She matched the others’ silence as she wound through the complex, the rumbling ground the only sound beside the occasional flicker of torch fire. After seeing the outer wall yesterday, it was a miracle the outpost still held. It was hard to imagine how long the Varg had been fighting. No wonder the outpost’s halls seemed to demand the solemn quiet.
Rounding a bend in the corridor, Tayel picked up the murmur of conversation from the only room at the far end.
Worry edged into her mind. “Are we too late?”
Locke shook his head. “No. They have been meeting for some time already, and will likely continue after we leave. You have been granted an audience, not a full tactical overview.”
The crowd of armored Varg turned to observe their entrance. Tayel lowered her head under their stern gazes.
“These are the outworlders who desire to fight alongside our war pack?” one said.
“Come now, human,” said another, “you promised help — not pups.”
The pack barked in unison, their chests rising and falling with laughter.
“Make room,” a voice boomed from the concealed side of the war table.
The barking dissipated, replaced by claws scraping along the stone ground as the Varg reorganized themselves to make space. A Varg two heads higher than the rest stood at the table, his two pointed ears each bigger than Tayel’s hands. His blue eyes narrowed as she fell into step beside Shy and took her place at the table. The Varg towered all around her, and she lost sight of the edge of the room.
“It is difficult, understanding you outworlders,” the blue-eyed Varg said. “Children should not be in war.”
Tayel didn’t often feel like a child, but in a room full of imposing warriors twice the height of any Varg she’d seen so far, she started to. Even Shy shifted slightly beside her, her head craned upward to match their assessor’s stare.
“They are already in war,” Locke said. “Disallowing their assistance will not change that.”
“But will they be worth the inclusion?” another Varg asked.
“You’ve taken worse bets than on a group of so-called children who have fought off a Rokkir firsthand.”
“That would not be so impressive,” said another warrior, “if our true enemy did not cower behind your father’s lackeys.”
Locke leaned forward, his grin splitting ear to ear. “And so you have to imagine how very threatened a Rokkir would have to be, to come out of hiding and hunt down a handful of children.”
A murmur of growls echoed off the walls, and Tayel thought involuntarily of Ruxbane. She couldn’t have been a threat to him. She couldn’t have been a threat to any Rokkir. She was just some refugee from a ravaged planet.
“Enough,” blue-eyes barked. “I agreed to these outworlders’ presence. We will not waste more time snapping at their heels. Our walls crumble around us.” After the dawning silence, he said, “I am Balcruf. Long have I been charged with protecting Kalanie Outpost, but as we approach what I fear is extinction, my duty is now to all the people of Modnik. I welcome you here to review our war plan, outworlders, but you will find your own place before I allow you to join it.”
Tayel broke his gaze to look over the map in the center of the table. Archaic paper — not even a flexi-screen. A drawing of an enormous city — much larger than what she’d seen of Kalanie Outpost from the sky — took up a majority of the parchment. A foreign word labelled an ink smear on the side of circular city walls, but she suspected its meaning. The smear rested halfway between the inner city and outer wall — undoubtedly meant to denote the Delta shuttle crash Locke had confirmed the night before. She took a steadying breath.
“We’ve known for moons the only way to stop this siege is to deal with the mothership above Cryzoar,” Balcruf said. “It sends countless dispatches of ships and raiders, and those Varg who are abducted in battle are taken there. To date, none of our weapons dent it. Nothing gets through even their shields. Even our magis — or aetherions, as you outworlders call them — can’t harm the vessel. Additionally, while we do not have skycraft of our own, a pack tried to board the ship using Locke’s raider vessel, but the mothership’s anti-air assault proved too powerful to contend with.”
Shy crossed her arms, one idea obviously out the window.
“Their technology is too advanced,” Balcruf continued. “It is impenetrable from the outside, therefore our one hope is to destroy it from the inside.”
He reached over the table to gesture at an inked-in path within the city walls.
“Our final plan to halt the enemy’s siege comes in two parts. First, a small team will attempt to enter the Rokkir ship through one of their patrol skycraft that fly through the city, abducting our fallen kin from battlefields. Two of our youngest warriors will be decoys for the ship to chase after.”
“Your youngest,” Shy said.
“These ships are able to incapacitate small groups from the air with a toxic smokescreen. Our two warriors must be those we can fight on without afterward.”
Tayel’s stomach twisted in sync with Shy’s scowl.
“Do not apply your morals to strategy, kin of Locke. It will lose you every fight.” Balcruf placed his paw on the map. “When the patrol lands to extract the pair, we must wait for the gas to clear. Then we will attack them from on high, retrieve our kin, and steal their vessel. It is a great risk. If we cannot kill their men before they extract our warriors and leave…”
“You’d put your people in harm’s way like that?” Locke asked. “I have no qualms using young ones, clearly, but at the risk of not retrieving them?”
“It is a necessity. An ivory rabbit does not take the scented bait. You can see why I’m wary of children acting as soldiers. My pack is at risk here, too.”
A hush fell over the room. Even Balcruf seemed to absorb the weight of what he’d said, his ears turning backward and his teeth showing in a silent, pained snarl. Tayel hugged her arms to her chest. It was too easy to see how much these people had lost just by observing their downcast stares. She wanted to slap herself for the comment she’d made the night before — that Delta had been as unlucky as Modnik. She’d lost just short of everything, but these people had nothing left. No safety. No moments of peace. Just siege after siege.
Jace rapped his talons together. “You mentioned the smokescreen was toxic?”
“A tranquilizing concoction with traces of nitrous oxide, isoflurane, and halothane,” Locke said. “It renders individuals who inhale it unconscious for — so far as my patient research shows — a full two hours. Minimum.”
“That doesn’t sound like a lot of time. How dangerous is it really?” Fehn asked.
“I think several hundred thousand abducted Varg would argue very dangerous.”
Fehn winced.
“Since learning the effects of the haze, our people take masks from fallen enemies. Locke modifies them to fit our snouts, and warriors wear them here at Kalanie when battling along the wall,” Balcruf said.
“Couldn’t you take those masks to prevent the risk of the gas not clearing in time?” Tayel asked.
“No. We have too few as it is. We will be leaving what masks we have to the patrols here, so they can continue to protect the outpost when we war packs have gone. If Kalanie falls in our absence, there is no shelter for any Varg from the siege. Our civilization will be lost.”
“It’s not possible to modify more?” Shy asked.
“Unfortunately, not in time,” Locke said. “It takes hours to make the necessary modifications — at least safely. Hours and materials, of course, of which we’re running precious short.”