The Covert Academy

by Peter Laurent

  Marcas tossed him one of the elongated weapons that Joshua had found earlier in the crates they had brought on board.

  ‘This was all I had time to find!’ Marcas said.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’ll do,’ Joshua assured him as he strapped it to his forearm. They still had no idea what this weapon even did. The gun hung from the strap on the outside of his arm. Joshua tapped the button on the outer edge with his other hand. To his surprise, a blast of yellow energy instantly streamed out of the tip of the gun and hit a tree. It seemed to shudder and strain, the roots pulling up at the dirt around it, but was otherwise unharmed.

  He looked at Marcas, they both had the same sinking suspicion: Hope it’s not as useless against a real target.

  The three would-be rescuers tore through the jungle, heedless of any noise they made. Alara couldn’t have gone far in such a short time.

  They burst out into a small clearing. Joshua took in the scene in an instant. Alara stood to one side of a bubbling freshwater spring, holding a large metal canteen covered in blood. A hugely muscled man towered over her, dressed in high visibility overalls like a maintenance worker, complete with a tool-belt around his waist. He had taken a nasty gash in the head but somehow had the strength to grapple with Alara in an attempt to break her by the shoulders. It was an absurd attack posture. Perhaps the man was a bit simpleminded?

  Joshua raised an arm and pointed his strange weapon at the man. Still cautious of its unknown effect, he held his fire.

  ‘Release her!’ he ordered the man.

  ‘What are you doing? Shoot him!’ Kayla cried.

  Joshua gritted his teeth. The man was crushing Alara, but he couldn’t shoot him without hitting her. Before he could react, Marcas rushed the man and tackled him, despite being at least two heads shorter. They fell to the ground in a heap, Marcas crushing him with his beefy torso. He rolled quickly away, leaving the man exposed.

  ‘Fire!’ Marcas yelled.

  Joshua obliged.

  The yellow energy from Joshua’s forearm weapon zapped the man dead centre in his back. The next instant, he was flung skyward as though pulled by some invisible string. Joshua, Kayla, Marcas and Alara stared up after him as he was whisked above the treetops.

  ‘Whoa. Cool!’ Marcas said from his position on the ground. He jumped up and examined the weapon on Joshua’s arm. ‘What do you call it?’

  Kayla made a tsk sound with her tongue. Joshua let Marcas turn his arm over while he cast an eye over Alara. Her breathing was shallow and raspy.

  ‘You okay?’ he asked. Alara nodded. She was still alert, her jumpsuit would fix any internal bleeding or broken ribs within a day. Kayla moved to check on her anyway.

  Then, without warning the man came back, floating down belly first through the tree canopy, on the invisible string. His arms and legs dangled down from his torso, as if something held him by the mid-section. When he reached a height two metres above the ground, his speed decelerated to a crawl. He seemed to just hang there, completely unconscious.

  Joshua crept up to him. If he had a stick, he would have liked to prod the man with it, like a kid with a dead cat. Except this cat wasn’t dead, and it was floating in mid air just above his head. Joshua walked around him to see his face. His eyes widened in horror at the sight and he spun away, revolted.

  ‘What is it?’ Kayla asked. She and Alara crowded around Joshua, worried looks cast over their faces.

  Marcas however, looked at the unconscious man. His head hung slack from his neck. But it was the eyes that captured Marcas. One had no visible pupil. The eyeball had a single, flat, blood-red colour filling the tiny gap between the cornea and the iris. The man looked like some kind of cruel demon. Marcas froze. He couldn’t turn away from the sight.

  Joshua, hands on knees, took a moment to compose himself. He stood straight and gently brushed off the reassuring hands of the girls. He tapped Marcas on the shoulder, who slowly turned on the spot.

  Joshua gasped.

  One eye was normal and healthy, but Marcas had developed the same blood-red layer over his left eye. It was the one in which he’d had his iPC installed. He had somehow become infected just by looking in the man’s red eye.

