A brilliant energy‑weapon discharge, as blue as heart‑blood, lanced the air nearby, betraying the location of at least one of the intruders. Acting on instinct, Shran dived to the icy ground to lower his profile as a target, seeking cover even as he reached into his heavy jacket in search of his sidearm.
Two more blasts sliced the chill air, filling it with the tang of ozone as he realized that he was unarmed. He felt utterly naked. This is thelast time I follow rules written by pacifists,he thought with a pungent curse, not wishing to dwell on what usually happened to pacifists whenever they encountered unscrupulous aggressors.
Jhamel!
“Shran!”She was crying out in panic inside his mind.
He rose to a crouch, searching for the shelthrethparty, but without any immediate success thanks to the confusion all around him. He struggled to ignore the collective terror that filled his mind, as well as the numerous inadvertent jostles and kicks that the fleeing crowd was inflicting on him.
Shran was soon relieved to find Jhamel not far from where she had originally stood, despite the sea of swiftly moving, agitated bodies that prevented him from reaching her quickly. Jhamel clung to the hands of two of her bondmates, Shenar and Vishri, both of whom seemed utterly paralyzed with terror. Shran noted that Theras had apparently vanished, and wondered if he had simply fled the side of his shelthrethpartners. Lissan had remained beside them, standing proudly, apparently trying to quell her people’s fears and direct an orderly exit of the cavern.
Before Shran could make his way through the panicked crowd toward Jhamel, a blast caught Lissan squarely in the chest, causing her to crumple to the ice like a rag doll. A hulking, rifle‑wielding form, bundled tightly in thermal gear, abruptly came into view and tossed a small metallic object onto Lissan’s insensate form.
She abruptly disappeared in a shower of ruddy sparkles.
The combined flashes of weapons and other transporter beams soon raised the light level across the cavern enough to enable Shran to see the partially exposed faces of the nearest attackers quite clearly. He recognized their distinctive jade‑green skin immediately.
There could be no mistaking their identity.
Orion slavers.
It was impossible at the moment to tell exactly how many intruders had entered the cavern, and Shran knew that discovering that bit of data was of overwhelming importance. But he also knew that obtaining a usable weapon was at least as vital at the moment.
More beams flashed in rapid succession. More Aenar bodies went down, then vanished in columns of light. Shran moved quickly, counting the assailants, calculating angles of fire and approach. There are eight of them,he thought as he circled behind one of the intruders, careful to crouch below a row of hoarfrosted stalagmites as he moved. No, nine.
Fighting off a feeling of vertiginous nausea brought on by his injured antenna, Shran leaped at his selected target, a ponderous giant who stood more than a head higher than the tallest Andorian soldier he had seen in all his time among the battle‑toughened troops of the Imperial Guard. He slammed hard into the alien’s thickly muscled back, wrapping his arms around his neck before the other man could react.
I suppose they weren’t expecting a welcome like this from a bunch of pacifists,Shran thought, grinning savagely. His slightly asymmetrical antennae lashed back and forth like angry serpents as he applied every iota of his strength to the task of squeezing the burly slaver’s throat.
But the Orion was hugely strong, his broad back and neck reminding Shran of ancient Andoria’s powerful cavalry mounts. While still holding his rifle by the strap, the Orion was trying to grab Shran’s arms, obviously in an attempt to throw the Andorian over his head. Shran knew that if his opponent managed that, the fight would be settled immediately in the Orion’s favor by the greenskin’s rifle.
Absurdly, Shran thought of something the Terran pinkskin Jonathan Archer had said to him once during an unguarded moment in the captain’s personal mess: “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, Shran,” Archer had said while scratching the neck of his peculiar Earth pet. “It’s the size of the fight in the dog.”
The Orion turned in a circle, roaring like a wounded beast. Shran hung on, screaming out in a ululating Andorian battle cry. His nails sank into green flesh like pitons being driven hard into the unyielding ice of the northern wastes. Over the Orion’s shoulder he caught a brief glimpse of Jhamel, her face frozen in a rictus of horror as people fell to the slavers and continued to vanish all around her.
Shran tightened his grip, screamed another battle cry, and lowered his face to the Orion’s jugular. He sank his teeth into the sweaty, verdant flesh with a predator’s ferocity. Hot, dark ichor splattered him in steaming fire‑hose pulses. The Orion crashed to his knees, pulling Shran down just as energy beams lanced over both of their heads.
Then Shran was standing over the giant’s already cooling corpse, rifle in hand, steam from the slaver’s bloodied, slain form rising all around him. Ushaan‑Tor combat without the blades,he thought with grim humor.
Shran’s military training took over, and he found cover quickly, ducking behind an icy pillar. He began firing, guided to his targets by their muzzle flashes. Four Orions fell in fairly short order, and the remaining slavers seemed to be increasingly confused and panicked. Shran wasn’t certain just how many Aenar the slavers had succeeded in beaming away, but he could see that many had made it to the exits, thanks to his efforts.
Was Jhamel among them?
But there was nothing he could do to answer that question at the moment. All he could do was continue moving to new cover, finding his targets, and firing. Zhavey‑ less bastards!he thought as yet another slaver’s body crashed hard onto the ice before sledding roughly down a frost‑slicked incline and into one of the cavern walls.
Shran was beginning to notice that his targets were growing as scarce as the Aenar, almost all of whom had by now either fled or been captured. He caught another glimpse of Jhamel, who had bravely stayed behind, apparently intent on helping every last Aenar get to safety. Beside her was Theras, who evidently hadn’t fled or been captured after all.
Shran grinned and resumed his continuous search for new targets, trying to cover Jhamel’s efforts. Maybe I’ll drive them all off before they can do any more–
Something abruptly slammed into Shran then, spinning him as though he were a small moon that had been dealt a glancing blow by a passing asteroid. His feet slipped out from under him, in spite of the heavy, studded treads built into his cold‑weather boots. The entire left side of his body was suddenly numb and paralyzed, which prevented him from stopping himself as he slid down a slope on the icy cavern floor.
Must have been hit,he thought, feeling woozy as his slide continued unchecked. More energy discharges stitched the ice all around him, filling the air with superheated steam and the tortured creaks of breaking ice and grinding stone. He was keenly aware that hewas now a target, no doubt of the highest priority.
The maw of a large, dark crevasse–perhaps opened up only moments earlier by the firefight’s relentless volleys, maybe even by one of Shran’s own blasts–yawned hungrily before him. He flailed with his good right arm to arrest his tumbling, sliding descent, but succeeded only in entangling himself awkwardly in the strap of the Orion rifle he’d been holding when he’d fallen.
The accelerating sensation of sliding abruptly ceased, replaced by the gut‑churningly familiar vertigo that accompanied orbital freefall in ships not equipped with artificial gravity. His nervous system charged with survival‑instinct panic, Shran realized that he was falling feet‑first into the crevasse, tumbling toward the fathomless, unilluminated spaces below.
His right arm lashed upward as he dropped, and the sensation of weight returned with a suddenness that slammed his jaw shut and probably loosened a few of his teeth. He looked up and saw in the gloom surrounding him that his rifle strap had snagged on a stony, ice‑covered outcropping. Awkwardly restricted to the use of his right arm and leg, he gripped the strap hard and struggled to pull himself back up over the crumbling lip of the crevasse.