"Well, we can't just stay here until we run out of food. We're going to have to go find the Talisi."
With that Tillek got up to his feet, shouldered his pack, and started to walk along the beach to the west. Leysen and Velder had no choice but to also get up to their feet, shoulder their packs, and follow him. She had thought that he would follow the stream up towards the mountains, but Tillek insisted on walking along the shore to the river that he had seen just before the landing.
If it hadn't been for the seriousness of their predicament, she could have almost believed that they were on a picnic outing. The blue ocean and the small waves lapping up on the white sand to their right, the green vegetation and the snow-capped peaks to their left, the blue skies and bright sun overhead.
That changed as soon as they left the beach to go inland. The trees, though not all that tall, were very dense, with a lot of undergrowth, almost like a rain forest. The vegetation did not thin noticeably as they started to gain altitude. If anything, it seemed to get thicker, even as the air got cooler.
Still the climb was not too arduous, as they found what appeared to be an animal trail alongside the stream. But not even Leysen's keen senses could detect any presence of the animals that might have made the trail.
They had gone less than a mile before they encountered the first attack by the natives.
Swarms of insects, the local equivalent of mosquitoes --- only larger --- gathered around them. They seemed to be especially attracted to Leysen, perhaps drawn to her slightly higher body temperature. Even though their bites couldn't pierce her skin they buzzed around her face, attacking every square inch of her skin. They even crawled up her nostrils and got into her mouth.
There were more than enough insects to go around so that the men were not spared. The three of them were quickly reduced to continually slapping at their own faces, before they resorted to the Talisi tactic of smearing river mud on their faces. By reducing the amount of exposed skin they reduced the biting, but that still didn't keep the insects from swarming around them. But it was enough to allow them to concentrate more of their efforts on walking instead of slapping at the insects.
The rain returned later in the day. Though it came down with nowhere near the ferocity of the first night, that didn't mean that it wasn't any less wet. They were drenched within seconds, before they could even think about finding shelter. Once it became clear that the rain wasn't going to be very heavy, Tillek had them continue walking.
The insects --- unlike the three Arions --- had enough sense to get out of the rain, disappearing to wherever it was that insects go when it rains. Leysen wasn't sure which was preferable, being dry and insect-plagued, or being wet and insect-free. Either way, it was a far cry from the comforts that she'd enjoyed aboard the Empress Jiltan'th.
She told herself that it was better to be uncomfortable here on Talis, than to have died with everyone else aboard the Jiltan'th.
By the time that Tillek finally called a halt the rain had stopped. But the water continued to drip from the forest canopy overhead so that there was no real difference. Leysen was able to find a hollow in the rock --- one couldn't dignify it by calling it a cave --- on one side of the valley, where they were able to get some shelter from the falling water.
"Now what?"
All three of them stopped and stared at the sheer cliff ahead of them. For much of the day the valley that they had been following had been narrowing, and now the river plunged in a cataract from the top of the towering rock face over three hundred feet above their heads. There were no obvious routes to the top on either side of the canyon.
"It looks like we have to go back, until we can find a trail or something that'll take us to the top," Tillek said, slapping at an insect on his cheek.
"That could cost us a day, at least," Velder said.
"It's a good thing we're not in a hurry."
Leysen looked up at the cliff and then turned to the two men, rubbing the bridge of her nose with a finger. "Why do we have to go back? Why can't we just climb here?"
Both men turned and stared at the girl in amazement. "Climb that?" one of them asked. "Here?" the other one added.
Their words and expressions reminded her that as Betas their education and training had been vastly different from hers as a Prime. Maybe this would give her the opportunity to show the two men what she could do, that she wasn't just the little girl that they kept insisting on treating her as. Putting her hands on her hips she looked at them. "Why not?"
"You think you can climb that?"
"I know I can." She lifted her chin a little. "I've had to climb cliffs like this in school."
Tillek looked up at the cliff and then looked back at her. "Okay, girl. Let's assume, for a minute, that you can climb that. What about us? Or were you going to leave us here?"
