Tabitha Chirrick - Overshadowed

He reached over the table to gesture at an inked-in path within the city walls.

“Our final plan to halt the enemy’s siege comes in two parts. First, a small team will attempt to enter the Rokkir ship through one of their patrol skycraft that fly through the city, abducting our fallen kin from battlefields. Two of our youngest warriors will be decoys for the ship to chase after.”

“Your youngest,” Shy said.

“These ships are able to incapacitate small groups from the air with a toxic smokescreen. Our two warriors must be those we can fight on without afterward.”

Tayel’s stomach twisted in sync with Shy’s scowl.

“Do not apply your morals to strategy, kin of Locke. It will lose you every fight.” Balcruf placed his paw on the map. “When the patrol lands to extract the pair, we must wait for the gas to clear. Then we will attack them from on high, retrieve our kin, and steal their vessel. It is a great risk. If we cannot kill their men before they extract our warriors and leave…”

“You’d put your people in harm’s way like that?” Locke asked. “I have no qualms using young ones, clearly, but at the risk of not retrieving them?”

“It is a necessity. An ivory rabbit does not take the scented bait. You can see why I’m wary of children acting as soldiers. My pack is at risk here, too.”

A hush fell over the room. Even Balcruf seemed to absorb the weight of what he’d said, his ears turning backward and his teeth showing in a silent, pained snarl. Tayel hugged her arms to her chest. It was too easy to see how much these people had lost just by observing their downcast stares. She wanted to slap herself for the comment she’d made the night before — that Delta had been as unlucky as Modnik. She’d lost just short of everything, but these people had nothing left. No safety. No moments of peace. Just siege after siege.

Jace rapped his talons together. “You mentioned the smokescreen was toxic?”

“A tranquilizing concoction with traces of nitrous oxide, isoflurane, and halothane,” Locke said. “It renders individuals who inhale it unconscious for — so far as my patient research shows — a full two hours. Minimum.”

“That doesn’t sound like a lot of time. How dangerous is it really?” Fehn asked.

“I think several hundred thousand abducted Varg would argue very dangerous . ”

Fehn winced.

“Since learning the effects of the haze, our people take masks from fallen enemies. Locke modifies them to fit our snouts, and warriors wear them here at Kalanie when battling along the wall,” Balcruf said.

“Couldn’t you take those masks to prevent the risk of the gas not clearing in time?” Tayel asked.

“No. We have too few as it is. We will be leaving what masks we have to the patrols here, so they can continue to protect the outpost when we war packs have gone. If Kalanie falls in our absence, there is no shelter for any Varg from the siege. Our civilization will be lost.”

“It’s not possible to modify more?” Shy asked.

“Unfortunately, not in time,” Locke said. “It takes hours to make the necessary modifications — at least safely. Hours and materials, of course, of which we’re running precious short.”

“But you have more masks? Unmodified ones?” Tayel asked.

“There is a small collection of them in my stores,” Locke said. “Many are damaged even for a human’s use. They weren’t exactly handed over , if you understand my meaning.”

“But a patch job doesn’t take long.” Tayel remembered Otto whistling away, a hot glue gun in his hand as he repaired her broken mask all those weeks ago. For a second, she thought she could smell the musty pawn shop.

“I suppose there are a few patchable masks in the mix,” Locke said.

“Then Shy, Fehn, and I could wear them,” Tayel suggested. “We could go with this infiltration team, and when the patrol ship lands, we can use the gas as a smokescreen and move in. The raiders won’t see us coming, and you won’t have to risk the gas not clearing before they take off again.”

A unified, low growl rose in the Varg’s throats. Tayel frowned at their twitching ears and bared teeth.

Balcruf sniffed. “You are confident in your ability to battle raiders?”

“You heard my brother. We’ve fought worse,” Shy said.

“We can’t trust outworlders to defend our own,” a Varg barked.

A grunt of approval rose from the pack, and another joined him, “Our young warriors will not suffer this indignation!”

Balcruf snapped his jaw. “You runts speak out of turn.”

Both dissenters shrunk as if hit in the gut, their ears folding back to their skulls. They sunk into the wall of Varg behind them and disappeared.

“Our kin die in the streets,” Balcruf growled. “Our pups are torn away from their mothers, our mothers are found limp in the rubble of our fallen monuments. In the most sacred of stars, Karun watches his chosen people shrivel into nothing.”

Tayel shot Jace a look, but he shrugged. By the way Karun’s invocation made the Varg’s heads fall, she could only imagine he was some sort of god.

Balcruf bared his teeth in full display. “We did not invite these outworlders here to mock them. Locke has helped our kin through battle, famine, and despair, and his trust in these people demands our respect.” He snapped his teeth. “You will all hold your tongues, or I will bite them off.”

He let the silence linger until no Varg dared to meet his stare.

“Now let us continue the outworlder’s line of thought,” he said. “If you were to be responsible for taking over the landed skycraft, you must understand the importance of slaying the pilot first.”

“Any decent communications system will have a quickly activated red alert protocol,” Locke clarified.

“Of course,” Shy said. “I could handle it.”

Balcruf nodded. “After the gas clears, the rest of our pack can board the vessel and pilot it into the bay of the mother ship.”

“Who’s the pilot?” Fehn asked.

“We have a small number of kin who trained using Locke’s aircraft before it was destroyed attempting to board the mothership. Any of them could do it.”

“I could pilot as well,” Shy said.

“A good alternative. In any case, once onboard, our directive is plain: bring the mothership down from the inside. Locke has devised a signal jammer our pack will carry through the city. Once it’s onboard the Rokkir vessel, it should cut their communications, giving us a better chance against an organized defense.

My pack will first locate our abducted kin within the mothership and retrieve them. With our numbers, we will destroy the ship from the inside and then use the Rokkir vessels to fly down. As we don’t know the details of the interior, our plans have no choice but to be impromptu. We will have to rely on our experience in the field to see us through the situation, and hope luck is on our side. Either way, we cannot fail, and each of us is prepared to die to ensure the vessel falls.”

“If your plan is to make it fall, what happens to the city below?” Fehn asked.

“While the main group of us focuses on hijacking the patrol ship, a second pack will escort the last of our magis to key locations along Cryzoar’s wall, where they will prepare to shield it from the mothership as it crashes downward. Are you all aware of the crashed refugee shuttle?”

Tayel nodded. Every time the Delta shuttle was mentioned, motivation filled her.

“That is our rendezvous point. After all this is done, transports can safely leave the city, taking the wounded — including any remaining refugees on the crashed shuttle — back to Kalanie.”

“Getting a bit ahead of yourself, eh, old boy?” Locke asked.