“If you want to live in a man centered world, just do it. Why try to make all the other girls play in your sandbox?” She’d never get that. Something caught her eye and she almost frowned, but she didn’t do giveaways in front of the enemy.
Is the horizon bending? Blurring?
It does not look like a time wave.
Lurch felt puzzled, a bit worried, and a bit hopeful.
It might be a way to escape the bugs. Which are still closing on this position.
“It is scientifically sound,” Calendria said. “We rebuilt our society, pulled it back from the brink of ruin and what was our reward?”
“Um, freedom?” Ashe felt a bit detached from the girl no-power discussion. Felt like she’d climbed onto a merry-go-round—though she’d never ridden one—as the horizon began to spin, like a tornado or vortex, with them dead center—okay, unfortunate choice of words.
There’d been a section on time vortexes in Time school. Lots of long, scientific terms and theories that boiled down to: time vortexes were bad, really bad. Not quite as bad as a paradox, but right below them on the bad scale. Could be Time using one to give Bana a smack down. Normally Ashe would be solidly for the smack down, but not while she was in the smack down zone.
Bugs in sixty seconds.
Usually she didn’t have so many choices. Get shot. Eaten. Or take the vortex ass-kicking. Tough to pick a preferred exit strategy, though getting eaten was last on the list. Kind of crazy to avoid getting shot just because it was a family mantra. Cause “don’t get eaten” should be one, would be one if they survived. Which didn’t seem likely.
Would like to kick their asses before eating or vortex ass kicking.
Lurch was on board with it.
Felt Shan’s emphatic agreement. Was a bit surprised by that. This was the guy who had been conditioned from the womb to protect women.
I am capable of change.
Ashe had to grin then, even if it was a giveaway. Cause it was also a mind game. Bana took a step back, which caused Calendria to take one back—Ashe was able to monitor her through Shan’s eyes, which was very cool. Their mirrored unease would have been funny if not for the bugs. Her gaze flicked to Shan’s ship, the beginnings of a plan sprouting in there.
Not a good one.
Didn’t say it was. You got anything better?
Silence.
Didn’t think so.
Directed a question Shan’s way.
Can we get on top of your ship?
His assent came without words, though she felt a question in it.
We just need to stall long enough for the vortex to reach us.
Cause it was still a better option than the bugs. And there was a high probability they’d get shot before they got up there, which was also better than death-by-bugs. He couldn’t argue with that.
Time to ramp up the party
.
“You know we got bugs incoming, thanks to your creepy rewiring of time.”
“Bugs?” Calendria’s voice quivered a bit. And her aim wavered.
“They lie to distract—” Bana stopped.
As if it was a cue, the bugs hit the line of Zelk making like statues. It slowed them down, though they still didn’t zip along. More persistent than speedy or they’d have already gotten eaten. Something about eating made them louder. Or maybe it was what they were eating. The murmur turned into clacking, shrill clacking. The Zelk didn’t scream or react, which was creepy, but also seemed to indicate they were automatons, which was better for them. Not great for the non-automatons. In a perimeter a few clicks wider than the bug swarm, the vortex ramped up, as if it heard her call to get down and dirty. It took some of the bugs into it, but not nearly enough.
Calendria screamed. For a scientist, she was such a girl.
You screamed.
When it was on my leg trying to eat me. She’s a whole minute or two from getting eaten.
Timrick chose that moment to groan and stir. The double distraction was all the two of them needed against the geek and the cook. Shan dove forward, scooped up two weapons from the discard pile and was on his feet heading toward Ashe before any shot could find him. Not that any shot did. Bana and Calendria froze at the sight of the bugs, the 5000’s pointed at the ground. This gave Ashe and Shan time to take partial cover next to his ship.
Bana seemed to realize she had a weapon and opened fire, began backing away from the swarm, just as Timrick sat up. As before, this boosted the feeding frenzy. Made sense the bugs would like organic food better than metal.
They will overrun our position before the vortex closes in.
Ashe couldn’t argue with his numbers. His math had always been better than hers. Even the high ground wouldn’t help that much, though she still went for it. They ducked around to the rear of the bird, found it bug-free for now. Looked they like were all coming from the Ashe-assigned west. Shan gave her a boost that lifted her above half the hand/foot holds carved into the side. Swarmed up after her onto the shiny, silver, slightly slippery dome.
