Chapter Seventeen
It was almost a letdown considering how tense everyone was when shuttle one came in for a landing and absolutely nothing happened.
No one on the ground even gathered close to greet the team returning.
Because they suspected the shuttle might be blown into fragments and they didn’t want to be close enough to catch the shrapnel one must suppose.
As soon as it settled, though, a crowd swarmed the ship.
Inside, everyone threw off their harnesses and leapt to their feet, clogging the aisle to the exit.
Belle was generally last, because no one would be there to greet her and she didn’t see any point in getting trampled for nothing.
She was faster than most of them, however, on account of she just didn’t want to be close enough to Connor when he left to get the full brunt of the dumping. She wasn’t first by any stretch, but she was damned close.
And she instantly forgot her fears that Ryne and Torr had already dumped her the very moment she spotted them and met their gazes. Sucking in a sharp breath of pleasure, she raced the people in front of her down the ramp and flung herself at Ryne’s chest very happily before ‘memory’ returned.
Thankfully, by the time she did remember she’d planned to save face by ignoring them if they did actually happen to be there, Ryne had curled his arms--his entire body--around her tightly enough to make her bones creak and eased his hold just enough to kiss her stupid.
Then he passed her to Torr and Torr tried to outdo him.
And did.
She was so addled when he let her go and weak she felt gravity in a whole new way.
Thankfully, he passed her back to Ryne and he held her up. She grinned up at him. “I missed you and Torr!”
He grinned down at her, caressed her cheek with one long finger and then lifted his head.
Dread created a knot in her belly even before Belle followed his gaze.
Connor’s face was … pale as he met her gaze.
Dismay hit her in a tsunami wave and it didn’t dissipate when he lifted his gaze to Ryne. “You have … news about the people you believe may have attacked us?”
Ryne nodded. “Talk here?”
Connor didn’t even glance around. “It’ll be … quieter in my office,” he said, glancing down at Belle.
Uncomfortable under his gaze, feeling really guilty even though she had no reason to feel that way, she moved away from Ryne.
Connor prevented her retreat by draping one arm across her shoulders and dragging her with him as he headed toward the hab that housed administration--where his office was situated.
Thoroughly rattled and confused, Belle allowed him to lead her off without any attempt to escape since going with him seemed the path of least exposure and it also seemed unlikely anyone would say anything nasty to her when she was with Connor.
She didn’t know what she’d expected when he led her off, but she was surprised when he took her with him and offered her a seat when they all crowded into his office.
“Dese peoples enemies ob Izun peoples. We tink all dead after blow up dere compoun. Not,” Ryne said as soon as everyone was settled. “Ert people. Dey come many years ago. Come to conquer world and destroy de Izun people so dey can hab eberting.”
Shock rolled over Belle like a steamroller. Even though she’d thought she’d already pretty much figured out what had happened, it hadn’t occurred to her that it was Earth people--possibly could be.
Connor kept his expression carefully neutral. “The Huntress attacked? Your people?”
Torr shook his head. “Dese come many anums before de pod people. Dey blow up dere ship. Say to dem dey tought was pirates. Lie. Dey know when dey blow up is Ert ship.”
Connor stared at the two men. Instead of informing them that it just wasn’t possible, he asked them how they knew it was Earth people.
“Dey say,” Ryne said flatly. “Tell pod people dis when dey capture dem. Dey capture Roque and Terran’s woman for him harem. Ama-zing collect womens. Take Roque an’ Terran and dere woman, Noely, captive.”
“And yet, Noely failed to mention any of that,” Connor said coolly. “She didn’t think we might need to know?”
“She tink dey all dead. We all tink so. Roque and Terran blew up ammunition when dey escape wid Noely. Bery much ammunition. Blow up whole place. An’ dey come to speak to make peace. Dat what dey want to talk about.”
It sounded reasonable and Connor still wasn’t convinced.
Particularly when he had never heard anything even suggesting there had been an expedition before the Huntress left Earth.
Of course, there were factors that could have affected such a voyage--like there had been with the voyage of the Artemis.
They hadn’t completed the ship much sooner than they had projected, but the engines they developed had resulted in a much shorter trip.
They’d made it in only three generations and it had taken five for the Huntress to reach the planet.
