The Departure Protocol

Chapter 21

When Wared woke the following morning, his head was pounding and it felt as if he hadn't slept at all. He sat up with a groan and rubbed his eyes and blinked as he took a breath of the cool morning air.

On the other side of the fire, Shea . Randee was nowhere to be seen.

"Good morning," Shea said with a smile as she put the last branch in the fire. "Sleep good?"

"Terrible," he said and shook his head. "Where's Randee?"

Shea gestured towards the forest. "He wanted to check the perimeter."

Wared got to his feet, stretched and walked around the campfire a couple of times to loosen his legs. His stomach growled as he sat down next to Shea with a sigh.

"Sounds like you could use one of these," she said and handed him an energy bar, a slight smile on her face.

Wared felt his face blush and cursed the timing of his hungry stomach. He downed the bar in seconds.

Randee appeared from the underbrush a few moments later, his eyes wide. He gestured for both of them to get up, a finger on his lips.

"They're here," he whispered as he came closer.

"Who?" Wared whispered in return.

Randee rolled his eyes. "Who do you think? The Protectorate, of course."

Shea gasped and jumped to her feet. "How close are they?"

"They're still at the outskirts of the forest, so we have time. But, we need to move. The longer we stick around, the more likely they are to catch up to us. Let's pack up."

A few minutes later, any traces of their campfire had been removed and they left their campsite behind as they headed into the jungle with Randee in the lead.

Progress was slow. For the next couple of hours, they slashed their way through brush and vines, pushing through vegetation that at times seemed impenetrable. As the suns rose somewhere above the jungle canopy, the jungle came alive with a different set of noise as its inhabitants woke up and hunted for their breakfast.

A few times, they took cover as buzzed the jungle above them, invisible but audible as it passed nearby.

After a few hours, Randee held up his hand and stopped. Sweat poured down his face and his shirt was drenched in sweat.

"What's wrong?" Shea asked.

"There's another structure up ahead. And a vertical cliff wall."

"What do you mean? A cliff wall?" Wared said.

Randee nodded. "Yep. The pipe goes into a structure of some sort that's built into the wall. It looks like it reaches above the jungle canopy."

"What do we do?"

"Take a break while I go check it out," Randee said and nodded towards a downed tree.

"Let's check it out first," Wared said. "No point in resting now."

Randee shrugged and pointed across his shoulder. "Fine. Follow me."

Randee was right. Wared let out a sigh when he saw the sheer cliff wall climb almost vertically in front of them. Dotted with small bushes on ledges dotted across its surface, there was no safe way to scale the wall. Since it disappeared above the canopy of the jungle, there was also no way to know how high it reached or what to expect beyond the reaches of the trees.

The structure that protruded from the wall looked like a rectangular metal box standing on it's shorter edge. About ten yards of it extended from the surface of the cliff face while the pipe disappeared into the lower section of it.