Page 23 of Rescued By The Alien Prince Pirate

"Okay go back the way you came from and then there should be a trap door down a shorter corridor. It's a narrow tunnel, but if you make it, you might be in the clear all the way to the command center," Silver said. She sounded upset to be disappointing him, but at the same time, there was a little snarky tone to her voice, just like Cyburn and Nix had mentioned earlier.

"I won't get my hopes up yet, but okay," Cyburn said with a bit of residual frustration in his voice.

He seemed really irritated, but I understood. Our lives were at risk here and dodging those robot patrol forces were essential right now. That was the whole point of finding the hidden tunnels, so we could weave through them easier than being up here, out and exposed in the open.

I tossed a couple of wary glances over my shoulder as we hustled down the hallway in the opposite direction.

I was scared. My throat was tight. My muscles were tense and didn't want to work right. Thankfully, the robot patrol hadn't spotted us. We were still in the clear— at least for now. The most troubling part of all this was knowing just how quickly that could change.

"Do you see the narrow corridor?" Silver asked.

"I'm looking now," Cyburn said frantically, his eyes darting around in every direction.

"Here it is," I said, the first to find it.

Cyburn looked relieved and smiled at me. "Thank you." He gently guided me ahead of him, first, touching my back almost affectionately.

"You should come to a hatch door," Silver said. "At the very end."

We shuffled deeper down the narrow hallway.

"Yes, it's there," Cyburn said.

"Try to open it," Silver directed.

"What if it doesn't work?" Cyburn said, his voice urgent.

"Just try." Silver sounded short withhimtoo.

Cyburn crouched to the ground and pulled up on the hatch lever. I held my breath and squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn't dare to look.

When I opened them again, Cyburn had successfully tugged the grate open.

"I'm going to go in first to make it safe," Cyburn said, looking between me and Nix.

We both agreed.

"What do you see?" I asked, feeling like a nervous wreck as I peered down into the dark tunnel. My heart was in my throat.

"I'm on the bottom rung of the ladder, but I've reached the bottom now. It's clear down here," Cyburn said. "No patrol squads."

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank God for that."

Light flooded the hatch hole a moment later when Cyburn switched on a light attached to his armor vest.

"I hear footsteps," I whispered, glancing at Nix. They were approaching from the same corridor as we had just bypassed. I was worried that the patrol unit had seen us after all and were now trying to hunt us down.

Nix looked just as petrified as I felt. "Get in, and I'll keep lookout."

"Others are coming," he said to Cyburn from his headpiece. "We're quickly coming down, too."

"Shit… hurry up then and climb down," Cyburn exclaimed through a hiss. "And close the grate after you're all the way in."

"Are you in the tunnel?" Silver asked.

"I am but Nix and Carmela aren't," Cyburn said agitatedly. "We're being pursued.

I began climbing down the tunnel ladder, praying that Nix wouldn't be exposed. Cyburn was quietly shouting at Silver in the receiver.

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