CHAPTER 10: THE RESCUE
20 miles from the hidden rebel base ?
The warmth of the sun shining on Celeste's head woke her. She painfully forced herself up to her knees and looked at her left shoulder. Her shoulder had stopped bleeding; but from the red snow surrounding her body, she knew that she had lost a lot of blood. She didn't dare move her arm and slowly forced herself to stand. She walked forward about fifteen feet to where she had thrown Sartel's body.
Sartel wasn't there, but Celeste could tell that he had lost a lot of blood as well because of the blood-soaked snow. She was in too much pain to care where Sartel was. She knew, however, that he wouldn't have survived very long with the wound she had inflicted upon him.
She stumbled to her Chati, opened the canopy, and nearly burst into tears from pain as she climbed into the cockpit. She pushed the ignition button. The hovercraft rumbled for a few seconds and quit. She pushed the button again - again the same result. The third time she pushed the button, there was nothing.
Frustrated, she remembered what had happened just after Sartel had stabbed her. She had fired a shot at him and missed, hitting the underside of her vehicle. She managed to climb out of the cockpit and looked underneath her Chati. The snow had melted underneath, and she figured out why. Looking at the underside of the Chati, she noticed a hole, about five inches in diameter. She could see all the way to the cockpit. Surrounding the hole were damaged wires and jagged pieces of metal of what used to be the hover engine module. She moved her eyes to the right and saw that a piece of metal had penetrated the fuel tank. That was why the snow had melted underneath the Chati. All of the fuel had leaked out.
She crawled out from underneath her vehicle, slowly stood, and scanned her surroundings. To her right was a snow-covered hill. In front of her was the wooded area where she surprised Sartel. And to her left, she saw Sartel's Chati and his lifeless body lying next to it.
Celeste stumbled her way to Sartel's vehicle with the hopes of taking his to warn Adrian. However, her hope turned into despair when she saw what was clenched in Sartel's lifeless hand. He must have known that Celeste was still alive, so he crawled to his own Chati and ripped out the starter module.
She shook her head and sighed. Without tools, there was no way she could fix the vehicle.
Glancing down at her timekeeper, she noticed that it was just after noon. She was about twenty miles away from the rebel base, injured, and almost eighteen hours away from a surprise attack that would certainly kill or enslave the people she truly cared about.