“They’re overriding the lock,” Alejandro said. “I have to hide. Damn it, they’ll find it in that cubby.”
“It? The staff?”
“Of course the staff. What else would I be worried about?”
Alisa glanced at the bodies. “Is it Starseers again? And is Beck there?”
“No, I already tried comming him. He’s not answering. Get Leonidas and hurry back, Captain. These people are breaking into your ship. They—” The words halted.
Alisa frowned at the abrupt end. Alejandro hadn’t simply stopped talking; he had closed the transmission.
She tried comming him back. He did not answer. She walked toward the courtyard as she tried getting ahold of Beck. She got an automated reply.
“Leonidas, Mica, Yumi,” she called, leaning out the door of the gym. “Come join me in the courtyard. We need to get back to the ship.”
“Wait.” Abelardus slid out from behind the desk, pocketing his brother’s netdisc. “Call them in here.”
“There’s no time for more looking around,” Alisa said.
“Before I got distracted with Durant’s files, I noticed this.” He jogged over to one corner and pointed to something on the edge of one of the mats.
Worried about Alejandro, Beck, and her ship, Alisa did not want to take the time to go look, but it would probably take the others a moment to appear. She ran to the corner. “What is it?”
“Blood.” He pointed to a dark smudge on the edge of a tan mat.
“So? This is a gymnasium, isn’t it?”
“For training Starseer skills, not for pummeling each other. Also, I sense an opening down below.” Abelardus waved her back so he could bend and lift the mat.
She was about to point out the times she had seen him hurling Leonidas against the walls, but stopped when something came into view on the floor under the mat.
“Is that a door?” she asked.
“A trapdoor. A big one.” Abelardus shoved the mat away, revealing a square in the floor, one with several hinges. “We could ride our bikes through here if we had to. Or if there was a reason to.”
He pointed to another smear of dried blood, then lifted the handle, unfolding the trapdoor in segments.
Leonidas strode into the room with Mica and Yumi behind him.
“Trouble at the ship,” Alisa said. “The doc said someone’s breaking in, and he’s the only one inside. I can’t reach Beck.”
“Shit, someone could get the staff?” Abelardus asked. He must not have been paying attention to Alejandro’s transmission.
“Among other things.” Alisa had no love for Alejandro, but she didn’t want to see him end up dead, like the people here.
“We’re heading back then?” Leonidas jerked his thumb in the direction of the courtyard.
“Bring the bikes in here,” Abelardus said. “If they went this way, we’ll want to follow them. There’s a tunnel leading away from here.”
“Someone needs to get back to the ship,” Alisa said, though she badly wanted to jump through that trapdoor. What if Jelena and the others were hiding in some subterranean encampment somewhere? What if they were only a short distance away?
“Isn’t that why you have a cyborg?” Abelardus pointed at Leonidas. “If anyone is going to stop a Starseer from taking that staff, it’s him.”
“Not you?” Mica asked.
Abelardus shrugged. “I can go, but I care more about finding my brother and Alisa’s daughter than that staff at the moment.”
Alisa stared at him in surprise. Was that true? He had wanted the staff as badly as Alejandro when they had been flying into that quarantined zone. Maybe he was telling her what he thought she wanted to hear.
Or maybe I’m not a total ass and I care about my brother. Abelardus arched his eyebrows at her. Send the mech. He’s better in a fight than I am. It’s what he was built for.
Though annoyed that he was giving her orders, and that he might also be trying to manipulate her with more than words, she had to admit that he was right. In this case, splitting up the party made sense.
She turned to Leonidas, but he was already nodding. “I’ll go.”
Alisa opened her mouth, feeling she should thank him and warn him to be careful, but she was still stung over his rejection, and the words froze on her tongue.
He turned away, his professional facade locked onto his face.
“Are we going with him or staying with the captain?” Yumi asked Mica as Leonidas disappeared out the door.
“Are those our only options?” Mica asked. “Jumping into a tunnel that could take us into the depths of one of the hells or heading back through that dinosaur-infested swamp?”
“Well, we could stay here, but this place isn’t very cheery.”
