Page 45 of Taken to Heimo
I hitch my two thickest fingers in her direction. “Mahmoud, go.”
He lifts his stick again and offers me a little wave and the strange thought crosses my mind as the little human kit starts down the hill at his awkward bobble…
I will make a warrior of him someday. AVoraxianwarrior.
The pain in my body lessens again, becoming even fainter as I take that first step, and then tear across the landscape.
I’ve got two choices, but unfortunately, I don’t realize it. I could go back and secure a glider of my own, but that doesn’t occur to me until I’m halfway down the hill, racing for the shimmery side of the Droherion Dome. I won’t be able to make it through, at least, Ishouldn’tbe able to make it through.
Butshouldsandshouldn’tsaren’t working like they’re supposed to.
There’s a slit in the dome, like some giant shoved his hand into the side of the dome and ripped a chunk of it right out.Mathilda.
I tormented Svera with my hate and now, I’ve let her walk right into the sun.
The suns above feel like twin torches hanging too low in the insufferably bright white sky as I race, as I glide over the sands, following the tracks and the smoke that the putrid human glider leaves behind.
It’s faster than I am, though. It shouldn’t be, but there it is again,shouldsnot operating in their proper order. Because it’s gaining ground now, disappearing behind the dramatic screa outcrops that are fast approaching.
As I reach them, I think about charging ahead, but I can sense a strange energy emanating from the other side of the screa. I glance at the outcrop and then climb.
I scale the jagged edges of the screa boulders until I reach their peak. Crouched between two massive screa blocks that effectively conceal me from whatever is below, I look down at a Niahhorru battle transporter.
It sits among the sands, towering just beneath the highest screa point. Something of this size shouldneverhave been able to slip past the Voraxian defenses we have stationed around the human moon, but here it is, in living color.
Shouldn’t. The word hits like a lightning stick to the skull — a sensation I’ve experienced before at the hands of Niahhorru pirates many times and most recently for Svera.And I’d do it all over.
I might just get that chance,I think glumly as Iclimb down towards the shimmery exterior of the Niahhorru transporter.
It pains me to admit it, but for as disorganized as they are, they’re known for their technological prowess. Dealing as they do, they get ahold of all kinds of illegal weapons and technologies it takes rotations for our regulators to process.
With that access, and in view of this transporter unlike any I’ve ever seen, I’m not foolish enough to think that they don’t have imaging and sensors enough to spot me, but no one comes. Maybe, I’ll get lucky. Maybe this isn’t a Niahhorru transporter sent here to steal my Xiveri mate from me. As if I weren’t doing a good enough job of pushing her away already. Ha.
Xana is a wicked thing.
I drop onto the hard packed sand, feeling it shift uncertainly beneath the thick soles of my boots. The air is hot and I can hear voices now, not clearly, but close. The material of the ship must be something we don’t have access to, because it’s notstill.Nox, as I make my way around all of its loose, folded edges, it feels like it’s breathing beside me. Like a living organism.
It gives me the xoking creeps.
“…yookan tayck hurrn ow,” says the voice.
They are the first words that I can make out and they are spoken in Human, a language I did not bother to learn… And now it puts me at a disadvantage on the battlefield and my Xiveri mate’s life hangs in the balance. I grit my teeth, feeling flushed with a heat that is becoming just as familiar as the cascade of colors to my ridges that won’t give me a xoking break.
The answer comes in Meero, a language Idoknow. It is the trading language. The language of the pirates. And as a familiar voice speaks, fire ripples behind my eyelids.Rhorkanterannu.
I shake my head, trying to focus through my rage and Xana’s punishment. I’m not sure which is more vocal.
A second voice speaks, one that soothes that pain.Svera, I’m coming.“Mathilda is a traitor,” she says. “She dishonors me. She dishonorsyou.”
A thwacking sound followed by Svera’s nearly silent “oomph” makes my toes curl. I’m weaponless, but that doesn’t matter. I am Krisxox. A strategist. I need to play this smart. I can’t take down Rhorkanterannu, not unless he’s alone and pirates never are.
A long moment of silence. I lift a foot off of the ground, but before I can take that next step, the sound of falling stones pulls my attention back and up to the left.
A human female is attempting to follow the path I took down the mountain. The sight of her there in her drab clothes shocks me. What shocks me even more is that she’s staring straight at me as she moves in awkward little jerks. She’s got a flush high in her cheeks and her heavy chest bounces with each abrupt lurch onto the next downward ledge.
I quickly assess her frame, finding it slightly taller than Svera’s but remarkably less graceful…there. Her leg. It’s bent at an unnatural angle, but does not slow her down too much as she makes her way to the sand mere paces behind me.
She waves at me, like I haven’t been staring at her this whole time, and gestures for me in the human way by crooking her fingers again and again until I finally, begrudgingly,painfullyrelent and move closer to where she’s standing.
