by Karen Bao
Wes pulls his own knife out of a fifth soldier’s back and stands by my side. “Let Alex deal with them.”
Cressida and her sidekick rush Alex from both sides. He takes two steps, holding the pole out in front of him, and then vaults upward so that he’s balanced on one end of it, two meters off the ground. His opponents collide with each other and bounce back, stumbling.
Holding the pole horizontally, Alex falls. Landing, he twists so that one end of the pole throws Cressida’s underling over the balcony. The other knocks Cressida into the wall. She slumps against it, legs lying limp. Wes slaps cuffs around her ankles and wrists.
When Wes straightens, he’s holding the glass truncheon that was once attached to her belt.
Finding herself alone and surrounded, Cressida raises her visor and spits at Wes’s feet. Her violet eyes exude disdain.
So I raise my visor too and step in front of her.
“Use this. She deserves it.” Wes hands me Cressida’s truncheon, and I put my dagger back in my boot. The same weapon with which she beat Mom and Anka, a year apart, for her own amusement.
“Still looking for Mommy?” Cressida says to me. She struggles once, twice against her bonds.
I give her my signature silence. She’s unworthy of words, or of my brutality. With my left hand, I draw my tranquilizer gun and shoot a Downer between her mocking violet eyes.
* * *
I know we’ve ducked into the right ventilation tunnel when another alarm starts to screech. Single file, we crawl forward as fast as we can. The gravity settings, thankfully, remain normal. Behind me, Alex has put his helmet back on to block the noise. In case of a head-on assault, I carry Cressida’s ballistic shield. It was barely narrow enough to fit into the tunnel. Wes brings up the rear with a second stolen shield.
As we make our way forward, passing grate after grate without meeting any obstructions, a familiar doubt takes seed in my mind. This is too easy. The Committee knows that two elite spies and a former captain are heading toward them, yet they only stationed one of their top personnel in our path. Cressida is an able fighter, but the privates she led were as green as Umbriel and Ariel. Did they spread their troops over every possible route to their stronghold? They didn’t know we’d come through the vents.
“Hold on!” Wes hisses from the rear.
I stop moving. The sudden halt makes me dizzy—and that’s when the sound of vomiting hits my ear.
“Alex?” I whisper.
Alex’s chin hovers just centimeters above the floor. His chest heaves. “Keep crawling, Dove Girl, it’s not a big deal.” He retches again.
“It is.” Wes rests his head against the side of the tunnel. “I’m also going to lose my breakfast soon.”
“Something’s not right.” I crawl ever faster. But my limbs feel heavy, almost as heavy as they did under the altered gravity settings.
“Let’s get out.” For once, Alex’s voice is urgent. Not languid. He stops crawling at the grate I’ve passed and takes out his Lazy.
“Beaters out there,” I point out.
“Carbon monoxide in here.” Alex fires a continuous laser at the grate’s edges, making it glow orange. “New Kingstown”—his home before he emigrated to Saint Oda—“ran on Pacifian coal. Fumes it gives off don’t smell like anything, but they’ll suffocate you all the same. I know what CO poisoning feels like.”
An orange rectangle gleams at the edges of the grate. Alex kicks it outward and tosses a lit grenade after it for good measure.
Pow! The explosion knocks several black-booted feet out from under their owners. Before the soldiers can pull themselves up, all three of us tumble out of the ventilation tunnel and into a dim, expansive corridor. I scoot to Alex’s side—his chest heaves as he fills it with gulps of air—and put an arm around him, in case we need to flee. But Wes has us covered. Even though he’s pale and dizzy, he props himself up on one elbow and shoots Downers into the fallen soldiers’ necks, where their uniforms are thinnest.
Gradually, the world around me stops spinning, and morphs from muddy to crystal clear. The ceiling soars five meters high; black, white, silver, and gold tapestries with astronomical motifs hang from the walls. Air from the carbon dioxide and oxygen filters blows against the fabric, and it billows up as if some goliath is breathing on it.
We’ve made it to the Committee’s hallowed halls, the closest thing Base I fanatics have to a holy place. It’s encouraging to have gotten farther than our enemies meant us to. But the deeper we go, the more vulnerable we become.
