CHAPTER 20

Lon

When you join the Canis Guard, you train for a day like this.

The greatest dangers, the greatest disasters, the biggest battles—that's what you prepare yourself for.The days when who you are and what you can do are put to the ultimate test—that's what you're thinking of when you go through the drills and the maneuvers, when you put on the uniform.That's what's on your mind when you stand, not with the pack that you weren't born into, but the one that you proved you could be a part of.The Guard is your pack; the uniformed men and women around you are your brother and sister wolves, at whose side you'll do battle and maybe die.But on a day like this, it isn't the dying you think of.It's the lives you're saving.

In wolf shape, Nick and I got into a topless, armed Guard speeder and went skimming out over the streets of Leto, where there was plenty of battle to go around.Nick sat in the pilot's seat and I literally "rode shotgun," responsible for the controls of the speeder's weapons.I thought of them as extensions of my own wolf fangs and claws—fangs and claws of light and fire, ready to tear deep into my prey, or my enemy.And that enemy was making its presence known.

Colonial Defense had gotten most of the civilians into basement shelters in buildings around the city.A few unlucky ones were lying still in the streets while the attack that claimed their lives raged all around them.Part of our job would be to avenge the helpless people who had fallen.Everywhere was thunder and fire.Smoke poured from the windows of burning buildings.Flames danced in cruel orange waves on bushes and trees.Some of those trees were shambling around on root-like legs, their limbs and leaves being gnawed away by fire.From behind some buildings came the shocking bursts of explosions.And in the streets and in the air were the ones who had caused it all.

We could see them down on the ground, exchanging energy bolts with our own people and the Colonial troops.We could see them swerving around the buildings in their gliding assault vehicles, firing at targets both on the ground and in the air:the coal-bodied Soorns, who for so long had been nothing to us but images in historical records and figures in stories we'd learned in school and in the Guard Academy.Now the Soorns were real, and they were upon us, and we were sure as hell upon them.

While Nick piloted, I fired.Three Soorn attack skimmers dropped down from overhead and came right towards us, their weapons lit up, ready to blast us out of the air—if I let them.The second I caught sight of them, I opened fire.From the forward guns of our speeder came lances of energy that cut into the Soorn skimmer directly in front of us, slicing its forward section and sending it swerving away and down.The fire of the other two Soorn craft bracketed us, hemming us in.Nick did a hard bank turn around the corner of one building and arced around the other side of it.One of the enemy craft came around the other side and headed for us, set to open fire.I anticipated this and shot first.My shot hit one side of the Soorn craft's front end, releasing a shower of sparks.The enemy swerved out of control and careened right into the building, disappearing in a blast of fire and smoke and shattered pieces.

Blazing streaks tore through the air from behind us, searing through the air right above me and between us.I took a quick look over my shoulder and saw the last of those three attack skimmers bearing down on us.I shouted, "Nick!", just as two more shots came sizzling through, ripping between us again and off to the side of the pilot seat.

"I know!" Nick shouted back."Hang on!"And he went into a fast, low swoop towards the ground as if we'd been hit.The Soorn skimmer, maintaining its speed but not changing its trajectory in time, whipped past above us.As soon as it cleared us, Nick climbed up again and I opened fire at it.I caught the Soorns at the bottom of their aft section, producing a rude blossom of fire from their hull and making them spin away and crash explosively on the city street.

"Yes!" I growled, but immediately we had another problem.Suddenly our craft lurched hard, and we saw a burst of light from under where we sat.The underside of our speeder started belching smoke and I knew what had happened.We'd been hit from below, somewhere on the street, and were losing altitude.

"We're going down!" Nick cried, a curse in his voice.He gripped the controls hard in his paws and showed his fangs.Our speeder went careening forward and downward, spewing a trail of smoke behind it.I saw at once that Nick was headed for one of the city's public pools to ditch the craft.Baring my own fangs and growling hard, I braced myself.Everything went blurring by us as the surface of the water loomed up at us.A second later, everything was a splash and water was everywhere, including in our cockpit.Not wasting a second, we jumped from the craft and into the pool, where we found ourselves waist-deep in the water, and whipped out our two-guns even as Soorn ground troops surrounded the pool.

