She breathed a free breath. Felt a twinge of guilt, which she suppressed.
“Sure you're all right?” Ben frowned.
She nodded, breathed again, nice and easy.
He gave her a final, worried look, and then began moving again.
They worked their way along the curve of the river, deep enough in the forest to take advantage of the cool shadows, but close enough to the river that she caught glimpses of the sun shining off the water.
Ben stopped, easing up against a tree, and putting his hand behind to signal a warning.
She crouched beside him, and there, just through the trees, she saw a small section of a white building.
A guard walked in front of the wall, and disappeared from view.
They had made it.
Chapter 27
Tally stared down on the buildings that made up Rainerville and tried to rein in her shock.
It was tiny, and made up of low-slung white domes that were similar to the supply station building at the start of the Trail. What she guessed was new were the big tents that had been erected in the field beyond.
Caruson soldiers were busy working next to the small launch pad beside the domes, building an even bigger pad. She could hear them shout to each other as they pulled massive tree trunks into place, obviously using what materials they had to hand.
Something big was happening here. She looked down at Ben, standing on the ground below, and saw he was keeping watch, body tense as his gaze did slow sweeps of their surroundings.
The only tree tall enough to give them a good view of what was happening had branches too high up for either of them to reach, so Ben had given her a boost up. She didn't like him down there, out in the open, and she focused back on the numbers of Caruson, the buildings and the big open space beyond them, trying to memorize everything so she could climb back down quickly.
Ben had told her Rainerville had been built at the edge of the forest, but until she saw it, she hadn't realized how abruptly the trees cut off, a solid line that switched to open plain.
The Caruso moved between the tents and toward the buildings without any great hurry, but they weren't aimless. She thought they looked grim, and compared to the four soldiers who'd laughed and joked each evening after a hard day of hunting her and Ben, they seemed devoid of humor.
She guessed the reason for their attitude was the one Caruson who snapped orders from a large tent closest to the construction area.
He was obeyed instantly, and she guessed he didn't approve of laughing or jokes.
She counted numbers, again felt the sink of dread in her stomach, and then headed down. Ben was crouched, hand out in the 'keep silent' signal, and her heart sped up as she slid quietly beside him.
His broad back was tense, and as soon as her feet touched the ground, he stood, pointing back the way they'd come in, and she could see the worry on his face.
She caught a glimpse of movement through the trees to their right.
She moved in the direction he pointed in the fluid, easy way she'd learned from watching him, sliding from shadow to shadow, keeping to the cover of the thick tree trunks. She glanced back at Ben, saw he was moving backward, laz up, covering her back.
She pulled her own laz out and then the little helpers fizzed through her. She stopped, lifted a hand toward him, not sure what was wrong. As her gaze met Ben's, her throat closed, rendering her mute. His head snapped right and then her muscles bunched, without her permission, and she was flung deep into the bush beside her.
Laz fire exploded before she even hit the ground, and Tally fought herself, fought for control, so she could look out between the leaves and see where Ben was.
He was lying, arms thrown back, and she hoped that his uniform had protected him. That even if he was injured, he was alive.
Two Caruson guards walked cautiously up to him, and one picked up the big Caruson laz that had fallen beside him.
A second one bent over him and checked his pulse. When he straightened, he spoke in hard tones to his friend, and they picked Ben up by the feet and under his arms.
She didn't think they'd hold him like that if he was dead.
She wanted to believe that so badly, she was almost afraid to trust it. She was crying, she realized, as a tear dropped off the tip of her nose.
Ben looked broken, and she could do nothing about it.
A loud hum suddenly rose up and two Caruson on hovers roared into the clearing. The two holding Ben dumped him on the back of one of them, and it raced off.
The pilot of the second one spoke with the other two for a moment and then powered off toward the river.
Tally heard the hover turn to the left when it reached the river bank.
She waited, barely breathing, while the two soldiers spoke quietly to each other and then began looking on the ground.
For traces of her?
They seemed to give up and walked straight toward her, and she held her breath.
One of them was taking something out of a side pocket, and suddenly Tally knew what they were about to do.
She was lying on the ground, and the moment she recognized the thermal imagining device, she dropped her cheek to the loamy, dark soil, spreadeagled her arms, and closed her eyes. Braced.
Her skin seemed to boil for a moment, to actually ripple, and then bright, hot points of pain flared up along every limb, and all over her torso.
She bit down on her lip to keep from crying out, and felt her teeth draw blood.
The Caruson walked past her.
Her body slowly reset itself, but she couldn't move. Her muscles trembled and she gagged, trying to fight her nausea, to keeping absolutely quiet.
The sound of their footsteps faded.
She didn't know how long she lay; miserable, sick and panicked, but eventually she pulled herself up, slid out of the protective shield of the bush, and started walking.
She was headed for the river but she had no plan.
