FALLEN STARS: DARKEST DAYS (THE STAR SCOUT SAGA Book 2)

by GARY DARBY

  Seconds later came the crunching sound of footsteps clambering over the rocks near the entrance. Dason retreated into the secondary room and eased behind a jutting rock shoulder with his L-gun directed at the cave’s outer gap.

  Dason saw one figure, then two, pass by the entrance’s front. He held his breath, hoping that they would keep going, perhaps not see the breach into the hillside.

  He clenched his fist shut and grimaced when a large shadowy figure appeared in the entrance. The Jakuta called out and another alien joined the first to peer inside the dark, rocky opening.

  A bright light, like a small spotlight, appeared and swept across the cave floor. The aliens abruptly stopped their sweep and centered the beam on the room’s dusty center.

  Dason’s mind froze.

  Their tracks!

  They had forgotten to cover their tracks inside the cave. Etched in the tunnel’s fine dust were the team’s booted footprints along with the Kereb’s footsteps.

  Dason knew it was but a matter of seconds before the Jakuta alerted his companions with his discovery.

  He swiftly thumbed his L-gun to max, took aim at a point just above the Jakuta and fired. A blast of rock and dirt exploded outward.

  In seconds, an earthen avalanche thundered down, blocking the opening and trapping Dason and the others with little hope of finding another way out.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Star Date: 2443.064

  Unnamed planet in the Helix Nebula

  Thundering down in a rumbling, jumbled cascade of rock, dust, and loose dirt, the anteroom’s craggy top gave way.

  Sami snatched Dason away from the gritty avalanche just before both were enveloped in a mass of suffocating earth and boulders.

  In seconds, choking dust filled the room. The earthen dam blocked the outside access, leaving those inside in pitch-black darkness and no way out.

  “Well,” Sami coughed while he turned on his vest lights. “If I thought we were cornered like rats before, now I know what they mean by trapped like a rat.”

  He patted Dason on the back. “Good job, I think. They won’t be coming through that anytime soon. Course, we won’t be going out that way anytime soon either.”

  Dason spat out bits of dirt and turned on his vest lights. “Everyone okay?” he asked.

  In the light’s glare, Alena moved toward Dason. In an angry voice, she said, “Why didn’t you just shoot the XTs instead of bringing down the whole hillside on us? We can’t get out now!”

  “I didn’t shoot because there were too many of them,” Dason snapped back. “Besides, if they had the equivalent of a concussion grenade, we didn’t stand much of a chance. I think that there might just be a back door, too.”

  “What are you talking about?” Alena demanded.

  “Over here,” Dason answered and led her to the dark crevice that he and Sami had examined minutes before. He held out his hand and said, “I noticed this just before the Jakuta showed up. Stick your hand out and feel.”

  Alena reached toward the rocky cleft. “An air current,” she breathed out. “There’s air flowing through this room.”

  “Right,” Dason replied and gestured into the tunnel. “And if air is flowing into this opening that means—”

  “There could be an outlet through here,” Alena finished for him. She glanced at Dason and in a grudging tone remarked, “Maybe what you did makes sense, after all.”

  “Think it will lead to a way out?” Dason asked.

  Alena shrugged in response. “The airflow is not real strong. The question will be whether or not this crack will remain large enough for us to shimmy through.”

  “You sound like you’ve done some spelunking before.”

  Alena nodded. “Some. Both dry and wet caves. This one seems dry.”

  “Can you get us through?”

  Alena turned her head toward Dason, eyes wide and surprised. “You want me to lead your team?”

  “I want the person who can give us the best shot at getting out of here leading this team, and right now that seems to be you.”

  Just then, Shanon called over, “Dason.” She had her face close to the small tunnel’s dark opening. “Listen,” she whispered and pointed.

  Dason knelt and turned one ear toward the jagged hole.

  In an instant, he heard what sounded like scratching on rock. He sat back on his heels. “Claws,” he stated.

  “Yes,” Shanon replied. “The cave-in must have stirred them up.”

