“How could I do anything?I’m weak, remember?”
Crack.Crack.Crack.
More screams from above.And running.Don’t forget the running.
“It’s coming down!”someone shouted.
One of the larger branch walkways snapped midway up.The giant limb bent, spilling its occupants into free fall.It dangled for a split second before the last splinters of wood holding it in place gave way.
It fell, crashing into a second branch that immediately collapsed under the immense weight.
Mars and Caius broke off their battle, alerted by the sounds of the massive limbs ripping through the tree’s canopy.
Cleo turned and fled.Mars debated for half a second before following.
Caius whirled, locking eyes with Gus.A dozen calculations happening in a split second as he assessed the path of those limbs and accurately determined that they would fall directly onto the spot where she was standing.
“No,” Gus whispered, desperate to stop the stupid impulse she could see forming.She didn’t need his help.“Run!”
Caius did.
Directly toward her.
This wasn’t supposed to be how it happened.He was supposed to use the distraction to escape.Not barrel toward her in a suicidal charge.
Caius’s powerful legs ate up the ten or so meters between them.
Behind him, Gus caught one last glimpse of Cleo as the other looked back.A strange smile curved Cleo’s lips as she took in the situation.Caius’s charge.Gus’s position on the spine’s edge.And the falling branches.
Cleo’s gaze slid to Gus’s right.
“You lose,” Cleo mouthed, a rare sign of emotion dancing in her eyes.
Gus turned to see what had made Cleo so happy.There, standing on an almost nonexistent ledge midway up the spine, was a man.
A Tuann, Gus saw.
Worse—an oshota.His synth armor marked him as belonging to House Dethos.
That would have been before his House fell from grace.Nowadays, they were considered traitors and outcasts.Word was the Tuann emperor was hunting them and anyone who gave them sanctuary.
Gus processed all that in an instant before focusing on the item he held in his hands.A weapon.No.More like a cannon.The waves of wrongness emanating off it tugging at long, half-forgotten memories that Gus didn’t have time to investigate given where that cannon was pointing.
Right at Caius.
Who even now was so intent on reaching Gus, that he hadn’t realized death was stalking him from across the spine.
Even as Gus opened her mouth to scream a warning, she knew it would be too late.
There was a sharp rapport.The air changed.The light dimming as everything was dyed red for a split second.
Gus didn’t know what compelled her.Instinct.A misguided attempt at heroism.Or maybe it was the knowledge that the energy of the choko tree, Gus’s first friend, resided in Caius.
Whatever it was, it forced her into action.
Instinctively, she sank all her soul’s breath into the ground around her.Every ounce that her body currently possessed.All channeled into the soil and the dormant life waiting there.
She screamed as pain bit into herkipathways, growing abruptly lightheaded at the sudden imbalance.
