I try to rub some feeling back into my face. Aurora, who is lingering by me like a giant shadow, reaches over and pinches my nose with her warm, armored fingers. I wriggle away from her after a second and look back up to Tucker, who has broken an icicle off the tree and is sucking it suggestively, waggling his eyebrows at me.
So much for self-reflection.
“I thought you were into Raven,” he says.
I was, in truth; briefly, anyway. But there’s no way I’d tell Tucker that. Not now. I try to scoff convincingly.
“You tried to grab her ass that time, remember?” he says, undeterred.
“And she nearly killed me? Yes, I remember. I only did it because you dared me to.”
Aurora turns to me and, if it wasn’t for her mask, I’d be sure she was glaring disapprovingly.
“Oh yeah.” Tucker chuckles. “That was funny.”
My face is plenty warm now. I turn away from Aurora to find Luna also probably glaring at me, signing something I easily translate.
I don’t think Raven found it funny.
“No. You’re right,” I mutter. I suddenly want to punch Tucker in the face. Why was I so eager to impress him back then? I cross my arms and try to burrow into my coat a bit, to stay warm and to hide. I can’t remember now why Topher and I ended up on different teams on this suicide mission. And I’m about to get really annoyed with the person who dreamed it up until I remember it was me.
“Topher’s coming with me when we finish here. Back up north,” Tucker says. Now it’s almost like he’s trying to piss me off.
I slam my hand against the tree, making snow drift down from the branches. “He is NOT!”
Tucker shrugs, unmoved by my outrage. “You can come too.”
“That’s not… you’re crazy. That’s not our problem. Let the Nahx fight their own battles.” Behind me, Aurora lets out a low hiss, but I ignore her.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Xander. It’s everyone’s problem. Believe me.”
“Topher is still human, Tuck. He can’t fight an extraterrestrial battle with you.”
Tucker slings the binoculars over his shoulder and shimmies farther up the tree. It takes a few minutes for him to get comfortable in his new perch as I watch, waiting for him say something.
“Topher won’t let me go!” he finally shouts down. “Not without him!”
Aurora hisses loudly this time, clapping her hands together.
“Be quiet, Tuck.” I say it at normal volume and know he heard when he makes a face at me. “Just because you can’t be killed doesn’t mean I can’t.”
It’s obvious this is a stupid time to be discussing this, and it’s just like Tucker to start something that can’t be finished. I tap the tree again, and when he looks I mime holding the binoculars. He unhooks them from his neck and drops them down through the branches. I have to dive, but I catch them.
Creeping forward, I stay low to check on the power station itself. Not only is it enclosed within the web but it’s also contained by a tall razor-wire-topped fence that crackles with high-voltage electricity. We’re hoping that one or both of them will go down once Raven and the rest disable the generator, but so far nothing has changed.
Inside the fence and the drone web, patrolling the power station on foot, are two Nahx guards. I’ve noted that they are armed with ordinary Nahx dart rifles, which means any incursions they anticipate would be from humans. That gives us the element of surprise, at least, since we have Sol, Luna, and Aurora with us, and Tucker, whatever he is. The darts in the rifles are for me, basically. I need to keep that in mind.
I’m trying to focus on our specific goal, getting into the power station and getting the explosives planted, but all I can think about is what Topher is doing at the generator site and whether he’ll get out of that alive.
Why did I agree to be on this team? I should have gone with him.
I jump when I feel a hand on my shoulder.
Me, Aurora signs when I spin around. Friend.
“What’s going on?”
Zero. Good you?
“Is Tucker still up the tree?”
She nods.
I watch the Nahx guards in the distance. They march back and forth along the fence like robots, never stopping or slowing or acknowledging each other. I know there are living, thinking beings inside the armor, but it’s hard to remember that sometimes.
Aurora draws my attention with another light touch.
Are you frightened? she signs.
“No. Yes.”
She flicks her head. I’ll keep you safe.
I look back at the Nahx sentries coldly marching and wonder what it took for Aurora to escape that. Was it Nova? Maybe it was a mistake for the makers of the Nahx, whoever they are, to make them so devoted to their partners. Maybe it made them irrational and prone to impulsivity and rebellion.
I shake my head. I’ve got to stop thinking like a poet and go back to thinking like a soldier.
Aurora hoists me up and we creep back to the others as quietly as we can, but just as we arrive there’s a commotion above us as Tucker untangles himself from the branches.
“Topher!” he shouts. He swings down a few feet, then dives headfirst out of the tree. He flips in the air at the last minute and lands gracefully in a patch of snow.
“Dude, be quiet!” I snap.
He grins at me and stomps off toward the fence. I catch up to him just as Topher, Raven, and Mandy appear, popping up through a manhole inside the power station.
“Oh f… That’s not good.”
I scan the station for the sentry guards, who are just rounding the corner and will see us in seconds.
Raven spots us first and, with wild recognition dawning, seems to realize where they are. I have no earthly idea how they got to that manhole, but it has just screwed everything up.
“TOPHER!” I yell it impulsively. He turns toward me just as Mandy dives down on him, sliding him across the ice until they both tumble back down through the manhole. Raven spins and kicks the manhole cover precisely, and it clanks back into place just as the Nahx guards come into full view.
