Opalina Outpost

Chapter 12 /Part 2/

The second shelter was easy to get to, with stairs hewn into the rock up to a flat shelf. He went through the inventory automatically, keeping his mind steady on sorting and counting and organizing. Step by step, down the list. Second shelter finished, one more to go.

Ravi focused on purging his thoughts. All that mattered was the crunch of sand under his boots, carrying him closer to the next goal. Never mind the sound of Lio in his wake. No more thinking about him. Just the rocks, the desert, and quiet.

A tiny raindrop landed on his nose and broke his reverie. Ravi halted sharply and craned back to look at the sky. A screen of pearl white clouds had devoured the blue, and patchy sunlight dappled the rock. Definitely not part of the plan, and not listed anywhere on six different weather casts. He called in a weather warning to the rest of the crew. "Opalina, listen up!" He spoke into the holowatch, opening all lines. "We need to move quickly. If it starts really raining, get to the nearest high ground shelter, even if that means doubling back." One by one, the pairs replied back in the affirmative.

"Can't fucking believe this," he muttered. Tiny, dark spots speckled the sand ahead. It was misting now, a fine spray that sparkled on the rock walls.

"Rainbows!" Lio chirped behind him.

Ravi glared at the effect of the mingled sunlight and mist. Rainbows meant water, and water in a slot canyon was not their friend.

"Um," Duhar's voice crackled from his holowatch. "Does this count as raining?"

Ravi was about to tell him to keep hiking and get out of the canyon when a fat droplet splattered his boots. He blinked frantically and opened all crew lines again. "Yeah, this is about to be real shit. Get to shelter. Missive me as soon as you're in a secure spot."

Five more steps, and the air around them was darkening. He dared a glance upward to see that gauzy white had turned a menacing dark grey.

"Oh." Lio said faintly. "Not rainbows."

"C'mon. We're closer to the third shelter than the second by now." He trotted down the trail, watching his footing. Lio kept right on his heels, scampering over the uneven dips in the sand. Ravi banged his shoulders a few times looking up at the sky as they jogged, but he kept moving. Those clouds were bruising dark, the kind of swollen purple that flashed a warning.

The weather didn't hold off a second longer. The wind rose up, and the rain slammed down. Curtains of rain stormed through the canyon, blurring his vision. If he'd been anywhere else, it wouldn't have been so terrifying, but they were standing in the middle of a rapidly flooding death trap.

Ravi plowed through the percussive downpour, churning sand into mud. Water ran in rivulets down the sleek rock walls and puddled in the canyon. The trail twisted sharply, and he sloshed through water up to his ankles and rising. The third shelter was supposed to be close, but all he saw was steep, slick rock, with no way to climb any of it.

Rivulets became miniature falls. His uniform was soaked, the pack waterlogged and heavy on his back. The water clattered off of rock and hissed in gathering pools on the sand. The trail wasn't a trail anymore, but a swelling creek. High stepping through the muddy water, it swallowed up to his knees now.

Ahead, the gap straightened out, and metal glinted through the rain. Handholds. Steel bars drilled into the rock face ahead, forming a ladder straight up one of the cliffs.

"Lio," he shouted back, "That's it!"

"Holy fuck!" Lio bellowed, and Ravi swung around to see him pointing at a stream of water cresting over the opposite cliff edge and plummeting to the canyon floor. In the space of a single breath, the stream turned into a full-blown waterfall, carving down over the rock.