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Authors: Anna Hackett

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BOOK: Return to Dark Earth
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“Breathe,” Niklas whispered.

“She’s trapped. Helpless. She has no voice.
No hope.”

He watched her steadily. “Maybe. But she has
us, now. We’ll help her.”

Nera quivered. “You don’t know what it’s
like to be held prisoner. Owned.” That word was like toxic poison
on her tongue.

“No. I don’t.” There was something dark in
his voice. “But clearly, you do.”

She jolted in his arms and pushed against
his chest.

But he held fast. Steady, solid Niklas.

Then he cupped her cheek. She gripped his
wrist—to push him away or hold that contact there? She wasn’t
sure.

“Nera, when I look at you, I don’t see
someone who belongs to anyone but herself. I see strength.
Independence.”

She swallowed, the nasty feeling inside her
ebbing…just a little.

She looked into blue eyes as deep as forever
and realized Niklas Phoenix was far more dangerous to her than any
foe she’d ever faced.

Chapter Six

Niklas stood on the bridge, tuning out the
excited murmurs of the crew. They’d come off the Sol Bridge several
hours before. They’d passed a huge red gas giant that he knew had
been called Jupiter in Terran times, and then an asteroid belt, and
a small red planet. Mars had once been home to a thriving Earth
colony. He would have loved to have seen it. One day.

Their destination would be coming into view
shortly.

And seeing the Earth was a far greater
prize.

He didn’t hear her approach, but he suddenly
knew Nera was behind him. After the altercation with Gunn and his
slave, Nera had been absent, staying in her cabin for the remainder
of the trip.

One of Nik’s hands curled into a fist. His
knuckles were raw. He’d spent the last day in the ship’s gym,
beating on a spar-droid. The idea that Nera had been someone’s
slave…it left an acid fire in his gut that needed to burn, roar,
and consume.

But he’d known that wasn’t what she needed
when she’d been lost in that darkness in the corridor. She needed
his strength, his understanding, that he saw she’d escaped whatever
hell she’d been trapped in.

“Sleep well?” he asked.

“Not really.” She moved up beside him.
“We’ll be at Earth soon?”

He allowed the change of subject. “Yes.”

“Visual range,” one of the crew called
out.

Nik tensed, excitement a zing through his
blood.

The small orb grew in size, filling the
viewscreen. He sucked in a breath.
Earth
.

The old records had spoken of a
blue-and-green planet. Vast oceans, and continents of brown and
green. All teeming with life.

That wasn’t what was left.

It was truly now a dark Earth.

The oceans and land were now shades of black
and gray.

Humanity had fought over power, money, and
just about anything they could until they’d deployed experimental
nuclear weapons the world had never seen before against each other.
They had obliterated cities and killed billions. They had destroyed
forests and farmland, and ended families. Some people had escaped,
moved to distant colonies, gone on ships headed for a new life. And
some of those ships had been packed with ancient treasures and art
in an effort to preserve history.

But so much history had been left behind.
And now it was gone.

If there was anything at all left, he vowed
to find it. And let the rest of the galaxy see it.

“Heading into orbit now.” The crew worked
like a streamlined team, obeying their captain’s orders, and soon
the
Magellan
was in orbit, everyone staring in awe at the
planet below.

Avril’s face was filled with excitement.
“Okay, we’ll be taking one of the shuttles down. Don’t worry, it’s
a large expedition ship and has everything we’ll need. Bring all
your belongings with you to the shuttle bay. The ship’s called the
Drake
.”

“After a duck?” Gunn asked
incredulously.

Avril huffed out a breath. “No, after the
famous Terran explorer, Mr. Gunn. See everyone at the
Drake
in twenty minutes.”

Nik wasted no time grabbing his things from
his cabin. Soon, he was strapped in, bouncing with the turbulence
as the
Drake
descended to the planet’s surface. Nera,
Solomon and Gunn were also all seated in the smaller cockpit. This
ship’s flight crew consisted of a pilot, co-pilot, and comms
officer. It reminded Nik a little of the
Infinitas
, although
it was still much larger than Zayn’s baby.

“Clearing the clouds now,” the pilot
said.

Nik stared out the window. A second later,
the turbulent gray masses obscuring their vision were suddenly
gone. He blinked. A vast ocean appeared beneath them.

The water below was black, the dark waves
heaving and churning. Wind whipped the tips of them white.

“We’ll be over land shortly.” The co-pilot
tapped her screen. “I’m detecting bio signatures in the water. They
aren’t clear, though. The radiation is causing problems.”

