The Exodus Towers (73 page)

“Unbelievable,” Skyler whispered.

“It’s incredible,” Tania agreed. She whispered, too, on pure instinct. She felt like a visitor to some ancient, forbidden temple.

A chime went off in Tania’s helmet. Skyler’s must have as well, because he glanced sharply at her. The air in her suit had reached 20 percent. Skyler’s readout showed just below 40.

“What now?” he asked.

“Nothing to do but wait,” she replied.

“I mean after we get rescued and get back home,” he said. He’d somehow forced a playful tone into his voice.

“I think it’s clear what we have to do next, though for what purpose I still cannot imagine.”

“At least we know where the red one is,” Skyler said. “The red … key.”

Tania studied him, a profound sense of dread building within her. He saw it in her eyes.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll go in with every weapon I can find, and some serious motivation.”

She tried to smile and couldn’t. Her gaze kept shooting back to the oxygen readout. “There’s five colors here, but only four tower groups left the camp. So where’s the fifth?”

“I can guess,” he said. “The one place an aura tower wouldn’t be needed.”

After a few seconds she understood. “Darwin.”

Skyler nodded, gravely.

“We need to talk to Russell Blackfield,” Tania said. The immune’s eyes narrowed to thin slits. “When I spoke with him after we fled to Belém, he gloated that our attempt to kill him from orbit failed. He also noted our failure at destroying Nightcliff, said we’d missed.”

“We didn’t drop anything on …” Skyler paused. Then, “Oh …”

“Exactly. Russell Blackfield can tell us exactly where the fifth ship crashed.”

Skyler frowned, but he was nodding all the same. A few seconds of silence passed, and their attention was drawn back to the light show within the vast room.

“We should wait by the exit,” Tania said quietly.

“I kinda like it in here,” he replied. “But you’re right. Hold on to me, I’ve still got some fuel left.”

He brought them to a stop just at the end of the hexagon tunnel. With nothing else to do, they floated side by side in the opening and watched the planet below as the line between day and night began to creep across the Sahara. The ERV was now a glinting speck in the distance. It would burn up in a few days, Skyler guessed, though Jenny had surely suffocated already.

She must have been one of Grillo’s, he realized. Or at least sympathetic to the Jacobites, if not one of them. Perhaps she’d been in contact with them during the flight and reported everything they’d found. He shuddered at the idea.

Skyler twisted to say something to Tania.

“Hold still,” she said.

She was working on something on the back of his suit. “What are you doing?”

“Just double-checking the air pack.”

He tried to keep from moving, a difficult trick without gravity.

“All set,” Tania said, and moved away.

He heard a slight quiver in her voice. A fear that hadn’t been there before. “We’re going to make it,” he said.

She didn’t reply. Instead she just looked at the planet below, and took his gloved hand in hers. For a long time neither of them spoke. Skyler kept thinking of things to say, only to find the silence somehow better.

A full half hour passed before his suit began to beep in warning.
Hell. Not yet, surely?
He fumbled through the menu to find his vitals readout, and saw that he had—

“That can’t be right.”

His oxygen level read almost 50 percent, higher than the last time he’d looked. Some kind of reserve tank they hadn’t known about, perhaps. He grinned.
But why is it beeping at me?

It hit him, then. It wasn’t his suit complaining; it was Tania’s. In a panic he brought up the display of her vitals, and he froze when he saw the number. One percent. “Oh God, Tania, what did you do?”

She didn’t answer. Her hand had gone limp in his.

“Tania!” he shouted at her. He turned and took her faceplate in both hands. She was drifting in and out of consciousness, as if on the verge of sleep. “No, dammit!”

Her lips moved, but no words came through.

“Why?!” he shouted again, fighting tears. The answer, he realized, was obvious.

The speaker in his helmet crackled then. A voice within a harsh cascade of static. “… is … condition? Repeat …”

“Get the fuck over here, now!” Skyler blurted, aware of how shaky he sounded. “She gave me her air. She’s almost out!”

“… Approaching … ETA in … minutes.”

Skyler put his helmet against hers, looking for any sign of life. He held his own breath and waited. Seconds passed. He thought he saw a puff of condensation on the inside of the helmet. A breath. “You hold on, dammit. Hold on, they’re close.”

Another puff against the glass, weaker than the last.

Then another.

And then nothing.

For Kip, who lived twice

and didn’t make a big stink about it

Acknowledgments

T
HIS NOVEL WOULD
not have been possible without the help and support of the following:

My endlessly patient wife, Nancy.

Sara Megibow, my agent and champion.

My editor, Mike Braff, and his colleague, Sarah Peed. Their insights and thoughtfulness constantly amaze me.

All my family and friends. Notably: the Brotherhood and the Cosmonicans.

The tremendously talented Kevin Hearne, my first and biggest fan, and someone I now call a friend.

Read on for an excerpt from

The Plague Forge

The Dire Earth Cycle: Three

Coming soon from Del Rey Books

Belém, Brazil

20.MAR.2285

S
ECONDS FROM COLLISION
the vehicle lurched.

Mud sprayed from knobby tires as the bulky truck whipped around and slammed back-first into the mouth of the tunnel. Dirt and rock clanged against the roof outside. The whine of electricity bleeding out from the ultracaps below Skyler’s feet dropped off to nothing, allowing the clatter of heavy rain on armored body panels to fill the cramped compartment.

“All clear,” Pablo said from his perch in the gun turret. “You’re up, señor.”

