She cast the most fleeting glance toward the Blackout. Yajak was outside kneeling on the ground. He huddled over his reconstitution pack while Lana practically straddled him. While Liri watched, Lana punched the fuel cell expeller button. The cell flipped out, and she crammed in a new one without missing a beat.

  That fast, she resumed fire to protect Yajak. He finished diddling with his reconstitution pack and jumped back as it expanded into a full-sized steel plate, ten feet by ten feet.

  Now he had to climb onto the Blackout’s hull and plant the anchor magnets against the ship’s destroyed sides. He approached the ship, but when he tried to climb up the side, another bombardment from the Primals shook the ground. The vibration traveled up the hull and knocked him down.

  “Get up,” Liri murmured. “Come on, Yajak. Get up.”

  A blast from a different Primal punched the racer in the tail. Instinct took over, and Liri nailed the throttle to the wall. She shot between the Primals. She might not be able to damage them, but she could distract them from Yajak. That was the best she could do.

  She slalomed between them and drew their fire after her. Three pivoted to follow her. She spun around to face them from the other side. Now they had their tails pointed toward the Blackout—the perfect position for Lana to lay into them with her cannons.

  Lana had started on her third fuel cell by the time Yajak got onto the hull and planted the anchors. He didn’t climb down. He jumped off and activated the magnets on the plate he’d reconstituted. It soared off the ground and slapped onto the hull.

  He scrambled up a lot faster this time, and Liri breathed a sigh of relief when he started welding. He was learning, but Liri had her own problems to deal with.

  She couldn’t damage the Primals, but they could damn well damage her racer. Her buffer guard had dropped to 40%. She had to dodge continually to prevent them from hitting her and weakening the buffer guard any further. Fuel was down to 52%. She wouldn’t be able to fight forever, and neither would Lana.

  The Primals started to turn away, and she couldn’t let that happen. She plunged in, scattering her fire all over them. She aimed for their exhaust vents and their engines. She forced them to turn on her. That was the only way she could get them to leave Lana and Yajak alone.

  She didn’t see what they were doing, but at least one Primal exploded over the Blackout. Was Yajak still working? She took a chance. The next time the Primals rounded on her, she streaked away, with them giving chase. She led them in a back-and-forth weave behind the Blackout and back to her original position.

  They stuttered fire from behind. Buffer Guard: 30% strength. Fuel: 40%. Whatever she was going to do, she’d better do it fast. She didn’t see Yajak anywhere down below, but all the reconstituted plates had been welded to the hull. She just prayed to high heaven he was…somewhere.

  Lana crouched next to her cannons. The Primals carpeted the ground with blasts, but they couldn’t get any nearer to the Blackout without damaging the ship. Lana laid her cannon on the ground and picked up another. She balanced it across her knees. That was the only place she could balance it without standing up and exposing herself to the Primals’ fire.

  With Lana out of range, the Primals turned their guns on Liri. They hurtled away from the Blackout and assaulted the racer with every gun they had. Liri sprinted away, but they played the same trick. Four of them cut in front of her and blocked her from escaping.

  They pounded her with dozens of explosions, no matter how fast she fired. She became acutely aware of the numbers on her console. They kept dropping, with only one end in sight. Buffer Guard: 26% strength. Fuel: 46%. Buffer Guard: 15% strength. Fuel: 33%.

  A wave of sickening inevitability flooded Liri’s insides. She couldn’t fly anywhere with all these ships ringing her with guns. Her hands relaxed on both the helm and the ejection block coupling. Her eyes drifted upward to the cockpit window.

  The Primals dwarfed the racer by a mile. She could see only a small sliver of sky between their gleaming hulls. Their fire glanced off the cockpit window itself. Buffer Guard: 3% strength.

  In front of her eyes, a dark shape hove into view. It blocked out that piece of sky behind the Primals, and then a devastating explosion detonated three ships right in front of her. They burst in clouds of flaming gas and debris. The Blackout wheeled into their place and opened up its bombardment stack on the unsuspecting Primals.

