by Tracy Korn
“The payload is secured,” Mr. Denison says over the comms.
“Copy that,” Tark says. “What’s our ETA, Mr. Hart?”
Hearing my name startles me, and the rush of adrenaline once again puts me back to work.
“We’re almost in position. About another minute,” I answer after a quick look at the holographic displays in front of me. I over-correct our trajectory to make up for the glide time I never should have let happen a minute ago while my mind was wandering. I press my teeth together, aggravated with myself again. I just can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong, that she needs help. I shake my head because I’m being stupid. If she needed me, she wouldn’t have left. “We’re aligned,” I say, pushing the words through my teeth as soon as I see the grid sync with our position. “Let her rip.”
Nothing happens for a few minutes, but then I hear the sound of water rushing, like it’s inside the hull somehow. A few seconds after that, I start to see a hole opening in the white haze in front of us. It’s only black for a fraction of a second before it returns to a gray, muddy cloud. Another black patch opens up, only to be filled in again with the same thick fog. A thin, glowing blue circle that’s very faint takes shape in the haze, and I wonder if that must be the perimeter of the doorway the zephyr animal just made.
“Now, that’s a thing of beauty, don’t you think, Mr. Hart?” Tark says, at my shoulder before I realize he’s even come aboard the bridge.
“Sure. Except we’re going to drive through there and it will probably strip this rig down to its coils, and us right along with it.”
Tark chuckles. “Let’s hope not.”
“Great,” I say, leaning forward to control our speed so we don’t topple into the perimeter opening. I hold my breath, part of me bracing for a sudden flash of light and deafening crash. This is all too easy.
“Nice and steady,” Tark encourages. Why he doesn’t just do this himself, I don’t know. This infiltration of Phase Three hardly seems like the best time to put a cadet through any training. This is all too important to trust to a student, isn’t it?
The nose of the ship penetrates the haze, according to the screens going haywire in front of me, obviously detecting the zephyr wind trying to take a bite out of us. We are about halfway through the gate before I know it, and I let myself breathe again. Maybe we really can do this. Still, there’s the small matter of actually getting into the facility. This haze is just the barrier field.
“How are we masked again?” I ask.
“Passing through that opening coated us in the same deflectors the piranha wind uses to mirror the other molecules around it. To anyone staring out their windows in Phase Three, we just look like a black sky dotted with stars.”
“So, people will literally not see this ship coming?” I ask, feeling all the muscles in my shoulders finally relax. I realize I’m gripping the arms of this pilot seat when I glance down and see my white knuckles. I force myself to release the chair and take a deep breath. Slow and even.
“Exactly,” Tark confirms with a decisive nod. He flashes a smile that borders on cocky, and that makes me feel a little more confident too. We’re going to do this. We’re going to shut down the whole damn show. But my confidence doesn’t last long.
“We have a small problem,” Ms. Reynolt’s voice comes over the comms from below deck.
“Go,” Tark says.
“I can’t reestablish visuals with anyone in Calyx’s group. Jack doesn’t think the wind is interfering because he wrote code modulations for that.”
“Let’s get closer to the facility and try again,” Tark replies after a long pause. His cocky grin is gone, and lines start to form between his eyebrows. Something isn’t right. I thought it was maybe just my reservations about flying this ship, but it’s not that. Now Tark must feel it too.
“There’s no reason anyone in the Phase Three facility would suspect them, is there?” I ask. “Calyx works there, and we had this drop off scheduled. They were expecting us to deliver Lyden and my sister. Right?”
Tark doesn’t answer me at first. He just presses his lips into a line. I get to my feet to get his attention.
“What?” he says. “I mean, right. Don’t worry, Mr. Hart. Calyx can handle herself. She isn’t alone on the inside.”
“Then we just keep going?” I ask.
“That’s what I was just saying. Stay on course. One way or another, that place is going to need a back door.”
“I assume we’re moving forward with the second team?” Denison’s voice comes over the comms this time. Tark looks directly at me.