Nick and I moved in a blur, whirling around and spinning our weapons, taking aim with the energy-beam ends of the two-guns and shooting at the Soorns as they closed in on us.Our shots brought down some of our attackers, while those still charging fired their own weapons.We deflected their shots with the blade ends of our two-guns, sending sparks out and down to sizzle in the water.It looked as if there were more than a dozen Soorns coming for us on all sides.We'd take down as many as we could before they got us.

Somewhere in a corner of my mind was Tara's face, urging me on, urging both of us not to give up, to keep blasting and fighting to the last possible second.This image of her in my mind might be the last I ever saw of her.

Kris, I thought while deflecting incoming Soorn fire, if this is the end, take care of her.Take care of Tara.

Suddenly there came the sound of other weapons being fired, not from around us, but from above us.Explosions erupted on the pavement around the pool.A shadow slid over the water.The Soorns stopped their charge and gazed upward, and so did Nick and I.

Swooping in above us came two of the Caloxi tentacle craft, their arms glowing and firing.Their bolts rained down on every side of the pool, slicing with fiery talons into the Soorns.The dark aliens returned fire, their beams grazing against the hulls of the Caloxi craft as they moved along, tentacles blasting steadily.More Soorns were hit and crumpled to the ground, and we kept blasting at those who remained, dropping more of them.Those who were left standing retreated, running off to find other foes.

The area around the pool was quiet now.The only sounds came from other battles in the city nearby.Nick and I looked up at the Caloxi craft that had come to our rescue.They hovered over us as if to salute us, these beings who before today had been strangers, these aliens who earlier would have killed us as soon as they looked at us.For a moment, the Caloxi looked down at us from their seats in the dishes of their craft, then veered away to take the battle elsewhere.Nick and I had been reprieved well enough, but our own duty still called.We would have to find more battle for ourselves.

Striding from the pool, we looked out over the city and saw more Caloxi tentacle craft moving towards places where the thunder of combat continued to boom.As we stepped from the water, I dared to wonder where it all would end.

The moment we were on dry ground again, we had another problem.

A loud, vicious roar made us spin around to one side.From around some tall hedges came more trouble:Soorn-mutated reptile beasts, two of them, striding like Tyrannosaurs, their mouths showing fangs like daggers.At the sight of us, these beats paused only long enough to let out roars to tell us that they were hungry and had a taste for wolf meat.

The sound of their roaring drowned out my reaction: "Oh, hell…"

Nick was the first to fire, his blast hitting the armored scales on the breast of one monster and sparking off, leaving only a reddened area on the reptile's hide.It looked as if only prolonged and concentrated fire, or a more powerful weapon than either of us had, would penetrate the skins of these beasts, which was bad news for us.The beast that Nick hit moved its head menacingly forward and released a screeching, bellowing sound, while its friend came lumbering directly at me.I let loose with one shot, two shots, three, hitting it about its breast and neck.It reared back and screeched and bellowed like the other one, as if to tell me, I'm gonna get you for that.Then both creatures charged, and Nick and I turned and ran.The creatures' footfalls thundered behind us as we moved down the street on our wolf legs, using all of our wolf speed.The reptile beasts came after us, roaring wildly as they ran.

It was now a chase to see which was faster, two lycanthropes or two huge mutant saurians.The outcome was not sure.We ran while firing over our shoulders at our pursuers, some of our shots connecting and others missing them.We didn't slow them down a bit.Our best chance now was to find someplace to duck into that was too small for them to enter and too strong for them to tear down and get us—perhaps an empty building that hadn't been too blasted or burned to be safe.We were running down along a courtyard in an area of shops and eateries that had been evacuated.Just one building that they couldn't break into or bring the ceiling down on us; that was all we needed.

At the end of the courtyard was an intersection with another street, and here we caught a lucky break.Coming down that street was a big, heavy Colonial skimmer craft—with a big, beautiful photon cannon mounted at its front end.Emerging from the courtyard with the monster reptiles still thundering behind us, we waved down the Colonial craft, which stopped in front of us.Nick motioned at our pursuers, and the pilot of the skimmer understood what we meant.The skimmer pivoted, pointing its cannon down the courtyard at the approaching beasts, while Nick and I ran around the other side of the vehicle.As soon as we were clear, the pilot let loose with that cannon.Mighty beams of energy blasted forth to the edge of the courtyard where we had just been.We peered around the skimmer and saw one beam hit one of the reptiles square in the chest.Where the big energy bolt hit, there was a fiery eruption; and the beast keeled over to one side.The sound of its body hitting the pavement was its last thunder.

