by S. J. Bryant
Nova frowned and stepped up beside him. "Cells..."
The walls and ceiling of the tunnel fell away, spreading out into a great hall where a set of stairs swirled around, up to the second level. Metal railings glittered at the edge of their circle of light. On either side of the wide hall stood thick steel doors set deep into the walls. Vertical bars lined tiny eye-level windows.
Maya brushed against Nova's arm as she stepped past. "It's a prison."
"Ten points for the little lady," the booming voice blasted from invisible speakers. "You're absolutely right and you know, in a place like this; prison rules apply. There are eight of you still alive and conveniently you've all managed to make it here. I'd suggest you find a defensible position."
The voice clicked off and they were left with the echoing silence of the prison.
"What is that supposed to mean?" said Tommy.
"There are other Hunters nearby," Nova said. "And depending on who they are, they might not be above killing us for the chance to get off this rock."
She swallowed, throat dry. What should have been a simple treasure hunt had fast become a fight for survival. Her heart beat fast against her ribs, but all of her focus was on the rest of the prison. She strained for any sound of approaching footsteps but all that came back to her was silence.
"I think we should take his advice," she said. "Find a defensible position. And keep your voices down."
Aart reached out and tested the door of the closest cell. The handle creaked down and the door swung inward. It squeaked as it opened and flakes of rust fluttered down from the hinges to create a small patch on the floor. Inside, the cell was more stark and unwelcoming than the corridor. A sheet of steel attached to the wall served as a bed, and a simple waste disposal unit decorated the other corner. The rest of the room was filled with emptiness.
The four Hunters crept inside and looked around. Aart closed the door so that only a thin sliver of the corridor could be seen and stayed there, staring out into the darkness with his gun in hand.
BANG.
Screams echoed back to them from the prison complex. A high-pitched voice rang out, begging for mercy. It yelled and pleaded, but a few seconds later another gunshot silenced it. The prison fell still again except for ghosts that whispered through the old walls.
"Did you see the shooter?" Nova whispered.
Aart shook his head. "But I saw the body. Fell across the hall, to our right."
Nova ignored the spectres at the edge of her vision; now was not the time to let her control slip. "Turn your lights off."
The others did as she said, throwing the cell into darkness. They drew their guns and the three of them gathered next to Aart at the doorway. Their breathing sounded loud in the new silence of the prison.
"Clearly there's at least one person in here who's willing to kill," Nova said. "From now on we have to be careful. I don't think we have any other choice than to take him down first."
"You're right," said Maya. "What kind of person would kill his fellow Hunters just because some nutcase said so?"
"I can think of a few," said Nova, reminiscing on Kero's recent betrayal.
"Either way we have to work out a plan," Aart whispered. "We didn't see any sign of other people, so it's pretty safe to assume that there are other ways into this prison. I'd bet there's a way out too."
"We have to stay calm," Maya said. "He isn't going to let any of us go; he just wants to watch us kill each other. We have to stick together or we'll all end up dead."
Nova nodded. "Maya's right. Somehow he's built this whole thing; it's like a game for him. There has to be a way out, we just have to live long enough to find it."
The others nodded.
"Should we stay here or try and move further in?" Tommy said.
"I think it would be best to stay put for now. Try to get a grasp of what's going on, see if there are any other sane people in this place or if it's become a free for all," said Nova. "Try to stay calm; we'll need our energy later."
Maya nodded. "And we'd better wrap our guns with something to hide the glow. At the moment they're like giant neon signs pointing the bad guys right at us."
Aart pulled a spare shirt from his bag and ripped it into shreds, handing the pieces out. He wrapped his gun to shield its steady glow and stayed at the door, scanning the surrounding cells and the upper levels for any lights or signs of life while the others wrapped their guns.
Nova tied the rag in place. "I didn't see any glow out there before. I think it's safe to say the others have done something similar."
The others nodded.
