The hot afternoon sun beat down on his head from its high perch in the sky and Ner-don swiped his hand impotently in front of his face, trying to clear the bugs. They had to be the worst thing about this planet, followed by the heat and the thick foliage. He forced his way through said foliage with a growl, the weeds tugging at his boot clasps. How do beings live here? he wondered.
His rifle strap caught on a branch for the third time and Ner-don paused, taking the time to remove it properly. If a Swrun soldier was taught one thing, it was that your rifle was the most important thing you possessed. If a Swrun soldier was found to have neglected his rifle, during peace or war, he would be strung up by his feet and his tusks were sawn off. It was harsh, but it ensured the Swrun soldiers always had a functioning weapon.
An insect bit his neck and Ner-don slapped at it with his meaty hand, missing it. Just my luck, he thought, assigned patrol on a deserted planet while there are hundreds of fresh slaves just waiting for me. His skin pricked at the thought. There was one particular pretty looking Thorathi who he had captured during the first night. He could still remember how she had squirmed. He shivered with the thought.
A branch cracked in front of him and he halted, readying his rifle. “Show yourself,” he ordered. Maybe there was a new slave for him.
The biggest being Ner-don had ever seen stepped out from behind a tree. Dressed in a deep red shirt, brown pants, and a brown coat, with a wide brimmed hat on his head, the being stood a head over Ner-don. “Relax,” said the being, “I’m on your side.”
Ner-don doubted that. Then his mind registered what the being had said. Or rather, how he had said it. The being had spoken in perfect Swrune. Not only that, but he used the Imperial Dialect, only spoke by the Imperial family and those close to them. No Swrun would dare use that Dialect unless they were willing to be cast into the Chasms. But this being was no Swrun.
Ner-don did not know what to do. This being was not Swrun or one of the subject races and therefore an enemy of the Empire, but he spoke perfect Imperial Dialect, which he could have only learned from one of Imperial family. He must have been a trusted ally for them to teach him. His internal conflict settled, Ner-don lowered his rifle. “What is your business here?” he asked the being. “I didn’t see you on the carrier.” Granted, it had been a large carrier, but you got to know those you fought beside.
“I came in another ship, after the attack. As for my business, I’m here for you.” The being stepped closer. There was something odd about him, other than the size, but Ner-don could not place it.
“For me?” he asked in surprise. “What for?”
“Well,” the being said, standing a few feet in front of Ner-don. The oddness screamed at Ner-don but for the life of him, he could not place it. “I’m not actually here for you. I just need that communicator of yours.”
He pointed a long finger at Ner-don’s chest, at the black box on his chest. When the being gestured, Ner-don realized what was so odd about the being. His left hand was metal. Oh, shit, thought Ner-don, looking in horror at Clint Stone, known throughout the Army as a violent rebel with a penchant for leaving dead Swrun in his path. He was so shocked at seeing the Warfist, his rifle hung at his side, barrel pointed uselessly at the ground.
Clint looked down at his hand and grimaced. “I should really get a glove or something. Don’t you agree? Not that it matters.”
He looked up at Ner-don and his face split in a wide smile. It looked like the smile of a greshan shark, full of bony white teeth and pure savagery. The last thing Ner-don saw before the metal fist caved his head in was that smile, flashing in the sun.
Gem ran through the woods where he had once hunted for game, followed closely by a Swrun soldier. He had stumbled upon the soldier, quite literally running into him, when he had been scouting out the slave pen. He cut quickly through the trees, ducking under the branches and dodging the roots. Despite his speed, the Swrun soldier was catching up. Or so the Swrun must have thought.
In reality, this was exactly what Gem had wanted to happen. He slowed down just a little more, allowing the Swrun to get just that much closer. Gem could have run circles around if he had wished, but it was necessary for the Swrun to think Gem was just another survivor, wandering lost after the attack. He had played it off well, bumbling around the woods, making enough noise to wake the dead.
He had run into the Swrun to get his attention, since he had not seemed to notice the rustling branches and crunching leaves. The Swrun had ordered him to stop but Gem just took off. He ran through the woods, breathing easily. He could hear the Swrun’s ragged breathing as he gained on Gem. Seeing a protruding root, Gem stuck his foot under it, falling to the ground. The Swrun crashed into him, driving Gem’s breath from his lungs.
