Exigency Read online

  A few seconds later, another smash, and the EV rolled completely over, loose objects raining down, Minerva’s back crashing into John’s chest.

  “There went the stabilizer legs! We need to strap back in!” John shouted. “They’re going to bowl us all over the damned continent!”

  Minerva rolled off of him. “Not going to happen just yet.”

  John reclaimed his bearings and peered around. The seats now hung upside down above them.

  “Just hold on,” John said. “I have a feeling they’ll help us out any second.”

  Sure enough, a crash from behind, instantly followed by another. Handholds yanked from tight grips and they crashed once more into each other, John’s head banging into Minerva’s cheek. She released a small peep of pain, but quickly jumped into her seat as it rolled beneath her. John followed suit and fastened his waist restraint.

  “Grab your helmet!” Minerva yelled. “And hang onto your SSK. Nothing loose. And open your visor. My audio went inop.”

  “Right.” John pulled on the helmet, raised the visor, then used his feet to lift the battered survival kit into his hands.

  But the EV didn’t move.

  “What are they waiting for?” Minerva looked at him, her shadow-filled face lit only in blue.

  “I don’t—whoa!” He thrust a finger toward his porthole, a large, bronze eye staring in, surveying the cabin. A nictitating membrane slid over the eye from one side, then retracted. “Don’t move.”

  “It’s looking right at you.”

  The dark, leathery face shifted side to side beyond the porthole, the creature aiming its jutting snout downward and alternating between eyes for the best view. John glanced at the other porthole and saw two more faces fighting to see in.

  “You’ve got some over there, too.”

  Minerva turned to her porthole to see the two pairs of large eyes looking her over. A sound began outside the hatch. A scratching, like a large saw taken to a metal pipe. The noise was joined by a rhythmic thud—something striking the other side of the hatch.

  Minerva whispered, “Do you think they can get in? If they work at it enough?”

  “I’ve seen Ish’s vids. Seen a sciuromorph chased into a tree the Hynka couldn’t climb. Three of them spent two days taking turns chipping away at the trunk with claws and sharp-edged rocks until the tree fell. These pods aren’t made to keep determined things out.” John reactivated the thermal view and took a sweeping look around. “I don’t think any have left. There’re more, if anything.”

  “That’s great.”

  John chewed his lip. “If only the skimmers were stored inside the EVs. We’d wait for the hatch to roll on top, then blow it out and fly away.”

  “Skimmers are way wider than the hatch and ‘if only’ statements are the opposite of helpful.”

  “I know. We just need to figure something out. I don’t know … maybe some way to detonate the EV.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, not with us in it. We have to get away somehow, but use it as a distraction. I don’t know.”

  Minerva fished around in the surface survival kit as she spoke. “Your out-loud thinking doesn’t offer me much confidence. I was just imagining if they accidentally rolled us into a lake or something. We could float away …” Minerva extracted the standard multiweapon from the container and inserted a 40-round pack.

  “Hynka swim.”

  “Are you serious? We’re screwed! Maybe detonating us in here isn’t such a bad idea.”

  “No. There’s a way.” John felt confident in his words, and continued to search around the cabin. There was always a way. He’d kept this conviction as a sort of mantra for as far back as he could remember. It was why people always thought him arrogant.

  Aether had frequently advised him, “Fake doubt. Say ‘there might be a better approach, but who knows?’ Like, we’re all in this together, you know? We’re all just trying.” But she also had to remind him that he was on a station full of brilliant people, each with different strengths, and many stronger than his. “Don’t let their accomplishments escape you,” she’d said. “Don’t attribute breakthroughs to luck.” He insisted that he didn’t, but knew that he’d been guilty of it, at least once. And here he was with Minerva, widely considered the best thinker of the lot. Where were her inspired suggestions?

  “She’s trying,” Aether’s voice corrected in his head. “Ask her.”

  He turned to her. She was staring at the multiweapon in her hand. “Minerva?” Her despair-heavy face moved to look at him. “Do you want to survive this?”

