Gyaros Book One: The Mice Eat Iron (YA 17+ Sci Fi Adventure) (33 page)

“You don't have to do this if you don't want to,” she said quietly
, “I mean, it sounds really dangerous...” Miles thought for a few seconds about the current situation, it was true that attempting to repair the Wilhelm station was a highly dangerous task and even if they could clear out the tower, there was no certainty that Miles would be able to fix the damaged mechanism with the tools that Adam had at his disposal. But they couldn't have come all this way for nothing, Lucy had the opportunity to get the new arm that she wanted so badly and Miles couldn't take that away from her. Not to mention Adam and Miriam who have been living under a distorted Chimerium field since the thrashwings began nesting inside the tower. Since Miles arrived on Gyaros, he had murdered and stolen to survive, now he finally had a chance to give something back, to prove that he was still the decent man that he'd been trying so desperately to convince himself he was.

“Don't worry, Lucy,” he said, smiling
, “we'll be fine, Maxen's pretty tough and his arm has a built in cannon. Besides, we've done pretty dangerous stuff before and we're still here, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so,
” Lucy said with a giggle, “just be careful, okay?”

“I will
Lucy. Now you should try and get some sleep, we've got a big day tomorrow.”

“Uh huh
,” Lucy said as she tried her best to get into a comfortable position on the sofa before closing her eyes. ‘God it feels good to be out of The Dustbowl and safe. And Maxen, you crazy son of a bitch, you had me mourning you all this time for nothing huh.’ Miles chuckled to himself as he turned over to sleep. ‘And Hellen, I don’t know what you’re doing right now, but know that your husband is thinking of you. I’m alive and I still have my dignity and humanity, that’s something that piece of shit Tyler will never have.’

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 21

The next day began with an early start as Miles, Maxen and Adam prepared for the journey to the Wilhelm station which
, Adam explained, was about eight kilometres north-west through a dense forest. Apparently it was impossible to reach with any vehicle and so the trip had to be made on foot. After a light breakfast of fresh fruit and toast Adam began loading a large backpack with supplies necessary to scale the tower and repair the malfunctioning expulsion mechanism at the peak. Meanwhile Maxen and Miles studied a diagram of the station in order to formulate a basic strategy, in the end they didn't come up with much more than, “climb, climb, shoot, shoot,” but they at least got some idea of how to access the elevator shaft from the main structure. Miriam kept Lucy company, showing her some of Adam's gadgets and devices, she seemed to have a deep fascination with machines which most probably had something to do with her being one herself.

At
10:00, it was time to set out. Adam had decided to accompany Miles and Maxen to the base of the tower, leaving Lucy and Miriam at the house for the day. As they left for the station, out through the Powell’s back garden, Lucy could be seen on the small back porch of the house.

“Good luck!”
she shouted and waved enthusiastically. Miles and Maxen both waved back as they continued down a small path that had been cut through the thick bushes by Adam on his previous trips to the tower.

“Keep an eye out, boys,”
said Adam as they walked, “there's a whole lotta nasty creatures out here that'll take a bite out of you if they get the chance.” Maxen and Miles remained alert throughout the journey, the dense bush and tall grass provided excellent cover for potential predators, Maxen kept his arm in its cannon form the entire way, ready to blast apart any wild animal that might spring at them, and Miles held tight to his fully loaded revolver. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this, so green and full of life!’

It was about ten minutes before the Wilhelm station's tower came into view in the distance and Miles realized just how tall it really was. It was different from the ones that w
ere shown on the screen in the Talos shuttle and looked almost like a radio tower with huge steel girders supporting the open elevator shaft that ran through the centre and five thick metal pipes leading all the way to the top. ‘It must be a different model, or maybe the shiny outer covering has been torn off and used as scrap metal over the years.’

Circling around the peak of the tower were a large number of the flying creatures that Miles had seen in the skies since entering the distorted Chimerium field.

“Fuck me!” shouted Maxen, “that's gonna be one bastard of a climb, you up for it?” he added, turning to Miles with an excited, childlike expression on his face.

“I'm not turning back now, we have to do this for Lucy
,” Miles replied as he looked on at the tower in the distance, his heart fluttering at the sight. ‘Come on Miles, for Lucy, and for Adam and Miriam.”

They began walking once more and as they d
rew closer to their destination the lush green plant life around them continued to thicken until they were trekking through the heart of a dense green jungle. They had since lost sight of the tower which was shrouded by the canopy over their heads, their vision occupied now by giant trees and other large plants that came in wild reds and deep blues as well as the lush green of the treetops. Long snakes with exquisite patterns curled around the thick trunks hissing at the party of travellers as they made their way. Bizarre looking blue-faced monkeys could be seen swinging through the branches at high speed, then spreading their arms and gliding through the air gracefully thanks to thick skin flaps between their arms and legs. The jungle was loud too, alive with the sounds of a thousand different animal, bird and insect species. Miles took in the sights and sounds, although somewhat afraid of the wildlife he was enjoying the change of scenery from the desolate red deserts that he’d inhabited for the past number of weeks. And although deep in the muggy rain forest and unable to see the station, the men were not lost as Adam's trail was still visible beneath their feat.

“How much further now?”
asked Miles panting, after about an hour and forty minutes into the trip.

“Not too far, the station should be comin' back into view soon
,” replied Adam. The heat and humidity was beginning to get to Miles and he took a sip of water from a canteen that Adam provided before screwing the lid back on and returning it to his left hip. Artificial sunlight shone through gaps in the natural jungle canopy high above the ground and every so often, thrashwings could be seen speeding past above the trees. They had been fortunate so far with regard to the faulty tower. It had set itself to various daylight hours during their trip, only jumping to pitch black once, and even then only for a minute or so. Miles began to hear terrifying screeches ahead which he quickly realized must have been the sound of the nesting thrashwings. This meant that they were close.

