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“Computer,” I said in a hoarse voice. “Zoom in on that fire.”
Computer brought the image closer until the sprawling mass made sense to my eyes.
A dry and shriveled and black form.
Vines.
A Desert Flower had attacked them.
It had attacked and killed some of their number.
But there had to be at least half a dozen prison guards.
And that wasn’t counting the drones they had at their disposal.
There could only be one form of Desert Flower that could do this to such a heavily armed crew.
The Desert Monarch.
I shut my eyes and shook my head.
Oh, Agatha, I thought. What have you got yourself into?
Upon initially discovering the prison guard camp, I’d been excited.
There still might be time for me to save Agatha.
But that time had just been cut drastically short.
The Desert Monarch was a formidable opponent.
You could destroy it, if you knew how.
Did these prison guards know how?
It didn’t appear so, not with the dead bodies strewn about the campgrounds.
“Computer,” I said. “Find the camp occupants.”
“Searching…” Computer said.
Computer scanned the curves of the sandy valleys tossed by scurrying feet.
If I was on the surface, perhaps I could track them myself, but I had no intention of wasting more time than necessary.
The image suddenly shifted forward, following a series of footsteps, and lines that looked like scars across the desert’s surface.
I put the shuttlecraft into drive, turned the controls, and pursued those zigzagging lines before Computer validated the tracks.
Was Agatha the cause of those markings?
Had she learned from her last encounter with a similar creature?
And did she have a weapon to hand to hack at them in case they seized her?
Dare I even hope for such a thing?
I increased speed and the shuttlecraft responded quickly.
