8
KERIX
Keeping the Wolvae at bay was nearly impossible without being fully charged.
It was even more difficult protecting the human.
I dove out of the way of the Wolvae's miscalculated leap... and realized too late that it was not miscalculated at all. As the beast descended on Brandi I changed positions again, shooting forward as fast as my body would allow. I shift-changed the air before me into a shield similar to Tyrix's but smaller, and charged forward in desperation.
My shield-thrust caught the Wolvae's back legs just before he landed. It sent him twisting, and his jaws snapped loudly into open air. But the weight of its body crashed into Brandi, and she flew backwards in the air and struck the hull of our ship, body making a terrible noise before falling to the ground in a pile.
She did not move.
I screamed and struck the Wolvae again, knocking it to the left away from the human. It moved with incredible speed, spinning around to attack me with its jaws, but I readjusted my energy into a beam again and fired just as it opened them wide.
The beam struck it in the roof of its mouth, snapping the entire head back roughly. It slumped to the ground, unconscious.
Brother.
I whirled to Tyrix. He'd managed to bull-rush the other Wolvae away from the ship, but it had regained its footing and was pulling back to regroup. The first two Wolvae I'd struck at the beginning of the battle were slowly rising as well, and although their legs were shaky I knew they would not be for long.
And my energy was quickly waning, each beam slightly less powerful than the last.
We must go, I said, moving to Brandi's still body. We had to protect her at all costs. That need overruled all other thought.
And strangely, it wasn't only my Karak consciousness deciding so.
There is no time to prepare the ship and leave, Tyrix insisted. They will charge any moment, and rip our ship to shreds!
I know. We must retreat with the human.
But where?
I reached out with my shifting and touched Brandi's body. It was in pain, and severely wounded, but her brain had closed itself away from the pain.
I shifted, manipulating the atoms of her body at the same time as my own. One by one our bodies split apart, dividing again and again until there were only the base atoms remaining.
At the speed of light, I carried us past the Wolvae to the other side of the clearing, and into the woods. Tyrix followed behind, disapproval heavy in his consciousness. I re-formed our bodies next to a dead tree, and quickly whirled to face the clearing as Tyrix appeared.
With their fang augmentations, the Wolvae knew where we had gone: they stuck their snouts into the air like they were catching wind of a scent, then slowly turned to face us.
They will be here in moments, Tyrix said, materializing next to me.
But the Wolvae didn't give chase; they moved to our ship, just as I had hoped they would. A modern Karak Fighter Aircraft was a greater prize to them than killing two Karak and a human; especially with an entire planet of humans to soon kill once the invasion began.
Come, I said, shift-transporting another hundred feet into the woods.
*
We leap-frogged through the woods until reaching a hole in the mountain that was deep enough to conceal us. If the Wolvae had followed immediately they would have sensed our trail of shifts to this spot, but their delay would provide us with a place to hide.
I shifted into my new human form once we were at the mouth of the cave, and then carried Brandi's limp body from there. Between the battle and the retreat, I was weak with exhaustion. Being in this human body helped reinforce my strength.
I savored the way Brandi's body felt in my arms, her skin against mine. Her ponytail brushed against my arm and swung back and forth as I strode into the cave.
"Leaving the ship was a mistake."
Tyrix followed behind, in his human body as well. His eyes clung to Brandi's body as I lowered her gently to the cave floor.
"We had no choice," I said. "You said it yourself: if we had retreated to the ship and tried to take off, they would have ripped it to shreds before we could."
"We could have fought them longer," he said stubbornly.
I gave him a weak look, then returned my focus to Brandi. I didn't have time to indulge his regrets just now.
I pressed my palm to Brandi's forehead and reached out with my Karak consciousness. A cracked skull, with minor internal bleeding in the bundle of nerves that comprised the human central processing center--the brain, the word slid into place from the information dump we'd received before our journey. She also had several broken bones along her torso, and blood trickled down her leg.
"How... how is she?" Tyrix said.
"Alive," I said simply. "But not for very long unless we heal her."
"I will help you."
We removed her clothes methodically, first the garments covering her lower body and sex, then the ones covering her torso. Judging by the way my human body reacted to the sight of her, she was a beautiful woman. Lithe and lean, with a wonderful swell of breast. The adrenaline pumped through me, making my chest heave and my pupils dilate. These human sexual urges were so strong, and I could feel Tyrix thinking the same thing...
I pushed it out of my mind and focused on the bruising along her side.
Tyrix began at her feet, running his hands along her skin one slow millimeter at a time to scan her body. When he reached the top of her thigh he paused, then began along the next leg. While he did that I ran my palms along the side of her chest, from the shoulder down across the bumps of her ribs and then to the hip. Seven fractured in the skeletal structure, as well as muscle tearing that made it difficult for her to breathe.
But that could wait: if I didn't heal her head wound soon, nothing else would matter.
I placed my hands on her and began my work.