by J. Rock
23.
She opens her eyes.
Every muscle in her body aches, as if she's been thrown through a rock tumbler. She sits up, finding her surroundings to be completely unfamiliar. Grass? Plains? Blood! The grass around her is splashed with red. She immediately starts feeling her own body, searching for a mortal wound.
There is none. The blood isn't hers.
Then whose is it?
Ursa turns where she's sitting, looking for some clue as to what's going on...and finds it. Not more than ten feet behind her, a pair of dual rails is set into the ground, stretching from horizon to horizon.
Engie rails.
We fell off the Engie!
It all comes flooding back to her.
They were on the Engie when it passed through a Bleakpatch, their air nearly running out. When it was over, they were weakened, ripe for the plucking by the bandits that had stolen aboard the Engie with them. The bandits had had full breath tanks. They weren't weakened. They'd advanced on her friends, one pulling a knife on Juno.
And that's when all hells had broken loose.
Juno had screamed, tackling the man with the knife, knocking them both right out the Engie door. Traylor, heroically, had called out for his sister and leapt immediately after her, without a moment's hesitation. The remaining bandits, angered, had then advanced on Ursa and Altair, all seeming lost...
Somehow, Altair had struck back, managing to knock out the woman bandit. But then the two remaining men had overpowered him. They were about to throw him off the moving Engie when Ursa had intervened. She still doesn't know where she'd drummed up the courage.
She'd leapt, striking both men in a tackle as they'd struggled with Altair at the car's edge. All four of them had tumbled outward.
It was all black after that.
Ursa shakes her head, coming back to reality. Her heart is pumping a mile a minute.
Where are the others?
She gets to her feet, stumbling. Immediately, she spots a body; one of the bandits, his head twisted at an awkward angle.
Good.
"Juno! Traylor! Altair!" she calls out, not caring whether someone unfriendly hears it. She has to find her friends! She has to–
"Unnnnhhhh...."
Ursa freezes, the moan coming from her left.
She steps gingerly, wary that the noise might belong to one of her attackers.
But it's not one of the attackers.
"Altair!" Ursa exclaims, seeing the young man lying on his back, eyes half open to the sky. He's alive!
"Altair!" Ursa calls again, falling to the Assassin's side. She grabs him by the shoulders. "Altair! Wake up! You're alive! You're–" Ursa cuts off with a gasp. In her excitement, she'd shaken Altair a bit, causing his head to loll sideways.
It’s soaked in blood, pooling under the man's cheek.
Ursa cries out in horror.