“Nice place they’ve got here.” Alex manages to stand up on his own and bounce on his toes. “We’re good to go.”
“Careful now,” Wes warns. “I remember Micah”—the deceased Sanctuarist agent who was stationed on Base I—“saying something about automated lasers in the walls.”
Our group progresses with caution, tiptoeing down the dark and narrowing hall. Because I have the best armor, I lead the way. A set of ornate silver doors glints at its terminus—our destination.
Sure enough, before we can go too far, a purple laser jets sideways across my field of vision, perpendicular to our path.
“I’ll go first, to give us an idea of how many lasers there are.” I hold a hand out to stop my teammates, passing Wes my stolen shield.
Clenching my left hand into a fist, thumb under fingers, I sprint through the hallway. I shut my eyes so the flying lasers don’t burn my retinas; still, I see red behind my eyelids. Chunks of my suit heat up; if it weren’t for the mirrored scales, I’d be dead within half a second.
And then—all clear. I’ve reached the silver doors. High-resolution carvings of galaxies cover them from floor to ceiling—
I hear the blow coming before I see it. I throw myself forward and land on my hands and knees. Beaters must’ve entered the hallway through a hidden door. Sure enough, there’s a pair of black Militia boots behind me and arms holding a long, curved sword made of carbon fiber. A scimitar? Not the most useful weapon, but an impressive one. The Committee even makes a show of their bodyguards, it seems. I execute a forward roll, coaxing a dagger out of my boot in the process.
The bodyguard is not alone. A second scimitar-wielder stands over me, his blade whistling toward my neck. I duck, extending a leg to trip him. It works; he falls. I drag my blade across the back of his legs to keep him down, feeling nauseous all over again as blood spurts and tendons snap. Writhing on the ground, he struggles to right himself, but it’s useless: he can’t contract his legs anymore.
Running footsteps approach—my remaining opponent rushes me, blade raised above her head. I throw the dagger in my hand. It spins over itself and traces an arc. Then the blade sinks into the gap between the woman’s thigh and knee plates. She falls. I stick her and her fallen partner with Downers, and their flailing ceases. I pull my knife out of her leg with a squelch.
Anyone we know? I wonder, flipping up their visors. It’s a man in his early twenties and a slightly older woman, both with orange-tinged skin and sweaty, slick blond hair. They look like wax figures, their wide eyes staring at nothing in particular. I don’t recognize them.
In the next instant, I remember that no one’s covering my back and whirl around, fearing another attack. The only other people in the hallway are Wes and Alex, who’s giving me a thumbs-up. Phew.
“If you use the shields, you can run through the lasers,” I tell the boys. “They fly from side to side.”
“And they’re aimed at the vitals, above knee level . . .” Wes mutters into his headset. He puts up the shield so that it faces outward, and Alex does the same; they’re mirror images of each other. Go.
Watching the two Sanctuarists dash through the laser barrage is harder than doing it myself. This is crazy. Suicidal . . . Wes hoists his shield as high as he can, but he’s a head shorter than Alex; the left side of Alex’s helmet remains exposed.
> They make it. But the top of Alex’s helmet has melted onto his visor, staining it black and making it impossible to see through. Swearing, Alex yanks the smoking contraption off his head and takes one from a fallen soldier. “It’ll do more harm than good at this point.”
He stretches his neck, tilting his head back to get the full impression of the Committee’s ornate silver doors—the front entrance to the conference room where Umbriel and I nearly died. He shrugs, apparently unimpressed by the magnificent sight, and heaves up the burly body of the male soldier. “Do the honors, Dove Girl.”
My victim’s a sergeant; as an officer, he’ll probably have fingerprint access. I grab his limp hand and press his thumb to the scanner. The huge doors slide open. Instead of the hexagonal conference room I remember, before us is an ancient-looking mahogany door with a traditional Earthbound lock. The doorknob is burnished copper, spherical, carved out like the Moon with all its craters.
