Chapter 12
Miran
“This is the human we’re looking for,” Lazil said, holding up a data pad with an image of Nova that had to be at least a year old. Her hair was shorter in the image, but it was a clear picture of her face and upper body in her wild-human costume.
It was too bad her face was set in a threatening snarl complete with long, fake, glistening fangs. It was the only picture they had from one of the Delight’s entertainment listings. Miran hated it.
“I haven’t seen the human,” the Fielden said, then gestured to something behind them. “Roller tickets are purchased through the kiosk over there.”
Miran thought the Fielden might be male, but he wasn’t sure. If Nova were here, she’d know.
“Do you have anything recording this area?” Lazil asked.
“Do you have access to the purchase records from the kiosk?” Nerin asked at the same time.
The Fielden jerked a little and took a step back. “Why would we record this area? That’s ridiculous,” he said to Nerin, then spoke to Lazil. “I have access to the purchase records. If I give you access, will you leave me alone?”
“Why is recording a public space ridiculous?" Lazil grumbled. They all ignored him.
“Yes, of course,” Nerin agreed. “We won’t ask you for anything else.”
The Fielden came out from the alcove they were standing in and strode to the kiosk with the three of them right behind him, then ordered it to a display purchase mode, then rushed away and pushed through a door.
Miran was sure he heard the door’s lock click in place. He couldn’t blame the Fielden, Nerin and Lazil were being aggressive with their questions in a way Fielden culture didn’t like.
Miran could see the negative response they were getting, but Lazil and Nerin were oblivious. Was that because he’d spent time with Nova? Probably. She’d opened his eyes to a lot of things he’d been blind to.
“Here!” Nerin said, pointing to several purchases made together. “These are the ones she bought.”
“How do you know?” Lazil asked, leaning in closer so he could follow the line of data about the purchases.
“They were bought with credits instead of Fielden exchange units,” Miran said, unsurprised to see the purchases.
“But why are there four?” Lazil asked, then answered his own question. “She’s trying to make it hard to find her. That’s smart.”
“You have no idea,” Miran mumbled under his breath. His teammates hadn’t stopped teasing him for drinking a sedative, and they were sure he’d done it to himself, no matter how many times he insisted Nova planned it as part of her escape.
Nerin turned to face them. “We need to eliminate one of the routes and then the three of us can go to the other three destinations to find her.”
“That’s not necessary," Miran said and reached past Nerin to select the four tickets and have them displayed as a destination map. “Three of the tickets go to cities with ports. One ticket is to a small town deep in the desert.”
“Then we can eliminate that one,” Lazil said.
“No, that’s the one we go to,” Miran countered.
Both men turned to stare at him. He could feel the weight of their gazes but kept his focus on the map and explained his reasoning.
“She can’t have many credits. Even if she did have enough to buy a ticket off the planet, none of the ships are able to leave yet.
It’s going to take them a full day to de-sand all these ports.
She knows this. She also knows we’re going to chase after her.
Any logical chase is going to start here at the port, why else would she buy four tickets?
All she has to do is wait while we exhaust ourselves searching.
She is counting on us giving up and leaving. ”
The men remained silent so he told them the part he hated. “She thinks we’re buying her for exploitation. She’s sure that what I’ve told her about life on Hissa can’t possibly be true. She’s sure that I’m being lied to.”
When he looked up, Nerin was giving him a sympathetic look, but Lazil was obviously annoyed.
“You didn’t try hard enough to convince her,” Lazil accused.
Nerin made a shocked sound. “Lazil! That’s uncalled for. Nova wouldn’t be the first Decanted woman who didn’t believe us until they got to Hissa.”
Lazil stalked off. “You can do what you want. I’m going to search the ports.”
“You will not,” Miran said, assuming his role as commander of their unit despite his sense of guilt. “I’m in charge of this retrieval team, and you will abide by my orders!”
Lazil stopped in his tracks at Miran’s order. Body stiff, he turned and scowled at Miran. “What happens when your hunch is wrong?”
Miran didn’t hesitate. “Then I’ll hand over command of our team to you.”
Lazil’s scowl went to a brief look of surprise, then acceptance. “When this is over, I’ll make sure the council knows you did your best.”
His confidence almost made Miran laugh. “Thank you, my friend. But I doubt that’ll be necessary.”
“I’ll buy the tickets,” Nerin said, obviously eager to get them all focused on the next step instead of infighting. “At least we have all day and night to search multiple places if necessary. The port schedules indicate that nothing will be ready to take off until tomorrow.”
“We won’t need to,” Miran assured him, looking out the open doors and the desert beyond. “I know where she is and how she’s hiding.”
***
Nova
Nova didn’t like waking up in pain. It wasn’t bad, but her ankle was swollen again, and her body was bruised and sore from traveling on the roller. When she stood up, her ankle was too tender to walk on.
Going down on hands and knees, she crawled over to the med box and rifled through it.
She was relieved to find not one, but two more medicated wraps and some pain medication.
She downed the meds, then wrapped her ankle.
By the time the wrap was applied and was doing its job, the meds were taking effect. She felt much better.
Feeling a little hungry, she pulled out the leftovers from the meal Miran had ordered. Along with taking all the food they hadn’t eaten, she’d emptied the vending machines in the room of everything human-safe to consume.
