Crystal Conquest (22 page)

He looked back in the direction of the barn and could see
movement. More Kardish were coming. He crouched and fumbled through the
scattered goods. The majority of the articles were clothes and toiletries. He
found a water pack for Juice and one tube of milk.

Pushing the clothes around, he searched for more milk tubes.
He saw the corner of an energy bar and added it to his stash. Out of time, he
scooped up a handful of clothes, turned, and bounded across the grounds to
catch up with Juice.

They ran into the woods together and came to a trail that
angled up the hill and away from the farm. Hurrying along the pathway, he
sought to put as much distance as possible between them and the Kardish.

They made good progress on the path, then they heard the
unmistakable hum of a drone patrol. Juice dove near a rock outcropping, pulling
the thermal blanket from her waistband as she did, then lay on her side and
covered herself.

As the whine of the drones faded into the night, Criss
reached out his hand. “Come.” He helped her to her feet and led her to a spot
where a granite ledge slanted up and out, providing concealment from anything
looking down from above.

They sat under the stone canopy, and Juice sighed as she
lowered herself to the ground.

Criss lifted a corner of the blanket off Juice’s lap and
studied it. “Did Crispin teach you that?”

“He was very helpful in getting me to you.”

“He’s a capable crystal.” He tugged gently on the blanket.
“May I?”

She released her hold on it, and he spread it on the ground.
He dropped the scavenged items he’d grabbed from the torn backpack onto it and
searched through the jumble. Beyond a random assortment of clothing, the final
inventory included two energy bars, two water packs, and one milk tube.

He tore one of her shirts into strips and fashioned ties
that joined two edges of the thermal blanket. “Let’s try this on.” Standing, he
helped her to her feet and draped the blanket over her shoulders. He then flipped
a corner up to form a hood, tying a looping knot around her neck and three more
down her front. “Not bad,” he said as he stepped back to admire his handiwork.

“So I don’t need to duck and cover anymore?” As she said
this, the hum of drones rose and then fell behind them.

Criss walked a circle around her and satisfied himself that
the blanket provided an effective shield, at least to the things he could see
with his vision. “Your face is exposed, so look down when you hear the drones. The
blanket will shield the back of your head.”

He arranged the other clothes into a nest and held Juice’s
hands as she lowered herself down onto them. “Let’s wait until morning to
travel. You’ll be able to see as we walk, the natural heat of the day will make
us less visible to thermal detection, and you could use some sleep.” Criss
gathered their meager provisions into a pile and snuggled up to Juice to keep
her warm. She sighed again.

As she calmed down and drifted off to sleep, Criss’s mind
raced. While in the underground bunker, he’d not realized the intensity of the
Kardish presence on the surface. Drone patrols zoomed nearby, and he had no
doubt that Juice and he were the target of this effort. He cupped his hands
over Juice’s ears to provide her some peace during what would likely be a fitful
bout of sleep.

At this point, they had two big challenges—avoiding discovery
by the Kardish, and rationing their meager food supply. Juice burned a lot of
energy on the run up the mountain and could stretch her two bars and two water
pouches out for three days, and longer if need be.

His single tube of milk could fuel the synbod for two days,
and then functions would start to degrade. Given the circumstances, Criss was
forced to consider a short list of high risk options. He could obtain sustenance
for Juice from a neighbor’s mountain home. There were many within a day’s walk.

But only three places held stashes of milk for the synbod—the
farmhouse, the Crystal Research complex, and the lodge. And the Kardish
infestation at the farm took that option off the table.

Sitting in the pilot’s chair, Sid
primed the pulse repeater while Lucy guided the scout on their final approach.
She navigated to the coordinates provided by Lenny, who now sat behind and to
the right of Sid. When they reached the designated location, she slowed them to
a hover above the surface.

Sid studied the image display and seethed as he internalized
the damage to Lunar Base. But he refused to be distracted by his outrage. For
now, anyway.

