Planet X - Michael Jan Friedman [28]
“Don’t mention it,” the other transformed replied. Eyeing the guards warily, he got to his feet and began to move off. “Just keep doing what you were doing, all right?”
Erid nodded. “I will.”
Whatever the other man’s power was, it didn’t seem to be very useful in a fight. But to his credit, he was looking for other ways to help.
Turning to the battlements, Erid picked out another guard and extended his hand. Once again, a crackling stream of energy traversed the yard and found its target, slamming the man into the wall behind him.
Additional guards raced out onto the parapets, replacing those who had fallen. They fired down into the yard, stunning a transformed with four arms and another who had generated a net of electricity.
But they couldn’t stun everyone. Not when Corba was running around disrupting their aim. Not when one of the transformed had grown twelve feet tall and was throwing them off the battlements like dolls.
And the longer the guards were kept busy, the easier it was for Erid and the other energy-wielders to strike. One after another, they blasted their adversaries into unconsciousness. The guards’ ranks thinned moment by moment, until only a handful were left on either side of the yard.
Then a steely voice rang out: “This must stop!”
It was Osan. As Erid watched, the administrator came out onto the battlements, his hands notably empty of weapons. No doubt, he had seen how ineffective such things were against the transformed, and opted to take a different tack with them.
“We need to speak, not fight!” Osan cried out.
He signaled the guards to stop firing and held his hands out. It looked to Erid as if he were praying.
The transformed looked at each other—and desisted, as the administrator had asked. The yard grew quiet, though it was a decidedly uneasy quiet.
But Erid was skeptical. What did Osan think he was going to do? Marshal the forces of sweet reason against the misguided youths wreaking havoc in the prison yard?
As it turned out, that was exactly what the man thought. “This is insane,” he told the transformed. “We’re not your enemy. We’re here to help you—to protect you from the outside world.”
“We’ve heard that speech,” someone called out.
“If you want to help us, open the gates and let us out!”“
Or is it the outside world you want to protect from us?”
The administrator shook his head. “You’ve got to trust us. Whatever the problem is, we can work it out together.”
Suddenly, Erid heard his own voice raised as well. “You wouldn’t let me contact my parents!” he shouted.
Osan found him and looked at him. “Perhaps we can change that policy. Perhaps it wasn’t necessary in the first place.”
“Perhaps you’re lying through your teeth!” someone shouted, his voice echoing dramatically in the yard.
Erid turned and saw Rahatan standing there, Denara and Leyden directly behind him. The earthmover pointed a finger at the administrator.
“You’ve kept us down and deceived us long enough!” he shouted. “Now it’s time for you to reap what you’ve sown!”
Rahatan gestured and the walls of the fortress began to tremble, as if caught in the throes of an earthquake. Osan tried to protest, but his words were drowned by the sound of stone grating against stone.
Some of the guards were shaken off their perches. Those who managed to stay on their feet tried futilely to take aim at the transformed.
But the transformed had no trouble taking aim at them.
Erid sent a burst of energy at a guard. Someone else blasted another one. Then the rest of Osan’s men leaped from the battlements, reluctant to get caught in the collapse of the wall.
The transformed in the yard were waiting for them. Leyden disarmed two of the guards and battered them with their own weapons. Denara enveloped one in her shield and cut his air off. And Seevyn sent more of them flying from imaginary pursuers, until they collided and knocked each other out.
Soon, there were no longer any guards on their feet. Of all the uniformed personnel in the fortress, only Osan was still conscious, still able to