Chapter 24
I see the exit coming and adjust my body, as we all do vertically. Our misfit team walks out the other side of the Rift easily, as if we were walking from one room to another. The moment my feet touch the ground I whip around to Ezra.
“Now, Ryn,” he starts, talking fast, his hands up, palms out. “I know you’re pissed, but I just couldn’t stay back there. I’m part of this team. I can be useful and you need to see that.”
I want to punch him so bad my fists are practically aching. Instead I just say, “You’re a fucking moron.”
“Hey, I am a lot of things, but I am not stupid. You’re going to see that. You’re going to see that not every problem can be solved at the end of a gun.”
I dig my nails into my palm. I push them in so deep I puncture the skin. “I know that. We all know that,” I swing my arm around, gesturing to the rest of the crew. “I get that you have some weird need to prove something to me. But I would never just walk into your computer lab and start pressing buttons. I respect you too much to try to act like I belong there as much as you do. As if being smart earned me that right. But here you are thinking just that. This is my house, Ezra, and I told you to stay outside.”
“Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one,” he says dismissively as he throws off his sweater and pants, revealing a Karekin uniform complete with two guns strapped to his thighs. “And I’m here, so get over it.”
“I thought you said not every problem can be solved at the end of a gun,” I tell him sarcastically as I look at his weapons.
“These are more like phasers, really, than guns—they shoot laser beams. Well, you know, they issued you the same ones, didn’t they?” Ezra pushes a button on his forearm and I hear a little hiss and then watch as the hard shell on the back of his uniform swings around almost to the front. It’s like a backpack of sorts, or, I guess storage compartment would be more accurate. Ezra stuffs his clothes inside. “I really am sorry,” he says to me genuinely as the molded backpack swings around and attaches to his back again. “I’m not trying to be a dick or disrespectful, but I had to do what I felt was right, what I felt was best for me. I am not trying to prove anything to you. This is my fight, just as much as it is yours.”
I could almost laugh. Only someone who’s never actually been in a fight for his life would say something so incredibly dumb. I’ve got half a mind to drug the guy and tie him up so he can’t get in my way, but that might be even more of a disaster.
“You have no idea what you’ve done. The danger you’ve put us in.” A tiny hint of a smile begins to form on his lips, but as he looks at the rest of the team, the smile disappears. One of these things is not like the others: His fantasy, his macho musings, where he imagines himself as some kind of hero, are catching up to the reality of the situation. He thinks he’s Han Solo. He’s only just getting, at this very moment, that Han Solo, while iconically cool, was also lightsabered. To death.
I glance over at Levi. His face betrays nothing. I’m sure he’s just as pissed as I am, but he can be detached. He probably doesn’t care one way or the other if Ezra gets himself killed. The Karekins don’t speak English, but they understand well enough that Ezra is not supposed to be here.
“Just try to keep up. Don’t do anything unless I tell you to, and most importantly, if it comes down to a fight, you run. One of us will track you down later. And if we don’t, it means we’re dead and if we’re dead, that means you’ll be dead soon, too. Got it?”
“Yeah, okay,” Ezra says softly. I don’t know what he expects. Does he think I’m the same girl who had her legs wrapped around him a few hours ago? That girl isn’t here. There is no girl here. There is only a soldier, a soldier who doesn’t like surprises or planning for a potentially lethal contingency that would be totally unnecessary if Ezra had just listened to me in the first place.
“Great. Let’s move out.” Levi and I take point. The outcropping of trees that we saw in the overhead images are exactly where we thought they would be. Levi and I signal for the rest of the team to walk into them and take cover. We open our packs and release our drones. I pull out my laptop and everyone eyes the slender, silver machine in the air with wonder. I get it. I mean, it’s mine, but I have no clue as to how the thing actually flies, either.
It doesn’t take long for images to start popping up on the screen. It’s clear right away that Iathan’s intel was correct. The Spiradaels do things much differently than we do back home. The Rift is the same constant tower of green, but the other Citadels are not hiding. They are standing at attention in front of it. The column is ten deep and twenty across. Two hundred men. That’s not a number we can fight and beat.
