Tracked

by Jenny Martin

  We land and the vac powers down.

  I hear voices and shouts as we climb out. Here, ours isn’t the only vehicle that’s ready for flight. Two Cyanese fighters flank a trio of transport vacs. There are dozens of people, moving cargo, rushing across the courtyard, prepping to leave.

  When Cash said we’d meet a “few friends,” I didn’t actually think he meant a small army. And James wasn’t kidding when he said the Cyanese were aiding the rebels. From the looks of it, these guys are more than well-equipped. It’s a motley crew here—mostly Biseran, but there’s a handful of Castrans like Hank and me, and even a couple Cyanese. Most of them are dressed in fatigues or some kind of makeshift uniform.

  Modern structures, concrete barracks, have been added to the yard, but the ancient bones of this place still stand. A few women and children mill closer to a much older building, a crude stone temple-like structure on the far end of the courtyard.

  “Who are they?” I ask Hank.

  “Special Intelligence. See that four-year-old?” he mocks, jerking his chin toward one of the younger brats, a wide-eyed boy who stumbles forward when he sees us. “One of our best operatives.”

  It’s a lame joke, but I smile anyway.

  “Daddy!” The little guy rushes Hank, who pulls him up into a fierce hug.

  How many times have I looked at him, working his post at the Spire, watching all our backs, and never stopped to consider he might have his own worries? I guess everyone here has someone they’re fighting to protect. For too long, I was best at saving my own skin. Not today. Not anymore.

  From a distance, a woman waves at Hank. “Excuse me,” he says to me. “Meet me back at the vac in ten minutes? Moving out soon.”

  I nod. After he leaves us standing in the yard, I turn and glance in every direction. Which of course is a mistake. All the movement makes my head hurt worse than ever before. Where are the Larssens?

  Where is Cash?

  I turn to Bear. “We should find your parents. Make sure they made it all right.”

  I stop when fuzzy static buzzes in my ears. I’m still wearing my headset. When I hear the snatches of communication, I think it’s just evacuation chatter.

  Razor, this is Gold Lion. Asset tracked, we are inbound.

  Confirmed, this is Razor.

  The screech of their voices is too loud. I can’t figure out how to turn the volume on my headset down, so I pull it off, letting it curl around the back of my neck.

  “Are you all right?” Bear asks.

  “It’s too noisy. My head’s hurting worse.”

  In the distance, the sound of laughter rises above the bustle in the courtyard. I turn and spy a couple kids running circles around a tall, black-haired soldier.

  One look and I’m weightless. It’s Cash. He doesn’t see me yet, and it’s still too far to shout.

  Repeat, eyes on, target is designated.

  More chatter. The voices are not coming from my headset. “Can you hear that?” I ask Bear.

  He shakes his head, looking confused.

  My palms slam against my ears, but I still hear the static and coded exchange.

  Roger, target acquired, strike package is en route. ETA to fireworks is thirty seconds.

  The wind shifts and a warm gust blasts through my hair, cutting through the cool breeze. My brain is going to explode; I can’t turn off the crackle and fuzz in my skull.

  The distant roll of thunder in the sky.

  No. Not thunder. It’s the roar of airborne engines.

  Gold Lion. Inbound. Strike package. Target.

  Nonono . . . this isn’t rebel evac chatter, this is military squawk, IP communication before an attack. Why can’t anyone else hear it?

  “Bear!” I shout. “It’s . . . it’s . . . Find Hank . . . Hal and Mary . . . anyone . . . tell them it’s an ambush!”

  Bear blinks for a second, but when I point to the sky, I sense he hears the far-off rumble of incoming aircraft too. “Go!” I beg him. “Please!”

  Bear runs for the transport vacs.

  I wheel back toward the bell tower. Cash and the kids are still so far away, a hundred yards outside my reach. I bolt, screaming all the way. “CASH! GET THEM OUT. TAKE COVER. IT’S AN ATTACK!”

  Cash looks up and sees me. I don’t know if he can make out my words, but he turns and starts moving people toward the transport, urging them to move faster.

