'Caiman, this is Nest. Please respond immediately, over.' My watch vibrated and blinked.
Either it was completely coincidental or rather because Commodore Quentin had received more information to share with me right at that time, but the moment my watch vibrated was just right after the thundering rumble had stopped. I had a very bad feeling coming inside my mind as soon as I started to respond the message.
'This is Black Caiman, hearing you loud and clear, Nest.' I responded to the message.
'Good grief.' my watch replied immediately. 'I have more updated information for you. Well, a very bad one, that is.'
'Fill me in, Nest.' I answered, somehow feeling that he would most likely tell me something about the dark cloud in the distance.
'I will assume that you are currently close to or rather right in front of the cliff that you have to pass. Tell me if you see the dark clouds in the distance.' my watch responded almost right away, and seemingly in an extreme haste.
'Yes, sir. A very tall and thick dark cloud, and just now a thunder came out from it.' I replied, right before another thunder rumble was heard.
'Exactly. A cumulonimbus is coming right at that direction.' My watch vibrated and blinked, still with haste. 'Based on the satellite imaging, the meteorologists here said that a heavy rainstorm will come to that area very soon.'
'How soon?' I responded, as I began to let out sweat on my back.
'Ten a.m. at the very most.' My watch answered after it appeared like it went silent for a short moment.
I then had both my eyes locked towards the current time, and knew right away that it was then 09.31 a.m. In an instant, I had shivers running down my spine, countless streams of sweat ran down my back, and both my legs shaking as I could only hold both my hands to not shake because of the sudden devastating news.
How fast should we traverse the narrow cliffs if we were to get to the other side before 10 a.m.? How risky will it be if we rushed all the way? Should we even look for any other alternative paths? Those questions filled my head the moment Commodore Quentin mentioned the longest possible time limit for us before the rainstorm would fall. I forced myself to stay calm and consider every possible option as my watch ended the transmission.
'You must go now, son, and be careful. Over and out.' the transmission ended.
My head went blank all of a sudden as soon as I took my eyes and hand away from my watch. I could only stare towards the nearing giant dark cloud in the distance as our time limit continued in getting shorter with every seconds passed. I struggled to keep my mind clear as I turned my head again towards both Billy and Jessica to let them know what I had been informed of.
"What did Commodore Quentin say?" Billy asked me just as I had turned my head, revealing both he and Jessica had been right behind me all along.
"Ten a.m." I said as I sighed heavily. "That was the estimated maximum time limit for us before the rainstorm would fall."
Billy did not say anything, and only showing what seemed to be his shocked expression as he held his forehead slowly by his right hand, stroking the front of his black hair as he gritted his teeth behind his closed mouth. I honestly had always thought that he would have an alternative solution on desperate situations, but apparently at that time he was completely on a dead end.
"Let me guess." I said as I put both my hands on my hip. "You are going to say that there are no other alternatives whatsoever."
"Nope. There is not." He said as he shook his head twice firmly and looked down.
Billy then told me that while I was occupied with Commodore Quentin, he looked upon the cliff that we had to traverse, and realized immediately that it was in a much worse condition than what he had imagined previously.
He was told that the cliff was pretty narrow that two thin persons could only barely traverse it together. However, what he had seen showed him that not even one thin person could walk along the steps without hugging to the wall. He believed that the steps had only roughly twenty centimeters wide left, and the rest of the cliff was a straight down to the ground almost a hundred meters below, or nearly three hundred feet.
"In that case…" I said as I gulped hard, "we will have to brace ourselves for a sudden wet-climbing…"
Billy only nodded once, and not saying anything after as he had his eyes looked down. At that time, I was not sure if I should feel grateful that I had let out my fear earlier before knowing our current condition was far worse than what I had assumed. But the important thing was that it helped me to stay calm despite what Billy had said to me.
"Okay…" I continued, before I turned to Jessica who also looked extremely anxious, "Please tell me that you are not afraid of heights…"
"No. Not at all." Jessica responded to me right away with a clear head shook. "It is just that… I have never been to this much of a height before…"
"Well no matter what, we will have to traverse this cliff anyway…" Billy finally voiced out again, apparently forcing himself to deal with the only way to our next destination.
In an instant, we readied ourselves and lined right before the cliff step as began to traverse along it. I had both my hands holding on whatever hard things that I could feel, before I began to take each step further. Billy shortly followed right beside me, with a distance of perhaps only four or five steps apart at most, and at the last line was Jessica who appeared to be in a closer distance to Billy than he was towards me.
As if the time limit was not enough to make myself pressured from inside my head and gut, the strong blow of wind just made it much worse by keeping on making my back shivered very badly. I had barely any doubts if Billy would not be strong enough to be able to endure the strong wind, but when I glanced at Jessica for a bit she was surprisingly not seemed to be too bothered by it.
