The giant was a much more dangerous adversary to the shuttle than I’d given him credit for. Perhaps the pilot had underestimated him too, making the craft a target as he took his time taking aim. The giant ripped a tree from the ground with a roar, bleeding from several wounds and burned in many more places by the laser fire. Hurlingthe unearthed tree through the air, he crashed it into the shuttle, sending it plummeting into the river.
Then the giant dove himself, a rather graceless forward leap into the black water’s surface. I saw him go under, bob back up, and, with a few strokes, propel himself downstream. After that, he did not move again, but the currents had him in their grasp. As the sounds of the fire and the downed shuttles drifted away from us and we headed downstream, I drew in a relieved breath.
“Are you okay, Dani?” I asked. During the battle, the danger, my natural Rummicaron training had asserted itself. I’d grown cold and distant, unable to feel fear or worry. That conditioning had already begun to unravel when Dani lifted her head on my chest and looked at me. She was in shock, with white showing beneath her dark eyes. Her anthracite skin had grown pale, and her dark lips had taken on a purple hue, which I was pretty sure meant she was getting cold.
“He’s really hurt, Jaxin. We’ve got to help him,” she said, because, of course, her first thought would not be of herself but of others. I knew who she meant right away: the giant, slowly drifting on the currents with us. I could not tell whether he’d passed out or if he was simply conserving energy, but even without night vision goggles, I could see that his injuries were severe.
“A little more distance, little one,” I said firmly. I was preserving energy myself by not swimming but drifting on the current. It was more rapid than it appeared on the surface, and we’d already drifted several miles from where the attack had taken place. I couldn’t believe how quickly they’d found us after I’d discovered the security issue.
If it were just Dani and me, I would have kept drifting downstream for many more miles. She was right, though, the giant was in trouble. He’d rolled, and now his face was submerged. That meant he had to be unconscious. I had to drop Dani on a safe spot on the bank and then rescue him. I was pretty sure we owed him our lives, or at the very least, he’d done us a great service by taking out that second shuttle.
“Here,” I said when I spotted a small white beach up ahead, surrounded by many trees with low-hanging branches. They would offer a natural sort of roof over our heads and provide shelter. Shifting Dani against my body, I lifted her to my shoulders so she could hang onto my fin. I did not need to tell her what to do, she instinctively hung on. Then I cut a path through the current to the bank ahead of us.
There wasn’t much time, and the moment we hit the shallows, I pushed Dani to her feet. Then I slung Bex’s strap over my head and shoved the cannon toward the bank with a rough shove. The bag with Dani’s precious samples followed, but since it was lighter, I managed to throw this one onto the beach entirely. “Stay here,” I warned her, and then I dove in after the giant, who’d drifted almost past our spot on the bank. Slicing through the water with a few kicks of my feet was easier on my chest.
When I reached his massive form, I knew I was going to be in trouble hauling it back to the small beach and Dani, against the current. The massive shape was bleeding thick curls of black blood into the water. The blood tasted salty and metallic on my tongue as I swam through it to surface beside the giant’s head. With a shove, he rolled onto his back, able to breathe again—if his lungs weren’t full of water. It was the best I could do for now. Then I curledmy fists into the rope and leather that held his loincloth around his waist and swam with all my might.
Chapter 16
Danitalin
Shaking from the cold, feeling like a drowning Nia, I clambered up the riverbank where Jaxin had left me. It was a struggle to push the massive laser cannon onto the bank, but I did my best to shove it securely ashore. We couldn’t afford to lose our best weapon right after an attack like that. Guilt filled me because my thoughtless search for the Radin giant’s language had caused this. I was certain it was all my fault.
My senses were also reeling from all the violence and pain, but not nearly as much as I would have expected after the recent burnout I’d suffered. On shaking legs, I collapsed beside the cannon in the sand and considered my options. There was no sign of Jaxin or the giant, but I knew he’d gone after the native to rescue him. I hoped fervently that haulingsuch a massive creature from the water wouldn’t be too much for the strained muscles in Jaxin’s chest.
I was soaked to the bone, my hair coming undone from Jaxin’s braid, and I had no supplies. I was armed, though, and burnout or not, I was going to use that damn cannon if anyone showed up. At least now that I was out of the water, I was no longer quite so cold, because the summer heat clung thick and heavy beneath the trees here.
Rising unsteadily, I wrung water from my shirt and pants. My eyesight was well-adapted to the darkness, so I edged my way to the side of the little cove to peer through the trees downstream. Could I see them? Were they coming back? I was certain I saw a shape in the river, but was it the giant? Closing my eyes, I unfurled my empathic gift instead and searched for any hint of emotion.
Jaxin had gone cool and closed off as soon as the fighting started. I worried I wouldn’t feel him even if he were there. The giant was passed out; he might not be feeling anything at all. He could be dead. No, there they were, a flicker across my mind. Pain in my chest, my arms, my abdomen, it ached and burned, but I gritted my teeth through the agony and focused. Now I was certain: they were coming closer; at least, the giant was.
