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Feeling another gun go up in the half-second that followed, I ignited that one, too.

Four more followed, as soon as I caught glimmers of the light of the seers holding them.

Fury, rage, fear shuddered the construct.

Stepping out of range of a bullet when a gun aimed at me before I could stop it, I used the eyes of Jax, who had a better vantage point, and ripped that gun apart too.

My anger cooled as I worked. Calm fell over my mind, a kind of practiced methodicalness. My fear for Revik and Lily faded; it didn’t disappear entirely, but it receded into the background as I turned my head, using Chinja’s eyes that time, to locate the squad leader.

I detonated a belt of grenades she wore around her chest.

I found her second in command while she burned, and cracked his skull.

Three more guns followed after the squad leader fell, then I was scanning openly, searching for more of them. I felt two more infiltrators running out the back door, but I stopped them in their tracks, ripping their spines in half when it occurred to me they might be running to the house where Terian claimed Feigran was staying.

When I finished, the warehouse felt really, really quiet.

It took me a few seconds to realize everyone left alive was staring at me, from the seers crouched behind crates, holding smoking guns they were no longer firing, to the rows of seers and humans gaping at me from behind thick steel bars.

The silence went on for a few seconds more.

Then, out of nowhere…

Terian giggled.

Chapter61

Brother Four

It didn’t take as long as I’d feared to get everyone moving again.

Dalejem was alive, which I admit, filled me with relief.

There was no guarantee he would stay that way, of course. In fact, there was a really good chance he wouldn’t?especially if we didn’t get him to the carrier, and soon.

Even so, I was relieved Revik hadn’t killed him instantly.

We used ropes, tarps and boards to build makeshift stretchers. Then I instructed some of the List seers and humans to carry Revik and Dalejem out of there.

I needed my infiltrators free to use their weapons and their sight.

Even among the Listers, I pulled a few with decent-seeming sight rank, concentrating on those who wore uniforms, specifically those who felt the least likely to turn their guns on us. Since we’d just killed a room full of their captors and freed them from a cage, they didn’t argue when I put them under Chinja’s command.

Then again, given what they’d just seen go down between me and Revik, and the way I must have looked, they might have been too afraid to argue. I managed to wipe some of the blood off my face and stop the worst of the bleeding by wrapping a torn uniform shirt around my head, but just about every inch of my skin was streaked with drying blood.

Lending credence to the latter theory, the ones who eventually took guns from me and the others all made the respectful sign of the Bridge and kept their heads lower than mine when I addressed them.

Two voiced their allegiance to me then and there, which I accepted without protest.

I’d let Balidor and Wreg sort that end out later.

I got everyone moving instead, including Chandre after she’d jumped down from a high stack of crates, meeting us on the warehouse floor, rifle in hand.

She told me she’d already sent out the evac signal, and that Balidor just transmitted back, telling her they had boats on the way to pick all of us up.

Apparently they’d found some way to crack those impenetrable O.B.E.s.

Somehow, I suspected that method hadn’t been subtle.