Chapter 23
Levant
I was hurt badly, but that didn’t matter because Felicia was okay, and she didn’t want to leave.
Then why did her eyes remain so sad? All we had to do was turn off her ship’s engine, and everything would be fine.
Wouldn’t it? I just needed to get my body out from under this massive piece of ice so we could get moving.
Perhaps I’d take a quick break to catch my breath.
I needed healing, but the healing device didn’t work on you. A very annoying quirk, especially now.
“Auby, can you cut through the ice with your laser cutter?” I asked.
My hands reached for the edge of the slab and pushed experimentally.
It didn’t move, didn’t so much as wobble.
I’d have to gather my tail as much as I could beneath me to push off with.
My ribs ached, and I knew I had to be bleeding internally.
How long did I have before I needed medical help?
Could my body recover on its own if I put myself into a healing sleep?
“Negative, Levant. My laser cutter has been malfunctioning since the Duskha attack. It must be fixed first.” He said it formally, but then sighed and mewled sadly.
“I’m very sorry. I wish I could help more.
” I felt his hooves next to my tail, digging furiously even though they were not really shaped right for digging.
He was trying very hard indeed, even if his news was a crushing disappointment.
I found his soft head with one hand and stroked his tufted ears to reassure him.
Felicia swore furiously, much more upset than I could muster.
“We don’t have long. There was another rumble.
We might not survive another quake down here.
I have to get to the ship.” She gazed at me as if she was saying goodbye, but I didn’t understand.
Hadn’t she just told me she was staying, that she wanted my home to be hers?
My dreams to be hers? Perhaps it was the injuries making my brain sluggish; perhaps it was whatever was in the air that was making my body tremble with a fury I did not recognize.
“Can you make it?” I asked. “Can you shut it down?” She bit her lip, then leaned in to kiss me again. I liked the kisses, but I didn’t like the icy tears I tasted on her skin. “I’ll make it,” I said to her, but that only seemed to make her sadder.
“I love you,” she said, and then she rose and walked away.
Her shoulders were up around her ears, her head down, and her tread heavy.
I watched her go, drinking in every last minute of her that I could.
It felt like that mattered, but I couldn’t quite figure out why it felt so urgent to watch her until I couldn’t anymore.
Like I was saying goodbye to her too. Then she disappeared into the massive tunnel the Digmaster had created, the one that had once led me to the joyous discovery of her ship and stasis pod.
Auby nosed my hand a little longer, but then went back to digging around the slab of ice for me.
He chattered as he did it, as if he couldn’t stand the laden silence anymore than I could.
“I might be able to cut this part off with my hooves if I work on it long enough. It is a key point that might break the entire slab into multiple pieces. What do you think?”
I didn’t answer because I spotted Felicia coming back through the tunnel.
This time she was running, and her pretty round face was white as the snow we were surrounded by.
Her shocked expression was so terrible that it made my gut twist. Something was wrong, very wrong.
There was no way she could have made it to her ship and back already.
“The tunnel is blocked. The quake broke pieces off like the one on top of you, and I can’t get through.
” She thudded to her knees in the snow at my side and grabbed my hand, squeezing it so tightly I feared she’d hurt her fingers on my scales.
“Levant… I can’t reach the ship. I think the drive has powered up almost completely, and it’s not cutting off from overheating anymore.
It’s going to tear Serant apart when it engages. ”
So we’d failed. That truth settled into me, sinking beneath my scales like an oily slickness, a bad taste.
No, I didn’t want to give up. We couldn’t let it end this way.
“Help me get to my communicator,” I groaned, my hand scrabbling across the snow and ice to burrow beneath the slab.
“We must warn everyone.” I didn’t know if that would help, but the Shaman Council could try to evacuate people with their ships.
The people at Haven might be able to seal themselves into the mountain and survive the quakes and the volcanic ash.
She helped me, and Auby did too, groaning, the torn hide on his flank trembling as he pushed against the slab to give me the wriggle room I needed to free the device.