  As I run, I shout at every passing soldier. “AIRSTRIKE. INCOMING!” They are wired, ready to relay my message. Springing into action, they load weapons, lock into defensive positions, and move their families into the waiting vacs. One of them quickly takes off.

  But my warning has come too late. I’m so small and I can’t make my body move fast enough. I pass a makeshift gun deck; a rebel gunner locks a magma cannon into place. Behind me, Bear shouts, “Phee! You’re going the wrong way! Go back to the vacs!”

  I look up and see the swarm. Three of Benroyal’s black IP fighters. A giant artillery vac. A squad of jet-packed blitz birds ready to rain down fire. We have all been betrayed. How did they know? How did they find us?

  BOOM.

  An explosion rocks the ground and I fall to my knees. I look up—the bell tower is completely gone. The handful of women and children still in the courtyard panic, stampeding to the transports. I huddle under the gun deck and claw at my ears to shut out the screaming roar, but it’s no use, the ringing’s even worse inside my head. Where is Cash?

  Bear catches up, ducking under the deck ladder. “Phee, I found my folks. Their vac’s taking off. Come on!”

  He grips my shoulder, but I shake him off, stumbling onto my feet and squinting into the ragged smoke. Cash scoops up a pair of little ones; he’s jogging toward us.

  BOOM. BOOM.

  More blasts in all directions. On the walls, defending soldiers spray the sky with fire. Two rebel fighters ascend, ready to fend the IP off. A score of our own jet-packed guns sprint off and jump, rocketing into the fray.

  Cash reaches the gun deck and closes in on us. “Bear,” he says. “Help me. Get these kids on a transport. I’ve got to go back and get the rest.”

  Then he looks at me. “Go with him. Get onto one of those vacs.”

  “I’m staying with you!” I shout over the flaming roar. “I’m not leaving you out here to get killed!”

  “We don’t have time for this,” he says. “Let’s go. Now.”

  He’s right. If we stay and argue, we’ll get picked off by enemy blitz birds or artillery fire. Cash passes the children off to Bear. They tremble and cry, burying their faces into his broad shoulders. As soon as Bear hustles off with them, Cash takes me by the arm and drags me back toward the transports.

  We’re halfway there when he hears a woman scream, then the whine of a frightened child. He lets go of me and turns toward their cries. “Phee, get out of here!” he shouts back at me. “I’ll meet you at the vac!”

  He jogs off, disappearing into the smoke.

  Fireworks in the sky. Debris rains as our first fighter is shot down. A rebel drops from the gun deck. The magma cannon is empty, now unmanned. Even as my skull pounds and my weak legs want to give out, I know what I have to do.

  The soldiers can’t make it back to those vacs without ground support. Cash will die.

  I run.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  I bolt for the gun deck and scramble up the ladder. Crouching behind the magma cannon, I center my weight behind it. Wait. No. I don’t how to work this. Hank said Cyanese weapons were idiot-proof, but there’s a whole bank of blinking switches at the base of the cannon, and it’s not as if someone left me rusting directions.

  I start to panic, but then I spy the triggered handles behind the barrel. As I get a grip and rock the handles, the barrel moves. I squint through the bull’s-eye target tracking screen and slip my fing
ers through the trigger holds. My hands are shaking; I ignore the pain radiating from the base of my neck. I talk myself into a steady zone.

  “It’s just a steering wheel with built-in triggers. That’s all this is.”

  I strain to roll and turn the heavy trigger holds, looking for a target in the sky. At first, I track an IP fighter, but it moves too fast. I’m no soldier—I can’t get a lock on it. Instead, I sight their biggest weapon, the hulking artillery vac.

  I close my fists around the triggers. CRACK. The charged ball of fiery sap arcs up. The recoil drops me on my exhaust. The magma explodes and dissipates in the open sky.

  Rust. I missed. And now the enemy knows someone’s manning the gun deck.

  I scramble up and try once more. This time, I squeeze every muscle in my core and widen my stance. When I sight the vac again, I take a breath and hold it.

  CRACK. The magma screams along a sure trajectory. BOOM. A fiery blast against the aircraft’s hull. It’s not enough to bring it down, but maybe a few more hits will do the job.

