Harper's Ten: Prequel to the Fractured Space Series

by J G Cressey

  Cal looked for the creature’s head, but most of its long body was enveloped by the darkness. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, his arm trembling under the strain. “Pryce, damn it, help us.” Whether frozen in fear, trapped in the wreckage of the tunnel, or simply unwilling to risk himself, Pryce still made no move. Cal cursed the man, strongly suspecting the latter reason. “Help us, or I swear I’ll—”

  Cal’s threat was cut short as the weight on his arm suddenly lessened. Then, he watched helplessly as Christie fell through the air, the torn fabric of her clothing still tight in Becker’s grip. The girl hit the floor hard.

  God damn it. “Becker, try to climb up.” Cal said the words but knew they were futile. There was no chance Becker would leave the girl even if it meant facing a snake that could easily swallow her whole. She confirmed this by reaching up and digging her fingers into the appropriate pressure points on Cal’s wrist, forcing him to release her.

  She dropped, silent as a stone.

  The body of the huge snake almost rubbed against Cal’s face as he pulled himself back up into the tunnel. Wasting no time, he opened a compartment on his armor and began to unwind a length of smart cord. Unsurprisingly, the nano-tech in the cord had become inert, but it was still strong and flexible; he’d just have to rely on old-fashioned knots and brute strength to pull them up. He glanced down to see Becker staring back up, but she wasn’t looking in his direction. Instead, her attention was on the looming threat. As he tied one end of the cord around a thick pipe, part of the snake’s pale body began to pass over the hole. Campbell cautiously leaned forward and peered at it then flinched back as it rapidly narrowed to a tip and disappeared. “That was its tail,” she whispered.

  “You have a chem-bomb?” Cal asked, glancing at the woman.

  “No, I already used it.”

  Silently, Cal berated himself for not ensuring they’d had one of the little explosives at the back of the line.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Pryce said. “They’re screwed. Forget them.”

  As he looped the tied-off cord over an overhead tube, Cal glanced at the scavenger. If he’d seen terror in the man’s eyes, he might have found it within himself to forgive the comment. But Pryce’s expression was hard and cold. Just like Durron, he wore the look of the man obsessed with his own survival. Cal dropped the rest of the cord through the hole. “Go your own way if you want,” he said, jerking his head toward the long, dark tunnel. As he suspected, the man didn’t move a muscle. He was weak-minded and unable to do a damn thing unless he had someone to lead him. Cal shook his head. How could such a man recognize the advantage of safety in numbers yet be incapable of grasping the logic behind working together for survival? Ignorant, bloody fool. “If you want to stay under my protection, you’ll pull your damn weight and help me pull them up.” Cal took a second to fix his eyes on the scavenger, but the man’s expression only triggered an urge to garrote him with the remainder of the cord.

  Cal looked back down through the hole expectantly, but the cord hung idle. Becker had started to move away, her spear clenched tightly in one hand as she used the other to guide Christie back.

  Time’s up, Cal thought grimly as he grabbed his rifle. “Hold on to me,” he said to Campbell. Half expecting to be bitten in two, he knelt and leaned through the gap. Unwilling to remain a blind bit of prey, he saw that Becker had tossed a spare glow-tube down the corridor. The soft, blue light revealed a large, ragged tear where the cool, outside air was entering. But the breach didn’t hold his attention for more than a second. As he’d suspected, the snake was as big as the one that had taken Orisho. This beast, however, seemed far more relaxed in its methods, turning itself around at the end of the long corridor almost lethargically—perhaps so assured in the inevitability of its kill that it was unwilling to expend unnecessary energy.

  Cal peered through his sights, anxious in the knowledge that only five rounds remained. After that, the weapon would be nothing more than a half-decent club. At least the snake’s slow approach allowed for careful aim. The first bullet struck the creature’s left eye, and Cal wasted no time tugging on the trigger again and again. All the shots found their mark, but only after the fourth did the snake recoil. Then, it went completely still, as if paralyzed. It wasn’t easy to see in the dim light what sort of damage had been done, but Cal found it hard to believe that the beast wouldn’t be hurt. As the seconds passed, he found himself holding his breath, fearful that even the tiniest movement might entice the snake forward. Retreat, you bastard… Retreat…

  But the snake didn’t retreat. Instead, it surged forward in a sudden burst of kinetic fury.

