Aiming Blind: An Atlantica Universe Adventure (Justice Begins Book 2) by Michael Anderle

Author:Michael Anderle [Anderle, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2021-11-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

The blue-white flash receded as quickly as it had appeared, leaving the normal light of day seeming dull by comparison. Everyone blinked, and Daria saw multicolored spots in front of her eyes as they struggled to adjust to the expulsion of power they’d witnessed.

Her ears rang, as well. It was strange. The flash hadn’t been accompanied by a thunderous crack or a deep boom, exactly. Rather, there had been a kind of ringing, a semi-audible sound like that from an obscure musical instrument with its volume and force amplified to terrible levels. Struggling for a way to describe it to herself, Daria decided that the sound was crystalline.

She tried to summon her senses back to full functionality and scanned everything around her. She might still need to act with immediate haste. Lives might still be in danger.

The fight had gone out of the crew. Mere seconds ago, half or more of the gathered workers and scholars were ready to kill each other, but the bizarre explosion had cowed them all.

Something else was happening. Gazes had turned softer now that they’d drained of anger. They were still grim as people glanced back and forth and examined the looks on one another’s faces. Apprehension, fear, and horror were the paramount emotions. No one spoke. For a moment, no one seemed to breathe.

The unspoken message was obvious. They all assumed that Gaje Gurung was dead, that the same awful surge of light that had taken his friends and coworkers had taken him, as well.

Daria’s default instinct was to believe them, to join in their palpable despair. Another instinct asserted itself instead. One she’d learned through many long years of hard and bitter experience.

She knew what it was like to be given up on, to have people assume that her case was hopeless and leave her to the proverbial wolves. After the war, she’d re-established contact with people she’d known before when life was still relatively normal. At first, she’d been glad to see them. Then she’d been disgusted to learn that they’d written her off as dead. It had never occurred to them that she might still be alive and fighting somewhere.

No, she decided, she wouldn’t write Gage off in the same fashion. Or those who’d disappeared in the chamber, thus far without a trace. Until she saw their bodies and confirmed their deaths, she would recognize the possibility—however perilously slim—of hope.

“Move aside, please.” Daria squeezed between two crestfallen laborers and made a beeline for the shaft.

She would trust no assumptions. Only her own eyes. Besides, she’d intended to inspect the tunnels chamber below, regardless. The strange flash of light only gave her that much more justification without having to argue excessively with Limbu or Boucher or arouse suspicion in the rest of them.

“Excuse me.” She pushed her way through throngs of gawking men and women, conscious that hostility might simmer among some few of them and trying not to be antagonistic. By the same token, though, she wouldn’t allow them to obstruct her.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.