“Got you, you bastard,” croaked the Swrun in between gasping breaths. He secured Gem’s hands behind his back with a pair of quick sealing handcuffs. Pulling Gem roughly to his feet, the Swrun poked his in the side. “You gave me quite a chase, grasshopper. Looks like it’s the slave pits for you.”
Tugging Gem’s arm sharply, the Swrun lead him off in the direction of the troop carrier and the slave pens. They went much slower on the way back than they had going away, so it took a while to reach the carrier. They stepped out of the trees, onto the large clearing that had been, until recently, the spaceport for Byrea. Gem could still see the outline of the trading post where he sold his hunting scores. It was now a burned foundation, on which rested a giant ship.
Towering a hundred feet in the air and over a thousand feet long, the troop carrier was the basic ship for the Swrun armies. With a capacity of over ten thousand soldiers, it was the ideal ship for landing assault troopers or collecting slaves. On Byrea, it was being used for the latter. Gem could see what remained of the inhabitants of Byrea corralled in a plasma fence enclosed area. He prayed his family was among them.
Juiwa had said that his village had looked undisturbed, that it was more likely the Swrun had just rounded them up and taken them to the pens. It was the villages closer to the carrier that had been destroyed, the villagers killed. Or worse. Gem had heard the stories of what some of the Swrun soldiers did to the female slaves they captured. Gem prayed with all of his might to all of the gods above that his daughter was safe.
He was dragged by the Swrun that had captured him to the crude gate set in the plasma fence protecting the carrier. A single guard strode in front of them, holding up a hand. “State your business.”
“What do you think my business is?” said the Swrun that had captured Gem. “I’ve got a slave here.”
“Then take him to the pens. No slaves in the common. For any reason.” The Swrun seemed to frown. It was a gruesome sight. “The commander has forbidden any more visits to the slaves. Says they lessen the value.” The guard spit, making his opinion on the subject clear. But he would not disobey. The three principles of the Swrun army were discipline, skill, and ruthlessness. Of those, discipline was the most important. Any soldier who disobeyed was executed on the spot.
The Swrun that had captured Gem turned without a word and dragged him to a much smaller gate set in the separate plasma fence that made up the slave pen. There were no guards at this gate, just a large barred barrier, charged with plasma. A single touch would incinerate the body part unfortunate enough to make contact. It made an effective guard by itself.
The Swrun pushed a button set several feet from the gate and the plasma cut off. He raised his rifle and barked at the captives moving toward the gate. “If any of you take one more step, I’m blowing your brains all over your friends.”
They backed off. The Swrun shoved Gem toward the gate. Opening the gate, he pushed Gem inside. “Enjoy your stay,” the Swrun said with a grin. “I don’t expect it to be long.”
The gate glowed with plasma as the Swrun reenergized it and walked away. Gem turned to the other captives. He did not recognize any of them, but there were a good six thousand in here. There was hardly any room to move, everyone pressed shoulder to shoulder. But there was a good eight feet between the fences and the huddled masses. Gem did not blame them.
The rest of the beings stared at Gem as he pushed through them, shouting his wife’s name. His eyes darted in every direction, searching on all sides. Despite his vision being a full circle around his head, he could not see any trace of his family. He prayed they were still alive. He would find the kids with his wife and he would get them out. That was his goal right now. He had been sent to get out as many as possible, but if he had to make a choice, he would get his family out first. He knew he shouldn’t think like that, but he did not care.
The mass of beings was almost too much to fight through, but Gem forced his way through anyway, driven by fear. He pushed through from one side of the pen to the opposite, then back in a different direction. He saw no sign of them. His heart sank, but he still searched for them. By the minute, his heart grew heavier and he knew he would never find them. They were dead and he would never see them again. Then a wonderful sound met his ears.
“Gem?”
His rear eyes focused onto the being who had spoken. He spun around and saw his wife, Kiere, standing there, his daughter and son by her side. He rushed to them and gathered them in his arms, tears streaming down his face. His children leapt into his arms, hugging him tight. No matter what he had done in the past, he was their father and they had missed him. His wife was much colder, still angry with him for his lies. But she was in the middle of a slave pen, to be shipped out across the galaxy to gods knew where, and someone she had thought long gone had returned. She stepped into his hug, returning it. Weakly at first, then with greater strength.
