Free Rebel's Quest by Gun Brooke Page B

on.”

    *

    Plasma-pulse fire seared the tree trunk behind Roshan, and she rolled behind a large rock as singed wood rained over her. Grateful for the helmet and the protective suit that covered every inch of her body, Roshan huddled, ready to dive into another evasive maneuver if her attacker fired again. It had been more than half an hour since she’d talked to Boyoda, and Roshan knew her time, and luck, were running out.
    Roshan hadn’t known what to expect when she’d called Boyoda for help. When she’d landed painfully on her left side next to some dense shrubbery, her regular communicator had been smashed. Flat on the ground behind a large tree, she’d tried it several times before she realized it was dead and that her only contact with the outside world was the Class 1 transmitter. Roshan also knew that if Boyoda didn’t send someone to help her in time, she’d have to destroy the transmitter to ensure that the information stored in its memory didn’t fall into enemy hands.
    The sound of her pursuer’s hoverbike was closer, and Roshan feared whatever help Boyoda sent would arrive too late. She clasped the laser-knife in her right hand. She was good at hand-to-hand combat and had often spearheaded the units that moved in on Onotharian military installations. Still, it disgusted her to have to resort to such measures. At night, the faces of some of the people she’d killed haunted her. Young Onotharian men and women, whose duties as guards clashed with the resistance’s goals, walked in her dreams and made sure she never forgot the price they’d paid or her guilt for ending their lives. Roshan squeezed her eyes shut. This isn’t the time for regrets. Focus, damn it!
    The sudden surge in the hoverbike engine put Roshan on alert. Sweat poured down between her breasts as she crawled backward, her eyes locked on the undergrowth west of her. Expecting her assailant to come charging through it, laser-pulse weapon ablaze, Roshan slid under the dense fern bushes to the right and hid. Her heart thudded like ancient skin drums in her ears. She had to be prepared if he spotted her. The knife was heavy in her hand. Remember to breathe.
    With a deep roar, the bushes divided and produced a hoverbike—without its driver. Roshan stared as the vehicle slowly somersaulted, only to slam into the tree she’d just left in a cloud of sparkling debris. The propulsion system erupted, and Roshan curled into a ball to protect herself from the blast. The sound nearly tore her eardrums, and Roshan lay still, rocking slowly, until only an echo remained.
    “Paladin!” a voice called from afar. “Paladin?”
    “Here,” Roshan croaked, trying to clear her lungs of dust. “Paladin here.” She coughed repeatedly.
    “I’m on my way. Are you injured?”
    Was the voice female? Roshan grimaced. “I have no clue,” she huffed. She didn’t. Her entire body ached, and her ears still rang, but otherwise she was oddly numb. Her already injured foot should’ve burned since she’d landed on it after being tossed off the bike. “I’m all right.” She was. She was still alive. Stars, I’m getting too old for this.
    Another hoverbike entered the small clearing, and Roshan stared up at the sleek, state-of-the-art revelation. Black and shiny, it looked like a live entity, barely skimming the ground.
    The driver jumped off and bent over her, as she stared up at her rescuer through the night-vision visor. Tinted in green, and illuminated from behind by the rising sun, the person seemed overwhelming.
    “How are you doing?” a female voice asked, muffled by a scarf that covered everything but her eyes.
    “I’ll live.” Roshan coughed and tried to not inhale too much of the dust. “You were just in time.” She glanced suspiciously at the stranger. How could she be sure of this individual’s true allegiance? For all she knew, this could be a sixth OECS agent masking as her savior. “Who sent you? How did you find me?”
    “Can you