Hadrian's Colony: Elanus: Interlude

 Notes: Time for some togetherness, don't you think?

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Elanus: Interlude

***

Interlude: Elanus

 

Photo by Glen Carrie

When Elanus gave himself the time to think about finding Kieron, which wasn’t very often as he committed himself to repairing Catie and fabricating parts and healing his leg with the help of their renewed Regen, he tended to think in very vague terms. He recognized that this was unusual for him—Elanus delighted in specificity, that was part of what made him the genius engineer and businessman he was. He liked to investigate things, he enjoyed breaking them down into their component parts so he could put them back together again, he liked complexity.

He didn’t like any of that when it came to his fiancé.

Anyone born smarter than was good for them knew that creativity was just as much of a curse as it was a blessing. Elanus didn’t have to meditate on the fact that Kieron was missing to come up with a hundred different ways he might be dead right now. This godawful, star-cursed, pestilent place ensured that nothing Elanus thought of was out of the realm of possibility.

Capture and torture? Check.

Being eaten alive by a reptilian? Check.

Becoming injured and dying of a fierce infection? Check.

The list went on and on, and the only way to keep going in the face of it was through rigid mental control. Kieron focused all his creativity toward topping off Catie’s power, recreating her missing parts as best they could, and fixing himself. He also made half a dozen different types of weapons, because why the hell not? When they were both as good as they could be, Elanus told Catie to start with expanding the reach of her communications array—the new one wasn’t as good as the old one, and they were down half their heating coils now, but it was way better than nothing—to see what she detected.

He didn’t honestly expect a lot. Between the storms and the inhospitable landscape, Elanus was pretty sure they were going to come up empty. And yet, his girl managed to surprise him.

“I hearrr…a beat.”

“A beat. What kind of beat?”

“It’s an SOS, Daddeee. It sounnnds like this.” She played the sound over her speaker and Elanus froze as he heard the Morse code as clear as his daughter’s own voice.

“Where is it coming from?”

“Here.” She projected the image onto her viewscreen, including estimated landmarks indicating the creche and basic geological features. The SOS was coming from what looked like some sort of rugged—oh, what were those things called, big and flat-topped and—

“The plateau?” He inspected it, wondering if that was where the people who’d fired on Catie had set up their base. If so, flying there was going to be asking for trouble.

That said, it wasn’t like he had a choice. They were going to get Kieron and Blobby back whether they had to shoot their way in or not.

“Yes, Daddeee.”

“Are you detecting any other electronic signals from there?”

“No…but…” Catie’s pause was worrying. “I am detectinnng some seismic disturbancesss.”

“Like rocks falling?”

“Perhaps.”

Well, that was clear as mud. It wasn’t Catie’s fault, though. “Thanks, honey.” Elanus leaned back in his chair and thought for a minute. The SOS was almost certainly Kieron, or rather Blobby—there was no reason for the local population of assholes to put a message like that out even if they knew it, and Elanus was certain that Kieron was protecting them on his end as much as possible. He wouldn’t have Blobby send up a signal if it meant pulling them into danger along with him, the idiot.

There was only one thing to do. “Let’s take a look, then. Carefully, though,” Elanus emphasized. “I want your skin on the whole time, full shielding from visual and electronic surveillance. We can’t be spotted, Catie.”

“I know, Daddeee.” She was quiet for a moment. “Do you rrreally think it’s Kieeeeron?”

“There’s only one way to find out,” he said, and strapped himself in as Catie began to initialize her engines. This wasn’t quite their first test flight, but the plateau was a good thirty miles away, farther than he’d asked her to go before. If things got hairy, he needed to make sure he didn’t break another stupid bone.

But Catie soothed his fears as she lifted smoothly into the air despite the increasing wind and rain, then set in on a course toward the plateau. Elanus tried to control his reactions, but he couldn’t seem to stop his heart from pounding harder at the thought that they might be heading toward Kieron now. He might be only minutes away from finding the love of his life and the little bot he knew Kieron would never abandon. He might also have a hell of a firefight on his hands soon, but Elanus was confident that Catie’s passive defenses would protect them for now.

