Chapter Twenty-Eight

The visor screen on Thiago's helmet intermittently flashed as he flopped back and forth, tumbling down the slope. As a final humiliation, his torso took a beating from a mossy boulder that protruded from the bottom of the crater. Every part of his body hurt when he hit the ground. Rolling like a runaway log, he forced his mouth closed to stop himself from accidentally biting his tongue. Thiago slammed his elbows on the ground. Bits of rubble sprayed around him as he slowed.

Thiago collected his scattered weaponry and shoved it into his open satchel. He gingerly removed his helmet, looking at the cracks on his visor and examining the damage on its dented and scuffed shell. It was useless now. As he cast it aside, he heard the mournful squeals of Hercules. Moments later, the oversized alien arachnid came sliding down the slope on its back, ending in a slow, spinning stop by his master's feet.

Thiago flattened the crop of hair on top of his buzzed sides. His jumpsuit had holes and patches of missing fabric that had snagged on distended branches on his way down. He winced at the slightest movement of his body.

Something was wrong with his shoulder. Excruciating spasms of pain stabbed at his tender limbs. As veins emerged on his neck and temples, he suppressed an agonized cry as he painfully stretched his arms out in front of him.

Slamming his eyes shut, he clenched his teeth to brace himself. He seized his grotesquely dislocated shoulder and forced it in the opposite direction. A tear fell out of his eye as a sickening crunch sounded and his shoulder snapped back into alignment.

As he held out his shaking arms, he observed his Arkadian genes start to work. The raw, open wounds visible through the shredded fabric of his jumpsuit began to heal. The cuts sealed themselves, leaving darkened traces of scars in their place.

He closed his eyes into focused slits as he analyzed the quarry-like environment. A thick fog of yellow smoke carrying the distinctive stench of sulfur rose from the ground. Steam hissed out from dozens of bubbling acid pits underneath them. On top of the acid pits was a single steel bridge wide enough to fit two tanks side by side. The old surface of the structure was covered with spacecraft scorch marks and tank treads leading to thick, sealed doors in a cavern opening.

Hercules was behind Thiago when the deafening sound of warning sirens shattered the silence. Thiago took a hesitant step backward. His head urgently whipped around in alarm. Hercules gazed back at him with apologetic eyes. His head bowed guiltily, and his legs slowly reversed through a tripwire on the ground.

The pair concealed themselves behind a series of rock formations, pulling their bodies into a tight embrace. Although space was limited, they did what they could to keep their feet stabilized on their patch of land. They shied away from the dangerous acid pits boiling around them. Thiago wrapped his fingers around the rock formation and tried to spy from a distance.

Grating screeches sounded when the heavy doors in the cavern entrance opened. A line of hovering vehicles resembling one-man sleds glided through the doorway, piloted by Noxx soldiers wearing matching uniforms indicating a low rank. Each sled had a mounted laser gun on the curved brush bow on front of the vehicle beds. The mouth of the barrels sparked with striking red bolts. They were ready to kill.

With Hercules' fidgeting head tucked under his armpit, Thiago pulled back his craned neck. He only needed a little space to keep watch. The Noxx maneuvered their sleds around the perimeter in circles. They were determined to find whatever had triggered the tripwire system.

Thiago licked his lips, kneading the creases of his moist palm with his thumb. Thanks to Eden, he had stumbled upon the holy grail of targets for all bounty hunters on the planet. People had searched for this location for decades. Without even meaning to, they had inadvertently found the infamous lair of the feared Noxx.

"All right, buddy. Here goes nothing. Are you ready?" Thiago whispered. He stroked the top of Hercules' head in an attempt to pacify the creature's restlessness. "Lay low for now and wait for my signal before you attack. Do you understand me?"

Hercules nodded enthusiastically in response. He mimed a zipped mouth with a leg held between his pincers. Thiago ripped off his sleeves and tossed them aside, exposing thick muscles on his arms. As beads of sweat raced down the length of his hunched back, he dove into his satchel and rummaged around for a sniper scope. He screwed the scope onto the base of his submachine gun, mounting the weapon against the edge of the flattest rock he could find.

Aligning himself behind the gun, Thiago gazed into the eyepiece. His view crystallized as he adjusted the scope with the parallax ring. The cross of the field slightly moved before he centered it on the closest guard. He was lingering by the foot of the bridge. Thiago slid his finger onto the trigger and tapped the sides of the weapon for good measure with his other hand. Taking one last, soothing breath to calm the thoughts in his head, he gently pulled back the trigger.

An annoying ringing erupted in Thiago's ears as a single bullet shot out from the mouth of his weapon's sizzling barrel. The first of four Noxx enemies was hit directly between the eyes. His vehicle spun off course at once; the front of the sled plunged into the side of the cavern walls before exploding into a flaming fireball.

Before the others could react to their unseen attacker, Thiago had readjusted his scope to aim at his next targets. He kept his finger half-closed on the trigger and gunned down another one. He proved to be resilient when Thiago missed the mark and accidentally hit his stomach. The thug knelt down clutching his midsection until a clean strike to the side of the neck finally rendered him motionless.

The third panicked and tried to flee, abandoning his vehicle. In his flustered state, the Noxx started to run away from danger but accidentally slipped into the acid pit. Unsettling screams of torturous agony made goose bumps spring up on Thiago's arms. The Noxx floundered in the pool until his screams died down and his body vanished.

