Psion Alpha (35 page)

Two
Psions down
, Sammy noted
. Bad bad bad.

“Space
yourself out, Psions,” Sammy called out even as he took a deep breath to get
his wind. “Keep them back from the others.”

“Sammy,”
Lorenzo said, “let me join your circle.”

“No!
Stay where you are. I won’t risk you—”

“I
can handle my—”

“No,
Lorenzo. We’ll hold the circle.”

Even
as Sammy said the words, he didn’t know how he, Jeffie, and Kawai would handle
so many by themselves. But what could Lorenzo possibly do with an axe?
Nothing
,
Sammy told himself,
he must have a suicidal tendency.

The
thylacines kept coming. Li did what he could to help while Rosmir tended to his
leg. Kawai, Jeffie, and Sammy could only blast back two or three at a time
each. The ferocity of the animals startled Sammy, and the Psions attempts to
rebuff them only made them angrier. When ten thylacines charged, three of them
broke through the ranks. Sammy turned and blasted another. Jeffie tried to as
well, but her blast glanced off the animal. It jumped at Nikotai, who seemed to
be the only person capable of killing thylacines with any consistency. He shot
it out of the air with another arrow. The thylacine landed on him, knocking him
into two of the remaining torches, setting his clothes on fire.

“Help
him, Duncan!” Sammy ordered.

Duncan
rushed over to help Nikotai put out the flames. The thylacines charged yet
again. This time Sammy and the other Psions were only able to stop two-thirds
of them. One of them pounced on Jeffie, landing on her back. Sammy ran to help
her, blasting as he did so. The thylacine coughed and hissed as Sammy blew it
off Jeffie’s back right before it sank its jaws into her neck. It flew like a
leaf in the wind, slammed into the trunk of a tree, and scrambled around on the
ground, dazed and injured.

Eight
more thylacines came. Only two torches were left as Sammy tried to close the
circle, but it was too dark and too late. He blasted at the thylacines as they
approached, finding new reserves of energy. Dave Hudec fired on the two
charging at Kawai. Jeffie, still recovering from having one on her back, fell
down blasting to avoid another jumping at her face.

Sammy
couldn’t reach her in time, but he tried anyway. A thylacine hit him from
behind, sending him into the mud. Jeffie screamed, awakening something in Sammy
as wet muck covered his face. He roared in fury as he got to his feet.

“Lorenzo,
help Jeffie!”

“It’s
about time you asked!” Lorenzo shouted. He rushed the thylacine closest to
Jeffie. “Stay flat, girl!” He swung his axe in a wide arc, sticking it straight
into the beast’s ribs with a wet
SMACK
. With a second swing, he knocked
the impaled animal into a second, bowling it over. Using his foot, he wrenched
his axe from the ribs of the first, and charged two more. His first swing
caught one thylacine in the face, then he spun, swung again, and took off the
left hind leg of the second.

A
large thylacine jumped at Sammy. Seeing with astonishing clarity, filled with a
dark energy, he caught the animal by the leg, pulled it to him, and twisted its
neck until he heard a crack. His thirst for violence only grew. His fingers
worked at the machete on his hip until the blade was free of the sheath. Using
one hand to blast and the other to work death, Sammy slashed and blasted like a
deadly whirlwind, cutting open thylacines and hacking them to pieces. Their hot
blood covered his skin like a coat as he slaughtered them.

To
his left, the Hudec brothers continued to shoot. To his right, Nikotai, still
smoking from where his clothes had caught fire, used the crossbow. Lorenzo had
his axe. Sammy wanted nothing more than to send his team away so he could do
all the killing himself. Another thylacine charged, so Sammy charged, too. The
thylacine leapt, and Sammy gored it with his machete. He savored the wetness
dripping down his arm. Only five thylacines remained.

“Finish
them off!” Sammy shouted as he spat grime from his mouth. “We can do this!”

