Starquake.pdf

their quirrls sparred with each other at long distance like knights fighting bishops in a weird end game.
"Herders! Spread your stickers!" Letter-Reader shouted to his clan. He then ran out between the knots
of fighters and threw tiny tread stickers in the path of the Swifts. His actions were followed by others.
The moving Swifts ran into the stickers and roared as they came to a halt. Their riders cursed and slashed
at them to get them moving again, but many were caught by the stinging positron beams.
Slowly, relentlessly, the defenders were driven back. Attila again raised his limber-swords and signaled a
command. The warriors about him cursed with anger, then fought all the harder.
"What happened?" Crust-Crawler asked Dented-Shield.
"Attila has decided to call in the rest of his army," said Dented-Shield. "The first echelon is angry that
they did not finish the battle by themselves."
"They are coming fast," Star-Counter told them.
Attila signaled again, and the warriors about him disengaged and retreated to set up a guard to protect
the gap in the magnetic barrier. As the rest of his army approached, Attila slid down the backside of the
Flow Slow and mounted his riding Swift. Limber-swords flashing, he triumphantly led the Speckled
Horde through the gap.
"Let loose the slicer-gliders!" Crust-Crawler yelled. "Be careful how you point them, they can't tell friend
from foe."
Dozens upon dozens of small powered gliders zoomed across the crust. On their topsides glistened three
long razor-sharp blades, which caused many a warrior to abandon his damaged mount. But even an
unmounted warrior from the Speckled Horde was a formidable foe. Great upon great, the Swifts and
their riders flowed through the gap. The fountain tubes had been reloaded and belched once again.
Positron beams flickered through the atmosphere to eat holes in flesh, and glide-cars driven by reckless
spacers spewed antimatter bombs from each side until the driver was stopped with a whip-sword or a
quirrl to the brain-knot. The defenders were driven back of their last magnetic barrier. The armored Flow
Slow was moved forward once again.
A battered glide-car slid to a stop beside Crust-Crawler and Dented-Shield. The driver was
Avenging-Eye. His pouches were stuffed with heavy objects.
"We've got to stop that Flow Slow," said Avenging-Eye. "Lower the barriers while I get across."
Without waiting for a reply he jammed his speed control into high and headed directly for the barrier.
"Stop!" cried Crust-Crawler after him, then signaled to Engineer Electro-Magnetic. The barrier dropped;
the glide-car shot across, and the barrier popped back up again.
"A crazy fool," Eleven-Eyes told Attila. "Advance with quirrls!" he commanded to his warriors behind
him.
"He's after the Flow Slow!" shouted Attila, slapping his Swift into action. The Taker's Swift was already
past him, and she was unsheathing her whip-sword. Avenging-Eye feinted a turn and rolled an antimatter
bomb toward her, but she knew his target and could not be fooled. He increased the speed of his
glide-car to maximum, trying to get by her, but her whip-sword caught him in the side. Avenging-Eye