by Anna Hackett
As he stood at the open door, all he could see was tangled vines and trees.
“I don’t like this,” Nera said from beside him.
He smiled. “You usually don’t like anything.”
“True.” Her gaze lingered on his armor-covered body. “I like you.”
Yes, she did. And he was extremely happy about that. “Ready for a short rappel?”
“Try and keep up, Dr. Phoenix.” She took a backward step out of the ship.
He watched her go down, fast and gracefully.
By the time he made it down and unclipped from the rappel line, Nera was circling the clearing, her hands resting on her holstered laser pistols. Under the canopy, the light was murky and up here in the mountains, there was more wildlife. He couldn’t see it, but he could hear it. The loud buzzing of insects, the flutter of wings up in the leaves, and the spine-chilling screeches of…something. Nik gripped his laser machete a little harder.
Avril, Galen and his small team of agents stood nearby, staring at the giant wall of vines ahead. Behind him, Nik heard Solomon and Gunn bickering about something.
“The map says we need to find a cave complex.” Avril tapped a boot, studying her handheld Sync. “It’s about one kilometer from here.”
A kilometer. Nik traded a glance with Nera. In these conditions, it may as well have been a thousand.
The security agents hefted their laser machetes and got to work hacking at the vegetation.
It did not go well.
Some vines contained the acidic poison that had eaten through the Centurion. One agent got sprayed by the acid, another got tangled in the vines and the damn things had started dragging him away.
Nik swiped his arm across his forehead. The humidity was horrible. At this rate, they’d reach the caves in days, not minutes. Avril was looking frazzled and frustrated. And he suddenly realized that Nera, who’d been beside him a minute ago, was missing.
He stopped swinging his machete and glanced around. “Nera?”
“Up here.”
He looked up and spotted her standing on a high branch of a nearby tree. “What’re you doing?”
“Trying to find a better way to reach these caves.”
“Aren’t the trees covered in that oily, radioactive substance?”
“Not these trees, no.” She waved a hand around. “I think some sort of tree-dwelling animals live up here in the canopy. They travel along the branches.”
Nik frowned. “I don’t think we can all swing on the vines like monkeys.”
“No, but it looks like the animals have trained the branches. Up here, there’s a clear path of horizontal branches reaching between trees.”
“What’s going on?” Avril asked, looking up. “Darc, I see you aren’t getting hot and sweaty swinging a machete.”
Nera leaned against the tree trunk. “Nor are you.”
Nik bit back a grin. “Nera thinks we can travel along the branches in the canopy. It’d be faster. We could avoid the undergrowth.”
Avril looked skeptical. “I don’t know…”
Galen strode over, his face covered in a sheen of perspiration. “This isn’t working.”
The astro-archeologist rubbed her forehead. “Darc thinks we can travel through the canopy. Along the branches.”
Galen looked up. “I’ll give anything a shot right now. I have two injured agents and we haven’t gone ten meters.”
“Fine.” Avril looked up at Darc. “How did you get up there?”
“I climbed,” came the dry response.
Nik slid his machete into the sheath on his belt. Then he eyed the handholds Nera had cut into the trunk. He set his boot in one and gripped another. Slowly, he started his way up.
Soon, he reached her, and pulled himself onto a branch twice as thick as he was. There was a flutter of wings and he spotted a brief flash of color through the black foliage. “Pretty incredible.” He walked along the thick branch to Nera. “These do look like they get a lot of use.” A wear pattern was worn into the wood.
“I didn’t mention it to the others, but whatever lives and travels up here…it’s big and possibly nasty.”
Nik sighed. “Of course it is. How do you know?”
She motioned him around the massive trunk. He carefully stepped onto another branch and looked where she pointed. Slash marks were carved into the tree trunk. They had to have come from very large, very sharp claws.
They were fresh.
“Well, let’s hope they don’t like the sound of Avril’s voice.”
Nera snorted. “Whatever it is, it can’t be much worse than acidic plant-life and zombies.”
“Right.” But even he heard the doubt in his voice. “Don’t jinx us.”
Soon the team were all standing on the branches, finding their balance.
“Trust your boots,” Galen called out. “They have built-in stabilizers. They’ll help you balance.”
The team started off. It soon became apparent that Solomon had very good balance. He was grinning and running along branches and leaping onto adjacent ones.
Nik shook his head. Oh, to feel young and invincible again. He frowned. Actually, he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt young and invincible. His father and their dangerous homeworld had made sure of that. He watched Nera leaping carefully but gracefully between branches. He now knew Nera had never been as carefree as Solomon.
But Nik had decided he was going to make it his mission in life to see she had more fun in her life. To make her smile, to ensure he saw pleasure flushing her face every day.
Nik’s boot slipped. He grabbed for the branches and caught himself.
“Daydreaming, Phoenix?”
Nera was watching him, one hand resting on her grappler.
“Fantasizing.”
Her lips quirked. “I suggest you focus on where you’re putting your feet or none of those fantasies will become reality.” She turned and looked back over her shoulder. “And I have a few of my own I plan to bring to life when we get back to the ship.”
He slipped again and grabbed the nearest branch. “Nera.”
