Free Shadow Hunters by Christie Golden Page B

oozing toward him.
    “Cover your head!”
    He did so, and heard a terrible
boom.
Bits of dead zerg spattered his body with soft plopping sounds. The stench was appalling as the liquids started to seep into his shirt.
    Inside him, Zamara sent calm to his brain and nervous system. It helped, a little. For about a second the door was clear of zerg—living ones, anyway. Buthe could hear their awful sounds, and knew they were there. He propped himself on his elbows and prepared to resume firing. Sure enough, four zerglings began swarming in. They died like the rest of them had. Jake began to hope they might make it.
    “How many are there?” he yelled to Rosemary over the din.
    “No clue!” she shot back. Then she did something that appeared to be totally insane. She gathered up an armload of grenades and raced for the open door, leaping out gracefully.
    “Rosemary!”
    She’d never looked more beautiful to him than now, when he was suddenly convinced he was about to lose her. She stood with her feet planted firmly on Aiur soil, tendrils of short black hair clinging to her sweaty face, one arm cradling death conveniently packaged in handy fist-sized grenades, lobbing them one after another at something he could not see.
    Explosions, four of them, hard on the heels of one another, shook the earth. He tried to get to his feet but slipped in the disgusting stew of zerg body parts. By the time he made it outside, ready to help, it was over. Rosemary shot him a triumphant grin.
    “You did good, Professor.”
    He gave her a feeble smile. “I’m afraid you did most of it.”
    “Nah, you did fine.”
    “We get them all?”
    “For the moment. But from what I rememberabout zerg, they don’t act alone. Reinforcements’ll be in any minute. Take what we can carry and let’s—”
    Go. She’d been about to say “go.” But go where? The ship was damaged beyond repair. What—
    We must get to the chambers.
    We’re still miles away. We don’t know—
    The mental surge Zamara sent was the equivalent of a smack across the face.
Panic will serve nothing. We will take tools and supplies and weapons. It is the only choice we have, Jacob.
    “Yeah,” he said aloud, both to Rosemary and to Zamara. “The chambers. We’ve still got to get there and, like you said, we’ve gotta get out of here fast. Might as well run toward something as away from something.”
    Rosemary nodded her head in acknowledgment and ducked back into the reeking charnel house that was the ruined system runner. He followed, fighting back nausea. With an efficiency he could only mutely admire, she searched quickly through the lockers. “We need to travel light and travel smart,” she said. “Here.” She tossed him a standard marine-issue pack and he quickly stuffed it full of whatever she threw toward him, doing his best not to drop food, weapons, or life-saving tools, including one of a pair of walkie-talkies, into the pools of zerg guts on the floor. Within five minutes both packs were loaded. He shouldered his and caught the rifle she tossed him.
    “Ever seen one of these?” she asked, as she examineda small rectangular device with a screen in the center and a keypad running along the bottom. He shook his head and half jumped, half slid out of the ruined ship. “It’s called a Handheld Personal Information-Gathering and Navigation Unit. HPIGNU—“Pig” for short. It’ll look for pretty much anything you need—where your enemies are, how far away your destination is and how to get there, what the terrain is like, stuff like that.”
    “Wow, that’s useful.”
    “No kidding. No life of any notable size within scanning range.” She touched the pad again. “And we’re a mere five hundred and thirty-two kilometers from the chambers. Walk in the park.”
    “Rosemary—I’m sorry, Zamara had no idea—”
    Rosemary waved off whatever he was about to say. “The Pig suggests two routes. One is circuitous and takes us through the rain forest. The