Текст книги "Arrival"

Автор книги: A.G. Wilde

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

ADIRA

I walk toward the door before any of the males can protest because I can feel it on the tips of their tongues that they are about to tell me no.

That I should stay in the safety of Fer’ro’s quarters.

That I should sit back and watch how this plays out.

No.

I refuse to.

I had family.

Friends.

A life.

Lived on a beautiful planet I took for granted.

That’s all gone now because of those bastards walking the surface, destroying everything.

The door slides open as soon as my ba’clan interact with it and I step into the corridor.

It is dim, as it was when I first entered the ship, and it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust.

I head in one direction without knowing where I am going.

I’ll find the bridge somehow.

I want to see this thing.

I don’t know where this bravery is coming from. I don’t know if it’s the now constant, comforting pulse of the ba’clan against my skin, but I feel the most empowered that I’ve felt since this whole ordeal began.

I feel like I have the chance to fight this thing.

Footsteps sound behind me, almost silent, and I know the three males follow.

I am in the lead and as we come upon a set of Vullan, they stop in their tracks and stand to the side as we pass.

My heart flutters in my chest.

I can feel their eyes on me.

The question in their gazes.

The only thing I wear are the ba’clan and I get now what Fer’ro said about them.

They feel like they are a part of me—an extension of myself.

As if I can now do things I couldn’t before.

We are coming up on an intersection of corridors and my steps falter.

“Left,” Fer’ro says.

I jerk my chin in a nod and continue in the direction he indicated.

We pass more Vullan.

More confused stares.

No one says a thing.

Or, if they do speak, I cannot hear.

It’s not long before I come upon a flat black wall.

It looks like a dead end.

Fer’ro finally steps forward. His hand hovers above the wall as he looks down at me.

Our gazes lock and I have to swallow hard.

There’s a lot we need to talk about and as his gaze slips over my face to fall on my lips, images of him between my legs spring up like a jack-in-the-box.

I have to pull my gaze away.

I can’t think about that now.

Especially since I now know they can smell my arousal.

I’m a vet. Was a vet.

Such an idea isn’t alien to me…or strange…

Lots of animals are scent-based.

It’s just that…such a small difference between us highlights that these beings, the Vullan, are nothing like us humans.

An opening materializes and like a bell rang, everyone on the bridge turns to look our way.

It’s a vast room with a flat black control panel at the front.

Dim lights string the roof and the walls.

There is a wide viewing screen at the front and a single seat in the center on a raised level above the controls.

But even though the room is amazing, I find myself meeting the gazes of the Vullan there.

Their ba’clan had been rising before we entered but as soon as we step into the room, each and every one of them lower their blades, their eyes on me.

My heart thumps against my chest.

It is clear to me now that I am an anomaly. Me and the ba’clan that coat me are not normal.

But that is something we have to focus on at another time, for straight ahead, through the fog of cloud cover the ship floats between, I see the terror that landed on planet Earth and seeks to destroy it.

I take one step forward, and then another.

The Vullan move out of my way.

I hear clicks in their throat. Hums. Thrums. But none of them stop me.

I keep walking till I’m in front of the dark control panel, my gaze ahead of us.

The Scrit is steadily making its way toward us, its huge metal legs lifting and falling, crushing everything beneath it.

I sense Fer’ro at my side. I don’t need to look. I know it is him.

“So,” I continue to stare forward, “how do we catch this thing?”

No one has any idea.

No one says a word until He’rox comes to stand at my other side.

“There’s only one way I can think of,” he says. “One way to capture a living Gryken while still keeping our presence here a secret.”

I glance up and the blue-eyed Vullan is looking down at me.

By my side, Fer’ro hisses low.

“No,” he says.

He’rox doesn’t lift his gaze from mine. “There is only one way,” he repeats.

I get the sense that he is saying I’m the only way. But I have no idea how I can take down that huge machine.

Nothing we ever tried had been capable of doing it.

I didn’t even know the machines could be destroyed till the Vullan came. They know that right?

I lick my lips even as Fer’ro’s hiss becomes louder beside me.

“I guess that involves me, right?”

Well, I’d said I wanted to help.

That wasn’t a lie.

I turn my gaze back to the Scrit as it walks in the distance.

There’s not a lot of time to think about this. I’m either going to do something or not.

As I turn my gaze back to He’rox, I steel myself against whatever he is going to say.

Whatever I have to do, I will do it.

The moment I look at him, I know he understands my will.

His hands appear from behind his back as if he’d been hiding something there all along.

Two small balls of swirling blue and white light.

I swallow hard as I look at them.

“What are those?”

“The key,” he says.

