“Okay, we need a plan.” said Siertes determinedly.

“Certainly.” said Voustrets. “We…”

“Not you. Wolfess? Puppy? Ninjakitty? Especially you, kitty, you’re probably right about them…”

Voustrets glared at the over-practical Tompar. “I SHALL have a plan!”

“Yeah, you just won’t tell us what it is. No thank you.”

“You may be historically correct…” grumbled Voustrets, but Siertes was already turning aside.

“Well, kitty? Ah… Rai, if you like…”

“Thank you.” said Rairate. “I have only the strong feeling that once these Xarnax are finished, they may attack. If you say that they’re not attacking because they fear radio transmissions…”

Dene was thinking. “Why can’t they just fly off? They can fly.”

“There will be a larger ship. These ones are drones, they’re not spaceworthy. That’s not quite true- they are fine in space, but they haven’t the fuel to travel interstellar distances.” said Rai.

“That’s right.” said Siertes. “They come in a lot of forms, but these guys aren’t big enough to go that far. There’s a fucking lot of them, too… where would they put their ship?”

Hallem piped up. “They might have hidden it behind the big warehouse out by the highway!”

Siertes, Dene, Boodins froze. Hallem blinked. “What?”

“Two things.” said Siertes. “One- the ship will be intelligent as well. It’s gonna be a larger robot. A much larger robot.”

“And? Two?”

“There is no big warehouse out by the highway…”

It was on their side of the patient- and dwindling- line of Xarnax drones. It was out by the highway, and it did look very much like a warehouse. It seemed abandoned, and Boodins wondered out loud if it really was a warehouse- if they’d simply missed it when they arrived.

“Wouldn’t we have heard rocket blasts or something?”

“You’ve seen these guys fly, right?” said Siertes. “We don’t know exactly what they use, but they can hover. No rockets.”

“We’ve seen it.” said Dene softly.

“Yes.” said Rai. “They are silent. Yet this does look- I would not like to say natural, but it resembles a warehouse very much. When have Xarnax ever attempted camouflage? Their drones are shiny metal, they don’t resemble anything from this planet.”

Siertes looked annoyed. Her temper wasn’t improved by her burden. She was carrying Elistary, while clamping her wrist with serpentine strength. “You’re going to want to look around inside, next. Is!”

“You may curse our situation,” said Voustrets blandly, “but you must admit we do well!”

Siertes just stared at him. “Are you nuts? How is any of this good? It’s amazing we’re still alive. No thanks to posh-puppy, who’s given the Xarnax a new weapon.”

“Exactly! And we are learning so much- and you, you have your great enemy’s life literally in the palm of your hand. Is it not?”

“Yah.” said Siertes, taken aback. “Happiness is a warm amputee.”

“I want to get a closer look at that sign.” said Dene. “The one just inside the door. It looks like hours of operation, or something. Fine print? It’s definitely writing. C’mon.”

Siertes glanced, and stiffened. “I don’t like it.”

“What’s it say?”

“As talented as I am, crazy wolfess, I don’t read all forms of writing. I read Tompar, of course, and I can get by in Estrai, but I can’t read that to you. It does look like Runge letters… but I don’t like it.”

Dene inched closer, and paused. “What’s that?”

“I told you, I don’t hear so good.” said Siertes. “Not like you guys.”

“Traffic, I think.” said Rai, quirking an ear. “This is surely normal. It is a highway.”

They couldn’t see the highway directly- the warehouse was in the way. Dene continued to inch closer, and Siertes frowned and stayed near her. Boodins, Rai, and the others uncertainly followed. Dene glanced back at them, fearfully. “What the hell are we supposed to make of this?”

The sign read, “OVBPUVC ZNAQRNGU: SEBZ JURYC IREFF OYBBQ FPERNZ. SHEELGBJA GN”

The sound, a gentle rumbling, was increasing.

“What does it say?” said Siertes.

“It’s not fucking language! It’s gibberish!” yelped Dene.

“Uh, guys?” said Boodins, looking around.

“Xarnax!” snapped Siertes. “That’s no warehouse!”

Voustrets’ eyes lit up. “They do practice camouflage! Even to mimicking a language, that they do not speak! I wonder if they are aware it is language? Or do they see it as characteristic markings?”

“GUYS!” yelled Boodins, but at that moment, he was drowned out. The biker gang was upon them.

They came from around the side of the ‘warehouse’, off the highway, coasting at high speed to gain some measure of surprise, and it had worked- Rai had heard but not understood, and Boodins understood but too late. As they came into view, however, the biker wolves punched it and the air was wracked with the deafening hammering of engines, those primitive piston engines that couldn’t keep up with the Estrai sports car.

Now, finally, they had caught up- on their terms.

“Get ‘em!” came the howl. “Run the snake down first! Dangerous!”