They stayed like that for a long time, a small island of happiness in a sea of misery. The world they knew was gone, taken by the Swrun, but they had found each other. He stepped back eventually and looked them over for any injuries. A few scrapes and bruises, but nothing serious. Kiere looked him in the eyes.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her face full of disbelief. “I thought you had left Byrea.”
Gem nodded. “I did. Then I joined the Rebellion, got promoted to unit captain, then I heard about the Swrun invading Byrea. I had to save you, so here I am.”
Kiere looked like she had a great deal to say to him. But she said, “How do you plan on getting us out of here, then? The fence will fry you if you get to close and there is an army out there.”
Gem held up his arm, showing her the white suit he was wearing. “With this and a little help from my friends.”
The suit was made of a truly wondrous substance that could stop plasma fire. Clint had tried to explain what it was made of, but Gem understood very little of it. What he did know was that when Clint had emptied a pistol into it, the suit had not been damaged. Clint said it redirected the energy through a series of miniscule tubes to all around the body, turning what would have been a fatal burst of energy and heat into a slight warming sensation. He had warned that too much plasma would overload the suit and cook the wearer alive, but it took a lot of energy to do that.
When Gem had first told them his plan, it had involved several of them sneaking in to disable the fence then get everyone out. When Clint had shown them the Plasma Suits, Gem had realized there was a better plan.
Gem had planned to use it to short circuit the plasma fence, allowing it to be climbed, but now that he knew the gate was unguarded, he would just open the gate. The Swrun had not secured it, trusting in the threat of incineration to deter escape attempts. It would have worked too, if not for Clint Stone and his creative mind. Gem had seen several more things Clint had been building and, while he did not understand what most of them did, they all looked like they could do some serious damage to the Swrun.
The rest would provide a distraction, drawing out the soldiers while Gem lead the captives onto the carrier or out into the woods, whichever was the safest bet. It was likely to be the woods, because with a thousand soldiers, some of them would stay back to protect the carrier. After the captives had fled into the woods, the soldiers would follow them, hopefully in small enough groups for the Hunters to dispatch them. It would be a long, bloody affair, but it was really the only option when six faced a thousand.
Now they just had to wait for the distraction.
Juiwa rested on the slight rise above the carrier, watching the Swrun camp. They looked like insects from here, scurrying here and there. He watched as Gem was taken to the main camp, where they paused for a moment at the gate, then headed for the slave pen. Juiwa had followed them since Gem had been captured, watching to make sure Gem was not harmed.
The Swrun soldier had been oblivious to his presence, but most beings would have been. Juiwa was a master of silent movement. Before he was Juiwa, they had called him Wraith because he moved quieter than a ghost. Fire burned, meat tasted good, and Juiwa was silent. He watched as Gem merged with the mass of captives, then he lost him.
It did not matter. Gem had gotten in and Juiwa was needed elsewhere. He pushed himself up from his prone position, heading in the direction of Susan. As he moved around the camp, he saw a large group of Swrun soldiers gather their weapons and march off into the woods. There were perhaps two hundred of them, a good fifth of the Swrun forces. Clint’s part of the plan was in effect. Clint had provided an addition to Gem’s plan, one that involved a lot of dead Swrun.
He would draw out a large number of soldiers by killing a scout and taking his communicator, then pretending to be that scout having found a large group of survivors with weapons. He had mentioned something to Gem about caves but Juiwa did not know what he meant by that. But Clint had said he was going to take care of the soldiers. Juiwa assumed that meant he was going to kill them all. He did not know how, but the human had sounded confident that he could do it.
Juiwa did not worry himself with the details. He was to watch Gem until he had been taken to the slave pen, then return to Susan. He had watched Gem and so he returned to the ship.
The sun was setting quickly as the Hunters got into position around the Swrun camp. Duanrel clutched the large rifle in his hands and shifted his shoulders, trying to adjust the suit he was wearing under his clothes. It was a strange feeling suit, light in weight but heavy to the touch. He couldn’t think of any other way to describe it. It was not thick or stiff, but it was heavy when it rested on his skin as if it pushed against the surface.
