Everything was still, but now he got the feeling that someone was watching them.
“Faster, Phoenix,” Nera yelled.
He focused back on running. Nausea hit him and he gritted his teeth.
The ship loomed ahead.
He heard a tinny, frantic sound. A voice in his ear. “Dr. Phoenix! Darc! Please respond.”
Nik touched his nano-earpiece. “We’re coming.”
An expulsion of breath. “You’re over the exposure limit. Hurry.”
The ship got closer, but he was starting to feel dizzy and his head was pounding. He stumbled.
“Keep going.” Nera gripped his arm. “We’re almost there.”
“If…I fall, you keep going,” he said between gritted teeth.
She raised a brow at him. The rest of the galaxy would translate that to “you bet your ass I’m leaving you and savingmyself” but he knew it wasn’t true. If he fell, she wouldn’t leave him.
He pushed harder.
Finally, they reached the ship, its shadow covering them as it hovered above.
Nera clipped a line onto his belt and pressed the retraction device. He whizzed up, his vision blurring.
Hands were grasping at his body armor as people pulled him onto the ship. He lay sprawled on the floor, dizzy and confused. Lights shined in his eyes, and someone was tugging at his trousers. He felt a pressure injector pushed against his butt cheek.
“Nera?” He couldn’t see her. “Where is she?”
“Here.” She shouldered past a med tech and pressed a hand to his shoulder. A second med tech hovered beside her, holding a pressure injector. He looked too afraid to inject her. Finally, she snatched the device from him, shoved her trousers down over one hip and injected herself.
“You’re both very lucky. Ms. Darc was showing fewer signs of radiation poisoning, but you, Dr. Phoenix…a few minutes more out there, and you would have been confined to the medbay for the next few days.” The tech fumbled around in his med kit. “You’ll feel a little groggy for a bit, but you’ll be fine.”
“What happened?” Avril pushed forward, looking extremely pissed off. “I was trying to contact you.”
Nik smiled at Nera. “We found something.”
Avril went still. “What?”
“Three classic cars. In pristine condition.”
Avril gasped and yanked out her Sync. “Give me the coordinates. We need to bring them aboard.”
As Avril started chattering at crew members and planning their retrieval strategy, Nik just smiled at Nera. “We’re not a bad team.”
Her lips lifted at the corners. He let his heavy eyelids close. Smile number two. It appeared he was on a roll.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Nera watched the cars being lifted up into the hold of theDrake. The Institute team were treating them as though they were made of glass. A few other archeologists and crew members hovered around, snapping images, taking measurements, and scribbling furiously on their Syncs. Avril was extra perky, which made Nera feel a little ill.
“They are something,” Niklas said.
She glanced at him. He looked fine now, the pale pallor of the radiation poisoning replaced by his usual tan skin. She’d hated seeing him sick and flat on his back.
Her jaw tightened, and she looked back at the cars. Someone—or something—had tried to trap them down in that hole.
