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“Holyfuck!”Fiercebreathed, his eyes going wide. “Whatthe—”
“Go!Run!”Celiagrabbed his muscular arm and tugged on it urgently.
Shedidn’t have to urge him again.Fiercegrabbed her by the hand and practically dragged her back to the sky-lifter whereHoldwas standing, holding both ropes and watching for them anxiously.
“They’reright above us,” he informed them asFierceandCeliajumped back onto the narrow blank. “Here,Brother—take a rope.They’regoing to be on us at any minute!”
Ashe spoke, they began lowering the sky-lifter down as fast as they could.Celialooked upwards and saw that many more sky-lifters, all filled with goat-men guards, were also descending.However, once they came level withSecondBranch, things started to happen.
Theholy spiders had reached the edge of the branch and, seeing sky-lifters filled with males—apparently decided to attack.Theyskittered forward, flinging themselves onto the goat-men, chittering and hissing angrily as they clamped their jaws and sank their claws into anything they could find—which happened to be the goat-men guards.
Manyof the guards appeared to be taken completely by surprise.Severalof them let go of one or both of the ropes of their sky-lifters, and subsequently went crashing to the forest floor below.Theones that did manage to keep hold of their ropes were also now fighting off the enormous spiders.Therewas screaming and shouting andCeliaheard theMistressofSilkscrying,
“Oh, my babies!No, don’t hurt my babies!”
Andthen they were past the chaos and finally touching down on the forest floor.
Theleaves around them were littered with bodies of goat men and some of the spiders too, which started to run at them.Fierceshot the two huge arachnids and they died, hissing and curling in on themselves.
“Thisway!” he shouted. “Theship’s not far from here!”
Andthen the three of them were running as fast as they could, finally getting away from theMotherTree.
45
CELIA
“Hurry—there’s still a few of them behind us,”Holdpanted, as the three of them piled into the long range shuttle andFierceslid into the pilot’s chair.
“It’sokay—they’ve only got short range ships here.Probablywhy those two fuckers were planning on stealing ours,” theDarkTwingrowled as he cycled quickly through the pre-flight sequence. “Theycan’t get us as long as we reach the wormhole before they do.”
“Thewormhole?”Celiagasped, pausing for a moment in the act of buckling her harness. “Surelywe’re not going inthereagain!”
“Yougot a better way to get home, sweetheart?”Fiercegrowled, grabbing the steering yoke and yanking upwards. “Maybeyou’ve got a fucking dimensional portal hidden in your pocket?Oh, wait—Iforgot—that dress doesn’thavepockets.”
“Stopbeing a sarcastic shithead and listen to me!”Celiainsisted. “Thatthing isn’t safe you bigpendejo!”
“Itonly destabilizes once every two hours, on the even hours”Fiercegrowled. “Ilearned all about it from working with the guys in theRepairShop.”
“Everytwo hoursonthe hour,Brother.”Holdpointed to the chronometer on the instrument panel. “We’veonly got five minutes until two in the morning.Doyou think we can make it?”
Atthat moment, the ship was rocked so violently thatCeliathought they must have hit something.Shewas glad she’d gotten her harness buckled, because otherwise she would have been thrown out of her seat and directly into the viewscreen!
“Ithink wehaveto make it,”Fiercesaid grimly. “They’refiring on us.Everybodyhang the fuck on—I’mtaking evasive maneuvers!”
Heyanked on the steering yoke, swerving hard to the left, then dipping down, then shooting straight up into space in a move so extremeCeliawas pinned to her seat by the force of gravity.Shefelt like she had left her stomach behind her somewhere, back onJoCostaTwelvebut she couldn’t complain—couldn’t do anything but stare in horror as the numbers on the chronometer registered that they were only two minutes away from twoAMwhen the wormhole would destabilize again.
Abruptly, the ship leveled out.
“ThinkIlost them,”Fiercegrowled, glaring at the instruments.
“Noyou haven’t,Brother.”Holdpointed at the rearview of the viewscreen. “Therethey are—right behind us.”
“Fuck!Holdon—I’mpunching it!” theDarkTwinsnapped.
Theship shot forward, pinningCeliato her seat again.Ahead, looming in the viewscreen, she could see the whirling colors of the wormhole shining like a beacon in the blackness of space.
“Dios!”she gasped. “Howdid we get to it so fast when it took us half an hour to get from the wormhole to the planet last time?”