It was dark out from the storm, and despite his better judgement Elanus asked for a focused light to illuminate the plateau in the viewscreen as they got closer to the signal. It was risky, but it didn’t take a genius to realize that this plateau was actually a terrible place for a base. The terrain was unstable, the canyons were narrow, and—

“What in the hell is that?” A creature like he’d never seen before was trundling along one of the ridges, its body made from what looked like interconnected, antique shields and its head like a farming combine. It was moving away from them with intent, and Elanus shouted before he consciously registered what he was seeing. “Fire on it, Catie!”

She loosed one of her slender javelin rounds, and it penetrated the creature’s tough hide and sent it careening down the cliff, but Elanus didn’t care. He was already on his feet, ignoring the ache in his leg from the still-healing bone as he moved toward the hatch. “Catie—”

The door opened before he could say anything else, and Catie maneuvered dangerously close to the ledge so that Elanus could reach out and gather the mirage in front of him into his arms.

It was Kieron. Bloody, bruised, looking like he was inches away from death and staggering along the top of a fucking plateau in the middle of nowhere, fuck, what had happened to him? A thousand questions welled up behind Elanus’s teeth, but all he could say was, “Kieron? Blobby? Baby, are you okay?” He pulled back from his hold on his fiancé just far enough to look into his battered face. “Kieron, Kieron, sweetheart, tell me what I can do. Talk to me, tell me anything, please.”

Kieron looked at him, really finally looked, and the fear in his expression melted into the starkest combination of anguish and relief that Elanus had ever seen. He wailed, rough and mindless, wrapped his arms around Elanus’s waist, and dropped like a stone.

Elanus caught him, held him fast, and tucked him gently against his chest. It felt like his heart had come to life again, like he could take a full breath after far too long being squeezed silent. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s going to be okay, I’m here. We’re here, we’ve got you.” Catie was moving, chattering to him and Kieron and Blobby as she found them somewhere more defensible to settle in, but all Elanus could hear was Kieron’s breaths, wet and pained against his chest, and so very, very precious.

He had Kieron and Blobby back again. Everything else could wait.

 

Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Seventeen, Part Two

 Notes: Who wants more peril! Peril, get your mortal peril here! But--there's a light at the end of this tunnel, my darlins.

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Seventeen, Part Two

***

Chapter Seventeen, Part Two

 

Picture by Joe Shields

It took Kieron a moment, in the dimness, to make out the tunneler against the darkness of rock and shadow. It wasn’t as big as the other one, not nearly; this was less than half the size of the first, and that was bad because it was, apparently, much better suited to climbing. At the moment, however, it was on the other side of the slender canyon. That was about ten feet of separation that Kieron was very grateful for right now.

Move on, he murmured silently to himself. Just move on. You sensed the vibration of the rain, you sensed the crack of the thunder. You can’t see us. He watched its massive shovel-like protrusions dig into the rock around it, crunching and cracking it like it was nothing. Please, fucking move on.

Bobby tapped out a message. [Do you want me to stop pinging?]

Oh shit, he’d been sending out a signal all this time? “Yes,” Kieron tapped back. He’d forgotten about that…and that might be the thing that had guided whatever ship this was to them. The General’s people were looking for their rogues—Kieron vaguely hoped that the fact that they were still searching, this far from the closest edge of the plateau to their home base, meant they’d missed Carlisle and the rotten old husk she kept faith with.

Or maybe they were retaken, and she’s being tortured right now while he gets medical care. Or maybe they were eaten by a fucking tunneler, and the ship did pick up on your signal, and it would have left you alone if you hadn’t let Bobby go at it for so long.

It was too late for regrets. Kieron tucked Bobby under his free arm and hunkered down a bit closer to the rock. They just had to wait it out. As long as it didn’t fly right over the top of them, the odds of the ship finding them were low, even with their scanners—it was too wet and cold out for infrared to do much for them. As soon as the ship gave up, they could climb back up to the top of the ridge, away from the tunneler, and move on. Then they could—

Crunch—SMASH! Kieron bolted upright, turning to stare at the tunneler. Or rather, at where the tunneler had been. It wasn’t there anymore, but it took less than a second to realize where it had gone when the rock they were clinging to shuddered.

“Fuck,” Kieron whispered. “It jumped.” Or it might have just fallen from one side of the canyon to the other, if its body was long enough. “Fuck, fuck.” The tunneler wasn’t visible yet, but Kieron knew it was climbing up toward them. They couldn’t stay here.