“And you,” he continues, “you are the deliverer.”

I stare at him, his words settling in my mind as I try to understand exactly what he’s getting at.

Meanwhile, behind me, a large shadow is looming.

Fer’ro.

He leans over me, his snarl directed at He’rox. “You have got to be rekking insane.”

He’rox looks back out of the view screen, his gaze landing on the Scrit.

“It is the only way. How else will we prevent it from knowing we are here?”

I gulp as I watch the thing approaching.

There is so much tension in the room, I can feel it all around me.

“What do you want me to do?”

FER’RO

This is a stupid, stupid, stupid idea.

I clench my jaw as I watch Adee’ra walk forward through the rocky terrain.

I am camouflaged, hidden against one of the large boulders and so are some of my brethren.

She is bare.

Barefoot.

Vulnerable as she walks toward the towering monstrosity that is the Gryken vessel.

I clench my fist as I watch her move bravely forward. I clench it so hard, the rock cracks underneath my hand.

Her hands are behind her, holding the two things, the energy bombs, that we hope can take down the Scrit without destroying it completely.

For we need its pilot alive.

And that is the only reason Adee’ra is heading toward it.

She shivers and glances back, her hair blowing in the wind.

She is looking directly at me but I know she cannot see me.

My ba’clan have taken the form of my surroundings.

I am invisible.

I see the fear in her eyes, I can smell it, yet she continues to walk forward.

For herself.

For her people.

For us.

If this goes wrong…

The thought almost makes me shift from my position to go after her.

This was a stupid idea.

I should never have agreed to it.

But a hand on my arm stops me.

Ga’Var.

He clicks low in his throat. “Wait.”

Wait?

Wait?!

Wait while I watch the one good thing I’ve found in all this chaos to sacrifice herself?

But Adee’ra’s spine is straight and her fear scent is disappearing.

The Scrit is almost above us and I sense the moment it spots her.

My ba’clan writhe in agitation, almost losing their camouflage.

There is a moment when the air stills, and all I can see is Adee’ra. Her small, pale frame stands out against the brown of her planet.

She looks up at our enemy with a fierceness that makes my brethren thrum low in battle song.

I sense her strength and for a moment I want to believe in it.

That this stupid, stupid plan will work.

But then the Scrit sounds.

The air vibrates around us as its leg descends and grabs her.

There is a high-pitched scream as Adee’ra is lifted into the air and for a long second, my world begins to crumble once more before my eyes.

The Scrit brings her toward itself and she is suddenly facing the dome.

A single small being against the monster.

Adee’ra stares at it, and I don’t need to smell her fear. I can feel it.

My blood organ lurches in my chest.

I do not hear it till seconds later.

My name in the wind.

As if she can sense my growing anxiety. The fact that everything within me wants to disclose our location, our presence, to come and take her from the enemy’s grasp.

“Fer’ro!” Adee’ra shouts my name. “Wait!”

She knows me better than I assume.

Ga’Var’s hand tightens on my arm as we watch the Scrit deposit her within its belly.

Immediately, I know this is a mistake. I should have taken her place.

But no Vullan can trick a Gryken into thinking they are human.

Our life signatures are different.

As soon as the Gryken spotted me, it would have known we are here and everything we have worked for so far, all our plans, everything would have been in vain.

So I watch my soul tie being deposited into the belly of the beast and somehow I keep myself from rushing to her.

I watch as she falls within it, feel my ba’clan stretch and pull against me, trying to get to her.

To help her.

Restraint, I tell myself. Restraint!

Just a few more seconds…

Adee’ra will enact the plan. She will detonate the energy bombs. And then I can go and get her.

Just a few more seconds…

But nothing happens.

The huge leg of the Scrit slams down around us.

Something is wrong.

That’s when I see it fall through the sky.

Like the signal that my world is indeed ending…

Realization hits.

The bomb.

The energy bomb is falling.

It must have slipped from Adee’ra’s grasp when the Scrit lifted her.

As another of its legs slam down around us, my pupils widen in horror.

The energy bomb fell from her grasp!

It was the only weapon we have that was small enough to get on board undetected.

The only thing we had to attack it with.

The one thing this whole plan rested on.

“Rek,” GaVar curses beside me.

I don’t think.

I act.

Symbiotes still cloaking me, I launch myself at the next leg that comes forward.

Rek the plan.

I am going after her.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

ADIRA

I feel one of the bombs slip from my fingers the moment the Scrit lifts me.

Now I only have one.

Fear shoots up my spine as the Scrit drops me within itself and I fall on the hard metallic floor.

Pain is the next thing I feel. It shoots right through me and I grit my teeth against it.

