Savage Skies: A Military-Scifi Thriller Novella by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

Author:Nicholas Sansbury Smith [Smith, Nicholas Sansbury]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 2023-07-10T23:00:00+00:00

SIX

“We have to get his body temp up,” said Cassie.

Kaia hovered behind them, her glow filling the tunnel with golden light.

“Can you hear me?” Red said.

Stryker looked up at her from the platform, his teeth chattering. “I . . .”

“Help me get his armor off,” Cassie said. “We need to warm him up.”

Fox paced while he watched. “Where’s Dallas?” he kept repeating when he wasn’t cursing under his breath.

Stryker glanced up, his purple lips moving as he tried to speak.

“Take it easy,” Red said.

“He’s in shock,” Cassie said.

Red wondered whether this was just from the freezing temperatures, or perhaps from something he had seen—or from whatever happened to Dallas.

Cassie draped a heat blanket over him and waited for the fabric to conform to his muscles. She did a scan of his body with her wand while Red put a heat pad on his chest to speed his recovery.

“Vitals are elevated, but he’s going to be fine,” Cassie said.

Stryker’s blue lips quivered.

“My scans are showing Sergeant Stryker was exposed to frozen water—ice—rich in aluminum and iron, and poor in chloride ions.”

“English, please,” Fox said.

“I believe Sergeant Stryker encountered some sort of hydrothermal field, perhaps related to the seismic activity we’ve been experiencing.”

Stryker tried to sit up. The color was already returning to his features, but Red kept the heat pad on his chest.

“Lie down,” she said. “You need to rest.”

“Dr. Sánchez, I’d like you to start analyzing the samples the sergeant brought back,” Zhi said. “Especially this one.”

She held up a clear tube filled with wormlike threads of a deep crimson hue. “Do you know what it is?”

“Some sort of flora, maybe?” Cassie said.

“Was . . . on the drone . . .” Stryker said, teeth still chattering.

“How’d it get on the drone?” Fox asked.

“That’s what Dr. Sánchez is going to find out,” Zhi replied.

“I really need a full lab, but I’ll do my best with my mobile station.” Cassie took the tube. Halting suddenly, she said, “It’s moving . . .”

Zhi went over to have a look.

“Sergeant,” Fox said. He crouched in front of Stryker and snapped his fingers several times. “I need you to tell me what happened out there.”

Stryker blinked a few times. “We . . .” His jaw clenched. “We took samples, found FOB One, and then started back when we saw something—some sort of starfish creature with limbs that it used to leap and fly.”

“Could it have been an insect?” Zhi said.

Stryker shook his head. “I don’t know. It kind of looked like a firefly, but it had no head or antennae—no bilateral symmetry of any kind. It looked almost like a nerve cell.”

“You sure you weren’t just seeing shit?” Fox asked.

“I know what I saw.”

“What happened to Dallas?”

“They electrocuted him, and then he fell . . .” Stryker sat up slowly. “I tried to save him.”

“What happened?” Fox said. “Tell me exactly what you remember.”

Stryker put a hand on his head. “We were looking down on a geothermal field when it erupted. That’s where the creatures came from.

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