  ‘Snap out of it man!’ Joshua grabbed Marcas by the shoulders and shook him. At his touch, Marcas sprang to life and grabbed Joshua in the same fashion. Joshua was shaken like a rag doll, but Marcas wouldn’t let up, shaking and squeezing the life out of Joshua. He couldn’t breathe. His chest began to compress. Kayla and Alara jumped on Marcas’ bulging arms, tying to dislodge him, but it was no use, even with their jumpsuits turned to strength mode. Marcas stood as solid as a rock. Some newfound power coursing through him. He batted one arm at Alara, knocking her senseless to the ground and breaking her already fragile back.

  ‘Cessar! Besta cessar!’ Kayla shouted.

  ‘Gun!’ Joshua managed to utter. ‘Shoot my g-!’ With his arms tied by Marcas, he couldn’t reach the firing button with his other hand.

  Kayla quickly understood. She dropped off Marcas and grabbed at the weapon on Joshua’s forearm. With the help of her jumpsuit’s enhanced strength, she twisted Joshua’s forearm against his pinned upper arm until it pointed at Marcas. She mashed down on the gun’s button, and the yellow energy pulse hit Marcas on the shoulder, ripping him free from his grip on Joshua. He was sent careening, shoulder-first, up into the canopy of the jungle.

  Marcas had disappeared above the trees, but Joshua expected him to float back down like Alara’s attacker had. He turned to her crumpled form, and Kayla let out a strangled cry when she saw the damage.

  ‘Canim! Canim, no!’ she wailed.

  Joshua briefly wondered how many languages she knew. That could come in handy one day, he thought.

  Kayla rushed up and knelt by Alara’s side. She checked for a pulse, and turned back to Joshua. She gave a small smile. Alara was breathing, though Joshua couldn’t tell from where he stood. It must be incredibly severe if the jumpsuit’s auto-meds couldn’t keep up.

  As Marcas reappeared through the canopy, the rest of the team came rushing into the clearing. Will and Elayne dashed to Alara, while Richard and Eddie walked curiously toward Marcas and the other man.

  ‘Don’t look into their eyes!’ Joshua put up his hands in warning. He pushed Alara’s attacker so that he floated around to point away from them.

  ‘What is it?’ Sarah asked. She had her short sword out, the rest of them had found four more of the strange guns that made people hang in the air.

  ‘Was... was he a Fletcher?’ Elayne asked, staring wide-eyed at Alara’s attacker.

  ‘Shush, don’t be silly,’ William said. ‘If he was a Fletcher you’d be dead.’

  Elayne paled.

  ‘He was no Fletcher,’ Joshua said, remembering Ryan. ‘Something is wrong with their iPC. They’re either malfunctioning or- I don’t know, but it makes them go crazy. It’s infectious.’ He put a hand on Sarah’s shoulder, stopping her from checking on Marcas. ‘Scans your iPC on direct line-of-sight, if I guess right.’

  Kayla nodded. ‘That would explain why only Marcas was affected. Joshua doesn’t have an iPC, and both of them looked right in the guy’s face, point-blank.’

  ‘Did the bio-ID cause of all this?’ Elayne muttered.

  Sarah looked thoughtful, ‘Didn’t we have the only copy? The Confederacy must have a new version, like an upgrade.’ She shook her head. ‘They’re using the bio-ID for more than just mind-reading now.’

  ‘Mind control,’ Joshua said.

  ‘How is this even possible?’ Eddie asked. Coming from a farming community, he still saw computers as magical. He was the only person in the group other than Joshua yet to have an iPC installed.

  Dammit, thought Joshua. That would have disadvantaged him as a lookout.

  Another bad decision. Eddie hadn’t seen Alara’s attacker coming without an iPC, and now she was clinging to life by a thread.

  Everyone had fallen silent. They were looking to Joshua
for answers, but he had none.

  ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ Joshua said. ‘We’ve got to get Alara to an infirmary, and get Marcas into isolation until we can figure whatever this virus thing is. The mission is a bust, the Fletchers can wait until-’

  The roar of a throaty engine grinding massive gears drowned out his words. The clamour felt as though it was completely surrounding them. Trees shook and massive fronds fell all around the water spring. Birds squawked and took flight, escaping the maelstrom.

  As one, the team ran up the slope on the far side of the pond, in the direction of the sound. William and Elayne scooped up Alara between them and Kayla pushed Marcas like a shopping trolley that hovered above the ground.

