Invasion

by Galaxy Craze

  Tanner tilted his ear closer to me ever so slightly.

  “In the palace tunnels,” I said. “There’s an old hidden bunker no one knows about. There’s a good chance there will be dynamite in there.”

  Tanner drew in his breath. “I should have known.” He reached for my hand and squeezed it, then started laughing. “I should have known,” he said again. “You never cease to amaze me.”

  I felt that feeling again, that draw toward Tanner that I had felt last night. It fluttered in my stomach, pulling me softly toward him. I started to shift my weight, to bring my face closer to his—

  And froze. What was I thinking, letting myself care about Tanner? I had only one true love in this life, one soul mate, and he was dead. There wasn’t room in my heart for another. It wasn’t fair of me to do this, to give Tanner mixed signals. What I needed from him was friendship. Nothing more.

  I turned away. “I do feel like I could use a little more rest,” I said.

  “Okay.” Tanner curled his body in close behind mine. I lay there listening to the steady rise and fall of his breath, steeling my heart against his warmth.

  24

  We traveled back through the Underground tunnel the same way we’d come in, but the walk seemed to take less time. Maybe we’d quickened our pace, or maybe we were just less afraid, knowing what we were walking toward this time.

  When we reached the surface of the old Victoria station platform, Tanner gave me a boost up and over it. We were back out on the street just as the day was beginning to cross over into night. Still posing as Ryker army soldiers on patrol, we moved quickly through the London streets toward the alley where we’d parked the Jeep, making no eye contact with anyone.

  Two guards were frisking a group of teenagers on the corner, pocketing whatever valuables they could. Another held a pair of binoculars up to his eyes, spanning the tenement windows across the street.

  “Hey,” one of the guards called out to us. “You there, what’s the hurry?”

  “Just keep walking,” Tanner whispered. “Pretend you don’t hear him.”

  “Hey!” the guard yelled.

  Tanner turned on his heels and faced the guard. Thankfully the guard, whoever he was, recognized Tanner immediately.

  “I thought you were stationed in the palace,” the guard said warily.

  I continued my pace forward, but behind me I could hear Tanner explain that he was on a special mission, from Demkoe himself. “It’s a personal favor,” he said. “Highly confidential. So please don’t let anyone know that you saw me.”

  Soon both their voices were out of earshot and I found myself completely alone. I looked left and right, found the alleyway where we’d hidden the Jeep, and let out a great breath of relief when it came into view, exactly where we’d left it. I climbed into its worn seats and waited.

  Too much time was passing. Where was Tanner? That’s it, I thought, getting out of the passenger seat and turning to find him—

  I collided straight into Tanner’s broad chest. “Hey there,” he said, his hands circling my wrists. “You okay?”

  “Don’t do that again!” I snapped, and he raised his eyebrows.

  “Were you worried about me?” he teased.

  “Don’t flatter yourself, soldier,” I said, realizing too late how flirtatious it sounded.

  “Oh, I will, Princess,” he replied with a wink.

  We took a different route toward the palace, through the back roads. They were rough and unpaved, obstructed by fallen branches, tree limbs and mud pits, but our Jeep was designed to handle such terrain. Tanner commanded it expertly over every obstacle.

  I directed Tanner to the palace tunnel entrance located behind the Broadway post office. Now that my parents were gone, the only people to know about its existence were me, Mary, and General Wallace. And now Tanner.

  Tanner was learning things about me that even Wesley hadn’t known. It hurt, realizing that.

  When the remnants of the post office came into sight, Tanner parked the Jeep behind some abandoned construction scaffolding. The building was still standing, but it had suffered. I was glad we didn’t need to clamber inside to reach the tunnel’s trapdoor; it was just outside, hidden from the naked eye by its smart design. It was camouflaged into the pavement in such a way that you wouldn’t see it if you didn’t know it was there.

