THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST Page 10

  But the Rex stayed in sight, and she didn’t want to risk them catching her before she could trip the locking mechanism. As she fidgeted, she saw what they were watching for.

  Several cadets came around the bend of the wash, distinctive in their gray coveralls. Even from a height of several hundred meters, Starsa easily recognized Bobbie Ray. They were tightly grouped, and a dark-haired cadet was being carried. She could recognize Reoh by the way he walked, a hurried rush forward, a pause to check on the hurt cadet, calling forward to the lead cadet who walked in front with a bare knife. Starsa thought she recognized Reeves, one of the guys she grav-boarded with.

  She waved to get their attention, but they saw her almost at the same time. “Starsa!” Nev Reoh shouted, running forward as if a cliff didn’t rise between them.

  “Watch out!” Starsa frantically gestured downward, trying to get them to see the Rex. “Bobby Ray! Bobby Ray! Down there!”

  They couldn’t hear her because of the wind whistling through the narrow canyon. She could tell because they carefully set down the hurt cadet, while Bobbie Ray loped up the side canyon, heading toward the lowest part of the wall to help her.

  She kept shouting, but it was no use. She could feel the wind snatch the words from her throat until it was raw. Her panic only made Bobbie Ray hurry faster, watching her, trying to figure out what her problem was. Nev Reoh was not far behind, calling up some kind of encouragement.

  Bobbie Ray was quite close to the Rex when they emerged from the shadows of the rocks. One was on each side of him, moving in slowly.

  The other two cadets below jostled in panic, dragging the injured cadet in the opposite direction. Bobbie Ray backed down the slope as fast as he could, catching up to Reoh, who was also trying to get away from the big Rex as they slowly closed the distance between them.

  Starsa shielded her eyes against the blazing sunlight that glared off the polished white rocks at the top of the mesa. The Rex had used her as bait to lure the cadets in, making it easy to ambush them. Starsa leaned over the edge, straining against the restraint, trying to see as her teammates disappeared into the bottom of the canyon. They had used her as bait!

  Grimly determined to make her escape, she pulled her kit from her coverall. Give her three minutes, and she would be free.

  Bobbie Ray ran past Nev Reoh as they reached the canyon floor. It was like one of his childhood nightmares, being chased by a wild animal. Ijen and Reeves had dragged Puller into the niche that contained the water seep. They were standing among the pygmy trees, holding their knives out.

  “I’ll draw them off!” Bobbie Ray called out, hoping the Rex wouldn’t stay and make mincemeat out of them.

  He needn’t have worried. Glancing back, he saw that the Rex loped past the other cadets as if they didn’t exist. He also noticed that Reoh was right behind him, moving remarkably fast for a guy who couldn’t seem to walk without stumbling over his own feet. Bobbie Ray picked up speed, wishing Reoh had veered off to help Ijen and Reeves.

  “No! Stop!” Reoh called out. But he was running as hard as he could, too, with the Rex right behind him.

  Bobbie Ray wasn’t sure what Reoh was yelling about until he rounded a curve and came to a dead end in the canyon. He began scrambling up the steep sandstone side, honeycombed by weather. Some of the holes were a couple of feet across, others were a few meters or larger.

  Nev Reoh fell further behind as Bobbie Ray reached a large hole. His whiskers quivered, sensing the eddies of the wind hitting the rear wall. The cliff grew steeper so he quickly made a tactical decision to make his stand here.

  Nev Reoh was panting as he neared the lip of the shallow cave. Bobbie Ray reached down and grabbed his hand, hauling him inside.

  They could hear the low-pitched growling, a curious, sustained noise. The two Rex were just below, making that sound from the back of their throats. Their tails rhythmically lashed back and forth as they crouched and glared at Bobbie Ray.

  His own ears were flattened against his head in a way he’d rarely felt before. He let out a half-hearted squawk in response, a clear signal of his panic.

  “What do we do?” Nev Reoh asked.

  “How should I know?” Bobbie Ray countered.

  “They’re your people.”

  “Humans are my people,” the Rex contradicted.

  The two Rex climbed into their shallow cave, poised on the lip as if assessing the cadets.

  “Maybe you should try to copy them,” Nev Reoh suggested helpfully. “Use your tail.”

