“It would be nice to sit and listen. They sound so … I don’t know, like they’re honoring something. Or someone.”
“A lot of time that’s what they’re used for.”
She wanted to sit and listen too. Wander over to the square and just … listen.
But they were hurrying for a reason.
As they walked, the bagpipes fading, she thought back to the day before, when Zac and the guys found her in the tree. After the difficulty of those initial moments she’d talked them into a drive; an afternoon of “fun”, some mudding in the Jeep, her at the wheel; tense at first, charging down gulleys and bouncing over grassy hills in the rugged Wrangler, everyone loosening up, mostly, forgetting for the moment what they’d seen, caught up in the fun, joking, teasing her about her crazy driving, teasing each other, laughing and holding on for dear life as she got more and more reckless—even a few bona fide Dukes of Hazzard jumps, or what surely felt like—purposely creating as big a distraction as she could …
Unfortunately it did little to make her any more real in their eyes. After all was done and the day was over the truth was still there. She’d changed for them, and things weren’t going back to the way they were. It wasn’t that Heath and the guys looked at her like she was an alien or something, but the fact was … she kind of was. Thankfully none of them said anything to anyone else. So far no rumors had been leaked. “Jess is a freak!” had not become the buzz in the safe house.
She appreciated their discretion.
She and Zac reached the back of the pub and headed in.
“I love the smells in here,” he commented as they passed through the back screen door and into the kitchen work area, the smell of fried food, old food, garbage and about a dozen other savory and not-so-savory odors hitting all at once. The combined effect was an alternating scent of both the yummy and the rank.
“The good smells, anyway,” he clarified with a little wrinkle of his nose.
A short walk past the wondrous enchantments of the kitchen and down the long hall and they were entering the confines of the safe house. An amazingly easy, unchallenged step into another world, the seat of the human resistance, the only thing standing in their way the nods of a few kitchen staff as they passed.
Inside the safe house was more electric than usual.
“We’re good on that one,” Drake was saying above the din, speaking over the heads of others to a tech across the way. He saw Jess and Zac enter and waved them over. He’d called them in—they were responding to his summons—and now that they were here Jess realized this was probably it. The precise start-time for their joint missions had never been defined, remaining only a vague “soon”, and now it looked like the time had come. Voices were flying back and forth across the room.
“We’re on,” Drake confirmed as they joined him and, though Jess had seen it coming, a shot of ice gripped her.
Here we go.
Drake was in motion, moving around the other side of the planning table and looking at information in all directions. She and Zac followed. As Drake went he issued orders, asked for information and generally moved from person to person, commanding the room. The whole pace was alight with action, intensity.
“Do you have transport for me?” Jess asked between shouts. Willet came over. He’d been cramming with Fang to fly the Kel ship, learning what Fang could help with at the controls, the teams had been briefed, maps and equipment and communications protocols and contingencies and on and on.
They were ready.
Drake motioned Jess to stick with him. “We do,” he nodded. “You’re next.” He took she and Zac over to the table where Fang and Bobby sat.
“Guys,” he said. “Hook her up.”
“What’s our timetable?” asked Zac. He was looking as suddenly on-edge as Jess; all his fears of leaving her, things he’d been reasoning away, keeping in check or managing to forget altogether now rushing to the fore. She could see the desperate flicker in his eyes.
Even as she felt it in her own.
“She goes tonight,” said Drake. “We roll tomorrow,” he turned away, back to the fray of activity, looking for his next objective.
Zac looked down into Jessica’s upturned face.
“We got word,” said Fang, drawing their attention to him, “unconfirmed, that the Kel queen may be taking prisoners back to Kel for a ceremony.”
Jess thought immediately of Satori. Their objective.
Their friend.
Fang was pulling up everything that had been prepared. “We need to move. She could be one of them.”
As Jessica’s heart rate skipped—this is it!—she began at the same time to feel a sense of conviction. Much of what she did depended on others, and she’d been stuck in the lull with everyone else and, though she was still within her original window, too much time had passed and, all at once, she experienced the push of impatience she’d been keeping idle.
Afraid or not—and she’d known she would be afraid when this moment came—she was ready.
Fang addressed her. “The Bok are holed up in their Hong Kong building. Lorenzo and most of the key members, the ones the Kel installed as leaders. Can’t say how long that will last, but they’re there now.”
Jess took a deep breath.
“So I’m off to Hong Kong.”
Fang reached behind him to the table and slid over a small collection of items.
“This is—”
“Where’s Zac?!” a singular voice cut the din, rising above the chatter. Jess snapped her attention to the entrance.
What the—?!
It was Pete.
“Zac!” he yelled, “Buddy!” managing to get everyone looking at him, as only Pete could. Steve stood embarrassedly near him at the entry, trailing as they arrived. Pete was grinning and holding up a multi-barreled, absolutely badass …
“Looky what we found!”
Gatling gun.
