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was too small to admit the bulky suit; he'd have to pull Ellis out and carry him into the ship.
"Okay, Ellis. Breathe easy, I'm going to "
Max raised his rifle arm, pointing it down the hill, cutting Jess short, making him feel sick. Something was
coming. It was as if every pain in Jess's body surfaced at once, the full extent of his injury and exhaustion
fi-nally letting itself be known.
No more. God, no more.
Jess turned, aching
and saw Machiko Noguchi emerge from the tan-gle of trees.
Maxellis was safe and warm in the dark, feeling noth-ing, aware that the smallwoman was not a threat.
They kept the left arm raised anyway, in case she was not alone.
She moved quickly up the grade and spoke to the Jess, the man, both of them making soft and light
sounds, good sounds. She stood and waited for some-thing, her posture expectant.
The man moved behind Maxellis and touched the damaged area of their body. They realized too late
what he was doing and tried to tell him no, no, that it was not good
and there was a shock of sensation, of many, ice
and wet and pain. Maxellis screamed soundlessly, born into the terrible cold, pulled from their womb of
suste-nance
and then there was nothing.
Lara sat in the center of the circular console, confused, not sure what to touch to make the alien ship
come to life. She'dfound the controls, at least there were a dozen flat squares that might be buttons
facing the blank front viewscreen, with two thick handles sitting above them. She'd punched the first
square in the line and it had lit up, a deep red color. As far as she could tell, that was all it had done.
Intuitive, right . . .
She was about to try the next when she heard No-guchi's voice coming from the open hatch behind her.
"I can pilot, come help "
Lara stood and turned, hugely relieved at the sound of the woman's firm voice until she saw Ellis in
Noguchi's arms, streaks of drying blood on his ashen face. His hair was matted with red.
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"Oh, shit," Lara said weakly, and hurried out from behind the controls, stumbling to where Noguchi
stood. Together, they moved Ellis to one of the benches against the wall, laying him down as gently as
possible.
Noguchi moved to the controls and slid into the pi-lot seat, running her hand across the buttons from left
to right. Immediately, the ship began to rumble, a steady sound of working machinery filling the faintly
unpleasant air. At the same time, the front viewscreen flickered on, and Lara glanced up at it from where
she'd collapsed, cradling Ellis's poor head in her lap.
The picture was surprisingly sharp, the colors muted, the view of the hill's base where the clearing met
the jungle. Lara started to look away, to look for a supply cabinet,they have to have bandages of some
kind
when she saw the darkness coil out into the open space.
"Jess!"Lara screamed, staring at the dozens of bugs
that were surging out of the trees, at the running black tide of teeth and claws erupting into the clearing.
"He said he was " Noguchi started, but then Jess was falling inside, tripping across the smooth floor to
where Lara sat, landing in the seat next to her.
"Go, go, I'm in!" Jess shouted.
"Hang on, we're "
Bam bam bam bam!
Noguchi whipped around, staring at the still-open hatch. "Who's shooting?"
"Briggs, I put him in Max," Jess said. "Now go!"
The drones were coming, the dark wave drawing closer, and over the sound of a pulse rifle Lara could
hear their rising screams and could see the front line crumbling, the closest of the trumpeting animals
blown back by the steady beat of Max's firing
and then the hatch was closed, and Lara held on to Ellis as the transport jerked and lifted, rising up
from in front of the teeming mass, from the sudden river of liquid fire that swept across the dark, insectile
bodies.
Flamethrower.
Lara turned wide eyes to Jess, still not sure that she'd heard right.
"You put Briggs "
Jess reached down and touched Ellis's forehead, brushing the hair away from his waxy brow. "Thought
he could do some good with the time he has left," Jess muttered.
The transport rose for another few seconds and then shot away.
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30
Lara and Jess had done what they could for their friend, bandaging him with a few pieces of soft leather
they'd found for cleaning weap-ons. There was a medkit on board, but the tough plastic patches that
Hunters used as bandages weren't made for humans, and Noguchi didn't know about any of the shots or
drug packs.
There was plenty of air, enough for at least two weeks, and ancient emergency rations that had been
stocked on the slight chance that something went wrong on a Hunt, stranding the Hunters. The protein
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