Read Online The Black Pod by Martin Wilsey - Free Book Online Page A

optical sensors indicated
that they would land in a heavily forested area. Already he could
see the debris impacting the forest in great explosions. In a rapid
series of decisions, he navigated the pod toward
an area between two small, elongated lakes. At the final moment, he spotted a level clearing and guided the pod to it, landing
it expertly.
    The forest was ablaze all around the clearing.
    Adams stood to examine his new home.
The pod’s Heads Up Display (HUD) provided a view as though he were
standing on a platform ten meters across, his command chair and
console in the center.
    “ Box, I want external
audio.”
    The sound came in as a low
roar. The fires raged. Animals were fleeing the forest, into the
clearing, to escape the inferno. He could hear the birds crying out
in panic. He saw deer and foxes and bears. There was also some type of elk, and smaller animals of various
species.
    “ So much like Earth, ” he said out loud without meaning too.
    “ Gravity is .89G and
the atmosphere varies from Earth less than one percent,” Box
confirmed. “The animals fleeing to the south will run
directly into another fire. This entire area will be engulfed in
less than a day. If they move to the lake in the west, they may have a chance.”
    The
fire was jumping rapidly from treetop to
treetop. Adams had thoughts of Hell. He considered cracking the
hatch and just walking out into it. It might be easier.
    Then he saw her.
    There was a little girl
perhaps ten years old stumbling out of the forest. She was about
200 meters away. She had some kind of animal, like a large dog,
with her that she leaned on for support. Its shoulders were as high as hers.
    “ Box, zoom in.” Before Box
could zoom all the way in, she disappeared in a dense cloud of
smoke that persisted for a full minute. By the time the wind
cleared it away, the girl was gone; only the
dog-like creature remained. Adams realized it was standing over
her, protecting her, or trying to nudge her awake.
    It was not a dog. It was
a broad-chested beast the likes of which he had never seen
before, with a mane like a lion’s that wasn’t fur, but
rather feathers. It was a reptile . Mostly.
    “ Box, open up!” A square
trapdoor opened directly behind the command chair. The ladder was
in fact part of the back-structure of the command chair, and Adams
slid all the way down to the next level without touching a rung. A
locker quickly gave up a survival pack and vest. He already had a
Glock on his belt and he grabbed an AR-79 out of a ready
rack. He ran down to the ground before the ramp was completely
deployed.
    SecTech Adams had left
running to the younger people long ago. He regretted now the polite
refusals he had made to Worthington, Rand and Barcus to join them
on runs in the 2G outer ring of the Ventura . He did keep the gravity at
2Gs in the Black Pod as his one concession to fitness. The gravity
here, however, was light, and he ran smoothly through the tall grass .
    He should have grabbed a
breather unit though. His lungs burned as the waves of smoke billowed over him. Eventually, he stopped running and had to lie down
in the grass to breathe the precious unpolluted air near the
ground.
    When the smoke finally
cleared, he found he was just 10 meters away from the girl. The
beast had already seen him. It’s ruff was up. The mottled
gray feathers were trembling a warning. He could see that they
were singed in places. It was behaving like a giant
cat, its cruel-looking
tail swishing side to side, revealing the creature’s
agitation.
    Adams approached, his
assault rifle targeting the animal. It began to draw back its lips, showing teeth like steak knives,
serrated on the inside edge.
    Just then the girl’s hand
reached up and touched its front leg. It was as if she had
switched it off. It completely ignored Adams and began licking the
girl’s sooty face with a large black tongue.
    When Adams’ eyes met
hers , he didn’t know what to do. So he just let the
rifle