They were coming from every direction- apparently had some practice in cornering prey. There was nowhere to run- they’d quickly taken positions covering all escape into the woods, or back toward the highway.

Almost nowhere to run…

“No. Dene. Honey. Don’t. No!”

A biker gunned his engine, hurtling towards Dene and Siertes, and Dene turned and fled. Inside.

“Is!”

Boodins went after her. Then Rai. Hallem followed suit, perhaps thinking he was too easy to run down.

“I’m not paid enough for THIS!” yelled Siertes.

She held Elistary’s arms, Voustrets grabbed her legs, and they bolted inside the ‘warehouse’ after Dene and the others.

The bikes pulled up to the entrance, the leader yelling over the sound of the engines. “So you think you’re safe in there, huh?”

“We’re really not!” said Boodins. “We’re SO really not!”

“Can we maybe call this off?” said Dene. “You don’t know what…”

“Welcome to your nightmare!” said the leader, and he plus another biker charged into the warehouse, leaving others by the door to guard.

Dene dodged the leader’s attack, narrowly evading the hurtling bike. Siertes tried to bite at the guy, but was slowed by her burden- Elistary, who seemed to be vaguely returning to her senses.

“Can’t I ditch the bitch?!” protested Siertes. “We’re all gonna die anyway, what’s the matter if she bleeds to death first?”

“No, wait!” said Rai. “I’ll take over. I believe my hands are strong enough to do as you are doing…” He grabbed Elistary’s wrist away from Siertes, adjusted his grip, and it was true- Siertes was free to move, Rai had custody of Elistary and was able to serve as a tourniquet.

Siertes’ tail lashed, and she grinned, humorlessly. “Do that again! Puppy!”

“Yeah?”

“Not you! I meant that biker guy…”

Suddenly, Dene darted across her line of sight- the other biker had made a feint. The lady Runge looked pitiably upset- under normal circumstances, one might try to hide behind objects in the warehouse or seek a back room. However, in this case it might be the single dumbest thing one could ever do.

“Stay where I can see you, honey…” said Siertes. Dene nodded, jerkily, eyes flicking everywhere.

The lead biker seemed to have a problem. He was over by the entrance, a wide garagelike opening, yelling at his companions. “I told you, Kran! You guard the fucking door! What are you doing coming in here?”

Rai blinked. The name was familiar. He’d been in a street fight in Kiesens, and a Runge named Kran had fled him and survived.

This Kran was fleeing something too. He gunned his engine and came right past his alpha, glancing back and yelling, “Put it on hold! We gotta take cover. Gotta wait for Xarnax to go by!”

The other bikers rode in as well, talking to each other. “Dozens of them!” “Won’t come in here.” “Wait it out, play later…”

The lead guy turned around. “Get out of sight, kill the engines!” He spoke to Siertes. “Maybe we should let you go. Something’s happening. We can’t play, we gotta lay low. If you have any sense, shut up and hide…”

Everyone was inching towards the walls, seeking cover, Dene very reluctantly. Siertes’ mouth was a hard, uncompromising line. She said, “If we had sense we wouldn’t be in here.”

“Don’t be fuckin’ stupid, there’s Xarnax out there. This is the only safe place to be.”

Siertes just stood there staring at him, and eventually his temper frayed, watching her little hint of a smile.

“WHAT?”

“I just don’t want to miss the look on your face…”

“Ngg!” went Rai, and he doubled over a bit, and then Elistary was free, grabbing her own wrist, staggering into the middle of the warehouse. She’d sagged down as if going limp, and elbowed him viciously in the nuts. Boodins rushed over to help him stand, and Rai leaned on his friend for the moment, taking agonized, hissing breaths.

“The fuck is she…” said the lead biker- and stopped.

The line of Xarnax drones were beginning to enter the warehouse- and, seeing all the organic lifeforms in there, they stopped too, and there was second after second of silence as Elistary, swaying, gripping her wrist, eyes slits of hate, teeth bared, faced the Xarnax forces.

She turned to look at Siertes, Dene, Boodins in particular. “Goodbye. This time… they will obey.”

Elistary turned back to the still machines. “Kill them. Do it now.”

Nobody moved… then, impossibly, the lead biker was off his cycle, walking over to join her, in the face of the alien menace.

“Uh, babe, the rule is, if they ain’t shooting, we leave…”

Elistary glared at him. She turned to the Xarnax again. “Do it!”

Off in the distance, something whirred.

The biker drooped a bit. “Um, listen, that’s great crazy talk, but you might not understand what those are…”

“You might not understand who I am.” snapped Elistary.

The biker moved around, putting Elistary between himself and the danger, still trying to talk to her.

“I don’t know why they’re just sitting there, but I’m telling you, they’re dangerous…”

Elistary’s eyes flashed. She drew herself up in a rage, and the biker cringed.

“They’re MINE!”

