by K. Makansi
“Remy, you dumb shit, it’s me!” I know that voice. The arms pull back for a second. I look up to see narrow, offended green eyes staring at me through a haze of brown hair. Eli.
“What’s with the warm reception?” I demand, though the guns have been lowered and everyone is looking at us, confused.
“You’re the ones who flew a damn Sector airship here!” Eli shouts, but he’s smiling, almost as if the whole thing is a joke. He grabs me and wraps his arms around me protectively. This time I reciprocate the hug. I allow myself to relax into his arms and take a deep breath, and the exhaustion finally hits me. The feeling of being back among friendly faces is overwhelming. “You okay, little bird?” he asks, and I nod. I try to shake off the shock of almost being attacked by my friends. It’s okay, I tell myself, but when Eli lets me go I find my hand reaching out for Soren’s, a grounding point. He laces his fingers into mine and squeezes.
“Remy!” I hear another familiar voice shout dimly, as though from a great distance, or underwater. I peer past Eli and see my mother and father running up behind him, and in an instant I’m drowning in more bodies. I start shaking, sobs catching in my throat as I am buried in my parents’ embrace. “Oh, Remy, thank the fates you’re alive, we were so worried.” I can hear my mother’s voice more through her rib cage than through the air.
“Tried to send a squad out to rescue you—” my father’s operatic voice is trembling with emotion. I’m suffocating slightly under the weight of the limbs and torsos around me.
“Yeah,” I say, my voice catching in my throat, “But right now I can’t really breathe, so can you stop hugging me for just a second?” They pull back, their faces bright and shining with tears and happiness. I offer them a pathetic, floppy smile, and my father leans over and kisses me on the forehead. He wipes the tears from his cheeks, and I wonder if there’s even a word for the combination of confusion, relief, and fatigue that I’m feeling right now. Soren is embracing Jahnu, Kenzie, and Eli, and Bear is standing at Soren’s side, unsure of his place in the crowd.
With my parents, we break through the ranks of the Resistance soldiers, who stare at us as though we are some sort of returning heroes. Behind me, I can hear Soren introducing Bear to the rest of our friends, and once again I’m glad Soren’s with me so that I don’t have to explain, don’t have to talk. We start to walk down the streets, and I’m so tired I’m stumbling, though my father holds me up and supports me at the elbow. I glance around at the buildings and realize it’s still a few blocks back to the entrance to our base, and the blocks seem to grow and stretch into kilometers of distance. I tremble and cling to my parents’ arms. I glance behind me and realize that the soldiers who were prepared to shoot us just minutes ago have now formed up as a sort of honor guard around us.
A vague humming, as though from a bee buzzing around my ear, suddenly strikes me as wrong, somehow incorrect, and I look up and around for the source of the noise.
“We should go,” I say. What is that noise? The buzzing continues, growing in intensity. “Now.”
The distant hum turns into a much more persistent thrum as airships come into view over the treetops and buildings, and my world explodes into fireworks of blue light. Bolts, firing with abandon around us, from the airships overhead, drown the streets in electricity. I hear a dull thump behind me, the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the pavement. I turn numbly. A man I didn’t know well, whose name I cannot recall, has collapsed on the ground. Soren locks eyes with me and I can tell he’s thinking the same thing that’s blazing through my mind at a thousand kilometers a second.
We brought them here.
“Run!” Soren shouts behind me, and with my parents at my elbows, none of us armed, we need no further urging.
30 - VALE
Winter 2, Sector Annum 106, 21h45
Gregorian Calendar: December 22
I watch as Remy and Soren and a third person I don’t recognize descend from my airship, as Eli hits Remy with a hug and she tries to fight him off. I watch as her parents, Gabriel and Brinn, run up behind her and comfort her and lead her back down the street towards the entrance to the Resistance tunnels. I am confused but thankful—I have no idea how they found my ship, but of all the people who could have hijacked it, better them than an Outsider, or worse, Sector soldiers. The Resistance members around me are celebrating, and even Rhinehouse wears a weary smile. Everyone seems to have forgotten about me. I breathe a sigh and rest up against the wall and watch the homecoming parade through the cameras.
