CHAPTER 12

E xcept for a quick explanation of what we’re looking for—footprints, broken branches, et cetera—and a caution to be careful when he handed over my burn-blade and a small blaster—not my own, and annoyingly locked on the stun setting as if I’m a child at my first gun safety lesson—Mitchell’s been silent since we entered the woods, and so have I.

We’re both in focus mode, intent on finding Sam. And me… I’m not going to make the mistake of blabbing about my history like I did in the tree yesterday, giving Mitchell more opportunity to jump to conclusions, more ammo for his insights. I’ll work with the captain for the sake of helping Sam, but that’s it.

We’ve been at it in silence for over an hour, and our search has been dishearteningly fruitless. But now… a clump of tattered underbrush has caught my eye. I push back the big, fern-like branches and my heart is suddenly going wild. My stomach is twisting with a nauseating mix of worry and hope, because I’m staring at Sam’s silver-and-white hoverball.

“Mitchell!”

He’s by my side before his name has fully left my lips. He crouches, pushing back branches to reach for the deflated toy. There’s a squelch as he pulls the ball from where it’s deeply impressed in thick mud. “Good eye.”

Turning the toy in his hands, Mitchell examines the broken stitching. Then he pulls the ball apart to reveal its crushed electronic innards. He glances up. Not at me, but at the patch of blueish-white sky above us, bordered by a leafy green canopy.

“No wonder there haven’t been any tracks,” he mutters. He glances around the edges of the small clearing, then stalks toward the tallest tree—not of the carnivorous variety, thankfully—and slides a hand over the bark, giving the trunk an assessing look.

“Not sure if you remember, but our last tree-climbing adventure didn’t go so well,” I call, crossing my arms as Mitchell draws a couple of knives from his belt.

This tree is nothing but trunk, branchless nearly all the way up. Metres above the rest of the canopy, a tuft of fluffy-looking yellow foliage sprays out like the hairs at the tip of a fan-shaped paintbrush. Mitchell hugs the trunk and wraps his thighs around it as if he’s going to shimmy up like I did yesterday, but instead of pulling himself up with his arms, he grips one short, sturdy knife in each hand. He reaches up with his left arm and stabs a steel blade into the bark above and to the left of his head. It sinks in hilt-deep with a woody thwack. He uses the protruding hilt to haul himself upward, then thrusts his other knife into the bark half a metre higher and leverages himself up again .

“Not sure if you remember,” he parrots, “but that misadventure was all yours.” He grunts as he hoists himself higher. “I have a legitimate reason to be climbing.” He’s making impressive progress, already a quarter of the way up the towering, palmlike trunk.

I tromp across the little clearing until I’m standing at the base of the tree squinting up at him. “You checking the lay of the land or something?”

Mitchell glances down at me. “Looking for possible nesting places.”

“Nesting?” Hang on… “You think a bird has Sam?”

“The way it was smashed up, that hoverball fell from the sky.” His voice sounds distant, and he’s so high his body looks small in my vision, now. He’s level with the canopy and then above it, hugging the trunk just under the bristling tuft of yellow fluttering in the slight breeze. He raises a hand to shade his eyes, scanning the horizon. “Cliffs to the north—they’re our best bet.”

He slides down the tree so fast I think he’s going to catch fire, but his knives dig into the trunk to control his descent. He jumps the last few metres, lands in a crouch, and takes off at a sprint, jamming his knives back into his belt as he runs.

Maybe Captain Commando would be a better nickname for the man.

Sure enough, I think I see the rounded shapes of Atlas plugs glint beneath the hair at the base of his skull as he runs ahead. The sign of a soldier whose body has been altered to connect to military-grade weaponized armour. High level stuff. And yet another indication that there’s more to the captain’s history than he lets on.

I take off after him. Mitchell’s legs are longer, and he’s a lot more graceful, but I’m fast enough that I don’t lag too far behind. I scan the terrain ahead, and with the way my memory works, build a map in my mind to tell me where obstacles are located. I jump roots and fallen logs, duck low-hanging, vine-laced branches. The terrain gets rockier as we near the cliffs.

I’m dodging a clump of boulders drenched in blue-green moss, opting for the opposite side of the route Mitchell took, when my gaze snags on something that glints in a shaft of light. I skid to a halt and backtrack.