I shortly had my full attention back on the very wall that I held on both for my life and our progress. Apparently, the small cracks where I had both my hands clung to had a very smooth surface that it made me guaranteed myself if rain was to fall before we could pass the cliff, then we would all be clinging to an extremely slippery surface with absolutely nothing to prevent us from falling down three hundred feet below.
Aside from that, the twenty-centimeters-wide of a step would barely help us to have a steady progress towards our next destination. A smooth surface was still rather be easy to cling to when it was not raining, but an extremely narrow path with its surface almost completely covered with mosses and small vine plants would be already challenging to step on, let alone when it rained. I could almost be completely sure that we had not even covered a quarter of our needed journey when I looked again at my time and realized that we had been traversing for nearly ten minutes.
"Hey, Travis!" Jessica said to me, with a rather louder tone.
"Yes?!" I responded to her as I kept on struggling proceeding, with a louder tone as well since I realized the strong wind hindered our hearings.
"You said that we only have time until ten a.m. earlier, right?!" she continued.
"What about it?!" I replied with another question to her.
"Is there any chance that we may have a little bit of a longer time limit than that?!" she asked me.
"I cannot say!" I replied after I moved a few steps, "I am no expert when it comes to weather forecast or meteorology to know if there is any sudden change in cloud shapes and wind direction!"
"I thought that your Navy put inside some sort of a basic meteorological training or something to their officer candidates." Billy responded almost right away.
"They did." I said, before pausing for a moment to take several steps. "And frankly speaking, I had the top 10 lowest score for meteorology."
"And here I had always thought that you were some sort of an academic prodigy officer who excels at virtually everything, since you graduated with the top three predicate." Billy replied to me, seemingly with a sigh of either relief or a bit of a disappointment.
"Maybe that had something to do with few other subjects during our training…" I told him.
"Let me guess." He said, before he paused for a moment and quickened his pace a little, "Engineering, Nautical Geography, and maybe Basic Mathematics?"
"Yes. You guessed them right." I answered to him right away as I smiled a bit and glanced to him briefly.
I had guessed right from the beginning that Billy had most likely read about my background profile at least for a glance sometime before we met with each other. I would definitely do the same if I was also given the same opportunity, but somehow I had not received any sort of documents about a background profile regarding my partner for the operation prior to my arrival in the country. I suppose it either had something to do with one of the policies of E.X.T.I.R.T, or that the Special Forces Command insisted that his profile was to be kept undisclosed to me.
That being said, somehow I felt like I experienced less struggles in traversing the cliff when I had myself conversing with Billy and Jessica. It would most probably because I was not too focused on the difficult terrain when the three of us were exchanging words while proceeding on the challenging path. I looked at my watch again, to make sure how close we were to the mentioned time limit, and to my surprise it had not even been five minutes after I had last looked at it.
'Krrgkk KRAGGKKK'
A very loud thunder rumble then all of a sudden stroke one of the nearest tree top, which stood quite near from where we were. I even had my left ear ringing for some moment before it slowly began to wear down. When I looked at the tree top again, I noticed that some part of it had been cut down by the lightning strike, and was shortly followed by a faint sound of branch cracking below it, an indication that the cut branch had fell down.
"Ugh… come on. We cannot wait until the ringing in our ears completely gone to move on…" Billy said to me, implying that he also had his ears ringing because of the lightning strike.
As I had thought, the lightning strike earlier was a clear sign for us that the cloud was fast approaching us. Just like what Jessica had asked me, I actually also had some doubts if the rain would actually start to fall at around 10 a.m., but after what we had experienced earlier I suppose that the prediction might actually be accurate after all.
"I hope we have covered about half of our needed distance by now." Billy sighed after we had covered some more steps in complete silence.
I quickly looked at my watch again, and realized that we had less than ten minutes before the predicted time limit, yet I still could not see the end of the cliff where we had clung ourselves to. As we kept on going, the sky above us was progressively getting darker, slowly hindering my sight as well. By then, the only positive thing that I could think of was only the fact that the cliff did not end up with a dead end. It was not that I did not trust the information Billy had received, but it was because the map his information was based on was not the updated one.
Fortunately, it was not too long for me before I could begin to see faintly what seemed to be a grassy meadow in the distance. If it turned to be the one that Billy had mentioned, then at that time we might be roughly still had about a hundred feet left to cover before we arrived at the meadow. With that being said, it also looked like we would most likely have to jump from the other end of the cliff. The matter on how far below we had to jump was also another question that I could not yet guess since we were still far away.
'krkkk CRACKK'
"Wo-OAHH!!" Billy suddenly clung himself very hard to the cracked surface with both his hands desperately.
At first I was wondering what had happened to him, but as soon as I turned to him I was left in complete shock. The mossy steps where I had just passed earlier collapsed down three hundred feet below, right after Billy stepped on them, forcing him to only cling to the remaining surface he could hold on with his dear life. Without any further hesitation and thinking, I released my right hand from the cracked surface and lent it towards him.
"Quick! Grab my hand!" I shouted to him.
