Upon a Savage Shore

Author's note: I just started writing chapter 16 and it looks as though my second estimate of the total length of the story was still a little short. Now it's beginning to look like there might be as many as 25 chapters. Probably not quite that many, but it will be close.

This chapter marks the beginning of the second act of the story in which our intrepid heroes leave the relative safety of the tree in quest of a better, more permanent home.

Thanks to everyone leaving comments and sending me emails. They are all very much appreciated.

Chapter 11

Before the sun rose on Liam's fourteenth day on the unnamed planet the castaways loaded up their packs and set out for the life pod, bidding a fond goodbye to the dead tree that had sheltered and protected them. Tem'Ma'tel marched in the lead, setting the pace and determining how often they would take breaks. Her leg was sound enough to walk on, but even with her stretching and strength training exercises, she was still the least able to travel long distances.

Commander M'pel E'kmel and Liam carried the laden stretcher, its impulsers at three quarter output to extend the power cell's useful life as much as possible without overtiring the bearers. Clot'ilda brought up the rear, her ears and nose keenly pricked for any indication of trouble. Liam's sensors were set to run an active sweep every minute, but it was good practice to not rely exclusively on the electronics.

Not quite three hours later they stood at the base of the tree where Liam's pod had wedged itself. The white parachute still hung in the branches, billowing in the morning breeze. Tem'Ma'tel set her overstuffed pack on the ground and found a root to sit on, rubbing her leg to work the knot out of the long muscles of her thigh. Clot'ilda dropped her pack next to her friend's and offered the larger female some water.

"How did you get down from there?" M'pel E'kmel asked, staring up at the standard issue CP life pod.

For answer Liam activated his key code and a long line dropped smoothly from the lower coaming of the pod's closed hatch. He gave her a quick smile then handed his fero-plas rifle to her and dropped his pack and musette bag.

"I'm going to load the backpacks with the gear and send them all down at once," he said, clipping the end of the line to the harness built into his armor. "It shouldn't take me long, but keep a sharp eye out for blade-beasts."

"I remember," she said seriously. "This is the first place you encountered them. Please do not take longer than need be."

He gave her a thumbs up and began climbing the massive old tree. The line reeled in at a steady pace allowing him to simply walk up the bark. Had the pod not jammed so tightly he would have had to find a safer way to get to it. As things were, Liam was glad for the hard impact and dense forest. The combination had probably kept the pod and its contents safe. Again he blessed the durable design of the thing, wondering if it would be recovered when he was eventually rescued.

Reaching the pod Liam edged onto the thick branch and keyed the sequence that would open the door. The mechanism hummed and the door jolted outward but did not open. Liam entered another code, closing the door and then reentered the first code. Again the mechanism hummed and again the door jolted, coming open a fraction further this time. Liam frowned and got his fingers into the gap. He placed a booted foot on the hatch coaming and hauled back, steadily increasing the pressure until the door suddenly burst open.

Liam was scrabbling for purchase on the branch, completely off balance when a horde of hard-shelled monstrosities poured from the pod. Instinctively he activated his visor as the nasty creatures swarmed him. He could hear their pincers clicking and scraping over his armor before he lost his footing and fell. An instant later he slammed into the tree trunk when the line brought him up short. His ears rang from the sudden impact and he panicked.

"Liam!" Clot'ilda screamed in alarm.

"SarJ'ant!" Tem'Ma'tel cried, echoing the Pah'Tht's fear. She sprang to her feet and began climbing the tree, her claws biting into the ancient bark, her powerful muscles carrying her up more swiftly than Liam's line had reeled him in.

M'pel E'kmel reacted with her natural clarity. She switched the selector on her fero-plas rifle over to crowd control and sent a dispersed blast of fero-plastic into the chitinous horde. Blue and purple goo splattered over the tree and dead creatures rained down. Clot'ilda added her fire to the defense of her mate, actually blasting the things away from Liam's helmet.

Liam felt the muted impact of a fero-plas round on his faceplate an instant before he began spinning wildly. Unable to right himself, he fought to regain a sense of what was going on. The blast had cleared his field of view, but the creatures quickly returned, biting and snapping at his armor.

"Enough of this shit!" he growled.

