by P. T. Hylton
The sound of a beep from the radarman’s station roused her from her thoughts.
Horace turned to her. “We’re ready to fire.”
She frowned at him. “Then why are we talking about it? The clock is still running on the ear thing.”
Horace turned to the young woman at the weapons station. “Fire! Now!”
She hit a quick sequence of keys. Maryana stared out the large window at the tiny ship to the south. It was far enough away that she couldn’t see any details, but close enough that she could watch it explode. She waited for a long moment, but nothing happened.
“Councilman Horace, please don’t tell me we missed,” she said, her eyes still fixed on the black speck in the distance.
“No, ma’am. I mean, the weapons didn’t fire.” He turned back toward the young woman. “Try again!”
The woman pressed the keys, then shook her head. “I don’t understand. The weapons aren’t responding.
All eyes on the bridge were fixed on Maryana now, watching her in terrified silence.
To her own surprise, she didn’t feel any anger. In fact, she was intrigued. She tilted her head. Was it possible there’d been some sort of sabotage? Were the people of New Haven showing some backbone after all? “Isn’t that interesting.” She crossed the distance between herself and Horace in an instant. “I am going to take that ear, though. Can’t go around breaking promises in front of the crew.”
She grabbed his left ear and tugged it hard, ripping it off in one clean piece. He cried out in pain and surprise, his hand going to the wound.
“Oh, my God!” he shouted. “Oh, my God!”
“Shut up!” Maryana snapped. He instantly fell silent. “Can someone get Engineering on the radio, please?”
She waited in silence as Engineering looked into the problem. Horace crouched in the corner, his hand over his ruined ear, clearly in pain, but unable to scream due to his master’s order. Idly, she wondered if the ear would grow back. There was still so much she didn’t know about these Twisted bodies.
Finally, the man at the radio turned to her. “Engineering says some circuits were destroyed. Whoever did it knew what they were doing. They destroyed specific circuits that powered the primary and backup weapons, but none that powered any essential systems.”
“Uh-huh.” In the distance, she saw that speck of a ship, still floating there, taunting her. “How long to get it repaired?”
There was a long pause as the radioman checked with engineering. “It’s going to take a couple of hours, minimum. It will take time to get replacement parts, and they need to work around some delicate systems to fix it.”
At that news, Maryana felt her first twinge of real anger. She didn’t mind competence from her enemies. In fact, she sort of liked it. A worthy challenge was a rare and beautiful thing. But incompetence from her underlings? That, she could not and would not abide.
She took another look at the ship mocking her in the distance. “Councilman Horace, would you please head down to the Engineering? Oversee their progress and rip out one of their throats every ten minutes until the task is complete.”
Horace immediately stood up and headed for the door.
“Wait,” she said, and he halted in his tracks. “Tell me, who would have the knowledge, the skills, and the sheer balls to deactivate the weapons, knowing the consequences they’d face when I caught them? Who do you think did this?”
Horace didn’t hesitate before answering. “Jessica Bowen.”
Maryana didn’t know the name, but the fact that he’d given it so quickly meant that this woman was worth talking to, and perhaps turning. It would be nice to have a slave with some intelligence, for once. She missed Stephen a little, and it saddened her that she’d had to sacrifice him at the battle of Agartha, but no one was ever going to accuse Stephen of being a Brainiac. “Fine. Send some badges to get Jessica Bowen. Have her brought to me at once.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Councilman Horace answered.
As he left, Maryana scowled. Whatever Jaden was planning, he now had a brief window to pull it off. Maryana glared at the ship in the distance and willed Engineering to hurry.
14
“The city’s over the plains,” George said through the radio.
The sky was a perfect powder blue over Montana. Alex squinted toward the horizon, trying in vain to spot New Haven. She hoped Brian’s plan was sound. If it wasn’t, eighty percent of humanity was about to die.
George’s voice trembled when he spoke again. “I don’t think I can do this.”
Alex and Jaden exchange a glance.
“I know you can do this, George,” Jaden said into the radio. “You helped make Agartha the city it is. Not because of your talents but because of your love for the people. I have seen you care for those around you and watched you sacrifice for them. I know that we are asking everything of you, but you have the strength to help save us all. Your love is what will give you the strength.”
The people in the transport truck waited, the rumble of the engine and the tires along the road the only sounds.
A voice came through the radio a little stronger than before. “I always thought I would die an old man, in my bed in Agartha. Ever since you opened the door for Alex, my life has been pretty messed up. But I’m really glad you saved her, Jaden. I’ve lived in ways that I never would have under that city. Right now, I’m looking down at the Earth and the view is incredible. It is where we belong. Out here in the open, under the sun. I really wish I could be around when everyone gets to enjoy it.”
“Your sacrifice will not be forgotten,” Jaden said. “Every person on earth will owe you a great debt.”
“Just make sure you finish this. I want you all to promise me that this will mean something.”
“I swear it. We will honor you by making the world safe for humans again.”
