Burden of Sisyphus (37 page)

           
Still, concern gnawed the back of his mind.
 
“I wanted to put this off awhile.”
 
He squinted against the bright sunlight.
 
“It’s time you told me what was on the disk.”

           
“Does it matter, anymore?” Eza asked breathlessly.

           
“It matters to me.
 
It doesn’t matter how many missions I’ve been on.
 
I always want to know what I’m fighting and dying for.”

           
Eza shrugged.
 
“It had only two things of real value that we could find.
 
One spoke of genetic experiments.
 
I’m guessing we’re seeing the results of that—the sharp teeth, thick hides, long claws, and intelligence.
 
They aren’t natural for a Seque.
 
I can only imagine what other experiments the Terrans have in store if this is a taste of what’s to come.”

           
Vance nodded.
 
“If we get off this rock, we’ll have to deal with the Terrans before they can do this to anyone again.
 
Trust me—they’ll answer for their crimes here.
 
The other thing on the disk?”

           
“It had an odd-sounding label, something toxic or toxide.
 
I can’t really remember.
 
I’m guessing that was the name of the task force the Terrans sent, since everything in the file talked about an advance Terran Fleet invading Alliance space.
 
I didn’t notice a timeline.
 
For all I know, while we’re trapped here, the Terran Fleet is already on its way.”

           
“All the more reason for us to find a way off this planet.”
 
A chill went down his spine.
 
What if the Terrans were already in Alliance space?
 
The Terran Fleet could be wreaking havoc on unsuspecting worlds, slaughtering civilians, and the High Council might not know.
 
They had to survive and warn someone.

           
The chill, however, came from the thought that somewhere in space, there was another colony of superintelligent Seques—or something worse.
 
There were already many deadly creatures in known space.
 
If the Terrans genetically altered one of those, the result would be damn near unstoppable.

           
He looked up toward the sun, which had reached its peak and was sliding toward the distant horizon.
 
“How could you live on a planet with such short days?” he asked, watching it creep lower.

           
“Let’s go back inside and see if Yen and Decker found anything yet,” Eza said.
 
“I won’t find anything to kill anytime soon.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

           
Ixibas led his group through the winding streets.
 
Tusque lumbered behind him, still favoring his damaged leg, and Pateros and Hollander moved to the far side of the street, using the soft shadows for cover.
 
With the sun still hanging in the sky, they didn’t expect much interference from the Seques, who spent the day in hibernation.
 
The short days on the planet left them little time to escape before night returned, bringing with it the monsters that brutalized their group.

           
Keeping his natural form, Ixibas extended his claws until they jutted nearly one foot from his fingertips.
 
He regretted not carrying his rifle, as the other three did.
 
During the night, he was fine using his natural weapons, but during the day, he felt exposed and unarmed.

           
Their march through the city took longer than anticipated.
 
Getting Tusque to his feet and moving despite the nearly unbearable pain in his body took most of the morning.
 
Moving through the maze of intersecting streets, they saw the sun starting to dip past high noon and drift lazily toward setting.
 
The closer it came to the horizon, the more they felt their time slipping away like grains of sand in an hourglass.

           
Many of the roads ended in dead ends.
 
Buildings had been intentionally collapsed across narrow streets, making natural chokepoints.
 
They climbed the first two only to find themselves, after fifteen minutes of wasted time, facing yet another collapsed building or pile of furniture.
 
To their chagrin, they found themselves following a preordained path through the city.
 
It cost them extra time but led, in a roundabout fashion, to the edge of the city.

           
Reaching a main thoroughfare, Ixibas halted the group.
 
He peered around the corner, not expecting to see movement, and he wasn’t disappointed.
 
Though he was sure the Seques wouldn’t come out during the daytime, a heightened sense of danger kept him on edge.

           
As he scanned the rest of the road ahead, he was surprised to see no obvious obstructions.
 
Aside from crushed cars and shattered glass, the way was clear.
 
In the distance, still a decent walk away, green hills and crop fields rose from the city limits.

           
Though his featureless face betrayed no emotion, his gravelly voice contained excitement.
 
“It looks like we may’ve found a way out.
 
It looks clear ahead.”

           
“Then what are we waiting for, Boss?”
 
Pain flared in Tusque’s back.
 
He, more than the others, was eager to leave the city and find proper medical care.
 
He started to step onto the street when a glossy black hand fell on his chest.

           
“Wait,” Ixibas said.

