“Dark night, an ambush dream,” J.B. mouthed softly to Ryan as they entered the valley from the redoubt.
The one-eyed warrior nodded. “String out, stay triple red. Doesn’t seem as though there’s anything out here, but it’s so fireblasted dense you couldn’t tell anyway.”
Krysty, feeling no sense of imminent danger, still thought to add, “It’s not just human danger, though, lover.”
Ryan nodded silent agreement. As he took the lead, with J.B. dropping back to cover the rear and the others stringing out into line automatically, he withdrew the panga from its sheath on his thigh. There was no actual path away from the sec door, which suggested that no one had been around to beat such a way for a long, long time. But the large flowering plants and shrubs, the tall mix of differently seeded grasses and the imposing shadows of the twisted trees presented their own dangers. Some mutie plants had a form of sentience, and were predators of small animals. Some were armed for their own defense with poison that could be fatal to humans. And the cover was dense enough to provide shelter for any host of bird and animal life that may be predatory. Even if it wasn’t, the idea that they may just stumble across some form of life that would defend itself with a savage ferocity born of fear was enough to keep them alert.
Mildred, three back in line, looked up to the sky.
It was a fairly clear blue, with only a light dusting of purple across the scattered cumulus cloud cover to suggest any chem disturbance in this area. She figured the shadows cast by the trees couldn’t be that heavy, as there was such an abundance of plant life in the valley. In fact, it could be that the shadow helped this growth, keeping off the worst excesses of the sun, which was burning orange in the sky.
Mildred looked behind her, merely intending to pass on her observations, but was stopped dead by the look on Jak’s face. The albino was directly behind her, and it was difficult for his scarred and pitted white face, with the fall of long, stringy white hair that framed it, to ever look anything other than solemn and fierce. It took a lot to raise a smile, but even by his standards, Jak looked intense. There was a worried mien about him that seemed to actually weigh down on him, driving his small stature close to the ground.
“Jak, everything okay?” she said softly.
“Yeah…kinda,” he answered shortly. “Feel like know this place.”
“Like deja vu?” she asked. Noting his blank and puzzled expression, she added, “Just an old expression from French. I would’ve thought you’d know a little French, from your people.”
Jak raised a halfhearted smile. “Everything change after skydark, even talk.”
“Does this have anything to do with what happened to you during the jump…with whatever’s been bothering you?” she continued, trying to press home a possible advantage.
Jak screwed his face into an indeterminate expression as though he were wrestling with his own conscience, which, in a sense, he was. Should he mention the strange dream-vision now, especially as the sky was so reminiscent of that he had fought and nearly been chilled under?
But it was just something that he couldn’t bring himself to do. He said, “Something weird, can’t remember well.”
Mildred turned back to face the front and continue, leaving Jak to his thoughts. She didn’t believe that he couldn’t remember, but knew that it would be pointless to pursue the matter. She only hoped that it wouldn’t distract him too much if there was any need to be on the defensive.
The thick undergrowth filled the air with a sickly-sweet scent, the exaggerated and mutated pollens attempting to attract the myriad insect life that swarmed through the valley. J.B. felt as if he’d never seen so many bugs in his life. Not that they particularly bothered him, but insect bites were one of those ridiculous small irritations that could sometimes cause a person more annoyance and discomfort than any other kind of injury or situation. He knew that Mildred had plenty of medical supplies should he be bitten, but he still hoped to avoid the eventuality. Large mosquitoes and horsefly-derived insects hovered in the air, their wings humming ominously. Large stag beetles in an array of bizarrely luminous colors, changing as the stray rays of sunlight that filtered through the trees hit them, scuttled over his combat boots. Brushing the leaves of the overhanging plants and bushes from his face as he followed the others, he disturbed caterpillars and ladybugs of enormous size. Wasps and hornets the length of his index finger buzzed around the flowers, beaten in size only by bees so fat and large that it was a miracle of aerodynamics that they stayed aloft.