  Cal made his last shot, but this time, the creature was moving too fast.

  He pulled himself back up, his eyes flicking toward Becker and Christie. The pair had retreated to the door at the corridor’s end. Becker stood in front of the girl, grasping her spear like a gladiator facing the opening gates.

  The snake would be on them in seconds.

  The mass of pale scales became a blur beneath Cal. With a surge of adrenaline, he tossed the useless rifle aside and unslung his spear. With the weapon grasped tightly in both hands, he dropped through the hole.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Cal slammed into the snake’s back hard, driving all of his weight into his spear. Even so, the weapon barely pierced the creature’s hide, and an instant later, a violent bucking reaction launched him through the air to collide with the corridor’s wall. Despite his armor protecting him from the worst of the impact, Cal dropped limp to the floor, and it took him a few moments to regain any semblance of being. Aware that his weapon had been wrenched from his hands, it came as a great relief to realize the snake was no longer close. Finally, it had retreated and was now coiled up at the other end of the corridor. Cal stared at the beast for a moment and, through the gloom, could just about make out his spear protruding from its back. Again, the snake was completely still—hopefully now injured enough to dissuade it from further attacks.

  Climbing painfully to his feet, Cal saw Christie curled in a ball at the foot of the door. She was sobbing quietly. Becker’s spear and glow-tube were on the ground in front of the girl. Cal swept his eyes desperately across the scene and saw Becker lying a good twenty feet away, a splatter of dark blood spread up the wall beside her. She was completely unmoving. The thought that he might have lost yet another friend unleashed a dread in Cal that weakened him more than any physical battering. Trying to overrule his protesting limbs and spinning head, he ran over to her stiffly. There was more dark blood on her face and pooled around her head. His legs giving way, he dropped to his knees and tried to work out whether the blue sheen to the blood was simply a cruel trick of his glow-tube. He could see her breathing, and as he laid his hand on her neck, the feeling of her pulse against his fingers seemed to reignite his own heart. Running his hands over her head and neck, he couldn’t find any obvious trauma, but there were definite teeth marks gouged into the chest plate of her armor. Whatever she’d done with her spear, it seemed she’d strongly discouraged the snake from its meal. Her head then moved of its own accord, and her limbs began to shift. Slowly, she was coming around.

  “Come on, Sergeant, I won’t have you sleeping on duty.” Cal didn’t quite achieve the light tone he’d been aiming for, and the relief at seeing Becker’s eyes flicker open made his voice crack. “That’s it, you can—”

  “Lieutenant, it’s coming. It’s coming at you again.”

  The shout came from above—from Campbell. Cal’s brain had barely taken in her warning before some primal part of his being shocked his body into action. Without so much as a glance in her or the snake’s direction, he seized Becker’s arm and began to drag her back toward Christie. Her armor slid easily on the smooth, blood-soaked floor.

  Campbell shouted again, but this time, Cal barely heard it over the deafening roar in his ears—the resulting sound of his body and mind desperately fighting in unison to keep him and
his companions alive. The floor was vibrating; the snake was close. With his adrenaline pumping and no time to be gentle, he heaved Becker toward Christie with as much force as he could muster then twisted on the spot and made a lunge for the idle spear.

  The snake was there. Right in front of him. Jaws wide and moving fast.

  As he wrenched the spear off the ground, the beast crashed into him like a runaway cargo hauler. His vision flashed as if lightning had struck him, but somehow, he held onto consciousness. The corridor’s door then made for an unforgiving barrier as he was barreled into it. The world span. He couldn’t see Becker or Christie, only moist, pale flesh and a distorted view of big, sharp teeth. A rancid stench hit him, making him wretch. He was in the bastard’s mouth at least partially…but the huge jaws hadn’t closed. Thick, hot liquid ran over his hands and splattered at his feet. Weird, guttural noises came from deep in the beast’s throat as if it were attempting suck him in. The spear was juddering in his grip but not for long. As the snake snapped its head back, the weapon went with it, and Cal found himself dropping to the floor like a tower of loose bricks.