“And it lacks mushrooms.”
“It does.”
“Come on.” Alisa waved them toward the trapdoor. Even though Mica could be handy in a fight, she and Yumi would only slow Leonidas down in the swamps. He would worry about keeping an eye on them. “I’m sure this tunnel leads somewhere besides a hell.”
“Given all the bad things that keep happening to you, I’m not sure how you can keep spouting such optimism,” Mica said.
“It’s logic, not optimism. The people fleeing the intruders went that way. Presumably, they had a reason.”
“Are you sure anyone went that way?” Mica arched an eyebrow as she eyed the dark passage.
Alisa thought about pointing out the blood, but that might not be reassuring. “We’ll find out.”
Abelardus hopped down into the hole, and he soon spoke from the dark bottom, about ten feet down. “There’s a door down here that I have to open. Guarded with runes. Get the bikes, will you? We don’t know how far they had to travel. If they were on foot, and the tunnel was taking them to one of the more distant cities or another hideout, it’s possible we can catch them.”
Even though Alisa felt guilty about leaving Alejandro to his fate, the prospect of catching up with Jelena gave her energy, and she raced out to the courtyard to do as Abelardus requested. She touched her pocket as she ran.
“I’m coming, Jelena,” she whispered. “I’m finally coming.”
• • • • •
The tunnel was different from the one they had used to enter the underground compound. Carved out of the native rock, the rough and uneven walls stretched away into blackness. As soon as the group passed through the doorway Abelardus had opened, they had to put their masks back on, for the air grew noticeably foul. The only light came from the lamps on their bikes, the only sound from the soft hiss of the hover technology.
“I hope we’re not going in the opposite direction from the city,” Mica said, riding beside Alisa.
“Are you worried that dastardly things are happening to our ship?” Alisa asked, because she definitely was.
The tunnel offered room for two bikes to float side by side, at least for the women. Abelardus and his broader shoulders rode alone, leading the way, his staff jammed onto the back along with those odious dinosaur heads. Yumi, floating after Abelardus, appeared small behind him. Sometimes, Alisa forgot that he was a big, muscular man, since Leonidas made everyone appear slight in comparison.
“I’m worried that grubby Starseers are flinging things around in my engine room,” Mica said. “I’ve finally gotten everything organized and cleaned in there. I don’t want to come back to a mess.”
“Your concern for Alejandro is touching,” Alisa said.
“Alejandro is a persistent rash on our asses. I wouldn’t cry if he and his staff disappeared.”
Abelardus frowned back at them. Surprisingly, Yumi did too.
“So long as the people who make them disappear don’t make a mess in engineering?” Alisa asked.
“Precisely.”
“Beck may be missing too,” Alisa said. “Wouldn’t you be upset if you didn’t have anyone to exercise with?”
Mica looked sharply at her. “You think him not answering his comm has something to do wi
th the Starseers knocking on the cargo hatch?”
“We don’t know for sure.” Alisa had tried again to comm Beck once they had settled into their ride, but still had not received a response.
“He’s probably busy trying to impress that chef with his jars of sauce.”
“Let’s hope that’s all it is.”
“Or he managed to offend another mafia outfit, and he’s being strung up by his nails for torture as we speak.”
Yumi frowned back again, this time specifically at Mica.
“You’re full of cheery thoughts today,” Alisa said.
“It’s hard to be cheerful when you’re riding behind a bike loaded down with dinosaur heads. Three suns, Abelardus, couldn’t you have put a bag over those? That one’s leering at me.”
I hear something, Abelardus spoke into Alisa’s mind. Maybe he spoke into all of their minds, because Mica stopped talking.
A faint rumble came from somewhere ahead of them. Abelardus kept flying, but he held onto the handlebars with one hand and pulled out his staff with the other.
The tunnel widened, and the ceiling grew higher, with old, rusty excavating equipment abandoned to the sides. Alisa hoped that meant they were nearing the exit.
