CHAPTER 36
Jael spins and fires, a ruddy
orange cone jetting from his weapon. Ahead of us, Vel takes
the ones coming down the corridor in front. Then we’re
trapped.
Burning on both
sides, like standing in the middle of a charnel house and praying
you don’t catch, too. I shake all over.
Shrill cries of rage
echo through the tunnels. The smell seems to enrage the ones trying
to get at us from above, but the opening isn’t quite big enough
yet. Claws rasping, they make a hole like the one I saw half a
kilometer back.
Hit eyes the ones
above and then leaps. Her knife shimmers in a silver arc as she
stabs at . . . nothing. But somehow she hits. The Tera screams in
agony. When she severs the claw, it drops in a spatter of green
fluid and lies visible on the softly glowing stone floor, opening
and closing as the nerve endings die. Apparently the smell of
blood, any blood, maddens them. Because overhead, an ominous thump
and another scream says the monsters have turned on each
other.
“Move!” Vel
shouts.
Agreed. We don’t want
to be here when the ceiling gives way entirely. Ahead, the two
Teras still twist and char, inky black smoke roiling from their
putrid flesh.
“Dive and roll,” Jael
adds. “Apart from Dina of course. You should have enough lift to
get past them. If your clothing catches, don’t panic.”
Easy for him to say.
He doesn’t have burn scars.
The bounty hunter
leaps past with a well-timed spring, hits the stone floor with his
hands, and tucks into a neat roll. Hit follows suit with a natural
grace that suggests she’d be dangerous on the dance floor, too.
Cursing, Dina maneuvers until she can glide by. In its death
throes, one of the creatures sends her careening into the tunnel
wall.
She skids in a shower
of sparks to the end of the corridor, where Hit stops the sled with
a boot. “I’ve seen better flying from a drunk aircab
driver.”
Occupied with
stabilizing the sled, Dina mutters, “Bite me,” in lieu of a more
creative comeback.
The pilot grins. “I
just might.”
Dina’s head comes up,
her face pale. But before I hear what she says, Jael gives me a
shove from behind. “Get moving, Jax.”
As if to punctuate
his words, a huge chunk of rock crashes to the floor just in front
of me. The fight going on overhead sounds savage. Terrifying. Five
meters above, they’re devouring each other alive and shattering
stone in the process.
But I can’t. There’s
actual fire curling from the sizzling
meat. He’s lucky I haven’t puked all over his boots.
“Jael,” I begin
shakily.
“Oh, for Mary’s
sake,” he bites out. “It’s a good thing you don’t weigh
much.”
“Wha—”
“Vel! Think
fast.”
And then I’m
launched, sailing toward the bounty hunter. Everything blurs as I
tumble, crash into him, and go down. Jael lands on top of me in an
ungainly pile. I suspect he may have cracked my rib with his knee,
but before I can bitch about that, the tunnel collapses in a great
mound of rubble and dust.
There’s no going back
now. I couldn’t get to March even if I wanted to. Mary, I hope the
warning came in time.
Three more red shapes
appear on Vel’s handheld. And lucky us—they’re on our side of the
block.
Hit nudges Dina
farther down the new passage as Jael shoves my head down. Vel fires
over the top of us, lighting the closest one. They’re not smart,
these Teras, because they try to push past, and then shriek as
they’re burned. We see their flesh where it chars. It’s odd, like a
tear in consensual reality: seeing a shadow suddenly flare into
full view through a tendril of licking flame.
Jael fires twice more
in quick succession, engulfing all three of them. In narrow tunnels
where we control our movements, these monsters are vulnerable.
First they can’t spot us easily, and then they’re alight.
When we reach the
surface, it will be a different hunt for them.
“Halfway there,” Vel
says as we get our breath. He sets me on my feet. “Anything
broken?”
I wince and rub my
side. “Not sure. But I’m ambulatory, don’t worry.”
“You better be,” Dina
says. “You’re not hitching a ride.”
Flicking a look at
Jael, I ignore her for the time being. “You really believe in tough
love,” I mutter, sotto voce.
It’s a throwaway
complaint. I’ve made thousands of them in my life. In fact, I
should be thanking him for saving my ass.
