Planet Eaters (Galaxy Mavericks Book 8) Page 3
“Easy, boss,” Hux said. “Sometimes plans fail. Even yours.”
“Do you want to go ahead and just switch on the radio and broadcast our signal then, so those eggheads can find us?” Florian asked. “So we can plan to go to jail when the Galactic Guard intercepts?”
Silence.
“We've been cooped up in this pod for three hours,” Florian said. “If I spend another hour in this marvelous hellhole, I'm going to go into ana-fucking-phylactic shock. Whoever is looking for us, they're fired. Got it, Tati?”
“Got it,” Tatiana said, “but let's exercise some more patience.”
“I've run out of patience,” Florian said. “And you can best believe I'm going to have some kind words for the idiot at the helm!”
Huxley tapped Florian.
“Boss.”
“Not now,” Florian said. “Ranting feels good. I feel like screaming, actually. And—”
“Boss.”
Hux pointed to the windshield. Outside, red eyes glimmered in the darkness.
Florian smacked his head.
“Great.”
A giant, mouthless jaw surged out of the darkness and opened wide, sucking the escape pod into its depths.
The escape pod floated downward into a negative netherscape, toward barren, rocky ground.
In the sky, the planet Kepler was being ravaged by Planet Eaters. Eerie and earthlike, it loomed like a darkened eye. Half of the planet was crumbling, and the debris landed where the escape pod was headed.
As they neared, three gray figures waited for them. They were tall, man-like wisps with glowing gray eyes. Their hair was like wild ink, flowing and bristly and dark.
The escape pod landed with a thud.
Florian’s henchmen stumbled out. They looked at the aliens with fear.
Florian climbed out and gestured with his arms wide.
“Ladies and gents,” he said, “welcome to…Ah, I don't know what the hell you call this place. Downer Land. I kind of like that.”
His henchmen backed away.
“Quit acting like babies,” Florian said. “You're in no harm.”
“Easy to say,” Tatiana said, leering at the ink figures. “Hard to promise.”
“Still don't like these things,” Hux said. “Even after they sweet-talked us.”
“Shut up,” Florian whispered.
He strolled toward the aliens, grabbed his back, and rolled his neck.
“You have no idea how much I was waiting to get out of there,” he said, pulling his tablet from his suit jacket.
But the ink figures were ominous, and they stared down at him like angry statues.
He activated the Crystalith app on his tablet. Small pinpoints of light appeared inside the creatures’ chests and morphed into illuminated inkblots.
Florian’s screen translated their language.
You failed.
Florian harrumphed and keyed a response on his screen. He struck a dissonant chord on the piano at the bottom of the screen.
“You don't know what I've been through,” he said.
The translator beeped as it displayed his message.
The aliens responded, glowing yellow.
It is as it was decried in the prophecy. You were destined to fail this time.
“This time?” Florian asked. “So there's a next time?”
You are not like the man named Miloschenko. He would have acted without hesitation.
“He's dead now, so unless you want to revive him, you're stuck with me,” Florian said. “Am I not the one you wanted, anyway? At what point does this relationship start to become mutual?”
You must act like the man with the dark heart.
The ink figures stared at Florian for a moment, and then they turned into large wheels and rolled across the landscape. Black handles appeared on the wheels.
Florian, Tatiana and Hux grabbed the handles and held on as the wheels lifted into the sky, toward Kepler.
The ink wheels brought them down gently on Kepler.
Florian touched down on bare soil.
He looked up.
Refugio lay in the sky above, a massive disk and closer than any moon should have been to a planet.
All across the sky, circular, sucking mouths rippled and roared.
MAWHRG…
MAWHRG…
The ink wheels dissipated and turned back into the dark, sinister figures with wild hair. They gestured to the ground.
Florian stamped the ground. The soil was hard and full of rocks.
“What the hell do I care about soil?” he asked.
The ink figures pointed to the soil again.
Florian bent down and picked up a clod. He broke it and let the dirt fall between his fingers.
A frenzied gust of wind caught Florian’s ear.
He turned.
In the distance, several miles away, was a furious gray cloud that swarmed the horizon. It filled the air with a menacing swarm, and the sound gave Florian goosebumps.
“The hell—”
Behold.
“This isn't the time for surprises,” Florian said, drawing his handcoil. “If you're done with me, then let's have it out properly.”
The ink figures transformed into large gray bubbles, and they covered Florian, Huxley and Tatiana. They could still see the netherscape through a thin veil of gray.
The swarming grew louder. The area shadowed.
A looming cloud of Planet Eaters approached. The sky filled with swarming and darkness and light.
The ground shook.
Florian’s bones rattled.
Next to him, Tatiana whimpered. Hux winced.
And then the swarm was upon them, a kaleidoscope of shadows that ravaged the land. Florian shielded himself from the alien’s sharp teeth, but the ink figures protected him.
And then, as quickly as they came, the shadows passed over them, the ground stopped shaking, the air cleared, and the swarming became a distant droning as the Planet Eaters moved toward the horizon.
