by Clara Woods
One of the men next to Brons stumbled and fell. Lenah made two running steps toward him, her suit lengthening her steps, but the ground gave away under him, and he tumbled down and out of sight before Lenah could reach him.
Brons’s eyes met Lenah’s. “Let’s go!” Lenah urged, grabbing his hand to pull him away. Lenah turned to see Cassius and Martello helping Strikers mount the train. Its powerful engines turned on with a loud hiss. Another crash, this one clearly from overhead.
Lenah and Brons ran toward Cassius. She had almost reached him when the floor under her feet buckled.
Lenah slipped, finding herself on a sharp downward slope. She lost grip of Brons’s hand.
Violent trembling and a terrible sound of bending metal rattled Lenah’s senses. She tried to stay upright, but the floor buckled, and she fell. An ear-shattering sound erupted and then darkness.
35 Trapped
Lenah heard her own loud breathing inside her helmet. She blinked, but complete darkness had fallen around her.
Fumbling with trembling hands, she found the external lights built inside the suit. A small lamp on her forehead turned on, revealing a low space, maybe half a meter tall, littered with chunks of metal and stone. The ceiling had collapsed. A ventilation system next to Lenah was keeping it from fully falling on what had formally been the floor of the factory. And on Lenah. She could still hear the vibrations of the train. Or was that something else?
Her eyes fell on Brons. He lay on the ground several meters behind her. His blue eyes stared at Lenah.
He didn’t blink.
“Brons!” Lenah gasped and started to crawl toward him. At the sound of her voice, his lids slowly closed, then opened again.
Thank the stars; he is alive.
But she could only see half his body.
Almost lazily, he moved his head and his fingers.
“Are you hurt?” Lenah asked as she reached him. “Do you hurt?”
He smiled, and Lenah’s belly dropped. She desperately hoped that he was just in shock, but something told her that wasn’t true. Brons was injured. Badly.
She ducked so the light of her suit would illuminate the lower half of his body. But instead of his legs, she saw the collapsed ceiling covering him from his belly down. Unlike Lenah, he hadn’t been close enough to the ventilation unit, which created this pocket and saved Lenah.
“Brons, what do you feel?” Lenah inspected where his body vanished under the metal. A clanking made her freeze and pull up her mind magic once more.
“They’d rather kill us all than let us escape,” Brons coughed out. “But I think the train left right before they could crush it. Now they will regret collapsing their only way in.”
“It’s swarming with Bartoc out there,” Lenah confirmed, seeing the now-familiar clumps of many minds. She expanded her aura in the other direction where the train had been. “No humans. Either they made it, or they are all dead.”
“I felt the vibration of the train departing.” Brons coughed again. His face was ashen, and a small trickle of blood ran out of his mouth. Lenah struggled to get off her gauntlet to wipe the blood away.
His gaze bore through Lenah. “You are our hope. It’s a miracle that you weren’t buried being right where you were. You have to reach the train.”
Lenah shook her head as loud sounds rose through the layer of metal that buried them from the direction of where she knew the Bartoc were. In the last moment, Lenah spotted the incoming mind magic. She strengthened the barrier in front of her and Brons.
“They are trying to get through, and they will.” Brons took a howling breath. “There’s no direct way to the train now, but you can get outside through the train yard.” Out of breath, Brons stopped to take another gulp of air. “It’s through a security shaft in the floor right next to that venting unit.” He closed his eyes as if those few sentences had taken away all the power he had left.
“Okay.” Lenah bent close to the sheet of ceiling that was squishing his legs. “But you’re coming with me.” She found her grip and started to push.
It didn’t move.
Her new suit was mostly for speed and protection, but it didn’t lend her any strength.
She felt Brons’s hand, featherlike, on her own. “You need to go now.”
The Bartoc, closer now, started to push harder against Lenah’s mental barrier.
“Get my children to safety.” Another cough, this one taking him almost thirty seconds to recover from, and more blood trickled down his chin. “You need to meet them and lead them to your ship.” He paused. “Please.”
