Either way, I risk losing five people. If we wait for the skip, all of us could end up in prison and tried for treason.
If we go with this captain, then five of my people could die.
I don’t feel like I can make the decision for them, and yet I’m the only one who can make the decision.
Besides, the Vaycehnese might attack my skip. Maybe more than five people will die.
“I hope to God this works,” I say to the captain.
“It will,” he says. “Believe me. It will.”
~ * ~
SIXTY-SEVEN
The captain climbs out of my cart, along with the lieutenant. As he does, he snaps his fingers and gives orders in a voice I never want to hear directed at me.
Suddenly six other people join us. The captain gives instructions, and Al-Nasir translates for me before the lieutenant can.
“He wants them in the other hovercarts,” Al-Nasir says. “He says two people per cart, one driving and one with a weapon, would be best.”
A weapon. I frown at the captain. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I almost protest, but then I don’t. It’s better to be prepared. How many times have I told my people that?
“You get in another cart,” I say to Al-Nasir.
“But you need me,” he repeats.
“I can talk to Mikk just as easily as you can,” I say. “If something happens to me, you can lead the others to our group. Get them off this damn planet, okay?”
He nods, then scrambles into a different cart. The captain watches, catches my gaze, and nods at me. He approves.
A woman gets in beside me. She’s one of the people the captain has sent ahead. He clearly trusts her. She taps her chest. “Rossetti,” she says.
“Boss,” I say.
She nods, but doesn’t repeat my name any more than I repeat hers. She pulls out that small laser pistol and holds it. I glance behind me. Two people per cart, just like the captain ordered—one in the driver’s seat, the other holding a weapon just like she is.
Al-Nasir is driving, just like I am. I don’t know if he’s ever driven a cart. That should be interesting. But I am not going to watch.
I tap my ear. “Mikk, your position?”
He tells me. They’ve made it away from the spaceport. They’re in a vehicle, but it’s a land vehicle.
“We’re coming for you,” I say. “Take this route.”
I’m going to get him as close to the cave opening as I can. With all of us on the move, we’ll get him here quicker.
I glide down the mountainside, wishing for more power. These hovercarts aren’t built for speed. They’re built to carry cargo and people into different environments, not to go speeding down a mountain toward a spaceport.
But I open up as best I can, not caring if the others can keep up.
As I glide, I see the roads spread before me. The spaceport glows yellow in the distance, the fog lights giving the place an odd tinge even in the daylight.
Official vehicles, with Vaycehn’s city insignia on the side, are speeding toward the spaceport from the city itself.
But Mikk is on one of the side roads, climbing up the mountain. The city officials don’t believe my people would go back to the caves we fled. As far as they know, we’re all trying to get off this godforsaken planet—which we are. We’re just taking a different route than they expect.
I glance over my shoulder. To my surprise, Al-Nasir is the pilot who can keep up with me. The others wobble behind us, uncertain about the speed and the balance of the machine. Instead of clutching the weapon the way that Rossetti is, the other soldiers are clutching the side of the cart.
A cloud of dust heads toward us. Mikk isn’t on the side roads. He’s blazing his own trail.
Two official vehicles have made U-turns and headed on the side road he initially took.
We’re running out of time.
I kick the cart into the highest gear. It dips, and for a moment, I think the power is going to fail. Then it recovers and we head toward that first cloud of dust.
It only takes a few minutes to reach it. I float above the vehicle, see that Roderick is driving, Mikk beside him. My two best people. What the hell are they still doing here?
Then I see their passengers: Lentz, Bridge, and Ivy. Of course, the ones who didn’t quite understand the meaning of “emergency” and didn’t get off-planet quickly enough.
Mikk and Roderick clearly tried to save them.
Dammit.
Roderick stops the vehicle, kicking up even more dust. It gets into my mouth and eyes, and as I cough, I hope to hell that the dust doesn’t have any effect on the inner workings of the cart.
Al-Nasir arrives just as I lower the cart. He lowers his as well.
“Mikk, Roderick,” I say, deciding not to greet the other three. “I want you two to pilot the other two carts. We’re heading back to the caves.”
“Have you called for a skip?” Mikk asked.
I shake my head. “We’re going to try something else.”
The third cart lands, then the fourth. One of the other pilots says something.
Al-Nasir translates: “The city vehicles are getting close.”
“Tell them that Mikk and Roderick are piloting. Lentz, Bridge, you’re with me. Ivy, you’re with Mikk.”
“Gee, thanks, Boss,” Mikk says softly.
“Everyone else with Roderick and Fahd,” I say.
Al-Nasir translates for them. My rearrangements still keep one person with a weapon in each vehicle.
Bridge climbs into my cart, Lentz right behind him. Ivy needs to be helped to Mikk’s cart, not because she’s injured, but because the stupid woman is frozen with terror.
The dust cloud is coming closer. We only have a few minutes.
Everyone rearranges.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” I say, making the cart rise. This time, I wait to make sure the others can get off the ground, that the dust hasn’t had an effect on their equipment.
