5

Selah, Mari, and Mojica traveled northwest out of TicCity to where the river branched into three waterways. Then they followed the stream called East Creek into the Bantors’ family lands. Selah felt confident with Mari and Mojica as her backup. It would have been nice to have Bodhi along too, but he wouldn’t be thrilled about her interference with the happiness Amaryllis had found, especially with Selah’s life being so uncertain. She hoped Amaryllis would forgive her for separating her from her parents.

Selah’s head had cleared, and she spent the half-hour trip running through scenarios where they might have to fight to get Amaryllis back. She hoped the fact that there would be no more payments might make the Bantors more agreeable to letting her leave.

Mari came to the front of the AirWagon carrying a new pulse rifle she had unpackaged and inspected. “Here, use your trigger finger to set the code.”

Selah hefted the new weapon in her hands, and the signal set chirped. “How many weapons were you able to get?” she asked Mojica.

“Taraji had shared the codes with us to get all the equipment from her second squad. It was fueled with discretionary funds that Glade made available many years ago. The Council can’t trace it, so it doesn’t exist. We got four more pulse rifles and a couple laser darts, and a transport if we want it.”

“How many can that carry?” She handed the weapon back to Mari.

“They’re made for sixteen,” Mojica said as she navigated the AirWagon between trees.

Mari peered at the forest around them, hurried to the back of the AirWagon, and returned with three laser darts. “I think we need to stay armed.” She checked the charge chamber on each weapon as she handed them out, then scanned the trees on either side. “Mojica, you’ve got movement at one o’clock.”

“I see it,” Mojica said as she dialed back the throttle. “Ten o’clock also.” She slowed the AirWagon into a hover.

Five men dressed like farm boys rushed from the trees on either side and stood in front of them, pointing antiquated rifles that fired bullets. All three women rose and pointed their laser darts.

Mojica spoke with the confidence of a high commander. “Gentlemen, if you will, please note this AirWagon is equipped with the latest in projectile shield protection. Your metal bullets will be attracted to the shield and not to us. But we, on the other hand, are using energy pulses that will pass through the shield and broil your butter.” To accentuate her point, Mojica shot at a tree branch over two of the men, and it crashed to the ground between them, shattering their tough-guy façade as they scurried out of the way.

One of the men on the far side of the road spoke. “What do you want?”

“I came to see the Bantors. They have charge of a child who was in my care, and they want to see me,” Selah said. One of the men ran off up the lane. She searched the other men’s body-speak. None appeared overly hostile. It was all posturing.

A shrill whistle sounded. The four remaining men disappeared back into the trees.

Selah checked to the right, Mari checked to the left. No one.

“I guess that means we’re free to go,” Mojica said and cycled up the AirWagon.

“I didn’t know we had that kind of technology. It would have made me feel safer around splinters,” Selah said. She plopped onto the seat across from Mojica, and Mari sat behind her.

“We don’t have that kind of technology,” Mojica said with a grin.

Selah and Mari chuckled and slapped Mojica on the back.

“There you go.” Mojica nodded to the left as she cycled down the AirWagon.

Amaryllis sat on the porch with a man and woman whom Selah had met only once—the Bantors. Mojica angled up beside them and Selah stepped down.

Amaryllis ran to Selah and launched into her arms. She laughed with delight as Selah swung her off the ground and hugged her for all she was worth.

Selah laughed. “You must have gained twenty pounds in the last couple—”

“Miss Rishon, we have some important business to attend, and the child need not be present,” Bantor said.

Mojica called Amaryllis up into the AirWagon, and Selah strolled up onto the porch.

The man leaned on the turned wooden railing. “We’ve found ourselves in some unusual circumstances, and we need a larger payment by at least fifty percent—”

“Let me stop you right there. I didn’t know my father was making any payments to you—that was his business. But he is dead and there is no money, so there won’t be any more payments whether the amount was raised or stayed the same,” Selah said.

“Well then, you’ll have to take the kid with you. I’m not prepared to feed any charity cases around here,” he said.

Selah looked between the two. No expression of remorse from either husband or wife.

Momentarily stunned by their callousness, she dreaded what she now had to do—tell Amaryllis that the parents she loved didn’t want her. “Fine. If that’s the way you want it.” Selah’s knees shook as she descended the porch stairs and climbed into the AirWagon.

She motioned to Mojica and Mari to let them talk alone. As the two women moved away, Selah sat down beside Amaryllis and wrapped her in her arms. “I’ve missed you a lot, little one,” she said.

Amaryllis smiled broadly and sat up straight. “I’m not little. I’ve grown a whole two inches. Natalia said if I grow much taller my dresses will be shirts.”