Alex grabbed the handset from Jaden. “You have our word. The GMT will not let you down. I always knew that you were a badass. Today, you are officially part of the GMT.”
George gave a small laugh. “I know you’re only giving me a spot on the team because I’m about to die, but I’ll take it. It’s been an honor working by your side.” He paused. “New Haven is gaining on me. I guess it’s now or never. Maybe I’ll see you on the other side. Over and out.” There was a click as George shut down the radio.
Guilt washed over Jaden. He had caused so much death in his lifetime. Men that he had sent into battle. Men that he had killed. George was just another in a long chain. The death of his vampires had woken something in him. He could no longer think of death as just another part of a necessary equation. George would cease to exist today, and that mattered.
The door closed with a small thud when Councilman Horace left the room. Maryana looked at the ear she was still holding in her right hand. There was a certain beauty to its pointed tip and its elongated curves. She gently placed the ear on a shelf along the bulkhead, leaning it against one the manuals that stood there. She truly hoped that the Councilman's ear would grow back. If it did, she could make a game out of ripping it off. She envisioned the shelf lined with left ears and smiled.
“The ship is accelerating,” the Twisted manning the radar called out. “Should we go after it?”
Maryana suddenly wished that she hadn’t sent Horace out of the room. “Yes, we are chasing that ship. If it goes faster, keep up. If you lose the ship, yours will be the next ear on that shelf.”
Maryana went back to the window and could just make out a small speck on the horizon. She felt New Haven accelerate and marveled at the engineering of the ship. “You know they built this ship because of me. I always bring out the best in people.”
She glanced at the monitor and saw that they were keeping pace with the small ship. “How fast can we go in this thing?”
The Twisted at the main controls answered. “The ship can reach eleven-hundred fifty knots. I don’t think we have ever tried going that fast before.”
“Let�
�s try it now.” Maryana could feel the ship continuing to accelerate as the Twisted responded to her order. The speck on the horizon started to grow. She hoped that they would be able to ram into it. A red light turned on in the room and several monitors flashed warning signs. “What’s all that about?”
“The ship is diverting power from other systems in order to accelerate at this rate. Everything except essential systems are going offline to divert power to the engines. Should we slow down?”
“Will it do permanent damage to the ship?”
“No, the systems should come back when we stop the power draw.”
“Then keep going.” Maryana could now make out some of the details of the distant ship with her vampire eyes.
Suddenly, the small ship slowed down and made a wide half circle, until it was facing New Haven. The ship accelerated and gained altitude rapidly. A second later, it shot over the top of New Haven, still gaining altitude.
“Do not lose that ship! Get us turned around.” Maryana knew that the mass of New Haven would never turn fast enough to catch it. She moved over to a monitor and watched the radar, steadying herself against a desk as the ship strained to turn. The dot on the radar was quickly moving miles away from them.
New Haven was still decelerating hard as it started to turn. She looked around the room and wanted to kill every person there. She restrained herself, since that would help the ship to escape.
Suddenly, the monitor went blank. Maryana looked around the room and saw that every monitor was blank, and she felt a brief moment of free fall. The others in the room let out panicked screams. Then the ship stabilized. Two red lights turned on in the room, but everything else stayed dark.
“What is happening? You said we would not do permanent damage.” She moved in a flash to the Twisted who was working the controls. She grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off the ground.
“I don’t know,” he said, in a choked voice. “We lost power.”
Maryana tossed him to the ground. “Get the bridge working again. Now.” In the distance, she heard a familiar sound. It was screaming.
She grabbed her radio. “What’s going on out there?” She let go of the button and waited, but no response came. She pushed the button down again but realized that the channel display was dark. She stared at the dead radio in her hand and then looked around the room at the blank monitors.
Maryana threw the radio across the room and it shattered into a thousand pieces. Her muscles were tensed and her sharp teeth stood out as she snarled. She suddenly understood what Jaden had been up to and what that small ship had done.
She walked over to the window and saw the ground slowly getting closer. “What happens if there is a catastrophic power failure on the ship?”
“I have no idea,” the tech said, “but we’re losing altitude.
“Thank you for that brilliant observation.” Maryana thought for a moment. Yes, they were going down, but they weren’t in freefall. She heard the whir of engines. If it had been an EMP, as she suspected, there must be some sort of mechanical backup system providing enough lift to slow their decent.
One of the techs cleared his throat. “Maryana, what do we do?”
Anger flashed inside her at the question, and she sprang forward. She turned her body as she swung her right arm, connecting with the Twisted’s head. A loud crack echoed through the room as his jaw imploded and he fell to the floor. She straddled his torso and punched him in the face again and again, her arms moving so fast that they appeared as twin blurs of motion. After a few moments, hits became dull, wet thuds. Nothing remained of his head.
“You’re supposed to give me answers, not more question.” Maryana stood up, covered in blood and bits of tissue. She pointed to another Twisted. “Take me to Horace. Maybe he has some answers.”
