by S. S. Segran
Miners rushed to help friends who hadn’t escaped the mess hall in time. “We need medics!” yelled one of the guards.
Ajajdif had seen the tunneling machine ram straight through the building. Still in his pajama pants and robe, he ran toward the mess hall to help his men.
As he passed the workshop, a series of thundering explosions shook the site. He instinctively threw himself behind one of the two trucks in the shed, and not a moment too soon. A massive piece of metal smashed into the truck, tearing away its roof. Ajajdif squirmed under the vehicle for cover as other chunks of debris rained down.
He stared at one particularly large piece that landed where he had stood only a moment earlier. It seemed too familiar. He turned to look at where the vats should have been but saw instead rubble and black dust scattered far and wide. He gasped. “No!”
As he lay prone, bemoaning the loss of his precious mineral, a piercing screech arose, once again from the tunnel area. The noise swiftly transformed into a roar not unlike a jet engine. A bright phosphorescence caught Ajajdif’s attention. His gaze moved to the crushing operation. A blinding flash, as brilliant as the sun, illuminated the entrance beside the mining tunnel.
That’s where the leaching compounds are stored! Ajajdif realized. He pounded the ground violently with his fist, cursing the hell that had broken loose. His oaths came to a stop when he noticed an odd-looking object beneath a truck near him. Mystified, he grabbed the glowing blue cube and crawled out from under the truck to examine it. As he was about to push himself up, he caught sight of more cubes placed under other vehicles in the shed.
Sudden realization dawned. He jumped to his feet, hurled the cube as far as he could and started to run to his private quarters. “Explosives!” he shouted. “The whole place is rigged!”
Hardly anyone could hear him. He careened into his private quarters and slammed the door. Grabbing a flashlight, he went down on all fours and shone it under his bed. “Ah, there we are.” He put the flashlight between his teeth and reached underneath, pulling out a long, flat case. Throwing the top open, he revealed his prized Russian-made Dragunov sniper rifle.
Seizing a few spare magazines, he slid his window open and leveled the rifle on the windowsill. He snatched his radio from his nightstand and broadcast to the twelve guards on site. “I want everyone to steer clear of the buildings! There are bombs everywhere! The mining tunnel has been destroyed, and the vats have been demolished. I suspect that the abandoned tunnel might have explosives too. The vehicles in the shed are rigged as well, so stay away! I repeat, stay away from the vehicle shed.”
“Roger,” one of the guards replied. “What do you want us to do, sir?”
“I want you to arm as many able workers as you can. We have trespassers. Shoot to kill. I don’t want any escapees.”
“Yes sir.”
“Elias.”
Hajjar’s voice came over the radio. “Sir?”
“Get the Marauders out.”
“On my way.”
As Ajajdif peered out of the window, he saw the giant of a man speeding toward the Marauders’ building. Just as Hajjar was about to pass the workshop, two loud explosions that left Ajajdif’s ears ringing threw the big man off his feet, sending him airborne for several yards and landing him on his back. Ajajdif watched the workshop collapse, sending debris and pieces of metal and wood flying, leaving only rubble.
“Elias,” he rasped into his radio, but received no reply. “Elias, answer me!” He bellowed, demanding Hajjar get back up, but the chief of security didn’t move. Ajajdif tossed his radio aside, nearly breaking it against the wall.
At the top of the mountain, Nageau said, “They are arming themselves.” Worry made his voice lilt. Connecting his mind with the other Elders one by one, he said, The workers are being armed at the guard post next to the tunnel. Engage with caution. We know that they will not hesitate to kill us if we are spotted.
He turned to the waiting crossbowmen. “If anyone gets near the beasts’ enclosure, immobilize them immediately. And keep an eye out for our people.”
Kody gazed down, watching the guards hand out guns to a dozen workers. Anxiety made him sick to his stomach; his friends were down there, about to engage in what truly was serious combat.
“Stay safe, guys,” he whispered.