Maya and Tommy huddled close together, eyes darting around the room. Their gazes met often and their hands stayed gripped on their guns.
Nova took a seat on the steel bed, just behind Aart, and strained her ears against the silence. Her spine tingled as she focused half of her attention on the prison beyond the door and the other half on watching Maya and Tommy for any signs of betrayal. If this kind of cage-fight was what this 'Watcher' wanted, then chances were good that not all of them were going to make it out alive. She would be damned if she'd let those two kill her while her back was turned.
Cold seeped up from the metal bed and sunk through her clothes, into her very bones. Her skin rose in tiny bumps and she began to shiver. Even with a thick jacket on she couldn't block the cold. On top of that, she was quickly running out of nutribars, she certainly hadn't planned on being down in the tombs for so long, let alone stuck playing prison rules with a bunch of other Hunters.
"There's someone up top," Aart whispered over his shoulder.
Nova slunk from the bed and in a single stride stood by Aart's shoulder, peering through the doorway. She followed his pointing finger to the metal grating that made the upper walkway on the opposite side of the hall. It ran alongside the far walls, interspersed with steel doors with vertical bars.
For the first time, Nova noticed the dim orange glow, like emergency lights, that illuminated the scene and cast eerie shadows across the cells. The grates created a criss-cross of shadows on the floor and the bars on the door made shadowed lines up the far wall of their cell.
In the dim light Nova saw what Aart had noticed. A tiny figure that could have been mistaken for a child, crept along the grated balcony, barely visible in the dim prison lights. A gun dangled at her waist and even with thick boots on metal grating, she made barely a sound. Her head flicked from side to side and every few steps she stopped and tilted her head, listening.
"Friend or foe?" Nova asked.
"Let's wait and see," Aart replied.
From their cell they had a good view of the upper level. They could see the entire opposite wall and some of the cells at each end. The girl edged from one end of the walkway almost to the other, her feet silent. She stopped dead and crouched low. Her head and eyes darted all around as she pulled the gun from her belt. Even from a distance her eyes looked wide and her skin pale.
She turned towards an adjacent cell and her mouth moved.
"Who's she talking to?" Aart whispered.
Nova shook her head. "I can't see or hear anything."
The girl shook her head, whipping it from side to side and spoke again.
A gunshot echoed around the cells. The girl dived to the other side of the grated walkway, but too slow. Her arm exploded into a flower of red flesh and she cried out. She whipped her gun up and fired three times into the darkness. Someone grunted and cursed. The small girl cast around, clutching at her bleeding arm.
Something rustled and she fired her gun into the doorway. More curses.
"I think we know who's friendly and who's not," said Aart.
Nova raised an eyebrow. "Do we? We have no idea. That girl could have killed all the others for all we know. The guys in the cell could just be defending themselves."
Aart rolled his eyes. "I really don't think so."
"But we don't know," Nova said, gripping his arm.
"They attacked first," Aart sa
id, waving his hand towards the girl. "She at least deserves the benefit of the doubt."
"But—"
Aart shook his head. "No buts. You know you're going to do it, so just be quiet and let's go help her."
Maya held up her hand. "No way, I'm not going out there in the middle of a fire-fight."
"She looks like she needs our help," said Tommy. His brows drew together and he glanced between the girl and Maya as if begging for a solution to fall from the sky.
"I don't care. I'm not going to risk my life for some tiny Hunter," Maya said, crossing her arms.
Aart let go of the door and turned around. "You can stay guard."
Maya nodded and stuck out her chin.
Nova frowned. She didn't trust the two Hunters enough to leave one of them unattended in what she considered base camp. Her years as a Hunter had taught her better than that.
"Don't stress," Aart said, glancing at her face. "What's the worst she could do?"
"You have no idea," Nova replied, her imagination running wild.
CHAPTER TEN
Raised voices echoed from up top as the girl with the bleeding arm lay unprotected on the metal walkway.
