This was it. The big answer.

"I wish we could have had the chance to find out." "Yeah, me too."

I don't know why I did what I did, but it would have been wrong not to. I got out of the chair and lay down on the bed next to Courtney. I got down on my side behind her and put my arm around her. She hugged my arm around her waist. It wasn't uncomfortable. Or awkward. It was just a right. I could smell her hair. Whatever she used to wash it on that primitive territory made it smell like flowers from home. Lying there with her made me feel vulnerable, because I was letting my guard down. Not my physical guard, my emotional guard. I had become a bada.s.s. I was a warrior. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have survived. Holding Courtney like that was like admitting I needed the touch of another human. I'd put any thoughts of companionship out of my head, because I knew it wasn't possible. I had once opened myself up to Loor, and she pointed out that letting down our guard and allowing ourselves normal emotions would be dangerous. She was right. But at that moment, lying with Courtney, I didn't care.

"I don't regret anything that happened, Bobby," she whispered. "If I had to do it over again, I would."

"I can't believe I'm saying this," I said. "But I think I would too. Except that I wouldn't involve you and Mark. It's the only regret I have."

"And that would have been a mistake, because without us you wouldn't have gotten this far."

I laughed. "You're right."

"Just promise me one thing," she said.

"What?"

"When this is over, remember me."

It seemed like such a simple request. A dumb one, even. How could I ever forget the glorious Courtney Chetwynde? I was about to say something to that effect, but stopped. For a brief moment I had forgotten the truth. I forgot that I wasn't really Bobby Pendragon from Second Earth. I was a spirit from a place called Solara. When this was over, no matter how it came out, where would I end up? What kind of person a what kind of being would I be? I suppose it was a very real possibility that when it was over, I wouldn't remember Courtney. What she was asking for was a promise I couldn't make. So I did the only thing that made sense. I lied.

"Of course I promise," I said. "What a dumb thing to ask."

I hugged her tighter and kissed her on the back of the head.

"I knew you would," she said. "I just wanted to hear it."

I stopped talking. I wanted to experience the simple joy of holding Courtney Chetwynde without the added baggage of worrying about the future. We fell asleep that way, as close to each other as possible, in every sense of the word.

I can't say how long we rested, but the next thing I knew, I was dreaming about being on board a submarine. Not a submarine from Cloral, either. This was right out of some old World War II movie, complete with sailors. We were diving. I knew that because the steady whoop sound of the dive horn was sounding. I'd never actually been aboard that kind of submarine, but I'd seen plenty of movies. This was just like that. It was one of those dreams where you stepped out of yourself and looked back on what was happening, because you knew it was a dream. I was floating somewhere near the periscope as the whooping horn continued, wondering why I was dreaming about movie submarines.

The answer came quickly. I felt Courtney bolt away from me and jump to her feet. It jostled me out of my dream and back to reality, sort of. I figured I was still half in my dream, because I was still hearing the whoop of the dive horn.

Of course, it wasn't a dive horn. It wasn't a dream.

Courtney knew that and was on her feet before I could tell the difference between dreamland and Black Water.

"Get up," she commanded.

"Why? What's going on?" I mumbled.

"It's the warning alarm," she answered quickly.

"Warning? Warning for what?"

"Two guesses," she said, and headed for the bedroom door.

I didn't need the second guess. I was finally awake enough to understand what was happening, and it had nothing to do with submarines. Or dreams.

The battle for Black Water was about to begin.

Chapter 32.

Boon should stay here," I announced as I came out of the bedroom, rubbing my eyes, trying to gear myself up.

"What? No!" he protested. "Why?"

"It isn't fair to ask you to take sides," I said. "Better that you sit it out."

"I have already chosen my side, Pendragon," he shot back. "I do not agree with what Ravinia has done to Eelong."

"And you're willing to side with the gars against the klees to prove it?" I asked. "That's too much to ask."

Boon started to argue, but stopped himself. I don't think he had thought it through that far. To side with the gars would mean to take up arms against his own kind. His own species. That would have been hard, if not impossible, no matter what the circ.u.mstances.

"I agree with you, Bobby, but Boon can't stay here," Courtney said as she slipped into a lightweight green vest that covered her chest and back. It looked like protective gear.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because I can't guarantee he'd be safe. n.o.body around 424~PErrDRAG0rj~ here is going to know he's on our side. All they'll see is a klee, and if we aren't here to protect hima""

She didn't finish the thought. She didn't have to.

"All right, I get it," I admitted. "Boon comes."

"Put these on," Courtney instructed, and handed each of us one of the green vests.

"What will they do?" Kasha asked as she slipped hers on.

"The material will protect against arrows and knives and claws. Let's hope it doesn't come to that."

