Aegis Rising (47 page)

The villagers dipped their heads and quickly made off. Tayoka nodded at Jag and signaled for him to follow.

The seventeen-year-old girl who was weaving around the enormous vats and planting the cube gels froze when she heard footsteps. Forcing herself not to panic, she ducked behind one of the vats and crouched down, holding her breath. Stealing a look around the large cauldron, she caught sight of a slightly pudgy guard walking around the vehicle shed from her right. As she observed him, she found the guard to be rather disinterested in his work. He walked without purpose and seemed to be in his own world.
Must be tiresome to walk the same path every day,
she thought. But if that truly was the case, then that would work more to the villagers’ advantage.

She watched the guard, willing him to move faster, but he kept to his slow amble as if he were strolling leisurely in a park. Stifling a sigh, the girl hunkered down and waited for him to pass.

A young man from Tayoka’s group—a tanned, light-haired lad—had volunteered to fix the explosives to the beasts’ steel building. He had them all in a small bag over his shoulder and approached the building with care. Elder Tikina had made it all too clear how strong the beasts’ senses were; far more so than any creature they knew.

Pausing ten feet away from the building to steady his nerves, he scratched his ear, feeling the part of the cartilage where it had been bitten off by an aggressive yearling wolf. What a memory that was. Though a piece of his ear was now missing, he remembered how he had fought the creature off boldly.
If you could handle a wolf battling you in the open, then you can surely do this with beasts in their cages without a problem
, he thought, reassuring himself.

Just as he was about to step forward, a door banged open across from where he was standing. He froze, his breath caught. With his omnilinguistic ability he could make out a groggy but irritated voice yelling out. “Am I the only one in this entire bloody place who knows when the tunneling machine has been idling for too long?”

The flustered young man instinctively dove out of sight behind the beasts’ enclosure. Staying absolutely still, he prayed the beasts had not heard him; apparently they hadn’t because all was quiet in the building.

More shouting ensued. Had the lad peeked around the corner of the building he would have been able to see a man wearing black pajama bottoms and an untied robe running out of his private sleeping quarters. By his tone, the villager was easily able to tell that this man was in charge of the site.

“Where’s the security team on shift?” he heard the man shout.

“Here, sir!” a voice chimed in, sounding nearby.
Must be the guard from the workshop
, the lad guessed.

“Get to the tunnel and get those slugs back to work. I thought you knew it was part of your job to sniff out slackers.”

“We’ll get right to it, sir!”

The villager slowly got up, thankful no one had noticed him when he had been standing in between the buildings. Moreover, he was thankful that the beasts inside hadn’t heard him when he’d plunged behind their fortified enclosure. He took one of the explosives out of his bag and stepped forward.

A twig he hadn’t seen snapped under his foot, sounding like a gunshot to his ears. Immediately an eruption of animalistic roars and barks sounded.

What have I done?

52

N
ageau heard the tumult from the beasts’ enclosure and stiffened when he saw the auburn-haired man in the robe turn to face the building. “Oh no,” he muttered. He watched as the man started to walk toward the steel structure.

A shape behind the building could be seen sprinting into the trees. If the robed man had remained standing at his earlier position, the escaping figure may have had a chance to go unnoticed, but the man now had a wider field of view as he approached the building and saw the fleeing villager. He immediately realized that they had a trespasser.

“Intruder!” he bellowed. “We’ve been breached—
again!
”

The two guards who had gone to check the tunnel spun around and stampeded back toward their supervisor.

Caution! One of us has been spotted!
Nageau blasted to all the Elders.

He felt someone poking his arm repeatedly and looked at Kody beside him. “What is it?”

“That big guard who was handling the beasts . . . he’s coming back out.”

Hajjar stomped out of the miners’ barracks, pulling a sweater over his head. As the Marauders’ primary handler, he was particularly sensitive to their roars and deep barks. Even though the animals and he hardly ever got along, he needed to know if something was bothering them.

