by Gun Brooke
“Dwyn wouldn’t be alone,” Emeron said starkly. “If she can’t make it, I’ll stay with her.” It was obvious to Dahlia that Emeron harbored strong feelings for Dwyn, who in turn shook her head determinedly.
“Let’s go,” she said, and would have sounded more convincing if her voice had been more audible.
They moved slowly the last fifty meters. Dahlia could still hear the bots, but they weren’t coming any nearer and she wondered why. What were they waiting for? It was obvious that the people behind them wouldn’t give up. Another few steps later, their small group ran into one of the marines patrolling the perimeter. He saluted and guided them to the tall group of trees that provided some protection from the bots.
Dahlia looked around, trying to make out her daughter’s features, but couldn’t find her. She had turned to Leanne to ask, when a hand on her shoulder stopped her.
“Mother...Mom?”
Dahlia pivoted, exhausted, and would have fallen if the strong arms of her daughter-in-law hadn’t caught her. Kellen stood next to Rae, who in turn was smiling tremulously. Dahlia, the master of rhetoric and negotiations, found no words. Standing there, looking at her only child, she realized at times during these last few days she’d thought she’d never see her family again.
“Oh, Mom.” Rae wrapped her arms around her, kissing her cheek tenderly before she hugged her tight. “I’ve sent word to Dad, but I don’t know when he’ll receive it.” She pushed Dahlia back at arm’s length and looked at her closely in the light of the moons that were rising above the treetops. “Are you all right? Really all right?” She held Dahlia tight again.
“I’m fine, Rae. I’m tired, and as I said, a bit sore, but I’m fine now.” It was true. Suddenly her exhaustion, thirst, and fear meant nothing. Her daughter was in her embrace, and her new daughter, Kellen, was standing next to them, smiling. Dahlia extended an arm and Kellen willingly allowed herself to be hugged for a few seconds.
Rae finally let go. “As much as I’d like to revel in our reunion longer, we have things to take care of. I’m not sure how long reinforcements will be, or if they’ll come at all, since communications in and out of this forest are dicey at best—”
“Ma’am, look,” Leanne said from where she stood with Owena’s arm discreetly around her waist. She pointed toward the sky where a band of lights indicated an approaching vessel.
“Is that our backup?” Dwyn murmured. She was propped against a tree, breathing shallowly.
“One ship?” Rae said slowly, and Dahlia knew her well enough to be concerned about the wrinkles marring her forehead. “No. I don’t think so.” She pulled her plasma-pulse rifle from her harness and flipped down her visor. “Saddle up, people,” she called. “Prepare to engage the enemy.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Dwyn stared at the lights in the night sky. Corma’s two moons highlighted the ship’s sharp edges, and the piercing lights around its belly hurt her eyes. Blinking away tears, she stood as the SC military unit and Emeron’s team got into position.
“Dwyn. Here.” Emeron tossed her a smaller rifle, a short-barreled energy-destabilizer. It was as powerful as a plasma-pulse weapon and had a longer reach. “Keep Yhja and Trom safe. Take Diplomat Jacelon too and hide behind the trees, and don’t let them out of your sight.”
Dwyn coughed as she gripped the weapon. Yhja and Trom had already crawled behind the cluster of tall trees that formed a semicircle, hiding their heads against their pulled-up knees. Dwyn regretted that they had needed to bring the youngsters, but she was determined to keep them safe or die trying. Dahlia joined them, a sidearm in her right hand. She nodded at Dwyn, looking worried.
“Are you all right?” Dahlia asked. “Let me know if you want to switch weapons. That one looks heavy.”
“Thanks, but I’m fine, ma’am.” She suppressed another coughing attack.
Two junior officers carried M’Ekar to a safer spot next to Yhja and Trom. The former ambassador didn’t stir, and Dwyn wondered if the skeletal man was already dead.
The vessel hovered briefly, but nobody opened fire. She suspected the ship’s shields were too impenetrable for mere plasma-pulse rifles. She stood half-hidden behind a tree, watching Emeron as she prepared for battle. Dahlia took position on the other side of the trunk.
