“There’s a Tragoom in the vicinity. It passed this way only minutes ago.”
The helmet’s filtered venting allowed some scent to waft in, and Tina wrinkled her nose. How could Osopa pick up anything over the reek of rotting meat and trash?
It was enough that he could. She looked at their darkening surroundings worriedly. “Why would Tragooms be here in the middle of this carnage?”
“The same reason they show up anywhere there’s been a catastrophe. Abandoned technology, raw materials, and maybe even easy food.” Osopa put his helmet back on.
“You mean humans.”
“They have no problem eating other sentients. Opportunists at every turn.”
Tragooms had been a sporadic issue for Osopa’s men. Spurned by most member planets of the Galactic Council, the vicious race was rarely courted as allies. There’d been word some were on Earth, many on their own. A few others had also shown up in their capacity as slaves to the Bi’isils. The Bi’isils had been busy since Earth’s fall, promising good food and easy lives to those desperate humans who agreed to serve them.
A trap, according to her clanmates. Bi’isils weren’t kind masters to anyone foolish or unlucky enough to end up in their clutches. Half their slaves died within a year, usually by suicide. Many of the rest, who couldn’t help but displease their exacting owners, would end up sold to scientists and die as lab specimens.
Tina would never be so stupid as to sign herself away to a Bi’isil. Tragooms, though—the idea of such a creature anywhere near Zac made her blood run cold. She hoped her brother had chosen a different path than where she and Osopa hunted.
Her Nobek called in the foraging Tragoom to the other search parties. Then he switched to the command center on the site. “I need an extermination crew out here to locate and kill this thing. I won’t lose a single Earther to it.”
“What do we do?” Tina asked after he signed off.
He unholstered his blaster. “End its worthless life if we come across it. Don’t worry, my love. It won’t come anywhere near you.”
He checked their route and started forward again. They’d gone a few steps when he halted once more.
“What now?” Tina was scared, but she was also impatient. They had to find Zac.
Osopa pulled a knife from his belt. It had the thinnest blade she’d ever seen. She stared when he held it out to her. “In case the disgusting gurluck gets lucky. Which it won’t.”
Tina accepted it, but her attitude was skeptical. “What do you expect me to do with this little thing?”
“Tragooms have only three vulnerable spots: their eyes, through which you can stab into their brains; an inch of softness right here—” he pointed to just below his sternum “—and their cocks. You won’t need to defend yourself, though. It’s only an extra precaution.”
Good. She doubted even a sword would be of any use in her hands. They continued on.
“The scent is fading. Security patrols will pick the Tragoom up and dispose of it.”
They were closing on the containment barrier. She didn’t know whether to feel relief or discouragement. Zac hadn’t come this way. Hopefully, one of the other teams would discover him, and soon. The sky behind her had begun shading to purple.
Osopa halted and pulled his helmet off again. His expression alert, he stared around them.
“Tragoom? Did it circle back?”
“It’s Zac.” His nose flared as he sniffed the cooling air. He clicked his com. “Osopa to search party. Zac took our route. Sending coordinates. We’re following a scent trail.”
Tukui’s voice answered. “All teams, move to Commander Osopa’s position and fan out when you reach him. Let’s bring that child home.”
Sticking close to Osopa, Tina advanced. Her clanmate wove from side to side, his nostrils flaring. “If I can locate exactly where he was when he came through—here. The trace is strongest here.”
They were picking up speed, Osopa no longer zigzagging. Tina trotted in his wake, hurrying between the piles of tumbled buildings, skirting the massive pits that had appeared, jumping over massive cracks that had opened like veins in the ground. There were a couple of terrifying instances when chunks of concrete fell from the teetering mountains of wreckage, but Osopa was there to grab her and carry her out of danger with his supernatural speed.
Tina was grateful she’d volunteered to assist Yorso at the site, and that her work often had her running from one end of it to another. She was in the best shape of her life, panting as they followed Osopa’s nose after Zac’s trail, but not entirely winded.
Osopa began to slow. “The scent’s strong. He’s close.”
“Should I call?”
“Not with a Tragoom in the vicinity. Whoa, hold up.” He grabbed her as he skidded to a halt only inches from the deepest pit thus far. It dropped off sharply, a deep gouge in the land at the foot of a row of tumbled buildings, too wide to jump across.
“This would give the Grand Canyon a run for its money,” Tina gasped. She exaggerated, but she was glad she hadn’t fallen into it. It promised broken bones.
Now that they’d stopped, she took a good look around. They were feet from the containment, the formerly brilliant orange air a sullen brown. It was impossible to see details within the radiation zone. A blessing, given that her surroundings outside the containment was a vast wasteland. Peaks of devastation leaned precariously over the arteries of cracked earth.
Tina fought off tears. She’d seen footage from vids of the horrific damage, but in person, it was beyond comprehension. What had been a hub of humanity was a dead corpse. It made her heart hurt.
Osopa was silent as they surveyed the outcome of horrific war. The constant clicking of small bits of debris bouncing from the shattered remains was occasionally joined by the louder crashing of larger masses. But that was all. No voices, no car engines, no music. No life.
Until a tiny voice spoke. “Don’t let it get me.”
Tina pivoted with a gasp.
Osopa shot straight to the nearest lump of wreckage, a smallish hill a few yards away. He crouched before a crevice between two slabs of concrete, too tight for Tina to have fit between. As Tina hurried to join him, she was stunned to see the Nobek grinning.
“I walked right past you moments ago. Excellent hiding, little brother. You’d be able to pull off an easy ambush on your enemies from here.”
Tina hunkered down and gasped with relief when she saw the dirty face peering at her from the narrow gap. “Thank God. Zac, we were so worried.”
“Is the monster gone?”
“Monster?”
Osopa stood up straight again, scowling as he examined their surroundings. “How long since you saw the Tragoom, Zac?”
“The thing with the pig face? A few minutes, but I could hear it just before you came by.” He crept closer to Tina, his head poking out from the pile of rubble.
Osopa had his blaster at the ready. His obvious alarm frightened Tina. “My Nobek?”
“Usually, you can’t smell anything but them if they’re in the vicinity. The stench should be drowning out Zac’s, but if the wind is coming from the wrong direction—”
He took off without finishing his statement, racing around the hill Zac hid within. A hoarse animal shriek, unlike anything Tina had ever heard before, echoed through the landscape.