Roderick takes off faster than I realized a cart can go, with Mikk on his heels. Al-Nasir and I will be bringing up the rear this time.
The city vehicle is so close I can hear the thud of its wheels on the ground. Rossetti has turned so that her weapon is pointed at the city vehicle.
Someone in the city vehicle shoots up at us. I hear the shot whiz by. Rossetti is about to answer with her own weapon when I touch her leg and shake my head. Not yet. If we can get out of this without anyone getting hurt, I’ll be happy.
It doesn’t surprise me that the Vaycehnese are shooting. They now see us as hostile, which makes getting off Wyr all the more dangerous.
“What the hell happened?” I snap as we head back up the mountainside. “When you got the evacuation order, you were supposed to drop everything and run.”
“We did,” Bridge said. “Bernadette and I were at the death hole. We couldn’t get back in two hours.”
“And you, Lentz?”
“I was talking to a friend about the problems here on Vaycehn,” he says. “I couldn’t bring my communicator into the meeting. I had no idea until Mikk found me.”
“Risking his life,” I say, and then bite back the rest. Recriminations won’t help.
Mikk and Roderick are good. Their carts are much farther ahead of mine. I stay back just enough to give Al-Nasir cover. More and more city vehicles are coming in our direction.
A small army is heading up this mountainside, and we’re only moments ahead of them.
“Fahd,” I say into my communicator, “tell one of your people to let the captain know we’re coming in hot.”
“Okay,” he replies.
Rossetti seems focused, as if nothing exists but those vehicles below us. She isn’t shooting, but I’m not sure if the vehicles below have shown the same kind of restraint.
I’m pushing this hovercart as fast as I can make it go, but I’m beginning to doubt that “as fast as it can go” is going to be fast enough.
~ * ~
SIXTY-EIGHT
Immediately, he had Dix and Perkins stop interrogating the guides and move them to a rock formation some distance away. Then Coop got his team into position around some of the rises on the mountainside.
He gave the team a simple order: disable the ground vehicles, but not the people in them. He wanted everyone to get out of this with no injuries at best, minor bruises at worst.
The old-fashioned carts were coming in low, and not nearly fast enough. More and more vehicles were joining the chase up the side of the mountain, both on and off the roads.
A few people in those vehicles were standing and firing some kind of weapon at the carts. He couldn’t tell if those were projectile weapons or not, only that the shots didn’t seem to be causing any damage.
He sprawled next to his team, his own weapon out. Then he gave the order to fire.
First they shot up the ground ahead of the land vehicles, hoping that would stop them. But the damn things just bounced over the ruts. So he gave the order to shoot the vehicles themselves.
The carts got closer, and they were full.
That was the biggest problem he could foresee. Those carts were badly built, with technology so old—new? (the idea of that made his brain hurt)— that they might not be able to take the weight of the additional people they’d have to carry.
He hoped those things would get them back into the caves, at least. From there, some of his team could run if they had to.
He counted at least twenty vehicles. He shot two. Four others spun out and blocked the road. The others just went around.
The carts came in low. For a minute, he thought they would just go down into the caves, leaving his team to fend for itself. Instead, they touched down.
He signaled his team to shoot as they hurried toward the carts.
He and Dix came in last, disabling three more vehicles before running to the carts.
Two carts had already gone underground, with four of his people gone. Only he and Dix remained.
One of the carts had a driver he didn’t recognize; the other was the woman they all called Boss.
Coop leapt into her cart, Dix into the other.
She waited for that cart to head into the caves before she followed.
Ground vehicles came up over the mountaintop. Coop and Rossetti shot at them, overturning one and knocking it into another. Three went around.
Coop cursed. He hoped to hell those ground vehicles couldn’t go into the caves. If they could, someone was going to get killed.
And he was going to make sure that if anyone died, it wouldn’t be someone on his team. Or Boss’s team.
He was going to protect them at all costs.
~ * ~
SIXTY-NINE
They’re shooting out of the back of my cart, and I can’t even turn around to see how many people they’re killing. Dammit, this is exactly what I didn’t want. Now the Empire will really have reason to search for us.
If we get out of here at all.
The carts in front of me are wobbling and bucking with the extra weight. I’m not sure we’ll make it all the way to the room. Not that I’m even sure my people will survive the stealth-tech field.
But one thing the captain was right about: there is no way we could have waited for a skip.
We’re the last ones underground, where it’s dimmer and blessedly cool. I hadn’t realized how hot I was until I got out of that sun. Sweat is running off me and I’m a little light-headed.
We duck and weave into corridors. Ahead, I hear someone screaming.
No one has to tell me that it’s Ivy.
“What the hell are we doing, Boss?” Bridge asks.
I can’t glance back. Someone else is shouting ahead. The carts have stopped at what once was the entrance to the stealth-tech field.
I almost crash into them.
Ivy is wailing. Mikk’s cart is blocking the way in. Al-Nasir is arguing with them. I stop behind them.
