Ki Book One

by Odette C. Bell

  Chapter Nine

  He woke with a start. Something wasn’t right.

  His body lagged behind his mind. It was filled with a distinct and unusual warmth.

  It was the strangest of feelings. It felt like every part of him, every limb, every cell even, was lifting up, floating on high. It was as if he were being dragged into heaven, piece by piece.

  He basked in it.

  It did not last though.

  After a while, his body seemed to catch up with his mind. He began to distinguish between his senses. He felt something hard underneath him, his stomach and cheeks were cold, and the air around him smelt of a strange, stagnant musty dankness.

  It scratched at the insides of his nostrils, making his throat itch.

  Coughing, he rocked forward a little. Instantly a small, soft hand pushed into his shoulder, guiding him back down.

  It made him realize something still wasn’t right. It made him remember.

  He tried to snap forward.

  She wouldn’t let him. Ki locked him in place.

  “You’ve been injured,” she said gently. She was close, her breath soft against his cheek.

  He opened his eyes.

  She was sitting behind him, her head coming into view above, her hair trailing over one shoulder and brushing against his arm.

  Concern ran deep through her brow, pushing her lips into the thinnest frown he’d seen her show.

  Her eyes were rimmed with red. Right now they seemed to shine though. “You’re alive,” she croaked.

  “You sound surprised,” he managed through a heavy breath. He tried to get up.

  Again she wouldn’t let him.

  He could feel one of her hands on his shoulder while the other was on his neck. Her fingers were pressing tenderly into the muscle.

  “You died,” her head darted back out of view.

  He laughed. She had to be joking. He felt a little light-headed and was having trouble moving, but other than that he felt great. The longer he was awake for, the more control he was getting back over his body. He’d be up on his feet in a minute or so.

  He most certainly had not died.

  “What happened? I remember the scanner...” he trailed off as he tried to put together the real sequence of events from his currently fragmented memories.

  “You accidentally activated some kind of sound on the scanner. It caused a cave in.” She swallowed, the move loud and heavy. “You were caught in it. I was thrown clear, so was the scanner. I had to use it to induce some kind of healing field. It brought you back.”

  She had to be joking.

  He pushed himself up now, throwing off her hand.

  As soon as her fingers fell from his neck, that feeling of light warmth cut out.

  Immediately he felt how cold the cavern was; the chill washed back over him with no warning. Shuddering he brought his arms up and closed them around his chest.

  “You shouldn’t make any sudden movements; the effect of the field will take some time to wane. It usually took a couple of hours with me,” she let her hands drop into her lap.

  “What, what do you mean? What field?”

  “Those scanners are capable of producing more than just noise and advanced sensor readings. They produce some kind of healing field,” she brought up her hand and considered it, brushing at her fingers and palm. “I once fell down the stairs in my compound and broke my wrist. Within an hour the pain was gone. So was the break.”

  He stared at her in disbelief. “Come on, Ki, you can’t expect me to believe that.”

  She grabbed at something by her side. At first he thought it was a rock.

  As she brought it into the light, he recognized it instantly. It was the scanner, except it seemed completely dead.

  “What did you do to it?” he snapped, grabbing it from her.

  She did not resist, and neither did she react in any way. Her expression was still, her gaze deadened. She looked as though she’d just been through some taxing emotional turmoil.

  He couldn’t believe her story though.

  Yet as he stared at the scanner, virtually pawing at it in his desperate attempts to turn it on, he soon realized it wasn’t going to work.

  A cold sweat trickled down his brow. The scanner was their only hope of getting out of here. Without it they would be walking blind. If they came up against a section of rock wall, they’d have no idea whether they could shoot through or not.

  What had she done to it?

  Trying to control his anger, he curled his free hand into a fist and knocked it hard against his leg. As soon as he did, a shooting pain erupted from his shoulder and travelled down into his back. Gasping, he grabbed at it.

  “You should be careful with your arm. It isn’t properly healed. The scanner cut out before it could heal your soft tissue injuries, I think.” She didn’t look at him as she spoke. She stared down at her interlocked fingers, her voice slow, her words slurred.

  “Do you really expect me to think I died?” he stood up, snatching at the scanner protectively.

  She tipped her head up sluggishly. Though her gaze was still deadened, there was a slight flicker of anger. “What, you think I knocked you out and broke the scanner so we’d be stuck down here? Is that easier to believe?”