"We've got enough rope, don't we? Once I get to the top, I can let it down. You can climb that, can't you?" She couldn't but help but feel a little smug at her physical superiority over the two larger men. "Or if I have to, I can pull you up, along with the packs."
Velder nodded his head thoughtfully. "It just might work."
While they discussed the details she took off her pack and removed the rope, of which there indeed was more than enough. Deciding that she would rather have freedom of movement over the minor distraction of the insects, she quickly stripped off her coveralls and stuffed them into her pack.
She rubbed the bridge of her nose as she looked up at the rock face. It didn't look as if it was going to make much difference where she chose to climb --- it was sheer all the way around, with a slight overhang at the top. Picking a spot more or less at random, she put her head and an arm through the largest coil of rope and began climbing.
At first there were a few hand- and footholds, allowing her to make good progress. As she climbed higher, the cliff not only got steeper but it also got smoother. Soon there were no more handholds.
The lack of handholds did not stop her however. It barely slowed her down. One of the techniques --- unique to Arion Primes --- that she had learned was how to climb a wall without using existing handholds.
Reaching up as high as she could with her right hand, she stiffened her fingers and jabbed forward. A small shower of rock erupted from the cliff as her fingers drove into the hard rock up to their roots. Wriggling her fingers and wedging her hand firmly in her new handhold, she lifted herself up. She then reached up with her left hand to repeat the process. Making her own handholds as she went, she was able to climb up the sheer face nearly as fast as if she had been going hand over hand up a rope.
While she had climbed cliffs --- actually reinforced cement climbing walls --- in school, she had never climbed anything this high before. That fact was hammered home when she made the mistake --- halfway to the top --- of looking back down at the two Betas on the valley floor.
It was one thing to be in a spaceship, looking down out of a viewport at a planet below. It was one thing to be in a tall building, looking down out of a window at the ground below. It was something entirely different to be literally hanging on with her fingernails to the side of a sheer rock face and looking down at the ground below. No window, no safety railing, no nothing, just empty space below her. A lot of empty space.
Closing her eyes she clung to the cliff, gulping in air. Intellectually, she knew that she could survive the drop --- as well as the sudden stop at the bottom. She also knew that it would still hurt.
Get a grip, girl, she told herself. Both literally and figuratively. You wanted to show the men that you could climb this thing. Well, you'd better do it.
She opened her eyes. Seeing the rock just inches from her nose, she immediately shut her eyes again.
Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to open her eyes. She looked up. It would be just about as easy to finish the climb as it would be to go back down. Tightening the grip of her right hand, she let go with her left hand and reached up as high as she could before jabbing her fingers into the rock again.
It wasn't quite that easy. The overhang presented its own set of problems. Steadfastly refusing to look down, she jabbed her fingertips into the rock and continued climbing, literally hanging on by her fingertips.
In a matter of minutes she was at the top, from where she waved once to let the men know that she had made it. Tying one end of the rope around a tree, she threw the other end down the cliff. She waited while the men tied her pack --- the largest and the heaviest --- to the rope first, as they had agreed. Velder then tied himself to the rope, in a position to help guide the pack over any obstructions. Seeing their signal she began hauling in the rope, pulling it up hand-over-hand.
Since she had to be careful of the fragile equipment --- and the more fragile man --- she was careful not to pull too quickly, until he got to the overhang. Still, it was not very long before she reached down and took hold of her pack with one hand and Velder with the other, lifting them up to the top.
Undoing the knots and leaving the Beta to rest, she threw the rope down again. Tillek tied the two smaller packs on to the end, and then tied himself on. At his signal she began pulling him up. A few minutes later he was lying next to Velder and getting his breath back from the climb, even though she was the one who had done most of the work.
"That was certainly quicker than turning back," Velder said, carefully looking over the precipice as she repacked the rope and put on her coveralls again.
"Let's keep moving," Tillek said after he had caught his breath and smeared more mud on his face to keep off the insects. "We still have a little more daylight left." He stood up and shouldered his pack, leading the way again, continuing to follow the stream up. Velder looked for a moment as if he was going to say something to her, but instead turned and followed Tillek without a word.
