CHAPTER NINETY-NINE
Cloud didn’t know what to do. Surrounded by Mudokons and hordes of Sligs who seemed to have lost their heads – why weren’t they shooting at Abe? – and weakened from his drop out of his jetcopter without a parachute, he had been a spectator to the whole event. Now, as the Keuja openly declared itself master of everything and prepared to destroy everyone, Cloud wondered what a pathetically small, undereducated Slig like himself could do.
Even though he had been trained to think of Abe as a traitor, and in Lord Fragg’s army he had spent a few days searching for the infamous renegade Mudokon, there was no denying that the Mudokon had guts. To interrupt a warring army of both Mudokons and Sligs, and get both of them on his side…not only was that brave, it was ingenious.
Cloud rolled over and reached for his rifle…then stopped. He had crimped the barrel shut when he’d landed on it.
Crak nudged him. “Cloud! Call for reinforcements from Denzling!”
Cloud shook his head, breathing heavily. “—can’t! Abe has my mike!”
Crak swore and punched the ground. Cloud was about to suggest that Crak call for reinforcements, when he remembered that Crak, as a Bodhran Slig, didn’t have all the military upgrades that the army Sligs received.
Then he noticed the microphone lying abandoned on the ground about twenty feet away. Apparently Abe had dropped it when he had rolled away from the Gabbit’s lightning attack…but twenty feet was so far to cross when there was a massive Thing about to attack.
But there was nothing else for it.
Though weakened and frightened half to death, he began to crawl forward toward the microphone/comlink. With it, he could call for Slig airstrikes from Denzling; more jetcopters would arrive, and they could beat this monster back into the dirt.
Still, he wasn’t sure he’d last that long – that any of them would last that long.
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