  She swallowed. It looked like she hadn’t actually considered it a choice. The sounds of prying and cutting and banging outside the hatch grew more pronounced. Her shoulders tightened, forehead compressed.

  He went on, louder, “Because I want to survive. But I can’t do it without you. You probably wouldn’t agree, but I feel fortunate to have been assigned this EV with you rather than anyone else. Can you save us? Tell me what to do … if you want to live. If not, let’s agree now on an optimal suicide.”

  She blinked at him for a beat and swallowed again. He could see the screws turning in her head. Her tense expression began to shift and change to one of determination. Her sad eyes reverted to the intense scowl to which he’d grown accustomed.

  She cocked her head. “You’ll listen to me?”

  “Of course.”

  “First, we need to start at the end. Our goal. Where is it we’re trying to go?”

  “Somewhere safe.”

  “Right. Brilliant. No, I mean, our real goal is to make it off this continent, and somehow to the other side of the planet, right?”

  John suddenly felt stupid. Of course she was right. They were thousands of miles from their real destination, and escaping the mob around them was only the immediate concern. He nodded for her to go on.

  “To make it there without some kind of vehicle, in a place as dangerous as this, is unlikely. And to blow up the EV, our strongest power source, with two skimmers stowed in the chassis, and full of other materials and resources, wouldn’t make a lot of sense, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Our first and most pressing concern is leaving the vehicle and reaching a location without being followed—ideally in such a way that they lose interest in the EV. Either way, we need to get out of their crosshairs. We can do that by distracting them, killing them, or negotiation.”

  “Negotiation?”

  “Yes. We know they have a rudimentary language.” Her speech was speeding up. He motioned for her to keep it steady. “Sorry, we don’t have a lot of time. Keep up. Communication should be our first approach. Not because it’s moral, but because I’m pessimistic of our chances with options one and two. We have two weapons, three packs each. If we somehow got out of the EV into a position to fire at them, we’d have two hundred and forty shots in total. I’m also dubious of the multirounds’ effectiveness on animals that size.”

  Multirounds had two settings, activated by the weapon upon firing. The MW measured range for each shot and programmed the projectile to either expand prior to impact or just after. Lethal versus nonlethal, supposedly, depending upon the target.

  “I’d say two shots’ll do the trick,” John said as he readied his own MW. “Then again, nonlethal could prove more effective against them … maybe as a deterrent. I don’t think we’d be thinning any herds out there, even if we killed everyone currently present.”

  Minerva scanned around the area again. “It looks like they’re doing a pretty good job of that themselves, actually.”

  John’s therm showed him what she meant. The throngs of restless Hynka had taken to infighting. Numerous bodies lay cooling on the ground, each surrounded by ravenous others, tearing their slaughtered brethren limb from limb.

  “Listen,” Minerva said. “First things first. We’ve no idea how long we have before they breach the cabin—speaking of, you haven’t equalized the pod yet.” She gestured to a panel in
front of him. “If they do breach, we open fire, one shot in each, yes? Mind you, we’ll very quickly have a wall of dead bodies out there. Next, we need to know where we’re going. There should be detailed terrain maps in the station backups. We know they only live aboveground, so you’re looking for anything subterranean.”

  “You’re right. They avoid those due to the floods. If we can—”

  “Yeah, if you can pull that up, I’ll access Ish’s language DB and see if I can’t find something we can tell these things through the PA.”

  John felt the pain behind his fone begin to throb and intensify. He established a direct connection to the EV’s computer and accessed the backups—always synced in real-time from the station’s data storage—and located Zisa’s maps. He just needed their coordinates to—

  Minerva spoke up, as if reading his mind. “You can get our coordinates from the EV console on your left.”

  “I know, just work on the language.” He knew it sounded snippy as soon as it came out. If they were still alive later, he’d apologize.