But they couldn’t get back up on top of the ridge, either. They might be faster than a tunneler—and that was a big if, on the slippery rock—but they couldn’t outrun a ship. If they saw them, if they opened fire…maybe they could slide sideways, or down the other side to get away from the tunneler. But if it came after them, especially once they were downhill from it, there’d be no escape.

[Papa, it’s okay. I can help.]

Kieron blinked, only just realizing he’d been on the verge of hyperventilating. Stars, how could he be so exhausted and so keyed up at the same time? “What do you mean, Bobby?”

[I can move the tunneler.] Bobby pulled out of Kieron’s hold and onto the rock, wiggling nimbly. [I can make it chase me!]

Kieron stared at the little bot, aghast. “Absolutely not!”

[I think it will work.]

“We’re not separating.” After a second, Kieron amended, “Unless I’m stuck and it’s the only way for you to survive.”

[No!]

“Yes.” Fuck it, they were going to have to run for it. Kieron gathered the rope in his fist and began to climb back up to the ridge, moving even faster once he made out the edge of those iron-dark mandibles appear below them. “Shit, let’s go.” He was almost at the top when the brilliant yellow of a search light, bright and ominous, shot overhead. “Shit!”

[Plan B, Papa.] Bobby moved a little farther down the rock wall.

“Bobby, wait—”

But it was too late. Kieron watched as a little piece of the bot rolled downhill, bouncing merrily, until it was at the same level as the tunneler.

Then it exploded.

It wasn’t a big explosion, technically speaking. Kieron only perceived it as big because he’d been in near-silence for so long now, but it seemed like an enormous crack rent the air as the bot-bomb went off. The tunneler, which had made it a few feet closer to them, didn’t like it either—it reeled backward, mouthparts snapping as it tried to figure out why it was under fire. It was, Kieron had to admit, a good distraction.

Now if only they could capitalize on it. “Come on,” he said, reaching a hand up toward the top of the ridge. All he needed to do was unloop the rope, and they could start their scramble. “We’re going sideways, okay? We just need to—”

[It’s coming back!]

Damn it, the tunneler was coming back. Kieron had hoped it might drop off completely, but it had apparently decided to double-down on known prey rather than waste time on an enemy it couldn’t find. Before Kieron could respond, Bobby sent another piece of himself toward the creature. The explosion was percussive, but the tunneler wasn’t as distracted this time.

[I need to make a bigger bomb.]

“You’ll run out of parts,” Kieron argued. The tunneler was moving again. They’d never be able to outpace it going sideways.

Screw it. He picked Bobby up, hauled them up onto the ridge, and swung the rope around his neck. “We’re running.”

Easier said than done. Even with adrenaline rushing through him once more, Kieron was unsteady on his feet. It had been hours since he’d drunk or eaten anything, longer since he’d slept. Every ache and pain, every fracture, every effort he’d laid out over however many hours he’d been held by the General was catching up to him now. He got ten feet, stumbled, and collapsed down onto one knee. He saw the searchlight scanning in the distance and hoped, hoped, hoped it didn’t turn their way.

Scuttle-scuttle-scuttle… The tunneler was coming. Bobby released another microbomb, but it barely made the creature pause.

The searchlight suddenly flooded them. Kieron blinked against tears, the light far too dazzling. He needed to run but it was all he could do not to fall, and the tunneler was coming closer, and if it was a choice between being eaten, being taken captive once more, and falling to his death he genuinely wasn’t sure what he preferred right now, he was so tired and he had done everything so wrong and he was never going to see Elanus or Catie again—

A whip-thrum shot past him, and the tunneler screeched. Whatever had hit it, it did a lot more damage than Bobby; Kieron could hear the creature slide down the slope and over the edge, landing with a distant clatter. Bobby crouched beneath him, clinging to his leg, so no throwing himself off the ridge then.

The light was so close it was blinding now. He could hear the ship’s engine, hear the hum of its hatch door opening, hear the person inside it yell, “Kieron? Blobby?”

…Elanus?

And then the ship was close enough to swallow them up, warm arms reaching out to draw them inside, and Kieron was definitely in a dream, because the person holding them was Elanus, and Catie was shrilling with joy, and Kieron could finally let himself go and just…

Fall.