The water splashed as Jaxin pushed the massive, unresponsive form onto the beach. I tried to help by pulling, but it was impossible to be of much aid. He was so big and so very heavy, and even unconscious, that massive black tail with its sharp barb was pretty terrifying. The pain raging through my body was also very distracting, causing me to shake as I pushed through it to help.
In the end, even Jaxin couldn’t do much more than drag him halfway out of the water. That left a pair of legs dangling awkwardly in the current, but enough was beached that he didn’t slip away. I stepped over that scary-looking tail to reach my mercenary. He was still cold, still emotionless, and I clutched at his arm so I could wrap myself in some of that coolness. The pain that wracked the giant’s body made my eyes water, but that was a useless response. I needed Jaxin’s tissue regenerator to help.
“Are you okay?” I asked first, my hands going to his chest to test the strained muscles there with gently probing fingers. His armor hid too much, and the giant’s injuries overwhelmed my gift so completely that I could not pick up on Jaxin’s much more subtle feelings when he was masked like this. “That can’t have been easy.”
“I’m fine,” he said gruffly. Then his hands clasped my shoulders and he pushed me back, tilting me so he could see my face. “You’re hurting. It’s his injuries, isn’t it?” He swore and searched the trees. “How much distance do you need not to feel it?” Now, warm concern washed over me, so clear that it briefly blotted out the pain radiating from the giant behind me.
“Too much,” I told him. “I’ll be okay. Give me your medical supplies.” He handed them over immediately, no questions asked, but I could see, in the angry tilt of his jaw, that he wasn’t pleased. I couldn’t feel that, though, because he’d pulled his walls back up.
“Talk me through one of your exercises while I work on him,” I said, as I quickly checked his supplies before kneeling by the giant to get to work. “Maybe it will help,” I said, though I didn’t think it would. It would give Jaxina purpose, though, and that seemed worthwhile. I liked listening to his deep bass as he described one of the Rummicaron mental exercises he employed to shut down his feelings.
The pain I felt did ebb, but I thought it was the focus, not the exercise. Jaxin secured our perimeter and turned on his portable heater so he could dry my shirt and heat rations for us to eat. I worked on the giant’s many burns and gushing wounds, suturing them shut, healing them with the tissue regenerator, and bandaging those injuries too large to heal in one go. He never stirred, and I did not dare use any of the pain relief from Jaxin’s kit; they hadn’t been tested on one of his kind yet, and it was selfish to try just so that I wouldn’t feel his pain.
It was so dark that even my eyes began to struggle to see by the time Jaxin pulled me away from the giant’s body and forced me to sleep. “Enough. Either he lives or he does not, but you must rest.” He pulled me tightly into his arms, heedless of the rest of my still mostly wet clothes. I did not think I could sleep with my patient so nearby, exhausted or not. Fear also tingled down my spine, warning me that the fight—and the empathic backlash from it—might trigger the nightmares.
Jaxin’s presence was such a cool comfort that I found myself quickly surrendering to sleep anyway. My amazing, secretly sweet, and passionate Rummicaron would protect me. The shield of his cloaked emotions seemed to wrap around me the way he’d wrapped his arms around me. It was enough.
Things were different when I roused several hours later. Light streamed through the canopy of green and golden leaves above my head. My body was warm and relaxed,cradled by blankets and the soft sand of the riverbank. Jaxin sat next to me, his bulky frame solidly between me and the giant. I could admire the darker tip of his back fin from this angle and the way the black armor clung to his back and wide shoulders.
The giant was also awake, and he’d risen to a sitting position across the sand from Jaxin. He no longer immersed my mind in a wave of pain, though he was far from healed. There was a gentle pressure at the back of my mind that allowed me to more objectively analyze what kind of wounds remained: cuts to his legs, more burns on his back I had not been able to reach, but nothing was life-threatening any longer. He had to have a natural ability to heal that was more robust than mine.
“Morning, little one,” Jaxin said, proving he was very much aware of me even though I hadn’t moved yet. He was still a cool spot against my senses, but I felt the mild ache in his chest through it. I should have worked on him with the tissue regenerator last night, but he’d prioritized my sleep.
Reaching out, I pressed my hand to his hip, stroking the hard armor because I just wanted to assure myself that he was well—with more than eyes and empathy. “Morning,” I said. “Is he… are we?” I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to ask. There was no threat coming from the giant, but that didn’t mean we were now friends. Jaxin wasn’t holding the cannon in his arms, but it was right next to him, ready for action at a moment’s notice.
“He’s doing well. I think he tried to tell me his name, but it sounded like grinding rock to me. He’s a chatty fellow, actually, but I’m not sure what he’s trying to say.” Jaxin sounded casual, not in the least concerned,but a lance of worry rushed through me at the comment. I recalled how my exhausted body had seemed to fall under a sort of hypnotic trance during that previous confrontation I’d had with the giant. He had to have some kind of ability with his voice, what if he’d done something to Jaxin?