The rumble came again, sounding like it came from something mechanical rather than animal. They had been attacked by robots and automated combat machines before, so Alisa would not assume they were safe. She looked toward the dusty pumps and carts near the tunnel walls, wondering if the noise had to do with excavation, but that equipment did not look like it had been used for decades—or centuries.
The noise increased in volume until it seemed to come from directly overhead, from above the ceiling, which now rose some twenty feet above them. The tunnel trembled, and dirt and small pieces of stone tumbled down.
“Ouch,” Mica said, grabbing her shoulder.
Abelardus slowed his bike to a stop. Alisa frowned. Her instinct was to go faster, to get away from the raining pebbles.
“Do you know what that is, Abelardus?” she asked over the noise, noticing a lot of stone on the floor of this section of the tunnel, stone that had been there before this batch started falling.
“Yes.” Instead of expounding, he slid off his bike, leaned his staff against it, and bent to pick up something half-buried by the rocks. “Stonetart,” he said, holding up the brown seed-pocked core of the fruit. “From the gardens in the city. It hasn’t decomposed yet. Someone cast this aside recently.” He met Alisa’s eyes. “Our people came this way.”
“Good, but maybe we should keep moving.” She waved at the ceiling. The trembling had ceased, the noise fading, but that did not lessen her concern. It was as if a spaceship had flown low to the ground overhead. Someone looking for them? If so, would they be back?
“We should, but—”
Abelardus spun toward the dark passage ahead and dropped the core.
“Get back.” He snatched his staff. “More dinosaurs. Two of them.”
Alisa cursed and drew her Etcher. She debated on whether to stay aboard the bike or to park it in the tunnel ahead of them to get in the way of attackers. With the passage wider now, it wouldn’t be much of an obstacle, but the passage still wasn’t wide enough that she would be able to maneuver well on a bike.
“I knew it,” Mica growled and hopped off her bike. She dug into her satchel. “I knew we’d encounter hells down here, of one kind or another.”
Yumi, who did not have a weapon save for the laser knife she had been using to cut mushrooms, backed her bike out of the way. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Alisa parked her bike in front of Yumi and Mica, and crouched behind it, her weapon ready.
“Don’t get eaten by a monster,” Alisa said.
“Just stay back there,” Abelardus called over his shoulder. He had abandoned his bike and waited in front of it in a fighting stance, his staff gripped in both hands as he faced the passage ahead of them.
A roar came from the depths, and Alisa imagined the T-rexes. Could they fit down here? She eyed the ceiling. Maybe they would get stuck.
The first one came into view—her guess had been correct—as the rumbling from above increased in intensity again. The creature’s head nearly brushed the ceiling, but that did not keep it from advancing.
The walls shivered, more dirt and pebbles pelting down.
Alisa pointed her Etcher above Abelardus, toward the shadowy head of the dinosaur. She hoped the noise and the rain of rocks might scare it away, but it kept coming, its beady black eyes seeming to light with pleasure—or hunger—when it spotted Abelardus. It roared, drowning out the rumbles from above, and picked up speed, running on its two powerful hind legs. A second identical dinosaur stomped into view behind it.
Taking careful aim, Alisa fired at the lead creature’s left eye. Her bullet hit, but before she could tell if it had found its target, the massive dinosaur stumbled backward, as if hit by a battering ram—or Abelardus's power. He was pointing the tip of his staff toward it, and the runes glowed, shedding silvery light on the passage.
Even though the first dinosaur stumbled, the blow did nothing to affect the second one. It lunged past the leader, springing for Abelardus. Alisa fired again, trying to find one of those eyes with a bullet.
Mica came up behind Alisa and threw something. One of her grenades.
“Careful, Abelardus,” Alisa shouted.
What she meant to say was that he should lower his barrier, if he had erected one, so the grenade could go through. But there wasn’t time. The first dinosaur had not paused at all when Alisa shot. It reached Abelardus, and its head dove down, a maw full of long fangs snapping toward him.
He leaped to the side, but twisted in the air, thwacking his scaled attacker in the head with his staff. The dinosaur’s head was massive, and it seemed like it should have shaken off the blow from the slender weapon, but lightning crackled from the tip and danced over its scales. It reared back before reaching Abelardus and bellowed in pain.
