Trailblazer

by Michelle Diener

  There was silence from both of them after that, and she was glad to have no more questions.

  They were getting closer to Rainerville--Tally could see the edge of the forest far in the distance, as well as clouds as black and thick as any she'd ever seen.

  She checked the tracker screen.

  The runners headed toward the settlement were only going to be a few minutes behind her.

  “What is it?” Va-Laya must have been watching her face.

  “Look,” Tally offered, indicating toward the screen.

  The special forces soldier leaned over, her face grim as she realized what she was looking at. “You can't go faster?”

  Tally shook her head.

  “Enn and I will jump out straight away, start looking for everyone. Where will they be?”

  Tally raised her shoulders. “Last time I knew for sure, they were in the forest close to Rainerville. But I thought I caught sight of Ben on the field as this runner took off.”

  “What does that mean?” Enn asked.

  “It means he was out in the open, with the Caruso standing all around him.” She could barely say the words. It was like she had no air left in her lungs.

  Va-Laya gave her a quick look. “So he's maybe a prisoner, maybe hiding out in the forest. This isn't going to be a quick extraction.”

  No. It wasn't. And Tally couldn't do a thing about it.

  Chapter 41

  Ben looked up as thunder crashed and the world lit up with the one-two flash of lightning. The runners seemed to fall toward him, the lightning illuminating them as they came in fast. There were four of them, ranged in a pattern that was too precise to be mere chance. They were in some kind of attack formation.

  He stumbled in the mud, just righting himself before he pitched the injured Caruson he was carrying out of his stretcher. The soldier he was paired with growled at him, and he inclined his head in apology.

  He was trying to do too much at once. Carry the injured to whatever dubious safety the forest afforded them, and still keep watch for Tally, as well as a lookout for their enemies as they came in.

  As he jogged back out to the field, his shoulders and arms aching from the strain, Sari sprinted over to him.

  “Look.” She pointed south. Coming in low and fast through the curtains of rain was a runner.

  Tally. It had to be.

  He ran further from the trees, right into the middle of the field, and waved his arms.

  The runner dipped lower, and then skimmed the trees before it lurched to a landing on the launch pad which lay in what was now a quagmire of mud.

  The back opened, and Ben stumbled for the second time at the sight of Enn and Va-Laya running down the ramp.

  They were covered in the dust of the plains, which the rain instantly turned to streaks of red mud. They grinned when they saw him.

  “Where are the Caruso?” Enn asked over the roar of the engines and the pounding rain. Then she blinked and put her hand on her laz as a few of the Caruson soldiers jogged through the trees toward them, carrying empty stretchers.

  “They surrendered to us. And we're about to be attacked. We're getting their injured to safety.” Then he couldn't stand there any more. He left them standing, open-mouthed, and ran toward the runner as Tally stepped into the cargo bay.

  She put a hand against the wall, as if to steady herself when she saw him, and then he was up the ramp and had his arms around her, lifting her up for the few steps it would take for them to be back inside the runner's small bridge.

  She was kissing his jaw, his temple, and then, as he lowered her down, his lips, and he pulled her closer for a brief moment.

  “We don't have time.” His voice was raw, a rasp of dry gravel on stone.

  “I know.” She pressed herself against him, held tight for a beat, and then stepped back. “You got the better of the Caruso?”

  “They surrendered.” He lifted his shoulders. “I think their commander, Vrk, has defied Caruson orders to get his people to safety. And now he's got no one but us.”

  She nodded slowly. Then her gaze snapped to his face. “We can't take them all.”

  That was true. “I'll have to ask Vrk what he wants.”

  And then, as the words left his mouth, they ran out of time. The first laz strike rattled the runner, and Tally flung herself into the pilot's chair. “I'll have to move.”

  “Hop the buildings and land between the accommodation hut and the forest. They won't get an easy strike on you there.”

  She glanced back at him, eyes wide, and nodded, and he ran out as the door closed up, jumping off the ramp as it rose.

  What neither of them had said was that if the Caruson runners managed a direct hit on the building, they could still take another shot at the runner, but why waste time? This was as good as it was going to get.

  Even if Tally flew away now, one of the runners could follow her and shoot her down.

  He heard her lift off behind him as one of the tents burst into flames, and caught Vrk's gaze from the last tent in the line.

  There were two stretchers making their way toward the forest, and Handel was holding up one of them.

  A Caruson, injured but on his feet, staggered out of the tent beside Vrk, and Vrk hooked his arm around him and began dragging him to safety. “The last one,” he called to Ben.

  Ben ran to help, bending over as the ground was hit behind him. A hot rush of air and flame sizzled the rain and turned the air steamy. He reached Vrk, got a hold of the soldier's other side, and they ran for the cover of the trees, the tent alight behind them.

  When they'd laid the soldier down, the Caruson commander kept his gaze on the tents burning in the field.

  “Tally's in the runner that just landed. She's here to fetch me and my team, but we can take some of your injured, as well.” He had to shout over the sound of thunder and the rain hammering against the leaves and branches.

