by Nick Webb
“I see. But, may I ask ... why, exactly are you here?”
Pike fell silent. His spine had stiffened.
“You aren’t a member of the Rebellion,” the voice told him. “You have no known political sympathies beyond an old friendship with the admiral—and with the state of humanity at present, I’m sure we all have an old friendship with a revolutionary. So why are you here, on one of the most dangerous missions the Rebellion has ever launched?”
“I didn’t say no quick enough and fell bass-ackwards into it.” He really wasn’t good at lying.
There was a sharp, brief laugh on the other end of the line. “An acceptable answer, Mr. Pike.”
“If we’re going to keep doing this, could you call me Pike?”
“Very well.” The man sounded amused.
“By the way, you’ll want to turn right out of the landing bay, not left, and then up the first two flights of stairs you find. It may be on that level. If not, I have some further guesses. I’ll be in touch.” The line switched off.
Pike weighed his options. Somehow, the play-by-play offered by the voice was oddly reassuring. When diving into a pit of certain death, it seemed like a good idea to have someone who appeared to know what was going on. Even complete strangers.
“Are you talking to someone?” Eva leaned forward to call the words across the shuttle, and even then, he had to strain to hear her over the screech of the doors.
He decided not to answer. “Where are we going when we get out of the shuttle?” he called back.
“The Rebellion map shows labs to the left. I thought we’d start there.”
“What’s to the right?”
“We don’t know, we only got a partial map.”
“Maybe we should start there.” On the other hand, maybe he should have a good follow up before he started talking. “If they don’t have maps there, its probably the important stuff.”
To his relief, she bought his ad-libbed reasoning. “Sounds good.”
He had a bad feeling about this. For one thing, he was pretty sure he could hear the faint sound of someone chuckling in the earpiece.
The shuttle landed with a thump and they piled out into a landing bay that tilted farther than Pike was comfortable with.
Shit.
“Come on, let’s move!”
He had no idea when he’d become a mission leader, but people seemed to fall in behind him without complaint. They followed him into the corridor outside the shuttle bay, and he didn’t even pause when he saw Charlie split off to the left with Hank and a few of the others.
Eva watched them go, but she nodded when she saw the look on Pike’s face. There’s no saving them, her eyes said. “Right. Let’s go.”
They steadied themselves on the wall and took the stairs at a gingerly pace; it was harder than it looked to climb a slanted staircase. Pike kept his rifle up as he climbed, ready for Telestines to appear in his sights, but there were no running footsteps ahead, no alarms, nothing to indicate that the Telestines on the ship either knew about the intruders, or sensed anything amiss.
“I don’t like this,” Eva murmured, and he couldn’t help but agree.
He stopped dead when he emerged from the stairwell. Eva ran into the back of him and pushed her way past, only to stop with a muttered oath.
It was an eerily empty room, wide open, with only a featureless white cube in the center of it. The ceilings stretched high above, and the skewed angle of the floor only made the whole thing look stranger. The walls and floor were the same gunmetal grey, and a flight of stairs led up to the floor above.
“Is that it?” Eva edged toward it. The cube was easily four feet to a side. “How are we going to carry it? How do we use it?”
“I ... don’t know.”
“That’s not it. That’s a communications array. Keep going. Up the stairs.”
Pike only narrowly kept himself from asking how, exactly, the voice knew the difference. He was saved from offering that knowledge himself, however, by one of the other soldiers.
“That’s just a comm box.”
“He was in one of the labs at one point,” Eva murmured in an undertone. She looked over at the soldier. “Is it going to hurt us?”
“Nah. But you can sometimes get ‘em to do stuff. Like this. Watch.” He picked his way across the floor and slammed the butt of his gun into the cube.
With a hiss, eight doors opened around the walls of the room.
Pike jumped and swore, and Eva looked around as the floor tilted another few degrees.
“All right, split up. Everyone remember your path back, and give a call if you find anything.”
“I’ll go up the stairs.” Pike didn’t wait for an answer, but just took off at a run.
He slowed as negotiated the difficult incline on the stairs. There were still no Telestines, and that was beginning to bother him. When he reached the top of the staircase, the hallway split in three directions.
“All right, what now?”
There was a pause. “Go straight. End of the hall, break the door down. And ... it’s worth saying that I’m not one hundred percent sure what’s in there.”
