Page 3 of Myra’s Monster (Romance Among the Stars #3)

3

MYRA

T he first surprise greeted us as we pulled ourselves through the crack in the warship’s hull. The moment I was inside, I had weight again. Artificial gravity turned inward into down and pulled me to the deck with a thud. If it had been any stronger, I’d have risked breaking something. As it was, I stumbled but kept my feet.

Hess landed harder, tumbling across the decking with a string of curses. Volkov surprised me by landing elegantly. His genemods hadn’t just jacked up his strength, they’d given him superb reflexes too.

While Volkov lifted Hess to his feet, I looked up, cursing under my breath. We’d dropped twenty feet or more from the opening and getting back up would be a challenge. Especially if we found something worth bringing back.

“How is the gravity still working?” Hess’s voice crackled with static, but that didn’t hide the awe in it.

Volkov shrugged. “More concerned about the air.”

He tapped the wrist readout of his suit, and I checked my own. Blinked, and checked again. We were in an atmosphere? I’d have assumed my battered old suit’s sensors were playing up, but his was brand new. We couldn’t both have the same malfunction.

It was too thin to breathe, but as I watched, the pressure gauge crept up. So did the temperature, though it was still below freezing.

“The ship is waking up,” Hess said, rubbing his hands together. “We should get a move on. If the power’s working, there has to be some amazing treasure in here.”

Great, the Ancient warship is still functioning, and that makes him happier to loot it? Not trusting myself to say anything, I shone my flashlight around, examining the room we’d landed in for anything that might satisfy his greed.

Nothing. We’d fallen into what might have once been a cargo hold. Hard to tell, since it was empty, the dark green deck stretching away in every direction. The rough surface seemed to be made of twisted roots or branches, woven together in a pattern that looked as though it was moving under my flashlight.

Nothing to take here. We’re going to have to go deeper. The idea made me shiver. This ‘wreck’ was too functional for my tastes, and every minute we spent in it just upped the chances of something going wrong. But Hess wasn’t going back empty-handed, and standing around worrying about it wouldn’t help anyone.

If I’m going to do something this stupid, I’d better commit to it. Unclipping the cutting laser from my belt, I tested it on the decking, watching it burn and part under the beam. The weave separated, edges bubbling as liquid boiled away.

I learned from my mistakes, and this time I anchored a line before stepping through the gap. A good thing too, because the next level down had stronger gravity, a good two-thirds of Earth Standard. The motor-winch on my belt whined under the strain, but it got me down safely. More importantly, the rope gave me a way back up.

Which was great news, because I felt like I’d stumbled into a treasure trove. This room seemed as vast as the hold above, though it was hard to be sure because of the jungle filling it.

Yes, a jungle. I know it sounds crazy, but there it was. Tree trunks stretched from floor to ceiling, branches forming the deck I’d just cut through. Other plants grew between those mighty columns. Bulbous fruit hung from vines, glowing a faint blue-white. Strange shadows flickered as they swung back and forth, adding a creepy, surreal air to the place.

I stared around in awe. This wasn’t the fossilized remains of an ancient garden. These plants were living, growing, millennia after the fall of the civilization that planted them. And they were beautiful. Flowers bloomed, dark purples and royal blues catching the light of the fruit. Vines wound around the trunks, glittering wetly and seeming to mark a path through the forest.

Turning slowly, I let my suit’s camera get a good long look at everything. Biotech companies would fall over themselves to pay for this stuff, and rich collectors would want those flowers. If I filled my sample bags with plants from this garden, I’d make a fortune. And it would leave more than enough for the mobsters to get rich off, too.

My crazy gamble had paid off, and the mob wouldn’t carve me up for my organs after all. For the first time in weeks, I let myself relax and breathe. Volkov and Hess followed me down the line as I took careful pictures of the first plant I wanted to harvest.

An awed silence filled our comms channel. The mobsters stared around the dark jungle, silence stretching until Volkov muttered something in Russian. I didn’t need to speak the language to recognize a swear word when I heard one.

That broke the spell. Hess shook himself and spoke in the quiet, reverent tones more appropriate for a church.

“We’re gonna be so fucking rich. Grab a sample of everything.”