Page 22 of Crash Landing
I followed the trail deeper until the base camp fell out of view. What were they doing so far away? We gave them specific parameters to abide by. I swore at myself over the fact that I didn’t keep a closer eye on her. She was a magnet for trouble. I should have been more cautious.
I finally hit a small field of colorful flowers that grew in blankets low to the forest floor. It was there that the footsteps started to lead in careful circles. But then they clustered together and the flowers looked sadly crushed inside grinding footprints. My hands curled into fists thinking of the implications. I kept following the tussle until it was clear that they started to run. Then there was another area of disturbed soil and my blood began to boil. I thought I might punch a hole in the nearest tree when I saw an OxyMask on the ground, cracked and discarded.
Crouching, I picked up the mask to find it had no power to it, and one whole side was crushed severely. My lip twitched with anger as I slowly stood, watching more disturbed ground lead to the edge of a hill. I moved toward it, clutching the mask so hard in my hand that I could feel the glass grinding.
If I looked over that ledge and saw Sam’s body, that man was going to die. I knew it in my bones. But I saw nothing. I saw a long incline that ended in a sheer drop. And below that, the river. I could hear the sound of its water even from up in the woods high above.
“Sam!” I called out, my voice carrying loudly through the canyon.
If she was dead, she wouldn’t answer. If she’d been swept away by the river, she wouldn’t answer.
When she didn’t call back, I snarled and started back toward the ship, anger like a fire rising inside me.
I emerged from the trees and made my way toward Sam’s tormentor, helmetless and without a care about who saw my enraged expression. My skin had changed from a light fuchsia to a burning red within moments. Everyone backed away, surrendering the lead researcher to me as I zeroed in on him.
I could have so easily reached out and twisted his neck hard enough to break him, but I was a controlled monster. For the moment.
I threw the mask down at his feet and showed him my teeth with a low growl, sharp canines out for him to see.
“Puro,” I demanded. “Take him into custody.”
Without asking, I ripped the man’s mask off his face as Puro stepped up behind him to pin his arms in place.
“Hey!” he griped.
I quickly turned the mask over to see the inside of the glass where data was displayed for the wearer. Quickly, I tried to access the memory feed to find that the past two hours hadbeen erased from the mask’s storage. My nostrils flared with disappointment as I handed the mask off to Keril.
“Memory’s gone,” I said in our tongue, careless that the humans couldn’t understand us.
“Where is the girl?” Keril asked.
“Out there somewhere.” I marched onto the ship and quickly slapped my hand to a lock panel. As soon as it read my authorization, a compartment slid open full of emergency supplies. “I’m going out to get her. Take the humans to the Nexus and get them processed. The trip is over.” He nodded and immediately headed for the pilot chair to take my place. “Puro, lock the man up and make sure you report the reason. He put a fellow human researcher in danger and therefore put everyone in danger. This doesn’t bode well for future expeditions. Make sure the humans know that.”
I tossed a pack over my shoulder full of things I might need for my venture into Phesah’s wilderness and added a thigh holster with a pistol, a commlink, and a blade hilt. As I returned to the ramp, Ilisa caught me by my arm.
“Take this,” she said, handing me a white tube full of emergency medical supplies. I nodded and took the tube as I descended the ramp. “You sure you got this?”
“I know Phesah pretty well.”
“We could send a team after we’ve got everyone back on the Nexus.”
I shook my head. “Send a team to get us both once you take care of the humans. But she won’t survive out there alone for very long, especially if she’s hurt, and you know it.”
She nodded and turned back to wrangle the interns as they talked quietly amongst themselves. No one knew quite what was happening since none of them spoke our language, but they knew the tension was high.
Damn humans. It was a great privilege to explore one of our planetary moons and they squandered it. Or at least one did and now I was venturing off into the wilderness to find the one he’d endangered most. At night.
Phesah was a mostly docile environment, but it had its dangers in certain parts. We’d chosen a high elevation to make camp where wildlife wasn’t as prominent, but there was no telling where Sam had been dragged by the river.
I only hoped my search didn’t lead me to a body.
9: Sam
I was fast asleep, being rocked back and forth by something cold and wet. Slowly, I pried my eyes open to see orange skies above me. Orange, alien skies. And I was soaked to the bone and without a mask.
Everything came back to me in a painful rush of memories from Mr. Hemburg leading me into the woods to the point that he wrestled me for my mask and I fell down that hill. I didn’t know how long I’d been drifting in the river, but it was daytime now. I tried desperately to remember what I read about the moon in my speedy study of it on the ride over. Specifically, the difference in day and night cycles on Phesah compared to Earth. Roughly, a day on Phesah was about eight hours Earth time. But I wasn’t even sure which direction I’d drifted or if I’d stopped drifting before the eclipse faded. I was completely discombobulated.
Pushing myself to my feet, I looked around at my foreign surroundings to find myself standing on an island in the middle of the river’s fork. The island was rocky with nothing but a few dead branches stretching into the water. Glancing at my shoulder where a three-inch tear ripped my suit’s seam open, I thought maybe I’d caught one while I was drifting and it landed me on the island. Which meant that I had a thirty-foot river to cross if I wanted to get to the bank.