  She’d just voiced a suspicion that had been growing within him. It made that cold sweat pick up quicker across his brow and collect between his shoulder blades.

  His memory was still fragmented. He couldn’t really recall what had happened. He vaguely remembered the scanner suddenly producing a high-pitched shrill, but that was all.

  Suspicion bloomed within him like blood from a bullet wound.

  Her cheeks slackened further as she looked up at him, that numb expression shifting. Chest and arms visibly stiffening, she swallowed. “Jackson, what are you—”

  “What did you do to the scanner?” he repeated his question. The light edge was gone from his voice, if it had ever been there. It was replaced with deep doubt and distrust.

  She shifted back, her arms and legs pressing hard against the boulder she was seated near. In the reflected glow from the gun barrel that sat between them, he watched the shadows under her eyes and neck darken as she dipped her head down, drawing her arms and shoulders in protectively.

  “Ki, what did you do?”

  “There was a cave in,” she pointed a shivering hand at the rocks around her. They were covered in rubble and dust. “You got struck by it. I pulled you out and then I used the scanner on you. I’d seen the Zeneethian doctors and scientists use them as healing devices before. I just mimicked what I’d seen them do.” Her voice and body shook as she spoke, her trembling form casting a flickering shadow onto the wall behind her.

  “Then I guess if your story is right, there should be blood on those rocks,” he said darkly. Walking over to them, he expected to see nothing but dust.

  He was wrong.

  He could see blood splattered all over the rocks. A lot of blood. Not enough to believe someone had been killed, but enough to indicate someone had been seriously injured.

  He could see it, even though his body obstructed the light. Leaning down, he trailed two fingers through it. It was full of dust, but still slightly wet.

  Taking several steps back, he shook his head sharply. Suspicion still burnt hot in his heart, but at the edges, reason began to break its way in.

  Turning sharply, he stalked up to her.

  “If you’re story’s true, shouldn’t your hands be covered in scratches from lifting all those stones?” he leaned down and yanked up one of her hands.

  She did not resist. Her arm was limp, her head turned down to the ground. She didn’t even look at him.

  He turned the palm around.

  It was cut, the flesh torn and ripped, each wound covered in dried up blood and caked with dirt. Her fingernails were nothing but tatters, broken and fissured, caked with rock dust.

  Those tiny tattoos were red and raised, her fingertips swol
len and inflamed.

  He let her hand drop.

  It slammed hard against the rock behind her; she did nothing to stop it. Either she was too weak to try or she didn’t want to.

  He shuddered back.

  Guilt began to all but smash through his suspicion and frustration.

  What had he done?

  No, he couldn’t give in so easily. This could still be an act. She could have knocked him out, the blood could still be his. And as for her hands, she could have made them look like that herself.

  His teeth ground together, so much tension translating through his jaw that he almost popped his neck muscles.

  He didn’t know what to believe.

  She did not move while he stood there, indecision bursting through him. She stared at the floor, her head on the side.

  Had he done it again? Had he turned on her? Or did she deserve it?

  He had every reason to be suspicious of her, because he had every reason to be suspicious of the Tarkans. He’d once seen an enemy patrol fill a kindergarten with explosives. He’d witnessed their soldiers gun-down the sick and elderly indiscriminately. Then they’d sniped his fiancée after the cease fire.

  They were a duplicitous, untrustworthy, and violent people. Every experience he had ever had served to confirm that fact.

  Was it enough to condemn Ki though?

  She still didn’t move, and neither did he.

  The only sound that disturbed their silence was the slight trickle of rock dust from the ceiling above.

  “I...” he began. He stopped, because he had no idea what to say. He just didn’t have enough information to come to a conclusion. Ki could very well be a spy, or she could be the innocent she had claimed from the beginning.

  “Pick up the gun,” she finally spoke. She still didn’t turn to him.

  “What?” surprise paled his skin.

  “Pick up the gun and shoot me. You obviously don’t believe me. You think I knocked you out and broke the scanner. Why? Because I’m Tarkan, because I’m a spy, because I want you to die down here. Well that doesn’t make any sense, but that doesn’t matter, does it? You still don’t trust me, because deep down you don’t want to. You’d rather I be some nefarious spy. Well fine, then do what a good soldier should do. Pick up the gun and shoot me. You’ve made it clear that no matter what happens, you won’t trust me. So go ahead.”

