Dove Alight

by Karen Bao

  “When Pacifia allied with your Committee, we expected a trade.” Jang paces behind the General, who keeps twitching, as if he wants to glance backward. But he doesn’t, knowing that it would give Wes, Alex, and me the opportunity to strike. Along the room’s perimeter, the three Pacifian troops eye each other as though they share a secret understanding.

  Their heads snap back to attention when Jang whispers something in a foreign language. The Militia forces try to hide their looks of bewilderment.

  “We supposed to trade basic respects,” Jang continues. “Like I call you General, you call me Commander. Like my troops share plan with you, you share plan with us.”

  “What’s this nonsense, Commander?” the General seethes. “And why now?”

  Jupiter and the two Militia officers at the conference table exchange troubled glances. Jupiter rises, a movement that seems to create vortices in the air, and begins to stalk toward us.

  “But you and the Committee are more like traitors,” Commander Jang continues. “No honor. No heart. You kill three thousand Pacifian soldiers when Dugout invasion go wrong—by bombing metro tunnel from above.”

  “Sealing the tunnel was our only option.” Impatience sours the General’s tone, and I almost expect him to pull the triggers of his two Lazies on me and Wes. “Do not force me to have this discussion again.”

  But Jang keeps talking, keeps demanding the General’s attention. “So now that things on Base I go wrong . . .” Halting three meters away from us—just outside the range of the General’s fists—Jang presses a button on his headset and starts barking in a foreign language.

  Slowly, painfully, the General turns his head to face his ally. A trickle of sweat shines on his left temple. At such close proximity, glued to the spot beside him by fear, it’s all I can see.

  On the screens above our heads, hordes of Pacifian soldiers turn their long rifles on the Militia. Bayonets bury into black uniforms instead of the Batterers’ teal ones; Pacifian bullets pelt the Militia’s ranks, as if an indomitable wind has shifted their direction. My jaw drops in amazement and horror, but even as the world spins around me, I force myself to think about what’ll come next. Whatever the Pacifians have planned to do, a new order is forming, and my crewmates and I must take advantage of it to survive.

  “Traitor,” Jang says, glaring at the General. “I trade with you.” The General lets out a howl of rage and turns one Lazy on Jang, his long muscled arm extended. But before he can fire, I slice upward at his wrist with my dagger—and his forearm snaps back into ready position. His Militia reflexes kick in one moment too soon; his finger pulls the trigger. Wes clubs the Lazy barrel sideways, and a violet beam slices through the General’s forehead.

  For a moment, I look into those dead eyes, still widened in surprise, and then glance down at my bloodless blade. Its sharp, unsoiled perfection brings me an odd sort of satisfaction—I ended him, ended the scourge that sickened or killed hundreds of Lunars, without even getting my hands dirty.

  Then the odor of charred flesh fills my nose. I forget my surroundings, filled with the same pain that smites me every time I end a life. But someone had to do it, and best that it be me and Wes. We’ve been morally compromised so that our loved ones—Anka, Cygnus, Umbriel, Wes’s family—can stay safe.

  The General’s towering frame falls backward. Wes circles around and pulls me behind the body—and not a moment too soon. The Militia bodyguards fill the air with violet beams. We turn the General’s body sideways, using him as a makeshift wall, and Alex dives behind it, dodging a laser meant for his legs.

  Looking up at the ceiling screens, I see that the Pacifian soldiers have deepened their assault on the Militia, setting off explosives in addition to clubbing and stabbing their former allies.

  “Either I’ve gone mad, or we’re on Pacifia’s good side now,” Alex breathes. “You two all right?”

  Wes and I nod.

  “New plan,” I say. “We fight with the Pacifians—but carefully. And we keep Jang alive at all costs. He must know where the Committee’s gone. Understood? Go!”

  We break cover and dash in front of Jang, throwing up our ballistic shields to protect him from laser fire. Dagger in my free hand, I swipe at every Militia soldier who tries to rush us.

  My headset beeps frantically. “What the fuse is going on, Stripes?” Yinha demands, her voice barely audible above the battle’s din. “Pacifians started killing Militia, and we must’ve gained a hundred meters of territory in as many seconds.”