  “Keep watch,” I told Tanner, as I felt carefully on the ground for the two indentations that acted as a latch. Then I twisted the door free like a sewer cap. “Ouch!” I exclaimed, almost dropping it, surprised at its weight. Tanner quickly hurried over to take it from me, lifting the top open so I could step inside.

  Once I was in, Tanner quickly slipped in behind me, through the opening and down into the dark tunnel. He let the lid slam closed behind him.

  My ears popped as we descended the long metal ladder that ended at the tunnel floor. The air smelled thick and stale.

  Tanner looked around at the mazelike burrow, which was similar to the Underground but smaller and narrower. “Don’t lose me in here,” he said. “I’d never find my way out again.”

  That much was true, he wouldn’t. But I didn’t want to frighten him by saying it. Instead I tugged him by the arm. “I won’t let go of you. I promise.”

  Holding the small candle that Silver’s men had provided us, we walked for at least half an hour in the near dark, following my instincts. I hadn’t been down here since before the Seventeen Days. I prayed that my memory wouldn’t fail me.

  And then, just when I was worried that I’d taken a wrong turn, it appeared in front of us: an old metal military arms crate, rusted but sturdy, and sealed tightly shut with locks three inches thick.

  I remembered being seven or eight years old, holding Mary’s hand as my father and General Wallace led us through the dark. They had decided that we needed a tour of the tunnels, “just in case, God forbid, anything were to happen.” They had shown us the crate in passing, mentioned that the contents were highly dangerous. Little did they know that Mary and I would come down here later sometimes to play hide and seek. We liked to start at this point, since both the north–south and east–west tunnels converged here. We always called it the fireworks box.

  Now that the bunker was before us I began to question myself. What if I was wrong? I hadn’t been down here for years. What if the crate had been emptied or looted?

  Tanner pulled his knife from the inside of his vest and tried to pry open the lid, but it wouldn’t budge. Then he fiddled with each lock with the tip of his knife.

  “Stand back,” he said.

  With three quick kicks of his boot, the crate’s locks and chains littered the ground, and he lifted its top open.

  “Impressive,” I said.

  “I’m full of hidden talents,” he quipped.

  We leaned over, peering inside the crate hopefully.

  It was better than I could have wished for. Everything was neatly stacked and tagged in its own section: sealed containers of sawdust; glass bottles of nitroglycerin; and small plastic bags labeled BLASTING CAPS. At the center, long paper-brown sticks of dynamite were prewrapped in bunches of five. There were six bunches in all.

  Tanner picked one up and held it out to me like a bouquet. “My lady,” he said jokingly.

  I bowed, accepting it from him with mock seriousness. We probably shouldn’t have been playing around at a time like this, but there was something about Tanner, his confidence and pure joy, that brought out a long-forgotten playfulness in me. And after all, we’d completed our mission. We had a right to celebrate.

  There were more explosives layered into this trunk than we could ever carry. Once we’d packed all the dynamite into our backpacks, we had little room for much else.

  Tanner picked up a metal sphere that looked like an insect. It had four thin legs, appendages for affixing itself to flat surfaces.

  “Shove as many of these as you can into your pockets,” Tanner said. “They may come in handy if we need to blow our
way through a door or blockade.”

  He fastened one of the creatures to the tunnel’s cement wall. “If I were to pull out that pin right there,” he said, pointing to the insect’s needlelike tail, “we’d have about five seconds to back away and take cover as this little guy blew a hole into this wall five feet wide.”

  “Okay,” I said, stuffing two of the metal creatures into the small gap of free space left in my bag. “How do you know so much about explosives? And breaking into padlocked chests?”

  “Don’t you remember,” he said, a shadow passing over his face, “I sailed with the Rykers for ten years.” I wished I hadn’t opened my mouth, but what could I say now?

  He secured his pack onto his back. “Silver isn’t going to believe his eyes when he sees this,” he went on, his tone normal again. “You really did it, Eliza. You completed the impossible mission.”

  “We did it,” I said, correcting him. It felt like when Tanner and I worked together, we could do anything.