Stay. Don’t move.

I have to use everything within me to tell the ba’clan to stay calm along the column of my spine.

If they rush to help me now, our cover will be blown and everyone is counting on me to do this.

To take this thing down from the inside.

But I only have one bomb.

Convincing Fer’ro to let me get this close to the thing had been hard enough.

The whole time, I was sure he wouldn’t let me off the ship.

But by some miracle, he did—on the basis that as soon as the Scrit drops me into its belly, I activate the bombs.

I grip the last one in my palm and lift my head to look around me.

Three women are huddled together, their faces drawn as they stare at me, hopelessness in their gazes.

My gaze flicks around the space and a horrible feeling develops in my belly.

I hate this place.

I hate it so much.

My stomach turns at the fact that I am once again within the belly of a machine.

But not for long.

I have to find a way to take it down.

The Vullan on the ground are counting on me.

We need this motherfucker alive and the only way to do it is to take down the Scrit without killing its pilot.

Fuck.

As I rise onto my knees, I look at the women.

None of them speak and I can see images of me, Sam, and Mina right before me. Three of us, like it is three of them.

Poor Sam. If something happens to me, she won’t even know it wasn’t the Vullan’s fault.

I’d had no time to find her and explain before He’rox came up with this reckless plan and I agreed to it.

“Where’s the pregnant one?” I ask and one of the females stares at me like she’s seen a ghost before she looks away. But not before I see the tears that brim in her eyes.

Her mouth quivers a little as she replies. “It took her a day or two ago.”

Two days.

It should want to breed someone else pretty soon.

Incubate its seed.

Wait for it to grow.

I bite my bottom lip as I scramble to the wall of the Scrit and look down.

All I can see is mud and dirt.

I can’t see the Vullan who are hiding among the rocks.

I can’t see Fer’ro.

Fuck.

I need to tell them I lost one of the bombs.

Signal to them somehow.

Shit.

I was feeling much braver when I had both of them.

According to the white Vullan, if I slam both charges against the Gryken vessel, they will create some sort of charge powerful to affect the Scrit and the Gryken within it.

I don’t know how he knows this. I didn’t ask.

But it is obvious the little bombs are something he invented.

The way he’d held them…the precise instructions he’d given me…

With both bombs, the charge would be enough to temporarily take the Scrit down and then the Vullan could make their move.

They could extract the Gryken. Put it in a sealed chamber. Take it back to the ship.

Disable it somehow.

But the plan is already failing.

My bravery is about to be for nothing, because one energy bomb cannot penetrate the Scrit enough to take it down.

At least, not from where I am.

He’rox had said I’d need both charges to create an energy bomb large enough to penetrate deep into the Scrit.

If I only have one…

My heart thumps hard, like a drum in the middle of a deep cavern. It echoes right through me.

I know what I have to do.

I need to get into the control room.

I need to get closer to the Gryken.

“Fuck!”

I slam my fist against the barrier to the outside as a lump forms in my throat.

“This is dangerous…” The words leave my mouth as a whisper that I think only I can hear. “Adira…you’re going fucking insane.”

I slam my fist against the barrier again as a groan of frustration leaves me.

I can’t believe I’m considering this.

“I know,” one of the women says. “It’s a lot to take in. Just…don’t fight it and don’t appear so…alive. It might take you.”

My head snaps around and I look at her.

“What?”

“Don’t fight it. It’s inevitable once you are taken. We just have to pray that death isn’t painful.”

“No, what did you say after that?” I turn toward her and note that her gaze slips down my nakedness.

I don’t even care.

“What did you say about appearing alive?”

She looks away from me and swallows hard.

“We notice it…takes those who fight. It’s the only reason we haven’t been taken yet. We do not hardly move. But…” her eyes tear up, “maybe our luck’s about to run out. It hasn’t been finding many females lately.”

Her gaze finds me again and I see a thread of suspicion. “I’m surprised it found you all the way out here.”

Her gaze moves over me her confusion and suspicion growing but I’m caught in the grasp of my own tangled web of thoughts.

“It takes those who fight?” I whisper.

The woman gulps and nods slightly.

“It takes those who fight.” I repeat the words as a plan hatches in my mind.

I’m standing now, my gaze travelling over the roof of the chamber.

Across from where the women sit, across the barrier, there is the usual tangle of vines.

I do not know if any Feeders are alive over there. I doubt it.

But my plan wouldn’t have included them anyway.

I don’t have much time left.

Fer’ro and the others must have realized something is wrong by now since the Scrit is continuing on its way.

I have to try and do something now before they blow their cover.

The entire human race depends on me.

