by Lolita Lopez
Knowing she was on a strict schedule, she blinked back the tears that burned her eyes and left the cabin. She traipsed through the darkness, letting the moonlight guide her feet on a path she committed to memory. As she trekked toward the Drowning Door, she ran through the list of tasks the man called Torment had given her. Place explosives. Set timer. Move to a safe distance. After explosion and the completion of the mission, meet at the rendezvous point.
She had been hoping to speak with Cipher again, but it had been the other soldier who had answered her transmission. Torment lacked the warmth and kindness of Cipher. He had been all business, and it had been painfully clear to her that she was expendable to him. Beyond planting and successfully detonating the explosives, she was of limited use.
Glad for the long walk to mine, she tried to work out the nervous energy vibrating through her body. Shaking, sweaty hands would be dangerous while handling the explosives. Last night, after bathing and having a double serving of rations, she had calculated and recalculated the amount of explosives she needed. Then, in a surge of anxiety, she had redone the calculations seven more times, just to be sure.
The explosives were neatly packaged in her pack, ready to be assembled and placed once she was in the ventilation shaft. She had a timer, but also planned to place a secondary line as switch. She wanted redundancies in place.
As she drew near to the ventilation access, she placed her backpack holding her belongings on a tree branch. She checked her watch. Of all the things she had ever been given by her father, the watch was her most precious. He had saved for years to get one for her. It was waterproof, shatterproof, illuminated and even had a glow function. It had all the bells and whistles, and she had never needed them more than she did right now.
She set a timer for the moment the explosives were due to detonate. Low on her belly, she crawled forward and scanned the area she needed to access. There was just enough moonlight to let her see that it looked exactly the way it had when she had left it. Even the small stones and twigs she had placed along the edges of the grate were right where they should be.
Satisfied her entrance hadn’t been discovered, she exhaled a steadying breath and crept forward. Resolute in her intention not to die today, she carefully removed the grate, buckled her helmet in place and climbed into the shaft. Balancing on the second rung, she hauled the grate back over the top of the shaft. She couldn’t risk an unexpected patrol finding it gone and stumbling onto her existence.
Down and down she descended, following the same route she had taken yesterday. Before she secured her anchor ropes, she checked her watch and was relieved to see she was ahead of schedule. Hooked into the harness, she climbed backwards down the sharp incline of the shaft until she reached the the section directly below the duct system she had accessed the day prior.
She swung herself across the shaft, paying no mind to the unending black drop below her. She racked her ropes into place and ratcheted her harness to give her the stability she needed to work with the explosives. Taking her time, she measured the spot where she intended to plant them and marked it with chalk.
The hand cranked drill she used to bore the hole was freshly oiled and spun as quickly as her arm could rotate the crank. It was quiet work, only the sound of her breaths and the twinkle of falling rock echoing around her. She stopped to measure every fifty rotations, marking the width and depth until she finally reached the required specs.
Inhaling a steadying breath, she retrieved the first set of explosives and packed them into the hole. She didn’t set the timer just yet or activate the backup trigger switch. There were still two more sets of explosives to place, both farther down the shaft. The cascade effect of the three explosions would cause the desired outcome.
Checking her watch, she calculated how much time she had left to place the remaining explosives and get out of the shaft. She would have at least seventeen minutes of leeway, if she stayed on her current course.
She loosened the harness lock and lowered herself to the next spot. She repeated the same process, being deliberate in her drilling and measurement and placement of the explosives. Satisfied with the second, she moved down to the third and completed the task the same way.
Heart racing, she checked her watch and saw that she was still slightly ahead of schedule. She swallowed hard before setting the timer on the third explosive pack and activating the backup trigger. When it was done, she climbed her way to the second and first packs of explosives and did the same.
Dry mouthed and anxious, she freed the ropes she had racked earlier and swung across the shaft. Her legs trembled as she climbed up steep rock wall to the first platform. Her shaking hands fumbled with her anchor ropes and hooks, wasting precious seconds she needed to get clear of the blast radius. She ignored the fear building in her gut and moved methodically through the shaft to the access ladder.
Her heart raced so fast now she could practically feel it slamming into her ribs and sternum. Her ears were filled with the sound of pounding blood, and she fought to catch her breath as she climbed higher and higher.
When she reached the grate, she hesitated. Was that a footstep? She hastily switched off the light on her helmet and listened. Crunch.
Someone or something was out there. Dried leaves and dead twigs crunched under something heavy—a boot or paw. In that moment, she would have gladly faced off against a mountain lion or a wolf, anything but a man.
Frozen with indecision, she decided to wait. With every passing second, she brought herself closer to being trapped in the blast. If she moved the grate and climbed out, she was either going to be an early morning snack for one of the massive predators on the mountain or a new torture victim for the Splinters.
The footsteps grew louder and closer. She gripped the rungs and prayed her death would be quick. Closer and closer. Louder and louder. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the inevitable.
Snort.
Her terrified gaze snapped to the grate where two big, rusty brown eyes stared back at her. Shit! It was a bear! A huge, stinking and very curious mountain bear.
