Page 28 of Stealing Mercury (Arena Dogs #1)

Chapter Fourteen

There’d been no more rain since they’d crawled out of the ravine that morning, but the air seemed thick and heavy with moisture.

Mercury held Samantha as the midday sun beat down on them.

Her belly heaved beneath his hand as her stomach tried again to rid itself of food and water that wasn’t there.

He’d carried her all day while Lo had dragged the hastily made litter that carried Carn, so Mercury knew she hadn’t even attempted to drink water.

“Stars.” Samantha pushed back to stand upright and attempted a tired grin. “I can’t remember the last time I felt this bad. I must look like death.”

Mercury brushed the backs of his knuckles across her cheekbone. “You look as beautiful as ever—just a little more green.”

She started to laugh and then she was bending forward again with her belly heaving uncontrollably. He’d been teasing her about the green, but he would welcome the sight of her colorful nature, even green. Her complexion had grown dull and colorless.

She’d been small and slight from the beginning, and he knew human bones were less dense than those of the Arena Dogs, but her personality had a way of convincing everyone around her that she was tougher than those facts allowed.

She’d charged Resler, fought with Drake.

Now that he held her, the slender ridge of her ribs beneath his fingers, it seemed impossible she could have done those things.

He cringed at the memory of how he’d fucked her like an animal.

He’d tried to be gentle, but he never should have touched her.

He shouldn’t have, but he had, and he wanted to do it again.

First, he needed to stop this damn signal that was making her and Carn sick.

He helped her sit up again and wiped the perspiration from her brow. “We need to keep traveling, Courra .”

She nodded. “I know.” Her gaze drifted to where Carn lay unconscious. “The last time he came around, he seemed delirious. That’s seriously not good.”

“No,” Mercury agreed, aware that her condition was deteriorating faster than Carn’s had. Another day and she’d be as bad or worse.

She reached out and rested her delicate hand on his arms. It was the first time she’d reached out to touch him since that awful moment in the cavern when he’d confessed his desire to kill Rachel.

They’d both pretended like it hadn’t happened, but he’d been waiting for her to push him away ever since.

She’d let him carry her, but there had been nothing offered—until this.

“Lucky for us that you and Lo are okay,” she said. “We’d be in real trouble if we were all feeling like Carn.”

“True.” He turned to let her wrap herself around his back. By the time he got to his feet she’d already leaned forward to lay her cheek against his shoulder.

He gave Lo the signal to move and watched as he lifted the handles of Carn’s litter, then fell in behind them.

As they slogged forward, the next rocky rise loomed larger and larger.

When they reached the end of the plateau, dread became a stone in his belly.

He’d have to leave Carn and Lo behind. Trying to get the litter up the rocky slope didn’t make sense.

Lo must have come to the same conclusion. He dragged Carn over to a small cluster of rocks jutting up. “This is a good defensible spot.”

“We don’t know if there’s water nearby.”

Lo’s ears twitched. “I’m hoping you won’t be gone so long we’ll need to find it, but I think there’s water nearby. I hear a noise like the creek we followed some days back, only bigger.”

Mercury knew if Lo heard it, then it was there. “I hope you’re right on both counts. We’ll return here as soon as we can. And I know Samantha will want a bath.” Thoughts of their last bath together heated his blood.

Lo slapped a claw-tipped hand over Mercury’s heart. “Return soon, my brother.”

Mercury mirrored the movement. “Be safe and well.”

***

Mercury picked up his pace when he started up the rise. He wouldn’t be able to maintain it long, but instinct told him they weren’t far from the source of the pulse. The increase in pace made for a rougher gait. Samantha woke, tightening her clasp around his shoulders.

A sudden jerk rippled through her body at his back. “Where are Lo and Carn.”

“Not far. At the base of this slope.”

She turned as if to look behind them and he had to adjust for the shift of her weight.

He bent his knees and pushed to leap up the next outcropping.

This time when she clung tighter she pressed her body tightly against his.

The pleasure in that served as a welcome distraction from the ache in his muscles and the growing pain in his head.

He leaped again, reaching for what appeared to be a ledge. He gripped the rock edge tightly and strained to use nothing more than upper body strength to pull them up. At his back, Samantha didn’t so much as breathe until he swung his legs onto the ledge.

“Show off,” she teased with a playful squeeze of his biceps.

Despite his pain, joy soared within him at the reminder of her unflagging spirit. He started to tease her back, but the words froze in his throat at the sight in front of him.

The ledge cut further into the slope than he’d anticipated.

It looked almost as if something had sliced away a section of the incline.

The ledge reached about ten meters into the slope, ending in an unnaturally smooth cliff.

Someone had carved hand and footholds in the rock, making a ladder at one side.

They had painted symbols in a deep blue color all along the cliff.

