Dark Matters - Michelle Diener Page 0,95
been awake and aware, been hit.
And now he was.
He saw, immediately, that two Levron were closing in on him, one on either side, coming in fast.
He'd known they were close by, but they'd been in a holding pattern close to the planet since before he'd come out from his hiding place on Gyre.
They must have drifted closer as he'd kept his concentration on Fa'allen and finding Lucy.
They'd bested him.
He moved upward suddenly as the second Levron fired.
“Dray.” He kept low, circling around the city.
“Yes?”
Bane rolled his Class 5, able to fly up in a way he had never been allowed to do when it contained Tecran crew.
“If I continue to stay low, they might miss and hit Fa'allen.”
“Lead them away. I'll save Lucy.”
Bane could hear Dray's breathing was deeper, guessed he was running.
“Yes.” He accepted that was the only thing to do, and as he fired on the Levron, he wondered what the Tecran below thought of their own warships putting them in danger.
And how lucky they were that Lucy was down there with them, or he'd have been happy for the Levron to do their worst.
The military had lost its grip.
Dray looked up at the light show above, saw it was two of the three Levron that had followed the Urna to Tecra attacking Bane, and wondered if the third was too far away to participate, or just waiting in the wings to attack later.
The crowds didn't seem able to decide whether to keep their gaze on the lights shining from Karn's eyes, or the flicker of cannon fire above. They stood and stared, heads tilted up.
He forced himself to forget about the fight going on overhead, to leave that to Bane, because his only concern now was Lucy.
He dodged the protesters, moving as fast as he could, and with a spurt of speed, Cossi flanked him.
She'd been standing with her back against the dais in the square, having followed him when he'd broken ranks and run into the crowd, and now she followed him toward the base of Karn's statue.
“You don't make things easy, do you, Helvan?” she asked, her voice just slightly breathless as they ran.
He didn't apologize, he wasn't sorry, but he did appreciate her. “Thank you for having my back.”
“More exciting this way,” she said, and then stopped talking to concentrate on dodging the people in their way.
The hostility of the crowd seemed to have leaked away. They were confused. Frightened.
Everything they knew was being ripped apart.
“Anyone who looks like they're about to cause trouble,” he said over the comms to the rest of the team, “arrest them. They're most likely rogue soldiers.”
As they approached the door set into the folds of Karn's cloak, between his clawed feet, a Tecran burst out of it. He looked around, as if expecting to see someone, and Dray fired on him, the setting low.
He heard Cossi swear softly in appreciation, but he didn't have time to banter with her.
The Tecran stood, still upright but dazed, and Dray shoved him up against the side of the statue. “Where about inside are you keeping Lucy?”
He blinked at Dray for a moment, then shook his head in a delicate shudder. “She's not inside anymore. She's up there.” He pointed upward at an angle, and Dray lifted his head.
“On the arms?”
“On the beak, last I saw.” The soldier coughed. “But Silius is after her, and I don't think he's stopping until he throws her off.”
Dray shoved him at Cossi and ran backward, his gaze searching the top of the statue. It was hard to see much when the light from the eyes was so blinding, but he thought he could just make out a shadow crouched on the beak, and a figure climbing toward her.
Silius.
The Tecran soldier would reach her in seconds. In less time than it would take Dray to make it to the door at the bottom of the statue.
He was too late to save her, again.
Chapter 41
“I knew the battleship commanders wouldn't fail us.” Silius's words were tight with discomfort but full of pride, underscoring the scrabble he made as he continued to climb.
Lucy guessed he was having to do it with his eyes closed, or nearly closed, given how long it was taking him.
“Because they're shooting at Bane? They're lucky they haven't hit Fa'allen.”
He gave an ugly laugh. “Half of Fa'allen would call them traitors, so no loss there.”
“What do you plan to do when you finally get up here with me?”
She knew, she just wanted to have