Paul Collins - Earthborn The

When he realized the others had stopped talking, he made up his mind without too much thought.

Sarah had always said follow your gut feeling. So he'd learned at least one thing!

"We create a diversion at the back door. Lars will punch holes through it with the laser, make them think we coming out that way. Then we make a break for it out the front," Elab said. "We can vote on it if you like," he added. "No? Okay. Lars, on my signal, start blasting. Then get back over here and cover us with the laserlite. That window gives you a pretty good view of the square."

"And what about me?" Lars asked. "You gonna run out on me?"

"Don't be an idiot," Zocky said.

"Stop calling me an idiot," Lars threatened.

"Shut up," Zocky snapped back. "Once we make it to safety, we'll cover you. Right, Elab?"

"Goes without saying," Elab agreed.

"Yeah, right." Lars glared at them then crossed to the rear door. He squinted through the viewfinder and set it on automatic. He nodded with satisfaction. "Do my best, boss," he said.

Elab gave him the signal and Lars opened up, drilling red-hotholes through the heavy door. Seconds later he was back at the window, jamming the laserlite against the frame for support.

"Okay. Go for it. Straight out, then break in different directions!" Elab jerked the front door open and they charged forward, fanning out exactly as he'd told them to. Laser fire sizzled through the air, making a sound like water on hot metal. Elab waited for the stabbing pain, or at least the bright flashes that would herald death, but none came.

He realized, as he skidded to safety, that the others had also reached cover without mishap. "What the hell?" he mumbled to himself as pain flared in his leg.

Ballistic gunfire erupted from around the tiny town. The muffled retorts sounded like dull explosions compared with the curt, sibilant laser fire.

Someone screamed in pain. Elab hoped it wasn't one of his people. Then he saw Zocky on her knees.

She pulled her bow tight, and a second later saw her arrow strike someone.

But it wasn't a Skyborn. Maybe Devan? Harry? His frustration made him indecisive. Had Zocky in the confusion shot Devan or Harry? The fading light made it impossible to tell.

He realized with a start that his position wasn't good. Gunfire echoed all about him. None of his team had ballistic weapons, neither did the Skyborn. Which meant jabbers, or some local variant.

An arrow ka-thunked into the wooden barrel beside him. He had to pluck his shirt sleeve from the flint. Heedless of the danger, he flung himself onto a veranda and through a doorway as bullets churned

up the wooden planks.

He threw himself down and kicked the door shut. It bounced back open, but that was the least of his worries. Splinters had buried themselves into his flesh and drawn blood. For a moment he lay there dazed, thinking he'd been shot.

His knee was hurting like hell. Maybe those ear hunters would have his after all. Then he remembered Zocky saying Devan had called the ears "weird." He grinned despite his pain. Maybe his ears wouldn't be

"weird" enough for them.

Thinking of Zocky, what was she up to now? He poked his head just above the windowsill and looked out.

Almost pitch black out there. No way could they come out winners. Not with colonists out there with their heat-seeking weapons. Right now his head could be a green blur on someone's targeting screen.

He pulled his head down, surprised that someone hadn't tried vaporizing it.

It was quiet out there now, the sort of quiet that one would expect from a deprivation chamber, which was all wrong. As if everyone and everything was making a special effort not to break the silence.

What had happened to the others? Was Lars still in the church, or had he tumbled out after them as they'd arranged? Had the others been able to give him covering fire? Who had Zocky shot? Devan?

Harry? Maybe someone else. But who? The not knowing was frustrating.

Elab tried to push the tiredness from his face. It sometimes helped to push his facial skin up and roughly comb his hands through his hair, hard against his scalp. He did this several times before feeling that tingling sensation.

His vision cleared a little, just in time to realize that someone had crept into the room. He swung his nocked arrow around and up but froze in midaction.

"Don't," came the single word. The inflexion belonged to a colonist. Too accurate and precise a tone to belong to an Earthborn.

Elab slowly released the taut string, let the arrow glide forward with the slackening bow. He lowered it to the ground. He was dimly aware that he still had a knife hidden in his boot.

"Move away from the weapon," the colonist said. "No sudden movement."

Elab did as he was told. His breathing was coming fast and heavy now. One false move and he'd end up so much charred meat.

"I can tell you straight, Earthborn, that I'd rather just kill you right now and put you out of your misery," the colonist said.

His voice was edgy, Elab realized. It gave him a shred of hope. "But you need me, don't you?" he said.

"As a hostage," the colonist said. His voice was ragged, too, Elab noted. Not just with fear but maybe pain as well.

"Not going to fetch much as a hostage," Elab said lightly. "I don't know who's out there, but they're sure as hell not all mine."

"They're yours, all right. Every last murdering wretched heathen of them," the colonist blurted. He took a tighter grip on his laserlite and raised it a little.

Elab looked down its point. It looked like a strand of thick wire, ridiculously flimsy, but capable of charring him to a cinder.

"They're not mine," Elab said firmly. "We've got one laserlite and the rest bows and arrows." He waited for this to penetrate. "I've heard a lot of gunfire out there. We ran out of ammo long ago."

"You're lying, you scum," the colonist said. But his face twisted in doubt.

"You notice something different about me, Skyborn?" Elab indicated his chunky legs.

"You seem older than the others," the colonist said slowly. "You're a renegade colonist. One of those who betrayed us."

"Trust me, Colony betrayed me long before I betrayed it" Elab said with feeling.

"You're all contaminated. Just like the rest of the Earthborn," the colonist said. His face was slick with sweat.

"So you put us down like vermin," Elab surmised.

He watched the colonist's face for an answer. The seconds passed.

"You're one of the traitors," the colonist said matter-of-factly. "There is a reward on your head.

Instant promotion to senior level."

Elab nodded slowly. "Impressive. I suppose all you need do is slice off our ears and present them.

Yeah?"

"You animal," the colonist said tightly. "That's just what you bounty hunters do for drugs, treacherous sons of the space demons!"

"Steady," Elab said when the colonist raised the laserlite. Suddenly Devan's words hit home. He'd said the ears had been "weird." That maybe meant different. Like the Skyborns' ears. They were in fact genetically different. They'd somehow grown closer to the skull, were flatter. And usually unscarred, free of blemishes, because they'd been raised on Colony.

"Just shut up!" the colonist said gutturally. He glanced outside via a handheld night-amplifying scanner.

"They're Skyborn, aren't they? The ones who were killed here?" Elab said. "Makes sense." He struggled with thoughts that were too bizarre to grapple with.

"They were colonists, all right," the youth said. "You know that well enough. You betrayed us!"

"Bruick," Elab said. The demons take the man. He'd probably planned every last bit of this entire expedition, had planned on Sarah leading a team down here to locate the renegade Skyborn—only Sarah wasn't in the picture anymore. But he hadn't netted such a bad haul anyway—half of the family's Committee. Bruick . . . He looked out through the window as though he might see him sauntering across the square. "You met up with Bruick? Scar around his neck. Tattoos all over him."