David Sakmyster - The Cydonia Objective

Orlando moved onahead, feeling like a human shield. Wrists tied behind his back, he found it harder to walk the rough stones and navigate the dark caverns than he had imagined, especially without using his hands for balance. And the lights from his back were jolting, shifting back and forth, bouncing off the walls, then disappearing, making him feel like he was suffering a seizure, with light and dark spots alternating in his brain. The air was stifling, the oxygen thinning.

Video games never captured this part of dungeon trekking, he thought, coughing and choking on dust that seemed to just resettle in his lungs and esophagus. Something jabbed him in the lower back and he stumbled ahead.

He glanced back into the jumble of lights, the two turban-headed fighters directly behind him, and at the rear—the taller one with the patch. Gathering his balance and his courage, Orlando tried to smile. “So, are we there yet?”

“Shut up,” the Eye snapped. “It’s just around the corner. Farrakh, you go first.”

A hand pulled Orlando back, slowed him down, and then the other man squeezed past. He turned the corner, descended a small, slick trail, and then Orlando could see a light ahead. A dim glow from an opening, a wider aperture. But then the man’s back was in the way.

Orlando closed his eyes for a second and willed a glimpse of the next chamber. And it came at once:

A cage, like for a dog. Metal bars, a bowl in the corner. But it was empty. The door open. Farrakh rushes in, shouting and slips on something slick coating the floor…

He opened his eyes and was about to call out, but instead, he dug in his feet and stopped moving forward. Someone crunched into him and drove him into the wall with a curse, but then the fighter kept running by. There was a shout, a slick, wet sound and a grunt.

Twisting, Orlando turned and inched backward—right into the glowering form of The Eye—who caught his throat in his huge hand. “You saw something?”

But just then a burst of light from the cave, a rush of heat—and a pair of bloodcurdling screams. The Eye swore a local curse, shoved Orlando back, then ran headlong toward the fire. Two flaming, lurching men in robes flailed out into the hallway, and the Eye burst through them, knocking each aside like bowling pins as he leapt over the pool of ignited oil.

Brian Greenmeyer hadimprovised the best he could, the best anyone could have, having only been able to crawl. But as he was setting up a tripwire made of shoelaces and a coating of oil on the ground below, the young woman appeared.

She was alone, which was surprising. Greenmeyer kept looking past her down the cavern hallway, expecting and hoping to see his old friend, Temple. But the woman stepped by, went right to the cage and knelt in front of Aria.

Their hands touched. “I’m Phoebe,” she said, reaching through the bars and stroking Aria’s hair, gingerly touching her face.

“I’ve seen you,” Aria whispered, eyes wide. “But hurry, he’s coming. The key…”

“I know,” Phoebe said, scrambling to her feet and reaching up to the top of the cage, way out of Greenmeyer’s reach. She found it, dropped back down and unlocked the padlock.

Aria burst out, scrambled to her father and threw her arms around him. “You can come with us.”

But he shook his head. “No time.” He looked back at the corridor. “I hear them, hurry.”

“No,” Phoebe said, glancing around the cul-de-sac, her eyes settling on a blanket and a collection of bags and boxes near the shadowy reaches in the back. “I have a better idea.”

Once everything and everyone was in its place, Greenmeyer scuttled back, holding the sole lamp, cranking its flame inside the glass as high as it would go. It still had a half-full canister of oil, more than enough to ignite and scatter to burn the coating he spilled on the floor.

He heard the footfalls. Then the rushing feet. One of the guards he remembered as Farrakh tripped over the lace and skidded face-first on the oil. He got to his feet, slick and bloody, yelling that the cage door was open, then he turned and saw Greenmeyer just as the lamp was flung to the floor.

Greenmeyer rolled away as the glass shattered, the flames erupted and Farrakh screamed. The whole front of his body ignited, then his dry robes, and then his turban—and he was a walking, flailing inferno that turned just as his partner came barreling in too fast and collided with him. They both rolled through the flames, then got up howling, throwing themselves against the walls, seeking anywhere to roll and put out the flames.

Greenmeyer choked on the smell of burnt flesh. And he hoped his daughter was staying low, covered under the blankets. Not looking…

Then another shape burst past the burning bodies and jumped over the flames. The lone eye sought him out, and a snarling face turned to a mask of rage. The AK-47 was thrust into his face. A boot against his neck. “ Where is she?”

Greenmeyer gagged. Smoke stung at his eyes. “Gone. Rescued…”

The boot rose—then fell, smashing against the side of his face. The room dimmed and he thought he heard a choking sound. Stay awake… buy her time… “ Can’t… you see…?”

Another snarl. “Her damn shield’s on you fool. I will find her. And then I’ll haul her back by her hair and make her watch as I skin you alive, then burn your limbs off one by one. The agony you caused my men is nothing compared to what you’ll face.”

“Quit talking then.” Greenmeyer forced a smile. “Get to it, or else my little girl will outrun you.”

The Eye kicked him in the ribs, and then again in the side of his head, before he ran back out. The room dimmed and as unconsciousness swirled around him, Greenmeyer relaxed and gave in, confident that The Eye had taken the bait.

Orlando had asmall head start, but he knew it wouldn’t last. The light from the burning corpses was fading, and the flashlight strapped to his head had cracked. Its weak bulb struggled to light a few feet ahead, like the glow from a cell phone screen. So he paused, closed his eyes and tried to RV the way.

Crashing footsteps behind him. A curse, and a shout.

Damn it! He had seen a tiny glimpse—a greenish-hued, fast-motion exodus of his mind’s eye through the caverns ahead: straight, then right, then left and-

He was off, running. Trusting his vision.

A light at his back. The Eye rushing after him like a crazed rhinoceros. Orlando raced ahead, started to turn right but jarred into the edge of the cave wall. Grunted, spun, then found the opening and sped up through it. Skidded to a halt. His wrists burned, his shoulders were in agony and he just wished he had time to try that maneuver he saw in the movies where handcuffed heroes were somehow able to step back through their bound arms and at least bring their wrists up front so they could use their hands.

But he kept running in the dark. Bouncing off the walls, jarring his head on a low-hanging section at one point. Stars pinwheeled in his vision, but he kept moving. Skidded to a stop, backed up and took the turn he missed.

Rushing right at him—a bobbing flashlight in the hands of his pursuer. The lone eye locked on him, full of rage. Orlando sped up, attacking the darkness with abandon. Still trusting his vision. Trusting that-

Whoa! He jumped, leapt as far as he could, suddenly recalling that near-instantaneous out of body trek through this section, and seeing now that there was a mine, showing up bright red in his vision. A circular mine set in the center of the passage, about a foot and a half wide. A pressure-sensitive trigger plate.