Chapter 12:
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"Inspector…" Judy said softly as she placed down a lighting beacon, shying away from the piercing beam it gave out. What little night vision she had faded somewhat as she turned around, looking on with Jack at the two foxes, phase-changing glasses on their muzzles and eyes focussing well away from the light source.
They'd got down the shaft fairly easily, finding a tunnel down through the rocks to a slick stoney shoreline. A good place as any and, with the sense that things were about to very much open up, they'd begun preparing for the next set. Lt Vixen unstringing her detector, Carmelita preparing a flood-light source to give them both a background light source for whatever came next and a route back home, Jack trying to wire in to Skye, the signal spotty. They were still looking over Rattigan's base of operations, their drone settling down as the rains went away.
Turning around, Jack was about to speak to Lt Vixen only to see movement from Carmelita, the vixen crossing herself.
Finally, the army fox spoke. "So… -That was what he was like?"
"Indeed," Carmelita said breathlessly. "Especially at the end."
Judy turned to Nick, expecting some pun or something only to be met with the memory of his current absence, the pounding and dripping of water washing well over it. What little echolocation she could do was useless here… -It was like asking her to use her beginner's rock-climbing experience to scale the outside of city hall with no gear in a thunderstorm. But, slowly, her vision began to return, the features of the caves making themselves clear.
All in front of her was a pockmarked craterscape of ice cold pools, the bare shimmers and ripples from flowing water catching the light they sowed out. In those nearby, she could see clearly through the depth, cliffs of rubble falling down, the odd tin can or piece of timber down there below.
It was the occasional splinter of a steel pulley system punching out the rim wall of one, or the odd set of steel struts here or there that really showed the legacy of the mining operation. All interspersed with the many rock columns of the cavern, its vaults and twists extending out and around seemingly endlessly, twisting and turning with the fault lines and ripples of the mountains. Carved out, water dripping in and around from everywhere, flowing in behind them, pouring in from other places, crashing down far ahead.
Chilling the place down, cold, seeping into her bones.
But it was the thing in front of them that made her shiver.
Carved out of the rock, flecked with pockmarks like a strawberry skin and then blasted and wounded with pickaxe strikes and hammer blows. His face, eyeless, still loomed out though, the small stone beak in the centre chipped off just like half his talons had been.
One though still remained perfect, a large jewel of quartz sticking out as a claw, just like the few remaining scales that hadn't been torn out. Judy tried to focus in, see what they were… -Not some jewel, they were semi-circular and bent, orange, varying in shape… A glance down and she saw one that had fallen and shattered, walking over to feel it, touch it… -Desiccated bone crescent with dried skin on…
She threw it away, wiping her paws, almost wishing she could curl up into a ball too. It didn't even bear thinking about. -How many, how many to complete that.
It explained the large grave pit to her side, the ruins of the rotten cross fallen down over it. The others gave it a glance before giving one more at the last monument the miners had erected against the dark visage above them. Still standing tall, a wooden crucifix, the carved sheep nailed to it not looking down in pain and misery but instead looking up, staring, eyes bared against the holes of Clockwerk's in defiance.
Judy idly wondered if the owl, immortal as he was so claimed to be, had been there, seen it, played a part? Any further thought though was cut off as Lt Vixen and Carm turned to the others. "That light has two and a half hours' worth of charge. We have backups but I don't want to risk them. After all, chance are we'll be coming down here for much longer afterwards."
Carmelita nodded. "We've set timers for one hour, and have a string to follow back. Low tech, but it works."
Lt Vixen brought out her receiver. "It's strong," she said. "We can roughly pinpoint the direction, -that way…" She pointed far out, towards the pounding water beyond. "It's not pinpoint though."
"Okay," Jack agreed, Judy nodding on. The bunny adjusted her small headlamp, turning it down to get the best out of her more limited night sight.
"See that pinnacle over there?" Carmelita said, pointing up at a large rock formation up ahead. Part jagged upthrust of rock, part stone column, part stalagmite and stalactite. One thing that was clear though was the slope up one side, potential footholds leading up further still.