He shrugged again, and rested his rifle on the branch in front of him. Training it on the gate leading to the camp, he marveled at the spirit of these Rebels. Which he was now one of. He had to remind himself of that fact. Until recently, he had been a member of the Yetur Militia in the Yetur system. It had been disbanded when the Swrun took over and most of the members had joined the Rebels.
Here he was, with five other beings, who were supposedly some of the deadliest in the galaxy. He could believe it about the human and the jahen. He had seen them fight Kra-ort and the human was the single most skilled fighter Duanrel had ever seen. He would be a terror on the battlefield. And with that arm of his, he would be nearly unstoppable. The jahen was something he had never seen before.
A jahen was inherently selfish and cowardly. There were a few exceptions, there were exceptions to everything, but you could always count on a jahen to do everything he can for himself. For one to join the Rebellion was a very selfless act and the fact that he could fight was even stranger. Jahen did not fight, ever. Not because of any beliefs they held, but because of their aversion to physical harm. But Duanrel did not dwell on it.
He had a job to do. As soon as he saw the signal, he was to open fire on any Swrun he could see. He set his sights on the gate and waited. The signal would be coming soon. About an hour ago, there had been the distant noise of plasma fire as Clint finished off the two hundred Swrun soldiers he had lead away. Duanrel did not know how he had managed to do it. He fully intended to ask the man after this was over, assuming they were both still alive. Six against a thousand was very long odds.
Daek was standing in the middle of the road leading right to the gate in the fence. He fingered the weapon in his hands. It was a large tube of metal, longer than his rifle by a foot. It had a grip and a large red colored trigger on the grip. It was the largest missile launcher he had ever handled and he was eager for the chance.
“Are you sure you can do this?” asked the jahen at his side.
“Are you kidding me? I’m looking forward to it,” replied Daek with a grin. This was going to be amazing. The best part about being a sniper, he thought, is getting your target before they even know you exist. With this thing, he would be able to get a large amount of Swrun with a single shot.
“Alright, fire,” said Tedix. Daek did so gladly, aiming the end of the tube at the gate. A plume of smoke and flame erupted from the back of the launcher and the missile streaked toward the gate. It struck the gate full on, obliterating it in a flash of light and scorching heat. He could see the smoke rising from the breach and several burned bodies on the edge of the impact site. Those who had been in the middle had likely been blown into little pieces.
He grinned and snatched up his sniper rifle from the ground. He ran off into the hills, searching for good cover. It was time to take out some Swrun.
I stood in the middle of the road, next to Daek. In the distance, I could see the gate the Swrun had erected in the middle of their plasma fence. We were going to blow it up. That would draw the remaining Swrun soldiers to the gate and out into easy range of our weapons. The Swrun had thought themselves clever when they put up that plasma fence to ward off threats. What they had done was to build a trap for themselves.
With only one way in or out, they could only respond to a threat after they had exited their camp. They could not fire through the fence links because they were plasma charged and would just absorb the energy from their weapons. So we were going to attack their gate, forcing them to respond. They would come pouring out of the camp but they would be hindered by the small gateway, with only enough room for three or four at a time. We could pick them off with ease as they tried to force their way out of the camp.
For that purpose, I had taken the minigun Clint had built from our secret arsenal. With nine barrels and a whole lot of juice for plasma shots, this thing would take out a great deal of Swrun before it was empty. Forced into the narrow bottleneck of the gate, they would have nowhere to go when I opened fire.
“Are you sure you can do this?” I asked Daek, who was holding the missile launcher we were going to use to blow up the gate. He grinned. “Are you kidding me? I’m looking forward to it.”
I readied the minigun, hoisting it up to waist height. “Alright, fire,” I said.
He did so, the missile arcing from the end of the metal tube. The gate disappeared behind flame and smoke. When it was visible again, the gate was gone, leaving a twisted, charred outline. Several dead Swrun were visible by the burned ground on the edge of the explosion. Daek grabbed his sniper rifle and headed off into the woods. From there he would pick off as many of the Swrun as possible.
