Her HUD gave a reading of eighty-four degrees. If not for the radiation warnings, she would have taken off her helmet by now.
A bush glowed ahead, and she bumped off her NVGs for a moment to see the diamond-white sparkle with her own eyes.
“Stay away from that one,” she said. “The crystal petals contain a poison that’s lethal from a single scratch.”
“Lovely,” Vish said. “Just lovely.”
Katrina bumped the goggles back on, slung her rifle, and pulled out her sword as they approached an area blocked off by a curtain of vines. This was flora unlike any she had come across on the surface, and there seemed to be no way around it. She tried to slice through the middle, but the edge caught in the sticky material. Several more chops finally hewed a doorway through the red and purple mat.
Trees loomed in the path, their leafless branches reaching out like skeletal fingers. Another bug skittered across the dirt and vanished into the spiky underbrush. The foliage to the right glowed as she approached, and the purple flower petals began to open.
“Keep away from those, too,” Katrina said. “In fact, don’t touch anything.”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” Vish said.
Bearing left, she continued along the narrow trail. The chirr of insects and the croaking of some other unknown creature ceased as they pushed into another open glade. She stepped carefully between the red vines sprawling across the jungle floor.
After a half hour of hiking, the path ended at the base of a rock-studded hill. To the north, dark trees crested the top of the mountain she had seen from the command center.
Sheathing the sword, she unslung her rifle and checked the beacon on her HUD again. It didn’t appear to be coming from the other side of the hill or from the jungle surrounding the hill, but from inside the hill.
Was there a nest at the top?
“Stay here,” she told the others.
After making a quick scan of the sky, Katrina started up the hill, rifle up and ready. Her heart pounded at the thought of what she might find at the crest.
But when she got there, she saw nothing but more rocks, a pile of dung, and scattered bones. Beetle shells and fish heads were strewn on the ground. The wind whistled over her armor, and the cries of the birds on the hunt rang out in the distance.
“Trey, do you copy?” Katrina whispered. She had tried several times to raise him, but there was no response, which told her he was either unconscious or…
She turned, taking in the view. To the north, the jungle continued, and to the south, the ocean slapped against rocky coastline. The USS Zion was still out there waiting, guns silent.
Perplexed, she checked the beacon. It told her Trey was right beneath her boots.
Cradling her rifle, she went back down the hill. Loose rocks moved underfoot, and Vish moved out of the way as a fist-size cobble hit the dirt beside him.
“Find anything, Cap?” Alexander asked.
“No, but I think I have an idea.” Flashing a hand signal, she directed the team to the right. They followed the tree line around the base of the hill until they came to a small ravine on the north side.
Flicking on the tactical light of her rifle, she raked the beam over the rocks below, where she found just what she had expected. The cave entrance was recessed, and she had to bend down to get a look.
“Trey, do you copy?” Katrina asked.
She waited several seconds, listening to the static, making sure she wasn’t mistaking his raspy breathing for the crackle.
No… not him.
“Vish, Jed, stand watch. I want to check this out.” She motioned for Alexander to follow her into the cave.
After bumping off her NVGs and switching to her tactical light, Katrina ducked under a slanting rock overhang into a damp chamber, where she stopped to scan for threats.
With her finger on the trigger guard, she played the light over the surrounding rock and found nothing but a spongy red moss covering the jagged walls and underfoot. Alexander moved in behind her, and they started across a squishy floor.
The chamber narrowed to a passageway that snaked downward, opening into another chamber. Her boot crunched over something beneath the carpet of moss. Bending down, she found the shapes of bones covered by the soft growth. She swept the light again and gulped at the realization: they were standing in a boneyard.
Rising to her feet, she shined her beam down the passage, which appeared to end at a wall of whitish vines like those she had cut through in the jungle.
“You think that thing took him down here?” Alexander whispered.
It did sound crazy for a bird to live in a cave, but this was where the beacon was transmitting from.
Alexander pointed to another passage, which forked off about twenty feet ahead. Katrina motioned him to follow. Ducking under jagged limestone ceilings, they moved into another tunnel. The passage narrowed even more as they went deeper.
Her eyes flitted between the passage and her HUD.
A few minutes later, they entered another chamber, where she stopped to listen to a dripping sound. Then she continued into a tunnel.
Alexander stopped and held up a fist. “What the hell…”
Katrina almost fired a burst into the huge bird splayed out across the white wall at the end of the passage. Its wings were spread, head to one side. The torso and legs were gone—nothing but strings of meat and sinew leaking blood onto the mossy floor.
The source of the dripping sound…
She slowly moved the light to her left—and gasped. Bound to the same wall was a human figure.
“Trey,” Katrina whispered.
When she started forward, Alexander held her back.
“Something’s not right,” he said. “If that bird is what captured him, then what captured it?”
Katrina paused to study the carcass. Something had torn the creature in half. Something big.
As if in answer, the crack of gunfire broke the silence.
Alexander looked back the way they had come.
“I think we’re about to find out what did this,” he whispered.
“Vish, Jed, do you copy?” Katrina said over the comms.
Static.
More faint gunfire.
And then a screech unlike any Katrina had heard in her days as a Hell Diver—a cross between the squealing of an injured pig, and the cries of a human baby.
“Hurry, let’s get him down,” she said.
Alexander shouldered his rifle and backed across the room, covering Katrina as she approached the wall. She swung her sword, hacking at the white strands that held Trey in place. On the third swing, the blade stuck, and she had to yank it free.
“Trey,” she said. “It’s me, Katrina.”
His eyelids fluttered, and he tried to turn his head, but his helmet was stuck fast. And then it hit her: the wall wasn’t a wall, but a spider’s web.
The gunshots continued outside the cave, but she and Alexander were too deep to send or receive intelligible transmissions, which was probably why Trey hadn’t answered earlier.
Another rage-filled shriek echoed through the tunnel as she worked to free Trey. Alexander had joined Katrina, hacking with his knife at the tough fibers, when the rocky floor trembled. A crunching noise echoed, and she felt more vibrations under her boots. The mountain above them seemed to be shaking.
They pulled Trey away just as one of the other divers emerged. He jumped through the entrance of the narrow passage and seemed to hover midair. Blue light pulsated as he floated toward them.
Alexander shouldered his rifle and pulled the trigger before Katrina could stop him. Then she saw the curved black thorn protruding from Jed’s battery unit. The disruption of the circuitry created a strobe-like effect that made it difficult to see what had impaled him, but she could see enough to know it was some sort of spider.