Grounding Gracus (First Wave Book 6)

by Mikayla Lane

  Rebecca stopped and turned to look at him in horror. “I’ll go crazy, for real, if I have to put up with the arrogant, condescending asshole that lives in my head, for that damn long!”

  Gracus tried not to sympathize with her. Instead, he tried to explain to her how he tried to look at it. “Just like people, beasts have different personalities. Each one unique unto themselves. My beast Clatz, is similar to yours in attitude. I just try to look at it as a personality quirk,” Gracus said, unable to stop the grin from taking over his face. Even he knew how lame that sounded.

  Rebecca stopped to glare at him before she turned in front of another strange rock formation with a symbol, barely visibly through the overgrowth close to the mountain. Gracus was still amazed that she’d even found it when she put her hand on it and the same image popped up and said the exact same thing as before. The only difference this time was Fiorn pointing towards the path they were already on.

  This time, Rebecca kept her hand on the rock and studied the figures. “He looks like a Viking. Look at that long hair, the leather over his chest like armor and swords and knives all over him. And the women… the leather leggings, tunics with the same kind of leather armor. How long ago did he make this trail?” Rebecca asked in amazement.

  Gracus sighed, knowing she probably wasn’t going to handle the truth really well. He couldn’t blame her, from her viewpoint, it was all unbelievable. “Possibly over a thousand years ago. Our people tried to adapt and blend in as well as they could, which would explain the clothing,” Gracus said.

  Rebecca just snorted. “Of course… of course. Why would I ever have thought of something more reasonable? Silly me. I mean hell… who wouldn’t have assumed that the Vikings discovered this area a thousand years ago.” Rebecca threw her hands up in the air dramatically.

  “Technically, he was an alien before he was a Viking so I think that would make him an Alien-Viking,” Lanze said with a snicker.

  Rebecca felt like screaming. “Yuck it up, brain turd. You can either learn to play nice in the world of crazy or I can make it my life’s mission to find out every single thing that bothers, annoys and peeves you and I will employ every one. Daily if I have to. Try me, turd. Try me,” Rebecca said threatening, while Gracus smothered his laughter.

  The shocking silence that followed made Gracus sift her energy and he was stunned that all was calm. Rebecca wasn’t angry anymore. Just curious about the cave. As if the argument with her beast had never occurred.

  Rebecca stopped again and this time she turned to Gracus and pulled her packs off. “I really need some food and water and Gibly probably does as well. The higher we get the thinner the air. We need to hydrate,” Rebecca said as she dug through her packs and took out a canteen of water and several food bars.

  Gracus nodded and pulled off his own gear and squatted down next to Rebecca as he looked out over the valley below them. They’d gone a lot farther up the mountain than he expected. Shielding his eyes against the brightening sun, he looked upwards and saw that they hadn’t even come close to the top yet. And there was still too much vegetation to see very far up.

  Gibly came bounding back to them and before he could ask why they had stopped, Rebecca put a small collapsible cup of water in front of him. Next to the cup she’d laid out some fresh leaves and put bits of jerky on it.

  Gibly was a little surprised, but recovered quickly. He bowed with his front paws and said, “I thank you, for thinking of my needs. The water is much appreciated, but please save your food for yourself. There is plentiful food out here for me. It just jumps in front of my path! My people could grow fat and lazy out here.”

  Rebecca chuckled at the cat before she grabbed a piece of jerky off the leaves and popped it in her mouth. “So, why haven’t they rushed us yet? They know where we are, but they obviously aren’t trying to kill us yet or they would have all hit us by now. Don’t you think?” she asked, looking intently at Gracus.

  Gracus chuckled. She was a lot more intelligent than he’d given her credit for. He’d been discussing that same thing with Grai and the others and the still hadn’t figure it out yet. He saw no reason not to tell her the truth.