Up top, they could see the two women back up, stumbling over the rough ground until they bumped into the ship. Both were firing now, though this only seemed to make the bugs mad. Bad for Timrick, who scrambled across the ground, on his tush, hampered in his escape efforts by the lizard suit. It probably slowed his realization he had a bug latched to his leg. Ashe crouched, leveled her hand weapon, though she gave Shan a quick look first. Got a nod. Applied pressure to the trigger pull. Light stabbed into the murk, hit him on the back of his head. A kill shot, unfortunately a bloodless one. The swarm of bugs engulfed him, but too many kept coming. Something in the sound they made changed. It had changed like that when—
“They are about to take flight.” Shan knelt next to her, his hands wrapped around his weapon.
Ashe bit her lip. Could she—Bana shoved Calendria toward the bugs. She stumbled to her knees, her weapon tumbling from her grasp. Ashe pulled her knife, weighed it in her hand—Calendria reached for the weapon, shrieked when a bug latched onto her arm. More started to go around her and the pre-flight shrill ramped up some more. Ashe flicked her wrist, sent the knife flying toward her. It sank into her back, to the hilt. She fell face down. Not a lot of blood, but enough to send the bugs crazy. The ones heading toward the ship turned back, their cry changing tone again as the blood lust engulfed them. Nasty, but a distraction that might buy them enough time.
Her gaze flicked between the vortex and the swarm. Noticed Shan staring at the vortex.
“That’s going to be bad, isn’t it?”
He sounded more curious than alarmed. Had to like that in a guy fighting to the death at your side.
“If Time is cleaning up the mess? Yeah, it’s going to be bad.”
He frowned. “Where is Bana?”
A hand clamped around Ashe’s ankle. She wobbled, could have fallen if Bana had had better purchase before she made the grab. Shan gripped her shoulder, then her arm, pulling her back against him. Though his purchase wasn’t great on the silver, slippery dome.
He leveled his gun at Bana. Ashe felt his hesitation at shooting a relative. Didn’t blame him. She tried for one of her guns cause Bana wasn’t her relative, but stopped when she started to slide.
Shrill bug sounds wrapped into the howl of the building vortex as it closed on their position. The howl sound reminded her of the wolfen on the planet of Pelmere.
She hated Pelmere because of the wolfen almost as much as she hated bugs.
More and more of which swirled into the hungry, spinning maw. Still enough left to have them for lunch.
Some started up the sides of the ship. Shan fought to hold her in place, switched his attention from Bana to bugs.
Bana moved up a notch, got a solid grip on Ashe’s leg, but didn’t seem to know what to do with it. If she pulled too hard, they’d both slide down into bug-ville.
Ashe dropped to her tush. That made Bana waver, drop the 5000 and grab Ashe’s leg with both hands.
The bugs circled behind the ship. Started up the side toward Bana. She screamed, gripped Ashe’s leg and tried to pull herself up onto the dome.
Ashe kicked at her shoulder, then her face. Landed two solid blows but the bitch didn’t let go.
She did slip down a notch. If Shan hadn’t held on, it would have pulled Ashe onto the curved edge. But now she half sprawled on her back, her center of gravity barely on the right side of the domed top. Bugs kept coming and vortex spun closer, but still not close enough.
Saw a bug on Bana’s back. Braced her free foot, got her weapon out and up and shot it off.
Bana didn’t say thank you by letting go. If anything she pulled harder. Her screams rose to join the howl of the vortex and the shrill clack of the bugs. Vortex lifted the bugs to eye level as all but the center of the bird flowed into the vortex, stretching and turning semi-transparent. The wind from it tugged at her clothing. Bugs flew past, also semi-transparent, while still managing to be terrifying.
Shan shot at a bug, right at her feet. It splattered, some of it landing on her foot.
More bugs surged forward.
A head soared past, empty sockets where eyes had been…
Shan dragged her up, she turned, despite Bana’s painful grip, pushing her head into his shoulder. His arms clamped around her waist.
And felt the vortex close in, sucking them up like a vacuum machine, then whirled them away into a void.
