Planetfall (Infinity's End Book 6) by Eric Warren

Author:Eric Warren [Warren, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Eric Warren Author, LLC
Published: 2019-09-09T16:00:00+00:00

23

“Don’t you think it’s strange the night is lasting so long?” Laura asked as Cas and the others continued walking. They’d decided to work this out on the way to the shuttle. Cas hadn’t wanted to wait around for another one of those creatures, and he had a bad feeling about what might await them when they reached the Honduras.

“Yeah, but a time distortion?” Cas asked. “Especially one so extreme? You’re telling me two hours up there,” he pointed above them where Tempest was still orbiting, frozen in time, “is the equivalent to seventy-three days down here?” He did a quick calculation in his head. “So, every hour up there is roughly seven-hundred hours here.”

“Seven-hundred and thirty,” Box amended. “Give or take a few minutes.”

Cas shook his head. Jann and the other members of his team trudged through the underbrush. They looked as bewildered as he was, though Rafnkell only scowled at the ground. She hadn’t said a word since they had all come together, and Cas didn’t want to know what seventy-three days in the underbrush had done to her mood.

Seventy-three days. It was hard to ignore the evidence; Laura’s hair, Box’s chassis in such poor condition. And it explained how the group had the time to disassemble one of the shuttles and rebuild it into a tower.

“We thought you’d left us,” Laura said. “And we had no way to get in contact with you. We didn’t understand the time distortion until later, once we started charting the star’s progression across the sky. We—”

“I realized it was the same track that we’d measured on the ship,” Box said. “And I made the postulation that time works differently on this planet, extending out hours and days so they last weeks or longer.”

“Is the time dilation constant?” Cas asked.

Box nodded. “As constant as our own time. We’ve done a fair amount of exploration; it seems the same for the entire planet.”

Laura scoffed. “Yeah. That wasn’t the smartest idea.” When Cas raised an eyebrow to her, she capitulated. “We didn’t know about the local wildlife when we landed. Those fuckers are big, but they’re quiet. We lost seven crewmen and one of our pilots to them before we even knew what they were.”

Cas glanced at Rafnkell who didn’t act as if she’d heard.

“Which is what?” Jann asked from behind them.

“I’ve classified them as a long-legged variation of Ursae, but with additional characteristics,” Box said.

“Fucking bears. I knew it,” Jann muttered.

Laura huffed. “They’re impervious to weapons fire; they have very tough hides. You’ll have also noticed they have opposable thumbs, making them especially dangerous, though that seems to be a relatively new evolutionary feature in these creatures as they haven’t yet learned how to wipe their own asses or start wars with each other.”

Cas had missed the opposable thumbs; he’d been too preoccupied by the creature’s huge mouth and claws. “So, the only way you’ve found to defeat them is to chuck them as far as you can?”

Box switched into one of his accents.

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