           
“Why?”
 
Hollander caught the excitement emanating from Tusque.
 
“We’re this close.
 
We can see the way out of the city.
 
Why not take it while the sun’s still up.”

           
“The Seques are intelligent.
 
Are we in agreement about that?”

           
They nodded.

           
“Knowing they have a limitation about being exposed to sunlight, don’t you think they’d come up with a way to keep us in the city even when they were asleep?
 
Don’t you think they expect us to make a run for it?”

           
“I’m looking down the street,” Pateros said, looking around the corner.
 
“I don’t see anything.
 
There are no barricades to climb over.
 
They don’t even have a barrier at the end of the road like when we first entered the city.
 
Maybe they didn’t expect us to choose this route for an exit.”

           
“They funneled us here,” Ixibas hissed in frustration.
 
“Of course they expected us to come this way.”

           
“Sorry, Boss, but I can’t wait.”
 
Tusque stepped into the open street.
 
“I’m hurting, and I don’t know how much more running my body can handle.
 
Either we get out of the city now, or you’ll do it without ol’ Tusque.”
 
He walked down the road toward the city’s edge.

           
Without a backward glance, Hollander and Pateros fell in step behind the limping teammate.

           
Ixibas shook his head in irritation.
 
“Stupid.”
 
He stepped into the street.
 
“Wait up.
 
I’m coming, too.
 
I want you to remember I said this was a bad idea.”

           
“Duly noted.”
 
Hollander scanned the sides of the road for an ambush or trap.
 
No one knew what to expect.
 
Though they were eager to leave the city, they couldn’t ignore the fact that Ixibas was right.
 
It was too easy.

           
They walked in silence for half a mile to the edge of the city before Tusque started rambling, to himself as much as anyone else, “I wonder how we’re going to let the ship know we’re alive and ready for pickup.”

           
Ixibas shrugged and scanned the road ahead.
 
His eyes fell on the destruction around them—broken windows, smashed vehicles, and cracks in the pavement.

           
Looking closer, he saw a series of cracks to their left extended just over a foot on the ground before stopping.
 
A few feet beyond, another pair of cracks extended a similar distance and stopped.
 
The ground was undamaged.

           
Slowly turning in a circle, he scanned the rest of the road.
 
In a concentric circle around them, cracks emanated no more than a foot before disappearing, as they approached the foci on which the group stood.

           
“Nobody move!”
 
His growled words startled the others.
 
“It’s a….”

           
Tusque stepped heavily, as he stopped his forward momentum.
 
Beneath their feet, the ground shook from the impact, as if an earthquake was centralized beneath them.
 
Hollander and Pateros spread their stance, trying to balance against the shaking.

           
Ixibas watched in horror, as Tusque stumbled and backpedaled toward the other three.
 
As he stepped heavily on his wounded leg, it buckled under him.
 
He fell backward into the middle of the group like a collapsing mountain.

           
As he crashed to the road, the fake covering broke loose and fell inward.
 
The
faux
stone covering shattered, as fabric enclosed all four of them.
 
Together, enclosed by shards of stone and gray cloth, they fell nearly twenty feet into a dark pit.

           
They landed on the packed dirt floor with a heavy thud, their limbs entangled and buried in the heavy tarp.
 
Ixibas dug his claws into the tarp and tore a hole through it to emerge in a dark passage.
 
Above, light fell down to spotlight them, casting a faint glow in the tunnel that extended in both directions.

           
“…trap,” he said, finishing his sentence far too late.

           
The others, emerging from the tarp, looked around.
 
Aside from pillars of light from above, the tunnel disappeared into the darkness beyond where they stood.

           
“Where are we?”
 
Hollander shook concrete dust from his hair.

           
“We’re in their home.”
 
Ixibas walked to the nearest wall and ran his clawed hand over the surface, tracing long claw marks with his own sharp fingers.
 
“They dug this.”

           
The rest of them looked at the mostly rounded tunnel.
 
Nearly twenty feet overhead, the walls curved toward the ceiling.
 
The tunnel ran parallel to the street, punctured with what they assumed were multiple false floors.
 
The intense heat in the tunnel amplified the warmth of the setting sun, making the stuffy air thick to breathe.

           
“They were waiting for us to do something stupid like this,” Pateros said.
 
“We were herded like….”
 
He stopped, because the phrase would normally have been completed with the word
Seques.

           
“They played us,” Ixibas said.
 
“We were more than obliging.”