Page 92 of Splintered Shadow
“Well, you have the comm unit. Don’t hesitate to call if you need anything or change your mind,” Sarah said.
“I won’t, but thank you,” she said in a firm tone.
Not one to linger, Sarah waved farewell and trudged through the mud back to the flyer.
Vekele leaned against the flyer, all lean lines, and the grin he gave her was positively disreputable. Pitch flew from a nearby tree to his shoulder.
“The female will remain?” he asked, scratching behind Pitch’s head.
“Took offense that I’d even suggested she’d leave.”
He looked around, considering the farmstead. “It is a pleasant spot. It is understandable that she wishes to remain.”
“Well, you didn’t get a look at the handsome farmer,” Sarah said, only a little tickled at the disgruntled noise Vekele made. “When do we have to be back on the ship?”
“Whenever we please. It is our ship. They will not leave without us,” he answered. “I promised you a present.”
“Yes. Give it to me.” She held out a hand, flexing her fingers in a gimme motion.
“Get in the flyer.”
“Can I drive?”
“No,” he said quickly.
One little hiccup with the anti-grav and he’d never let her in the pilot seat since. The flyer was barely off the ground since it was in training mode, so no one was injured. That was the point of training mode.
Ghost jumped in the back, climbing onto the towel she put down to protect the seats. Once everyone was situated, the flyer rose gracefully above the line and headed to the west.
Today they were on a smaller planet that inhabited the zone between the inner core worlds and the outer realm. Agriculture was the main industry. Lush fields rolled by. The occasional building dotted the landscape, but they were deep in the heart of nothing. They flew past the last village an hour ago and calling the cluster of buildings a village was generous.
The open landscape went on forever. Sarah couldn’t imagine living here. She’d always been a city person. The closest she ever got to a farm was the farmer’s market on Saturday mornings.
She tried to read up on every planet they visited. When Vekele told her the Arcosian kingdom held “several worlds,” she thought maybe a dozen, two dozen max, and most of them uninhabited.
Nope.
The Arcosian kingdom encompassed a hundred star systems, many of them with multiple inhabited planets and moons, not including orbital stations and deep space stations. Adding to the difficulty was outdated information that skewed star charts and damaged network relays and substations. To download data from monitoring stations that may have recorded an anomaly first required repairing and upgrading the equipment.
It would take years to thoroughly survey the territory, looking for anyone who fell through a portal. At least once the monitoring stations were repaired, they could scan the nearby planets for human life forms.
Reconnecting the communication network helped. As the media spread the story, local reports cropped up of strange aliens appearing out of nothingness. As much as Sarah wanted to scour every moon or tiny planet that could support life, their resources were better spent tracking down reported sightings. She worried about the people that could be alone, injured, or barely surviving in the wilderness.
They needed a bigger crew. Hell, they needed another team on another ship or two. When the king agreed to her plan, he must have known how impossible the task would be.
Sarah added asking for more resources to her ever -growing to-do list.
The flyer slowed. While a force field shielded the occupants from the wind, it did little about the sound.
“Where are we going?” she shouted.
Vekele shook his head, not even bothering to fight against the noise of the wind.
Before long, they sat on a picnic blanket on a high cliff overlooking a stormy sea. A wall of gray clouds lingered on the horizon. For the moment, they were in the sun and the breeze was pleasant. The remains of a meal surrounded them.
Sarah watched Ghost chase insects in the grass. Well, she and Pitch watched. The karu took to guiding Ghost’s behavior, especially when in crowds of people. Currently, Pitch swooped down to herd Ghost away from the cliff’s edge.
“I think Pitch considers herself to be Ghost’s supervisor,” she said.
