Rising Tomorrow (Roc de Chere Book 1) by Mariana Morgan (essential reading txt) 📕

‘Careful.’ Gonzalez grabbed her arm. ‘Remove the moss but don’t rip it up. The nanobots can repair the damage in a few minutes if we don’t tear the roots off.’

‘Understood,’ she gasped, her chest expanding madly to provide her body with enough oxygen.

Seconds later Gonzalez used his BCC and DNA to gain access, and the hatch pinged softly as the lock clicked open.

‘Go,’ he ordered, sending Sergeant Atkins first with Eloise straight after. He saw both of them clip their armour to the appropriate rails on both sides of the ladder. A simple fall-preventing mechanism would instantly arrest their descent until the individual in question recovered their footing and took the pressure off the clips.

It was tempting to use the automated winch system to lower them down, but activating it meant using an unnecessary power source that could be traced. The old-fashioned ladder seemed to stretch forever, but it would have to do. The two hundred metres and a total of six hundred and fifty-four rungs at just under three rungs per metre could shatter even the fittest pair of legs, but at least they were at no risk of falling and dying thanks to the clips.

Standing at the top of the ladder, Gonzalez locked the hatch and issued pre-programmed commands for the nanobots to restore the vegetation. The bogeys were probably on top of them by now, hopefully pursuing the Hippogryph, which was now about twenty kilometres to the north just as planned. But even if they stopped and searched the ground, there were no longer any heat signatures for them to find. They could use hand-held sensors to determine where they had passed, find the rocks they had touched or the spot where Eloise fell, but those chemical traces would dissipate within minutes.

***

Barely forty metres down the ladder adrenaline seemed to have run its course, and Gonzalez could feel hot spikes poking at his ribcage with each breath. The broken bones were jarring his raw nerves. Sweat was dripping down his face, and his armour wasn’t keeping up with mopping up the moisture. It was tempting to rip the helmet fully off and drop it all the way down the shaft, but it wouldn’t be the smartest decision. Resisting the temptation, Gonzalez only lifted the visor, his hand slamming the med-panel for painkillers on the way to the next rung.

The compression band the armour applied worked great while he was stationary. The half-run, half-crawl through the woods and now the climb down the ladder were making it close to useless, however.

Breathe. Stay conscious. Hold it together a little while longer.

Lower down, Atkins was making steady progress, one rung at a time, ignoring the intense burn in his legs. His breathing had intensified, but he had it under control. He made sure to keep Eloise, climbing down a few metres above him, at a steady distance, pausing for a brief rest whenever she did. He couldn’t see Gonzalez in the faint glow of their armour’s lights, and that worried him. There had been no time to ask any questions, but he had clearly seen the awkwardly stiff movements and the tight-fitting compression band around his ribcage before they jumped. Climbing down the seemingly infinite ladder was the last thing Gonzalez needed.

Springing up or down twenty or thirty rungs of a ladder is child’s play, but six hundred plus rungs are a different story. Atkins winced with frustration.Speed falls almost to crawl.It feels like you can’t take another step, but then you start getting paranoid that if you stop you’ll never be able to make yourself start again. So you start skipping breaks, wanting to push through, only to slow down even more. Your legs and arms suddenly weigh five times as much and you might as well be dragging lead pipes.

Finally reaching the bottom, Atkins faced a different type of challenge. When his boots touched the ground, the temptation to allow his knees to bend and sit down was irresistible. But that would be a very stupid thing to do. Letting the muscles seize up would only hurt more later. With a barely suppressed wince of pain, the sergeant forced himself to take a few steps on the solid ground and proceeded with a selection of stretches to ease off the fast-approaching cramps.

Eloise didn’t have as much restraint, and she was splayed on the ground before Atkins could stop her. She was panting hard, her wet, short hair glued to her face and neck.

‘Slow, deep breaths,’ Atkins advised, seeing the panting speed up in a clear sign of approaching hyperventilation. Eloise stuck her middle finger up, but her breathing slowed down nonetheless.

Gonzalez was just a faint shadow some fifty metres above them.

‘You all right, sir?’ Atkins eventually found the courage to ask.

It was easy to act without conscious thought when things were happening fast, but now that he had paused long enough to gather his thoughts, the massive gap in seniority between him and Gonzalez hit him hard. He had vague memories of his gutsy talkativeness when piloting the Hippogryph, and that wasn’t making him feel any better.

It wasn’t just the military seniority. Atkins’ family came from absolute rock bottom, and Colonel Larsen was the cream of the Elite after all. The cultural, social, financial and power-based gap was insurmountable. Leeches with such a low social status did not try to engage Elites in conversation. It never ended well.

Atkins had hardly believed his luck when the then Lieutenant Colonel Mathias Larsen had personally requested him on an assignment a few years ago. It had been barely a couple of years after his basic training, a few months after being reassigned to the MIS, and seemed too good to be true. But even now, after multiple ops working with Larsen’s—now Gonzalez’s—team, the barrier between him and any Elite officer seemed solid. As Gonzalez’s only remaining subordinate, he had to step up to the task of being his CO’s spare