Taming a Planet (Trapped in Time Book 2) (23 page)

They managed to move to the middle of the ship and then turned and flew in toward the main deck. The stern was bouncing too high in the waves to attempt a landing. They came in and turned into the wind and lowered the front edge of their gliders. They came in at high speed and then lifted the front edge into the wind when they were over the deck. They released the wings and dropped to the deck. Sprained knees and ankles were endured by four of the team but six of them landed and only bounced. John jumped up and pulled his blaster as he ran toward the door leading below ship. He looked to the side and saw that the ship on each side had fliers running. He heard some shots being fired further down the line of vessels but they stopped as soon as they started. He listened to the roar of the predators booming from the beach as he opened the door and moved below decks with five other fliers.

• • •

The fliers had been fighting the strong wind since daybreak trying to fly beyond the line of anchored ships. It had taken hours but they had finally managed to move more than two miles out to sea where they would dive and circle maintaining their positions. When the predators came on the beach, the fifty six teams turned and flew toward the ships at twenty five miles per hour.

Dottie had flown over the ship she was assigned to attack flying out and saw that the number of warriors gathered at the stern was smaller than the other ships around it. That had to mean that there were warriors still below decks. She arrived two miles out and made hand signals to Inaha letting him know that she was coming in after the second group. Inaha moved to the front position of the first group of fliers and knew no one would be coming over the top of the ship.

Oh well, you could only do what you could. Dottie had to have a reason for making the change. Dottie watched and saw John climb and then dive toward the line of ships. This was the signal to attack and the teams turned and flew downwind toward their targets. Dottie fought the wind and watched her two teams sweep the decks of her target ship. She flew back and forth in the wind and knew she was going to be blown past the ship in a few more minutes.

Then, twelve Destroyer Warriors came swarming out of the door leading below decks and begin firing their rifles. She lowered the front edge of her glider and screamed in on the ship in a shallow dive. She came just above the railing on the port side at forty miles an hour and swept the deck with her blaster. She didn’t see the twelve warriors disintegrate as she moved below the level of the railing as she lost control of the glider when she couldn’t control it with just one hand as she fired her blaster. She pushed forward on the control bars raising the front edge of the glider but the glider was traveling too fast to respond. She turned toward the ship hoping it would block the wind but a tip of her left wing touched the water and she pin wheeled into the sea.

Inaha landed and saw the warriors burst out on deck and he hit the floor. He saw Dottie come roaring past at incredible speed and watched the Destroyer Warriors exploded into an orange mist. He jumped up and ran toward the side of the ship looking for Dottie’s glider to climb above the rail, but it didn’t appear. He arrived at the rail and saw her glider floating on the rough sea. He yelled for her as he searched the rough waters but saw nothing. He shook his head and wondered how he was going to tell John. The rest of the team gathered around him and he saw their sorrow. Some of them lowered their head and began praying for her soul…until they heard from behind them, “Hey, can someone give a sister something to dry off with!” The team turned and saw Dottie climbing over the rail. They ran to her and hugged her. She was soaked to her skin and the wind was chilling her. “I’ve got to tell you, climbing that rope was no fun with this much bouncing around.”

A flier took a camouflage suit out of a pouch and Dottie took off her soaked uniform and changed into the dry one. The other archers turned away and scanned the deck for other Destroyers but none appeared. Dottie threw the wet uniform against the rail and looked at Inaha, “Let’s go below and see if we can recruit the slaves to sail the ship for us.”

Inaha smiled, went to the door leading below, and descended the steps. Dottie heard sporadic rifle shots to the left of her ship but they had stopped by the time she followed her team below decks.