My heart beat raced as I waited for the first Swrun to appear in the gap. I could hear the blood roaring in my ears. There’s one. I depressed the trigger on the handle and a line of plasma flew from the end of my gun, punching through the Swrun’s body. Several more Swrun appeared with their guns ready, but I dropped them as well. The feeling of power in my hands was intoxicating.
I could see Swrun trying to fire through the fence at me, but the plasma charged links absorbed their shots, leaving me untouched. I laughed at their attempts to harm me. I let several soldiers exit the camp, allowing them to build up a nice group. They fired at me, but most of them missed or were deflected by my suit. I unleashed death upon them once again, filling them with the fire from my weapon.
Still the Swrun forced their way through the gap in the fence, trying to get a shot at me, the one who had killed so many of their brethren. Let them try, I thought, sending several more Swrun to the void. The fire left the end of my barrels in an arc as I swept the gun back and forth, creating a zone of death. There was a flicker of movement to my right and I snapped my head towards it. In the trees was a Swrun scout, leveling his rifle at me. He must have been out on patrol when we attacked.
No matter. He fired at me, striking me in the chest. My suit deflected the heat across my body and I was unharmed. Before the Swrun could register that I was still alive, I turned the minigun on him, shredding several trees and his body. I scanned the trees, searching for more, but I did not see any.
A plasma shot passed inches in front of my face and I remembered the hundreds of Swrun trying to get out of the camp. I swung the gun back towards the gap and cut through a dozen more Swrun. You would think they would stop sending soldiers, I thought. But they didn’t. A pile formed at the gap, several feet high. More soldiers climbed out of the gap and I pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened. Shit. The gun was out of energy. I dropped it and sprinted to the side of the road as the soldiers, expecting to be struck down with endless fire, realized they weren’t going to be killed and charged me, guns blazing. Several shots passed dangerously close to my head as I ducked into the trees and ran.
Gem heard a massive BOOM and saw a burst of flame coming from the gate to the soldier’s camp. Tedix must have started his part of the distraction. Time to get to work. He had spent the last few hours informing the prisoners what was going to be happening in the evening. He told them there was a plan to get them out, but only if they acted calmly and rationally. Gem didn’t expect them to, but he tried anyway.
He stepped up the gate and threw his suit over several of the bars. He had removed it earlier when Kiere pointed out the fence had a lot more energy than a rifle and if it didn’t work he would be fried. That was part of the reason he had married her. She was very clever, always noticing things that he didn’t. So he had pulled his suit off, put his clothes back on, and threw the suit across the gate.
Hopefully this would work. The gate was on a separate circuit than the fence, it had to be for the gate to be able to be shut off and on. Gem hoped that meant it had less power than the fence. The suit touched the gate with a blinding flash of light. When Gem could see again, he saw the suit burned and blackened on the ground and the gate hanging dull and powerless. He touched it hesitantly, checking to make sure it was as dead as it looked. It was. He pushed it open and led his family through. He pulled them to the side as the rest of the six thousand prisoners pushed their way past.
Now I just have to get either on the carrier or back to Susan. No problem.
Daek watched as Gem short circuited the gate and rushed his family out of the pens, followed closely by the rest of the captives. He did not see any Swrun near the pens, so he turned back to the camp, where there were Swrun. Many dead or dying.
He watched, transfixed, as the jahen fired that ridiculously big gun, cutting down Swrun by the dozens. It was breathtaking to watch. Daek had never seen such devastation. That human really knew his way around a weapon. The rate at which it fired and the intensity of the shots was much farther ahead of anything Daek had seen. The jahen seemed to be laughing. He was clearly mad. But it was the madness of battle and Daek knew about that. The sense of absolute power, when you held your opponent’ life in your hands and you delivered judgment with finality.
Swrun rushed out of the gap and Swrun died. There weren’t even any for Daek to kill, they died so fast. Daek did not know why they kept coming, even though they saw their comrades dying by the score. Then the scorching rain of fire ended and Daek knew why. They had hoped to use up the charge in the gun, depleting it and allowing the rest of their army to spill out from the breach. And with eight hundred soldier, they certainly had the men to spare.
