BOOM!
The explosion shook the ground beneath the soldiers’ feet and sent reverberations through my body. A huge plume of orange-red fire blossomed like a summer rose toward the sky.
Most of the explosion had been underground. There was no doubt in my mind that the base was now totally destroyed.
I hoped Chax managed to get out in time—even if it was in Iron Hoof’s custody.
Let him still be alive, I prayed, long enough for me to rescue him.
The stars were wiped from view when we entered an overhang of rock and descended into a world of darkness. Not even moonlight reached this place. I couldn’t see a thing and assumed the Yayora couldn’t either until I considered their large yellow eyes.
Could they see better in the dark than me? There had to be a reason for their yellow eyes, didn’t there?
I heard the rush of a cascading waterfall and a shift in the air as tiny molecules of water splattered against my face. The soldiers altered their grips on my body to negotiate a tricky section.
“I can walk,” I said.
No one said a thing as they continued carrying me deeper into the earth.
“I said, I can walk,” I said.
The soldiers came to a stop and a single pair of feet approached me from the side.
“If you get lost in here, we’ll never find you again,” Stari said.
I felt her breath on my face. It was so dark I couldn’t make her out.
“I won’t get lost,” I said.
Stari considered my words carefully. I imagined the look of consideration on her face.
“I won’t try to escape,” I said. “I want to help you guys.”
“Let her walk,” Stari said. “But hold my hand. We don’t want to lose you down here. You’re too valuable and I’m not in the habit of breaking my word.”
I held her hand and felt at the floor with my feet as we moved forward. Stari wouldn’t slow down and had to drag me behind her. My feet caught on invisible rocks and sank in shallow recesses. Sharp corners nicked my shoulders before I finally had enough.
“Wait,” I said.
“We can’t stop,” Stari said. “More Yayora are coming. If we hold up the line, we put them in danger. Let the soldiers carry you.”
I let go of Stari’s hand and shifted position. I stood behind her with a hand on either side of her waist.
“Okay,” I said. “Go.”
I felt the muscles tense in her back when she had to raise her foot higher than usual, when she turned to move around a sharp bend, or ducked to avoid an overhang.
I heard the squeak and squeal of creatures that sounded suspiciously like bats. I was even more grateful I had Stari taking point. I could use her as a shield.
“Where are we going?” I said. “The center of the planet?”
“No,” Stari said. “That’s much too far. And too hot.”
It was hard to understand these creatures’ humor sometimes.
“I didn’t mean it literally,” I said.
“Oh,” Stari said. “Then why say it?”
“It’s a joke.”
“But it’s not funny.”
“It would be back on Earth. A little.”
“Oh. We’re heading to the emergency base. It’s where we planned to pull back to if our original base was compromised.”
“You built a base down here?” I said. “How did you even find this place?”
“We didn’t build it. Nature carved it from the rocks and the earth and the stones for us. This is where we came from.”
“You came from this place?”
It seemed like a pretty dingy place for a species to evolve.
“We’re underground creatures. Our eyes are perfectly adapted to the dark. We only came up to the surface when our population became too large and we needed to spread out. It took many years for our eyes to adjust to the sunlight. When they did, we found an entire world left to be explored.”
“Now you’re returning to where you came from,” I said.
“It’s the only safe place we have left.”
They’d put their future and all their hope into their plan to fight the Changelings and force them off the surface of the planet. And now, because of the Changeling siblings’ hidden trackers, their location had been exposed to the Changelings.
Now they only had this place to launch their attack from.
“How much longer before we’re there?” I said.
My voice echoed, bouncing off distant walls, on and on without end.
“We’re there,” Stari said.
She turned to those assembled.
“Activate the torches and prepare the houses,” she said. “There’s going to be a lot of Yayora on their way and it’s going to get very cramped.”
The soldiers got to work. I felt like a spare wheel.
“What can I do?” I said.
“You’ve got the most important job of all,” Stari said. “You need to come up with a plan for us to defeat the Changelings.”
“How?” I said.
“That’s up to you. A situation like this has never happened before. If you want to see your beloved Chax again, you’ll come up with something. Oh, and you’ve only got a few hours.”
Great torches were lit. The fire burned brightly and triggered a chain reaction, with dozens of torches filling the monolithic craggy walls like a starry night sky.
The light revealed a writhing mass of Yayora. They filled the cavernous space already and more were filing in by the minute.
They were all relying on me.
If I didn’t come up with something soon, the Yayora would have no choice but to endure another long generational war with the Changelings.
And that was if the Changelings didn’t discover this place and wipe it from the map.
And with them, Chax would perish.
No pressure.
I weighed up each idea and crossed them off the list one by one. The problem I had was no one understood how the Changelings would react to any given situation. We needed Chax and his intimate knowledge of these beasts.
I needed him.
He knew the Changelings far better than any of us ever would. He’d found himself ensnared in their plans more times than he could count. He