"Good a look-out as any," the bunny cop agreed, the pair moving on.
So they went, tracking their way at first across the main line, footsteps careful to avoid the remains of old rails and sleepers. Here and there water squelched under foot as they forded a small blanket of rivulets making their way from one pool to the other, flowing with them as they pushed on towards the ever growing thunder.
At a tipped over half shell of a rusted out minecart they called a halt, looking over to figure out a way to their potential overlook. The easy trek along a wide path then ended, replaced with a tight trek along the ridgeline weaving between two cold deep pools. Lt Vixen taking the lead, Judy felt confused then worried then relieved as their path seemed to take them further and further away from their target before swinging them around on a clear path towards it.
A clear, ever narrower, path.
Judy looked on as the vixen in the lead went down onto all fours, paws out and gripping the crumbling beam, pebbles and dust trickling down the sides and falling into the clear black depths. She made it to an island of sorts, enough space for two or three of them, pausing to stand up.
"Judy should take the rest of the path," she said, gesturing on. The bunny didn't have any objection, making away along the same narrow path and then pushing on further, the path getting harder. Thinner, weaker, further out the water. Coach Friedkin's instructions and the icy cold baths of the training course came back to her, she would have a chance if she fell in, not that she…
"-AHHH!" A heavy stab of cold hit her on the square of her back, her limbs shuddering and twitching, pulling themselves in only to lose the grip they had on the earth below. She shrieked as she felt it crumbled, her purchase dissolving beneath her. Arms pulled in, she pushed them out, trying to grip the sides of something only for them to splay out in an avalanche, her body falling with them.
She felt the weightless pit in her stomach open up before it was all slammed shut as she hit the new crest, keeping her up and dry even as her paws dipped into the freezing water. Pulling them in, taking a few steadying breaths, -Not too big as she felt more small stones crumble away beneath her, she shivered as another cold droplet of water hit her on the back.
"Cheese and crackers…"
"-Need any assistance?"
She looked back to the army vixen behind her, paw still out to stay Jack and Carmelita in place.
"No," she breathed out, slowly worming her way forward. The water flowed in through her boots as she wormed her way back up onto the small way she'd been going along, carrying on like such until it blissfully widened out.
Finally though she had her route forward, the objective looming up in front of her. Thankfully the slope they'd seen seemed bone dry and cut with plenty of ridgelines and divots. Beyond that, she could scrabble up some stalactites here, reach that trapped boulder there.
On she went, working her way up, the climb a blissful reprieve as she pushed her way up as far as she could go. Finally, pulling out a small low intensity flare, she pulled it and threw it true towards a nearby raised bit of rock.
A dull red light permeated through the cave, lighting up the route beyond. The pock marks of the quarry works carried on and on, starting to fall down, the water between them rippling then gushing and then pouring into a deep cut canyon that sliced through the underground cavern.
Beyond that was what the place would have looked like before. Instead of the deep flooded pits, the cavern floor was lower, more naturally undulating or half filled up with a darker coloured substance, piled up into hardened mounds. Still, it wasn't like…
-She froze, eyes transfixed on the other side.
Up in the cleft of a rock cloister, surrounded by the carved out holes of former bat homes, lay a small hole moving further on. No particular shape, no real reason to go there, accessible but only just, a tricky climb up a steep rockfall the only way in…
But she kept her eyes on it, not knowing but… -Feeling.
She didn't remember it from her 'dream'.
She didn't remember all that much.
Maybe her mind had thrown it aside as she woke up, only the cliffnotes remaining. Ocean, beach, striped rabbits, jungle, cave.
But in there…
"-Judy?"
The voice came over her walkie talkie and she picked it up, speaking in. "Yeah, I…"
"-Any news?"
"I… I think I know the way forward. -Well, I feel…"
"Good enough for us, any way through?"
"It's across the canyon, I…" She gazed around, there didn't seem to be any way across, the miners having never seen the effort to bridge the… She froze, blinking as she saw something, her mind piecing what was needed together just in time for it to vanish, the flare burning out. As her night vision adjusted somewhat she spoke back in. "I think I know a way."
