Freedom Star

Chapter 14

For a moment it seemed as if everything froze. The vehicles kept rumbling forward, of course, but the eyes of every soldier swung toward him, and Kira and Dar stared at him as if he'd suddenly sprouted wings. Then the moment passed, both of them lunged upward and grabbed him, the lead tank suddenly slowed and started to turn, and bullets whined overhead as he tumbled back down behind the rock. He looked from Kira to Dar, who wore identical outraged expressions, and had to laugh, though it died quickly. "Got you, Dar," he snarled then. "We're the ones they're after. When they've got us, they've got no reason to keep chasing the others, at least not for a while. They'll have time to escape."

"Shut up and get going." Dar jabbed him in the ribs with his rifle. "Go!"

"Good thinking," Jon said. "The longer we run, the more time the kids will have to escape." He received another painful jab for that, but it was worth it. He scrambled up and headed downslope, away from the Soldiers, as bullets ricocheted off the rock with ear-splitting cracks, spraying the three of them with fine white dust.

Followed by Kira and Dar, he slithered on his belly until Dar judged they could stand up without losing their heads and chivvied them to their feet. They ran toward the trees below, and reached them just as the first soldiers crested the rise. Twigs and leaves showered around them as the soldiers sprayed the forest with bullets, and something stung the back of Jon's neck. He slapped at it with fingers that came away red.

"Splinter," Kira said when he glanced at her. "Nothing serious." He thought he detected a distinct undercurrent to her voice that seemed to indicate she almost thought it was too bad he hadn't had his pitiful excuse for a brain blown out.

"You know," Jon said to Dar as they dodged through the trees, "if you handed me over to the soldiers you might be able to get away." And if the soldiers get me, I can steer them after you and away from the others, he thought.

"I don't give Soldiers anything—not even you," Dar growled. "Now shut up and run."

Jon shut up. He needed all the air he could get, anyway, and very quickly he also needed all his concentration to avoid losing an eye to the spiky branches of the stunted trees that grew thickly in this little valley. As it was he lost skin, blood, and a good-sized clump of hair. And the branches just kept getting thicker—so thick, in fact, that very soon they were slowed to a walk, and shortly after that brought up short by what looked like an impenetrable wall of twisted, intertwined branches.

"Very nice," Jon said to Dar. "For someone who doesn't give anything to Soldiers, you couldn't have prepared a nicer prize if we were gift-wrapped." Kira snorted at that, and he gave her a bit of a grin, only to be rewarded by Dar with a backhanded cuff that split his lip and set his ears to ringing. He wiped the blood from his mouth with his arm and glared at the other boy. "Face it, Dar," he snarled. "You've had it."

The shouts of the soldiers and the crackling sounds of their passage through the brush grew louder. Dar looked at Jon, then at Kira, and then back at Jon, and grinned mirthlessly. "Not yet." His eyes slid back to Kira, and something in the way he looked at her formed an icy lump of dread in the pit of Jon's stomach. "What are you—" Jon began.

"Shut up. We're going back."

"Back?" Jon said blankly.

"Back toward the soldiers. Move!"

"Ready to surrender?"

"I said shut up!"

They could hear the soldiers somewhere nearby, but couldn't see anything in the thick brush. Dar pushed them back along the trail they had followed into the thicket, a trail, Jon thought, even a soldier couldn't miss. The path led down into a shallow gully; at the bottom, Dar stopped. "You, in there," he said to Jon, pointing off the trail to the right, into a thick stand of leafy bushes. When Jon hesitated, Dar jabbed him in the back with the rifle so hard he dropped to his knees. "Now!" Dar whispered fiercely. He freed his knife and pressed it to Kira's throat. "Or I kill her."