Fortunately, Rohoar’s light armored transport had a robust shield generator—certainly better than any Republic LATs. That defense might be the only reason anyone got out of this alive. Round after round burst upon the shuttle’s shield and exploded into a blossom of orange light. The constant pings and smacks were mind-numbing. Magnus was sure the shield would give way at any second. But it didn’t. Somehow, it held. Now all he had to do was get everyone on board.
A new type of blaster bolt suddenly appeared in the air, smacking up against the shuttle’s hull. It was magenta, like the sparks that had danced around So-Elku. Magnus chanced a glance around the wall, thinking he’d see the Luma master. Instead, however, several Luma extended their hands, firing a strange form of energy from their palms.
What the hell?
Each burst of magenta energy swelled around the Luma’s hand before discharging. The men and women who fired on the shuttle braced their feet against the blasts, rocking back, then summoning new orbs of energy as soon as the last were spent.
“Overwatch!” Magnus yelled. “We need that covering fire!”
“Inbound,” Simone said.
She’d barely finished the word when the fast report of twin MS900 sniper blasters cracked through the air. The sound echoed off the buildings, masking the location of Simone and Silk. The high-speed blaster rounds were even too fast to trace with the naked eye. But Magnus knew the two women were securely positioned across the lawn in the far buildings.
As soon as the enemy noticed the change in assault vectors, a few of them called out, “Sniper!” While some of the Luma scattered from the steps, others lowered their heads and formed blockades against the incoming sniper fire.
“What are they doing?” Titus asked over comms.
“More Luma magic,” Abimbola replied. “Dark arts, if you ask me.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Magnus said. “The guards have broken off. Everyone, load up!”
Simone and Silk had bought the window of opportunity that Magnus needed. He backed away from the wall in a crouch, still picking off guards as he made his way toward the lowering cargo-bay ramp. Rix and Titus were first inside, followed by Rohoar and then Abimbola. Each man sent extra rounds toward the stairs, eager to take out one more of the enemy before Nolan peeled away.
The MS900s continued to lay down suppressive fire, pinning the blaster-wielding guards behind half walls, lampposts, benches, or what he guessed was a Luma’s Unity-generated shield. Magnus grieved over how many people he’d killed. This wasn’t a sanctioned Repub mission, nor was Worru some hostile planet in the hands of a ruthless warlord. Or was it? The whole idea of using his stock-in-trade against the Luma just seemed… well, wrong. But there was more going on than he realized, and coming here had obviously been a bad idea. He had to get Valerie and Piper to safety. Then he’d ask questions.
With a final burst of full auto, Magnus covered his retreat then pounded up the ramp. “Go, go, go!”
He’d barely given the order when Nolan tipped the shuttle’s nose down and pegged the thrusters. Magnus grabbed the handhold and watched as blue sky filled the bay’s opening.
“Silk’s to the west,” Simone said over comms. “Second building in from the street, rooftop. I’ll be on the east side of the street, first building.”
“Copy that,” Nolan replied, pushing the ship toward Silk’s position.
Magnus scanned for enemies as Nolan slowed to a hover about twenty meters above the ground. He spun the shuttle to face the Grand Arielina so the ramp touched down on the building’s front edge. Magnus spotted Silk making a run for him.
“Come on!” Magnus yelled.
Blaster fire and orb energy filled the air around the shuttle. Silk ducked, but Nolan held the shuttle steady. The shields would hold. All she needed to do was get there. Since Nolan had the nose of the shuttle pointed toward the enemy, Magnus couldn’t have returned fire even if he’d wanted to.
“Does anyone have eyes on those blasters?” Magnus yelled. He extended a hand toward Silk, who was running like a professional sprinter, legs and arms pumping.
“I see ’em,” Simone said, and several sniper shots ripped off in quick succession. “Scratched three.”
Damn, she is good.
“I’ve got Silk!” Magnus pulled her into the cargo bay.
“Copy that.” Nolan shoved away from the building.
Silk paced the bay with her hands over her head, breathing heavily. “That was close. Good flying, ace,” she said up the ladder to the cockpit.