  At the same time, a cannon fired from the ground. The shot slammed into another Primal and woofed up its exhaust vent. The ship erupted in a shockwave that snuffed out the racer’s buffer guard in a heartbeat. Fuel 1%. The racer’s engines coughed and died. The little craft floated to the ground, but no Primals followed. One Primal remained aloft of the original attack force.

  Liri didn’t know whether to laugh or cry in relief. She extended the landing gear and sprang off the flight deck. She leaped for the weapons locker. There wasn’t much in there after Lana got through with it, but Liri didn’t care. She took three large cannons, each one with a single fuel cell. That was it, but none of that mattered now. They had the Blackout. They didn’t need anything more.

  She marched out of the racer and brought the first cannon to her shoulder, but Lana wasn’t there anymore. Of course not. She was the only other pilot qualified to fly the Blackout.

  Instead, Yajak stood in Lana’s place by her stack of weapons. He had her cannon across his shoulder and his cheek sealed to the tube. He whipped sideways and fired on the last Primals, which didn’t know what to target—him or the Blackout.

  Lana peeled the ship in wild circles, bombarding the Primal with unholy fire. Oh, for a fully fueled ship! The Primal’s engines screamed as the ship tried to reverse, but the Hinn’s orders not to damage the Blackout worked against them. They didn’t dare to return Lana’s fire.

  She danced around it, lambasting it from all sides. Most of her shots glanced off the buffer guards, but when it rotated to attack her, Yajak hit it from behind. He didn’t move. He rooted his feet to the ground and sighted down his cannon through slitted eyelids. He gritted his teeth and picked it off with extreme prejudice.

  Liri strode outside and came to a halt in front of the racer. From here, she formed a triangle with the Blackout at one corner and Yajak at the other. The one remaining Primal hovered between them. The sudden turn of the battle flustered the crew, and the ship whirled back and forth in confusion.

  It spun toward the Blackout one more time, and Yajak planted a well-placed blast that whizzed up its exhaust vent. The ship exploded to smithereens, and the last trickles of smoldering wreckage floated to the ground.

  Liri waited for the noise to die. Yajak raised his head, and his eyes widened when he stared at the spot where the Primal used to be. He could hardly believe their strategy had worked.

  Liri had to laugh. She lowered her weapon and strode over to him. “You did it. Good work. I’m proud of you.”

  “I…I didn’t fix the landing gear.”

  “To hell with the landing gear.” Liri marched over to the ship as Lana set it down. “Get your weapons together. We’re getting out of here.”

  “Where are we going?” Yajak started to pick up the remaining guns, and elected to hurry after her instead. “What about…?”

  Liri climbed into the discharge ramp with Yajak right behind her. “Fuel up the Skeeter. You’re about to get your first flying lesson.”

  He stopped in his tracks and his face drained of color. “Fly the Skeeter? You’re messing with me, right?”

  “Nope. I’m fueling up the racer and you’re taking the Skeeter. We’re going to get Jackson and Roy.”

  12

  Blasts and concussions went off all around Jackson’s head. He couldn’t tell where they were coming from. He had no idea who among the New Cooperative army was supposed to belong to his particular battalion.

  Every thought he had about the New Cooperative being an outfit equal to the Zenith Militia went out of his head. As soon as the shooting started, chaos reigned, with every man for himself. The only two people on the whole battlefield he knew he could count on were Quort and Woolzi, but the idea of getting away in the confusion wasn’t looking very promising right now, either.

  That one Radical that brought them to this strange city must have been carrying five battalions or more. Dozens of Radicals had accompanied them to this city, each one carrying just as many troops as this one. All those troops on the ground, with no one in charge. All the soldiers smashed together in a swirling torrent of humanity.

  Their hoods didn’t help distinguish them. Any well-organized army would at least use badges or insignia on the uniforms to show who belonged to which company, but no one had put him in charge—not really. Tollin making him battalion commander was some kind of sick joke. Now Jackson knew that Quort was right. Tollin was trying to kill him and Roy. He wanted to get rid of them.