As usual, the men didn't bother to thank the girl for her work. She had done all of the work, and they treated her no better than they would have a freight elevator. Suppressing her resentment she silently shouldered her own pack and followed the two men.
As he tried to sleep that night, Velder's thoughts kept returning to the landing. Even as damaged as the lifeboat had been from the explosion of the Empress Jiltan'th's main drives, he should have been able to bring it down better. Enough to keep it from breaking up, leaving it useable for a couple more short hops --- there had been enough fuel left for that.
Now it looked as if he would never fly again. With the technology available --- or not available --- on this planet, he wouldn't even be able to build an aircraft, let alone a spacecraft. All because he had botched the landing.
If he hadn't, they wouldn't have to be walking over the mountains. A deep space lifeboat wasn't the ideal craft for transcontinental trips through an atmosphere --- having been designed to bring its passengers down to a safe landing on the surface of a planet and not much more --- but it was much better than the standard issue Mark I(Beta) pair of legs.
If they didn't have to walk, then they wouldn't have had to have the girl climb up the cliff first and then pull them up after her. He could still picture her --- clad only in her skimpy blue school uniform --- climbing up that sheer cliff, using nothing more than her fingers to support her and keep her from falling off.
Though if they did have to walk, he was glad that they had a Prime with them. Even if it was a young girl. Especially if it was a young girl. Especially if it was a beautiful young girl.
Rolling over onto his side, he looked at the young girl lying on the other side of the fire. She was on her side, facing the other way. He probably should have thanked her for getting them up that cliff. And for all of the other things --- big and small --- that she had been doing for them during the entire trek. If not for her, they wouldn't even have had the fire that was keeping them warm.
He had agreed with Tillek that it would be best if they didn't let the girl know just how dependent they were on her, instead trying to make her feel dependent on them. But would a 'thank you' hurt that much?
The girl was old enough and bright enough to know that they needed her more than she needed them. What if they were just feeding her resentment? What if she was to decide that she no longer wanted to help them? Just when they needed her the most? That could leave the two of them in a lot worse predicament than just at the bottom of a cliff.
Looking over at Tillek's sleeping form, he briefly considered going over to the girl to thank her. But what if she was already asleep? She probably wouldn't take too kindly to being awoken just to be thanked. Sighing silently, he closed his eyes and tried to sleep.
"This looks like a good place to camp tonight," Tillek declared, walking through the knee-high grass to the small stream in the middle of the clearing. He put down his small pack and sat down on a boulder, swatting at an insect that had landed on his arm and was trying to suck him dry of blood.
Velder sat down next to him, both men trying hard not to show how tired they were from the day's march, but Leysen wasn't fooled. She herself was tired. Perhaps not physically, but she was definitely getting tired of this trek through the mountains.
Tillek swatted another insect. "We need some dry wood for a fire. Why don't you see if you can bring us some, girl."
You need the wood, you go get it yourself, Leysen almost replied, following the men out of the trees and putting down her own much larger --- and much heavier --- pack, ignoring the insects as they futilely continued to try to bite through her skin. The men were the ones who were going to be cold, not her. But she realized that she wasn't being fair. "Yes, Tillek," she quietly replied instead.
She wished that he would quit treating her like that. They both treated her as if she was still a child. That despite the fact that she was doing more of the work than either of them were. More than both of them combined. And yet, Tillek still called her girl instead of using her name while he continued to boss her around. And all without throwing in a simple 'please' now and then. Nor a single 'thank you' afterwards. And Velder barely spoke to her at all.
She wasn't asking them to treat her with all of the respect and deference due any Prime from mere Betas. Just some common courtesy. To simply treat her as an equal. Was that too much to ask of the Betas? After all, they were all in it together, weren't they?
Her bright blue eyes sparkled as she looked around herself, brushing the hair out of her eyes and rubbing the bridge of her nose with her right forefinger as she did so. Not just around the clearing, which the two men could see just about as well as she could. Spotting a potential source of dry wood about half a mile away, she peeled off her coveralls and started jogging in that direction.