Now she was faced with another predicament. She didn’t have the strength to lift the grate with a massive bear paw planted on top of it. If the bear thought he had his next meal cornered, he would stay there until he figured out how to move the grate. Once that happened, his razor-like claws would shred her in one swipe.
She glanced down the ladder and wondered if she had enough time to make it back to the ducts she had flooded yesterday. She could, conceivably, hide in the ducts toward the front of the mine until the explosions detonated and then jump down into main level of the mine once all the Splinters evacuated out of the front entrance. One quick glance at her watch told her that idea was impossible. She was fast, but she wasn’t that fast.
“Please, Mr. Bear, go away,” she whispered urgently. “I will give you all the food rations in my pack if you will let me out of here.”
The bear snorted against the grate again, and she flinched away from the wet blast of foul air. He scratched at the grate, his claws clanging against the metal. She wrapped her arms around the ladder and silently cursed at the universe for teasing her with a chance to escape the mountain only to be eaten alive by a bear.
The bear had its yellow teeth hooked around the metal grate, slobber dripping down onto her helmet and shoulders, when it suddenly stopped. The bear unhinged its jaws and let the grate fall with a clatter. It rose up on its paws and sniffed the air. With a lumbering growl, it stepped away from the grate and trotted off into the woods.
Crying and shaking, she grasped the slippery, dented grate and moved it out of the way as quietly as possible. Like a groundhog searching for predators, she lifted her head through the hole and scanned her surroundings. The musky stench of the bear still lingered, but there were no other signs of trouble.
Quickly and overwhelmed with relief, she climbed out of the shaft, replaced the grate and checked her watch. Her stomach dropped. She had le
ss than four minutes to get to the spot she had picked!
Terrified the bear was out there waiting for her and worried that whatever had drawn him away might be a danger to her, she headed into the woods in a burst of speed. She snatched her backpack from the branch where she had left it and sprinted away. The threats to her life seemed to be mounting. The explosives. The bear. Whatever had caught the bear’s attention.
Sunrise had just started to lighten the horizon. From what Torment had explained to her, his men would already be in place by now. That meant Cipher was somewhere on this same mountain or hovering nearby in one of their invisible crafts. The concern she had for herself was only surpassed by her concern for him.
When she reached the old tree she had chosen as her lookout spot, she jumped as high as she could and grabbed the closest branch. Swinging up her leg, she hooked it over the branch and hauled herself up onto it. She stood on the branch, balancing precariously, and hopped to the next branch. The muscles in her arms and chest burned as she climbed to the correct vantage point, but she pushed away the pain and kept moving.
Seated on a thick, sturdy branch high on the mountain, she panted and checked her watch. Twenty-three seconds! She snatched her mine pack into her lap and grabbed the secondary switches. If the timers failed, she had to be ready.
She kept the blinking switches capped and glanced at her watch to check the countdown one last time. Eleven seconds!
Switches in hand, she stared down at the back end of the Drowning Door and counted silently. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one…
The ground rocked beneath the tree. A few seconds later, another wave of rumbling struck and then another. She flicked off the secondary triggers and stuffed them into her pack. She retrieved a pair of small binoculars and trained them on the visible ventilation shafts. Smoke and dust billowed out of them.
She looked toward the front of the mine. Already, men were running out of the entrance. Clouds of purple and black dust followed them. She searched the distance for Cipher and his fellow sky warriors, but a sudden shift in the ground below had her scrambling to stay on the branch she had chosen.
When she had taken the job, she had warned Miss Kay that an explosion in an old death trap like the Drowning Door was a risk. There was no telling how much erosion the water had caused or how much destabilization her father’s blasts had caused years earlier. It was all a best guess scenario.
My best guess was wrong.
Somewhere in the mine, the blasts had triggered a cave-in. The amount of dust and smoke pouring out of the vents and the front of the mine could only be explained by a collapse in one of the sections. The top of the mine—the sloped hillside below, hadn’t shifted so the cave-in must have come from lower down in the second or third abandoned levels.
Panicked and worried for the one-eyed man, she turned her attention to the front of the mine. More of the Splinter terrorists were racing out of the mine now. She scanned them, desperately hoping to see the man who needed to be rescued.
There!
Stumbling between two Splinter men, he emerged from the mine’s entrance just as naked as the day he had been born. Bruised and bloodied and covered in soot, he struggled to stand on his own two feet. One of them looked badly swollen, and she ached for him, wondering how any person could be strong enough to survive that kind of suffering.
A blast of red shocked her. She gasped as the men on either side of the one-eyed sky warrior dropped to the dirt. Their heads had been obliterated by bursts of plasma. Suddenly, all around the kidnapped man, the Splinters fell. Precision shots killed them as easy a sniffing out a candle.
Until there was only one left.
The harsh looking man who had been left alive reached for a knife at his belt, probably to slit his own throat, but he was quickly shot in that hand. Before he could grab the weapon holstered on his other hip, he shouted in pain as a second shot rendered that hand useless, too.
Sky warriors dressed in black uniforms rushed forward and took control of the scene. Just like that—it was all over. Days of planning, and the mission was competed in seconds of high-risk activity.
