Rowan zipped up her mouth and tossed away the invisible key.
For a moment, Bay breathed.
Rowan unzipped her mouth. "We should really go now. There might be more. Up this chimney, we'll find a quick route to the hangar."
Bay nodded. "My starship is ready."
They climbed the chimney, moved through a network of ducts, and eventually reached a grate above them. They shoved it aside with a clatter. Covered with ash and blood, they crawled out into the hangar of Paradise Lost.
The hangar, normally bustling, was eerily silent.
The robot mechanics were gone. The slot machines were dark. Even the marshcrab clerk in his office was gone. A few starships sat here, engines shut down.
Brooklyn was there. She saw Bay and her lights turned on.
"Bay—" the starship cried, then fell silent.
Rowan made to run across the hangar, but Bay grabbed her.
"Wait," he whispered.
Rowan froze.
They stood still, staring. Bay knelt, lifted the grate, and slung his bad hand through the rods. He raised the metal grate as a shield. He was out of bullets. With his good hand, he held the lever from the ducts, wielding it as a club.
Rowan looked at him, eyes huge. "You look like Aragorn from—"
"Shush!" he said.
Rowan shushed and clutched her knife.
A shriek sounded below them. Bay looked down to see a bonecrawler climbing out from the duct. He and Rowan stepped away hurriedly, moving deeper into the hangar. Another bonecrawler emerged from a doorway. A third rose from behind the slot machines. Some crawled on the ceiling.
"It's a trap!" Rowan whispered.
"Yes, I figured that much," Bay whispered back.
"It's a catch phrase from Star—" She groaned. "I'll explain later."
They stood back to back, spinning slowly in circles. The bonecrawlers blocked every exit. The aliens raised their heads, the skulls eerily humanoid, the skin stretched tight across them. Their long bodies contracted and expanded like accordions, propelling them forward. In the open light, they were even more hideous, their skin warty and hairy, their jaws filled with sharp teeth and saliva. Bay's heart sank to see a bonecrawler inside Brooklyn. The hideous alien stared through the windshield.
Bay wished he still had bullets. He only had his metal grate and lever. Rowan stood by him, knife raised. Bay had only seen her crawling until now. She was even shorter than he had expected. At a humble five-foot-eight, Bay was not particularly tall, but Rowan didn't even reach his shoulders. She probably stood under five feet.
"Well, how do we get out of this one?" Bay said.
Rowan winced. "You don't happen to have any flamethrowers in your pockets, do you?"
"Sorry, babe, forgot them in my other pants."
The bonecrawlers moved closer, hissing and grinning, when a rumble sounded in the shadows. Deep. Loud. The aliens shrieked and scuttled back, then lowered their skull-like heads.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
A shadow stirred.
The rumble rose louder.
From behind a rusty freighter, the creature emerged.
Bay felt the blood drain from his face.
"Muck," he whispered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Bay and Rowan stood in the hangar, staring at the creature emerging from behind the starship.
Bay struggled not to faint.
By Ra.
The creature was a bonecrawler, but several times the normal size. Its skull would not have shamed a tyrannosaurus. Its body was lined with spikes, and it reared like a cobra about to strike. Saliva dripped between teeth like katanas, sizzling when it hit the floor. The creature had large eye sockets, each the size of Bay's head, but they were draped with taut skin, and its eyes were just vestigial bumps, barely more than moles. The creature sniffed, nostrils flaring, and grinned toothily.
A boneking, Bay realized. These were rare beasts, the alphas of the species. He had heard they were only a legend, but now this monster reared before him.
"Hello, pests," the boneking hissed, voice like serpents slithering over bones. "I've always wanted to hunt your kind."
Great, Bay thought. It can talk.
"Whatever Belowgen is paying you, we'll double it," Bay said.
The creature coiled forward. A white tongue emerged and licked his jaws. "I am not interested in pest gold. Only your blood and bones."
The beast lunged.
Rowan screamed.
Bay raised his shield.
The alien slammed into the grate with the power of a god. Bay shouted in pain, his arm almost dislocating. The grate's bars slid up his arm, banging his elbow and shoulder. The creature's teeth snapped, grabbed the grate, and tore it free. The boneking raised his head and tossed the grate aside. It slammed into a slot machine, and scryls spilled across the floor.
Bay and Rowan retreated, but smaller bonecrawlers snapped behind them. The towering king rose ahead, drooling and licking his chops.
"Brooklyn!" Bay cried. "Fire your cannons! Fire on him!"
But his starship was shut down. The smaller bonecrawler twisted inside her, cackling, tearing out cables and control panels.
The boneking circled the two humans, his long body forming a ring around them. He was the largest alien Bay had ever seen. His spiky head loomed above. His saliva dripped, sizzling hot where it hit Bay and Rowan. They cried out in pain.
The creature leaned down, teeth gleaming.
"And now, I feed," the boneking hissed.
Bay winced, reached into his pocket, and pulled out his minicom. It beeped.
The boneking snorted. "What is that, pest?"
Bay gave a thin smile. "Your kind uses sonar to see, right? That's why you guys screech so much. When your underlings were chasing me, I made sure to record a few choice screams."
He hit a button on his minicom.
It released a chorus of bonecrawler screeches recorded in the ducts.
The boneking reared, then drove his head downward, jaws snapping.
Bay and Rowan leaped aside, and the massive head missed them, cracking the floor instead. The creature was blind.
Bay and Rowan leaped over his tail. Bay held his minicom high, playing the recorded screams.
"Fillister!" Rowan cried. "Record more screams and play them back!"
The tiny dragonfly nodded, then turned on his own small speakers, releasing more recordings of the screeches.
The boneking whipped from side to side. He snapped his jaws, trying to grab Bay and Rowan, but couldn't see them.
"We're blinding him!" Bay said. "So long as we emit sounds at this frequency, he can't see us!"
"Now who's being obvious?" Rowan said.
The smaller bonecrawlers too snapped blindly. A few let out screams of frustration, only adding to the din. From their perspective, the hangar was filled with pulsing waves of visible sound. It would be, Bay imagined, like a human trying to see in a room filled with blinding spotlights.
"Come on, Rowan!" Bay said.
They ran toward Brooklyn.
They hurdled over the blinded bonecrawlers, reached the small starship, and Bay yanked the hatch open.
A bonecrawler sprang out onto them.
Like a Ra damn snake in a can, Bay thought.
He swung his lever, clubbing the creature's head. It fell to the floor, and Rowan leaped onto the alien, shouting and stabbing in a fury, slicing between its ribs. The girl had looked innocent enough in the ducts, but she fought with speed and fury.
She's like a little honey badger, Bay thought.
He turned back toward Brooklyn, climbed into the starship, and found another bonecrawler inside. The alien slammed into him, clawing, biting, knocking Bay against the broken dashboard. The ship was a wreck. The bonecrawlers had pulled out every piece of electronics. Bay wrestled with the creature, grabbed a fallen shelf, and swung it. He kept clubbing the bonecrawler, knocking it back, and made his way to the bridge.