“I don’t believe in
love at all,” he returns, equally quiet. “It’s just a name people
give the endorphins that spring up after some really hot fucking,
and the justification they use to manipulate the shit out of each
other afterward. Now move your ass. I want to see starlight
sometime soon.”
“Is it nightfall?”
Hit asks. “I’ve lost track of time down here.”
She’s right. I don’t
even know what time we left the camp or how many days we were down
there. Without a sunrise to help mark its passage or a ship’s
computer to keep track for me, I have no more sense of time than I
do direction.
“There are four hours
left until daybreak,” Vel advises us, after some tapping on his
handheld.
“How long will this
last kilometer take?” Dina wants to know.
I’m glad she asked
because now I don’t have to. My shoulder aches from hauling my
pack. I hope 245 is okay in there. After Vel snatched me in Maha
City, she asked me to install her in a droid body. She didn’t enjoy
watching what happened without being able to impact events, which
means I was right about her AI chip. Since we’ve been together,
she’s evolved from her original function, and I now consider her a
friend.
As a bonus, she’ll
also prove invaluable as an aide. If I upgrade her, she can
function as my assistant on Ithiss-Tor, too. She’ll coach me on
customs and etiquette with a precision no human aide could match.
So once we’re out of here, I’ll see about buying her a body from
Pretty Robotics. When I have cred, that is.
Of course I could
take Jael’s advice and charge it to Chancellor Tarn. He wouldn’t
quibble over a personal aide, would he? Never mind that I could
hire a human one much cheaper than I could requisition a suitable
frame for 245.
My internal monologue
keeps me sane. I manage to filter out the distant stench of acrid
smoke that’s burning our oxygen. Block out the tons of stone that
make me feel like I’ve been buried alive. Mary, I have so many
hang-ups. If I wasn’t scared of them, too,
I’d see a Psych about it.
People would laugh
their asses off if they knew how much of my tough act comes from
pure pretense. During our plodding progress, Vel checks and
double-checks to make sure there are no deadly surprises lurking
around each turn. I keep my eyes on Dina’s sled. It has a series of
lights along the bottom, giving a faint glow that frosts the
metal.
The others watch the
tiny screen on Vel’s handheld. We’re slaves to it. I’m aware that
the tiniest mechanical malfunction could cost our lives. And
technology has a tendency to break down around me for no apparent
reason.
I remember the busted
phase drive we suffered on the Folly, just
after we reached Marakeq. From what Dina said, there was no logical
reason for it. And that kind of thing happens to me all the time. When our Skimmer exploded, I thought
that might’ve been me, too, until I learned otherwise.
For like the fifth
time, Jael asks, “Anything?”
Until even Vel loses
patience with him. “Have I failed even once to alert you if there
was?”
Damn. That’s
Vel-speak for, Will you please shut the fuck
up already? I don’t think anyone’s ever managed to get on the
bounty hunter’s nerves before. To my knowledge, he’s the king of
cool. I don’t know whether Jael should be praised or pitied for
this accomplishment.
“No,” the merc says
grudgingly. “Sorry. The quiet’s just making me nervous.”
“It’s like the eye of
the storm,” Hit agrees. “You can sense something’s coming, feel it
prickling over your skin, but you don’t know what until it explodes
in your face.”
To my surprise Dina
laughs. Might be the first time I’ve heard her do so since the
attack that maimed her. “I think I like you.”
Hit flicks a look
over one shoulder. “You flirting with me?”
“Would you like me to
be?” Dina actually tosses back her hair.
“That depends on your
intentions.” Damn, but the woman put some heat into that. I even felt it, and I’ve never hit on a woman when
I wasn’t drunk.
“Is it dirty that
this turns me on?” Jael asks nobody in particular.
“Yes,” Vel answers,
without looking away from the device that’s saved our lives. I
can’t fault him for that. I’m also impressed with his coordination;
I’d have walked into several walls by now. “Ahead, it looks like
the incline to the surface.”
As if in answer, a
cool, fresh wind blows down over us.
“What are we waiting
for?” Hit demands. “Let’s get the hell out of here!”
