Chapter 7: Bright Night

“Hey!” shouted Dylan.  “Guys!  They’re attacking!”

I leapt up from my sitting position, fumbled at the ties on the door, tore a bunch opening it, and jumped out of the tent flaps to see Dylan waving his sword at three of the green skin humanoids.

One raised his sword high up to cleave down on him.  Pulling the whip off my belt, I wheeled it around my head and snapped it around that trog’s hand, then yanked.

It pulled his arm toward me, then the beast snarled, grabbed my whip and pulled me toward him.  Two more came barreling out of the woods nearby.  I let go of the handle, fell to my face, rolling over as quickly as possible and grabbing at my sword.  The nearest one kicked me in the ribs, then swung his sword down at me.

A burst of light flared up around Marci’s body, raced down her arm and into my attacker with her touch.  He went stiff, twitching, then fell face first into Marci, pushing her down and covering her body.

His friend turned toward Marci’s prone body, about to plunge his sword into her chest.  Suddenly his head snapped left, blood welling out of his hair and he staggered back a step.  Marci kicked his knee, and the trog fell over.  He lay there, eyes open, limbs twitching, and lips moving but no words coming from them.

Looking over, Tak was reloading his sling.  His eyes looked above me as he shouted, “Watch out, River!”

A sword came rushing down to my head.  I rolled sideways, swinging my own and catching his armored shins.  It hardly bothered the beast, and he stabbed downward with the blade, hitting into my ribcage but the armor stopped it from piercing.

Behind him and impossibly high, a white, blinding sphere suddenly expanded.  Then another some distance away, another and another.  The sky lit up brighter than daytime.  I covered my eyes and still it was bright.

“Oh my god,” said Marci.

As the glare lessoned, I carefully looked.  Up above the sky, sphere after sphere were expanding, fading to light blue.  My voice hesitated, “Are those . . . ?”

“Nuclear explosions.  Yeah.”

The troglodytes barked at each other in their own language and bolted.  The rest of us were simply staring at the sky, unsure of what to do.

“Guys?  Guys!” shouted Avery.  She was kneeling, cradling Takao in her arms.  His shirt was soaked with blood all over his stomach, down his pants.

Standing, I raced into the tent, grabbed my pack, then ran toward them, fishing inside for a potion.  Finding it, I put it to his lips, “Here, drink this.”

“We tried that,” said Ave.  “Not helping.”

Tak coughed up blood.

“Maybe poison,” said Fred.

Marci said from behind me, “It’s the . . . those are EMPs.  The Victoria is trying to knock out the nanotech.”

“Fuck!” I said.  “Push down on his wound, Ave.  Marci, get some bandages and water.”  I tore his shirt apart.  Under his ribcage and across his abdomen, a jagged tear from ribs to belly, dumping out blood at an alarming rate.  His aorta had most likely been severed.

Tak grabbed my arm, squeezed lightly, went limp.

“Here, cloths!”

I put them on his wound, pressing against it, and could feel the blood pumping less and less until it stopped.  There was nothing I could do, we needed a full emergency ward for this.  And I wasn’t an MD.  I stared at him without thinking.  Unconscious, dying and soon dead.

“There’s a ship coming down.  No, sorry.  It’s a container, parachuting.”  Bent’s voice.

My hands were soaked in thick blood.  “What?”

Avery asked, “Why didn’t the potion work?”

I looked up from Tak to her, not quite understanding why she’d ask that.  It was obvious.  The nanotech had been destroyed by the pulses from the warheads.

Dylan said, “I see a couple containers – their beacons flashing.  Parachuting down.  I wonder why they didn’t send a lander to get us off the planet.”

Takao’s chest had stopped moving.  I felt like I should shut his eyes, but I just kept pressing against him, against the blood.  It was still warm.

“Hey,” Marci slowly took my hands off Tak’s body, wiped them a bit and let the cloth fall.  “We’re going to stand now.  On three.  Ready?  One, two, three.”  We stood up, and she gently pulled me over to the tent.  “I’m going to wash your hands now.  Ok?”  She let go.

I left my arms in place out and away from my body, staring at nothing in particular.  Marci dumped water over the new rags, returned, and began wiping the blood off.  Backside, palms, then finger by finger.

“Sorry.  Sorry,” I said.

“You have . . . you have nothing to be sorry about.”  Even saying that to comfort me, her blue eyes filled with tears, one trailing down her face.  “There was nothing you could do.”

Shaking my head, blinking, the world coming back into focus, I said, “Jesus.”  Took the cloth from her, roughly wiping the remaining blood off my fingers.  “They knocked out the nanotech but didn’t send a craft for us.  That means . . .”

“Yeah.  We’re contaminated.  At least, they think so.  I wonder how long till the nanobots rebuild enough to restart this environment?”