“There’s life?” Nik asked.

“Yes. Large kinds of life. These signatures
are huge.” The co-pilot shuddered.

Nik speculated that if anything had survived
the nuclear fallout, it most likely would have…mutated into
something else.

“How are the radiation levels?” Avril
asked.

The comms officer swiveled his chair to face
them. “High. Really high. Here in what was New York, you’ll be able
to stay dirtside for sixty minutes, tops.”

Avril frowned. “That’s not long.”

“Land ahead,” the pilot said.

Nik craned his neck a little for a better
view out the window. There it was. It spread ahead, like a dark
shadow. As they sped closer, he saw dark waves crashing on a beach
of black rock and sand. Beyond the water, the black sand continued.
A dark desert with giant dunes and rocky outcrops of twisted
shapes.

Not a single instance of vegetation. No
movement, and definitely no lifeforms.

“Coming up on the coordinates for New York
City,” the comms officer said.

Everyone pressed their noses closer to the
windows. Nik frowned. He didn’t see anything but black sand.

“There.” Nera reached over his shoulder,
pointing.

For a second, he was distracted by her body
pressed against his. Then he blinked and saw what she was pointing
at.

The shapes looked like rocks, but he
realized they were shards of broken buildings. The remnants of
skyscrapers pointing toward the gray clouds.

“That must be the city center.” He wanted to
see it. He wanted to go down there and explore what had once been a
great city of Earth.

But they had a mission, and he was the one
who’d suggested the suburbs.

“We’re heading west of the city,” Avril
said, her gaze glued to the scene outside. “It looks like this
black sand covers everything.”

“It was formed from the nuclear bombings,”
the comms officer said.

And over the thousands of years, it had
obviously overtaken the city. Moments later, the ship stopped.

“We aren’t going to land,” the pilot said,
his hands on the controls. “The scans are showing the sand may not
be stable for the ship’s weight. You’ll have to rappel down.”

“Okay. Solomon and Gunn, you’re Team One.
Team Two will be Nik and—”

“I’ll go with Nera,” he said.

Avril frowned. “Fine. Team Three will be
myself and Agent Ryant. Get suited up. There’s light body armor for
everyone. Scans have assured us the air is breathable.”

Soon Nik was standing at a side door of the
Drake
, watching Nera hook up to a line. Beside them, Solomon
and Gunn edged over the side and zoomed to the ground.

“Ready?” Nera asked.

“Yeah.” Nik closed his safety clip. “Let’s
go find some treasure.”

“See if you can keep up with me, Phoenix.”
Without warning, Nera leapt 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. Nik 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.

Nik’s chest tightened. That was his first
smile from Nera Darc. And 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. And 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 hissed 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.

Nik 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.” He turned 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.”

Nik 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?”

She looked over his shoulder. “What about
them?”

“The transaction was really well hidden, but
I discovered that they are sitting in a pretty little private
museum on Zeta Volantis.”

She turned her back on him. “We need to keep
moving or we’ll run out of time before our radiation exposure is
up.”

He watched her as she wandered into the next
room. Nothing was ever as it seemed with Nera Darc.

“Sleep quarters?” she said, looking out the
waist-high gap that would have been a window.

“Bedroom, yes.” Nik ran a finger over the
reinforced wall structure. Who had lived here? What had their life
been like? Had they made it off the planet before it was
destroyed?

A glint of something buried in the layer of
black sand on the floor caught his eye. He grabbed it and gasped,
holding the item up.

Nera stepped closer. “Pretty.”

It was a necklace. The chain was broken but
the pendant was still shiny. It was a purple color that reminded
him of one of the colors in Nera’s eyes.

“It’s small,” he said. “Probably belonged to
a child.”

Nera studied him. “It saddens you?”

“Sure. To think of a child caught in the
machinations of governments who were more concerned with power and
pride, rather than with the survival of the young and
innocent.”

“You think because the child was young, she
was innocent?”

He regarded her carefully. “Yes. Children
are innocent, regardless of what they are forced to do or see.
Regardless of what others make them do.”

“There are so many more shades of gray than
you see, Niklas.” She turned away. “Let’s move on.”

They scoured the next few buildings. More
homes with few artifacts remaining. Nik guessed most things had
either been destroyed in the intense blasts that had taken out the
city center, or had just deteriorated over time.

In the first shop, they had more luck.

“I think this was a music shop,” Nik said.
He touched the remains of what he guessed was a Terran guitar.

“I think you’re right.” Nera turned,
cradling a metal object.

BOOK: Return to Dark Earth
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ads

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