“See if you can keep up with me, Phoenix.” Without warning, Nera leaped out of the ship.
Nik’s heart kicked his ribs. He gripped the doorframe and watched her. Her body fell gracefully, in a perfect arch. She flew past Solomon and Gunn. As she neared the ground, she straightened, and as her rappelling device locked, she spun to deflect the jerk and set down on the sand in a crouch.
God, she was gorgeous. He shook his head and stepped out of the ship. He whizzed downward on his line, and a minute later was standing beside her. “Show-off.”
He saw a brief flash of white teeth and his chest tightened. That was his first smile from Nera Darc.
He wanted more.
“We’re heading to the east,” Solomon called out. “Good luck.” He turned to follow Gunn who was already striding away.
“We’ve got north,” Nera said.
As they walked, the coarse black sand crunched under their feet. Here and there, Nik saw structures, worn by time, poking through the sand. He stopped and ran the scanner on his Sync. He cursed. “The radiation is interfering with the readings. There are definitely structures under the sand, but I can’t tell the size,or what they even are.” And they weren’t here to do a full-scale excavation.
Nera was watching Solomon and Gunn disappearing over a large dune. “Hope the kid doesn’t turn his back on Gunn. I wouldn’t put it past the snake to make his share more lucrative by eliminating a few of us.”
Nik grunted. “Jonas might be young, but he seems switched on. He’s survived tougher situations before.”
She nodded. “Let’s get moving.”
As they walked, Nik stopped every now and then to poke at things in the sand. He collected what looked like a shard of a broken plate and a bottle of some description. Not valuable, but interesting, nonetheless.
Ahead, Nera crested the next black dune and paused at the top. “Niklas, you want to get up here and see this.”
He jogged the last few steps, sand slipping under his boots. Then he saw what lay below and sucked in a breath. “Holy stars.”
A portion of the city lay devoid of sand. Some sort of structures, walls maybe, had kept most of the sand at bay. What looked like the shells of a few houses and small shops were visible.
“Come on,” he said.
They skidded down the dune and stepped foot onto ancient pavement that was warped, twisted, and cracked. They walked toward the nearest structure. Half of it had fallen down, and what was left was the steel frame, rusted by the years.
He stepped through what would have been a doorway. “You can see the rooms delineated.”
“Be careful,” Nera warned. “It may not be stable.”
“Scans say it isn’t going to fall down on our heads.” He wandered through to the next room. “This would have been a living area, this possibly a dining area.” He stopped, staring at a melted lump of metal. “I think this was a refrigerator.” Heturned in a circle, excitement in his blood. “That would have made this the kitchen.”
Nera crouched and picked something up. “Look.”
“A spoon.” He took the metallic object from her. “Not bad condition.” He gestured for her to spin so he could put it in her backpack. “Nice work, Nera.”
“I am the best treasure hunter in the galaxy.”
He smiled. “Dathan might argue with you.”
She sniffed. “Your brother has delusions of grandeur. And he’s lost his edge since he got married to an astro-archeologist. Now he’s donating a good portion of his finds to museums.”
“Right. And you only sell your items to the scummiest black-market dealers or private collectors you can find.”
She turned back and raised a brow. “That’s right.”
He studied her face. “You know, I dug around after you stole that Terran necklace out from under us. I couldn’t find a record of a sale.”
“Doesn’t mean I didn’t sell it.”
“What about the Haladian gems you found on Halad III?”