On the eastern flank of the mountain, hidden from the chaos, Tikina had gotten Nageau’s go-ahead to engage. She informed the rest of her troop as they flattened themselves against the back wall of the miners’ barracks. They could hear the miners calling to one another and picked out the sounds of gunfire.
Beside her mentor, Tegan hiccupped. “They’re actually going to shoot us?”
“They did not hesitate to drug and hold our kin hostage before attempting to murder all four of them. It was lucky that Rikèq and Breyas even survived.” Tikina’s throat constricted. Something cold and wet touched her fingertips and she looked down. Chayton lightly nuzzled her fingers, tail wagging. She smiled a little and stroked the wolf’s soft head, gently rubbing his ears. “Stay,” she murmured.
The Elder edged along the side of the building and poked her head around the corner. Miners thronged the security post, just as Nageau had said. One of the men was testing the scope on his rifle and happened to raise it in her direction. He froze. Tikina inhaled sharply and pulled back out of sight just as a shot was fired. The bullet struck the corner of the building, wedging itself into the wood.
The miners knew where they were now. Tikina hurriedly ushered her group along the length of building so they could sneak out the other side.
What they didn’t know was that two groups of three men were coming at them, one approaching where Tikina had been seen, and the other to cut off the group’s escape route.
Having slipped out of the tunnel, Aari had joined the gaggle of workers waiting to receive their weapons. Ashack was close behind. The pair were dressed in miners’ clothing, including respirator masks that covered most of their faces. Ashack could pass as a worker but Aari, who was shorter and less muscled than the adults, had to hope the bagginess of the coveralls would offer enough concealment. At least the boots and the hardhat fit him perfectly.
He and Ashack were concealing the rest of the team, both bending the light around two natives to render them invisible as they went to lend Tikina’s team a hand. Covering for one person was already hard enough, and Aari struggled with the additional villager in his care. The men whom he covered ran to the side of the barracks where Tikina had been spotted.
The miners who had rounded the back of the building had the Elder in their crosshairs and were about to pull their triggers when two of them had their heads smashed together by an invisible force. Something stabbed them between their shoulder blades, making them go limp. The third miner was lifted up and thrown violently onto the ground before having an immobilizing dart jabbed into him.
The villagers picked up the weapons, inspecting them curiously before jogging a short distance to toss the weapons off the side of the mountain. Now that they were out of Aari’s line of sight, the boy could no longer conceal the two men, but Ashack could still bend the light around the villagers he was covering. With everything under control, Aari slipped his hand into one of his coverall’s oversized pockets and pulled out a couple of darts. Might as well take a few of these guys down.
The workers waving their arms for the guards to pass them weapons paid no heed to the young man hanging at the back of the group. However, a guard by the destroyed mess hall—a skinhead with a shaved and tattooed scalp—was on full alert. At first he found it strange that two of the workers weren’t joining the crowd of personnel demanding guns, but when he saw one of them pull something from his pocket, his senses tingled. Before he could react, the worker stabbed something into the back of one of the other miners.
As the miner collapsed, the guard immediately raised his rifle, peered through the high-power scope, and took aim at the intruder. The next thing he knew, a smashing for
ce on his back put him face-down on the ground. He groaned and struggled to push himself up but his head was shoved back down into the dirt. The guard thrashed until he was finally able to writhe away. Rolling onto his back, he was stunned to see the face of a well-built teenager snarling down at him, amber eyes aflame.
Jag had seen the guard taking aim at Aari and, without a second thought, charged out of the trees and executed a picture-perfect flying side kick, his foot landing solidly on the guard’s back.
The skinhead kicked up his leg, catching Jag in the chest and heaving the sixteen-year-old back. Kipping up to his feet, the guard scrambled to find the gun he’d dropped. He saw it at the same time Jag did and they both dove for the weapon. The guard managed to wrestle it away but the win was short-lived. Jag jammed the edge of his fist against the man’s sternum and the guard fell back. He swung his arms, making a wild grab for the rifle as Jag snatched it away from him.
