She might still die but hope had sprung anew, and Tara was galvanized by it. She ran, her arms and legs moving in tandem and her dirty hair flying out behind her. The smoke made breathing difficult. She spotted a small child sitting on a broken pile of rubble, and she ran for the boy, his coughs telling her just how dire his predicament was. She snatched him up into her arms and raced away from the building he had been atop just as it crumbled and fell away into its own basement.
The boy let out a high thin scream and she wanted to comfort him, but she knew that was hardly possible right then. She spotted a small column of people fleeing from the epicenter of the destruction and headed for them.
She called out, “Wait! Wait! I need anyone able to help me get those who aren’t out!”
A man, tall but thin, stepped forward. His hand rested on the head of a small girl. He said, “I can help. Is that your boy?”
Tara set the boy down. He immediately collapsed into a screaming and shaking heap. Several women ran forward to take him. Tara shook her head, “No, I found him. I don’t know where his parents are, but there are a lot of people who are wounded and who need to be moved. We also need to get these kids to safety.”
She was joined by a half-dozen. Many refused, determined to get themselves as far from the battle as possible; they were not willing to risk going back to the war zone. Tara did not blame them for that; she did not want to do it either, but she had to.
Somebody had to do it.
She and the others who had volunteered began trying to find the ones who were still alive and might make it. The hospital had been reduced to smoking rubble and ash and the scent of burned bodies and the soot hung thick around where it had stood. Tara did not even bother going there; she already knew that nobody could have survived that bombing.
Instead, they began in the buildings that had taken the outer rings of the blast fields, and they found many wounded and some who were just dazed and too scared to move. It was slow going, and her eyes kept going to the skies to see the rebel ships led by Talon and his crew beating the Fed ships back.
She could not tell who was winning on the ground. The dead lay everywhere and the two sides had given up on any kind of dividing line between themselves and were now embroiled in a brutal combat that raged for miles in either direction.
She could not let her mind wander to Blade. If she did, she would lose all hope. She had to believe he was all right and that he was not hurt or dead and so she just plowed onward, dragging the wounded to the tops of the hills and then into the valleys just beyond where the bombing had not yet hit, and there was a long river that could give them water. Those who were able there began to try to help save the wounded using whatever they had on hand.
A small ship set down, and to her relief, she saw the bay door swing open to reveal rebels, Jenny and Marik among them.
She called out, “Healers have come! Help them any way you can!”
Then she went back up the hill and down it again, back into the battlefield, trying to find those who needed the most help and those who could walk.
Her body was exhausted. The terrible sights all around her were too much for her mind to take and so it shut down, encasing her in numbness. She could think only of the task she had been set and that she had to accomplish it or go mad, and she knew that.
She found a wounded rebel, his leg broken and a bloody wound in his side. She helped him, walking him up the hill while he leaned against her heavily, and then she laid him down below a stunted tree before moving on from him and on to the next person who needed her assistance.
It went on that way for what felt like an eternity. She walked so much her legs became stiff and sore. Her body was covered with blood not her own. Her hair, stiffened by smoke and ash and blood and dirt, tangled around her hair. Thirst came, but she didn’t stop to drink until she absolutely had to and she could not go on without a precious swallow or two of water.
Night came. The Fed ship in the air began to retreat, and the ground troops fell until their number was so small that those left surrendered just before dawn. The rebel ships landed in groups as their captains took to the ground for fuel and rest.
The wind had picked up again, and the entire city smoldered. The flames had been mostly quenched, but the fires still burned below the rubble and Tara, completely wiped out, stood on the hill, looking down with tears rolling silently down her face.
A hand fell on her shoulder. Jenny spoke softly. “You need sleep.”
Tara’s hands came up and yanked at the stiff and stinking mass of her hair. “I know.”
Jenny stepped up beside her. Like Tara, she was dirty and tired, her clothes ripped here and there where she had yanked strips of it away to make bandages. “You will be no good to anyone if you don’t rest. Come on.”
“I’m…” She could not say the rest of it. She didn’t have to either because just then, Jenny said, “Hoping to see Blade. I know. I hope to see him too, but for now, you have to be strong enough to care for yourself.”
Jenny’s strong but gentle hands turned her away from the sight of the ruined city. Tara staggered along beside her, her eyes so gritty with fatigue that she could barely see.
Someone had had the foresight to collect barrels of water from the river, and she went to one, dipping a large pitcher’s worth out so she could wash.
Jenny said, “Here, let me help you.”
They moved to a spot where hasty shelters had been made of whatever could be found. Tara got the clothes she wore off and managed to scrub away most of the filth. Jenny helped her to clean her hair. Tara had no hairbrush, so she made due with just running her fingers through the fiery tresses before sinking down on a small section of grass and staring at Jenny.
She said, “I don’t know what to do now.”
Jenny said, “Sleep. Eat. Here, I have some rations.”
She turned away and came back a few minutes later holding a protein and nutrient rich bar. Tara tore into it, but now that she was still, now that she was no longer able to focus her mind solely on helping to save as many as possible, all she could think of was Blade.