Pete started walking over, humping the large weapon. “It’s a gat!” he enthused. “A chain gun! Minigun. Call it what you want.” People moved aside, trying to get back to what they were doing but mostly unable to keep their eyes from the enormous weapon; a veritable pop-culture icon, from movies and video games, right there in real life. The arrival of loud Pete and the iconic gun only added to the energy in the room.
“Kinetic death!” he walked up to Zac, lugging it. Beside him Steve carried a giant bag of what were probably belts of bullets, also clearly heavy. Pete glanced at the bag. “Armor-piercing, uranium-tipped. Got the best rounds for you, buddy. I don’t care what those Kel assholes are wearing this shit will cut them down like fresh grass!” Then, a rebel yell: “Yeeee ha!”
Pete was a certified kook.
He shrugged off the strap and handed the heavy gun to Zac.
Zac reached for it with a “for me?” look on his face, but took the gun gingerly and held it. Whereas Pete showed its weight Zac held it as if he held nothing. He turned it over carefully, keeping the barrel pointed over everyone’s heads.
Steve was looking defeated. “I tried to talk him out of it.”
Pete ignored him. He held his arm out straight in front of him. “Hold it like this,” he said to Zac. “Like a pistol.” He made a pistol shape with his hand.
Zac looked at the grips, clearly intended to be held at the side—or mounted, not held at all.
“Is that the way—”
“Just try it,” Pete insisted. “I want to see what it looks like.”
Pete just had too much fun seeing what Zac could do. Probably everyone else wanted to see too, but only Pete was zany enough to actually ask.
Zac flipped the enormous gun, probably an easy eighty pounds, grabbed the grip in one hand, like a pistol, as Pete indicated, stood with his legs shoulder width apart and held it straight all the way out to the side, sighting down the top. Like pointing a Glock or something. At the end of his long arm the giant gun stuck out another three feet, the barrels way out in space.
It looke
d comically impossible. And, Jess had to admit, pretty frickin cool.
“Hell yeah!” Pete slapped his hip and looked around to make sure everyone was seeing this. By now everyone was. Pete was just too loud, too ridiculous, and what he was doing was just too interesting and now the whole room had taken a break to witness the spectacle.
“We gonna waste us some Kel!” He was grinning like a maniac.
Zac, in turn, stood like a giant statue, legs spread, multi-barrel gatling gun sticking out from his arm and shoulder at a right angle to his body, the entire stretch of arm and gun as long as he was tall.
“How you like it?” Pete asked.
Zac held the position. “I like it.”
Pete patted Zac’s shoulder and Zac lowered the gun, still holding it like a pistol, hanging at his side.
“I said I was gonna find a gun worthy of my buddy,” said Pete. “He’s the only one ain’t got a gun, I said, and I’m gonna fix it. So here you go.”
Zac thanked him, appreciating what Pete had done—even if a gun was something he’d never need and, in fact, would probably be completely unnecessary, maybe even a distraction. Others nearby were now checking out the gun, Pete was happy and Zac was too and Jess was swept away in one of those momentary emotions, a surge that overwhelmed her with the stark contrasts in play. The fun they were having, such a poignant degree of humanity even at a time like this, and it was, all of it, one way or another, a direct result of her. Going all the way back to her days as a Kel priestess. Back then she tried to make the Codes known, which met resistance and, as she kept up her effort, led to war and the multi-world dark ages that brought an entire empire to ruin. How different would the Earth have been if she never did what she did? If she just shut up way back then and kept to herself? The idea that one, single person, could have had that mind-bending degree of impact on the current existence of so many—literally, how many would not even have been born had she done things differently? How many others would have? It hurt her head all of a sudden to think of it. Talk about an alternate history. What if she’d just stayed silent back then? Never did what she did that started the Wars? Never came to Earth. If the Wars never happened …
Would the Earth have been found? Back then, by the Kel?
Would Earth already be no more than a Kel colony?
And once again she hoped desperately they all lived. Everyone in that room, laughing at Pete’s antics, frantically busy just a moment before but losing themselves, if only for a few minutes, in the unexpected frivolity he brought. All their lives so precariously on the line.
Fang was bringing things back to center.
“This is your radio,” he continued what he’d been about to show her before the interruption, handing her the radio. Jess took the little electronic device. “Standard gear,” said Fang. “Encrypted, etcetera. We’ll be grabbing its channel, but it could also give you away. Use it sparingly.” The rest of the room was re-engaging, people getting back to what they were doing as the din of voices rose once more. There was simply too much going on to linger long on the comedy routine at center stage. Pete and Steve came closer, listening to what Fang was telling Jess. Zac too.
“We’re going to do everything we can to support you,” Bobby assured her.
Fang maintained his realistic assessment of things. “We’ve got info that can help get you in, but once you’re in there you’re just one against however many. We can’t help.”
Jess nodded. “I know.”
“I still don’t understand how you expect to do this. Even with my help. I can turn off alarms or block video feeds, but there will still be a ton of physical barriers to get through. So I blot you out. So I turn off the alarms. It’s still a skyscraper, with guards and all else. It’s not just electronics you have to worry about. Traditional detection and force resistance, against bodies or machines or explosive breach. The very real problem of either scaling the height or getting up there at all.” He made himself stop before he sounded too negative.