Thiago tore his eyes away from the gruesome scene, but his distraction had already made him vulnerable to the last Noxx guard. He missed, hitting the arch above the cavern door instead. The goon's sled expertly swerved away from the crumbling debris above him. He slipped away to alert the others.

Thiago swore like a sailor. He tossed his submachine gun aside in favor of the laser magnum on his belt. Swinging his satchel back over his shoulder, he gave Hercules a quick nudge on the leg.

"Let's go."

They darted to the abandoned sled, which was still hovering by the doorway. Thiago grabbed two new puranium orb bombs, pocketing the glass balls. They pulsed with swirling blue contents. The pair raced to the entrance and retraced the steps of the Noxx goon. They ran down a small, dimly lit tunnel that stunk of sewage. Midway through the tunnel, the droning voices of multiple Noxx vehicles intensified. Five enemies in a crisp V-formation appeared at the end of the tunnel, hollering in their native language as they caught sight of the intruders.

Thiago clamped his hands on Hercules' sides, yanking him back as his legs slid underneath him. He spun Hercules around, whisking him off in the opposite direction. The Noxx began firing the mounted laser rifles on their sleighs.

The scrambling duo raced to avoid the red laser bolts. Thiago spotted a recess on the walls of the chamber and took cover, hauling Hercules in with him. Flattening his back against the wall, he pulled out one of the bombs and hurled the explosive sphere into the path of the enemy vehicles.

He closed his eyes, but it didn't help. There was a glaring white flash which temporarily speckled Thiago's vision with glowing blobs of dancing afterimages. A loud explosion followed which sounded like a collision of trains at full speed. They sneaked out of the wall crevice, fanning away the billows of blue smoke and toxic fumes.

Thiago fired his laser magnum, taking out each of the disoriented Noxx sitting dazed in their vehicles before moving past them. Hercules did his share of elimination. He cleared their path by sweeping alien bodies left and right like a rogue demolition worker equipped with a sledgehammer. After the pair fended off about a dozen additional Noxx, they finally arrived at the heart of the lair.

Thiago rapidly assessed the situation in the underground chamber. His eyes lingered on the vessels containing preserved victims. Was Eden in one of them? If she were, she would be stockpiled along the walls like a canned good in an evil supermarket. A complicated series of titanium platforms, winding staircases, and pedestals stood over the frothing lake of acid flowing freely underneath them. Before Thiago could carefully investigate the capsules, a different group of hovering Noxx sailed through the entryway across them.

The bright green bolts that jetted out of Thiago's weapon only managed to scrape the platform of the enemy closest to him before it exhausted its power supply. With the smirking Noxx careening towards him and not enough time to reload, Thiago had to act fast.

He flipped his weapon around and used it to club his assailant on the back of the head. Hercules wrapped his pincers around the Noxx's neck, slashing his arteries before flinging him out of the hijacked sled. The pair clambered into the vehicle. Thiago took the driver's seat as Hercules clung onto the curved back of the chair.

Thiago pulled on a random lever. The sleigh lifted off the ground unsteadily. It tipped from side to side until Thiago became accustomed to the unfamiliar controls. His eyes widened at the sight of Noxx steadily closing the distance between them and beginning to open fire. He steered abruptly to the right, evading the line of laser blasts. He began flipping the switches to activate the mounted guns on his sled and his blistered fingertip pulled back a trigger. As he guided the beam of his platform's laser, the smell of singed alien flesh intermingled with the sulfuric air.

Then he heard the sweetest sound in the world.

"Thiago? Oh, thank God – Thiago! I'm up here!"

Thiago looked up, his heart jumping at the sound of Eden's voice. A steel cage hung suspended from the ceiling. It was only accessible by a single staircase that appeared to be at least three stories off the ground. The floor of the cage rocked wildly as Eden excitedly stomped her feet.

He bared his teeth in his wrath, finishing off the rest of the mob moving behind them. He accelerated away from the scene. Hercules gurgled delightedly behind him as they soared up to Eden's height. They hopped off the sled at the top of the staircase. Thiago didn't bother to stop the vehicle, which wasn't large enough to accommodate all three of them. It jerked forward once before plunging into the acid pit underneath them.

"Let's get out of here. I don't know where Malatov and Ardela are, but I think they're coming back at any moment."

"You're okay, Eden. Everything will be fine." He searched in his satchel and pulled out a mechanism resembling a spring clamp. As a puffy-eyed Eden waited in her cage, Thiago fastened the jaws of the tool around the lock. He twisted a knob on the device to activate it. Within seconds, a powerful laser in the clamp jaws began searing away at the metal.

With Thiago's attention completely absorbed with helping Eden escape, he didn't see what was happening behind him. He didn't notice the wounded Noxx guard moving up the stairs, but Hercules did. As the grunting guard swung a rusty spiked baton over his head, intending to decapitate Thiago, Hercules launched himself at the attacker.

Hercules latched onto the guard, and the grappling pair tumbled over the staircase railing. There was a loud crash and splash into liquid. In moments, acid covered the two bodies.

Thiago and Eden looked at each other in disbelief. For the first time in years, Thiago snapped. The broken man collapsed to his knees. He clutched the sides of his head as their heartbreaking cries filled the vast space of the cavern.