  Shots fire across the deck. I huddle behind the cannon, squinting to look for the enemy. An IP blitz bird hovers at ten o’clock; he’s seen me and he’s ready to take me out.

  “Phee!” Cash screams. I flatten myself against the deck and struggle to block out the roar in my brain. I don’t know where his shout is coming from. The static chatter in my head and the voices on the ground—I can no longer tell them apart.

  “Phee!” Cash is on the ladder, climbing up to get to me.

  More shots. The blitz bird’s getting closer. I drop, putting my back against the cannon. “Cash! No! Get down! Get out of here!”

  He ignores me, jumping up onto the deck.

  The crack of gunfire, closer than ever before.

  “Phee.” Cash presses into me. As I pull him closer, I see the dark, blooming stain. He’s been hit high in the leg.

  I jerk and pivot, grabbing the trigger holds, even as I kneel. With teeth gritted and tears in my eyes, I fire blindly, over and over until I hear the blitz bird drop and crash into the courtyard smoke. “Mother-rusting sons of—”

  “Phee . . .” Cash’s voice is strained. “Climb down.”

  BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

  “No.” I claw at his jacket, pulling it off. I tie it around his leg. “I won’t leave you!”

  “The vacs won’t wait any longer. I can’t get down.”

  “Yes, you can.” I crawl toward the edge of the deck, looking down for an escape route. I see one last rebel vac in the distance. It’s already hovering two feet above the ground, but one of its bay doors is still open. Soldiers are pulling evacuees inside.

  “We can make it,” I lie. I scan the courtyard again, scouting for signs of other enemy soldiers. A figure darts toward us. I don’t have time to remount the cannon and I don’t think the barrel will turn all the way around.

  I look back at the figure sprinting straight for us. When he yells, I can’t make out the words, but I know the voice. I would recognize it anywhere.

  My heart comes to life again, pounding as I watch him dodge and weave. He’s an easy target for anyone in the air.

  “Bear! Up here!”

  A bullet whizzes past him. At first, I think he’s been hit, maybe in the back, but then he surges forward, doubling his speed. He’s a blur, rushing up the ladder. When he reaches the deck, the roar in my brain turns into a blinding squeal. I can barely see him anymore; he and Cash become fuzzed-out shapes. My eyes roll back for a second, unable to handle the input.

  When I open my lids again, I’m seeing little more than dark patches and halos of light. I might as well be blind. I feel Bear’s hot breath on my face. I reach out, my fingers graze his chin. “Bear. I can’t see.” There’s a groaning snarl in my voice—I sound like a frightened animal. “I can’t see! You have to get Cash.”

  “I’ve got you. We’ll get you down,” Bear says. “I’ll carry you, if I have to.”

  “I’ve been shot,” Cash says. When he reaches for my hand, I feel the blood on his fingertips. “Hurry. Get her to the vac.”

  Bear locks an arm around my torso.

  “No!” I yell. “I’m not leaving without you both!” I feel the hesitation in Bear even as I fight his hold.

  “Take her. They can come back for me,” Cash argues. “Please. Take her. Keep her alive.”

  Bear jerks me off my feet and drags me back, pulling me down the ladder. I scream at Cash and fight to hold on to the gun deck, but Bear is too strong. He pries me away and lifts me into his arms, holding me in his fiercest embrace.

  “Take me back. Please go back,” I sob. “Please.”

  “I’m sorry.” He chokes. He is straining too hard to run and carry me. For him, there is no more room for words, only savage, gasping breaths. My forehead falls against his chest. He smells of ash and burning wood, copper and sweat. I focus on the acrid scent, desperate to sense something beyond the hammering roar in my skull.

  The artillery fire on the ground and the sound inside my head—it’s all one throbbing bundle of noise, one that matches the rhythm of Bear’s pace. In his arms, I am carried forward, rocking up and down, back and forth between flame and smoke.

  We stop. I feel more hands, more arms about me. They are shouting and lifting me up into the vac. I lie on a surface that vibrates with movement. I am rising.

  “She can’t see,” Bear says. “Help her.”