"Let's get up there," Nova said with a sigh. "Just think; the crazy guy said there were eight of us left. That means the four of us, the wounded girl up there, the dead body over there, whoever is shooting and one other person. So just keep an eye out for our missing person and we should be fine."
"I love the way you think," Aart said, rolling his eyes.
They opened the steel door as quietly as they could, no small feat given its rusted hinges. Aart led the way to the stairs, Nova at his heels, and Tommy at the back. They kept to the shadows and moved with silent feet. Nova lowered her breathing so that she was no louder than a puff of fresh air.
At the bottom of the stairs they hugged the shadows, inching up the inside curve. Even so, the metal stairs scraped under their boots with a noise that thundered in Nova's ears. She tried to tread lightly but that seemed to make it worse. She gripped her gun and went forward, ears straining.
Halfway up, an uneven grate caught Nova's foot. She snatched for the railing, missed, and fell forward. She landed hard on her knees with a solid clunk, the bare steel gouging deep cuts into her hands and legs.
She squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lip to stop herself cursing out loud. A slick film of blood slid down her palm and coated her wrists as Aart pulled her back to her feet.
She ducked her head low as she followed Aart up the stairs, wary of the approaching shooter. Her stiff legs moved like rusted joints as she tried to creep up the walkway. She peered over the top stair and into the far cell where the shots had come from.
The smaller Hunter sat against the wall a few metres away. Blood dripped from her arm and sweat poured down her face. Her arm shook as she pointed her gun at the far cell.
"Oi, injured girl," Aart hissed.
The girl's head rolled towards them, eyes glazed.
"We're coming up. Don't shoot."
"You got friends out there?" a rough male voice said from the far cell. "We'll blast holes in them too. The more the merrier."
"That settles it," Aart said with a shrug.
Nova sprinted up the last few stairs, firing shots into the open doorway as she went. The blue bolts of energy lit up the inside and highlighted the faces of two men.
Their eyes opened wide at the sudden blasts and they dived away from the doorway, further into the darkness. She continued to fire as she ran down the walkway to stand next to the fallen Hunter. The girl glanced up at her with a mixture of fear and thanks.
Nova nodded once, noting Tommy's head at the top of the stairs, and continued her advance towards the cell. She hugged close to the wall and continued to fire into the darkness. She ducked around to the side of the doorway, shielded from anyone inside.
Aart jogged behind her and took his time to nod at the girl before taking position on the other side of the doorway. A few drops of sweat dribbled down his face and his white knuckles stood out against his gun.
"Hi there cell-mate," Aart said, turning his head so that he spoke towards the cell. "I have a feeling you might be injured. Care to come out and let me take a look?"
"You're funny," a rough voice said from inside the cell.
Aart nodded. "A real laugh, you should come out and meet me."
A man inside grunted.
"We won't hurt you if you behave. No sense being a prisoner."
The man snorted. "I don't think so, pretty-boy. I'm here to survive. I didn't come here to play prisoner with a bunch of second-rate Hunters."
Someone groaned.
Nova tilted her head and shot Aart a meaningful gaze. There were two of them inside the cell, one of them injured. That meant that, provided the Watcher was telling the truth, then they were all accounted for and no one lurked in the shadows of another cell.
Out of the corner of her eye, Nova watched Tommy run up the stairs and kneel by the girl who'd been shot. He spoke to her in low tones but Nova couldn't make out the words. He helped the girl to her feet and led her towards the stairs. A little longer and they would be out of range and safe.
"Where are you going?" the rough voice said.
Before Nova could respond a red bolt of energy flashed out of the open doorway and seared through the air. It smashed into Tommy's back and he stumbled forward, falling flat onto his face with a cry of pain. His back smoked like a hunk of ham.
The girl who'd been leaning heavily on Tommy also fell. She tumbled forward and landed on the top step. The momentum carried her forward and she rolled down, limbs tangling about her body as she screamed. Her mouth smashed against the edge of a stair and her bottom lip burst open, leaving spatters of blood on the metal railing and staining her chin red.