She sagged against the tree trunk and let the tears come. Relief, fear, pride, anxiety—the emotions flooded out of her. She had accomplished something truly great today. She had helped free a man. She had made it possible for him to be rescued without injury to any of his comrades. Other than Miss Kay and the men who had helped her plan it, no one would ever know what she had risked or done here today. It was a secret she would take to the grave.
It was a secret that was going to buy her a new life.
As she climbed down from the tree, she considered the decisions awaiting her. She could take the offer to become a mate to a stranger. She would have a home, a husband and the family she craved, but would she be happy? Was she capable of learning to love a stranger? What if he was more like Torment and less like Cipher?
It was a chance she couldn’t take. The thought of being tied to an unkind brute was too much for her to risk. There was also the realization that someday Cipher would find a woman he liked well enough to keep. She wasn’t sure she could handle seeing him with another woman. He wasn’t hers—had never been hers—but her heart had set itself on having him.
To the colonies it is.
Away from the mountain. Away from the mines. Away from the sky warrior she had stupidly become infatuated with. Away from the only life she had ever known.
She trudged along her new path, arcing off to the left of the mountain and using the compass on her watch to guide her to the coordinates of her rendezvous point. The longer she walked, the more unwell she felt. She brushed her hand to her forehead, feeling the heat there.
Do I have a fever?
The heat radiating off her forehead wasn’t only from the physical exertion of the hike. Her throat burned when she swallowed, and she noticed a strange ache in her joints. She felt queasy and could barely handle drinking the water in her canteen.
The water!
That foul water she had been showered with while trying to create a diversion was the likely culprit. All her life, she had been trained to never drink unknown water, to smell it and boil it first. As much as she had tried not to get that water in her mouth, some of it undoubtedly had made its way inside her.
Hoping the ship coming to pick her up had a medic on hand, she trudged forward, her pace slow and her steps heavy. She grew hotter and more nauseated and had to blink and close one eye to focus on her compass. She hadn’t veered off course yet, but it was only a matter of time if she wasn’t careful.
Feeling a surge of nausea, she braced herself on the nearest tree and heaved up the water and remains of her morning rations. Her head pounded as she retched into the grass, and she fought the desperate need to curl up on her side on the ground and sleep.
“You have to keep moving, Brook,” she urged aloud. “You have to keep moving, Brook.”
“Now, come on, honey, don’t be so hasty. You can sit a little while with us.”
Feverish and sick, she hadn’t been paying attention to her surroundings. She spun around and came face to face with four leering men. She could smell them despite the distance, and her stomach soured at the stench of alcohol, sweat and filth. Skin traders.
The one who seemed to be their leader smiled evilly, showing off brown and broken teeth. “Sweetie, you lookin’ mighty sick. Why don’t you come back to our camp over there and let us give you some first aid?”
The true meaning wasn’t lost on her. Nervous but trying to project confidence, she stood as tall as she could despite the stomach cramps. “Thank you, but no. I’m meeting some friends.”
“We can be your friends,” another man insisted and stepped closer.
“I’m not interested in new friends.”
“You hungry? We just killed us a bear! Might fine eatin’ if you’re interested.”
“I don’t eat bear meat,” she said, eyeing the men slowly moving int
o positions around her. Like all skin traders, they had their tactics down pat. “You shouldn’t either unless you plan to cook it a long time.”
The leader waved off her suggestion as if he weren’t the least bit worried about catching worms and dying. Instead, he said, “How about a nice, soft bearskin rug? You can sleep on it in front of our fire tonight. How’s that sound, honey?”
“Like a bad night’s sleep,” she replied and stepped around him. Another man moved into her path. She refused to let him stare her down and met his gaze. “Move!”
“Sorry, girlie, but I’m not movin’ anywhere.” He reached out with his dirty hand to touch her braided hair, and she smacked his hand away. Instead of deterring him, it seemed to excite him. He licked his grimy lips and snatched her braid, tugging hard and forcing her against his paunchy, stinking body. “I like ‘em with a little fight in ‘em!”
She tried to break free, but she was so dizzy and weak. Feeling woozy, she sagged against her attacker. All of the hopes and dreams that had been fueling her trek evaporated.
This was it. Everything she had risked, and she was going to be gang raped and probably die on this mountain. Grimly, she hoped they killed her when they were done. She couldn’t survive the life of a sex slave sold to a space brothel.
Tossed over the man’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes, she closed her eyes and tried not to get sick again. The rush of blood to her head caused a pounding headache. Slowly, she lost consciousness, feeling as though she were falling into the endless chasm of a mine.
Chapter Five
Cipher wiped the purple dust and black soot from his face with a wet disposable cloth from the pack he kept in his tactical vest. Working in the mine for the last six hours had been hot, miserable work. All of the intel had to be inventoried, placed in the chain of custody and stored away in the lock boxes for transport back to the Valiant. Everything in the mine was now covered with a thick coating of grimy, oily dust, and the ventilation system was completely blocked so the air flow was practically nonexistent.