“Confirm target,” he said, referring to the point on the
surface where he’d focused the weapon.

“Confirmed,” said Lenny, his eyes flicking back and forth
between the large image of the lunar surface in front of Sid and a small image
projected from his com that would track their penetration through the layer of
moon rock above the hallway.

The pulse repeater served as a defensive weapon for the
scout, and its list of intended uses didn’t include digging holes. Sid engaged
it anyway, sending a stream of energy packets at the moon. Each pulse followed
so close behind the next that it looked like a steady beam. He stared at the
projected image as the pulse stream slammed into the moon’s surface.

Not unlike a jackhammer, the packets of energy shattered the
rock, throwing rubble up and out of a deepening hole. The pulsing nature of the
discharge shook the ship, and Sid took comfort in knowing that every tremor of
vibration signaled progress in excavating deeper beneath the surface. His eyes
remained locked on the image display, even though a thick dust cloud obscured
the view.

“Power down!” shouted Lenny. “We’re through!”

Lucy disengaged the pulse repeater, and Sid saw a tall plume
of soil puff up and out from the hole they’d just created. He watched as life-giving
air vented out of a zone of Lunar Base. As he’d done many times before, he
compartmentalized his feelings, this time over the possible deaths the air loss
might be causing.

With the hole complete, he leapt from the pilot’s bench, ran
aft, scrambled down the steep steps, and entered the small room with the hatch
leading out the bottom of the scout. Grabbing the tether line dangling from an
overhead spool, he hooked it to his space coveralls through a loop designed for
that purpose. He lifted his hood and fastened it in place, hefted his pack onto
his back, and secured his weapon to his wrist.

At the same time, Lenny slid into the warm seat Sid had just
vacated. He plopped his com on top of the bench, reviewed the array of displays
now surrounding him and, moving as fast as he could, tapped and swiped to start
the drone on its journey.

One level beneath Lenny, the bay doors in the engine room
swung down. The drone lowered through the opening, powered up, and started its
descent. Transmitting a vid feed from its nose, Sid watched through his suit
visor display. The forward-looking perspective gave him the sensation of riding
the machine as it navigated down the narrow hole.

The drone neared the bottom of the shaft, and Sid saw a pile
of dirt blocking access to the corridor. He realized the lowest layer of rock
had caved in and fallen downward rather than being expelled up and out by the
pulse repeater. He was about to tell Lenny to use the drone to blast open a
channel into the hall when he saw a silent, bright flash.
Good work, Len
.
The settling dust revealed a hole big enough for the drone to slip through.

The surreal experience continued as Sid “rode” the drone
down the hallway. It approached the lift doors, and as Lenny had predicted,
they sagged and tilted in a twisted ruin. He watched a silent flash, followed
by another. The impact of the energy bolts from the drone drove the mangled
doors inward. They pivoted, teetered, and careened downward into the abyss of
the lift shaft. The drone followed.

The descent was quick because the shaft was clear. For the
first five floors, anyway. At the bottom of the shaft, the lift’s passenger car
lay crushed under a daunting pile of twisted beams, fallen supports, and other
debris, blocking the first-floor exit.

The view rotated and Sid saw out into the hallway of the
floor just above the lowest level. The lift doors were nowhere in sight, and the
drone glided into the hallway.

“I’m going to see if the stairs will get you down the last
level,” said Lenny. The drone moved toward the door at the end of the hallway,
and Sid assessed the damage along the way. Even five floors down, cracks in the
floor, gaps in the wall, and sagging ceilings stood in testament to the
overwhelming devastation of the Kardish attack.

The drone reached the end of the hall and approached the
stairwell door. Two more bright flashes produced a gaping hole, and the drone
crept through. As it turned to descend, Sid saw that the stairs to the bottom
were cracked and cluttered with rubble, but they were intact and passable.