  As they crested the rise, the view came into focus before them revealing a vast plateau on the mountain. The entire forest had been levelled to make room for scores of Confederate dropships. They were loading hundreds of the gigantic metal drudges, and thousands of attack drones into their bellies.

  There was no question as to their destination.

  Chapter 33

  Jaws fell to the ground. It was an army.

  ‘My God,’ Eddie whispered. No one seemed to notice he’d spoken.

  The dropships themselves were huge, dwarfing the drudges that Joshua had tangled with in the cavern a couple of weeks ago. Though he’d seen more luxurious personal ferries flying around the Colonnade, these were essentially floating shipping containers. They were built solely for cargo transport, and they were carrying thousands of killing machines to the Academy’s doorstep.

  ‘This is a staging area,’ Richard said, his throat dry. ‘They’ve come from the Colonnade, stopping over here to refuel before moving on to the Academy.’

  ‘That’s what the barrels were for,’ Sarah said. They all turned to her. ‘When we flew over in the Nyctalopia. The explosives on the golf course. They were for fuelling these... things.’

  Heads nodded all around in agreement. They were all too dumbstruck to think clearly.

  Sarah raised a hand to her ear in an attempt to drown out the noise. With a thought to her iPC, she brought up a comm channel to the Academy, and shared the link with the team as they watched. The connection was hissing with static but it went through.

  ‘Casey!’ she tried to shout over the racket. ‘This is not a Fletcher base! It’s an invasion. They’re on a direct path to the Academy!’ She waited for a few seconds for a response. Casey’s face was visible on her heads-up-display, but she couldn’t tell if he could hear her. The audio distorted further and the picture became fuzzy. ‘If you can hear me, get out! Evacuate dammit! Get out now-’ But the connection was already lost. It was as though someone was watching them even now, and blocking them at every turn.

  Most of the dropships were hovering to one side, while the others made their way up one-by-one to join their ranks. Those that were parked on the levelled plateau were swarming with workers, Joshua could see them clearly. They attached nozzles to fuel intakes, replaced worn engine parts and performed safety checks. None of them were dressed in regular Confederate uniform, but instead clad in the same high visibility overalls as their floating friend, Alara’s attacker. One glanced over his shoulder in their direction, and Joshua caught a glimpse of the same deathly blood-red eyes.

  They were no assassins, and definitely not Fletchers. They were the ground crew for an invasion force. Meyrick had sent them into a trap.

  ‘Get back to the ship,’ Joshua ordered.

  As if on cue, a Confederate dropship roared directly overhead of their position, flattening them to the ground. The ship slowed and circled lazily around. It was scanning their location.

  ‘You heard him people,’ Sarah added. ‘Fall back now!’

  The dropship’s jets washed down over them, forcing the team to crawl back down the hill on their bellies. Joshua was the last to leave the ridge, he risked one more glance at the plateau. More of the red-eyed maintenance workers had seen them now. Some had stopped refuelling the dropships and barged up the hill after them.

  Joshua swore under his breath. The freaks would overrun them in mere minutes.

  ‘Hold up!’ he called. ‘We can’t defend the ship against those numbers!’ They halted where they lay on their bellies while the dropship kept circling overhead, its guns tracking back and forth.

  ‘Oh man, we’re dead man!’ Eddie was close to panic and began to stand up. The guns fixed on him. ‘Jeez man we’re-’ His tirade was cut short when Sarah grabbed his belt and yanked him back to the dirt, none too gently.

  ‘Joshua!’ she yelled. Even she was just barely keeping her fear in check. ‘We can’t stay here, make a decision!’

  Choices roiled through Joshua’s mind. They could hold up and bunker down at the Nyctalopia; run off into the jungle and, with luck, hit the coastline; they could split up and hope for the best, one of them might make it off the island alive. No time to think it through.

  A flash of inspiration came to Joshua then. Later, he couldn’t have said where it had come from, maybe the pressure had got to him, the years of hiding under the Confederacy’s nose, keeping one step ahead of them at every turn. Maybe he was thinking of how he had become a trapped rat ever since he had joined the Academy, and the Confederacy had been dining on his dried carcass for months ever since. In a long awaited moment of pure clarity, he finally knew what he had to do.

  He stood up, and took a deep breath.

  ‘CHARGE!’