The other monster managed to get closer to the skimmer craft.It lunged its head forward and snapped its huge, ferocious jaws as if it could bite the cannon clean off.In answer, the Colonial weapon released its fury again in another pulverizing beam that punched right through the midsection of the saurian.Its roars and bellows were cut off as a hole was cut into its belly and out its back.Thrashing its tail, it collapsed onto one side and lay on the pavement, breathing its last.

We heard a clicking sound and the forward hatch of the Colonial craft swung open.The woman Colonial soldier in the pilot's seat looked at us from under the rim of her helmet and nodded her head."Looks like you two got yourselves into some trouble there."

"Might say that," said Nick.We studied her for a moment and noticed she was a blonde.She didn't have the long hair of another blonde that we'd gotten to know very well, but for that moment we couldn't help thinking about her, back in the bunkers with Kris, preparing to do the thing that we hoped would turn all this madness around.

From the distance came the sounds of ongoing battle.Much as we'd trained for this, I still had to ask myself when and how this was going to end.

The woman pilot looked off in the direction of the battle sounds and said, "They could use us somewhere else.Get in."

She opened a side hatch and Nick and I climbed inside to where some other uniformed, armed humans were sitting.They welcomed us—wolf men or humans, we were all together in this—and the pilot closed her hatches and got under way again.

*****

The Colonial vehicle slid over the ground, on through city streets where pits and craters were blasted in the pavement, where some buildings were blazing or smoking or smoldering, and others stood with their facades torn open and their insides spilled out like people who had been disemboweled.People, some in uniforms and some civilians, lay unmoving, surrounded by debris and smoking parts of buildings and vehicles.Countering the stillness of the dead area where we were moving were the sounds of blasts and explosions on streets in the direction where we were headed.Aboard the skimmer where Nick and I were sitting, all the human troops were quiet, but they all wore looks of solemn, hard determination.In their eyes and on their unsmiling features was a resolve as fierce as any lycanthrope.I could believe we were all wolves in spirit.

And then the quiet was broken.There was a thundering, shattering, cracking sound like the world tearing itself apart.In that same shocking instant there was something like a blow from a giant fist hitting the skimmer, and the feeling of the craft spinning as if it were caught in a tornado.Bodies were tossed around inside the compartment; no one could get any grip on anything to hold onto.Then, as fast as it happened, the spinning came to a cruel, smashing, bone-crunching stop.People came to a rest, tossed and splayed around inside the compartment, and my wolf nostrils picked up the smell of blood.

My first thought was of my comrade, who had just had a concussion.What if something else had happened to him?My voice came out half-whining: "Nick?Nick…?"

From somewhere nearby in the squirming mass of uniformed bodies came his voice in response: "I'm here."I spotted him and some humans trying to disentangle themselves from each other across the compartment from me."Over here.I'm all right.You?"

Bracing my hand on a wall that had become a floor, prying myself away from some other humans with whom I was tangled up, I called to Nick, "I'm not hurt.Just a little stunned.I'm good."

"All right, then," Nick grunted, "we need to get…"

As if anticipating what Nick was about to say, the hatch to this inner compartment of the skimmer automatically popped open, and light from outside poured into the dimness.Everyone who was conscious helped someone nearby to clamber out through the hatch.A couple of the humans started to check the status of those who weren't conscious or moving.Nick and I half-climbed, half-fell with some of the humans through the hatch of the vehicle and onto the ground.Unhurt, but shaky, we first crouched on the ground, then pulled ourselves up to our feet.The skimmer lay on its side, no longer levitating along the ground but lying on it.A couple of the humans went up front to that forward hatch, which had also popped open.Back in the direction from which we'd come, there was a pit blasted in the pavement with fire crackling in it and gouts of smoke rising up from it.We looked to the distance in the other direction and saw the dark shapes of Soorn ships moving through the air that way, and guessed that one of these craft, while passing above us, had taken a pot shot at the lone Colonial skimmer speeding along.Damn them.

