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Shemdylann inflicted long, shallow cuts on the screaming human’s arms and legs with the rough edges of their pincers before flinging him into the lake. As Harelly attempted to rise, someone else pushed him further into the water with a splash. Out in the center of the lake, Red observed several rippling vees, as the big eels caught the scent of blood.  
    At least the venom would render the poor passenger unconscious pretty efficiently once the attack started.
    He heard Bettis retch.
    Filled with adrenaline and determined not to lose this chance to escape, Red fell to his knees and began digging under the energy wall, hoping perhaps it didn’t go all the way to bedrock. Callina joined him, as did the others. Sand flew. The small trench deepened to four inches, then six, but the energy’s shimmer resisted any attempt to push so much as a finger to freedom. Red stopped excavating for a moment, grabbing Callina and yanking her to her feet.
    “You keep an eye on what the soldiers are doing, there at the waterfront. Tell me the instant any of the bastards turn in our direction.”
    She gulped. “I can’t watch—”
    He shook her so hard her teeth rattled. “That poor guy is dying right now to give us a chance here. We can’t waste it. Now open your damn eyes and report to me when the enemy moves. Look at them, not him.”  
    Swallowing hard, wiping blood off her lip from where she’d bitten herself, she said, “Okay, okay.”
    “I think we might be getting to the edge,” her husband called. “The light’s weaker.”
    “Keep your voice low, some of them speak Basic.” He sprinted to help with the frantic digging.

CHAPTER FOUR

    The concussion of the windows breaking and the fire bombs hitting the floor left Meg frozen in shock for a moment, hands over her ears against the awful sound. Flame squirted across the floor right in front of her, blazing waist high. Screaming Red’s name, she retreated in the only direction she could go, down the hall to the kitchen. Fire was licking at the doorway to the conference room as she ducked inside the kitchen to grab the nearest pack, sweep the map to the research station into the bag, and take the large knife she’d been using to slice meat for sandwiches. Preparing to flee out the rear door of the station, she turned and froze.
    Too late. Pausing those few seconds to grab the items she needed had given the alien fire time to fill the hall. How the seven hells could the stuff move so fast? The heat and smoke were overpowering. Already burning, the entrance to the kitchen and the hall beyond were impassable, a solid pit of flames. She heard the structure creaking under the assault. An ugly tongue of red and yellow ran from the top of the door across the ceiling toward her, fat sparks dropping to ignite new blazes.
    Pulse pounding, grabbing a towel from the stash in the robo to put over her mouth and nose to block the smoke, she retreated. She dropped to the floor to get below the smoke as best she could, and crawled to the end of the small kitchen. Scrabbling desperately at the wall, she felt her fingers slide over a crack, and she remembered there was a door to some kind of storage space. Crouching, she managed to get the portal open and slipped through, slamming it shut against the fire.  
    The storage space was blessedly smoke free for the moment, although ghostly gray tendrils seeped through the narrow crack in the portal. Meg retreated, sucking in cleaner air, searching frantically for her next move. The outer wall had a window, a webbed crack running from edge to edge, probably from the impact of the tree falling during the night. She grabbed a chair from the small desk wedged into the corner of the room, and pounded on the glass.
    Three times she slammed the chair into the reinforced portal. On the fourth attempt, her arms losing strength as the room filled with smoke, the glass gave way, shattering outward in all directions. Climbing onto the chair, Meg dropped her