TICK

The Xarnax laser drilled both Elistary, and the biker leader, through the head, at the exact moment it became possible to get both with a single shot.

The bodies crumpled to the ground, and the Xarnax began once more to move into their camouflaged ship, which began to whir and grind, shifting and changing its form. Huge rumblings and clangs echoed in the distance.

Dene found herself clinging to Siertes, Hallem clinging to her leg, Boodins supporting Rai… and then the howling began. She glanced over, alarmed, to see a cycle rocket past, no longer targeting her- no, their leader had been killed, and the bikers were charging the Xarnax.

“Kran, you fuck!”

All but one.

A biker, howling, slammed his heavy cycle into one of the Xarnax, so violently that the carapace dented and electric sparks crackled. Another Xarnax took a shot at a biker, but made a horrible error- it didn’t account for his highly chromed headrest, and the shot killed its target but then reflected right back at other Xarnax, skewering at least three. Suddenly, the scene was a chaos of blinking lights, screaming Runge, roaring engines, occasional TICKs of laser discharge still sparingly used…

Rairate, hobbling, shooed Boodins along, around the edge of the battle, making for the entrance. Both fell as the floor shifted horribly beneath them. Dene came running, helping them up, and through a riot of noise and violence they staggered out the door, where Dene turned. “SIERTES!”

“I saw her and..” began Boodins.

“Voustrets fell when the whole place shifted!” said Rai.

More Xarnax were coming, seeming to hurry, ignoring the conversation as they struggled to get back into their ship. Then, the ‘warehouse’ shook, and lifted three feet off the ground, on massive, hidden, mechanical legs.

“There she is!” cried Dene. Siertes appeared in the doorway, and she was carrying Voustrets this time, and seemed to be no happier about it than she’d been when carrying Elistary. She jumped down, and the whole building shifted again and raised itself another foot.

“We need to get out of sight.” snapped Siertes. “Once they’re ready to go, they won’t be holding their fire at all…”

“Come on!” cried Dene. Rai staggered determinedly for the treeline. Siertes outdistanced him, while carrying Voustrets, who protested vociferously that she mustn’t put him down, he had twisted his foot and could not walk yet…

Boodins didn’t budge.

“Hallem!”

“Oh, shit…” said Dene.

“There’s no time!” yelled Siertes. “You’re gonna have losses! That’s just how it is! Get the fuck away from it!”

Rairate turned, and charged Boodins- even if he could not get back into the steadily rising warehouse, he seemed to think he could stop Boodins from doing anything too suicidal.

Neither he, nor Dene, were fast enough. Boodins Earncy bolted for the warehouse that was now all too obviously a Xarnax mothership- jumped, grabbed- and, pulling himself over the edge of what was once a floor, vanished into the noisy darkness.

Around and above him, Xarnax fitted themselves into travel berths. Boodins realized with some surprise that each Xarnax was a little different- the differences jumped out at him, in his adrenaline-pumped state. They weren’t firing now. All the bikers lay dead alongside Elistary, and Boodins scanned the scene for Hallem, hoping to see him but fearing he’d be seen among the dead. But the cub was nowhere to be seen.

Boodins spotted a motion, and a scent cut through the blood, rage and fear stench. It smelled like Hallem, but what Boodins saw was one of the bikers, well off to the side, hiding behind an overturned cycle and- stirring?

He inched over towards that sight, glancing at the busy robots, trying to think harmless, inoffensive thoughts, and as he approached he saw and smelled what was really happening. The biker was terrified, and wounded. Hallem was under him, trying to lift him.

“Come on! Help me with it!”

“I can’t! My leg won’t work!”

“Well, slide along the floor, then!” piped Hallem, stubbornly trying to move the older wolf.

“What’s going on?” asked Boodins, glancing fearfully at the Xarnax. Mechanical arms clawed out from the walls in stately mechanical gestures, lifting Xarnax into storage positions for takeoff. They’d rushed into the warehouse in great numbers during the fighting, recognizing that time was going to be short.

“This guy protected me!” yipped Hallem. “But he got shot!”

“Why isn’t he dead, then?” said Boodins.

“It was a mistake- bounced off somebody’s chrome. Get this kid out of here, will ya? He won’t leave!”

“We’re gonna get both of you out.” said Boodins.

“Nah, take the kid, I’m done for…”

“No, we can drag you…”

“Ya let me DIE already? Dammit! It’s no big loss! Get out of here!”

“What?” yelped Boodins, staring huntedly at the Xarnax.

“Go! I’m a fucking coward, I always run from a fight, well it got me, didn’t it? Save the kid and go!”

“You want to die??”

“For the first time! In my fucking life! I… wasn’t afraid t…”

Boodins stared at the biker guy crying. Just for a second.

“Hallem, help me drag him. We’re gonna rescue this guy.”