They raise their rifles and fire without a second’s hesitation. Raven dodges two darts easily, but a third slams into her shoulder. She tears it out, furious.
“Stand down! I’m a sentinel! You are not permitted to harm me!”
The Nahx don’t seem to care. They shoulder their weapons and break into a run, wielding their knives.
“Stand down, goddamn it! We’re on the same side!”
Suddenly Tucker is flying through the air. There’s a blinding flash as he breaches the drone web and clears the electric fence easily.
The hovering drones converge on his exit point and arc out like lightning bolts, remaining connected to the web with thin filaments of electricity. The stream of light targets Tucker as he runs for the charging Nahx. I raise my rifle and fire at the Nahx, right through the web, because it’s all I can think to do. I’m only vaguely aware that Aurora, Sol, and Luna are beside me as we bolt down the perimeter of the web, trying to get a better vantage point.
The arcs of light home in on Tucker as he dives onto one of the Nahx guards, but at the last second he rolls away and the bolt of light cracks into the Nahx, sending him flying through the air. Another bolt curves back toward Tucker. He swings at it with his rifle, and the force of the charge shoots the rifle right out of his hand, sending it spinning away.
“Tucker!” Raven yells. The other guard leaps at him. Tucker curls into a ball, letting the Nahx press him down into the snow as the drone bolt zeroes in.
There’s another blinding flash and the bolt lights up the Nahx like a firework, sparks flying everywhere.
Everything stops. The low hum of the power station and the web sputters and wanes before surging. The arcs of light crackle, flailing around as though confused, and suddenly flare out, drifting slowly to the ground like dying embers. There’s a loud thump and the drone web begins to snuf
f out, grid by grid, around the power station and back along the reservoir. I pray the whole thing comes down like we hoped. The hovering drones, disconnected from the web, drift up and away, shooting across the sky as though they are finally free.
The Nahx on top of Tucker moves. I train my rifle on it but it just flops over, seemingly dead, as Tucker shoves it off.
“Tuck!” Raven rushes toward him, pulling him upright.
The Rogues and I run back along the fence to the gate, which Sol tears open easily. Tucker grins up at me as I stomp toward him.
“You jumped over without the explosives, you tool!”
“I was trying to save my brother!”
“Oh my God, Tucker. Can you try to stop being so impulsive? Just for the rest of the day before you get us all killed?”
Raven levers the manhole cover open with her knife. “You can come out now.”
Mandy and Topher pop their heads up. I reach down and hoist Topher out, letting his momentum propel him into me. We wrap our arms around each other and linger there, breathing, letting silence blanket us for a few precious seconds. We made it this far. We can do this. We can get out of here.
After a moment, Tucker leaps on us, shaking us with excitement.
“Did you see that? The drones nearly roasted me!” He seems pretty happy for someone who so narrowly escaped death.
“Explosives!” Raven says sharply. “We don’t have much time. Xander, come with me. Topher and Tucker, you take the transformers to the south. Mandy, go with the Rogues back to the gate. Kill anyone who tries to get in.”
I’m not sure when Raven took charge, but her orders make sense, so I don’t see the point of challenging her right now.
“Where’s Ash?” I ask as we hurry around the station to the giant transformer units along the north fence.
Raven presses her lips together. “He… I don’t know. I think he’s probably dead. He saved our lives.”
I can’t think of anything to say. Raven and I have been through this before—an absolute clusterfuck of a mission where people we relied on didn’t make it out alive. We both know no amount of crying about it brings them back. No one knows that better than us.
But Raven did come back. And so did Mandy and Tucker. For all I know, every other person I thought I lost to a Nahx dart has come back too. It’s too much to process.
I pull out the grenades when we get to the transformers. Topher came up with a makeshift fuse idea using tightly packed snow under the detonator pin. As the snow melts on the warm transformers it releases the pin, and BOOM.
That’s the theory, anyway. It’s a stupidly dangerous premise, but what choice do we have?
Raven gathers loose snow with her bare hands, making it into a hard-packed ball.
“So you and Topher were a thing while he and I…?”
“Are we going to discuss this now?” I ask, incredulous.
“We might not have another time.”
I tuck the first grenade into the snow under the transformer. We’re going to plant them from coolest to warmest in different positions over the six transformers. That will ensure we have time to set them up before the first one’s snow fuse melts. Once they’re planted we’ll run back and pull the pins. We will have to be fast.
“It started when you were in Calgary, with August,” I say. “Topher thought you were dead. He was pretty messed up about it.”
“So you were brought together by grief?” Her tone is sharp as she slaps the snow into a ball. “Did everyone know but me again?”
“Raven. Don’t be like that.”
“I don’t think I get to choose what I’m like anymore.”
She waits as I place the next grenade.
“I just wish…” Her voice trails off as I turn back to her. Her face is shining, with sun reflecting off her metallic skin, her blazing eyes. It’s not frightening, exactly, but it does feel alien. As though the girl I knew from school and karate and camp has been replaced by an almost convincing machine.
