by Sonia Nova
“Enemy shield generator down!” Delyn cried over the barrage. Kraev could only hear the words in his earpiece now, rather than in the cabin itself. “Changing focus to that bastard gun.”
“Our own shields aren’t going to hold for much longer,” Zevyk replied, and it was obvious from his breathing that he’d unstrapped and was moving toward something. “One generator is damaged, but I should have it back in action before we’re taking on another ship.”
Kraev continued to maneuver his smaller ship around the big one, weapons loosing missiles at the now shieldless Suhlik vessel. He could see from his screens the holes that were being cast in the side of the ship, and he could also see that the lizards were firing back for all they were worth.
As much as he and Zevyk made a good team, it was always a little bit difficult for him to work with his brother. Some part of him always wanted to turn the ship around, to make risky decisions because it would mean that Zevyk, who was on the outside of the ship welding pieces of shield generator back together, would be as far out of the firing line as possible.
But that was just one of the things that came with being a pilot and of getting to live in the same clan as his brother. Sometimes, he had to make decisions that put Zevyk in more risk, but were good for the team in general, or the planet in general.
He’d come to terms with it when it was Zevyk. They’d both had to make decisions like that in the past.
It was when it came to Olivia that he still hadn’t made his peace with it.
At least she would never be hanging off the side of a ship he was flying. He hoped that them fleeing the Suhlik would be the closest she ever came to being in real danger again.
“We’ve got it!” Gryp called. “I can see it. The Suhlik ship’s about to blow. We need to get out of here, and fast.”
Kraev’s heart leaped. “Zevyk, you need to get back inside,” he instructed, turning the ship and shooting away from the wreck as quickly as he could.
His speed was limited because if he accelerated much harder, he would crush Zevyk, who was still tethered to the outside of the ship. But they were still well within shrapnel range right now.
“I can’t,” Zevyk said after a moment, his voice sounding strained. “I need to finish this repair, otherwise the shrapnel will tear up the ship. It could blow the power generator, or go through someone on the bridge.”
Kraev’s heartrate increased at his words. “We don’t have time for that,” he gritted. “The ship is going to break up any second.” He could already see through the cameras that fires were breaking out inside the Suhlik ship. It was getting ready to burst, and Zevyk would die in the initial blast at this range, never mind shrapnel.
Zevyk was silent, and Kraev knew that the engineer was concentrating on his work.
It left Kraev in an uncomfortable position. He could blast the ship full acceleration away from the wreck and get them the best chance of surviving any incoming shrapnel. But that would mean guaranteed death for Zevyk and he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.
He switched windows on his screen for just a second and saw the red alert on the shield generator that Zevyk was working on. It was still down.
“I’m estimating thirty seconds until explosion,” Gryp said, his voice strained. He too knew the odds they were facing.
“Zevyk, get back in the ship right now,” Kraev said, and when there was still no reply, he raised his voice to a shout. “Get back in the ship! I need to accelerate and I refuse to be the reason that you die. Zevyk!”
But his time was gone. Kraev looked in the monitor in front of him and saw the ship they’d destroyed exploding. He braced himself for the impact of the shrapnel slicing through the undefended walls of their ship, but it never came.
Zevyk’s laugh did come, though. “You have so little faith in me, Kraev,” he said. “The shield generator is back up and I’m safe and sound inside the ship. We’re good to keep going.”
Kraev deflated in relief, his hold on the joystick going slack for a moment. Zevyk was okay. They were all okay.
Now, it was time to go and destroy some more Suhlik ships.
He gripped the joystick harder again and steered back into the battle. The rest of the fight wasn’t so stressful. They outnumbered the Suhlik ships and with the destroying of the large one, they easily had an advantage over the remaining fleet. Communication was good between ships, and multiple times, Kraev fell in line with another ship to attack in sync.
He grinned as he chased a straggling ship away from the battle, Delyn sending missile after missile at it. He pushed their ship hard, so that it was forcing them all back into their seats with the level of G-force hitting them, but he caught it.
When they were dangerously close to the side of the ship, he instructed Delyn to loose the close-range guns and watched as it broke up, the Suhlik inside meeting a deserved end.
Then, he spun the ship on its head and sent it heading back to the teleport base at a much more reasonable speed.
Gryp, still slightly short of breath, said, “I’m sure that was unnecessary.”
Kraev laughed. “Perhaps a little bit, but we didn’t get to do too much high-speed maneuvering before. I was missing it.” There was something exhilarating about traveling at that high speed. He was sure the Gs did something to the body that, when combined with the adrenaline of the fight, was like being on a drug that made you euphoric.
Either way, it had been the last ship and there was nothing to worry about. His battleship had been an easy match for the smaller vessel. There’d been no risk.
On comms, Cynto asked, “Are the Suhlik fleet at the teleport base completely destroyed?”
Looking on the map on his monitor, Kraev could see that it certainly appeared they were. There were no angry red dots indicating Suhlik ships.
“Confirmed, Suhlik fleet destroyed,” replied one of the Warlord’s unit. “Teleport base secured.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Kraev said with a frown, speaking on their internal channel rather than the one that looped in the Warlord’s staff. “That was too easy.”
