Shadowkill

##

Ginny shifted his arm, read his wristchron. “One hour,” he said aloud, enjoying the sound of the words. “In one hour the EYES will reach the kephalos and trigger the self-destruct. There will not be a microbe left alive.” He entered a code into the pad, got to his feet. “In Mimishay or in that swarm of landers.”

Tsipor was crouched against the back wall of the dome, brooding. Her eyes flickered as she saw him stand. She followed him out, bent to the nearest of the miniskips, straightened it up, and straddled the saddle.

Ginny laughed aloud. “No no, Tsipor, you will not need that. Ah. Yes. Mertoyl is admirably prompt.”

The small spherical lander came arcing down, hovered a hand-width above the ground, the lock irising open.

Unhurried despite the Capture Lander breaking from the melee over the Compound and racing toward them and a second ship, a skimmer, dropping down at them, Ginny stepped into the lock, passed through it into the small compact cabin. Tsipor came diving after him, gasping in her urgency. Before she had time to settle herself, the lander sealed up and darted away, fire from the chasing ship splashing after it-too late, much too late as Ginny’s transport came rushing down in a halo of overheated air, sucked the Lander into itself and went racing off, flaring from the atmosphere, heading for Teegah’s Limit and the Insplit.

Shadith/Rohant

Shadith groaned and sat up, brushing fragments of sodden grass from her nose and mouth, pushing soaked hair from her eyes. “Ro?”

Rohant lay beside her; he was still out, but beginning to twitch. There was an odd little creature rather like a miniature Kikun crouching in his dreadlocks, holding onto the hair with tiny six-fingered hands. It was eeping pitifully, blinking bright black eyes at her, shivering with terror but unwilling or unable to run.

A cutter beam came slicing past them, took the top off the tree behind them:

“Tsoukbaraim!” Shadith threw herself onto hands and knees, grabbed at Rohant’s tunic, and tried to haul him farther into the trees, away from the attack zone.

He was too heavy, she couldn’t budge him.

A missile exploded fifty meters off, sprayed them with earth and half-molten stone. The noise punched at her, the pressure slammed her onto her back, her mouth popping open. Steam from the rain drifted around her, the heat from it reddened her skin, burned her nose and throat.

The Dyslaeror snorted, then groaned, lifted his head and sneezed. “Sar! What…”

Shadith scrambled back to him, pinched his earlobe hard. “Move, we’re in the middle of a war.”

A section of the Compound shuddered then fell in on itself, the debris melting into stone liquefied by the heat seeping through from that seething boiling ring outside the shield.

Rohant got unsteadily to his feet. “My head…”

Shadith caught hold of his arm. “Move it, Ro. Lean on me. Come on.”

A lander turned too late, exploded; the pieces pattered down among the trees, starting small fires that died when sap gushed forth from the injured branches and cup-shaped leaves flipped over, dumping the rain they’d collected.

They staggered through the tree clumps and brush thickets until they reached the stream. The water was hot, steaming, but they got across at the cost of some minor burns and sank onto the relatively cool earth on the far side.