The entrance to Skag Gully was a detonator.
A crude plunger wired to a charge buried in the rock face, T.K.'s work, the wiring old enough that I gave it an even chance of actually doing what it was supposed to. I looked at it. Looked at Lilith.
"T.K. rigged his own front gate."
"Man has strong opinions about visitors," she said.
I pressed the plunger.
The charge went off and the rock face shifted and the defile opened. Dust settled. The gully spread out ahead of us, the walls stand on both sides, the air already carrying skag musk and blood and the particular staleness of a place that had seen a lot of use and not much cleaning.
"Caches first," Lilith said. "Move efficiently, clear all four before we hit anything serious."
We went in.
The first cache was easy. Twenty metres inside, a small pack had dragged it behind a rock shelf and apparently forgotten about it. Three runners and a pup, none of them mature. I put one down with a shot and Lilith handled the other three before I had reloaded. Cache was intact; sealed containers, preserved food, still good. I logged it on the Echo map.
"One down," she said.
The gully narrowed past the first bend, tight enough that we moved single file for a stretch, and that was where the second pack found us. Five adults coming up from a lower level, using the terrain the way the gully's geography forced everything to — below and fast, cutting off the angle before you could reposition.
I felt them first. my passive absorption picked up the vibration through the rock under my boots before my ears caught a faint rhythmic noise, multiple moving toward us from below. I put a hand on Lilith's shoulder and she stopped without a word, shifted her weight, read my face and looked down at the drop.
Two seconds later the first skag came over the edge.
I pulled material as they came and shaped fast, just pure mass moving in the right direction. The first spike I pushed out took a runner in the chest and dropped it clean. The second one hit a shoulder and the animal stumbled and Lilith finished it on the stumble. She phased through two more in quick succession and I shot the last one while it was still deciding which of us was the bigger problem.
Fast, ugly, functional.
"You're pulling more material than yesterday," Lilith said, stepping over one of the bodies.
"confidence," I said.
the Second cache was in a hollow off the main path where three dens had been dug into the base of the rock wall. Six skags, communal nesting. T.K.'s containers were stacked against the far wall behind the dens, which meant going through the dens.
One of them got close enough to lunge and caught my left shoulder. The shield took most of it but the impact still spun me sideways and I went down on one knee. I pushed back up with another one already turning toward me and pulled a dense mass of stone from the hollow floor and drove it into the thing's skull before it closed the distance.
It dropped.
Lilith put down the last two.
I stayed on one knee for a second. Shoulder aching, shield cycling back up, knee on rock. I pulled in what I could from the ground while I had a moment.
"you good?" lilith called out
"Shield took most of it," I said, before she could ask.
She checked the shoulder anyway. "We should stop at the vendor before we go deeper."
"There's a platform further in. T.K. marked it on the map."
She pulled the Echo out and checked. T.K. had marked it. She put the Echo away without saying anything.
Two down, two to go.
The third and fourth caches were past a section where the gully widened into something almost like a courtyard open up top, multiple entry points, no good positions. Eight skags, the largest pack we had hit, and one of them was noticeably bigger than the rest. Heavy, thick-hided, moving slow but taking up space in the way that things did when they were used to being the largest thing around.
We split without discussing it. Lilith went left, drew the pack with repeater fire, loud and deliberate. I went right and worked the smaller ones from the flank, pulling material on the move and pushing it out shaped into two rough spikes that actually did what I wanted them to do for once.
The big one went for Lilith. She phased and it kept moving through the displacement, not tracking it, just big and heavy and already committed to the direction it had started. It caught the edge of her reappearance and put a shoulder into her and she hit the rock wall.
I pulled a solid mass and pushed it into the skag's flank hard enough that it staggered sideways off her. She came off the wall, hit it three times, put it down.
The rest of the pack scattered.
Lilith stood in the courtyard, one hand against the wall, breathing. I crossed to her.
"Ribs?"
"Bruised maybe." She tested the movement. Winced once. "could be worse."
Third and fourth caches were stacked near the far wall. Still sealed. I logged both on the Echo and sent T.K. the confirmation.
His response came back in under a minute. A rough marker added to the map, a path through the gully's deeper section, a circled point at the far end.
Nine-Toes' entrance.
"He came through," Lilith said.
"Said he would."
She looked up from the Echo at me for a second, something passing across her face that I didn't fully read. Then she pocketed it and we headed for the vendor platform.
The machines were old but running. I bought the a better shield without hesitating it had better charge, faster cycle. Topped up my revolver ammunition. Lilith resupplied on repeater rounds and bought two fragmentation grenades without making a thing of it.
I bought two as well. Thought about what was ahead. Bought one more.
Lilith noticed. Didn't say anything.
We both looked toward the deeper gully, where T.K.'s marker sat at the end of the path.
My shoulder ached. The material reserves were building back up from the absorption I've absentmindedly done.
"Ready?" Lilith said.
"Yeah," I said. "Let's go."