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I offered her my hand.
She stared at it a moment before taking it.
“Fine,” she said. “But we’re going to need a good engineer to beat them.”
“I’ll keep my eye out for one,” I said.
We shared a smile.
“Without defeating the Changelings, me and Chax aren’t going anywhere.”
Aren’t going anywhere.
“Oh, shit!” I said.
“What?”
“I need to make sure Chax gets out alive,” I said. “He’s still trapped in his cell!”
“You don’t have enough time,” Stari said.
“I have to try.”
“No, you don’t,” Stari said. “In the event of a self-destruct sequence being initiated, the cells are automatically unlocked. He’ll be out in the base somewhere. You’ll never find him.”
Logic held little weight in a panicked mind and I was going haywire.
The thought of never seeing him again, or his gorgeous dimples and wavy hair…
I turned to run.
“Seize her,” Stari said.
The soldiers moved quickly. They restrained my arms and dragged me away. I struggled but it was no use. The metal box tumbled from my hands. Stari scooped it up.
“Chax is going to have to rely on himself,” Stari said. “Sacrificing your life will not save his. Trust me, if he loves you enough, he’ll find you.”
She turned and jogged into the thick dust cloud. The soldiers surrounded me on every side. They stood so close, I kept catching their feet and almost fell flat on my face.
The shuttlecraft faded in and out of the mist, like ghouls in a child’s fairy story. Stari raised her hand to slide across their underbelly as we passed underneath, saying goodbye to her friends.
We weren’t the only ones running toward the exit. Other Yayora figures faded in and out of existence on either side of us. They all appeared to know where they were going.
Would Chax think to follow the crowd? Yes. He wasn’t an idiot. Stari was right. He would find his way out of there.
He had to.
I couldn’t face living without him again.
Ziiiiiiip!
Bolts of plasma flashed through the mist like multi-colored strobes of light at a rave. Two struck the soldiers on either side of me. I dropped to the floor and wrapped my hands over my head.
The others immediately dropped to their knees and opened fire. We couldn’t see who was firing at us, but we could see where the beams of light originated from.
I heard one scream, then a second, and a third… But each was matched with one of our soldiers falling to enemy fire.
There were too many enemies, too much firepower for us to mount an effective defense.
