Juno was noticeably slowing behind us. Even with the rush of adrenaline she was surely experiencing, she couldn’t keep up the pace that Kory and I were used to. She was older and more malnourished.
“I’m going to have to rest soon,” she panted from behind me. I slowed to a stop but kept her hand in mine. Kory stopped and kept watch behind us.
“Our only chance is to get to that fence before the guards get to us. We have to be fast,” I told her.
She leaned heavily against me and took a few deep, ragged breaths. “Okay,” she said finally.
We started to run again. We were going to have to turn right at the next row to start heading back in the direction of the collection team’s location. But it would put us back out in the open, inviting more gunfire. We would be relying on sheer luck.
I held my breath as we turned. Almost immediately, shots began to ring out again.
We were less than a hundred feet from the fence now. We were going to make it.
But then I fell quickly and heavily to the ground, having been yanked back by a sudden force. I hit the dirt in confusion and cried out. Kory stopped and ran back to us, and then we both realized what had happened together. It was Juno.
She had been shot.
“Juno!” I yelled as I let go of her hand and pulled her face up. She was breathing and conscious, but her eyes were closed in pain.
“Robin, we can’t stay here!” Kory yelled, his voice high with panic. We were still in the line of fire.
I began to search Juno’s figure for the gunshot. As I passed my hand over her right thigh she suddenly cried out and grabbed my arm. I felt the wetness of blood.
Kory ducked as shots rang toward us.
“Robin!” he yelled.
Juno was breathing hard and unevenly. She opened her eyes and looked up at me.
“Go,” she said at a volume barely above a whisper. “Thank you for trying.”
“No,” I said plainly, my voice quivering. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. Not now. Not when we were so close.
A shot hit the barracks beside us, and I could hear the footsteps of the guards as they approached, moving quickly.
“Robin, we have to go!” Kory screamed.
I stared up at Kory in wild-eyed defiance. “I can’t go without her!”
Another bullet hit the ground right behind us.
“Then we’ll go together!” Kory yelled back. He bent down and scooped Juno up in his arms.
She winced in pain as he tossed her over his shoulder, but I just watched in amazement as it happened. He was going to carry her out.
“Now can we go?” he yelled at me, already beginning to run toward the fence.
I jumped up and began to run with him, shocked that he was willing to help this total stranger, risking his own life, because he knew it meant a lot to me. I was going to need to remember to thank him appropriately once we made it onto the ship.
If we made it onto the ship.
Our stop had brought the guards dangerously close. They were only yards behind us now and gaining ground, since Kory was moving more slowly with Juno’s added weight.
Kory suddenly stumbled.
“Kory!” I yelled, stooping beside him. Out of the corner of my eye I could see a guard raising his weapon and aiming at us. It was over now. We had done our best. But there was nothing else that could be done. I closed my eyes and braced myself.
The sound of the gunshot was sharp and painful. It was so close that it reverberated in my ears like a ping-pong ball. But I didn’t feel the sting of a bullet. Had they hit Juno or Kory?
I looked up and turned to the guard. He was still standing with his gun raised and pointed at us, but he had a faraway look in his eyes. Then, as I watched, he fell to the ground.
A man stepped up from behind and looked down at us huddled on the ground.
“Let’s get going!” he yelled.
It was Jace.
35
“Jace!” I cried out in relief and joy. I had never been so happy to see his face. He was well prepared for battle in a full second-skin suit and dark clothing, and he was gripping a powerful-looking weapon.
And now we finally had some cover from the incessant gunfire from the guards. Now we had someone who could shoot back.
But it was just Jace, as far as I could see. How were we going to get out of here with just one gun against dozens?
He quickly crouched down beside us.
“Is anyone hurt?” he asked, his voice calm and steady despite the roar of the airship battle taking place on the other side of the yard.
Kory shifted a little under Juno’s weight. “Just this one,” he said.
“Who is that?” Jace asked.
“She’s coming with us,” I said again. There was no reason to get into it yet. For one, I wasn’t sure yet who she was. And secondly, I wanted to make sure we all survived this trip before we started talking about the details.
Jace nodded. He took Juno off Kory’s shoulder, tossed her limply over his own, and offered Kory a hand to help him stand.
“Okay, but this doesn’t mean that you’re stronger than me,” Kory said playfully. “I just got a muscle cramp.”
Jace cocked his head back toward the fence line. “How about we save the jokes for when we’re not being shot at?” he replied with a smile.
A small army of guards was heading our way with their weapons drawn, and they were obviously going to shoot first and ask questions later. We started racing toward the fence again, Jace returning fire as we went.
“Where do we go?” I asked him breathlessly.
He held Juno tightly as he ran, shooting over his shoulder to keep the guards at bay and leading us back to the fence.
“We’ve opened up the fence straight back from here,” he replied. “We’ve got to keep heading that way. We have an airship grounded in the woods beyond the fence.”
Okay, so we had a means of escape. But that meant getting all the way to the fence, then through, and then to the woods on the other side without taking any more injuries. And those odds weren’t currently looking very good.