  “What do you mean—use it?”

  “Swish it back and forth like they’re doing.”

  Bobbie Ray glanced doubtfully back at his tail, then gave it a few experimental twitches, moving forward as he did. “That doesn’t feel right, somehow—”

  Before he could finish his sentence, the two Rex rushed the cadets, snarling and spitting, their tails furiously lashing back and forth. Bobbie Ray and Nev Reoh scrambled deeper into their cave, brandishing their knives more out of fear than bravado.

  Snarling, the two Rex faced them until it was clear they could no longer back up and that they weren’t about to advance. Then the Rex slowly began to retreat, making odd chirping noises as if they were laughing, as if they were leaving simply to prolong the hunt. Bobbie Ray could tell by their upright ears that they knew they could attack the two cadets at that very moment and rip them into shreds with their four-inch claws.

  “I didn’t know they could grow that long,” Bobbie Ray said in a hushed voice after the two Rex had withdrawn back down into the canyon.

  Nev Reoh eyed the inch-long rounded nubs that were instinctively splayed from the tip of each of Bobbie Ray’s fingers. “Maybe you should sharpen them up a little.”

  “Yeah, like your tail suggestion was such a great idea!” Bobbie Ray snarled. “When I want your advice, I’ll ask for it.”

  Reoh backed up, holding up his hands. “I know you’re better suited to handle this than me.”

  Wearily, Bobbie Ray sat down and leaned his forehead against the wall of their niche. “Problem is, I don’t know what to do!”

  Starsa grabbed Ijen’s pack after descending the cliff to the seep. When she saw the direction they had run, she used the ropes that had been left hanging by the seep to climb to the top of the plateau.

  Tracking the cadets through a side canyon, she saw the Rex pacing in the bottom. They were focused on a hole in the cliff wall, waiting for the cadets to come out of hiding.

  Starsa ran around the deep cut in the plateau, to the edge just above Bobbie Ray and Reoh. She tied one end of the rope around several boulders. Crouching down to stay out of the range of the Rex’s keen eyesight, she neared the edge to judge the right spot to lower the rope.

  The bigger Rex abruptly stopped in his tracks, raising his head slightly and drawing back his upper lip. She could see his tongue flicking the roof of his half-open mouth. The Rex seemed to be almost in a trancelike state for a few moments, holding its breath and staring straight ahead. Then it abruptly shook its head and looked directly at her.

  Starsa wasn’t about to get into a staring match with the Rex. She never won with Bobbie Ray, always ending up blinking first or turning away from his huge, unwavering gold eyes.

  She dropped the rope. “Bobbie Ray! Nev Reoh! Grab the rope!”

  Bobbie Ray leaned out of the hole in the wall, giving her a wide-eyed stare. “Hurry!” she shouted at him.

  As Bobbie Ray began to claw his way up the cliff, leaving deep grooves in the wall from his hind claws, the other two Rex retreated to a place where they could get up the cliff. Starsa chewed on her lip, watching their fast progress.

  “They want you!” she told Bobbie Ray.

  “How reassuring,” he retorted, nervously watching as the Rex bounded gracefully up the steep slope.

  “Help me!” Nev Reoh wailed from below, dangling from the rope like he’d run out of strength.

  With Bobbie Ray’s assistance, Starsa pulled Nev Reoh
up at least a body length, looping the rope around the boulders to give them leverage. They gave another mighty heave, bringing the Bajoran near the lip of the plateau.

  “Uh-oh!” Bobbie Ray exclaimed, as the Rex reached the plateau and headed for them.

  “You’re talking to them wrong,” Starsa panted.

  “They haven’t given me a chance to talk to them,” Bobbie Ray protested.

  “They talk with their bodies, not their mouths! Go meet them,” Starsa told him, hanging on to the rope with all her might. “Reoh, you’ll have to climb up the last bit!”

  Hesitantly, Bobbie Ray moved forward to meet them.

  “Not like that!” Starsa exclaimed. “Make yourself look bigger! Fluff everything out—”

  “I’m going to get killed,” Bobbie Ray muttered.

  “Think of it as stylized combat. I doubt they really want to hurt us—or they would have killed me. They’re confused because you’re not responding right.” She grunted, holding onto the rope. “Reoh, get your Bajoran butt up here! A three-year-old could climb faster than you!”