"Don't take too long, girl. We still need to feed," he called after her, as she disappeared into the thick trees. If not for her sharp hearing, she wouldn't have heard him at all.
It really galled her to have to take orders from a male. From either of the two of them. Though she knew that if she was going to be spending much time on this planet, she would have to get used to it. She had already heard enough about how the men on this planet treated their women. It didn't mean that she had to like it, though.
It would be especially hard, since they weren't just males, but Beta males at that.
She was still young, not yet a fully-fledged Warrior Prime, but a Prime nonetheless. She was just a student on a school field trip. Thus, even though she was a Prime, she held no official rank.
As a result the two men both outranked her. In addition, they knew this planet, having been a part of the initial reconnaissance force. The reconnaissance force that had determined that this planet was virtually worthless and that it could be safely bypassed while the Arion Empire conquered the rest of this arm of the galaxy. What natural resources this planet possessed were not worth exploiting. And the inhabitants were no threat to the Empire.
To their credit they did their fair share of the work. But their were limits to what the two Betas could do; anything physically demanding was still left to her. Leysen had much more strength in her little finger than Tillek and Velder had in their entire bodies. Combined.
As she jogged towards her destination --- a tree apparently felled by disease --- she thought back to their first night in the mountains. She had woken up in the middle of the night to find the two men huddled against her. Not because they were males and she was a young female, but simply because they were cold. Gently disentangling herself from their arms, she had played her heat vision lightly over their shivering bodies, warming them up.
She had then ripped some branches off of a tree and used her heat vision again in order to start a fire. But the wood was too green --- especially after the day's rain --- to burn properly, producing a lot of smoke but almost no heat. She was forced to remain awake the rest of the night, periodically playing her heat vision over the bodies of the two men.
In this rain forest, dry wood was not a plentiful resource. Fallen trees rotted quickly. And it was only getting colder the higher they went into the mountains. It had become her task to find dry wood every afternoon, when they set up camp for the night. And that was after she had carried most of their supplies all day on the march.
What meager supplies they had managed to salvage from their crippled lifeboat, that is. Besides the clothes on their backs, they had a medical kit, a portable hypno-teacher and its memory crystals, a damaged signal beacon, some other odds and ends that they had been able to salvage, a few ration packs, and not much more.
Very scant rations. The same explosion that had destroyed the passenger liner had damaged the navigational systems and also holed two of the main storage compartments. Their contents had been sucked out into the vacuum of space.
If it hadn't been for Velder's skill in piloting the damaged lifeboat, they probably wouldn't have made it to this planet at all, the only habitable planet within the limited range of the small craft.
As it was it had taken all of his skill to bring the lifeboat down safely in the ocean, within a couple of hundred yards of the shore. Even then it hadn't been a very soft landing, not much more than a controlled crash. And, it had been the wrong shore of the planet's main continent.
The nearest Talisi settlement was over two hundred miles away, on the other side of a range of low but rugged mountains. Leysen could easily have run there in a single day, even through the dense rain forest that carpeted the slopes of the mountains. But the two Betas could not. They were forced to walk. What had started off almost as a picnic had long since turned into drudgery.
It was winter in this part of the planet. Even though there was no snow, it got cold at night, and it got colder the higher they climbed into the mountains. Besides the cold, there was no food to be found. At least, nothing that a Beta could eat. Her Prime body could metabolize almost anything that was organic, so she had been munching on leaves and bark as they trudged through the rain forest. She didn't particularly care for the taste, or the lack thereof, but it was enough, barely, to keep her body going.
And to keep the two Betas' bodies going. Making sure the men were warm wasn't her only duty. In order to stretch their meager rations, she had been compelled to feed the two men, as only a Supremis female could do. Tillek's parting words had reminded her of that particular duty, as well. That was one Prime attribute of hers that they had been quick to take advantage of.
