There was a pause before he formed a fist and thumped his chest.
“Listen to your heart,” Lord Taw said. “You know what to do.”
The Titans around me performed the same action back at him.
Something was happening.
Something big.
But I wasn’t entirely sure what.
On the hologram, all hell broke loose. Changeling soldiers opened fire on Lord Taw and the crowd of Titans fought back. The hologram cameras switched off and we were left with static.
The Titans stood, slack-jawed, staring at the hologram that was no longer there.
“What happened?” I said.
No sooner were the words out of my mouth than the Titans rushed outside and peered up at Emperor’s Peak.
My heart was in my throat.
The thing they called the beacon was lit. It burned fiercely even now in the afternoon.
The Titans roared, pumping their fists in the air.
“Now we go to war!” the warriors bellowed.
He grabbed me, kissed me on the cheek, and then kissed the other Titans.
I backed away, into the sanity of the ward. Since when was going to war a good thing?
“It’s not going to be easy pushing the Changelings back,” Fiath said, watching the Titans celebrating. “But it must be done.”
“The Changelings are armed with ships and powerful weapons,” I said. “These Titans only have ancient weapons.”
“It’s not the weapon that matters. It’s the will to act.”
“The weapon matters a little bit…” I muttered.
The Titans had been nothing but kind to me. I didn’t want their fate to end in a bloodbath.
WAAAaaaaa!
The siren rang loudly, cutting the Titans’ celebrations short. They ran outside and I followed them.
Above us, swarming across the sky, were a dozen bright lights, identical to the ones we saw that fateful night when the Changelings attacked the emperor’s palace.
My stomach fell through my feet.
They were heading straight for us.
The Titans scattered.
There were no screams, no shouts of outrage. I’d seen panic before and this looked nothing like it.
They moved with purpose. Everyone kept their heads down and ran to their battle stations. With everyone else knowing what they were doing, I suddenly found myself alone and without anything to do.
Except run for my life.
I turned and ran back inside the hospital. The other nurses were already leaping into action. They lifted the patients out of their beds and placed them in wheelchairs and stretchers. I gave them a hand but with my limited human strength, I wasn’t much use.
Damn these weak human muscles!
I ran to the supply room and helped pack up the equipment. At least I could do that much!
I carried the boxes out the entrance to the carts they hastily assembled outside. The nurses added some of the patients to the cart beds too. I added the supplies and apologized when one struck a patient on the chest.
The bright lights zoomed in closer. Already, I could make out their undercarriages glowing brightly with luminous plasma.
Purple. Green. Yellow.
Soon, Fiath wouldn’t be the only person sporting horrific burns. The entire village would be. It would be burnt to the ground.
The warriors came out of their huts armed with spears.
What did they think they could do with them with the ships rushing closer every moment? I wondered.
The tribe chief barked his orders. The warriors split into two groups.
At least they would go down fighting, I supposed.
I retrieved more boxes of medical supplies and added them to the carts.
“That’s everything!” the surgeon said. He turned to me. “Get on the cart and go with them.”
“What about you?” I said.
“Somebody has to take care of the injured here.”
“I’ll help you.”
He placed a hand on my shoulder.
“You’re doing enough,” he said. “Help the others. And help us win.”
He wore a mask of grim determination. It was going to be a hard fight, that expression said. And we’re going to need all the help we can get.
I boarded the cart. The arlath pulled forward, tugging the cart behind it. There were three carts, each packed with patients and provisions.
The drivers didn’t slow down, not even when someone got in their way. Those that got knocked over bolted up onto their feet, dusted themselves off, collected their spears, and took off again.
I had front row seats, watching as the shuttlecraft warships came thundering in overhead. Their undercarriage plasma cannons made loud high-pitched noises as they charged and unloaded. The bolt of plasma expelled from the weapons was a solid beam that sliced through the forest and swung in an arc. The huts didn’t burst into flames. Instead, they exploded and melted before my eyes.
The first ship pulled up and banked hard to make another pass.
The other two ships came in hot and released their luminous bolts of liquid plasma. It was so hot it turned white the moment it struck the earth.
One of the ships screeched, leaned to one side, and struck the second ship.
Something had brought it down. But what?
A mechanical fault?
I couldn’t see what caused it.
I peered closer and noticed Titan warriors led by their chief atop Emperor’s Peak. They ran a few short steps and threw their spears.
I marveled at the distance, speed, and strength with which they hurled them.
They were more like missiles.
The spears struck the ships so hard they sliced through their hulls with ease. They must have been tipped with something.
The warriors hurled more spears that made the shuttlecraft resemble a pin cushion.
The ship pulled up but the thrusters didn’t respond. It smashed into the village and tumbled end over end. The arlaths pulling the carts screamed and rose up on their hind legs.
Alerted to the danger, the remaining shuttlecraft steered toward Emperor’s Peak and fired on it.
One moment the warriors were there, and the next, they were gone.
The arlaths turned a corner and the scene was wiped from view.
But the sounds…
The sounds remained and would haunt
