Chapter 9 #2
"Most of the danger comes from the plants," Quin began.
"Watch for the waist-high ones with translucent sacs hanging beneath their leaves.
They look harmless, but those sacs are filled with hallucinogenic spores.
Disturb them, and they'll burst with a fine mist that makes you see and hear things that aren't there.
"The spores aren't the actual attack," she continued.
"The carnivorous species seem to have evolved alongside them.
Once the spores are released, nearby predator plants become active, almost as if they're responding to a signal.
Their root networks are interconnected beneath the valley floor.
I recorded spikes in activity spreading from one cluster to another after a spore release when Lila accidentally bumped a spore plant on our first trip through. "
Quin's gaze found Lila briefly before she pressed on. "The hallucinations disorient prey while the carnivorous plants track movement through the root web and strike. By the time you realize the monster you're fighting isn't real, the thing trying to eat you is already closing in."
"We move single file through the narrow passes. No brushing the vegetation," Vala said, his gaze sweeping over each of us to ensure the warning had landed before he pressed his palm against the control panel that opened the hatch with a hiss. "And once we're inside the valley, keep moving."
I immediately took up position beside Quin.
Close enough to reach her in an instant, far enough away that she would not feel crowded.
The delicate scent that was uniquely hers drifted across the space between us, stirring my spirit and setting my ancillary heart into a steady, familiar rhythm.
Every instinct urged me closer, but I forced myself to respect the boundaries she had drawn.
Quin glanced up at me, and for a moment, the stubborn determination in her eyes softened. "I'll be careful," she promised.
Her simple words settled over me like armor, reaching into the place where shame had taken root and loosening something there.
Quin had every reason to reject my protection, to insist she wanted nothing from a male still haunted by his own captivity.
While she had endured her abduction and emerged stronger, I still fought battles no one else could see.
Each step she took toward trusting me felt like proof that perhaps I was not as broken as I feared.
I dipped my chin, not confident my voice would stay even, and fell into step beside her.
The journey to the crashed freighter took us through terrain that grew increasingly hostile with each step, the forest giving way to dense alien vegetation that pressed in from all sides, forcing us into single file along narrow trails barely wide enough for my shoulders.
Spore Valley was even more unsettling up close.
Everywhere I looked, translucent sacs swayed beneath leaves the size of shields, pulsing with a soft bioluminescence in hues I had no names for, casting strange shadows across the ground.
The light shifted as we moved, the sacs seeming to track our passage with an awareness that made my spine tingle.
Vala led the way, moving like someone born to hunt, each step deliberate, his gaze sweeping the path ahead in constant, restless motion. Behind him, Quin had her bio-analyzer out, brow furrowed, fingers working the screen as she quietly rerouted us around threats the rest of us couldn't yet see.
I fell into step directly behind her with my blade remaining in its sheath, but my hand never strayed far from the hilt. Behind me, Tyrk brought up the rear, his massive frame filling what remained of the narrow trail, his weapon held ready at his side.
No one spoke. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath, the massive leaves around us utterly still despite the open sky above the canopy.
My ears swiveled and cupped, straining to pull sound from the silence, reaching for the distant shift of something heavy through undergrowth, the subsonic tremor of a root network responding to weight, anything that would tell me what the valley was hiding.
Nothing came back but the sound of our own breathing.
After nearly a hur of careful travel, the battered hull of the Troken freighter finally emerged above the vegetation ahead.
The massive vessel had crashed nose-first into the valley floor, its stern rising above the canopy like a broken monument to some forgotten battle.
Relief had barely begun to settle over me when Tyrk stopped abruptly.
"Go," he said quietly. The single word cut through the silence like a blade.
We turned to find a cracked spore sac trembling beside his leg.
A luminous mist leaked from the fracture, curling upward in delicate tendrils that caught the light of the twin suns.
The sac pulsed once, twice, the crack widening with each beat.
"Go on ahead and get to the ship," Tyrk repeated, his voice tight with urgency.
The sac burst.
"Hold your breath!" Quin's voice cut through the chaos before the cloud had even finished blooming.
Spores billowed into the air, spreading outward with terrifying speed, swirling around us in a beautiful, deadly dance.
All around us, carnivorous plants began unfurling from the undergrowth, their massive leaves snapping open to reveal rows of serrated teeth that glistened with viscous fluid.
The ground beneath my feet trembled as activity rippled through the root network, the interconnected system responding to the spore release with predatory hunger.
"Vala, get Quin to the freighter!" I roared, then sealed my lips shut, lungs locked as the spore-mist curled at the edges of my vision.
Quin started to protest, her eyes wide with determination even as the spores swirled around her. "No! I can—"