Skyler gripped the long chrome handle on the rear door with both hands. The full suit of body armor made him feel like he’d been dipped in concrete. Plates of carbon fiber woven into thick ballistic fabric, even the gloves. He glanced back at Ana. She sat cross-legged in shorts and a T-shirt on the bench that ran the length of the compartment, an improvised explosive in her hands. The thin brick of wrapped plastique sported a hand-built receiver glued to one side. As he watched she stuffed the bundle out a murder hole, then smacked the portal closed with her hand.

The arming beacon lay on the bench beside her, safely in the off position.

“All set,” she said. Then she caught Skyler’s nod, leaned in, kissed him hard on the lips, and flipped his face mask down for him. “Good luck.”

She’d been confined to a bed for the last few weeks after suffering bruised kidneys and some internal bleeding in Ireland. The camp medics, and Skyler, had advised against her
going on this mission at all, but when her eyes had flared with dogged determination he’d known the argument was pointless. At least she’d promised to stay inside the vehicle.

He grinned. “You, too.”

Ana returned his grin with a half smile of her own, brushed a strand of hair from her face. In that instant she looked as lovely as she ever had, and Skyler glanced away. He couldn’t quite explain why, and hoped against hope that Ana hadn’t noticed his sudden distance. The truth was, ever since Tania had given him her air aboard that alien ship he had found himself in a strange sort of limbo. He turned back to the task at hand, focused. With both hands he yanked the door handle.

When the door swung open, Skyler found himself staring down the tunnel once again. A steady stream of dirty water ran down the center of the floor where, after all this time, a deep and erratic gouge had been carved. More water dripped and trickled from the curved ceiling and walls, making the inside of the tunnel appear to be engulfed in the same storm that pummeled the rain forest outside.

With all the dexterity his combat armor would allow, Skyler hopped out of the APC and raised his gun. He smacked the weapon’s light on, then did the same to the one mounted on his helmet. Already he regretted wearing the heavy suit. Sweat trickled down his back, and his legs felt like lead weights under the bulk.

The gun he’d chosen only made matters worse. The heavy assault rifle fired large-caliber rounds, regular from one magazine and explosive-tipped from a second. He could switch with a flick of his thumb. Mounted halfway down the barrel was a slightly curved steel plate that came up a few centimeters above the body of the weapon, save for a small gap through which he could aim. The bulk of the shield descended down from the barrel, which provided an extra barrier to anything that might seek to hit him in the chest. The protection might come in handy, but it made the weapon unbalanced and difficult to aim. Skyler had almost left it behind in favor of something smaller when Ana pointed out that he only needed it to get to the shell ship. Once he had the relic that lay within, he could ditch the bulky thing and run.

He glanced back one more time, some clever bit of reassurance on his lips. The words were drowned by a thunderous eruption. Pablo, on the roof-mounted rotary cannon. Individual gunshots could not be heard, only the steady hum as the weapon spewed bullets in like a fire hose. It sounded like a pure bass note run through a stack of concert speakers. The vibration shook droplets of water from the circular tunnel around Skyler and made the plates of his combat armor chatter together.

The brutal noise vanished, replaced by the prattle of shell casings tumbling down the side of the APC and into the mud. Pablo fired the weapon for only a few seconds. Whatever had been his target, Skyler imagined it had been reduced to a few shredded bits of meat. He saw none of this, though, as Vanessa had stuffed the vehicle’s rear end expertly into the maw of the tunnel, ensuring Skyler would not have to worry about attack from behind.

“Get moving!” Ana shouted at him. She stood crouched in the center of the compartment now, pistols in both hands, ready to move to murder holes on either side of the vehicle should anything get past Pablo’s Gatling gun.

The plan required speed, and Skyler had not moved a step yet. He faced the tunnel again and started to jog forward, as if pushed by Ana’s gaze at his back.

Skyler’s breath fogged the inside of the mask that covered his face. Moisture from the humid air of the tunnel formed droplets on the outside. The thick sheet of clear plastic curved around in front of him, and offered decent enough protection as long as he kept his chin down, visibility be damned.

He walked forward. The mud swallowed and sucked at his boots with each step. He moved farther to the outside of the curved passage, where the mud wasn’t as deep, but walking along the steeper part made his footing awkward and forced him to use his left hand to steady himself. This meant he had to carry the heavy rifle and its huge shield with his right. By the time the crashed ship came into view his arm burned, barely able to keep the tip of the barrel from dragging in the rising water. Aim of any effectiveness would be all but impossible.

Pablo’s rotary gun hummed again, strangely muted here at the end of the tunnel, as if the sound came rolling down the long tube and then canceled itself out where the space abruptly ended. Beneath the thrum came a rapid series of claps—Ana’s pistols. Skyler forced himself to ignore it. They had their job, he had his.

Water pooled in the cavity at the end of the tunnel. Despite the time that had passed since Skyler had first come here, the water had not increased in depth, leaving the scarred vessel resting in waist-deep water. Visibility dropped the closer he came to it, and by the time his boots filled with water Skyler found himself surrounded in humid air that smelled and tasted vaguely of copper.

Movement in front of him.

A black shape, slipping out of the opening on the side of the craft and into the water, so smoothly no splash was generated. Instead a subtle ripple fanned out across the surface.

Skyler braced his feet and raised his weapon with both hands. Between the riot mask in front of his face, the swirling steam in the air, and the plate of shielding mounted halfway down the gun barrel, he could barely see anything. The thing that had slipped into the water had merged with the darkness around it, and his gun’s light failed to illuminate anything other than the fine droplets of moisture in the air.

He held his breath and waited, counting silently …
four … five …

Something surged in the water, a bow-shock spray of dark liquid as torso and arms came up and lunged forward.

Skyler recoiled on instinct, felt himself tipping backward under the weight of his gear as the subhuman came fully out of the water, red laser light flaring from its eyes.