Behind them, a gun cracked, then another. Looking back, Avery saw Janx and Hildra right behind him. Having to smash his way through the jungle had allowed them to catch up to him … which meant Sheridan could, too.
Avery plunged through the last strands of seaweed vines and into a more open area, almost colliding with a sharpened point. Around him rose beautiful but strange tree-like shapes; though they towered majestically overhead like trees, their bark, if it could be called that, was made of something like a conch shell, whirled and pointed at various instances along their lengths. Roots suspiciously like crab legs thrust into the ground. Avery thought he saw one move.
He and the others ran through the shell-trees, having to navigate around the encroaching coral bushes, great colorful reefs aswarm with activity that thrust up in mounds twenty feet high all around. Once Avery and Layanna were forced to scramble over one, and he marveled at the war taking place right beneath him, around him, of two competing corals at mortal combat with each other. The reef tore at his gauntlets, and he was glad his hands were protected from the razor sharp juts and thrusts. Animals, all mutated, swarmed the reef, feeding on the coral itself, fleeing from pursuers or hunting those who fled. Most gave Avery and Layanna in their armor a wide berth, but once something like a furred eel lunged out, clamped onto Avery’s leg, broke several teeth and slipped back into a crevice.
Avery and the others plunged back into the undergrowth, and just in time. Shots echoed off the shell-trees behind them. Avery couldn’t see ahead, the jungle was so thick, but he could feel the land rising under him. They were going up a hill.
Suddenly, the land fell away. He threw his hand out, reaching to Layanna for support, but he was too slow and she was behind.
He slipped and tumbled down an incline. Rocks and branches slapped at him, but his armor saved him from serious injury. He was sliding down a slope that sprouted trees—huge, glistening, ammonia-reeking trees, with limbs that dripped down like the tentacles of a jellyfish ...
Avery caught himself on a rock, gasping, and glanced up to Layanna, Janx and Hildra at the top of the slope. Layanna stared down at him, frightened and frustrated in equal measure.
“Come back up, Francis! Quickly!”
“They’re coming!” Hildra added.
“I—can’t,” he said. With the weight of the armor dragging at him, he doubted he could even hold onto the rock for much longer. Not only that, but the reek of ammonia and venom was making him light-headed. “Come down to me. We’ll—”
“I can’t.” Layanna gestured at the dangling tentacle branches oozing venom, then touched her unprotected face. “I lost my helmet.”
He swore. “Fine. Janx and Hildra, stay with her. Go around. We’ll—meet later—”
The ammonia reek burned his eyes and nostrils, filled his mouth and lungs. The world started to blur. With one hand, he released the rock and adjusted his helmet so that his mouth could clamp down on the respirator and breathe in the rich oxygen mixture of the tank. Without both hands, he couldn’t support himself and lost hold of the rock.
Above, Layanna screamed his name, and then she and the others were gone.
He tumbled and bounced, striking root and rock, trying to arrest his slide by digging his armored fingers into the soil. If he survived this, he’d be a mass of bruises tomorrow. The jellyfish trees scrolled by overhead, their long tentacles plucking harmlessly at his armor, leaving only sticky trails. Rocks caromed into him. Once a creature with bright spines scuttled out of his way, hissing at him in annoyance.
When the slope and the jellyfish trees ended, he rolled to a stop. Removing the respirator, he gasped for breath, the world spinning around him. For a moment he thought he would throw up, so he removed his helmet, but the spell passed and he shoved it back on. Checking himself for broken bones, he found that he seemed to be more or less intact. He looked around, hoping to recognize something from one of the maps he’d studied, really hoping that somehow Layanna, Janx or Hildra might have arrived before him, but of course they hadn’t. He was alone, except for the jungle. He was in some sort of valley, overgrown with riotous flora—and fauna. The two looked so alike at times, coral (an animal) blending with flowers, shrubs, trees and vines, with all sorts of mutants in between, that it was hard to tell which was which.