He
broke the circle and ran at three of them, leaving two for his comrades. With a
swipe he slit the first one’s throat while blasting a second into a tree. The
third dashed at him from the side, nearly nipping Sammy’s ear. Sammy grabbed it
by the throat and strangled it, grinding his teeth together while a ghastly
noise erupted from his own mouth. The second thylacine recovered and charged,
but Sammy continued to squeeze, enjoying the feeling of life ebbing out of the
creature. Just before the second thylacine reached him, he jerked aside and let
it sail past. An arrow flew through the air, embedding itself in the
thylacine’s side. A second one impaled the animal in Sammy’s grasp.

Sammy
looked back to see Nikotai, Jeffie, and Lorenzo watching him. He could tell
they were disturbed at the sight of what he’d done, and it filled him with
shame. Thylacine corpses lay around them like fallen logs after a tornado.
Sammy counted at least twenty of them. He didn’t know what to say or do. He
didn’t want to face his team after behaving so ferociously. Fortunately, he
didn’t have to say anything. At that moment, the monkeys arrived.

He
heard their screeches first, up in the trees, hidden and howling. Sammy
couldn’t be sure how many, but he guessed there were far more monkeys than
thylacines.

“Lorenzo,
finish off any living thylacines. Everyone else, stay on the monkeys. Don’t let
them scratch you. Psions, use your shields!”

Dave
and Duncan fired into the trees, hoping to scare the monkeys away. Sammy
blasted several times, but couldn’t tell if he hit anything other than leaves.
Nikotai tossed aside his crossbow and pulled out two large handguns with
extended magazines.

“I
got this!” he yelled. “I got this! Someone guard my back!”

Jeffie
stood back-to-back with Nikotai. Sammy stood to his left, shielding the Hudecs’
from behind. Suddenly the screeching stopped, and the trees were still except
for the tapping of the rain on leaves. Sammy turned around and stared, so did
the others except for Lorenzo, who put the last of the thylacines out of its
misery. Dirt and blood filled Sammy’s mouth, but he held back the urge to spit.
All his attention was on the trees. Then, like glass from a shattered window,
at least twenty monkeys erupted from around them, screeching, baring their fangs,
and extending their razor claws.

Out
of the corner of his eye, Sammy watched Nikotai work. What he witnessed was
nothing short of phenomenal. Every time Nikotai pulled a trigger on one of his
guns, a monkey died. He fired faster than Sammy could blast. Sammy’s
computer-like brain counted fourteen shots fired and sixteen dead monkeys.

Yet
more of them came. He heard them in the trees, but couldn’t see them properly.
The jungle faded out of focus, and in its place, he saw a large woman standing
in front of him. She hit him in the face several times. His nose bled from the
blows, and his cheeks swelled to puffy proportions. Anger coursed through him.
He faintly heard his name being called, but the woman addressed him as Byron.

Sammy!
Sammy, wake up! SAMMY!
another voice said.

He
couldn’t do anything except stand in place and take the punishment. He vaguely
wondered why he had to be in the dojo at all until he remembered that
Commander—
no, General
—Wu had ordered him to take private lessons with
Nicoletta Clardonsky.

These
lessons suck
.
I must have been nuts to let them do this
to me
.

No.
This was done to Byron, not me.

Yes,
Byron. These are Byron’s memories.

I
need to wake up.

Snap
out of it! SNAP OUT OF IT!

When
he opened his eyes, he saw nothing. The taste in his mouth reminded him of when
he’d swallowed mud in Akureyri. Something cold and large had grabbed onto his
face, blocking him from breathing. He jerked away from it and realized he was
face down in the mud. When he sat up, he gasped for air just as something
whizzed over his head.

“Get
back down, Sammy!” Nikotai hollered.

Sammy
didn’t question the order. He went flat onto his stomach and looked around
while spitting watery sludge. Dead monkeys lay everywhere. Forty of them, maybe
more. Most of them missed limbs or had holes blown into their chests. The dead
thylacines only added to the grisly scene. Suddenly he felt a tightness in his
clothing followed by a strong force lifting him out of the mud. It was Lorenzo.
He set Sammy on his feet and looked him over.

“You
picked a really cruddy time to go catatonic on us, kid.”

Sammy
tried to get the mud out of his eyes and nose while spitting clots of it out of
his mouth. “What happened?” he asked.