Lenah swallowed, looking from his face to where his body was buried. She felt sweat running down her face from the mental exhaustion of pushing against the Bartoc. They were getting closer.
“You can’t help me, Lenah Callo.” Brons’s voice was getting weaker.
Lenah looked at him and lifted her visor so they could look each other in the eyes. Brons’s body might be broken, but his will was still strong.
She could see it written on his face. He wasn’t doing this for himself, never had. It was all for his children and his people. There was still hope for them, and that meant hope for him.
Almost mesmerized, Lenah nodded. “I will help them. I will get Penelope, Jann, and the others out of here.”
They held eye contact for a few more moments, then Brons looked away and closed his eyes. He swallowed. “Good,” he whispered. His eyes opened again, and a single tear ran down his face. “I have a pistol in my belt. Can you reach it?” His voice trembled and pitched.
Lenah swallowed as her eyes scanned down his body. She could see the top of a holster strapped over his chest.
Lenah reached for it, and, after digging around a bit, was able to feel the cold metal of the weapon. As she tried to grip it, Brons winced. Lenah realized he must have broken ribs in that area; maybe it was even this weapon that had smashed his chest. She pulled his weapon out with one quick move.
Lenah held the small pistol between them, feeling paralyzed. A series of clanks from above startled her.
“Give it to me,” Brons said slowly, calmly. His eyes shone with a last flicker of life. “Put it in my hand.”
Lenah swallowed, then groaned when the Bartoc started to push harder against her mental barrier. They were running out of time.
All her instincts screaming at her, Lenah put the weapon into Brons’s hand. His fingers closed around it weakly, and he tried, and failed, to lift his arm.
Lenah, tears now streaming down her face, helped him lift his arm until the weapon lay just over his heart, pointing upward.
“Go now, Lenah Callo.”
Lenah nodded; her vision clouded from tears.
“Don’t mourn me but remember me as the person who made this possible.”
Lenah nodded once more. “I promise, Brons Striker.”
She got up.
Holding her mental barrier in place, Lenah crawled over toward the ventilation unit. Just like Brons had promised, there was an almost invisible lid. Lenah wedged her fingers under the thin metal, and it came up with a pop. A dark hole stretched out underneath with metal hooks built into the side. She let go of a breath. At least it had been built for humans.
With one last look at Brons, who was lying still now, his eyes closed but his chest heaving, Lenah let herself drop into the tunnel. Once she was inside, she moved the lid over the hole again.
A loud shot sounded from outside. Lenah froze for a moment, seeing how the aura of Brons’s mind flickered out. Then, with nothing holding her back here, she started to climb down as fast as she could.
Some of the hooks were missing, making some spots challenging. Once, a hook broke off under Lenah’s weight, and she could barely catch herself with her hands. After that, she was more careful. With the bare limit of her magic, she saw the Bartoc minds above run forward, forming a circle around the spot were Brons lay. But none moved toward the lid in the floor, and Lenah picked up speed again until she could
no longer detect the minds above. She hoped that it was mutual.
Lenah didn’t know how much time had passed when she finally reached the bottom of the corridor. It was an intersection of one wide and low corridor built for Bartoc and another one accommodating for humanoid bodies. She could feel Bartoc minds in each direction.
Would there be more intersections? And which way would the train be? From memory and hoping that she hadn’t gotten turned around, Lenah thought the train must lie to her right—through the Bartoc corridor. She took two steps into it, bowing her head to fit, when angry and clipped voices speaking in the harsh clicking sounds of the Bartoc language made her stop mid-track. They were quickly coming closer as if next to her in a parallel corridor. Lenah pulled up a barrier of magic and started to run.
Her boots echoed on the metal floor, but she didn’t care; they could see her mind anyway. Lenah thought she was getting some distance away from her pursuers, but then Bartoc voices started to get louder. A purple light turned on in the corridor from where she had come.