Sid now had a pathway to Cheryl, and he didn’t hesitate.
“Position me. I’m going.” He opened the bottom hatch and held on to a wall
mount as the scout centered over the hole. He’d performed plenty of crazy
stunts in his life, and this fell somewhere near the top of the list.

The scout was still completing its maneuvers when he jumped.
The sight of a rock wall flashing by his faceplate less than an arm’s length away
quickened his pulse.

* * *

Criss helped Juice to her feet and
collected their belongings. The first rays of morning sun had just broken the
horizon, and he concluded that enough light filtered through the trees for
Juice to travel safely. He told her about his need for milk and their limited
options for securing more.

“We know they’re at the farmhouse.” She paused and Criss
could see her shiver. “And I fear they’ve destroyed Crystal Research. If
there’s hope, it’ll be at the lodge.” She looked down the path. “Maybe we make
a big loop and go around them.”

Criss looked at the sky and sought to lighten the mood. “It’s
all downhill from here.” He smiled. “Pun intended, by the way.”

She maintained a fixed expression as she tightened the ties
on the thermal blanket.

“This way,” he said, pointing off to the left. They’d no
sooner started when drones flew past, forcing them to hide. Patrols brought the
machines overhead at frequent intervals, making it impossible to travel down
the mountainside as fast as he’d first planned. And Kardish troops, traveling
in groups of twos and threes, thrashed through the woods on what he assumed
were search missions.

As long as we remain vigilant,
thought Criss,
the
Kardish tactics aren’t much of a threat.
But since Criss—constrained by the
synbod—couldn’t detect anything until it was almost upon him, his travel
strategy devolved to scrambling from rock face, to sturdy tree, to the
occasional man-made structure. There he’d wait for a clear path before running
to the next spot.

Being limited to the sensory inputs of Crispin’s body
bordered on the traumatic for Criss. He knew only of things the synbod could
see, hear, smell, and touch. A tremendous portion of his intellectual capacity
sat idle because there wasn’t enough information for him to process or actions
he could take.

Juice tapped him on the shoulder and pointed. “There,” she
whispered.

He followed her finger to see two of the aliens in the
distance, walking downhill and away from them.

I was daydreaming
, he admitted to himself. He’d drifted
off to explore unproductive what-if scenarios.
What if the Kardish are
planting monitoring devices in the woods that I can’t see? What if they’re
waiting for us at the lodge? What if they’re destroying Earth piece by piece
until I surrender?

A drone patrol swooped by to their left. He pulled Juice
close, and together they rotated around a large tree, always keeping it between
them and the death machines. The two had become so practiced at the technique
that his mind drifted again as he waited for the dance to play out.

He’d been leading them on a winding trek that began down the
opposite side of the mountain from the lodge. High up on the hill, it was easy
to walk a path with no discernable pattern, making their final destination
difficult to predict. In the end, though, randomness would become more difficult
as they converged on the lodge. He needed the Kardish off their trail before
then.

They ran to their next destination—more tall trees—and after
a pause for a threat assessment, dashed down into a gulley at the base of a
rock face. Like a wall, the face rose vertically to more than three times their
height. A wooded trail tracked along near the edge of the ridge above them.
They both studied the forest while Criss picked out their next destination.

Voices.
He snapped alert as he strained every sense
to gather information. Since the sounds were on the edge of the synbod’s level
of sensitivity, he suspected Juice couldn’t hear them at all. He looked at her
and raised his index finger to his lips. She gave him a quizzical look as he
reached out and pushed her near the rock face. He pointed to the terrain above
them and repeated the signal for silence.

The voices grew louder. The intruders approached on the
overhead trail from the left and were making no effort at stealth. Criss
recognized the Kardish language and separated the conversation into two male
voices, but he couldn’t tell how many others were present who chose not to
speak. The sounds of footsteps sloshing through dry leaves on the ground
suggested there might be three of them.

