She clambered out of the dartwing and waited for Nex to pry himself loose of the close confines. She inhaled the heavenly aroma of the flowers and her companion’s delightful woodsy scent. The dartwing’s cockpit was deep enough, but it was a tight fit for the large Risnarish frame from a torso and hip standpoint. She’d asked about that, and Nex had told her, “Enforcement and medics trade comfort for speed.”
Anneliese smiled at Nex as he wrenched himself free of his vehicle. He got out and looked at her with a smirk. “You’re not fooling me.”
“What do you mean?”
“It almost killed you to agree to sentry duty. You’re busting over not being in the force that will fight to win back the hive.”
Anneliese gave her best attempt at appearing wide-eyed and innocent. Nex’s snort informed her she’d failed again.
She gave up. “Fine. I’m pissed off. I can fight as well as any of you. You know it too. It’s because I’m a woman that you all want to pack me in with the rest of the girls.”
To his credit, Nex didn’t argue the sexism. “We protect our women. It’s what Risnarish men were raised to do.”
“Well, I was raised to stand up for myself. Many women on Earth are.”
He shrugged. “It’s a difference in our cultures. I’m ready to admit that for Earthlings, the outlook is dissimilar.”
“And not incorrect.”
“And not incorrect.” Nex smiled, but Anneliese detected no condescension.
His ready admission mollified her irritation. “Okay. Thank you for giving me that. Now if I could just make Jape understand, I’d feel better.”
“You’re ignoring the biggest reason you can’t fight with us at the hive. Your skin doesn’t armor.”
Her sense of righteous battle rose again. “Weh. I’m more than willing to use the belt, the vest, and the helmet. I’ve been in active combat with far less.”
Nex’s expression was impossible to read at first. A myriad of emotions fought for possession of his face. Anneliese couldn’t be sure if she saw sympathy, worry, or respect flash before resolve settled in.
In a no-nonsense tone, he said, “Look what fighting unprotected did to you. Your back and leg are permanently disabled. Maybe it’s not a constant problem, but it’s enough of one, isn’t it? It’s made your life harder than it would have been. You could have been killed.”
She huffed impatiently. Didn’t he realize she knew all that? “I didn’t say I wouldn’t be in danger. That’s what being a soldier is about. You put your life on the line for a cause you believe in. For people you care about.”
“The fact remains, you aren’t naturally fitted for combat as we are. Trained and lethal, yes. But you’re at a disadvantage here.”
Anneliese gazed at him. Looking at Nex’s face, at his naked concern, sapped her will. She didn’t want to fight with him, not when he didn’t think she was less a person or warrior than he was.
She sighed and gave up another point. “I’m ready to admit you are better suited for a firefight than I am. It doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“All I ask is that you accept your limitations. That you let us do what we do. I promise I’ll return the favor as much as I’m able.”
“I’m determined to be logical about what has to happen here. That’s why I smiled and said a bunch of shit I didn’t mean to Jape.”
He laughed. “Why do I get the idea that coping with our customs is a far harder battle for you than a firefight?”
“Because it is. I’m trying, Nex. Salno was right, though. I don’t know how not to give people an argument when it comes to this sort of stuff.”
“I’m sorry it’s so hard for you.”
Nex hugged her. Once again, there was no indication it was because he felt superior, that the big, strong man had to pet the little girl so she would feel better. It was more of an expression of supportiveness.
Anneliese hoped that was the case. Nex’s embrace was the best thing she could remember in a long time. She sank into the warmth of it, wrapping her arms tight around him.
He was astounding. Perfect, really. That he felt that way made Anneliese wonder if she was falling in love. Could it be? Was it possible?
Did she dare?
With his lips in her hair, he murmured, “You can tell me anything, Anneliese. If you need to yell and scream because we Risnarish are such a frustrating bunch, I’ll be more than glad to hear it. You can call me names, if it will make you feel better.”
She squeezed him, as if she could somehow move closer. “You are the last person I want to be mad at.”
In that moment, it was the truth. She did not want to fight against Nex for any reason, not even a smidgen. He was too decent a person.
When Nex grasped her chin to tilt her head up for his kiss, Anneliese didn’t demand control. With his lips on hers, his breath warm in her mouth, the iron that kept her strong softened before the heat of epiphany.
I think I love you, Nex. I barely know you, you’re not of my species, not of my world, but I’m almost positive I’m in love with you.
She might have told him all the crazy thoughts in her head, might have proclaimed the devotion awakening in her heart, but the village alarms chose that instant to go off. She and Nex jerked apart, both assuming attitudes of the soldier in a warzone: alert tension, muscles stiffening, eyes searching to find the source of the trouble so they might fly straight into it rather than away.
“Into the dartwing.” Nex leapt for the vessel they had so recently quit.
Pleasure suffused Anneliese to note he had no intention of leaving her behind. She wedged herself on his lap, jamming the flight helmet back on her head. An instant later, they were flying fast over the village, surrounded by other dartwings racing over the domes.
Anneliese gasped when their craft banked hard to one side. The other dartwings did the same. “We have a target?”
