Jindigar sent another trooper spinning and waded toward them. "She's not hurt!"
"That's not the point!" Cy complained. "You should have let me take his head off."
Krinata pointed and screamed, "Duck!"
Another scooter whizzed overhead. Cy came up on one knee, shooting from the hip into the underside. Sparks flew, and a loud explosion flattened them again. The concussion unseated a couple of other troopers, who were summarily dealt with by other defenders, and suddenly there were a lot of abandoned scooters floating around. Krinata knew the best strategy was to outflank and attack from behind.
She beckoned. "Come on!" She grabbed a scooter, swung aboard, and fumbled at the controls. She'd never been on a military unit before. After several harrowing mistakes she found that the controls were backwards.
After that, it was a short hop to the top of the cliff. She angled north across the tall grass to the fortress, sparing only one quick glance back. An indigo flood, carrying a host of other species, rose over the cliff edge behind her. Hell of a way to surrender, isn't it?
Streaking low, hoping none of the big guns would fire at them, she aimed for the fortress's scooter-launching platform. A swarm of half-armored troopers—all species– emerged onto the platform, took positions, and fired at them with small arms, mostly stun-pistols.
She flew straight into it, unable to remember how to turn. A shot singed her hair. Another glanced off the scooter's armor. Then one direct hit showered sparks in her face. She yawed and crashed onto the platform, skidded sideways, and smashed the bottom of her scooter into the hatch at the rear of the platform. The heavy machine blocked the hatch, while it pinned her left leg to the deck. Behind her, the other scooters came in, landing with more elegance. Most riderless scooters circled under control of the docking programmer. But the Dushau transferred from one scooter to another in midair, sending their abandoned machines in to crash on the platform, turning it into a smoking inferno, driving the Imperials back through other hatches.
Krinata put her hands over her head. She was trapped, about to die, and it had all been for nothing. She had totally surrendered to her fate, when suddenly she heard, "Jindigar, give me a hand!" It was Cy, heaving at the dead machine pinning her. Indigo hands joined his, and human ones.
"Jindigar! Storm! Viradel!" She pulled her leg free, amazed she could still feel it. Cy pulled her up. She leaned on him, squinting through the smoke, coughing. "Where's the Oliat?"
Jindigar gathered her in, and she felt the duad link clenched down tight, so she could barely feel it. "They've taken losses. We must secure the platform to give them time to recover from the shock."
"Jindigar, you should stay and help them." She grunted as she helped Cy heave the dead scooter away from the hatch.
"No," he said woodenly, dragging at the massive machine.
She froze at a horrible thought. "Darllanyu?" She had to peel him away from the stubborn lump of metal and shake him. "Darllanyu? Is she all right?'
"I don't know! I must not go to them now, Krinata, and neither may you!" He yanked free and applied himself to the job. With Cy and Storm they moved it enough to get by. Krinata grabbed a fully charged beamer from a Cassrian trooper. People gathered to follow them, but Jindigar nudged Cy and Storm back. "The Oliat needs you."
Cy glanced at Krinata as she struggled to fit her hand into the grip of the Cassrian's beamer. He said, "Storm, I'll stay with the duad; your group take the rest of the Oliat." Then he forged ahead into the open hatch, beckoning, "Come on before we lose the advantage of surprise."
Krinata pushed ahead, ignoring the sharp yanks of pain that laced her body. Her concentration narrowed to exclude fear, but her heart was pumping hard. She glanced back and thought she saw Shorwh behind them. No! He's just a child!
But there was no time. She traded the Cassrian beamer to a Cassrian who could use it, in return for a burner designed for human hands. It could cut through the bulkheads of this fortress if it had to.
They jogged along a corridor to an intersection, rounded the corner, and found a waist-high barricade across the bottom half of the next corridor. Behind that, a line of Imperials stood, weapons aimed point-blank.
When they whirled to look behind, a vacuum bulkhead slammed across the intersection. Retreat was cut off. Along the corridor, status panels blinked alarm/alert. A silence fell as the two groups confronted each other.
Krinata handed her burner to Jindigar and strolled out into the space between them, arms out from her sides, a smile on her face. "I surrender!"
At the center of the line of troopers facing them, a Cassrian, grotesque in scintillating Imperial armor, but wearing Commander's insignia, snapped in a trained voice, "Who are you?"
"Myself," snapped Krinata.
The Commander warned, "Insolence will—"
Jindigar handed away the weapons and drifted out behind her. She didn't turn.
Distracted, the Commander started again, in a more reedy voice, Cassrian outrage growing, "What kind of people are you to bring a child into this?"
"What?" Krinata turned to follow his gaze. Shorwh eased out of the group. His field clothes were torn and dirty, and he limped on his right leg, but he held himself proudly.
"They didn't bring me," he announced. "I came because I must protect my siblings—I'm all they have."
Krinata could never have read Cassrian emotions through the shrouding armor, but she guessed that the Commander's parental instincts had engaged. Shorwh had claimed a sacred privilege. If his brothers lived, he wouldn't be killed.
The Commander of the fortress signaled, and the barricade clanged into the floor. The troops moved up to cut the three off from the group surging forward to help the Dushau. The Commander aimed his beamer at them and announced, "The battle is over. The settlement has surrendered." He ordered his men to put the prisoners in detention. "And get identity checks on them all. We can be off this planet by nightfall."
He turned and stomped away. Krinata stared after them.
They were herded through a cargo bay hatch, beyond which was a long chamber of empty cargo racks shrouded in red shadows under battle lighting. Dushau would be almost blind here. The hatch slammed ringingly.
Krinata saw cargotainers labeled as field rations for various metabolisms. While people sagged to the deck, weakened by the backwash of adrenalin, Jindigar only leaned weakly against a bulkhead. He was shaking, the duad linkage all but imperceptible.
Suddenly he grabbed at a protruding handle and pulled. What came sliding out of a recess looked like an oversize cargo come-along. Jindigar brandished it like a weapon. Then he grabbed it with both hands as he let himself down to sit on the deck, back propped against a bulkhead. "When—"
His stricture on the duad slipped, and Krinata felt the dizzying whirlwind of images flickering through his mind. Alarmed, she knelt. "Jindigar!"
He laid the come-along across his knees and cradled her neck with his broad hands, capturing her eyes. "Yes. Anchor for me. It can't be more than two Renewals!"
From over her shoulder, Threntisn's voice boomed, "What can't be?"
Jindigar looked up at him, blind in the low lighting. "A fortress—just like this one. Don't worry, Krinata can anchor me," And his face went slack.
The duad linkage flowed with scattered images. "Can you?" asked Threntisn.
"I—" The images were claiming all her attention, "I don't know." On the periphery of awareness, she sensed a knot of pain, five bright hot spots of ongoing loss.