  “I am working on the language,” Minerva barked, then muttered, “‘Optimal suicide.’ Just wow. … Okay, I found Ish’s main file, dated last week. What? Empty! Ugh! Her! Note says ‘full update in progress.’ Eff me, if she’s not already dead—”

  “Why the hell would she wipe the old file for an update? That makes no sense. Where’s the update? Offline? On her fone?”

  “I know. Ish is weird, but not this weird.” Minerva turned back to him. “Wasn’t she controlling the supply pod that struck the station?”

  “I know. It’s in the back of my head. Higher priorities right now. So you have nothing for us to say to them?”

  “Don’t you know something of the language? Always figured you micromanaged her like you do me.”

  The sounds at the hatch had elevated to a single, cacophonous jumble, as though eight or more creatures were working on it. Their claws were too thick and blunt. They were using some sort of tools. He’d been right: they would never give up.

  John ignored Minerva’s ill-timed jab. “I know some, a few basics. Yes, no, stop, go, us, them. But there’re different dialects, inflections. Our vocal folds are so different, it might just be gibberish.”

  “So what, don’t try? If you sound even remotely Hynka-like, hell, they might think we’re gods or something. How do you say ‘stop’?”

  John searched his jumbled brain. “Yeah, I got it. Sort of a hocking. Like clearing mucous in the throat.”

  Minerva raised her eyebrows, pressed her lips together, and lifted the EV’s PA mic to his face. “Just pinch the little clip.”

  They both turned to observe the Hynka staring at them in the portholes. A terrifying intelligence appeared to be at work there. That gaze, fixated on his own eyes, curious but knowing, assessing, imagining. Predators typically focused on grab or kill spots, hobbling opportunities—the neck, the legs to trip up, where to dig in the talons, where to sink the first bite. Or, when significantly larger than their prey, they took in the whole picture, the mass that they’d consume—shark and fish, snake and mouse. Often, they only saw the moving parts. With everything these Hynka could observe through the glass, the creatures appeared acutely focused on Minerva and him—and only their eyes.

  John practiced the hocking sound, but found his throat dry.

  Minerva said, “The tube by your shoulder.”

  He reached back and pulled it into his helmet. “I know.” He sucked in several gulps.

  “You don’t have to tell me you know every time.”

  John attempted the word twice more, then activated the mic.

  “Khoh!”

  All sounds at the hatch ceased. The Hynka at the portholes looked around outside.

  “It worked!” Minerva whispered.

  “Maybe. Might just be the first sound they heard come from the EV. They’ve never heard amplified sound at all.”

  “Thunder …” Minerva was thinking out loud.

  “Something bigger than them …” John had the first inklings of an idea.

  “They’ve no natural predators.”

  The silence outside continued, even after 30 seconds. John and Minerva leaned to face each other. John said, “How would they respond to that? Being at the top of the food chain, then a new predator is introduced? Do you know of any examples?”

  Minerva nodded, a small smile curling at the corners of her mouth. “Hundreds. Apex predators. They adapt quickly, but clueless at first encounter.”

  The scritching prying sound at the hatch resumed. The Hynka at the portholes began screaming silently and pounding on the glass, smearing the sprayed saliva from their drooling mouths.

  “Again,” Minerva went on, closing her eyes as if it shut out the noise. “Doesn’t matter unless we have a destination. Just a guess, but greater than five hundred meters, less than two-K is probably ideal, assuming passable terrain.”

  “Right,” John said as he continued scrolling through the maps. “Numerous sinkholes around—”

  “Probably faster to search on it instead. ‘Subterranean, habitable.’”

  She was right, of course. He’d normally have thought of it, but the pandemonium had clouded his thoughts. It was one of her documented assets: clarity under pressure. While stabilized by meds, though. Just how long would she remain lucid down here?

  “We have flare projectiles,” Minerva said as she continued rooting through her SSK. “Red and green.”

  Before John’s face, a subterranean cave rotated between x and y axes. “I think I’ve got a destination. Sending it to you.”

  “Awesome. Can you find a secondary while I look at this?”

  “Already on it.”