“We’re following Jape. He’s just taken off from the enforcement dome.”
“Wherever he’s going is where the trouble is.” Anneliese smiled grimly. The troops had rallied to their leader and were following him into battle.
“Put your vest on as soon as we land and turn on your belt.”
“Got it.”
They zipped toward the edge of the village, the area that had become a flashpoint. It was the same place the scientists had run to when the hive was overrun.
Telltale flashes of battle sparkled already. On the distant plain, the flash of pulse fire bloomed over the grass and flowers. The latest fight had begun.
Seconds later, they landed among a large group of other dartwings. Plasma guns in hand, Anneliese yanked on her protective vest. They raced side by side to the barrier. Anneliese joined the exodus beyond the poles that the containment field stretched between, firing at a group of drones running toward the village.
Anneliese didn’t have the opportunity to marvel at how fast the spindly, chest-high drones could move. Her attention was on the two-tone gray Risnarish man running ahead of the drones. She cursed under her breath. Someone had been left behind at the hive?
The man’s legs pumped, covering the ground at a speed that would have impressed Anneliese had the drones not been catching up. It didn’t seem possible the robotic creatures could outrace a Risnarish, but they were.
Then again, the hive was some distance from the village, easily five miles. While the Risnarish were muscled and fit, they were not tireless machines as the drones were. If the man had indeed come from the overrun hive, he was no doubt tiring.
The warriors from the village were jogging to meet him and his pursuers. Anneliese understood they had to move slower in order to aim at their enemies. They fired a constant barrage as the chase came closer. Nex darted a glance at Anneliese as they drew near the orderly lines of Cas fighters. “Stick close to me.”
She line
d up in the fourth row of a column, putting her next to Nex. It was a relief to go from an all-out sprint to a quick trot, particularly where her bum knee was concerned. The joint no longer tolerated running for any distance. She ignored the slashes of pain from it and the dull grind of her hip as she waited for her turn to fire at the drones.
The Risnarish discipline of fighting differed from how she’d been trained. The front line did all the firing until their weapons ran out of plasma bullets. Then they dashed to the rear of the line to reload as the next row moved up and took their place. Anneliese chafed over being in the back where she couldn’t blast the hell out of the enemy, but she also didn’t want to foul up the Cas warriors’ well-organized assault. Though she hated everything about the Monsuda, especially the drones, which did their bidding with no conscience, she was first and foremost a good soldier.
Before her row reached the front, the escaping Risnarish man rushed through the lines, staggering between her and Nex. He looked at the end of his strength, lurching more than running, sweat painting his striped skin.
Anneliese quickly forgot him as Jape’s shout rang through the air. Her translator didn’t pick it up well enough to interpret, but she’d heard the command during yesterday’s training. With the rest of the warriors, she broke out of her column, racing to the front as the lines ahead of her spread out to make room. They formed a row, a wall of protection and violent firepower. Anneliese and Nex were far down the right flank, nowhere near the middle, where the drones concentrated most of their attack.
Anneliese sent a wide spray at the drones. A lance of fear drove through her chest. So many gray bodies in front of her, easily outnumbering the Cas warriors. With their huge black teardrop lenses, the drones looked like a swarm of mutant ants.
The drones came to a halt, scores of them falling from the Risnarish assault. They didn’t retreat, however. Instead, they fired, with more stepping forward when their front lines fell. Drones didn’t feel. They didn’t fear death. They were soulless machines that would continue as long as their masters wished it.
The scatter-shot came at a great enough distance that the Risnarish, with their armored skin, were barely affected by it. Anneliese snatched a moment to dart a glance at Nex. The brown stripes lining his brow drew down over his squinting eyes. His lips wrinkled back, displaying the sharp rear teeth. Anneliese saw slight scratches appear where the scattershot glanced off his skin. From the sound of his growls, such minor hurts pissed him off more than they worried him.
Anneliese grinned at her warrior lover before turning away. She concentrated on taking out the enemy. Rounds were streaking in her direction too, judging from the bright lights blooming in front of her. The belt, with its activated containment shielding, was doing its job, rendering the scattershot impotent. The flares were a bit of a hindrance in that they caused afterimages that blinded Anneliese in spots for a few seconds.
She hoped that with the scatter-shot being fired from such a great distance, her force field would last longer than it had in testing. Surely the belt was pulling less power with the smaller impacts than it had received from Guild Master Keta’s pointblank trials.
Nex was not as hopeful, judging from his shouted, “Watch it, Anneliese! You’ve taken at least half a dozen hits.”
“I’m counting. I’m fine.”
Jape’s voice on her other side was her first indication he’d come to personally check on her. “They’re advancing! Firing is getting heavier! Start retreating to the village border. Stay in line unless you’re down on power.”
Anneliese began the controlled retreat, keeping up with the rest. Moving backward pissed off her knee more than the running had, but she ignored the growing pain. They’d only gone a few yards beyond the barrier. She’d be behind it and able to rest soon.
Nex yelled, though he was only a couple of feet away. “Anneliese, how many shots have hit you?”
“Only a dozen. Stop worrying about me. I’m fighting here.”
