Vengeance by Brian Falkner Page B

Fezerker training. And really what choice was there? Without her, The Tsar would die anyway.
    “Do what you can,” Price said.
    “You kill him if remove needle,” Monster said.
    “Thanks for the advice,” Brogan said.
    Monster shook his head but stretched out an arm, handing her his mediscope.
    Barnard climbed down from the tray of the truck to give Brogan room, but not before brushing her lips against The Tsar’s forehead. She clearly thought nobody noticed, and when she glanced up, Price quickly looked away as if she had not seen.
    Brogan climbed over and examined the injury carefully before sitting back on her haunches, pursing her lips.
    “What’s your plan, Brogan?” Price asked.
    “Monster’s right about the needle,” Brogan said. “It has pierced the right carotid artery. He’s leaking like a cheap umbrella, but the needle itself is partly blocking the hole. Pull it out and we turn a trickle into a flood. However …” She took a deep breath. “If we were able to cauterise the wound then we might be able to save him.”
    “How to cauterise wound?” Monster asked. “To do this must remove needle. Remove needle, he die.”
    “We might be able to do it
with
the needle,” Brogan said. “If we can heat up the needle, then withdraw it, we might be able to cauterise the flesh as we pull it out. It’ll have to be quick though.”
    “Is this really possible?” Price asked.
    “Possible, yes,” Brogan said. “Chances of success, slim.”
    “Is it our best option?” Price asked.
    “No. A hospital would be our best option, but I forgot to bring one of those,” Brogan said.
    “How to heat needle?” Monster asked.
    “Electrical current,” Brogan said. “One of our spare coil-gun batteries …” She broke off abruptly and looked at the sky. “Incoming, fast movers!”
    “Everybody stay where you are,” Price said. “We’re well covered here.”
    She strained her ears but couldn’t hear whatever it was that Brogan had heard.
    “Are you sure?” she asked. “There’s–”
    She broke off as the high-pitched whine of fast-moving jets came from overhead.
    A few seconds later the ground and the trees around them shook from thunderous explosions to the south-east.
    “They’re hitting Batemans Bay,” Barnard said.
    “That’s good,” Price said. “It means they don’t know where we are.”
    “They’re not just hitting it,” Wall said, as the explosions continued. “They’re annihilating it.”
    “As long as they focus on the town, we’ll be okay,” Price said.
    “I wouldn’t count on it,” Barnard said.
    She had barely finished speaking when a much closer wave of explosions rolled up through the forest.
    “Everybody get down,” Price yelled. “Find what cover you can. Get The Tsar off the truck.”
    Monster and Barnard lifted The Tsar and placed him on the ground next to the truck, taking advantage of what little protection it offered. Price found a depression in the ground and pressed herself into it.
    More blasts. Flame and smoke rippled through the forest, closer and closer.
    The ground was moving like an earthquake now, rolling shudders making it difficult to breathe. Barnard spread herself over The Tsar, protecting him from the debris that began to shower down on them. Earth, rock fragments, tree shards. The heat and pressure waves smashed through the forest, bending back tall gums and stripping them of their leaves. The little truck was shunted sideways by one blast, rolling onto its side and slamming into a tree where it wedged tight.
    For a few moments the barrage seemed to stop, but it was only a respite, the eye of the storm. Through a gap in the trees, waving like reeds in the wind, Price saw the menacing, bug-like shape of a Bzadian Dragon, rocket ports alive with fire. It was a creature from hell, and it brought hell with it. In an awesome display of firepower the Dragon began to take the forest apart. Whole trees, on fire, were flying through the air.
    “We