Theirs Not to Reason Why 4: Hardship Read Online Free

be here to pull it off. Most days, the timestreams were fairly easy for her to see. Do X, and Y would happen, or do G, and H would follow, depending on which outcome she wanted. Dabin, however, was a nexus. Too many possibilities, with too many tiny little butterfly effects tipping the scales wildly out of balance one way or another. Mainly because there were two Feyori at work here, neither of them yet in faction to—
    Ia stopped. Something wasn’t right. She’d turned the correct way when her boots reached the paved road, heading away from the town. She knew she had. Her forces were bivouacked with one of the Companies from the 1st Division 6th Cordon Army, camped halfway to the nearest battle line somewhere several kilometers ahead of her. Salik scouts, if they slipped through the 1st’s lines, would be approaching most likely from ahead. The sense of danger came from behind her.
    The road had solar lights embedded in the slightly bouncy plexcrete, forming three parallel, dotted lines that stretched off in either direction. They delineated the driving lanes for ground cars and gave aircars a point of reference for night flying. One of those pale yellow lights a couple hundred meters away winked out for a brief moment. Trailing mental fingers through the waters of her immediate future, Ia bit back a curse. She was being hunted by a not-cat.
    That was the best way to describe the beast:
not
a cat. Not a typical cat by three meters long, with a prehensile, poison-barbed tail, armor-tough scales, long claws, and overly sharp teeth on a jaw that could unhinge itself on a frighteningly wide scale, much like a cobra’s. The only weapons she had with her were her psychic abilities and the crystal bracer encircling her right wrist. The psychic ones were a little underpowered at the moment. It was cold out, she was wet, and she had a long way to go before she could rest, which meant conserving her energy.
    Though she had eaten energy in the last couple of days, she hadn’t eaten physically. That made a difference. There were little things she could do. Telepathy, a short spot of telekinesis in a pinch, even a little electrokinetic manipulation. Not much more than that, though. Not until she ate and slept. The attempt at flying through the depths of space Feyori-style had exhausted her, forcing her to call on two of her faction-allies for a lift, which had drained her even more.
    She did what she could do, though. Drawing energy from the crysium bracelet, she molded it down out of her sleeve, reshaping it with a couple of practiced thoughts. The biokinetic mineral glowed faintly, forming the slender lines of a swept-hilt schlager. A touch of electrokinesis rehardened the tough mineral, making it radiate a slightly brighter shade of peach-gold. It might have been a few years since she last served in the Marines, but Ia hadn’t neglected her combat training. That included wielding a sword as well as a laser rifle.
    That ambient, crystalline glow blurred when she slashed the weapon up, ducking down and to her left at the same moment. She hadn’t seen the not-cat pounce with her eyes, but she wasn’t looking at this battle physically. Her psychic abilities, her battlecognition, had been honed in hand-to-hand combat years ago even if this fight was technically sword-to-claws.
    The blade smacked through something, evoking a howling hiss. It was probably expecting a tasty civilian. A soft, frightened colonist. What it got was a Terran Marine who had not stopped her daily weapons drills just because she’d moved on to serve in the Navy as an officer, then into the Special Forces as the captain of her own ship.
    It pounced and lashed again. Droplets of rain sprayed outward from the whipping tail. She swirled, swiped, then stabbed, catching it in the shoulder. Her reflexes were dulled a little from exhaustion and hunger. The not-cat’s were slowing from its injuries. Lights appeared in the distance, coming from a trio of ground cars.