Reborn (The Cartographer Book 2) (9 page)

The lion's haunches tightened when Sam approached and he appeared poised to strike. Sam stopped and let his companion move past him. The lion showed no fear toward Sam, but paused when the wolf approached. The lion, although not afraid, sniffed the air in confusion at the site of the animal. Claw stopped about fifteen yards from the lion. He raised his muzzle toward the lion. His eyes, pale orbs of white totally devoid of fear, fixed on his quarry. Satisfied that the wolf was his enemy, the lion leapt.

It happened so fast that Corvus was still processing the event minutes after it ended. The lion stretched in mid-air, its paws—bigger than a grown man's hands—were extended and ready to strike. Then it happened. One moment the lion was there, the next moment it wasn't. There was fire, an explosion and the lion was simply gone. The only thing remaining was blood, a few clumps of fur and entrails which covered most of Claw's face and upper torso. Toward the rear of the wolf there was an open hatch and an empty metal enclosure. Smoke poured from the cavity and tiny flames licked the edges of the wolf's fur before burning out.

“What the hell just happened?” Natronix asked, his mouth agape.

The metal enclosure receded inside the animal and the hatch closed, covering the hole with fur. Sam approached the animal and crouched down and brushed away some of the burnt fur.

“Damn, I'm going to have to get that fixed now,” he groaned. “He fired when the lion was too close.”

Corvus bellowed laughter and clapped Sam on the back. “That is ingenious! Your experiments have improved since the last time we met.”

Sam waved him off and continued to work on the wolf. Calypso approached the pair cautiously and gestured toward Claw. “What the hell is that thing?”

Sam looked away from his fur repair duties and smiled. “I guess I should have been more specific upon introduction. This is a Cybernetic Land Assault Weapon, Claw for short. This here is the Arctic Wolf model.”

Claw looked up and chuffed. Calypso seemed entranced by the weapon. He crouched down and placed his hand on the wolf's head. The animal accepted it without resistance.

“My god,” he gasped. “It's so realistic.”

Sam's smile faded. “Of course it is, I designed it that way.”

“Sam is our best weapons engineer,” Corvus beamed. “He will help design weapons to use in the upcoming battle.”

“I'm sorry,” Natronix interrupted with a scowl “But how are animals going to help us defeat the Consortium?”

Before Corvus could answer his communicator chirped. He unclipped it from his belt and barked into it. “This better be important!”

“It is,” Shai's voice growled from the other end. “There is a shuttle on the way toward New York.”

Corvus narrowed his eyes and glanced at Calypso. “Oh really?”

“They must have found a cure for your little plague,” Calypso offered. “I bet they are on their way to the U.N. to administer it.”

“According to my sources, the Cartographer is aboard,” Shai said.

Corvus dropped the communicator to his side and his lips tightened. “We now have our chance.” He turned to Calypso.

Calypso nodded, grabbed Natronix and headed toward their shuttle.

“Wait, that's not all,” Shai said. “Meta has dispatched a force heading your way. It seems they mean to intercept you, but since they only sent one ship it appears they want to maintain discretion.”

“So, they have a Cartographer?” Sam asked.

Corvus nodded. He turned toward the departing figures of Calypso and Natronix. “Wait!” he called. They stopped and turned. “I need you to take Sam with you.”

“Me?” Sam asked incredulously. “I still have work to do if you expect more prototypes.”

“I need you to go with them Sam,” Corvus whispered. “I need someone with them I can trust.”

Sam wasn't pleased by the news. “You don't trust these guys? I thought they were our allies.”

“They are, but they don't know what you and I know.” Corvus grabbed his elbow and held him close, lowering his voice even more. “They cannot make the decisions that will be necessary soon.”

“Because they don't know what we know,” Sam repeated.

“Exactly.”

“What about Claw?” Sam looked concerned.

“I will keep him here with me, along with a few soldiers to guard the Richat Structure.”

Sam approached Calypso. “Guess I am tagging along for the ride.”

He narrowed his eyes. “We don't need a chaperone, Corvus.”

“I am not sending him as a chaperone,” Corvus explained. “I'm sending him as insurance.”

“Whatever,” Calypso muttered before leading Sam to the shuttle.

Corvus watched the shuttle rise into the sky and disappear among the glare of the bright desert sun. He looked at Claw who seemed to study him with cold, calculating precision. “You will come in quite handy, Claw,” he whispered to the wolf. Corvus was well aware of Sam's talents. His weapons would prove useful in the battles ahead.

Quite handy indeed.

Kedge

“Can you hear me, Nathan?” Satou slapped the side of the headset. “Damn it!”

Kedge watched while he fumbled with the headset. Lianne had explained to him that the Explorer's League technology grew more antiquated every day despite the Consortium funding the League since its inception. Financing for new technology had been reduced drastically over the years. Calypso repeatedly complained about it, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. The refurbished equipment neared the end of its life cycle, but the crew had to make do with what they had.

“Bureaucratic shenanigans,” Kedge grumbled. “You would think your High Prince would care more about the group that brings new worlds into their ranks.”

Lianne took her headset off and frowned. “What do you know about caring? Have you ever cared about anything in all your years of leading the Lumagom against us, slaughtering millions of innocents?”