This is pressure that I do not need…but I’m used to pressure.

“Back before you came, I was a doctor.” I speak loudly as I stand tall.

The sway of the Scrit does not even affect me. “I know pressure. I’ve dealt with pressure.” I’m not sure who I’m talking to, but hearing the words come from my mouth strengthens me somehow. “I wrestled a pet anaconda once.” I speak louder. “I snipped tiny rabbit bits!”

Pressure? This is no pressure.

I take a deep breath and feel the small energy bomb in my hand.

It’s about the size of a golf ball and warm.

I squeeze it as I look at the roof of the chamber and…I roar.

The sound echoes against the walls, bouncing back and forth, hurting even my ears, and I hardly note the alarm that spreads over the women’s faces.

I throw my head back and roar again.

But the Scrit walks as if nothing is happening within it.

I have to do more.

Something!

Taking a few steps back until my back touches the barrier to the outside, I take a breath and charge forward to land a kick on the other side of the compartment.

“Do something!” I kick the wall again before slamming my fist into the metal.

“I said do something! Do something you fucking asshole!”

My shouts echo as my labored breathing floods my ears.

Someone grabs one of my legs. The woman I spoke to. Her wide eyes are on me, terror etched in her features.

“What are you doing?! ARE YOU INSANE?!”

“She’s going to get herself killed,” one of the others says.

“She’s going to get us all killed!”

I shrug out of the woman’s grasp and rain a few more kicks into the wall.

“Am I alive enough for you?! Huh?!” I scream at the Gryken I now know is listening. “You might have taken everything I have, but I’m not dead yet! What are you waiting for you ugly motherfucker?!”

At the center of my back, my ba’clan pulse, and fear hits me like a brick.

The ba’clan continue pulsing and for a moment, I lose the fight within me.

This fear I’m feeling…it’s not my own.

It does not belong to me. It feels…secondary…like contracting the emotions of someone you empathize with.

My eyes widen as it hits me.

The ba’clan are pulsing so hard now, I have no doubt about it.

Fer’ro.

This is Fer’ro’s fear.

I don’t know how I know it comes from him but it’s as if I can see him in my mind.

Feel him.

But he’s on the ground out there somewhere, depending on me.

I have to make this work somehow.

“I know you are watching me!” I scream again. “I know you can hear me! I know what you are and I know why you’re here!” I turn in a half-circle as my gaze searches the roof of the compartment. “You came here and destroyed everything. Everything! You’ve taken everything from me.” I choke on those words.

It’s taken everything except my hope that we can survive this.

Before, I had nothing.

I have Fer’ro by my side now.

“Why don’t you finish the job you slimy piece of shit!” I slam my fists against the wall one more time. “Finish the job!”

Time stills as I hear a whirr above me.

My heart stops then slams against my chest as a hole in the top of the chamber opens and I see the long, all-too-familiar metal arm descend.

One of the women behind me screams and I hear them shuffle away, but I stand with my back straight, staring at the thing.

The ba’clan against my back bristle hard, as if they too are trying to get away, but somehow, I manage to stand and face the thing.

“Do it,” I say. “Take me.”

For the first time ever, I see the arm pause.

It doesn’t move to grab me immediately and fear creeps through my bones.

What if it knows?

What if it knows this is all a trap? That I’m attempting something incredibly dangerous but something that might take it down?

What if it can sense the ba’clan against my spine?

But the arm starts moving again and grasps me around the neck.

I don’t even flinch, even though my skin is crawling and every fiber of my being wants me to scream and fight.

This is a bad idea.

This is a bad, bad idea.

But I can’t turn back now.

I can’t back down.

This all depends on me.

The metal arm lifts me as the screams of the other women echo in the chamber and I swallow my fear.

I’m not fighting the claw.

I’m going willingly as my hand closes tighter over the last bomb in my hand.

I don’t know what’s on the other side of this hole.

I dread what the machine wants to do to me.

But I will survive.

I have to.

Chapter Thirty

ADIRA

It’s dark where it takes me.

The hole, the tunnel the arm snakes through, seems to go on forever, but I know it can’t be that long.

But time is distorted as I move. Wrapped in terror. My own fear.

I clutch on to the claw as it pulls me forward, dimly aware that before me, there is light.

It’s dim, but enough for me to see.

It illuminates the entrance of the tunnel and the thin, clear plastic covering that seals it.

But as the arm snakes through the seal, I realize it’s not plastic at all.

It’s like thin goo.

It coats my skin as the claw pulls me through the tunnel and then…

I don’t get the chance to take a breath before I’m pulled into the water.

Water.

The entire chamber is filled with it.