Our next thought was to help the humans who had picked us up.We went to the front of the toppled skimmer and saw a couple of them pulling the bloodied form of the female pilot from the cockpit.This human woman who had come to our rescue, who had reminded me of Tara, looked in a bad way.My snout curling, showing my fangs, I thought of catching some damned Soorn and ripping his throat out for this.

My wolf ears twitched and the wolf nostrils on my snout flared.I saw that Nick was having the same response to something else that was happening.We were both picking up scents of flesh and perspiration from something alive that wasn't human or wolf.We drew our two-guns and called to those humans around us who were conscious and on their feet, "Incoming!"

The humans drew their beam guns and swerved towards a sound that Nick and I were both picking up—footfalls coming round the flank of the downed skimmer.In an instant they showed themselves:Soorn ground troops, armed with long-barreled, rifle-like energy weapons.With some of the humans wounded and unconscious, or worse, this more than a dozen Soorns had us outnumbered.I didn't care, and neither, I suspect, did Nick.I was sure he wanted payback as much as I did.If we went down, we were taking some Soorns with us.

One of the coal-bodies was in the lead.Brandishing his weapon, he called to us, "Do not resist and your deaths will be easier."

A human voice cried, "Die, Soorn bastards!"A shot sizzled out from some human's weapon and hit the leader of this alien group right in the chest.The Soorn fell, and before he even hit the pavement, all Hell broke loose.

Instincts and reflexes kicked in.For Nick and me, there was no thought, only action.With our two-guns in blade mode, we met the incoming fire from the Soorns at the same time as the humans started shooting.The Soorns, no doubt considering their weapons superior, held their ground and sprayed the air with bullet-like pellets of energy, all screaming towards us.Nick and I spun and swiveled our blades through the air with blinding speed, sending energy bullets arcing and wailing away from us.The enemy's attack cut down some more of the humans; their bodies fell to the left and right of us.Three of the remaining Colonial troops leapt away and ducked behind the skimmer, and raised up to keep firing on the Soorns while the aliens' shots bounced off the vehicle's side.

Nick and I were still out in the open and still pumping all of our wolf adrenaline into deflecting the Soorns' attack.We saw that the humans had taken the best course; as good as we were, we couldn't keep this up for much longer.So while continuing to hold off the Soorns, we started moving, step by step, towards the downed vehicle which at the moment was the only shelter.We can make it, I told myself in my head, the only thought I could afford at the moment.Keep moving.Keep going.One step at a time, one swing or twirl of my weapon at a time to send enemy fire flying away.We can make it.The thought resounded in my head until I felt something hot slice against my side.

Yelping, feeling the awful burn of it, I dropped to my knees, knowing that I'd been hit.Even so, I kept my arm and my weapon moving.If I was about to draw my last breath, I'd draw it while fighting.Nick immediately crouched at my side, adding the blinding motions of his weapon to my own.The cascade of deflected shots made streaks through the air in every direction.Nick and I were, I thought, going out in a blaze of glory.The Soorns had us pinned down and soon we would start to weaken.A few more alien shots getting through would tell the tale.Tara and Kris would go on without us.

And then something hit us that was not a Soorn energy pellet.It struck everyone—Nick and me, the humans behind the skimmer, the Soorns.This huge, invisible, untouchable thing cut across the scene, moving through all our bodies, making all of us stop in mid-motion.As it passed, the firing stopped; the rain of energy pellets ceased; the defensive movements that we made came to a halt.This thing felt like an unseen blade cutting indiscriminately through human and lycanthrope and Soorn, making no distinction about whom it penetrated, bringing a sudden, shocking hush to the battleground.It made the Soorns lower their weapons.It made Nick and me shift from wolf form back to human.It stilled the humans as if they were statues.We were all frozen like images in a static hologram.And this thing, whatever it was, contained feelings.

It felt like a strong, warm wind.And like a sunrise, and like sunshine falling on meadows and streams, and the grass under your feet.It was like the feeling of wind rushing by you while you galloped along on the back of a melobeast, and the thunder of the beast's hooves hitting the turf beneath you.It was the rushing and tumbling of cool water over rocks, and the fresh smell of mist in the air while you sat in the flow of the stream.

