by Terry Mixon
If her guess was accurate, there were probably between six and eight other people scattered around the camp acting as sentries, and the two she’d seen keeping watch over the horses. She wasn’t certain how she would deal with them, but the glimmering of a plan started working its way into her brain.
It was dangerous, but if she could pull it off, they might all be able to slip away before the people around them even realized they were gone.
If stealth failed, she always had plan B, which was risky because of the EMP. She’d recovered that one plasma grenade. If it was dead like all the rest of the Imperial equipment, then using it would be futile and stupid.
But those were primitive devices with little or no electronics. Basically, you pulled the retaining pin, threw the grenade, and it blew up. It should still work. Theoretically.
If the plasma grenade went off, she’d kill at least two thirds of the enemy. At the very least, that would slake some of her bloodlust and reduce the fighting to a manageable level. She hoped.
Still, her preference was to let Kelsey make that decision. To do that, she had to take care of the guards and get to her.
Well, there was no time like the present.
She held her bow with an arrow comfortably nocked against the string in one hand while she had a marine knife in the other, carefully hidden behind her thigh. She strolled directly up to the first guard. They were going to see her coming, no matter what she did, so her best defense was to look exactly like the rest of them.
Perhaps she could pretend to be their relief for that one critical moment. Dealing with the other guard was still going to be problematic, but she’d have to trust in her own skills and hope for the best.
As it happened, the guard she was approaching had his back directly toward her. She actually managed to get right at his back without him being aware that she was even there. She was pretty sure that his partner across the fire had seen her approach, but he hadn’t had any reason to be alarmed.
That was about to change.
She jammed the knife into the back of the first guard’s skull as soon as she was within arm’s reach. The blade entered with an audible—though soft—crunch, and the guard fell like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Not giving the other guard a chance to react, Julia brought up her bow, drew the arrow back, and fired at his head. She was already grabbing for another arrow and getting ready to fire the next shot, because she was certain the first one wasn’t going to be enough. No one was that lucky.
Except that today she was.
The arrow struck the man right in the eye, and he collapsed without a word. His fall was almost as noiseless as his partner’s.
Julia slowly turned in a circle, her bow ready to fire, making sure that no one else was responding to what she’d just done. Miraculously, it seemed like her insane plan was working. No one seemed aware of what had just happened.
She had to act quickly, since time was not on her side. None of the prisoners had woken up during the attack. They were probably exhausted from everything they’d been through, and now things were about to get a lot more hectic.
Julia retrieved the marine knife from the skull of the dead guard and wiped it clean on his shirtsleeve. Then she stepped quietly through the prisoners until she was standing next to her doppelgänger. Julia bent over and placed a hand across the woman’s mouth.
Kelsey’s eyes flew open, but with her hands and feet tied, she was unable to do anything. It only took a moment for those eyes so like hers to narrow, then the other woman nodded.
Julia removed her hand and spoke very quietly in Kelsey’s ear. “I’ve killed the two guards watching over you, and I’m going to cut your hands loose.”
Cutting through the ropes with the marine knife was easy. The most difficult part was making certain that she didn’t accidentally cut Kelsey’s hand off. She repeated the work on the woman’s legs.
Once the ropes were gone, Kelsey rubbed her wrists and feet, probably to help restore more circulation, and then rose.
Julia turned so that Kelsey could see her swords strapped low on her back. She hadn’t dared wear them where the silhouette could’ve been seen. That might have given her away.
Kelsey slowly drew one of the swords from Julia’s back. “Give Talbot the other one,” her doppelgänger said softly into her ear. “Then we need to get everybody else cut loose and get out of here.”
Julia handed the plasma grenade to her. “I have no idea if this will work, but I figured I’d bring it along.”
Julia repeated the process with Talbot, and he was just as quick on the uptake. Once she’d freed him, he rose to his feet and took the second sword.
The two of them went from person to person, quietly waking them up and cutting them free while Julia kept watch, her eyes scanning for sentries or waking enemies near the fires.
Clarice Beauchamp retrieved the weapons from the two dead guards. She’d be best trained in the use of them, so that would be helpful. She’d also take one of the bows, and Olivia or Elise could take the second.
Once the entire group was awake, Kelsey gestured toward where the horses were being kept. “If we can get the horses saddled and get going before they realize that we’ve escaped, we might actually get away.”
Of course, that’s when someone near the fire stood, saw what they were doing, and started screaming that the prisoners were escaping.
Well, so much for the easy way.
26
Kelsey reacted instantly, pulling the pin on the plasma grenade and hurling it toward the fire. While she didn’t have her usual Marine Raider enhanced strength, her normal muscles had gotten stronger with use, and the grenade made it the full distance without any trouble.
Her aim was true, and it landed almost in the middle of the group of scrambling enemies, rolling to a stop just at the lip of one of the pits. It sat there for one extended heartbeat even as Kelsey was turning her back to the impending explosion.
“Fire in the hole!” she shouted. “Cover your eyes!”