  Shaking his head in a desperate attempt to retain focus, Cal awkwardly pushed himself upright, his hands slipping on the slick floor as he tried to keep his attention on the snake. Again, the creature was retreating down the corridor, the walls trembling as its powerful body clumsily smashed into them. The spear was protruding from the side of its mouth like a badly hooked fish.

  “Sergeant?” he said, risking only a very brief glance behind him. The two women were slumped against the door, just to the left of the dent that he and the snake had left. Despite appearing barely conscious, Becker was once again doing her best to protect Christie—one hand gripping the girl while her other held her knife.

  “We’re okay,” she said with a weak nod.

  For now, Cal thought grimly as he looked back to the snake. The beast was slamming its head against the floor in an attempt to drive the spear from its mouth. Gradually, it was succeeding. Don’t these bastards feel pain? Surely, it had had enough by now. Surely, the three of them couldn’t be that appetizing or that much of a threat to its territory. Without attempting to get to his feet, Cal dragged himself back so he could lean against the door alongside Becker and Christie. He glanced up at the rupture in the tunnel. Campbell was watching them, wide-eyed, and even Pryce was peering through. Campbell wore a look of desperate concern while Pryce seemed as though he were being torn in two by anger and fear. Cal was surprised that the scavenger hadn’t made a run for it yet, but perhaps he was afraid of the inevitable noise he’d make if he went clambering off down the tunnel.

  Cal stared at the cord that still dangled from the rupture. It didn’t seem like the most promising of lifelines anymore. Even with its tech inert, the cord had thousands of micro spines protruding along its length like those on the placoid scales of a shark. This grip aid would make the climb easier. But he seriously doubted whether either he or Becker could manage it—not in their current state. Ironically, Christie was probably the most physically able of the three of them at that moment. Perhaps they could be hauled up, but the expression on Pryce’s face didn’t fill him with hope on that front. The scavenger was more likely to try and appease the snake by leaving them as a dangling offering.

  The sound of a spear clattering to the ground was a disturbing one to say the least. The snake had finally succeeded in bashing it free. Just as Becker had done, Cal pulled out his combat knife. The blade was large, but considering the size of the opponent, it seemed little more than a toothpick.

  The snake began to advance. This time, there was no sudden burst of fury, but neither was it demonstrating the steady, almost lazy approach from earlier. Instead, the creature moved in a swift, controlled manner that seemed completely unhindered by its injuries. Cal gritted his teeth as it neared, determined not let the fact that they were hideously outmatched cloud his focus. Christie pressed her hands tight against her ears and tried to mute her senses to the deathly approach by burrowing her face into Becker.

  Then something happened, something that almost made Cal fumble his knife in surprise: Pryce dropped out of the tunnel and fell through the air right in front of the snake’s lethal maw. The look on the scavenger’s face as he hit the ground was one of such shock that Cal was certain the move wasn’t a miraculous act of self-sacrifice—the piercing scream that followed seemed confirmation of the fact. Perhaps mercifully, Pryce’s shock was short-lived. The man barely had time to peel himself from the floor before he was snatched up in the beast’s great jaws. Without the benefit of armor, his death, although grisly, came fast.

  Then, just as had happened with Orisho, the predator swiftly withdrew, taking its victim with it.

  Still feeling stunned, Cal watched silently as the creature squeezed itself through the large, twisted tear at the end of the corridor and completely disappeared from view.

  “What the hell?” Becker mumbled.

  Cal had no answer. The two of them looked up to the rupture in the tunnel to see Campbell once again leaning through it. There was some small vestige of shock on her face, but mostly, her expression had returned to the hard, no-nonsense look that Cal had seen numerous times earlier.

