CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

 

Ti’ann heard two blaster shots and winced, expecting to feel pain. She didn’t. In fact, she didn’t feel anything. Maybe that was it and she was dead. But she didn’t feel dead. She still felt exhausted and sore. She opened her eyes. Brett Jackson lay sprawled on his side a few meters away, eyes vacant. She blinked. She couldn’t see what had knocked him down. He didn’t look wounded anywhere. Then she looked closer at his face and saw the blood trickling over his forehead and down his cheek.

She hadn’t thought she could move, but with renewed energy she scrambled backward from the body. A hand dropped on her shoulder and she jerked around to see Clare O’Malley standing over her, frowning.

“You okay, Ti’ann?”

“Clare? Where’d you come from?” She glanced back at the body. “You did that?”

“My mom thought it’d be a useful skill,” she said with a hint of irony in her voice. “Did they hurt you? Can you walk?”

“I’m fine. I’m not sure I can walk, but that’s because I’m too shaky.” She grabbed Clare’s proffered hand and struggled to her feet. She looked one last time at the body then turned her back on it. “Thanks. You saved my life.”

Clare grinned, her pretty face all the prettier for the expression. “You’re welcome.”

There was a glint in her eyes that would have made Ti’ann nervous if she wasn’t already so emotionally worn out. “The other soldiers?”

“Must have thought the shots were that guys.” Clare nodded at the body. “Or they’d be here already. I saw them disappear into the trees, but I’m not sure how far ahead of us they are.”

They both looked toward the woods.

“Doesn’t sound like they’re coming back,” Ti’ann said. “Yet. What’s happening? Are the others…?”

“Most everyone is all right. You signaled in time for the rest of us to get away from the soldiers we were trailing.”

“Krin? Nathan?”

“Both fine.”

Ti’ann felt the tension drain out of her. She reached out a hand to the nearest tree to steady herself. She couldn’t even smile, she was so relieved.

“The soldiers are almost out of the city now. The Shifters are tracking their movements for us so we know where they are.” She grinned. “That’s how I got here. They relayed your location to Val and Val relayed it to me over another channel. I was the closest to your position. They had to help me avoid the scanners. That’s the reason I didn’t get to you sooner. Fortunately for us all, they stopped scanning after they got out of the city. Stupid of them, but fortunate. You know, you about gave us all heart attacks getting captured like that.”

Clare’s cocky grin fell away when she said, “Micca gave us away to the soldiers. We found her body while we were tracking their retreat.”

“Micca!” Ti’ann gaped at Clare, too shocked to comment more.

“‘Fraid so. She was very anti-Shifter. Apparently hated them, though I can’t imagine why. Wouldn’t have expected it, would you?”

“No,” Ti’ann murmured. No, she hadn’t suspected Micca at all. She was ashamed of her earlier distrust of Clare but grateful she’d been wrong. She wasn’t sure Micca would have been up to the challenge of rescuing her.

“We’d better get out of here,” she said, though she didn’t release her hold on the tree which was keeping her upright yet, “before the other two soldiers come back for Jackson.”

She frowned, looking around the surrounding forest. They were farther west than she’d expected since the soldiers had been moving east. They weren’t too far away from the camp’s landing pad.

“What’s wrong? Outside of this entire situation,” Clare said.

“They’re going to their ships. They intend to annihilate the city.” She met Clare’s gaze. “We have to stop them.”

“We? We have one blaster between us and are on the opposite side of the city from any backup. How are we going to stop a regiment of soldiers?”

“I don’t know. Come on.”

“Wait.” Clare moved around her to Jackson’s body and took the blaster out of his hand, then took the one he’d taken off Ti’ann from his belt. She handed Ti’ann one weapon and hefted Jackson’s herself, getting a feel for it. “At least we’ll have something to use.”

From somewhere, Ti’ann pulled a reserve of strength, pushed away from the supporting tree and set off at a shuffling run in the direction Hanlon and Dobavich had gone. She expected to meet them at any moment on their way back to find Jackson, but they never appeared. They obviously weren’t concerned with covering their tracks either because she was able to follow their path easily.

“Ti’ann,” Clare said, trotting alongside her with a great deal more ease. “We really need a plan here. These are trained soldiers. You and I are not their match.”