She hoped to God that the grenade worked because otherwise no one would be looking at the enemy as they came to kill them.
The grenade’s explosion made it sound as if the world had ended. It was only then that she realized that her augmentation was no longer protecting her hearing. Her ears rang, and she felt as if she’d been kicked in the back as she staggered forward, almost falling.
She’d been a little too close to the explosion, she decided. But if it was bad for her, it was going to be really bad for the enemy.
Kelsey turned and saw that while the grenade hadn’t killed everyone, it had certainly maimed most of the survivors. No one was standing, and those that weren’t dead looked as if they were seriously injured. Hell, many of them were on fire.
The grass all over the camp was also on fire, and she expected that was going to mean a big blaze since no one was in a position to control it. The smell was already spooking the horses, she was sure. Like the explosion hadn’t.
Even though that took care of almost everyone in their general vicinity, it had certainly attracted the attention of the camp sentries. She didn’t know how many of them there were going to be, but she’d have to be an idiot to think that those warriors wouldn’t be rushing toward them even now.
“To the horses,” she shouted over the ringing in her ears. “Anyone with a weapon—particularly a bow—shoot at anything that moves.”
Julia ran beside her. “Based on what I saw, there’s probably six or eight sentries out there. Two more near the horses. They’ll be ready for us.”
“You’ve got a bow. Help cover us.”
“Good idea, Princess Obvious.”
Kelsey smiled a little as she watched Captain Beauchamp hand the final bow to Olivia. She found a place near the back of the group as they made for the horses. The sentries would be coming from every direction.
They had a real chance of getting away, but only if they broke contact completely. Any
pursuers would find a way to signal other groups to come after them. She had to make sure that nobody survived this fight.
Julia and Captain Beauchamp engaged the guards ahead of them before Kelsey saw anyone. She had no idea how effective their fire was in the dark and confusion, but she hoped they were good. Otherwise, someone was going to die.
Two guards came running in from the left, and Olivia brought her bow up and snapped a shot off at one of them. He grunted and went down, but it didn’t look like he was completely out of the fight.
Kelsey ran forward, even as the second guard fired an arrow at her. She managed to successfully throw herself to the side enough for him to miss.
She’d do a lot better if she still had her Marine Raider augmentation, but in this case, even a few centimeters were enough for the arrow to fly harmlessly past her with an audible “thwap.”
Olivia hadn’t been idle. She’d already drawn another arrow from her quiver and fired it at the second guard. Her aim was true, and the arrow caught him squarely in the chest, dropping him on the spot.
She could hear Talbot and Captain Beauchamp fighting somebody on the other side of their small group as they continued toward the horses, but she couldn’t spare them any attention. The wounded guard had thrown aside his bow and drawn his sword. He wanted to fight it out man to woman.
Kelsey wasn’t obliging. She let Olivia shoot him in the stomach. He went down writhing and groaning.
Unfortunately, her focus on those two had allowed a third to slip close without her seeing him. The man seemingly appeared out of nowhere with a sword in hand, already swinging at her.
Kelsey’s reflexes were exceptionally good, even without her Marine Raider augmentation. She’d also been practicing the Art for quite a while now, and that included weapons. She blocked the attack at the last moment.
She’d intentionally used the flat of her blade so as not to cause the piece of steel flying toward her to snap off and continue on its merry way. That would be almost as bad as not blocking it at all. Her hull metal blade was more than strong enough to take a hit on the side.
The unexpected blocking of his blade put the man off-balance enough for Kelsey to swing around and take his leg. In one stroke—even with her reduced strength—the blade’s edge was more than sufficient to cut through his leg, armor and all. He went down screaming as blood gushed from his gory wound.
Looking around as she stepped away from the writhing man, Kelsey saw no further signs of guards, so she risked a glance at where Talbot and Captain Beauchamp were fighting. Talbot was using her other sword and engaging two foes while Captain Beauchamp fired arrows at several more that were threatening the group.
Kelsey raced toward them as Olivia turned her attention to the new threats.
Talbot was a lot stronger than she was, and even though his use of the sword wasn’t as good as hers, he managed to hold his own while the archers dealt with the more distant threats.
She intervened and quickly killed one of his attackers. Talbot followed up with an immediate strike on his man that decapitated him.
With that, the fight was over.
There might still be a guard or two out there, so they stayed watchful, but the other members of their party were able to secure the horses they needed and scatter the rest.
Captain Beauchamp searched out the wounded enemies that were still alive and finished them off. That might’ve seemed cruel because they were technically prisoners at this point, but the wounded were so gravely injured that there was no chance that they’d be able to do anything for them. What medical supplies they had were gone, lost somewhere in the gear that had been stolen from them.
More disturbing, Julia was going through the main camp doing the same thing, her face cold and merciless. Kelsey didn’t know if that was because of experiences she’d had as a Pale One or simply the loss of Scott Roche and so many others, but the woman never hesitated as she strode from body to body, her expression blank and her eyes cold, making sure they were truly dead or ending their suffering with firm thrusts of her captured sword.