My fingers felt clumsy against my belt when I freed it, and then I dislodged something else first. My body jolted with a lance of hope as I realized what it was, a knife.
But not just any knife. It was a laser scalpel.
The very one I’d used to cut a hole through the ice to get to Felicia’s ship.
I yanked it free and lifted it in front of our faces, my chest muscles protesting fiercely against the motion.
“This might help,” I said. “Felicia, you must take it and attempt to clear a path to your ship.” She eyed the small knife dubiously, and I understood why; it hardly seemed big enough to be of help.
“I’ll set it to overload, or it won’t be fast enough, so you must be careful.
” It was a very risky plan, one that could result in it blowing up in her hands, literally.
We were all out of options, though. I’d fix her up.
I’d make Erish fix her up—he was the best healer—when all this was over.
“I’ll try,” she whispered. Taking the knife I’d modified to be the equivalent of a live bomb in her hand, she slipped away again.
This time, I was distracted by the urgent need to call the Shaman Council and Haven, to call Serqethos and tell them to take shelter.
I wanted to watch her as long as I could, but I had a duty to my people—to protect them, to warn them.
I picked up the communicator and started dialing.
It was Codish again on the Amarathas, his image badly distorted and static twitching across the line, so I could barely understand what he said.
Felicia’s ship had to be causing terrible interference; it was a miracle this worked at all.
He took my message grimly and ran off to warn the others.
I called Serqethos next, but Kaylass did not answer.
The signal simply wouldn’t connect. I feared the worst already.
They’d just survived famine after the lake emptied, now this?
I’d try again after I’d reached Haven and hoped that the Shaman Council was going to try to inform all the others scattered across the planet.
It was Zathar who answered my call, the leader of Haven.
I knew that only because I recognized that particular shade of azure.
That was the royal blue of the Thunder Rock Clan, or at least, of the former royal family.
It was unmistakable, even if the image was completely warped.
Then the image shifted, and the colors did too, and I began to doubt myself.
That could be anyone. “Zathar? Artek? Corin? Anyone?” I said, and the image jumped so wildly it made my head spin.
“There’s great danger. You must take your people and hide inside Ahoshaga. We found a human ship at the North Pole, and its engine is tearing the planet apart. You must hide.” The call had already dropped, and I had no way of knowing if enough of my message had gotten through. I could only hope.
I tried Kaylass once more, but it was impossible to get through at all now.
My communicator was dead, unresponsive. I tucked it back into a pouch I could still reach anyway, more by rote than need.
Trapped, all I could do was wait until Felicia returned and reported whether she’d made it or not.
I could only lie there and listen for the sound of the scalpel exploding—or not.
Wait for the trembling of the ground beneath me to stop.
Auby was still pawing at the slab of ice on top of me.
He was so determined to help, but he was so tiny it was impossible.
He might be able to do it if he had several hours, but it felt like we only had moments.
Either I got out now and made a difference by getting Felicia to her ship to stop this, or I was forced to lie here and do nothing at all.
A bubble of fury sparked anew in my bloodstream, warning me that whatever was in the air wasn’t done agitating me. I wanted to rage and howl, slam my fist into something, but I was pinned, helpless. How could I let my mate do the fighting, even if it was against ice and a failing ship?
The sound of snow shifting drew my attention, and I tried to lift my head to see if it was Felicia returning.
It wasn’t her, and Auby screeched in fear, his lights winking out as he burrowed into a pile of snow next to me to hide.
I didn’t need his lights to see, though; there was just enough of something glowing down at us from the hole above.
My eyes tracked movement to my right, where snow shifted and a pale shape rose.
A Naga, the very Naga that had tangled with me just as I’d leaped after Felicia when she fell into the hole.
A strong male with large shards of pale blue ice rising from his shoulders and snow-white hair dusted with snow and braided with pale gray leather.
He swayed upright, clearly not pinned the way I was, but bleeding profusely from a wound at his temple.