Page 5 of My Tiny Giant

An alarm suddenly blared through my helmet. A flashing red light indicated someone’s presence in the area. I pulled the map up on the hologram screen inside my helmet. Thin red outlines started popping up on it. Judging by their shapes and sizes, another unit of fescods was closing in on us, accompanied by a large number of yirzi.

“Fescods! Incoming!” I yelled louder.

The guys of my unit ran out of the water, as did the Ravils—both needed a few seconds to grab their clothes and weapons. Until then, there was no one but me to face the gray lumps of tough flesh menacingly rolling onto the riverbank out of the jungle.

Sliding my blades out, I charged them, giving the men the time they needed to get ready. Slicing and stabbing, I slowly advanced towards the tree line, pushing the fescods back into the jungle, away from the river and the naked men.

Being in the middle of action felt good. There was no fear, no nerves here, just sharp focus as I calculated my next move. Everything else fell away.

As soon as I entered the jungle chasing the fescods , yirzi jumped out of the trees.

I activated the laser guns attached to the suit’s forearms, then slid out the barrels of the automatic weapons on my shoulders, too. The three-hundred-sixty-degree fire coverage from the suit’s weapons was handy when attacked from all sides, like I was right now. The fire did not affect fescods , but it kept the yirzi at bay.

As soon as the Ravils caught up with me, I turned the guns off, lest I shoot one of my allies by accident.

Wearing few clothes and carrying minimal equipment, the Ravils had gotten battle-ready faster than the men of my unit. Many of them hadn’t even bothered putting their pants back on, having grabbed only their knives before rushing to my aid.

Together, we moved farther along the riverbank and deeper into the jungle, pushing the enemy back in the direction they had come from.

Agan ran past me, making his way to the very front of the line.

Did he always need to be the first one everywhere? I shook my head.

“Pixie! Where are you?” Rick’s concerned voice reached me through the comm unit.

“I’m here...” Momentarily disoriented by the action taking place all around me, I needed a few moments to orientate myself. I then confirmed my coordinates to him by reading the screen inside my helmet.

“The transport is here.” Urgency rang through Rick’s voice. “Everyone has boarded. We need to move out of the way to let the Ravil ship in. Now.”

I twisted around, catching the sight of blowing leaves and bending branches under the exhaust air from our transport’s engines in the distance.

“How much time do I have?” I asked quickly.

“Two seconds.”

I’d need much more than that to make it to where the transport was hovering over the jungle, even if I engaged the suit’s engines and flew over the jungle canopy. Making them wait that much longer meant Ravils would have to wait to board their ship. Unprotected, they would have to face the fescods and the yirzi longer than necessary because of me.

“Go,” I said to Rick, slicing in half another yirzi who had jumped at me from a tree nearby. “I’ll catch a ride with the Ravils.”

“See you at the base then,” Rick replied, then added in the tone of a friend rather than of my superior, “And Pixie, please be careful.”

Another yirzi swung my way, holding on to a thick vine and shooting his laser gun at the surrounding Ravils.

“I will, Rick.” I sliced through the vine with my blade, then stomped on the yirzi’s neck with the steel boot of my suit. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll see you at the base.”

“To the ship!” Agan yelled, waving his arms in the direction where the human transport had lifted, taking off. The Ravils’ ship was taking its place over the clearing, the air stirred by its propellers bent the trees and distorted the luscious green of the jungle.

As his people turned in that direction, Agan ended up at the very back of his platoon. I realized that it might’ve been his strategy all along. First, he’d been in the front, leading his people into the counterattack against fescods . Now, he ended up at the back, to ensure everyone made it to the transport safely.

It was an admirable strategy for a leader, I had to admit.

“Are you coming with us, Eleven?” he asked, rushing by to aid one of his men in the fight against a group of fescods .

“Yes.” I nodded, punching a yirzi in his green face then helping up a Ravil who had been knocked to the ground next to me.

Unlike our sleek space shuttle, the Ravils’ ship was a clunky aircraft with rows of chunky rivets running along its rusty hull. In addition to the three huge propellers spinning on top, two engines were spitting hot air through the cluster of exhaust pipes on the bottom, scorching the green of the trees below.

As it hovered over the jungle canopy, a long ramp descended to the clearing. Ravils rushed from under the trees and climbed up the textured rungs of the ramp into the aircraft.