  Bobbie Ray faced the two large Rex as they cautiously approached, no longer growling as they had when he had run. He realized he was on the balls of his feet, and his shoulders instinctively squared to make as himself appear as big as possible.

  They began to circle, and he kept his face toward them, backpedaling slightly to keep them from surrounding him. The smaller Rex fell back, letting the larger one move in.

  All Bobbie Ray could see were the enormous incisors of the Rex and each one of those four-inch claws. The hair on his spine crawled, as if sensing the way those jaws would clamp on the back of his neck to deliver the killing bite.

  “Make the first move,” Starsa hissed from behind him.

  Bobbie Ray gave her a quick glare. Why hadn’t his parents ever taught him about Rex? Surely they knew that, going into Starfleet, he was bound to encounter his own kind. If he got out of this, he was going to have a long talk with his mother.

  “Go on!” Starsa urged. “Be tough. Put your ears back, like when you’re challenging someone to a fight.”

  “You’re interfering with my concentration,” Bobbie Ray snapped.

  The Rex stopped, seemingly confused, looking from him to Starsa. Bobbie Ray realized she was right, and he began advancing slowly, weaving from side to side, taking care to rotate his ears so the backs faced frontward, in what Starsa said was his “growly” look.

  It seemed to work, because the other Rex immediately flattened his ears, not just turning them back but making them almost disappear. Bobbie Ray tried out a low growl or two, but was less than pleased when a spine-chilling wail seemed to rise from nowhere.

  “What’s that?” Nev Reoh asked, peeking over the edge of the plateau.

  “I think it’s coming from him,” Bobbie Ray said out of the corner of his mouth. This time he was careful not to break his stance. Knowing he could never compete with that unearthly sound, Bobbie Ray made a big show of moving forward a few inches, his legs absurdly stiff.

  “That’s good,” Starsa called out encouragement. “I think you’re scaring him.”

  “Is that a good idea?” Bobbie Ray murmured, advancing, then pausing, giving the Rex plenty of time to call it quits.

  As the Rex came very near, his head seemed to twist as if focusing in on Bobbie Ray from a different angle. He took a slow step forward and twisted his head the other way, and Bobbie Ray started to get the feeling that he was a sitting duck. A rather realistic growling whine rose from the back of his throat, rumbling out and rising in power as adrenaline-laced panic sang through his nerves.

  They both slowed, moving in tiny increments, balanced only by each other’s shifting. The Rex was screaming directly at him, frozen, and Bobbie Ray felt the same compulsion to glare at his rival, to move even slower, as if not to admit fear.

  Suddenly his adversary lunged toward him, and Bobbie Ray shied back, trying to get room to maneuver. The Rex came in over his back to get his teeth on Bobbie Ray’s neck. The cadet kicked out his leg, swiping support from under the Rex, causing both of them to tumble away from each other.

  Bobbie Ray was quickly back on his feet, twitching his fur, trying to feel if he had been slashed by those deadly claws. But the Rex hadn’t connected. Bobbie Ray silently blessed every hand-to-hand defense instructor he’d ever had.

  The Rex seemed even more wary this time, but he stared hard at him before coming in again, taking a defensive posture. When Bobbie Ray immediately countered his stance, the Rex didn’t move in as close this time. After a few frozen moments, wailing and rumbling loud enough to make Starsa cover her ears, the Rex finally began to ease back.

  Bobbie Ray felt himself relax with every centimeter the Rex slowly retreated. It was so gradual that he wasn’t sure it was over until both the Rex faded away, turning and disappearing down into the canyon.

  “You did it!” Starsa exclaimed, clapping her hands. She jumped on Bobbie Ray, wrapping her arms around his neck.

  He was practically rigid, still in his alert-stance, feeling strangely exhilarated and unwilling to break his pose. “Let go,” he ordered under his breath.

  Laughing, Starsa jumped down and did a little dance. “We did it! We did it!”

  “They might come back any second,” Nev Reoh said, edging up to them. Bobbie Ray noticed he stayed well out of arm’s reach.

  “No, they won’t,” both Bobbie Ray and Starsa said at the same time. She grinned, and he finally felt his whiskers move in response, lying smoothly against his face as his teeth showed in a smile.

