D. MacHale - The Soldiers of Halla

“The hangar door!” Boon yelled.

Right. The reason we were there. I backed away and went for the control room. Inside I saw that besides the door that led to the balcony, there was another door in the back wall of the room that must have led inside the tree. I feared there might be klees beyond that door, so I jammed Kasha’s weapon against it, hoping it might give us an extra few seconds.

On the balcony, Boon and the klee were wrestling. I didn’t know what kind of fighter Boon was, but there was no way he’d be able to battle a dado for long. I had to get the hangar doors open so that Kasha could power up a gig, then get back out to help my friend.

There was a long control panel with dozens of toggle switches. I really wished there was one that read: hangar doors. There wasn’t. Luckily, most of the switches were the same size, which meant they must have more or less done the same thing. Whatever that was. To the far right of the panel was a large toggle switch. It looked just as good as any, so I threw it.

The overhead lights went on, bringing the hangar to life. The hangar doors didn’t budge though. On the far left of the panel was another large toggle. I quickly went for it and threw it. Two things happened. With a jolt and a screech, the giant doors at the front of the hangar began to slide open. They separated in the middle and slowly moved to either side, like a curtain on a stage, opening up our escape route. Sunlight streamed in, which meant Kasha would have power. That was all great except for the second thing that happened.

Alarms blared. There must have been a special security process required to properly open those doors. Unfortunately, I didn’t know it. I had no doubt that we would soon be flooded with Ravinian guards, because you didn’t need to have the acute hearing of a cat to hear the harsh, jangling horn that honked incessantly. I ran for the door to help Boon as the back door into the control room blew open. The bad guys had arrived sooner than expected. Kasha’s weapon did nothing to keep the door closed. A Ravinian klee burst into the room, picked me up, and threw me against the far wall of the control room, opposite the door to the balcony. I was trapped. A Ravinian klee was between me and the way out. There was nothing good that could come of this scenario. I figured I could battle the klee for a while, but his claws would make for a short fight. I was all set to step out of there and go back to Solara when I saw something leaning against the control panel that made perfect sense. These were dados. Dados that were built on Third Earth. There was no more pretense about not mixing territories. Saint Dane had seen to that. So it made perfect sense that if dados were on Eelong, they would also have dado weapons. Leaning against the control panel was a long, silver wand exactly like the Ravinian dados used on Third Earth.

The klee went for me.

I went for the weapon.

I snagged it just as the klee swiped at me with its claws out. I ducked, feeling the whistle as he barely missed my head. My hands were on the weapon, but I didn’t have time to turn it on. Instead, I jammed the handle back into the dado’s gut. Or whatever it is that area is called on a standing-up cat. The dado didn’t flinch. Its instinct was to take another swipe at me. I didn’t bother trying to block it. I just pushed away from the klee and fell down on my butt. It swiped nothing but air, then set its eyes on me and pounced.

I fumbled with the red power button. I didn’t know if I’d have the chance to power it up and defend myself at the same time. It was more important to use it to ward off the attack than to damage the dado. I stopped worrying about the power and held up the silver wand. The cat did the rest. It leaped with all four paws in the air. Its eyes were locked on mine. It landed square on the point of the wand and seemingly perched there for a second, though I know that was impossible. I pushed, and the cat fell on the floor right next to me. Its lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling.

Dead cat.

I guess I’d gotten the power on.

There wasn’t time to celebrate. Where there was one klee, there would be more. I jumped to my feet and ran for the door to the balcony. Outside, Boon was struggling with the first klee. He was holding his own, too. I think if Boon had known it was a robot, he wouldn’t have been so bold. The klee kept swiping at Boon. Boon kept warding off the blows. He didn’t bother to go in to attack the Ravinian, and I knew why. He wanted to keep it occupied long enough so that I could get the hangar doors open.

“Back here!” I shouted.

The klee stopped swinging at Boon and whipped around toward me. It was the last move he made. I nailed him in the chest with the electric wand and pushed him to the side. It hit the rail of the balcony and toppled over, falling to the floor far below, where it landed on the overhead rotor of a gig. It flipped like a rag doll, and settled on the ground with a sickening thud. Two dead cats.

Boon was exhausted, but he was okay. “What is that thing?” he asked through gasps of air, pointing at the weapon.

“Not a toy. Don’t touch it.” “Don’t worry!”

The two of us scrambled for the stairs and quickly ran down. As we got closer to the floor, I glanced out over the hangar. The doors were continuing to open, but slowly. Too slowly. I wondered where Kasha was. Hopefully, she had picked a gig that would be hit with light, to give it power sooner rather than later. But none of the gigs were powering up.

I also saw that the gigs themselves had changed. When I was there before, they had been small vehicles that reminded me of bumper cars in an amusement park. They had two seats with an overhead rotor for lift and smaller side rotors for maneuverability. These gigs looked more or less the same, except that they were much bigger than the old two-seater jobs. Most of them were ten times that size, which said only one thing to me: troop transports. They were lined up near the hangar doors, ready to lift off. I had the sinking feeling that Kasha didn’t know how to fly one of those big boys, and that’s why none of the rotors were turning.

The alarm horn continued to shriek. Flashing red lights painted the room. There was no question that we would soon be flooded with cats, and there was nothing that a single electric wand could do against them.

We hit the floor and both sprinted toward the opening doors, because that’s where we both hoped that Kasha would be. We got to the front line of gigs, but there was no Kasha in sight.

“There!” Boon called out.

To the far side of the first line was one small red gig. It was still larger than the two-seater gig we had flown before, but it was a fraction of the size of the troop carriers. At the controls behind the clear windscreen was Kasha. The light from the opening doorway hadn’t hit that gig yet. A quick look around told me that this gig was the only small one, which I figured was the only one she could fly. That was okay, so long as the sunlight hit it before other klees showed up to start hitting us\

“Get on board!” I shouted.

Boon ran toward Kasha. I ran for the opening door and sprinted outside, where the launch platform continued on for another forty feet out over Leeandra. I ran to the edge and looked around to see if we were causing a disturbance. We were. On the ground, dozens of Ravinian guards sprinted for the tree. Above us on the sky bridges, I saw more Ravinians headed our way. It would only be a matter of minutes before we were swarmed.

I ran back to the gig, where Kasha was nervously waiting for the light.

“It was the only choice I had,” she complained.

“Don’t worry. Boon, push.”

Boon and I got behind the red gig and pushed. We needed to get it out of line and into the light from the sunbelt, so the crystal in the nose could be hit and give us power. The door was not yet open wide enough for us to get the gig through to outside, and the light was still several yards away. Boon and I grunted and pushed and cajoled the little chopper forward until we finally joined sunbelt light with gig.