As Tavin leapt on to Whufflya’s back he was aware of the organised mayhem as the last of the supplies were dragged under the foliage and saw Max feverishly kicking leaves around in an attempt to hide the fact that they had ever been here at all.
Max turned and waved.
* * * * *
With Jvldr, Slei and Rsya running wide patrol, Thalia and her Vadryz, with Jim and Artem, set out to follow the tracks that led away from the remnants of the fire.
Simultaneously, Josei and Larya received a communication from Vandiel via Zandya.
: Fourth Vadryz also found traces of strangers as have the Third :
Thalia and Artem were riding side by side at point.
“So the strangers have been exploring to the northwest too,” Artem commented, ducking his head as they went through some low-lying foliage.
“The evidence seems to indicate that their base must be situated northeast somewhere,” mused Thalia.
That appeared to be Vandiel’s thought too.
They had hardly moved forward twenty lind-lengths before another communication came through. This time it wasn’t information but orders.
They were to turn north and rendezvous with the Third Vadryz. The Fourth Vadryz had been given the same order and would move south to meet up with them.
: Pick up the pace : ordered Larya and the Lind changed gait into the ground devouring lope for which they were famous.
They had been travelling for three bells when three gigantic explosions made the humans cover their ears and the Lind cower on the ground, their paws over their ears in a vain attempt to block out the noise.
The shock waves made the tops of the foliage lean almost parallel to the ground.
“What was that?’ mouthed Thalia to Artem.
Then the dust started to fall, mixed in with charred foliage splinters and pebbles. The pebbles were getting bigger.
* * * * *
Chapter 6
Jeopardy
“Wings of the Lai! What’s happening?” screamed Christel as she and Samei launched their bodies on to the ground.
From a similarly prone position beside Larya, Artem shouted orders, both telepathic and audible.
: It appears that we are slap bang in the middle of a war! : “Keep your heads down everyone.”
He thought for a moment.
: Larya, tell everylind to stay down and find whatever cover they can :
: I already have : she replied.
The debris continued to fall. Every single one of the Second Vadryz and Artem and Larya’s group made their bodies as flat and as small as they could. They covered their ears with hands or paws.
: Make sure everyone lies still : Artem ‘sent’ to Larya. He knew she had probably done it already but it was better to be safe than sorry.
: Message from Josei :
: Tell me :
: He confirms that we must remain as unmoving as we can. He says Thalia has kept on at him about the sensors. Belu told her all about them when she asked. A space ship can ‘scan’ the ground on the planet seeking out creatures. They appear as lots of red dots on their screens. I have passed this on to everylind :
Thalia was trying to keep herself from screaming by trying to think of pleasant thoughts. It was Josei’s idea and it was working, but only up to a point.
: I think I’ve wet my pants : she ‘sent’ to Josei in embarrassment.
: You won’t be the only one : Josei comforted : I am scared too. Remember what Weaponsmaster Alkin told us during our cadetship? :
Thalia didn’t and Josei made haste to remember for her. He had a phenomenal memory.
: He told us that when he was a young man facing the mountain brigands for the first time he wet his pants because he was so scared. It is nothing to be ashamed of :
: But I’ve been in fights before : Thalia protested.
: They were not the same as this. What was that? :
Not only dust and leafy debris was falling.
: It’s flaming pieces of metal! :
: What is it? Where’s it coming from? :
Josei was beginning to panic and jerked his head back as a white hot shard hit the ground right in front of his nose.
The comments from the Lind to their respective humans and visa versa were coming fast and furious.
: It is fiery rain! :
: It is burning my hair! :
: I will protect you! :
: Vadeln - lean into me :
Thalia was not the only vadeln who tried to protect her life-partner by covering whatever parts she could reach. The campaign uniform, being made of leather and which almost completely covered the rider’s skin was proving fairly effective at keeping the hot pieces off. The leather armour of the Lind did not cover their entire bodies.