“I know. Can you signal Nathan and BinRal? Maybe they’ll have some ideas.”

Clare shook her head but took out her comm-link. “They’re not going to be able to say much on this channel. It’ll be compromised soon. It’s not as secure as the one we were using before.”

“I’ll take anything they can give us,” she panted. She shook off the sweat beading into her eyes and pushed herself further. She was concentrating so hard on moving she nearly stepped out into the clearing where the soldiers’ air-transports sat under camouflage shields. She and Clare twisted behind a couple of trees, backs to the landing area. When Ti’ann caught her breath, she peeked around the tree.

There were three ships altogether, one large transport and two smaller jets. From the air, an observer would never see them beneath the camouflage shield. From the ground, they were difficult to spot but not impossible. She suspected they’d be hard to detect with scanning equipment as well. That reminded her. She and Clare were probably being picked up by the ship’s scanners already. Now what?

“Nathan come back with any ideas?” she whispered as she watched the handful of soldiers moving on the ground beneath the large transport.

“Yeah. He said to get the hell out of here. Get to the nearest ship and leave the area before the shooting starts.”

“And since we’re not going to do that?”

Clare shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.” She poked around the tree. “You know, even if they’re scanning, they’re still expecting some of their own people back. They may not realize we’re not part of the team yet. Except that we’re hiding behind trees.” She grinned. “Too bad we didn’t think about taking some of the uniforms, even Jackson’s would have been useful. One of us could have gone in undercover.” The grinned widened as she studied the ships.

“We weren’t thinking far enough ahead,” Ti’ann agreed. She glanced down at her torn and stained t-shirt and baggy pants, then at Clare’s tight pants and cropped shirt, and didn’t have much hope they’d be able to fool the soldiers at a glance. At least Clare had the forethought to get them two more blasters. “Any other ideas?”

“We could just run in shooting and hope for the best.”

“I like that idea less than running away. We’d better move soon. They’re starting to load up.” As she said it, two soldiers moved to the two smaller ships. The camouflage shields went down revealing two sleek fighter jets with what looked like enough guns and laser cannons to destroy a small moon. “Uh-oh.”

“That is no little uh-oh,” Clare breathed. “That’s one big load of trouble.” She looked at Ti’ann. “Our little blasters are not going to do much against those.”

“How good a shot are you? Can you take the soldiers out before they get in the ships?”

Clare stared back, dubious. “I’m an ace shot,” she said without a hint of boasting, “but as soon as I hit one, someone else is going to fire on us and make it tough to hit the other guy. Plus they’re probably not the only ones who can fly those things. I can’t shoot them all one by one. I’m not that good, and we don’t have that kind of time.”

“Oh,” Ti’ann said with sudden inspiration. “What if I run around as a distraction, draw their fire, while you blast them? I can’t hit the side of a mountain, but I can fire back to keep them busy.”

“Bad idea. Ti’ann, that’s a very very bad idea.”

“Best we’ve got. Start firing. I’ll make a visible target so you can move to a new place and shoot again.”

“No.”

“Clare, it’s all we’ve got. We can’t let those ships get into the air.”

“Then let me do the running out into view as a distraction. You’re exhausted and bleeding.” She nodded to her wrist.

“But I can’t shoot as well as you can. And you’re still gonna have to move because they’ll turn their fire back on you as soon as you hit something.”

“They’ll just send people out to pick us up. If they don’t kill us first.”

“Well then we run away. And sneak back while they’re searching the forest for us.”

“This is such a bad idea, Ti’ann. This is gonna get us both shot. If we’re lucky.” Clare stared at her for a heartbeat and then chuckled. “You’re insane.” She twisted around the tree, took aim and fired, hitting one of the soldiers square in the head, dropping him to the ground. She managed a second shot, winging one of the surprised soldiers and then took off in one direction.

Ti’ann started running in the opposite direction, weaving in and out of the treeline so they’d see her but couldn’t get a shot at her too easily. A tree behind her splintered and crunched. She hunched her shoulders and moved faster, terrified the tree would fall on her. She heard the crash and would have turned to see where the tree landed if another shot hadn’t sizzles past her head. “Shit,” she squealed and moved farther into the forest.

