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Arkk heard talons scrape on the catwalk above his head. Without looking, he released one handhold and let the momentum swing him outward from the scaffolding. There was a whitish crackle of energy as a stun baton smashed down on the spar he’d been holding. As he scrambled lower on the scaffolding, seeking cover in the mist, he got a good look at the Urd and realized it was Meersh. The Urd had hunted him all this way. Meersh’s muzzle contorted in fury before Arkk dropped out of the Urd’s line of sight.
His terror had ebbed somewhat once Arkk reached the ship’s roof. Now it returned, burning at his stomach as though he’d swallowed a venomvine seedpod. Tremors ran down his arms and legs at the sound of Meersh’s talons skittering over the catwalk after him, underscored by the Urd’s harsh panting. The bewildered shouts of the Urd clustered at the base of the ship blurred into each other, less like words and more like the slavering of wild beasts. An involuntary picture flashed into Arkk’s mind of him grabbing for a spar and missing—plummeting to the hard metal floor to land among them bleeding and broken, helpless to stop the Urd as they surrounded him and ate him alive. They wouldn’t even have to bother with the meat factory.
Arkk caught sight of the emergency exit door anchored into the hangar’s back wall, near the intersection of two aerial catwalks. It was the closest of four exits, and he had a clear run to it if he could get up onto the walkway.
Arkk had to get to that door. He had to escape the hangar and rejoin Gau. It was the only way he was getting off Rreluush-Tren alive.
Meersh was still at the other end of the catwalk from Arkk, fifteen meters away; this was his chance. Coiling his legs, he leaped up onto the catwalk running above the spine of the berthed Skycatcher. The exit was only ten meters away; he could make a run for it—
A hiss like a broken steam pipe sounded behind him. He looked back just in time to see Meersh whirl and run toward him. At ten meters away, the Urd bunched his legs and leaped.
A wordless yelp escaped Arkk. Fear held him frozen. He expected at any second to feel those ripping talons embedding themselves in his spine. But Meersh wasn’t aiming for him. The Urd sailed over his head and landed in front of him with an enormous clang, making the catwalk sway on its cables. One set of claws seized the railing for balance, while with the other Meersh leveled the stun baton at Arkk.
“I don’t know how you evaded the vortna, but it’s over,” the Urd snarled. His voice went dangerously soft. “You’ve nowhere to run.”
Arkk stayed where he was, looking past Meersh at the exit. He jumped as Meersh bashed the baton against the carbon fiber railing, sending sparks flying as he tried to get Arkk to panic, to run or freeze. But Arkk wasn’t frozen this time. He was thinking about the flechette rifle Meersh wasn’t carrying. He wouldn’t, couldn’t kill Arkk in front of the hangar’s cameras.
Arkk drew himself up to his full three-meter height, spread his arms, and with a wordless bellow that seemed to come from the very bottom of his lungs, Arkk charged Meersh.
For a moment it seemed the Urd would stand his ground: he crouched to spring, one hand clenched around the stun baton while the other unsheathed its claws. Yellow eyes narrowed to channels of gold as Meersh bared his teeth.
The sight turned Arkk’s guts to water, driven by millennia of conditioned fear toward the predators who’d harvested them across two planets. Yet even as his resolve quailed, Arkk’s body kept moving forward. He’d packed every ounce of power he had into the charge, and could no more arrest his momentum than he could defy gravity. Arkk was less than a body length away when he saw Meersh’s eyes widen. Then the Urd—the hunter of Arkk’s kind—twisted aside.
Breathless with shock and surprise, the door nearly caught Arkk unprepared. He brought his shoulder up at the last second and rammed the sealed hatch with all his considerable momentum. It burst outward on its hinges.
Arkk half climbed, half tumbled down the dark exit stairs to the road, knowing Meersh could not be far behind. But once his feet touched the pavement, he felt unsure again. Behind him lay the hangar, a horde of Urd between him and Gau’s ship. He couldn’t go that way. Yet if he fled into the jungle, he’d just be postponing his death until Meersh tracked him down again.
“Do you see the domed building about twenty meters in front of you?” Arkk jumped at Gau’s voice in his ear. He nodded, trusting the tiny bot’s motion sensors to pick up on it.
“Good. I want you to lure the Urd in there.”
Arkk hesitated. Though he’d never seen one of the spiked, domed buildings before, he knew what it was, what it had been used for. There could be more Urd in there, waiting to seize and stuff him into the slaughter machines.
“It’s empty, I scouted it out,” Gau said as if reading Arkk’s mind. “It’s this or the jungle. And if you choose the latter, you’ll be giving the Urd time to arm himself again. You have the advantage when both of you are unarmed. Why do you think he yielded to you?”
Arkk gave a small nod, still hesitant.
“I’ve gotten you this far,” Gau said. “Now you’re going to have to trust me just a little bit more. Can you do that for me, Arkk?”
The Osk’s voice was totally assured; Gau believed everything it had spoken of him. Gau believed in him. Arkk nodded into the expectant pause.
“Then start moving,” Gau said. “I’ll explain the plan on the way.”