subterranean lunar pool.
But they were going to come out like bullets, into… what?
“Wait, Celeste,” Fujita said, wrestling with the other mirror.
Gallop grew impatient, swung the butt of a crossbow. The mirror shattered. A stairway was concealed beyond.
“Go,” Celeste said, and followed.
The stairway was so narrow that her broad shoulders brushed both sides. Fujita had to twist and turn and push to squeeze himself through. It dropped and twisted, and expanded before a door of what seemed gray stone.
The six pirates spilled through and fanned out fast.
Angelique crouched behind her stalagmite, watching. She blinked. Her contact lenses, useless for most of the game, flared to life so that a huge blue arrow danced above the heads of each of her enemies. Each arrow was indexed with weapon indicators: crossbow, air gun. The woman Celeste was labeled Leader in fluorescent green- high score for anyone who could take her out.
The pirates fanned into the chamber, very alert, and spread out, maintaining an effective field of fire. Angelique looked around: Each of her team were also labeled clearly with an arrow. Pity that the pirates couldn’t see it. She muffled a giggle, but allowed herself a nasty grin.
There was something else they couldn’t see, and as they passed a man-sized stalactite they learned what.
The big Asian guy to the right of Celeste suddenly buckled. Angelique saw only a hint, a flash of light, but suddenly the guy was down, groaning.
And that was the signal! Suddenly, from all sides, bolts driven by crossbow and air pressure whizzed through the air. Only one of them found a target, the shoulder of a short, wide man to Celeste’s right.
Celeste turned-a blur! Dear heaven that woman was fast! And fired even though she could see nothing. The air gun bolt disappeared, but they heard a yelp. Scotty’s yelp.
Xavier, bless his black heart, had given them an invisible thief.
Scotty yelped as the dart hit his calf, the tip lancing through muscle and into bone. Swallowing a groan, he faded back. Xavier’s magic had enhanced his thieving abilities, the capacity to hide in plain sight, but had been no protection against Celeste’s dart.
He had taken out the big woman’s wingman, but this wound put him out of the action until he could remove the dart and staunch the flow of blood.
Scotty leaned back against the stalagmite, gritted his teeth and pulled the dart out. He tore his moist shirt into strips, and bound his calf. If he focused his eyes carefully, he could find the shimmer in the air where Xavier’s magic bent the light. Could Celeste see him? Had that been a lucky shot? The big woman peered in his direction, body tense, but without specific focus. So… some combination of luck and feral instinct.
The waters of the pool glowed in bands of light like a field of new snow reflecting an aurora borealis.
The pirates were goggle-eyed for a moment as the chamber expanded, became even vaster, until it seemed like the pool was an infinite ocean, the dry land merely an insignificant speck upon it.
And what an ocean! Its waves rose up and rolled toward them like a tsunami, and Miller screamed in terror.
“It is just an illusion!” Celeste barked, but the dart that blossomed in Miller’s stomach was real enough.
Fujita whirled and fired blindly, once, twice… and got a satisfying scream in return. They had made someone pay. Not so dearly as they shortly would, but these… amateurs, who had ruined the plans of a lifetime, would pay more. There would be more screams. Oh, yes there would.
Two down. She knew she had hurt another one, the pain-filled squeal made it clear. And that left… five. Five to go.
“Damn!” Wayne squawked. “I’m hit!” His breath in her ear. Direction? Angelique peeked up over the plastic stalagmite, and saw Wayne’s blue arrow shade to red.
“He’s bleeding!” Maud’s voice. Whatever calm they had been able to impose upon her was gone now-the panic was breaking through like a whale through ice.
Angelique heard a z-zing! sound and something flew past her eyes, lodging in the rock behind her. She threw herself flat, wondering how the pirates had seen her, knowing that Xavier’s illusions were up against technology no gamer would ever have possessed. Their final gambit might be more final than any of them had anticipated. Certainly than they had hoped.
Then… something was crawling out of the water. It was huge, and oceans dripped out of its spiky fur. It looked like a mutated mooncow. Angelique realized she was looking at a male version of that creature, with giant jaws and claws.
It levered itself up, shook itself-damn, that was real water spraying around! She felt it!
The titanic beast headed straight for two pirates crouched behind stalagmites. Its teeth tore and short cilia- like tentacles around its mouth grasped. The pirates screamed as they were hurled in all directions, bodies broken on the walls, impaled on stalactites.
And above the din, they heard a voice: “Hold fast! It’s a trick!”
Celeste, damn her!
“We’re about out of ammo,” Angelique said.
Xavier’s voice whispered in their ears. “I can force everyone into the water. Shall I? Angelique? Everyone? ”
“Do it.”
Darla was stumped. She had examined the bomb top to bottom, probed carefully, and knew that she was looking at death. The tamper switch was totally beyond her. If she tried to disconnect the wires, or remove the explosives from its anchoring epoxy blob, the damned thing would trigger. There was just no way, no way to stop it from…
And then she had an inspiration.
The former mermaid triggered the communication link. On the other side of the window, Max Piering picked it up.
“Got an idea,” she said. “This thing is designed to trigger if you jostle it. And they did a damned fine job. What they didn’t consider is that someone might want to set it off on purpose.”
“What?”
“The timer. They concentrated on the motion sensor, but the timer can be engaged. I can set it for… four minutes. Get your people out of there. Up the stairs, at least thirty feet away, and above the water level.”
He frowned. “What are you thinking of, girl?”
She managed a smile. “Mischief,” she said.
Piering cleared out his men, and she extended the tip of her multitool’s probe, and very carefully tapped out a two, a four, and a zero. Two hundred and forty seconds. This had to work. She didn’t know what was going on up top, but it couldn’t be good.
She gulped air, exhaled, gulped again, and again. She’d held her breath for almost three minutes on the way down here. In three minutes she’d be breathing air again. No need to worry about the bends, not in lunar gravity.
Darla took a last deep breath, and then let the water back into the chamber. It splashed around her, and rose to her shoulder.
At the moment the pressure was equalized, she triggered the bomb and dove back out the door. With all her strength she swam toward the Moon pool’s distant blue light.
The walls of the pool chamber erupted beasts from a madman’s dream, nightmares of tentacle and fang, furred and scaled and glistening pink wetness. Celeste held her ground, but three of the other five pirates flinched