“What? You expect me to make that call?” I ask, incredulous.
“You are the golden boy.” Tark grins just a little, but his expression returns to neutral just as fast. “The hybridization of your abilities makes you the most qualified to assess the situation.”
“Please. Get Ms. Reynolt out here. She’s the Empath. She can feel out what’s happening in there with her waves or something,” I say, nearly choking on the words with the laughter in between each of them. Tark just keeps looking at me in the same, sterile way. Finally, his bottom lip quirks up as he shrugs.
“I’m not making the call, and Denison won’t make it without me. Neither will Reynolt. So we either sit here all day, turn around and go back to The Seam building, or we push on.” Tark’s eyes flash at me. The golden rays almost shoot directly into me like some kind of laser beam straight at my chest. Why is he putting all this on me? Why me? Does he need some kind of scapegoat if this all falls through?
“We don’t have all day, Mr. Hart. That hole we just made won’t last too much longer in stasis like this. It needs to expand right there on that facility wall.” Tark nods out the port window. I follow his trajectory and see the whole Phase Three facility coming into view. It’s enormous, wide and stretching into a bowed curve that looks like it goes on for miles. The whole thing is the same height, spreading away from us like an impossibly thick boomerang.
“That’s Phase Three?” I ask under my breath, surprised at my own question. I don’t know what I was expecting to see, something that looked like Gaia Sur, I guess—tall, cylindrical buildings with attached light extensions—but there’s nothing like that there in front of us. “It didn’t look like this from the front, where we dropped Calyx off with Lyden and my sister.”
“We were level with the structure then. The curve on each end is masked by the port-cloud. We’re above the facility now, so we can see the expanse of it against the barrier. Set your grid and follow the scope. We’re going to make a little hole in the wall out back.” Tark smirks, nodding to my controls. I press the comms to the med bay.
“And they can’t see us? We’re masked?” I ask again because the feeling that something isn’t right is getting stronger the closer we get to the walls of the huge, white boomerang building.
“Roger that, Arco,” Jack’s voice says over the comms. “I took care of it.”
I nod to myself and lean into the control field emanating from the chair. The Wraith pushes forward a little faster, filling the wrapping window with the view of Phase Three.
“All right, if you say so. We should be in position to relaunch the package in about ten seconds,” I say. And it’s the longest ten seconds of my life.
“The second hole will be much smaller than the one we put in the barrier field,” Tark says. “This one will only be big enough for us to connect an airlock.”
“So we just sit here in the meantime?”
“We need someone we can trust out there, Mr. Hart. And we’re going to need to move once we collect everyone.”
“Everything will disintegrate once Jack uploads the DNA into their system—that’s still the plan?” I ask, sounding redundant, but I don’t care. Something doesn’t fit.
“Last I checked, that should tie up everything quite nicely,” Tark replies.
We drop into position and I line up the nose of the ship against the projected doorway in the hologra
phic scope. The point of our Wraith touches directly in the middle of a glowing blue X, which I presume marks the heart of the labs on the other side of the facility wall.
“Here goes nothing,” I say under my breath, but not quietly enough. Tark chuckles.
“On the contrary, Mr. Hart. Here goes everything.”
CHAPTER 21
Tieg
Jazz
I take several steps back, nearly running over Vox. Her hands grip my shoulders, holding me still until I get my bearings again.
“What is that on his hands and neck?” I blurt. “Tieg, what happened to you?”
He doesn’t say anything in reply. He just grips the roots and hardened earth of the walls like he’s trying to keep from being blown away.
“Bug…” he says in a raspy voice. “Tunnel…sand bug.”
“Crite,” Liam says, covering his mouth with his hand before he pushes it through his streaked blond hair. “It’s one of the antlions. It has to be, but they’re much farther down than we are here.”
Vox exhales hard. “They’re in the Rush.”
“Those things with the pincers?” I ask, remembering how one of them tried to take Vox’s arm off while the rest of us were all in the Vishan tunnels.