  They didn’t even make it back to the seep to rejoin Ijen, Puller, and Reeves before the cadet ship signaled them to await transport. As the stark landscape faded from view, Bobbie Ray knew it would be forever burned into his memory, along with the victory he’d had facing down the Rex.

  “There were no fatalities among the cadets,” the survival instructor informed them on reaching the ship. “Everyone has automatically passed their survival test, whether they regrouped or not.”

  Bobbie Ray had completely forgotten about the Academy, and it seemed very far away with the battlelust still thrumming through his blood.

  “When we realized it was a ruse,” the instructor added, “we fought our way back though the Rex shuttles that were holding us off. We believe they were drawn here because of your lifesigns, Cadet Jefferson. We could tell there was a confrontation going on down there. What happened?”

  Bobbie Ray shrugged one shoulder. “It was some sort of mock battle. As soon as I engaged them, they withdrew.”

  He knew that didn’t explain everything, but he also knew there was no way to talk about what had happened. It was more subtle and more powerful than anything he had ever felt before. He was used to always being the strongest, the fastest, the most agile, but when his own kind had challenged him, he felt as bumbling and awkward as Nev Reoh. He had gone into security because it came naturally and was easy for him, but after seeing the Rex laughing at him while he was stuck in that hole, he realized how much he had let his natural abilities slide.

  Now he couldn’t wait to get back to the Academy and try some of those intimidation techniques used by the Rex. Just wait until his instructors saw what he could do!

  Chapter Five

  MOLL ENOR WAS RETURNING from the back of the science pod, balso tonic in hand, when she overheard Cadet Campbell saying to Cadet Wu, “I do not know the cadet well enough to say.”

  “Yeah, that’s my point,” Wu agreed with a wry grin. “You’d think after a month of living on the science station together—”

  He broke off abruptly as Moll Enor appeared around the central power assembly. Cadet Wu was leaning forward curiously, intent on gossiping with the taciturn Campbell. Cadet Campbell was concentrating on his console, frowning slightly, but even he started in surprise at Moll’s appearance.

  That’s when Moll realized they were talking about her. She flushed hotly, avoiding their eyes, thankfu
l that they probably wouldn’t notice the way her spots suddenly stood out. Ever since she had won top honors in her class, all the cadets knew who she was. They constantly watched her and talked about her. She was the freak again, exactly as she had been on the Trill homeworld, where having a photographic memory was extremely rare.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Moll said to Cadet Mantegna, the designated commander on this tagging and tracking mission within the ring nebula. “Do you have the latest readings on the levels of interior microwave radiation?”

  Mantegna sighed at her interruption, not bothering to look up. “It will have to wait a few minutes, Cadet Enor. I’m in the middle of the infrared sensor sweep right now.” Mantegna flicked Moll a glance as she hesitated. “Is that all?”

  “Yes, sir,” Moll said, backing away.

  She made it back to her station, where she was running a computer program of the numerous mathematical equations that plotted the movements of the asteroids as they spun and tumbled in the turbulence of the ring nebula, moving in a roughly helixical orbit. There was only a three-second delay from the sensor pickups to mathematical translation, so she was basically seeing a real-time flow of data, gathered for an in-depth analysis by the astrophysics lab. For Moll, the work had been routine the second day, and except when she was in command of their science pod, she had spent the better part of four weeks staring with glazed eyes at the screen, hypnotized by the chaotic pattern that appeared and disappeared within the data.

  The Federation astrophysics lab, poised outside the Trifid ring nebula, was considered a prime field assignment. Though it was relatively small, it was close to Sol system, so teams of cadets were rotated in. The cadets used the science pod, the Sagittarius, to do the grunt work of collecting data in the neverending surveys of the debris. Based on the data, some scientists theorized that the protosolar system was destroyed when a subspace compression collided with the Trifid star, causing it to go supernova and eject most of its mass.

  Whereas most nebula expand away from their source, diffusing high-energy particles and cosmic rays, the compression phenomenon caused the Trifid ring nebula to rotate in on itself, forming a churning toroid around a strong gravity well. It was almost as awe-inspiring as the Bajoran wormhole, which she had gone to see during the summer break while on field assignment on the Oberth-class science ship, the Copernicus.