CHAPTER 38
Whether or not my plan would have worked, we never found out. The brutes attacked us before we had a chance to try it.
Adena picked two troopers to go with us: Ogun, the burly armorer who looked at the world from behind a scowl, and Lissa, a tall, lithe, dark-haired beauty whose specialty was explosives.
“If we catch the brutes asleep in their camp,” Adena explained to me, “Lissa can rig her grenades to destroy them with a single blow.”
The lowering sun had dipped behind the cliff in which our cave was set, throwing the blackened and littered field in front of us into deepening shadow. Adena ordered the four of us to sleep, since we would be on the move once true night covered the area.
I have never needed much sleep, but I commanded my body to relax as I stretched out on one of the floating cots. I closed my eyes and within minutes I was drowsing.
If I dreamed, I do not remember. But I was awakened by a strange, cloying odor that tingled in my nostrils and made me feel as if I were choking. I opened my eyes and tried to sit up. The cot tilted beneath me and I slid to the stony floor with a thump.
Adena lay asleep on the cot beside mine, her arms and legs limp, her face turned in my direction, utterly relaxed. I started to gag on the strange odor; it was like having your face pushed into a thicket of exotic tropical flowers.
I staggered to my feet, only to see that all the other troopers were asleep, too. No one was on guard. Gas! I realized. Somehow they were filling the cave with a gas that had knocked everyone unconscious. The only sound in the cave was the soft hum of the power packs, which kept the lights on.
Lurching, gagging, I battled my way past the fallen bodies of the troopers and out into the fresh air beyond the cave’s entrance. It was black night, clear and frigid, the stars shimmering coldly in the icy air. I filled my lungs once, twice, as my head cleared.
They must be about to attack us, I thought.
Unless the gas is lethal.
I plunged back into the cave, holding my breath as I dashed to my cot and the helmet that rested beneath it. I pulled the helmet on, slid down its visor, and pressed the stud at my waist that activated the suit’s life-support system. A tiny fan whirred to life, and I felt clear air blowing against my face. I breathed again. Quickly, with one eye on the cave entrance, I pulled Adena’s helmet over her head and put her on suit air. Then I went to the cave entrance to be on guard there.
“What happened?” I heard Adena’s voice in my earphones, wobbly, confused.
Looking back into the cave toward her, I began to explain. But out of the shadows deeper in the cave I saw one of the brutes looming, a long, pointed shaft of crystal aimed at Adena’s back.
“Look out!” I shouted as I grabbed for the pistol bolstered at my side. Adena ducked instinctively as the brute rushed toward her. I fired and hit him in the face. He howled and went down, the crystal spear shattering as it hit the cave floor.
There was no time for more explanations. More of the enemy were rushing at us from out of the darkness at the rear of the cave. Adena picked up a rifle and cut them down. I covered her with my pistol. The two of us stood them off for what seemed like hours, but actually was no more than a few minutes. Suddenly their attack melted away into the shadows. Four of the hulking brutes lay dead at our feet.
“They’ve found a way to get into the cave from the rear,” I said, forcing my breath and heartbeat back to normal.
“Or made one,” Adena replied. “We don’t have much time. They’ll be back.”
I felt trapped. And outsmarted. The brutes had us surrounded now; our cave was no longer a shelter—it was a confining, constricting cell of solid stone in which we were unable to move, unable to escape. The walls seemed to be closing in on me. My hands started to shake.