Alliance Read Free Page A

even hesitate to
resume working. In fact, they work harder and more efficiently than
before, hauling their crates into the Portal quicker than they did
earlier. I have never thought that fear to be a great motivator
before, but perhaps that is another thing about organic beings that
I don't understand.
    Then Alart nudges me and I look at him. He
holds his communicator up and says, “Think it's time to
attack?”
    I nod. “Yes. We will take advantage of
Jornan having taken out one of her own men for us. It should make
it easier for us to defeat the rest.”
    “ All right,” said Alart.
He raises his communicator up to his mouth and speaks into it, but
in a very low tone so neither Jornan nor her minions below can hear
us. “Everyone in position, attack now.”
    We wait for a response from everyone;
however, there is no answer, not even from one of the Knights. That
is odd. The plan is for everyone to attack as soon as Alart orders
them to. That no one responds at all makes no sense.
    “ Men?” Alart repeats
into the communicator, the worry in his voice rising with the
tension in his body. “Sir Yaron? Sir Gako? Is anyone there? Hello?
Lady Waya?”
    Again, there is no response. The
communicator is as silent as if it has been turned off, but I know
it is active because the green glowing light that signals its
activation is on.
    Alart looks at me in worry. “What's going
on? J997, do you know what the problem is?”
    “ Without access to their
specific communicators, I cannot say for certain what the problem
is,” I explain in a low whisper. “Did you make sure that everyone's
communicator was on?”
    “ I did,” says Alart in
annoyance. “I double-checked to make sure that everyone had their
communicators on. And yes, before you ask, I made sure they all
knew how to use them as well.”
    “ I will try connecting
with them,” I say. “I know the frequency their radios are tuned to,
which is a frequency I have access to.”
    I go silent, concentrating on connecting
to the Knights. Searching … searching … searching … connection
fails.
    “ Hmm,” I say. “Perhaps
there is something in this warehouse that is blocking radio
signals. It is likely magical, whatever it is, because you
Delanians rarely use technology to achieve these kinds of
feats.”
    “ Does that mean we're on
our own?” says Sir Alart. He swears. “Let's retreat. Head back out
onto the roof and try to contact everyone again. Maybe the roof is
somehow blocking the signal. We can do that because no one even
knows we're here yet, so we technically still have the element of
surprise on our—”
    He is cut off when the catwalk we are on
shakes under our feet. We both grab the bars, but it is useless
because in the next moment, the catwalk falls out from under our
feet. Sir Alart falls, but I try to activate the jets in my feet to
keep afloat, although as Sir Alart falls he grabs onto my ankles
and we both fall to the floor below.
    Sir Alart hits the floor before I do, and
I land on top of him. Sir Alart groans under me, while I look
around in time to see Jornan's dwarves surround us, drawing out
their weapons; small battle hammers, double-bladed axes, and bronze
knuckles. None of those weapons are very high-tech; however, there
are enough of those dwarves surrounding us that they do not need
high-tech weapons to kill us.
    Sir Alart and I scramble to our feet,
drawing our own weapons out to defend ourselves, even though I run
the numbers and realize that we cannot defeat them all on our own.
We stand back-to-back, carefully watching the growling and
angry-looking dwarves who look more than ready to kill us.
    Jornan walks up at that moment, just
outside of the dwarf circle, holding up one of her rings, a blue
one, which glows softly in the dark warehouse.
    “ Did you two honestly
believe I didn't expect you Knights to try to track me down?” asks
Jornan in an amused voice. “Or that I wouldn't ruin your surprise
by using one of my rings to