His jaw tightened. Her words stung with truth. It seemed no matter what he did he would never be able to wash his hands of the past. No matter what he intended to correct a lot of the wrongs of his predecessor.

“I have cared,
woman
, more than you know,” he spat the word through clenched teeth.

“Stop it, both of you.” Satou banged the headset against his thigh and reattached it to his head. “Nathan, are you there? Can you hear me?”

Lianne focused her attention on Satou, which turned out to be a good thing. Kedge felt a familiar pain radiating from his chest. It was like a dagger poking at his lungs. It radiated outward and gradually got worse. He had to resist the urge to reach for his chest.
Not now damn it
. With a grimace he bit back the pain.

“
Yes
,” replied Nathan. “
Sorry about that, but I had a hard time trying to figure out how to use the shuttle's communication system
.”

Kedge folded his arms across the chest, hiding the pain. Lianne turned and bored a hole into his soul with her eyes. Kedge feigned a smile. He knew she didn't like him but he didn't care. He didn't trust them. Any one of them could turn out to be a traitor, just like Calypso.

“We are about to enter the building, we will alert you if we see anything out of the ordinary.” Satou cut the transmission and grabbed his scanner. After punching a few buttons, he stared grimly at the miniature screen.

“What's wrong?” Lianne asked.

“Nothing at the moment. It appears there are about fifteen people inside the building.”

“That seems like a low number,” Kedge admitted. “That's good.”

Satou nodded and fastened the scanner to his belt. After double checking the canister, he made sure the wrist connection was snug. “Alright, we go in side-by-side. I want both of you flanking me but slightly behind me. I will take the lead and hopefully get the spray off before they have a chance to react.”

Kedge nodded. He retrieved his staff and noticed Lianne's sword was already in her hand. He hoped for Nathan's sake that neither of them had to use their weapons.

Satou opened the door.

A Cure For Boredom

“This sucks,” I muttered.

It had been twenty minutes since Satou contacted me. The walls of the shuttle seemed to close in around me and I felt the beginning stages of claustrophobia creep in. I tried to find a scanner on board that would have allowed me pinpoint their location inside the building. After accidentally starting the shuttle, activating some sort of horn, knocking a knob off a device that may have been important I finally gave up and slumped in my seat.

After several minutes of thumb twiddling I decided to activate the map and poke around the universe. I found myself bathed in familiar green light as the map lit up the room. The map remained centered on Mauritania, which seemed to be a built-in “save your work” functionality. I located the GX-750 galaxy and found the planet Xajax, the mysterious planet where we first encountered Kedge. It was categorized as a new planet (a new find for the Explorer's League) so the template next to the planet was blank. As the Cartographer it was my duty to make sure the Universal Map was updated. It served as the cosmic GPS unit for the Explorer's league. I filled out the template, adding the strange trees with their sap defense mechanism as well as the birds who could fly as well as burrow underground. Since it was also my responsibility to name new species I decided to call the birds Tunnel Owls due to their resemblance to Earth's barn owls and their ability to tunnel underground. The trees I decided to name Pitcher Trees. The name came to me when I thought about pitcher plants, which looked harmless enough until their prey comes close. Xajax's trees were certainly pretty to look at, until you got close. Images of the unfortunate bird that had been thrown against one of them by Satou came to mind. Visions of the bird as it struggled while the sap overtook it sent shudders through me.

We never got a chance to explore further on Xajax once we found out it was being used as a base for the Lumagom. Our priorities changed and I never got the chance to study any of the other wildlife on the planet. I left the rest of the template blank and marked it as incomplete. I hoped to fill in the blanks one day.

The airlock disengaged outside and I turned my attention toward the door. The familiar sound of the river filling the cabin soon followed.

“Well, that didn't take long.” I breathed a sigh of relief. If they returned this quickly then that meant there had been hardly any resistance and that meant minimal casualties.

I went to the door and waited. The waters receded from the airlock and the inner door opened. “Thank God I hope everything went—,” I froze in midsentence.

Calypso stepped through the doorway. Next to him stood Natronix, pointing a neutralizer at me. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I briefly wondered if I had fallen asleep and descended into some sort of nightmare.

Before I could pinch myself, Calypso spoke. “Don't make this harder than it has to be.”

My mouth hung open. “How…Richat…gone?” When they both tilted their heads and peered at me strangely I knew my mouth was not conveying the correct message. I took a deep breath and tried again. “How is this possible? I thought you were at the Richat Structure?”

“We are everywhere, Nathan,” Calypso replied mysteriously. “Your friends will be returning soon so I have to insist you come with us immediately.”

“Why?” I crept closer to the control panel. Located inside a nearby compartment was a spare hand cannon. Satou showed it to me earlier when guiding me around the shuttle. Five feet separated me from the compartment.

“Unfortunately I don't have time to explain,” he explained, not unkindly. “I promise once we get back to our shuttle I will explain everything.”

A little over three feet away now. “Why should I believe you? Everything you told me was a lie.”

Natronix stepped forward, gun at the ready. Calypso held up his hand to stop him. “What have I lied to you about?”

Two feet
. “Your planet is not dying. Your reasons for betraying the Consortium is the biggest of the lies.”

“A little white lie,” he admitted. “My reasons for betraying the Consortium are truthful. They attempt to save insignificant worlds every day as major contributing planets are left to die. I did not lie about Charr, only about the timing.”