She slowly began working her way back down only to flinch as a crunch came out, her paw slipping ever so slightly. A look down, her paw moving, she flinched back as she saw the pile of tiny bones crunched under her palm. Some larger, some smaller, little bits of stone here and there interspersed, a dozen or so tiny skulls lying amidst the pile.
She didn't know how many else there were in the nooks, the crannies, the many small holes in the roof of this place.
It seemed ever so colder now as she made her way back along, back to the others where she filled them in. With that, they began their trek back to the main route, then forward, further along, Judy closing her eyes and trying to think as much as she could. If she… -Right here. With that, they followed a branch route, at first running aside and upstream the underground river before then turning towards it. The pools either side were lowering, at first by a metre or so each mine pit, then more, long steep jagged cliffs to the left of them and the right of them, no way out of the freezing water were they to fall in.
Their path was only cautiously narrow, at the moment.
"If I'm right it'll…" She paused, smiling as she looked down. Below them lay the underground river itself, cutting down the rock in steep stepped channels, carving its way out and through the soft rock. All undisturbed by the mining, up until it took a sharp bend, spreading out into the pit of one of the hollows and carving through an archway into the next, where it then cascaded down back into its original course. Looking up, were they to cross the archway then they'd reach the original route of the canyon, the channel bed now held aloft above the waters around it.
"That's still a long way down," Carmelita said. "And a long way back up again."
"We're only a few minutes away from our hour being up anyway," the Vixen said. "But I say we go for it."
"I tie ourself off here," Carm agreed, tying her line in place. "We've got spare floodlights for further on and, even if that back there dies out, hard part's over."
"Sounds good," Jack agreed, pausing as Lt Vixen began unwinding her detector.
"It can only get the general direction," she said, looking over to the hole in question. "But if it's not there, we can rule it out. If it is, a double check inside will confirm it."
Jack nodded. "And then what?"
Carmelita looked to him and Judy. "Who knows, a cave just as large as this, a small shrine?" She looked to Lt Vixen. "That thing can't pinpoint it, right?"
"No," she said, the Interpol fox shaking her head.
"Then we might just be in a needle in a haystack situation."
"Or…" Judy began, "A needle on display situation. Let's hope for the best, okay?"
Jack nodded, glancing at Lt Vixen. "I'll contact the others, inform them."
So they did, the one-hour alarm ringing out not too long after. Lt Vixen confirmed that the talisman was not not in the further cavern, Jack relayed the update to the surface. Communication was getting patchy, the foxes setting up another communication relay to wire themselves in as best they could.
Finally, giving themselves the all clear, they began making their way down and up again. A rope fastened to a rocky outcrop, it was fairly easy to abseil down the slope. It was steep but not vertical, slick but not crumbly, and with both plenty of foot and paw holds and terraced steps along the way. One by one, their feet pressed into the soft sand of the former channel as they made their way over, the crashing of the water all around them.
Moving up was trickier. Carmelita and Lt Vixen took turns fostering for each other as they free-climbed up from terrace to terrace. The few times they thought they could they fixed in place permanent wires, all as the bunnies below began shivering from the cold mist thrown up around them. They both huddled down, ears down apart from when Jack's, sometimes followed by Judy's, would briefly shoot up. -An odd sound, a tricky echo, maybe a stone dropping in.
The police bunny shook her head. It was just her mind playing tricks on her, this place wasn't haunted by the ghosts of tens of thousands of devil worshiping bats and Carmelita said that ghosts were real, didn't she? They were confirmed, she supposedly captured an evil alligator raising an undead army in the depths of the Haitian jungle and so she was actually very justified in being paranoid, wasn't she?
Finally a call came from above, a permanent ropeline being dropped down. Jack and Judy quickly knotted its end to its partners, lest a sudden inflow of water top their current bridge across. They then began making their way up, slowly, carefully, Jack especially resting his limbs at times before they made it to the other side.