 

Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Sixteen, Part Two

 Notes: Oof. Just oof. Poor Kieron, is all I've got to say.

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Sixteen, Part Two

***

Chapter Sixteen, Part Two

 Photo by Pavel Anoshin

 

When Kieron woke, it was to the chill of rain-kissed wind against the skin of his face. He blinked blearily, groaning as the pain from the rocky surface he was lying on seeped into his consciousness. It felt like he had shards of rock lodged under the skin of his back, but when he tried to roll over the sharp pain in his left arm and shoulder stopped him cold. A gentle bump to his stomach, followed by a mechanical purr, was enough to let him know that Blobby was with him, at least.

His surroundings slowly came into focus. It was dark out, and clouds roiled across the sky, spitting rain and droplets of icy hail down on them. The occasional flash of lightning illuminated a strange landscape, and it took Kieron a moment to realize that they were on top of the plateau. The ground was split into vast seams, their tops as little as a foot wide. The one they were on right now was more like five feet, large enough for him, Carlisle, and—

That bastard. The hover chair was no longer hovering, resting firmly on the ground instead, and in its embrace lay the General, seemingly asleep but coughing fitfully despite that. Carlisle was beside him, rigging a tarp over his head to keep the wet off. She seemed to be moving all right, at least. Kieron must have made some sort of noise, because Carlisle looked over at him just as another bolt of lightning struck, this one close enough to make nearby pebbles buzz and clatter. The relief on her face was heartening, though. “You’re awake!” She knotted the end of the tarp so that it stretched flat from the top of the chair to the arm, then came over to Kieron. “Thank the stars. I wasn’t sure if you’d taken more head trauma or not.”

“I think I did,” Kieron mumbled as he tried to sit up. Oh, bad idea, bad idea—he immediately rolled over and retched what little liquid remained in his stomach out onto the ground. Carlisle crouched beside him, supporting his shoulders with firm hands until he was finished, then helped him carefully straighten up. After a moment of uncomfortable roiling, Kieron settled into the position. “Where…ship?” he managed.

“Down there,” Carlisle said, nodding her head stiffly toward the chasm to the left. “I was able to balance it enough to get us all out, but the tunneler knocked it back down pretty quick.”

Fuck. Those things were still around? Carlisle must have read his face, because she nodded. “Yeah, we haven’t shaken them, but they can’t climb all the way up and out without a huge expenditure of energy. I don’t think it’s worth it to them unless they know they’re getting food out of it. But they know we’re here. I’ve heard them moving around down there.”

Well, that was…horrifying. “What else?” he said through gritted teeth.

“I did manage to salvage some supplies,” she said, which was good news. “Food, tarps, a few potable-water straws.” Given all the rain that was falling, drinking through those was a better deal than carrying actual water. They could make almost anything drinkable…for a while, until they got clogged and needed cleaning. “Plus some painkillers.” She smiled at him. “You want some?”

“Fuck yes.”

“I thought so.” She handed over two pills, then pulled out a stim shot. “Where is it worst?”

Kieron dry-swallowed the pills to give himself a moment to think. Layering painkillers wasn’t usually a good idea, especially the ones that came in these old stim shots, but he didn’t have the luxury of being all that worried about his kidneys right now. He considered his body for a moment, shifting this way and that on the ground. “Left arm,” he said finally. “And my head.”

“All right.” She put the tip of the stim shot against the left side of the base of his neck and triggered it. An icy coldness flooded through his veins from the site, and Kieron shivered violently for a moment before…

Bliss. Holy shit. There was nothing quite as delicious as the sudden end of pain. Kieron grinned—he couldn’t even feel his arm anymore.

“Look at you, you lightweight,” Carlisle murmured. “Come on, let me bind that.”

“It doesn’t bother me now.”

“It will in a few hours,” she predicted. “So let me bind it now to make things easier for you later.” She didn’t have to set the bone, thankfully, but still wrapped it firmly in a cut-up tarp, then rigged a sling to keep it close to his chest. “There’s nothing more I can do about the concussion, I’m afraid,” Carlisle said regretfully as she passed Kieron a ration bar. He took it and ate as fast as he could without risking his stomach, then used the straw to drink from the cupped edge of the tarp they were sheltering under. It was amazing how much better he felt now; with Blobby warm in his lap and the gnawing pains of hunger, thirst, and his own brokenness gone, he was almost temped to go back to sleep. It seemed like it had been so long since he’d actually slept…but no.