Tall, and with her hair like blackbird wings around her cheeks, Emeron stood at the front of the SC unit, her weapon raised and ready. Dwyn knew that as long as Emeron was able, she would carry out her duty to protect her and the others.
The ship touched down on struts that looked deceptively fragile. A ramp opened, and the mercenaries ran half-bent toward it. Rae gave the order to engage, and two of them fell.
“They’re getting away, ma’am,” Owena yelled over the noise from the ship’s propulsion system.
“No. They’re about to engage,” the admiral answered. “They’re not giving up.” Looking back at her mother, she barked orders. “Make a ring around the civilians. Don’t let these criminals anywhere near them.”
The marines and the junior Cormanian officers changed positions, standing in a semicircle in front of the trees. Oches stood between them and the forest to forestall a stealth attack from behind.
Some of the mercenaries had entered the hovering spaceship now, while some stood on the open ramp located at the aft section. The noise from the vessel increased and it seemed to tremble impatiently where it stood, and then it ascended, only a meter off the ground. Slowly it advanced toward them, and Dwyn drew a deep breath. Was it going to ram them or shoot at them? Surely they couldn’t protect themselves against such an assault?
“Stand your ground,” Jacelon roared. “Open fire.”
Plasma-pulse rays coursed through the night, bouncing off the vessel’s shields in a cascade of white flashes. The ship neared and pushed Jacelon and Emeron’s unit back against the trees.
“No. Stand your ground,” Jacelon shouted again. “Aim for the sensitive technology on the roof.”
Dwyn knew that many smaller vessels had less shielding around their sensor array, since a dense shield bubble could give false readings. Larger ships didn’t usually suffer from this dilemma, but this ship was smaller than the one that had crashed into the Disian village.
She suddenly straightened her back so quickly it snapped, making her fully alert. The strange lull of fatigue that had clouded her mind for the last few days because of the lung injury disappeared. She looked at Oches, who kept firing upon the ship, his normally jovial face austere and focused. Trom and Yhja huddled, and Dahlia was shooting at it as well, clinging to the tree as she did so.
Suddenly Dwyn had an idea, born from a childhood memory when she, her parents, and their entire collective had been stranded on a mining planet for weeks because an electrical supercharge had accidentally incapacitated their vessel. If she could copy the circumstances, she could possibly disable this ship. If it didn’t work, only quick intervention from the SC could save them. But it didn’t seem as if that would come soon enough.
She ducked and ran just inside the bordering bushes, trying to travel far enough to get behind the ship. Apparently, the mercenaries focused all their attention forward, on the SC units. The vessel tore up grass and dirt as it used its propulsion system to remain horizontal. She estimated that it now hovered approximately two meters off the ground. She prayed it would keep that distance, or she would be crushed. Even now she risked getting caught in the turbulent air, which could easily propel her into the nearest tree or, worse, slam her into the fuselage.
She crouched as she ran, squinting at the whirling dust. She coughed and knew this might be the last straw for her lungs. The possibility of Emeron being killed, together with her new friends, who’d risked their lives to keep her safe from the bots, ignited her. She tugged at her collar and tried to pull it up over her mouth, to filter some of the dust out. It still filled every crevice on her face and found its way into her nose and mouth.
Afraid she’d miss this chance she s
lipped under the spaceship’s starboard fin, where the air was hot and turbulent. She struggled to remain on her feet, clutching the weapon in her cold hands. If she dropped it, she wouldn’t get a second chance.
The downdraft sent her almost to her knees, and she blinked furiously in the whirling dust that stung her eyes. Finally she reached the center of the ship’s belly and looked up. Six narrow struts were still extended, and Dwyn knew the ship’s captain would land soon.
To her right, one of the struts came at her faster than she’d counted on. The ship was turning, directing its port ramp toward the SC units. She threw herself to the ground and rolled onto her back with the weapon directed straight up toward the vessel’s underbelly. When the strut passed above her, she blazed at it. The shields held, but she kept her finger on the trigger sensor, hoping the weapon was fully charged. The destabilizer beam chewed away at the shield, and she thought she could see the typical dark outlines that were sometimes visible when a shield was about to be compromised. Blackish-purple sparks rained over her, scorching her hair and prickling her face.
