to the ship that would cause its engines to shut down and the ship to fall from the sky. They were flying so low in their attack; his plan might just succeed, and the ship would fall to the sand before the system recovered and got rid of his code.
His fingers felt light as they moved quickly, the code coming back to him as if he hadn’t read the manual over seven orbits ago.
This was one of those times being Vorti was something he was grateful for.
As he punched in the last line of code, he pinged the ship.
“Done!” he shouted, loud enough for his brothers to hear.
Yce turned his head to look at him, his eyes no longer glowing as he cut his connection with the ship’s pilot.
As they all turned their eyes to the sky, they saw the ship jerk in the air before it began to nosedive.
“Incoming!” Xul’s voice reached him and Kyro watched as the ship came in hard and fast. Right before it hit the ground, he could just make out the blur of Crex as his brother jumped onto the falling vessel, using one of the fins from his back to smash the gazer before he pulled the pilot from his seat.
While Crex dealt with that one, he heard Xul send a message to the Restitution for pickup as they raced toward the ship, which was now kicking a huge sand cloud into the air as it carved a straight path through the sand.
Hedgerud fighters began jumping from the vessel before it even came to a stop, their long, armored tails swinging behind them in the air as they snarled from their long snouts.
“Qrakking long noses!” a Mukkian screamed as they too raced toward the oncoming guards. For a second, Kyro was surprised to see the little men still there. He’d thought they’d escaped on their creatures, but he should have known better. The Mukkians hated the Tasqals as much as the Restitution did.
This wasn’t just a fight between his brothers and the guards. It was but a small part of a larger fight between the whole galaxy and the Tasqals.
What happened next was a blur. Crex was beside them in record speed, taking down one of the guards before the rest of them even reached close enough for contact.
Xul charged, his spear pointed for combat as he lodged it deep into a Hedgerud’s body. As the bloody tip of Xul’s spear came out the other end of the guard, Kyro ducked under the attack of a guard that charged at him.
The guard’s sword slid right by his face and he gripped the guard’s outstretched arm, twisting it as he retrieved the sword with his other hand and buried it in the guard’s back.
He could feel the remnants of his chets itch, the thrill of a fight running through his very veins.
To his left, Rokan let out a hoot, no doubt feeling the same itch. As their eyes locked, a knowing look passed between them that confirmed his thoughts.
With a grin, Kyro cut down the next guard that came at him, using the same tactic as before and in his peripheral vision, he could see Yce doing the same.
They were no match for all five brothers together. It was a suicide mission.
Without their ship, the Hedgeruds would die.
The Hedgerud guards must have just been scouting for the stasis pods themselves when they came upon them. This hadn’t been a planned attack, or they would have brought more ships along with them.
So many other humans. He wondered what Evren would think. Would it make her happy to have more of her kind around?
Even as he thought about her, he took out another guard, using the two swords he’d taken from the previous guards and burying them into the one charging at him. He was just about to pull the weapons from the wound to attack another charging guard when a sharp pain in his side had him glancing down.
“Blaster!” he heard Xul shout, but it was too late.
Off in the distance, he could see his brother Yce, falling to his knees, a deep gash of burning flesh on his shoulder.
Looking down, a similar gash was in his side. He’d been hit.
His vision waned as he saw Xul take down the fighter charging toward him while Crex reached the guard with the blaster and snapped his neck with a roar.
Evren, he thought.
Life was suddenly fragile and all he felt was disappointment and regret.
He hadn’t had the