She laughed. A light, if slightly rusty sound, and turned, running along a branch.
With a smile, Nik followed her.
Soon, Avril was calling out that they should be nearing the cave entrance. They all climbed down to the jungle floor. Mud squelched under Nik’s boots. It was wetter here, the ground fragrant with rotting vegetation. He studied the area, but all he could see were vines and plants. There were a few large rocks here and there, so it made sense they were getting close to the cave. He studied one vine-covered rock a bit harder. He stiffened. Was that what he thought it was?
“Nera.” He waved her over. As he neared the rock, he realized he was right. “This is a statue.”
She drew her machete and set to work, helping him cut the vines away.
“Keep away from the green vines,” he warned. “We don’t want poison everywhere.”
She nodded and kept hacking. It didn’t take them long to uncover the statue.
Nik stepped back. “Magnificent.”
It was a carving of a warrior. The man was wearing an elaborate headdress and holding what looked like a bow and arrow.
“Incan?” Avril demanded.
Nik shook his head. “It has some resemblance, but no, this is something different. I’d say the craftsmanship is less detailed, almost like it’s older, less-developed.”
“Pre-Incan,” Avril said, excitedly.
“No. This is far newer. The vines have grown on it, and it’s showing some wear. But it’s not worn enough. I’d say this is fairly recent.”
Everyone in their group stirred.
“You think the zombies did this?” Avril’s voice was incredulous.
Gunn snorted. “That’s a stretch.”
“No,” Nik answered. “I don’t think they have the dexterity to do something like this.”
Everyone glanced around, suddenly eyeing the trees warily.
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nbsp; “Well, whoever made it, I think it must be a sign we’re headed in the right direction.” Avril glanced at her Sync, then pointed. “Just twenty meters that way and we should see the cave entrance.”
Galen redirected his team, and Nik and Nera joined in, hacking away. Suddenly, with no warning, a sheer wall of rock appeared. There were excited shouts and then Nik spotted it.
“Look.” He pointed with his machete.
The cave entrance wasn’t large, and it was mostly obscured with vines, but it was definitely a cave.
Avril quivered with excitement. “That’s it. Get the vines cleared away.”
Another few minutes of hacking, and they stood at the entrance. Inside was filled with impenetrable darkness.
“Ion lights,” Galen called out.
The bright lights were flicked on.
Nik and Nera followed the security agents in. At first, there was still vegetation, but that soon gave way to a simple rock tunnel. Nik brushed at cobwebs hanging from the roof.
“Niklas.”
Nera’s voice had him looking at her. She nodded at the walls. He shone his light on them, and his breath caught.
They were incredibly faint, worn away by time, but there were images etched into the walls. He dusted one with his gloved hand. “Oh, my God, these…these are definitely Inca.” Damn, maybe they were on the right track to discover the Lost Inca Gold.
Shouts from ahead reached them. Nik and Nera hurried on. The tunnel widened out into a sizable cavern, not huge, but there was room enough for all the team members.
Solomon kicked at something on the ground. “This is not treasure.”
The cavern was empty. There was no glint of gold. No rows of fabulous artifacts. Nik shook his head. Treasure hunting took time and effort. Expecting to find something incredibly valuable the first time you tried to achieve it was a surefire path to disappointment.
But he also knew it paid to look beneath the surface.
He circled the cavern. Avril’s shoulders were slumped and she was studying her Sync again, muttering to herself.
On closer inspection, the cavern wasn’t entirely devoid of items. It was filled with bones.
He crouched and studied the yellowed remains. Some were very old. He touched a nearby pile. And some were fresher, with rotting flesh and tendons still stuck to the bone.
“Something lives in here,” Nera murmured. She was standing with her hand on her laser pistol at her hip.
He agreed. And he was pretty sure they didn’t want to be here when whatever it was returned. He spied a skeleton sitting up against the cave wall. It still had the tattered remnants of clothing hanging off it. As Nik got closer, he realized the skeleton’s legs were missing. He winced. Whatever had dragged the man in here, it had eaten his legs and left the rest of him intact. Gruesome way to go. Alive as something ate your legs. Then Nik spotted something else. His pulse tripped. There was an old leather satchel beside the skeleton’s remains.
He crouched and opened the bag. He pulled out a very old-fashioned, leather-bound journal. He opened it.
He stared in disbelief at the sketches and notations. “Oh, my God.”
“Oh, my God is right,” Nera agreed.
“What did you find?” Avril and the others crowded around him.
Nik stared at the name on the page. “This was George Edwin Chapman. He was Blake’s partner, the one who never returned from the mountains.”
“Guess we know why,” Solomon said.
“This journal is filled with sketches of the treasure.” Nik touched the fragile pages. “They found it. He talks about the gold. We need to get this preserved before the pages deteriorate.” He gently flipped through to the last few entries. “Jesus.”
“What?” Avril asked.
Nik looked up and caught Nera’s gaze. “He said he found the treasure in a cavern near here, but then was attacked by a giant beast. It dragged him to its lair and…” Nik shook his head. “The diary entry ends there.”
“The treasure’s close by, we need—”
A low howl echoed down the tunnel and into the cavern.