"Forty minutes," Lt Vixen said, breathing out. "Still, hard part's over."
Judy nodded, looking along. That entrance again. It'd be a lot of scrabbling and walking across millennia old bat dropping deposits to reach it, but it'd only be undignified and messy, not difficult. "Yeah, I… -I'm really hoping that I'm right here."
"As am I," the army fox smirked as they started on their way.
"You're not the one leading us forward on purely déjà vu."
The red fox vixen gave her a look. "We've got some science backing it up, so your déjà vu is better than mine at least."
The bunny nodded, walking along.
"-What's yours then?"
She and the army fox turned back to Jack, the bunny shrugging.
"I…" The army fox said, pausing and looking past him for a second before shaking her head. "Just a feeling. A feeling of a feeling if anything."
"Mind playing tricks," Judy nodded, walking along with Carmelita, the others following. "Totally not anything returned from the dead. Right?"
"Who knows," the interpol vixen said. "I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot of ghosts down here.
"Yeah," Judy mumbled in agreement, pulling herself closer. "Neither would I."
On the trek carried, the pathfinding along dark pathways replaced with shuffling along, over and around the crumbling stacks of ancient guano, slowly pushing on towards their end destination. The more she looked, the more the bunny saw the remains of those who had once called this place home. Piles of tiny white bones, along with small cut obsidian daggers and other little trinkets. Along the roof and walls she saw the hollowed out windows of small rooms and homesteads, freezing as she saw a larger figure in white, long needle thin wing bones wrapping up around a tiny skeleton figure, cradling it up against its hollow chest.
Her mind flashed back to the ruins of 'Animal Farm', the old bunkhouse for the wolf pups who'd been split from their mother and raised to be the terror enforcers of the regime. The right paw, the secret police, the warriors… -The dumb teenagers who didn't know any better and thought they were saving their mammals and their leader when they stood point in that barn where the siege would end.
Somehow, burning to death felt better now. Over quick, maybe with the sudden sense of betrayal if they knew what their leader had done. Here though, how long could a bat last, cut off from the world above?
Starving out?
Hopeless, confused.
A small army of Clockwerk cultists or not, did it matter? Was she bad for not nearly feeling as bad for them, still.
May… -She froze, standing up, ears turning followed by her head. Her nose twitched as she stared over into the distance.
"You two okay?"
It was only at Carmelita's query that she realised both she and Jack were looking off in the same direction. "I wish you hadn't told me that ghosts were real," the female bunny said, shaking her head and looking at her. "I preferred the ignorance."
"Ignorant or not," Lt Vixen said, "doesn't change the fact."
"At least it would mean I could tell myself it was my mind playing tricks on me."
"Ahem," came a voice from behind. She turned to Jack. "While I'd like to agree, I did hear something too."
"A rock fall or," Lt Vixen began, trailing off as she looked at the other three.
"No," Jack began, "I don't know what Judy heard…"
"I'm not sure myself," she filled in.
"But it was something, a scrabbling or…"
A brief flash of light was cast by Carmelita behind him, looking on. "I don't see anything. I do feel that sense you talked about too though, though I'm sure it would be lingering spirits."
"Did you get that in the Catacombs?" Judy asked.
The Interpol fox shook her head. "No, it doesn't work like that…" Her eyes widening she dove into a pocket and pulled out a small device, clicking through it. Lt Vixen did the same, both turning to each other with a sigh of relief.
"Not bad gas and faulty readers or anything," Carm said, her features softening. "We've pushed hard, you're not used to this… And now we've got it in our heads…"
Jack nodded, walking up to her. "Not that I can't see your concern too." He raised an eyebrow, eyes resting on her paw, as ever resting on the shock pistol practically glued to her hip.
She furrowed her brow and blew out a huff. "Come on, we're nearly there."
The last few scrabbles and pushes weren't less haunting than before. Instead they just focused, Judy repeating Nick's mantra in her head. 'Never let them see that they get to you'. 'Never let them see that they get to you.'
