The Siege of New Terra (Star Sojourner Book 7) by Jean Kilczer Page B

with other companies?” I fingered the seat belt.
    “Going someplace?” he asked, strapped himself in, leaned back, and closed his eyes. “You're a real pain in the ass, Rammis.”
    I sat back. “I didn't ask for this gig.”
    * * *
    “Where the hell's the village?” Mack said as we topped a hill about an hour later.
    Glowing ashes of dying campfires, perhaps cook fires, dotted a flat plain below.
    We drove down, past stacks of wood and a few smashed earthen pots. Red nutshells, larger than any I'd seen on Terra, lay cracked open and empty in small heaps beside bare branches with a few leaves still attached. I got out of the jeep and studied a stack of animal bones. A strange skull, about the size of an elk's, bore a single horn protruding between the eye sockets. The whitened bone was smashed on both sides of the brain cavity. I looked around in the dark campsite. A powerful weapon had done this work. I caught my breath at the shake of a high branch. Leaves fluttered down. Something large had leaped from that sturdy tree. A lookout?
    I closed my eyes and formed a tel coil, then threw it toward the tree and probed.
    My mind dipped into a black well of fear and anger.
Glowick,
I caught,
they are right below us! Many of them.
    I see them, Sonrai, like a horde of festers spreading into our home with murder in their vile minds! Are our people in position around the camp with their weapons, Sonrai?
    They are, Glowick, and prepared to attack the festers from all sides.
    “Uh, oh.” I backed toward the jeep, my heart drumming. “Uh oh.”
    “What?” Big Mack asked. “What are you catching?”
    “We're surrounded,” I said, suddenly out of breath. “They're going to attack! Let's get back to the trees.” I ran for the jeep, took the driver's seat and turned on the engine. “This is a trap to catch us out in the open.”
    “Mount up!” Mack shouted and jumped into the back of the jeep. “It's a trap!”
    “Mount up! It's a trap,” echoed through the camp.
    I slowed for men who ran and jumped into the jeep, then headed for the trees, afraid that I might be driving right under a nest of the tree fighters.
    I heard a scream from the field. Then another.
    “They're hitting your men!” I shouted.
    Screams trailed us as I plowed between trees. I ventured a quick look back and saw men sprawled on the ground, lit by glowing balls of light thrown from treetops all around us to roll and light the battlefield.
    Something fast and heavy pinged off the driver's side of the jeep, right below me. The jeep lifted and bounced back on its wheels.
    “What the hell was that?” I asked.
    “Slingshot cannons,” Mack replied.
    Then we were deep in the woods, past the battle. Flashes of hot light from stinglers and rifles seared the night, setting branches on fire.
    I came to a screeching halt. “Get out!” I called. “I'm going back for more men. They're sitting ducks out there.”
    No one argued as they piled out of the jeep. Mack stayed put. “I'm coming too,” he said calmly. “You'll need help.”
    I swung the jeep around and tore grass and leaves as I headed back to the field. Mack's men were racing for the woods. I heard screams as the tree fighters hit them. One grove of towering pines blazed from beamer blasts and lit the field, making it easy for the tree fighters to target their enemies.
    I slammed on the brakes near a fallen soldier. Mack jumped out and dragged him into the jeep without stopping to see if he was still alive. I ducked as a slingshot cannon dug a narrow trench in front of the jeep.
    “Go!” Mack called.
    The jeep bounced through the trench and I came to a stop near another tag who lay sprawled and unmoving in the dirt.
    Mack dragged him into the jeep and we went for a third man who was down.
    With him in the jeep, the field was empty and suddenly uncannily quiet. I tore back to the trees where I had emerged. The fighters must've anticipated that and grouped in those branches.
    I yelled as a