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Garrett slammed into Maxwell, and they careened toward the ground as the unmistakable sound of gunfire ripped through the air. In seconds they’d both climbed to their feet again and ran wildly toward the outside ring of lights. Running on instinct and years of guerrilla warfare, Maxwell made out a heavy box, and he grabbed Garrett’s wrist and threw them both toward it. They hit the ground and rolled just as another patter of gunfire chased after them, and Garrett managed to wrap an arm around Maxwell’s waist and haul them both behind cover.
“Fuck,” Garrett spat again, and Maxwell blinked away the remaining light blindness to see Garrett crouched, with his back pressed up against the metal container and his gun held at his chest. “Fuck, not the miners.”
“The guards?” Maxwell scrambled to get into position beside Garrett, their stances the same and their shoulders brushing.
“Yup, that was a klah’eel.” Garrett bared his teeth, and Maxwell could see his mind whirring through options. “No doubt about it.”
They should have brought Patrick after all. Maxwell squeezed his gun in frustration. Well, wasn’t hindsight just twenty-twenty?
“Come out, scum,” roared a voice from somewhere beyond their cover. Maxwell couldn’t tell whether it was the same voice, but it definitely sounded klah’eel now that Maxwell had his wits about him.
“Okay, new answer,” Garrett yelled back, his finger tapping wildly along the barrel of his gun and his body vibrating with nervous energy. “We’re not the Resistance.”
The voice—and several others—laughed loudly, and the deep timbre reverberated around the cave-like room. “You would change your answer at the business end of a gun, wouldn’t you?”
Garrett made a face as he silently mimicked the mocking response and then gritted his teeth. “I’m serious! The Resistance doesn’t exist anymore. The war is over.”
“There’s at least six of them,” Maxwell whispered to Garrett after he’d finished mentally analyzing the sounds of the laughs he’d heard.
“Yeah.” Garrett glanced toward the tunnel back to the elevator, which was now lit up so bright it looked like a daytime street. “And there’s no way we get through there without being shot.”
“War’s over, huh?” The voice—male, klah’eel, probably the leader judging by how talkative he was—sounded a little closer now and more to their right as though he were edging around their cover. “And who won?”
“No one,” Garrett replied, and the sudden heartbreak in his voice made Maxwell’s eyebrows raise.
It must have given the klah’eel pause too because his tone came out suspicious instead of mocking for the first time. “What do you mean?”
Garrett dropped his gun down between his knees. “You’re down here because of the storms, right?”
Murmuring from more than just the leader broke out around them, and after a moment, the leader replied, “That’s right.”
“Look, you saw us. We’re two human men. We each have a gun, and we each have a bag.” Garrett pulled the strap of his bag over his head and jerked his head at Maxwell to do the same. “How about we throw them all to you, and then we come out, and we talk about this?”
Maxwell met Garrett’s eyes as he pulled the strap over his head, and they waited to hear the klah’eel’s response.
“Alright, send ’em out, Resistance.”
They both breathed a sigh of relief. Garrett tossed his gun and bag out to his right, toward the center of the room and far out of reach. Then Maxwell clicked the safety of his gun, passed it and his bag off to Garrett, and he tossed them out too.
“Alright, and now you both step out slowly with your hands raised.”
Garrett shot Maxwell a smile, squeezed his hand briefly, and then stood. Maxwell ignored the pounding of his heart and stood right after him. It occurred to him in a horrifying flash of realization that if these people were going to kill them, then he wanted to die with Garrett rather than have to witness the bullets embedding in his body.
But no bullets embedded in anyone.
In the center of the room—the huge, cavernous room, with a line of doors and external stairs up to more doors lining the righthand wall like a city block—stood a middle-aged klah’eel man with a gun and a gatlung over his back. Behind him stood several other similarly armed klah’eel, and behind them clustered a couple dozen civilian humans that peered out at Garrett and Maxwell with wide eyes.
Garrett grinned his most charming grin at the klah’eel with a gun, and Maxwell wasn’t surprised when he saw the older man’s hold on his weapon ease. “Hi there. My name’s Garrett.”
The klah’eel narrowed his bright yellow eyes, and the horns of his eyebrows pinched together. “You know something about these storms, Garrett?”
“I do.” Garrett nodded, then stepped to the side and motioned to Maxwell. “But first, this man is a doctor, and he can tend to anyone who urgently needs it.”
A human woman rushed through the ranks of klah’eel. “We need a doctor!”
“Hold on, Mila,” the klah’eel nearest to the woman grabbed her shoulder with a hiss.
The woman—Mila—shrugged the klah’eel’s hand off. “My husband needs help. He’s delirious with infection.”
