Tabitha Chirrick - Overshadowed

Tayel stumbled as another distant explosion rocked the ground. She caught herself against the wall and kept moving, wincing at the sharp pain throbbing up her shins. Sirens blared through the ship, and their accompanying alarm lights cast every slightly tilted corridor in orange. An inferno eliminated one of the paths ahead. Shattered window glass littered the hallway where the flames had burst free. Tayel gave the destruction a wide berth, running left.

At this rate, they would never escape. It was a wonder the mothership still flew at all. Any moment it could succumb to gravity’s deadly pull, and she’d be pinned to the ceiling as it fell.

She stopped at the next turn in the hallway. The others had taken much worse beatings in the fight than her. They were slower, less alert. Jace edged around the fire Tayel had passed, lifting his head for the half second it must have took to know he was still headed the right way. Shy skirted past the flames next, one arm under Fehn’s as she led him forward. Even with Shy’s thick coat tied snugly to his wound, spots of blood started to seep through. He limped forward at roughly the pace of Jace’s jog, but his face had lost more color.

“Hurry up!” Fear strained Tayel’s throat, making her voice crack.

She ran ahead, in the direction she continued to desperately hope was the hangar bay. Too many destroyed hallways and rooms had prevented tracing their original steps. There weren’t any schematics on the walls, but the corridors had narrowed and the ceiling had sloped to match the tightening angle of the mothership’s rim — good signs. Not as good as the open bay and its rows of ships, but good enough to hope. Good enough to keep going.

“Hey!” Shy cried.

Tayel tore her baton free of its mag strap and spun around.

Balcruf staggered past Shy and Fehn, then Jace, his shoulders drooping as his enormous bare paws plodded him forward. Relief and guilt hit Tayel in equal measures. She didn’t — couldn’t — help him when Ruxbane stole away his people, but at least he wasn’t letting sorrow kill him. She didn’t think she could have lived with that.

“Balcruf,” she yelled over the sirens.

He didn’t stop. Just kept running, his tail dragging across the floor. Tayel met Shy’s eyes for a beat and re-sheathed her baton, chasing after him. He didn’t flinch when she reached his side. Didn’t even look at her. Given the circumstances, she didn’t blame him, but the silence felt like more than the result of a desperate flee. It built up thick around him.

“Do you know where to go?” she panted.

He said nothing and picked up his pace, forcing her into a sprint. He bounded to the end of the hall and halted. Tayel whipped her head around. Jace, Shy, and Fehn still followed, their faces screwed up in various degrees of pain as the floor shuddered again. Tearing metal joined the screech of sirens, and Tayel stopped at Balcruf’s side. He sniffed the air.

She hung over her knees. “Hey, so…”

“Quiet,” he growled, his own guttural voice barely above a whisper. His ears twitched.

Tayel shut her mouth. Between the roar of twisting metal and the pitter patter of Jace’s steps approaching behind her, she could barely hear the sounds of muffled yells and footfalls echoed off the walls ahead.

Balcruf darted forward. Tayel swallowed one last gulp of air and made chase. The echoes took on more clarity as she sprinted after him toward the door at the end of the hall. The discordant yells took on a Varg-like timbre, and the clack clack clack of claws on metal accented the thudding footsteps. Her heart leapt. Balcruf was paving the way to the other Varg! It would only make sense if they were looking for the exit, too, so maybe the hangar bay was nearby. The thought of being off this deteriorating mothership pushed her faster. She broke through the automatic doorway after Balcruf. A crowd of Varg ran down the hall to their left.

“Brothers!” Balcruf cried. He bounded toward them.

Several Varg at the back of the pack turned, and their normally stern features softened as they laid eyes on their leader. One shoved past his kin. His ears drooped and his tail slid forward between his ankles as Balcruf stopped before him.

“We could not save them,” he murmured.

Tayel didn’t catch Balcruf’s response. Her heart slid into her throat anyway. She pushed the image of one of the Varg pounding an empty glass tube out of her head and directed Jace left out of the doorway.

“A-are we almost there?” he gasped.

“Yeah.” Or at least she really, really hoped so. “Follow Balcruf.”

Tayel waved for Shy to hurry. Shy shuffled toward the doorway a little faster, but the Varg started up into a run again before she came through, teeth bared.

“Let me take him,” Tayel said. “I think we’re almost there.”

“Thank you.” Shy slid out from under Fehn’s arm, letting Tayel take her place. “Follow Jace?”

Tayel nodded. Fehn weighed a ton against her, and his height made supporting him an awkward effort. Her side ached with the weird bent required to move him along. It got worse as the ship tilted further, her ankles burning from holding so much weight up against the angling surface. The crowd of Varg funneled through another automatic door at the end of the corridor.

“Come on, Fehn,” she grunted. “Work with me.”

He moaned and dug his fingers into her shoulder, pushing up against her to literally pull his own weight. With the Varg funneled through, the open doorway showed off a tilted view of the hangar bay beyond. A Rokkir ship stood against the backdrop of Modnik’s nighttime sky, a million stars twinkling even beyond the blueish tint of the bay entrance’s energy shield. Suddenly Fehn didn’t weigh so much. Tayel propelled them both forward at a jogger’s pace.

Shy waved frantically at them. “Hurry up!”

She disappeared around the edge of the doorway, and Tayel maintained her faster speed, ignoring Fehn’s groaning protest. He’d have to forgive her later when they both escaped this death trap alive.

The pungent smells of fuel and smoke made her eyes water as she pulled Fehn into the hangar bay. She staggered toward the ship they’d all come in on. A Varg helped Jace inside, and the engine sputtered to life, rattling the vessel’s hull. The vibrations numbed Tayel’s legs as she stumbled onboard and laid Fehn against a wall in the hold.

“T-thanks,” he muttered. His eyes watered, and a sheen of sweat over his face shined in the dim light.

She pressed Shy’s coat against his side. “Just hang on.”

She didn’t know anything about blood loss. Didn’t know how long he’d live with his side split open like that, or if anyone would be able to help him once they touched down to the surface. If they touched down to the surface.

“Ow, Red.”

He gripped her arm, and she eased up on the pressure she hadn’t realized she’d applied. The hold door slammed shut. A Varg pounded it twice — the signal to go. Two resounding chunks sounded as stabilizing locks disengaged from the bottom of the ship.

“Tayel!” Jace found her in the crowd and dropped to his knees. “Fehn. Are you okay?”

“Been better,” Fehn said.

Tayel’s swayed as the ship lifted. Varg filled the small space nearly wall to wall, and they shifted as the ground angled, their arms straining as they clung to the straps dangling from the ceiling. Balcruf barked orders somewhere near the cockpit, but in the murmur of growls she lost his meaning.

“Jace,” she said, “Can you stay with him?”

“Y-yeah, but where are you going?”

“Cockpit.”

“But what if — what if he—?”

Tayel’s brain filled in the unsaid: what if he dies? She swallowed. She didn’t know.