“Are you hurt already?” Cassala called over to me.
I groaned at her but didn’t answer. I reached into one of the medic packs tacked to the wall of our disabled transport and unwound a bandage. I secured it quickly, deftly, as if I had done it a ton of times before, around my leg to stop the bleeding. It reminded me of wrapping pulled muscles on High School soccer fields, but the red sheen soaking my hands and making my every move slick and slimy was something far different.
I wiped my blood on a nearby shop towel and limped my way closer to Aimer. I couldn’t believe I was injured already. I seemed to be able to limp all right. I wish I had mastered floating. I had messed around with flight a little. There were those Curans who were skilled at using their telekinesis in such a way that they could pretty much fly. Even the slightest aid in that way would make me more nimble as we likely would be fleeing for our lives shortly.
“Any sign of Tarsine’s soldiers out there?” I asked.
“Just on the other side of the rise. A speeder came over that hill and then looped back.”
“Let’s get out of here. We need to get up to those caves on the far side of that clearing,” Jase said. “Get to high ground.”
“Can we teleport?”
“There’s a grounding bubble over the area. I already tested it,” he said with a sharp, aggravated wave of his hand. "We are grounded for now. But I have relayed our coordinates, and a transport should be on the way to pick us up."
“They will take at least four hours to get here,” Aimer said.
“Then we will stay alive at least that long,” Jase grumbled.
“Look!” I shouted. Two speeders crested a hill, guns aimed our direction.
“Get out of the ship!” Jase grabbed my arm and flung me through the hole on the starboard side of the crashed ship, and I plummeted five feet into a sand dune, tucking into a roll to protect my face, and scrambling down further away as fast as I could, as the ship behind us exploded. The others of our Crew had scattered through various holes and open doors in the transport. Jase had followed me out the same hole and was a step behind me, grabbing me and throwing me ahead of him occasionally, as the smoke and flames from the exploded transport shielded our escape. “Head for those termite hills! We can find some cover behind them as we make our way to the caves.”
“What about the others?”
"They will meet us there. What is wrong with you? Move!" Jase grabbed my arm and shoved me forward again, and I winced in pain but struggled to move forward faster, dragging my bleeding and profoundly screaming leg behind me. Rockets fired again behind us and the speeders swept by over our heads, strafing fire into the exploding transport, but the little valley where we crash-landed was so full of smoke and flame that the pilots couldn't see us escaping. They were blindly firing, as much as we were blindly fleeing.
I ran and limped as fast as I could around the towering pillars of termite hills and Jase led me forward more, frowning as we escaped from the smoke and flame. I looked back behind us to see four speeders now, floating in the air above our smoldering aircraft, searching the little valley for survivors. He pulled at my arm and pushed me up a game trail through a small crevice in the rocky landscape, limestone hills with small scrub bushes, up rolling, craggy hills, lined with huge boulders where I just knew something worse than a rattlesnake waited to bite me.
“There will be caves up near the top of this game trail.”
“Yeah, but what kind of game is it?”
“Just small deer. Hopefully the kind we can eat for dinner. We may be here awhile while we wait for reinforcements.”
“You don’t think they will search these caves?”
“Hopefully we will be able to defend them.”
“Won’t they just blow them up the same way they blew up the transport?”
Jase was silent, then cursed under his breath. He stopped and looked back behind us. "That's a good point, Earthling." He stared at me, and his brown eyes were hard to read. The fire of the craft behind me danced in his eyes, the blonde of his hair tinged red with the reflection of the far off flames. He looked down at my leg, then up at the mountain we had to climb. He looked at the drag marks I had left behind us. He cursed again and ran his hands through his hair. We were safely hidden behind the termite hills, for the moment. He looked to the left, and I followed his regard. There was another trail, a harder one, over craggy rocks, that led down to a river. I probably couldn’t make it very quickly, so out in the open. Not quickly enough, at least. But the river would be a good access point afterward.
Wait—is he going to leave me behind?
My heart leapt into my throat as I realized that that was exactly what he was contemplating and I realized, even more seriously, that it was my duty, as a soldier in his army, to protect him, my Alpha.
Jase took a step toward the river, his hand on his blade. One of the speeders was turning toward us.
“Here, Alpha Jase,” I said, and pulled his ring off my finger. “The box was crushed, I’m sorry. But I know this is important to you. I’ve heard you keep it safe. I saw it in the flames. You can go. Take the river route. I
