She tried again, and this time her strength had doubled. Slowly but surely, Asher started to rise toward her. Her head, then her torso, became visible in the muted light. With a final yank, Tarris used her body weight and fell backwards to pull Asher with her and into her arms. Both lay in the mud, Tarris on the bottom and Asher on top of her.

"Are you okay?" Tarris asked softly.

"I am now. Thank you."

"Thank both of us."

"Really?" Asher looked into Tarris's eyes. "Rya? Thank you."

"She says you're welcome."

"Oh, yuk. You two are at it again." Jerad seemed to have the knack of turning up when the conversation got personal.

"We're just resting," Tarris said.

"If that's what you want to call it. There's a small side passage a few feet up there. It's not easy to get to."

Tarris looked at Asher and sighed. "Come on." She helped Asher steady herself on her hands and knees before she unlocked the legs of her suit and turned around. They crawled precariously back up the passage, but more often than not, they slid backwards part of the distance they had just gained. Jerad, being the smallest and the most energetic, reached the intersection first. While he didn't have the strength to pull the two women up, he did give them a steadying hand to clamber up the rest of the way.

Just as Tarris crossed into the side passage, angry voices could be heard from above.

"They must have gone this way. Follow them!"

Moments later two bodies flew by them and jettisoned off the end of the passage. Their screams echoed around the walls as they fell, until the sudden silence signaled the end of their journey.

"Rich? Are you there? Speak to me!"

Tarris could hear the nervousness in the voice from above. Maybe he thought she had killed them. If it would keep the troopers away from them, she could accept the lie.

"Rich? Come on, buddy. Stop fooling around!"

Tarris held up her hand for silence. A few moments later, a rope appeared and descended the large drain like a snake. Tarris frantically waved her hand for her companions to hide.

"So help me, Rich, if this is some kind of joke, I'm going to kick your ass." The voice steadily grew in volume and finished as if the speaker drew level with Tarris. She was itching to see who it was, but she didn't dare move for fear of being found.

The smaller conduit barely held their bodies, so they had no chance of staying out of sight. Tarris braced herself for the confrontation, undecided whether to resist arrest or surrender. She was so preoccupied with the life-defining decision that she barely noticed the tingle that crossed her skin.

Two soldiers finally came into sight, and they stopped momentarily at the entrance to the smaller drain. Tarris stared directly at them, but they didn't appear to see her. Unless they were blind, which she knew they weren't, there was no way they couldn't see her. She searched within herself and found Rya gone. A wry smile touched her lips. It seemed her shadow warrior had developed a mind of her own and had slipped from her to throw up a deep shadow in front of them.

The soldiers continued downwards, the rope jumping around under their jerky movements. When it stopped, Tarris assumed they had reached the end of the drain.

"Shit!" one of them growled.

"What's going on?" a voice from above asked.

"They're dead, sir. The drain falls away to a fifty-foot drop," the same soldier reported to his commander.

"Come back. We'll send a retrieval team later," the voice from above yelled. There were muffled voices for a minute, and the commander called again. "We found what looks like a transmitter in the upper drain. Haul yourselves back up here to continue the search."

Moments later, the two men struggled up the rope, slipping and sliding on the mud as they tried to get their footing. No one moved until the silence had been present for quite a while.

"Why didn't they see us?" Asher asked.

"Rya." Tarris uttered the one word and expected Asher to understand.

"What's a Rya?" Jerad, of course, didn't.

"Someone you don't ever want to meet, boy," Tarris said solemnly. "Let's get out of here." She sat for a few seconds to wait for the people in front of her to move.

They had only moved forward for a few minutes before Jerad stopped. "What's wrong?" Tarris tried to keep her voice low.

"The pipe gets really narrow," Jerad called back. "I could maybe get though..."

"But we won't." Tarris finished his sentence.

The walls of the drain had been closing in on them steadily since they had left the fork in the broken pipe. The atmosphere was cloying and hot, and the putrid air sat distastefully on their tongues.

"Now what?"

Tarris just knew Asher would bring that up. "We've got no choice. We have to go back."

"And what about the waiting soldiers?" Asher asked all the questions that Tarris asked herself.

"Then I guess we give ourselves up." They were in complete darkness, so Tarris couldn't see Asher's reaction. However, the ensuing silence spoke volumes to her. "What? No 'are you crazy' or 'what's the matter with you'?"

"You've figured all the angles, haven't you?" Asher sounded almost too calm as she spoke.

"I'm open to suggestions."

Sister...

"No? Then start crawling back," Tarris said.

Sister...

"Hey! Where are you going?" Jerad's voice called from a little farther down the drain.

"Can you get out?" Tarris adjusted the tabs on her suit to awkwardly crawl back out.

Sister...

"I think so. Wait..." There was a squelching sound, and a moment later Jerad said, "I'm free."