All the security team spun, pulling their weapons.
“Whatever killed Chapman can’t still be alive,” Avril said.
“Perhaps.” Nik stood, tucking the journal into his backpack. “But its descendants could be.”
“Its mutated descendants,” Nera added.
“Let’s get out of here.” Galen waved them out of the cavern.
Nik hurried down the tunnel. As soon as they stepped out of the cave and back into the jungle, Nik knew something was wrong.
Nera drew her sword and was scanning the jungle, tension radiating off her body.
“What is it?” he asked.
“No animal noises. No insects. No birds.”
It clicked. There was an unnatural silence around them.
“We need to go,” he urged Avril and the others.
The astro-archeologist nodded. “All right, let’s—”
Howls echoed through the trees.
“Zombies?” Solomon said, clutching his laser pistol.
Nera shook her head. “No, animals. Headed this way.” She glanced at the group. “Run.”
They took off, stumbling over vines, leaping rotting logs. They stayed close to the cliff face, where the vegetation was thinner and it was easier to run.
“Should we climb again?” Niklas shouted at Nera.
She leapt a log, her arms pumping as she ran. She shook her head. “Not until we know if what we’re dealing with can climb.”
Damn, she was right. If it was some sort of cat, they could live in the damn trees.
Behind them, someone screamed.
Nik spun, and Nera did the same. They both sucked in sharp breaths.
A pack of mutated…cats—or they could be dogs—raced out of the forest. They were smaller, faster and more agile than the giant cats they’d faced before. The pack pounced on a fallen security team agent. They tore into the woman viciously, lifting bloody muzzles, their gazes fixated on the rest of the team.
“Run!” Nera yelled. “As fast as you can.”
The team was firing at the animals. Nera’s pistol whined and Nik fired his own over his shoulder as he ran. “Hurry!”
The pack had abandoned their downed prey and was loping after the rest of them. Nik thought they moved like cats, with an elegant kind of grace, but they were hunting like a pack of dogs. And they just looked like beasts from hell. Tough leathery skin, misshapen bodies and wide, teeth-filled jaws.
Nik pushed for more speed. If they could get back to the ship…
The ground disappeared beneath Nik.
He plummeted down a steep slope, and a second later, Nera tumbled into him. They slammed into the muddy ground, the air rushing out of Nik’s lungs. Damn, it was a hard landing. Nera’s legs were tangled with his. She sat up, looking a bit dazed. A second later, Galen fell in after them. Nik looked around.
They were in a deep, steep-sided hole.
A clearly man-made hole.
Nik pinched the bridge of his nose. Damn. It was some kind of trap.
Outside, he heard the shouts of the others, and realized they’d fallen into similar traps.
A long, drawn-out whistle sounded.
The creatures appeared above, sniffing the edge. They looked less crazed now, tongues lolling.
“They herded us into the traps,” Nera said.
Nik gave a short nod. “I think so.”
“What?” Galen said. “Who?”
Another sharp whistle and the beasts retreated.
What now? Nik stared upward.
A face appeared at the rim, peering over at them.
A man. His head was devoid of hair but covered in dark tattoos. He wore some sort of leather top, and more primal tattoos twined around his muscled arms. He studied them for a moment, then looked back over his shoulder. He called out something in a language Nik’s high-tech lingual implant didn’t recognize.
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The man pulled back and disappeared.
“Well, I think it’s safe to say we’re well and truly fucked,” Galen said.
Nik kicked at the ground. “Yeah, you could say that.”
Chapter Eighteen
Nera marched along behind Niklas. Her hands were bound in front of her, and while it was some natural vine that she’d been tied with, she’d tested it, and it was damned strong. She wasn’t slipping free any time soon.
They were all bound together in a long line, their captors keeping guard, their tattooed faces grim.
The warriors had a primitive look, with their animal-hide clothes and black tattoos. They carried spears and large, machete-like knives carved from shiny black rock. Nera also noted how they all moved with a precision that screamed intensive training, and they gripped their weapons in a manner that promised her they knew how to use them. On top of that, the spears were tipped with a green-black substance she guessed was the corrosive poison they’d encountered before.
Primitive, but effective. And they knew the terrain.
Their little band was following the cliff face. The mutant dogs trotted along beside them, deceptively calm, tongues lolling. But any time they looked at one of Nera’s group, they growled.
She pulled in a breath. They just had to be patient and wait for an opportunity. And if anyone tried to hurt Niklas…well, they’d soon realize that was a mistake.
Ahead, two more warriors appeared out of the vegetation, calling out to the others in their strange language. They, too, had black tattoos covering their bare chests. They were talking quickly and gesturing.
One of their captors prodded Nera and she moved on. They passed fences of sharpened spears pointed toward the jungle. On one, she saw the decaying remains of zombies. Ahead, she saw a huge cave entrance in the rocks, with more sentries flanking it.
They passed inside. Nera watched Niklas looking around with interest, and she shook her head. The man just absorbed everything and loved learning. The tunnel was wide and well-used, the dirt floor compacted down.
Soon, they came to a junction, three tunnels spearing off, each in a different direction. Their captors kept going, taking them straight ahead into the largest tunnel.