“Thanks, but we ain’t out of the weeds yet. Hang on.” Nolan rolled the shuttle to the right, slewing across the street, and then righted the ship. He placed the ramp down exactly as he’d done on Silk’s building.
Magnus spotted Simone beside a ventilation shaft. “It’s now or never,” he said.
“Copy.” Simone stood, slung her weapon over her shoulder, and sprinted toward Magnus. His eyes displayed the closing gap in meters, counting down from 21.6.
“Incoming!” someone shouted over comms.
“Hold on,” Nolan yelled, his voice straining as he jerked the controls. It was the loudest Magnus had heard him speak. The shuttle lurched, nose moving up and to the left. Magnus tumbled down the ramp but caught himself just before rolling into open sky. A smoke trail appeared below his legs as a rocket ripped through the air.
Shuttle-wide alarms sounded moments too late as Magnus watched the rocket make a wide two-hundred-meter turn. “It’s coming back around!” Just then, he noticed Simone throwing herself down and pulling up her MC900. Is she attempting a shot?
Magnus’s eyes instantly calculated the time to impact, Simone’s distance and angle relative to the rocket’s trajectory, and the statistical likelihood of her success. It wasn’t good.
He found himself holding his breath as the window of opportunity closed, and he realized they had no backup plan. Nolan couldn’t see the rocket, no one else had a weapon trained on it, and the shield wouldn’t stand against the ordnance. Magnus thought he could attempt the shot too, and he tried to pull himself back up the ramp, but even if he succeeded, there wouldn’t be time to unsling his MAR30.
Simone had to make this. Magnus looked down and saw the woman fire. The muzzle’s shock wave scattered dust and debris across the rooftop. The blaster bolt streaked across the sky and collided with the rocket, detonating it into a flash of orange-and-white light. The explosion pained his eardrums and pelted the shuttle with shrapnel. One red-hot piece sliced into Magnus’s head, and another stabbed his hand. He let go of the ramp in a cry of agony. His stomach lurched as his body left the shuttle.
“Gotcha!” Abimbola grabbed Magnus by the wrist and hauled him up. Magnus flopped onto the deck, blood streaming down the side of his head.
“Damn, Bimby!” Magnus said.
“You can thank me later.”
“We get one more shot at this,” Nolan yelled over comms. “Make a run for it, Simone!”
“Copy that!”
Even from his place on the floor, Magnus could see Simone stand and start running for the edge of the building again. Nolan backed the shuttle toward the roof’s edge as more blaster fire filled the air just above Simone’s head. But Magnus’s eyes told him she was on track to make it—trajectory and velocity looked good. She was going to make it.
The shuttle lurched forward. Nolan swore as a sizable gap appeared between the ramp and the building’s roof. The blaster fire was the densest it had been, ringing off the hull incessantly. Magnus’s eyes recalculated Simone’s numbers. The ship was too high and the gap was too wide.
“Jump!” Abimbola yelled. He extended his arm, hand spread wide.
Simone took three more strides and leaped, then she sailed through the air, blaster fire and orb energy crisscrossing all around her. She flew forward, both hands outstretched. Abimbola grabbed one, but Simone wasn’t far enough over the ramp. Her body dropped, yanking Abimbola down—but the giant kept his grip on the shuttle.
Abimbola roared, and Magnus watched in horror as Simone’s body flipped end over end. Several blaster rounds struck her, erupting into sprays of orange sparks before her body broke against the sidewalk. Magnus felt helpless—a feeling he’d had a thousand times before. This was one more scene, one more memory that he’d replay at night before going to bed. Same as all the others. For a moment, no one said anything. Only the whine of the engines and the pelting blaster fire filled the open comms channel.
“We have her?” Nolan asked in desperation.
“No,” Abimbola replied.
“What? I can’t—”
“No!” The giant turned away from the ramp.
“Get us out of here, Nolan,” Magnus said. “Head due west twenty klicks. Stay low to avoid the anti-air defenses. Then get us back to the Bright Star.”