The drone continues to gather intel, finding reserves farther back—hundreds of them.
Shit.
I watch as their Rift opens on the monitor. Even from this distance I can feel the same familiar tug and hear the sound—the sonic boom and harmonic resonance is just a whisper of a song, but still it’s there. The black at the center of the Rift deepens and widens until the entire thing is one inky patch of darkness in the middle of the trees that are as bony and thin as the Spiradaels themselves.
Eight people come tumbling out. Eight normal humans who look like they were on their way to work. One is a young woman, not a child but a girl about my brother’s age. Without a moment’s hesitation, without an attempt to take them away, much less any kind of warning, the first column of Spiradaels pick up their rifles, aim, and open fire. The eight Immigrants are pummeled with live rounds. The entire process takes ten seconds. They fall in a bloody heap to the dusty ground below.
I bring my hands to my face in horror.
“Oh my God,” I whisper to no one in particular. We are all just standing there, huddled around the laptop in disbelief. We’re supposed to align ourselves with these people? These murderers? I can’t even begin to imagine it. “This may be a lost cause. Our best recourse might be to return to the Roone Earth, get some big-ass bombs, and burn this place to the ground,” I say out loud.
“If this is some kind of vote, then Ryn has mine on this one,” Ezra chimes in.
The Karekins remain silent, though Vlock looks visibly distressed. Levi is crouched down. He has one muscled forearm dug into the earth and the other is resting on his knee, the cuff close to his mouth. “Just wait,” he tells us. I shake my head but continue to watch. The Spiradaels who shot the innocent Immigrants step out of formation. They pick the dead up by the arms and legs, as if they are nothing but roadkill, and drag the bodies about a hundred feet to a floating platform, some kind of hover-board cart. My nose twitches. These assholes get cool flying shit? How is that in any way fair? My shock is quickly turning to white-hot anger. It’s getting difficult to sit still.
“Drone 1, follow the Spiradael with the bodies. Drone 2, stay above the Rift,” Levi commands his cuff. We watch as the computer split-screens the action. The Spiradael column takes a step forward so that the second row is now the first row. In short order, Citadels from the reserves join the troops at the back.
Meanwhile, we watch the twenty who walked away. They are escorting the floating morgue table through the forest. I notice that there are no birds here, no other kind of wildlife at all. Nature knows when to stay away. They are taking a path that winds around to the west of the Rift, back toward their base. I know what Levi is doing. He’s seeing if the killers are passing by or through the reserves. They aren’t. The Spiradaels are on a well-worn path, more of a road. The backup Citadels are hiding, cloistered among the brush and rocky outcrops well away from the ones on their way back to base. Some are in foxholes, but there are no nests. The freaky Tim Burton–like trees don’t look like they could support the weight of one. It takes the Spiradaels about five minutes at their quick clip to make it back to their headquarters.
The drone zooms out. Their base of operations is a series of tall, thin, ivory buildings. As slender as matchsticks cut to varying lengths, the tops of ea
ch one end in a surprising flourish, like the swirl of an ice-cream cone. It’s such a big compound, and my guess is that there is no basement or bunker. Strategically, it’s a stupid choice. A military installation should be intimidating, not impressive. This tells me something, too. The Spiradaels are arrogant. One side of my mouth curls into the tiniest of smiles. That’s the first good news I’ve managed to glean since we got here. When an opponent’s ego comes first, they’re much weaker.
“It’s not a lot of time, but we could take the next unit that leaves the Rift,” Levi tells us. It’s not really a suggestion. I go to translate to Vlock, but Levi interrupts me and speaks in Roonish himself. I knew it. He did learn the language last night. Vlock says that he was about to suggest the same thing, and I find I’m relieved. I wasn’t sure that we would be able to get past our history with the Karekins, but this is working out fine. We’ll need this kind of cohesion if we want the next part of this mission to succeed.
“There are twenty of them and eight of us,” Ezra says slowly.
