“New plan? We didn’t even have a first plan!” Everet pointed out.
“Najwa, I need you!” Olivia said. The phantino charged Everet, leaving Najwa space to run across the open ground. Leonidas joined her.
“The phantino is injured. He’s not giving up because he’s afraid we’ll kill him if we win, and he wants the shelter.”
“He is alone as well, and he is a herd animal,” Leonidas mused.
“What do we do?” Najwa asked.
Olivia held out her hand. “I need you to give me the nanites.”
Najwa paled. Her lips parted, but no words came out. Quietly she put a hand over the pocket of her s-suit.
“I’ll get you more for your father when we’re building the IBT and setting up the t-port, but Najwa, I need the nanites now! If he’s healed maybe he’ll give up, maybe then he can go back to his herd!”
“We need to make ourselves more trouble than it is worth once he is mended, so he chooses to leave,” Leonidas said.
“The hard part isn’t that—it’s getting the nanites in.”
Everet shouted from the direction of the escarpment. Leonidas sucked in a breath, turning to leave. Olivia stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Catch up to Everet and tell him the plan. You two are going to lure the phantino between the trees. Between those trees.” She pointed at a pair nearby that were close together—but not so close that the phantino would give up the chase. At least, that’s what Olivia hoped.
Leonidas nodded and took off, swift as an arrow. He drew the phantino’s attention away from Everet.
Najwa pressed the cool silver case of nanites into Olivia’s hand. It was heavier than she’d thought it would be.
“You promise that I can have more?” she asked softly.
“I promise I’ll do everything I can to help your father,” Olivia swore. She pulled the lid off the nanites. They’d get one shot—and only one. “Come on. We’re going to get tired before he does, and I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”
Leonidas and Everet were running together, which seemed to make the phantino all the more nervous. It was picking up speed when the two split off, each of them keeping an eye on Olivia and Najwa. Olivia tucked herself against the trunk of the tree, the bark of it catching at her s-suit as she huddled there. Quickly, she stuck her arm out in a thumbs up. Wait, are thumbs up still a thing?
She leaned around the tree to check.
Everet tore through the trees, the phantino hot on his heels. It seemed her signal had worked. Najwa was pressed against her own tree, clutching to the trunk like an anchor in a storm.
One shot. One chance.
I can do this.
Lightning flashed across the sky. Thunder cracked. Everet flew past their hiding place, arms pumping as he sprinted. The phantino followed. Its front legs—and then its back. Oliva lunged, the nanites outstretched.
And missed his leg entirely. She fell on her hands and knees, the nanites still unused in her hand. Her heart sank, but her spine steeled.
“One more time!” she called.
Everet peeled off to one side, and Leonidas began to yell from directly between the trees, waving his arms. Olivia and Najwa quickly changed sides, hiding themselves from view.
“Over here! Come on, you big and beautiful beast!” Leonidas shouted. “Come and find the grace of the gods!” Thunder boomed overhead.
The phantino wheeled around without stopping and charged. Leonidas backed up a few paces—and braced.
“Leonidas, what are you doing?” Najwa cried.
Olivia hoped he would move, but the time to worry about him had passed. The phantino was almost upon them. She crouched. The front legs passed her hiding place, echoing the thunder overhead. The back legs came into view.
Oh no, I’m on the wrong side! She darted forward, actually underneath the creature, as his legs trundled past.
Snick.
The phantino trumpeted, coming to a stop and turning toward his injured leg. His small, beady eyes were as wide as they could get as he turned on Najwa.
Najwa, ashen faced and eyes wide, dove away between the trees. Olivia rolled to her feet behind the creature and ran in the opposite direction. Leonidas was circling through the tree trunks toward her.
“Did you do it?” he asked her, mopping rain from his face.
“I think so!”
They huddled together, watching as the phantino turned in place. The cut on its back leg was closing. They could see that much. It knit itself together as Olivia’s leg had, from the inside out. The phantino stomped and tossed its massive head, dancing this way and that. Olivia remembered how much the healing wound had itched and wondered if the poor phantino thought something was picking at it.
“Let’s go while it’s distracted!” Everet panted as he ran up beside them, Najwa hot on his heels. Olivia nodded, and the four of them hurried away. Olivia and Leonidas stayed at the rear, glancing back at the phantino in case it decided to follow them.
The animals really did have poor eyesight, it seemed. After the creature stopped his stomping and fussing, he looked around and found … nothing. The rain made him hazy and indistinct to Olivia’s eyes. She could only imagine what the world looked like to his. He tossed his head again and lumbered off into the trees—away from the caves entirely.
Olivia clutched at Leonidas’s arm. “We did it,” she breathed. “We really did it!”
“I had no doubt that we would,” he said with a broad grin.
“I see the cave!” Everet took off at an exhausted jog. They broke from the trees and into the bit of clear land at the foot of the escarpment. It was only moments after that before they were beneath the shelter of the porous stone of Noros. The rain hissed behind them, as if it hated to see them go.
Too bad I won’t miss you, Olivia thought toward the storm. The sky rumbled. Above, lightning danced inside the clouds, lighting them up without breaking through. She laughed. Okay, maybe even when it’s raining this place is beautiful.
“You have returned,” Giotto said behind them. “I have determined that Jax has indeed broken his leg,”
Olivia turned to the AI. “That’s not good news.”
Everet grimaced. “I ran forward when the tree was falling. A branch caught his leg, but at least we didn’t get trapped underneath it.”
“Yes, that wasn’t fun,” Leonidas admitted.
“How bad is it?” Olivia asked.
Giotto hummed for a moment. “I believe he will be back on his feet in a few weeks.”
Olivia took a deep breath. “All right. Priorities. First things first—let’s get Jax comfortable. Giotto, can you sense well enough to guide us so we can set Jax’s leg with a splint?”
“Short range organic sensors functional. I can do that.”
“Second, we take turns treating our surface wounds, getting hydrated, then eating—and third …”
“And third?” Najwa prompted.
Everyone looked at Olivia, waiting. She grinned at them.
“Third, we plug in the tower and phone home.”