At the center of the ledge, a two-meter-tall spike had been driven into the rock.

Atop it sat a multi-sided object with more symbols etched into its surface.

“Samantha?”

“I see it. Help me.”

She pulled free of him as he set her on her feet. On shaky legs, she stumbled over to the strange object.

“What is it?” He caught himself whispering as if the owners of the object would appear out of the rock face.

“A pentagonal cupola.”

“That sounds as if you’re speaking another language.”

She grinned through her pain. “That language would be geometry. It’s a twelve-sided shape. I haven’t seen one outside a three-dimensional navigation chart, and that only back in my time cramming for the pilot’s exam. I think it’s also our transmitter. And who knows what else.”

“The symbols—”

“Yeah. They match the ones from the terraforming platforms and that metal object we found in the cavern.”

Hesitantly, Mercury stepped up to the object and studied the symbols as she ran her hands over the surface.

“Ah, here.” She said the words almost to herself as she did something with her fingers.

One side sprang open to reveal a small lit panel.

Samantha crouched down to study the small screen. “If it’s as old as the terraforming platforms, it’s hard to believe it still has power, but it does. This panel looks like an interface.”

“Something to turn it off.” It had to be. Something so destructive clearly needed a way to be stopped.

“More than that. It’s way too complex for a simple on and off switch.”

“But turning it off is all we need to do.”

“Right, well, good news there.” She stopped and stepped back. “This interface panel is not as tough as the outside covering. Now that it’s open you should be able to smash it. Looks like you didn’t need me here after all.”

“You figured out how to open it.”

She shrugged. “You’d have managed.”

Mercury put his hand around the spike to see if he could pull it free of the rock ledge. A symbol caught his eye and stopped him still.

“What is it?”

“I know this symbol.” Mercury pointed to the one he recognized.

“Something from Roma?”

“Yes and no.” He closed his eyes and the image came back to him—a blue-black finger, drawing the shape in the dirt. The Mothers kneeling around it to mumble a chant.

“Mercury?”

Samantha’s voice drew him out of the memory. “The surrogates.”

“Seriously?” Her eyes had grown wide and round.

“I wouldn’t joke about this.”

“I know, I just meant... The odds of finding a connection to the surrogates here.” Her brows drew together. “Then again. We’re at the edge of the sector and so is Roma. And I did find this planet using an unofficial Roma star chart.”

She stumbled and Mercury steadied her.

“If this is connected to the surrogates,” she said, “you can’t just smash it.”

He frowned. “You believe you could learn something from it.” He was curious about the surrogates, but his curiosity didn’t matter when he needed to see to her wellbeing.

“Maybe. I have to try.” She put her hand to her forehead and rubbed as if she could rub away the pain. “If we could find them, the people who made this place, they might be willing to help your people.”

Mercury searched his memories of the surrogates.

They hadn’t been true mothers, but they hadn’t been unkind.

Who could blame them for not wanting to grow attached to children they knew would be taken away from them?

“If they had the strength to fight Roma, wouldn’t they have attacked when their females were taken? ”

“Maybe. Or maybe not. Who knows how far they came to colonize this place. The people that were here might have been an advance team or the terraforming technicians. Their homeworld might not even know what happened to them.”

She looked so pale and her body trembled with pain. “That doesn’t mean they would help us.”

“The Cerrillians have an old saying. A common enemy makes for fast alliances .” Samantha wrapped a hand around his arm to steady herself.

“Any civilization that built those terraforming platforms has to be big and technologically advanced. If there’s even a chance they could help you free all of your people. ..” Her words trailed off.

Mercury pulled her into his arms, but she pushed against his chest, resisting.

“Give me a minute. I can figure the damn thing out. I just need to breathe. The altitude must be getting to me.”

He brushed sweat-dampened tendrils of hair away from her face.

It wasn’t the altitude, and she wasn’t going to get better with a few minutes of rest. He stroked her small nose with his fingertips.

She had done a good job of convincing him that the Mothers’ people might help.

He even believed she could figure the object out if given enough time.

But it didn’t matter. He couldn’t let her die or suffer the effects of continued dehydration.

He wouldn’t let her suffer even one more minute.

Mercury lowered her to the stone beneath his feet, protecting her head as she gave into the fatigue and pain.

He strode over to the object and jerked it free of the spike holding it in place.

He turned it over in his hand as he looked closer, committing the symbols to memory.

It could be a link to his past and future.

It wasn’t worth losing Carn. It wasn’t worth Samantha’s life or her suffering.

He squatted down and held it over his head, then brought it down to the rock in one powerful movement. It smashed in his hands, breaking into countless tiny pieces.

He let the remains fall from his hands and returned to Samantha. “Rest, courra . Regain your strength. I’ll keep you safe and we’ll soon be bathing in Lo’s water noise that is bigger than our river.”