Chapter 9 Dottie
“Hey, look! Another flower from your not-so-secret admirer.” Janice plucked the bloom off the door.
It was stuck on the inside of the room just above the door handle, which meant Ror’k had opened the door to place his gift last night, just like all the previous times.
If he hadn’t been a Xarc’n hunter with barely sufficient working knowledge of human culture, my friend and I would have been a little creeped out.
But Janice thought it was delightfully endearing that my purple stalker was leaving me gifts in the morning.
I took it from her and placed it in the vase next to the flower I’d gotten a few days ago.
It had been a whole week since the storage room incident, and Ror’k and I went back to our game of cat and mouse, or at least we tried to. Now that I was actually looking forward to it, the entire freakin’ settlement seemed to be conspiring to keep us apart.
We’d get as far as the whole making eyes at each other from across the room part, but the moment Ror’k even thought about taking a step toward me, something always intervened, whether it be a hunter needing his expertise or someone asking about the upcoming Easter luncheon.
He was even swarmed by Mr. Chan’s entire class once, demanding their promised question and answer session.
He started leaving little gifts for me at night when I was asleep, things like single flowers and individually wrapped chocolates.
And while it made me giddy to wake up to his presents, a part of me wished he’d come in and carry me away instead.
It continued for four nights and then stopped.
I wondered if he’d been waiting for me to make a move and had given up, but I didn’t see him around either.
It turned out that he was helping out with an emergency with another hunter group.
He must be back now.
With my gift safely put away, Janice and I continued down to the cafeteria. She wasn’t on duty today, but she still snuck some breakfast burritos out for us so we didn’t need to stand in line.
“Please keep all electronics and weapons on your body or locked up in a safe location at all times until further notice,” Melissa’s voice said through the building’s PA system.
She was Roger’s wife, and after he’d sworn one too many times through the PA in the early days, she’d taken over the daily announcements.
“Remember, today is the first day of spring planting, so check the foyer for your assigned time and let’s get those seedlings in the ground! ”
I shook my head as I took another bite out of my breakfast burrito.
How the hell did Melissa sound so awake and cheery this early in the morning?
Since I usually took the second shift at the library, it meant I rarely had to wake up super early for the morning shift.
I just wasn’t a morning person. Luckily, the library had no shortage of librarians happy to do the morning shift, like Cecilia and Gordon.
I’d insisted everyone worked their shifts in pairs since the break-in.
It hadn’t just been our books that had gone missing that day, but a bunch of electronic devices, medical supplies, and the worst thing of all? Seeds. Dozens and dozens of packets of seeds we’d been meticulously saving from previous years.
It wouldn’t really affect us right away, since our seedlings were up and ready to go into the ground.
In fact, today was the first planting day of many, and everyone was taking turns and putting aside their normal tasks to help out.
But those seeds were our backups! And what about the fall planting?
“I can’t believe they even broke into the church.”
Janice and I sat in front of the window in the cafeteria, looking out at the still-dark sky.
“I can’t believe it either. It’s not like we have a tithe box. They didn’t take anything, so I wonder what they were looking for. It was clear what they were after in the library and the first aid station.”
“I heard they have guards at every building’s first aid station now. Some people think it’s one of the new settlers. Maybe those boys.”
I frowned. “One of them visited the library. He seemed like a good kid. And haven’t they been trading with us? Why would they ruin a good thing?”
“No clue. But who else could it be?”
Who else indeed! It only left the other newcomers. I didn’t think anyone who’d been with us for a while would do this.
They never did find my books or any of the missing supplies, and according to rumors, they’d turned that building inside out, checking every room.
They also checked the bags of anyone leaving the settlement, which upset some people, but considering it would be easy to hide painkillers and books in bags, I understood the need.
“When are you scheduled for seedling duty?” Janice asked.
“In like fifteen.”
“Hey, me too! Let’s go fill up on more coffee and head out there early.”
We walked over, but instead of more coffee, I filled my bottle with water.
I made the mistake of sipping coffee all day last year and ended up so wired that I couldn’t sleep for four days.
I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
Planting was hard work, and you got thirsty, and if crappy, watered-down coffee is the only thing on hand, then that was what went down the hatch.
The very first rays of morning sun were just gracing the sky when we stepped outside. The sky, while still dim, bore only a few clouds. That was both good and bad. Good because I’d probably stay dry. Bad because there would be more flyers as the morning progressed.
Just because the nest here was gone, didn’t mean the scourge had forgotten about us. The flyers from nearby nests came by often, and the hunters had warned us that this warm season the scourge would try to reestablish a nest since there was plenty of food about. Namely us.
Several hunters were already waiting in the courtyard along with their mates.
The hunters made it a point to stay in New Franklin on planting days because the sheer number of people working the fields made us a target.
Their job was to destroy all the scourge before they could come and ruin our crops.
Just one dead flyer in the field was enough to render that part of the land forfeit for the year.
It took at least one full season for the microbes in the ground to clear up the fungus.
It wasn’t just the space bugs that were deadly, but their symbiotic fungus.
Accidentally ingest it, and you’d turn into a zombie ready to be picked up by the scourge and brought back to their nest. Sometimes, even if one survived the creature’s bite, they still succumbed to the fungus, especially if their immune system was lacking.
It was why we always had antifungals on hand; they were crucial.