  “We’ve been trying to figure that out. The best we could come up with is that they are trying to keep us divided. But at the same time they are thinning their own herd as well. Could be we’re dealing with some really stupid ones too,” Gracus said with a shrug of his shoulders.

  “Or they could be keeping us divided so that when we find the cave for them, we’ll be the ones easy to pick off,” Rebecca said, thinking her idea made a lot more sense.

  Gracus looked up at her sharply. “What makes you think they know about the cave? Or that you would know where it is?”

  Rebecca shrugged. “It makes sense that they are out here looking for something. Why the hell else would bad aliens be out here? I just don’t get the impression that these guys would pick this place to vacation. Do you? It makes more sense that they are dividing us from help, while letting us lead them to the cave.”

  Gibly snorted. “She’s a very smart mate,” he said with a nod.

  Gracus agreed. “Yeah, I know. It does make more sense. The problem is, if they were following us, we can’t go back down, all we have is up,” Gracus said, nodding towards the trail leading up the mountain.

  Rebecca followed his gaze up the trail and nodded. They probably should have had this conversation before they’d trapped themselves on the mountain trail. They were too high up to do anything other than rappel down and that could end up dropping them right on the bad guys if they were on their way up.

  She shrugged. “That’s ok. For some reason I think we’ll have better luck protecting ourselves at the cave. We know they aren’t already there or they wouldn’t have needed to follow us to find it.”

  Rebecca took one last sip from her canteen before putting everything back into her packs. She stood just as Gracus did and pulled her packs on while he did the same. Seeing that Gibly was finished with his water, Rebecca collapsed the cup and put it in the side pocket of her backpack.

  Gibly bowed, then turned and disappeared back up the trail in front of them. With a grin at the adorable cat, Rebecca followed, gun at the ready. She may have a strange feeling that the cave would offer protection, but she wasn’t dumb enough to think that they were assured of getting their unmolested.

  Since the path was only about six feet wide, she knew that they were safe from attack from the left side, but there was still the front and back to worry about and not much room to scuffle without worrying about being knocked over the edge. There’s no way anyone would survive a fall from this height, she thought.

  Rebecca was really hoping that this cave was going to be a secret haven, otherwise, they were seriously screwed. If they were lucky, there would be more weapons there at least. That thought caused her to giggle. Yeah, some swords and daggers weren’t going to do much against some aliens and their more updated weapons.

  They’d walked up what seemed like miles of the switchback trail before Gibly came bounding back down and skidded to a stop in front of Rebecca.

  “I found the cave,” the cat said, as he jumped around in a circle.

  Rebecca turned to look at Gracus, but he was already moving past her. When he was in front of her, Gibly continued up the path, leading the way to the cave. They were there in five minutes and Rebecca looked around the area, completely unimpressed. The trail, that was at one time carefully made to reach the cave, was a lot more of a sight to see than this.

  The opening itself was only around five and a half feet high and six wide, but there was no depth to it. They could clearly see to the back of it. In fact, it couldn’t really be called a cave. It was more like a hole in the rock. What the hell were they supposed to do now? Rebecca wondered, looking behind them to the trail they had come from, where Gibly was standing guard.

  She looked around and saw no other way out other than back the way they had come. They had cornered them
selves. Even though they had the advantage of the higher ground, it’d be easy for someone to sneak up the side from one of the lower switchbacks they’d taken to get there.

  “Touch the stone inside the cave, near the symbol. There has to be a reason the symbols led you here,” Lanze said in her mind, drawing Rebecca out of her thoughts.

  “Yes,” she muttered as she walked over to the rock opening and stepped inside.

  Rebecca just barely fit inside of the entire hole and she placed her hands on the inner wall. The inside of the hole glowed a light blue color and the images of the people were walking inside of the hole.

  How the hell am I supposed to walk into a damn wall, she thought, just as what she thought was rock melted beneath her hands. She breathed deeply of the strangely fresh air coming from what was now a dark tunnel, before turning to look for Gracus.

  “Gracus,” she called out, her voice sounding a little strangled.