And it was the simple, warm pleasure of touch:skin on skin, hands and fingers moving along the contours of bare flesh, hairs on bodies bristling, little goosebumps breaking out as a hand swept over a body.It was an endless series of kisses:moist lips touching and sliding together, tongues darting and playing from one mouth to another.The intimacy of it was frightening, but hypnotic; shocking and revealing, but thrilling.With it came memories of grazing and grasping on chests and bosoms, and roaming down stomachs and along the roundness of buttocks, and exploring in other places—places that were hard and stiff and hot; places that were soft and moist and slippery and tight.And the head-spinning feeling of bodies joining and moving together, traveling excitedly to the moment when joy was released as blinding light in body and mind and spirit.

Those feelings—those memories—carried other things along with them.They brought voices raised in rapture.They brought laughter.They brought smiles, and the light from your own eyes reflected in the eyes of another being.They brought whispers of closeness and shared delight, and the expressed desire for more, and the unspoken promise of more still to come.With those feelings came fascination, and caring, and tenderness, and the desire to share.It was physical, and emotional, and something that was both of those things and more than those things.It was a sense of combining and a sense of transforming.

But something else came after all those impressions.Into everyone's mind came the faces of the Soorns—dark faces of anger and hate and aggression.With those images came thoughts of defiance, of determination, of resolve and unity, welling up from the deepest parts of human and lycanthrope hearts.These were thoughts and feelings of the love of self, of the life that you create for yourself and the people in it, of beauty that surrounds you and enters you and becomes a part of you, of how precious it all is.And how much all of it is worth fighting for.With all those feelings, with all that defiance and resolve, came something that couldn't die, something that could only fight back.

With all of it came something that couldn't be measured and couldn't be stopped or snuffed out.No alien force, no hatred or hostility, was a match for it.

What moved through that scene of battle, what was sweeping all over the planet Lycia at this moment and out into space, was love.

The Soorns, brought to a halt by this invisible, sweeping thing, lowered their weapons and took a step back.Dark and alien as their faces were, we recognized something in their widening eyes, in their hanging mouths, in the incoherent sound that they made in reaction to what was happening to them and all of us.We saw them struck with wonder and amazement—which turned quickly to stricken looks of panic, confusion, and fear.In one awesome moment, they had been entered and penetrated by everything they hated—everything that was not themselves.

In the passage of this feeling, the Soorns could not go on.They babbled words in their own language that our tech couldn't translate.After first stepping back, they staggered back.On their faces, in their voices, was horror—genuine horror—at what was happening to them.Grasping their weapons as if clinging desperately to rocks in water that threatened to sweep them away, the Soorns turned—and ran.

The wound on my side was already knitting.It smarted, but it was bearable and even that bit of pain would soon be gone.Nick and I both rose to our feet.The last of the human troops stepped out from behind the skimmer, and we all watched the Soorns running away.

Except for the panicked voices of the aliens, everything was quiet.There were no sounds of battle in the distance.The silence was an almost tangible thing, looming up everywhere.We turned around towards the place in the city ahead of us where there had been more battle raging, and this quiet reached from where we stood into the streets and buildings where we were looking.

Up in the sky, there was no more flashing and thundering of battle.But the dark shapes of the Soorn ships were still there—swooping and hurtling higher up into the clouds and away, disappearing from sight.

Nick and I looked over at each other, each of us wearing a small and knowing smile.We traded subtle nods, and I finally broke the silence by speaking just two names."Tara and Kris."

After taking one last, quietly triumphant look at the last of the retreating alien craft disappearing through the clouds, Nick looked back at me and repeated: "Tara and Kris."

The humans stepped over and joined us as we looked to the clouds and the promise of tomorrow that they represented, and the sunlight coming down through them.And we all basked in the feeling of the world being saved.

Finally, from the distance, came another sound, a rising sound that our hearts welcomed.It was the sound of wolves howling.Filled with the feeling that that sound carried with it, Nick and I morphed back to wolf form, and our human comrades stood by, watching, listening, as we raised our canine heads to the sky and added our own voices to what we heard in the city.With arms around each other's shoulders, we howled—loudly, strongly, proudly howled.