  The Ehiri disgorged its passengers in a deserted square and Jackson followed the crowd, forging deeper into the city. His one consolation was that, besides Quort and Woolzi, Roy would be the only person on the ground besides himself with his head exposed. That should make him easy to find—or easier to find.

  The mob of New Cooperative soldiers—if Jackson could call them soldiers—twisted and turned through intersections and neighborhoods. They must know where they were going, because the noise of blasts and concussions grew louder every second.

  The civilians must have evacuated or taken cover, because Jackson didn’t see any non-combatants to get in the way. That was a mercy. The army veered into a wide avenue lined with buildings many stories high. The civilians could be hiding anywhere inside them.

  As soon as the army emerged into the open, a squad of racers wheeled overhead, bombarding the buildings with explosions. Debris rained on the fighters below, but as soon as the New Cooperative showed up, the racers turned on them.

  The racers streaked up the avenue, showering the New Cooperative battalions with blasts. Bodies twirled into the air, and the rest of the army panicked. They spun around and tried to battle their way back the way they’d come.

  They scrambled to return to where the Radicals dropped them off, but the personnel behind blocked their path. The two forces struggled against each other, and only succeeded in trapping each other under the racers’ devastating fire.

  “We have to get out of here!” Quort thundered in Jackson’s ear.

  He tried to tow Jackson backward, but Jackson resisted. “Not that way! Come on!”

  He did his best to steer Quort and Woolzi forward. That was the only way free enough to offer an escape, but Quort yanked away from him. “Are you stupid? We’ll run straight into their fire!”

  At that moment, the racers shrieked in for another pass. They pelted the army with dozens of charges. One of the missiles blew a few feet from Jackson’s back. The impact flung him full-tilt into Quort, and all three friends went down under the stampeding army.

  For a second, pounding feet smashed Jackson flat on his stomach. Quort got trapped underneath him and struggled to right himself, but so many New Cooperative personnel ran and scrambled over them that no one could move. Jackson had all he could do to keep hold of his weapon in one arm and cover his head with the other.

  He took advantage of a slight pause in the stampede to roll off Quort. “We have to move. Are you two mobile?”

  Woolzi looked a little battered, but Quort was okay. He twisted onto his hands and knees.

  “Follow me!” Jackson yelled over the noise. “Don’t get lost. Understand? Hold onto me.”

  Quort nodded and took hold of Jackson’s ankle. Jackson turned around and started painstakingly crawling through dead bodies and stampeding feet. He headed straight toward the racers. The panicked army had originally been going that way. There must be something over there, or why would the racers make such an effort to stop the New Cooperative from getting near it?

  More blasts ruptured the pavement, but so many New Cooperative personnel crammed into the avenue dampened the concussions. Quort kept hold of Jackson’s leg. When Jackson looked behind him, he saw Woolzi on their tail.

  Pretty soon, they ventured far enough to the front that they left the racers, the New Cooperative, and the explosions behind them. Jackson didn’t see Roy in all this mayhem—not that he had much chance to look very closely.

  The racers pirouetted and twirled over the New Cooperative, carpeting the avenue with blasts. If the New Cooperative personnel figured out how to disentangle themselves from each other and save their own lives, Jackson didn’t see.

  Beyond the racers, an open stretch of street stretched deeper into the city. The forwardmost New Cooperative people hid the friends for now, but to get out of this mess, Jackson would have to expose himself to the racers’ view.

  Jackson looked in all directions. Buildings on either side hid the rest of the city. Alleys and side streets cut between them, presumably leading to other streets and blocks where the racers weren’t.

  If he ventured out on the avenue, he’d be walking down the open pavement for all the world to see. Keeping hidden sounded like a better idea. He tapped Quort’s hand on his ankle. “This way.”

  Jackson got to his feet in a squat. He hunkered under the arms of soldiers firing up at the racers. He pulled Quort and Woolzi as close to him as he could, and then bolted sideways into an alley.

  One racer saw them and came spinning back. The craft let fly a pulse that burst into a nearby building. Jackson and Quort sprinted through the debris and plunged into the shadows.

