Predator (Old Ironsides Book 3) by Dean Crawford

Author:Dean Crawford [Crawford, Dean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Space Opera
Publisher: Fictum Ltd
Published: 2017-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

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XXIV

Ayleea

The thick foliage surrounding Tyrone was laden with an dense odor of decay. He could hear the sound of movement in the jungles and heard the sound of footfalls around him but he could see nothing for his eyes were blindfolded. Normally, he would have accessed a sensory display in his ocular implant to give him an impression of where they were going, but the Ayleeans had attached a device to his neck that scrambled the implant. Tyrone was effectively blind, and with his hands bound behind his back he stumbled and staggered through the forest.

His captors numbered four, and they had wasted no time in silencing Tyrone with a brutal blow to the side of his head. Bound and blindfolded within sixty seconds, they were now moving at a rapid rate through the forests, the grunts and snarls of his captors driving him on. The only thing that had confused Tyrone was the fact that they had applied a salve to the drone wound in his belly that had miraculously quelled the pain and reduced the swelling within minutes, allowing him to walk again. At least they didn’t want him dead, yet.

About all that he could tell was that they were descending deep into a valley system, heading ever downhill. The heat was stifling, Tyrone’s flight suit drenching him in sweat as he staggered along. The Ayleeans stopped periodically to drink, allowing Tyrone the chance to quench his thirst before they set off again. His head pounded from dehydration and his sense of balance was weak and untrustworthy, but eventually he felt the ground beneath their feet level out and the sound of rushing water once more.

Something sharp prodded him in the chest and brought him to a stop. Moments later, the blindfold was torn from his eyes. To his surprise he barely squinted as the light hit him, so pale and weak down here that he found he could see perfectly normally in the half darkness.

They were standing in the depths of a ravine, soaring mountains reaching up into dense clouds tumbling end over end thousands of feet above them that glowed with red light from the sky above. Moist, warm air was rising up to hit cooler flows near the peaks, condensing out as rain that never reached the surface and merely coiled in endless vortexes like angel’s wings. The forest was thick on either side of them, a black mass of squat, tightly packed trees and vines, while before Tyrone was a plunging waterfall. The deluge crashed down at what looked like a ridiculous speed, the water tumbling far faster than that on earth and thundering down into a wide lake upon the shore of which they stood.

‘Do we kill him?’

The four Ayleeans stood back and watched Tyrone for a moment in silence. Their leader had spoken, easily identified by the yellow chevrons on his body armor.

‘The elders want him alive,’ another growled.

‘I’m in favour of that,’ Tyrone offered.

‘You were not told to speak!’ the Ayleean leader snapped and stepped forward as he slammed one bunched fist into Tyrone’s belly.

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