  Vrk shook his head. “Not moving again.” He made a sharp chopping motion with his hand, and Ben couldn't blame him. It had been agony for most of Vrk's people to move the first time.

  “You won't get them to your warship.” He pointed up to the sky. “If there are two warships . . .” He looked frustrated, made a gesture with his hands.

  “They'll block the way.”

  “Yes.” His face relaxed a little.

  That was true. The Caruson warships would make it impossible to get aboard the Galaha and would make it impossible for the Galaha to send down runners of its own.

  They may have gotten a few off before they were surrounded--Tally got out, after all--but there'd been no sign of them. And even if Tally's runner could somehow get back onboard, the Galaha was not the safest place right now.

  “We'll hopefully draw some of the runners away when we leave.”

  “Can you leave?” Vrk looked up at the descending runners, and Ben wondered the same.

  Handel had come to stand beside him as he spoke to Vrk, and some of his team, as well as Bey and Lenar, picked their way through the pallets of injured miners toward him.

  “Vrk doesn't want to move his people into the runner, especially seeing as we can't get them to the Galaha safely right now anyway.”

  Lenar nodded her agreement. “It's better to leave them here than try to move them again.”

  The tents were ablaze, burning despite the rain because of the material they were made from, but while at least two strikes had been aimed at the trees, and had ripped them up, the forest had not caught alight.

  “What are the tactics they'll use now?” Ben didn't think they'd keep circling, taking wild shots at targets they couldn't see.

  “They land. Three.” Vrk held up three fingers. “One stay up.” He circled a finger.

  Ben nodded. He'd have done the same. “Before they do that, hopefully we can draw one away, so you only have two runners' worth of soldiers to deal with.”

  Vrk gave a little bow, and Ben responded with a bow in kind.

  “Good luck.
”

  They nodded to each other. No longer enemies, not exactly allies.

  “Let's go.” He looked around at everyone, saw only Garner and Dr. Kilmer were missing, and he knew they were closer to where Tally had put down the runner, still communicating with the Galaha on Garner's small comms unit.

  He jogged through the forest, with Handel on one side, the two scientists behind him along with Enn and Va-Laya, and Sari taking the rear. He took them to where Tally had set down, using as deep cover as he could.

  A runner flew overhead, the growl of the engines clear through the rain and the thick branches above, and then a boom shook the ground. It galvanized him into a sprint, and when he caught a glimpse of flames up ahead, he ran even faster.

  There was another strike, one that made a thump that rattled his bones and the ground beneath his feet shudder.

  Handel glanced over at him, face tight with worry, and he had to suppress an urge to shout at him that Tally was fine. That she hadn't been hit.

  He dodged trees, even running into the open for a few steps because it would get him to Tally faster, but when he reached the small area she'd managed to squeeze into, it was ablaze.

  He circled it, desperate to find any way in.

  The building had come down on the runner on one side, and it was burning like there had been some accelerant involved, and three big trees had come down on it on the other. They weren't burning, but they almost covered the runner completely.

  He saw the back door was open a small crack, and he clambered along a branch to put him closer to the top of it.

  “Tally?”

  “I can't get the door to open.”

  He could just see the top of her head and her eyes.

  The branch he was standing on was part of the reason. The tree it was attached to had fallen at an angle, pressing the door closed at its base.

  Ben jumped, grabbing the top of the door and pulling down with his full weight.

  The door opened a little bit more.

  “I still can't.” Tally shoved a hand and her head through, and looked at him with massive eyes. “They could shoot again. You need to get out of here.”

  He shook his head, swung his legs onto another branch, braced and heaved with everything in him.

  Sari was suddenly on his left, pulling with all her weight, as well, and then Handel took the other side, his bigger mass angling the door a little more open on his side.

  Tally put her arms out, finding a grip on Ben's shoulders, and then levered herself out, jackknifing her body so she stood in a handstand on his shoulders, and then she flipped, landing on the branch below.

  Her gaze went straight upward. “They're coming back,” she said, turning to him with her face set.

  He jumped down to join her, grabbing her hand to race for the trees, with Handel and Sari running beside them.

  The third strike lifted them off their feet, but by then, they were in the forest, and the landing was on spongey ground covered in dead leaves.

  He twisted in the air, trying to cushion Tally's landing, and they rolled a little way until they fetched up against a tree trunk.

  “I failed.” She glanced back through the trees at the pyre that had been the runner. She met his gaze solemnly. “I was supposed to rescue you, and you've had to rescue me.”

  Chapter 42

  The delay at the mine site had cost her.

  Cost all of them.

  Tally ran behind Ben as he led them back to Vrk and his people, her arms tingling as strength returned to them.

  The little helpers had worked overtime from the moment the first runner strike had hit the building beside her, collapsing it on her runner's roof. She'd tried to take off, but the second strike came almost straight away, damaging the one side of the runner and dropping three massive trees on top of it. With no choice but to get out, she'd opened the door, and had stared in dismay when it barely opened at all.

  The little helpers had hardly requested permission before they'd propelled her into a run, giving her enough momentum to jump up and hold onto the very top of the door.

