Time ceased to have ready meaning as he sank deeper into the violent rhythm of the fight. All he knew was that they were holding, and that was all he had time to know.
At least until a crimson-eyed Drogan bumped into his side and growled, “We have been deceived.”
Jarek wrenched a scraggly-bearded madman from his feet and used him like a long, flailing bowling ball on the scrabbling berserkers behind. “What are you talking ab—”
“This is not Kul’Gada’s doing.”
Not Gada? But then—
“My kin,” Drogan hissed, batting aside a pair of burly berserkers. “We have been betrayed.”
“Jarek!” came Rachel’s voice from somewhere behind.
If there was a follow-up we have a problem, he didn’t hear it as he dodged a berserker’s grab and shoved him back into the encroaching crowd.
What he did hear, though, as he took advantage of Drogan’s momentary cover and focused his attention back Rachel’s way, was a well-tuned rumble he would’ve recognized anywhere. It was the engine of the truck that had saved his life not far from this very street nine years ago, on a cold Newark night.
Pryce’s truck.
“They’re coming out of it!” someone cried.
And, true to their word, while many of the crowd were still clawing and biting their way toward anything and everything, others were beginning to look around at their fellow berserkers in varying states of confusion and horror.
“It’s working!” another soldier cried down the line.
A girl that couldn’t have been older than twenty lunged for Jarek, eyes wide. He caught her by the shoulders, preparing to counter her struggling and launch her back into the crowd. Only she didn’t struggle—just sagged in his arms and looked up at him with a whimper and the most piteous expression he’d ever seen.
Around them, the number of civilians coming to similar awakenings seemed to be growing. At a glance, Jarek could glimpse Pryce’s truck inching up into the Resistance ranks on the curb, Pryce at the wheel, Alton in the passenger seat. Faint tendrils of steam drifted up from the truck’s hood, as if the air around it was abnormally cold.
One of the cloaking generators? It had to be.
They must’ve finished the new batch and sent Pryce straight over.
Jarek fought the tired voice whispering it was okay to at least partially unclench. Something was still wrong.
As if in response to the thought, the dark purplish shape of the Enochians’ ship rushed past in the distance, bound northeast from the direction of Pryce’s shop.
Where were they headed in such a hurry? And when there were clearly problems closer to the home front to deal with?
Most of the Resistance ranks didn’t seem to have noticed, but Jarek couldn’t shake it. The cheers were beginning to spread, a twisted contrast to the sinking feeling in Jarek’s gut. Everyone seemed to think the day was won.
Everyone except Rachel and Drogan.
The two of them were looking around in alarm, scanning through the subdued crowd of civilians and across the nearby rooftops. Rachel shook her head as if in response to a question no one seemed to have actually spoken out loud.
Jarek was about to ask Drogan what gave when his earpiece crackled to life, followed by Nelken’s grave tone.
“Attention, all Resistance forces. The rakul known as Kul’Gada has been sighted marching on Central Park with at least a thousand men at his back. I repeat, our New York allies are under imminent attack. Commander Weston will determine what forces are required to stabilize the situation in Newark and send what remains to aid Commander Daniels at the Central Park defenses. God speed, Resistance. Our planet is depending—”
“They come!” Drogan thundered beside Jarek.
For a second, Jarek thought he was referring to Nelken’s broadcast.
Then, somewhere behind, Rachel shouted, “Get those shields back up! The cloak’s not gonna hold once they’re inside!”
Ragged civilians and weary Resistance soldiers all looked at one another uncertainly until Alaric barked, “You heard the lady! Form up!”
Jarek’s mind was still reeling to catch up with all the rapid fire information and connect the dots on who the hell they were when he caught sight of the lone figure dropping from a ruined apartment rooftop toward Pryce’s truck below.
There was a horrible moment of helpless waiting. Then it smashed into the bed of Pryce’s truck with the kind of destructive effect that could only mean one thing.
Raknoth.