  “I’m not going to—”

  “Yes you are,” her eyes flashed and finally she turned to him. “Maybe not now, but eventually you will. No matter how much I do to prove otherwise, that seed of suspicion is always going to be there. You’re always going to fear I’m evil and out to get you just because I’m Tarkan. Maybe you’ll overcome your paranoia for now, but it will resurface. You aren’t going to change, Jackson. At the next excuse, you’re going to do the same thing. It doesn’t matter that you’ve met the Zeneethians, that you’ve seen their technology, that you’ve fought their advanced soldiers. You won’t change. So kill me now. You’ll find a way to rationalize it and feel good about it later. I’m sure your government will give you a medal too.”

  He no longer simply felt cold; he felt frigid, frozen to the spot, every trace of warmth gone from his face, hands, and arms.

  “Pick up the gun,” she said, breath puffing loud through each word, making them sound like the percussive beat of a drum.

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll do it.” She lunged forward and grabbed it up.

  He tried to get there first, but she was closer. Collapsing to his knees, he thrust forward, groping at it before she could get off a clear shot.

  She did not aim the barrel at him. She twisted it up towards her head.

  He got a hold of the butt, ripping it backwards.

  It was too late. She squeezed a shot off.

  It slammed from the gun, but did not collect her face; it shot up and ate into the ceiling with a boom.

  Collapsing over her, he yanked the gun fully out of her grip just as the rocks began falling from the ceiling.

  They slammed into his back, but none of them were big enough to shatter his spine. Fine stones no bigger than coins, and tumbling rubble, cascaded down from above, but that was it.

  Still crouched over her, cradling her head in his arms, he waited until it was clear it was over.

  With the last breath of powdered rock brushing against his face, he turned up to stare above him.

  It took some time for the turgid, dust-filled air to settle enough to see clearly. When it did, his chest bucked forward with a gasp.

  He could see bent and misshapen metal tracks hanging from the hole in the ceiling.

  Though the metal was warped and burnt from the blast, he could tell what they were.

  Still clutching tight onto the gun with one hand, he tucked it under his arm and stood back.

  As a child he’d heard that they’d tried to mine the Paladin Ranges. They were a rich source of various important minerals, after all. They’d had to suspend their operations though; the peaks above were too geologically active. With all the caverns dotted through the mountains, cave-ins were a frequent occurrence. It had simply become too dangerous for the mining to continue.

  “I don’t believe it,” he mumbled, not caring that dust collected against his lips as he kept his head directed up towards the hole.

  “Just shoot me,” Ki snapped up to her knees, lunging for the gun.

  He darted back out of her reach. “I’m not going to shoot you, Ki. Not when we’ve just found a way out.”

  “What are you talking about?” tears collected around her red-rimmed eyes.

  He pointed up, careful to keep one hand locked over the gun as he did.

  She didn’t move her head. She simply stared at the gun.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” he tried.

  “You aren’t. You promised this would never happen again. And it has. You don’t trust me, and you are always going to look for the next excuse to condemn me. So just get it over with. I’d rather be dead than go back to the Zeneethians.”

  “I’m not going to kill you,” he snapped loud, voice wavering but insistent. “We need to concentrate on a way to get out of here. And I think we’ve just got one. If we can get up to that shaft above, we might be able to follow it. They once tried to mine these mountains. Though I’ve never been in any of the shafts myself, I’ve heard stories there are miners’ stations, and if we’re lucky they haven’t been picked clean. We might be able to get some gear.”

  “Jackson, I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  He snapped his head down to look at her. “What are you talking about? Look, I’m sorry—”

  “Sorry? I pulled you out of those rocks,” she choked through her words, “and saved your life. Then you turn around and accuse me of trying to kill you. You think sorry is good enough? You think I’m happy I had to run that scanner dry?”

  “Look... let’s just try to find a way to get up there.”

  “No. You can find a way. Take the gun and scanner, but leave me here. You can go and run your experiments on them. You can find out their secrets. You can use them to make your army stronger. You can do whatever you want to. But I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  What little trust they’d had was now clearly broken.

  “Ki, I’m not going to leave you here. You’ll die—”

  “What the hell do you care?” She slammed her hands into the rocks behind her. It was the first time he’d heard her swear.

  “I’m not going to let you die,” he repeated firmly.

