Chapter Eleven—Unexpected Party

Using his arm to vault himself over a tall root, John broke the forest and stopped in the clearing. Across the way he saw the downed shuttle.

Ahead of him the Strogaus shuttle was clearly hovering over the trees, but he couldn’t see it. The agitation of the canopy overhead and the kicking up of forest floor debris was evident of that.

“Be careful!” Lexa said. “I’m scanning N individual to your right and at least ten more directly ahead.”

John put in a call to May.

It chimed, but there was no answer.

“Dammit.”

He moved forward as he pulled his rail pistol from his holster at his hip. Glancing about, he moved across the clearing.

Lasers passed by, whirring hot and heavy in the air.

“John!”

He jumped, landing on the ground in front of some mounds of grass. They had come from the direction of May’s shuttle. “Is that Kyle?”

“Scanning!”

“It’s not him!” Lexa screeched. “Wrong body type!”

“Is it a woman?”

“Not a woman!”

Gritting his teeth, John crawled across the ground toward the forest. “Lexa! Are there any bodies near that downed shuttle?”

He had to look at his wristlet to read the captioned audio coming though because of the roar of the Strogaus engines.

“None,” she said. “I think that man is part of the crew.”

“Friendly fire, then,” John said as he continued crawling, his visual presence surely obscured by the amount of heavy debris being kicked up off the forest floor.

A laser was fire and an explosion thundered inside the forest. A plume of fire rose, illuminating the dark underside of the trees as the explosion erupted into the air.

“The Strogaus shuttle is shooting at someone!”

“I know!”

He made it into the trees and instantly saw the illuminated exhaust from the Strogaus shuttle engines. Glancing about hurriedly, he couldn’t make out in of the Strogaus guys, but he did see small arms laser fire illuminating the forest up ahead.

A prolonged fusillade of weapons fire went the other way, indicating someone from May’s downed shuttle.

John got onto his knees and aimed his rail pistol directly at the light source through the brush.

The engines heightened in velocity and the ship moved, making John’s shot impossible.

“Dammit!”

Peeking out from behind the tree he was sheltered at, he made sure none of the Strogaus agents would see him. With the coast as clear as it was going to get, he tore across the open ground. As hot laser fire erupted around him, John jumped, landing heavily behind a tree root, the sound of the lasers penetrating it were between piercing thumps and sizzling wood.

For a split second he peeked out of his place of cover and squeezed off rail, but it was impossible to tell if he hit anything. For good measure he cracked off another explosive whine from his pistol and ducked back down.

“John,” Lexa said. “We have to take out that Strogaus shuttle—“

An explosion rocked the forest.

John didn’t see the plume of fire, but the light flash from the ship-born laser illuminated enough of the trees for him to know what that sound was—and the immediate danger it posed.