  Someone examines me. Checks my vitals. Cuts open my zip-front. Rolls a bio-scanner up and down my body. “I’m getting a bad reading. Interference. A frequency coming from somewhere on her. Lieutenant Kinsey, get over here, check her head.”

  Hank kneels beside me and runs his fingers over my scalp.

  “Cash Dradha was shot,” Bear shouts, his footsteps retreating toward the bay doors. “I have to go back and get him.”

  “Negative,” Hank snaps. “We are moving out. His orders. We’ll relay remaining ground forces. They’ll pick up Dradha, if he’s still alive.”

  No. I can’t lose Cash.

  I hear the groan of the closing doors. A scuffle. The stomp of boots all around me.

  “Let me go!” Bear says. “You can’t just leave him to die!”

  “Wait, back off, soldiers.” A voice asks, “Larssen, is that your blood? Did you get hit out there?”

  More voices. More movement. People are scrambling around us both.

  Bear slumps beside me. I feel his presence even as my brain is singing death, telling me to go to sleep. He reaches for me, our fingers lace, but they are already pulling him away. I’m too weak to keep his blood-soaked hand in mine.

  I don’t know where Bear is anymore. They have taken him from me.

  The vac boosters fire. We are climbing high. The medics shout to be heard.

  “Look at this.” A female medic touches the scar on my neck, the throbbing knot of agony at the base of my skull. My old wound, stitched the night the DP first picked me up. I scream when her fingers knead the spot. “Hand me that bio-scanner again.”

  “Something’s implanted,” one of them gasps. “I’m picking up the frequency. It’s a tracker.”

  “What . . .” I choke. I can’t even whisper now.

  “Get a surgery kit, stat. Clear that table. We have to get it out.” The medic says, hovering over me, “Oh my god, Hank. She led them here.”

  The needle sinks into my neck. My fists relax, my fingers uncurl. I have so much blood on my hands.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  I am lying in a field of white poppies. Night is coming. The last peep of sunlight turns the clouds into rosy wisps against a dark sapphire sky. In the afterglow, giant snow- colored blooms droop from the stalks. I am drunk with their scent.

  He walks toward me, but I don’t have the strength to reach out for him. I open my mouth. I’m so parched, all I can do is wh
isper his name. “Cash.”

  He answers, only I realize it’s not him. I open my eyes, and it’s just a fever dream. I’m lying on a cot. With the beds all around me, I must be in some kind of field hospital. The open flaps of the giant tent whip in the breeze. In the distance, I see the pale blossoms. Green velvety stalks tower like trees.

  I blink and adjust to the dim light. Hank is leaning over me. I try to sit up, but he touches my arm. “Take it easy. We almost lost you.”

  When my head hits the pillow again, a growling pain awakens, rippling up my spine and all the way to the base of my skull. “How . . .” My throat is on fire. It hurts just to swallow.

  Hank sits on the edge of my cot. There’s something in his hazel eyes, but I can’t read if it’s pity or regret. “There was a two-way transmitter, a tracker. We think Benroyal must have had it implanted the night you were arrested.”

  No. The first time I woke up at the hospital. I remember the stitches on the back of my neck. The pain. Bagged and tagged, I was Benroyal’s asset from the start.

  “I couldn’t see,” I croak. “I was blind.”

  “You’re lucky it was temporary. That tracker could have fried you. Hal took a look at it. It had a built-in receiver, but it wasn’t actually programmed to pick anything up. It was only programmed to track you. You weren’t supposed to hear anything.”

  “But I did.”

  “Hal thinks the accident at Sandridge probably damaged it, kicked on the receiver. And when you started picking up chatter on that IP frequency, your brain couldn’t handle it. We got it out,” he adds. “But your location had already transmitted.”

  I know what he’s thinking. You led them to us. You betrayed us. You wounded us all. How many of his men are injured or dead because of me?

  I groan and reach for my neck, but Hank stops me again.

  “Don’t,” he scolds. “You’ll rip your stitches.”

  His words trigger a sickening flash of déjà vu. I roll onto my left side and try not to vomit onto the concrete floor. It’s then I see who’s sleeping in the bed next to me.