  “Unless you kill me yourself, right? Put yourself in my shoes, Jackson – if the thought of pretending you’re a Tarkan doesn’t turn your stomach, that is. Do I have any reason to trust you anymore? Despite all the things you’ve seen, you continue to find any excuse to attack me. If sophisticated soldiers right out of a myth can’t convince you that something out of the ordinary is happening here, nothing will. Your mind will continue to clutch onto old fears and hatre
d.”

  “Ki, I’m not going to leave you here to die,” he repeated yet again, voice grating even harder. Out of all his swirling indecision, at least he was sure of that. No matter what else happened, he wasn’t going to abandon her down here.

  “Why? So you can take me back to your Royal Academy like a trophy? Experiment on me then throw me in jail when you’re done? I would rather die. Plus, you’ll never get away from them. The Zeneethians will never stop tracking me down.”

  “You’re not a trophy. Look, if we want to get out of here, we need to work together.”

  “Take the gun and go,” she turned from him resolutely.

  “Ki, Ki,” he tried to get her attention, but she just ignored him.

  Drawing in a frustrated, hard-edged sigh, he swore bitterly.

  He was so conflicted, so damn pulled between the extremes of loyalty to his people and Ki.

  “Fine, put yourself in my shoes then. I’m working in a field one day only to see a Tarkan fall out of the sky. I’ve lost more people than I can count to your kind. I’ve seen what your weapons can do. I know how desperate you are to get your hands on Ashka—”

  “I thought you were a scientist,” she interrupted.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She looked up, features drawn and dark. “You keep looking for rare, outlandish explanations to apparently obvious phenomenon. That’s the mark of the religious and dogmatic, not the scientific. You’ve seen a race with technology you know is centuries beyond anything the Tarkans possess. If we did possess it, you know there’s no chance we wouldn’t have used it against you – you already admitted that. So if I’m really a spy and this whole thing has been an elaborate trap, where the hell does all their technology fit in? Do you think the Tarkans have kept their levitating crystals, particle weapons, and advanced scanners in reserve until now, just so they could use them to ensnare some random ex-soldier? How much sense does that really make?”

  His cheeks reddened despite the cold. “That’s not what—”

  “You believe? Then what do you believe? Have you actually bothered to think any of this through? Or do you keep on getting distracted by the fact I’m a Tarkan. Do you keep listening to that little voice in your head that tells you trusting me would be treason?”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Then what’s it like?” she spat, passion twisting her tone and making her hands shake. “I’ve watched you, Jackson, and whether you believe me or not, I can read emotions. Every time you start to warm to me, you withdraw, you become dark. It’s like there’s two of you. The Jackson who acts around his own kind and the Jackson who acts around Tarkans. What’s it like having two distinct moral codes in your head? Manhandling an Ashkan woman is unthinkable, but a Tarkan woman is a different story.”

  Her words began to bite deep. Straightening, his lips stiffened. “It’s not like that. My life has taught me to be suspicious of your kind. Time and time again I have had to protect my family from Tarkans. I am now in a position of responsibility, the stakes are higher for me. I can’t make a mistake on trusting you. I need strong evidence—”

  “Which you have. Legendary beings from the sky with flying ships and ray guns. But it’s still not enough for you. Admit it, Jackson, this is not about being sure whether you can trust me. It’s about not wanting to trust me in the first place. Race has become more important to you than science.”

  “You’re wrong. I’m no bigot, life has just taught me—”

  “To hate.”

  He locked his teeth hard. His face was hot, arms tense, breath tight. She was wrong. She was dead wrong about him.

  “Don’t tell me, you think you’re a moral man, right? You look at yourself and think you’re a proper gentleman? You tied me to a chair, Jackson, how does that mesh with your beliefs?”

  “Shut up,” he spat.

  “Angry? Pick up the gun—”

  “I’m not going to shoot you.”

  “And I’m never going to leave this cavern with you. I will never trust you again.” She snapped her head to the side, tipping her chin up at that familiar haughty angle.

  More than anything that made him give a sharp, frustrated laugh. “You think I’m a bigot? Fine, I’ll admit the wars have twisted me. Try fighting to protect someone, priestess, and you’ll see it changes you. The world blurs, and you have to struggle to make it clear again. So maybe my views about the Tarkans have become black and white, and maybe that’s a defense mechanism. I’m not proud of what I had to do, but I did it, and because I did, I saved people. And right now, whether you want to believe it or not, I’m still trying to save them. I can’t get this wrong. If I do, people could die. Of course I have to be suspicious... but maybe I need to....”