“Hand it over!” the guard spat as he rolled back to his feet.
Jag flung the weapon into the trees. “Not a chance.”
The guard slowly lifted his head and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. “You wanna play hardball, kid?” He glanced behind him when he heard the footsteps of two beefy miners coming to stand on either side of him. He looked back at Jag with a smirk. “Fine by me.”
A sudden hesitation flickered in Jag’s mind, advising him to reconsider fighting, but he pulled his shoulders back and planted his feet firmly.
As he prepared to charge, he saw blurred motion in his peripheral vision followed by a blast of air that brushed the side of his face—Tayoka had joined him. The Elder offered Jag a tight smile, then both mentor and apprentice faced the three opponents, steely-eyed.
A radio attached to a wall crackled at the far end of Ajajdif’s personal quarters. “Flight Zero to Q-base. Do you read me?”
The Osprey! Ajajdif dove for the radio and picked it up. “I read you, Zero.”
“Great. We’re approaching your mining site.”
“What’s your ETA?”
“Ten minutes.”
“Are you armed?”
“Yes.” The pilot sounded suspicious. “Why?”
“We’ve got intruders armed with explosives. The site’s under attack. We need your help.”
“Hey, buddy, look. This isn’t our gig. We were just told to haul your supplies. We got no directions to engage.”
“You listen,” Ajajdif hissed. “There’s a reason why that plane is armed. This mining operation is crucial for the company and right now we’re under attack. It’s your job to protect us. Why do you think ex-mercenaries like you were hired? You will comply.”
Flying low over the terrain forty miles southeast of the mining site, the pilot of the Osprey looked over at the man seated to his right in the cockpit, tight-lipped. The co-pilot shrugged. “Well, the bloke’s right. We’re not exactly a commercial airline.”
The pilot stared out at the horizon for a moment, then snorted. “Fine.” He turned to the third crew member seated behind him. “Load up the M2. Let’s get it done and get out of here.” He thumbed his radio and responded to Ajajdif icily. “What’s our main target?”
“Every single intruder.”
“Roger. Zero out.”
53
The three miners rushing to cut off Tikina’s team rounded the back of the barracks, behind which the villagers and Tegan were positioned. The workers, unaware that their colleagues had been taken out of action, were now on their own. The man leading the group halted. Very slowly, he stretched out his arms to point the barrel of his gun around the corner of the building.
A piercing screech from above nearly shattered the workers’ eardrums. The sound emanated once more, dangerously close. As the leading member of the group looked skywards, the silhouette of a massive eagle swoop down. One of the bird’s talons tore the worker’s left cheek as the other set of talons ripped the rifle from his hands. The worker cried out and gripped his face and neck as crimson soaked his clothes.
The eagle flew over the building to drop the weapon over the edge of the mining site. Tegan gazed up at it, then at her mentor. Tikina was unblinking for a few moments before severing her link with the eagle. To her team, she said, “That is one less weapon we will have to worry about.” She listened to the moans of agony that came from just around the corner of the barracks. “And by the sounds of it, we probably have one less opponent to deal with as well.”
The remaining two miners hesitated. Like most of the others, they were untrained in armed combat. Uncertain how to continue on with one of their colleagues hurt, they stooped down to lend the fallen man a hand.
With that window of distraction, Tikina shouted, “Go!”
The entire team leapt out to tackle the workers, but they were powerfully built men with attitudes to match. The workers threw several hefty punches that caught villagers square in their jaws or stomachs. With greater agility and speed, the group eventually managed to wrestle the two workers into submission. Tikina and Tegan hastily stuck darts into their thick necks and they soon ceased to move.
The villagers pushed themselves to their feet, heaving in breaths. One of them wiped blood from a broken nose. The woman with her platinum hair in a red bandana had a gash on the side of her head from where one of the workers had struck her with the muzzle of his rifle. She pulled her bandana off and pressed the cloth against the wound. Tikina checked the villagers fretfully but they waved her off, assuring her that they were able to continue.