The new arrival’s eyes came alive with crimson fire even as Pryce and Alton scrambled to evacuate the truck cab.
Not fast enough.
The raknoth hopped out of the bed holding a cylindrical box under one arm and caught Pryce’s door halfway through Pryce opening it. The raknoth shoved the door shut hard enough to dent it inward.
Jarek gathered himself and leapt over the Resistance line.
Too late. He was too late.
It all seemed to unfold in slow motion as he sailed through the air toward the truck. Alton leapt out of the far side of the truck just as the raknoth got a hand underneath the cab and flipped the entire vehicle Alton’s way. Alton, too surprised or off balance to act, went down under the rolling heap of metal.
Jarek landed just in time to catch one last glimpse of Pryce’s wide-eyed face as the truck’s rotation carried him out of sight with a string of violent, metallic crunching.
“Pryce!”
In front of Jarek, the enemy raknoth raised the cylinder overhead. The cloaking generator, he realized—just a split second before the raknoth slammed the device to the pavement and it came apart in an explosion of bent metal and scattered components.
As the cloak shattered, a roar sounded from somewhere in the line of buildings behind, followed by another further up the street. And another. And another.
His goal accomplished, the raknoth who’d smashed the cloaking generator gathered himself and leapt to the rooftop across the street, followed by a stream of Resistance gun fire.
It was too late.
Fiery red eyes appeared on a rooftop here, in a dirty window there, and all around them, the cries of human madness ripped through the streets once more, doubled or even tripled in volume, and seeming to come from all directions at once.
“This was never Gada,” came Rachel’s voice beside him.
Jarek tore his eyes away from the enemy raknoth gathering on the perimeter to meet her grave gaze.
Drogan slammed down to the pavement beside them. “No. It appears the Kul only wanted his faithful raknoth to draw us out so that he might deconstruct our forces from two sides at once.”
Jarek drew his sword, body swirling from head to toe with combat nerves and dread. By chance, he caught Alaric’s eye for just a second across the ranks.
Screwed. He didn’t need to see it in the commander’s eyes to know that’s what they were.
Surrounded. Cut off from HQ and everywhere else as Gada marched to destroy their only allies without their interference.
Jarek didn’t have time to squeeze a curse from his stunned mind before, with an awful chorus of growls, roars, and shrieks, an army of traitorous raknoth and desperately violent civilians closed in on them from all sides.
23
Rachel allowed herself one last self-directed curse and then gathered her will, preparing to fight on. She should have caught it sooner, could have warned the Resistance that there seemed to be a curious lack of the signature feel of the messengers present here.
It was clear as the stark raving lunacy in the eyes of the approaching horde now, but somehow she’d failed to notice it before—failed to recognize the slightly more tangible net of a single mind, or several minds, rather, casting their will out to the crowd of civilians before them.
If only she’d been paying proper attention. If only she hadn’t been so busy trying to exude calm will and keep an eye on Jarek and Drogan.
“Who the hell are they?” she sent
toward the raknoth, who’d already moved to deal with a stream of berserkers flooding in from a side alley.
“Zar’Taga and his clan,” Drogan’s voice growled at the edge of her mind.
“I don’t suppose you have any brilliant idea for stopping them?”
Drogan shoved aside the screaming madman who was currently attempting to strangle him and pointed toward a raknoth perched on a nearby rooftop, surveying the scene below. His green hide was tinged with streaks of gray.
“Help me remove Zar’Taga’s head,” Drogan sent.
She didn’t bother to send the gladly that pulsed through her mind, just checked her six and opened a comm line with Jarek.
“We’ve got a target,” she said before he could drop whatever nugget was no doubt on the edge of his tongue.
“Targets are good,” came his reply. He face-palmed the berserker rushing his way and held the woman at bay as he looked back at Rachel. “Where?”
She pointed. “Salt and Pepper up there. That’s Taga. Drogan says off with his head.”