Lenah took the next turn, a sharp left, and picked up her pace even more. There were fewer minds in this direction, and she broke into a sprint until her legs screamed at her to slow down. She started to trot until the corridor ended before her. There was nowhere to go.
Lenah cursed, thinking she could see the soft shine of purple light from the direction she’d come. Someone was approaching.
She turned, staring at each of the three smooth walls surrounding her. One had a rougher texture in its center leading toward the ceiling.
Her head snapped up and, indeed, a hole gaped over her head. And it wasn’t empty. The More purple light shone high above her and she heard soft tapping.
There weren’t any handholds, nothing that would have been an option for Lenah to take. She ran back down the corridor, now paying special attention to what was above. There wasn’t another exit, and, little by little, the minds of the Bartoc approaching through the corridor became visible to her inner vision. It was a big cluster, several dozen minds and much bigger than the group climbing down from above. Lenah knew with certainty that she wasn’t going to be able to fight them all.
Lenah jogged back and peeked up into the shaft, now seeing two Bartoc coming down, illuminated by the glow of their own light.
They approached quickly, and Lenah watched them walk down the wall like it wasn’t completely vertical. Their mind magic hit her protective wall, the blast of it bringing her down to her knees.
She struggled to regain balance, needing all her magic to keep the barrier up. Lenah tried to steady herself and point her weapon up.
The Bartoc above her hissed something in their language. As way of an answer, Lenah opened fire.
She kept her eyes right on the faces of the creatures, hoping to hit one of the vulnerable spots on their eyes and necks. Almost immediately, they shifted sideways, making aiming harder, and kept descending further.
And they were quick, now a mere five meters above her.
The mental assaults continued, dizzying Lenah, and she almost didn’t realize when she lost balance. Several dozen minds pressed against her from all sides, and Lenah’s barrier wavered. With all she had left, Lenah held the button on her laser pistol, swinging it left and right aimlessly and hoping to hit a Bartoc with sheer luck. Martello wouldn’t be proud of her.
One of the Bartoc screamed and flew toward her.
Lenah rolled out of the way, but she was in an awkward position on the floor, her two boots crossed at the ankles, and she lost precious seconds getting herself untangled. The Bartoc crashed into her, nimbly jumped a few steps away, and brought its stinger at Lenah. Lenah, who had been hoping she’d actually injured or even killed the creature, was too slow to get away. Her arm exploded in pain, and she dropped her gun.
Before Lenah could do more than gasp, a pedipalp snapped toward her and lifted her off the floor.
Lenah fought in its grasp, and her mental barrier almost slipped from the effort. It had gotten thin under the constant assault and her progressive exhaustion. Holding on with her last ounce of strength, Lenah considered her two enemies. One Bartoc was a lot stronger than the other, it had more and stronger minds. It was aggressively targeting her from all sides, and all she could do was fight back the many mental attacks but with no chance to go on the offensive. The other one had only a handful of minds, even the human one seemed weak to Lenah.
She stopped struggling in the grasp of the pedipalp and concentrated on the mind of the weaker Bartoc. Before she could do anything, she was flipped around, then felt herself being strapped down. She opened her eyes, seeing that a net had been thrown over her.
Lenah wiggled and moved, but the net only got tighter. Before long, she was strapped flat against the back of the weaker Bartoc.
The two said something—either to Lenah or to each other, she couldn’t tell—and to her horror, started climbing the wall again. Her head hung down, squished against her captor. She tried to move, but the net was so tight now, she couldn’t. She had lost. The light from the corridor below quickly diminished.
Lenah thought of Brons, then of Corinna. They had died for this quest, both trusting in Lenah to carry on. Who would do the job now? Would Cassius and Persia keep going?
And who would fly the Star Rambler? Corinna had been the only other pilot, and Lenah doubted that any of the Strikers had ever been inside a spaceship. Even if they escaped from this compound, they could never leave the planet and get back home.
Lenah’s eyes snapped into focus. This was not where her story ended. She had somewhere to be and it wasn’t inside a net strapped to a Bartoc body.
