Frontier's Reach: A Space Opera Adventure (Frontiers Book 1) by Robert James (beach read TXT) 📗

it didn’t diminish the amazement a small child had when stepping onto a new world. As an adult, those feelings were still there. While Psi-Aion had been welcoming, as the sun set on the majestic green forest, it no longer resembled a vast tropical Eden. Instead, it now seemed like something from a nightmarish fairy tale. After completing their mission to find the CDF beacon, the adult inside Tyler was happy to be heading back to the Maybelle.

Up in the trees, more of the large insects they’d seen earlier were coming out for the night. Tyler wasn’t too fond of bugs. On the Argo, he rarely came across them, unless they had an infestation in a contaminated shipment. He shuddered remembering the time a food consignment filled with dormant Perseus Spider eggs spoiled. No one realized until three weeks later when the pests had grown to the size of dinner plates. He tried to take his mind of it and turned to Captain Marquez, who was fiddling around with the small datapack he’d taken from the data recorder.

Marquez hadn’t said a great deal since coming back from the wreckage. Tyler could only imagine what the captain was going through. He’d lost his ship and crew. The old saying said the captain should go down with his ship. From what Tyler understood, it was especially so for a military man.

“Do you think the data will be readable?” Tyler asked him.

“Those recorders are almost unbreakable.” Marquez shrugged. “I’m sure we’ll get something from it.”

“Hopefully Professor Petit finds it useful to further determine his theory regarding trans-space. It might even get us home quicker.”

Marquez nodded, though he didn’t look so sure. Doctor Tai walked up beside them and Tyler strolled farther ahead to let them have a conversation to themselves.

With the sun almost gone, the Marines switched the flashlights on at the ends of their rifles. Even with the old weapons on hand, the four beams still did a serviceable job at cutting through the darkness.

A sound echoed against the trunks of the great trees and everyone stopped. It was the same noise they’d heard when tracking the beacon. A loud rustling rebounded around them. Everyone stared at each other and the Marines waved their rifles around trying to find where the source of the din was.

But there was no trace of anything in the vicinity.

Then the drums started. It was at that point Tyler realized they weren’t dealing with animals. The noises were being made deliberately.

“We should get to higher ground,” Marquez said as he and Tai walked up beside Tyler.

They briskly proceeded up the hill, following the Marines who’d fanned out into a staggered formation.

Tyler’s blood pumped, and his chest pounded as they reached the top of the rise. The Marines continued searching around, but there didn’t appear to be anything ahead of them.

The drums endured.

“Where is that sound coming from?” Tyler focused into the distance. If he hadn’t felt uneasy before, he did now. It seemed like they were on the set of an old horror film.

“How far away are we from the ship?” Marquez asked.

“Five hundred meters at least,” Tyler read from his tracker.

The drums continued to get louder, resonating around them.

“We need to move quicker.” Marquez started running.

Higgs and Utkin took point while Burns and Dalton guarded the rear. Tyler, Marquez, and Tai kept their hands firmly on their sidearms as the beat got louder still.

The hairs on the back of Tyler’s neck rose. At the top of a familiar rise, the silhouette of the Maybelle appeared in the distance.

“Come on! Nearly there!” Marquez boomed at everyone.

As if on cue rain started tumbling down around them.

Down the hill and through the scrub beneath, they reached the pod. At the airlock, a large animal, like an elk with more pronounced and sharper horns, lay in a pool of its own blood. A wooden spear at least two meters long protruded from its abdomen.

The Marines waved their rifles over the pod where the red ooze had been splattered on the hull. The shock left everyone speechless.

Then the drums then stopped.

They all froze.

Tyler spun around.

Torches, lit with fire, dotted the night. Dozens of them. And holding those torches were the same aliens under the helmets from Orion V.

Seekers!

“Uh, guys…”

Everyone else turned. Private Dalton raised his rifle, and an arrow came from above through the darkness, impaling him straight through the head, killing him instantly.

“Keep your weapons down!” Marquez ordered.

Tyler peered up, discovering their stalkers in the trees as well. They were everywhere. “They don’t look like the Seekers we saw on Orion V.”

Tai nodded. “Spears, bows, and arrows. Their clothing…they almost look like cavemen.”

They wore little more than loincloths, and war paint covered their bodies.

“How could these people build spaceships and travel through interstellar space?”

“That’s hardly relevant right now,” Marquez said. “They’ve got a dozen arrows pointed at every one of us, and we’re on their home turf.” He stepped forward. “Follow my lead.”

With his sidearm in his hand, he slowly placed it on the ground in front of him and raised his hands in the air. Everyone else did the same. While Tyler didn’t think it a great idea to disarm, there seemed to be little choice. He didn’t want to end up like the dead Marine beside him.

“My name is Captain Marquez.”

One Seeker stepped forward. He was slightly taller than the others and had more elaborate war paint on his body. He seemed a hell of a lot meaner, too. His beady eyes studied the captain and then stared over to the rest of the group.

Marquez put out his hands with an open gesture. “We mean you no harm.”

In the blink of an eye, the Seeker swung his right fist, and Marquez went barreling to the ground. The other Seekers moved past him and took everyone else by force.

Tyler gazed at the unmoving body of Marquez as they roped his hands up behind his back.

Maybe those spiders weren’t so bad after all…

Thirty-Two

Seeker Vessel

Kione stirred in his cell and