Ambassador

Chapter 29: Mesh'la and Death

A shadow darkened the door. Alanja had to be still, but her body wouldn't stop shaking even with Teller's body pinning her to the floor. Oppressive, the killer in the room with her congealed the air with his predatory aggression. Like a wraith, he moved so quietly that her heartbeat thundering in her ears drowned out his footsteps and the rustle of his plastoid armor.

"Two dead in here," a mechanical voice of a trooper called out.

Alanja shuddered, clinging to Teller.

"Where's the ambassador?" a second mechanical voice asked. There was more than one of them. The danger was not over. More of Howzer's men were coming for her.

In the distance, Alanja could hear her brother's voice over the comm in Rov's office. Someone was at his desk, talking to him, but she could not make out what they were saying--only the stern tone of negotiation and demands--spiking terror through her.

"It's Teller and Gimbal," the second voice reported back to the first.

"They tore this place apart," complained the first trooper. "It looks like they killed each other!"

"Keep alert."

The back of Alanja's head throbbed, and she hunched forward over Teller, cradling his face to her chest like a sleeping child. The hunters still couldn't see her, but they were coming. Any moment they would come around the end of the bed and see Alanja there, and like Gimbal, their blasters would be on her. Her breathing picked up, making a sucking sound through her swollen lips, the blood from her broken nose filling her mouth with the bitter taste of iron. Her stomach clenched, and she turned from Teller, letting out a suffocating cough.

Instantly, the two troopers' armor rattled to stillness. Her clammy skin prickled and went slick with sweat. She stared into the darkness, unable to move. As she waited to die, Alanja felt detached, like watching as if they were coming to murder someone else. Her senses were heightened and screaming for her to raise Teller's pistol, but she was far away, insulated inside her head in a black fog. All was silent even though she could hear the troopers chatter as they eased closer. Her ears listened to their words, but she was drowning in a freezing ocean, sucking her farther and farther from them as her panicked gulping drew them in like predators coming for the kill. Her vision constricted as her heart gave a sudden flutter of fright.

As the trooper edged towards the bed, their silhouette becoming clear, Alanja raised Teller's pistol and squeezed off a wild shot. The trooper spun back, the blast glancing off his shoulder.

"Whoa," a mechanical voice gasped.

The shot flashed the faces of three troopers in black. Startled by her attack, they scrambled to take cover.

"Stay back!" she tried to scream at them, but all that came out was a broken, high-pitched croak.

"It's her!"

Alanja's hand trembled as she kept the pistol aimed at her assailants, every passing second sucking out her strength. Her heart trilled violently in her chest, and blackness threatened to roll over her vision.

"Where?"

Alanja's grip slackened, and the pistol clattered to the floor. She knew that voice. Her swollen lips tried to form words; instead, a gurgle choked them out. Tears streamed down Alanja's face as uncontrollable sobbing overtook her.

The floodlights flashing outside the window washed over Crosshair's black armor as he passed through a sliver of light from the crack in the drapes. Out in front of him was his long-barreled rifle. When he stepped around the end of the bed, he stopped, his helmet scowling. Stunned for a moment, his chest heaved, and he breathed a quiet, "Mesh'la."