Selah released the girl and searched for strength to say her next words. “How . . . how would you feel if I asked you to come to the West with me? We would never be coming back this way, so you wouldn’t be able to see your new parents.” Selah squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the child’s anguished sobs. Nothing. She opened her eyes.

Amaryllis stared at her. “I thought you didn’t want me.”

“I thought you loved the woman who looked like your real mother.” Selah’s heart tapped a staccato beat.

Amaryllis frowned and pushed out a big sigh. “She doesn’t look anything like my real mother. I just said that to make you feel better about leaving me here.”

Selah’s hands shook. “My sweet girl, why would you think I wanted to get rid of you?”

“Because your father said that it would be a big burden on you as the novarium to be saddled with taking care of an orphan.” Amaryllis dropped her head.

“I would never want to be rid of you. It has broken my heart these last few months without you.” Selah pulled the child into her arms again.

Amaryllis lifted her eyes. “So you don’t want to get rid of me?”

“No.”

“I can come with you?”

“Yes, as soon as you grab your things.” Selah smiled.

“I told you I’ve outgrown everything. Nothing to take.” She shrugged and they started to laugh. “And please don’t call me Amaryllis anymore. I’m grown-up now. I want to be Rylla.”

Selah nodded. It felt good to have something to laugh about. But the feeling was short-lived.

Mari and Mojica scrambled to the front of the vehicle carrying pulse rifles. Selah jerked her head up from Rylla’s and saw that the AirWagon was surrounded by at least ten men. She snatched up her pulse rifle and pushed Rylla to the floor near the fortified compartment where they often stashed weapons.

“What’s going on here?” Selah shouted.

“Well, you owe me some payments, and since you say Glade didn’t leave any funds, I figure we’re just going to have to take you, since you’re the novarium.” Bantor leaned against the porch railing and smirked. With a look of horror on her face, his wife hurried into the house and slammed the door.

Selah stiffened. This had been a trap, and now Rylla was going to be in danger because of her foolish move. She calculated every possible scenario, then put her weapon down and slowly raised both hands.

“I think it would be profitable if we discuss this without weapons,” Selah said to Bantor as she walked toward the AirWagon steps. “May I?” She motioned to the porch. Mojica and Mari balked, but Selah backed them off with a sideways glance.

Bantor grinned, showing a missing front tooth that Selah hadn’t noticed before, probably because he hadn’t smiled. She stepped onto the porch, remaining stone-faced. Mojica and Mari had caught her drift and moved to the far side of the AirWagon. The men around it were so confident of their position that no one moved away from the group to guard the ladies.

Selah angled herself toward Bantor so a majority of the men were in close proximity on the other side of the railing. She stopped advancing when she had her maximum range figured.

Bantor stared at her. “Well, what do you have to say for yourself, novarium?” He made novarium sound like a curse word, the way he spit it out.

She gathered her anger constructively. “I would say you’re probably a splinter, or you’re being paid by the splinters.” She sensed the charge building.

Bantor yelled over his shoulder to the men standing around the AirWagon, “Well, look at this, boys. The little gal isn’t as stupid as some say she is.”

Selah’s hands began to shake. She balled them into fists and set her jaw. “Are you Blood Hunters?”

Bantor sat on the railing and propped his boot on a large box. Resting an elbow on his raised knee, he picked his teeth with a wooden needle and chuckled.

Selah saw the charge signature floating in her vision—blue and purple waves. She thrust both hands in his direction.

The collective power of her thrusts had gained twice as much force in the last week. Bantor flew over the railing backwards with feet flailing in the air. The nexus of the thrust continued to the first two men near the AirWagon. They slammed into the next three, and pandemonium broke out.

Selah leaped from the third step of the porch into the AirWagon. “Get us out of here!”

Mojica had already cycled up the machine, and they shot off through the rest of the group, knocking a couple down as they passed. The men recovered and began shooting at the AirWagon.

Mari crouched in the back with her pulse rifle. Selah grabbed her own pulse rifle and fired at the men who had mounted Sand Runs to chase them. The large, knobby tires of the four-wheeled dune buggies gave the men good traction on the slippery grass.

One of the men wore a helmet control for a big gun mounted on his Sand Run. It fired a whole barrage of bullets wherever he turned his head. Every once in a while one would reach the composite AirWagon hull, and Selah flinched when metal whined against metal.

“We need backup,” Selah yelled to Mojica. Another Sand Run with a mounted gun joined the chase. Mojica tapped her communicator and spoke in short, fast sentences.

Mari fired on a Sand Run. The energy pulse shorted the machine and blew the rider into the air, and the machine coasted to a stop. The air hung ripe with weapon discharges.

A shot whizzed by Selah’s right ear. Rylla screamed. Selah spun to see the child huddled near the corner in a fetal position and the spot on the floor where the bullet had lodged.