: It can only be one thing : Josei pre-empted Thalia’s question : It must be pieces of a space ship :
: The Aikko? :
: I do not know : was Josei’s sobering reply.
It was a terrifying thought. If the Aikko had been destroyed, how were they going to get off the planet?
Artem glanced over to where Thalia was lying.
She was kneeling, hunched beside Josei’s withers and her eyes were screwed shut. If the situation hadn’t been so dire he would have made a comment about her almost comical face.
Make it stop, Thalia was thinking. Please make it stop.
Josei, picking up on her anguish pressed his body closer into hers. He felt her trembling but the shakes became less violent as she became cognisant of his closeness and of his mental presence.
: Larya! Can you make contact with either the headquarters dom of any of the other away teams? : Artem demanded, wincing as a miniscule particle of hot debris hit his cheek. It felt like a spark from a fire but much hotter. It was certainly much more painful.
There was a pregnant pause.
: No. I cannot :
* * * * *
They had been lying there for perhaps a quarter bell when Josei raised his head.
: Thalia! Do you hear that? :
: What? :
: That whining noise :
: No :
The aural range of the Lind was far wider than that of humans. He could hear things Thalia could not. She waited, ears straining to hear what he was hearing.
: Something is coming : Josei telepathed at last.
: What sort of something? :
: It sounds like … a Quorko! :
At last, thought Thalia. Rescue! Our Quorkos have come to save us!
Her relief was short lived.
She could hear the approaching vehicle, or was it vehicles? By the look on Artem’s face, he was lying not a lind-length away, he could hear it too but it did not sound like a Quorko, one of the Diaglon planetary scout ships. The engine noises were completely different, higher and less resonant.
: It is not from our side : telepathed Josei. In Thalia’s opinion he was stating the obvious, but he had a point. The Lind always had a tendency to call an enemy ‘them’ and the Lind ‘us’. It made, as Josei had always said, things much simpler.
: We have to get out of here. Now! : Josei added.
Thalia looked around desperately.
: Where? :
: That cave we passed by this morning - the one Hael and Mariya found. We have to get out of the foliage. Their scanners can see through it. They will find us :
: Of course. We have to get under rock. I don’t think scanners can see through rock. Do you remember where the cave was? :
: I do : Josei replied : I have informed the others that they must follow us :
What followed then was a series of wild dashes through the foliage back the way they had come.
The whining resonances were getting closer.
Suddenly Thalia realised what Josei had probably understood as soon as he realised the Quorkos were not Diaglon. They were being hunted. It was not a pleasant discovery. It was a dreadful feeling, made worse by the fact that they couldn’t fight back. If the c
raft or crafts that were hunting them were being piloted by the strangers they had come here to find then the situation was serious, potentially fatal and of great danger to their part of the galaxy as a whole.
We have to make contact with the Diaglon. We have to warn them, Thalia was thinking as Josei ran as fast as he could, weaving in and out of the foliage like a Lind possessed by the demons of folklore. She paid no heed to the numerous cuts and abrasions forming on her face as hundreds of sharp foliage stalks whipped by. All she wanted was to get to Hael’s cave and away from all the horror raining down from above.
At last Josei reached the cave and ran inside, telepathing : I hope, from my nose to the tip of my tail that there is not a horrible monster inside :
So did Thalia.
As Josei came to a paw-scattering halt Thalia slid down from his back. “Is everyone here?” she yelled at the top of her lungs.
Everyone was and for a wonder, no one was hurt beyond a few burns, scratches and bruises.
“Get right to the back of cave,” ordered Artem, he and Larya coming to a halt beside her. “It’s not precisely a cave, it’s more like a miniature cavern. Well done Hael and Mariya!”
They all scurried as far back into the cavern as they could. It went back a long way. It narrowed to about half the breadth of the dimensions inside the entrance as they went further but there was still plenty of room for them all. They found a large hollow at the back filled with tiny grains of sand and dropped to the ground to catch their respective breaths.
