The blast was enormous -- far bigger than anything Nishara had ever experienced. It deafened her and shook her vehicle. Both hearts pounded as she glanced over her shoulder and found parts of Cora's body and two of the vans raining down. The remaining van swerved around the debris and continued its pursuit.

"No," Dylan groaned.

"Take it easy," Grishnag said, clearly straining to remain calm, herself. "She'll be okay. She's probably in that same room we woke up in before, with Ayastal."

"I hope so." Dylan took a deep breath. "Alright. Let's get this over with." He accelerated.

Six more blips appeared on Nishara's mini-map, directly ahead. "No …"

"Where are they coming from?" Syala's voice quivered.

"Stay focused," Grishnag said.

A beam from one of the van's occupants drilled Nishara's rear window, the passenger-side headrest, and the windshield. She flinched and her hearts beat even faster.

Must try something. Must do something before we're all killed again. She took several deep breaths. "I … I have an idea."

She twisted her tail into position, gripped her weapon, and slid through her window. She kept her lower-left hand on the controls, kept the accelerator pressed down with the tip of her tail, and held on to the roof with her upper-left hand. With her two right hands, she raised the gun awkwardly and tried to aim it at the approaching van.

A male that appeared to be Zilaka's species leaned out one of the van's windows with his own rifle.

Nishara clamped her mouth shut to prevent a horrified whimper from escaping and fired her weapon. Half of her shots struck the ground or pierced empty air, but the rest punched into the front of the van.

The male fired and a familiar searing pain lanced through Nishara's upper-right shoulder. The gun almost slipped from her hands, but she managed to keep her grip on it and continue shooting.

Finally, one of her beams drilled through the van's windshield and vaporized part of the driver's head. He flopped over and the van swerved off to the right and crashed into a stack of red metal barrels. Nishara shifted her aim to the barrels without understanding how she knew what was about to happen, and continued firing. Whatever was in the barrels ignited violently, and engulfed the van in flames.

Nishara sighed, faced forward, and grimaced at the pain spreading out from her wounded shoulder.

Grishnag veered off to a curving ramp leading to an overpass that wove among dozens of gleaming metal skyscrapers. The rest followed her. Wincing and trying not to cry out, Nishara steered her vehicle in the same direction.

Three more enemy vans appeared directly ahead, swerving through the oncoming traffic.

"Damn it," Grishnag snarled. "Too many innocent people are in the way."

"There's nothing we can do about that," Dylan said with a sigh. "We'll just have to do the best we can to avoid hitting any of them."

A human leaned out of the lead van and began firing. Nishara groaned, shifted her grip on her weapon, and returned fire.

A beam pierced her upper-left arm and another hit her chest, just below her lower heart. She screamed and dropped her gun.

"Nishara!" Syala shrieked. "Oh, no!"

Another shot burned through Nishara's abdomen, and yet another drilled her upper heart. She flailed, screamed again, and her car began to turn sideways and skid.

"No!" Dylan bellowed.

Nishara caught a glimpse of a hail of enemy shots slamming through his windshield and multiple bursts of red blood filling the inside of his car, and suddenly she turned cold inside.

"No …" She coughed as everything around her began to fade away. "Dyl … Dylan …"

Her car struck the divider between lanes and rolled. The last thing Nishara saw was the road rushing up toward her, and the last things she felt were her body twisting and the car crushing her beneath it.