It kept them somewhat sane as they finally reached their destination. At first she thought they'd have a difficult climb up to the looming glistening maw. Instead, a small crack had been cut through by a trickling waterfall, the various slips and cracks in the rock giving them a paw hold up.
"Throw me the rope up," Lt Vixen said, already making the climb to the lip, Carm quickly following through. A tie up and testing tug and Judy and Carm began making their way over, Jack staying behind a second to talk into his communicator.
"Hello? Hello?"
A few seconds passed, then a few more.
"Hello? Nick? Skye? Do you come in?"
He turned to the others, shaking his head.
"They're not answering?" Judy asked.
"Not getting through," Jack said, looking up. "We… We're line of sight with the last relay, right?"
"Not quite from there," Lt Vixen said, getting her own out and calling in. A second passed, then another. "No static, no nothing."
"We can't have gone too far," the hare began, his nose beginning to twitch as he turned to them. "What… What if something happened?"
"Jack…" Judy began, the hare turning to her and fixing the doe bunny with a hard glare.
"We know Rattigan and his hired goons were close by, what if they attacked…"
"Jack, they…"
"They what?"
"Would have radio'd down a warning or something," Lt Vixen said.
"How do you…"
"-They were in a position where they could not be ambushed. Five of them, well armed, ready…"
"And if it was actually only four?" Jack asked, folding his arms and glaring at her.
"I have a super special alarm just for that, and he has a mammal or two monitoring him by sat-link."
"-Which works really well in a cave, right?"
"I…" The army fox pulled back a second, tail swooshing up into one paw. She was halfway through the first brief fiddle with it when she shook her head. "For all we know, one of the relays simply developed a fault. Or slipped off."
"-Or was taken over by ghosts?" Judy asked, giving another look around.
"Judy," Jack began, stomping a foot. "Be serious here, for a…"
"I am," she said, placing her paws on Jack's shoulders before he could react. "I've got Nick up there too, don't I? I can be just as scared for him as you are for Skye. But I trust them up there. -Heck, after that rescue mission I'm even surprised that you're thinking our Woolly friend did them in."
Jack looked at her for a second, jaw falling to the floor.
"-Oh don't get me wrong," she said, shaking her head. "I still think he's a complete pellet. But even someone like Bellwether has standards. -Very low ones, yes, but ones still the same."
"Good," Jack sighed, "I thought we'd all gone crazy there."
"We might all be," Carmelita said, starting to shuffle back down. "None of us are used to anything like this, some more than others. We've had a long, hard trek after a long journey after what was supposed to just be a scouting mission. That's on the back of all of us seeing cussed up cuss none of us should have and having not nearly enough time to come to terms with it. We're tired, we're mammals, our minds are playing tricks on us and if it's not our minds there's a good chance of supernatural interplay here… -Not least as Clockwerk likely knew what became of this place and could have given the information over to Mz Ruby back in the days of the Five. I'm sure she could have a lot of fun with those souls, and we've just spent the last however long trekking through the spiritual toxic waste. We're under a lot of pressure. We've done well. Let's call it here and return to the top base. Rest, cover, next time we bring all the tools we need and we get it."
For a second Judy began to voice her rejection, only for it to die in her throat. The Interpol vixen's words rang true, and she'd learnt when to quit. Or at least take a break. "Sounds good," she said, glancing over to Jack. "Come on."
"Huh?"
"Let's get you back to Skye."
He looked at her for a second or two before looking back up. "Aren't you going to wait to see what she's got to say?"
Judy looked up, spotting Lt Vixen on her detector array again, working at it. After a second or two she looked up. "It's screaming. Dozens of times stronger than if we were right up next to Kozlov's talisman. I'll say one thing, that bear did a real number on it."
She looked up to Carmelita, the fox cop not looking impressed. "How much further could that be though? Behind that corner, two kilometres further on. You don't know where these max out, do you?"
She paused, mouth part open and tail coming up into her paw again. "True," she said, giving it a good fidget. "But imagine if it is just around there. Or we do come back after reinforcing and find there's a specific tool we might need."
