheld her breath, checking the ship’s data read-outs, praying thehull integrity stayed in the green. With each second nearer to thevacuum of space, Deck kept expecting the animal to fall back – butwhen the Alba broke through the atmosphere, the peerazu followed. For onebrief moment, it seemed as if its great fury would grant it powerover nature herself – but finally the peerazu collapsed under thestrain and plummeted towards Tolu’s surface.
Naiche and Con shared abrief look of jubilation before she programed in a route back tothe Aurora, involving the shortest amount of time in Tolu’satmosphere. Neither Deck nor Kennedyactually relaxed fully, until they landed safely in the ship’sdocking-bay.
Chapter 12
God HathNot Given
“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear;but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”
2 Timothy 1:7
When Kennedy and Deckerclimbed out of the Alba, it was to a truly mixed set of greetings. Aqila, Maddox,and Kay welcomed them back with affectionate joy. Moira threwherself into Decker’s arms sobbing out profuse apologies. Con hadto turn away to hide a grin at the sight of Deck uncomfortablypatting the girl’s shaking shoulders while still attempting toextricate herself from the embrace.
Lindstrom, whilecongratulatory, presented them with the news that the Maykure werefurious about the use of the Albaand had told the humans so in no uncertain terms.He’d volunteered to answer their complaints since it had been hisdecision to authorize use of the ship.
Kennedy said, “Don’t theyunderstand what we were up against there? Two Maykure childrencould have died if we hadn’t—”
“I did attempt to explainthat. They seem to think I’m missing the biggerpicture.”
“What picture?” Naicheasked. “Those two Maykure kids being ripped apart by apeerazu?”
“I’m not entirely surewhat they’re talking about. Communication with their leaderseems…circuitous at best.” He gave a quick toss of his head andclasped his hands together. “Perhaps this will all blow over oncethey’ve had time to calm down.” Lindstrom sighed heavily. “Kennedy,this entire misadventure interrupted the meeting you and Decker hadrequested. If you aren’t both completely exhausted, shall we resumethat, now?”
Con said, “With yourpermission, sir, I’d like to take a team back to the L3 shuttle,first.”
“To what end?” Lindstromasked.
“In the state the shuttleis in now, we can’t lock it up. I want to get anything dangerousor even portable off of it – in case more Maykure kids come calling.”Lindstrom immediately saw the force of Kennedy’s argument andgranted them the time.
Kennedy summoned Kapoorand Quan, then all four tactical personnel hurried to the shuttle.It took a couple of hours but they eventually had it stripped bareof all essentials and then went to work packing them up fortransport back to the Aurora. Finally, Con ordered Priyaand Yenlin to give the L3 one last thorough inspection, then walkedout to see where Decker had gotten to. She was off in the distance,examining the body of the peerazu he’d killed. Kay was with her,furiously sniffing the carcass over.
He jogged over towardsthem. When Naiche didn’t look up at his approach, Kennedy calledout, “Thanks all the same, but I don’t think Aqila will be too keenon having that peerazu head hanging on the wall of ourquarters.”
Deck squinted up at himwith a short laugh. “Damn. Now I’ll have to think of something elseto get you for your anniversary.” More soberly, she pointed at thepeerazu’s flank and said, “Take a look at this.”
Con saw some scarsconsistent with particle fire. “What’s so interesting about that?It wasn’t possible for me to hit their heads every time.”
“No, that’s not thetake-home, here. If you’ll look closer, you’ll see that those scarshad started to heal over.”
He crouched down brieflyand realized she was right. “This must have been one of the peerazuyou drove off the day we arrived.”
“Yep. Could that meanthere’s a lot fewer of them than we originally thought?”
“Either that…or….” Hestopped and pondered the conversation he’d had with Croker andBetang right before his one-on-one encounter with the woundedpeerazu.
“Or what?”
“Or peerazuactually are capable of holding a grudge – like the Maykure claim.”Kennedy ran a hand over his short, tightly coiled hair whileconsidering the possibilities. The more he thought about it, themore sense it made. “It could be that these two were hunting forthe shuttle ever since we landed. And the alarms finally led themright to it.”
“The Maykure said thepeerazu hold grudges?” When Con nodded, she groaned, “If they’re right, thatwould mean these things are nearly sentient – which would reallysuck.” Deck stood up and stared solemnly down at the dead animal.“I guess I was wrong when I thought I’d found some good newshere….”
“It’s starting to looklike there’s no good news anywhereon Tolu.” He clapped her on the arm in a gestureof solace. “Oh, except for one thing….”
Her head jerked up. “What’sthat?”
“If you hadn’t brought thecoffee unit from the shuttle over to the Aurora when you did – it looks likeit would have been destroyed in the peerazu attack.”
Naiche laughed. “I guessthat is a little good news – knowing I prevented the apocalypse.”She shook her head. “How