It was possible that another ship had been developed during that same period and had somehow beat everyone to Promixa. He didn’t know how likely that was, though.
More to the point, if they’d attacked the people of the Huntress, he saw no reason to suppose this was just a little misunderstanding that could be ironed out.
But they had to try to resolve the problem--one way or another.
He’d done all he could with the latest trip to the Artemis to insure the survival of their colony, but they still needed the Artemis as their backup if anything went wrong and they wouldn’t be able to reach it if their shuttles were sabotaged.
And when came right down to it, it didn’t matter who the fuck it was or where they’d come from. If they were focused on the colony and they had an army and weapons at least as effective as their own, they needed to do something to neutralize the threat.
“I need intel,” he said decisively. “We need to know what they’ve got to throw at us and how many we’re up against.” His gaze settled on Belle for a long moment. “I don’t like leaving you here, my love, but it will be safer for you.”
He returned his attention to Ryne while Belle was still trying to convince herself she’d heard him correctly.
“Which of you will go with me? And who will stay to take care of Belle?”
Ryne met his gaze for a long moment and finally turned to look at Torr. “You keep her safe. I will go with yellow hair.”
Torr nodded.
Connor got up. “You should stay in my quarters, Annabelle. No one will bother you there. I’ll walk you to your current assignment to get anything you need for the night. We should be back by morning.”
Belle was still in state of shock when they left Connor’s office, but she recovered sufficiently after she’d encountered a couple of speculative looks from other colonists to reanimate brain function. “I don’t really need anything,” she said.
He stopped, studying her inquisitively for a long moment. “You’re certain?”
“I’ll be ok.”
Nodding, he turned and walked her to his own quarters and stayed long enough to familiarize her with the area and kiss her brainless, then patted her cheek and left.
Belle collapsed on his bed and sat staring at the wall for a while before her thoughts began to percolate.
Not that she could make any sense of anything.
Finally, though, the tension leaked away and left her with only the exhaustion of a long, hard week in space, way more sexual activity than she was accustomed to, and far less sleep that she needed, and she lay down on Connor’s bed.
Instantly, his scent that clung to his pillow covering enveloped her, surrounded her like a hug, and that was enough comfort to drag her down into a deep sleep.
* * * *
Connor sent Ryne a narrow eyed, accusing look when he’d gotten a look at their enemies.
“No Izun,” Ryne said tightly, keeping his voice low and then lifted his hands and grasped his pointed ears.
Connor stared at him for a moment and then looked through his helmet magnifier/binoculars again. Now that Ryne had pointed it out, he saw they had no ears at all--none of them. And there were other subtle differences.
They weren’t human, however. They were winged and had horns as the Izun did. And their skin tones were much the same.
They didn’t seem to have the same stature, however. In size they were closer to the average human, he supposed. But he was still inclined to think they were native to Proxima B just as the Izun were.
It wasn’t as if every race on Earth was the same.
And he didn’t particularly give a shit where they were from if they were going to be a problem.
And it did look like they would be because they had very advanced weapons and plenty of them--looked more like a militant group than colonists.
Since Ryne had said the camp they’d found had been abandoned, he had decided to detour to the ruins they’d discovered in their survey that they had thought might have been a structure built by the colonists of the Huntress.
Being flightless himself without the shuttle, they’d taken a couple of hover bikes and parked them about a mile before they reached the ruins to continue on foot because even though they were electric bikes they weren’t completely soundless--and sounds tended to be magnified and carry very well through wooded areas.
They’d circumnavigated the ruins before they discovered the bastards moving in and out of what must be a basement below the ruins via a tunnel.
And their main occupation was in moving munitions and weapons.
These were some scary motherfuckers, he thought grimly.
The perimeter wall they’d built was primarily to deter wildlife--or slow primitives. It wasn’t even going to slow the bastards down much. It sure as hell wouldn’t stop them.
If he’d seen them before they started the colony he thought he might have opted to try the next planet on their list. He would at least have chosen a different spot--like half way around the planet--not practically under their asses.
He would’ve liked to have been able to convince himself they weren’t the target of all the activity, but it seemed highly unlikely that their objective would be the Izun people.
He withdrew when they’d stayed long enough to have a close guesstimate of the number of combatants and weapons, and headed back to the colony to do a risk-loss assessment.
