Beyond Galaxy's Edge (18 page)

Turning his arm over, he stared at the mini-Sync he’d attached to his forearm. It showed the terrain map and the glowing gold cross that indicated their destination.

“That way.” He pointed with the machete.

Nissa lifted her
own large blade and they headed off.

As Justyn hacked a path through the undergrowth, he half expected the vines to rear up and attack them. But everything was still.

Really, really still.

“Don’t you think it’s weird that we don’t hear any wildlife?” she asked. “No birds squawking or bugs chirping.”

Yeah, it was definitely strange. He ducked under a huge, neon-purple flower. “I’d prefer
not to run into any wildlife. Let’s count ourselves lucky and keep moving.”

They found a steady rhythm hacking away at the vegetation. In some parts it was less thick and they could duck under or climb over the growth. Justyn found it an excellent distraction from his fury at the woman beside him.

She’d betrayed him.

He hacked into a vine as thick as his thigh. Okay, maybe he’d known she
didn’t fully trust him, but he hadn’t expected her to compromise their safety. He sliced through a dangling plant covered in blue flowers the size of his palms. Maybe it was time to accept that Nissa Sander would never trust him the way he needed her to. That she might give him her body, but she’d never surrender her soul to him.

He slashed at the jungle with single-minded thoroughness, eager
to block all the dark thoughts in his mind. And the pain in his heart.

Eventually, he paused for break, swiping his forearm across his face. Sweat was dripping off both of them. “Take five. Have a drink.”

Nissa chugged back some water. “At least we crashed on a warm planet. If we’d crashed on an ice world—” she shook her head “—reptilians don’t do well with ice.” She drank again and a small
trickle escaped her mouth, running down her throat, along her collarbone, before soaking into her tank. He watched that trickle with envy as it followed that smooth, smooth skin, tracing the edge of her scale design. His fingers twitched.

Damn it
. He looked away, staring at the giant neon-red flower towering over him like a huge solar shade. Its petals were as long as he was and in the center…his
nose wrinkled. Well, it almost looked like a mouth ringed by protuberances that wobbled in the breeze.

He took another drink. Something touched the back of his neck.

Justyn jumped and swiveled around. Then he laughed at himself. One of the petals had drooped enough to touch his skin.

“Scared of a flower, Phoenix?”

He raised a brow at Nissa. “I’d be stupid not to be scared of everything
on this planet.” He rubbed at his forearm and the phantom ache there from the bloodsucker-vine-leech creature.

“Are you going to keep ignoring me?”

He scowled. “I’m not ignoring you.”

“You’ve barely said anything to me.” She rubbed her cheek against her shoulder, wiping away the sweat from her face. “And you won’t look at me.”

“I’m pissed at you.”

She huffed out a breath. “Yeah, I got
that.”

“You could have killed my brothers, all their crew. Out here, you can’t be Patrol, Nissa. Your loyalty has to be to your team, to the hunt.”

Her eyes gleamed in the dappled shade. “I know. Now.”

He shook his head, angry at both of them. “Just let me work off some steam, okay?”

Suddenly her eyes widened. “Justyn, look out!”

He saw a flash of red and then he was lifted off the ground.
His machete slipped from his fingers. Something enveloped him, trying to smother him. He twisted and turned, kicking out with his boots. A high-pitched shriek sounded in his ear. Arching his neck, he looked up…

Into the
mouth
of the neon flower.

The protuberances were waving wildly now, reaching for him. They were sticky with a clear substance that smelled sweet.

Fuck
. He tried to pull him
arms up but they were trapped by his sides. He thrashed more, trying to find any way to free himself. “Nissa!”

A drop of the sticky, clear fluid slowly dripped down and touched his shoulder.

It sizzled through his shirt and burned his skin.

With a curse, he renewed his struggles. His hand gripped the petals surrounding him, but they were tough and rubbery and he couldn’t get a proper hold.
Reaching down, he found his boot, his fingers searching by touch for his knife. He wasn’t ready to die, damn it, and he sure as fuck wasn’t going to die by getting eaten by a damn flower.

The mouth got nearer and he pulled his head as low as he could. He couldn’t reach the blade. “Nissa!”