Nestled in the moss between two high boulders lies something small and shiny. “Hey! Captain Commando!” I call, panting. “Take a look at this.”

Probably shouldn’t have called him that out loud, but I was distracted.

I’ve mounted the lowest rock in the cluster when Mitchell appears at the base of my perch, head level with my shoulder. I reach into the narrow cleft between two big rocks, palm sliding against scruffy moss ’til I’m elbow deep. My small hand just barely fits .

My fingers close around something smooth on one side, jagged on the other. I pull it through the crack and turn to Mitchell so we can both inspect the item. Wires and a tiny, fractured chunk of circuit board poke out of the broken end of a thin, rectangular casing that rests in my palm like a piece of broken eggshell. Like the ball, it must have fallen from above and smashed when it hit the rock.

“It’s Sam’s remote. For the hoverball.” Mitchell’s eyes meet mine and for a minute Captain Commando disappears. Instead, Mitchell looks sad and scared, a dad who knows deep down he might be too late to save his kid. Then he blinks and his face returns to that hard, soldier-like expression he’s worn all morning. An expression I now realize is a mask. “We’re headed in the right direction. They had to be moving toward the cliffs.” He raises the whistle to his lips and blows, sending a shrill call echoing through the woods. “Ballga will catch up in no time.”

He holds out a hand to help me down from the rock like I’m some kind of princess in stilettos. I roll my eyes and hop down without his help. The moment my boots hit dirt, I’m running. “C’mon.”

In seconds, Mitchell’s passing me.

Visions of Sam’s bones picked clean among a pile of feathers at the bottom of some grotesque, bathtub-sized bird’s nest crowd my thoughts, making me nauseous with worry and distracting me from keeping proper track of the terrain .

Or maybe it’s my mods acting up again.

Whatever it is, I misjudge a jump over a rock and the toe of my boot catches. I go down, hands and knees skidding in gravel.

My vision goes black.

My ears ring.

I close my eyes, swaying on hands and knees, trying not to black out.

Mitchell’s too far ahead to have noticed my fall, and I’m glad. He needs to get to Sam.

I don’t know how long I crouch, blind and deaf and fighting nausea, before dull light returns to my vision. Splotchy blurs of brown and yellow focus to become earth and gravel. The ringing in my ears has faded. I can hear forest sounds again, and… and footsteps approaching fast.

I force myself to my feet and fumble for my blaster.

“DJ Girl!”

I sway and stumble. Vince catches me under the armpit, moving to my side. I sag into him, barely registering that I’m leaning against bare skin. He’s shirtless.

Feminine panting grows louder, accompanied by quick, light footsteps. “Gee!”

Tori stops when she reaches us, bending forward and resting her hands on her thighs. She’s heaving like she just ran a marathon. “We heard… a whistle. ”

Her hair hangs damp and dark from swimming, and she’s wearing nothing on top but a bra. I can tell by the watermarks that she pulled her pants on over wet underwear.

“Sam.” I try to explain in as few words as possible. “Something’s flown him to the cliffs.” I pull away from Vince. “C’mon.”

The moment I start forward, another wave of dizziness slams into me. I lurch to a stop. Trees spin around me in a blur of green.

Vince catches my elbow. “Easy there, DJ Girl.”

Tori’s face comes into focus, closer now. “You okay, Gee?”

“Mods acting up again,” I say. “You two go ahead and help with Sam. I’ll be fine in a sec.”

My partners in crime exchange a look.

“I’m just a little dizzy. No big deal.” I pull my elbow from Vince’s grasp, then take a cautious step. This time the dizziness doesn’t hit.

Tori touches my arm. “Maybe it’s better if we get you back to the ship.”

Annoyance flares. First, she thinks she needs to protect me from Vince, and now this? I shrug away and start walking. “I’m not an invalid.”

Vince sighs. Gravel crunches as he falls into step next to me. “No, of course you’re not. Stubborn as hell is what you are. ”

I can’t help a slight grin curling my lips, despite my lingering vertigo. Now that’s an insight I can tolerate.

-X-

Mitchell is starfished against a sheer yellow rock face when Tori, Vince, and I emerge from the woods. He must be headed for the uneven arcade of dark caves that pockmark the shadows beneath an overhang near the very top of the massive wall.