At first, they hadn't even been certain whether a Beta could actually draw energy from the breasts of a Prime; none of them had ever heard of it even being attempted. And she'd had no prior experience in feeding another Prime.
She remembered the first time that they had tried. The two men had suckled at her breasts for over ten minutes without getting anything out of it. No energy, at least, she suspected that they were getting something else, however.
Easily brushing them aside, she had caressed and fondled her breasts. She remembered how it had felt when her boyfriend Mellek had touched her there, that first --- and the only --- time that she had allowed him to touch her there, on the night before she left on her class field trip.
She had really been looking forward to letting him do it again as soon as she got home.
Savoring the memory, she caressed herself lightly, applying no more than about a hundred times the pressure the two men's hands had just been doing.
But that had been enough to 'prime the pumps', when she again allowed the men to suckle, for the first time in her life she had felt the energy flowing from her breasts into another person's body. Two of them.
Fortunately for her, the energy drain had been relatively low. She was quite well developed --- her breasts were somewhat on the large size --- for a girl her age. And even as young and inexperienced as she was, the energy from her breasts was much more potent --- and much more concentrated --- than anything the two men had ever received from any Beta female. If they'd ever had the experience --- something that she was beginning to doubt.
They seemed to be interested in something other than merely deriving their sustenance from her. She was beginning to suspect that stretching their rations had just become an excuse for them to feel her up twice each day.
Though she would never admit it --- especially to them --- she had started to enjoy the feeding sessions. Their hands lightly caressing her breasts, their mouths working gently at her nipples. Thinking about the feeding, her hands came up to lightly caress and stroke her breasts even as she continued jogging. She tried to stroke herself lightly, no more than ten or twenty times as hard as the two men could do. It was so different from Mellek's touch.
Reaching the fallen tree she dropped her hands as she forced her mind back to the task at hand. The tree had fallen long enough ago for the wood to have dried out, but not long enough ago for the wood to have rotted. The fact that it was still off of the ground --- caught in the branches of its neighbors --- probably helped.
Looking up and focusing her heat vision in a narrow beam, she quickly sawed off some branches, ignoring the debris that showered down on her. Soon, she had deprived the trunk of enough support for it to come crashing down.
The trunk was nearly four feet thick at the base. Unable to get her arms completely around it, she put her right arm under it and walked along until she found its balance point. With a little heave, she hefted it up onto her right shoulder.
However, as she tried to carry it through the rain forest, the remaining branches kept snagging on the other trees. Deciding that the trunk would provide more than enough wood for the night, she set it back down onto the ground. Walking along one side of the trunk she quickly chopped off the branches on that side. Some of them were nearly a foot thick, but one blow with the knife-edge of her hand still sufficed, snapping off even the thickest branches as if they were no more than toothpicks. She then repeated the pruning process on the other side of the trunk, pausing once to strip off some bark and stuffing it into her mouth.
Chewing and walking back to the middle of the trunk, she quickly found the new balance point. Hoisting the tree trunk back up onto her shoulder, she started walking back to the clearing. The two ends of the trunk occasionally banged against the other trees as she threaded her way between them but she still made good time, occasionally swatting at the insects with her free hand.
It was a relief to be climbing higher, getting away from those pesky insects. They couldn't bite through her skin --- unlike that of the two Betas --- but that didn't stop them from trying, continually buzzing around her head and landing on her exposed skin, even getting into her mouth. Lower down, they had walked through nearly solid masses of them, but they were definitely thinning out in the cooler air. Though 'thinning' was a relative term, there still were far too many of those things around.
Though the cooler air also meant that she had to keep fetching firewood. She really hoped that it would get warmer, once they started down the other side of the mountains, as Tillek and Velder claimed it would, sheltered from the northern ocean by the mountains. Then, she wouldn't have to be fetching dry wood for them. A Prime, fetching wood for Betas, as if she was their servant, not the other way around as it should properly be. She was glad that none of her friends would ever find out about that.
But she immediately recalled that most of her classmates would never find out another thing again. She fought back another sob, hoping that they had never known what had hit them. It wasn't the first time that she had hoped that they had died quick and easy deaths in the explosion of the Jiltan'th's main drives in the ion storm.
