Page 2 of Phoenix's Last Heist
A distant crash and angry shout interrupt the din of rainforest patter and my snarky response to Ada dies on my lips.
“I thought you said this landing site was clear!” I hiss into my helmet, scrambling into a low chamber on my left. The downward sloping room is littered with remains of ancient statuary partially obscuring a small shaft in the back corner. An exit, perhaps? I haul ass toward it.
Accurate. The landing site is clear. But the site of the Celestial Temple is within a protected area.
“A protected area? Dad’s journals didn’t mention anything about that and I don’t remember it on any of our maps. What the fuck does that mean?”
Heavy footsteps thud on the packed earth path outside, and while it only sounds like one set of feet, I don’t want to stickaround to find out who they belong to. Other looters? Feds? Or worse—Brill’s flunkies? I grimace, considering my options.
I donotwant to go into the small, dark tunnel.
Small, dark tunnels are usually filled with boobytraps, undesirable poisonous critters, and rotting filth that makes the interior of my ship look pristine.
Again, I regret my decision to forgo my full suit.Fuck.Maybe fate will throw me a bone and whoever is skulking around outside will just pass on by.
The Celestial Temple is in the center of a Xylothian historical site and protected nature reserve.
“Shit. Fuck. Shit. Okay…what does the law enforcement look like here? Please tell me it’s just some local bullshit and it’s not an Interplanetary Federation outpost. I swear to the stars, Ada, if you dumped me next door to the Feds, rewiring will be the least of your worries.”
You are in the jurisdiction of the Xylothian Protectorate.
I shut off the lights from my helmet just as metal-soled boots clunk onto the stone floor of the temple’s entryway—one room away from where I’m currently crouched. Typical. Of course whoever it was wouldn’t just pass on by. That would make my life too easy!I curse every god in every star system I can think of and crouch, preparing myself mentally for what will almost certainly be unpleasant at best.
Silently, I crawl through the tunnel that opens into the darkness.
“Ada!” I hiss as my hands and knees sink into a layer of soft, wet, wriggling sludge. “Can you do a scan down here? Do you detect any life forms? Anything particularly venomous or creepy or crawly?”
Infrared scans detect multiple life forms of varying degrees of danger.
My hands brush against something slimy that hisses and burrows in the opposite direction. Panic-laden nausea rolls through me and I allow myself the tiniest whine.
“Do I want to know what they are?”
The probability is high that you do not.
The tunnel veers sharply left, then right, curving downward beneath the temple. Over the sounds of my limbs squelching through muck, I can hear the faint rush of water. A muggy breeze blows past me from somewhere up ahead, smelling like silt and vegetation. Perhaps the shaft lets out near the river encircling the temple. Assuming I can find my way out of here, I’ll head back to my ship and wait until nightfall to come back, find the idol, and then hightail it off this cursed planet.
The tunnel starts to rise upward and, at last, a pinprick of light appears in the blackness ahead. I crawl faster, spurred on by the warm, buoyant relief flooding my body.Bye bye, creepy tunnel!Thick greenery blocks much of the view, but the sound of the river grows louder when I near the end, hopefully far enough away from the mystery intruder to make a quick escape, if necessary. I tumble out onto a plush carpet of dark purple moss and scan the area.
It’s not the riverbank.
I’m still in the temple complex in some kind of inner courtyard. Towering walls of pitted black rock encircle the overgrown garden and at the center stands a tall, carved figure—some likeness of the warrior monks who built this temple and worshipped the stars.
I take in the long limbs and muscular torso of the alien statue. His face holds a serene expression written in the captivating eyes, high cheekbones, and full lips.
“Don’t recall coming across any Xylothians before. He’s kind of cute,” I murmur. “I’d hit it.”
The figure is a Xylothian Protector. A class of warriors known for their devotion to their sky-borne deities, their single-minded focus on training in lethal hand-to-hand combat, and their abstinence from alcohol, frivolity, and intercourse. You would not be compatible,Ada chirps in my helmet.
“Pity,” I reply, already moving on. “Now, what’s the best way out of here?”
The walls around the courtyard are partially obscured by shoulder-high shrubs studded with hot pink flowers, so it takes me a minute to find the low door tucked into the back wall. As I duck to enter, I turn my helmet lights back on. This chamber is mostly intact—as if the voracious jungle itself has deigned to honor the sanctity of the space.
The vibrant illumination from my helmet lights falls across intricate reliefs carved into the walls and even though I’ve seen my fair share of otherworldly wonders, I can’t help the small gasp that escapes my lips.Focus, Lyra. One relic left—just one—and you’re done.
The carvings shimmer like constellations frozen in stone, a reminder of what’s at stake if I screw this up. If I’m caught here, I’m finished. Not just dead—worse—frozen in my own kind of miserable stasis, still tied to the same monster, the same work, the same horrors.
Dust drifts from the ceiling as I move deeper, the beam of my helmet slicing through the dark. Shapes emerge from the gloom—a celestial map, carved so precisely the stars seem to twinkle when I pass my light over them. All around me, the heavens whirl.