He glanced to his right toward the security post on the far side of the site. He expected to see one guard through the big glass windows but found it to be empty. Wrath erupted in him. This seemed to happen constantly with the graveyard shifts when he wasn’t present.

He heard the door of the mess hall on his left burst open and looked over. Two of the guards stumbled out, fumbling with their AR-15 rifles. When they saw the head of security, they visibly wilted. Hajjar, his lip twitching as if he were about to snarl, gave them a withering glare. He stalked up to them and snatched one of the rifles. He was about to reprimand them when they heard Ajajdif’s shout. “We’ve got an intruder! Where are the other guards, dammit?”

As Hajjar and the other two from the security team headed toward the sound of Ajajdif’s voice, a series of loud booms broke out from the mining tunnel. The three halted in mid-step and looked at each other, then at the tunnel. A rumbling that rapidly grew louder suddenly materialized in the shape of the massive tunneling machine. It thundered out of the tunnel like an out-of-control locomotive and struck a glancing blow to the platform holding the huge refining vats, crushing the stand, causing three of the cauldrons to topple.

The three members of the security team barely managed to bolt clear of the machine as it rolled past them and snapped the support posts all along one side of the vehicle shed. The unsupported roof of the shed came crashing down, throwing dust and debris into the air. The massive machine continued its course and the three men watched in shock as it just missed the infirmary and then barged right through the mess hall, demolishing anything and everything in its path. Some of the miners inside the mess hall managed to jump aside in time, but others were not so lucky and were mercilessly plowed under.

One of the cooks at the back of the building heard the commotion and turned around only to face the oncoming death machine. He didn’t have time to run. As the machine barreled toward him, he impulsively grabbed a handle at the front and held on as it smashed out of the building and into the trees behind.

Having crashed through several obstacles, the machine lost momentum as it neared the edge of the mining site. The cook tried to stop the engine by digging his heels into the ground but knew his actions would be fruitless.

The machine rolled halfway off the edge of the clearing and came to a stop, hanging precariously over the steep drop. The cook let out a choked cry. “T-t-thank you,” he whimpered to no one.

The massive machine see-sawed and began to tip downward. The cook babbled in terror and tightened his hold on the handle. He didn’t want to look down and, instead, stared up at the ninety-ton tunneling machine, eyes stretched wide. He begged for the machine to stabilize but knew his time had come as the engine’s balance shifted, sending both itself and the cook plummeting to their ends.

All over the mine site, there was a moment of stunned silence as the workers tried to grasp what had occurred. Then bedlam ensued. There were yells for help and cries of pain from the workers who had been struck by the tunneling machine. Several had broken limbs, others lay crushed and unresponsive.

Workers rushed about to help friends who hadn’t escaped the mess hall in time. “We need medics!” yelled one of the guards who went to inspect the damage.

Ajajdif had seen the tunneling machine ram straight through the building. Still in his pajama pants and robe, he ran toward the mess hall to help his men.

Just as he passed the workshop, a series of thundering explosions shook the site. Ajajdif instinctively ducked behind one of the two trucks in the shed, and not a moment too soon. A large piece of metal smashed into the truck, tearing away its roof. Ajajdif squirmed under the truck for cover as other large pieces of debris rained down.

He stared at one particularly large piece that landed where he had stood only a moment earlier. It appeared very familiar. He turned to look at where the vats should have been but saw instead only rubble and black ore dust scattered far and wide. He gasped. “
No!
”

As he lay prone on the ground and bemoaned at the loss of his precious mineral, a piercing screech arose from the tunnel area. The noise swiftly transformed into a roar not unlike a jet engine. A bright phosphorescence caught Ajajdif’s attention. His eyes moved to the crushing operation. A blinding flash, as brilliant as the sun, illuminated the entrance beside the mining tunnel. Ajajdif realized that the ore-crushing zone where the leaching compounds were stored had come under attack. Furious, he pounded the ground violently, cursing the hell that broke loose around him. He stopped when he noticed an odd-looking object beneath a truck near where he was taking cover, and found himself staring at a glowing blue cube. Mystified, he reached out and grabbed it, then crawled out from under the truck to examine it. As he was about to push himself up, he caught sight of more cubes placed under other vehicles in the shed.

