Sparks in Cosmic Dust (16 page)

“Faster,” he urged. “Ramp it up or we’ll never get there.”

Lyssa hissed and spat expletives, her pursed lips often millimeters above the coarse rock. He’d never seen a woman so determined in his life. He had an extra gear but he daren’t pull away from her. Not now. Not ever. He’d rip apart anything that tried to take her.

Clattering claws and ear-splitting screeches met from all sides. A few meters past the final grave, red light poured in through a large circular opening in the ceiling. Similar to the drainage ports in the vertical wall he’d climbed outside, but narrower. He gripped the edge, hooked himself inside it. Lyssa snatched his arm and he righted her. A tangle of scrabbling black limbs reached in after them but the bastards seemed to have blocked each other off. Only one of them could fit through at a time, and each wanted to be the first.

Clay used his fingertips to gain momentum along the tunnel. A bizarre doggie-paddle swimming stroke over rock, in midair. Any hint of unevenness in the cylinder became one more hand-hold, one more lifeline. The red pyro glow remained brilliant, near-blinding in the arteries of the rock. His shoulders and wrists and fingers began to ache. No sooner did Lyssa insist, “We’re nearly there, five more meters,” when the clattering and squealing resumed at their heels.

The pyro fell away suddenly. Clay wasn’t ready for the fall. A welcome back to gravity left him reeling on flat, translucent beige stone. Lyssa tumbled on top of him. No pain, only disorientation. He couldn’t remember if they were on the ceiling looking down, or on the floor looking up. Lyssa leaped to her feet.

“Get with it!” She yanked him up by his belt. “We’re going this way,
right now.
”

His head felt like a slinky spilling onto his shoulder. Stars peppered his vision and he staggered, as if his left side weighed ten times more than his right. She clasped his hand and pulled him after her, cursing under her breath. After about a dozen steps Clay reclaimed a measure of balance. Dizziness stirred the beige walls and floor into a creamy maelstrom, but he obeyed Lyssa’s guidance, conscious of the clattering about to spill out of zero-g at any moment.

“You son of a bitch. That’s daylight.” She led him into a narrow gap to the left between the sides of two parallel arches. “Now we have a chance, you alien pieces of shit.”

It was a little cooler out here. Quieter. Lavender ocean beneath the roof of a miniature temple structure beyond the arches gave him hope. The more he focused on it, the more his dizziness subsided. He draped an arm over Lyssa’s shoulder. She returned the favor. Then a cloud drifted into view, and he realized that wasn’t the ocean but the sky. They’d climbed to the plateau itself, into the heart of the deserted alien city.

The clickety-click of clawed limbs grew fainter until he could hear only his and Lyssa’s heavy breathing. When that softened, the
whuwh, whuwh
of a persistent passing breeze reigned over their forgotten nook in this eerie megalopolis.

After setting their oxygen masks down, Clay sank back into Lyssa’s warm embrace. He kissed her forehead, nestled his head on her quivering shoulder. The constant chill breeze shot through their open pores. He couldn’t fathom how such a precarious situation could feel so serene, so empty. Hazy silver light reflected off sister moons between two cruciform towers high in the mountains. What mysteries lay among the peaks and forgotten architectural curios? Was the zero-g tomb unique, a feat of technology, or did the mountains themselves hold a gravity-defying secret, some rare property inherent to pyrofluvium under certain conditions?

“So how do we get down? It’s such a long way.” Lyssa’s tired, blasé question had an uncharacteristic tinge of resignation, as though she’d put the onus on him to get them out. He didn’t like it. If trouble found them, and it might at any moment, he needed her on her toes and pissed off, not brooding.

“Either we find another passageway…” he said, “or we jump.” The latter, though reckless and incredibly dangerous, excited him. And it was bound to rub Lyssa the wrong way.

“That’s not funny.”

“No, but it’d be quick. None of this sneaking about, hoping we don’t get ambushed around every turn. These passages might be crawling with hostiles.”

