Tara The Great [Nuworld 2] (34 page)

woman for the first time while in Semore.

There was another emotion twirling around inside her, less identifiable. Was it

curiosity? Disgust? Did she loathe him? No, none of those things. But more like interest,

casual interest in the mind and body of a very attractive man.

She wondered if Darius had detected that in her before she could mask her

expression.

Darius had nothing to worry about. There was a big difference between noticing

how attractive a man was and actually wanting him. Did Darius know about that

difference? Or maybe the better question was, would he ever know the difference?

“Greetings, my lord.” Speaking through his comm, Dorn Gowsky lowered his head

respectfully as he moved his glider to hover next to them. “It’s an honor to meet you in

person, although I regret we have to meet under such militaristic conditions.”

Tara silently thanked Torgo for her ability to listen to the men’s conversation. He

had converted their comms from a duplex system to multiplex.

“Are your troops armed?” Darius didn’t acknowledge the greeting but turned to

the heart of the conversation.

“Of course.” Dorn smiled and looked at Tara. “I see you’ve altered the schematics

you found for these gliders.”

She smiled graciously, but remained guarded. “They were very helpful.”

Jolee spoke into Tara’s ear at that moment. “I anticipate fifteen minutes before our

Eliminators can hit the target.”

“Darius,” Tara said and noticed Gowsky’s smile disappear as he watched them.

“Let’s get ready.”

Darius instructed the troops to prepare for combat. “Gowsky, instruct your troops

to fall in with Gothman, yes.”

Where the earlier part of the day had gone by way too quickly, the final fifteen

minutes crawled so slowly as to induce madness. Tara watched the still-dark cloud now

spread across the horizon. This was an army of only five hundred?

If some of the Lunians approaching them didn’t have landlinks installed on their

gliders, the Runners and Gothman wouldn’t be able to detect them. They had based

their count on how many Lunian landlinks registered. This army was twice the size

they had assumed, half of them apparently traveling without communication. Her

stomach dropped.

“Crator,” she whispered out loud. “Please allow us to stop the Lunians from trying

to reproduce by stealing from us. I know this is something You frown upon.”

“Have faith,” The whispered response was the dog-woman’s voice.

Tara turned her head quickly, but all she noticed were Darius and Dorn suddenly

looking at her with raised eyebrows.

“Are you all right?” Darius asked.

“Yes.” She felt slightly unnerved. “Everything is perfect.”

Tara looked at the approaching army, then around at their surrounding army.

Glancing down at her screen, she noticed the target was moving slowly into the circle

designed by the program, which indicated their wait was about to end.

“I have faith,” She spoke out loud, and again Darius and Dorn turned to look at her.

Darius ignored her comment, or didn’t feel a need to respond. He held up his hand,

indicating they should prepare themselves. “All troops, ready weapons.”

Rows of gliders pushed the necessary buttons on their consoles. Hundreds of

Eliminators lifted their long noses from underneath headlights.

“Fire!” Darius yelled the command like a war cry. He turned his attention to Tara.

“Now!”

The two of them dived out of formation and flew to the ground, launching a plan

she’d developed that morning. They’d been so excited about these gliders and fighting

in the sky, they’d overlooked a large factor. The ground.

Not much effort was needed to organize another army. Now over one hundred

Runners took off on motorcycles as they would for any battle, while the other Runners

and Gothman took off in the air.

When Tara first considered the strategy, she’d thought about leading it alone, but

decided it might take more than one person to pull it off well. At the last minute, she’d

made Darius aware of this line of scrimmage. And after minimal discussion, they’d

agreed to move to the ground the second the fighting began—to make sure no one

sneaked past them toward the border.

Their world appeared surreal as they landed. The sky full of warriors from three

different races made the early afternoon appear to be the middle of the night.

Occasionally, the sun would peek through a gap in the troops and flood the area with

quick sunlight. Their movements were slowed by the need for their eyes to continually

adjust to the rapid shifts between light and dark.

The ground troops hadn’t arrived yet. The gliders only took thirty minutes to reach

this destination, but their land army would not arrive for another hour. In the

meantime, she and Darius would have to handle any survivors from the sky with their

own ingenuity.

Explosion after explosion occurred above their heads and in the distance. While

Eliminators were clearly reducing Lunian ranks, they were handicapped in one respect.