Daek estimated the number of dead. Well, he thought, maybe around five hundred now. Still plenty enough left to finish off Daek and the rest. He lifted his rifle and shot a Swrun clean through the heart, dropping him. Tedix had retreated into the trees and he was relying on the rest of them to distract the Swrun long enough to get away. Or far enough away to safely fire on the Swrun at least.
The whole point of this attack was to enrage the Swrun enough to draw them out from their camp so he and Duanrel could sneak in and secure the carrier long enough for Gem to lead the captives on board. So far, it seemed t be working very well. As Daek watched, the Swrun poured from the ruins of the gate like ants from an upturned anthill. It looked like all of the Swrun had left, except a skeleton crew of twenty sentries. Perfect.
Daek signaled to Duanrel and they descended on the camp.
Juiwa ran alongside the jahen as they raced ahead of the large horde of angry Swrun, plasma bolts flying around them.
“I think we pissed them off!” shouted the jahen.
Juiwa did not respond. He rarely did to anyone. There was rarely any reason to. They kept running from the Swrun, ducking under branches and dodging roots. A though occurred to Juiwa, a thought worth saying.
“Where are we running to?” he asked the jahen. They seemed to be running in a generally straight direction, but it was not in the direction of anything Juiwa knew. It was not back to the ship or to Gem’s village. If he remembered correctly from the fly over, there was a group of mountains in the direction they were running but nothing else.
“We’re going to where Clint is. Hopefully he’s got a surprise ready for the Swrun.” Hopefully? They were running into a place where they did not know if there would be help or not? This jahen clearly put a lot of faith in the human, enough to not seem troubled by the fact that they were running from hundreds of Swrun who were trying their hardest to kill them.
The trees started to thin and Juiwa looked worriedly around as they ran. Less trees would mean less cover, less cover meant that the soldiers’ aim would improve. Before them the ground dropped away into a vast fen. Perfectly flat ground. Fire burned, meat tasted good, and flat ground was very bad for running from beings shooting at you. But Tedix kept going and Juiwa kept going. They jumped over the drop onto the fens and Tedix stopped suddenly, pulling himself against the edge of the drop.
He grabbed Juiwa when he did not stop. He pushed him against the earthen bank. Tedix shouted back to the Swrun. “Okay, we give up. You win.”
“Come out with your hands up,” barked the Swrun commander, who seemed a little short of breath. Juiwa turned to Tedix. This was important enough to speak. “There is no way they are going to let us live.”
The jahen shrugged. “I know.”
Juiwa stared at him with his jaw hanging open. Tedix noticed and said, “As long as they don’t kill us before Clint gets here, we’ll be fine. We just have to distract them long enough.”
He stood, pushing off the bank and looked up into the gun barrels of the Swrun standing above them. Juiwa sighed and did the same, his hands held high, resigned to his fate. Tedix put far too much faith in the human. Besides, what could a single being do against five hundred Swrun?
The commander spoke. “You gave us quite a chase. Now tell me truthfully and I will let you die quickly. Where is the rest of your army?”
Tedix laughed. “There is no one else. It was just me and him. I killed all of those soldiers.”
The commander chuckled. It was not a pleasant sound. “That is even more ridiculous than the tales of giant lizards in this planet. Tell me what I want to know or I will empty your skull of its brains.”
He held his pistol level with Tedix’s head. “I am going to kill you. Perhaps your friend will be more cooperative.”
Tedix grinned. “It’s too late for that.”
“What?” grunted the commander.
An ear-splitting roar shattered the air, followed by several more. The Swrun soldiers spun their heads around, searching for the source of the sound. Tedix’s grin broke into an open smile. “He’s here,” he said, looking the left of the commander.
Juiwa looked as well and what he saw would remain burned into his mind for the rest of his days. Clint Stone was there, riding an enormous beast, thirty feet long and ten feet high. Scaled from head to tail, the four legged beast possessed huge hooked claws on its massive feet and teeth longer than his forearm burst from its wide mouth. Smoke curled from its nostrils and Juiwa was not convinced he was not looking at a demon from the deepest circles of hell.
Clint struck the beast on the side and it jumped forward, crashing into the back ranks of the Swrun. The sheer weight of it crushed several soldiers. The rest opened fire on the beast, but it did nothing to the thick scales that surrounded the beast’s flesh. Tedix laughed and the commander managed to tear his eyes away from the giant monster decimating his ranks and looked at Tedix. Juiwa did as well.