They hadn’t come prepared for war--because the Artemis was a colony vessel, not designed or prepared for conquest.
But whoever was behind the militants was prepared to exterminate any opposition to full possession of the planet and obviously fully intended to.
The only thing he could see that they at least appeared to have as an advantage was that the group was a good two days march from the colony and had no motorized transport.
On the other hand, they had wings and the only thing that might possibly slow them down was the weight of the weapons they would have to carry if they wanted to use them.
They had very little time to prepare and only a portion of the colonists were actually trained soldiers even though all of them were required to be proficient with what weapons they had.
It seemed inarguable that they were fucked.
He was a firm believer that there was always a solution to every problem. The news was just so fucking bad he was having a hard time thinking of anything at the moment.
Thankfully, he had enough time for relatively calm reflection during the trip back and as generally happened when that was the case, a solution presented itself.
Because it occurred to him that the bastards were very likely advanced enough technologically to figure out there was a ship in orbit and that suggested the main interest the bastards would have in the shuttles was the possibility/likelihood that there was a ship in orbit and they could reach it with the shuttles.
Maybe they hadn’t figured that out and it was the shuttles they were after, but that still left them with no way to get to the Artemis if the enemy captured or destroyed them.
Thinking about the situation, however, reminded him that the ships had something that they might be able to use as weapons.
They hadn’t been designed to be weapons.
They had limited ‘ammunition’ and also limited maneuverability--the armament--but they were fully capable of destroying or diverting space rocks that might threaten the Artemis and that mean if they could direct the AI from the ground then it might be able to use the ship itself to give them the advantage they needed.
As soon as he reached the compound, Connor issued a call to arms for all able bodied colonists.
Summoning his second in command, he left Griffin in charge of preparing the colony defense and headed to the administration hab.
Ryne followed him. “I send Torr to summon warriors,” he said when they’d accessed the main office.
Connor stopped and studied him. “You think they would be willing to help us fight?”
“Dese enemies ob Izun. Dey fight. Dey come right away.”
Feeling at least a modicum of relief even though he didn’t have any idea how many could or would come or how effective they might be, Connor nodded.
They could fly and they could fight and he figured they were going to need everybody they could get.
“Call them. We can arm at least some of them with our weapons. Most of my people aren’t soldiers.
They’re armed and they know how to use the weapons. But they aren’t trained for battle.”
“I send Torr. I want see de … space between. Battle ground. Warrior movements.”
“I need to get some drones up for a look. We did scan this area, but we didn’t map the elevations. And, as you pointed out, we need to see where they are and what they’re doing ‘real time’ to make any kind of plans. Where they were yesterday may or may not be helpful.”
Torr arrived with Belle while they were studying the hologram the drones were projecting.
She was as white as a sheet and her eyes looked like saucers, but she had her weapon and was wearing a flak vest with extra ammunition in the pockets.
Connor felt his throat close, but they already knew they had to stop the bastards before they reached the camp. The camp was not defensible.
And they could not under any circumstances allow the bastards to get past them.
He caught her shoulders and hugged her fiercely.
“We aren’t going to let them get anywhere near you, baby.
I swear it. What I want you to do is get in last place in line and stand at the very end of the walk--by the stairs, If you see any of the bastards, run down the stairs and head toward the back gate, ok?
Then hide in the woods. We’ll be right behind them. ”
Belle gaped at him. “But … Connor!”
“Do it,” he growled. “I mean it, baby. I’m going to beat your ass if I find out you didn’t run like I told you.”
“But … Connor! Somebody has to fight. If I run, they’ll hate me forever.”
“If you don’t run fast, the bastards will run you down, I guarantee you. They aren’t soldiers and you aren’t a soldier. I want you leading the pack. Got that?”
Ryne grabbed her and hugged her tightly when Connor let go. “What he say, baby! I beat you ass myself you no do dat!”
Belle glanced from one to the other and finally left.
She felt better, though, not nearly as terrified.
She could run if she was afraid and Connor wouldn’t be pissed off with her and Ryne was ok with that, too.
And that didn’t mean she could help with the fight.
She could shoot just as well from the woods, she thought. It wouldn’t give her a height advantage like standing at the top of the fortress wall …. Unless she climbed something when she got to the woods.