Baleful Betrayal by John Corwin

shimmering nets and caught one more, but the lead flier climbed upward toward escape.
    "He'll warn the others!" Elyssa shouted. "Get him, Justin!"
    "Already on it," I called, urging the rocket stick to full speed.
    The soldier flung crystal shards of Murk at me, too many to dodge, so I used more aether and threw up a shield. His wings began to shimmer and his momentum faltered. Either he was running out of aether, or tiring from the chase. I flung a dense sphere of Murk and nailed him in the back of the head. The armor clunked with impact and the flier slammed into the building in front of him.
    He hung suspended for a moment and then his wings flickered away. I caught him around the waist before he fell. The rocket stick's engine whirred loudly as it struggled to keep both of us aloft. I eased back the throttle and descended as gently as I could. Elyssa and the others held up their arms and I dropped the unconscious mutant the remaining ten feet so they could catch him.
    We did it. I prayed these aether packs gave us the edge we desperately needed.

Chapter 6
     
    Breathing a sigh of relief, I landed and folded the rocket fins and seat of the rocket stick back into compact form and shoved it in its sheath. The odor of overheated electronics stung my nostrils and I hoped I hadn't burned it out. Shelton had assured me it could carry two hundred pounds, albeit slowly. I wished Elyssa's hadn't been destroyed, because it would've come in handy.
    Flava and the others began stripping the armor from the fliers. Flava shuddered when she revealed the mutilated face of the first soldier.
    "What this stuff made of?" Elyssa asked, knocking her knuckles against one of the helmets.
    Flava pressed her fingers to it and closed her eyes. "Highly concentrated Murk threaded with Brilliance."
    "It's so concentrated that it's black?" I asked.
    She opened her eyes and nodded. "Something so dense could not be channeled without the assistance of powerful gems."
    "Cephus and his ministry are fully capable of such feats," Nailan said.
    "They made a mistake by not padding the helmet." Elyssa showed everyone the inside of it. "When Justin conked that last soldier, his head ricocheted."
    "Like a marble in a, uh, bucket," I finished lamely, unable to conjure a suitable analogy.
    "Yeah," Elyssa said with a roll of her eyes. "A bucket."
    Flava removed the helmet from the flier I'd knocked out and gasped. "It's Tryphiss!"
    I grimaced as I looked upon the face of a youthful looking sera, head shaved and marred by the scar across her temple, a white gem gleaming dully from the right eye socket.
    "Now we know what happened to her," Nailan said grimly. "She's been turned into one of these creatures."
    "Creatures or not, they are our people," Flava said. "They were citizens we swore to protect."
    "We've failed them," Philas said in a miserable voice.
    "You're a gifted healer, Flava." I put a hand on her shoulder. "Maybe we can take Tryphiss with us and see if she can be fixed."
    "Bring them all," Nailan said. "Otherwise they may return to their new master."
    Elyssa looked at the unconscious Seraphim doubtfully. "Do you have a holding facility?"
    Nailan nodded. "We can contrive something. I don't want to leave them at the tender mercy of Cephus." He spat the name. "There must be something we can do."
    "Quickly, then," Elyssa said. She shot lancer darts into the still forms that didn't already have one. "Those will keep them asleep."
    Joss and the others fitted the stolen aether packs to their backs, eyes widening as they felt the power coursing through them. Hefting the stricken Seraphim, we headed south.
    When we reached the cave base, Nailan secured all the prisoners but Tryphiss. Flava laid her on a table and placed her hands on the sera's temples. After a long moment of concentration, she grimaced and pulled away.
    "These white gems are similar to the prisms you gave us for channeling Brilliance," she said.
    "They must not work as well," I told her. "Otherwise