“Thought I wouldn’t have to do this after leaving Earth.” Wes reaches into a pocket and pulls out a short length of copper wire. He fits it through the keyhole and squats down so he can listen for clicks.
Alex and I stand guard, watching Wes’s face. We switch to our Lazies in case we don’t like what we find on the other side. As I remember from Militia, Wes’s expression gives nothing away, but the occasional twitch of his mouth hints at irritation. What if lock picking turns out to be his one weakness? We’ll have come all this way for nothing . . .
I suddenly wish Umbriel were here—if he could contribute anything to our impossible task, breaking and entering would be it. But just as my thoughts become desperate, Wes removes the wire from the keyhole, takes a deep breath, and twists the sculpted Moon doorknob. “We’re in.”
THE DOOR BANGS OPEN, AND WE DASH INTO a hexagonal room flush with images of carnage. Half the faceted ceiling’s three- and six-sided screens, which once showed security feeds from all six bases, are taken up by footage of the chaos on Base I. Entire departments—Recreation, Residential, Education—have gone up in flames, but what hits me more than any of the bombastic fires and explosions are people’s faces.
Our people, looking terrified and helpless. Abandoned. Dovetail and Batterer foot soldiers, uniforms streaked with blood, haul comrades with broken or missing limbs to the battle’s fringes. Units have scattered, pierced by unstoppable surges of Militia troops or surrounded by swarms of Pacifians. Ships switched to indoor settings crisscross the space above the foot soldiers’ heads, engaged in their own duel. I glimpse Yinha’s chaotic flying style as her Pygmette swoops through the air. She’s trying to rally our forces and reinstate order.
Clustered along the sides of the Main Lane and adjacent hallways, Base I civilians don’t seem to favor either side—they scurry about, seeking safety, nothing more. As they fight toward their residences, parents huddle children against walls or under benches and tables, using their own bodies as shields. For my own sanity, I avoid thinking about the little ones that didn’t clear out before the shooting started.
All the hopes I’ve gathered leave me in a flood of despair. Dovetail and Battery Bay have pulled out all the stops, and we still can’t defeat the Militia and Pacifia. With every injury and death on our side, Wes, Alex, and I lose negotiating power over the Committee. If those tyrants have no reason to listen to us, they’ll kill us. And then they’ll kill everyone we’ve been trying to protect.
The thoughts are drowning me. So when I surface, tearing my eyes away from the images and searching our surroundings, I discover, to my relief—and then my utter dismay—that the Committee isn’t here.
* * *
“Come in, Dovetail,” the General says. Troops surround him on all sides, their Electrostuns raised. Clustering together, the three of us rush in, sidestepping electric pellets and releasing our own, more lethal ammunition.
“Argh!” Alex shouts as electricity crackles across his right foot. The rubber of his boot neutralizes the charge—but what if the pellet had hit him somewhere else? In tandem, Wes and I lower our weapons, knowing that we can’t win, surrounded like this.
“We’ve been expecting you,” says the General. Although his voice chills every cell in my body, his tone is warm—as if we were old friends instead of “criminals” he’s tried to kill time after time.
Hulking and invincible, he sits at Hydrus’s place at the Committee’s hexagonal conference table. Jupiter flanks him, looking at his father with admiration and at everyone else with smugness. Two unfamiliar senior Militia officials sit with them, as well as a straight-backed man dressed all in gunmetal gray; I peg him as a high-ranking Pacifian officer. The last seat is empty.
At least a dozen Militia and Pacifian bodyguards line the room’s perimeter, their laser blasters and long rifles pointed at us. Outnumbered and outgunned, the two Sanctuarists and I form a triangle with our backs to one another, hands on our utility belts. Our enemies’ peacefulness is disturbing: they’ve waited here for us, without a care in the universe, as their allies downstairs and across the bases carried out wholesale slaughter.
“Traitors,” the General spits. He stalks forward, his son following closely. I’m torn between backing away in fear and rushing forward, weapons raised, to end him. “Traitors and thieves, come back to beg your superiors for mercy . . . or to lop off the hand that brought you up? The Committee has no time for such nonsense.”