Carm closed her eyes. "We get up there, we give it fifteen minutes. No more."
"Fair by me," Lt Vixen said. The others began making a move, Jack amongst them. He was unable to stop his ears twitching back though, his gaze turning and looking at the far away light of the cave entrance, the gaping structure of the catacomb glistening in the darkness. A wet open jaw. Something felt, heard, maybe even smelt wrong. Close by. And he couldn't help but look back towards the way to the others, Skye… Whatever was going on up there.
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Nick cradled his head, the prick of claws pushing through his skin as he studied the reconnaissance photographs. There it was, the upper cave entrance, a small maw cut into the rainforest slope.
Vines had been disturbed, areas cleared around, tents erected and a rough set of trenches and lookouts put in place. The camera zoomed in to reveal the disturbance in the cavern's veil, the interlopers moving in. How far he didn't know. -The last update from his group, not so long ago, was that they were just crossing an underground river. They were close, they might even return up with it.
"-Do we have any grenades?"
The question pierced the quiet of their own underground abode. Holed up in an old room of sort, maybe an overseer's office given the rusted out metal remnants of a desk -the timber just a sodden mushroom covered pile, Skye's voice pierced the air louder than any of the previous thunderclaps had.
"Oh, uh… We have a few basic blasting charges," Murray began, closing his eyes and thinking back. "I remember, they were in that bag we gave that army vixen and… -Ah…"
"That would indeed be a problem," Tigress said, rapping her fingers on the wall.
Skye nodded, shaking her head and breathing out. "-Wouldn't have worked anyway, we'd need to wait for the next rainfall to provide sound cover to bring our drone back, set up a firing system, get it back again, I… Even if we were lucky enough to see him come out, he could duck, run away, sneak back to his stealth drone…"
"-What's this about a stealth drone?"
All eyes looked up at the lone sheep in the group, Nick answering. "Rattigan gets about using this piloted stealth drone, he…"
"-Sounds pretty cool, do we know where it is?"
"No," Skye spoke.
"-Shame, it sounds pretty cool. Also provides a rather clean-cut solution to our problem."
There was a still silence before Nick guffawed.
"-You want to share that with us, Fox?"
He looked up. "Rattigan died returning to his home city, I…" He saw the less than enthusiastic looks on the others and waved it off. "Funnier in my head."
"Probably was," the sheep agreed. "I've found foxes to have incredibly accessible humour standard. Guessing you were considering walking over to it, strategically loosening the bolts on some of the props, that or spiking the fuel with something. -Not that it'd work."
Skye looked up, frowning. "And why exactly wouldn't it?"
"-The terminal velocity of a rat is generally lower than the lethal fall velocity. Not withstanding any emergency systems on the drone itself, etcetera. -Now if you could gain access to the onboard generator and wire a temperature sensitive fuse against it, connected to our said explosives, then you'd rip the thing apart from the inside out."
"Well, shame we don't have anything like that," Nick muttered.
"Okay, even I'm stunned by that display of remediality. We're in an abandoned guano cave, full of the prime ingredients for saltpeter. Harvest some potassium nitrate here, mix it with the butane from one of our mini stoves, ensure it's in a tight enough container and as soon as it reaches the flash point it'll detonate. Rig any explosives or even some of their own grenades nearby up tight to any main support struts and with fairly lightweight wires holding the lever in place, a small first blast will dislodge at least one and certainly set up a highly effective rat killing chain reaction."
Skye tilted her head at him a little. "Or you just tie those grenades in place, tie a heavy rock to each pin, leave them balancing in the engine bay. Rattigan takes off, the vibrations will eventually dislodge one, pull the pin…"
Doug looked at her for a second, nodding. "Potentially, but I'm not a fan of the lack of chemistry in it. Still, vindicating to know that some of you vulpines still possess it."
Before Skye could say anything, Nick spoke in with a wink. "Don't you forget it Dave."
He looked away, smiling. "Nope."
Meanwhile Skye just carried on searching the photo view, tapping her chin.
"-You're thinking about it."
She looked over at Nick, nodding.
