“Can’t be avoided. Let’s not waste any time.” Sket turned to leave, his feet taking him back the other way.
Fenli limped after, scratching at his wounded hip. Usk looked longingly at the way back, obviously the desert plains more inviting to him than these cryptlike corridors. He turned his insect head to regard them curiously.
Star did not budge. On impulse, she grabbed up a rock, and wound back her arm and cast it at the bridge and lever. A hollow ting rang off the metal, then came the creaking of chains and rustling of rusty metal.
All turned, startled. The bridge jerked down a notch.
Star crouched. She clocked the lever again, but the old chains did not so much as quiver.
Miko grinned; he swept up a stone and chucked it. His stone, dinging off the metal bracings, came nowhere near its mark.
“Hey ya, children, this is no time to kill bats,” grumbled Sket.
Star seized a larger rock and hurled it with greater force. The stone hit bang on and the ancient drawbridge came clashing down with a resounding echo and a cloud of dust.
Miko and Sket gawked at each other.
Fenli curled his lip into a sneer. “Nothing but a lucky shot.”
Miko glanced at Star with inquiry.
“I used to play crackshot with my dad when I was a kid. I got good at it.”
Miko chuckled, nodding as if nothing could be more natural.
Star beamed, blinking like an innocent child.
“Glad we have somebody with talent,” mumbled Sket. “Come on, let’s go.”
Fenli sighed. “I’m warming to the idea of backtracking,” he said, feigning to tramp back the other way.
“As you wish. Don’t be surprised if we don’t wait up for you.”
They clopped across the bridge without incident, each pausing to look down through the iron mesh at the bottomless hole with uneasy shivers.
* * *
Before long, they came to an entrance to a side tunnel. In the darkness loomed an ore-loader, abandoned near a set of large, excavated boulders. Its nose pointed to the tunnel’s opposite side. Like the others, Miko had a bad feeling about this place. A gaping pit lay before the machine. At its side, ore carts’ rails were buckled and torn away as if by some savage beast. No convenient bridgeworks straddled this hole, not that anyone would want to venture up that gloomy tunnel anyway. Oddly, the cross tunnel continued on the other side of the main passage they trod. Earthquakes likely had warped the rails, mused Miko, staring at the twisted metal. At one time the loader had served as a dependable workhorse.
His lip twitched. A setting for mishap. These primitive machines were older than time, rusted and defunct, relics from a past age. Nonetheless, he liked the uninviting lateral tunnel even less, and its accompanying rails which veered off into the impenetrable gloom. His intuition warned him that something lurked down there.
“Dinosaurs from yesteryear,” murmured Sket. “Nothing to fear. This old drogger has seen the last of its days. Still, they did their job. Once a thriving mining enterprise, these tunnels were wellsprings of iron, minerals, electro-crystals—all the things that built spaceships and cities.”
Miko’s hand reached out to stroke the cold, eroded metal. Flakes chipped off in his fingers and fell like black soot to the ground. He and Sket were walking past the drogger when without warning came a scuffle of boots. Rough, rude hands snatched Star, and pulled her into the darkness.
“What the—?” Miko whirled.
Star’s muffled cry was cut short by a blow.
Miko staggered back, his face leaning into a fist, then a bully club to the side of his head. He blinked, dazed.
Sket wheeled, his quick fingers clasping for his knife. Ragged figures lunged out of the darkness and Fenli and Usk scrambled to defensive positions. The attackers’ knives boasted sharp, gleaming blades. Three had dragged Star down, tackling her without hesitation and rolling her to the side. Jeers of triumph spilled from their mouths. She disappeared beyond the machine’s front loader, fighting tooth and nail. She slammed her feet against men’s thighs and groins.
Another fool, panicking, a crazy, blabbering fiend, pulled a pin from a grenade. He drew back his arm and Miko and Sket cringed.
Miko parried a glinting shaft of metal. He twisted sideways, sending his blond-haired assailant reeling.
Sket grunted. He slashed one’s wrist. The man’s weapon fell, clinking to the gravel, smeared with blood.
Fenli whipped sideways, deflecting a vicious kick, then a machete swept out that would have sliced off his head. He thrust with his own blade, but caught a foot in the ribs that doubled him over.
Usk snagged an attacker’s machete in his pincer, twisting it out of his grasp. Disarming the man, he sent the gleaming weapon arching into the man’s ribs.
The grenade triggered prematurely, blowing the man’s arm off into bits and scattering his torso and limbs in a spray of pink mist.
Miko swept the spray from his eyes. Just a pressure blast, he reassured himself, no shrapnel.
Recovering his wits, he stared about, blinking and squinting in the deep gloom, momentarily disordered by the burst, his ears roaring like a stormy sea.
The ore-hauler had started to roll, jarred by the sudden explosion. Its giant wheels turned, crawled over a limp body, crushing the first of his attackers in a jet of gore. The screams were horrible, but short-lived.
Men were down, howling in their own blood. A man who had his leg blown off held Star in a claw-like grip. He drew blood from her arm with his dirty nails. She struggled to twist free of the moving machine.
Miko gasped in horror. She would be crushed with the rest of them if she couldn’t break free. He was too far away to help.
A lean man with ragged yellow hair