She paused briefly as she reached the edge of the clearing. The two men were naked and dripping with water, as if they had just been bathing in the stream to wash off the mud and accumulated grime from the day's trek. But that wasn't what caught her eye. The men were at the far side of the clearing, with their backs against a large tree. They had their knives in their hands, in what was obviously a defensive posture.
The reason for their awkward position was quite obvious. It was in the center of the clearing, approaching the two men.
So far, they had not encountered any animals larger than a field mouse --- what the Talisi called a slitsa. Several times Leysen had tried to catch some to add to their meager stock of food, but thus far she had met without any success.
They'd also seen some birds --- the large blue-and-yellow birds that the Talisi called a jitkaw, after their cry. Leysen had downed one once with a blast of her heat vision. Unfortunately it had come down on the other side of a high ridge, and Tillek had forbade her from going after it.
Not encountering any large animals, they had gotten careless and let their guard down.
Obviously, that had been a big mistake.
The two orderlies snapped to attention and saluted as he walked into the outer office. Acknowledging their salutes with a curt nod, he continued on into the inner office.
Once inside the inner office, he saluted smartly. "You wished to see me, Sir?"
Marshal Junter Barrahdi --- the Commanding Officer for this sector --- barely looked up from his desk and waved an arm to acknowledge his salute. "Sit down, Estrad."
General Estrad Strahzi --- the Deputy Sector Commander --- dropped his salute and sat down. At least this looked as if it was going to be an informal meeting, whatever the subject was.
"This is almost as hard for me to say as it is going to be for you to hear it, Estrad," the Marshal said at last, after about half a minute.
Estrad had no idea what the Marshal was talking about. He wracked him memory, but couldn't think of anything that he had done wrong. There had been no significant setbacks in any of the recent military operations in the sector. "Sir?" he asked.
"We've apparently just lost another ship."
Well, that was a setback. But one ship? They were in the middle of a campaign. They had been, since before his daughter was born. Before his wife had...
Best not to think about that.
It was regrettable, but losses were to be expected in any campaign; the next campaign without any casualties would be the first. This could have been discussed just as easily over the comm as face to face. "Sir?" he asked again.
"A civilian ship. A passenger liner."
That was a surprise. "Sir? Have the enemy taken to attacking civilian targets?" That would be a complete departure from their previous tactics. Before, the Velorians had gone to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties --- Arion as well as other noncombatants --- concentrating their efforts on the military.
"It failed to make port as scheduled. We haven't been able to contact it."
"A search operation, Sir? I'll get on it right away." He started to stand up.
The Marshal waved his arm again, motioning him to remain seated. "Normally, Estrad, I'd ask you to take charge of it. You know that. But in this case, I'll understand if you want off the duty."
"Sir?" As the Marshal had just said, it was his job to oversee any search and rescue efforts in the sector.
"It... it's the Empress Jiltan'th, Estrad."
He felt the blood drain from his face as he collapsed into his seat. The Empress Jiltan'th. Leysen! His only daughter was on that ship --- along with her entire class --- on their annual field trip.
No! It couldn't be!
He tried picture Leysen's face. She was so much like her mother.
No! It couldn't be!
Not Leysen! She was the only thing he had left of his wife. She couldn't be taken away from him as well.
No! It couldn't be! It must not be!
Making a supreme effort he stood up, standing rigidly at attention. "Sir! With your permission, I would like to take personal charge of the search and rescue operation."
The Marshal looked up at him. "Estrad, I know how much your daughter meant to you..."
"Then you know why I make this request, Sir. If there's any chance that she's alive, anywhere, then I must find her."
The Marshal sighed. "Very well, Estrad. As of right now, you are relieved of your other duties. You have indefinite leave."
"Thank you, Sir. Not just from me, but from all of the parents."
"That's all. Dismissed." He lowered his voice, all military formality gone. "And good luck, Estrad. Find her."
"Thank you, Junter." The last word was barely more than a whisper.