  * * *

  We walked back into the rebel camp just before dinnertime, our backs breaking from the weight of our heavy backpacks. The smell of flammable chemicals had seeped through their nylon, filling me with the unlikely fear that they might spontaneously combust.

  Everyone was looking at us curiously, some of them with pity, others mockery. They all assumed we’d failed, that we had given up already, unable to cut it in the rough, occupied streets of London. I gave no emotion away as we cut through the camp toward Silver’s train car door; just stared straight ahead, as did Tanner.

  We found Silver presiding over three men who looked so similar to me I could barely tell them apart. They were all around thirty years old, with hard faces, square jaws, and broad shoulders—I wondered if they were ex-military men. Silver was talking quickly to them, gesturing at a map. I stepped inside, not waiting to be invited in. He wasn’t going to like me anyway, so I didn’t feel the need to tiptoe around him as if I was scared.

  Tanner and I pulled our packs from our back and emptied them onto the table before him.

  Silver blinked his eyes rapidly when he saw what we’d delivered. Enough dynamite to destroy a dozen Demkoes.

  Slowly, he picked up a few sticks and rubbed his hands up and down their surface. He smelled their wicks.

  “Where did you get this?” he asked.

  “I’m resourceful,” I said.

  Silver smiled at me, wider and more genuine than I’d seen yet. He took a dynamite bouquet into each hand and kicked open his train door. “Success!” he called out. “The princess has succeeded!”

  The rebels cheered. They flocked to the car, surrounding it, pushing and shoving to get a better look at our bounty. Silver stepped outside to cheer with them, clearly enjoying the attention. I was about to join him when my eyes shifted to the table. Next to our backpacks was the paper Silver had been gesturing to—not a map, as I’d thought from far away, but a set of blueprints. The scowling rebel standing near them caught me staring and quickly rolled them up, removing them from my sight.

  “What are those?” Tanner asked him.

  It was immediately clear to both of us that that they were working on some master plan, probably involving the dynamite we’d just delivered.

  “None of your concern.” His scowl deepened, and he rushed us out of the car, toward where Silver was holding court outside.

  “Tonight we feast,” Silver was announcing to the crowd. “We’ll raise our glasses to …” He paused and looked at me and Tanner. “To dynamite.”

  A few of the rebels crowded in around us. They were keyed up and energized, asking questions, dragging us to a common area full of cast-off furniture and spare blankets.

  “Sit with us around the fire,” a young woman said. “Soon we’ll begin the feast.”

  The fire was a metal garbage can filled with burning trash.

  Another woman went to a plastic cooler and dug through it, returning with a cold bottle of water for each of us.

  Tanner and I sat between them, across from the smoky fire, thankful for the change in attitude.

  A young man around the same age as the woman joined us. He sat cross-legged on the ground and offered us some beef jerky.

  “Did you steal that dynamite from the palace?” he asked, while still chewing.

  Tanner grinned, biting off a hunk of the jerky he’d accepted from the boy. “We’ll never tell.”

  The boy laughed with admiration.

  Looking at him and the other young rebels who now regarded us as heroes, I understood that hardly any of them were as extremist as Silver. They weren’t as vengeful. A few of them, like the girls seated on either side of me and Tanner, even seemed a bit starstruck to be kicking back with the princess—just the way Allison had been earlier. I’d proven myself to them, demonstrated my worth to their cause, and now they wanted to know more.

  “Is Queen Mary really going to marry Demkoe?” one of the girls asked.

  I nodded. “If we don’t rescue her first.” I hoped that Mary was okay, that she hadn’t married that monster—especially since she only agreed to marry him in order to save me from solitary. I needed to get her out. It was all my fault.

  “How soon do you think we’ll storm the palace?” I asked.

  “Sooner now that we’ve got the dynamite,” the other girl answered. “It was the missing piece to the puzzle. Now all we’re waiting on is weapons and gear. We’re still waiting for the advanced weapons, stopwatches, and radios, all the things a real army has. For when we storm the palace.”