  Her eyes flicked up, hesitant and slow.

  “Maybe I need to...” he couldn’t push the words out, but he had to say something. If he didn’t manage to convince her to get up and give him another chance, he was going to have to... what? Tie her up? Drag her behind him through the tunnels with her trying to shoot herself at every chance she got. This situation was already hard, if she fought him it would become impossible. “Try harder to trust you. I am sorry.”

  Still wary, she did not leap up and hug him. She just sat there.

  “But maybe you need to try harder too. At least I know I have something to fight for,” he looked down pointedly at the gun, “I’ve got people to protect. So there’s no way I’m going to shoot myself just to get out of here. I might keep on looking for excuses not to trust you, but you keep on looking for reasons to give up.”

  “I can’t walk because my feet are swollen and cracked. I haven’t eaten in days, I’ve barely drunk, and what little energy I had, I used on those devices. The Zeneethians are after me, and there’s no way I can fight them. I have nothing left.”

  “You got away from them. I dealt with those soldiers last night. They aren’t impossible to defeat. I’ll admit, your chances are slim, but if you give up just because you think there’s no way to fight, you’ll be proving yourself right.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to trust you. I can’t promise anything. I think I believe you, but I’m not going to put anyone at risk over this. My duty is to my people first. All I can promise is that I’ll try to figure out what’s going on. But there’s no point if you give up.”

  She wouldn’t look at him.

  Locking the gun strap over his shoulder, he shifted it around until it was safely behind him. Then he got to his knees. He was still a meter or so away from her, and he doubted it was a good idea to get any closer. “Ki. I’m sorry. Please, can we put this behind us and try to find a way to get up into that shaft?”

  “Do you believe I used the scanner to save your life?” she whispered.

  Taken aback, he shook his head. After all, it was a preposterous idea. How could a mechanical device like that be used to heal a man after he’d been crushed by a cave in? There would have been significant blood loss – he’d seen it. How would the device have rectified that? How could a field reach inside him and fix his injuries? It just didn’t make any sense.

  She appeared to watch him carefully. She would be waiting for his reaction.

  “Do you believe me?” she challenged again.

  He brought a hand up and pressed it into his shoulder. It was tender as hell. He looked down at her hands as she held them loose in her lap; they were definitely scratched up and tattered.

  He wanted more evidence, but he wasn’t going to get it.

  He nodded his head. “I guess I have to.”

  Her lips scrunched up. “You guess you should?”

  “Okay, I do. I can’t come up with a better explanation right now, and I really doubt you knocked me over the head, scratched up your hands, and found a way to shut down the scanner.” As he said it, he couldn’t help but laugh as he realized how stupid it all sounded. Had he honestly thought she could do that? A
pparently. When that suspicion had taken him, anything had seemed possible. Now reason was returning and he felt a hot twist of guilt return with it.

  Standing, he shrugged his shoulders awkwardly, gasping half way through as his shoulder locked up in pain.

  “I told you, the scanner cut out before it fixed your soft-tissue injuries. Your shoulder, right leg, and side will be sore for days.”

  Poking his side, he suddenly realized she was right. He almost doubled over in pain.

  “Or you could jab your finger into your side and bruise yourself further,” she shook her head, exasperation obvious.

  Before he could point out he was just checking, he stopped himself. Her mood seemed to be improving. Her gaze had stopped darting down to the gun, which was a very good thing.

  “Right... should we go?” he tried.

  She didn’t move.

  “I said I’m sorry. I let my suspicions get the better of me. But I’m not going to leave you here. And neither should you give up on yourself. We’ve escaped from the Zeneethians before, we can do it again. They might be centuries ahead of us technologically, but that doesn’t make them any smarter. Give us a chance.” He held his hand out to her.

  She still didn’t move.

  “Ki, please—”

  “I can’t move,” she snapped. Stiffening, blinking hard, she pulled up her robe, revealing her legs.

  They were swollen and bright red.

  He’d seen infections before, he knew what to look for. Dropping down, not caring that she flinched, he pushed the back of his hand up against her calf.

  It was burning hot.