“We should get going.” If the tunnelers were still tracking them, then they needed to get off the plateau as soon as possible.

“A fine idea,” Carlisle agreed. “You should get started tonight. I salvaged a few emergency lights—they don’t project very far, but they should help you make your way as safely as is realistic. You should go—”

Kieron held up his good hand. “No. We should go.” What was this “you” bullshit?

Carlisle firmed her mouth up as she shook her head. “No.”

“Yes.”

“I can’t.”

“Fuck that.”

She pointed to the General. “The hoverchair isn’t working anymore. I won’t be able to bring him along.”

That was a feature as far as Kieron was concerned. “So you leave him here! Or push him down into the canyon!”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Kieron was aware that his volume was going up, and not entirely with his consent, but he couldn’t help it. “He’s a mass murderer! He supported the idea of you being raped for disobedience! He just got through trying to kill both of us! He—”

“He’s my father.”

Kieron saw red. “What the hell does that have to do with anything? Since when has the parent-child relationship been anything other than a burden to you and anyone else in this entire fucking colony? You didn’t want anything to do with me!” He was slipping, he knew he was slipping, but he was too loopy to care. “And he clearly has never cared about you except insofar as you obeyed his every order like a good little soldier. He’s a terrible person.”

“I know,” Carlisle said, her voice flat. “I know that. But I can’t do it. He’s…” She shut her eyes. “For a long time, he was all I had. Obedience to him was my…it was my entire life. I can’t just leave him to die alone. I certainly can’t murder him.”

“Then let me do it.” Kieron began to get to his feet, but Carlisle pulled him down again. He glared at her fiercely, but was shocked out of his anger when he saw tears rise up in her eyes.

“You don’t understand,” she whispered. “You don’t know what it was like being his child. You—I did wrong by you, I admit that. I should have been a better mother, but I tried my best when the chance came to get you free of this awful world. That’s—that’s never been an option for me. This proves it. This whole exercise, everything about you coming back, it’s showed me that I can never be free. The most I can do is try to make sure that you are.” She swiped a hand over her eyes. “I’m not leaving him. That’s not negotiable, either, so don’t ask me again.”

Kieron gritted his teeth so hard he felt his jaw pop. “Then I’ll stay too.”

“You can’t. You need to get off this plateau as soon as you can and set up some sort of signal for your friend.”

“Carlisle—”

“You can’t stay here!” she screamed. “They’re looking for us, don’t you understand? If they find you, you’ll be killed immediately. I can’t watch that, I can’t. You need to escape, right now, while I’m still around to be a distraction for you.”

“I don’t want you to be my distraction,” Kieron yelled right back. “I want you to be my mother!”

“I never will be!”

Her statement echoed between them, and Kieron watched in detached awe as a dozen different emotions crossed her face before she finally turned away and began stuffing supplies into a pack.

Carlisle wasn’t his mother. She didn’t want to be his mother. She would rather stay with a dying murderer than try to escape with him. He was nothing but a burden to her; he’d always been a burden to her. Coming back here was the worst thing he could have done to her.

The results of his selfishness made him want to cry, but Kieron bit it back. Fine. He’d leave.

Getting to his feet was a challenge, but Blobby helped, elongating himself into something like a walking stick for Kieron to hold onto. He stood still as Carlisle looped the bag over his good shoulder, then wrapped a tarp around him. “Go due west,” she said, firmly in control of herself again as she pointed along the rocky ridge. “It’s the quickest way off the plateau. Once you’re down, find a way to contact your friend as soon as possible. Stay away from any structures you might find, and avoid all the transmission wavelengths you’ve used with your little bot so far, they’ll be monitored.” The last thing she did was tuck the stim shot into the top of his sling. “There are two more doses in there,” she said. “Space them out, otherwise you might have a heart attack.”

Kieron nodded dully. They stared at each other for a long moment, then Carlisle nodded. “Be safe.”

He wanted to laugh. He wanted to scream. He did neither, just turned and began to make his way along the crumbling ridge.

Kieron didn’t look back.