Even as she rejected his concern, a succession of scattershot pounded against them. It came so hard and so fast that she couldn’t count the hits to her containment.
Jape growled something incomprehensible. He got behind her and ordered, “Run to the village now, Anneliese. You’re done.”
She gritted her teeth and sent more plasma bullets at the advancing drones. “I’m fine. I’ve still got the vest.”
Jape grabbed her vest, yanking backward. “I said go! Now, warrior!”
It was a superior’s command Anneliese wouldn’t have dared disobey. Unfortunately, Jape had knocked her off balance, and she started to fall. Instinct took over, and she twisted to regain her equilibrium—twisted in such a way that her left leg flared with white-hot agony from hip to toes.
Anneliese’s knee buckled, and she fell hard right on it. As impossible as she might have thought it would be for it to hurt worse, it rose to the challenge with vicious triumph. Anneliese barely managed to bite off a scream as sickening torment blasted the joint.
Hideous, sickening hurt throbbed in nauseating waves. Anneliese couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe for a few seconds. Though her iron will insisted otherwise, she wasn’t going to limp off the battlefield on her own. She’d be damned lucky if she would walk within a month.
Nex was bent over her, his weapon holstered, arms scooping her up as Jape and a few others stood between them and the closing drones. “I’ve got you,” Nex said, his earlier ferocity gone with the weight of concern that filled his features.
He lifted her as easily as he might have a small child. Moments later, he ran through the barrier. They were within Cas’s borders.
Nex found a flat area of well-trampled grass and laid her down. “Where?”
“The knee,” Anneliese groaned as she learned how to breathe again. The pain was a constant, pulsing horror. As Nex sprouted a couple extra fingers and his hands hovered over the tortured joint, she begged, “Don’t touch it, please, don’t touch it.”
“That bad?”
“Worse. Shit. Shit!” She cursed at the pain and her stupid luck.
Nex stood up. “Try not to move. There’s got to be a med evac close by.” He looked around, searching for help.
Anneliese snarled at her knee, as if it had thwarted her of its own free will. Of all the times to turn clumsy! She’d gone down in the middle of a fight, her injury placing others in jeopardy as they tried to protect her.
The fate of the men who had formed a living wall between her and the attackers made her shove aside the awful pain. She looked around and blew out a gust of air as Jape strode up to the man who’d been running from the drones. The Risnarish was close to Anneliese and Nex. Quite close.
The stranger stared at her, his expression horrified. He still heaved for breath after his near-capture. Jape’s arrival went unnoticed until the enforcement head’s clap on the back nearly knocked him down to the ground next to Anneliese.
Jape laughed at the man’s near fall. “Almost got yourself caught, Mirtan? Are your spying skills getting rusty?”
Mirtan didn’t answer the jibe. Instead, he pointed a shaking finger at Anneliese. “Put her under guard. She’s with them.”
Nex paused in his search for the medical shuttle to stare at Mirtan. “What are you talking about?”
Mirtan ignored him. He grabbed Jape by the arm. “I snuck to the portal chamber. I saw two of her kind come in through the portal. Not forced through.” He turned his head to stare at Anneliese once more. “They greeted the Monsudan waiting for them on equal terms. Though I couldn’t understand what was said, they spoke to it with great familiarity. The Earthlings are allied to the Monsuda.”
Chapter Fourteen
Anneliese was examined once again by the green and gorgeous Dr. Trez. Salno had just happened to be speaking with another of the doctors when Anneliese was brought in. She stood next to Nex, looking on as Tre
z scanned and examined Anneliese’s swollen knee.
Anneliese was touched that Salno was concerned enough about her to hang around. Her friend’s mouth tightened when she saw the grapefruit-size joint the knee had become. “Oh, Anneliese. It looks so painful.”
“More akin to absolute hell.” Still, it didn’t hurt as much as it had near the border and she was no longer fantasizing about cutting her leg off. She figured that showed improvement although she couldn’t appreciate the soft examination table or the soothing surroundings of the spa-like facility. Misery took away all things pleasurable.
Trez shook her head over the injury. “This is bad. Without being allowed to heal it to completion, there is little I can do. I could block all of the pain receptors until you’re within acceptable parameters to walk, but I hesitate to do so. If you don’t feel it, you may think it’s okay to exert yourself.”
“When it looks like this? I’m not that stubborn.” Anneliese scowled at the offending joint.
“Even after the swelling goes down. The anti-inflammatory infusion needs time to work, and the small amount of cartilage regeneration I’m allowed to give you requires more rest. You must stay off your feet for a few days, or you’ll ultimately not walk for weeks.”
Anneliese sighed. “I know the pain. We’re old friends, the kind that do better at long distances. Could you take it down to a dull throb at least?”
“If you promise you’ll not put any weight on it for five days.”
Anneliese whistled. Five days not using her leg at all? Even for trips to the bathroom? That was going to be rough.
Salno smiled gently. “I’ll take care of you, Anneliese. When Nex does not.”
Nex chuckled, but there was little humor on his expression. “It may take both of us to keep her quiet.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
Worlds Apart (Warriors of Risnar) Page 17