Ballga prowls back and forth at the base of the cliff, looking ready to scratch the eyeballs out of anyone who comes near. I suspect Granny Cat’s feline hip structure doesn’t rotate the way it needs to in order to splay flat against the rock. Bet she’s frustrated as hell.

“Maybe we should give her some space,” Tori suggests, coming to a stop a good distance from the place where Ballga paces.

We watch Mitchell ascend the rock face like a dark spider creeping up an ochre wall. He zigs and zags slowly, moving from side to side as he locates hand and footholds.

I’m tapping the toe of my boot in gravel, drumming my fingers on the thigh of my jumpsuit. Sam could be in any one of the many cavelike openings, and who knows how far back they go?

Finally, I can’t stand it .

“I’m going up,” I tell Tori and Vince.

“Don’t be crazy, Gee; you’re glitching. If your mods fail you up there, that’s it .”

“Meanwhile, if Mitchell chooses the wrong cave to search, that could be it for Sam .” I’m already heading for the base of the cliff. I get that it must have been stressful seeing me glitched out. But no trace of dizziness remains. I’m completely recovered.

Vince comes after me. “You can’t be serious,” he says, tone incredulous. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“I’m joking,” I say without looking at him.

“There’s a fine line between stubborn and stupid, DJ Girl.”

I throw a raised eyebrow at him as I reach the cliff face. “This coming from the guy who jumped off a moving hoverbike to tackle an armed soldier midair.” I grip a jagged lip of chalky yellow rock above my head, find a foothold, and start climbing.

Vince swears. I glance down and find he’s mounting the wall, too.

Maybe the bounty hunter cares more than he lets on.

The thick, rounded toes of my combat boots aren’t ideal for climbing, and neither is the baggy jumpsuit I borrowed from Ballga this morning. But I’m small and light and able to use hand and footholds that would never work for Mitchell or Vince. Mitchell’s almost to the first cavelike hole, but I’m gaining on him .

Vince is keeping up, just below and to my left. Ballga and Tori stand far below, as tiny as pieces on a gameboard, Tori pink and Ballga dark green against the yellow ground.

I return my gaze to the wall above me just in time to see Mitchell’s legs disappear into the opening of the first cave.

I’m only a few metres below.

“I’ve got him!” Mitchell’s voice echoes out of the cave. “I’ve got Sam!” His face peeks over the lip of the opening. Hope cracks through his soldierly facade, but it’s tinged with worry. “He’s unconscious. I need to find a way to strap him to my back.”

Relief rushes through me. Unconscious. That means alive. I look down at Vince. “You still have the water-dart gun?”

He gives me a blank look for a second before understanding flickers over his face. “Yeah, fine, whatever gets us off this damn rock before the freaky thing nesting here gets home for supper.” He meets my eyes as he climbs level with me, finding a grip to my left. “Just hold off on the glitches. Deep breathing and all that shit.”

There’s nothing cocky in Vince’s expression, no hint of a smirk. Just genuine concern.

Then he’s above me, disappearing into the cave. I wait where I am. My fingers ache as rock digs in. My muscles are starting to burn. But I don’t want to descend ’til I’ve seen what kind of shape Sam’s in .

Finally, Mitchell emerges, boots first. He scoots over the lip of the cave and finds a foothold. Metallic chains lash Sam’s small body tight to Mitchell’s back—the lines from the miniature harpoons in Vince’s blaster. They glint in the sunlight as Mitchell begins his descent.

Sam’s head lolls to one side. I can’t see his face.

I’m watching them so intently that I haven’t moved. Mitchell draws even, and then he’s below me, climbing quickly down the rock face despite the extra weight.

I’m about to start my own descent when a scream erupts from Tori, distant and echoey.

“Mitchell! Behind you!” Ballga calls.

“Holy dinosaur.” That one’s Vince, not far above me in the mouth of the cave.

Holy what ?

There’s a long, loud call like the scree of a very large raptor. I strain to look over my shoulder in the direction of the sound.

My stomach plummets. A giant, leather-winged creature is soaring toward us. Its body must be as big as a hovercar, its wingspan the length of a bus. And it’s diving for the cliff face just below me, about to skewer Mitchell and Sam with a spear-length beak that stretches to a deadly, needle-sharp point.

Something silvery flies through the air, and the creature lets out a pained screech. The silver catches in the skin of its wing. A thin, glittering chain pulls taut, leading up to the cave. Vince must have shot Dinobird with a water dart.

