“Lock onto them now!” Keru yelled back to Norellis.

“Transporter’s down,” Norellis shouted. “I can’t get a lock!”

No!Eyes wide with horror, Keru looked at the screen, saw T’Lirin holding the Neyel child close to her chest, her image swimming in the heated air.

Keru was about to order Waen to take them in as close as possible to T’Lirin when something struck the shuttle, nearly hard enough to turn it over. Keru felt himself fly up out of the seat, and came crashing down against one of the consoles.

He heard screams, and saw flashes of light and showers of sparks and moving bodies, even as he rolled off the control panels and onto the shuttlecraft’s unyielding deck.

A blue hand helped him up. “Sir,” Waen yelled. “If we don’t leave now, everyone we came to save will die.”

Keru looked up at the screens, staring transfixed at the image of T’Lirin. Her face was a mask of utter calm, of acceptance. She raised one hand toward the Ellington,her fingers paired and parted into the shape of a V.

The shuttle shook again. “Sir!” Waen shouted.

“Raise shields,” Keru snarled, his eyes brimming with tears. “Get us out of here, fast.” But he forced himself to watch the consequences of his choice as T’Lirin and her charge dwindled from sight on the surface of the dying planet.

VANGUARD

Davin ran, and she knew she was running for her life.

Stay out of the lights,she told herself, avoiding the huge, mirrored structures that brought external sunlight into this place. She could hear crowds in the distance, could see some of them in the far distance on the opposite side of the place if she looked straight up.

But when she cried for help, no one came to her aid.

She had to assume they were still chasing her. There were four of them when she had last looked over her shoulder, but she was no longer sure there weren’t more. All she knew was that she couldn’t afford to turn to look again, lest they gain on her. Keeping her tail pointed straight behind her, she kept running, hoping she could find a way to elude her pursuers in this strange, curved place— could this really be Holy Vangar, the moon placed in Oghen’s sky by the original Oh-Neyel people?—or at least ascend to the spincenter of the place, where the pull of gravity was said to be weakest.

She knew what would happen when they finally caught up with her. They would brutalize her as though she were a slave. They would have their way with her.

And then they would kill her.

Ignoring the pain in her side, Davin ran into a large shelter stacked at least three metriks high with crates, some sealed, some opened. Some of the opened crates, she saw, contained large sacks of grain and other bulk foods. Others were filled with machinery. Some of the food and other gear looked familiar, as though it had come from her home village on Oghen. The rest looked alien, unfamiliar.

She concluded that all of it had probably been stored here by the strangers who claimed they had come to save the Neyel people from destruction.

No one seemed to be chasing her now. Had she lost them?

She decided she would risk pausing, at least for long enough to catch her breath. Sitting on the corner of one of the crates, she tore open a bag of food and quickly ate her fill, scattering crumbs far and wide. She knew she needed water as well, but didn’t know at the moment where to find any.

This had to be some sort of storage depot. But where was everyone? How can these strangers believe they can save an entire world when they can’t even spare enough people to guard their storehouses properly?

She heard a sharp, clattering noise, as though someone in a far corner had inadvertently kicked something over while blundering about in the darkness.

“You’re at the end of your run, girl,” called a sinister voice emanating from the deep shadows beyond the crates.

Adrenaline jolted her body off the crate where she had been sitting and onto her feet. She ran toward the entrance through which she had come.

Another angry figure stood in the portal, silhouetted in the external light, barring her way. She turned left, then right. Two more leering Neyel men approached from either side, both of them angrier now than they had been before, simply because she had run. Then she heard footfalls echoing behind her.

Surrounded. By men who believed that that all rules had been rescinded, now that the end of the world seemed imminent.

Sleeper take you all,she thought.

“Stop!”

Another voice, much more pleasant than the others. But with a quality that seemed to expect obedience. Heavy, determined footfalls approached, bringing that voice steadily closer with each stride.

“I said stop!”the voice repeated.

Davin looked around her. The four men surrounding her had gotten within five or six metriks of her. But they, too, had heard the voice, and all of them had turned toward it.

“Back away, friend, and we may let you live,” said one of the men. A primate chasing away a rival male,Davin thought, feeling curiously detached from what she knew was about to happen next: combat and death, most likely including her own.

Davin finally saw the figure as it reached the fringes of the darkened sections of the storehouse.

“I doubt you are my friend. Why don’t you leave this woman alone?”

“We won’t warn you again, friend,” said another of Davin’s pursuers. Fear colored this one’s voice.

The newcomer strode directly into the wash of ambient light that was streaming in through the main entrance. He was tall and broad in the shoulder, at least as large and powerful-looking as any Neyel male she had ever seen in her life.

But that was where the resemblance ended. He was chalk white, with rough, wrinkled skin, and large, severely pointed ears that brought to mind childhood horror stories of elves.

And fangs that seemed able to rip the throat out of even the toughest-skinned Neyel. Like the Tuskers from the oldest tales of the Oh-Neyel People.

The thugs somehow mastered their fear and drew their weapons, long blades. The white creature kept right on approaching.

“That would be a spectacularly bad idea,” it said.

The men charged, their blades slashing at the air.

The fanged man closed his eyes, like a cleric in prayer.

The nearest of the attackers dropped his sword and fell to the ground screaming, at least two full metriks away from his prey. The white creature had never touched anyone.

He opened his eyes, which burned with barely contained rage. “Now, gentlemen: Are you willing to be reasonable?”

They dropped their knives and ran.

The horrible fanged creature continued moving forward, heading straight for Davin.

Gods, no. Now he’s coming forme.

She ran again, panicked. Her foot connected with something on the floor, and she sprawled onto her face.

She rolled onto her back, and saw the creature looming over her. She heard other footfalls and saw a motley quartet of armed strangers running toward her as well. Were they also planning to rescue her, only to take her for themselves?

The four new arrivals, two of whom strongly resembled the elves from the old tales, came to a stop beside the fanged man. One of the other two opened a small container on her hip, and Davin could hear liquid sloshing inside it.

Water?

“Let us help you,” the white creature said, extending a large, long-nailed hand down to her. For some reason she didn’t understand, she felt reassured.

“My name is Mekrikuk,” the creature said.

U.S.S. TITAN