Sky Hunter by Chris Reher Page A

from
between the slabs of teeth he bared. “Ugh,” she said and aimed her
weapon. It took a few passes from her gun before he fell,
silenced.
    Shouts reached their ears, closer than the
gunfire still sounding in the distance. The Rhuwac’s noise had
alerted someone.
    Djari stepped away from Nova and readied his
sling. He let it swing a few times before it rotated around his
wrist. At the correct moment he heaved back and let the projectile
fly high into the sky. They heard it detonate in the distance,
surely drawing attention for a while. As one, they turned and fled
in the opposite direction, along the wall and into the slums.
    They were breathless by the time they had put
a safe distance between themselves and whatever was going on back
there.
    The door to one of the deserted homes did not
yield to her pick but Djari forced it open with a few well-placed
kicks below the lock. The single-room dwelling looked like whoever
had lived here left in a hurry. Pieces of clothing and household
items cluttered the floor and several storage boxes stood open and
empty. The corner used for cooking was empty and cold. Djari poked
around the looted shelves and found nothing edible.
    Nova placed the scanner stolen from the rebel
station onto a windowsill and found it in working order. There was
no one nearby. “Safe here for a bit.” Although there was still much
interference from the rebels’ jamming systems, she detected moving
bodies throughout the quarter, many more than she had assumed to be
here. Shots still rang out at intervals but the sound of voices and
the ugly growl of Rhuwacs had faded away.
    “ What do you think happened?” Djari
looked over her shoulder at the screen. “Are you sure those aren’t
soldiers?”
    “ Those guns are not military issue. I
know the sound. Those are rebels. Maybe they noticed us gone.” She
winced. “Maybe they took that out on the others. Coria was right,
perhaps.”
    “ Don’t think that way,” he said.
“There’s nothing to be done about that now. That might not even
have come from the hospital. We probably got turned around back
here.”
    “ Wish I could do that,” she said
dully.
    “ Do what?”
    “ Look at things the way you do. Don’t
you get scared?”
    “ Are you scared?”
    She adjusted the display screen on the sill.
“Of course I am. We’re surrounded by rebels. Completely
outnumbered.”
    “ You do very well for someone who’s
scared. Not too scared to kill a man with your bare hands and a
piece of string. Not too scared to shoot a Rhuwac like you’re
swatting a bug.”
    She lifted her shoulders slowly in a shrug.
“That’s just training. It kicks in. You must think that’s all
pretty awful.”
    “ I do and it is. I could not do this…
work. But being scared doesn’t help things.”
    She turned to face him, suddenly aware that
he was standing very close to her. His grey eyes were fixed on her
own and there was a half smile on his dark face.
    “ You’re scared right now?” he asked
again.
    She nodded.
    “ Wait a moment.”
    She frowned, mystified, but waited quietly
for a long interval where only the sound of their breathing broke
the silence.
    “ Now,” he said at last. “Are you still
scared?”
    “ Yes.”
    “ So what good did it do you to be
scared the first time I asked you? We’re still in the same spot,
with the same problem.” He tipped his chin toward the town. “Be
scared when you need to be. When it’s actually useful.”
    “ And when is it useful?”
    He tapped a finger against her forehead.
“When it keeps you from doing stupid things that’ll get you killed.
Good thing you have the training to keep up with your willingness
to take risks, Lieutenant.” His hand, roughened by work but gentle,
moved to cup her chin.
    Nova recoiled from his touch, her mind
suddenly filled with a grim reminder of the last time a man had
touched her that way. She stared at Djari’s astonished face,
momentarily and utterly disoriented, heart