The ink figures transformed into their normal selves.
All around the landscape, solitary Planet Eaters appeared in the shape of hands, molding and shaping and breaking the land.
From the ashes of death springs the soil of life. Behold.
The figures gestured to the ground again.
Florian reached down and grabbed a clump of soil. This time, it was soft and muddy, and it stuck to his hands.
“How did you do that?” he asked.
CRASH!
Tatiana pulled him away just as a giant hand struck the ground next to them. It dug into the soil, red eyes between the knuckles blinking angrily as the fingers acted like drills, tunneling deep.
The ground spilt, creating a jagged crevasse of broken earth that separated Florian, Tatiana and Huxley from the ink figures.
Do you not see our power?
Must we show you more?
“What is all of this?” Florian asked.
Man with the dark heart, you ask many questions, but you must become a man of action. The way to the darkness is not one full of questions.
“Like hell it’s not,” Florian said.
The ink figures took a giant leap and landed in front of Florian. Their insides glowed red, and their bodies filled with shimmering light—a warning of an exclamation.
Bring us more worlds.
Bring us more worlds.
Bring us more worlds.
We need more life.
“God,” he said. “You think I can just waltz around the galaxy and steal planets? It doesn't work that way.”
Bring us more worlds.
Or die.
“You need me more than I need you,” Florian said. “Don't forget that for a second.”
Bring us more worlds.
If you are struggling, start with the ones no one wants.
Florian repeated their sentence.
“What do you think?” Tatiana asked.
Florian thought for a moment.
A world that no one wanted…
There weren't any habitable planets that fit that description.
Not that he could think of.
Unless…
“Tell me,” he said. “When you eat a world, do you destroy it completely?”
We devour all.
“Do you destroy people?” he asked.
We devour all. Tell us what you wish to save.
“As long as you don't mind a few…undesirables, I think I have just the planet in mind,” Florian said, grinning.
3
With a hammer, Smoke struck a series of nails into a dull, gray asphalt shingle.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
He focused on the eyes of the nails, striking them dead-on every time.
Tap.
Tap.
The hot sun shone down on the roof and he tried not to think about the sweat dripping from every part of his body.
Tap.
Tap.
The chains on his ankles rattled. He shifted on the roof, and the hard shingles struck his knees like concrete.
He pounded the last nail in, pulled the shingle to make sure it didn't move.
It was nailed in tight.
He reached for a metal pail, dug his hand inside.
No more nails.
He untied the handkerchief around his neck and wiped his face. Then he looked up at the blaring sun, a white disk shrouded by a veil of sand.
Across the desert, mountainous sand dunes shifted in a harsh breeze, and the wind blew so hard he could barely think. Not that he did much thinking ever since he came to Defestus.
On the gray horizon, a cloud of dust danced up, up into the sky in a pattern that he knew too well.
“Shit.”
He hooked the hammer to his belt and slid down the roof. From a nested nook in the roof, he grabbed his water bottle, a sad-looking bottle that had seen many thirsty mouths, and better, cleaner days.
The water bottle had a layer of dust on the inside. He'd forgotten to close it and he should've known better. The dust made him cough.
Those goddamned prison wardens wanted to make sure he drank like a dog. He wouldn't forget it.
The sky darkened. He stuck the bottle in his pocket.
“Hey, bastard!” someone cried.
Below, a sun-burned woman in a tank top and bandana cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted.
“Get off the roof,” she cried. “Storm’s coming!”
Smoke eyeballed the jump down.
At least ten feet.
This joke of a house he was building—if you could even call it that—was a sitting, baking cluster. Shaped like an adobe house but made with lackluster clay and wood and plyboards for windows. About the only thing he could rely on was the fact that he at least put the roof on right. The other prisoners were sloppy. They cut corners. Half of them had never touched a tool in their lives.
“Ladder’s gone, so hurry up!” Tara shouted.
Smoke leaped off the roof and landed on his feet. He rose, towering over Tara.
Tara’s hands went toward her handcoil.
Smoke held out his hands. She clapped a fresh set of chains on his wrists.
“How does a good day’s work feel?” she asked, smirking.
He ignored her.
“You think you can kill a dozen people, go to jail and then kill a few more, and we’ll let you off easy because you're a hard ass,” she said, prodding him forward.
Quiet anger boiled in Smoke’s breast.
“Then you think you can ambush me and try to get information,” she said. “Think again. You're lucky I'm even looking out for you. I could leave you in the storm. I’m trying to help you, you know.”
Smoke kept walking.
All around the small settlement, prisoners walked forward, their hands and feet in chains. The wardens, haggard men and women in plain clothes, ushered them toward a line of pick up trucks.
“Hurry up!” one of the wardens cried.
One by one, the prisoners crawled under the trucks.
Smoke crawled on his stomach, felt the gritty sand across his chest.
His feet stuck out from under the pick up.