“Yep. Looks like he went a few rounds with one,” she replies, nodding to Tieg, and now that he’s out of the shadows, I can see the wreckage of his torn and frayed dive suit.
“Are you hurt anywhere?” I ask carefully, scanning him for any obvious signs of injury. He doesn’t look like he’s bleeding from anywhere, but I can’t tell with all the dirt covering him. He stretches out his neck like he’s trying to get a deep breath, but then pulls what’s left of his dive suit down over his shoulder to reveal two puncture wounds on the outside of his bicep. They’re not bleeding, but they’re the source of the black lines striating up his neck and what must be down his arms to his hands.
“It…bit me,” he finally says just before his teeth start chattering uncontrollably. He snarls and lunges at us, but then throws himself into the wall again and grabs a nearby root. He grips it like he will fall through the floor if he lets go, and we all jump back a few steps in shock.
“Tieg!” I shout, holding up both my hands. “The antlion bit you…that’s what you’re trying to say?”
“Is that your only injury?” Liam adds in a pressed voice.
Tieg struggles to shake his head. He clenches his teeth together as his hands start to shake from the grip he has on the roots.
“He can’t talk. What’s happening to him? That didn’t happen to me when my arm got caught in those pincers,” Vox says. Liam shakes his head from side to side, partially in what seems like disbelief, and partially in despair. My stomach drops.
“You have to fix this,” I say, not giving him a chance to give up. “There has to be something you can do. You know how all these science project animals work down here.”
“That’s an actual bite, first of all, not a scrape from pincers. Without equipment, there’s not much I can do except maybe slow the progress long enough until we can get back to Azeris.” Without looking at anyone for approval, Liam pulls a small knife from his bag and cuts a strip from his burlap wrap. He takes a few steps toward Tieg, holding out one hand. “OK, I need you to be on ice for a minute, all right? I need to tie this on your arm to slow the venom’s progression.”
Tieg grips the roots in one hand even more tightly as he stretches out his other arm. He finds a new patch of roots to grip with the outstretched arm and turns his face away.
“Do it…” he growls, which sends a chill straight up my spine and into my teeth. Liam moves quickly to tie a tourniquet just above the puncture wounds. Tieg fights his reaction, spitting and cursing with the effort. He finally turns, leaping onto Liam and knocking him to the ground. Tieg’s wedge of bioengineered teeth start snapping like they’re somehow automated as he lunges again and again for Liam’s throat. Liam pushes his forearm against Tieg’s throat to keep him at bay, but Tieg is bigger and heavier than Liam.
“Tieg!” I shout, scanning the ground for anything I can use to knock him back, but there’s nothing except roots sticking out of the walls in every direction. I glance at Vox, and even though we don’t exchange any words, we both know to move to the same side of Tieg. Both of us push his ribs with our boots until he finally falls sideways. It only dislodges him for a second, but it’s long enough for Liam to get to his feet as Tieg scratches and pulls at the ground to move toward us again. Vox jumps in front of Liam and me with a huge flame rising from her palm, and all at once Tieg stops scrambling for us. He buries his face under his arm to shade his eyes from the light and howls in pain. Liam and I exchange confused looks.
“The fire is how I finally got away from the antlion in the Rush,” Vox says. “It snapped at me just like he did.”
“Then we need to get him back to Azeris now. There has to be another way out of here,” I add, scanning again for something other than these stupid roots in every direction. “We’ll have to use the vines…we’ll have to climb the walls in the hole back there.” I shake my head, resigned.
“Come on…hyah. Hyah!” Vox says to Tieg, pushing the fire in her hand at him. I narrow my eyes at her.
“He’s not a horse.”
“Uh, sorry, sand dollar. I don’t know the move-it sound effect for a bug-man in transit. You got a better idea?”
I glance at Liam, who shrugs. I roll my eyes, then turn hesitantly back to Tieg, who’s frozen in place with his eyes still shielded and his bioengineered wedges of teeth bared. They start to chatter again, despite the flexed muscles of his jaw fighting against it.