Suddenly the strut base began to crackle and she smelled burning electronics. A hydraulic hose severed and, seeing that she was actually causing damage, she kept firing. Her arms ached and she could barely see, but she refused to stop.
At first she thought the hum in the air and the sense of high density around her had resulted from what she was doing. She greedily drew new breaths, but the air had become almost liquid. Panting, she fought to keep the destabilizer weapon up, even if it was now radiating so much heat her hands hurt.
The explosion began as a loud whirring sound, coming from deep inside the belly of the ship. She dropped the weapon and, pinned to the ground, saw the fuselage begin to crack. Before darkness descended upon her she saw the jagged edges of the crack in the fuselage separate in an explosion of blue-green flames.
*
Emeron thought she glimpsed something. Squinting, she raised her rifle, wondering if any of the captured mercenaries had escaped their restraints. She narrowed her eyes further as she saw a long, blond braid flutter in the strong gushes of the ship’s downdraft. Dwyn. She groaned. What was she doing? Dwyn raced toward the ship and ducked underneath it.
“What the hell is Dwyn up to?” Jacelon shouted next to her. “Keep firing, Commander. We can’t help her any other way.”
“I can pull her out.” Emeron was ready to run the same route Dwyn had taken.
“Negative. We need all the firepower we can get.”
She tried to spot Dwyn underneath the ship, but the dirt and grass whirling around the vessel made it impossible. Tears of fury and disbelief rose behind her eyelids, but she refused to break down. She needed to be on top of her game and keep the mercenaries occupied long enough for Dwyn carry out whatever she had set out to do. She hoped she hadn’t gone in without a feasible plan.
A high-pitched tone echoed in the air, and for a moment Emeron thought the bots had returned to join the party. She looked around, ready to act, but even as the tone became increasingly louder, no bots appeared. She sniffed.
“Do you smell that?” she shouted to Leanne, who stood to her left, continuously firing on the ship.
“Smells weird, doesn’t it?” Leanne yelled back. She stopped firing for a second and stared at the bottom of the ship. “Stars and skies, is that Dwyn?”
Emeron shifted to the left and tried to make out what Leanne saw. “She’s under the ship, but I can’t see her. Where is she?”
Leanne opened her mouth to answer, but a great explosion interrupted her and sent them both flying. Emeron landed in a short tree and, at first, she had no idea where she was. The branches pierced her uniform, and one sharp twig perforated the palm of her left hand. She yanked herself loose and cradled her hand as she slid down the tree. Standing on unsteady legs, she found that the explosion had tossed her more than five meters.
Around her, the teams were staggering to get to their feet. A quick glance at the cluster of trees where they had placed the civilians showed that the trees were intact. She couldn’t make out Dahlia or the Disian young people, but hoped they were all right.
Shaking off the dazedness, she suddenly remembered Dwyn’s position. She stared in horror at the wreckage, all that was left of the ship, which had broken into three major parts with debris scattered all around it. She couldn’t imagine how Dwyn could have survived. A cry of outrage and sorrow broke from her, and she called Dwyn’s name repeatedly as she ran toward the downed vessel.
“Dwyn.” She sobbed as she waded through the debris. “Dwyn.”
“Emeron. I thought I saw her being tossed right through the explosion.” Leanne was suddenly by her side, her temple bleeding from a deep cut.
“You’re injured,” Emeron said hollowly.
“It’s nothing. We have to secure the area. The mercenaries were thrown in all directions.” Leanne picked up a rifle and pressed it into her hands. “We’ll find her. We’ll find all of them.”
One by one, Emeron and Leanne located their teammates. The protector was the first to appear, climbing over the rubble to reach them. Emeron had never seen her look this way, disheveled and dangerous and with her hair in wild disarray around her face. “Report,” the protector barked.
“We are assessing the situation and locating our people, Commander,” Leanne said. “I was standing right next to the admiral. I haven’t seen Owena.”