Selah yanked open the fortified compartment. She pointed at the door. “Get in,” she yelled to Rylla. The girl shook her head.

A small explosion rocked the AirWagon, jolting them from side to side. Rylla squealed and scurried into the compartment. Selah slammed the door and dove back to Mari’s position. “What was that?”

“Some kind of hand charge. They pulled a pin and threw it. That guy rode on a charged-up Sand Run, but I think I disabled it because he dropped back and I don’t see him coming.” Mari drew aim and fired on another Sand Run.

Selah disabled one of the big guns by pulsing exactly where the gun joined the Sand Run. Unfortunately for the driver, he was sitting in front of the connection. He flew one way and the big gun went the other.

“I could hear Bodhi trying to answer me, but the signal is garbled in here. The Blood Hunters must be jamming communications,” Mojica yelled as she fought to keep them at top speed for the terrain.

“Got it. We’re on our own.” Selah didn’t take her eyes off the target. She fired another pulse. A Sand Run went airborne and flipped twice after expelling its driver. Selah didn’t want to believe what she was seeing. The more attackers they disabled, the more showed up, like cockroaches disturbed by light.

Mojica wrestled to keep the AirWagon on a straight path on the narrow country road. The trees on the left and the stream on the right kept the Blood Hunters behind rather than surrounding them, but soon they’d come out of the forest into the flat lands.

Selah nudged Mari and pointed up the hill. “They’re coming in AirStreams now.”

Mari looked at the small bullet-style hovercrafts exiting from the woods. “How fast do they go?” She fired on and disabled the second gun mounted on a Sand Run, but the open spots in their assault were swiftly being filled by the new aboveground pursuers.

“Up to forty miles an hour, from my experience,” Selah said over the sound of the weapons barrage. “The higher from the ground they climb, the slower they get. If they stay close to the ground they go faster.”

“That’s not good,” Mojica said. “Forty is our top speed. We can’t lose them, but I hope to keep them at bay. And I hope Bodhi gets here.”

“Try to keep us above rocky ground. They’ll have to go higher like we do, and it will slow them down,” Selah said. She took aim at an AirStream. It rose and slowed at the same time she fired. The pulse deflected across its bow and into the woods, snapping a treetop.

A Sand Run charged from the woods, and a man hanging on the back of it leaped onto the side of the AirWagon and hung there like a tree frog. By the time Selah got to that corner, he was climbing over the side. Selah whacked him with the butt of her pulse rifle, and he fell backwards from the AirWagon, landing on an AirStream and its surprised driver. They skidded off the road, hit the embankment on the forest side, and caught fire as they flipped into the trees.

Selah felt more focused than she had in quite a while. The feeling exhilarated her and her hands trembled. She reined herself in and carefully drew a bead on the closest AirStream. It dipped off to the right and disappeared around their vehicle as the trees ended and the fields spread out before them.

Mari stopped another Sand Run. “Where do they keep coming from?”

“They’re stationed all along this route. I can see their tracks, looking at the grass from this angle,” Mojica said. She slapped on her communicator. An errant shot ricocheted off the side shield near her. Mojica ducked, swerving the AirWagon.

Mari and Selah groped for a hold but slid to the side. Selah lost her grip on her pulse rifle, and the feed chamber wedged between two partitions. She yanked to get it free as Mari fired on an AirStream delivering another climber.

An advancing Sand Run shot at Mari. She dodged it at the same time the next attacker crawled over the side. With her hands busy trying to free her weapon, Selah kicked at him, delivering an unexpectedly powerful blow to his midsection. It threw him against the side of the AirWagon. He gasped like a floundering fish and scrambled toward her. Selah let go of her weapon and bounced to a crouching position, fists ready to fight. The attacker pounced.

Another AirStream fired on Mari, drawing her away from where Selah struggled. Mojica couldn’t turn to help without letting the AirWagon slow down enough to be overrun.

Selah threw up a side kick. Her foot connected with ribs, resulting in a crunching sound. She’d have rather thrust the man over the side, but the energy from such a burst in close quarters could hurt Mari and Mojica. A bullet whizzed by her head and glanced off the fortified compartment door.

Inside the closed space, Rylla screamed.

Selah punched her attacker with a solid right. She heard the compartment rattling. The attacker lunged at her. Another Blood Hunter scrambled over the side.

Mari turned to fight him, and yet another assailant scaled the side and attacked her from behind.

Selah watched the compartment peek open. Rylla would get hurt. She pushed her assailant in that direction and slammed him against the side, effectively closing the compartment door. The Blood Hunter wrestled to keep hold of her. The smell of his rancid breath soured her stomach as they struggled. Her foot slipped and she slammed her head into the same compartment door.