Sister...

What!

Tarris hadn't meant to snap at Rya, but she was at her wit's end. She was a trooper of the Special Black Shadow Corps, and she had run out of ideas.

Rule Ten in her Survival Handbook: Never, ever, run out of ideas.

She felt the withdrawal inside her. Please, Rya. I'm sorry.

Her shadow spread through her and lay over her bruised ego like a blanket, warm and comforting.

Hit your right foot against the wall, sister.

Why? What's there?

The answer to your prayers.

Tarris reached the tabs on her suit once more and locked her leg straight. She kicked out at the wall as Rya had asked and hit the edge with a resounding bang. "That's metallic." She relocked her suit and moved back as best she could. Her hand reached out to where she thought the sound came from. The texture was different, and it was recessed into the wall. She searched for some sort of handle, button, or gap on the plate in the dark.

"What have you found?" Asher moved back and sloshed mud over Tarris's hand. "Sorry."

But Tarris paid no attention to it. She had discovered a way out, or what she hoped was a way out. "I think I've found an exit."

"That's great!"

Tarris smiled to herself. If she was being honest with herself, she wanted to be a hero to Asher. She wasn't sure why it mattered, but it did. Her hand rested on a lever of some sort, and she pulled on it. It refused to budge, which didn't surprise her in the least. It was probably rusted, like so many things of the past were. She leaned back and swung her reinforced boot tip at it.

"Shhh," Asher said into the darkness. "Won't they hear it?"

Even if Asher hadn't pointed out the noise, Tarris wouldn't do that again. Her newly awakened nerves were on edge as the vibration from the kick ran up her legs, through her torso, and finished at the top of her head.

"Come over here and turn around. I need your help."

"You? You need my help, Trooper?" Asher joked. "I thought all you gung-ho types didn't need help."

Tarris reached out to find Asher's hand. Hers landed on something incredibly soft and warm, but it wasn't a hand. "Oh. Sorry." Tarris withdrew her hand abruptly.

"I thought we were past that." Asher's voice was low and soft.

"Not in front of the boy," Tarris whispered.

"He probably understands it better than you," Asher said.

"We'll have to try to push the panel open." Tarris searched around tentatively until she grabbed what she thought was Asher's shoulders.

Asher chuckled. "You got it right this time."

Tarris pulled Asher toward her until she thought Asher was level with her. "On the count of three, we try to shoulder the door open. One, two, three."

Tarris threw her weight behind her shoulder and slammed it into the door.

"Owww!" Asher said. "I hope you're not planning on doing that again anytime soon."

Jerad's smaller body squeezed in between the two of them and sat down. Tarris felt his torso movements against her side, even though she had no idea what he was doing. Within moments, there was a loud squeal as the hatch opened outwards. She didn't need her eyesight to know that Jerad sat there with a smug smile on his face. "Don't get cocky, young man."

"Do you want me to go first?" he asked.

"Are you saying I can't climb down there?" Tarris leaned out of the drain and looked at a large cavern. In the dim light, she saw a metal ladder that ran from their lofty height to the ground below. It wasn't an ideal exit, but it was the only one they had. "Go ahead."

Jerad climbed through and started down the ladder.

"Why didn't you go first?" Asher asked.

"Because I don't know if this damned suit will let me." Tarris watched the boy scamper down safely. "I want you two out of here in case it all goes horribly wrong."

"What could possibly go wrong?"

"Oh, I don't know." Tarris couldn't stop the sarcasm in her voice. "The suit buckles. I get tangled up in the rungs. The ladder gives way and flattens me. They all sound like nice alternatives."

"I'm not leaving you here." Asher touched Tarris's arm.

"Will you two stop that!" Jerad yelled from the ground.

"How does he do that?" Asher looked out the hole at the kid staring up at them with his hands on his hips.

"No argument, okay?" Tarris said softly. "I want you down there and safe."

"Why?" Asher tugged on Tarris's arm.

"You're my responsibility, and I want to make damned sure you're okay."

"Why?" Asher repeated.

"I don't know. I just do." Tarris couldn't look Asher in the eye.

Without another word, Asher prepared to leave.

"One final thing," Tarris said. "If something happens, will you take care of Rya for me?"

"Is that normal?"

"Not really, no. If the host dies, so does the shadow," Tarris said matter-of-factly. "But I don't think that rule applies to Rya and me anymore."

"What are you trying to say?"

"I think when she was in you, and you had... you know." Tarris could feel a blush start. "She connected with you. You gave her something more. You gave me something more. She has her own identity now."

"She didn't have that before?"

"No." Tarris leaned back. "I called, and she would answer that call. Now, she talks to me. She was the one who found this doorway."

"Ah."

"I wanted you to think I had found it," Tarris said sheepishly.