  “Damn... why didn’t the scanner heal that up? If it brought me back from death—”

  “I stepped out of the field. If I’d have let it heal me, it would have sapped it dry quicker.”

  In other words, she’d ignored her own injuries allowing only his to heal.

  If guilt had stabbed at him before, it plunged deep into his heart now.

  He’d been on the battlefield too many times before to ignore what was happening to her legs. Infection would be rising through them, and if it wasn’t stopped soon, it would kill her.

  Now he wasn’t arguing with her or looking for a reason to clap her in irons, he could see how labored her breathing was, how dilated her pupils were, how slow and sluggish her moves had become.

  He swore bitterly, searching desperately for something to do. He needed water to cool down her legs and drugs to fight the infection that was likely slowly poisoning her. She needed help and she probably had less than an hour or two to get it.

  He’d lectured her on not giving up on herself, but he’d failed to see what was happening right in front of him.

  “Damn it,” he spat bitterly, shifting back as he stared up at the ceiling again. Bringing the gun around, he held it up, trying to force the light as high as he could to see further into the hole above.

  “There’s some kind of sight on it,” she croaked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve just seen the scouts use it before. Some device that pops up and helps them aim.”

  “You mean a scope? Where is it?” he was about to hand her the gun, but hesitated.

  “I’m not going to shoot myself,” she reached her arms out.

  Wary, he made a quick decision. Hovering over her, he handed the gun down. He did not drop his guard once. If she twisted that muzzle towards her head, he would act.

  She did not. She fumbled with the butt, twisting it around, cheeks flushed with concentration. Finally her fingers depressed over a hidden button near the rear of the gun. Immediately and almost silently a scope popped out, locking into place.

  It was unlike anything he’d ever seen. It was not a simple red cross-hairs over a magnifying lens. It was electronic. Blue and white lights zipped around on a seamless glass screen.

  It reminded him of the scanner, albeit a small version.

  Grabbing the gun as she handed it back to him, he shunted it into his shoulder and looked down the scope.

  Somehow it showed the wall before him and beyond, penetrating several meters into the rock.

  Buoyed, soul soaring, he turned it up to the roof. He could see the cavern above. It was huge. He could also detect more metal tracks.

  That was not all the gun allowed him to see though. It showed how dense and interconnected the sections of rock were.

  He came up with a quick and hopefully not suicidal plan. “I’m going to try to shoot us a way up there. If I get it right, I’ll be able to bring down just enough rocks for us to climb up on.”

  “If you’re wrong?”

  He answered with a cautious cough rather than words. Turning to her, he looped the gun back over his shoulder and held out his hands.

  For a second she watched them warily, lips thin with concern.

  He kept them there, despite the fact his shoulder ached.

  Finally she grabbed them.

  He pulled her up, and instantly she gasped, the sound loud in his ears. He wrapped an arm around her and supported her before she could fall back down. He helped her forward, propping her against a stone more than thirty meters away. He wanted to be cautious here.

  When he was satisfied she was far enough away, he walked back to the hole in the ceiling, toting the gun, settling it hard against his shoulder as he stared through the scope.

  Quickly growing accustomed to those blue outlines, he assessed the whole ceiling with the scope’s scanner. If he’d known it had one of those last night, it would have taken the guess work out of shooting that floating soldier at the cabin.

  It was yet more evidence that Jackson really had no idea what he was up against. He was going about this whole thing wrong. He was jumping to conclusions instead of searching out more facts. He needed to spend less time looking for a reason to condemn Ki, and more time finding out what was going on here.

  Steeling himself, stiffening his shoulder and ignoring the pain, he backed off. Saying a short, quick prayer, he fired.

  Holding his finger on the trigger, a beam of hot blue light slammed into the ceiling. Jumping back before the ceiling could cave in, he ducked behind a stone to survey the damage.

  Huge chunks of rock fell down from the ceiling, slamming into the ground and making the whole room shake.

  After several anxious seconds, he realized the whole roof was not going to fall on his head. Letting out a trapped breath, he stumbled to his feet.

  Somehow he’d done it. He’d shot the roof in just the right place. Now there was a path of boulders and rocks leading up to the cavern above.

  He checked the mound experimentally, climbing up it and darting his head into the room above before he went to get Ki.

  One problem had just been solved, but a far greater one was looming. If he didn’t get Ki some proper medical help soon, she would likely die.