Bullets were flying around us, despite Jace’s cover, and Juno was wounded and in a precarious position; if a guard aimed at Jace, his second-skin suit would deflect the bullet. But she was unarmored and vulnerable.
“You’ve got to hand her back to me,” Kory said, reaching for Juno. “So you can provide us cover.”
“You’re limping, Kory,” Jace replied. “You can’t carry her weight plus your own right now.”
I looked over at Kory. Jace was right. It looked like he had twisted his ankle when he stumbled while holding Juno. He wasn’t able to put his full weight on his left leg, resulting in a toddling run.
I looked back at the guards. They were steadily gaining. And there were more of them now. Kory might not have been able to carry Juno, but he was right about one thing: we needed help. If Jace couldn’t focus on keeping the guards at bay, we weren’t going to make it to the fence.
“Jace, give me the gun,” I said suddenly.
He passed it to me quickly. It was still warm from his grip and was putting off the bitter aroma of gunpowder. And its heft in my hands made me feel bolder.
I wasn’t going to let those guards stop us.
I turned back and peppered them with shots, and they began to duck and break formation to avoid the fire. I turned back toward the fence to continue running. Returning fire felt good but could only buy us a few seconds at a time. How long could we keep up our fight when it was just our one weapon against a whole group of armed guards?
Jace looked at me and seemed to know what I was thinking. “Don’t worry, Robin,” he replied. “We’ve got backup.”
“Where?” I demanded. I didn’t see anyone around us except guards and townspeople. Where exactly was this backup we were relying so heavily on?
Something big whooshed above us and away from the direction of the fence. I ducked slightly. What was it? It w
as too big to be a bird, but way too small to be an airship. I strained my eyes to find it in the night sky, but it was all but invisible.
Then a relentless ping ping ping of gunfire erupted back toward the guards. The sparks of gunfire lit up the weaponized drone above them.
“Keep it up, Jackie,” Jace said into his comm.
I almost laughed in relief. It was the drone we had seen back in the airship before our mission. Obviously, Jackie was at the controls there.
The guards were scattering, and it was providing us with enough cover to run as fast as we could without worrying about returning fire. We were almost there, but with Jace weighed down and Kory stumbling, it was a slower affair than I was comfortable with.
My eyes scanned the fence frantically, but it was too dark on that end of the compound to see much. Then suddenly two new figures were running up next to us.
“Weren’t there only two of you guys when we sent you in there?” Abe asked as he and Ant raced up with their weapons drawn and pointed behind us at the guards.
“Looks like they picked up a spare,” Ant replied breathlessly.
“Collection team, are you guys ready for takeoff?” Jace asked suddenly.
I thought he was talking to Ant and Abe but realized he must’ve been speaking into his comm to the entire team. Ant, Abe, and Jace all put on a faraway look for a few seconds, like they were listening to something that Kory and I couldn’t hear.
“What’d they say?” I asked Jace after several seconds had passed.
“They’ve got the ship ready for takeoff just beyond the trees,” he said. “We’re set.”
Suddenly an explosion sounded nearby. It reminded me of airship fire, but it was way too close to us to be from the airship battle on the other end of the yard. I closed my eyes and grabbed my ears with the sudden ringing pain. The sound had stopped all of us in our tracks, and I started scanning the skies to find the source of the noise.
Then I saw that the drone was lying in a fiery crumpled heap, not far from us. Something had shot it down—and the guards had resumed their chase. And that meant. . .
“Government ship!” Jace yelled.
I turned and abruptly saw the huge black ship hovering ominously over the portion of the fence that we had been headed toward. It had approached so quickly and silently that we didn’t even know about it until it was already upon us.
“To the right!” Jace added. We moved in a mass to the right of where we were standing, seconds before a huge blast cratered the ground where we had just been.
“Well, this complicates matters!” Ant panted as we ran parallel to the fence line. “The ship is right over our escape route.”
“I don’t think they’re falling for our diversion anymore,” Jace replied.
We ran toward the corner of the compound and away from our designated exit. We were no longer facing down the airship, but we also weren’t within reach of our exit anymore. We were stuck. I shot frightened looks at Jace, Kory, Ant, and Abe. Were we all about to perish here? And what about Juno? Had I brought her this far only to lose her so close to our planned escape?
“We’re going to need some backup,” Jace said into his comm. Then he turned to the rest of us as we ran together. “We need cover before they get here.”
They? Who was coming if our escape route was blocked?
The question was answered for me. Another boom sounded overhead, and the black government airship dipped one of its wings in the air as it recoiled from the blast. If the government ship was being shot at, that meant Little John was in the air above us now.
A blast from a Little John ship suddenly opened a new hole in the fence near to us.
“That’s our cue!” Ant yelled as he started to run toward the fence again.
“Copy that!” Jace yelled into his comm.
Sounded like new plans were being made around us. But were they going to be solid if we had to craft them on the fly like this? And was anything going to work when we had government ships already over us—and when they’d obviously already spotted us?
When we approached the fence, I saw a large crew of dark-clothed team members streaming through, with Zion at the head of the group. It was the combat team. Now we had comprehensive cover on the ground. But we were still in the compound.