"No, wait!" Billy responded to me, still desperately clinging to the cracked surface with both of his hands as his legs hung with no surface to step on before telling Jessica to not move at all and also told me to move on more.
"Jess, Jangan gerak dulu! Travis, make some more space between me and you!" He continued.
In that instant, I quickly did what he said and somehow I felt like I could traverse the extreme terrain with more ease than before, probably because I had my mind suddenly focused on the present danger upon my partner. I was too focused on creating space between me and him that I ended up getting too far away from him, forcing him to shout at me to tell me that I had been going too far.
"Travis! That is enough!" Billy shouted to me.
By the time I stopped, Billy must be standing at least about fifteen feet away from me, and already had both his feet stood on the mossy step while Jessica had not moved on again. At that moment, I was indeed already closer to the meadow, yet I felt like it would be wrong if I decided to continue proceeding onwards as if I was leaving them behind.
The next thing that became my concern was how Jessica would pass over the collapsed mossy steps. Not that I worried she would not be able to cross the gap with only her hands, but I was concerned that her heavy backpack would weigh her down when she crossed it. To my surprise, I witnessed directly that she seemed to have little to no problem at all clinging on to the cracked surface of the cliff and cross the collapsed step.
After I was completely sure that she had landed safely and had both her feet stood on the mossy step again, I immediately realized that I might have just worrying too much for Jessica, especially since she had a couple of experiences in cave explorations which could explain if she turned to be more accustomed to cavern cliff climbing or other similar things.
Shortly then, Billy raised his left hand and seemed to be signaling me with a thumbs up as he nodded, most probably giving me a sign that it was time to proceed ahead again. With the danger had passed, I could finally release my breath that I had held for perhaps a minute or two. I then quickly proceeded to traverse the remaining distance before me.
The sight of the meadow progressively getting more vivid and closer with each step that I made, until I could finally take a rough guess that the distance between the mossy step and the meadow below was perhaps around seven feet below, which would mean that the three of us must jump after we had reached the end of the cliff. Thankfully, the edge of the cliff was directly bordered with one end of the meadow, saving us the trouble of having to find another form of surface to get to before finally reaching it.
As if we had not encountered enough obstacles yet, the rainstorm finally poured in right on us. I checked my watch if the rain happened earlier than it was predicted, but to the least of my expectation the rain actually fell down a little later than it was expected, since my watch showed the time was already 10.03 a.m.
Just like what I had guessed earlier, the cracked surface and the mossy step became extremely slippery due to the heavy downpour, but thankfully not to the point that I could not move at all from where I stood even though I felt like I could only move with more or less half the pace from before the rain. Before I fully realized it, I had finally reached the end of the cliff.
I then glanced at both Billy and Jessica, who were still slowly but surely getting closer to the end of the cliff. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a moment, and hoping that I would not slip accidentally because of the slippery surfaces before I opened them and released it as I made the jump to the grassy meadow below.
Thanks to the grasses, I landed upon a more or less soft surface but with a puddle splash straight to my right cheek. As I wiped them off, I quickly crouched and rushed towards the nearest six-feet-tall rock to scout my new surroundings, even though I was not able to see as far as I usually could due to the much darker sky then.
At first, I had not noticed anything strange or unusual, aside from the dancing five-feet-grasses due to the hard-blowing wind for once in a while. The downpour also proved to be more of a disturbance for me as it seriously impeded me in having a clear sight since it covered my glasses with constant rain water.
'At least I am no longer clinging to a cliff anymore…' I thought to myself as I removed my glasses and hid behind the rock.
Shortly after, I saw a faint and blurry two figures slowly nearing me. When I put on my glasses again, it turned out to be no other than Billy and Jessica. Billy made his landing softly, but perhaps Jessica was not yet accustomed to do a self-landing from a considerably higher ground that I had to catch her after her jump.
"Um, thanks…" she said to me softly as she landed on my arms, seemingly with a little red on her face.
"Anytime…" I responded, somehow with my heart beating a little faster at that moment.
When I finished helping Jessica got back on her feet again, Billy had already taken his alert position behind the rock nearby I used to hide earlier. Shortly after, he mentioned how the downpour would actually help us in passing through the meadows, which was vaster than he had thought.
"Assuming the aliens had yet to know that water gave away their position, we are actually in advantage now…" Billy said with a low voice.
"I have to agree." I replied with a short response, since I had to constantly wipe my glasses.
"Oh right, this downpour must be giving you an inconvenience…" Billy continued, finally realizing what I had experienced.
"I have to be honest that I cannot keep my head straight if I want to wear my glasses now…" I responded to him.
After saying that, Billy immediately suggested that he should be the one on the constant lookout, while I should just rely more on my hearing should anything was to happen, since he said that it was pretty remarkable. He also told Jessica to follow right behind me, with an extremely close distance from me. I had no choice but to agree with him, and she also had no objections whatsoever with what he said.
"Well, let us just hope that there will not be anything anymore for the rest of this day…" I said to both of them.