I shook my head. I didn’t know. I had seen no ships. It was only the whine of sound and then the heat from the shot. I searched the sky, but could only see the lightning in the clouds. I looked towards Ohem’s crew, Aga was pulling the wounded to the treeline. I was relieved to see Rema limping after him, shouting orders at the soldiers still able to walk on their own. Thunder boomed. It sounded further away. The rain was lessening in intensity, though the wind was still trying its hardest to sweep us off the planet.
I returned my gaze to Ohem’s. “I didn’t see it. Only heard it.”
Ohem bared his teeth at the sky. “We must make it to the trees. They will have a harder time targeting us under the canopy.”
We sprinted towards the tree, but no one shot at us again. A feeling of foreboding settled over me like an ominous cloud. They’d been hell bent on killing us, they had the element of surprise, and we were running. Why stop?
I skidded to a halt just inside the treeline, Ohem stopped with me. Soldiers were still fleeing deeper into the forest, with others holding a line to cover their backs. Aga was with those staying to cover our retreat, holding a rifle in hand and looking mean.
I trotted to him, stopping just beside him. “Where are they coming from?”
Aga cringed while giving me a side eye. “You sound horrible in this form, Rijitera.”
I snarled at him. I wasn’t in the mood for jokes. Someone had ambushed us and sent a damn mutant dog after my mate!
The corner of Aga’s mouth quirked. “It is an Aš. A small, fast craft we fondly call the Insect. They have it cloaked, but I saw the shimmer as it passed by. Don’t worry, Jack. We brought something just for this occasion. Had we not been stopped by the separatist village, they wouldn’t have ambushed us.” Aga raised his weapon’s muzzle to the sky. “That was only a scout. There will be more coming our way soon. We caught him by surprise. I don’t think they expected to find us here. It’s the only reason we are still alive.” Aga jerked his chin in the fleeing soldier’s direction. “They are regrouping further in. Go with them. I will cover your back.”
I nodded and went back to where Ohem was waiting for me. He hadn’t moved to approach Aga with me and had instead watched the sky beyond the trees. I didn’t know if it was just him wanting to make sure we weren’t being followed or that he didn’t want to speak to Aga. Either way, I was over this planet already. The rain slicked down his armor in rivets. When he turned to look at me, his face was cold.
“Aga says to stay with the rest of the crew. He’ll follow us further into the jungle.”
Ohem glanced at Aga before turning his yellow eyes to me. “Very well. Lead the way,ursang.”
I hesitated for a few seconds before turning to jog after the rest of our crew. I wanted to ask him if he was okay, wanted to hug him, but shit kept happening. Up ahead, Rema’s voice was an indistinct murmur giving quiet orders. The sound of weapons slapping against hands and the grunts of the wounded being moved broke the eerie quiet of the jungle.
We got to them quickly. Most of the soldiers were on their feet, looking ready for some payback. They had their rifles in hand, forming a solid line on four sides, with Rema and the wounded in the middle. They parted to let us through, left fist over chest salutes as we passed each row of soldiers. I repeated it back to them, my lips pulled back over my teeth.
Rema’s wings flared out when I got close to him, his eyes meeting mine in a brief shared look of relief that the other was alive. “I am glad to see you both well.” He eyed the shiny parts of Ohem’s armor where it had patched itself after the rhino dog almost eviscerated him. “If a little worse for wear.”
I shrugged. “There was a mutant dog.”
Rema’s eyebrows pinched in confusion. “What is a dog?”
I waved his question away with one clawed hand and then pointed at Ohem’s stomach. “What was it?”
Ohem gripped my finger in his hand and pulled me to him with it. “It was a Khuuks. They are used for tracking. It was set loose to find something, the Aš was following it.” I ran my claws down the sealed tears in his armor, they slashed down his chest to groin. If he’d been wearing his usual gear, it would have spilled his guts all over the grass.
They’d sent their hound to sniff out something, with its handler close behind, and had stumbled onto us by accident. Had they been checking on the settlement? Everyone there was dead.
Or would they have stumbled onto the same horror we had? Too many unanswered questions. We still needed to find the ruins of my people. Obviously, Vero’s people hadn’t left like we thought, and now they knew we were here.
“What now?” I asked, dropping my hand from Ohem’s chest and shifted back to human.
“We take care of the Aš and then continue on our path.”
A muscle twitch in my face. “How do we take care of something we can’t see?” I asked with the infinite patience that I totally had.
Ohem’s Izi flared briefly in what to him was a broad smile. “We use bait.”
When he’d said bait, I thought he’d meant a person, but no. A team of three slunk to the edge of the trees and threw into the clearing a small black ball, about the size of a grapefruit, and then hightailed it back to our position like their asses were on fire. We were maybe two hundred yards from the treeline. Close enough to see our abandoned transport shuttles, two of them were still smoldering, and the black, scarred dirt where the rail gun rounds had killed a few of our people. Rema had explained what the weapon was, and it made sense.
Plasma didn’t have a percussion wave as it didn’t use projectiles, but the rail gun fired metal rods at faster than light speed. It had been a light and fire show I wouldn’t soon forget. Nothing on earth could compare to that kind of raw power. If it had hit me dead on, I would have died. No super healing was going to fix that.
I kept my eye on the ball, waiting for something to happen and when it didn’t become apparent what the hell the thing did, I gave Ohem a questioning glance.
“Just wait,” he murmured to me. I scowled at him, but did what he said. Ten minutes passed with nothing and I worried that whatever plan Ohem had cooked up was a bust, when I heard the telltale hum of the hidden engines from our attacker. I leaned forward on all fours with my ears straining forward, trying to track its approach. It was coming in from the direction it had left, likely having done a large loop. Whatever the ball was that they’d thrown out there, it was drawing it back to us.
“Get ready,” Aga said to all of us.