“Hang on!” Her muffled voice reached him.

Suddenly, the flower screeched again. It started shaking and
writhing, throwing Justyn around so hard his brain felt scrambled.

Then sunlight blinded him as the monster plant dumped him on the ground.

Heaving in air, he looked up.

Nissa stood over him, a stream of sunlight that had managed to break through the canopy highlighting her from behind. She still held the machete up, and it dripped with green fluid. She looked like an avenging angel.

One sexy, kick-ass avenging angel.

He got to his hands and knees, still feeling a bit shaky. “I was about to become lunch…for a damn flower.”

She snorted a laugh. He shot her a narrow stare.

Her smile flatlined, even though humor still danced in her eyes. “Sorry. Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” He got to his feet and grabbed her, lightning fast. He pressed a quick kiss to her lips, then released
her. “I’m still mad at you, but thanks for the rescue.”

She licked her lips. “You would have done the same for me.”

He’d take on the whole galaxy to protect her. He took a step and something crunched under his boot, derailing his thoughts. “What the hell?’

Justyn kicked at the carpet of dead leaves that lay covering the ground. That crunching sound had been more than disintegrating foliage.
Bones. Old, picked clean and bleached white. He swiped again at the leaves. Many more bones. He took in the skeleton of what looked like a bird and another of some sort of a monkey-like creature.

“I think we discovered what happened to all the animals around here,” he said.

Nissa grimaced. “Something ate them.”

“Let’s get to the hill, set the beacon and get off this rock.”

“Best thing
I’ve heard all day.”

Suddenly, a rustling in the vegetation behind them had them both spinning. Justyn couldn’t see anything but the sound grew louder with every passing second.

“Go!”

They started running, swinging their machetes in a quick and deadly rhythm.

Justyn’s blood was pounding. He kept his gaze focused on the direction they were heading, while keeping Nissa in his peripheral
vision.

Behind them, he heard the plants rustling wildly.

Something was coming. And it sounded big.

Nissa leaped over a large vine, slashed through a wall of smaller, intercrossed ones. “How much farther?”

A quick glance at the mini-Sync. The screen was fogged but he could still see the glow. “Just over halfway there.”

They kept moving. The rustling grew louder.

And louder.

The entire
jungle around them seemed to be vibrating.

Justyn saw the pinched look on Nissa’s face.

They weren’t going to make it.

Suddenly a vine the size of Justyn’s arm exploded out from the undergrowth. It circled around Nissa’s thigh.

“Fuck.” She tried to hack at it, but the angle of her swing was awkward and ineffective.

He swung his own blade. The vine reared backward, the part he’d lopped
off falling at Nissa’s feet.

But with lightning speed, another vine came from the other direction and circled her ankle.

Then another around her wrists.

She struggled, trying hard to pull away. More vines of varying thicknesses swarmed in from the trees, constricting around her like snakes.

“Fuck off!” Justyn kept swinging the machete, but for every vine he cut, three more were already
winding around her arms, legs and body.

She let out a frustrated yell, her clothes drenched from her struggles. The vines lifted her a meter off the ground, pulling at her limbs until she was spread like a star. Then, the vines stopped moving. An eerie silence fell.

Finally Nissa stilled too, her chin on her chest. The only sound was her harsh breathing.

She raised her head. “You have to
keep going.”

“Like hell.” He slashed at another vine. Two more slithered out to take its place.

“Justyn. Go.”

“What the fuck happened to never give up?” A rock had settled in his chest. “I’m not leaving you here.”

“You have to set the beacon. Then come back for me.”

He ground his teeth together. They both knew she wouldn’t be here when he got back. “No. Fuck, no.”

“I’m sorry about
reporting back to the admiral. I never thought anyone would use that to attack us or sabotage our hunt.”

“Nissa…just concentrate on getting out of there.”

“She threatened my father’s commendation.” Nissa heaved in a breath. “It’s coming up in a couple of months. Even though he doesn’t mention it much, I know he’s so damned excited about it. It’s the final shining moment of the career he worked
so hard for. And it secures his pension to the day he dies.” Her voice grew softer. “I couldn’t let her take that away from him.”

