The Secret by Daniel Young

Author:Daniel Young [Young, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sci-fi
Goodreads: 223878755
Published: 2025-02-16T03:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

Richmond collapsed against a cold wall in a dark hallway, shut his eyes, and let out a shaky breath. "Damn it," he husked.

"He died the way he wanted to die," Aemon murmured. "He would be satisfied to die that way."

"He was a good man and a good friend," Hayes choked. "One of the best."

Richmond clamped his eyes shut. Venov was gone.

He couldn't even bring himself to feel sad about that. Aemon was right. Venov had wanted to go down shooting. He wouldn't want to live as a fugitive.

He gave his life so his friends could get away. He'd bought them a chance at freedom and safety. Richmond would never forget that.

Venov had joined the ranks of all the people who had died to give Richmond a chance. Venov was the true hero who changed Narillia. Richmond didn't do any of that.

The howl of fighter craft engines made him open his eyes and look outside. The fighters hovered in front of the building, but as soon as he looked, the Zoth came back in their own fighter craft this time, engaged the Lilri, and drew them away from the building.

The Zoth hounded the Lilri too far to the left for the friends to see the battle, but in a second, the whole mess blundered back into view.

The two sides struggled there in mid-air for a few minutes before the battle drifted to the right and out of sight. The sound of explosions faded.

"We should go to the safe house now," Zuna murmured.

Her voice brought Richmond the rest of the way back to reality. Giro and Meshan weren't here anymore.

Blood saturated a large section of Elvion's skull. Part of it looked sunken, but no one could help him now.

The friends stood in a dim hallway leading deeper into the building. Richmond couldn't see anything except dozens of doors leading off to different rooms.

"We'll use the battle as cover to get past both the Zoth and the Lilri," Zuna went on. "Hopefully they'll occupy each other and stop each other from coming after us until we get underground."

She turned to leave the building. Richmond stopped her. "Hold on. What about ambushing some of their fighter craft instead? We did it in the Necrodrome. We can do it here. They already know where we are. We're betting all our lives that the Zoth and the Lilri will occupy each other. What if they don't? Then we'll be completely exposed. We can defend ourselves with fighters."

"How would we ambush them here?" Leatherwood asked. "They know where we are."

"That's exactly what I'm saying. As soon as they deal with the Zoth, the Lilri will come back for us. We have rifles now[?]--"

"And two fewer people," Fadek pointed out.

"We can't risk running through the streets like this," Richmond countered. "Two of our guys just got killed that way. Even if we got two fighters, that would be better than trying to run from them."

"What if the Lilri don't deal with the Zoth?" Zuna pointed out. "Then the Zoth will be the ones who come back for us.

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