  They made it less than fifty yards when a different New Cooperative battalion charged around the nearest corner. Jackson’s heart leaped when he saw the leader bare-headed and running straight for him. “Captain!”

  “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  Roy jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “We almost got caught in that rat’s nest back there. Where are we going?”

  “We can’t go back to the ships. We have to forge deeper into the city and see if we can find a way out.”

  “If we go deeper into the city, we might run into the Community of Hinn,” Quort pointed out.

  “The Community of Hinn!” Roy growled. “I don’t believe they even exist.”

  “Didn’t you say they attacked the southern base?” Jackson asked.

  Roy shrugged. “I mean I don’t think they’re really here. Of course they exist.”

  Quort snorted. “You really know how to use words to best effect, don’t you?”

  “Tollin is trying to get rid of us,” Jackson cut in. “He could have operatives on the ground hunting us down in all this confusion. I wouldn’t be surprised if he concocted this whole invasion just to eliminate us.”

  “So what are we going to do?” Roy asked. “We wouldn’t know an operative from a hole in the ground, with all their faces covered.”

  “If he’s trying to kill us, we can find the Community of Hinn. If we can make them understand that we’re Tollin’s enemies, they might help us.”

  “Many ifs,” Woolzi remarked. “Too many.”

  Jackson grimaced. “Yeah. So let’s hear your plan.”

  Woolzi tittered. “No plan.”

  “Then we’re moving out.” Jackson squinted at the battalion standing behind Roy. “Do you trust these people?”

  “None of them has tried to shoot me in the back yet.”

  “That’s good enough for me. Let’s go.” Jackson turned his back on the New Cooperative people. If they followed Roy this far, they must be more attached to his leadership than they were to the New Cooperative. With luck, they would follow Roy all the way to the other side of the battle lines.

  Jackson retraced his steps. He selected a route running parallel to the avenue where the racers attacked the army. Seven blocks beyond where he left the stampede, he turned back toward the avenue.

  The friends peeked out at the open pavement. All the sounds of battle came from behind. Racers whistled back and forth over the New Cooperative force where Jackson had left them.

  He ducked onto the avenue and slunk forward, keeping close to the buildings. He cast backward glances toward the noise, but no one followed. The racers didn’t see them, and there was nowhere else around.

  The avenue intersected another giant thoroughfare. A landscaped divider bisected two lanes running in both directions. The whole place was utterly deserted, but Jackson didn’t like going out there without some cover.

  He waved Roy to his side. “Does anybody in your company know what Tollin was planning for this strike?”

  Roy motioned one of his people forward. “This is Utis. He was on the Ehiri with us.”

  Jackson wouldn’t have recognized the man if he tripped over him. “Any idea where Tollin planned to locate the Community of Hinn force? Where were the battalions heading when the racers attacked?”

  Utis pointed across the thoroughfare. “The Hinn have a base half a klick to the east. We were supposed to surround the base by stealth and then, at Tollin’s order, break in and wipe out everyone inside.”

  “Brilliant plan,” Woolzi ventured.

  “Too bad the Hinn saw us coming a mile away,” Utis remarked.

  “Maybe all those Radicals landing outside of town gave it away,” Jackson added. “So what kind of defenses are the Hinn supposed to have?”

  “We heard they had ground troops,” Utis replied. “We never heard anything about racers. Tollin made it sound like we’d have no trouble clearing the place of everyone. He made it sound like they didn’t have much in the way of weapons or defenses—not like we have. That’s what he said, anyway.”

  “They had bigger ships than just racers,” Roy chimed in. “They had huge freighters and fighter ships. They brought them to the southern base to lift off the Smiasmiam.”

  “Either the Community of Hinn was hiding its power from you the same way you were hiding yours from them, or else Tollin is a bald-faced liar who doesn’t care about sending his people to their deaths,” Jackson told Utis. “Maybe if you Keterans worked together instead of stabbing each other in the back, you could have driven the Krakzid off your planet by now.”

 

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