  Dason pulled Shanon to her feet. “Let’s go everyone,” he ordered.

  “Wait,” Sami said, “why don’t you just close the hole with a blaster shot?”

  “No!” Alena snapped. “Dry caves are very prone to landslides. One shot might bring down the entire roof on us. Look what happened just to the anteroom.”

  Dason unclipped a vest light and handed it Alena. “You seem to know what you’re doing. Lead on.”

  Alena took the light and aimed it down the rock-lined passage. She turned and said, “Just try and keep up. I don’t intend to go head to head with whatever is coming through that tunnel in these tight quarters.”

  With that, she strode off into the darkness.

  Sami rubbed shoulders with Dason and said, “You know, if we had just left her with the Jakuta, by the time she worked them over they wouldn’t want to have anything to do with humans.”

  For half an hour, the little party trudged through the darkness. The tunnel twisted and turned so much that they soon lost all sense of direction.

  In some places, the subterranean passage narrowed to where they could just barely squeeze through, in others, it was wider than several shoulder-widths.

  As they made their way, the Kereb seemed to become more cognizant of his surroundings, and though still wobbly, needed little assistance in navigating through the granite channel.

  After a half hour of traversing the dark passageways, Shanon turned to Dason, who was acting as rear guard and said, “Alena wants you up front, there’s a problem.”

  Dason pushed past Shanon and found Alena waiting for him at a sharp fork in the passage. “What’s wrong?”

  She waved a hand at the two tunnels. “I can’t tell which way the air is flowing.”

  Dason licked a finger and held it out, hoping that the circulating air would cool his wet finger and give them an idea of which of the tunnels led to the surface.

  After a few moments, he shook his head and said, “I can’t tell either.”

  Alena stepped from one to the other, shining her light down both. She ran a hand through her hair and stood staring at the openings. “The problem with dry caves is that they're kind of featureless, hard to tell one passageway from another.”

  “So what do you want to do?” Dason asked. “Best guess it?”

  Alena inspected both tunnel openings again, unsure of which to take. She turned to Dason, “I can’t say, maybe you and the others should wait here, let me go—”

  Sami reached out and grabbed Dason’s arm. “Behind us, listen.”

  From the dark came a faint, but noticeable sound, like some giant snake slithered along the ground. Dason turned to Alena. “No, stay here, I don’t want to split the team up.”

  He pulled Sami with him and the two slipped by Shanon and the Kereb. They traveled a short distance down the tunnel to listen. After a few seconds, Sami said, “Same sounds that we heard in the anteroom.”

  “Yeah,” Dason whispered back, “but more of them. C’mon, we need to move.”

  The two rushed back to where Alena stood with Shanon and the Kereb. “Which way, Alena?” Dason demanded. “We need to get out of here, now.”

  “And real quick like,” Sami added. “Company’s calling and I don’t think they’re friendly.”

  Alena again shone her light down both tunnels, before saying to no one in particular, “They both go down, not up!”

  As the sounds in the dark passage grew louder and louder, Dason turned to Alena and said, “We’re out of
time, make a decision—now!”

  Alena hesitated for a second before saying, “This way!”

  With Alena leading the way, Shanon shoved the Kereb forward, while Sami and Dason held back before turning to run behind Shanon. They hadn’t gone far when Dason heard Alena shout, “Stop!”

  Dason pushed his way forward to where Alena stood stock-still in the passageway. She darted a glance over at Dason and said, “Take a deep whiff. Smell that?”

  Dason inhaled through his nose. There was no mistaking the odor. “Something’s dead up ahead.”

  “Very, very dead,” Sami muttered.

  “Go back?” Dason asked Alena.

  She nodded. “Either that or chance whatever’s ahead, which is not my first choice. We could be walking right into the lair of whatever it is that’s following us.”

  “Agreed,” Dason replied.

  He whipped around and ordered, “Shanon, Sami, backtrack to the other tunnel, we can’t go this way.”