• • •

Andy stood still with his head down and heard Micca say, “Andy, we need you at the clearing.” Andy slowly shook his head. Melody was an exact duplicate of Harmony. The shock was unbearable but something inside him forced him to gather himself. He rubbed the tears out of his eyes and looked up at the five archers. He forced a smile and said, “Let’s go do this.” He turned and ran back a hundred yards and entered the tree line where the notched trees were located. The five ran through the forest and the archers at the trees saw members of Andy’s team raise their arms in victory. They remained silent as they raised both arms in celebration. Now for the really difficult part of this war.

A
ndy arrived at the corridor cut into the forest on the north end of the clearing and assembled the thousand archers at the edge of the tree line and yelled, “Pull out a tar arrow and be ready!”

The thousand archers lining the clearing pulled a tar arrow and slipped the notch on their bow cables. They then pulled their cutters out and reduced the length of the blade to six inches. They turned them off and sat down waiting for the signal.

Andy was nervous. What if they didn’t go into the clearing? What if they saw his warriors? So many doubts but then he looked up and saw the tops of the trees swaying in the stiff wind. He smiled.

• • •

Maxius watched Tamara and Fats run out of the trees and into the clearing. Boy that big man could run. He was actually pulling Tamara along with him. They made it to the center as the first Destroyers arrived at the edge of the clearing. They stopped but then heard the female archers screaming on the other side of the clearing. It was clear from the screams that there was a large number of fleeing females.

• • •

The Leader of the Destroyers at the front of their advance started to call a halt when he heard the high pitched screams of women running. He could see their heads above the shoulder high grass in the clearing and he ordered his troops to give chase. The front of the Destroyer advance moved quickly into the clearing and the warriors following them arrived, heard the women and joined them.

In ten minutes, the entire eastern edge of the clearing had Destroyers running into the grass. Maxius saw the last of the enemy run into the clearing and could see the front Destroyer troops were less than two hundred yards from the western edge; he launched a whistler arrow. He turned to the north and fired another whistler. Four archers placed between Maxius and the north edge of the clearing relayed arrows toward the Archers waiting with Andy. Andy heard the whistler come squealing over the trees and he turned and fired a whistler up the corridor cut into the forest. Archers scattered along the corridor launched their whistlers until the last archer at the end of the corridor turned and launched an arrow over the archers at the notched trees. The archers pulled their cutters and cut the final notch into the tree they were assigned.

The archers assigned to a notched tree who were closest to the beach didn’t hear the whistler but they did hear the trees crashing down to the west. They cut the final notch and every tree between the corridor and the beach fell. The hard wind blowing at ground level now had a path to blow through and it came roaring through at fifty miles an hour. It reached the corridor and turned as it blew hard toward the clearing.

• • •

Andy heard the loud crash of trees in the distance and he pulled a tar arrow and used his cutter to ignite it. He pulled it back and fired it into two large pouches hanging from a pole at the edge of the clearing. The two pouches exploded sending flames out into the dried grass. A thousand archers launched a tar arrow and two thousand poles lining the northern edge of the clearing with tar pouches suspended below them exploded just as the fifty mile an hour wind arrived and blew the flames into the clearing with a vengeance. The wild fire roared toward the south and the archers split into two groups and followed it along the eastern and western edge of the clearing as it blew south.

• • •

Fats and Tamara had already climbed into a tree and heard the whistler arrive. They had their tar arrows ready in an instant and fired into the pouches on the west side of the clearing. The thousand archers along the western edge saw the pouches explode and fired at the other pouches lined up along the western edge of the clearing. The flames exploded into the field and the approaching Destroyer Warriors saw a wall of flame moving slowly toward them. They turned and ran back the way they had come and ran into the thousands of warriors that followed them into the clearing. The warriors began knocking each other down as they scrambled ahead of the advancing flames; then…they heard a loud roar and looked north and saw the wall of fire blowing toward them out of the north. The flames were moving at an incredible speed and warriors began dropping their rifles, back packs and anything else they were carrying and sprinted toward the southeastern edge of the clearing. The ones closest to the eastern edge came running toward the tree line and were greeted with a cloud of arrows. The ones behind those that fell, who still had a rifle, started firing at random into the trees in front of them as they sprinted toward the forest and safety from the advancing flames but they fell with the others. The flames swept down the clearing and the screams of the warriors were heard over the roar of the flames. As the flames passed their positions, the archers would come down from the trees and follow it south. Destroyers on fire would come running out of the clearing and the archers would end their suffering. Andy walked along the clearing and felt his heart start to beat again as the Destroyers fell. This was for Harmony. He smiled and knew the wind would lie down as soon as this was over. It was Harmony’s wind.