On the display screen I see Remy and her parents look up at the sky, confused. As one of the Resistance members beside them collapses in a flash of blue. I watch, horrified, as Remy and her parents, unarmed, sprint down the street. As Soren and the teenage boy duck into an abandoned building for cover. As Eli, Jahnu, Kenzie, and the armed team members drop to their knees and fire up into the sky at targets that the street-side defensive cameras cannot angle high enough for me to see.
I watch as Remy’s mother, Brinn, takes a shot in the back and falls to the gritty pavement face-first. As Remy opens her mouth in a soundless scream and falls to her knees at her mother’s side.
I am running. I somersault through the halls and come up with my bound hands in front of me. A move I never practiced but somehow intuited through a combination of desperation, guilt, and anger. My combat contacts zero in on a man with a Bolt in his hands, looking confused, as though at a loss for what to do next. I grab the gun from his hands and keep moving.
“Hey!” he shouts at me, but his cry is already echoing through the halls behind me.
I was blindfolded when I came through here but I distantly remember the turns and twists I made with Eli at my side. I do it backwards, cradling the Bolt in my arms like a firstborn child, always choosing the path that leads uphill. I follow the scent of fresh air and miraculously find myself outside in just a few moments. I scan the streets, looking for Remy. “Zoom,” I command, and my contacts zoom in on a group of people two blocks down. I run flat out in their direction, past hulking shells of buildings, abandoned, rusted vehicles, and skyscraping trees that have sprouted in the ruined city. There. My contacts zoom in on Remy’s figure, kneeling next to Brinn’s prone body. REMY ALEXANDER, my contacts say. WANTED – TREASON. Similar names and wanted listings pop up for her father, who is cradling Brinn’s head in his lap. They are prime targets, motionless on the ground. The Resistance team has largely taken defensive cover from the Bolt fire overhead, but Remy and Gabriel are too distracted to seek shelter from the onslaught.
I drop the Bolt and bash my wrists on an automobile door, hanging limp and broken from its hinges. The cuffs around my wrists don’t break, so I do it again, and again with all the strength I can muster. Four, five, six times until the cuffs finally snap and my hands are free, my wrists bleeding from the abrasion. I barely notice. I pick the Bolt up again and sprint to Brinn’s side, whose breaths are shallow and hoarse but audible. I look across her body at Remy and her father, who haven’t quite noticed me yet. Remy is clutching her mother’s hand, her face ashen and tear-streaked.
I sight up into the charcoal skies, past the hulking, decaying buildings above us. My contacts immediately highlight the humming ships in the air, which have passed over us and are preparing for a second assault. A note pops in my vision that identifies the airships: EAGLE 2F. Ships designed for precision and assault. Two soldiers in black helmets emblazoned with the OAC’s wheat-stalk symbol. OAC Security Forces. My mother’s black ops.
They’re here to finish Chan-Yu’s job.
This is my fault.
They must have tracked my Sarus here when Remy and Soren hijacked it. Now they’re swinging back into range, so I don’t have time to waste. Remy and Gabriel are too vulnerable here, out in the open. I bend down to Brinn’s side, whose face is pale and drained as she draws in short, desperate breaths. A metallic stench fills my nose and I look down to see blood pooling around my boots. There is a gaping hole in Brinn’
s back, just barely visible from where I am, and her clothes are torn and soaked with sweat and blood. Remy finally looks up at me now, as though seeing the outside world for the first time since her mother collapsed.
“Vale.” Her voice is so tormented it sounds as though her heart is being ripped physically from her body.
“We have to move,” I say, looking back and forth between Remy and her father, whose face is contorted and full of grief. “You’ll die if you stay here.” The world explodes in blue and I turn my face to the sky. The black ops are back.
“I don’t care,” she whispers, and turns her eyes back to her mother. Her words are sharp enough to flay the skin from my bones. But Gabriel nods at me, acknowledging the truth in my words. Without speaking he moves next to me and puts his arms under his wife’s back and shoulders, lifting her from the ground. Brinn gives me a weak smile.
