jeriendhal | Fic: The Summer Intern (cont.) (Reply)

After a very brief explanation to Nez about how to take the safety off a pistol, pull the trigger and a caution that when she did shoot the lock off to make sure no ferin were standing in found of it, Nan left her friend and starting walking slowly towards the cages in a low crouch, painfully conscious that the rain hitting her cloak would render her supposed invisibility moot as soon as someone took a moment to look more than a few seconds in her direction. Fortunately no one did, though it helped that a sudden thunder squall started to pound the clearing, driving the creo slavers under the cover of their ship while the ferin huddled miserably in their cages.

Finally, after ten minutes of slow progress, she stood in front of the first cage of bucks. “Hey, can you hear me?” she whispered urgently. Several of them turned in the direction of her voice, looking confused, unable to see her life pattern under the cloak. Nan drew her hood back far enough to expose her face in their direction. “I’m Nan Clawstroke, I was sent here by the First One. Stand away from the cage door, I’m going to shoot it open so you can run. My friend will do the same as soon she hears me fire. We should be able to pop them all open before the slavers can react.”

“We can’t run away,” a buck with light blue hair said, tail drooping low to the ground in distress.

“What are you talking about? You’ve got to! Look the rangers will be here as soon as they can, I hope, but the slavers might take all of you away before then! The trees aren’t that far away!”

“You don’t understand,” the buck hissed. “They’ve rigged the collars on joeys with explosives. If we try to run the slavers will detonate them. The false ranger killed one them in his mother’s arms, just to show us.”

“Oh, by the Holy Den Mother, what false ranger?” Nan asked, feeling sick to her stomach. She’d thought this plan was too easy. Well, maybe there was still a way to salvage it. She was still invisible, perhaps she could sneak aboard the ship and shoot something vital in the engineering section. Or would that risk an explosion that could take out the whole clearing?

“There was a ranger, a strange vulpine with silver eyes. He said he came to us to find the missing joey and asked us to all come down from the trees to talk with him. As soon as he did the creo revealed themselves, shooting shock nets over us to keep us from leaping away and stunning us. We woke up here in these cages wearing these collars,” the buck finished.

“Oh, frell. Oh, frell. Oh, frell, frell, frell,” Nan muttered, glancing over at the nearest cage with the does, where Nez was waiting. “Wait, did you say a ranger with silver eyes? Do remember what color his pelt was?”

"Grey," a voice said behind her, as she felt the muzzle of a pistol press into the back of her neck. "It goes with the eyes. "Turn around if you would, Miss Clawstroke."

Nan raised her arms up in the air and turned around, coming face-to-face with Officer Greycoat, dressed in a ranger uniform, his spoofer cloak tossed back, his eyes hidden behind silver mirrors.