Mica’s grenade toppled end over end, soaring past the first dinosaur and exploding near the shoulder of the second. That one had recovered from Abelardus's first attack, but the power of the explosion hurled it against the side of the tunnel so hard that more dirt rained down in clumps. The tiny projectiles pelted the dinosaurs in the head—and Abelardus too. He backed up, readying his staff for another attack.
But the dinosaur that he’d struck with lightning was shaking its head wildly instead of lunging for him. It paused, catching its breath and surveying the humans. Abruptly, it roared and sprang.
Abelardus crouched, ready to dodge, but he wasn’t the target. The dinosaur crashed through the parked bikes. At first, it seemed like it wanted to run down the tunnel away from Abelardus and his staff, and Alisa backed to the side, happy to let it go by. But it stopped when it knocked her bike over. It roared as it landed between Alisa and Mica.
Alisa fired at the side of its head as she scooted back until her shoulder blades bumped the side of the tunnel, and she could go no further.
Even though she pegged the creature in its small ear hole, it did not turn toward her. That head lunged downward and forward—right at Yumi.
Yumi yelped in surprise—and terror—and sprang backward as those huge jaws snapped, inches from her face. As she scrambled away, she bumped her parked bike and went down, flat on her back.
Mica screamed and leaped for the dinosaur as it lunged again for Yumi. Alisa fired again, but the bullet bounced off the scaled neck, doing no damage.
“Abelardus,” she cried, though she could see him fighting with the other creature.
Mica wrapped an arm around the dinosaur’s neck, and when it opened its slavering maw to snap at Yumi again, she jammed one of her grenades into its mouth. No, right down its throat. The fanged jaw clacked shut, and Mica yelled. Had her arm been caught?
Shouting to try and draw the monster’s attention—and get one of those vulnerable eyes to turn in her direction—A
lisa rammed a side kick into the side of its leg. She doubted the blow would do anything to the sturdy joint, but her bullets weren’t doing anything either.
A masculine yell came from behind the dinosaur, and Alisa spun away in time to see Abelardus straddling the creature’s thick tail, his staff raised over his head. He slammed it down onto the dinosaur’s back, lightning coursing from the weapon again.
Abelardus did not seem to be aware of the second dinosaur behind him—or maybe he had deliberately turned his back on it to help the women. It had recovered from Mica’s explosive, and it was charging at him. Its jaw opened wide, long sharp fangs diving toward Abelardus's back.
Thanks to the illumination cast from the lightning, Alisa finally had a good target—and the light needed to hit it. She fired, the bullet striking one of those black beady eyes. She prepared to shoot again, but the second of Mica’s grenades went off, the one she had shoved down the closer dinosaur’s throat.
Moist, rubbery flesh spattered against the side of Alisa’s face as the creature’s tail lurched to the side. It flung Abelardus backward and slammed into her waist, sending her into the wall. She stumbled, catching herself before she went down. More gunk splattered onto her head. Heaving aside thoughts of disgust, Alisa forced herself to brace her shoulder against the wall and prepare to fire again.
But stillness had come to the passage, broken only by the sickly sound of moist pieces of dinosaur falling from the ceiling, where it had spattered when the grenade went off. A piece dropped squarely onto Alisa’s nose. Her stomach twisted, threatening to heave its contents. Remembering the mask still affixed to her mouth and nose, she forced herself to take deep breaths. She did not want to risk dislodging it—or having to hold her air while she tried to clean it out.
While she breathed, trying to squash her queasiness, she looked from dinosaur to dinosaur to make sure the threat truly was gone. Both of the creatures had tumbled to the ground. One was obviously no longer a threat, its head blown halfway off from the inside—the grenade must have gone off just before it could gag that canister up.
The second dinosaur had fallen behind the first, landing with its chin on the tail of its cohort. Abelardus had regained his feet and had his staff pointed at the creature, but it was not moving. Blood trickled from one shattered eyeball. The other eye was frozen open, staring straight ahead.