Chapter 7: Esthi
My grip on Myria feels like it’s slipping, but I have plenty of my own problems to deal with before I can worry about where she’s gone, if she’s even still out there.
I freeze when Armor tells me to. My gun is on the bank behind him. It’s too far for me to reach. I know it as the wolf growls behind me. It’s fast, but Armor is faster.
Claws scrape on rocks. Armor lugs me behind him with a hand.
I spin around at the sound of a crack and a splash. Carver steps aside as the wolf’s body passes him, drifting downstream under the early morning light.
“We need to move,” Armor says, looking up the mountain. “I hope you two got what you needed.”
I scramble out, sling my bag on my shoulders, and grab my filled waterproof bag and charge harness. “Are you going to...”
Armor grabs me by my soaked Terran armor and slings me into the air. Water drains from my body. Carver catches me as Armor opens his wings and runs toward us. As he collects Carver under the shoulders, I glimpse a hundred or more shadows moving through the trees. The ground falls away from us as Armor soars down the creek toward the desert.
“We’re going to have to be fast, Carver,” Armor says overhead.
Carver tightens his grasp on me as his eyes flash with Armor’s color of code. “I won’t!”
“Won’t what?” I ask. “Speed seems like a good idea right about now!”
Carver glances in my direction but won’t look directly at me. “I won’t drop her or cut her, Armor. My power level is plenty sufficient to maintain my position.”
“Plan,” Armor says. “Speak it so she can hear it.”
“I’m going to tunnel down, under each,” Carver says. “We’ll drop everyone into a tunnel system, then close the tunnel so we’re locked in. We’ll have to get the Brothers as hydrated and charged as we can. Then we’ll haul the others out a passageway into a supply den. Drillbit is sending me navigation maps. It’s not direct, but it’s relatively safe.”
“Relatively?” Armor grumbles as he sinks us lower into the desert.
“Yes.” Carver’s eyes narrow, worrying me that they’re fighting over their telepathic connection. “He says many human females have been collected from the area where the pods landed over the last few weeks. Every escape has needed a new route. Tunnels are full of welvirs, the mutant wolves on this planet. And they didn’t find us because we were too low on power. Drillbit won’t stop apologizing.”
“Who is Drillbit?” I ask.
“Another bore unit like me. I responded to Mother’s beacon, and our pilot, Clover, connected me with Drillbit,” Carver says. “Am I hurting you at all? I am trying very hard to be still.”
I shake my head. “Armor is protecting me.”
Carver meets my eyes. “He is trying to.”
I meant my body armor.
Armor glides us into a rather abrupt landing.
Carver immediately sets my feet on the ground. He lifts his hands in innocence. “Still okay?”
“Yeah.”
He steps back and glances at Armor, who glowers at him. “Jump two seconds after me.”
A dark wave thunders down the mountainside.
“Fuck!” I point at it as Armor snatches me up and holds me protectively close.
“I won’t let them hurt you.” Armor’s arms tighten around me, cradling me like I’m something precious.
Carver dives toward the dirt, spooling up into a mass of rotating blades that bite in and cut a vertical shaft into the desert.
I count.One, one thousand. Two...