“No,” I say, forcing my voice to come out steady. I’ll try to taunt the General; by insulting those to whom he’s unfailingly loyal, maybe I can induce him to tell me where they’ve gone. “The Committee are cowards. Where are they when their people are under attack? In hiding, too afraid to face us?”
But the General sees through my strategy. Before I can raise my weapon, he lunges forward so quickly that he seems to glide. Grabbing me by the chin, he lowers his face to mine. His hot breath smells like dried blood. “You will never find them, girl.”
Wes points a Lazy at him. “Hands off, or you’ll never see them again either.”
The General forces my head into a painful twist as he yanks his hand away from my chin. He rounds on Wes, breathing heavily through his nostrils—and breaks into deep, joyless laughter that makes me shiver.
“You. Threatening me?” says the General.
With his boulder of a fist, Jupiter knocks the Lazy out of Wes’s grip and grabs his wrist. He sneers through his visor.
“You Earth-born scum, a traitor twice over,” says the General. He turns to his son. “Thank you, Jupiter. But I can handle this one.”
Jupiter hands Wes’s arm to his father like a baton and reluctantly retreats, sitting once again at the conference table. Then the General squeezes, forcing Wes’s hand back and down until pain spasms across his face. Pain that I feel more acutely than when the General hurt me.
Alex has backed about three meters away to get a good shot; he stands frozen in place, laser blaster raised. I know he’s tempted to pull the trigger—we both are—but we know better than to assault the General with over a dozen of his allies in the room.
“Such a waste of talent, Phaet and Wesley,” the General says. Shaking his head, he lets me and Wes go, and turns his broad back to us. “When I pinned your Militia insignias to your lapels all those months ago, you swore to uphold the bases’ order and advance our civilization. Not destroy it.”
“You’re destroying the Moon yourself, Alpha,” Wes blurts, and I almost slap a hand over his mouth. The General might kill him in a burst of fury. “The Moon and the Earth and everything in between. At this rate, your Pacifian lapdogs won’t have a city to return to.”
The Pacifian commander stiffens at Wes’s remark, and I panic, not knowing how I will defend him from both men.
But the General moves first, whirling around to face us again; this time, he holds two laser blasters—one pointed at Wes’s forehead and one at mine. “The punishment for treason is death—”
/>
A low buzzing from his headset seems to interrupt him.
The General looks annoyed but keeps his voice cordial. “Yes, Hydrus, sir, Jang is with me. We will send Pacifians to Base III straightaway. Of course the radiation-insulation suits will remain with Militia—they hardly know how to use them.” The General laughs, deep and low: a sound even more terrifying than his shouts.
Sending a Pacifian contingent to the uranium mines without protection from radiation? It sounds like another suicide mission. All three Pacifians glance at each other, their expressions blank, without a trace of worry or indignation. Even though they’re my enemies, I’d rather see them rage at the prospect of their comrades dying en masse—again.
“Back to the subject of your treason.” The General’s smile vanishes as he turns back to me, Wes, and Alex. “Should I make the end of your lives quick . . . or educational? So that other traitors can—”
“Funny word, you using over and over,” says an even-toned male voice in choppy but confident English. “Traitor. Sound like trade-er, no?”
In our panic, we hadn’t noticed the Pacifian military leader move. He walks over and stands behind the General. Desperate for help, and half-grateful to him for distracting our antagonist, I study the Pacifian. An East Asian man of average height, he’s dressed all in gray canvas, not a patch or medal in sight. His jacket buttons up to his square chin, and his narrow-brimmed black cap rests on closely shorn salt-and-pepper hair. Severe rectangular spectacles betray the failing acuity of his heavy-lidded eyes, which seem permanently narrowed in consideration. This man wears his age proudly, the deep creases between his eyes and around his wide mouth like fissures in dry earth.
“Do not interrupt me, Jang,” the General snarls, not bothering to look behind him at the Pacifian man. “This is official procedure.”
For once, the General and I are on the same emotional wavelength—impatience is also balling up my fists and making my heartbeat flutter in my throat. People are dying below us, and it feels wrong to watch these leaders parley instead of fighting to defend the Lunars and Batterers.