As he spun around again he felt another impact throw him into the tree. He slammed his foot hard against the bark, activating the boot clamp. His uncontrolled spin ceased and Liam began swiping the bugs off of him. He locked his other boot to the tree, feeling more of the muted impacts from the fero-plas weapons and caught hold of the pod's line. Not until that moment did he consider the possibility that one of the blasts could sever the line and plunge him to the forest floor. Chances were good that he would live, but the injuries he would sustain from the fall would not be anything he could recover from without the aid of a hospital and skilled surgeons.

Liam keyed in the code to reel himself up to the combing and as soon as he felt himself pulled upright he released his boot clamps. The line pulled him in tight and Liam threw an arm over the combing, grabbing onto a stanchion on the deck of the pod. Instantly his fingers were assaulted by more bugs, but their pincers couldn't pierce the armored gauntlet. He hung on, unable to do much else to save himself. From somewhere close another fero-plas pistol began to spit rounds into the pod and along its hull. Gradually, between the three weapons and Liam's swatting and swiping, the bugs either fled or died in messy, oozy smears.

Liam clung to the stanchion, panting and gritting his teeth, frustrated, angry and somewhat embarrassed. Aware the attack had passed he looked around. Tem'Ma'tel stood three meters away on the branch he had slipped from, her eyes fierce and worried. She fired another blast into the pod, splattering more goo over his armor, and then edged up to him in a crouch. Liam wiped the muck from his faceplate and grimaced at her.

"Thanks," he said, not sounding particularly pleased.

"You are welcome, SarJ'ant," she said, missing his sarcasm completely. She reached out a hand and gingerly took hold of his arm.

Between the two of them Liam was hoisted onto the branch and he sat there catching his breath and getting his bearings. Tem'Ma'tel used her sleeve to wiped away the slime from his faceplate.

"You know what really sucks?" he grumbled after he opened it. "I just cleaned this thing."

"Liam?" cried Clot'ilda, sounding forlorn and frightened.

"I'm fine, Babydoll," he called back to her and waved to show he was alright. "Just relax, Sweetie. I'll get this stuff down to you all and then we can have something to drink."

Clot'ilda looked much relieved to hear his voice, but she sank to her knees, clasping her hands in front of her chest, still staring up at him as if afraid her mate might disappear if she lost sight of him.

"What is the condition of the pod, Sergeant?" asked M'pel E'kmel, kneeling next to Clot'ilda, placing her arm around the young Pah'Tht.

"Looks pretty messy," he called back. "Give me a minute."

Tem'Ma'tel helped Liam onto his feet and he stepped into the open pod. It was a slime covered, bug splattered wreck lined with what looked like some sort of resin impregnated paper. The bugs must have used that material to build their nest. He ignored the storage lockers for the moment and went to the control panels. Bug juice dripped from them, but they all activated when he entered the codes. That was good. The transponder was still working and the power cell was undamaged.

Tem'Ma'tel, standing near the hatch, called out a warning and brought up her pistol. Liam turned to where she was aiming and took half a step back. In a corner, shrouded in the remains of the paper-like substance was a bug the size of a watermelon, apparently too large to move on its own. Liam made a disgusted sound and leaned down, picking the thing up with both hands. It was heavy and it squirmed, large mandibles clacking.

"It's the queen," he said and showed it to Tem'Ma'tel.

"No eat, SarJ'ant," the jZav'etch said, her lips pealed back from her carnivore teeth and her tongue stuck out in an expression he had seen her make when smelling rotted flesh. She said again, "No eat, SarJ'ant. No eat."

"I'm not going to eat the damned thing," he grumbled. To prove his words he leaned close to the hatch and called a warning before tossing the bug out. Everyone got a good look at it splattering on the ground and Clot'ilda fired a focused blast from her pistol into it for good measure.

Liam then set about collecting the gear he wanted to take, starting with the packs. He stuffed them full of rations, water bladders and everything else he could fit in them. The emergency survival lockers were emptied of everything and he even went so far as to drain the water recycling system. Thanks to the bugs they spent more than an hour getting the gear sorted. The last thing Liam did was remove a couple locker covers and fasten them over the holes in the hull of the pod with crack filler normally used to make an emergency patch in the faceplates of marine helmets damaged in battle. Provided the bugs couldn't chew through fero-carbon platting, the pod would be more secure than when he had left it the first time.