“Right, then.” Jarek kicked his frothing attacker away, clotheslined another, and pushed his way over to Alaric to point out their new objective.
At a startling growl from behind, Rachel spun to confront a fast-approaching berserker. He caught onto her staff, a trace of uncertainty creeping into his eyes—probably thanks to the fact that he’d entered her own little cloaking field.
“What?” he mumbled. “What the…”
He seemed to be regaining control. But it wouldn’t last, not once they parted. So she muttered a quick sorry, slapped a hand to the side of his head, and telepathically pushed him into unconsciousness.
When he was slumped safely against the adjacent brick wall, Rachel turned back and saw Alaric pointing and barking orders. The Resistance soldiers around him sprang to the task of clearing a path to the nearest building across the street.
Jarek looked back at her, and his voice crackled in her earpiece. “Up we go?”
Rachel eyed the rooftop in question. “Not sure I have the legs for that jump.”
“I’ve got faith, Goldilocks. You coming, Stumpy?”
Drogan wasn’t on the comm line, but he appeared to hear Jarek all the same. He gave a curt nod and started pressing his way over.
Rachel plotted a course through the frenzied crowd, gathered a hefty punch of energy, and prepared to do the same.
She’d barely made it five steps when the sound of a young, frightened cry froze her solid.
She whipped around, scanning with both eyes and mind and—
There. A kid no more than nine or ten was scrambling back in a crab walk, a look of terror etched across her face. A pack of six mindless berserkers raced after her, seemingly captivated by the small, helpless life flailing before them.
Rachel leveled her staff and caught half of the girl’s pursuers with a wide telekinetic blast. She was reaching through the channeling fatigue and the urgent clamoring in her head to form another blast when something slammed into her from behind.
She hit the ground hard, her staff pinned beneath her, and gasped for air only to find the unforgiving pavement had shocked her diaphragm into inaction.
Through the shuffling sea of legs and bodies, she caught a glimpse of the girl’s light blond hair and delicate frame. The bastards were closing in on her.
Rachel reached for the energy, ignoring who- or what-the-hell-ever was pulling itself up her back, reaching for her vulnerable throat.
It didn’t matter. Her cloak might stop her attacker. The girl. The girl was all that mattered right then. She had to stop them, had to help her.
Too late, she realized like a knife in the chest as she reached out to telekinetically yank the girl out of harm’s way and the leading berserker raised his club. She was too late.
Then Alton Parker sprang in and plowed the two nearest berserkers aside. The third, he swatted away almost as an afterthought, then he scooped up the girl and leapt back toward the overturned truck, where he handed her trembling form to a battered but steady-looking Pryce. And not a moment too soon.
The instant after Alton had handed over the girl and stepped back to the battle, a green-hided raknoth caught him in a tackle that drove both of them clean through the wall of the adjacent apartment building.
Relief for the girl. Surprisingly genuine worry for Alton. Rachel barely had time for a flicker of each before a strong arm slipped around her throat and yanked.
She coughed and struggled wildly, panic gripping her chest. He clamped a rough hand over her face, nails digging painfully in.
Couldn’t focus. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t…
The mass on her back gave a violent jerk, and then it was shifting, rolling off her, leaving her mercifully free to gasp for air and scramble to her feet.
“You okay?” someone asked.
A touch on her shoulder nearly made her jump and swing her staff.
The berserker who’d had her throat flailed weakly on the pavement. The young Resistance soldier who’d clubbed him off her back was watching her with uncertainty in his eyes.
Rachel looked around, the world coming back into some manner of reason—minus the utter chaos all around them, of course. She spotted Pryce beside his overturned truck, posted defensively in front of the cowering girl, hefting a heavy-duty stun rod, and turned back to the waiting soldier.
“I’m… I’m good. Thanks for the hand.”
He looked a little confused by her words, almost as if he wasn’t quite sure it had actually been him who’d helped her and not the other way around.
She didn’t have time to dwell on it as she remembered what she’d been doing before the scream. That was when she caught sight of Jarek on the rooftop above.
