Paul Collins - Earthborn The

He stood quickly and launched an arrow. It didn't find its mark, but the jabbers lost enough of their enthusiasm to halt their attack.

Elab and Harry stood then and fired point-blank at the circling jabbers whose slivers of metal ornaments shone in the morning mist.

Then they were among the jabbers. Elab and Harry were lethal in close combat. They had slashed two jabbers within moments of closing with their ranks.

Gillian plunged her knife into one who barreled into her. She felt the hot, sticky blood as it ran down the haft of her knife. She staggered then, dazed, wondering whether it was her blood or the jabber's.

Welkin tugged her around and pulled her along. Someone screamed in pain, but it came from beyond the field where they'd been ambushed. Ten minutes later, they stopped beneath a stand of stringy-barks.

Between short, frantic breaths, Gillian gasped, "What-what happen-happened to the cruisers?"

Welkin crouched down and sucked air noisily. "They were there one minute, then gone the next," he said, not comprehending what had happened himself.

"May-maybe the mist was too dense. Or they weren't prepared to find the jabbers on the ground?"

she wondered. It didn't make sense.

The troopers could have landed a short distance away and finished them off with their laserlites.

"Can't figure it out," Welkin said at last. "But I think Elab and Harry got away . . . They're so good at it," he added.

"Killing?" Gillian looked quizzical. "You're no softie yourself," she said and pulled him to his feet.

"Come on. We have to find them."

Welkin frowned but said nothing. Softie. He hadn't heard that term for a while. Now that he thought about it, no, he wasn't a softie anymore. He lengthened his step. He was a hardened veteran of the Earth wars.

Some skirmishes did result in major losses to Sarah's burgeoning family, but she fought back with a tenacity that for a while halted Colony's probes into her territory. One tactic was to hit the Skyborn on their return from an attack. Few complete combat teams ever returned intact from deep probes.

That year winter whitened the slopes and made traveling into and out of the Dandenongs almost impossible. These were the harshest times for the Dandenong family. Fresh food was always scarce, and they were particularly vulnerable to the Colony cruisers that made daring raids whenever they found evidence of Earthborn activity.

It worried Sarah. The reality was that no matter how many families joined the settlement, they would

always be vulnerable to Colony attack. They simply couldn't defend themselves adequately with bows and arrows against modern weapons. And the occasional weapons they did score from downed Skyborn were either badly damaged or at best out of power, which was not easily replenished. Even the cruisers they sometimes salvaged would run out of fuel, and the methane converters that Welkin jury-rigged made the cruisers dangerously unstable.

Their first major contact with the Colony cruisers occurred one winter morning. Striker One, an outreach radio contact base farther down the slopes, had had time to warn them that they suspected Colony had homed in on their transceiver, and that Family One should cease transmission for now.

"We wouldn't do anything so stupid," Sarah retorted.

"Colony's on its way, Sarah," Con said. "We're not ready for them. Welkin reckons—"

"Yeah," Sarah said. "He's told me all about their firepower." She closed her eyes and thought for a second. "Call the others. We'll have to work fast." She looked at the darkening sky. "They'll not get here till early morning at the earliest. It means we'll have to work throughout the night. But it'll be worth it.

Keep transmitting in code. Warn the others not to reply—just caution them. Colony might have decoded us."

They worked all the night. Sarah called a halt just before daybreak, as the mist was clearing from the ground.

"You've all done well. You all know what to do. Any questions?"

"Do we take prisoners?" Zedda asked seriously. A roar of approval went up and she nudged Budge to stop his braying laughter.

"Calm it," Sarah called, although she couldn't help grinning. "Play it by ear, guys. Just try not to damage their hardware. We need the cruisers intact and especially any weapons they are carrying," she said optimistically.

An hour later Sarah's planning bore fruit.

"Four cruisers," Sarah called. "They're moving pretty fast and low to the ground. As Welkin said they would." She passed the binoculars to Lucida. Uncharacteristic worry lines etched a frown into her sun-freckled face. She held a yellow bandanna aloft just in case anyone should jump the gun. It was imperative that they wait until the last possible moment.

The high-pitched roar of the cruisers was audible now. It sounded like a thousand buzzing bees. The noise gained in volume, and it wasn't until the flying bikes—as Sarah called them—were directly overhead that Sarah snapped the bandanna back and forth.

Tall, elastic branches snapped upward as restraining ropes were cut. The thick vine webbing that was strung between them whipped up to snare two of the cruisers. A third swerved to the left at the last possible moment; a fourth rider, luckily for him, was inexperienced and as a result was too high to get caught.

One of the damaged cruisers exploded in midair. Thick, curdling smoke followed it to the ground where it exploded again on impact.

The other was snared in the webbing, its throttle stuck on high, its revs screaming hellishly until its rider could disentangle his injured hand from the handle. He nailed about for several precious moments, not sure whether to abandon the craft or sit tight.

Gravity decided the issue, and he fell headfirst through one of the web's gaps. Sarah turned away as his body hit the ground fifteen yards below.

Welkin's eyes hadn't left the remaining cruisers. They circled the transceiver hut warily, irritant insects unsure of themselves. Welkin knew their anxiety. He'd ridden those cruisers a thousand times in mock sims, though rarely on Earth and never in combat. He'd been relying on little experience.

Welkin let his hand fall.

Shrubbery was tossed aside. Twenty-odd Earthborn led by Zedda stood with their feet wide apart, their captured weapons trained on the sky. The remaining cruisers were going for the transceiver now.

They hadn't had time to release their missiles when the Earthborn fired at point-blank range.

One of the cruisers erupted into a fiery ball and fell apart long before it hit the ground. The remaining rider jerked to one side as laser fire seared his shoulder. His cruiser wobbled furiously for a moment as

he fought to control it.

Those beneath the cruiser prayed he would lose control, but somehow he didn't. The rider's right hand was useless, but he simply reached across with his left hand and controlled the throttle in the same gear.

They watched bitterly as the cruiser vanished from sight. Sarah kept watching until its black vapor trail had dissipated and its screeching motor was no longer audible.

"We did well," she said brightly. She always inspired optimism, whatever befell her family, although she was devastated that only one cruiser would be retrievable. If they could get it down safely from the netting!

Welkin was silent for a moment. "They'll come back. Maybe with a ground force."

"We won't be here," Sarah said. "Dismantle the antenna. We're out of here. Now, have you been working on that cloaking device for me?"

A secret dread of Sarah's materialized. Bruick had indeed survived his "slashed" throat. He had also survived Colony's, purge of the city. Nor did it surprise Sarah to learn that he had taken up residence in an old monastery the jabbers called the Stockade. It was an old bluestone edifice over at Diamond Creek. And according to Sarah's spies, the O'Shannesseys, it housed all the rabble that refused to join the united family.