  Shanon grabbed the alien and turned him around. At a ragged run, the group fled back in the direction they had come. It didn’t take long to get back to the dark juncture.

  The Kereb seemed to be fully aware now and started chittering at a high pitch. The humans ignored him, as the sounds coming from the main tunnel were now unmistakable.

  Shanon pulled the little XT into the side passage and followed, along with Alena and Sami.

  Dason waited until everyone was farther down the tunnel before backing his way inside. All the while, the scrabbling sounds became louder, along with a noticeable hissing.

  He turned to run after the others, and had only taken a few steps, when a hand shot out to stop him in his tracks.

  “Whoa, partner,” Sami said in a soft voice. “You might want to rein yourself in real tight.”

  “What?” Dason returned.

  “Oh, nothing much,” Sami replied. “Just a small matter of the bottomless pit to Hades. Cliff drops off into nothingness. My light doesn’t even show the bottom.”

  “Can we go around?”

  This time Alena replied, “I don’t think so, sheer walls on each side.”

  Dason edged forward until he could make out the chasm’s lip. Sami was right; his light didn’t reach the fathomless hole’s bottom, and the darkness seemed endless.

  “Terrific,” Dason muttered to himself. “This just keeps getting better and better.”

  In the group’s vest lights, Dason could see that they stood on a ledge surrounded by an enormous cavern. The narrow platform was the only solid landing on each side of the sheer walls that led up to the rough, uneven ceiling.

  Like a giant dragon had crawled through the black hole and now seized its opportunity to strike, a monstrous hissing erupted behind Dason. He whirled at the sound of the evil noise, and his light beams captured the beasts in their monstrosity.

  Dason gaped at a solid mass of living horror.

  Scaled bodies propelled by six taloned claws supported an almost crocodile-like head. Sharp, dagger teeth jutted from open jaws as hungry crimson eyes shone in the garish illumination.

  In shape, similar to Terran lizards, though their torsos undulated in snake fashion as they slithered toward the backpedaling group.

  Dason pushed Alena to one side while Shanon, Sami, and the Kereb huddled on the other. A wave of the beasts surged forward, their jaws snapping at legs and feet.

  “Hold your fire!” Dason yelled at Sami, knowing how low they were on weapon charges.

  He aimed his L-gun in a spray pattern and caught the pack’s leading edge. The animals dropped as if dead. A new attacking wave rolled into the tunnel’s opening and over their paralyzed mates.

  Some were so furious in their frenzy to get at their prey that their momentum carried them to the brink and over into the abyss.

  Behind him, he felt Alena crawl up on a tiny, jutting niche. He reached down to pull his field knife out and handed it up to her.

  In the stark light, Dason saw an advancing creature attack an immobile, stunned croc-lizard. In quick fashion, others joined in and began ripping at flesh when they realized that the dazed beasts weren’t fighting back.

  Getting an idea from the creature’s behavior, Dason leaned over and fired into the channel where more of the things surged forward but only for a moment before his stunner went dead.

  The telltale red glow on the handle told him he was out of charge. He pulled out his long knife and backed up to Alena while calling out to Sami, “Your stunner working?”

  “I’ve got maybe one or two shots left!” Sami exclaimed.

  “Let me have it,” Dason answered. “I’m going to try and stun more in the back of the pack before they reach us.” In a smooth, fluid motion, Sami tossed the one remaining stunner to Dason.

  Dason eased around the portal’s edge and spray-fired into the tunnel, but the stunner went dead after only a second.

  He pulled back and spied several beasts sliding toward him, their taloned claws clicking on the rock sill.

  With quick thrusts of his razor sharp knife, he finished off two and started to stand when he felt a terrible pain in his leg.

  Without thinking, he whipped his long knife down, severing the head from the neck of the croc-lizard that had bit deep into his calf.

  Across the platform, Dason could see Sami and Shanon swinging their knives as more creatures attacked. Dason felt something press against his shoulder.

  He snapped his head around to find Alena standing next to him, her knife bloodied and at the ready for the next attack.