  They'd also given her the strength to support her whole bodyweight with her arms, and then, when Ben had forced the door open a little more, they'd taken over to lever her through the narrow space.

  Handel had asked her how she'd managed it as they ran, his face set with suspicion, but Dr. Bey, who was running in front of them, had turned with a smile when she heard the question.

  “She's Raxian Expeditionary Force,” she said, as if that explained everything. “I've seen her run up a wall.”

  Handel had gone quiet after that, giving her strange looks.

  They arrived at Vrk's little makeshift hospital under the trees at the same time as Dr. Kilmer and Garner arrived on the hover, with everyone's packs loaded onboard.

  Vrk must have guessed why they were back, because he didn't seem surprised. “We stand together?”

  Ben nodded.

  Vrk glanced at Tally. “Ghost ship girl, what you doing back here?”

  “Your warship ran away when we approached it. Your soldier called for . . .” She tried to remember what Irwin had called it. “He called for fraknvos, but they did not help. They sped off.”

  There was an audible reaction from the Caruson.

  “He said fraknvos?” Vrk asked.

  She nodded. “That's what he said. Many times.”

  “And then?” Vrk lifted his hands.

  “And then the VSCS Galaha arrived, and I asked them for our version of . . . fraknvos.” She said the unfamiliar word carefully after hearing how Vrk pronounced it. “And they took your people to the med bay.”

  There was another murmur through the miners and soldiers.

  “So, you helped my people.” He inclined his head. “What do you say about this fight?” He turned and waved toward the field, where the runners were landing, one by one.

  It felt like every eye was on her, and she snapped her spine straight. “I say tell us why you are here. The whole reason, including what the Caruso are using those minerals you're stealing for. Use that to make yourself safe, because they're trying to kill you to stop the information getting out.”

  There was a beat of silence, and then an argument broke out among the Caruso--not just the soldiers, but some of the injured miners as well.

  She guessed it was hard for some of them to come to grips with being under attack by their own.

  Vrk watched her while the argument raged around him, but eventually he gave a shout, and everyone was silent.

  He said something in Caruson that had all his soldiers turning to the field, and Tally could see the doors of the runners were opening.

  This was happening.

  And she just remembered she didn't have a laz.

  Ben must have noticed her patting her pockets. “Where's your weapon?”

  “Vrk took it before he put me in the runner.” She crouched down, watching as Caruson soldiers ran out of the three runners that had landed. They formed into three units of eight.

  As soon as they were in position, they moved forward.

  The weather had darkened the sky, and it was already late in the afternoon, so it wouldn't be easy to see through the trees, but they must be using heat sensors because they were headed in exactly the right direction.

  Ben crouched beside her. “There's no time to find you a weapon now. You need to hide.” He rose up, hand still on her shoulder, and faced the scientists. “That goes for everyone with no weapon. You need to hide. Now.”

  The doctors hesitated.

  Tally pointed to the hover. “Take it back to where we hid before.”

  Dr. Kilmer nodded, and when he moved toward the hover, the other two followed him.

  Ben's lips were right against her ear as he grabbed her hand and pulled her up. “You can't help without a weapon. Please go with them.”

  She shook her head. She would not.

  She was not leaving again.

  “I'll hide u
p a tree, where I can see what's going on and help if it's possible.” She put a hand to his jaw, frustration and worry mixing together in a potent blend. “Don't tell me otherwise.”

  His mouth formed a tight line, but he gave a nod, then stooped to make a step with his hands. She put her foot in it and he boosted her up the tree they'd been crouched behind.

  She pulled up onto a branch and looked down at him for a moment, but he was already turning away, laz raised in the direction of the units moving slowly toward them.

  As she climbed a little higher, she heard Vrk call out to the Caruson sent to kill him, his voice raised to be heard over the rain.

  He called for fraknvos.

  The units stopped, and she saw a few of the newly arrived soldiers give each other uneasy looks.

  Her gaze drifted back to the runners, sitting with engines idling in the field, and she realized there was no obvious guards around them.

  They were just sitting there.

  Unless there were pilots still inside.

  As she thought it, a Caruson walked out from behind the middle runner and made his way around the front, to watch the units as they moved forward.

  She didn't know if it was her imagination, but since Vrk had called out to them, they seemed to move even slower than they had before.

  Vrk shouted something else, and the pilot rubbed at his face in a way that spoke of deep unease.

  Tally looked up through the leaves, the rain forcing her to shield her eyes. She found the fourth runner.

  It was no longer circling the field, it had moved with the units and was hovering over them, waiting like one of the legavas in the river to explode into action when someone broke cover.

  One thing it wasn't doing was guarding the runners that were on the ground.

  Maybe the Caruso couldn't conceive of the idea that someone might steal one from under their noses.

  The first line of soldiers stepped under the trees. The thick canopy of leaves blocked most of the rain, and so many of them shook the water from their eyes as they came under its shelter.

  Sitting above them she noticed the almost imperceptible stumble as they took in the miners lying on their pallets, at least thirty people with severe injuries.