As the sandstorm ripped across the area and shook the truck, it tore through him like a thousand needles a minute.
Even for him, the pain was excruciating.
The other prisoners screamed in pain.
He closed his eyes, hoping it would erode him into nothing, whirl him away, atom by atom.
The storm died twenty minutes later, blowing away as fast as it came. The skies cleared and the air grew hotter.
Someone kicked Smoke’s boots.
“Get out!” Tara screamed.
Smoke clenched his fist and rolled from under the truck. The other prisoners did the same, squinting in the sunlight.
“You fools follow orders like toddlers,” Tara said. “That’s only going to get you killed.”
She paced the sands in front of them. Many of the men lowered their eyes, but Smoke did not.
“Good news and bad news,” she said.
She paced more, creating silence for dramatic effect.
“The bad news is that you are all eternally screwed,” she said. “I’m a prisoner just like you, and our galaxy has chosen to abandon us. If you think it’s bad here, you’re wrong. There are eight continents on this godforsaken planet, every one of them just as miserable as this one. Would you rather live on an icecap like some of the guys down south? Or would you prefer to live on a rickety ocean platform and have to use boats to find supplies and materials that the police drop down? And there are no fish in the waters here. Even they know better than to live here.”
She stopped in front of Smoke.
“How long am I going to have to lecture you idiots before you learn that you’re prisoners here? You're wild animals in a wild environment. So you might as well start acting like animals and maybe you’ll learn to survive.”
She pointed to the shelters.
“Those are going to be your future homes,” she said. “They’re probably better than some of the places you came from.”
A prisoner muttered. Tara was upon him in an instant, with her hands on his throat.
“Hey, stop!”
“I was talking!” she shouted. She slammed him into the side of a pickup truck, denting it. The man slid onto the sand in a daze.
“Listen up,” she said. “You’re all free now. Free as you can be on Defestus. We’re going to cut your chains, and it’ll only be a matter of time before you want to thank us for what we’ve done for you. Given you some food, water, and helped you build a shelter. Because there are storms here at least three times a day and you’re going to hate your life every time one happens. The police drop supplies once every couple of days, and you’ll know when they do. If you want to survive, work together. Any ‘every man for himself’ bullshit is going to get people killed. And if you all try to rob my settlement, you’re going to get a bullet to the head. And that’s a promise. Got it?”
No one said anything.
“Cut the chains,” Tara said. “Let’s dump these babies.”
The wardens cut the chains and all across the sands, the metal clinked to the ground.
Then the wardens climbed in the pickup trucks and drove away.
“Good luck,” Tara said. “And remember to stay out of our way.”
Smoke and the other prisoners watched as the trucks disappeared.
“The hell are we supposed to do now?” someone asked.
Smoke remembered what Tara told him a few nights ago.
“The sooner you get used to the rules here, the easier you'll adapt. As hard as it is for a newbie like you to accept it, you're stuck here just like the rest of us, buddy.”
He scanned the area.
About forty or so prisoners. All standing around, confused.
Soon, they would all be hungry. And then the bloodbath would begin.
/> A thin, wiry man jumped onto a pile of bricks and started shouting.
“I'm gonna be the king around here!” he cried. “Let's start pickin’ up this place!”
The man’s name was Stacks.
Former gang leader before they dumped the prisoners on this planet. A mousy, lousy sonofabitch.
“You!” Stacks shouted, pointing to a muscular man. “Let's finish that house over there. And you, go and find some food. And you—”
Smoke grabbed a brick and threw it, striking Stacks on the head. The man fell, toppling onto the pile of bricks, landing face-first into the sand.
Smoke stood over him.
Stacks turned around and put his hands to his bloodied head. One of his eyes was bleeding.
“You bastard. You—”
“Shut up,” Smoke said.
“We need a leader. And I'm the only one that stepped up. I—”
SMACK!
Smoke struck Stacks with another brick.
And then the man stopped moving.
“Been wanting to do that for a long time,” Smoke said.
He turned.
The rest of the prisoners had gathered around, and had seen everything.
His eyes narrowed. Then the prisoners backed away, scared.
“What should we do?” someone asked.
“Yeah, what’ll be, champ?” someone else asked.
The tones in their voices.
They were talking to Smoke as if he were their leader.
He might as well be. Maybe this way, he wouldn't have smash so many skulls.
Smoke motioned to the men and started giving orders.
4
Eddie Puente had never been on a Galactic Guard cutter before. He'd only seen them in the movies, but now that he was on one, he felt like he was on a movie set.
The ship’s gray interior, though smaller than he imagined, was immaculate and tidy. The ship smelled metallic and clean, as if it had just been mopped.
As he walked through the airlock with Grayson, Keltie, Devika and Michiko, he looked around in wonder.
“Never been on one of these babies, huh?” Grayson asked.
Eddie shook his head. “Always thought maybe one day I'd get the courage to join the army here in the Rah. But back in the Zachary Galaxy, military service is a death sentence.”