Dekkir (Galaxy Alien Warriors #1)(37)
I offered my most reassuring smile. “Have some faith in yourself, my love. I have no doubt you can handle this. Just reach out with your mind and feel the men on the walls and the ones beside their mounts.” None of the Rilleen riders were airborne yet. “Once you make contact, they can engage your stream of consciousness and feed you information on what is going on.”
“I’ll try.” She closed her eyes, leaning on one of the fuel barrels we used for fire arrows. Her brows drew together, and she twitched slightly. I reached out to her with my heart and felt the strain of her connection with multiple minds at once. “I think I’ve got it,” she mumbled, her voice light and dreamy.
“The men on the battlements?”
She frowned thoughtfully. “Yes, and the Rilleen riders. They’re impatient. It’s what they are letting themselves feel instead of fear.”
I nodded, stroking a thumb across my chin. “Any word from Tabirus?”
“I’ll check in with him. Hang on.” The strain deepened on her face. She drew a few deep breaths and struggled to focus.
As I waited, I looked up and down the row of battlements and the men and beasts manning them. Warriors—my people. Tabirus had warned that the attack would be coming from the west. He didn’t yet know how deep into the jungle he could mislead them or what tactic to use once he did. Perhaps he could lead them into a beastvine field or near enough to a giant insect nest. I could only hope it would be enough to slow them down and let some of our guerrillas pick them off.
My hand reached out by itself to stroke down the soft, dark cloud of her hair, and she smiled slightly, then relaxed. “I’ve got Tabirus. He says he’s leading them to the swamps half a day’s march from here. He may be able to convince a few dropship pilots that the jungle is several meters lower than it actually is.”
“He plans to crash them?” Not bad.
“Some of them.” Her lips trembled, but she set her jaw and focused. “He can’t manage it with all the dropships. Some of those pilots have unreachable minds, including Norcross himself.”
“I see.” I squinted out over the rolling plain to the west, where the jungle started thinly and rapidly thickened. Far off, I could see something sparkling high in the sky in that direction. “Then he should focus on misleading those he can to as deadly an effect as he can. The seers monitoring the jungle can aid him in the effort.”
She nodded, and I saw her lips moving as she relayed the message. A pause, and then a flicker of sadness crossed her face. “He says he may be able to remove a quarter of them by this method, and then they will be forced to hike in. That is when our troops in the jungle can start picking them off.”
“That should thin their numbers considerably. Under the cover of the jungle, we will have the advantage. We can pick a good number of them off and lead survivors into the various jungle hazards.” I put a hand on her shoulder. “Keep monitoring. See if you can reach the men in the jungle.”
She closed her eyes again, and tiny droplets of sweat misted her forehead. “They’re pretty antsy over there. I think they’re almost too close to some of the insect colonies.” She paused and gasped aloud. “Neyilla says she’s anticipating a crash site with her precognition. The other dropships will land in the same area to attempt rescues.” She shook her head slowly, anguish twisting her features for a moment. “Of course they will. They’ll even defy Norcross to retrieve their own.”
“Do you have any idea why none have thought to try to rescue you while they are at it?”
She bit her lip softly, in a way that distracted me. It wasn’t the time for desire, but need flared inside me regardless. But then the sadness on her face deepened. “Norcross claims I was either killed in the last drone attack or have gone over to the other side. If they see me, I’m to be killed, not rescued.”
A tear tracked down her cheek, sending a small pang through me. I hated seeing her cry. And more than that, I hated the man responsible—this Norcross, supposedly a leader of men but actually a coward whose face I longed to smash open with my fists for his audacity. How dare he seek my mate’s life? In fact . . . how dare he make her shed even a single tear? I’ll destroy him.
“I am sorry. Just remember . . . despite what fools like Norcross may think, you did not betray them. You responded to their betrayal of you. They used you to gather information on us so they could defame us to your fellow humans and then gain justification to wipe us out.” I brushed the tear away, but more joined it quickly. Yes, definitely going to kill this Norcross. Slowly, if I can manage.
Still, Grace kept focused, despite her grief, impressing me. “I understand that. It’s just one thing to understand it intellectually and another to . . . feel it. The humans on that base that suspect I’m alive, they hate me, Dekkir. They think of me as the traitor.”
“Don’t absorb their hate. Don’t turn it against yourself. There is no need. You know you don’t deserve this.” I couldn’t keep the urgency out of my voice any more than I could keep the love out of my heart.
“Some of the ones being sent after us don’t deserve what we have in store for them either.” She swallowed, and I felt her grief pricking at my heart.
“That is war, my darling. It is hideous and nonsensical, and one ends up mourning the innocent more than rejoicing that the guilty are gone.” I stroked her hair again and felt her shivering. “Keep monitoring.”