“Ah, I see. What else is he going to be doing?”
A slight look of concern fell across Zepharos’s face. “Mapping out downed segments of the Raxxian transport ship you arrived on. It is hoped that some of the other survivors are still out there.”
Shalia felt a pang in her gut. She’d made friends aboard that ship. Sure, they were all abductees, but whatever their place of origin, they had one thing in common. The Raxxians had taken them. Taken them and planned to use them for food. If there were any other survivors still out there, she damn well wanted to find them and bring them to a safe place.
“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s get moving.”
“Already on it,” Orvus called out. “Take a seat, this’ll be a little bumpy. I haven’t flown a Dohrag ship before.”
“I can do it, if you want,” Shalia offered.
“No, I can handle it. It’s just been a while since I’ve flown anything.”
“Right. You Oraku don’t really use much technology.”
Orvus glanced over at her, an amused twinkle in his eyes. “Just because we don’t use it doesn’t mean we don’t know how. Now hang on.”
The ship lurched up into the air then jerked forward before leveling off for a relatively smooth flight to the Dohrag camp. Normally, this would have been avoided airspace due to the combative nature of the Dohrags. But since their ground presence had been wiped out, and the approach was being made in their own stolen ship, no less, the flight was utterly uneventful, just as they knew it would be. They covered the multi-day trekdistance in quick time, dropping down to circle the encampment.
The fields looked almost pretty from above, Shalia noted. It’d been a far different experience when she was toiling away at ground level, working her hands until they bled from those damn pricker leaves. The bodies were buried, the blood long gone. To anyone who didn’t know any better, the camp looked pretty normal, if not unusually quiet. Little would they know, nearly all of the Dohrags werepermanentlythat way.
Orvus set down and opened the forward hatch for them. “I’ll be back before sunset.”
“Fly safe,” Zepharos replied, then hopped out onto the dusty ground.
“Good luck,” Shalia said as she exited right behind him.
Orvus shut the hatch and lifted off immediately, heading off to survey the downed sections of the destroyed Raxxian ship as best he could. This area was now safe to fly in. Others, however, would not be, and he still had to travel with great caution and purpose lest he accidentally wander into unfriendly skies.
Zepharos began walking toward the low structures on their left.
“No, this way,” Shalia called after him. “Those are barracks. We want the general’s and the guards’ quarters. Those are over here.”
Zepharos shifted course, following her lead. Though her stay had been relatively short, Shalia knew the layout far better than his guesswork.
They dug through the buildings, the grounded ship the general had been using as part of his encampment easy enough to get into. Zepharos had wondered at first if it might be flight-worthy. That thought evaporated as soon as he stepped inside. It would have taken a great lot of work to repair it, if that was even possible. It was no wonder it had been converted for other use.
The two of them moved quickly and efficiently, looking for anything of use that might have been left behind when the formerprisoners had been freed, but they’d been like locusts, picking the place clean, and aside from the fields, there was clearly nothing of value left here.
“Your bracelet?” he asked as they moved outside.
“Someone must’ve found it. I didn’t really think it was still here, but it would’ve been nice.”
He gave a slight shrug. “Shall we survey the fields and see what might be salvaged? I can smell the rotting fruit from here.”
Shalia realized she could as well. Her new runes must’ve been starting to kick in a little more. She’d never noticed these smells when she was a prisoner here, but now they were as obvious as they were myriad.
“Yeah, might as well. C’mon.”
The two of them walked up and down the long rows between the plants, Zepharos cataloging everything to report back to the village elders. There was alotof food growing here. Enough to feed a small army. But then that was what the Dohrags were using this foothold in this system for. Replenishing supplies of their warships as they passed through on their way to one conflict or another.
“I had heard rumors of the Dohrag operation, but I never imagined the extent of it. Just look at all this food!” Zepharos exclaimed as he wandered over to a crop of low shrubs sporting softball-sized vegetables.
Shalia knew them well. Ukknitz, they were called, and she’d picked a lot of them, learning the hard way that the unripe ones had a sap that would make your skin itch all night. It had been a very short learning curve.
“It was quite an operation,” she agreed, walking off through a field of much taller plants in what looked almost like an alien corn field. A corn field with deep purple leaves and light-yellow stalks, that is.
They wandered apart for a bit, enjoying the fresh air and nature. The moment of quiet tranquility was interrupted when ashadow abruptly flew by overhead, dropping down right towards them.