“Get through quickly!” Zion yelled at us as we ran through the fence and toward the woods outside. “We’ve got company.”
A growing orange glow behind us caused me to turn around when we hit the ground on the other side of the compound. What I saw was horrifying. Dozens of massive airships were flying at top speed from the other end of the compound to our side. Now that the government realized that the attack was a red herring, they were scrambling to get their full force to our side of the yard.
Gunfire poured indiscriminately from the airships overhead. They were shooting at anything and everything beneath them as they raced toward us, and my heart sank. How many townspeople were being attacked by their own government at that moment? I thought of the women in the Millville barracks, and the Dry River people we had driven over here with. How many of them were injured or dead now? How much more expendable could these people be to the regime?
I felt a hollow sickness in my stomach. Was this our fault? Had we brought this horrible fate upon these people? I had volunteered to help them back in Edgewood. I never meant for this type of carnage to befall them. But then I thought back to the operating room in the hospital, and a fiery hatred replaced the fear I had been feeling since the beginning of the attack. These people were being exterminated before we ever arrived. Now the government was just ramping it up. Helping Hands didn’t care about these people at all. It was all a ruse.
They had to be stopped. But first Nathan had to know what was happening here, what Helping Hands’ “philanthropy” actually was. And that meant we had to get out of here alive.
In front of us, a stretch of dirt led to a forest line on the other side of the fence, and we raced through the clearing, not slowing until we reached the cover of the trees. Jace was at the lead, but he looked confused and unsure once we made it to the woods. He was looking around like he was lost.
“What’s happening?” I asked him.
“The ship isn’t here anymore. It must’ve taken off when the government ships started coming this way,” he replied. Into his comm, he continued, “Collection team to airship team, do you read me?”
Jace squinted his eyes as he listened. I stared at him and waited for news.
“They’re in the air already. We’re going to have to prepare for a quick escape,” he said.
I gulped. Kory had a twisted ankle, and Jace was holding on to a badly injured woman with a gunshot wound. Just how quick would we need to be? Because we could only do so much from down here.
“Fall back!” a voice bellowed from the other side of the fence. It was Zion.
The combat teams were falling back to the other side of the fence now, beside us. They’d only had one job, and that was to cover our retreat. Now that we were all out, their task was done—and we all needed to get into the air and out of range of the soldiers’ guns.
Zion ran up to Jace, the rest of his team streaming into the woods around us.
“The guards on the ground seem to have retreated, but the enemy airships are going to be on top of us soon,” Zion said. “And we can’t provide cover against those.”
“Where are the escape ships?” I shouted. We were all together now and needed to get out of here fast. Or none of us were going to survive this mission.
The answer came in the form of my hair whipping around wildly and the sudden sound of an airship hovering right above us. I looked up in horror, expecting to see government ships primed to attack, but saw instead Little John’s metallic purple ships over us. The escape ships had arrived.
Dozens of rope ladders were dropping out of the sky, dangling a few feet over our heads. It appeared that Jace wasn’t lying when he said we’d have to make a quick esc
ape.
I grabbed the rope above me as soon as it came within reach. My body was sore and tired after our long run across the yard, but adrenaline was coursing through me, enabling me to pull myself up. I would be able to get up the rope and into the airship on my own.
Jace, Kory, Ant, and Abe grabbed for ropes as well. Jace balanced Juno on his shoulder as he pulled himself up. Another ship was dropping ladders a few hundred feet away from us, and I watched as Zion and his combat team deftly climbed them.
But then chaos descended.
A hail of bullets rained down over the escape airships and ladders. The government airships had their weapons trained on us now. I covered my head feebly with my forearm, but knew that Kory, Juno, and I wouldn’t be protected from gunfire no matter what we did. All we could do was try to get into the safety of the airship as soon as possible.
And then hope that the airship didn’t get shot down by the government.
“Get up, quick!” Jace yelled at us.
He was struggling to move quickly, with Juno’s extra bodyweight. I watched her bob weakly over his shoulder. It didn’t look like Little John had been prepared to pick us up from the air, as they weren’t using the winches I knew the ship had. There just wasn’t enough time. But at that moment, even with the adrenaline, most of us had very little strength left. I didn’t know if we were going to be able to manage the rope ladders.
Just then, the ropes all swung out sharply as the airship dipped in an evasive maneuver. I cried out involuntarily. Hanging on to the rope felt like riding a bucking bronco as the airship pulled us back and forth. It was impossible to do anything but hold on. I looked over to see Jace contorting his face in strain as he tried to steady himself and Juno.
Then the hatch beneath the airship opened up, and a familiar voice shouted down to us.
“Hang on, guys!” Nelson yelled. “We’ve got to lose them, and then we’ll pull you up!”
The airship rose into the air and shot forward over the woods. I closed my eyes against the sudden gust of dry night air. The rapid sound of gunfire followed us as the airship flew farther from the compound, and I didn’t have to look to know the government was hot on our heels.
The Child Thief 5: Ghost Towns Page 32