  He had no idea if this would work. But at least it was something the Confederacy had never seen before. In all their many years in power, no one had stood up to them in such an open manner. That subtle rebellious spark had died long ago when they had unleashed their sinister mechanisms upon the populace. Not that Joshua was unafraid. He was terrified.

  It was such a shame then that his moment of idiotic bravery had a mere audience of six as he ran over the ridge and down onto the plateau. Now all the mindless maintenance men abandoned their tasks and lurched toward him. Joshua crossed his right arm over his chest to reach the button on the gun affixed to his left forearm. His mind was surprisingly clear. No stress.

  I should give this gun a name. Dangler. That’s good. He chuckled to himself. How appropriate-

  Joshua’s daydream was cut short.

  Explosions buffeted him all around. The yellow bolts from his “Dangler” gun blasted dozens of maintenance men into the air, but some hit their ordinance which exploded, sending brilliant orange and red fireballs arcing through the darkening blue sky.

  Joshua looked back up the ridge. Sarah, Richard, Eddie, Kayla, Will and Elayne stood dumbfounded at the top. Marcas floated like a vegetable. Then Sarah roared, and bounded down the hillside after him, slashing her sword at anything that came near. She caught Joshua’s eye and pulled her swings back, trying to wound, not kill. Joshua nodded in appreciation.

  ‘Bring the others! Head for a dropship! Don’t look in their eyes!’ he shouted.

  Kayla followed right behind Sarah, hauling Marcas’ floating form after her. Sarah jumped back and forth with her sword, keeping the horde of manic mechanics away from the two vulnerable kids.

  Will and Elayne came next, carrying Alara. They scrambled into the wake of destruction that Joshua and Sarah created, finding a helpful lull in the mayhem there.

  Joshua pushed forward. If they didn’t act fast, the drones and drudges would realise something had gone awry. Either they had not yet noticed the new situation, or, more likely, Joshua figured, they had priority instructions to conserve power for a long journey. A journey that would take them to the Academy.

  Now that all the maintenance men had abandoned their tasks of refuelling, the last few dropships wouldn’t rendezvous with the others that waited far above the island. Joshua’s suicidal assault morphed into a plan.

  He pointed toward the nearest dropship sitting on the ground. It was slightly smaller than the others. Fuel gushed back out of its intake, like a car at a petrol pump with a full tank.
>
  ‘Run for that one, I’ve got an idea!’ Joshua shouted.

  They veered as one in the direction of the parked dropship. The boxy rectangular aircraft didn’t look the least bit flight-worthy. If there hadn’t been others floating above with their two pivoting jets, Joshua would never have believed they could get off the ground. Yet his entire plan hinged on it.

  The dropship’s small frontal ramp was still down, as if it was waiting for something. Joshua hit the bottom of the ramp at full sprint. He slid to a crouch and slammed into it, then turned back to help the others up inside.

  Sarah circled around a few metres away like a caged lion, but she kept her emotions in check by focussing on keeping a safe zone between them and the red-eyed men. She aimed for non-vital parts of their bodies, disabling them with a torn Achilles’ heel or a slash across the thighs or chest. The men kept on coming even after receiving a wound from Sarah. They seemed to feel no pain. She knocked a few over the head with the hilt of her blade and they finally succumbed.

  Joshua covered her with his Dangler gun. His hit ratio was pretty poor, since he had to swing his whole body to shift his aim horizontally. There was just no way to fire the gun without having one arm folded over his chest. He shot one man who got too close to Sarah’s blind spot and he went sailing into the air. She spun around at the empty space where the man had been, and seeing Joshua had her back, gave him a curt nod in appreciation.

  Joshua returned the gesture and pushed Kayla up the ramp with Marcas floating alongside.

  ‘Go go go!’ he ordered.

  Will and Elayne came up next. They had Alara draped over their shoulders. Luckily she was just as small as each of them. Joshua felt a surge of pride at their comradeship under fire. They ran up into the dropship, and Joshua looked back for the others.

  There was only Sarah.

  ‘Where’s Richard?’ he called, looking frantically back and forth, ‘and Eddie?’

  Sarah ran up to his position at the dropship ramp. The sheer numbers of men were overwhelming her, and she couldn’t cut them down fast enough without killing them.