Liam lowered the packs and then reeled in the line so he could get down. Realizing Tem'Ma'tel was no longer on the branch and not seeing her below he looked around. She had climbed the tree to the top of the pod and was working the parachute out of the branches. She hauled on it, snapping twigs and sending a shower of leaves down on the jZav'Etch below. Finally she had it bundled up and with a couple of businesslike cuts from her machete, she severed the cords that had held the silky white cloth to the pod. Looking pleased with herself, Tem'Ma'tel dropped the bundle to the ground and rejoined Liam on the branch.

"What's the parachute for?" he asked. He had to repeat himself and gesture at the chute before she understood his question.

"Pretty," she said simply and smiled. There was something to that, but Liam had no idea what.

"Okay," he said, fastening the line to his harness again. He waved her to him and said, "Jump on and I'll take us both down."

Tem'Ma'tel shook her head slowly, making that disgusted face again. Liam frowned and then looked at his armor. It was still covered in slime and bits of bugs. He plucked a segmented leg from his chest and flicked it away.

"I don't blame you," he said and waved to her as he let the line out.

On the ground Clot'ilda rushed to Liam, fully prepared to leap into his arms as she had done so many times before, but on catching a sniff of his armor she stopped dead in her tracks. Liam sighed. He reached up, pulled off his helmet and bent down to plant a kiss on her lips without letting his soiled armor touch her anywhere. Not content with such brief contact and perhaps wishing to reassure herself that he was unharmed, Clot'ilda reached up and placed a soft hand on his bearded cheek, looking him in the eyes, a relieved expression on her face.

"This is a most impressive addition to our supplies, Sergeant," M'pel E'kmel said approvingly. She had opened one of the packs to inspect the contents, finding one of the stretchers Liam had said would be among the gear.

"It'll do I think, Commander," he said, coming over to her.

"Are you unhurt, Sergeant?" she asked, examining the large red mark on his forehead, a result of slamming into the tree.

"I'm fine," he said. "Rang my bell, but nothing to worry about. Helmet absorbed most of it."

"Shall we get started again?" M'pel E'kmel asked as soon as Tem'Ma'tel joined them. "There will be a stream at our next weigh point. You can scrub some of that... mess off of yourself."

Liam snorted and put his helmet back on. It took a few minutes to get the packs redistributed, but they were soon on their way.

The forest began to thin out the further north and east they traveled. South of their final destination the land gave way to rolling fields, but their new home would be among lightly wood hills. It seemed the forest was already giving up its grip on the land, which would make it easier for them to recharge the stretchers when their power cells ran low.

Liam had come up with a novel solution to changing out the stretchers. With the two from the life pod he reasoned there was no need to unload the supplies only to load them onto a fresh stretcher. Instead, they could let the power cell of their original stretcher run out and simply slip one of the fresh ones under the load. When that one ran down they could replace it with the remaining stretcher and spread the dead one on top to recharge while they continued on their way. It would extend their march time considerably and reduce the odds of being caught unprepared.

Over forested hill and through wooded dale they marched for hours. The stretcher was just beginning to falter when they came in sight of the stream M'pel E'kmel had found on the map. They selected a spot under a large tree with easy access to the water and settled the stretcher on the ground. Liam waded into the water and with Clot'ilda's help he scrubbed the crusted remains of the bugs off. The fero-plas blasts had done no damage to the plates, but there were some places that had changed color in reaction to the charged metallic polymer rounds.

"Sergeant," M'pel E'kmel called to get Liam's attention. "Would you join me a moment?"

Liam went to her, Clot'ilda at his side. The commander had the survey map out and was examining it while eating a piece of smoked hyena-frog.

"This stream runs north for several... kilometers," she said, still unused to the CP units of measure. "So far, the brush has proved a great hindrance to our progress. If we follow this stream and then break to the east at about this point, might we make better time?"

"We might, Commander," Liam allowed. "Could you enlarge this image any more? Maybe convert to a geological map instead of this topographic?"

