I half sat and half lay on Taureen’s shoulder as I looked around alertly. This part of the forest could only be called creepy. Thankfully, I was pretty sure that the six heavily-armed guards accompanying Taureen and me could keep any of the local wildlife at bay.
We were outside of the wall and had glimpsed some of the nasty predators that I already knew roamed this forest. Two had tried to attack the group of Kymari, although they had learned too late that the guards were packing energy weapons and weren’t in a mood to play around.
This is definitely an easier way of traveling though. Every person in the group was riding something they called a skid. It looked like a sea-doo or jet-ski but hovered easily at whatever height they wanted. The six formed a rough circle with Taureen and me in the center as they rode in the open space between the underbrush and the canopy.
They weren’t going any faster than I fly, in case I missed the scent. Not that they were letting me fly; Taureen had a very short leash on me as I remained on his shoulder. I barely had enough slack to stand up since he didn’t want to chance me falling off and getting hit by those behind us, although he knew my agility was more than a match to dodge such a vehicle.
Taureen and I had talked earlier, and I was going to ignore the scent of crawlers unless we were practically on top of them. He did want me to note if I started scenting more than one in an area though, since it might mean we were near the hive.
I sighed as I watched the scenery flying by. This is like looking for a lizard in the middle of the forest. In reality, that is exactly what we were attempting to do, and we had no clue where to start. We were searching the forest in a pre-planned pattern that the fighters had arranged earlier.
I enjoyed the feeling of the wind in my face and flowing along my scales. At least we are covering a fair bit of ground pretty quickly.
I snorted slightly as we passed a faint odor, “Just passed an old crawler trail. Pretty weak scent, probably several days old.”
Taureen would make a mental note of the location. Once we were back at the house, he would put it on a map to see if there was any pattern.
We eventually ended up at the city walls as our shift ended. They had discussed the potential of going for longer but discarded it almost immediately. The people in charge had no desire to test my endurance or my reliability if they started doing longer shifts, just in case I got tired and failed to notice a scent trail.
I had told Taureen that it was fine for us to go longer, and he had mentioned that I could go a few hours longer with no issue, but they didn’t want to take that chance. They were a patient race. If the hive was out here, then it had already been here for months, so another week or two wouldn’t make much of a difference, even with a sicora hive.
~
I sat on the table beside the map of the forest as Taureen highlighted the section we had cleared today. Until just recently, I hadn’t realized just how far apart the cities were. The area we had cleared was a tiny line that looked overwhelmed in the huge unmarked area of the forest. He put two small pink dots on the map where I had scented the old crawler trails.
“Any idea if it was the same crawler?”
I shook my head. “No. It might be possible to tell with a fresh trail, but there is no chance with something that old and faded.”
I examined the map and the markings on it. Each day we had cleared a small section, often going out in different directions. Highlighted routes went out from the city like spokes on a wheel. After two weeks, the space we had cleared on the map was quite pitiful. Serena and Tom are having much more fun inspecting those trade ships.
Serena and Tom had started their first patrols when Taureen and I started searching for the hive. The very first day, they had found a crawler. From what I overheard, Alec had his hands full trying to keep both of them on his shoulders when all they wanted to do was attack it. Serena and Tom had been very satisfied when they saw the despised thing dead.
They had found several more crawlers over the last few weeks, and from our conversations, I was quite certain that they were hooked on the search for the sicora and crawlers now. Even just helping to locate the things so the Kymari could kill them was extremely satisfying and somehow fulfilled some deep, hidden drive in our genes.
Alec hadn’t let them off-leash yet but had been letting them explore small parks on leash. He had also bought a house and installed netting around the entire back yard, allowing them to fly free to some degree. Serena had admitted last night that even if she was let off-leash that she would return to Alec, just to help kill more crawlers and sicora.
Aeria pointed to the map. “This is where you were ambushed by those sicora a couple of months ago. Most of the spots that Tasha flagged are also on this side of the city.”
“Yes, we are seeing that trend,” Taureen agreed. “I will speak with Leo and mention that Tasha seemed more restless in those spots. If he is willing to change his plans, then we can focus on that direction a bit more.”
“There are no other cities anywhere in that direction, either. It looks pretty mountainous too. That will be a lot of ground to cover.” Aeria examined the map and dots.
“Yes, even if we concentrate on that direction, it could take weeks to simply do a few widely-spaced-out runs.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“How far away is the hive likely located?”
“No idea, probably some distance since we are only seeing a bit of activity. For all we know, it could be on the far side of the mountains.”
“How will we know when we are in the correct area?” I generally let both of them hear me, unless I wanted to mention something for their ears alone. They were also somehow able to tell who I was talking to as well, although even they weren’t sure how they could tell if both of them could hear me.
“We will probably start encountering more crawlers and probably several sicora,” Taureen replied.
“How many are we expecting? I have heard others compare them to colonies of insects. How many are likely to be in the hive or in the immediate area?”
“We expect to find probably a hundred or so crawlers in and around the hive. There will likely be about twenty sicora in the nest or the immediate area, if our guesses are correct. Once we start encountering the live animals, then we will wait for some of the other fighter groups to join us. Several groups will likely accompany us to handle the few crawlers and sicora until we actually locate the hive. At that point, they will call in every group they have organized to infiltrate it.”
