Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 48929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 245(@200wpm)___ 196(@250wpm)___ 163(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 245(@200wpm)___ 196(@250wpm)___ 163(@300wpm)
“They injected me with something. Knocked me on my rump for a bit, but I’m coming out of it. We were ambushed when we came up here. Draven rushed out the doors after a human and I don’t know where Hadrian is.” He swallows hard. “It all happened so fast.”
“Come on. We’re still clearing this place of those human beasts,” I growl. “Theron and Jareth split up from me.”
Breccan sways on his feet, so I’m forced to slide my free arm around him to steady him. I keep my zonnoblaster aimed forward in case any more humans pop out of the dark.
“I need to get you back to Avrell,” I tell him, starting for the doors that lead to the tunnels.
“No,” he growls, his sub-bones popping. “We’ll lead them right to them. Take me to the Command Center. I’ll get UVIE backup online and assess the damage outside.”
We hobble straight to the Command Center, not encountering any humans along the way. I can hear some scuffling and shouting in other rooms, but I have faith in my brothers. Like me, they’re more than capable of handling a few humans as long as they don’t let them get close enough to stick them with whatever they incapacitated Breccan with.
Once inside the Command Center, I lead Breccan over to a chair near the windows that are closed. Wind whistles through the zutametal cracks, which means the glass is damaged.
I hate them for destroying our home and trying to destroy us too.
“Open those,” Breccan instructs as he starts mashing in a code sequence to bring UVIE backup online. “Until I have eyes on what’s happening, I need an actual visual. I need to see the aftermath of Oz’s weapon.”
Scraaaaape.
The zutametal screeches along its hinges as I open the door covering the window. Dusty wind rushes in through a fist-sized hole in one of the windows. Cracks splinter across the glass in a million different directions.
“Make that hole bigger,” Breccan barks out. “I need to see.” Then, he says, “UVIE backup sequence install initiated.”
Static and beeps pierce the air as UVIE backup tries to come online. While Breccan works on UVIE, I punch at the hole in the glass window until it’s much larger in diameter and gives us a visual of our planet.
Fire. Everywhere.
That’s the first thing I notice. And tons of black smoke skating across the horizon. A strong gust of wind sends black smoke swirling away from a massive, charred, and still burning hunk of machinery. The main freighter ship that was sending the smaller ships out is no longer in the air but burning to a crisp between two mountains.
Oz’s weapon took out the biggest threat. There will be a few ships that were missed, but with enough time, we’ll take those out too.
“Welcome to UVIE backup,” UVIE says in a less pleasant voice than we’re used to. “How may I service you, Commander?”
“Power back on,” he barks.
“Unable to complete command,” UVIE replies. “Damage to main power source detected.”
Breccan growls and then motions at me. “I’ll keep working on this. I’m going to try and reach Sayer. Check on the others. Secure the perimeter.”
I give him a clipped nod and then leave the Command Center. Once I exit, I nearly slam into Jareth.
“Found Breccan,” I tell him. “Eliminated several human males.”
“I took out a couple myself but haven’t located Draven or Hadrian.”
“Galen! Jareth!” Theron hollers from somewhere. “I need rekking help!”
We take off in a sprint toward the sound of his voice. We find him in my rooms, kneeling beside Hadrian.
“He’s hurt,” I bark out. “Where?”
“One of the humans stabbed him,” Theron snarls. “There’s a lot of blood. We need to get him to Avrell.”
“Let me look.” I shove Theron’s hands away to assess the damage. “It’s a flesh wound, but he’ll survive. I know how to slow the bleeding. We can’t risk taking him there until this place is secure.”
Bolting from Hadrian, I make my way into my greenhouse. Aside from a few turned over planters, it’s otherwise intact, much to my relief. I’ll need the power to come on soon, or risk the plants dying out, but I can’t worry about that right now.
I need gryfflepaste.
It takes some hunting, but I finally locate the orange plant. The long pods that grow from the plant are bright orange and smell offensive when snapped. It’s the thick pasty substance I’m after that the pods hold. When spread over a wound, whenever microbots aren’t an option, they’ll coagulate the blood. I tear off a couple pods and make my way back to Theron and Hadrian.
“Where’s Jareth?”
“Went back on a hunt for the others.” Theron moves out of the way. “You got this?”
“Go,” I assure him. “Let me get this on him and then I’ll get him to Breccan. We still need to find Draven.”