Criss and Juice pressed their backs flush against the rock.
Juice held her breath and Criss listened. As they walked by overhead, he heard
one soldier complain about the length of their march, about the stench of the
forest, and about his desire to resupply with fresh provisions.

Criss caught sight of something falling and watched it land
in front of them. It looked like a partially eaten piece of food. He pictured
one of the aliens tossing something over the edge as he walked by.

The sound of their voices faded as they continued their
march along the trail. Juice looked at Criss, waiting for his all-clear sign.
When he nodded, she stepped up to the discarded food, squatted, and examined
it. “I’m really hungry,” she said. She wet her lips with her tongue.

He squatted down next to her.
Bizt
. He heard the
unmistakable sound of a Kardish weapon. The bolt of energy made an impact
crater in the rock wall behind them, and a sprinkle of grit fell on his head
and shoulders.

* * *

The tether line played out above him
as Sid descended into the hole below the lunar surface. The low moon gravity
kept his descent to a modest rate, and he counted on Lucy and Lenny to keep him
centered and away from the sharp rock edges.

Holding on to the line with one hand, he craned his neck and
looked down. The bottom rushed toward him faster than he’d expected. He called
out to Lucy to moderate his descent. “Half speed.” He felt a tug as the slack
tightened. “Quarter speed,” he called as the bottom loomed. Seconds later, he
flexed his knees as Lucy brought him to a smooth stop on top of the mound of
dirt.

He peered through the hole the drone had blasted, then
flopped onto his butt and slid through feet first. Standing in the hall, he
called to Lucy, “Free play.” The tether line drooped loose in his hand. Pulling
the slack behind him, he moved down the hall.

He reached the lift shaft and peered down.

“How’s it look?” asked Lenny.

“Clear.” Sid held on to the door frame and placed one foot
onto a small sill inside the shaft. “Quarter speed, Lucy.” He jumped again.

With Lucy controlling the line, he stopped his descent after
five floors, clambered out the open lift door, and stood in the hallway.
Looking both directions, he unclipped the tether line from his space coveralls
and looped it to a rail near the wall. He looked up and down the corridor.
Nothing moved.

Following the path of the drone, he dashed down the hall,
stepped through the hole in the door, and picked his way down the stairs to the
bottom landing. The stark simplicity of the setting made it easy to find the
door leading to the hallway and Cheryl.

He’d just started across the rubble-strewn floor when he
detected motion off to his left. The drone, hovering in the far corner,
swiveled so its nose pointed right at him. The hair rose on the back of his
neck, and goose bumps flushed his forearms.

“Hey, Len. Why’s the drone drawing a bead on me?”

“That’s me. I’m watching.”

Sid picked his way across the floor. The drone pivoted
slowly to track his progress. With no air in the room to carry sound, it
hovered and turned in silence, adding ominous undertones to its presence.

“It’s creepy as hell.”

He reached the door on the far side of the chamber and,
scanning around the edges, couldn’t see any damage. His inspection stopped when
he saw the security lock.

“This the right door?”

“Yeah. Keep it moving. She’s got enough oxygen in there for
a few minutes.”

Sid turned away from the door and searched the room. He
identified the guard’s station and saw the guard lying on the ground in front
of it. The downed man had a heavy beam crushing his chest, and Sid felt some
small relief because that meant the loss of air from this portion of Lunar Base
hadn’t caused his death.

He stepped over to the guard with the thought of rifling his
pockets to find the security pass key and saw it clipped to his waistband.

“Thanks, mate,” he said with no humor in his voice. With the
key in one hand, he grabbed the fellow’s chair with the other and dragged it
over to the security door. Working as quickly as he could, he unfolded the
sheet material he’d gotten from Lenny.

He stood on the chair and, reaching up, used the tape to
seal one edge of the material above the door. Ducking under the sheet, he taped
an edge down the wall on each side of the door and squatted to complete the
seal by taping the final edge in a strip across the floor.