  Campbell shrugged at them as best she could without falling from her perch. “He slipped,” she said in a tone that not even a gullible child would believe.

  Cal felt his darker side almost laugh at that, but there was something about almost being eaten that smothered a person’s humor. Instead, he slumped back against the door and finally allowed all his pains and exhaustion to present themselves. He wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about Pryce’s demise. The man was far from an innocent, but did he deserve to die in such a way? The alternative would have been that either he, Becker, or Christie would have been killed or possibly all three of them. There’d been mere seconds for Campbell to make her judgement, and in the heat of the moment, he wasn’t convinced that his would have been different.

  The three of them remained slumped at the base of the door, breathing hard for what seemed like hours but was likely no more than a minute. Then, quite suddenly, the door was no longer there. Their backrest having slid apart, all three of them fell back in surprise.

  Figures loomed over them.

  “Taking a rest?” Franco asked, looking down at them, one eyebrow cocked.

  Again, Cal felt a strange urge to laugh rise up in him. “You need to work a little harder on your timing, Corporal.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “You hear that?”

  Cal turned to see that Poots had paused in her one-legged shuffle and was cocking her head to one side. The private had impeccable hearing. The sound was barely perceptible, but just as Cal had predicted, the thrum of the arriving ship soon reverberated loudly though the walls.

  “Is that our rescue?” Campbell’s voice sounded hopeful, but the look in her eyes remained skeptical—as if to fully embrace the hope might somehow jinx it.

  Cal nodded. “It is.”

  “About damn frickin’ time,” Franco said. The corporal had his hands buried in an open panel and was doing his best to disable yet another set of pneumatic locks within.

  “Thank God,” Ebner said as he leaned heavily on a nearby storage container, his relief almost seeming to overwhelm him.

  Cal could understand the emotion. The sound of the ship was akin to a life raft being tossed to a shipwrecked crew in a dark, turbulent sea. But they weren’t safe yet, not by a long shot; the storm was still raging, and the sharks were circling.

  “Our rescue has arrived, which is obviously very good news,” Cal said, making sure he had the attention of Campbell and Ebner. “But it’s only one ship and possibly has no more than one team on board. We can’t simply rely on them to land and pull us out of here. From what we’ve seen, at least two of the snakes out there are large enough to pose a serious threat to the ship. The rescue team will likely remain airborne.”

  “What do y
ou mean airborne?” Campbell asked sharply. “How the hell are they going to rescue us if they don’t land?”

  Aware that fear was fueling her anger, Cal did his best to remain calm and patient. “We can only try and predict the situation by what we’ve experienced so far,” he explained. “Our rescuers won’t be any good to us if the ship becomes badly damaged, or worse, they get themselves killed…two distinct possibilities if they try and land. Right now, the tech on that ship is probably still operational, but we all know that won’t last. We’re in a race against time, plain and simple. I can assure you that they will have scanned the base and pinpointed our location already, and they’ll continue to track us until we reach a suitable extraction position.” Cal took a pause, his eyes still fixed on Campbell and Ebner. He was well aware how exhausted they were, but he hoped his words were hitting home. He needed them as alert and mobile as they could be. “Our one and only objective is to get to that extraction point as quickly as possible.”

  “We understand,” Ebner said quietly.

  Campbell said nothing, but she nodded an acknowledgement.

  Guess that’s all I’m going to get, Cal thought as he turned to observe Franco’s progress on the pneumatic door locks. “How long, Corporal?”

  “Any moment,” Franco assured him.

  “Okay, everyone, stay sharp,” Cal said as he felt his tension rise again. The thrum of the ship’s engines had brought a great deal of relief, but it was an emotion buried beneath frustration—obstacles had arisen that were proving difficult to overcome. This would be the third stairwell they’d tried. The first had become home to so many snakes that they’d have needed twenty more chem-bombs to clear a path, and the second had been so badly warped that they’d found it impossible to even get the doors open. Cal hoped this one would prove third time lucky. The fact that their rescue had arrived was a huge blessing, but it wouldn’t be worth a damn if they remained trapped on the observation deck.