"Next rainfall, take it up, just see… It's got to be somewhere nearby."
"We won't have a chance to get close," Nick said. "It won't be somewhere safely on the edge, it'll…"
"-Who says we need to sneak up to it and boobytrap it," Skye said, narrowing her eyes. "If we just take it out when we recover that thing, we trap them here, we…"
"-Make useless the whole 'wait for reinforcements and ambush them in complete surprise thing' the army vixen was so proud of herself for," Doug cut in. He glanced to Nick. "You're going to have to work double time for your species here."
"Hah, do…" Nick was cut off as a growl rang out of Skye, the red fox glancing at her. Before she could say anything though she stood up, turned and walked out. A few gestures by the red fox for tigress to take over watching the drone footage and he followed her down to another dank mouldy room, just as she picked up a stone and threw it, letting out a long huff.
"-If you're going to start with that never let them see stuff I…" She began, turning to him only to see his paws raised and a soft look on his face.
She turned away, moving to a rough cut window overlooking the cave entrance and rested against it, face sticking out.
…
"-You're not going to move until we talk this out, right?"
He shrugged. "I'm not going to speak until you want me to."
She gave a half-sigh-half-growl, brow furrowing before she shook her head. "I didn't want to leave it up to Jack again."
"I didn't want to leave it up to Judy either," Nick said back.
"How many times have you been by her side, how many times did you take the lead? You put yourself in danger to get everyone out of that crashed police cruiser, didn't you? If they ever ask what you did and you need to prove yourself useful, you can just remind them that you were covering them and…"
"-Getting caught." She looked back at him as he followed on. "I would not recommend it."
"Jack… I said that I'd be by his side, to help rescue you, only to get benched. -Waiting there, just… Just waiting, fully expecting him to be dead. Then there was the explosion out at sea and… -And I… I…" She flinched a bit as she felt a red paw on her own, looking over to see a sympathetic look.
Sighing, she glanced away again. "When he was called up here, I told him that he wouldn't have to go through that again. I'd be there, I'd be useful, but now… Now… Just stinking dead weight again, dragging behind the others, not…"
"-You know that's not true, right?"
"Yeah… Right…"
"Well, guess I'm dead weight too here, I…" He was cut off by a light punch to his arm. "Oh dear, I'm going to have to report that fox abuse to my bunny. She won't be very happy."
"I can deal with that."
Nick looked on, thinking for a second or too. "She'll probably make you go to bed early, no dinner."
Her head snapped to him before she glanced away again. "Sure. Whatever."
"Yeah, whatever. You've already proved yourself many times over."
"…Thanks."
"My apologies. Should I be a brave fox and throw out all subtext?"
"I'm fine but… -Thanks," she said, looking back as her ears lowered a little. "Me just being stupid, that's all."
He raised an eyebrow.
Skye rolled her eyes. "In the this moment right now sense. You happy now?"
"Nah," he shrugged. "I'll save that for when we're all under heavy fire and I hear you regretting all your life choices leading up to this."
She managed a small smile. "Only when you're lamenting the dizzy happy go lucky times of the right here and now. Giving me therapy, being buddy buddy with Dave…"
"Hey," Nick smiled. "What's wrong with Dave, Dave's great! Jerkass brother though. Still, I'm looking forward to being able to look back at this great friendship with one giant foxy grin on my face."
Skye rolled her eyes, about to speak, only for Nick to cut her off. "And anyway, I'm certain that the forces paratrooping in will be very pleased to know where the stealth drone is and to have us ready to drop a few spicy potatoes on it before a fleeing rat can use it to make his escape."
"I…" Skye began nodding, ears up, only to be cut off as Tigress poked her head in.
"-Movement!"
They all raced back, huddling around the computer screen, the grainy images playing out. None of the mammals were Rattigan's, all of them mercenaries. They too were huddled around their screens, talking, making motions… All while bickering with a small grey-brown figure.
"Is that…" Skye said, glancing at Nick.
