Free Fall #2
Jinx didn't even turn her head. Her eyes stayed fixed on the display at her wrist, its bluish holo-light casting hard shadows across her angular features. “We're splitting up.”
The words dropped like lead weights into the swamp. Jules froze. Her muscles locked so fast she nearly crushed the blaster's grip, her knuckles cracking softly. An icy shiver raced through her veins, wiping away the jungle's heat for one damned moment. Panic clawed at her throat.
“Are you serious?” Jules hissed. She spun around, planting herself in front of the pilot. “The ship's burning, we're stranded on a hostile planet, and you're pulling the 'Scooby-Doo let's split up' routine?”
Jinx deactivated the pad. She stepped forward, completely ignoring the rising hysteria, and pinned Jules with a dead, calculating stare.
“Rational probability calculation. Two targets clustered together create more noise, more scent, a larger heat signature.
We're easy prey. If we split up, we cut the chance of local predators or patrols tracking us down in half.”
Jinx raised her hand, holding out a flat, metallic tracking beacon.
Without warning, she pressed the device hard against Jules's sternum.
The ice-cold metal struck her collarbone before Jules reflexively clamped her fingers around it.
The tracker was unexpectedly heavy—a solid block of titanium and circuits.
“You go into the jungle,” Jinx commanded. Her tone brooked no argument. “Head north. Use the undergrowth as cover. Avoid open water. The tracker's signal is encrypted. I'll find you once I've secured a new ship.”
Jules stared at the tracker, then back at the citadel.
The fortress practically reeked of slavers.
Of military. Of species that traded humans for credits on flesh markets.
Reports from this sector flickered through her mind: warlords ten feet tall, built for raw dominance and destruction.
Beasts with bone-crushing tails and jaws that tore through armor.
Marching into that fortress was flat-out suicide.
But the jungle was an endless grave of shadows and hungry mouths.
“And you?” Jules asked. Naked fear made her voice shake, no matter how hard she clenched her teeth to suppress it. “You're just going to march into that damned fortress? It's guaranteed to be crawling with soldiers. Slavers. Worse.”
Jinx's expression didn't change—a smooth mask of ice-cold arrogance.
“Exactly. Because I can handle enemies better than wild animals.
Animals eat you out of instinct. Enemies have structures.
Chains of command. Greed. Ego. All of that makes them predictable.
I'll infiltrate their systems, find their weak points, and get us off this rock.”
Jules ground her jaw. Her flight instinct hammered against her ribs in a constant, panicked rhythm.
She wasn't a soldier, and she sure as hell wasn't a hacker.
She was a simple smuggler who'd taken the wrong job at the wrong time.
The brat in her—that iron defense mechanism of sarcasm and defiance that always kicked in when control slipped away—took the wheel.
She raised her chin and hardened her gaze.
“Fine. But if I get eaten by a tentacle monster, I'm coming back as a poltergeist and hiding your damned holo-pads every time you need them.”
Jinx cast a final glance at the glowing red countdown on her wrist as the howl of the failing ship turbine rose to a piercing shriek. “Noted. Clock's ticking, Jules. Ten minutes.”
Jinx spun on her heel. Without another word, her silhouette melted into the murky half-light of the swamp, heading straight for the fortress.
Jules stood alone in the mire. The sickly hum of the reactor vibrated up through her boot soles, making the ground tremble.
Nine minutes. She tore herself away from the wreck.
The jungle loomed before her like a solid wall.
Tree trunks thicker than watchtowers were covered in pulsing fungi that cast a sickly, pale glow.
She inhaled deeply—the air tasted of rot and iron.
She hastily wedged the tracker into her breast pocket, zipped it shut, and gripped the blaster tighter.
The first step into the undergrowth took everything she had.
Thorns the length of combat knives tore at her jacket while sticky spider webs plastered themselves across her face.
The soft ground sucked hungrily at her soles, trying to drag her deeper into the earth with every step.
She forced herself to pick up the pace. Away from the burning light.
Away from the ship. The darkness swallowed her whole.
Every crack of a branch suddenly sounded like a whip, and the chirping of invisible insects swelled to a nerve-shredding cacophony.
Then she smelled it. Musk. A thick, animal scent that didn't belong with the musty stench of the swamp.
The back of her neck began to prickle. The unmistakable feeling of being in someone's crosshairs.
Seven minutes. Six minutes. She stumbled blindly over a massive root, hit her knees hard, and tore her palms open on the rough bark.
Hissing through clenched teeth, she swallowed the cry of pain and pushed herself up. Keep going. Just keep heading north.
Then the sound vanished. The wail of the turbine cut off abruptly. For a split second, a deathly silence fell over the jungle—even the insects seemed to hold their breath.
The detonation tore the world apart. The shockwave hit her spine like a fist, lifted her effortlessly off her feet, and slammed her face-first into the dirt.
A deafening roar tore at her eardrums. Heat flooded over her back, singed the fine hairs on her neck, and bathed the forest for a heartbeat in blazing, atomic white.
Dirt rained down on her. Burning leaves, hot ash, and titanium splinters crashed through the canopy.
Jules lay completely dazed in the mud, her lungs burning.
Her blood roared in her ears as a high, continuous whine, drowning out the rest of the world.
She spat out dirt, pressed her palms to the ground, and pushed herself up, trembling.
Behind her, an inferno raged. Flames licked greedily at the treetops and devoured the wood with terrifying speed. The ship no longer existed. Jinx was gone. Her only escape route had just turned to dust.
Jules stared into the pitch-black darkness ahead. The fire at her back cast her own flickering shadow onto the undergrowth. A branch cracked. Loud. Heavy. Not a small predator on the hunt. Not a syndicate patrol. Something far larger.
She clung to the grip of her blaster. She was completely alone.