I take a breath. We don’t have time to talk about this, but I figure I owe her one moment after everything she’s been through. One wish.
“What do you wish?”
“I wish people had been honest with me. Told me about Tucker and Emily. Told me about you and Topher. I feel like everyone was afraid to tell me the truth because they thought I’d lose it and beat them up or something.”
“Wouldn’t you? You nearly choked me once.”
She hands me another grenade with the packed snow fuse.
“Because you tried to grab my ass! Someone tries to grab me, yes, I’ll take them out. But if someone tells me something unpleasant or… unexpected, why would I hurt them? I feel like you all thought I was some kind of insane monster.”
I tuck the last grenade into place, hiding behind the hair that flops over my eyes.
“I’m sorry, Rave, I—”
“Whatever. Now I am some kind of insane monster, so it doesn’t matter anymore.”
She steps back out toward the fence and whistles. “Topher? We’re good?”
So much for discretion, I guess.
“All good!” Topher shouts back. “On three! One! Two!”
“Three!” Raven shouts. She sprints past me to the end of the row of transformers, pulling the pin, on the grenades as she doubles back.
“Do the last one!” she yells as she activates the grenade in the transformer next to me.
I reach into the hot coils and yank out the grenade pin.
“Run! Run!” Raven screams.
Topher and Tucker catch up to us by the gate, where Mandy and the Rogues await.
“How are we doing?” I ask as we barrel away from the power station. We have no real way of knowing when the first grenade will detonate, only that we should be as far away as possible when it happens.
“We’ll be great if Sky and the rest have managed to get a transport,” Mandy says, leaping over a snowbank.
I don’t bother asking what happens if they haven’t.
AUGUST
The plan was to wait until the first explosion, but when Sky hears yelling, it is time to act. None of the soldiers take much notice of us as we march down from the trees onto the icy landing strip. Sky, Thorn, and Nova have reverted to their hard, stern posture. Despite being lower ranked than me, they are females, so their role is to lead me. It’s frightening how easily we fall back into our patterns. There are racks of munitions and other supplies laid out along the ice. We could arm ourselves, resupply the missing bits of our armor and equipment and rejoin these Nahx, and no one would know that we were ever Rogues.
It’s not tempting, exactly, but there’s something soothing about the idea, as though I could drift off into a kind of trance and never think for myself again. If I did that, the pain and struggle inside me might dissipate too. I might become numb again, and not remember anything from day to day. Not remember…
Another vision dances at the edge of my consciousness but I manage to shove it away with something else, something real. Dandelion.
I’m so worried about her, it is like being stabbed in the throat. My breathing tube is contracting in painful spasms, which no amount of concentration seems to stop. I know I’m not fully restored yet. I can’t control my limbs without supreme effort. All I can do is fix my eyes on Sky and try to mimic her. This is a survival skill we were trained in. If for some reason our thinking was impaired or we were confused or distressed, we would simply latch onto another, our Offside or a member of our team, and do as they did. It was supposed to be almost automatic, though I was never very good at it and needed to put supreme effort into that as well.
I was never very good at any of this, but I watch the Rogues and the other soldiers around the landing field and try to do as they do.
Thorn has removed the brambly wire from her wrist, and hides her missing hand behind the barrel of her rifle as she walks. If no one looks too closely, we could be mistaken for any other small patrol, rejoining our unit after
receiving a revised mission transmission. Sky impersonates a high rank with envy-inducing ease.
The transports are parked along the bank of the reservoir, lined up in rows of two, their cargo ports splayed open. Some of them are being fueled by lines originating at a bulbous black tank higher up the bank. Sky leads us past those to two transports at the head of the line.
Fully fueled, she signs discreetly. Thorn with me, Nova with Summer King.
As we split up, I transfer my mimicking effort to Nova, who has a quirk in her mask that makes her breathing chirp and click like a grasshopper. At first it was distracting, but now I focus on it, letting it hypnotize me into becoming her mirror. If I do what she does, I have a smaller chance of screwing this up.
There are three others in the transport Nova and I board. One of them, a high-ranking female, accosts us at the top of the ramp.
Rank? she signs.
Sixth, Nova lies, then points to me. Eighth.
Ah, muddy death; that makes my blood run cold.
The high rank hisses, but before she can reprimand us or kick us off her transport, there’s a flash of light outside, and seconds later the air around us cracks and roars with the sound of the first explosion.
And then I lock my eyes on Nova, because everything is confusion as six more explosions make the ground shake and I’m standing in the open hatch with a dart rifle in my hands as though I will shoot at any humans I saw, which is the opposite of what the plan is. The high rank and the other two soldiers barrel past us, weapons raised, and by some miracle the high rank spins back and gives us an order.
Hold this position.
That I can do. I can stand perfectly still and never move again. Nova yanks me back into the transport by my neck.
Look at me. Obey, she signs.
Yes. Yes.
Breathe.
I take a breath, feeling the tube expand and release. A burst of numbing fluid washes through me and my focus improves.
The explosions are part of the plan. I can do this. I just need to watch Nova and breathe.
Leave the hatch open, Nova signs. And hold on.
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