  All’s not lost yet. “Their commander mutinied,” I say as my dagger finds its way between a Militia soldier’s abdominal armor plates. “General’s dead. We’re going to find the Committee and put an end to this soon.”

  “Cool. Good work.”

  I nod, knowing she’s not in a position to give a speech of appreciation. “I’d better see you by the Pillars of Liberty in the next twenty minutes. If not, I’m coming after you.”

  Before Yinha terminates our communication, someone yanks me sideways as a scimitar blade whooshes past my head.

  Commander Jang’s fingers on my upper arm seem to be cast in iron. “Jupiter!” he shouts in my ear. “Look out!”

  My former tormentor’s face is livid, shiny with sweat and tears. “Dad! My father! You took him from me. You took everything!” Strengthened by grief, he wields the long, curved knife maniacally, stabbing and slashing at every part of my body. He’s so strong; if he connects, he might cut through my flesh as if it’s water.

  I bend my knees to set up a solid foundation closer to the ground. Jupiter towers over me, leaning forward so that he can attack from above and from the front.

  Where are his vulnerabilities?

  His visor’s up. But his head is too high for me to reach. Unless . . .

  The dead General’s Lazy rests by my feet. I grab it and hurl it upward: the weapon hits Jupiter’s chin and forces his head back. While he teeters, I shoot a dart into his neck. He falls backward. It’s the same mighty fall that his father did, like a skyscraper crashing to the ground. But Jupiter’s not dead; he’s knocked out. He shouldn’t come to until after we’re long gone.

  Jang, two of his Pacifian bodyguards, the Sanctuarists, and I are left standing. I peek at the ceiling screens, and see that while our side still has the upper hand, the shock of the Pacifian mutiny is fading fast. The Militia seem to be regrouping; they form small clusters and laser-burn their way through ranks of adversaries.

  Yinha contacts me again. “Stripes? Have you found the Committee yet? Overheard some Militia saying they are bringing over the remaining loyalists from Bases III and V. We’ll get blasted to pieces when they arrive!”

  Unless my unit forces the Committee to surrender now.

  “Commander Jang, sir. You make a worthy ally.” I utter every honorific possible, trying to convey trust I don’t feel, lest he turn on my side next. If he could surprise the entire Lunar Militia, what might he do to us?

  Jang makes a shallow bow from the waist, a movement that I clumsily imitate. Steadying my features, I look him in his bespectacled, coal-dark eyes.

  “Please,” I say, “take us to the Committee.”

  “GIVE ME GENERAL’S HAND, SIR,” JANG SAYS, facing Wes.

  Wes hoists up the General by his right arm, struggling to lift the dead weight, and presents it to Jang.

  “His hand.” Jang gestures for my dagger; I hand it over. He slices off the General’s hand at the wrist and wraps the stump in a white handkerchief produced from his breast pocket. Then he presses the thumb to the bottom of the conference table. I watch the General’s blood drip to the floor in horror, struggling to contain my gag reflex.

  Within seconds, the table begins to sink. When the top reaches the same level as the surrounding floor, Jang and the Pacifians step onto it, and we follow, putting as much distance as we can between ourselves and the Command
er. His betrayal of the General is shocking, frightening—and yet I must swallow my fear and call him an ally. After all, Wes and I are the ones that killed old Alpha. Jang just removed an appendage from the unfeeling body.

  Tread lightly, I remind myself, or Jang will be an ally no more.

  Jang wipes my dagger with another white handkerchief—how many does he carry?—and hands the weapon back to me, handle first. I accept the dagger without sparing it a glance.

  And the table keeps sinking—we’re in an elevator leading deep underground. The walls of the shaft turn from smooth gray metal to crumbly gray rock. As the air gets colder and drier, moisture leaches out of my skin, leaving it stretched tight and thin over my bones. Moon-grav kicks in, so all of my body feels lighter. Except my heart, which is heavy with dread.

  When we must be a hundred meters under the base, the elevator sputters to a stop. We step into a narrow stone hallway that stretches out tens of meters before us. The ceiling is so low that Alex must duck to keep from hitting his head.

