He nodded and approached Dawn, who lowered her body so he could climb on her. She knew our plan and was okay withit.
“Ronnie, shoot from your triage center but don’t get into the thick of it. We need you to patch us back up in the slim chance that we survivethis.”
She sat on the empty green patient cot she’d set up and loaded a magazine into her semiautomatic. “You got it. I’m ready to stich your ass up, so don’tdie.”
“Where do you want me?” I’d forgotten Damien was here until his deep buttery voice spoke besideme.
I glanced over at the perfect specimen that was Damien Striker. “At least twenty feet behind me. I’m going to let one ghoul through the front line so you can test your cuff, and then you’re going to run into the forest and meet up with theothers.”
The ghouls were about fifty feet from Maxine and Brisk. I needed to advance the linenow.
Damien stepped in front of me. “I’m sorry if this sounds sexist, but there’s no way in hell I’m letting you take the front linealone.”
With that comment, he pivoted and started jogging at the oncoming horde of flesh-eating aliens. I looked at Ronnie with my mouth open, and she just shrugged. Damien Striker was the stupidest client I’d ever had. His survival instinct was obviously broken. My feet pounded the ground as I caught up tohim.
“Each time there are more and more coming after me. Do you think they have some type of future sight? That on some level they feel I’m a threat to their entire race?” Damienasked.
His question was something our scientists had pondered, and the theory madesense.
“Maybe, but it doesn’t change the situation right now,” I screamed over the sound of pounding feet. The grunts floated but the sentries stomped and zoomed. It was terrifying. I pulled a sticky bomb from my waist belt and chucked it. It would kick up the dust and create at least a small bit ofcover.
The bomb hit the ground and went off with a loud bang. Bits of rock flew out, one slapping me in the leg. It wasn’t hard enough to cut my suit, but it would leave amark.
I held the line, trying to remind myself that I was the only thing between them and Ronnie. Hopefully if shit went south, she would just run, but I knew shewouldn’t.
My eyes flicked up to the sky where Maxine and Brisk sat aloft Dawn and her blue friend, and the ghouls reached them in that moment. Maybe the Galadrias could use their taloned feet to pick them up in the air and toss them or something useful. Maxine and Brisk opened fire with the phaser weapon, its red arc lasering through the front line of grunts. It slowed their march, but not by much. Some were leaking through, so Damien took to one knee and started popping off shots while I did thesame.
How long can we keep thisup?
“As long as we have to,” Master Aki wouldsay.
I was just about to throw another sticky bomb when Dawn swooped down so fast, Brisk barely had time to hold on. I saw him flail in surprise and then bring his hands down quickly to grab her fur. Then her mouth opened. I thought she was going to chomp down on the ghouls’ heads, instead a white-blue flame shot out of her mouth and the ghouls below caught fire, as if they were made of combustiblefluid.
Holyshit.
Damien and I looked at each other, eyes wide, before I turned back to the few burningghouls
‘You can breathe fire?’I sent Dawn a mental message.‘Why didn’t you tell me that before!’ I all but screamed into herhead.
Now Maxine’s Galadria was swooping over the crowd of ghouls, and sure enough, whitish blue fire shot from his mouth and ignited severalgrunts.
‘Galadrias were great warriors once. Stopped fire when fighting ceased. Fire is bad. Hurts people, destroysplanet.’
The ghouls were holding back their front line, afraid to approach all at once. The fire had given them pause, and I couldn’t help the grin that curled my lips.‘No, Dawn, fire good. Very good. Fire helphumans.’
This entire time, the Galadrias were like freaking fire-breathing dragons and I neverknew?
“I take it back. I love those things,” Damienexclaimed.
I rolled my eyes. “Galadrias, notthings.”
“Whatever. I love them,” he stated, making me grinagain.
We had two fuzzy, fire-breathing seal dragons on our side. Our luck waschanging.
The sound of footsteps behind us had both Damien and me pivoting, my gun at the ready to shoot down whoever it was. When I saw it was Josephine and Mr. Hansen running at us, I relaxed a little. Their guns were loose at their sides with laser scopes tracing patterns on the floor. “Sorry, kiddo, but we couldn’t leave you.” Josephine toldDamien.
His eyes grew misty. “Jeremy? Thegirls?”