“You’re going in,” I say.
“We’ll die,” Mikk says.
“They’ve fixed the problem.” I say. “You’ll be fine.”
Even though I don’t know that. None of us know that.
“Go!” the captain says in my language, waving his hand beside me. “Go now!”
“Mikk,” I say, “you’ll have to trust me.”
“I’ve seen what happens in those fields, Boss. I’m not going in.”
“Then you’re going to die out here,” I say. “All of you. Trust me. We’ll be fine.”
“I trust you,” Roderick says, and raises his cart over Mikk’s, driving into the field area before anyone can stop him. He pauses just past the next bend in the corridor.
Death inside a stealth-tech field takes only a few minutes. Roderick sits there, his life the only one at risk, since he has only people from the ship in his vehicle. He grins and whoops.
“We’re going to be fine!” he says.
“Unless they only managed to make the field recede,” Bridge says beside me.
“If you stay here, you risk everything we’ve worked for,” I say.
“I don’t care,” Ivy says from Mikk’s cart. “Let me out! Let me out!”
“I’m fine!” Roderick yells from inside the field—or where the field would have been. “Come on!”
Ivy starts to climb out of her cart. One of the soldiers grabs her and she shakes him off, nearly upending the cart.
Mikk guns the cart, moving it toward Roderick’s as if they’re on a collision course. Ivy screams, and only the soldier keeps her from toppling out of the cart.
So far, so good. They’re alive.
Al-Nasir follows, and I bring up the rear. I think I hear something behind us, although it’s hard to tell with Ivy screaming the way she is.
It only takes a few minutes for the carts to go through the rest of the corridors. One of the soldiers gets out of Roderick’s cart and pulls open the door. The carts can’t go through it.
We stop all in a row.
Roderick peers inside the room.
“Oh, my God,” he says. “It’s a goddamn Dignity Vessel.”
“No kidding,” I say. “Get in there.”
Ivy is still sobbing, but she’s pliable now. The soldier drags her in. My group gets out. Once Ivy’s in the room, I hear the sound of voices behind us.
The captain says something.
“He wants to know if they’re going to follow us in here,” Al-Nasir says.
“Tell him I have no idea. They have maps that show them where the stealth-tech fields are. I’m not sure if they’ll cross those fields.”
So the captain and four of his soldiers indicate that we should go into the room. They bring up the rear.
My people slow down, looking stunned at the room’s size, and at the Dignity Vessel itself.
No one is in the room. Apparently the captain contacted his people. Something whistles in my ear. Both Al-Nasir and I have our hands to our ears, but no one else does.
“What’s that sound?” I ask him.
“They tell me it’s the ship powering up.”
The captain and his team come in. They pull the door closed, then the captain waves his hand at the ship.
I catch his arm and point at the equipment. It’s going to fall into the Empire’s hands.
He nods and points his weapon at it, miming a shot. I’m not sure what he means, but I think I know. He’s going to destroy the equipment.
I hope he’s going to destroy it.
The stairs have come down, and the door into the ship is open. My people are scrambling inside, followed by the soldiers. Al-Nasir and the lieutenant go in. The captain and I are last.
He has his back against mine, his weapon pointed at the exterior door. He’s pushing me inside and guardi
ng me at the same time.
I stumble into the airlock.
He follows.
The door closes.
We’re inside the Dignity Vessel, and it’s about to leave.
~ * ~
SEVENTY
The moment Coop got inside the ship, he started barking orders. First, destroy the equipment inside the room. Second, begin the anacapa sequence and get them the hell out of this room.
Dix was waiting for him, just inside the corridor. “Sensors show a lot of people inside the caves.”
“I figured,” Coop said. “You get anything from those guides?”
Dix was supposed to have been asking them about the history of Vaycehn. “We didn’t have a lot of time.”
The outsiders were milling around, looking at the inside of the ship as if they had never seen one before. All except the woman who had been screaming. She looked almost catatonic, her face blotchy and tear-streaked.
“I know that,” Coop said. “Did they tell you anything?”
Dix gave him a baleful look. “They told me that Vaycehn was the oldest city in the known universe. They told me it was founded more than five thousand years ago.”
Coop’s knees nearly buckled. He had to will himself to remain upright.
The woman hadn’t been lying, then. She had been telling the truth all along.
He turned toward her. She was standing just inside the door, watching her people, looking relieved. She had thought they were going to die, too.
She had taken a hell of a risk.
Slowly she looked over at him, and she said something.
“She wants to watch the ship leave,” the lieutenant said. “She wants to be on the bridge.”
He didn’t give permission. He just looked at the woman, wondering what it took for her to trust him like she had.
“She also wants to know if you can do something to make sure the Vaycehnese won’t be able to use the room.”
“Tell her it’s already under way,” he said.
Then he extended his hand.
“Come,” he said in her language.
She grinned. She was prettier than he realized. Her smile—a real smile— took all the edges out of her face.
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