Kasha held her vest in one paw. She flicked out one of her claws and raked it across the material, testing it.

"Strong," she concluded.

"What's the plan?" I asked. "What exactly are you ready for? Hand-to-hand combat? Courtney, these little vests might slow down an angry klee for a second or two, but that's about it."

"You're right. We could never go toe-to-toe with them. These vests are just a precaution. The plan is to not let it get that far. We knew the klees would eventually attack Black Water. Want to see how we're going to welcome them?"

"Absolutely."

Courtney led us out of her cabin into the gray, predawn light of Black Water. The steady whoop of the warning horn continued. People were running everywhere, all away from the center of the village. I noticed both short gars and taller exiles from Second Earth. Yanks. It wasn't a frantic rush, but it was fast. Everyone had purpose. They knew what they had to do.

"We're going up top," Courtney announced.

"Up top where?" Boon asked.

Courtney pointed up to the mountains that surrounded Black Water.

My heart sank. "We have to climb all the way up there?"

"Who said anything about climbing?" she answered with a sly smile. "I told you, this isn't the same Black Water you knew."

The four of us jogged away from Courtney's cabin in the general direction of the tunnel that led here from the valley of waterfalls. n.o.body seemed to be bothered by Kasha and Boon. Either it was still too dark to notice them, or everyone was so focused on their task that they thought of nothing else. Either way, we weren't bothered.

When we reached the outer ring of structures, I saw what Courtney meant when she said that the larger cabins were there for defense. Men and women entered and came out quickly with what looked like weapons, but they were like nothing I had ever seen before. They were green tubes about eight feet long. They seemed heavy and unwieldy. It took two people to carry each one. There were braces on the tube, so that the weapon could rest on their shoulders, along with hand grips to control it. On the back end there was a large silver box device.

"Radio cannons," Courtney explained. "That's what we used to knock your gig out of the sky. If they come by air again, they won't be up there for long."

The people with the radio cannons took up positions on the back side of each of the defensive structures, looking out. They were ready. I a.s.sumed that the same was happening along the entire outer ring of the village. When we ran past the structures, I looked back to see that several gars were positioned inside the large huts, looking out of long, narrow windows along the top of each structure.

"Archers," Courtney explained. "That's our last line of defense. If a huge number of klees get this far, this will only slow them down. It won't stop them. Still, our finest fighters are here. They will battle to the death before letting a single klee pa.s.s." She then looked at Kasha and Boon and added, "Sorry."

Kasha wasn't bothered by this news in the least. "But you are still confident of victory?" Kasha asked skeptically.

"Oh yeah. What you see here is only going to come into play if things get desperate. If things go well, no one inside Black Water will have to face a single klee."

"So what is this incredible scheme you've got going on?" I asked.

Courtney's answer was to pick up the pace. Several other gars ran alongside us, all headed in the same direction. Looking off to either side, I could see that there were gars and Yanks everywhere, all headed for the mountains. Courtney led us to a spot a few hundred feet to the right of the tunnel that led out and into the valley of waterfalls. There, cut into the rock at the base of the mountain, was a man-made tunnel entrance. Above the entrance a symbol was carved into the rock that I didn't recognize. But Courtney did.

"This is my station," she explained.

"You seem to know exactly what you are doing," Kasha commented.

"We all do," Courtney shot back. "We usually drill once a day. We never know when it's going to happen, either. Whatever we're doing, we've been trained to drop everything and get to our stations immediately."

As with Mark, it was hard to believe that this was the Courtney Chetwynde I had grown up with. She was always confident, but with the experience that came with age and conflict, she had become a force. It made me love her even more. Courtney jogged right into the tunnel. It wasn't deep. We ran for about thirty seconds until we hit a set of black double doors. Courtney touched a b.u.t.ton to the right and the double doors slid open immediately. It was an elevator.

"Going up?" she announced. "No dawdling. It's the express."

The four of us hurried inside. There were only two places where this elevator stopped. The bottom and the top. In seconds we were launched up through the center of the mountain, climbing higher and higher toward Courtney's post. n.o.body said anything on the ride up, which was pretty much the way it always worked on elevators, no matter where you were. I wonder why that is? I stole a sideways glance at Courtney. She didn't seem nervous, but she was definitely focused. Maybe they had done this drill so many times that it was old hat to her. But this was no drill. If the warning horns were correct, the klees had arrived.

When the elevator stopped and the doors opened, we were hit with a blast of warm air and a breathtaking view of Black Water. It's a good thing I'm not afraid of heights, or I would have lost it. For a second I was worried about Kasha and Boon, but then realized how idiotic that was. They were cats. It wasn't in their DNA to be freaked by heights. According to Courtney she had been up there once a day, so the only person who had wet palms was me.