But the hunters wouldn’t actually mobilize until about mid-morning since the scourge rarely attacked until then. Right now, the sun wasn’t even really up yet. It was too damn early for the scourge. Hell, it was too damn early for me. I was a bit of a night owl.
“Hey, Dottie! Janice! Over here.” Alice waved us over.
Next to her were Natalie, Tilly, and Waffles.
Waffles looked more than ready to dig in the dirt.
I’d seen them work last year, with Waffles digging like the field owed her more Milk Bones, and Tilly plopping the larger seedlings in and closing up the holes behind her.
They made a good team until they got to the end of the row, and Waffles started digging the plants back up.
“Let’s hurry and get started. We need to get the clear covers on the fields before the flyers show up,” Alice said, looking ready to take on the day.
Next to her, Natalie looked more like me, ready to go back to bed.
We’d learned to use transparent crop covers over our fields to protect our crops. It meant we had to collect rainwater and water the crops daily, but we all agreed the extra work was worth it to know our crops weren’t contaminated by the fungus.
Originally, we’d planted in greenhouses; there was one attached to the hunters’ compound and another to the main survivor building.
But we found it wasn’t enough to feed the growing population.
So now those were considered private gardens, with the one in the main survivor building converted into a year-long ornamental and medicinal garden, which I was certain had been instrumental in saving lives every winter when we all went stir-crazy and depression hit hard.
Because the settlement was situated at the edge of an industrial park, we had large fields extending away from the former city at our disposal.
As the settlement grew, our food production would be within our midst, and while that was strange for those of us who only knew of North American city planning, our handful of Vietnamese residents assured us again and again that it would work perfectly fine in the long run.
Apparently, the city of Dalat was interspersed with fields and greenhouses, producing a wide variety of food, including artichokes, dragonfruit, persimmons, avocados, tea, and, most famously, coffee, right in their backyards.
We didn’t have the climate for all that here, but we were sure we’d be able to make it work with whatever plants we had.
We’d just gotten the last clear cover up when I noticed the hunters who had been helping us were no longer here, and Alice and Natalie looked visibly worried. Tilly had put Waffles’ leash on and was keeping her closer than before.
Not one for guessing games, I asked. “What’s going on?”
Before anyone could respond, the sound of the scourge alarm had us scrambling into the tents we’d set up in each section of the field to hide us from flyers. Flyers hunted by sight, and an empty field meant they kept on going.
Usually the hunters were already in the air, distracting the flyers so we could get to safety. But the attack came so early that we hadn’t been ready. We were running to the tent when the first scourge arrived.
They were like no flyers I’d ever seen. Normal flyers looked like giant scorpions with wings and had an impaler instead of a stinger.
This abomination was more like a wasp, except it was bright red.
It had a large abdomen and a tiny wasp-waist. But instead of a stinger, it had a long, whiplike tail.
I had no doubt that the tail was covered with the same neurotoxins that were on the scuttler’s front claws or the centicreep’s blades.
Each one was the size of a large van if you didn’t count the long tail. The wings moved fast, making a terrifying buzzing sound that made me want to cover my ears and hide. It was even worse than the sounds of the scuttler’s feet.
The turrets, old Xarc’n shuttle blasters, set up at the edge of the settlement shot at the creatures, but they were fast in the air and moved out of the way.
“The mutations!” Janice said, taking the word right out of my mouth
This past winter, when the Xarc’n warriors had lost their mothership after it was infected by a scourge-corrupted mining vessel, several pieces of the infected vessel had fallen to Earth.
The scourge had shown strange activity, fighting over the pieces we’d located.
We finally got our hands on it and destroyed it, but not before it had already been inside a scourge nest. That nest had started pumping out strange mutations.
I squished into the tiny tent after Janice, trying not to knock over the flat of seedlings.
“I thought they got rid of the mutant nest before it was fully established,” I said.
“That’s what I thought too,” Alice said. “Kaj’k helped burn it out.”
“Does that mean the mutation is out and it’s spreading?” Natalie asked.
I was afraid to answer because I had a feeling she was right. That was horrible news, because the mutations were most active during the only time we had to work, dawn and dusk, when normal scourge were resting. They circled our settlement as more of their kind started arriving.
It wasn’t long before hunter shuttles, uncloaked and using themselves as bait, flew in to draw the creatures away. Because of the fungus, fighting the scourge over the settlement was always a bad idea. As the hunters led them away, our turrets shot at the creatures from the ground.
What bothered me the most was the fact that we hadn’t had a report of these mutations or had any attacks on our settlement for a while. It was like they’d known to come to look for us, like they guessed when planting day was. I didn’t like it.
Suddenly, a large form crashed into the tent we were hiding in, pulling it right out of the ground. I swore as we tumbled into each other. I got a face full of potting mix when the flat of seedlings toppled all over me.
The loud buzzing intensified and sharp claw-like legs slashed at the outside of the tent, ripping it. I stifled a scream as I came face-to-face with the aberration.
On each planet, the scourge used DNA from local fauna to guide their mutations. This motherfucker probably had a bit of real wasp DNA inside, and we all know those things were crazy assholes. I backed away as quickly as I could, grabbing the small folding table that had once held the seedlings.
I brandished it before me, my only weapon, as I found myself facing my worst nightmare.