  The two locked eyes. Dason could see her hostility toward him melt away, replaced by something akin to acceptance, almost respect. They turned to meet another rush of the monsters.

  The creatures pressed forward. Dason tried to back away but lost his footing and went down. Before he could lunge out with his knife, a croc-snake had him by the shoulder, its teeth cutting into the soft flesh. Dason wanted to scream out in agony, but his mind told him that if he stopped fighting, the other monsters would finish him off.

  Dason swept his leg out in a scissors kick and sent the remaining beasts off the precipice and into the black gorge.

  He reached up with his knife and sliced through the clinging creature’s jaw muscles. In disgust, he grabbed the dead body and flung it into the dark.

  Rising to his feet, he swayed on unsteady legs, aware that the things had stopped in their attack. Swinging around, he saw Alena in his torso lights, crouched next to him, pulling her knife out of a quivering creature.

  Several dead brutes lay at her feet, killed by her blade thrusts.

  Pitching his lights up, he caught Sami and Shanon standing near the shelf’s far rim, shielding the defenseless Kereb. They were bloodied but safe.

  Sami started a hand up in a salute. Dason raised his own, with a little smile when a fitful movement on the wall caused him to stop and yell, “To your right!”

  His desperate alarm was too late. A small pack of the creatures had climbed the sidewall and launched themselves at Sami, Shanon, and the Kereb.

  Before Dason’s horrified eyes, the mass of croc-snakes hit the three with a sickening thud, sending them toppling over the cliff and into the unending black abyss.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Star Date: 2443.064

  Unnamed planet in the Helix Nebula

  Shanon’s scream of “Dason!” sliced through Dason as if a real Torther Ape had reached out and ripped open his insides.

  For a second, he froze in place before his own deafening yell of “No!” reverberated against the cavern’s wall like a blast from a disruptor.

  Dason stumbled toward the empty edge, where, for the briefest instant, a soft blue light pulsated upward in the blackness. Dason wiped a hand across his eyes to clear his vision.

  In disbelief, he stared at the dark rock shelf, where Sami and Shanon had stood shoulder to shoulder in their battle against the croc-lizards and now were gone, their bodies hidden in the eternal blackness
.

  Ignoring the remaining beasts who feasted on their stunned and immobile pack mates, Dason knelt at the ledge’s boundary and shone his lights downward into the never ending darkness.

  He sprayed his lights over the surrounding cliffs, desperate to see Shanon and Sami, as well as the XT clinging to the broken wall. However, the dark and craggy rocks were silent and empty of life.

  His desperate yells of, “Shanon! Sami!” were more like a plea that echoed throughout the chamber, but there was no answer to his repeated, frantic calls.

  Dason stood and reached down to his waist to uncoil his climbing line while at the same time looking for an anchor point. He wasn’t aware that Alena was beside him until her hand shot out to stop him.

  “Don’t!” she rasped. “They’re gone. There’s nothing you can do.”

  Dason threw her hand off, but she grabbed his vest and spun him around to face her. Her voice choking, she said, “There’s no way they survived that fall and there’s nothing you—”

  She stopped and then said, “There’s nothing we can do.”

  She turned him farther away from the dark gulf and jabbed a finger toward the tunnel. “Use your eyes, scout. Look around. We’ve got a chance to get out of here.”

  At first, too dazed to comprehend, it took Dason several seconds before he understood Alena.

  In the splayed out beams of his lights, the croc-snakes were ignoring the two bloodied humans. Instead, the remaining beasts feasted upon their lethargic or dead comrades.

  They indeed had a chance to escape.

  It didn’t matter to him. He pushed Alena away. “No. I can’t just—leave them.”

  Over his shoulder, he said, “You go. Get out while you still can.”

  He took in a choking, deep breath. “I’m not going to desert them, not while there’s a chance they’re alive.”

  Alena pulled at Dason’s shoulder. “Dason,” she said, “you saw them fall.”

  “I don’t care!” Dason shouted. “I’m going to look for them. Star Scouts don’t leave teammates behind.”