“The Suhlik are overconfident,” Gryp said with a huff. “We all know it. They think they’re too good to lose.”
“But they do lose. Regularly. They lost in their last attack and they had more men than that.” An uneasiness started to settle over Kraev as he spoke. “Surely, they wouldn’t attack again two days later with even less force. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Perhaps they underestimated how many people they still had on the planet,” Zevyk suggested. “We did a lot of good scouting work and they would have been worried about communicating with their people on the ground because our sensors might have picked it up.”
Kraev made a noise of acknowledgment, but he still didn’t like it.
“Maybe they’ve got another fleet coming,” Gryp said. “Perhaps that one was just to weaken us.”
“All possible,” Kraev admitted, though he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling completely. “Maybe I’m giving them too much credit.”
“We could wait around the teleport base just in case,” Gryp said. “We haven’t gotten official orders one way or another yet.”
“Next movements?” Cynto asked the Warlord’s team over the comms.
There was silence, which was unexpected. Normally, the Warlord’s team responded straight away, even if it was just a small acknowledgment while they waited for the Warlord’s orders so they could relay them.
The hair on Kraev’s body stood on end. Something was wrong.
After a too-long delay, an unreasonably calm voice responded through the comms, “There’s been an attack on the volcano base. All units to respond immediately. Defend the volcano base. I repeat, defend the volcano base.”
CHAPTER 19
OLIVIA
Olivia was trying to retrieve her gnawed-on finger from Mito’s mouth when a sudden alarm sounded in the canteen. Her whole body tensed and the hair on her skin stood up. It was ju
st like when she’d teleported onto the planet a few days ago. Lights in the corners of the room started flashing, but this time, they were red instead of orange.
Mito started crying in her arms, reacting to the loud noises. Something akin to an explosion shook the ground.
“The Suhlik…” Naia said, her voice sounding entirely too calm. Scarily calm. Like she was holding back a torrent of emotions. “They are attacking the volcano base. We need to evacuate.”
She reached out for Mito, and Olivia handed him back to his mother’s arms. She mourned the loss of the child. The small weight in her arms, even if it was currently crying and screaming, had been almost reassuring.
The others in the room had already stood up and started heading at a jog toward the exit of the canteen. Olivia turned to join them.
“I need to go and get Fei,” Naia said, her voice revealing the slightest bit of uncertainty. “There should have been a warrior with them in the training room, but I just… I need to make sure. I can point you in the direction you need to go in.”
Olivia shook her head. “No, I’m coming with you,” she replied without hesitation. There was no way that she was going to leave Naia alone when the woman had already done so much to help her. “Come on, we can get back to where he was practicing in no time.”
Naia looked like she was ready to argue, but instead, she nodded. “Thank you,” she said as they started to run back through the tunnels toward where Fei had been.
The ground shook beneath their feet, the fight clearly having moved dangerously close to the volcano base. Naia tried to get in touch with her son via her the communication band on her wrist, but it didn’t appear to be working.
“I think the network is down,” she said. “They might have destroyed our comms towers or used some kind of signal jammer. I’ve lived here for years now, but I still don’t know enough about technology to understand it all. It’s so alien to me.”
The thought that something could be alien to what Olivia considered an alien would have made her laugh if she didn’t feel sick with anxiety.
“Has this happened before? The Suhlik attacking the volcano base?” Olivia asked.
Naia shook her head. “Not since I’ve lived here,” she said, and the words made Olivia’s heart drop. Clearly, this was a serious situation, and the concern was starting to show on Naia’s face too. “It isn’t the first time they’ve tried to mess with our communications, but I’ve never seen the lights flashing red.”
Olivia swallowed. “Why do you think they’re attacking the volcano? I thought the teleport base was their goal.”
“The mines,” Naia said immediately. Their footfalls echoed around the corridor as they ran, along with the cries of Mito, which weren’t letting up at all. “The biggest hellstone mines are right underneath us. Maybe they’ve realized controlling the teleport base is not feasible and they’ve decided to use whatever forces they have on the planet to try to get to the mines.” Her expression hardened. “Or, they’re attacking just because they like to kill things and there are plenty of defenseless things inside the volcano.”
A cold shiver ran down Olivia’s spine and she tried to stay focused. She wished she had a way to speak to Kraev. She would have done anything to finally admit all the things she’d been thinking but had been too afraid to say. She wanted to tell him that she loved him, that he was her mate just as much as she was his. That she couldn’t wait for them to start their family together.
“Fei!” Naia called, and the sharp sound of her voice startled Olivia back to the present. She didn’t recognize where they were – everything looked the same – but presumably, this was around where Fei and the other children had been practicing. “Fei! Are you here?” she shouted.
“Mom?” came a scared voice from behind one of the doors. “Mom, is that you?”
“Fei,” she replied, her relief evident. “It’s me. Your mother. You can open the door.”
The young boy opened one of the doors. He’d clearly been crying, and he was gripping the oversized spear he’d been using to practice with a cast-iron grip. Olivia immediately noticed that he was alone.