  The first cavern, 2.2 kilometers away, appeared to be accessible from the bottom of a 15-meter-wide sinkhole. Orbital imaging showed the site during three different seasons. Twice the sinkhole was imaged half-full of rainwater and runoff, and during the dry season, it was entirely evaporated. They’d have to descend 13m into the hole to access the small entrance. If they weren’t observed entering, they should be safe, though getting back out would be a different matter.

  Minerva asked without any noticeable skepticism, “You’re thinking we run to this?”

  “As opposed to what?”

  “As opposed to rolling the EV halfway there, like a scurry ball, before the uphill grade begins. I don’t think either of us have any illusions about getting the skimmers out, set up, and in the air. I assumed you were defaulting to a foot run for our transportation.”

  “Well, I hadn’t thought of the rolling thing. And wouldn’t they just follow us?”

  “Just voicing thoughts. Didn’t say it made any sense. What’s our backup?”

  John sent her the second site the computer found, and yelled over the growing clamor in front and behind. “Six-K east, and we would have to dig a little through soft humus to access it. A long way, and I don’t know if we’d have that kind of time. There’s nothing else closer.”

  Banging, grinding, smashing, shaking …

  The Hynka were attacking any groove or crevice. An exterior panel tore off. Cables and instruments could be heard ripping from inside the shell. They’d finally gotten something. It fed the creatures’ resolve. John’s fone began throbbing again, in rhythm with his pounding pulse.

  Minerva leaned closer and yelled over the noise, startling him. “You think that sinkhole will be full?”

  John flipped back to the imagery and checked the dates. “Right time of year.”

  “We’d save time if we didn’t have to rappel down.”

  “You’re saying run and dive straight in? Swim down to the cavern entrance?”

  She nodded.

  The lights and consoles on her side went black as another panel was breached. Snapping and grinding, flexing metal sheets, constant twangs of severed cables. It sounded as if they were right on the other side of Minerva’s console, a screen or panel yank away from a giant pair of fingers reaching
in and plucking her from her seat.

  She glanced toward her console. “I think this is it! Let’s transfer the SSKs into the backpacks! You loaded?”

  John replied affirmative as they hastily extracted the compressed gray packs, expanded them, and dumped the surface survival kit contents inside. Each connected their suits to the EV water tubes, and pumped the fluid into their suits’ veins until full—a theoretical three days’ worth of hydration and sustenance.

  “Hey.” Minerva touched his arm. “I don’t want to be eaten to death.”

  John knew what she meant and snapped a nod. “Same here.”

  Tubes disconnected, packs on, and the last remnants of protection disintegrating around them, they turned to each other. As Minnie shouted the plan’s bullet points, they checked that ammo packs were secured to suits, backpack straps taut, and then shared a brief, silent gaze that conveyed more than words could express.

  “Ready,” Minerva said.

  “Ready,” John said.

  1.4

  Hissing emanated from the frame as pressure built in the hatch’s emergency release system. John lay ready, the flare gun aimed at the top of the hatch. Minnie stood at the back of the cabin on the ledge above the seats, multiweapon aimed at what would soon be the center of a wide opening. She hoped the ejecting door would take out a generous portion of Hynka, while stunning the rest.

  The lack of information was infuriating. If she’d been the Hynka lead, she’d have had every seemingly trivial behavior detail logged. Then again, maybe Ish did have all that, but kept it to herself. Minnie’s mild dislike of Ish continued inflating with high-pressure hatred.

  The hatch paused, a low tone ringing around them. Maybe it couldn’t blow anymore, the edges so warped and twisted or obstructed by—and then it blew.

  John blared through the PA, “Khoh!”

  The sounds and scents of the outside streamed in. Shrieks, grunting, hisses. Cool, wet, fertile, pungent.

  John’s flare gun discharged with an echoing twang, the phosphorescent red stream flying off in an arc, drips of frothy glowing clumps falling behind it. Minnie watched with her thermal optic as Hynka heads all moved in sync, following the path of the flare. The horde quickly fell silent. John snatched up the MW from his chest and aimed it out the hatch.