  Within seconds, Gracus and even Gibly were peering inside what was now a tunnel. To where, they didn’t know, but their choices were pretty slim if the Relians were behind them on the trail. And they all knew it.

  “Come out of there and let me go first,” Gracus said, looking suspiciously at the inky interior that even his heightened senses couldn’t penetrate for very far.

  Rebecca rolled her eyes at his protective tone of voice and instead stepped inside of the tunnel and looked around in awe as the rock on the floor and walls lit up around her. Gracus huffed in exasperation behind her as he came through the entryway with Gibly weaving through his legs and running past him.

  As they stood looking at the twenty or so feet of tunnel that was currently lit, the cave entrance they had used to get inside resealed behind them. Gracus slammed his palms against the wall, attempting to get it to open again, but it wasn’t working.

  Rebecca looked at the wall with a puzzled frown. “Let me try,” she said as she walked over to the wall and waited until Gracus moved away before putting her hands on it. As she expected, the three figures popped to life in front of her, this time what they said wasn’t expected at all.

  The same female who had spoken the other times said, “Normally, you would be allowed to leave. The sensors along the trail have detected a Relian presence. Please, proceed forward through the tunnel and you will be guided to safety.”

  Rebecca turned startled eyes to Gracus before she gave him a smirk. “Told ya so,” she couldn’t help but say.

  Gracus looked at her with disbelieving eyes. “Do you really think it would have said anything different? You said yourself, they are in ancient Earth attire. It was probably what happened at the time. They couldn’t have known we’d have Relians following us,” Gracus said, looking down the lit part of the hallway to the darker areas that he still couldn’t see.

  Rebecca grinned and shook her head as she looked around the cave. Something about the place felt really nice. Safe. Yeah, she thought, safe was a good word for how the place felt to her. Even the yellowish light emanating from the floor and walls of the cave were calming and not glaringly bright.

  She looked at Gracus and grinned. “Either it’s not a recording loop or Grai and my grandfather found another way out,” she said as she walked passed him down the tunnel.

  Rebecca wasn’t the least bit surprised when Gibly ran forward and the tunnel began to light the cat’s path while the tunnel behind them darkened the further they went from the entrance. Although, she didn’t feel like she was in danger at all, Rebecca wasn’t about to let her guard down and the three of them walked cautiously but determinedly down the tunnel.

  Gracus felt on edge and he tried to communicate with Grai through the Shengari’ but it only echoed back at him. He looked around at the strange mineral striations and wondered if there were a combination of metals disrupting the energy. Wondering at the reach of the disruption, he tried to speak to Rebecca’s mind.

  “Stay alert,” he warned.

  Rebecca snorted and turned around. “You really think your planet’s hero would lead us to danger? Or Grai and my grandfather?”

  Gracus watched her turn back around and continue down the tunnel while he was left amazed that the path between worked fine, but he couldn’t reach anyone outside of this mountain. It left him more convinced than ever that something within the rock walls was disrupting the energy.

  He pulled his comm out of his pocket and turned the device on, quickly finding out that the comm was completely useless. Even the screen was affected, displaying only strange lines of colors intermixed with numbers, letters and symbols.

  He put it away and looked around at the tunnel. It was perfectly hewed out of the rock, at least eight feet wide and ten high. And the walls and floor were currently glowing, but there were no lights anywhere, the walls solid and uniform. It looked like an inch of the walls and floor were temporarily imbued with light.

  Gracus could easily see the solid, unlit rock underneath the light at his feet and shook his head in wonder at how it was possible. Especially, during the time period that Fiorn had come here, which implied that it wasn’t being done through technology.

  A light up ahead caused Rebecca and Gracus to look up and they saw Gibly standing in front of what appeared to be a metal door blocking the tunnel. Rebecca turned to look curiously at Gracus before she hurried to where Gibly was now pacing in front of the door.