The creature flaps and struggles, its movements erratic.

Vince grunts. Bits of gravel skitter from the lip of the cave, clattering as they ricochet off the rock face. He must be slipping.

“I can’t hold it!” The tip of one boot slides over the edge. The straining animal is going to pull him into the air. Visions of the destroyed hoverball and the shattered remote flash before my eyes. There’s no way he can survive a fall from this height.

“It’s too close to you all! I can’t risk a shot!” Ballga shouts from below.

Another scree brings my gaze back to the reptilian beast, just in time to see the dart rip free of its leathery wing, leaving a jagged hole. The dart clangs as it hits the side of the rock face, dangling from its chain. Vince retracts the line and the dart whips back toward the cave mouth. It catches on a protruding rock. The chain strains, then snaps.

“That was the last dart. I’m out of ammo.”

All I’ve got is the tiny blaster stuck on stun. My arms are on fire now, but I release one gritty handhold to feel for the weapon at my waist. I yank it free just as the creature dives for Sam and Mitchell again. Aiming for its glittering black eye, I pull the trigger .

Dinobird screams and drops several metres, ramming the side of the cliff with its beaklike nose, completely missing Mitchell and Sam.

I have no idea how much damage the stun gun can do through the thing’s thick, scaly skin, but I shoot again, aiming for its head.

Dinobird pumps its wings, rising higher until its scaly body is level with mine. It cocks its head, locking its good eye on me. I guess shooting it in the face was a good way to make myself the monster’s new target.

Better me than Sam.

“Gemma!” Vince’s head appears over the lip of the cave, followed by an arm extended toward mine. He’s on his stomach, reaching for me. “Take my hand!”

The creature’s wings pump so close that gusts of air tangle my hair around my face. I try to holster my blaster and fumble it. The weapon drops, clattering down the cliff.

I strain toward Vince with my empty hand. He’s too far.

Dinobird pummels the rock a metre to my right, sending hard pieces of yellow tumbling. The animal backbeats, screaming with frustration.

I scramble for a new foothold, raising myself closer to Vince. He slides farther, but his outstretched hand remains out of reach. I feel for new footing with the toe of my boot and find a tiny protrusion of rock. There’s no time to test whether it’s strong enough to hold my weight. I place my boot down and push off.

The rocky nub crumbles underfoot. I grab for the lip of the cave. My arm jerks as my fingers dig in, desperately trying to hang on. My shoulder screams with lightning pain, feeling like it’s going to split from my arm.

A hand clamps tight around my wrist.

Vince is hauling me up into the cave.

I scrabble in, panting, sucking in air that reeks of feces and rot. I don’t want to know what’s in the back of this cave or think about how close Sam came to becoming the horrible predator’s next meal. I’m just glad to be on solid ground.

But the whoosh of wings calls my attention back to the cave’s entrance. This isn’t over yet. I wrench around on my elbows. The giant beast flaps erratically at the mouth of its nesting place, batlike body silhouetted against the bluish-white sky.

Vince snakes a hand around my waist, tugging. A moment later, there’s a buzz. The bright light of my burn-blade illuminates the rock walls on either side of us.

We scurry backward as the creature’s huge, taloned feet scratch the lip of the cave. There’s nowhere for us to run. Dinobird fills our only exit.

Vince cocks an arm back, then launches my knife. The bright blade spins through the air and, like a miracle, pierces the creature’s remaining eye. A pained screech fills the cave, echoing so loud I think my ears bleed. The reptile loses its grip on the ledge and falls backward, injured wing flapping wildly as it plummets out of sight.

There’s no sound except our breathless panting. Nothing at the cave mouth but sky.

Is it dead?

I crawl toward the entrance, heart pounding, intending to peer over the edge.

But suddenly the creature is back. It’s a metre from my face, eye gushing blood, beaklike snout open in a scream that reveals a waggling spear of a tongue and a double row of serrated teeth. The tongue snakes toward me.

“Gemma!” Vince wraps both arms around my waist and dives toward the back of the cave. Not that his attempted rescue matters. We’re unarmed. We’re trapped.

We’re going to die.

A flash of light brightens the cave’s mouth, accompanied by a deep, guttural buzz from below. Ballga’s monstrosity of a blaster. I get a momentary glimpse of a blackened hole burned clean through Dinobird’s middle. Then the beast drops out of sight.