Damn it.
Damn all the meddling GSS bastards to hell. “You should have told me!”

“It doesn’t matter now.” Her voice was quiet and far too calm. “I just wanted you to know I was sorry.”

“I know.” He stepped on a half-rotted log to bring his face level with hers.
“I’m still not leaving you here.”

She gave him a small smile. “Tell me how you got that scar? The truth this time.”

“No. I’ll tell you after we get out of here.” He stepped back and withdrew his blaster.

He shot at the vines. He was hoping to get a few off her, but the result was unexpected.

They clearly did not like ion fire.

The vines writhed and wriggled like they were being poisoned.
In one simultaneous movement, the vines all released Nissa, pulling back from her so fast she hit the ground in an ungainly sprawl.

“You okay?” He knelt beside her, one arm under her elbow.

“Tailbone hit the ground.” She winced. “Hard. But I’m good.”

“Come on. Run as fast as you can.”

They moved at a swift pace, once again hacking at the plants and vines. It wasn’t long before Justyn felt
the ground start to rise.

“We’re at the hill.” He couldn’t see past the vegetation, but they were close. He hacked at the wall of green, clearing a hole through the vines.

Beyond the gap, was nothing but bare rock.

They jumped through and pounded up the rocky slope.

“I’ve never been so happy to see no plants,” Nissa said.

Justyn looked over his shoulder. Their tiny hill of rock was one
of a small group in the area, each like a little island dotting the surface of thick, green sea.

At the top of the hill, he swung his backpack off and set the beacon down.

He pressed the correct sequence of buttons and waited as the lights flashed. Beside him, Nissa held her blaster and kept watch on the vegetation line.

After a minute, the beacon beeped, the lights settling into a steady
on-off blink.

He sat back on his heels. “Done. It’s transmitting.”

She looked up at the sky and the red-gold sun overhead. Behind it were two smaller, bright stars that formed the rest of the triple star system. “Hope your brothers aren’t far away.”

“And I hope whoever attacked us isn’t still jamming transmissions.”

“They think we’re dead, so they shouldn’t be.” She kept scanning the vegetation
line. “What now?”

“It’s not safe enough to return to the ship. I say we stay here.”

She nodded and wandered around the rocky outcrop. Justyn stretched his neck, trying to ease the tension. He didn’t think this jungle planet’s deadly plants had given up on eating them just yet.

“Justyn!”

He spun, blaster aimed.

But she wasn’t in trouble, just waving at him to join her where she crouched,
studying something nestled amongst the rocks.

He hurried over and knelt beside her. “What is it?”

She poked at a piece of metal. “Looks like it’s off a ship.”

He scanned the ground around them. “Look! Another piece.”

“Is it off the
Mercury
?”

Justyn studied the silver metal plate. It was heavily corroded. “Don’t think so. This has been here a long time.” It certainly looked like metal
that formed part of a ship’s hull or something similar.

“Look at this.” She picked up a hunk of what could only be synth-glass.

“It’s old.” He turned her wrist over so he could see the other side of the fragment. “See the striations in the glass? This was made before they perfected the technique of making the stuff stronger and lighter.”

“Maybe there’s more.” She turned, stepping across
the broken, rocky ground.

“Don’t get distracted, you don’t want to end up plant chow.”

She took a few more steps away, staring over a ledge that dropped away on the other side of the hill. “Goddess!”

In three strides he was beside her. He stared in disbelief. “Holy space dust.”

It was a crashed escape pod.

It had been there a long time, and was heavily rusted by the planet’s high humidity.
But the vaguely round shape was visible even with the damage and the amount of wreckage strewn around it.

Nissa carefully made her way down. “It’s a really old style of escape pod.”

“Yeah.” He circled the wreck and spotted some lettering on the damaged hull.

She picked something up. “Look. Tripton insulation. No one’s used these for over a thousand years.”

Justyn crouched, swiping a hand
at the vague lettering.

She gave a shocked cry. “Unbelievable!”

He looked up and saw her holding a rectangular object. “What is it?”

“A book! An honest-to-Goddess, old-fashioned book.”

He frowned. “How would a book have survived?”