He was moving fast, charging along from one rooftop to the next, bound straight for green-gray Zar’Taga and—
Shit.
He was also about to be outnumbered—two of Taga’s clan racing to intersect Jarek before he could reach their Zar.
Rachel’s mind was doing its own racing trying to figure how to get up there in time to help when she noticed Drogan rising to the occasion. Literally.
The raknoth leapt from the chaos below and crested the rooftop just in time to snag Jarek’s lead pursuer by the collar and trip the other with a well-timed kick. The rear raknoth stumbled into his partner, and, with a violent jerk, Drogan hurled the pair of them to the street below.
Rachel paid little attention to their furious roars and started forward to get in range to help as Jarek closed on Zar’Taga.
It was over before she could.
Jarek was maybe twenty feet from concluding his headlong charge at Taga when he tripped. Rachel’s stomach lurched with him as his hands shot wide for balance, his sword angled uselessly toward the ground, his stutter-step recovery too little, too late.
Taga struck like a cunning viper, lunging for Jarek at the exact moment he was planting his weight, anchoring himself like a bright red bullseye in his attempt to regain control.
Except Jarek didn’t plant his weight. He extended his rear leg and launched into a rolling dive, skirting just clear of Taga’s claws, out of Rachel’s sight.
And leaving the way clear for a dive-bombing Drogan.
Rachel hadn’t noticed the raknoth leap from where he’d detoured Jarek’s pursuers. Apparently, neither had Zar’Taga.
Drogan plummeted at Taga like a two-footed wrecking ball.
It didn’t appear to make physical sense, the way Drogan drew to a sudden, smacking halt when they met, each raknoth so tremendously strong that Drogan simply froze on Taga’s raised arms as if they were two rigid metal statues rather than living bodies. Rachel was half-surprised the impact didn’t collapse the roof in.
Zar’Taga roared at Drogan, a terrible, voluminous roar that silenced half the battlefield below as everyone looked to see what manner of creature was capable of producing such a sound.
So it was that hundreds were watching as Drogan dis
mounted with a tight flip and Jarek appeared on Taga’s flank.
Somewhere, a raknoth shrieked what might’ve been a warning.
Taga whirled.
Jarek struck.
A quick swipe and a flash of azure, and then Taga’s body was falling limply to the rooftop, and Drogan was catching the raknoth’s toppling head and thrusting it skyward with a roar nearly as mighty as Taga’s had been.
The remaining sounds of fighting dimmed with surprising suddenness as the fallen Zar’s clan turned their collective attention to Drogan’s dominant display and realized what had happened.
“I think we have their attention,” came Jarek’s quiet voice in Rachel’s earpiece. Above, he was looking down on the crowd, sword rested over his shoulder. “Think you can catch my armored ass? I always wanted to make a dramatic entrance.”
Rachel ran through a rough estimate as she closed within a more manageable range to his rooftop perch. Catching a man from that high would be unpleasant. Add the exo, and she was looking at shaky knees at the very least. But this standstill was infinitely preferable to the madness that had preceded it, and she assumed Jarek had a plan for prolonging it—maybe even putting a stop to the fight altogether.
Or she wanted to assume, at least.
“I’ll do you one better,” she said quietly, drawing to a halt roughly below him.
“That’s my Goldilocks.”
And with that, Jarek hopped off the four story rooftop as casually as if he were merely skipping a last step.
Rachel braced herself and focused.
It wasn’t the easiest of conversions to hold intact in one’s mind, especially not with Jarek’s trust—not to mention his plummeting physical bulk—looming over her, but she held tight and, in the moment before he touched down, opened the channel.
From what valuable lessons he’d learned from his extensive cinematic studies over the years, Jarek was relatively certain frightened cries were not to be found on the features list of dramatic entrances, yet that’s nearly what escaped him as the hard pavement raced up to meet him without any noticeable hesitation.
The Complete Harvesters Series Page 77