"I can enlarge it, but this is the only map I have," she said, running her finger and thumbs over the screen to zoom in on their location. The map showed the large tree under which they currently stood, but the details were hazy. "That's the best I can do, Sergeant. This was to accompany my report to Command Central, you see. The detailed information, maps and the like, was all stored in the main data bank aboard our ship."

"In that case, Commander, I think we need to stick to our original plan," Liam said. "Following the stream we might run into even more obstacles. I saw a lot of white water in those patches where the trees didn't block the view. And the stream might have several falls on it. The water is running pretty fast. That means upstream is steeper than what we're seeing right here. And water draws animals. We're just as likely to encounter predators along the stream as we would using the game trails."

"Oh," she said, crestfallen. "In my mind it seemed like such a good idea."

They rested and had some water before slipping the loaded stretcher onto a fresh one and then their journey resumed. Six hours later with the sun just past its zenith, they stopped on a low rise above another, much smaller stream. A fallen tree had left a sizable gap in the canopy of leaves and a large patch of sunlight poured down, creating an atmosphere of gentle peace around the fallen trunk. Liam positioned the stretcher in the middle of this, changed out the stretchers and set the drained one atop their cargo, lashing it in place to recharge.

Tem'Ma'tel and Clot'ilda cautiously made their way down to the stream to refill the water jugs. The next stop would be far from a water source. The two were gone for only a few minutes before Clot'ilda returned with an urgent look on her face.

"Commander! Liam!" she said breathlessly. "Come!"

Down by the stream in a flat spot with little vegetation they found Tem'Ma'tel. She stood with her weapon in her hands, scanning the brush around her. In the middle of the open area was a ring of stones and the remains of a fire. Fallen leaves lay on the dead coals.

"I thought you said there were no natives on this island," Liam said to M'pel E'kmel.

"Obviously I was wrong," she replied, kneeling beside the dead fire and putting a hand on one of the stones. "It's quite cold. This fire is more than a day old."

"SarJ'ant," Tem'Ma'tel said. She pointed to the ground near the stream.

Liam and M'pel E'kmel both went to look. Strange tracks were pressed into the soil there. Very strange tracks. Some looked like the prints of cloven hooves. Others looked like exceptionally long feet with two large toes. There were a lot of them, varying in size only slightly.

"What do you make of that, Sergeant?" M'pel E'kmel asked.

"Pretty strange," he murmured. "Mixed group, maybe."

"Could be they are moving with pack animals," she speculated. "See how the hoof prints are deeper?"

"Yeah," he muttered, kneeling down and examining the tracks more closely. "It's been a while since I was hunting, but I'd say these have been here for more than two days. Two solar days, I mean."

"I agree," she said. "The scent of the creatures is not very strong. And we saw no sign of them on the hilltop."

Liam rose and crossed the stream. It didn't take him long to find more prints in the muddy bank. He examined the ground a short way into the brush before returning to the three females.

"Looks like they headed off to the south west," he reported.

"That's something, at least," M'pel E'kmel said, sounding a little relieved.

"Any idea why your survey missed these people?" Liam asked. He wasn't being critical, just curious.

"We were doing a preliminary survey, only, Sergeant," she said. "That and we didn't have time to analyze the data thoroughly before your convoy entered the system."

"About that, Commander," Liam said, being reminded of something he had wanted to ask since finding the downed jZav'Etch ship. "How did you get shot down? Seems like a scout ship on a preliminary survey would have bugged out at the first sign of enemy forces."

"Our scout vessels do not go unarmed," she said, looking uncomfortable. "It was my ship, in fact, that launched the missile which destroyed your lead transport."

Liam frowned, thinking of all the marines and spacies who had died in that attack. He quickly shrugged it off, though. It was an act of war. In war soldiers do their duty and that was all the jZav'Etch had done. The commander was not to blame for killing the enemies of her people any more than Liam was to blame for doing the same. More importantly, Commander M'pel E'kmel and the other two were now his allies. Clot'ilda was his wife. There was no place for old scores in this new world of theirs.

"Right," he said with a decisive nod. "We need to get moving."

More marching and six hours later they came to a rocky knoll rising from the forest floor. About a third of it was a steep wall that would provide a fair defensive slope. The top was cluttered with boulders exposed by ages of erosion. They climbed to the summit, weary from the long day of travel and set down their burdens.