Freedom Star

Chapter 1

The transport inched down the muddy jungle track like a huge shiny slug, steam rising from its armored sides as the three-day-old downpour assaulted it from the sodden gray sky. The thin slits of its cockpit windows seemed to peer myopically at the water-filled ruts that marked its path, while on its back an antenna swung back and forth in a constant, frantic search for signs of danger among the trees.

Wedged into a crotch of one of those trees high above the path, left arm wrapped around the trunk, Jon ignored the scanner. He knew it couldn’t see him. Wearing only in a leather loincloth, every inch of bare skin mottled with green, brown, and black paint, he was all-but-invisible. He focused his attention instead on the bend in the track the transport was approaching. As it began its turn he tightened his grip on the tree, and pressed the button in the center of the small silver disk he held in his right hand.

The ground beneath the transport erupted in a geyser of green mud, white steam, orange flame, and black smoke. The shockwave slammed into Jon, almost throwing him from the tree. The vehicle soared into the air and turned over almost lazily before crashing back to earth, pieces of it ricocheting off the splintered trunks of the surrounding trees. Then all was silent except for the drumming of the endless rain and the hiss it made on hot and twisted metal.

Jon scampered down the tree, bare feet sure on the ladder-like branches, then leaped lightly into the rain-soaked humus of the jungle floor. He grabbed his spear from where it leaned against the trunk and started forward. As he moved, other figures appeared from among the trees as if materializing from thin air, until a dozen paint-spattered teenagers and children, carrying spears and bows and knives, stood around the shattered, smoking form of the transport. Jon grinned at them. “It’s all yours,” he said, and with a wild whoop they fell on the vehicle like lions rending their kill on far-off Earth.

“Told you it would work,” said a voice behind him.

He turned and looked down into the cool blue eyes of Kira, clad in leather and paint like himself, but also wearing a tiny star of blue crystal on a silver chain around her neck. “I never said it wouldn’t,” he said mildly.

“Yeah, but you thought it,” she said.

“You’re a mind-reader?”

Kira grinned. “Maybe I am.” She looked past him at the others, who were busily pulling out boxes of supplies. Her smile slipped into a frown. “Only food?”

“Food is what we need, Kira. Food is what we were after.”

“Weapons is what we need.”

“After food.”

“You’re no fun.” She looked past him at the battered cockpit section of the transport, and her eyes widened. “Jon!”

“What?” He turned to look where she pointed. “I don’t...”

Then he saw it. A thin trickle of red seeped down from one of the windowslits. His heart skipped a beat. “Dar said this transport is always automated!” He started forward, but had only taken two steps when he heard or sensed something that made him glance up at the sky. One look, and he forgot about whatever might be waiting in the cockpit and screamed, “Take cover!”

The children were used to taking commands. They scattered like digbugs from a rotten log. But they were already out of time.

The first forcebeams came slashing down as silver, delta-winged aircraft raced low over the jungle. Where the blue-green rays touched the ground, the mud exploded in gouts of steam and clods of hot earth. Trees left untouched by the explosion that had destroyed the transport burst into flame or shattered with thunderous cracks as their sap boiled within them. Jon grabbed Kira’s arm and half-dragged her with him toward cover, but when he glanced back and saw the forcebeams about to reach the transport he threw her into the mud and fell on top of her, pushing both of them deep into the foul-smelling muck.