“Jungle,” Maddox said, “a jungle world.”
Keith adjusted the flitter. Their nose aimed lower and they slid downward as if riding a giant slide. “The planet is Earth normal then, sir?”
“Reasonably so,” Maddox said.
“That’s doesn’t make sense. Why use an Earth-habitable planet for housing criminals? These types of worlds—breathable, I mean—are rare.”
“You’re right on that score.”
“So… what am I missing, sir?”
Maddox had read early survey reports of the planet. Giant trees and nasty poisonous growths underneath their leaves with grim insect life meant this was a hell-world indeed. It lacked metals on the surface, and the plants, spores and funguses meant the only livable areas were in the mountainous regions, which were sparse. In time, colonists would likely settle here—once they filled up the better worlds. It would take less than planet-wide terraforming to ready Loki Prime for civilized life, but it would need vast chemical sprays and biological tampering on a continental scale. According to the reports, Loki fauna was incredibly tough. Tests showed it would demolish with ridiculous ease any non-native plant or bacterial life. That was the kicker. Loki Prime bacteria ate into human flesh as if they were pigs devouring pizza.
Maddox explained a little of this to Keith. Then a noise alerted them.
“What’s that?” Keith asked.
“The locator,” Maddox said. “We’re low enough to begin searching for Sergeant Riker.”
Maddox had received information from Brigadier O’Hara concerning the general area of Riker’s drop. If he’d had to search the entire world for the man, Maddox likely would never leave the planet within the twenty-four hour limit. The captain didn’t want to think about the endgame, the beacon waiting up there to make its report to the monitor. It was going to be hard enough down here as it was.
First things first, Maddox thought. Concentrate on today, on now. Tomorrow will bring enough troubles.
He watched the locator—nothing. So why had it beeped? Maddox checked the drop pod’s coordinates and their position on the planet. This was the right place. The locator used a passive system with a limited range. How far could a man travel down there in three days? Riker hadn’t been on the surface that long, more like two and a half days. Maddox felt he should have spotted the sergeant on the locator by now.
“Are we going to land?” Keith asked.
“Not yet. We want to stay high in order to sweep as wide an area as possible.”
“You don’t see him on that gizmo yet?” Keith asked.
Maddox adjusted controls. The locator seemed to be working. “Head west,” he suggested.
Keith turned the flitter, and they headed in a different direction, west. They traveled for fifteen minutes.
“North,” Maddox said. “Go north.”
Without a word, Keith turned north.
Maddox watched the locator, willing it to show him Riker. The sergeant was a good man, if overly quarrelsome at times. The old man was resourceful. That’s what Maddox appreciated about him the most.
He almost told the ensign to try east when a faint beep sounded.
Keith glanced at the locator. “Is that him?”
Maddox flexed his fingers. He’d been fearing that Riker was dead. Yet, the signal should be stronger. The bug inside the sergeant was powered by a person’s body heat.
“Go lower,” Maddox said.
Keith tapped controls, and the flitter began to sink.
Until Maddox exhaled, he hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath. The signal came in louder than before. Sergeant Riker was alive.
“We have him,” Maddox said, triumphantly.
Keith grinned.
“Down,” Maddox said. “Go down. We don’t know what kind of trouble he’s gotten himself into.”
“Aye-aye, sir,” the pilot said.
Maddox kept studying the locator. Soon, the jungle became visible as one. The treetops showed billions of shimmering leaves with swooping bat-like creatures plowing through dense swarms of hovering gnats, or the Loki equivalent of them.
Maddox frowned and shook the locator.
“Is something wrong, sir?” Keith asked.
“I don’t understand. The sergeant is moving fast down there. Do they have cars, horses, what?”
Keith checked his controls. “We’ll reach the trees in thirty seconds, sir. What do you want me to do?”
Maddox nodded. That was a good question. Why, and how, did Sergeant Riker move so fast across the landscape?
-16-
Sergeant Treggason Riker, formerly of Star Watch Intelligence, coughed explosively as he gripped a steering oar under his sole armpit. He only had one arm, and he negotiated a dirty dugout canoe as it shot down whitewater rapids. His head wove this way and that as he dodged dipping branches. Going this fast, they acted like slicers.
Riker’s lungs hurt every time he inhaled. He’d contracted Loki Prime spores, what the Scorpions so colorfully had called red rot.
The sergeant hated the prison planet with its foul insects, funguses and infested inmates. Oh yes, he’d had a short discussion with the brigadier back on Earth about the mission. She’d told him Captain Maddox would be on his way to break him out of Loki Prime. O’Hara wanted to use Caius Nerva’s premature death as a path onto yet another preposterous operation.
Why did I ever agree to this? The duel with Caius Nerva—Maddox went too far. I should have just let him…
Riker grunted as a branch slashed his left check. He’d missed seeing it because his bionic eye had short-circuited twelve hours ago. Something in the atmosphere—a lousy spore or germ—had infected who knew what inside the eye. This place devoured technical equipment, rendering it inoperative better than cyber-warriors could dream. No wonder no colonists had committed to settling this hellhole. Or if they had, the unlucky sods were long dead, fertilizing the gloomy abode.
Of course, the penal authorities had taken his bionic arm. Then they’d dropped him from orbit before departing to their cozy quarters. The Scorpions found him several hours later. The beginning of a long and painful initiation into Loki society had begun soon thereafter.
The prisoners, the Scorpions as they called themselves, had flintlocks—wooden barrels firing hard knots of wood. They had primitive huts and a brutal pecking order. The worst offenders were the ones who used poisons, both natural and concocted. Those criminals possessed blow darts and “claws” affixed to their fingers, the tips glistening with killing toxins.
The Scorpions were on the bottom of the giant mountain, the lowest strata of criminals. The little time he’d been with them, Riker had learned they mostly thought of ways to invade higher country. The higher one went here, the less funguses and hot bacterium there was. The Scorpions were too diseased, though, to fight on equal footing against the higher tribes. The lower one went on Loki Prime, the more deadly everything became to human existence.
Yet that’s where Riker went: down. Behind him, Scorpions shrieked their war cries.
Riker glanced back. He saw them, ravaged individuals wearing cloth masks. Many had open sores on their bodies. The masks were wet with foul toxins, helping to keep out things like red rot. The toxins in the mouth-cloths made the wearers high and extra-savage. It was the trade-off for protection.
I would have stayed in their compound, but I think they planned cannibalism. These scoundrels knew I wasn’t one of them. They kept calling me a weasel, a snitch.
Riker dearly wanted to blame Captain Maddox for his fix. The youngster seldom stayed on script with anything. Yet, the captain had great instincts for making the right moves. Brigadier O’Hara had explained that Maddox would be coming for him. The tech boys were putting a bug in him, the safe technical kind. The captain would use a locator to find and retrieve him.