“Pawprints of Andei!” exclaimed Thalia as she sank to her knees. “That was a close run thing.”
“What would have happened to us if we hadn’t got here?’ asked Christel in a quavering voice.
“They would have found and killed us,” answered a tight-lipped Artem, repeating Thalia’s question as to the medical status of everyone.
“Get your medic packs out everyone,” ordered Thalia, getting to her feet and pulling hers out from Josei’s harness packs. “Tend to your Lind’s cuts. Slei, Rsya and Jvldr, come over to me, Jim and Artem if you need aid.”
The Larg, Jvldr got to his paws.
“I am unhurt,” he informed her in his harsh voice. “I will go and keep watch at the entrance.”
He padded away.
“Is he unhurt?’ asked Thalia of Josei, who was lifting his right front paw so that she could attend to his hurt paw pad. He had stood on a shard of hot metal. The Larg were well known for making little of quite serious wounds.
“I sensed no pain,” Josei answered, nudging her with his nose. “Yes, right there. Yes …”
The ‘yes’ was his reaction to the relief he felt as Thalia rubbed smaha ointment on to his cut paw.
Smaha was an analgesic and antiseptic root native to Rybak. It was one of the few home planet plants that thrived on Tak, a fact for which everyone was very thankful.
“We will rest for the time being,” Artem informed them. “Jvldr has taken first watch. Larya and I shall relieve him in three bells and we shall all take turns.”
“Yes,” added Thalia. “Let’s get settled and have a bite to eat. Zeb, once you’ve sorted Vya gather together what food we have. We’ll have to ration it. We don’t know how long we’ll be stuck here.”
“Will do,” answered Zeb cheerfully, his natural insouciance well to the fore. He had never been a one for deep introspection.
They laid out their bedrolls. After handing in all the food they had in their packs to Zeb, all but Thalia and Artem settled down for a rest, and a sleep if they could manage it.
Thalia and Artem moved away from their compatriots and began to discuss the situation in low voices.
“What were they?” asked Thalia.
“Let’s work it out logically.”
“Logically?” Thalia’s voice was much higher in tone than usual, a sure indication to those who knew her that she was worried.
“Logically. We must analyse what we know and what we can conjecture, separating the two. Only then can we decide what to do next.”
“Well,” said Thalia, thinking rapidly. “We know that we have been attacked by some creatures unknown although it must be the strangers.”
“Must it?”
“Probably must be the strangers,” she corrected. “They were driving vehicles very like the Quorko of the Diaglon. The records say that during the Dglai Wars the enemy used their Quorko to destroy their enemies, us, on the ground.”
“You’re learning,” approved Artem. “And it gets easier with practice, separating fact from conjecture. A successful officer always thinks it through, makes the decision and then stands by it unless something happens to make it obvious the decision was a wrong one. What you’ve just said is accurate, as far as it goes. There are space-flying creatures in orbit around the planet and their planetary vehicles have arrived and are destroying …”
“Potential opposition?” Thalia conjectured.
“That’s as good a term as any.”
“But Susa Raknu told us before we landed that there was no other space ships in orbit round Tenha. He traced their ibon trails leading away.”
“They must have come back,” was Artem’s chilling answer.
“There were three of them,” Thalia was pondering aloud. “And then the Vlon tracked another, how many were there? Two? So now there are five space ships above us and their Quorko are ranging over the planetary surface destroying anything they deem to be a danger. Just great.”
“That doesn’t explain the falling metal debris. Where did that come from?”
“The instructor who came to Stronghold to teach the science lessons said that most of any exploding debris above a planet burns up in the atmosphere,” observed Thalia, racking her brains to remember what else he had told them.
“But these didn’t,” countered Artem. “That begs the question. How close to the surface were they when they were destroyed? Fairly close I would say. And do the Quorkos belong to them?”
