Page 30 of Captured By The Alien (Starbound #2)

There were thirteen black dots on the map, all numbered for the thirteen Potentials. She could see Layahn somewhere to the north. Vysh wasn’t far from her. All the dots were moving except her own.

The other set of markers were red and there were dozens of them. Kara counted sixty five. She was surprised. If these were the spheres, there were five times as many as the number of people looking for them. Clearly the organizers were taking no chances.

She watched the map for twenty minutes, trying to get a sense of what was happening. Most of the Potentials looked to be following a grid search pattern, as she had done initially. The spheres stayed put unless a Potential came too close, then they changed position. When they did, they weren’t followed.

Kara surmised no-one had got as far as recalibrating their devices. They were all working blind.

Good.

She gathered her things and checked for the nearest sphere. It was about two kilometers north. The trajectory brought her closer to Layahn, but no matter. Now she could see where everyone was, she could grab the prize and be at the finish line before the Vraxian even knew she was there.

She started to jog through the trees at a moderate pace, careful to watch for protruding roots. The last thing she needed was a broken ankle.

It was now more than eight hours since dawn. She estimated there was another three hours of daylight left, less if it started to cloud over again.

She figured the biggest problem for the other Potentials would be fatigue. They were all fit and healthy but aside from herself, only Layahn had military training. The others would be anxious and uncomfortable with their unusual surroundings.

It was unlikely any of them had managed to trap food like she had. And they definitely didn’t know where the spheres were lurking. But she couldn’t rest on her laurels.

Knowing where the spheres were gave her an advantage, but there were so many of them in the forest it was only a matter of time before they were discovered.

She checked her device. Sphere dead ahead. She slowed down as she got closer. It was right behind the thick tree trunk directly in front of her. But as she circled to the right, she saw on the map the sphere was circling to the left.

Damn it.

She stopped moving and the sphere also halted, still concealed on the other side of the tree. She realized it was sensing her movements.

Slowly she took off her rucksack. With an underarm swing, she launched it past the tree and into the forest. Something small and bright came zipping round the broad trunk in the opposite direction. It seemed to sense her presence and stopped abruptly.

Kara looked at it in dismay. It was the sphere all right. But it was hovering eight feet off the ground. Grabbing it would be a challenge, and if she tried surely it would just scoot off again?

She thought back to the conversation she’d had with Vahn on Minerva-6. The first part of the game was finding the xantha sphere. The second was holding on to it while it tried to shake you off.

If it succeeded it went and hid again, thus restarting the game. If it didn’t, you won. So, Kara reasoned, did that mean once you’d found it, it had to let you grab it?

Only one way to find out.

“Er, hi,” she said out loud. “I found you, okay? I found you. So now I’m going to, um, try to hold onto you.”

The sphere didn’t react in any way. Kara took a step forward, feeling a little foolish. It didn’t even twitch. Encouraged, she went to stand under it. Even with the anti-grav boots, getting high enough to touch it would be difficult.

She looked round for anything that could help and spotted some rocks beneath the tree. Dragging these out, she managed to pile three on top of each other in a precarious tower beneath the hovering sphere.

It wasn’t remotely stable but she only needed it to bear her weight for a millisecond. Satisfied, she collected her rucksack and shrugged it on. Then she took several steps back from the sphere.

Drawing a deep breath, she touched the braid of Vahn’s hair for luck. And ran full tilt towards the rocks.

She put one foot on the teetering pile and pushed off hard. They started to tumble almost immediately but she’d already broken contact, kicking on her anti-grav boots at the precise moment she launched into the air.

The boots gave her the added boost she needed to come level with the sphere. Muttering a small prayer, Kara curled her body around it and hung on for dear life.

The moment she made contact the thing bucked like an enraged bronco. It shot forward, dipping and weaving, zig-zagging like crazy until she was dizzy and breathless.

The violent motion started to make her nauseous. She closed her eyes and locked her hands together, hugging the ball into her stomach with grim determination.

For several long minutes the sphere careened through the forest, zipping through the trees and spinning erratically. Bile rose into her throat. Sweat dripped from her face and she thought there was a serious danger she might actually slip off the damn thing altogether. Her arms began to ache from the strain.

Just when she thought she couldn’t hold on any longer, there was a loud click . The sphere stopped moving. It fell to the ground, Kara still on top of it. She groaned as the air was knocked out of her.

Rolling onto her back, she tried to regain her breath. The xantha sphere lay quietly next to her, now as harmless as a beach ball.

Vahn, she thought. I love you. But you owe me big time, snake-boy.