Crunching through the snow on her way to the Dragonfly, Lex kept her fur lined hood up over her hair and wrapped one of Hobbes's scarves around her nose and mouth. She was thankful her friend had made her home on the outskirts of a remote mountain town and that her place was surrounded by woodlands. It meant she did not have to land too far from the house. Still… she didn't want to take a chance on being seen.
She felt quite at home in this snowy forest. A large chunk of her life had involved moving through landscapes like this; cold, beautiful and unforgiving. The shuttle was perched in a clearing at the top of a large hill that rose up out of the conifers. As she reached the ship, she pressed the control to open the hatch, but left the ship cloaked.
She had already put on her armour, prepared her weapons and was about to finish her checks on the engines, life support, weapons and operating systems when she noticed something strange in the operations log: a message, received within the past 35 units (A unit is a yautja measurement of time, roughly equating to 45 Earth minutes. A yautja day is 35 units). She blinked "That's within the past 26 hours - a day and a night! But I don't remember receiving any messages. I must have missed it somehow..."
Then her eyes widened "What if it's from the boys or... from Scar?" Her stomach lurched and she felt paralysed for a moment, dreading to even look. Then, summoning all her courage, she pressed the control to bring up the message and gasped as Isaac's face lit up in front of her.
"Mom?" He said "I don't know if you can hear me...It's me, Isaac."
"I hear you, Isaac." She breathed, even though she knew he wouldn't hear her. The joy and the shock of seeing him alive was so great, she had to sit down.
"I don't know where you are Mom but I miss you. Selim does too."
Lex's hand covered her mouth.
"Scar brought us to this planet, to teach us to hunt but … um…. I don't know the name of it. I told him we want to go back to you but he won't listen." Her hands balled up into fists. So, Scar was keeping the boys from even contacting her. All this time she had suspected it but, hearing it confirmed, she felt her face growing hot again with rage.
"I sent co-ordinates with this message Mom. I just want us to be together again. Please come and find us. I...I miss you guys. I love you."
As the message cut out Lex stood up, Isaac's sign-off ringing around in her head.
She had been foundering in a sea of uncertainty for so long - not knowing if either of them were alive or dead. Now, knowing that both her sons were safe was almost too much to take in. "And I have their coordinates - I know where they are at last!" She typed their location into the ship's navicom, plotting a course, then frowned, "Or at least, I know where they were when this message was sent."
She clicked on the timecode. "Isaac sent this two days ago, they might still be there - I could send a tight beam to their coordinates!" Her hand stretched out towards the controls, then she stopped. "If I send a reply, Scar might work out what Isaac did and be angry or worse, just take them off somewhere else. I'd lose my chance!"
She rose to her feet and started for the airlock, pulling on her coat and scarf and grabbing the bag of weapons. "I've already wasted a day of travelling time. We need to leave right away!"
She stepped out onto the crisp snow, then froze as she thought she heard movement in the trees away to her right - cursing as she remembered she was still decloaked. She stayed there for a moment, still and silent, but there was no further noise. The unfurling cloud of her breath was the only movement to be seen. Hurriedly, she reactivated her camouflage, pressed the control to close the hatch and set off down the hill.
"I've got to fetch Spyrro," She thought, striding through the white woods "I never should have left her with Hobbes!"
Spyrro chewed another forkful of her food and watched the ooman, thinking furiously.
"Mei'Varsi had gone to the shuttle. I must act. I just need to get away from this… this minder!"
She looked up resentfully at where the medic stood, with her back towards her. "I could just make a run for the door," She thought, but then discounted it. If she was unlucky, the soft meat might follow her and give her away. She had to find a way to get out of this ooman dwelling without being noticed.
"Ooman?" She said.
"Alice," The female turned to look at her, continuing to drink the bitter smelling drink she and Mei'Varsi seemed to like so much "You can either call me Alice, or Hobbes like your Mom does. I don't think I like being called 'ooman'."
"Ah-lissss," Spyrro tried the unfamiliar word, "Can I go outside and play now?"
"I'm sorry Spyrro," The ooman said, "If you go outside there's a big risk you'll be spotted, you need to stay inside where you'll be safe."
Spyrro snorted in annoyance and sat staring down at the table. Looking at the near-empty plate, a thought struck her and she gave a sly, little smirk to herself.
"Ah-lissss?" The ooman turned as Spyrro slid down off the seat, one hand holding her stomach "I ate too fast."
"Do you feel sick?" The female's brow crinkled for a moment, she looked worried.
"Yes, sick." Spyrro nodded her head vigorously.
"We'd better get you to the bathroom!" Her mother's friend pointed to the end of the hall and then started towards her to help.
Spyrro bolted for the door the ooman had indicated. She really didn't want Hobbes fussing around, trying to help her - that would spoil things! She reached the door first, slammed it shut quickly and leaned against it.
"Spyrro, are you ok?" She heard the woman's voice, muffled by the door.