"The pixelated visage of him, I presume…"
He was arguing, pointing downhill, a few of the mammals starting to move. -Only for a mammal with a communicator to wave them off, Rattigan walking over, leaning in. Even through the grainy images, they could see him hunch over, quivering with excitement, a smile on his face…
Before he jolted with shock, confusion, jumping up and down and pounding his feet, yelling at the others… -Presumably to do something. -As they very much did, albeit not what he wanted. They took up defensive positions, hunkered down, covered up their tracks with camouflage…
Skye and the others looked on, the vixen turning to Murray, asking if he would get a sat-phone link up with Bentley. Explain the details, get him to give his advice.
After all, she had no stinking clue what was going on. -They couldn't have found it, it was in this cave, their detectors had picked it up… She turned to what documents they had. Historical, excerpts from the Thievious Raccoonus, comparative ones from Dr Silverfox's studies, Geological maps, past studies on other caves and…
-She froze, a horrible feeling coming over her as she raced to their communication array and desperately tried to get back in contact with the exploration team.
.
.
.
.
Judy made her way up the rope first, then Jack, the hare still giving a glance out into the dark blackness, nose twitching. "Lead the way," Carmelita said, following behind the army fox, the two bunnies in tow. The further tunnel was steep, slick but manageable, their lights glistening off in front of them as they weaved through the stalaci along their path. As if feeling the time pressure on her, Lt Vixen picked up the pace, weaving through the calcite teeth and digging her boots into the divots on the dripping pink stained floor. The others followed along quickly, Judy and Carm pulling to the side as the red fox scrabbled up a scree fall, the small stones rattling and echoing like an orchestra through the confined space.
Thankfully the impressions of the rock below were uncovered and the two fairly easily made their way up, weaving around what obstacles there were, the interpol cop taking a glance at her watch as she went. They turned the corner just as a bright light cast out, all of them closing their eyes and reaching for phasing glasses if they had them, slowly blinking to reveal what lay beyond.
At first, Judy thought it would be some Clockwerk shrine or something horrible or sinister. Instead, she saw a wall.
A small wall, just higher than her, the top edge long curved and smoothed yet dry. Instead, the faint trickle of water came from water bubbling through a small gap beneath it, a hole between the base of the wall and the sandy riverbed.
It was only as Judy adjusted her position, looking past, that she saw what was beyond. No ornamentation, no decorations, no evil or horrors or anything. Just a large sandy expanse, spread out like a saucer, the off white finger reaching down here or trickle of water pouring in there.
"End of the line," Carm said, glancing at the other vixen. "And…"
"You're facing an invading army," she said. "Your most sacred icon is at the front of your domain, right for the picking when they eventually win. You have to remove it, dispose of it, hide it or whatever. But in a place they won't find, but you can. Or rather, someone with only the vaguest of descriptions can. Something that a bat might understand with just one sentence, one order." She smiled, crossing her paws. "At the bottom of the water supply."
"Water su…" Judy began, before clicking her fingers. "This used to be a pool. Away from all the guano or anything. Clean water, bats would fly in, skim off a drink, then fly out."
"And when the invasion came a high priest or whatever knew that this place, far at the back, across the river and through a tight cave with no guano to mine would be perfect," Carm carried on, peering across the sandy surface. "Drop it in, let it settle to the bottom, why would they even look? -I can't even see it now."
"Buried under sediment," Lt Vixen said, jumping over and shining her torch across, looking for a glint. "It could be a few millimetres below and we wouldn't be able to tell. That or washed out somewhere on the channel."
"Well we can keep our eyes peeled on the way back," Carmelita said, checking her watch and smiling. "Fifteen minutes up, well done, though I'm pretty sure we'd be coming down with metal detectors anyway."
"Call it a draw," the army fox said. "But we know where it is, and next time…" She trailed off, her face tilting for a second before a look of horror began growing on her face.
"Is anything…" Carm began.
"Please tell me Agent Savage is just resting somewhere?"
Carmelita looked to Judy, Judy to Carmelita, both to Lt Vixen and all looked around, Jack Savage nowhere to be seen.