“But I think Eve and Englebart has a nice sound to it,” he protested.
“No, it doesn’t. Believe me. It absolutely doesn’t.”
White teeth flashed in a mischievous grin and she realized she’d been had. Then he laughed, low and deep, and the sound rippled through her body, bringing back visceral memories of last night and all the hours of shattering pleasure.
“Oh, God.” Eve gripped the steering wheel harder. “Stop that. Don’t laugh like that. You know what it does to me.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “I do.” He sounded smug, but in an utterly adorable and sexy way.
“What does he do to you, Eve?” Misha piped up.
It was a good thing Eve’s biosuit covered her completely, because she did a full body blush. “Er . . . nothing, Mimisha. The noah is just being silly.” To the culprit in question, she muttered, “Down, Euphie.
Behave. The kids are in the car.” Then, louder, in tones of exaggerated brightness, she exclaimed, “Oh, look! We’re here.” The rover rounded the corner of the last dune, and approached the crash site.
As they drew near, Eve’s good humor evaporated. The ship was still there, where she’d left it, but the area around the ship was strewn with wreckage and riddled with large, charred craters. Several bodies lay sprawled in the sand.
“Ghosts.” Eve maneuvered the rover closer, her gaze sweeping the area for any hint of movement.
“Girls, stay in the rover.” Though she spoke in a low whisper, her tone left no room for debate. “Shar, charge your disruptor and keep it handy.”
“Roger.” Shar moved closer to Misha. “Get down, Mimisha. There’s a good girl.”
Eve climbed out of the rover, disruptor in hand, and crept toward the ship. “I don’t understand. Ghosts don’t have advanced technology, but these craters look like laser fire.”
“They are.” The noah crouched down beside one of the Ghost bodies and turned it over. The lumpy, misshapen face with its lipless mouth and bared, sharpened teeth snarled up at them. There was a charred hole in its chest. “My weapon – the one I had when you found me – did you take it with you?”
Eve thought back. Much had happened in such a short time. “No, I didn’t. You think Ghosts did this?”
“The Ghosts may be more beast than man, but their ancestors were human. If they found my weapon, it wouldn’t take much for them to figure out how to fire it.” He headed for the open door in the side of his ship.
“What are you doing?” Eve chased after him. “Wait! They could still be in there.”
“No, the ship is empty.” He disappeared into the ship.
Swearing, Eve followed. And what she found inside made her heart sink. “Oh, noah, I’m sorry.” The interior of his ship had literally been torn apart by scavenging Ghosts.
The noah ignored the mess and headed to a console near the pilot’s seat at the front of the craft. Lights were still flickering. The ship still had power. He punched a button, and a flat panel display emerged from a console. Lights flashed in patterns Eve did not understand.
The noah’s finger moved swiftly, typing and tapping at the display, bringing up several screens filled with more flashing lights.
Suddenly, he swore and took off at a fast stride to the back of his ship, stopping beside what looked like a flat, crystal panel shimmering with more lights. Using his fingertips, he dragged four of the lights around in an intricate pattern, then slapped his palm flat. The wall opened, revealing a rack of metal objects.
“What’s wrong?” Eve asked.
“The weapon that made those craters out there had several other settings. The Ghosts have it and they’ve managed to put it on the highest setting.” He pulled several flat, egg-shaped devices from one of the shelves and stuffed them in the thigh pocket of his biosuit. With his other hand, he reached for a much larger, silver cylinder set with a blue-white crystal at one end. He clipped a strap to the cylinder and slung it over one shoulder.
“So?”
“So, I checked the locator on the weapon. The Ghosts are headed for Homebase, Eve.”
Fear shot through her, and for one long minute all she could do was stand there, paralyzed. She’d seen her sister, Beri, slaughtered by the Ghosts. The image haunted her to this day.
“The Ghosts have followed us back to Homebase before,” she said. Somehow, she managed to keep her voice steady. Breathe, Eve. Just breathe. Hysteria helps no one. “The walls are steel-reinforced concrete, twenty feet thick, and the outer airlock doors are solid titanium. They can’t get in.”
He gave her a grim look. “If they fire the weapon on its current setting, I’m afraid they can.”
Eve’s calm evaporated. She bolted for the door. “Shar, get on the comms! Call Homebase! Hurry!”
She raced across the debris-strewn sands and leapt into the rover’s driver’s seat. She slammed the gears into reverse and slapped a foot on the accelerator. Sand spat out from beneath the tires. The noah leapt into the passenger seat as she was pulling away.
“What is it?” Shar cried. “What’s wrong? Nonna and Dre aren’t answering. Why aren’t they answering?”
Huddled on the floor of the back seat, a frightened Misha began to cry.
“Keep trying, Shar.” Dread filled Eve’s veins with icewater.
“I’m sorry, Eve,” the noah said. “I should have returned to my ship as soon as I regained consciousness to ensure it was locked down. This is my fault.”
Fear for her sisters made her lash out. “Why do you even have weapons aboard your ship if your mission is all about preserving life? Or was that a lie?”
“I have never lied to you. I never will. I am a noah, and my mission is to preserve life. But not all lifeforms in the universe are peaceful. Sometimes, even a noah must fight to protect the worlds he watches.”
Behind them, Shar continued to call out on the wide-area comms, “Rover to Homebase, come in. Rover to Homebase, come in. Nonna! Dre! Answer me!” Her voice cracked.
They’d reached the edge of the wastes, and the ride got bumpier as the rover sped over rocky mountain terrain. Eve kept up a desperately whispered mantra as she drove. “Please, God, please God, please, let them be safe. Please, let them be safe.” But when they reached the base of Mount Nuru and saw the smoke hovering in the air above the entrance to Homebase, Eve knew her prayers had gone unanswered.
A pack of Ghosts were huddled in the middle of the road near the blackened hole that had been Homebase’s solid titanium airlock door. Their hands and faces were smeared with blood, and they were fighting like feral dogs over something that Eve feared to look at too closely.
The noah stood up in his seat, slinging the metal cylinder atop his right shoulder. The crystal at the front of the cylinder began to glow a vivid blue. Then there was a blinding flash, and the pack of Ghosts disapppeared in an explosion of blue-white light.
Turning, the noah fired another blast toward the side of the mountain, taking out another seven Ghosts hiding among the rocks. “Eve, you and the girls take cover by that rock over there. I will go look for Nonna and Dre.”
She shook her head. “No. We’re coming with you. We’re safer if we all stick together.”
For a moment, she thought he might argue, but then he said “Fine!” and reached into the pocket of his biosuit. “Here, take these.” He held out two of the flattened-egg-shaped metal objects to Eve and Shar.
“To fire, put your thumb in the depression here and your fingers in the depression here on the underside, then just point and squeeze.” He demonstrated with the third device, and made them do the same to show they understood. “Good. And be careful. The beam will vaporize whatever it touches. Misha, you stay between the three of us at all times. If you see a Ghost, let us know right away. Understand? Then let’s go.”