• • •

More than eight thousand Destroyer Warriors entered that clearing. Less than three thousand managed to make it to the edge. Only six hundred of them made it to the tree line, where they ran into archers standing in the trees with red blasters. None of them survived.

Andy finally arrived at the center of the clearing and the smell of burned flesh filled the air. He looked at Mark and Maxius and smiled. Maxius said, “How do you feel?”

Andy nodded slightly, “I’m ok. I really am.”

“What now?”

“There is still an Admiral and warriors on the beach. Move into the trees and move out to either side of them. When you’re in position, here’s what I want you to do.”

Mark listened and smiled, “Do you think they’ll listen?”

“If they don’t, we’ll do it again, closer.”

Mark tilted his head and nodded.

• • •

The Admiral and Warrior Commander waited on the beach with their personal body guards totaling a hundred Warriors. They heard shots being fired in the distance and then they heard thousands of shots being fired simultaneously. The shots continued for thirty minutes and then tapered off. They had no way of knowing that the shots came from the thousands of rounds that were cooked off by the wild fire as they burned the bodies of the dead Destroyers. The Admiral looked at the Commander and shook his head, “They must have encountered a large force.”

The Commander’s brow was furrowed and he started to respond but heard, “You will drop your weapons or we will kill every one of you where you stand.” The Warriors lifted their rifles and fired into the trees. Suddenly they saw a huge shadow come out of the trees toward them and hit into the ground around them. The Warriors looked and there were thousands of arrows sticking up out of the sand. The closest were six inches from their ranks and the ground was covered more than ten feet out from where they were standing. The arrows formed a perfect U around them. The voice from the trees said, “Last warning, drop your weapons or the next barrage will end this.”

A Warrior looked at the thousands of arrows surrounding them and said, “Frip this.” He dropped his rifle and the other warriors hesitated a moment but then followed his lead.

The Bodyguard’s Commander yelled, “You will pick up your weapons, NOW!” He raised his rifle toward the warriors and an arrow hit him in the middle of his forehead. He fell faster than a rock from space. The voice in the trees yelled, “Archers…show yourselves.”

Suddenly, the Destroyers saw hundreds of heads start appearing to the sides of their formation. They could tell that the ones around them had a bow pulled back by the way the heads appeared to be sighting at them. The voice said, “Drop to your knees and put your hands behind your heads.” The warriors fell to their knees and they saw their rifles being taken off the ground and carried away. Then, they felt their backpacks being removed as they were thoroughly searched.

Andy walked up behind the Admiral and Commander and said, “That includes the two of you.” The Admiral turned around and saw the head of a young man standing behind them and he and the Commander fell to their knees. Andy pulled the top of his camouflage uniform down and then removed it. The Admiral saw he was wearing a form-fitting blue uniform under it and he was holding some kind of hand gun on them. The archers around the warriors began pulling down their suits so the warriors could see them and then took a seat on the sand. The warriors looked out at the trees and saw thousands of the strange men walking toward them. Their fear was obvious.

• • •

Andy walked around and sat down on the sand in front of the two Destroyer leaders. He stared at them as two others came and sat down beside him. The Admiral looked out at his ships and wondered when the cannons would start firing. They had to see what was happening on shore. Andy saw him look and shook his head, “We control your ships. My warriors have removed your troops.” The Admiral’s expression turned sick.

The Commander looked at Andy, “What happens now?”