  “How are you getting all of that?” Tanner asked.

  “One of our men is expected back with them any day now,” the girl answered.

  “If he makes it back at all,” the boy said. “From what I hear, however he’s getting them is extremely dangerous. More dangerous than your mission even.”

  So Tanner and I weren’t the only ones sent out to risk our lives to prove ourselves.

  “Can you tell us more about the plan to storm the palace?” I asked as innocuously as I could. “How is all of this going to come together, the weapons, the dynamite?”

  They shook their heads. “We don’t know much about the plan of attack at all,” the boy said. “It’s Silver’s plan. We leave the thinking to him.”

  “That doesn’t sound very rebellious,” Tanner muttered under his breath, saying the exact thing that I was thinking.

  “No one should take away your ability to think for yourself,” he added. “Otherwise what makes Silver any better than Demkoe?”

  Exactly.

  25

  The feast was delicious. I hadn’t expected much—after all, we were underground, in a city of hungry people. But there was meat—a stew of squirrel and pigeon, surprisingly delicious—and potatoes, turnips, even a small store of old ale that made a few people drunk. Tanner and I tried to keep to ourselves, but everyone wanted to talk to us, congratulating us on the dynamite, asking me questions about the palace.

  Silver paced through the crowd, watching everything, eating nothing. Our eyes met, and he came over. He greeted me with a slight nod. “The wedding date’s been set, you know.”

  “What?” I demanded. This was the first I’d heard of it. “For when?”

  “Sooner than you think.” He stepped past me, then added over his shoulder, “They’re having it in the royal chapel, not Westminster Abbey. More secure that way. We got that dynamite just in the nick of time.”

  I tried to follow him, to ask him questions, but he waved me off. “Stop worrying, Eliza. I’ve got everything under control. Just enjoy the party.”

  “How do you expect me to not worry?” I yelled, angry.

  But he disappeared into the crowd, and I wasn’t able to find him for the rest of the night.

  Finally, Tanner and I managed to retreat to our train car. It was well past midnight, but we were both restless.

  “I’ve been wanting to tell you something all night,” I said to him, sitting cross-legged on the g
round, thinking back over the course of the evening. “It’s about those blueprints on the table in Silver’s train car.”

  “Those were the master plan blueprints, weren’t they,” he said.

  “I’m pretty sure.” I shot a look to the window, to make sure no one was in earshot. “There was a map, with tunnels that looked familiar.”

  “The palace tunnels?”

  “Probably, yes, but they couldn’t have discovered all of them. It looked like just a portion of the tunnels, converged in one spot. And there were letters and numbers printed across the top of the paper, some kind of code. RC1800.”

  “Does that mean anything to you?” Tanner asked.

  “No, I wish it did. But it struck me as odd the way that rebel rolled up the plans and hurried us out of the car when he caught me peeking at them.”

  “That’s not so strange,” Tanner said, lying back with his hands crossed behind his head. “He just didn’t want you to see them.”

  “But something about it felt strange.”

  “It felt strange to you because you’re used to having access to everything.” He said it flippantly, without thinking—he didn’t mean anything rude by it—but his meaning still cut like a knife.

  “I’m sorry.” He immediately tried to backtrack. “I didn’t mean—”

  “No, you’re right,” I conceded. “It’s true. I’m not used to being told no. And I’m pretty stubborn,” I added.

  “Well, I think it’s what makes you so charming.” Tanner sat up and kissed me on the forehead, lightly.

  It stunned me for a second, and him as well. Of course it was harmless, a kiss of friendship, but something happened—I felt something.

  Tanner pulled back. He’d felt it too. But he tried to play it off as nothing. “What do you say we go for a little walk?” he said.

  Still flustered, I tried to force my voice to come out sounding normal. “A walk where? Out on the streets?”

  “Anywhere,” Tanner said. “Someplace away from all these … I don’t know. Someplace with some fresh air.”