“But jumping? Jesus Christ. You sure you got your bearings back? We’d never even clear the beach.”

“Maybe not near the campsite, no. But some of these cliffs jut out more than others. And if it’s high tide?”

“And if it’s
low
tide?” Lyssa pulled away from him. “I thought I was supposed to be the reckless one. You’re out of freaking orbit.”

“Yeah? Where’s your master plan, then, tomb raider? Leave it in your other bra?”

“Kiss my ass. You’d be tomb-
fucked
if it wasn’t for me, you limp dick…” She leaped to her feet, pursed her lips and made ready to stomp on him.

Shielding himself, Clay shot up. “Now we’re ready. I need you like this. You’re a pain in the ass but there’s no one I’d rather have pissed off at my side in a tight spot. Okay?”

“Whatever.”

“Still going to kick me?”

She helped him up, tapped his shin with the toe of her boot. “We get out of this, I’ll pay you back, don’t worry.”

“Deal.” Clay peered down the passage they’d escaped through. No sign of life. “Okay, we stay low, keep hidden, use the outer structures. We’re looking for any kind of opening for a staircase in the plateau, preferably close to the cliff edge.”

“You sure you don’t fancy jumping? I’ve got dibs on your magic lunchbox.” She tapped his rucksack containing the shrink carrier.

“Hey, the jumping was only for—”

Before he could finish, Lyssa rushed out ahead of him, crouching low, toward the Acropolis structure. A cat burglar in her prime. He followed for a few steps, then stopped, remembering the oxygen masks. If they did make it back, they might need those.

“
Move it.”
Lyssa thrust her arm out to the right, across the city’s edge.

He snatched up the masks and pelted toward her. He only caught glimpses of the plateau through archways and columns, but it had definitely darkened. Just like the prelude to the energy blast.

Lyssa inched onto her toes as he approached. At her starting blocks. She insisted, “No time for the stairs. First overhang we find, we jump.” Her terrified glance over her shoulder spun him, too.

The plateau writhed with the dark surge of a hundred jostling creatures. The first shrieks fed his sprint to the cliff’s edge. He stumbled but luckily regained his footing.

Lyssa was already overlooking the drop. A quick shake of the head and she raced off again, questing for a feasible platform from which to leap. Would the aliens follow? Or would they have their own way down? They weren’t gaining, that was for sure. Lightning crawlers in zero-g, but only in comparison to his and Lyssa’s hampered climb, and here they were second best.

“Anything?” he shouted.

“Maybe a promontory, another kilometer or so.”

“That’s our play.”

They set off again, at a more venerable pace this time—their pursuers appeared to have reached top speed and weren’t gaining. Every now and then, from the corner of his eye Clay glimpsed more monsters filing up from the cliff’s edge…and more, closer and closer. How were they scaling such sheer walls? Was there some kind of ladder? Creepers? Something he hadn’t noticed when he’d looked up from the beach?

He veered to the edge, held his breath and peered down. Hundreds of meters. His toes and stomach tingled. Surf crashing ashore was nothing more than a tiny, scrawled chalk line shimmering in a heat haze. Nothing about the rock seemed unusual or even vaguely climbable.

An ear-splitting caw made him jump. A moment later he was on his back, kicking against a muscular limb hooked around his ankle. No use—he couldn’t shake it loose. He leaned forward to grab it but without hand or footholds, he couldn’t check his momentum. The creature clung for dear life, and with a tremendous yank pulled him over the edge.

Lyssa’s cries of, “Clay.
Clay,
” flooded the sucked-out hollow that was his stomach in midair. Sheer death loomed. Straight down. No wings. The monster tried to toss him free but Clay grasped at its arm, its bristly legs, the squidgy pipes squirming from its shell-like torso. He gripped a pipe and squeezed. The creature squealed, flapped against the rock with only its arm and a couple of spindly legs holding it onto the rock.

