Bring it on . . .
4:36 P.M.
Dylan caught a glimpse of a shadowy shape through the dropped rear gate of the snow cruiser. The flare of his headlamps revealed a figure belted inside, holding a long rifle. Though it was too far and too brief a look, Dylan remembered the man from twenty-four hours earlier, seated atop a Sno-Cat, firing up at his Twin Otter, almost taking out the plane.
It had to be that same American.
So the bastard survived . . . made it to the station anyway.
A trickle of respect flared through him. He now understood why Harrington kept eluding him. The old man had help, someone skilled and competent.
Dylan’s fingers found the butt of his Howdah pistol and tightened on the antique wooden grip, readying for the challenge to come.
The CAAT’s driver slowed as they neared the crash site. The smaller vehicle lay on its side in an island of light, treads still spinning uselessly at the air. The exit ramp had torn open with the impact. Gunfire flashed from inside the cabin.
Someone was still alive, still fighting.
And with good reason.
Through that open hatch, the world of Hell’s Cape—riled and angered by the chaos—pushed into the upended cabin in a riot of flesh and acid. Shadows lurched and crawled and slithered, piling one atop the other, likely drawn by the blood of the injured inside. One man burst out against that deadly tide, stumbling and struggling. Something scabrous and spidery clung to his shoulder and neck. Long legs pierced his flesh, digging a firm hold.
It was Seward, the team leader of that squad. The man fought through the reeds toward the approaching headlights, an arm raised in a silent plea.
“Sir?” the driver asked, still slowing.
Then a huge dark shadow swept across the glowing tops of the reeds and speared the man through the ribs, lifting him off his feet and carrying him away.
Three other men had been aboard the crashed CAAT.
But by now all gunfire had ceased inside.
Nothing to be done.
Dylan turned his attention forward and pointed his arm at the retreating rear end of the cruiser. He still had a mission to complete.
“Keep going.”
4:39 P.M.
Gray guarded the open rear door with his rifle. The back gate was too damaged to close. The end of the ramp bounced and sparked as it was dragged along the cavern floor behind the cruiser. Exposed to the elements, the cabin was at great risk. He fired his DSR at any shadows that came too near, but the rig’s knee-rattling pace, along with its belching fumes and roaring engines, continued to be their best defense.
Then a sharp whistle blast cut through the cacophony.
It was Kowalski, laying hard on the cruiser’s horn.
Now what?
Gray glanced over a shoulder to see Jason and Stella come flying down the ladder from the rig’s cab.
“Kowalski needs you!” Jason called out, then nodded to Stella. “We’ll guard the cabin.”
The young woman reached Harrington’s side. “You should go, too, father.”
“Wait.” The professor had found an old pair of World War II–era binoculars and stared out into the darkness. He lowered them and pointed. “Looks like Wright’s heading away from us.”
Gray turned and saw Harrington was right.
The CAAT’s headlights swung away from the rig, angling to the left, taking the vehicle farther out into the swamplands, toward the darkness at the back of the cavernous Coliseum.
Where’s he going?
Harrington motioned with his binoculars. “I saw something lashed down atop that CAAT. It looked like—”
A tremendous boom blasted away his last words, echoing throughout the cavern, momentarily silencing the screams and cries of the maddening life outside. It sounded far off.
As the thunder rolled away, Gray turned to Harrington. “Was that your bunker busters?”
Dread clutched Gray’s throat.
Had Wright just collapsed the far end of these tunnels?
Harrington’s eyes had gotten huge—but from a different fear. “No. If those big bombs had blown, the blast would’ve been much louder. Would’ve shaken this entire system.”
Then what was it?
The professor answered his unspoken question. “I think Wright set smaller charges, enough to blow a hole through the Hell’s Cape station.”
“Why would he do that?”
Harrington pointed toward the vanished CAAT. “I was trying to tell you . . . Atop his vehicle, he had a large disk strapped down, partially covered by a tarp. I think it was an LRAD dish. Had to be four times the size of the ones guarding the station.”
Gray stared in the direction of Wright’s trajectory across the cavern, aiming for the deeper sections of this lost world.
He suddenly understood Wright’s plan.
He pictured a hole blasted through the superstructure of Hell’s Cape, exposing this biosphere to the larger world above. If Wright got far enough into this system and swung that large LRAD dish back toward the mouth of these tunnels . . .
“He intends to flush this world out into the open,” Gray realized aloud, picturing that sonic device driving the creatures of this land toward his newly blasted exit.
Harrington looked sick. “The damage wrought by these aggressive XNA species being set loose upon our established ecosystems would be incalculable.” He shook his head. “Why would anyone do that?”
“The question of why can wait,” Gray said. “For now, we’ve got to stop that from ever happening.”
Stella nodded. “If we could reach the Back Door, set off those bunker busters, and collapse the tunnels at the far end, we could still keep everything bottled up. Regardless if Wright turns on that massive LRAD dish.”
It was their best hope.
The rig’s horn blasted again, now a continuous wail for attention.
Gray pointed to the bouncing ramp, yelling to be heard. “Jason, Stella! Don’t let anything in!”
If Harrington was right, they couldn’t let anything slow them down.
After he got nods from Jason and Stella, Gray rushed toward the front of the rig, drawing the professor in his wake. He vaulted up the ladder and helped Harrington into the upper cab.
Kowalski scowled back at them, letting go of the chain that led to the blaring horn. The wail finally cut off. “’Bout time.” A thick arm pointed forward. “Doc, is that your Back Door?”
The rig’s massive headlamps cut a swath through the darkness, revealing an installation encrusted like a steel barnacle high up the far wall. The gondola cables along the roof dove down to meet this small base, which from its interconnected series of boxy rooms and sealed tunnels could be mistaken for a grounded space station.