“It is there,” Veral announced as he pointed at a dark shadow deep in the ravine.
Terri clung to a narrow shelf of rock that spanned what must’ve been a few dozen feet along the wall. Even though everyone hunkered close together, they still all barely fit on it. She swore she could almost feel the rock threatening to crumble beneath her feet as she squinted down in the direction that he indicated.
The starship was as dark as the wreckage that they came upon before, but unlike the medical unit that had been torn away, it was smashed against the rocks in pieces. From the sleek, dark exterior where it wasn’t damaged, despite their distance above the remains, Terri could tell that it had once been a magnificent ship. Her eyes scanned over it, greedily drinking it in as everything slipped away. Now confronted with it, she found herself imagining what secrets it might hold.
A small frown pulled at her brow. Although theEvandrawasn’t completely beneath water, large portions of it were, and that wasn’t good. A simulation had predicted such a scenario with a half-sunken vessel. Terri recalled that the exercise had been unpredictable and hazardous. Entering the ship, they wouldn’t know what levels were safe and which might be flooded. Due to the pirates’ haste, they didn’t have the necessary equipment with them to allow for a submerged salvage.
Not that they wanted to help the pirates along, but damn, she wanted whatever was in the ship.
A slight burning sensation drew her attention down to the bio-tech embedded in her forearm, and she grimaced.Okay, maybe I can live without any more close encounters with the Elshavan.Still, since they were forced to go down anyway, it would have been nice to be able to walk away with something for their trouble.
“What a glorious sight,” Egbor laughed. “Look, all of you, there rests the bounty we have been waiting for!”
“Looks more like a great big invitation into the next world to me,” Azan muttered. “It just lacks script announcing ‘death awaits you here.’”
The captain nudged his second-in-command with another bark of laughter, blind to the flash of hatred on her face. “Always doom and gloom with you, Azan. This is why you will never be a great captain of your own ship. A captain needs far more pluck.”
Azan sneered but kept her face turned away as she spoke in a low voice. “You are right. I would not have captured an Argurma and trapped myself on a planet, dependent on him, for the sake of the promise of a great treasure of which we know nothing about.”
“A good captain—a good pirate, even—knows when the risk is worth it,” Egbor replied, his eyes narrowing on the female. “Perhaps upon return to the ship I need to weigh whether or not you are the right one to be my second.”
“We will drop down to the ship by the vine clusters,” Veral began. “You will have to navigate among them to stay on the thicker groupings. Be aware that it will change as you go down, sometimes with gaps between the clusters. Keep to them alone. The rock here is too sheer for a reliable handhold so there will be nothing to help support your weight elsewhere.” Leaning forward, he brushed his lips and mandibles against Terri’s jaw. “Move steadily as you have practiced, and your odds of success are ninety-three percent.”
She scowled at him playfully. “Only ninety-three? I never fell during simulation.”
“No,” he agreed with a soft chuff. “But your method of descent has not always been the safest.”
“It gets the job done,” she whispered as she turned and brushed her lips against his, enjoying the soft scrape of his mandibles at the sides of her jaw. “Don’t worry. I’ll be right behind you.”
Drawing back, Veral clicked his mandibles in approval. Casting one last speculative look at the pirates, his gaze lingering on Egbor as if hoping the male would call off the insanity, he nodded and dropped down onto the first cluster of vines.
Terri watched him as he climbed down quickly until the cluster grew too thin and he promptly swung over to the next cluster at his right. She watched as he repeated this several times without problem. Turning to Azan, she gave the pirate an encouraging smile before she too dropped down to grab the nearest cluster of vines as she slid off the ledge.
Just as she had practiced, she kept her feet braced around the vines as she dropped with a steady hand-under-hand descent. It was different from practicing in the cargo bay or in simulation, but the movement was familiar, and it didn’t take her long to begin picking up her pace until she settled into a comfortable rhythm.
Above her, she could hear Azan’s muffled curse. The pirate followed her down just as Terri swung over to her second cluster of vines.
Most clusters were within a foot or two of each other, whereas some had a wider spread, but none of them were spaced to a degree that she found challenging. Terri smiled as she navigated among them, steadily dropping closer to the wreckage below.
It was all too easy. So easy that she began to allow herself to slip down the clusters quicker and to skip over those that were closer together as she swung out from one cluster to grab another farther away.
The exhilaration that hit her blood was powerful. She felt like she was flying along the side of the wall as she leaped. She didn’t feel weak and helpless, nor at the mercy of the world around her or the cosmos at large. Her lighter body gave her greater mobility than the aliens who were slowly making their way down above her.
From left to right, she worked her way down. Sliding down, her eyes fastened on a long cluster that would close most of the remaining distance of the ravine. It would be a fast descent, dropping her at Veral’s side in record time. She just needed to make the jump. It was much further than the previous clusters, but nothing that exceeded what she had been able to manage during training.
She grinned triumphantly at it. She would show herself and everyone that being human wasn’t a hindrance or liability. Pulling back on the cluster of vines in her hands, she reversed direction and pushed off, her hand out-stretched for the cluster ahead of her as she leaped.
“Anastha!” Veral shouted just as her hand closed around what had appeared to be a suitably thick cluster.
Horror filled her at that very moment she realized that it was nothing more than a single thicker vine with a few thinner vines entangled with it.It’s not a thick cluster!It wouldn’t support her weight. The sound of tearing was incredibly loud to her as the roots ripped away from the wall. Terri instinctively stretched out a hand, her fingernails brushing flat rock. Her breath burst from her in a strangled shout. She had felt fear before, since arriving on the planet, but this consumed her. Everything slowed around her as she fell away from the wall. Veral’s bellow of fear even sounded far away.
Azan’s words to her so many days ago came back to her, repeating through her mind as she fell. She was too fragile, too vulnerable to survive. Even with the skills she had accumulated, they mocked her as she fell. They weren’t enough, and she had been too cocky, so certain of her ability that she hadn’t been cautious enough.
Azan was right. Veral, with all his skills and natural ability, had kept her alive ever since he took her away from Earth, and even more recently in the forest. This time, however, Veral was too far away to save her. No one could.
The only one who could save her was herself. Even that would take a miracle. Regardless, she wasn’t ready to die, yet.
Tears streaming from her eyes, Terri stretched out her hand, her fingertips too far away to even skim the surface as she dropped back. Growling in frustration, she twisted in the air, and stretched out her hands, willing herself to grab onto something—anything.