"This way," Courtney said, and left without waiting. She was on a mission, after all.

She led us out onto a narrow, wooden walkway that had been built along the uppermost ridge of the mountain range. It was like walking along the top of a long triangular prism. The steep mountain fell off to either side of us. On one side was Black Water, on the other was the green valley of waterfalls, where Kasha and Boon and I crashed the gig. My palms were no longer sweaty. They were dripping wet. My knees felt like rubber. The walkway was a ribbon with no handrail. A sudden gust of wind would have blown us off. Compared to this, slipping down the outside of that Lifelight pyramid on Veelox was like monkeying around on a playground slide. It didn't seem to bother Courtney. She walked quickly and confidently, as if she were on a sidewalk. I didn't risk looking back at Kasha and Boon to see if they were okay. I had to focus.

We walked for maybe fifty yards, until we came upon a platform that was built firmly into the rock. There was a rail around the outside that looked solid enough. To me it felt like a safe oasis. When I stepped onto it, I looked back to see that both Kasha and Boon had been walking on all fours. It gave me a little bit of satisfaction to know that they may not have been scared, but they were cautious enough not to be walking on their hind legs.

Courtney went to the edge of the platform that overlooked the green valley and gazed out over the vast expanse. The sunbelt was about to creep up over the horizon directly in front of us. That meant if there was an aerial attack, the klees would be coming out of the lighta"a typical tactic. Her eyes were trained on the mountain range on the far side of the valley, occasionally looking through a small pair of binoculars. I could still hear the whooping horn below, though it was far away, down in the village. Looking to my right and left, I saw other platforms like ours that were built along the length of the walkway. I'd guess they were a few hundred yards apart. Too far to yell to each other, but close enough to see that there were people on them. Everyone's gaze was locked on the horizon. Toward Leeandra. Toward the direction that the attack would surely come from.

"What's your job up here?" Boon asked.

"We have spotters all through the mountains," Courtney replied while still keeping a keen eye ahead. "If there's an attack, we can view the movement of the klees below and relay it everywhere."

"Who sounded the alarm?" I asked.

"The spotters in the front range. The side facing Leeandra. We figured that if an attack came, it would be from that direction. These stations back here are only manned if there's an attack. The front stations are constantly on alert. They're the first line of defense. My guess is that the spotters up there saw the klee army nearing the pa.s.s."

"There is only one path through the mountains," Kasha said. "That does not seem like a practical avenue for attack."

"It isn't," Courtney answered. "We have armed gars stationed all along the route. If the klees are dumb enough to try and march through, they won't make it."

"That means an attack from the air is more likely," I said.

Courtney nodded. "That's what we figured. We have spies, you know. Gars have been cautiously observing Leeandra for years to try and learn of their plans. Many have paid for the information with their lives."

I thought of Mark and his band of rebels outside the conclave on Third Earth. Courtney's life wasn't much different from that. They both lived outside the privileged world of the Ravinians and did what they could to help the rest of the people survive.

"That's why we developed the radio cannons," she continued. "Black Water is naturally protected by these mountains, which makes a ground a.s.sault difficult. If they send in gigs, we punch them out of the sky. I think they know that, which is why they haven't attacked."

"Why do you think they're attacking now?" I asked.

Courtney squinted and continued to scan the far mountain range. "I don't know. It's the one thing that has me worried. I've heard rumblings that they were working on a new plan, but we never could figure out what it might be. It's the one wild card today."

"Maybe it's the dados," I offered hopefully.

"I hope so, because the radio cannons should handle them."

Boon asked, "Suppose large numbers of real klees get through somehow? Not the dados, the living ones. Are the gars able to defend themselves?"

Courtney looked back to us and gave a sly smile. "If any klees get into the valley, we have our own surprise waiting for them."

"What kind of surprise?" Kasha asked.

"If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise," Courtney answered playfully. "Let's hope it won't come to that."

The sound of an explosion echoed across the green valley. It was huge, and was quickly followed by another, and another. I felt a slight vibration rattle the platform. It was subtle, but unnerving. More unnerving was the surprised look on Courtney's face.

"What?" I asked.

"I don't know" was her shaky answer. "Is it a weapon?" Kasha asked.

"No," Courtney said quickly. "The klees don't have anything that can deliver a punch like that. I don't think."

Kasha looked to Boon and asked, "Do you know of anything the klees have that could create such a sound?"

Boon shook his head in confusion. "No, but the Ravinians are very secretive about their work. You saw how they put the door on the gig hangar. Everything used to be open. Now there are secrets."

"Secrets like a creating powerful weapons?" I asked.