“Ma’am?” Oches came running toward them, three plasma-pulse rifles under one arm, pressing a torn piece of fabric to his neck. “The admiral is over by the bushes. She’s fine, but needs help with one of the Disian youngsters, who was hit by shrapnel. We need a derma fuser. She’s hemorrhaging badly.”
Emeron glanced around for any of their back-strap security carriers. Unlike the people, the packs had been sitting low enough to avoid the shock of the explosion. She ran to the bushes behind the trees and, as she bent to retrieve two of the carriers, she heard a faint voice to the left. “Commander?”
Pushing the branches aside she saw Ensign Noor sitting on the other side, cradling one of her junior officers. “Noor, hang on, we’ll get to you.”
“We’re all right, ma’am,” Noor said, and coughed. “She’s breathing and her pulse is strong.”
“Good. You’re protected where you are. Just stay there.”
Noor acknowledged and Emeron pulled the carriers out, rummaging through them. She found a med kit and pulled out a derma fuser. As she hurried back, she ran the fuser over her hand, patching herself so she could use it. The repair job would probably need reworking, but for now it would have to do.
Oches showed her where Jacelon sat, pressing her fingers into Yhja’s inner thigh. The fabric of Yhja’s pants was torn and her femoral artery was clearly severed.
“Oches, help the protector and Leanne localize our people. I’ll assist the admiral.”
Oches nodded and took off.
Emeron set the derma fuser to a deep-blood-vessel setting and ran it over the wound. Yhja seemed unconscious, and all the blood on her clothes and Jacelon’s made it clear that she would need a transfusion soon. After closing the rift in the artery, Emeron let the derma fuser work on the tissues, then finally closed the skin wound.
“There,” Jacelon said. “Do you think you can carry her back to the others? We need to regroup and get a head count.”
She lifted Yhja and shuddered at how boneless she seemed. “She needs a MEDEVAC, ma’am.”
“It should be on its way. I have no idea if Oches’s communication center survived or why there was such an explosion. Nothing we did could have caused such a blast.”
“Dwyn was firing from underneath.” Emeron held Yhja tighter. “Who knows what she hit.”
“No matter what it was, the blast was completely out of proportion.”
“Perhaps the mercenaries were moving explosives in their cargo bay?”
“That’s one theory. We’ll see.” Jacelon ran up to Kellen and held her face in
her hands. “You are all right, darling?”
“Yes. And you?”
“I’m fine. Now. Report.”
“We’ve located nearly all of our people, including Dahlia. She’s over there, taking care of M’Ekar.”
“She’s what?”
“Tending to him.” Kellen made a wry face.
“And Dwyn?” Emeron asked, putting Yhja down next to Trom, who pulled her into his arms and closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry. There’s no sign of her.”
Emeron looked at the clearing and sensed that Dwyn was out there, under the wreckage.
“The mercenaries?”
“Several dead. We’re gathering the survivors and giving first aid to the injured. The ones in the ship died, I believe, though some of the ones on the ramp made it.”
Emeron joined the members of her team who were sorting through the debris. She pulled at scorching pieces of fuselage, shoving what had once been seats and cabinets out of her way.
“Ma’am, over here,” Mogghy called urgently. “I found her.”
She stumbled across the debris, cutting her shins on sharp metal edges, but ignoring the pain. Mogghy was kneeling next to a big piece of the ramp, trying to move it.
“Dwyn. Is she...?” She knelt next to Mogghy. All she could make out of Dwyn was her long blond braid. “I can’t see a thing. I need to get under there.”
“I don’t recommend it, ma’am. The metal’s still hot.”
Disregarding Mogghy’s advice she dropped to her stomach and crawled in next to Dwyn, who didn’t stir. It was dark under the ramp, and very hot. She wiped at the sweat forming on her forehead. Finally, she managed to reach Dwyn’s head, and she fumbled for and prayed there would be a pulse in her neck.
She found the pulse, faint and thready, but it was there. She crawled closer and listened to Dwyn’s raspy breathing. “Dwyn, come on.” She felt with her hands but couldn’t judge if Dwyn had internal injuries, which she suspected. “Mogghy, I need a medical scanner.”