"I need no help!" She replied, fumbling with the mechanism - managing to get it to lock - and waited until she heard the ooman's steps retreating. Then she looked around the room. There was a small window, up high above the washing basin. It was only a narrow aperture, but she was small and nimble enough to fit. She struggled with the unfamiliar catch and lever system for a few minutes, uttering under her breath a few yautja profanities she had heard her Father use before. The hateful thing stayed stubbornly shut!
Frantically, she looked around the room for a suitable tool and her eyes came to rest on a row of three small, ornamental birds that sat on the side of the larger basin. She picked up the largest one and weighed it in her hand, it seemed heavy enough. Grinning to herself, Spyrro took one of the thick fabric wrappers hanging in the room and wadded it clumsily round her hand. Then she swung the pottery bird hard, the glass pane cracked and crazed but the fabric muffled the noise. She swung again and managed to knock out part of the pane and used the remains of the bird to knock most of the remaining glass out of the sill . Then she was through, dropping silently into the snow.
She slipped into the forest, treading lightly to avoid making any noise and to minimise tracks. It was easy to follow her Mother's tracks and easy to run on the fresh snow, especially for Spyrro who weighed very little. She enjoyed the snap of the freezing air on her face, heightening her senses, making her feel keenly alive and full of the fierce joy she always felt on the hunt. What did it matter that the quarry she was tracking was only Mei'Varsi? There was no sound of pursuit behind her yet, maybe her absence had not been discovered yet. Nevertheless, she took care to cover her tracks as she had been taught to do, using the trees where she could to avoid leaving prints in the snow.
Then she came to the clearing where tracks stopped. Advancing cautiously Spyrro saw the telltale depressions in the ground that gave away the place where the Dragonfly sat, hidden. She put out a tentative hand and felt the side of the ship, smooth and cold and unseeable. There was no sign of her Mother. "She must be inside the ship already," She thought. "I must wait for her to come out - then I will have my chance."
Stealthily, she circled the Dragonfly until she found a vantage point from which she could observe the hatch (or the place where she knew the hatch to be) without being seen herself. Crouched behind a stony outcrop, Spyrro wondered if her Mother had discovered Isaac's message. "What if she guesses I have seen it - she might be angry!"
Spyrro wanted to shiver - partly from cold - but told herself that yautja did not give in to such impulses. She strained her ears for the sounds of possible pursuit, but she could hear nothing. The snow drank up all sound, except for the occasional call of a creature - high pitched and far off.
Suddenly, the hatch of the Dragonfly opened and her Mother emerged, wearing her weapons and armor. Her face had a strange, wild-eyed look on it. "She must have seen the message!" Spyrro swallowed hard, but she edged closer. The hatch was still open - any moment Mei'Varsi would close the door!
Then she heard a noise in the forest. To Spyrro it sounded like an overloaded branch sloughing off its burden of snow, but her Mother's head turned sharply and she stopped dead.
She must act now, while Mei'Varsi's attention was diverted, Spyrro moved as silently as only a born hunter could. She slipped around behind her Mother's back and through the hatch, into the Dragonfly. Inside the ship, she flattened herself against the wall, not daring to breathe until the airlock had sealed behind her. She stayed rooted to the spot, waiting until she was sure Mei'Varsi must have gone.
"She must be returning to the ooman dwelling to fetch me," Spyrro thought "No doubt she wants to give me a scolding and maybe punish me too!"
She raced to the cockpit, her footsteps seeming to echo louder now she was alone in the shuttle, and pressed the control to wake up the console. The screen hummed into life and at once, the course Lex had plotted sprang up on the screen. Spyrro gave an excited squeal. She had not been at all sure how she was going to programme the ship's navicom - it was the aspect of her plan she felt the least confident with - but now she saw she wouldn't have to. Her Mother had done the hard part for her! From watching her parents fly this ship almost every day of her life, Spyrro knew the autopilot would do the rest.
She spread her jaws in a grin "I am coming to find you Mei'Savir and Mei'hswei-i!" (Translation: My Father and My Brothers, plural)
Gleefully she pressed her taloned finger on the control to initiate the Dragonfly's takeoff sequence and squealed with delight as the engine turbines fired and whirred into life with a noise like a building hurricane. Spyrro clapped her small hands in triumph, then she realised that this was not conduct befitting a warrior and tried to compose herself. She must monitor the controls seriously until the shuttle broke free of the ooman planet's atmosphere. She remembered Mei'Varsi telling her many times that leaving or entering a planet's atmosphere was one of the most risky times of any journey.
Spyrro sat down in the huge pilot seat and adopted what she hoped was a suitably focused expression.
Thanks for all the views and the reviews! If you're reading my stuff, please like, follow and review, because it's always so nice to hear if people are enjoying my stories and what they think!
LoveyDovey7, I don't like to give away details of my plot but there's going to be a lot more yautja on yautja violence in this story so I hope that's a good thing. I always imagined that, even if NarJat guessed or was told the truth about Scar's relationship with Lex, he would probably keep it to himself until the day he decides it's somehow advantageous to reveal it.
Kassandra, to my mind Isaac and Scar are always going to lock horns, because they are similar personalities - both having a short fuse - unlike Selim, who's a sweetheart and just wants everyone to get along!
Love n hugs, ScifiTrash xxx