  Rebecca got there first and took a deep breath as she held her hands up in front of the door. She turned to grin at Gracus before she slapped her palms on the door, and looked around in confusion as no images appeared around them.

  “What?” she said as she took her hands off the door and tried it again. Still nothing happened.

  Gracus, who was standing beside her, looked at the bar on the door and he stepped forward and lifted it up, before pulling the handle. He grinned back at Rebecca as the door opened and looked into another tunnel.

  “Smart ass,” Rebecca muttered as she walked past him through the door, following Gibly who was setting the lights off as he went.

  Gracus chuckled as he shut the door behind him, noting the same kind of bar and handle on the other side of the door as well. Unsure if Grai would end up coming through the cave, he left the bar off before following Rebecca and Gibly down another empty tunnel.

  They came across another door and this time there was a large room that looked like a comm center on the other side, with three more tunnels leading off from it. They stood in the now lit room and Gracus moved to the computer center and noted everything was blank and not operational.

  He knew that this equipment couldn’t have been put here a thousand years ago by Fiorn and figured that someone had been updating the place pretty recently for it to be here. Yet strangely, none of it looked like it had been used in a while. At least not since Grai and Rebecca’s grandfather had found it.

  Rebecca walked around the room touching everything, hoping to instigate another image that might give them more information. She still felt no fear, but was getting a little creeped out by the whole abandoned cave thing. It was a little too close to some of the horror movies she’d seen. She ended up standing in front of the three tunnels with Gibly and Gracus.

  They stared at the tunnels in silence for a moment, unsure which one to take when Gibly shook himself. “I’ll be right back,” he said as he took off down the first tunnel on the right.

  Rebecca was getting ready to charge after him, when Gracus grabbed her arm and stopped her. She turned surprised eyes to his and said, “Why can’t I follow him?”

  Gracus let go of her arm and shook his head. “There’s no point. He can tell us what’s down each of the tunnels in half the time it would take all of us to go down one.” He wasn’t about to tell her that he couldn’t shake the bad feeling he had about the place.

  Gibly let out a howl, followed by loud crashing sounds and without thinking about it Rebecca took off down the tunnel after him with Gracus right on her heels. They hadn’t gone far when they were forc
ed to stop and carefully pick their way down the tunnel.

  Rebecca looked around in disbelief as she called out, “Gibly, where are you?”

  Gracus picked up a large sword rack that had been knocked over and put it back up against the wall, while Rebecca picked her way through the other weapons that were scattering the floor like debris.

  “Under here.”

  Rebecca and Gracus looked at one another when they heard Gibly’s muffled voice and looked over at what appeared to be cabinet that had been knocked over. They carefully picked their way past some realistic looking dummies dressed in battle gear from different Earth time periods until they reached the cabinet.

  Rebecca and Gracus easily righted the cabinet and Gibly sprang out from underneath one of the open doors. He stood on one of the dummies, dressed in old Army fatigues, and shook himself.

  Gracus looked around the weapons scattered floor and asked Gibly, “What happened?”

  Rebecca kneeled down and picked up one of the wicked looking swords, knowing by its size alone that it must be what they called a broad sword. It certainly was one of the largest that was scattered across the floor.

  Gracus saw her and warned, “Be careful, they may appear old, but they are very sharp and have been well maintained. By someone.”

  Gibly huffed. “I come down here and didn’t expect to see the room off to the right. I thought the dummies were bad guys,” Gibly said with embarrassment tinging his voice.

  Rebecca snorted. “If I’d turned the corner and seen some of these dummies dressed like that with weapons all over, I would have lost it. You did some serious damage though, Gibly. I wouldn’t want to tangle with you,” Rebecca said as she looked around.

  She really was impressed that the cat had done this much damage to what appeared to be only a weapons room. With another metal door blocking the tunnel. Getting kind of irritated at the deserted mystery of the place, Rebecca placed her hands on the door, hoping that the images would appear and give them some freaking clue about the place.