CHAPTER 12

Nick

The alarm rang until it cut off and red running lights lit up along the upper corners of the walls, giving off a throbbing glow.I took Tara by the hand, and Lon and Kris went with us to the big window opposite where we were standing, with the view of where we took out the melobeasts.The sky overhead blossomed with lights.As soon as one burst of light contracted and faded, another one burst through the clouds.

"First," I said to the two in my command, "we secure the Princess."

At the sound of her name being called—"Tara!"—we turned and saw the Prime Regent coming quickly down the hall with Alpha Commander Brunson and two other Guards.I knew they had gotten into the Prime Regent's office through

a special corridor and entrance reserved for the Alpha Commander and selected Guards for emergencies.This counted as an emergency.

Tara's father and the Guards escorting him reached us, and Tara threw her arms around Mr. Landon.He held her close; she looked up at him and said fearfully, "Daddy, they're here."

"We're getting to safety right now, sweetheart," the Prime Regent said.And he let her go, and she went quickly with us, her father, and his guards down the great stairs into the entrance hall.As soon as we were there, loud, explosive sounds like rolling thunder came from outside and overhead.We all flinched at the bone-shaking noise and looked to one of the big windows on either side of the front door.Outside, up in the sky, there were now more than just the flashes from beyond the clouds.Dark, mean-looking shapes lowered themselves from out of the sky.I narrowed my eyes at them; my teeth were ready to lengthen into fangs.They were here, all right.Some of the Soorns had started getting through Lycia's orbital first line of defense and would now be targeting Leto.Higher up, in the upper atmosphere and in space, Colonial and Guard ships must be fighting to secure that defense line again and hold off any more Soorn ships from getting through.The battle was on.

The Prime Regent, standing right behind me, said, "You know what to do."

"Yes, Sir," I said, and looked just past him at Tara."Princess," I said, "we're taking you to the emergency bunker.The Alpha Commander will be getting your father to his special inner office."

"Let's move," Commander Brunson said.We all went to one side of the entrance hall where, at the Commander's tap of a spot on his wristband, a section of the wall slid open and revealed a hidden corridor leading to a stairway that went to a sub-level of the mansion.The walls, ceiling, and floor of the passage were grey, a combination of the toughest metals and carbon compounds that scientists back on Earth could whip up.All the spaces we'd be passing through were that way.We all got through the open section in the wall, which sealed itself back up behind us.

We hurried to the bottom of the stairway.Tara and her father joined hands one last time and traded a worried, loving look.The Prime Regent looked at me and said, "I know you'll take care of her."

"Sir, yes, Sir!" I replied, letting myself feel a tiny swell of pride at the confidence that Mr. Landon expressed in my men and me.Then I put a hand on Tara's shoulder and said to her, "This way, Princess."Lon, Kris, and I led Tara in one direction and the President went with Alpha Commander Brunson and his men in another.

With Tara, the three of us broke into a run and came to a wall at the end of the passage.I put my palm on a section of the wall, and like the one upstairs, that wall opened up into another corridor.We got through there and the wall sealed itself up behind us.We were now in another short hallway, leading to still another grey wall."The Regency bunker is through there," I said, with a hand on Tara's arm.We started for that wall—and suddenly, impossibly, the floor shook!

It felt as if we were being hit with an earthquake.The four of us staggered and stumbled, trying to keep our footing.I held on to Tara, who stifled a scream.The other men and I reflexively started to morph, our ears turning to points and fur breaking out on our hands.Kris and Lon growled.The rumbling and shaking grew stronger and we all felt a vibration in the floor, where cracks were appearing.

I let out a loud growl of alarm.How was the floor cracking?The cracks grew longer and wider and we could see them radiating out from one spot in front of us.Somewhere in the din, my half-wolf ears picked up the sound of Tara whimpering in fright.I held her tighter as the center of the radiating cracks broke open, sending chunks and fragments flying.Whatever was happening, it was happening right between us and where we needed to be.I held Tara tightly and tried to shout over the noise that we had to try to jump over that broken place and run to the other side.I was ready to pick up Tara and carry her, when the place was filled with a crashing, shattering noise like a part of a cliff breaking off in an avalanche.We were all thrown off our feet.The lights flickered.Suddenly I couldn't feel the floor under me; with Tara in my arms I was flying.The sound muffled Tara's scream and the yelps of Lon and Kris, whom I couldn't see any more.Everything was spinning.I felt a hard thump, then pain in my head and shoulder.The place went totally dark, then the lights cut on again, but dimly.

There was no more sound now.I tried to raise my head and see what was going on.I looked for Tara and the others and could just make out their shapes, lying in strewn rubble and fragments.A sharp pain spiked through my head and my vision blurred.I tried to call out for the others.That was when I saw lights above.I thought they might be a hallucination from the blow to my head.These two bluish lights were situated like…eyes?

I managed to prop myself up woozily against a wall, and now in the dimness I saw Tara lying half-conscious near Lon, who was also dragging himself up and crawling over to her.Across from Lon was Kris, already on his knees in the rubble.Lon reached Tara's side and helped her sit up, and we all carefully kept an eye on those two bluish lights.We all went to wolf form, making ourselves stronger and faster than just men.As one, the three of us whipped out our two-guns, just when something else happened.

From out of a jagged hole beneath where the lights hovered came serpentine shapes—tentacles with bright blue lights at the tips.They curled and wavered into the space as if searching and probing.Scenarios flashed through my throbbing head about the Soorn agents working secretly for months in the caverns under the Capital, putting their mutated creatures down there—and also their technology, new Soorn tech that we hadn't seen or heard of.

The tentacles moved, now with purpose.They twisted and curved around, not probing, but reaching.A couple of them bent in the direction of Tara and Lon.She flinched and gasped, trying to crawl backwards, while Lon aimed his two-gun and fired.His particle beam hit one of the tendrils, which reared back and away from him, while the other one lunged at him.Lon squeezed off another shot, which grazed and sparked off of that tendril.Tara scrambled from his grasp and back up, panting and terrified, against the wall.The two tentacles attacking Lon wrapped around him, one seizing the arm with his weapon, the other getting his leg.They lifted Lon from the floor, and he growled furiously at them, firing again at close range.One of his shots severed the tendril that held his leg.The other one slammed him back against the wall where Tara crouched—and then the thing reached for Tara.

With Lon lying near her, she let out a scream and struggled to her feet.The attacking tentacle loomed down at her, and I fought the pain and spinning in my head to drag myself upright against the wall behind me.Now everything became a whirling frenzy of motion.I fired at the one tentacle that reached for Tara and another that started to twist in her direction with it.Kris, beyond where I propped myself up against the wall, snarled loudly and fired through the twisting shapes of these alien arms, trying to fend off the ones reaching for him and hit the ones going for Tara at the same time.Others were rising up like cobras and moving at me.Like Kris, I fired at them and at Tara's attackers.The space in the corridor was filled with the sounds of two-guns firing and the flashes and sparks of our attacks hitting the serpentine forms, slashing through some of them while others evaded our bolts.My vision kept clouding up and that and the pounding pain in my head made it hard to focus.I called out, "Tara…!"I heard her screaming and Kris growling, and I couldn't see either of them anymore.There was a hard, smashing feeling across my snout, and I felt the floor whipping out from under my feet again, and then a thump!

Then…nothing.