Nova wanted to run to the girl, to stop her fall, but that would be suicide. Instead she watched as the small Hunter managed to stop her decent halfway down, still alive. The man inside the cell laughed.
"Tommy, can you hear me?" Nova called.
She waited for any sign of a response but all she got was silence. She looked at Aart with wide eyes. Aart shook his head once and jutted his chin towards the cell. There were more pressing things to attend to. They couldn't do anything for Tommy until the men in the cell were neutralised.
"Sounds like your buddy could use some help," Aart said.
The man chuckled.
"Not as much as yours."
Nova's face flushed red. Anger boiled in her veins and she wanted nothing more than to step around the corner and smash her fist into the man's face. Still, she couldn't risk it. The second man probably had a gun aimed straight at the door, depending on how injured he was.
"Look, we don't want to hurt you," Aart said. "I'm not a fan of killing other Hunters. We've got to stick together. But if you don't come out now with your hands up, I'll be forced to make a move."
"What are you going to do small fry? Throw a stick at us? That's the one good thing about low-tech planets like this; you know exactly what people are carrying."
Aart shrugged towards Nova and thrust his fingers into a tiny pocket set into the bottom of his shirt. He fiddled around for a few seconds and when he pulled his hand back he held a tiny orb between his fingers. He nodded once and tossed the ball through the open doorway.
Nova turned away from the entrance and covered her ears.
"You see, I've never been one to obey those kinds of rules, I'm sure you understand," Aart said before covering his head with his arms.
"What—" the man said.
He didn't get any further because at that moment a loud bang echoed around the prison and a puff of smoke shot out of the open doorway. The sound of falling rocks and broken cement burst out of the cell. Two terrified screams choked into silence a moment after the blast. Loose pebbles and rocks tumbled out of the cell and came to rest by Nova's foot.
Nova held her gun up and stepped into the commotion. The glowball at her w
aist illuminated a smoke-filled room of chaos. Debris covered the floor and half the ceiling and wall had caved inwards revealing loose dirt. Blood dotted the floor in a trail to the centre of the room where a hand twitched under the weight of a large brick.
Nova studied the small cell but it didn't take long to see that there was no one left alive. She breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't like to kill Hunters but those men had been blood-thirsty.
When she was sure it was safe Nova hurried back out to the open area and jogged to Tommy's side. He hadn't moved from where he'd fallen and a gaping black hole bore through his back. Wisps of smoke spiralled up out of the charred flesh.
Nova held her sleeve over her mouth, trying to ignore the smell of roast pork.
She placed two fingers on Tommy's neck and held her breath. There was no pulse or signs of breathing. She rolled him over onto his back. The blast had passed through his spine, through his internal organs, and out the other side. There was nothing left of his ribcage or his lungs except a few tatters of flesh.
"He's gone," Nova said as Aart came close.
"What a cosmic craphole," Aart said. He saluted Tommy with two fingers and turned away. There was nothing they could do for him now.
Nova got to her feet and started towards the stairs. She couldn't save Tommy but perhaps there was something she could do for the tiny Hunter. She got to the top of the stairs and stopped. There was no sign of the girl. The last she'd seen, the tiny body had been curled up on the landing halfway down. Now there was nothing.
"Okay, hands up, both of you," a stern voice said from behind Nova.
Nova turned, lifting her hands. Her brows drew together as she came face to face with the small Hunter. The girl held her gun in one hand, pointed at Nova's head, while the other arm hung limp at her side, bathed in blood.
"What the hell are you doing?" Aart said.
"Saving my arse same as you."
Aart stepped forward. "Um in case you didn't notice, we just saved your life."
The girl whipped the gun left and fired a shot into the wall next to Aart's head. "Don't move! Perhaps you saved me. Or perhaps you were just trying to get hold of the key for yourself."