It was a little late for that.
But Jess knew the pressure they were under. Especially Fang. Of everyone there so much of this operation—hers and the other at the refinery—was on him. Other people had helped, would help, but ultimately all the trickery they would need to pull off these impossible long shots depended utterly on him. Not only that, the Holy Grail, the whole reason they were doing any of this in the first place—the Trojan—was Fang as well.
She knew his pain.
What Fang didn’t know, of course, was that she was something far more than she appeared. She’d already reviewed the data he gave her on the Bok penthouse, looking for places to exploit security measures designed to inhibit the average person, to get in using her abilities. In her mind she already had things mostly mapped out.
“I’m sorry,” Fang truly was apologetic—and couldn’t ignore what he was thinking. “I just don’t see how you’re going to do any of this alone.”
It was at that point she noticed Pete and Steve staring, glancing at each other. They knew how she was going to do it. Or at least they had a pretty good idea. Once again she appreciated their discretion.
Drake was back, coming up to their little gathering amid the hustle.
“All set?” he wanted to know.
Jess was ready.
The entry door opened and in came Cooper, followed by his SAS team. Last Jess knew they’d been at the rally point checking the equipment, prepping the civilian militia that would form the backbone of the operation. They were received readily into the crowd and began to merge. Willet stayed close. Drake was moving again, Pete had found a new point of interest, heading off into the crowd, Steve began talking technical with Fang and Bobby, and Jess found herself standing awkwardly with Zac and Willet with nothing much to say. Heath walked up.
“Guess this is it,” he said in his smooth Southern drawl. Idle talk, but it started a conversation and Jess was grateful for it.
“The militia ready?” she asked.
Heath nodded. “We’ve got enough juice to blow up a small town. Should be quite a show.”
“Shouldn’t be any trouble drawing down the Kel,” said Willet. “I just hope they don’t send too many.”
“I’ll take care of them if they do.” Zac held the gatling gun to the side. He mustered a little lost humor and gave a lopsided grin. “I’ve got a gun now.” Then, mimicking Pete: “Gonna waste me some Kel.”
The group chuckled; especially Heath, who appreciated Zac’s impersonation. Heath seemed to get an idea. “I brought something,” he looked at Jess, then dug in one of his shirt pockets. “Here,” he pulled a cigar and handed it to her. “For when you’re done.” She took it. “I’ve got everyone else’s,” he said. “Figured I better give you yours now. After we start we won’t see each other till it’s over.” He didn’t say “ever”, but that sentiment was floating heavy in the air.
Steve called for Heath from across the room and he excused himself and went. Willet had unfinished business with Cooper and went off to join him and his operatives. When they were gone Zac and Jess stood alone in the crowded room, motionless amid the organized chaos. Jess pocketed the cigar.
“This is what we were fighting for back then,” said Zac, watching everyone intently from their tiny bubble of privacy. “Freedom.”
Jess nodded. Feeling a weight of solitude between them, quite real though they were surrounded by bodies in motion. The moment was now, time to go, and she’d been expecting it and so had he but it still managed to seem sudden.
Then he was looking directly into her eyes. Not touching, yet piercing her with a vision that held an embrace every bit as real as if he held her in his arms.
C
HAPTER 27: THE REFINERY
Peterson was living in a hole.
Some of the rest of his little group ventured out now and again, he rarely. Life went on out there in the world, but it was a sad life, and any risk of him being found or exposed needed to be minimized. He was once a fairly public figure, especially in these areas. His little cell had never strayed far from DC, and in fact, where many of the other global resistance cells had moved, some many times, once settled in this location he and his key commanders had remained.
So far there were no indications that their secret hideout was on the Kel radar. DC was an active city, lots going on, even after everything, and the Kel, overwhelmed with the scale of human activity, had continued their policy of macro-observance. Keeping an eye on the big things, watching the ant hill from afar, looking for specific triggers on which to act, and Peterson’s group had been quite adept at identifying those triggers and working to eliminate exposure.
He looked around his austere little office, his “hole”, a few personalized items here and there managing to make it a touch more human.
It all seemed like such an incredible longshot. Everything they were about to do. Halfway around the globe Drake and his team were about to launch two impossible operations. Like kids with their toys, trying to put one over on the grownups and take back the house. And the reality was, even if it worked, this was only a single step. The placement of a lever that would, if it lived up to its promise, give them a way to do more.
True victory was still far away.
**
Jess moved from deeper shadows into the faded neon of a few signs, their multi-colored light coming from the far-end of the rain-slicked alley. She wore a dark poncho that covered her sword and armor, hood pulled forward to conceal her face. Rain ran off the slick material in tiny rivulets, a steady drizzle falling from the night sky. Before leaving the last handoff point she’d donned the poncho, more to cover the armor than to keep away the rain, but with the rain it made the poncho that much more believable. One more layer of concealment on this dangerous night.
Star Angel: Prophecy Page 34