He tried to scramble up his foe, to gain a hold of the summit. Whenever he relaxed his grip on the hot pipe, the creature struggled insanely. He had no time. The cacophony of caws and shrieks grew feverish from above, like the crash-landing of a poultry shuttle. In a desperate lunge he grasped the bastard’s uppermost claw, tore to supplant its grip. Fingertips versus claw tips. It lost them both their anchor. The creature’s arm-joint clicked and went limp. “
No!
” One last convulsion and the thing lost its hold, spilling them both from the cliff.

A soft
whump,
like kite fabric buffeted by a gust, jerked them into a spin. Clay let go of his enemy’s arm and lashed both his arms and legs around its shell. Wind gushed up his nostrils, raked his ears, but the beach still lay a good distance below. How? He glanced up. The monster’s arms were outstretched, and two fans of membrane-like skin, rudimentary wings, had peeled out from the side-pockets of its torso. Some sort of underwater gliding utility? Not enough to save a hurtful landing, but enough to give him a chance.

The creature didn’t struggle during the fall. Its trunk head receded into the top of its shell, and the only effort it seemed to expend was in holding its wingspan taut. Clay unwrapped his legs and readied to jump off before they landed.

Right, here we go…

A loud splash farther up the beach didn’t register at first. Not until he’d let go and heard his name screamed from that direction.

He crumpled onto the sand. Shards shot up his legs. They throbbed. A wingless arm lunged for his face. He ducked and rolled aside, then made straight for the white wake in the ocean.

“Lyssa.”

She’d made a helluva leap! The cliff overhang high above her wasn’t of much account, so she had to have hurled herself and hoped for the best.
Crazy tomb raider.
Watching her scramble out of the rough breakers unharmed made him realize nothing was impossible. They’d both just survived an incredible fall.

“Some honeymoon.” Fathoms of seawater spilled from her as she ran.

Her levity dropped with a dip of her head and a hunching of her shoulders. Sun and shadow blinked rapidly at him. He looked up. A blizzard of winged shapes filled the sky, many halfway down the cliff already, more leaping off the plateau as he watched. A menagerie of
whumps
and shrieks beat down on the beach. Heading back to the camp was now out—the bastards would land en masse right on top of them. Which left…

“Lyssa,
behind you.
”

A large crustacean somersaulted in the surf, and in midflip clicked its spindly legs together with a bizarre rhythm. Lyssa doubled her sprint away. The creature was merely the spearhead of a monstrous horde. They emerged in ominous formation, bent low in unison, before the lead beast halted. At this point
all
the others—at least forty—sprang upright behind it and thrust their pincers in Lyssa’s direction.

“That’s it.” She backed into him. “We’re trapped. We have to fight our way out.”

No shit
. But the horror of being overrun and hacked apart piece by piece was not one he could share, not with
Lyssa.
She’d pledged her love to him and he wasn’t about to let her down when it mattered most.

The
whumps
grew louder above like a vast tarpaulin Big Top flapping in a gale, the shrieks like buckling metal. Clay hustled the rucksack off his shoulders and delved inside. The shrink carrier’s fabric gave a little as he pressed his thumbs against the invisible magnetic shield protecting the seams.
Not just yet.
He didn’t know the radius or the exact duration of his surprise.
Wait until more of these bastards get close.

Still running, Lyssa shouted something he couldn’t hear through a shriek overhead. She rammed her finger up into the air. “Get out of the way!”

Claws thrashed about his face from above. He ducked, lost his footing. The falling monster snatched the carrier from his hands and tossed it away against the cliff.
Christ.
At least ten gliding enemies swooped in and landed between him and his weapon.

Incensed, he grabbed the nearest monster by its arm and wing sheath and rammed it head-first into the sand. Two more leaped on him, their pincers cutting into his shoulders. It hurt like hell. He shook one off. Three more attacked his legs, slashing and biting, their war-like caws muffled beneath monstrous writhing limbs. Clay lunged to ground, knee-first, crushing the chest-pipes of two enemies. They squealed and let go, but three times their number rushed in instead.