Just then Clare took another shot. Ti’ann stopped behind a tree long enough to see a soldier fall. She started firing herself, the blasts going wild and hitting more dirt than anything of significance. But it still made the soldiers duck. Screams and shouts rebounded around the clearing, a mixed chaos of orders and demands. Clare shot again and Ti’ann heard very clearly one soldier shout and point toward Clare, so she went charging into view again, running in the direction she’d just come from. She hoped Clare wasn’t running the same way.

She jumped behind a tree just before a shot ripped the ground at her heels. She pushed a screech through her teeth, not quite a scream, and dodged to the next tree, firing as she moved. Clare got off two more shots, but Ti’ann was too busy ducking to see the result.

Her breath came in gasps. Unable to move very fast, she made due with lurching from cover to cover, firing when she got the chance, moving back and forth and trying not to move in the same direction too often. Her arms were heavy, her eyes blurring with sweat.

A deep rumbling filled the clearing. Ti’ann ducked behind a tree and watched in horror as one of the small ships lifted off. She started firing her blaster, aware of Clare firing somewhere off to her left. They managed to hold the other soldiers down, and Clare hit one trying to get to the second fighter. But the damage was done. The first had lifted off.

She hoped they’d given Nathan enough time to finish evacuating the city. Too late to do anything about it now. She cursed, shouted against the noise of the retreating ship, and pushed off to another tree.

She continued to fire, continued to move, until her limbs felt numb and heavy. Keep going, she thought. Next tree. Fire. Two more trees. Fire. She was running low on power. Her blaster wouldn’t hold out much longer and then she’d just be a running target. She kept moving. Another tree. Another shot, and duck for cover. She was just a step too slow on one lurch and a blaster shot glanced off her hip. She screamed and lurched behind a tree, pressing her back against it to keep upright.

“Shit,” she shouted, knowing they couldn’t hear her over the noise. She cursed a steady stream as she looked down at the wound. The cursing helped a little against the pain, until she pealed back a section of her trousers and saw the scorched skin and blood. Her stomach lurched, and bile rose in her throat. She closed her eyes, focusing all her energy on not throwing up. There was more blaster fire, several shots arching into the ground around her, but she couldn’t move anymore. When she tried to push off the tree, her hip screamed and her vision blurred.

She leaned back, squeezed her eyes shut, alternately panting and clenching her teeth against the pain. She hoped Clare was still okay. She tried raising her blaster to fire over her shoulder, just to give Clare more cover. But she couldn’t manage without another roll of nausea.

Numbness settled into her wound, the pain cut back by shock. The nausea subsided. She tried lifting her blaster, and when she didn’t throw up, she opened her eyes and gathered her strength to look around.

A shadow passed over the clearing, cutting out the weak evening light and plunging her into momentary darkness. She froze, her back still against the tree with its rough bark scrapping against the bruised spot where Jackson had kept poking her with his blaster. The clearing fell quiet. And then an ear splitting screech shattered the silence. Ti’ann clamped her hands over her ears. The shrill cry went on and on for what seemed like forever, but was really no more than a handful of minutes. And then silence.

She dropped her hands and looked up in time to see a line of fire burst into the clearing. A ball of flames exploded, engulfing the larger transport ship. Soldiers ran screaming for cover as another fireball slammed to the ground. She stumbled back from her shelter, an arm raised to shield her face from the heat. She looked up, trying to see where the fire was coming from. All she saw was a lot of metallic blue scales and sharp claws. For almost a minute, she stared at the thing overhead before she realized she was looking at something from a myth.

It had a wingspan at least two hundred meters wide and was covered by glittering scales. Front and back legs were tipped with razor claws and its thick tale had a ball of spikes the size of long swords on the end. A mane of spines laying flat against its neck circled a head as large as the smaller ship in the clearing. Its black eyes were like obsidian stones, solid and unblinking. Balls of fire spewed from a huge mouth lined with rows of sharp teeth.

“A dragon.” Ti’ann gasped. But the screeches and screams of both soldiers and dragon were so loud she couldn’t hear her own voice. She watched the dragon circle, watched it dip its wings. Her eyes widened.

Ah, hell, it was going to land!