There was a pause as Nolan pushed the ship forward. “Copy that, Lieutenant.”
* * *
Nolan managed to keep the shuttle out of Plumeria’s citywide planetary defense network, making orbit within ten minutes. No one spoke as the crew recovered from the firefight. Valerie attended to Magnus first, administering laser sutures to his head and hand then wrapping both wounds with gauze. When she cleared him, he climbed up to the bridge and took a seat beside Nolan. It was another minute before either of them spoke.
“I’m sorry, Lieutenant.”
Magnus shook his head. “Wasn’t your fault, Nolan.”
Nolan licked his lips. “It was, though. I thought I saw…” Nolan lowered his head and squeezed his eyes shut. Tears streamed down his reddening cheeks. “I thought it was another rocket. But…”
“You tried to dodge it.”
Nolan nodded, biting his lip and pulling snot away from under his nose. “It wasn’t. It was just some idiot guard with a big blaster.” Nolan pounded the dashboard with a fist. “A blaster.”
“You made the call you thought was best, Nolan.”
“Did I?” He glared at Magnus. “I don’t know that. ’Cause if I’d waited a half second more, I would have realized what it was… I wouldn’t have moved the ship, and she’d be—”
“Nolan.”
“She’d still—”
“Nolan, listen.”
“She’d still be here!”
Magnus grabbed the back of the man’s neck and got right in his face. “Now, you listen to me, sailor. What you did is what any of us would have done in the same scenario. Only we couldn’t have done half of what you did back there. Getting the rest of us off the deck? The way you caught Silk? You’re a damn professional, Nolan. A damn professional, you hear me? So don’t you tell me what you would have done differently, because then you’d have to do all of it different, and none of us would be here. You hear me right now?”
Nolan nodded.
Magnus leaned his head up against Nolan’s, and their hot tears dropped together onto the cockpit floor. “There is nothing I’d ask you to do differently. Nothing.”
“Copy that, Lieutenant.”
“What’d you say, Nolan?”
“Copy that, sir.”
Magnus let the pilot go. “That’s what I thought.” Magnus coughed twice then wiped the tears from his eyes. “Best damn shuttle pilot I’ve ever seen. I’m proud of you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You’re welcome. Now, get us back to the ship. We have a new mission.”
“Right away, sir.”
11
By the time Awen returned to the Spire and Ezo secured the Geronimo Nine in a large hangar, Saasarr was sober and clean, no small thanks to TO-96. The bot had carried the lizard to sick bay, given him a shower, seen to his wounds, and provided him a potent head-clearing agent. Then Saasarr saw Sootriman lying across the room.
“And that’s where he’s been ever since,” TO-96 said with a wave of his hand.
Awen and Ezo looked at the reptilian humanoid kneeling reverently beside Sootriman’s suspended body. “Thanks, ’Six,” Ezo said, patting the bot on the shoulder. “We’ve got it from here.”
“Are you sure that you would not like me to hang around, as it were?”
“Negative, buddy. You can head back to the bridge with Azelon. She’s better company for you, I’m sure.”
TO-96 froze. He looked at Awen then back at Ezo. “Right away, sir. And thank you, sir. You are most kind, sir.”
“You… feeling okay, ’Six?”
“Indeed, sir. I will be on my way now. To see Azelon. On the bridge.”
Ezo stepped aside, as if the bot didn’t have enough room to walk past them already. “Okay, then. See you later, wire brain.” TO-96 walked by and exited sick bay. “That was weird,” Ezo said.
Awen chuckled. “I didn’t think it was possible, but he does seem smitten with her.”
Ezo nodded.
“But… I mean, that’s impossible, right?” Awen asked.
“Yeah, totally,” Ezo said, though he didn’t sound so sure. He turned and walked toward Sootriman and Saasarr, but before he could speak to them, Awen placed a hand on his arm.
“Let me,” she said and moved past Ezo. “Saasarr?”
The Reptalon didn’t so much as move. His head remained bowed, hands on the ground, legs curled beneath him. Awen moved closer and knelt as well.