With a huge effort he slammed two trunk heads together, then bit a hole in one. Salt and vinegary acid assaulted his tongue and nostrils, making him cough. He kicked and kicked but still the creatures piled in. One lanced its hind leg into his midriff, drawing a spurt of blood.

This first shock of pain not dampened by his adrenaline forced him to sit up and scream, “You bastards—get off me. I’ll kill the fucking lot of you.”

Still they muscled in, their chalk-on-blackboard screeches deafening. Their claws tearing his legs and back to shreds.

A scream louder than all the creatures’ combined made him fight even harder. Through a flurry of claws he discerned Lyssa’s boots and her long white legs. She darted this way and that, drawing and deflecting enemies with incredible rapidity. Most of the bastards attacking Clay suddenly desisted and tore after her instead. He seized the opportunity, snapped the arm off one. Another fell under his swinging punch.

“Try me!” She stood her ground, a lifeless monster slumped over her left shoulder, a lethal rock shard clasped in her right hand. “I’ve got your general. Come and get him.”

The last beast scurried away from Clay. Though gouged and badly slashed, his legs felt worse than they really were. At least he could stand, with a struggle. His back, sides and shoulders flamed and stung. Red raw.

An incredible stalemate now gripped the beach.

Lyssa had taken a hostage, the large creature that had spearheaded the marine landing. Hundreds of beasts scurried around her, forming attentive throngs no less than ten feet away from both her and Clay, as though this single prisoner-taking had called a ceasefire to the hostilities.

Exhausted, Clay shook through the last of his adrenaline. Everywhere he looked, dark trunk heads and distended eyes pointed at Lyssa. Had she…might she possibly have…found a way out of the slaughter? Cheated death for them both?

Apart from a gash to her thigh and blood trickling from the side of her neck, she appeared unharmed. She winked at Clay, then nodded along the coast in the direction of the camp. He wiped metallic blood from his mouth and nodded back hopefully. No creature made a sound, and none made a move unless she did. In the eye of death, she was the one calling the shots.

Come on, tomb raider. Get us out of this.

Lyssa tested the creatures with a cautious sidestep. The horde responded in kind, shuffling and reshaping their formation unanimously, as if by some collective intuition. Two more steps. Again the adaptive reply. Several slow strides. Once more the monsters gave ground, but their rear ranks swelled surreptitiously, more of them sneaking out of the surf.

Clay waved to her, caught her eye. He shook his head and mouthed the words, “It’s no use. There’s no time.”

Lyssa shrugged, then flinched when her hostage stirred on her shoulder.

“Get a move on.” Careful not to spook their enemies, Clay corked a desire to scream the rest.
You’re being cautious
now?
All you’ve ever done is taken chances, woman, and when it makes sense to take one you’re fucking tiptoeing!

The creatures reared up in unison, arms akimbo, trunk heads straining to dart forward. Clay inched to meet Lyssa’s path, but the beasts refused to budge. She halted, grabbed her hostage by its slimy head and threatened to rip it in two. No dice. The son of a bitch was waking up…

“Clay, you need to go…
now
.” She slid the wriggling general into her arms and paraded it around, demonstrating her superior size and the fact she could snap her enemy in two if she wanted. Her worried glance lifted to a brittle smile when it reached Clay. “Just go. If they touch either of us, they lose their leader.”

“What about you?”

“I never was any good at chess.”

No way was he going to leave her alone, not here, not like this. “Just keep going like you were. Keep threatening. It’s got to work.”

A sickly groan from the hostage let loose an avalanche of hurtful shrieks from the rest of the force. Clay pressed his palms to his ears. Everywhere, all at once, the horde rushed him. He caught the first attacker by the arm and booted it sideways, knocking several foes into the sand. Claws snapped at him from all sides. He kicked, swung, stomped and flailed blindly into a never-ending surge. Only defiant fury kept him standing when he should have been dragged down.