“That’s two questions and I’ll add another two. Who destroyed the space ships, if we agree that their destruction caused the raining metal? Where are the Diaglon space ships?” Thalia added.
“We have to consider the fact that the debris might have come from the Aikko or one, or all of the other three, that the strangers have destroyed them.”
“So they are either destroyed or have flown away. We are alone.” There was more than a hint of panic in her voice.
“There is always a tactical retreat but yes, we are alone until a rescue can be arranged,” he corrected. “Back on Tak Gtrathlin Larku will realise the mission has gone awry when the defence group does not report. They will not abandon us Thalia. Somehow, they will come for us. Our problem is to stay alive long enough for that to happen. Surely we can keep alive for two hundred or so days. Now you go and get some sleep.”
“You?”
“I’m going to think for a while then go and relieve Jvldr. Go. You’ll be worth nothing if you’re so tired you can’t think straight. You take command if I’m asleep when you wake. You know what to do. Go!”
Thalia went.
* * * * *
It was as Artem and Larya were relieving Jvldr when it happened.
The Larg had been telling Artem that the sounds of the hunting Quorko had receded some tvans before, going north he believed, when he suddenly began to whine. A pained expression came to his face.
It hit Artem through his mind-link with Larya.
He fell to his knees.
He could physically hear confused shouting and howls from back inside the cavern.
The mental pain hit Artem again and again.
Telepathic pain.
It was excruciating.
It hammered into his mind.
It was the telepathic resonances of dying Lind.
* * * * *
In the immediate area surrounding the headquarters dom people and Lind were hiding under the thickest blankets of foliage they could find.
The w
ounded from the accident at the ravine were being made as comfortable as Lastair and Anne could make them.
Vandiel knew the two Holad would never leave their patients and he was considering at least telling the others to make a run for it when he heard the sound of approaching engines. Zandya didn’t wait.
: Run! : Her message was insistent but it came too late.
Even for Katie, Kenlei, Mikey, Tavin and Whufflya, the warning came not a moment too soon. Hearing a thrumming noise off in the distance Katie made an instant decision. Urgently and ignoring Mikey’s whimpering, she looked around and located an overhanging rock ledge not far away. She and Kenlei made for it. Under the relative safety of the rock she grabbed hold of a shivering Mikey and held on tight. The boy was terrified.
: Whufflya! Follow our tracks! : Kenlei’s telepathic command was as loud as he could manage.
Whufflya and Tavin high-tailed it to the ledge as fast as her legs could carry them. They pelted underneath, slamming into the rock face.
Belu, who had been flying in a southerly directing trying to find the source of the Quorkos didn’t need to hear the deepening thrumming. From high above the clouds he saw what was making it. He immediately flew for cover - there was little one Brai could do against Quorkos.
He found a cave; the continent was dotted with them. He was worried about the safety of all his friends, especially as he could think of no way he could warn or help them. He had the Diaglon communications device (the artificer Max had the other) but was nervous that any transmission he made to the headquarters dom would be intercepted. It would certainly give away their position.
He settled down to wait.
Back in the area of the headquarters dom everyone waited in a slowly expanding circle of tense silence.
The thrumming noise got louder.
They felt the air move above them as if it was being pressed and their world exploded into bright pain and death.
This was what Artem and the others felt.
* * * * *
: Stay on guard : Artem ‘said’ to the distraught Larya as he dashed inside the cavern, followed by Jvldr. She would understand why he couldn’t stay to comfort and to help ease her loss-pain. He was in command and it was his duty to take care of those for whom he was responsible.
Inside its dark recesses all was in turmoil. The Lind were howling, a keening wail that dove right through his bones and made his teeth rattle. The men and women were trying to comfort the Lind as best they could but it was an impossible task. Like Artem, the echo of what their Lind were experiencing had rebounded inside their own minds and they were crying too. Artem had a headache the like of which he had never felt before. It felt as if his head was going to explode.