No good idea in her head.
The shout behind her almost didn't register at first. She turned her head, and saw the Caruson on his hover speeding toward her with a strange detachment.
And the little helpers, as worn out as she was, she guessed, suddenly sprung back to life.
She was standing near the river, and she turned toward it.
Some part of her was horrified at the thought of going in. She couldn't swim. Had never even been in a river. And yet, some other part of her, the part that had died a little at the sight of Ben lying still as death on the ground, didn't feel that worried about it.
She cooperated with the little helpers as they bunched the muscles in her legs and flung her into the fast moving water.
She moved her arms, kicked her legs, and found herself moving in strong, sure strokes.
She considered shrugging out of her pack, but rejected the idea immediately. She would not throw away her food--the things she needed to survive.
This was swimming, she realized as she hit the halfway mark of the river. The little helpers' last host had been good at it. She was a few strokes from the opposite bank when the hover pulled up next to her.
A hand came down, grabbed her pack, and pulled her up.
The Caruson guard was incredibly strong. He lifted her straight out of the water as if she weighed nothing, setting her beside him. He dwarfed her, his broad body almost blocking out everything else.
She bent, coughing, her hands going to her thighs, and he turned to cut off the hover's power before they reached the bank.
When he turned back, she shot him in the eye with the laz Ben had given her.
She kicked him off the hover, and then swallowed as he sank straight down.
She thought she caught a glimpse of movement under the wash the hover had created. She swallowed again, this time, to fight back the nausea that had risen.
She'd never shot anyone until this trip. Not even in the Caruson attack at the ghost ship.
This was the second body she wa
s personally responsible for.
The hover hit the grassy bank, the shudder snapping her back to her current predicament, and she started it up, rising above the water and heading into the trees on the other side of the river.
She hoped the Caruson patrols were less frequent on this side.
She needed time to work out what to do.
Chapter 28
Tally wriggled to get comfortable on her branch and felt a return of the terrible weight that had pressed down on her earlier after Ben had been shot and taken.
She couldn't see a way in to the Rainerville buildings--there were Caruson soldiers everywhere--and she needed to sleep, so she'd forced herself to rest for at least a few hours.
Her view of the small settlement was limited from this side of the river, but she remembered clearly what she'd seen earlier, and the night sky was bright with lights as the Caruson carried on with their construction of the launch pad.
They seemed to be working around the clock.
She finished tying herself to the branch, and listened to the sound of the river. It should have been soothing, but all she could think of was the Caruson soldier sinking like a stone, the water closing over him in seconds, and the quick, sinuous movement of something predatory beneath the surface.
She breathed in and out, trying to find some equilibrium, and slowly drifted off.
She woke up standing on the hover she taken from the Caruson soldier, her hands on the controls, speeding through the trees.
It was like old times, she thought grimly.
Darkness all around. Unaware of how she got to where she was.
Her pack was at her feet, her hair blowing back in the breeze.
She had a sense the speed had roused her from her sleep, and she looked at the controls to see how to slow the hover down.
She felt the little helpers fight her, the hardest they had since she left the ghost ship.
Until earlier today, she'd almost forgotten this. The terrifying lack of control of her own body, the pull and tug as she tried to take herself back.
Her mind had been too full of fear for Ben to really care earlier. But now that the little helpers were steering her away from Rainerville--from Ben--she cared. A lot.
She wrenched free, easing back on the speed, and then looked ahead, suddenly realizing she was now fully in control of the hover.
She had the impression of an astonished face, and then the hover slammed into a body and she fought again for control as the little helpers tried to force her to keep going.
She won again, just barely, coming to a stop and then turning the hover around, creeping it along at its slowest speed to return to find out who she'd hit.
Not a Caruson, she was sure of that. It had been a Verdant Stringer.
She stopped when she heard groaning, and hopped down, laz out, moving carefully toward the man. She switched her light to its lowest setting and lifted it.
“Irwin!”
The guide raised a hand to shield his eyes from the light.
She didn't come any closer.
“What are you doing on this side of the river?”
“More open on this side. Faster.” He wheezed his answer, his hand on his side.
The collision had either bruised or broken his ribs, she guessed. And there was a nasty score of laz fire across his right shoulder from where the Caruson had attacked them a few days ago.
It looked bad, but she guessed he had antibac gel, because it wasn't infected.
She studied him for a long moment and then took a step back and pivoted toward the hover.
Irwin's eyes widened. “Wait.” His call was outraged.
She stopped, looked over her shoulder.
“You're not going to help me? Where's Ben?”
She hesitated. Thought through the implications, because whatever she said, she knew it would end up repeated to the Caruson. “He's dead.” She didn't look at him as she said it, she kept her back turned. “I'm going to see if Lenny and Soo are still alive, and if I can help them.”
She let the weight that had pressed down on her earlier infuse her words.