“Thank you,” she says, so softly I am reading her lips rather than hearing her words. I jog along with them, keeping my Bolt trained at the sky, trying to provide cover as Gabriel carries Brinn into a darkened old storefront whose windows and doors have long since been broken or rotted through. There’s still a part of a roof over it, which is what matters. From the sky, the black ops won’t be able to touch them. Remy follows him into the little old store and watches as Gabriel lays Brinn’s body down on the moldy floor, littered with detritus. She kneels next to her and I turn, guarding the threshold to the building. From there, I watch as the Eagles swing around for another pass.
This time, they’re not using Bolts. I watch as sonic and explosive grenades blossom like flowers in the bleak streets. The sonic grenades are invisible, but I can hear the whump and feel the bursts in my chest like a hollow drum, and I can see the buildings avalanche to the ground. The explosives are much more violent. They leave craters in their wake, and I can tell that the black ops aren’t aiming those at the buildings. They’re trying to blow through the streets into the tunnels below. They know there are more Resistance members underground.
The base is lost. We have to get out of the city before hundreds of people die. I turn back to Remy and her father just in time to see Remy charging at me with her fists forward. I barely have time to throw my Bolt up in self-defense, but she gets her second hand solidly into my rib cage and I stagger back.
“Remy!” I gasp, but she’s coming back for more.
She spins and lands a foot in my chest that would have impressed even my hand-to-hand combat instructor. I stagger backwards, the wind gone from my lungs, but then she grabs a shard of glass off the floor and launches it at me. I drop to my knees to avoid having my throat sliced by flying glass.
“What are you doing?” I sputter. “I didn’t bring them here!” But she’s deaf to my words. Her feral expression never changes. She charges at me again, and I catch her around the legs and knock her to the ground. But she’s kicking at me, at my shoulders and my face, and this fight doesn’t even make sense anymore, it never did, it’s me against a wild animal, cornered and desperate. I cling more tightly to her legs so she can’t get away, and I reach a hand up and pin it around her abdomen. She flings her fists, small but powerful, at me and then suddenly pulls a knee up into my stomach. I groan and roll off of her, but she’s on me in a second, a blade in her hands and at my throat.
But before I can close my eyes and pray that she kills me quickly, she’s gone, standing up, dragged away from me. I look up to find Gabriel pulling her back, pulling her close, whispering something to her that I cannot hear or understand. Words that saved me from the unflinching justice of her hands. I push myself up on my elbows and watch as Remy glares at me, murder in her eyes, but she does not move. I glance up at the table, where Brinn lies motionless.
“I’m sorry.” That’s all I can say. I watch the two of them for a minute before Gabriel nods at me and says simply:
“Go.”
I stand up and grab my Bolt. I watch as Remy and Gabriel turn back to Brinn’s side and kneel over her, like penitent worshipers at an old world temple. I want to mourn with them, to comfort Remy and tell her how sorry I am, but instead I do as Gabriel commanded and stand up and turn away. Outside, the battle is raging. I may be able to redeem myself there. I need to give Remy and her father their peace.
An explosion rattles the frame of the building. I turn on my heel and survey the streets from the threshold of the crumbling storefront. The Resistance is scattered, and there are enormous holes in the pavement where sonar and explosive grenades have fallen. My contacts point out the Resistance fighters around the dark battleground, identifying them and their various crimes against the Sector. The word TREASON pops up above many of them. I can see Eli and Soren from here, but I don’t recognize any other names. The words THEFT AND MURDER hover in red lines above Eli’s head. The Resistance leaders must still be underground. We have to get them out.
The other Resistance members are firing up at the ships, but their Bolts are useless against the Eagles’ shields. The blue electricity flashes harmlessly on the hulls, dissipating across the metal. But I know where the shield generators are. I know the structural deficiencies of every military airship currently in use by the Sector. When General Aulion was quizzing me on the minutiae of the blueprints, I doubt he anticipated that one day I’d use that knowledge not to defend our ships but to shoot them out of the sky. Is he up in one of these ships? Is my mother?