“Were we lucky, or was that skill?” Tegan asked, standing at her mentor’s shoulder.
Tikina managed a short laugh. “Both. Now come, this has only just begun.”
At the window of his private quarters, Ajajdif’s patience was starting to wear thin. “Come on,” he urged under his breath. “Step into my sights, you pathetic wretches, and I’ll send you on a joyride to hell.”
Without warning, a reverberating bang sounded and one of the Bobcats in the partially-collapsed vehicle shed exploded, sending parts and glass flying in every direction. Ajajdif seethed as he watched the destruction.
Just as the dust cleared to reveal what remained of the Bobcat, an excavator exploded. The hydraulic cylinder connected to the bucket was wrenched clear off and hurtled toward Ajajdif’s accommodations. Ajajdif dropped, covering his head. The cylinder smashed through his living quarters and embedded itself in the back wall.
With his fingers digging into his scalp, Ajajdif looked up. There was a gaping hole at the top left corner of the wall where the cylinder had entered the building.
He inched back to the window, thinking the explosions were over, until four more booms erupted one after the other, shaking the entire site. He ducked again and huddled under the window. The initial terror that had taken hold of him was gone, replaced by a thirst—a need—for revenge.
It took several seconds for the echoes of the explosions to subside. Ajajdif tentatively returned to his weapon at the window.
All that was left of the vehicle shed was rubble and a million shards of glass and metal. One of the two trucks, dented and covered in ash, was still standing only because Ajajdif had found the explosive under it and had thrown it away.
As he continued to survey the scene, it finally dawned on him that he could now see the entire mining site with the shed out of the way. Workers and guards grappled with intruders, but Ajajdif saw some of his men collapsing for no apparent reason.
There must be snipers around here, Ajajdif thought. But two can play that game.
He looked through his scope and aimed at an intruder engaged in a hand-to-hand tussle with one of the workers.
Taking a breath to steady himself, Ajajdif squeezed the trigger. The native dropped onto the dirt. The worker, realizing he’d gotten help from somewhere, leered down at the intruder and kicked the body aside.
Ajajdif scoured for another target. He focused on a woman with a red bandana darting around two men, attempting to jab something into
their necks and arms. He watched her for a few moments, admiring her determination and finding her form and grace alluring. He sighed. What a shame that such a lovely woman must go.
He pulled the trigger.
Nageau’s heart jumped into his throat before melting into a pool of sorrow when the woman in the red bandana crumpled to the ground. She’d returned from the rescue mission with Rikèq and Breyas, and had resolutely volunteered for this raid. Nageau’s hands curled into fists. She was the second villager to be felled by a shot fired from a weapon out of sight and he would not stand for that.
As his crossbowmen provided covering fire to their brethren below, he scanned around, trying to pinpoint a likely shooter. Another member of the village fell, lifeless.
The Elder bit the inside of his lip, hard. “Kody.” His apprentice turned to him, all ears. “Someone is taking out our people, but he or she is not in sight. They may be hidden away, perhaps in the trees or in one of the buildings. I want you to locate them.”
“On it.” Kody raked his gaze over the entire site, meticulously scanning every inch of the place starting from the miners’ barracks on the left and continuing toward the right. The unmoving bodies of the three villagers were particularly disturbing to look at, yet he found himself going back to them every so often.
No. Concentrate, Kody. Concentrate.
But the roaring of the beasts in the steel building clashed with the gunshots and sporadic screams, making it hard to focus. Still, he forced every sound out of his ears, zooming his vision in and out until he picked up a momentary bright flash on the far right; it could have only come from a gun.
“Huh. Someone’s not using a suppressor.” He blinked, narrowing in on two joint buildings standing on their own not far from the helipad. Zooming in further, he spotted the muzzle of a rifle sticking out a window. “Bingo,” he breathed, then rapidly tapped his mentor’s arm. “Found it.”
