What had they done to him?
And more importantly, what was the dinosaur about to do to Julia if she didn’t make it to the tunnel entrance?
She spun and brought the pistol up, aimed at the dinosaur’s head and squeezed off two shots.
The bullets exploded like cannon fire in the jungle air. Julia watched the rounds smack into the dinosaur’s head. But its thick scaly skin merely bounced the tiny metal slugs away.
Unharmed by it.
It reared up now. It must have been almost twenty feet high. Its head almost brushed the top of the jungle cavern roof.
It looked at Julia now, regarding her like she was some sort of tiny annoyance. Had the gun given it pause for thought?
It roared.
No.
Julia kept backing herself up toward the rock. But she kept the gun trained on the dinosaur. She couldn’t stop looking at Nung’s face peering out of the dinosaur’s chest. Why had they put it there?
Nung didn’t seem to have any expression on his face. Was he even coherent? Was he even Nung anymore?
The dinosaur took another step toward her. With its stride, it could overtake her in two steps.
Julia looked back. The rock was only twenty feet away.
She could see the slit behind it. She could just fit if she ran for it.
The dinosaur roared again.
It’s going to make a run at me, thought Julia.
But what good was the gun?
A thought popped into her head. She rejected it. No! She didn’t want to do it.
The dinosaur moved closer.
Her fingers tightened reflexively and the gun barked twice more.
This time, her rounds didn’t impact the dinosaur’s head, but rather right in Nung’s face.
The dinosaur reared back and screeched.
The howls of pain made Julia wince.
She turned and ran.
She reached out for the rock.
Her hands found it.
She heaved.
Pulled herself through.
Only then did she look back.
The dinosaur lay on the ground, writhing in agony. Blood streamed out of its chest. Julia couldn’t see anything of Nung’s face anymore.
She collapsed back in the tunnel, feeling the cool air wash over her, drying her sweat. All she wanted to do was sleep.
But she couldn’t.
Not yet.
Not while Mick was still alive.
30
She fumbled through most of the winter clothes the team had shed upon entering the humid jungle area and found her own coat and winter pants. She slid those on and found she was still out of breath.
Exhausted.
She pushed herself on. Back down the uneven and craggy floor of the tunnel that threatened to twist her ankles if she was inattentive to where she placed her feet.
Her mind still swam but this time with the images of each of her teammates, starting first with Vikorsky and most recently ending with Nung and Wilkins. She saw their faces, heard their voices, felt their mirth, their excitement, and then their terror. Julia wondered if it would have been easier to just have been killed by the aliens than to have to endure a potential lifetime of knowing she’d led these people straight into hell.
I’m in my own hell now, she thought.
But so was Mick.
His face came at her. His hardened jaw, set firm in that playful smirk of his that bordered somewhere between sarcasm and outright laughter. Her heart swelled thinking about him and it helped to push some of the regret she felt about the rest of the team out of her mind.
The tunnel seemed less threatening now than it had earlier when they’d come in here. How long ago was that, she wondered? How long had they been inside for? She’d been anesthetized to make way for the impregnation. How long did that take? What about the procedure on Nung and Wilkins?
Talk about missing time.
The tunnel curved slightly and Julia recognized the area. She was coming back to where they’d entered the cave the first time seeking shelter from the approaching storms. The tunnel felt colder now. She could see her breath in front of her face.
It felt good to be back in the cold.
It would have felt even better to have everyone with her still.
Well, maybe with the exception of Kendall.
Damn him.
She hoped Kendall would have a particularly nasty ending waiting for him at some point down the road. Perhaps the aliens would tire of him and use him for some type of heinous experiment. He deserved it, having killed as many people as he had.
She reached the fissure and peered out.
Bright sunshine made her wince and duck back inside the tunnel. Her eyes stung. She’d almost blinded herself. Without thinking, she’d gone outside. She slid a pair of eye goggles on over her face and looked out again.
This time she could make out the snowfield below the cave entrance. She could just make out one of the Snowcats. It seemed partially buried by the recent blizzards.
She squeezed back through the fissure and stood once again outside in the Antarctica landscape.
And it felt good.
But she had a mission to accomplish right now. There’d be time for appreciating the frigid cold later.
After she’d rescued Mick.
And destroyed the aliens.
She climbed down from the cave opening and stepped down into about four feet of fresh snow. She slogged through the chest-high frozen morass and made it at last to the closest Snowcat.
I hope to hell the damned thing turns over, she thought as she brushed snow off the window and found the door handle. She climbed inside and pressed the starter switch.
The engine cranked but then died.
Julia frowned. What was wrong?
She shook her head. She had to clear the exhaust or she’d be breathing in carbon monoxide real quick. That would screw her up real bad if it didn’t ruin the engine first.
She fell back down into the snow and tried her best to dig out as much of the Snowcat as she could. She could feel herself rushing to get it done. She started sweating underneath her coat. Her breath came out hot in the air in front of her. Her sinuses dripped.
Julia clawed a path out in front of the cat as well, shoving the snow as best she could out of the way. She felt like she was trying to bench press a house, but thought she’d done a pretty decent job.
At last, she climbed back into the Snowcat and started it up.
The engine turned over immediately and idled with a low growl that reminded Julia of the dinosaur with Nung’s face back in the jungle. She wondered if she’d actually killed it or if it was just wounded.
No time to think, she shoved the transmission into drive. The Snowcat jerked once as the caterpillar treads bit into the soft snow, finding purchase, and at last freeing itself from the snowy coffin it had been left in.
Julia grabbed the wheel and steered the Cat around until she got it back on the proper heading for Mick’s cache of weapons. She cast a wanton eye toward the horizon. The research station lay in that direction. She could just as easily go back there and ring the panic alarm for a rescue plane to come down.
But that would mean leaving Mick.
She didn’t think she could stand the thought of being the sole survivor from this expedition.
She kept on her original heading.
After thirty minutes, she came to the spot where they’d first visited the cache. She shut down the Snowcat and jumped out. The snowfall here seemed less than over by the mountain range, which she was grateful for. At least she wouldn’t have to push more snow out of the way.
She found the cache marker and scraped off the foot or so of new snow.
Her hands touched metal.
Steel?
She scraped some more and found the release catch next to a number pad. She punched in the code Mick had given her and she heard a soft hiss escape, like an airlock being released.
The lid slid back.
Julia peered inside.