Sudden realization dawned. He jumped to his feet and hurled the cube he was holding as far away as he could and started to run to his private quarters. “Explosives!” he shouted. “The whole place is rigged!”

Hardly anyone could hear him. He careened into his private quarters and slammed the door. Grabbing a flashlight, he went down on all fours and shone it under his bed. “Ah.” He put the flashlight between his teeth and reached underneath, pulling out a long, flat case. Throwing the top open, he gazed down at his prized, Russian-made Dragunov sniper rifle.

Seizing a few spare magazines from the case, he grabbed the loaded rifle and threw his window open, leveling the weapon on the windowsill. He snatched his radio from his nightstand and broadcast to the twelve guards on site. “I want everyone to steer clear of the buildings! The place is rigged with bombs. The mining tunnel has been destroyed, and the vats have been demolished. I suspect that the abandoned tunnel might have explosives too. The vehicles in the shed are rigged as well, so
stay away!
I repeat, stay
away
from the vehicle shed.”

“Roger,” one of the guards replied. “What do you want us to do, sir?”

“I want you to arm as many able workers as you can. We have trespassers. Shoot to kill. I don’t want any escapees.”

“Yes sir.”

“Elias.”

Hajjar’s voice came over the radio. “Sir?”

“Get the Marauders out right now.”

“On my way.”

As Ajajdif peered out of the window, he could see the giant of a man speeding toward the Marauders’ building. Just as Hajjar was about to pass the workshop, two loud explosions that left Ajajdif’s ears ringing threw the big man off his feet, sending him airborne for several yards and landing him on his back, torpid and out cold. Ajajdif watched the workshop collapse, sending debris and pieces of metal and wood flying, leaving only rubble.

He picked up his radio. “Elias,” he rasped, but received no reply. “Elias, answer me!” Ajajdif started to shout into the radio, demanding Hajjar get back up, but the unconscious chief of security didn’t move. Ajajdif tossed his radio aside, infuriated.

Up at the top of the mountain, Nageau saw the workers crowding around the security post and the guards handing weapons out to about a dozen of them. “They are arming the workers,” he said, a note of worry in his voice. Connecting his mind with the other Elders, he said,
The guards are arming some of the workers by the guards’ post next to the tunnel. Engage with caution. We know that they will not hesitate to kill us if we are spotted.

He turned to the waiting crossbowmen. “If anyone gets near the beasts’ enclosure, immobilize them immediately. Keep an eye out for our people also.”

Kody gazed down, watching the guards handing out guns to the workers. Worry made him sick to his stomach when he grasped that his friends were down there, about to engage in what truly was serious combat. “Stay safe, guys,” he murmured.

On the western flank of the mountain, hidden from the chaos, Tikina had gotten Nageau’s go-ahead to engage. She quietly informed the rest of her troop as they stood flat against the back of the miners’ barracks. They could hear the miners calling to one another and picked out the sounds of gunfire.

Beside her mentor, Tegan hiccupped. “They’re actually going to shoot us?”

“They did not hesitate to drug and hold our kin hostage before attempting to murder all four of them. It was lucky that Rikèq and Breyas even survived.” Tikina’s throat constricted. Something cold and wet touched her fingertips and she looked down. Chayton lightly nuzzled her fingers, his tail wagging. She smiled a little and stroked the wolf’s soft head, gently rubbing his ears. “Stay,” she whispered.

The Elder edged along the side of the building and poked her head around the corner. Miners were thronging around the security post, just as Nageau had said. One of the miners was testing the scope on his rifle and happened to raise it in her direction. He froze. Tikina inhaled sharply and pulled back out of sight just as a shot was fired. The bullet struck the corner of the building, wedging itself into the wood.

The miners knew where they were now. Tikina hurriedly ushered her group along the building so that they could sneak out the other side. What they didn’t know was that two groups of three men were coming at them, one heading to where Tikina had been seen, and the other to cut off the group’s escape route.