Chapter 16 #2
The blast came from ahead of us, a thunderous detonation that sent a shockwave rolling through the tunnel like a physical thing. I had just enough time to protect my scanner before Torven curled around me and took us both to the ground. His body covered mine as debris rained down from the ceiling.
Chunks of rock hit the floor around us. Dust filled the air, making it impossible to see or breathe. My ears rang from the pressure wave, and I couldn’t hear anything except a high-pitched whine that seemed to fill my entire head.
Torven’s weight pressed me into the cave floor, and I could feel his fear and determination mixed together in a cocktail of emotion that was almost overwhelming. He was terrified something would hit me, terrified I’d be crushed or injured or worse.
“I’m okay,” I tried to say, but I couldn’t hear my own voice over the ringing in my ears.
The falling debris slowed and then stopped, leaving us in choking darkness. The red lights had gone out—shattered or buried, I didn’t know which. I could hear coughing and shouting in D’tran, voices calling out in the dark.
Torven’s weight lifted off me, and I felt his hands running over my body with urgent efficiency, checking for injuries. “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so.” I pushed myself up to sitting, wincing at various aches that suggested I’d be sore tomorrow. “What happened?”
“Explosion.” His voice was grim. “Trap, maybe. Or defensive measure.”
Around us, portable lights were flickering back to life, casting the tunnel in that eerie red glow again. But the scene they revealed made my stomach drop.
Two of the D’tran scouts—the ones who’d gone ahead to check the passage—were down.
Not dead, thankfully. I didn’t think I could take an anxiety attack down here, where I was already stressed to the max.
One lay near a pile of rubble with blood on his clothing and a clearly broken leg.
He was incredibly stoic considering the pain he had to be in.
The other was conscious, but bleeding heavily from a head wound, being tended to by the D’tran female who’d helped me earlier.
Everyone else was accounted for. No one had died.
But someone could have. And someone still may.
“This has not happened before,” Vikkat said, his voice carrying a note of shock that I’d never heard from him. He stood in the center of the chaos, staring at the collapsed section of tunnel ahead. “Never have sky-stealers used explosives in defense. Never.”
“Maybe they’ve gotten desperate,” I said, coughing on the dust that still filled the air. “Or maybe they think we’re a bigger threat than previous search parties.”
But even as I said it, I could see the D’tran warriors exchanging looks. Suspicious, hostile looks that made my skin prickle with awareness.
“Or maybe,” one of them said—Dorek, I realized—“the star-cousins warned them we were coming. Gave them time to prepare defenses.”
The accusation hung in the air.
“That is not factual,” I said, struggling to my feet with Torven’s help. “How would we warn them? We’ve been with you since we left the tower.”
“Your equipment,” another warrior said, gesturing to the scanner still clipped to my belt. “Sends signals through rock. Could send messages too.”
“It doesn’t work like that—” I started, but Torven’s hand on my arm stopped me.
“Enough,” Vikkat said, his voice carrying the weight of command. “Dr. Rivers has been with us since we left fortress. Under watch. No communication possible.”
“Then explain explosion,” Dorek demanded. “Explain why sky-stealers suddenly have new weapons after generations of nothing.”
“I can’t explain it,” Vikkat admitted, and I could see the admission cost him. “But suspicion and fear are no cause to accuse.”
Dorek’s laugh was bitter and angry. “Our people lie bleeding because we brought outsiders into our hunt. Corrupted star-cousins who bring bad fortune and strange mates.”
The wrath in his voice when he said “strange mates” made something cold settle in my chest. This wasn’t just about the explosion.
This was about resentment that had been building since we’d arrived, maybe even before that.
Resentment toward Destrans who’d left this world behind, who’d abandoned their cousins to suffer while they traveled the stars.
“We continue,” Vikkat said, and his tone brooked no argument. “We find sky-stealers. We get answers. But we do not abandon mission because of one setback.”
“One setback that nearly killed Bront and Hesser,” Dorek shot back. “How many more must fall for Vikkat’s strange alliance with corrupted blood?”
“I said enough! Healers will care for Hesser and Bront.” Vikkat’s roar echoed off the cave walls, and for a moment he looked every inch the warrior leader who’d survived generations of fruitless hunting.
“Bring them back to fortress, then return with more guards and weapons. We continue, or we return to fortress in failure and disgrace.”
The silence that followed was thick with tension.
I could see the D’tran warriors weighing their options, loyalty to Vikkat warring with their own suspicions and fears.
Finally, one by one, they nodded their acceptance, though the hostility remained in their expressions.
They lifted Hesser and carried him back to the crawler, then returned for Bront.
My heart ached for the injured and my chest felt constricted with the knowledge that the crawler was leaving us here to continue with fewer guards.
Torven didn’t seem perturbed. He actually appeared to be relieved that Dorek was leaving. “I wouldn’t want to be hearing the conversations happening in that ride back to the fortress,” he murmured.
“Aren’t you worried that they won’t come back for us?” I hissed. “They can just say that we all died and abandon us here.”
“My people would not do that,” Vikkat interjected, having overheard us. “D’tran abandon no one. Not the wicked. Not the dead. They would return with our bodies or not return at all. Another group would come until we were found.”
“Dorek does not like us,” Torven said. “He is not alone in thinking my people are corrupt.”
Vikkat nodded sagely. “Is their right to think what they want. Is my duty to lead my people. They will obey me.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said quietly. “Otherwise we’re better off in those storms.”
Dorek returned, having sent two guards back with the crawler and the injured D’tran guards.
That left four D’tran, Torven and me to continue on in unstable passages, in the near darkness.
Sweat had soaked my clothes. I knew my pulse was exceeding normal parameters.
My hands shook as I clutched a scanner in my cold, clammy hands.
We would continue. Slower. With everyone on edge. Again, I didn’t need the mating bond to feel how tense Torven had become beside me, how his hand had closed around a rock and he held it as if he was ready to smash it into someone’s face.
It was plain to anyone with a normal sense of perception that some of the D’tran were unstable. Desperate. And we were trapped in caves with them, hunting enemies who now apparently had explosive traps, while being blamed for every piece of bad fortune that befell the expedition.
I focused on my scanner and tried to tune out everything but the readings and the data. I needed to not think about the very real possibility that we might not survive to see the surface again.
And even if we did, I had no idea how we’d find our scattered crew or get off this planet alive.
But first, we had to survive the next few hours. In the dark. Underground. With people who were starting to see us as the enemy.
I’d faced impossible scientific problems before, but this was something else entirely. This was politics and prejudice and generations of pain all wrapped up together and pointed at us like a weapon.
And all I had to defend myself with was a modified atmospheric scanner and a mate who would fight his own distant cousins to protect me if it came to that.
I really hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
But looking at Dorek’s expression and the way the other warriors were watching us with barely concealed suspicion, I wasn’t sure hope was going to be enough.