“Hear that?” Adam said as he stopped to listen.

“Yeah, sounds like a bunch of pissed off birds,” replied Maxen as he leaned against a tree and took a drink from his canteen.

“Not pissed off,” said Adam, looking up at the
sky, “hungry.”

Adam took a moment to examine their surroundings before
speaking again.

“Let's keep moving, we're almost there.” Miles and Maxen
complied and they were on their way once again. After only a few more minutes of walking the jungle began to open up into a large steppe and the Wilhelm station came into full view about three hundred meters from where Miles, Maxen and Adam were standing. Miles tugged at his sweat soaked shirt and basked in the cool breeze that swept up off the grassy plains. ‘Thank God we’re out of that damn sauna, I don’t know how much more of that I could have taken!’ The lower part of the station consisted of three large, dome-like structures which appeared to be made out of a sturdy steel. The once bright silver colour of the domes had faded with age and thick vines now covered most of the structure. The tower was even more intimidating up close and Miles could now see that there was a large hole in the peak structure which was likely where the thrashwings had made their nest.

Adam carefully examined the situation from the edge of the jungle where the three we
re positioned, his eyes were closely watching the movements of the thrashwings. Miles and Maxen stayed silent, not wanting to disturb Adam who was in deep focus. ‘It looks like he really knows what he’s doing.’

A little over two minutes passed before Adam turned back to Miles and Maxen and
spoke quietly on the edge of the jungle.

“
Once we step out into the plains we’re on their turf and without the cover of the jungle we’ll be sitting ducks. Move fast but stay low, try and make it to that stream down there,” Adam pointed to a shallow stream that ran through the valley. “Thrashwings' vision ain’t so great so their sense of smell is vital to their hunting abilities, if we make it to the water, we should be able to throw 'em off.” Miles and Maxen both nodded and prepared for action.

“Alright,” said Adam
, “stay close.” With that, the three of them began to quickly make their way through the grass and down to the flowing water, running as fast as they could. Miles could hear the screeching of the thrashwings growing louder. As he looked up, he saw more and more of them pouring out from the nest at the top of the Wilhelm station, they knew there was food nearby. Miles continued to sprint, terrified that at any moment, a thrashwing would swoop down and tear him apart. ‘Oh God, there’s too many of them, and they’re too fast!’ He stayed as close as possible to Adam and Maxen as they dashed towards the stream with the speed and determination of professional athletes. All three men leaped into the cold water with a great splash just as a thrashwing swooped, its talons only inches from Miles’ shoulders. Miles let out a sigh of relief as his head burst out of the water and he began to catch his breath, the thrashwings above suddenly seemed confused and disorientated as they lost track of the scent, spreading out further than before and flying around in a mad and uncoordinated fashion. The men took a moment to compose themselves and assess the situation.

“Those things are crazy!” Miles exclaimed as his heart beat furiously. He stared up at the searching thrashwings in awe, he could now see just how terrifying the creatures really were. They looked like giant, flying reptiles with long, razor sharp claws an
d the largest of them had a wingspan of about thirty five feet. They had what looked from a distance like thick fur on their backs but were in fact, according to Adam, thousands of deadly, needle like quills.

“You can't let your guard down around thrashwings
,” Adam said in a surprisingly relaxed manner as though he’d been dealing with them for years. ‘How the hell do you get used to those things?!’

“So what's the plan now?” Maxen asked before splashing his face with water from the stream.

“Do you think you can hit a few from here?” replied Adam.

“Probably
,” Maxen said shrugging and looking up at the beasts.

“Alright, try to take out as many as you can while we follow the water up as close as it'll take us to the station, just make sure you keep movin', never shoot twice from the same spot.”

“Got it,” Maxen nodded and began to take aim at one of the thrashwings. After a few seconds, he started charging his cannon, the five lights on his old arm had been replaced with a digital bar that filled with red light to indicate how charged the shot was. The weapon operated a lot faster than Miles remembered, taking only about two seconds to fully charge, at which point a bright ball of blue energy shot from Maxen's arm and travelled quite a distance before making contact with a thrashwing and turning it into little more than a cloud of red mist, the projectile then continued to tear through the sky before eventually fading into the distance.

“Okay, move!” said Adam and the three of them began to make their way upstream, towards the station. The thrashwings' cries grew even louder now as they
realised their pack was under some kind of threat and they began to swarm around in a panic like ginormous wasps. After a couple of meters, Maxen took another shot, this time hitting two of the flying creatures. It seemed that the thrashwings were still unaware of their attackers' position.

By the time the men had come as close to the Wilhelm station as the stream would take them, Maxen had blasted away almost a quarter of the thrashwings
from the sky. It was another twenty meters or so from the stream to the station entrance.

“Alright,” said Adam
, “there it is, I know the combination for the door and the water should still cover our scent for a few seconds but we have to move fast. Ready?”

“I'm ready
,” Miles nodded as he prepared for another sprint.

“LET’S DO THIS!
” cried Maxen pulling himself out of the stream and onto dry land. The three men once more ran as fast as they could, this time, towards the entrance of the Wilhelm station. Halfway between the stream and the large double doors of the station, Miles noticed that the thrashwings had again picked up their scent and began swooping down from above. They reached the door. Adam rushed to the terminal at the side and began entering the access code. Maxen had his back to the door and his arm pointed out at the raging thrashwings in case any of them got too close.