Page 11 of Thruster (Hunted Relics #9)
Holo can't fight off all the ships by himself. He makes a call to Fury, who is apparently on patrol near the mountain with the Titan ship inside. We've broken off some of the rock in several of the towers in the range, but Clover wants more. "Engines can break out the back. I just can't push through this much rock.
"I'm on it," I tell Holo, finding a decent trajectory behind a Skysprinter aiming for Thruster's location. I fire at his starboard side, make him bank toward the mountain, and then fire a spray of ammo at his tail. I manage to snag his engine as the mountainside sloughs off, and another fighter pulls in, tailing my ass.
Swerving among the mountains, I try to shake him but can't. So I cut my engines and send a pop of thrust through the rooftop hoverpads. I drop below the vessel, my body and braids slinging forward in my harness. The moment he's above me, I fire and don't stop until I've hit him.
I leave the falling ship behind and arc back toward Holo. “I’m going for Thruster. But I don’t want to leave you alone out here.”
“He’s not alone.” Another voice joins the feed. I think it must belong to Fury. It sounds sinister enough.
A flaming bullet arcs out from a snag of trees in an area of low hills, taking out another ship. Not far from there, a dark Titan launches into the sky, crashing into a passing fighter.
“I’ve got Fury and Coil back on patrol, Kelta. Go get Thruster.” Holo sounds as relieved as I feel.
“How is a human talking to us?” Fury asks.
“Mother was a ship engineer,” Holo says.
Someone else joins the conversation, their voice rippling. “Probably genetic coding let her in.”
I smile to myself a little as I race back through the mountains to Thruster’s last ping on the navigation. Still helping me even after you’re gone.
Miss you, Mom.
I hope Thruster's okay, and the Solcrue haven't found him. But when I near his position, I don't get a signal for him anywhere. I do a quick patrol of the area, thinking he might have skipped off of the ground with some of his engines down. But there's no sign of him.
Maybe he’s offline. He said they do that sometimes to avoid capture.
My heart aches as I land in the last place he pinged. I grab my knife and a gun just the way he taught me, hike cautiously down the steps, check my surroundings, and then lock the ship. It seals behind me and shields up as I leave to walk the forest, searching for him.
"Thruster?" I find a score mark in the dirt and chase it to the end. It stops, and another begins further into the forest. The second is longer and deeper. But when I get to the end, he's not there. Footprints in the dirt tell me someone picked him up, someone with feet like him, round ports in the soles, only smaller and more of them.
What the heck?
I scan the area around me. “Thruster?”
With no response, I climb the nearest mound of dirt and scan the trees. There's no sign of him anywhere. So I head back to where I saw the prints and follow them to a meadow where the grass is matted in lines like something crawled through it.
He might not be far. My gut tells me he isn't, but I don't want to waste time. I sprint back to the ship, check the scanners for other signs of life or technological signals, and get a distant ping of something not human, not Titan.
“What the fuck is that?”