“He
happened,” Lorenzo said, pointing to Nikotai Wang, who carefully stowed his
guns and crossbow into his pack. Lorenzo called out to him. “Say, what’d you
call that again? That thing you did?”

Nikotai
brushed bits of monkey off his clothes. “Boss mode.”

Lorenzo
laughed, full and hearty. “Yeah. I like that.”

“And
what do you call that?” Sammy pointed to Lorenzo’s axe, which dripped with
blood and other things. “You were pretty impressive with it.”

“Sometimes
bullets are the best way to get the job done. Monkeys, yes. Those thy-whatevers
… not so much. I told you I could handle ‘em, didn’t I?”

“You’re
right. I should have listened to you.”

Lorenzo
nodded as he wiped off his axe. “Yep, but that’s okay. I listened to you. We
all survived. No harm done.”

“Is
everyone okay?” Sammy looked around at his friends.

Dr.
Rosmir kneeled next to Li, checking the bandaging on Li’s bite wound. “As far
as I know. We’re almost finished up here. Li will be fine. The bite could have
been much worse.”

“Still
hurts, though!” Li grimaced as Rosmir rewrapped it.

Sammy
nodded. Jeffie stood in place staring wide-eyed at the cemetery she’d helped
create. Her hands were frozen in blast position, fingers outstretched, and
palms pointed outward.

“What
happened to you?” she asked him as she slowly lowered her hands to her side.

Terrible
shame filled Sammy. He’d dreaded Jeffie witnessing him like that, the Thirteen
in control. “Seeing that thylacine almost get to you … something happened. One
second I was fine, the next I snapped.”

“No,
I mean when you froze in place and then just crashed into the mud. Your face
was completely submerged for almost a minute.”

“I
just—I blanked. I don’t know.” Lying only made his shame grow.

He
stood next to her and put his hand on her head. Jeffie shivered when his
fingers met her scalp, but he continued to stroke her hair. They were both
filthy, covered in mud, blood, and other things Sammy didn’t want to think
about. Jeffie sniffed, though it was too dark to tell if she’d been crying. “I
did it, Sammy.”

“What?”

“I
fought. I fought well.”

“Of
course you did.”

“I
don’t want to be scared anymore.”

Sammy
pressed his forehead against hers. “What’s so bad about being scared? You’re
not the only one. Everyone else is, too.”

Jeffie’s
lips moved, but Sammy couldn’t hear the words. He asked her to repeat herself,
and leaned in close.

“It’s
weakness.” The words still came quieter than a whisper.

“Why?
Who says that, Jeffie?”

Again,
in the same tone, she answered. “My father.”

“He’s
wrong.”

She
nodded, but Sammy saw no change in her face. She was tired. They all were. He
could tell by how lethargically they picked up their torches and packs. Rosmir
helped up Li. Kawai brought Li a stick to help him walk. The Hudecs and Nikotai
looked to Sammy.

“Let’s
get away from here,” he suggested. “A half kilometer more, and we’ll stop for
the night. I promise. Just a half kilometer and we’re done.”

No
one argued. They all turned and shuffled their feet behind the Hudecs, whose labor
of cutting through the jungle took great effort. Sammy, again, stayed at the
back of the group with Rosmir. The doctor trudged along, content to fall behind
everyone. It didn’t seem right for anyone to be alone at the moment, so Sammy
matched his pace and kept him company. Ahead, Kawai helped Li limp along
through the mud, and Lorenzo kept an arm around Jeffie.

“How
long was I out of it?” he asked the doctor.

“About
three minutes. Maybe four.” Judging by Rosmir’s tone, he knew exactly why Sammy
had blanked. “You woke up soon after you hit the mud face-first.”

“I’m—I
didn’t think—”

Rosmir
stopped and poked Sammy in the chest. “Don’t. I don’t want to hear it.”

“I’m
sorry,” Sammy finally said.

“Sorry?”
The doctor looked like he wanted to hit Sammy. “Sorry? You could have died! I
could have died. Haven’t we lost enough people on this trek?”