ELEVEN
The vortex didn’t just spin them. It tried to rip them apart.
“Don’t let go.” He did not know if he heard her with his ears or inside his head. It seemed as if his life swirled past, or all of them, the wrong ones and the right one.
Legs flipped up behind them. Bana’s. She tried to climb up Ashe’s leg, tried to push in between them.
The wild wind had taken his weapons.
In the back of my shirt.
He didn’t question, just dived a hand in, closed his fingers around it and pulled it out.
He lined it up along her back, used the dip between her shoulders as his sight.
He took aim. Bana looked up. Saw the barrel. Her face twisted in a snarl of rage. She reached up. To do what he did not know. He pressed the trigger. Saw a flare that seemed to track in slow motion down Ashe’s back. It slammed into Bana.
Her snarl altered to surprise. Perhaps shock.
Her grip broke and the vortex spun her away.
He tossed the weapon after her, cling to Ashe.
Don’t let go.
The vortex spun faster, the circle tighter and tighter. It pushed between them, like a living thing, tried to push them apart, sought to wrench them apart.
Time pulsed between them. It connected them and separated them.
A gap grew between. His hands slipped across her back. Her hands slipped across his back, though they both fought it.
The gap grew. He clamped his hands on her upper arms. Felt the torque increase. He slipped. Managed to grab her. Slipped again. They started to pull apart until he clamped only her wrists. They spun inside the vortex staring at each other, their bodies half transparent now.
Don’t let me forget.
The voice was familiar, wasn’t it? He felt his fingers loosen.
Don’t let go.
He dug in, despite fears he injured her. His hands, his shoulders burned with the effort of holding on.
But he didn’t let go.
A glow started in his chest, flowed up his arms. A matching glow came up her arms.
Strength came with the glow. And an easing of the burning in his muscles.
The vortex around them glowed gold, too.
He gritted his teeth and slowly, so slowly, started to reel her back in. When she was once again against his chest, he slid one arm around her waist. Felt her arms creep around his. Her legs, too. When he was sure he had her and she had him, he slid the other around, pressed her against his heart.
The gold pulsed through them both, wrapped them together, meshed them, even as time pulsed through them.
He won’t let go. I know it.
Time slowed. They vibrated, now visible, now transparent. The pull changed. Or got added to. Pulling them down, down, down…
Tighter and tighter. There. Not. There. Not. Tighter. Tauter, but it also seemed the pressure began to ease. And then, it just whirled away. The sound of it fading like mist giving way for daylight. He clung though he couldn’t remember why, clung as conscious thought slipped away into the eddies left by the vortex…
* * * *
Time currents nudged her awake, like small puppies wanting attention. Ashe stirred, realized something gripped her. Or someone? Memory nudged, incomplete, fragmented. She needed—her lids drifted up.
She was nose to chest with Shan.
Shan.
Still wrapped around her, though his lashes rested against deathly pale cheeks. In every direction, the stream stretched out, ribbons of color and movement, devoid of location markers. It was, she realized, the stream as she’d never seen it. Time once again on its chosen course, once again following its proper pattern?
She didn’t know, couldn’t know for sure, but it felt good, better than it had ever felt. Other than the whole, being lost part. Could Shan survive in the stream without protective gear? She stared at the hands gripping her and realized they were fading.
“No!” There was no one to hear her cry, though it seemed his lashes flickered once before he faded away, leaving her clutching nothing.
She almost gave up then, would have if it weren’t for Lurch, dazed, wounded, but still there. Her sniffer kicked on, picked up the signal from the Time Base. She followed it, because she didn’t know what else to do, where else to go. And because she was her not-so-great grandmother’s not-so-great granddaughter. That meant something, though she didn’t know what.
The bright light of the beacon drew her in, as her grip on consciousness wavered.
Oh no you don’t
. She owed Lurch a ride home…she gritted her teeth, hung on with everything she had left. The landing wasn’t pretty. Sure as hell wasn’t on square. Was barely on the island. She rolled across the sand. Water splashed her face and she heard the slap of waves against the shore. The beacon stopped. Her time gear felt gone, too. What—she opened her eyes as she rolled once more, bumping into something. Someone?