They sprinted until they entered a long, sloped, cylindrical shaft which stretched for miles at a downward angle; it was carved through the fossilized remains of the monstrous Eurynome titan. The walls weren’t smooth but layered with petrified cartilage and splintered bone, ribbed like the inside of a creature’s throat. Patches of ancient marrow fused with dark mineral veins and gave the space a dull shimmer.

  “Looks like we’re inside its spinal chute,” Rhea murmured.

  John walked slowly, scanning the concave curvature ahead. The sloped tunnel was wide enough to fit a capital ship. The tunnel stretched into darkness far beyond visual range. Small ancillary tunnels branched off every twenty meters or so; there were narrow, crooked fissures lined with growths of amber-colored moss and fungal sinew. From them came the sounds—low clicks and wet rustles; they were quiet and distant, but steady. Surely, they were Braccari nests.

  “No movement?” John asked.

  “None I can see,” Sasha replied through comms, her tone careful. “But I’m detecting audio fluctuations consistent with Braccari brood-humming in the lower branches.”

  “Then we’re not alone.” John stopped at a ledge that overlooked a wide organic concavity that curved deeper into the shaft. Beneath them were clusters of dark shapes. Sasha adjusted their mode of vision on their HUD.

  Suddenly, greater detail bloomed.

  The shapes resolved into figures—Braccari, but different. They were slower, unarmored, and with heavier limbs. Dozens of them moved in ritualistic patterns around hatching structures. Growth pods were embedded in the floor, suspended by filament-like umbilicals and covered in mucus. They pulsed faintly, like embryonic hearts.

  “These aren’t soldiers,” Samantha said softly.

  “A Braccari nursery,” Sasha chimed.

  “Look at the juveniles,” Esh-Kaet pointed out. “More plating. Taller spines. Exo-ridges. They’re not Braccari as I’ve ever seen them. These are bred for something else—certaintly not diplomacy.”

  John’s stomach turned. “Sasha. Where does this tunnel lead?”

  “My estimates say the primary shaft continues for another five hundred miles. At its base is an ancillary tunnel that feeds directly into the Idol’s chamber. Estimated transit on foot is seven days.”

  Rhea groaned. “That’s the worst news I’ve heard in a while.”

  “There is an alternative,” Sasha continued. “The opposite end of this tunnel snakes back toward the surface. It’s navigable. If you signal the Hemingway, they can fly down the tunnel and provide an airlift to the Idol’s chamber at the bottom.”

  John activated his comm. “Hemingway, this is Arbiter Drayton. We need a ride. I’m transmitting our location for an extraction. Find the tunnel. It looks like a fossilized trachea.”

  Selathe Min’s voice carried into his ear. “Copy that, Arbiter. The Hemingway is inbound. ETA: seven minutes.”

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  “Good,” John said. “Let’s get a closer look at the pods. Maybe we can learn something.”

  They descended into the curved throat of the shaft, boots landing in wet moss and slimy residue. The field of birthing pods was eerie with the quiet rhythm of incubation. Each pod pulsed with heat. One bulged. Another cracked. Inside, glistening limbs twitched.

  A minute later, a distant Braccari let out a high pitch screech. Sasha outline the source of the noise on John’s HUD; a Braccari caretaker spotted them from an elevated perch and let out a keening, warbled cry. Every tunnel around them seemed to answer with a similar call.

  From above, below, and the sides, Braccari warriors swarmed, emerging from the walls, scuttling over bone ridges and spore columns.

  “CONTACT!” John shouted.

  They opened fire. Plasma lit the shaft like lightning. Rhea fired suppressing slug rounds along the left wall while Esh-Kaet vaulted onto a curved bone spar and picked targets with surgical grace.

  Samantha launched incendiaries, torching the nearest ancillary tunnel mouth. “They’re surrounding us!” she shouted.

  “Seal the upper ledge!” John barked.

  Esh-Kaet leapt back down and planted three charges in a crescent. He detonated them mid-jump, collapsing a rain of fossilized cartilage over a squad of incoming Braccari.

  “They’re just buying time!” Rhea yelled. “They’re trying to hold us here! Look at the sacks, they’re moving!”

  “Then we don’t give them time!” John roared.

  More braccari poured in, but they weren’t alone. From one of the deeper tunnels emerged something larger—bulkier—forms called Braccari Loyalists. They were not just modified, but evolved and twice the size of an ordinary Braccari. Their outer plates glinted with embedded alloy. Their mouths growled.

  The team fell back, ducking behind fossil columns and ridged vertebrae. Rhea shot through a gap in the arching ribs; she dropped one Loyalist with a direct hit to the eye socket. Samantha flanked right and removed cables from the largest pouch on her combat armor.

  “What are you doing?” John shouted.

  “Rigging a trap. Don’t let them pass that beam.”

  She jammed the contact plate into the spinal ridge and ran it across the lane between two jutting bones. The cables sparked. The Braccari either didn’t notice the wiring or simply didn’t care because they ran straight into it, which immediately electrocuted six Braccari making them fry and sizzle.

  More came after that.

  “They just keep spawning!” Rhea yelled.

  “Where is that ship?” yelled Esh-Kaet.

  A beam of spotlight fell onto them, then moved to a swarm of distant Braccari. John heard the rushing sound of the engine.

  The Hemingway burst into the tunnel shaft like an angel of light. Its spherical form rotated as the spherical plasma turrets on its equator whirled and picked targets. Its front mounted array swept across the field, spitting red lasers, and indiscriminately vaporized Braccari in clusters.

  The Hemingway lowered and hovered just above the ground as the boarding platform extended with a metallic screech.

  “Go!” John shouted.

  One by one, they ran and covered each other with suppressing fire. Samantha stumbled, but Rhea hauled her up. John jumped onto the ramp, then turned and unleashed a full volley into the horde. Esh-Kaet was the last to leap aboard, trailing smoke from his boots.

  Once they were all aboard, the platform retracted and the door closed. The Hemingway rose and flew down the great cartilage tunnel.

  All around them, hundreds of Braccari poured into the tunnel. Most of them were immediately incinerated by the Hemingway’s turrets. The ship accelerated downward into the ancient atrial corridor that would lead them to the Idol. Turrets fired in pulses and cleared the path ahead.

  “Next stop,” John said, panting. “We cut out the heart of Thariel’s operation.”