“Saasarr, thank you for coming to see your queen.”
“Is she… is she going to live?” As soon as the lizard finished the question, his yellow eye appeared behind a wrinkle in his skin, glaring at her.
“Yes, the ship’s AI says she should make a full recovery. She just needs rest, which is what she’s getting now.”
Saasarr’s eye closed. His nostrils flared, and he released a slow breath. “How was she injured?”
“We were on…” Awen wasn’t sure if this was the right time to broach the subject of quantum physics and the existence of the multiverse. “On another planet, being pursued by enemies. She took a blaster round to the back.”
“Who shot her?”
“It was the same people who killed everyone in Sootriman’s lair and took her hostage.”
Saasarr uttered something under his breath. Awen guessed it was an expletive or some sort of dark oath. Then he turned toward her and opened his eyes. His tongue flicked the air and darted between razor-sharp teeth. “Saasarr will find them, and then Saasarr will destroy them. Saasarr swears this before the gods.”
The finality of the lizard’s dedication had a strange effect on Awen. On the one hand, she felt buoyed by the warrior’s resolve. This Reptalon was not a creature she’d ever want to cross in a dark alley—or even a well-lit alley. His entire demeanor epitomized violence, much like the Jujari. So having him on their side was exactly what she’d hoped for. Saasarr’s allegiance to the cause ensured that they were one step closer to eliminating the threat posed on Itheliana.
On the other hand, the Reptalon spoke with such brutal clarity that Awen found herself doubting her own. Was premeditated murder really the course they had to embark on? Perhaps the enemy could be reasoned with. That was, after all, the premise that she’d dedicated her life to. Oath swearing like Saasarr’s had all but ensured the genocide of sentient species the galaxy over.
But Awen knew there was no stopping the lizard now. She imagined that he took his vows toward Sootriman very seriously. And considering the holo-footage she’d seen in Sootriman’s office—the brutality, the indiscriminate savagery—she knew the troopers in Itheliana had to be stopped. No amount of discussion would get them to back down. Constructive dialogue required the mutual respect and a genuine willingness to at least try to see things from the other party’s perspective.
When Awen thought back to the holo-footage, to how she’d been stalked in the streets of Ithnor Ithelia, even to how Sootriman had been bound
and lowered by Kane, she realized—not for the first time—that she was not dealing with a sane enemy. She was dealing with monsters. So she needed monsters as well.
“Well… okay, then.” Awen glanced back at Ezo, who seemed pleased by the Reptalon’s words. “But you’re going to need help, Saasarr. That’s why we’ve come here.”
“What do you mean?”
“These people are not alone, and we have come to solicit aid from Sootriman’s personal guard.”
Saasarr looked away from her and lowered his head again. “They are all dead.”
“Dead? But what about the rest of the Reptalons? And the humans we saw by her throne? Surely, there must be more than those who were killed in her den?”
Saasarr hissed. “Dead. Do not make Saasarr repeat himself.”
This couldn’t be true. There had to be more than just him—there just had to be. “Then she must have a police force in the city… a small army… something.”
“Saasarr’s queen is not an oppressive tyrant, human. Who do you take us for—bloodthirsty mongrels?”
The thought had crossed my mind, she wanted to say but thought better of it. “There’s no one else you can think of, then, Saasarr?”
The lizard flicked his tongue in the air several times. “No, human. Saasarr is all you have.”
Disappointment filled Awen’s chest like a physical weight, threatening to pull her to the ground. As vicious as Saasarr was, he wouldn’t be enough. She didn’t need to be a military tactician to know that. She’d barely made it off the planet alive, and that was with a highly modified bot with missiles! And Ezo, of course—he counted for something.
No, what Awen needed, what they all needed, was a highly trained group of warriors equal to the task. Like Republic troopers still loyal to preserving peace… and to maintaining sanity. What she needed was Magnus.
“Thank you for your pledge of protection,” Awen said finally.
“No.” Saasarr flared his nostrils. “It is a vow of vengeance. There is a difference.”
Ruins of the Galaxy Box Set: Books 1-6 Page 77