Suddenly, cold metal pressed to her neck. “I’d rather keep your head attached to the rest of you, but it’s your choice,” the man whispered in her ear.

Her stomach threatened to revolt. Selah went limp as he slipped a band over her wrist and jerked it tight. The knife nicked her throat. Selah gasped as he jerked her wrists together.

Mari quickly subdued her first attacker with a right jab to the throat, and the man fell to the deck gasping and clutching at his throat. The next man over the side whacked Mari in the head with a hand weapon. She went down.

The AirWagon cycled to a stop as one of the Blood Hunters pressed a rifle to Mojica’s spine.

Selah, her hands bound, peered around the assailants to find her sister. A Blood Hunter dragged Mari to a seat in the far corner where he bound her hands. A trickle of blood oozed down the right side of her head. She looked up and spotted Selah.

“Are you all right? Your head is bleeding,” they said at the same time. Both lifted tied hands to search their head.

Selah felt her spot. Her fingers came away sticky with blood, but no deep crease, just a mushy spot. “It’s only a scratch.” She gave an apprehensive smile as she pressed her fingers to the stinging spot on her neck. Would Bodhi find her in time?

The Blood Hunter watching her jerked on the lead attached to her restraints. She jerked back harder, almost pulling him off his feet, then glared at him, daring him to do it again. He charged at Selah but another man stopped him. “They’d all better be in good condition when the boss gets here.” The man added something she couldn’t hear. All she could make out was the word novarium. Obviously he knew what the target was but not who. She filed that observation for future reference.

Mari opened her mouth to speak, but her eyes rolled up and her lids closed as she passed out. Selah cried out and tried to reach for her sister, causing a rush of men to tackle her.

Mojica backhanded the guard holding the weapon on her, then gave a sweeping kick that knocked his legs out from under him. His rifle skittered off under the forward seats and he scrambled away from Mojica to chase it. Two other Blood Hunters corralled Mojica in the close quarters. The AirWagon quickly swarmed with the men and their boss.

Then the sky went dark.

A shadow moved from the nearby ridge and settled over the AirWagon, blocking out the light.

Selah looked up at the underside of a projectile-shaped airship transport large enough to be military grade. A patterned system of thick conduits on the transport’s almost flat underside began to glow a brilliant green, then a low hum vibrated the surface of the AirWagon. Selah couldn’t contain her surprise or her enjoyment at the look of dismay on the Blood Hunters’ faces when their weapons were snatched from their hands by the magnetic current. If the situation hadn’t been so dire, she might have actually laughed.

Blood Hunters darted over the sides, vacating the AirWagon and moving off a good distance toward their assembled posse. But they didn’t leave. They just waited. For what?

Mojica scrambled to untie Selah and they both darted to Mari, who was waking up. She propped herself up as Mojica untied her, and Selah checked her head wound.

Mari shook her head several times. “I need to get rid of this fog. Let’s get out of here. Don’t waste time fussing with me. Navigate.”

Mojica helped her stand. “We’ll be safer in the transport. Bodhi’s going to land so we can—”

A loud volley of explosions rocked the ground, vibrating through the AirWagon. Selah stumbled sideways and slammed into the compartment door. She snatched open the door and grabbed Rylla in her arms. They headed for the steps.

Another volley. The transport took a hit broadside with a brilliant flash and a stream of sparks. It veered sharply away to the south and dropped back behind the ridge. The Blood Hunters began a new advance on the AirWagon.

Selah kicked at her pulse rifle and dislodged it from the side plates. She checked the load. “Can we get out of here?”

Mojica tried to power up the controls. “Magnetic mislock! It shut down too fast and the thrusters won’t engage.”

Selah watched the Blood Hunters advance. They moved slowly at first, but when their advance was met with no resistance, they rushed forward, shooting.

“Should I fire to keep them back?” Selah followed their movement.

“Let them get close enough to do real damage. Scare shots are just a waste of the energy pack,” Mojica said as she punched different combinations and complained to the inanimate control panel.

“Here they come!” Selah tried to push Rylla back into the compartment, but she refused to go. “Go sit by Mari and help her get her bearings,” Selah ordered. She regretted coming here and putting the girl in danger. The men could just as easily shoot her as they could any of the others.

Rylla scrambled to Mari’s side. Two Sand Runs revved their engines. Selah could hear the AirWagon thrusters trying to engage. She remembered the time her stepbrother Cleon overcame a mislock. She was sure Mojica would get the thrusters to kick in any second.

The Sand Runs now drove within shooting range. Selah ran through the scenario. She couldn’t protect them alone. Mari was in no shape, and she didn’t want Rylla handling a weapon.

She picked a target, leveled her breathing, and took aim.

A wall came down in front of her.