“I’m ready.” Zayn looked just a little too excited about this bit. He’d always been the daredevil.
“On three. One.” Dathan tensed. “Two. Three!”
Together, they raced for the line.
The platform tipped under their combined weight. As Nik’s boots slid downward, he cursed. Dathan grabbed the line first, swinging off the platform. Zayn leaped off the platform, grabbing the line with both hands. Nik slid the last few meters and with a silent prayer, fell into space. Darkness yawned below like deepest space. At the last second, he reached out and nabbed the line with one hand.
“Nice save, bro,” Dathan said. “Ready for a swing?”
Nik rolled his eyes. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t be swinging across terrifying abysses on nice, boring, professional archeological digs. He nodded.
Dathan released the grappler from the now-vertical platform, and they swung back toward the other side.
“Woo hoo!” Zayn’s voice echoed in the cavern.
Behind them, Nik heard a crashing sound. Ahead, the sheer wall of rock rose up to meet them.
He tensed.Damn. This was going to hurt.
They slammed into the wall. Pain flared in Nik’s shoulder, and Zayn’s boots slapped him in the face. Below him, he heardDathan swearing with his usual impressive vocabulary of the galaxy’s ripest curse words.
But they were all alive, hanging from the grappler line. Dathan pressed the retract button and the three of them whizzed upward.
Nik pulled himself over the edge and sat for a second, staring back at the pillar of rock that had once held the platform. The platform was completely gone now—no doubt smashed to a million pieces below.
Dathan finished retracting the grappler and hooked it onto his belt. “Come on, boys. Let’s get out of here before those dickhead Institute grunts show up.”
They jogged back out of the cavern, avoiding the booby traps. At the cave entrance, they paused, the humidity smacking them in the face. Even the dappled light was harsh on the eyes.
Nik glanced around. The insects were making a huge racket in the trees, but the vegetation looked as it had before. There was no sign of an Institute team hacking away at it.
Dathan consulted his Sync, then nodded. “This way.”
The three of them moved in single file, following the trail Nik had cut through earlier.
Suddenly, a man clothed in a gray and black uniform stepped in front of them. And lifted a laser pistol.
“Stay where you are. The Galactic Institute of Historical Preservation has invoked the right to obtain any artifacts found on this planet.”
Dathan raised a brow and looked at Nik. “We got any artifacts?”
“Nope. Just out for a stroll.”
The Institute agent frowned. “Stay where you are. You will be searched and questioned.”
Dathan snorted. “Not today.” He threw something.
The small silver ball hit the agent in the chest and exploded. Pink goo splattered everywhere and the agent cursed, trying to pull the stuff off with no success.
“Let’s go,” Dathan said with a wave.
The brothers broke into a run.
“Lala gave you some of her goo balls?” Nik asked.
“Yeah. She said she was trying a new recipe. Stickier than before.”
Nik shook his head. The young explosives expert they’d adopted last year was trouble from the top of her wild pink hair to the bottom of her scuffed, pink combat boots. But the girl was a genius with explosives. At least, they’d mostly convinced her to stop blowing stuff up and stick to less lethal things like the goo balls.