“Yeah,” Levi responds as he stands up and stretches out his neck. “And if your intel is correct, then we’ll be fine. Shit. If it came right down to it, Ryn and I could probably take out those twenty on our own.” He shrugs. “Maybe.”
“So we just wait for them to kill more people? That’s your great plan? We just stand by and let them execute whatever comes out of the Rift next and count ourselves lucky that we have an opening?” Ezra is getting more agitated as he speaks. He begins to pace.
Ezra is so ignorant when it comes to combat theater that he doesn’t understand there can be only one leader. On this mission, that leader is me and I’ve already warned him. He’s distracting me and he truly doesn’t get how dangerous that is. “Ezra, I told you to keep your mouth shut. And stop moving around.”
“But—” he starts to speak.
“But nothing. You see, we have to fight some of them so we don’t have to fight all of them. Thousands of them.”
“I know you think I’m an idiot about battle strategy, but I’m not completely clueless,” Ezra says. “The strike force was your idea. We could have brought hundreds of troops with us. Karekin troops. We could have even Rifted to Battle Ground and grabbed a bunch of our own Citadels. We could have taken out all these skinny fucks today. We could have ended this. So whoever they murder next, that blood is on your hands.”
I hold my ground even though Ezra’s words sting. Levi grits his teeth, his jaw clamps. Ezra might not be aware of how badly he’s just insulted me, but Levi is, and his body language is making it quite clear he doesn’t like it.
“That statement right there just proved how clueless you are,” I hiss at him. “Go to Battle Ground? Really? Just let the altered Roones know how much we know? I understand what we saw from the drones was downright disgusting, but welcome, Ezra, this is war. Fun, right? Glad you came? Capturing a Spiradael Citadel might save countless lives down the road, but we might have to kill to do it, so that’s the devil’s bargain. There’s no winning today. It’s not like we’re high-fiving each other and whipping our dicks out. All of this would be happening whether we were here or not, so seriously, shut. The. Fuck. Up.”
“I love how you just go straight for ‘the ends justify the means’ routine. Do you even hear yourself sometimes? You get that you don’t really sound much different from Edo, right?”
I open my mouth to protest, but before I can manage a single word, Levi leaps toward Ezra. In a microsecond he takes one of Ezra’s guns from the holster, grabs the front of his uniform, putting his forearm across his neck, and shoves the gun squarely under Ezra’s chin.
“Now you listen to me, you whiny douche,” Levi growls, and a part of me wants to intervene, but another, more sensible part of me hangs back. I’m tired of justifying myself and my actions. For whatever reason I can’t fathom, Ezra just won’t listen to me. I’ve tried reason. I’ve used my super-hard-core bitch voice (which I really dislike using), too. If we’re going to get out of here alive, then clearly, Ezra needs to be scared into submission.
And Levi’s got to be the one to do it.
“You think we’re on campus, college boy? You think this is part of your ethics seminar where you can debate and philosophize and ponder the use of force? You’re in the shit, man. One wrong move and you’re dead. I’d honestly kill you myself, and trust me, there’s a case for it, if it wasn’t for Ryn.”
Vlock does not look happy. He takes one giant step toward both of them.
Levi ignores Vlock’s movements, though, and calmly continues, his voice intimidatingly throaty. “Look how fast I got the drop on you. You can’t fight. You’re nothing but a liability and now you want to make everything ten times harder by guilt-tripping Ryn? Look around you. Look at these fucking trees and the color of the dirt on this Earth. Death lives here, man, and it’s on the prowl. If you don’t want it to come for you, then do as our commanding officer says and shut your damn mouth before I shut it for you. Permanently.” With that, Levi gives him a good shove, though to Ezra’s credit, he stays on his feet. I hate that it’s come to this, but I also hate that Ezra is basically calling me a coldhearted murdering bitch. I’m kinda Team Levi on this one.
“Both of you humans,” Vlock says with icy authority. Ezra of course won’t be able to understand him, but his tone is clear enough. “I was under the impression you were soldiers. This is a mission. Whatever is happening between you all is not part of the mission. Ryn, get your men under control. Immediately.”