I. Can’t. Breathe.

The claw releases me abruptly and snakes away somewhere, but I don’t care to watch it go.

My first instinct is to find air.

My arms flash out as I try to swim upward, but even as my body rises, fear fills my soul.

I don’t think there is a surface.

It’s clear, the water. So clear that a part of my mind realizes the dim light is actually coming from outside the Scrit.

There are lights dotting the interior too but they don’t look artificial.

They look like some form of bioluminescent plant life.

I push through the water upward. I need to reach the top. Hope there is an air pocket there. But as I move, something floats by me that stops my heart.

It’s encased in a thick membrane of what looks like the same goo that seals the entrance of the chamber.

A body.

Female.

Her belly is swollen. Movement within it.

My heart slams against my ribcage.

The other woman.

It’s the other woman.

I thought she’d be dead—I’m not sure she is alive.

There are things attached to her and I realize she’s not free-floating at all.

She’s hooked to the wall by some fleshy tendons that sway gently in the water around them.

Fear shoots up my spine and I try to move backward as I focus on where the tendons stem from.

I’m sure I’ll see the Gryken materialize there in the shadows but I am wrong.

Sudden movement comes from my right and there is no time to react.

Something thin and slimy wraps around my neck and I open my mouth in a scream.

Tentacles.

Instead of sound, all that escapes my mouth is the air my lungs desperately needs.

The bubbles float upward as I grab on to the tentacle with my free hand, but it’s incredibly strong.

And slimy.

My hand moves over it, catching no grip.

All I feel are several joints underneath the flesh of the long arm.

The Gryken.

I know it’s the monster even before its face appears before me.

Large dark eyes, bulbous in their sockets face me, and for a moment, I see death.

I forget about breathing.

I forget about life.

All I can see is this horror before me.

More of its tentacles appear behind it, fanning out into what looks like an arch of doom.

This is what hell’s gates look like.

As I grab at it, trying to find purchase, it pushes me downward.

It is strong. Stronger than it looks.

And this is its element.

More air bubbles escape my lips as we struggle.

There’s a pulsing in my head now as I’m pushed downward, as we stare at each other.

Me into the alien’s eyes. The Gryken into mine.

And then…

“You.”

In my mind I hear the word.

Like a thought.

A thought that isn’t my own.

The voice is like the hiss in my mind—one that frazzles my neurons and makes my head throb.

My eyes widen as I realize it is the Gryken speaking to me.

The pulsing in my mind doesn’t stop, and I feel my limbs going weak.

I sink, lower to the base of the chamber with the Gryken still holding on to me.

Distantly, I know my lungs are burning, but even if I want to breathe, I cannot.

I am…losing control of my body…of myself.

I’m losing control of my mind.

But I have to do this.

I cannot fail.

With the last energy left within me, I stop fighting against the arm around my neck and focus that energy toward the wall.

I push toward it, hoping the water will aid me.

We’ve sunken so low, we’re close enough for that last burst of energy to take me where I want to be.

There’s a singular moment where I know I’m going to be successful.

I meet the eyes of the Gryken.

Fuck.

You.

My arm connects with the wall and the bomb in my hand fastens to it. At the same time, there’s a surge of heat against my spine.

For a moment, the Gryken’s hold loosens a bit.

There’s a flash of clarity as I feel the warmth spread across my entire being.

Cloaking me.

The ba’clan.

I can no longer feel the water on my skin and the pulsing in my mind dims.

I can only feel them.

It is different from every other time they’ve been on my skin.

This time, I can feel their energy, and they pulse. They pulse against me as if to tell me it’s going to be all right.

Any moment now.

This has got to work.

My lungs are about to expire, but I fold my legs toward my body before pushing outward with a kick that lands in the fleshy body of the Gryken.

A hiss sounds in my head so loud that it feels like my brain cells are frying.

The Gryken releases me suddenly, just as the chamber lights up.

An energy charge so strong it’s like lightning through the water fills up the space.

I see the Gryken before me clearly.

Its body jerks within the water, its tentacles constricting, twisting, and turning as the charge goes through it.

I don’t have time to think. I push off the wall back toward that tunnel with the membrane over it.

But I don’t manage to get there.

The room turns in an awful semicircle and the hole is suddenly on top.

Gravity feels like it is pulling me down as I fight against it to swim upward.

But I’m hardly moving.

It feels like there is something pulling me back.

Because there is.

Behind me, a tentacle is wrapped around my leg.

The Gryken.

It isn’t dead.

But I knew it wouldn’t be.

The whole point of this is to capture it alive!

But there’s just one problem with that.

It’s not letting me leave here.

It’s taking me down with it.