Staring at the torn and trampled ground, Tak’s body in my peripheral, “Not soon enough.”

***

I’d gotten myself together, gotten over the shock.  Or pushed it aside, pushed it way down.  Damn.  I never imagined I’d become leader, never wanted to, but it happened.  Looking around at the team, I raised my voice, “Everyone.  Our priority is to get to and acquire those containers.  The Victoria went to great lengths to deliver those to us.  We need to get there before the nanobots multiply enough to restart the environment.”

The villager stepped forward, waving his arms toward the forest, “What about the troglodytes?  You agreed to clear them out!”

“It’ll have to wait.”

“But we know they’re close now!  If we go searching for these boxes or whatever they are, we could lose their trail.”

“Lane,” I said, “I’m sorry.  Our top priority is our own mission.  We’ll return to this one after investigating the boxes.”

“Where did they come from?  Who threw those boxes into the sky?”  He walked right up to me, face so close to my own, I could smell his breath, “If you have magic so powerful as to light up the night’s sky, you must kill the troglodytes!”

“Please, Lane, I can’t answer anymore of your questions.”  I backed away and turned to the others, “We’ll leave the tents here.”

Standing over our fallen leader, Ave asked, “What about Takao’s body?”

My shoulders slumped.  “We’ll, ah, we’ll bury him when we get back.”

The green barbarian crossed her arms.  “No.  Something will eat him.  Those troglodytes eat people, remember?”

“Yeah.  Right.  I’m worried about whatever they sent us.  Others must have seen the drops.  We have to get to them as fast as possible.  Before anyone else can.  Either we split up or bring him with us.”

Still staring at the sky, Fred said, “All of us digging can probably excavate a grave pretty quickly.  And nothing and no one can open those boxes, except us.”

“Are you sure?” asked Dylan.

Fred continued scanning the sky, “Yes.”

Bent walked over to Dylan, saying, “We saw enormous monsters roaming the planet from the Victoria.  And we don’t know the full extent of how magic works.”

Fred snorted.  “Magic.”

“Yeah, Fred, I guess so.  Sure.  We can use their,” I gestured at the dead green guys we’d killed, “swords.”

“No,” Marci shook her head, “we can’t.”

Fred stepped forward and took one off the ground.  Its edges were full of cuts, almost to the point of being serrated, “We can damage their cheap swords, it doesn’t matter.”

“That’s not it.”  She rested her gaze upon me, “We don’t know how much time we have.  The nanotech is multiplying and rallying even now.  We just can’t see it.”

“Na-no-tech?” asked the villager.

“Shit, she’s right.  Let’s, uh, take him with us.  Fred, Ave, grab his sleeping pack, tie it to a couple-”

“Yeah.  We got this.”  Fred headed into Takao’s tent, Ave squatted down near the body, closed Tak’s eyes, then folded each arm across his chest.

Looking away, I said to Marci, “How long do you think we have?”

“I don’t know.  There’s no way to know without analyzing them and their programming.  I wish I had a watch.  We could time how long it takes to repopulate the continent.  Planet if the Victoria nuked the entire orbital sphere.”

“Speaking of that,” said Dylan, holding his left arm, blood on his fingers, “what happened to planetary defense systems?  Their satellites?”

Bent carefully touched Dylan’s arm.  “Let me have a look.  We’d better wash this wound before we get going.

“Good idea, Bent.  Uh, Dylan, all that would have been in Tak’s briefing.  If the defense systems were operating, the Victoria either overrode or neutralized them.  But I don’t think they were working.  We didn’t have any issues upon entering orbit.”

The mage carefully pushed back Dylan’s sleeve, saying, “The defense grid would have recognized the destroyer.  Probably the Victoria assumed command immediately, especially if this planet’s systems were down.  Worst case scenario, the nanotech is controlling Eridani’s defense grid.  I’d bet against that, though, since the Victoria hasn’t been attacked.”

“That makes sense, but it doesn’t matter, either way.  At least, not to our mission.”  I took a deep breath, laid out our path.  “Our first priority is getting those crates.  They’ll have left a message for us, provisions.  Maybe a way to get us off this rock.  Or updated mission parameters.”

“Yes, Boss,” said Fred.

Ave joined his sentiment, “Yes, Boss.”

Bent nodded, then Dylan.

Lane spit on the ground.  “Those trogs are going to look for easier prey.  If we don’t chase them, we are responsible for their victim’s.”

“I’m sorry, Lane.  We don’t have a choice.”

Marci placed her hand on my chest, asking softly so no one else heard, “And you, River, you ok?”

“No.  I mean, physically, yeah.”  Looking at the ground, “I just didn’t . . . Tak was our leader.  I’m not.”

“We’ll get through this.  And you’re doing good so far.”

I squeezed her hand, then looked up at the night sky.  “Hell of a time to take out the nanotech.”