Of course Vlock is absolutely right and I am momentarily ashamed that as the leader here, a Karekin needed to intervene. I need to do better. Right now.
“Please tell me that I don’t have to translate that,” I say in Ezra’s direction. “We need to put everything else away and focus. No more.” I stare down both of them. Ezra doesn’t know any better, but Levi and I certainly do. As if reading my mind, Levi gives me a curt nod.
“Fine,” Ezra says sharply. But instead of backing off, he steps up and snatches his gun back from Levi. There isn’t any point in checking his bravado. He’s clueless. “I’ll leave the soldiering to you, but don’t for one minute,” Ezra says as he points a finger in Levi’s face, “tell me that I don’t deserve to have an opinion about watching a bunch of innocent people being gunned down. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t at least try to prevent that.”
“Fine. Duly noted. You object for an ethical reason, but that is all you can do—object. So stay out of our way,” I warn, because pretending that he isn’t even here is probably the best chance we have of getting through this. I walk back over to the open laptop and sit on the ground in front of it. Levi and Ezra sit on either side of me and the Karekins remain standing.
“Doe. Identify the next species that Rifts through as soon as you can,” I tell the cuff.
“Why are talking to your bracelet? Wait,” Ezra says as he looks at Levi’s wrist, “why do you guys have matching bracelets?”
“And why did you just call our operating system Doe?” Levi asks. “I mean, I get it. I can’t say I haven’t asked ‘What would Tim Riggins do’ more than a few times myself, but is this taking it too far maybe?”
I don’t even bother to answer. Either one of them.
Boys.
I drag my thoughts back to the mission. I focus on where we are and what we’ve just seen and combine it with the intel we have. When I think about that slaughter, there’s no room in my mind for anything else. There is no logic to this. The altered Roones control the Rifts. This is the second-oldest Citadel species. No one coming through here is doing so randomly. There’s only one reason to pull innocent people through only to have them gunned down in an instant.
Control.
These Citadels kill without question or hesitation. I can’t imagine a lie big enough to justify that. So now, I have to assume, there is no lie. There are only orders. Kill everyone. The altered Roones have scared, drugged, and brainwashed the Spiradaels
out of any sense of conscience. I don’t know if we can undo that. And even if we could, would there be any semblance of reason left?
And the most terrifying part?
They could do this to us.
I’m so glad I’m recording this on our SenMach computer. The troops back home need to see this. They need to see these Citadels, wearing the same patch as we are, just open fire on innocent civilians. Maybe that will stop a civil war. Vlock and his men could help on that front, too. This is the mission. We cannot end up like these soldiers.
I run strategies for disseminating this information to all the other Citadels, on all the other Earths. There are so many variables, I still can’t see through to a real solution. We need time. We need allies, but more than that, if we want to win, we have to know why. What could the altered Roones want so badly that they would make the Spiradaels do this? It can’t just be to have their own Earth back. That kind of thinking is too small considering the scope of this. There has to be more. What could be motivating this kind of absolute disregard for the sanctity of life? Power? Wealth? Land? Religion? I shake my head at those concepts—what motivates humans doesn’t necessarily motivate the altered Roones. And then it hits me: It’s science with them. It’s genetics and playing God. But how does that fit? With this? I mull it all over in my head until the Rift opens again. This time, it’s only five Immigrants. I stare at the screen and squint my eyes.
“Wait . . .”
Doe’s voice comes through softly. “Immigrant species, Roonish.”
“He followed you here?” Levi says with clear annoyance, not letting it go. I sigh loudly enough to let him know that I’m not about to answer such a stupid question. The Roones huddle together, four males and one female. They are asking the Spiradaels what is going on, afraid and near hysteria. The Spiradael Citadels lower their rifles.
“What are they doing? They aren’t going to shoot them?” Ezra asks in confusion.
“They’re swapping out their ammo,” Levi answers as he stares harder at the laptop screen.
The Rift Frequency Page 30