  I turn on my helmet visor’s infrared vision mode so that we can approach invisibly and still know if people are around. Wes and Alex touch their helmets, following suit. Jang and the two Pacifians take out flashlights but have the sense not to turn them on.

  Moments later, four bright, human-shaped red spots appear in the center of my vision. Jang hisses something in another language to his underlings, who raise their rifles.

  Before the Committee’s bodyguards make sense of the situation, four shots ring out, two from each Pacifian gun. And the four figures at the hallway’s end crumple.

  “Go, go, go!” Jang yells, and all six of us dash forward. Nothing else leaps out to get us, and I feel a rush of satisfaction: at last, the Committee is running out of resources.

  We reach the end. After stepping over the four bodyguards’ prone forms, we face a pair of solid-looking black metal doors. Jang scans the General’s thumbprint again, and the doors slide open into—utter luxury. A windowless hexagonal living room, an emergency light in each vertex casting an orange glow on the clean white walls. Thick gray carpet covers the floor like a layer of dead moss, serving as a cushion for silken scarlet couches that resemble gigantic pillows more than actual furniture. A steep, zigzagging metal staircase shaped like a lightning bolt descends from the ceiling.

  But once again, the Committee is nowhere in sight. Instead, half a dozen Militia guards, all in black, peel away from the walls, weapons raised.

  “Don’t,” says a familiar slippery voice, and the soldiers halt. Hydrus isn’t visible, but the bunker’s speaker system broadcasts his voice from all sides. He must be nearby. “Dovetail. Pacifians. Please come in.”

  “No, Hydrus.” I’ve grown weary of their hide-and-seek. “You come out.”

  Jang edges in front of me. I’m secretly grateful to him for providing me with cover. “I will face them first, miss.”

  The five Committee members stroll down the stairs, dignity evident in every step. Hydrus and Cassini are first, heads held high, mouths sneering. Janus, the ancient hunchback, descends with one hand on the railing and the other gripping Nebulus Nu’s shoulder for balance. Hopper shuffles down last, her thin lips pinched in anger.

  The Committee forms a ring around Jang, eyes narrowed. He remains impassive, as if he could stand in their midst forever in utter comfort.

  After several seconds, Hopper breaks the silence. “Jang,” the old woman says. She’s trying to sound furious, but the effect is more heartbroken. I almost feel bad for her. “Jang, you led them to us. Our enemies.” She glares at Wes, Alex, and me.

  Her words disgust me: of course it’s all about the Committee—their safety, their peace of mind. No mention of the ambushed loyalist troops dying above our heads.

  “You are Pacifia’s enemy now,” Jang spits back. “You Committee think we are like dogs. Obedient. Disposable. If we help you win this war, you will force us to run your filthy errands for centuries. Pacifian people are proud; we cannot bow to Lunars as if you are gods in the sky.”

  Hydrus scoffs. “We are not gods, but we know how to keep the human race from self-destructing a second time. With your help, we can still prevent further planetary devastation and the subsequent disorder.”

  Jang continues to look as unconvinced as I am feeling. Does the Committee really believe that they can tidy up the Earth after they’ve torn it to pieces in this war?

  Hopper steps forward. “And you think Dovetail and Battery Bay won’t punish you for all the abuse you gave them before switching sides?”

  “Pacifia is prepared for consequences from our old enemies,” Jang shoots back. “We know they will be fair. Not like the shameful ‘rewards’ you would give us.”

  “Pardon . . . pardon me,” Nebulus says. “But we have shared so much. The goal of making the Earth as peaceful as the Moon. A common love of humanity. And we had an agreement.”

  Jang turns his back on the Committee, and his aides step closer to guard him. “We will not speak of this again.”

  Cassini crosses his arms and taps one long finger on his sleeve. “Do what you please. We won’t stop you from throwing away everything you hold dear.”

  No reply from Jang. I decide to take over—after all, Dovetail has our own reasons for being here.