They were designed to attack straight ahead only. To compensate, Tara and Darius had

armed themselves with additional Eliminators strapped to their backs in leather cases.

Preparing them only took seconds, and the first Lunians proved easy targets for the pair

as the enemy flew above their heads.

At such close range, the Eliminator functioned true to its name. The Lunian gliders

exploded in midair turning into raging balls of fire. As burning contraptions

plummeted to the ground, they bounced, sending pieces of equipment and body parts

flying in all directions, littering the terrain, and providing an obstacle course for the pair

to maneuver through.

Tara choked on the stench from smoking body parts and flaming metal as she

maneuvered around the debris, then focused on the sky, targeting Lunians on her

landlink.

“Tara!” The tone of Darius’ voice through her comm alerted her, and she lowered

her head, realizing she’d had her neck strained backwards for quite some time now,

staring upward.

“Darius?” She looked around quickly for movement of his glider, but was forced to

focus on her own driving as more rubble fell from the sky into her path. She dodged

what was left of a glider and realized it was one of their own. Her throat tightened,

unable to tell who had just crashed to the ground. Please let our deaths be minimal, Crator.

“Look ahead of you, to the east,” he said through the comm.

Tara did so and sucked in her breath. Approaching from the distance were more

gliders riding along the ground. How many Lunians could there be? Was the moon

larger than it appeared?

“Our ground troops have us in sight but are still a good fifteen minutes away. I

daresay those Lunians will reach us sooner than that. Retreat toward our troops, yes.”

“Darius, we can’t—”

“Do as you’re told!” Darius appeared out of the smoke forcing her to a stop. Rubble

continued to fall around them. “Two people can’t fight an army, they can’t.”

Tara eyed the approaching army. Retreat of any kind went against her grain, and

she knew it went against Darius’ as well.

“They don’t have anything that matches our Eliminators, Darius.” She challenged

him and knew this time they were equals. “I’m pulling down some of our warriors.

With the Eliminators, we’ll slow down that ground army. When our ground troops

arrive, it will be simple to stop them completely.”

Darius looked ready to respond when suddenly another glider pulled next to them.

It was Dorn Gowsky. He held up an Eliminator for them to see, then lowered his

dome.

Two other Neurians landed behind him.

“Couldn’t help overhearing,” he smiled and looked at the two of them. “I’m

surprised at you, Darius. Your records don’t suggest you’re the type to retreat.”

Darius scowled and moved quickly toward Dorn.

Tara jumped forward with her glider and intervened by pulling between the two.

“We don’t have time for this, gentlemen.” She looked from one to the other, and

gestured toward the oncoming army. “They’re getting closer.”

Darius gave Dorn a look that assured Tara he’d have it out with the man later.

“Spread out!” Darius ordered. “You’ll stay by my side, you will.”

Tara looked at him. “Have faith, Darius. We won’t die today.”

“I know we won’t, I do. They want us alive, remember?” He gave her a hard look,

then adjusted the controls on his panel to rotate the Eliminator toward the army.

Tara froze at his words. So that’s why he was willing to retreat. An army that size

could capture them easily. She glared at the oncoming gliders. Well, she would just

have to see that they didn’t get close. Still, they were within a proximity enabling her to

identify outlines of their bodies inside the domes.

She fired first. Having the most experience with the weapon, she didn’t hesitate.

Her aim was true and the front gliders exploded, sending surrounding gliders skidding

into each other.

Dorn and Darius started firing, and Tara was impressed by the accuracy of Dorn’s

aim. She wondered if it was her encounter with him that resulted in the improvement of

his performance. Had he realized that a good leader needed the skills of a warrior in

order to protect his people? If he hadn’t figured that out before, certainly he would

learn the lesson today.

The Eliminators, backed by the skills of those using them, successfully held off the

Lunian army until Gothman and Runner ground troops appeared. The Lunians still

succeeded in close confrontation, though. Tara found herself in continual one-on-one

combat.

The field was soon filled with warriors from the three nations battling for the

victory each believed imminent. Above them, fighting continued in the sky. Tara no

longer had time to focus on that.

Lunians began to surround Tara, and she resorted to her laser to prevent them from

capsizing her glider. Fire as she would, soon four gliders forced her to a stop. A glider

pulled in front of her, and she swerved to the left. But another glider skidded into her

path and she slid the bike to a one hundred-eighty-degree turn. She bumped into a

third glider and another one pulled up behind that one.