Kelsey took a deep breath and regretted it. The mixture of burning grass, spilled blood, and cooked flesh was nauseating.
She turned her back on the carnage and considered what they needed to do next. They had to figure out exactly where the scepter was if they were going to retrieve it. They simply couldn’t complete their mission without it.
Unfortunately, not knowing which group had the damned thing, the only place they could be certain they’d find it was the city where all of these bastards were going.
That was going to mean going deeper into enemy territory. Not exactly a plan for guaranteed survival. Still, what choice did they have?
She’d talk it over with Jared and see what his opinion was, but her thought was they were going to have to follow the enemy right straight into their lair.
Not knowing how long they had, Jared made certain they gathered as much food, water, weapons, and other supplies as they could find before they fled the area. It was still dark, so they weren’t going to be traveling fast, but the plasma grenade blast would’ve been a big, bright neon sign to everyone within line of sight that something terrible had happened.
There were probably scouts from various groups of horde riders already on their way to figure out what had happened. He and his people need to be long gone before they arrived.
Beauchamp helped get everything secured to the horses, since the majority of their personnel weren’t skilled riders and none of them really knew the esoteric secrets of packing lots of gear on the beasts. If somebody came across them and they had to make a run for it, that would not be the time to find out that their packs were going to come undone.
They also gathered up any armor they could find that might fit somebody in their party. Most of the people had been killed in the explosion of the plasma grenade or had caught fire from the effects of it. Their armor was a bit more resistant to that sort of thing, but it would still look totally scorched if anyone examined it closely. They’d have to make do with what they could find.
He wasn’t looking forward to riding in the dark, but it beat the hell out of being on his way toward torture and execution. Right now, he still couldn’t tear his mind away from how many of his people had been killed.
When the EMP weapon had knocked them all out, it had made them completely vulnerable and the horde had executed virtually all of them. It was so inconceivable that he still couldn’t get his mind wrapped around it.
Beauchamp was in the same position. Her people had fought to the end, but they’d been greatly outnumbered, and all of them had been killed or executed except for her. Now here they were, a small group trying to figure out what they were going to need to do to survive in the middle of enemy territory.
After the fighting, Julia had disappeared for a short while and then returned with her horse. They all immediately mounted up and set out, moving slowly in the darkness.
As the group rode, he pulled the people he needed as close together as they could get and went over the situation with them. When he was finished, he looked at Clarice Beauchamp.
“What are the chances that we can get back to your outpost without the horde hunting us down?”
The woman shook her head. “They’re going to be swarming the general area come morning. We need to be gone by then. If we turn around and go back, we’re going to discover that they’ve sent parties back to stop us. We just don’t have the numbers to fight off an attack.
“Besides, that group you sent off with your sister-in-law started a grass fire, like the one that your sister started tonight. The first one is between us and the outpost, and the second will cut off some of the enemy coming to search for us, which is a good thing. There’s no easy way to get past either of them. I’m afraid that the only way open to us is forward.”
Jared grunted, not really surprised to hear that. “They’re going to know that we’re loose. They’ll do a search around the campsit
e, and they won’t find our bodies. Worse, they’re going to find the people we killed and know it was us. We can assume that means they’re going to be hard on our tails once they figure out what happened.”
Beauchamp smiled. “There’s a reason that we scattered the horses back in the direction of the outpost. That’s going to make them initially think we fled in that direction. If we’re lucky, the morning winds will push the fire across our path and hide which direction we actually went.
“We can’t count on that, but we’re going to get a little bit of time because of their uncertainty. I suggest we use it wisely. If we can change into armor and clothing that the horde wear, they won’t realize that we’re not another search party unless they close with us.”
He was still thinking about that when Carl Owlet spoke. “The Imperial scepter is somewhere out there, and it’s being taken toward our original destination. If we’re going to get into the Imperial Vault, we have to have it.”
“Is it any use now?” Jared asked. “The EMP probably junked it, just like everything else electronic, including the implants.”
The young scientist smiled. “It has safety measures built into it to prevent it from frying. If I can get my hands on it and access to some tools to get into its interior, I can probably reset it. Also, our implants have a reset, too, although it’s going to be a lot more difficult to get to. They were designed so that they would resist EMPs of almost unimaginable strength, but being so close to that huge weapon overloaded ours.
“I’m afraid this is going to require Doctor Stone’s help. She’s going to have to make an incision to get to our implant nodes—a specific one—and then I can apply a specific frequency of power to it. I’m afraid that it’s not something that’s going to be simple, because as we all know, the implants are inside our skulls. But if we can get our hands on her medical gear—the stuff that wasn’t ruined by the EMP—it’s not out of the question.”
Jared thought about that and shuddered a little. Brain surgery in the wilds of Terra with no implants to guide their way would be hard. If they couldn’t find Doctor Stone’s surgical kit, it would be impossible, and they’d have to make do without their implants.