Page 7 of My Tiny Giant

He sat up with another muffled groan. “Not sure.” Wincing, he inspected his shoulder where the laser blast left a scorched path of fur across the brilliant colors of his tattoos.

In addition to the wound on his shoulder, a series of scratches big and small covered both of his arms. There were also rips in his pants—on his thighs and hips. Some already had a dark-red rim of blood.

“How are you feeling?” I asked. He didn’t look that good, to be honest.

“Like I’ve just crashed through the jungle,” he huffed a laugh, rising to his feet. “Thank you for saving my life, Eleven. I’m in your debt.”

“No debt. I’m glad I could help.” I watched carefully for any physical aftereffects of our crash in Agan.

Despite his disheveled appearance, however, he seemed to have avoided any major injuries. His movements were as smooth as before. The confident bounce hadn’t left his step.

“We shall get back to the transport,” I said. “I can fly us—”

“In this shape?” Agan gave me an incredulous look.

I followed his gaze, glancing over my shoulder at the cracked and bent remnant of my left wing. No need to run a diagnostic—the wing was obviously unusable.

“The wings are for gliding and recharging. I don’t need them to fly,” I assured Agan. “There’s still some power left.”

The bent piece of the wing that remained sticking out, however, would interfere with aerodynamics and hinder the navigation if I tried to get airborne.

I moved my shoulder forward, visually assessing the damage.

“I’ll just need to remove this somehow—”

“Like this?” Agan yanked the panel down, breaking it off.

“Hey!” I staggered on my feet from the power of his tug.

“What?” He tossed the broken piece aside. “You said you wanted it off—it’s off.”

I would’ve removed it differently, but since the end result was the same—the damaged piece was no longer in the way—I decided not to argue.

I ran a few quick checks of the vital systems of the suit. The Ravils’ transport was nowhere in sight, and I had no communication link with it.

“Do you have any way to contact the pilot?” I asked Agan. “To request they wait for us?”

He shook his head.

“No. But I wouldn’t be asking them to wait even if I had a way to communicate with them. Their propeller was hit. The aircraft is compromised. They can’t hover, waiting for us. They need to get back to the base as soon as possible.”

He was right.

I considered our situation for a moment. The suit was not built for long-distance flying. Its levitation function was there to assist in combat with short-range tactical flights.

“I won’t be able to catch up with the transport then. It must be far ahead by now. And my batteries need recharging.” Without the fully functioning wings, I would somehow need to find a sunny clearing in the dense jungle to re-charge the batteries. Any light would do, but with only one wing left now and without the direct sunlight, it would take much longer. It didn’t help that it was late afternoon, and the sun was quickly nearing the horizon.

“How long do the batteries last?” Agan sounded skeptical.

“Normally, for a few days, but I’ve used the fire power extensively today, which takes a lot of energy.” That, combined with the flying I’d already done, had significantly depleted the fuel cells. “I need sunlight to re-charge them.”

I tilted my head back, studying the thick jungle canopy high above us through the tinted shield of my helmet.

“There’s enough power for me to rise above the jungle,” I brainstormed out loud. “Then I could possibly extend the remaining wing to catch the rays of the setting sun.”

“You’d risk giving out our position,” Agan observed pragmatically. “Even if you managed to hover in the air with one wing.”

I’d have to use the suit’s engines to try to compensate for the missing wing to stabilize the suit in the air, which would of course use up a lot of energy, too.

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