“Where are the other children?” she asked.
“They– They left with Keza,” Fei whispered, seemingly on the verge of tears. “The warrior who had been training us. But I– I wanted to help. So I went back for my spear. I don’t think he noticed I left.” Tears started to stream down his face again. “Mom, I’m scared.”
“I know. It’s okay,” Naia replied, embracing him in a tight hug. Mito calmed for a moment and Olivia watched the small family in silence, her eyes stinging.
She could see in Naia’s face that she was terrified. Stress lines had formed around her eyes and mouth, and she kept chewing her bottom lip when she thought no one was paying attention. The ground shook again and Olivia knew that she was wishing her mate was here just as much as Olivia was.
“Where to now?” she prompted Naia. “We should get moving.” She got the impression that they’d already headed in the opposite direction to where they were supposed to be evacuating from. “Wait,” she said, looking into the room that Fei had come from. “That’s a gym, a training room, whatever. Are there more weapons in there? Guns?”
Naia’s expression turned contemplative. “Not in that one,” she said. “It’s for the children and only has the spears. But there are more gyms along this corridor with other weapons locked away in them.”
“Can you get into any of them?” Olivia asked. “Into any of the weapons, I mean? Just in case the Suhlik actually manage to get into the base.” She hoped the chances of that were slim. Naia had mentioned that there were always warriors staying behind at the base to defend it. But still, you couldn’t be too careful.
Naia seemed to think the same. She stood up, holding Fei’s hand. “I should be able to,” she said. “They can normally be accessed by any adult with their fingerprints on record. Just in case.” She shook her head sadly. “I wouldn’t have even thought. You’ve got a better head on your shoulders than I have.” She continued before Olivia had time to tell her that was nonsense. “In this one.”
Inside the training gym were a number of training dummies and targets. Olivia hoped that meant there were guns locked away in the cabinet that Naia was heading toward. She opened it with her fingerprints and revealed an arsenal of small handguns.
“Perfect,” Olivia breathed. At least she wouldn’t feel quite so defenseless with one of these in her hand. Or two. Or maybe three, just in case. She took three. One for each hand and one tucked through her belt loop. Naia took one as well, though she didn’t really have a spare hand considering she was holding both Mito and Fei.
“Can I have one?” Fei asked. He had stopped crying. The presence of his mother had seemed to calm him and he was eager to help again.
“No,” Naia said sternly, shutting the cabinet again. “You’re too young.”
“But Mom, I know how to use it. Dad’s showed me. I know.” He clung to his mother’s embroidered dress, his eyes wide and begging.
Naia shook her head, unrelenting. “You’re too young, Fei. I won’t make you do something like that. Now, come on, we need to get out of here and evacuate. We’ll already be behind most people.” She ushered the boy forward, but Fei dug his heels in.
“Mom, let me help! I can fight. I can protect you. I know I can.”
“Fei.” Naia crouched down and put her hand on her son’s face. “This isn’t something I’m going to argue about. I’ll carry you out of here myself if I have to. Are you going to keep arguing with me about this, or are you going to come with me now and reduce our chances of running into any Suhlik?”
Fei visibly hesitated. He opened his mouth to argue some more, but then nodded. “Okay.”
Naia gave him a kiss on the forehead and then they were on the move again.
Olivia’s heart thudded in her chest as they moved from corridor to corridor. With every step, the ankle she’d sprained when arriving on the
planet reminded her of its presence, but Olivia ignored the pain.
Her grip was painfully tight on her guns and every time they turned a corner, she expected to run straight into one of the golden monsters that had invaded her nightmares since she was a child.
But they didn’t come.
Neither did any Mahdfel.
They headed toward a staircase that would take them down to the lowest floor where Naia assured her the evacuation pods were.
“They’re below us,” she explained as they walked. “Just small, underground crafts in a tunnel that can get us out of the other side of the volcano and away from the fighting. There’s plenty of them and they run drills, so there should be one for us, even if we’re late to the evacuation.”
“I wonder how long it will take the warriors at the teleportation pad to get back here,” Olivia asked. She had no idea how fast the ship that Kraev was flying was, or how far the teleport base actually was from the volcano. Everything was too abstract. For all she knew, it could have taken them hours to get back.
“Not long,” Naia said. “They might already be back, fighting outside. That would be good. It would help the warriors who had stayed behind at the volcano to hold off the Suhlik.”
Olivia’s heart leaped to her throat. Kraev might be here?
It didn’t seem fair that he might be so close and she was running away. Of course, it made sense, rationally and logically, but for a second, the pull to remain here so that she might see him was overwhelming.
Of course, that assumed that he’d survived the fight at the teleport base, which she couldn’t confirm anyway. She thought that she would know if he was dead, that she would somehow be able to feel it, but she knew that was stupid.
“Here’s the staircase,” Naia said, cutting into her thoughts. “Just a few floors down and then we’ll practically be at the evacuation point.”
They opened the door and started rushing down the stairs. Olivia’s heart pounded in her chest as she took step after quick step down the stairs. She was sure she was going to fall over and fall down with the speed they were moving at.