“Ship schematics,” I say and blink twice as my contacts outline the airships in light red lines. I switch the Bolt’s voltage to maximum and sprint from the threshold to another old vehicle, this one upturned in the street. I can use it as a barricade. Looking to the skies, I kneel behind it. I sight up along the line of the Bolt and take careful aim at a small point at the tip of the wing where the shield generators are located. If you hit them at the right angle, you can destroy the circuitry and take out the shields on one side of the ship. I watch carefully and wait for the perfect moment when the wing will dip slightly to the ground and I’ll have a direct shot. I wait. Blue flashes twenty meters from me, and there—the wing dips.
I fire. I hold my breath and wait for my Bolt to recharge. There’s no real way to tell whether I was successful or not. Not until I fire again. The capacitor glows blue, indicating it’s loaded, and I take aim again and squeeze the trigger, this time at the belly of the ship. Orange sparks fly, and I know I’ve done damage. The shields are down—on this side, at least. I fire again and again, as quickly as the Bolt’s capacitor will reload. After four direct hits and one that clipped the tail, the Eagle is smoking and spinning out of control. I watch as black shapes drop out of the ship and realize we have to prepare for a ground assault. As dangerous as they are from the air, the OAC black ops are even more deadly on the ground.
There’s a lull in the explosions. Maybe they’re watching the Eagle go down, wondering who knew where the shields were located and how to take them out.
“Vale!” I hear a voice shouting in the distance. “Valerian, is that you?” I don’t call back. I can’t identify the voice and I don’t want to confirm my identity in case it’s one of the black ops soldiers. I stare dimly into the streets, and my contacts pick up a shape moving at me quickly, keeping to the shadows. The facial recognition software kicks in and identifies Elijah. I hold my gun ready, just in case. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch the airship I shot down spiral and crash into a ruined high-rise in the distance. The sound of the impact of metal on metal squeals through the city, but there is no explosion. The engines must not have been hit.
“Did you just take that ship down?” Eli shouts at me from not ten meters away. He finally comes to a halt next to me, his face streaked with sweat and creased with worry.
“Yeah, that was me,” I respond, but before he can continue, I go on. “There are at least ten men on each of those airships, and I counted seven. No way you have enough soldiers to counter that assault.”
“No,” he agrees, crestfallen. “We’ll have to evacuate the base. How’d
you take the ship down? We might be able to hold them off for a while longer if we can take out a few more.”
“I’ll show you.” I realize that this will be harder for Eli, who doesn’t have the mission contacts I have. I point up to the sky at one of the ships nearest to us, flying out in a wide circle around the city. “See the very tip of the wing, there, where there’s a white light glowing? That’s where the shield generators are. If you hit it with a straight shot, you’ll blow the circuitry. But you have to do it when the wing dips towards you; otherwise your shot will be deflected by the shields. It’s a matter of timing.” I take aim and wait. When the Eagle starts to angle back our way, I pull the trigger.
“How do you know you’ve hit it?” Eli asks.
“You don’t until you take another shot. Try now.”
Eli sights up in to the sky and fires at the ship. When I see the sparks fly, I know my aim was true and the shields are down. Together we fire until the ship stops turning, listing in the sky in a slow descent to the ground.
Eli nods, by way of acknowledgement. He looks at me hesitantly. “They must have tracked that ship Remy and Soren flew here in.” An explosion rocks the ground at our feet, and in the distance I can see the fires leaping from where the Eagle nose-dived into the ground.
“They did,” I respond. “It’s my ship. We abandoned it because they started tracking us. But Remy and Soren couldn’t have known that. Anyway, we’ve got to move. I’m not going to be responsible for any more dead today. Brinn’s gone.” Eli stares at me for a second, and then his eyes harden and narrow. I take a step back. Is he going to jump at me, too? But then he looks away from me, staring up at the hovering airships as the explosions bloom around us. I guess my willingness to shoot down a Sector airship was proof enough that I’m trustworthy. For now.
He is silent. When he speaks again, his voice is low and cold.
“Two of our soldiers are down, too.”