“Tieg, can you stand up? You have to come with us. We need to get to Azeris. He can help you.” I take a few steps toward him alongside Vox. Tieg just snarls at me, which makes him lose control of his chattering teeth again. He jumps straight up, making both Vox and me stumble back. I fall on my elbows, and Vox’s flame goes out completely.
“Stay down!” a voice shouts from far behind us. It’s a familiar voice, but I can’t place it until it shouts again. “Don’t move!”
“Cal?” Vox whispers next to me. “Cal!”
A deluge of Vishan words pour over us, and then I hear several people running in our direction.
A second later I hear the hiss of fire starting like a struck match, only the match is the size of a shuttle bus.
“What the—?!” Liam starts. I try to push to my feet, only to feel a hand push me right back into place on the ground. I look up and see the long scar on his forehead.
“Keep still, little sister…” he says.
“Dell!”
Another howl rips from Tieg, pulling my eyes back to him. Cal is cinching a knot around Tieg’s waist, pinning down his arms at his hips.
“Throw me the leaves!” he shouts to Dell, who chucks a rolled object toward him. He snatches it out of the air and unrolls it, then wraps Tieg’s bicep. He pulls out another scrap of rope and ties it in place.
It hits me all at once that neither Cal nor Dell are the source of the bright light…and that all of the footsteps have stopped.
Two other Vishan, both boys, stand about ten feet behind us with each of their hands filled with fire. Vox and I turn to each other at the same time, but before I can ask her if she knows them, she pushes to her feet in one quick bolt and offers me her hand. I take it, and she pulls me up.
“Small subterranean world,” Dell says with a snort, breaking the tension.
“What are you doing down here?” Vox says, narrowing her yellow eyes, which flash in the firelight. “Did you set that trap back there?”
“No, we came after him when a critter pulled him under,” Cal says, snapping his fingers and bringing a tiny flame of light to the tips of them right in front of Tieg’s face. “His sister nearly crawled straight out of her skin to chase after him.”
“Dezzie!” Tieg whales again, almost incoherently.
“She’s all right!” I hold up my ha
nds to get Tieg’s attention, but he just looks wildly around the tunnel. “She’s with your father…” I add, and Tieg finally stops seething.
“So they made it topside? And Zoe…” Dell asks, but trails off.
“They’re all fine,” I answer. “They all made it to Admin City with us, except Liddick was rerouted. It’s a long story, but he’s in these tunnels somewhere…Tieg’s father sent him here.”
“How?” Tieg manages to ask, his chest heaving with what is apparently considerable effort to speak.
“That’s what we’re trying to find out. But we don’t have time to talk about it now. We need to stabilize you,” Liam explains, then turns to Dell. “Is there another way to get topside from here besides that trap back there?”
“He’s not going topside.”
“Why not?” Liam asks, annoyed. “I can help him if we can get to Azeris’s hab.”
“Too late. That sun will crisp him now,” Dell says, looking sideways at the black veins running up Tieg’s neck.
“He got this bite days ago. We’ll have to take him to Vita,” Cal says, looking Tieg up and down.
“Who’s Vita?” Liam asks.
“Their healer,” Vox answers, then cocks an eyebrow and seems to look for something in the air. “And…my aunt or cousin or something?”
“Dezzie…” Tieg mumbles again, using what sounds like the last of his energy.
“Your sister is safe. She’s with your father…” Liam says. Tieg all but collapses into Dell at this, and I can’t tell if he’s relieved or just exhausted.
“We need to move because I’m not tryin’ to carry this one down any tunnels,” Dell says.
“Wait,” I say before I realize it. “What happened to you? And Lidd—“ I start to ask about Liddick, but his name lodges in my throat when I remember that it was Tieg’s own father who forced Liddick back through these tunnels to find him. Cal looks at me blankly, genuinely confused.