Rias grunted. Pebbles clattered down the cliff face. One bounced into a beam’s path and was vaporized. The dwindling smoke made the sweat beading his forehead visible. Be careful, Tikaya urged.
The pistol bumped her ribs.
“ Get to work,” Ottotark snapped.
“ I’ve got the numbers,” she said a moment later and read them aloud to the men.
She hoped Rias would wait until he reached the top, or some place safe, to mull over the solution. He was about halfway up now. In a couple feet, Sicarius would reach the ledge.
“ I could use more smoke,” Rias said.
Bones and Agarik lit one of the globes. Tikaya checked on Rias, hoping he would wait until the smoke thickened before trying to climb farther. She caught him pulling his shirt over his nose and tugging the goggles over his eyes.
As soon as smoke curled from the globe, Bones and Agarik dropped it and stumbled back. They threw their arms over their faces, gagging.
Tikaya sucked in a deep breath and held it. Even then, she still caught the first whiff as the smoke disseminated. More pungent than rotten eggs, it invaded her nostrils and teared her eyes. Ottotark leaned forward, grabbing his nose.
This was her chance.
She drew back her arm and slammed the sphere into his temple. It was not big, but it was blunt and solid. He reeled sideways and stumbled to the ground.
“ My eyes,” Bones shouted, then retched.
Agarik clutched at his belly and vomited.
No time to check on Rias or Sicarius. Tikaya lunged for the bow and quiver, grabbed them, and wheeled. Agarik had dropped the lantern. She snatched it as well. By then, her lungs burned, demanding air, but she sprinted for the tunnel.
Tears blurred her vision, and she tripped over a rock. She sprawled, almost losing the bow, and her breath whooshed out. Before she could catch herself, she sucked in a mouthful of air. Distance stole some of the potency from the smoke, but it still made her gag. She staggered to her feet, forced her legs into motion, and clambered over the rubble pile and into the tunnel before retching.
As soon as she could, she raced toward the intersection. The air was clearer here, and she sucked it in. She rounded the corner, hoping to run straight to the panel without encountering a maze of tunnels to guess at. A T-section came first. She lifted the lantern and peered both ways. There. A faint crimson glow in the distance.
Tikaya sprinted to the panel, a column of symbols and five vertical lines that glowed solid blue.
Shouts echoed from the cavern. She shuttered the lantern and set it down, plunging the tunnel in darkness. The men would not be distracted for long, and the light would make her an easy target. She could only hope Sicarius would not take his irritation out on Rias, who she had left in a vulnerable position. Second doubts assailed her. She should have stayed and used the bow on the men, shot the cursed assassin, not run away. But, no, the lights were what Rias wanted, and her eyes had been too tear-wracked to aim at anything anyway.
She examined the symbols. Not all were familiar, and there were more than she expected, but she understood the gist. Lighting, power levels, and water controls. Right spot, but what to touch?
In the still tunnel, she felt her rapid heartbeat reverberating through her body. She started to reach for the sphere, but feared she had no time for research. Rias had guessed. She would have to as well.
Boots pounded into the tunnels. The marines would know right where she had gone.
Tikaya slid a finger across one of the horizontal stripes labeled with illumination. Nothing. There was no switch or knob. She slid her finger the other way. Nothing. She waved her hand before it as she had seen Rias do once to close a door.
The stripe pulsed once, and something thunked inside the wall. Had that done it? The lighting did not come on, and she waved her hand before the other stripes. More thunks, and a faint hum from behind the wall.
The footsteps hammered closer. She grabbed the bow, nocked an arrow, and flattened herself against the wall. The corridor offered no cover, but she could not run until she knew if her hand-waving had accomplished the goal. Besides, darkness stretched behind her, and she did not know if more tunnels lay that way or only a dead end.
The footsteps stopped near the intersection, and lantern light bobbed on the wall. She drew the bow, but no one burst into sight.
More footsteps, these ones softer and slower, reached her ear. She tensed. They were coming from behind her somewhere. Trap. And she had only the darkness to hide in.
Then the lights blinked on. It happened so abruptly, she squinted, half-blinded. She almost missed the movement ahead-someone slipping around the corner and dropping to a knee.
Tikaya loosed an arrow without waiting for her vision to clear. As soon as it flew free, she dropped to the floor. A pistol cracked.
She rolled to the side, cursing herself for getting caught in such a bad spot. She scrabbled for another arrow.
“ Tikaya, this way,” Agarik urged, not from behind but from ahead.
She cursed. Had she just shot at him?
By the time she lunged to her feet, her eyes adjusted enough to see the intersection. Bones lay on his belly, blood pooling beneath his head. Agarik waved for her to hurry.
“ What the-” Ottotark blurted, a hundred meters or more down the tunnel behind her.
Tikaya sprinted for Agarik. His pistol, not her bow, had felled the doctor. He pulled her around the corner as another shot fired. The pistol ball clanged off the corner and ricochetted down the tunnel.
“ Traitor!” Ottotark screamed.
“ No time to reload,” Agarik said as they ran toward the intersection that could take them back to the cavern. “You’ll have to shoot if he catches up.”
“ Understood,” Tikaya said grimly.
She glanced back to see if Ottotark had rounded the corner yet and missed the reason Agarik skidded to a stop, cursing. He flung his arm out to halt her as well.
A cube hovered in the intersection ahead.
She slammed a fist against her thigh. She should have known-the whole reason for turning the lighting back on had been to power one of the cubes. With the mess from the explosives, all of them would probably respond.
“ Maybe it’ll go on to the cavern,” she whispered.
It rotated, and its crimson orifice came into view.
“ Back, back.” Agarik spun, taking her with him.
Tikaya ran at his side. They would have to take their chances with Ottotark.
“ Zag,” she barked on a hunch.
She pushed Agarik one way and ducked against the opposite wall. A red beam seared the air between them.
As soon as it faded, they sprinted off again. Tikaya nocked the bow as she ran. Any second-
Ottotark lunged around the corner, pistol pointed at them. She fired without slowing, and it threw off her aim. The arrow skimmed past his head, stirring his hair, but doing no damage.
He must have seen the cube coming, for he looked between them and cursed before choosing a target. Tikaya.
Agarik hurled a knife at Ottotark. It bought them a second as the sergeant dodged the projectile. She yanked another arrow from her quiver, but Ottotark recovered before she had it nocked.
He fired. There was no room to dodge, no time to duck. Agarik leaped in front of her, grunting as the pistol ball slammed into him.
“ No!” Tikaya cried.
She jumped around him, took the split second to aim, and shot. The arrow spun into Ottotark’s eye.
She dropped the bow and whirled back to Agarik, catching him as he slumped. His hand gripped his chest, and pain ravaged his face. The cube continued its inexorable advance, but she tried to pull him down the aisle.
“ Leave me.” Blood spilled from his lips. “Help Rias.”
“ It’ll get you,” she choked, refusing to accept the inevitable.
“ Yes,” Agarik rasped. “Give you…time.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw it: that cursed glow intensified. She stumbled away as the beam fired. It burned into Agarik and started its deadly work.