  “Don’t concern yourselves with us, Committee,” I say, my voice strong. “Your own troops are dying. If you want to stop it, you will come upstairs and hand over the Lunar Bases, in front of all your people.”

  “Not so fast,” Hydrus says. “Let us declare a truce, until each side figures out what we are really after. Let us conduct a . . . a peace talk here, if you will.”

  I shake my head. “After all this fighting, you want us to sit down and—and politely ask for what we want?”

  “It takes manners to run this Moon,” Cassini spits at me. “If that’s your ambition, rebel girl, then it’s time you learned some.”

  “Take a seat.” Cassini gestures to the blood-red couches. “So that we may talk like civilized adults.”

  “No,” I say. “Not here. We’ll go before the Pillars of Liberty. Anything you choose to do will be done before thousands upon thousands of witnesses.”

  The Committee stares at us for a long time. Janus’s eyes are furious, Hydrus’s laughing, Nebulus’s cold, and Cassini’s poisonous. Hopper looks terrified. But in all five, there’s defeat. They will agree to my demands, will take orders from another human being for the first time in decades.

  It’s humiliating. And by the looks on their faces, they will make us pay.

  THE COMMITTEE HAS DIRECT ACCESS TO most parts of Base I. We step out onto a platform ten meters above ground level, directly under the Pillars of Liberty. Within seconds, Yinha’s Pygmette swoops in. She swings her legs over the side to disembark and sprints toward us, gathering Wes, Alex, and me in a hug, crushing us with arms much stronger than they look.

  Below the platform and down the Main Lane, swells of people—Base I Dovetail sympathizers?—jockey with loyalists for every square meter of territory, stolen weapons in their hands. Every so often, Pacifians and Militia members fire a burst of shots at one another. Now that the element of surprise has faded, and with the seeming influx of more troops, the Militia has gained back lost ground. How many more people will have to die before this ends?

  A newsreel wraps around the enormous hall, spelling out in blocks of text what is happening on the other bases. The onslaught of information is the one remnant of normality amidst chaos—except that right now the screen reads: BREAKING: REBEL SYMPATHIZERS TAKE OVER BASE III URANIUM REFINERIES.

  The Graveyard’s revolt has been successful, then—that explains why the Committee suddenly wants to negotiate. But how long can the bases Dovetail’s taken over remain free? If we can’t depose the five tyrants, then our situation will deteriorate once again.

  The three Pacifians, We
s, and Alex lead the Committee to where the audience can see them. I follow closely, watching Jang and his aides out of the sides of my vision.

  “Stop!” Hydrus orders into a microphone, his voice echoing throughout Base I. “Put all weapons down.”

  A hush falls, beginning at the front of the stage. It ripples forward, through the thousands that have gathered. Heads turn; eyes focus on us.

  I face the blood-spattered Main Lane and nod. Cautiously, both sides lower their guns and sheathe their knives.

  The Dovetail leadership appears on the massive screen behind the stage, their determined faces brightly lit; they look larger than life, as the Committee once did in their public addresses, except that they haven’t cast themselves in shadow. Seeing Asterion, Andromeda, and even Sol and Costa makes me feel braver.

  “So this is where it ends,” Hydrus says. “Unless Dovetail does not cooperate.”

  “Tell us your terms,” Asterion snarls.

  “To the Earthbound: we will let you leave peacefully if you promise not to come back to the Moon.”

  “As if all the fighting here never happened?” Costa says incredulously. “Absolutely not.”

  “And so Battery Bay rejects our generosity,” says Nebulus. “Pacifia?”

  All eyes focus on Jang. Without speaking, he turns his back on the Committee for the second time. People whisper and point, shocked by his disrespect. He whispers to one of his underlings, a glaring-eyed young woman, who faces the Committee and says, “We do not negotiate with cowards and cheats.”

  “Well, then,” Hydrus says. “As for Dovetail, we give you the site of Base VI as a starting point to construct a new and independent nation.”

  Hisses issue from Dovetailers and loyalists alike. My face grows hot with anger. We’re like beggars at the Committee’s feast, and they’re tossing us bones they’ve already gnawed on. Why should we not demand what we came for? We no longer have to beg.