She opened her inner senses, scanning the Bartoc minds. Keeping most of her power concentrated around her own mind, protecting it, Lenah split off a small arrow to reach out to the weakest mind, a thin aura that seemed barely able to hold intelligent thought. Like a needle, Lenah approached, then penetrated. The mind snapped to attention, but it was too late. Stop, Lenah sent. It did.
The Bartoc’s remaining four minds came toward Lenah. She split off more power to counter the attack. Her border holding back the stronger Bartoc wavered. She aimed for the second weakest mind next. It sliced through. Stop.
The next one. Stop.
Finally, Lenah could feel what seemed to be the Bartoc’s own mind. Stop.
And stop they did. Literally. Too late Lenah realized her mistake, how unclear her command had been. She felt herself go weightless as she—still strapped to the Bartoc’s body—plummeted down with it. It had let go of the wall, simply stopped all it was doing.
The fall lasted longer than Lenah anticipated, and she steeled her body. They flipped in the air, and Lenah was now on top.
A crash, then all the air was taken out of Lenah’s lungs.
Her head connected with the limp body underneath her, the exoskeleton as hard as if she’d fallen on the metal flooring. Lenah’s whole body vibrated pain, eroding all other thought, but she couldn’t lose consciousness. She had to stay awake. It was important.
Lenah gasped, taking in a lungful of air, even though her lungs were telling her that she hurt too much to breathe.
Underneath her, the Bartoc body shivered and reminded her of the danger she was still in. Lenah pulled up her mental barrier instinctively just as the mental attack from above hit her. It stole the little breath she had, but she clung on. Her hands half-free through a rip in the net found her weapon still lying on the ground. She gripped it, then rolled onto her back, shooting several times into the Bartoc’s sensitive neck. Underneath her, it stopped moving.
Lenah was left quivering as the second Bartoc approached from above. At the same time, bright purple lights shone through the corridor. A group of at least five was barely fifty meters away.
Lenah had no time left, no option. She bundled all her magic—the trickle that remained—into a sharp arrow, aiming straight for the strongest concentration of power inside the Bartoc’s swirl of minds. It countered
with a similar arrow but not with the same strength of emotion. Lenah’s despair, her fear and urgency, opposed its demand to hold still.
Slowly but surely, Lenah’s power increased just as the Bartoc’s body crawled out of the hole right on top of her. Free me, take me.
It scrambled to adjust with its other minds, but Lenah had it. She made them tired. All the tiredness she felt in her own limbs. Then she kept a separate idea for the brightest mind, the one she had identified as the original mind of the Bartoc. The creature made an uncoordinated step toward Lenah, then its stinger hovered right over her. Lenah kept her eyes wide open as it cut through the material of the net. Pressure was lifted off Lenah’s legs and chest, and she rolled down, landing on all fours next to the lifeless Bartoc.
Something sticky was making a puddle on the ground. Lenah looked down. Blood. Disgusted, she got up and approached the Bartoc. It was standing still, but, in their minds, the battle was ongoing. This one was strong, trying to claw its way back to control.
Lenah looked over her shoulder. The other Bartoc were almost there, so she climbed onto the Bartoc’s back, forming an improvised bridle with the remains of the net still twisted around her arms. Take me.
They crawled back up, Lenah holding onto the creature’s back for dear life. The clicking of Bartoc voices drifted to her from below.
The creature climbed up quickly, effortlessly. Lenah held on with both arms as she was pressed down by gravity. The net held, and she soon started to feel safer in her hold. The walk up was smooth, telling her how easy this was for the Bartoc.
A minute later, sounds pulled her attention downward. The corridor was no longer dark, and the silhouettes of five Bartoc heads leaned over their dead colleague. One looked up. His gaze was cold enough to freeze the blood in Lenah’s body.
Mind magic shot toward her. Looking around desperately, Lenah more sensed than felt the new corridor open up next to her.
She jumped.
And so did the Bartoc. It got hit full force by its specimen’s mind magic the moment Lenah let her own control over the creature drop. It let go, falling out of sight.