The two walked through the building on the way to Engineering. All around them, people were panicking. A man kept pressing the communication button on a blank panel. He yelled out, “Engineering, do you copy? We have total power failure. Engineering, do you copy? We have total power failure.” He continued to repeat himself into the dead panel as they walked by.
Outside the building, the electric carts that moved through the city had all stopped. Some drivers still sat in them, trying to figure out what was wrong with the vehicles. People were coming out of buildings to see if power and devices were working in other parts of the city. Some people were crying, others were screaming. The city was in chaos.
Maryana stopped and focused her will. She mentally commanded the Twisted to come to her. She needed her army in one place in order to contain this mess.
15
Alex watched in shocked amazement as New Haven fell. They were far enough away—nearly a hundred miles by Jaden’s estimation—that the details of the ship weren’t clear. It was just a speck in the distant sky. But even that was incredible to see.
After the distant explosion to the north, the flash of light faded and the tiny dot that was New Haven began to fall, losing what had to be a thousand feet or more in a few seconds. Then, as the emergency backup systems activated, the ship slowed from freefall to a controlled descent. By the time it disappeared from view, it seemed to be floating.
The team stared in silence for a long while after the city-ship was no longer visible. Every one of them knew they were watching history. The world had changed forever. For Alex, it felt like the ground under her feet had become unstable. All her life, there had been two constants—the surface was dangerous, and New Haven glided safely through the clouds. Now, both of those truths had been flipped upside down. The Ferals no longer ruled the surface, and New Haven’s hull was now resting on the dirt. Though she’d helped conceive the plan, her mind struggled to accept the new reality. It was as if the oceans had suddenly dried up, or the clouds had suddenly begun sprouting trees. The world had once again shifted, in her mind perhaps even more than when she’d released the virus. Humans walking around on the surface was going to be the new normal.
But the surface wasn’t safe yet, was it? It had been their plan to force New Haven down and take away Maryana’s permanent high-ground advantage, but now she would be on the surface, and likely angry. She’d come at humanity hard now; at least, that was Jaden’s prediction. They’d have to stop her quickly, but the plan for how to do that was still a bit shaky.
“I can feel the Twisted leaving,” Jaden said. “They’re heading in the direction of where the ship went down. I imagine they’re drawn by the instinct to protect their master. We’re safe, for the moment.”
“Well, that’s something,” Ed said, his voice distant.
Jaden looked the team over, realizing for the first time how this was hitting them. “I know it must seem unnatural to have New Haven on the ground, but it is not. Believe me, there were plenty who doubted a ship could stay in the air perpetually, without landing to refuel. The woman who proposed the idea almost got laughed out of the room.”
Alex turned to him, surprised. “You were there when they came up with the idea for New Haven?”
“Oh, yes,” he replied. He smiled thinly. “Remember what I told you about New Haven when we met?”
Of course, she remembered. It had blown her mind and provided her with her first real insight into Jaden’s age and the scope of his knowledge. “You told me that you helped build it. I asked you if that meant you were physically holding a wrench. You refused to answer, saying you didn’t trust me enough yet.”
He chuckled. “Now that you’ve obliterated my kind, I suppose I trust you enough. I didn’t physically build the ship, but I was heavily involved in the planning. The project probably never would have gotten off the ground, had humanity not been so desperate, but it was becoming more and more clear that the infestation was not going to be easily stopped. Perhaps I’ll tell you the full tale someday as we sit beside a fireplace, toasting our victory as Maryana’s ashes scatter on the wind.”
“I’d like that,” Alex said. Her eyes were still f
ixed on the distant horizon where New Haven had disappeared.
“For now, I’ll just say the woman who came up with the idea for New Haven and oversaw its development was brilliant. And ultimately flawed.”
“Just like the rest of us, then,” Owl said. “Minus the brilliant part.”
Ed slapped Chuck on the arm. “Remember our first mission? You and Patrick were so scared, leaving New Haven for the first time and heading for the surface.”
Chuck took a step back. “Me and Patrick, huh?”
Ed’s face reddened. “The point is, I felt like I was headed to an alien planet. I had no idea what to expect. Sure, I’d seen the pictures and the video snippets, but I didn’t know how the earth would feel under my feet. How it would smell. Every citizen of New Haven is going through that right now.”
“They’ll adapt,” Frank said, in a soft voice. “Just like my friends and I did. When it first took off. A life in the sky seemed as impossible and unnatural as a life on the surface does to them now.”
Alex tilted her head in surprise. Somehow, she’d forgotten that Frank had been there from the start. He’d been one of the original passengers of New Haven. “What was it like that first day?”
He stared off into the distance for a long moment before answering. “Terrifying. Keep in mind that we were refugees at that point. We’d watched our homes be torn apart, and we’d fled our cities as the infestation spread. Every person aboard that ship had lost almost everyone they knew to vampires.”
The scene came alive in Alex’s mind as she imagined a crowd of forty-thousand people herding aboard this giant ship, trusting their fates to a technology they did not understand. She suddenly couldn’t believe she’d never asked Frank more questions about that time. “How’d they decide who got to go?”