His wording struck me as odd, and I inquired, “Infiltrate it? How big is this hive?”
Taureen leaned back in his seat with a sigh. “It depends how long it has been there. The sicora dig deep into the ground and create a labyrinth of tunnels. Even a small nest can take ten minutes to walk through if it’s cleared. The largest one ever discovered takes almost a week to walk through.”
I stared at him in shock, scarcely able to imagine something that big. “How many sicora were in that nest?”
“Tens of thousands of sicora and many more crawlers.”
I was speechless and simply stared at him, unable to comprehend it.
Taureen continued, “That particular hive eventually wiped out any creature large enough to eat. In the end, the planet was abandoned until the sicora starved themselves to death. The original race on that planet underestimated the sicora, and they were reluctant to leave. In the end, only a few managed to escape the planet by the time they finally decided to flee.”
I shook myself hard to rid my mind of the image of thousands of sicora swarming over the landscape, causing my scales to chime. “How do they appear so often in the trade ships if they cause so much trouble?”
“Some races are short-sighted and don’t put enough effort or time into making certain that crawlers don’t get on board. Crawlers can survive with no food for months on end and can live for a decade without cocooning. They can hide in an air vent in a type of hibernation for years before waking and moving again.”
Aeria chimed in, “No scanner out there can detect them, and they are well known to stow away on cargo ships and go into hibernation during the trip. They are quite invasive and can survive in almost any climate or environment that we can. The ones that stow away on ships don’t usually cocoon since there aren’t enough crew members on board to qualify as a sufficient food source. The crawlers tend to disembark on various planets once the ship is docked.”
It took a few seconds for the implications of that to sink in. “That is possibly the worst news I have heard in a very long time. Is there no way to poison those things or wipe them out with a disease?”
Taureen shook his head. “It’s nearly impossible to eradicate something that has spread across hundreds of galaxies. They are simply too widely spread. We have never heard of one getting sick either.”
It only reminded me of how hard my old university tried to get rid of all of the ant nests on their property. Half of the time, their efforts never killed the nest, and even if they succeeded, more ants moved in.
He eyed me up as a thought occurred to him. “Then again, until you guys popped up, we have never seen anything poison them before either.”
Aeria glanced at Taureen. “Have they had any success in synthesising something similar to the fire lizard’s saliva?”
“I haven’t heard much about it. I know a sample was sent offworld to a large Kymari lab. Hopefully, they will come up with something sooner rather than later.”
“It would be nice for something that could poison them to be widely available,” Aeria murmured.
Taureen gazed at me for a few moments before asking, “How is it that the fire lizard’s saliva only affects sicora and crawlers? They aren’t native to this planet. And speaking of unusual, your kind seems peaceful and eats mainly fruit, but you are built as if you are a predator. That has always confused us.”
I let them feel my confusion. “I honestly have no idea. Until that sicora appeared in the park, we had never seen one before.”
He gazed at me in curiosity. “Is there anything in your histories that points to a time when your kind may have been more aggressive?”
I lowered my head in shame; this wasn’t something I could really explain. My voice was quiet and subdued as I replied, “Sadly, I know nothing of our history. None of us do. The only ones to survive the white aliens happened to have hatched in human cages and never really got to speak with others much.”
They both stared at me in shock and silence. My Blood Memories imparted a tidbit of information: the Kymari were a long-lived race who greatly valued their extensive history that went back hundreds of thousands of years. To them, for any race to have its history completely destroyed would have been an appalling loss.
Taureen leaned forward to scoop me up and cradle me against his chest. I wasn’t sure who he was trying to comfort, me or him.
I whispered, “Now you know why so many are terrified of being caught and caged. The humans may have never harmed us physically, but that facility was a terrible place.”
“I simply cannot fathom such a thing,” he murmured. “You never met or heard from an older fire lizard?”
I shook my head. “When I hatched, the only ones nearby were those who had also hatched there. All of the current survivors were among the group that had hatched during the four years before the white aliens arrived. We have never found another survivor.”
Aeria tentatively inquired, “So you have no idea how long your lifespan is?”
“We have no idea. From what we have discovered, we mature when we are around five to seven years of age, but we have no clue how long we might live.”
Taureen was silent in thought; I had no clue what was rolling around his head.
Aeria tilted her head, carefully asking, “Have you ever wanted a mate? Or children?”
“Just due to how things turned out, more females survived than males. Almost all of the males have paired up or simply aren’t interested in a mate. I guess it isn’t something that I thought about too much.”
Aeria shook her head and joked, “I guess we don’t have to worry about you sneaking off with a handsome green guy then.”
I snickered. “I assume that the Kymari have not noticed that all golds, scarlets, and greens are female, while the silvers, purples, and blues are male?”
I got two blank looks in return for that tidbit of information.
“So far, we haven’t been able to determine your gender without using a medical scanner,” Taureen admitted. “That is a rather interesting detail though.”
I chuckled and decided to change the topic. “Not often I can take you two by surprise. But since we are heading east tomorrow, is there anything else I should know about what might happen when we are trying to locate a sicora hive?”
They turned back to the problem at hand and gave me every detail they could think, mostly about what to expect as well as overviews of similar hunts on other worlds.