The leftovers would only last another day, then she’d have to switch to tasteless nutri-packs. At least they didn’t require any kind of cooking or rehydrating.
She wouldn’t starve, but mealtime wouldn’t be fun.
After a light meal, she looked around the little temporary home. She really should’ve invested in a cheap data pad. Normally, Fielden who Live the Path would spend their day hunting sand spiders, building a sand bath, and using a digging stick to find sand tubers.
Honestly, she was so scared of sand spiders that she wasn’t planning on leaving her shelter at night, when they liked to hunt.
Digging for tubers was a good way to accidentally find a sand spider nest. She’d specifically picked a section of sand with no indication of spider activity.
No breathing proboscis poking out of a dune or strange pattern in the sand from a spider reinforcing its hidden den with a combination of silk and spit.
But no precaution was perfect, and they could still be out there, hiding and waiting.
If she wasn’t going to hunt or gather, that left meditation. But she wasn’t interested in that either, so it didn’t leave her much to do.
She’d need to find some way to pass the time. She could do her strength training and stretching exercises, but those wouldn’t fill her days. Surrounded by the strange silence of the desert, she realized her sanity wouldn’t last long out here without something more.
She was debating how long she could go without asking the nearby circle for a data pad when she heard voices.
Familiar voices.
She might be more familiar with Miran’s voice, but she recognized his teammates easily. Even if she couldn’t remember what they sounded like, the fact that the voices were speaking Hissa was a dead giveaway that they’d figured out her ruse.
Damn it! She should’ve bought a fifth ticket to another small town.
At least they hadn't found her yet. There was a lot of desert to search, even if they stayed within sight of the circle. There was a good chance they wouldn’t notice her hiding spot.
Most of the dome was covered in sand, so unless they got really close, all they’d see was another sand dune among many.
All she could do was stay quiet and hope they walked right by her.
More talking. More faint footfalls. She remained frozen in place, as if even the slightest movement would draw their attention.
By the loudness of their voices, she guessed they were walking far apart to give them a better chance of finding her.
One of them sounded irritated. That voice didn’t belong to Miran.
She made a mental note to avoid whoever that voice belonged to if they discovered her. She was confident Miran wouldn’t punish her for the escape, but she couldn’t be so sure of the other two. Especially the annoyed one.
She let out a long breath when they moved past her, further into the desert. She wasn’t out of danger yet, but she was clear of them for now.
A cry of surprise and then a scream of pain made her jump. She heard weapons fire that made her slap a hand over her mouth to keep from making any noise.
The worst she’d ever seen was a few mild fights break out among guests on the Delight. Any arguments among the crew or performers were always settled with words or a third-party arbiter.
She’d never heard real weapon’s fire before, only the fake ones the stunt show did. Actual pulse weapons were quieter than she expected. For some reason that made them even more terrifying. Shouldn’t something that could burn a hole right through you be louder?
The weapons went quiet, and she heard rapid, panicked talking. Moving quietly, she twisted the hatch open, grabbed the edge, and lifted herself up so only the top of her head and eyes were peeking out.
The unpleasant smell of something smoldering hit her nose as she scanned the desert.
Further into the vast sandy plains were the three men.
Two of them were pulling a third out of the sand.
Near them was a dead sand spider with little wafts of smoke curling up from where the men had hit it with their weapons.
She gasped at the size of it. The thing was almost as big as she was!
Her gaze jumped back to the men as Miran and one of the others pulled the third man free of the spider’s den. He must’ve fallen right into it!
That was enough to give anyone nightmares for the rest of their lives.
Even worse, she could see that one of his legs had been bitten several times.
Miran and the other man were talking rapidly in Hissa, but she knew if she didn’t help him, the third one would be dead within a few minutes. They didn’t even have time to get to the circle. He was already starting to convulse.
She had to act. She couldn’t let this man die when she could prevent it.
Dropping back down, she limped to the med box and dumped everything out until she found the anti-venom meds.
Ignoring the protests from her ankle, she rushed back to the hatch, pulled herself out, and then ran as best she could through the deep sand to the Hissa.
The two were holding the third down, and the way they were talking made her think they were saying goodbye.
Idiots! Who goes out into the sand without the right gear?
They didn’t notice her until she was falling to her knees next to them. Focused on saving the Hissa's life, she broke the medical patches open, then ripped his pants leg to find bare, unmangled skin to slap them down on.
By the time she got the fourth patch on him, he’d stopped convulsing. She looked at his face to see that he was unconscious, but breathing without effort. He’d be out for a little while and feel horrible when he woke up, but he wasn’t going to die.
She decided to put the last two patches on him to be safe. After tugging to rip the pants further up, she fit the last two patches on his thigh.
Relieved that she’d gotten to him in time, she sat back and let out a long breath.
“Nova?” She looked up to see Miran staring at her. His scale pattern was pale, almost white, probably an indication of his fear. “You saved Nerin.”
She wanted to reprimand him, but the other Hissa was suddenly next to her, wrapping a strong hand around her upper arm.
“Please don’t try to run while we care for our friend,” the Hissa said.
Tears filled her eyes.
Her kindness was rewarded with capture.