Chapter One
The group that had gathered in the heart of the ship, just beneath the mezzanine-garden, was somber and uncannily quiet for such a large group--no huge surprise, Belle didn’t suppose, since everyone sensed the news was bad.
Or really bad.
The Artemis generational colony ship, sister ship of the Huntress, who’d left Earth two decades before they had, had slipped into orbit around their destination planet weeks previous. They had been notified of their arrival and insertion into orbit around Proxima B and informed that they would be sending out drones for surveys before a decision was made regarding a landing date and site.
And then … nothing.
The silence choked the sharp mix of budding excitement and uncertainties of the colonists.
Because most of the first gen colonists had died and almost everyone on board had been born on the ship in route to their colony world. And, if anything, they were more unnerved at the prospect of living on a wild, untamed world, surrounded by raw nature, than thrilled.
Young enough, the majority, to be excited about the ‘adventure’, too, but …. It was a daunting task ahead of them even so.
Made more unnerving by the prolonged wait for news.
A stunning wave of shock and anger rolled over Belle with the first announcement by Captain Connor Carnegie.
“Contact was lost with the Huntress when they arrived at Proxima B. We had thought it was a failure of some of the equipment and that we would hear from them again at some point. However, we were not able to re-establish contact despite many attempts to do so while in route to the target world.
“It is with great sorrow that we must inform you that--as far as we can ascertain--the Huntress and all aboard were lost. We have not been able to contact any survivors since we arrived. We have not been able to find any evidence of an established settlement.
“We did, however, find indications of a cataclysmic event of what may have been the colony established by survivors of theHuntress. We have not been able to positively confirm that as fact, however. The ruins we found that appear to be fairly recent may or may not have been built by the colonists. There have also been ruins discovered of an older, most likely, native civilization.”
“The planet itself, however, has exceeded all hopes. It is flourishing. It is a veritable Eden.”
Belle wasn’t the only one that was stunned and outraged that they hadn’t been informed previously that the first colony had perished. Apparently everyone was and, although it took them some moments to recover sufficiently to react … bedlam ensued.
The captain attempted to bring order for a Q&A discussion. Finally, however, he lost patience and ordered the guardsmen out to disperse the unruly crowd. Those who refused to disperse--or were trapped and unable to run--were tased and hauled to the med center or the brig.
Belle, which came as no huge surprise to her, was among the trapped and ended up in the brig.
She couldn’t decide whether she was more pissed off with the captain for ordering everyone rounded up or the assholes that had created such a traffic-jam that she couldn’t escape the sweep.
But she mentally kicked her ass while she kicked her heals in lockup.
She hated crowds and the latest event was exactly why she avoided them.
But then everyone had been ‘commanded’ to attend by Captain Asshole.
And she didn’t want--or trust--secondhand news.
* * * *
Ryne signaled hispadur, Torr, his hunting brother and companion, with the warbling-whistle they used to alert oneanother to danger and pointed to the object below them when Torr whipped his head in his direction.
He felt his belly tighten with anger and tension once he’d dropped low enough he could identify the strange thing he had spotted.
Identify what it was--even though it looked nothing like the tek he had seen before.
It was clearly nothing natural--a made thing of some sort flying low over the jungle below them.
After a moment’s indecision, the two of them followed the tek at a safe distance--or what they judged to be a safe distance--to see what it was up to.
It seemed significant--in terms of threat--that it went as directly to the destroyed city of the Ert invaders as it could go. And examined it so thoroughly Ryne could not help but wonder if they believed there were survivors and were looking for them.
Well, of a certainty there had been survivors.