“Do you believe me now?” asked Tedix. The commander stared blankly at him and Tedix’s hand shot forward, grabbing the pistol held limply in the commander’s hand. He turned it around and fired, hitting the commander in the chest. The commander’s face lost all emotion and he collapsed face first down the drop into the fens, hitting the ground with a squelch. Tedix stood over his body.
“If you say you are going to kill someone, do it. If you don’t, their friend might just show up riding a dragon and save them.”
Juiwa turned back to the beast and Clint, who were in the middle of massacring the Swrun, and stared. This was the beast that Gem had named the Dragon after, the ship that the War Hunters used on their missions. Tedix stepped up next to him and pushed a rifle into his hands.
“Don’t just stand there, we have Swrun to kill!” he said, before clambering up the earthen bank and diving into the mass of panicking Swrun. Juiwa looked at the rifle, at Clint Stone riding a dragon, and at the Swrun. He climbed up the slope and dived in after Tedix.
I stood in the middle of the bodies of the Swrun. Clint and his Loardphuzi had made short work of them. Juiwa and I had accounted for a few, me more so than him. I think he was still in awe of the giant lizard that had just shown up and killed a few hundred Swrun. I have to admit, if I had not seen a Loardphuzi before, I probably would have had the same reaction.
The Swrun never had and it only took a few hundred dead before they broke ranks and scattered to the far corners of the world. Clint stood by his Loardphuzi, patting the beast on the neck. I wandered over.
“I wouldn’t come any closer if I was you,” said Clint. I stopped dead in my tracks. He climbed off the Loardphuzi, swinging his leg over the side and sliding down the scaled side. He held tightly to the chain wrapped around the lizard’s neck and in its mouth. He stepped in front of the beast and stared into its eyes. The Loardphuzi blinked and turned its head downward.
“Good boy,” said Clint. He flicked his wrist, releasing the chain as it unraveled from the dragon’s neck. “Get out of here, you magnificent bastard.”
The Loardphuzi did so, bounding off to the mountains in the distance. Juiwa stared in awe, at Clint or the Loardphuzi, I couldn’t really tell. Walking over to Clint, I asked, “How did you do that?”
Clint shook his head, as if pulling himself out of a dream. “The Loardphuzi, if you get passed the claws and scales and carnivorous nature, are not too different from an animal on Earth, called a horse. Humans used to ride them all the time. All you have to do is show them who’s boss.”
I didn’t think I would be able to show a Loardphuzi who was boss even if I was high out of my mind on Flow. I shook my head. Every time I thought I understood Clint Stone, I learned something new.
“We should get back to Gem and the others. They’ll probably be needing our help,” I said. Clint nodded his agreement and we left, heading back to the carrier.
Gem sat at the base of the ramp leading into the troop carrier. The plan had gone exactly how he had hoped. The Swrun had been drawn out of the camp in large enough numbers to allow Duanrel and Daek to finish off the remainder of the Swrun and secure the carrier. It had been a simple task to lead the captives into the carrier and away from the Swrun. Not that there were many left.
Clint Stone and Tedix Jaku had seen to that. One had killed them with a giant gun and the other had killed them with a giant lizard. He still didn’t believe it. Clint Stone had captured a Loardphuzi, reined it, and ridden it. He had seen Clint climb inside of one, but that had been to kill it, a much easier task than taming it.
Gem did not think on it too much. He had better things to think on, like his wife and his children, safe and well. He was no longer reviled by those he had once called neighbors. No, now they were calling him rescuer and liberator. But he found he did not really care, all that mattered was that his family no longer looked at him with shame. Now, they looked at him with pride. He watched as the last of Byrea’s population climbed aboard the troop carrier.
They would be taken to Aldemere, where they would be fed and clothed and they would either join the Rebellion as soldiers or as those who did not fight but were just as vital to the war effort. The cooks and the cleaners, the tailors and the builders, the workers and the farmers. Kiere walked down the ramp and sat next to him.
She rested her head on his shoulder and he reached up and rested his hand on hers. Yes, Gem thought, life was looking up.