He climbed to his feet and marched through a sea of beautiful orange anemone grass high as his hip, only gradually becoming aware that clownfish-like animals shared the grass with him, and that some might not be friendly. He found the first broken-off coral piece he could and used it as an ill-shaped staff to ward off unwanted guests. He didn’t know if the anemones here were poisonous and didn’t endeavor to find out, but he suspected that once again his armor had saved him.
The sun beat down. Sweating ridiculously, he wished the suit had some sort of ventilating system. After hours of picking his way through the jungle, night fell, leaving him in relative darkness. He still had the stars, though, two of the moons when they weren’t hiding behind clouds, and some of the surrounding flora that glowed with bioluminescence. This was fortunate, as he didn’t even have a flashlight.
His belly growled, and he was exhausted more than he’d normally be by hauling the armor around all day. Periodically he would call out for Layanna or the others (cringing at the necessity, fearful to draw attention to himself), but no one answered. He wasn’t even sure he was going in the right direction.
Should he stop for the night? He hated the idea of sleeping in the armor, but he couldn’t risk removing it, either. But what if the others had ventured ahead, and he fell behind and never caught them? He was certain they would be making better time than he.
Something glowed in the jungle ahead.
He couldn’t remember if any of the others had brought a light with them. In the mad scramble to leave camp, anything was possible. Hildra, at least, had grabbed the Starfish samples. Cautiously, Avery moved toward the illumination, navigating around the bulks of huge dark trees whose bark showed what looked like circular patches of fungus but turned out, upon closer inspection, to be octopus-like suckers complete with teeth. The light seemed to come from a small clearing, and Avery paused on the edge of it, looking toward the source of the light but unable to make anything out. Warily, holding his coral club before him, he stepped into the clearing—
His feet left the ground, and he moved through the air screaming. He swung the club. Something knocked it away. He struck some surface, bounced. Stuck. Some large shape descended over him, blocking out the stars, and he saw many legs, multi-jointed and crab-like. Desperate, Avery yanked at what must be some sort of web.
The creature pounced on him, driving out his breath. Gaping, tooth-lined jaws latched onto his shoulder. Squeezed. Metal dented with a screech. The creature growled and studied Avery more closely, looking for a weak spot. His visor had been thrown open at the impact, and it wasn’t long before the creature noticed the tender flesh of his face.
It rotated its gargantuan bulk, bringing its grouper-like maw toward his head. The stench of poison and rotting flesh filled Avery’s nose. Razor sharp teeth snapped right above him. He struggled, trying to strike at the thing, but he was bound fast.
The creature bore down on him—
A gun cracked.
The thing wheeled about, facing the new threat, the glow-light over its great head bobbing.
The gun fired again, then again, and blood burst from the creature’s flank. It screamed, shot out a strand of webbing into the high shadows of an overhead tree and disappeared into the darkness above.
Panting, Avery stared at a figure holding a gun. At first he couldn’t make it out, but then the shape moved forward, into a stripe of moonlight, and he saw Sheridan, her armor dented and stained, bits of vegetation caught in one of the chinks. He’d known it was her before she raised the visor of her helm, but, perhaps out of courtesy, she did so, and he saw the weariness in her face. A small cut on her brow had bled into her right eyebrow and was scabbing over.
She moved toward him. She didn’t lower the gun.
“I’m an easy target, I’m afraid,” he said.
“Shut up.”
“I admit feeling rather stupid. Being caught by such a trap. I suppose I deserve to die.”
“Quiet. You’re making me rethink saving you.”
It was dark, but even so he saw no mockery on her face, no amusement. “You were about to kill me before,” he said. “With Layanna. You were about to kill us all.”
“No.”
“Surely I would’ve been next, or at least among the next.”
She shoved the pistol away and pulled out a knife, glinting in the moonlight.
“Decided to save your bullets?”
