Chapter Forty-Five – Amongst the Ruins
"This is so not good, girlfriend," Maria said, brushing the dust and debris from her clothing.
"Maria, could you not call me that right now?" said Max. "We kind of have a problem here. We're trapped, and nobody knows where we are."
"Don't be to certain about that, Max," Maria replied, a small smile playing on her face.
She looked around and got her bearings and moved towards an expanse of wall that was still standing. Confidently, she waved her hand across a portion of the wall, and waited for a door to open. The smile slipped slightly from her face, and she waved her hand across the wall again.
"Max!" she wailed, when nothing happened. "We're trapped. We're stuck inside this tiny little cavern. I can feel the walls closing in on my. I think I'm hyperventilating."
Max reached into the small pouch Maria wore on her waist and pulled out a vial of cedar oil.
"Here, breath this," he said, rolling his eyes slightly. Now was not the time for Maria to revert back to form.
Revert back to form, he thought to himself and smiled. Max looked around the cavern and found another fairly large expanse of wall, directly opposite the one Maria was leaning against. He walked across the cavern, stepping carefully over the fallen stalactites and other rubble. He passed his hand across the wall, and a small silver handprint was revealed. Max pressed his hand against the outline of the handprint, and an opening appeared in the cavern wall.
"Was this what you were looking for?" he questioned Maria.
"Shut up, Max," she grumbled with mock ferocity. "Nobody likes a know-it-all show-off. How'd you figure it out, anyhow?"
"Do you remember that time we let you map the route out to that concert in Albuquerque? Max asked. "You proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that you can't read a map to save your life."
"Nice, Max, really nice, bringing that up at a time like this," Maria said. She shot Max a look of mock outrage and joined him in front of the opening.
They stood there for several seconds, both of them staring into the dark passage before Max finally spoke.
"Well, aren't you going to go down there?" he asked Maria.
"Are you sure you trust me to go first," said Maria. "I might get lost or take a wrong turn or something."
Max gave a long-suffering sigh before he answered, "Maria, shut up or I'll demote you to private or something."
"You know, I can't think of why Liz puts up with you," Maria muttered, pushing past him.
"Sure you can," said Max, flashing his famous Tom Cruise grin. "I'm so damn loveable."
"You're such a damn jerk," said Maria, grinning in spite of herself. "Come on, let's see if we can reach the others."
** * ** *
"Isabel! Isabel, where are you?" a voice called through the darkness.
Isabel moaned, she didn't want to wake up, she was having the most wonderful dream, and she didn't want it to end. She snuggled down deeper in to her pillow and tried to recapture her dream.
What's wrong with my pillow? she thought to herself.
Slowly, as the layers of consciousness lightened, Isabel realized that she wasn't lying in her bed, but on the hard ground, and the voice she heard calling wasn't her father trying to wake her up for school, it was Alex. After several seconds, the memories came rushing back, and she realized that she was on Antar, and something terrible had happened.
"Alex," she choked, coughing through the thick dust that filled the space she now inhabited. Alex, I'm here."
She held up her hand and gave a small burst of energy and a ghostly glow filled the area where she had fallen.
"Alex, where are you?" she asked, looking around, trying to locate the source of his voice.
"Out here," came his muffled reply. "I want you to stand back, I'm going to try and get these rocks out of the way."
"Be careful!" Isabel called, a niggling sense of fear touching her. "Alex, are you okay?"
"Yeah, don't worry about me," he replied. "Just stand back."
Isabel did as Alex asked and stepped back against the far wall. In a matter of minutes the boulders blocking her access were gone, and she started to run toward Alex.
"Isabel, don't move," Alex whispered.
She stopped where she was and stared to where Alex was pointing and stared in horror. A large pile of explosives lay on the path, separating her from Alex.
"How can I get past that?" she whispered.
"I'm not sure," Alex responded. I put a shield over it before I destroyed the boulders that were blocking you, but I'm afraid to put a shield over it to have you climb over."
"You did what?" Isabel exclaimed, furiously. "Don't you realize how dangerous it was to do that? What if the shield hadn't held. Those things could have gone off, and you could have died."
"And if I didn't get you out, you could have died," Alex responded, simply. "I had no choice."
"Alex," Isabel said, her voice trembling. "I love you."
"I love you too," he responded. "Now, any suggestions, do you guys have an Antarian bomb squad or anything?"
"I don't think we have time to track them down," said Isabel, her voice shaking. "Look."
Alex looked down at the explosives and felt a shaft of fear shoot down his spine. The explosives had started to glow, a red light emanating from them.
"Okay, Isabel, I don't want you to panic," Alex said, his own face a mask of pure fear.
"Right," said Isabel, "Because you're going to do it enough for both of us?"
"Yeah, something like that," said Alex, flashing her a boyish grin. Whatever happened, whatever the end result, as long as he and Isabel were together, everything would be okay.
"Isabel, what I want you to do is back away, slowly, I don't know if this thing is motion sensitive. Try and get behind that big pile of rocks, and when I say now, I want you to try and put as strong a shield as you possibly can around the explosives," Alex said. Now that he had a plan in mind, he could speak calmly.
"What about you?" Isabel asked, her chin trembling slightly with fear.
"I'm going to be doing the exact same thing," said Alex. "Hopefully, the combined strength of our two shields will contain most of the blast that I'm pretty positive is coming. And if it doesn't, 'we always had Antar,'" he quipped, purposely misquoting the famous movie line.
"You're lucky that I love you so much," said Isabel, grinning despite her fear. "You deserve to get blown sky high for that performance alone.
"Start backing up, slowly," Alex said. "That's right, slowly, slowly. Good, Isabel, you're almost there." Alex paused and looked around trying to judge the distance between himself and the large boulders he hoped to hide behind. "Okay, get behind the rocks, Is," he said. "And NOW!"
Both of them put a protective force field around the glowing mass just as they began explode. Alex struggled to maintain his focus, concentrating all his energy in to maintaining the shield. Much as he wanted to, he didn't even spare Isabel a glance, knowing that as long as the shield remained intact, she was safe.
A sudden flash of movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, and Alex struggled to keep his focus on the explosives.
"Max, no, don't!" he heard Isabel shout, and his attention wavered, and an explosion filled the small room.