She felt the fizz of the little helpers coming back to life, and her body turned and her hand holding the laz lifted. Irwin shielded his eyes as the light hit him again, and for a moment, shock held her frozen.
The little helpers wanted him dead.
She drew in a deep breath, and her arm shook.
They were right. The safest thing to do would be to kill him.
And even so . . . she would not.
Her fingers tightened their grip on the laz. And she gasped, for the first time really, really frightened she'd be forced to do something she refused to do.
“No.” She said it through gritted teeth.
“No, what?” Irwin had hunched over, his eyes full of defiance and resentment.
“I don't want to kill him.” She enunciated each word.
“Who are you talking to?” Irwin looked around and then focused back on the laz in her hand.
Sweat dripped down her face and trickled between her shoulder blades. She needed air in her lungs but she couldn't seem to get enough.
Irwin stirred, rising to a crouch, and she read on his face that he thought he had nothing to lose anymore. That he was going to try to grab the laz.
The little helpers fought a moment longer, and then gave way as he started to stand. She turned and ran to the hover, fumbled for the starter button, and roared off.
When she looked back, she couldn't see Irwin in the dark.
She switched off the light, and tried to slow the hover again, tried to turn right to loop back to where she'd gone to sleep earlier.
The little helpers wouldn't let her.
She fought, teeth gritted together, a sound coming from her throat that was part rage, part wounded animal.
For a moment, she overrode the messages they were sending to her hands and she wrenched the controls back.
The hover headed straight at a massive tree.
She cried out with dismay as they reasserted themselves, but it was only to flip the steering up, so the nose of the hover lifted up vertically moments before impact.
Tally was thrown back, and air exploded from her lungs as she hit the ground.
She lay, winded and exhausted, and saw the hover had tipped on its side, as well.
“This can't go on.” She whispered the words, and the little helpers shivered through her.
The forest was alive around her, sighing and rustling. The stars above her, just visible between the trees, were strung across the black sky as thick as the leaves on the forest floor, and from behind her, the bright lights of Rainerville, where they must still be working on the launch pad, lit the sky with a faint glow.
She decided it didn't matter if she moved right now or not, and so she stayed where she was.
“I'm not going to leave Ben behind. Even if it puts me in danger.” Her voice was a little louder, this time.
She could almost hear the hum of the little helpers' response.
She would not, could not, accept this situation any more.
The anger and helplessness that had gripped her since the first time she'd woken in the ghost ship, unable to say where she was or how she got there, suddenly exploded out of her. She cried in loud, wracking sobs. “Let me be. Just let me be.”
There was a response, a tentative touch she could almost believe was an apology.
“I get to be in control. If you want to help me, that's fine, but you ask first, and you never, never override me.” Her voice cracked. “Otherwise, get out and go find someone else.” She rested her hand, palm up, on the ground, waiting for the metal ball to appear.
There wasn't so much as a shiver under her skin.
“This had better be an acceptance of my terms.” She waited a little longer, and then curled her fingers into a fist.
She rolled over, onto hands and knees, and then struggled to her feet, so tired, she decided to move just a litt
le further away from Irwin, and find a place to sleep that didn't include a tree branch.
Her pack had been thrown from the hover as well, and she set it back in place and started the hover again, going the slowest speed so that it made almost no sound at all.
She was about to seriously look for a place to sleep when the little helpers prickled again.
Her heart rate sped up. She didn't know if she could trust their truce, but she was about to find out.
Her hearing became more acute, and she caught the sound of someone shadowing her on the other side of the trees, running in parallel with the hover.
She pulled out her laz, and put on a spurt of speed, shooting the hover forward at an angle across the trees, to intercept whoever was there. The hover spun as she braked, and she stood, laz raised, pointing in their direction.
“I'm armed. Show yourself.” She flinched as a light shone straight in her eyes.
“Who are you?” The voice came from her right, not in front of her, and she saw a man in VSC military fatigues standing between the trees, a weapon in his hand.
“Put the laz down.” The command came from her left, and with a sinking sensation, she saw there was a woman standing there, also dressed in military gear.
The man in front of her moved, and she saw all three of them now had weapons in their hands.
Tally slowly put her laz in her pocket. Thought it through.
“I'm Tally Riva. Are you Ben's team?”
“Now, how,” the man in front of her stepped closer, “do you know that?”
Chapter 29
“Your food looks better than ours.” Handel glanced over at her as the sunlight crested the treetops and spilled over the camp. He swallowed another spoonful of what looked like standard VSC readies to her, and then crumpled the box in disgust.
“It is.” She scraped the last of her food out of its container and then threw it into the small fire he'd lit when they woke up.
She'd slept well.
They'd given her a tent when they'd seen she was too exhausted to make much sense to them, and shared the other two between them, taking turns with guard duty throughout the night.
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