Tritium Gambit (Max and Miranda Book 1) by Hyrkas Erik

Author:Hyrkas, Erik [Hyrkas, Erik]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Published: 2012-01-21T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20. Max

“Hey, Miranda. I have good news!” I said over my com link.

“You found the tritiated water?” She sounded happy.

“Yes, and lots of it.”

“Great! We’ll be down to get you in two minutes.”

“Hold on. I don’t technically have it yet.”

“Why not?”

“Well, it is owned by porcupines, and they need me to bring them some toxic baby snakes.”

“The who need you to do what?” she stammered.

“It’s a long story. Let it suffice to say I’m delayed and will call when I have the Tritium.”

“All right, but we’re running low on oxygen, food, and fuel.”

“Then there’s no time to waste. Max out.”

“Miranda out.”

The Magnoculous had shown me to a narrow exit I had to crawl through that led to a rock shelf thirty feet above a pile of very sharp boulders. I would have asked how they expected me to get down, but none of the little cowards followed me into the light.

I could make out the crumbling remains of an ancient road under the jungle vines. The plan was that I would follow this road to the giant toxic snakes armed with my wits, a towel, and a fairly sharp rock. All-in-all, I was doing better than I did on most missions. I usually didn’t have a rock. According to the Magnoculous, the Wendigo preferred to be out when the largest of the suns was set, and so I chose to leave in the morning as the larger of the two suns was rising.

I felt hungry as I worked my way down the steep cliff wall. I hadn’t eaten since Miranda fed me the Bar-E bars. The Magnoculous had offered me some fungus, but I wasn’t quite that hungry yet.

I slipped and fell the remaining ten feet, breaking my ankle, and limped along as it healed. Without the metabolism boost pills, it would take a few minutes to really feel better. The jungle of vines was thick, but I found I could walk under most of the foliage. The small vines weren’t difficult to push through, but they obscured my vision and made me a little worried that I was going to walk headlong into something with a large enough bite to swallow me whole.

I eventually came to some large black lumps, roughly the same size as me, that really stunk. There were bits of green shells in them, and when I poked one these misshapen lumps with a stick, I discovered it was soft and even smellier after I poked it. The smell reminded me of methane. I didn’t know what the lumps were, though.

I followed the road for miles. Clicking and crunching sounds emanated from the jungle on all sides, but I didn’t see any creatures. The wind was damp and carried the smell of decay.

A snort much too close to me made me turn around. All four of my hearts skipped a beat at the sight of a giant green chitinous bear-like creature sniffing the air a few feet away. Then he lifted his head high and let out a deafening roar.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.