Free Kingdom of Stars (The Young Ancients: Timon Book Three) by P.S. Power

really.
    Not knowing what else to do and not having a whole lot of
time to come up with a plan, Tim ran into the man, who died almost instantly.
Or at least that should have been what happened. He flew apart under the force
of the Fast Craft striking him, turning into a gray cloud, and then reforming,
almost instantly, about ten feet away. The little box was destroyed at least,
which let the other nanos escape.
    Because, that's almost what the Baron had to be made out of,
wasn't it? That or a compound that Timon had never encountered at all. Ramming
him probably wouldn't work then.
    Fighting him wouldn't at all.
    What he needed was an air choke. Which of course he didn't
have. He'd been meaning to make a batch of those, since they were handy at
stopping fire, and tiny things in the air, but he'd sort of put that off, not
having enough time to get everything done and thinking that clothing would be
more useful in the long run.
    "Oops." The best option, for him, was to run, of
course. Not the others there, the Countess, her guards, which were mainly
female, and the others that were there, mainly nobles of some kind, he thought.
Tim glanced at them quickly, as the craft kept moving back a bit, to see that
they'd all retreated at least. That was a good plan, but not enough. Not even
by half. Timon, not having a clue what to do next, rose into the air and opened
the wall nearest him with a thought.
    It didn't slide away, it was just a perfectly round window suddenly.
Leaning out he called down and made little waving gestures at the others.
    "Go! This is between me and the..." He didn't have
a real word for it at all. Not that made any sense. Digging for something in
his mind, he shrugged. "Me, and the golem here."
    That was enough for about half of them, as the large Baron
pulled his right arm back and then moved it in a slapping motion, which caused
it to stretch out of all reasonable proportion and hit the side of the vehicle.
No noise came though, since it was a shield, and not really there, no matter
what it looked like. It didn't even move at all, because the amount of force
just wasn't that great. It was still a good trick, if one that wasn't doing
what the golem needed it to.
    Timon figured that to be the case at least, since the thing
immediately tried to reshape itself into a pale flesh toned spike and stab him
through the window. It did nothing, since it was a shield, not glass. The
creature or machine in front of him, whichever it was, reformed into the shape
of a man and held very still for a long time, as if waiting for him to make the
next move.
    That wasn't a good plan though. Really, the very best plan
seemed to be running. Just flying off at speeds that would be hard to track for
anyone in the world. He had no idea what it might take to subdue the thing in
front of him, but given everything it was decently clear that the older looking
man shaped thing really didn't want him to survive for some reason. It was a
bit rude, really.
    Finally, after nearly ten minutes of the thing just standing
there, glaring through the front shield window at him, and Timon looking back
passively, there was a ripple over the man's face. He shifted so quickly that
it was almost hard to pay attention to it. It baffled the eye too much, leaving
a brief feeling of horror inside him. Part of that was who the man turned in
to, naturally.
    It was a person that he'd only seen once before, a merchant
sized man that had light brown hair, brown eyes and a pleasant if non-descript
face. The man that had tried to use some kind of strange light device to poison
him, not even two weeks before.
    Right now the man was smiling and looking around, breaking
eye contact. Probably looking for a hostage, but everyone else had run off.
There were probably servants and guards left inside the castle, but he didn't
make the obvious plan and try to grab one of them. It was the smart move,
because Tim wouldn't go to his death for some chamber maid. He wasn't Tor