“That’s … not reassuring.” Pike crept down the hallway with his borrowed rifle up. He hadn’t been able to practice on it much, and he was beginning to wish he’d brought his own gun. He was going to kill Rychenkov if the man had touched his baby.
If he got back.
He reached the door. Pike took a deep breath, steeled himself, and punched his foot into it with a roar.
He saw a single chair by a large window. A lone figure looked around at the sound.
The figure was not a Telestine.
She was young—at a guess, somewhere between sixteen and twenty—with pale brown hair and lips as bleached as her skin. From the beige clothing she wore to the pale sweep of her eyelashes, nothing about her seemed to have any color at all.
Except the eyes. The eyes were jet black, and older than death.
Pike stopped. “There’s a girl.”
“And?”
“And that’s it.”
“It can’t be.” The voice sounded genuinely bewildered. “I can’t be reading this wrong. It’s supposed to be in there.”
“Shit.” Pike looked around himself. The room was manifestly empty, and the girl was still staring at him with those eyes. Outside, human fighters shot past the window, some pursuing silvery feathers, others pursued by them. Flaming debris hit the window and he jumped.
The girl didn’t.
Then the station shrieked and tipped, and Pike made what he swore later seemed like a good decision at the time. The station was crashing, and the Dawning was nowhere to be seen. He could go down with the labs, or he could get out and make a plan B. Just make the best decision, Walker’s voice said.
“Out of time.” His voice was curt as he pressed on the earpiece. “All teams evacuate, do you read? All teams get out, the lab is going down.” He held his hand out to the girl. “We have to go. The ship is crashing. Come with me.”
Chapter Seventeen
Earth
Mountains Near Denver, North American Continent
“We have to go.” Pike spread his fingers. “You’re going to die if you stay here.” They had room for more in the shuttles; Charlie had made sure of that.
Whoever she was—an experiment, a captive, a stolen child?—she remained where she was. Those black eyes watched him and she did not so much as flinch when the ship shuddered again. She didn’t trust him, Pike realized, and why would she? If she was here, the Rebellion had already failed her.
When had he started thinking like that?
He lowered the gun and braced himself against the door. His mind protested in panic that he didn’t have time for this. Their pilots were dying out there, and if the teams were evacuating, who knew if they’d wait for him? He should go, and she could follow. If she had any sense. But he didn’t want to leave her here alone—what if she’d been with the Telestines h
er whole life? What if she still expected them to help her?
“I’m Bill Pike,” he said, gesturing to himself. A thought occurred to him. “I’m here to look for the Dawning.”
She cocked her head and her eyes sharpened.
“I’m human,” Pike said earnestly. In a less lethal situation he might have pounded his chest and said, Me Tarzan, you Jane. He continued, “and so are you.”
The smile was sudden, and almost impish. Her lips curved and he flushed in embarrassment. So she did know she was human, and she apparently knew English.
He shrugged. “Just checking.”
She said nothing, but the smile stayed.
“Do you know where the Dawning is?” Pike asked her. They didn’t have much time.
“Pike. Pike!” The voice was sudden and sharp. Static was claiming it now, and Pike yanked his hand away from the doorframe with a hiss as he heard the crackling of electricity coming from some unknown source. “Pike—” Static claimed the man’s voice. “—her and get—”
“Are you there?” He turned, pressing his fingers into the earpiece. The hallway behind him was still empty, and despite the chaos outside, nothing stirred behind him in the station; he could not even hear the voices of the others. “I can’t hear you.”
Static was his only answer, static and distorted syllables: “—out of there!”
Well, that fit with his plan.
“No more time.” Pike beckoned her. “Are there people in these other rooms?”
She shook her head.
“Come on, then. Stay behind me.”
He went down the hallway as quickly as he could, rifle up. He checked twice and found her close behind him. She didn’t seem particularly worried; when a ceiling panel cracked and dropped, she batted it away from herself without even looking. He stopped when he saw that, and she watched him silently. Eventually she raised her eyebrows, as if to note that he was the one saying they should go.
That was a fair observation, he supposed. He crept down the stairs with his weapon up, and looked around at the room. For a moment, nothing seemed wrong, until—
The doors had closed.
“Shit.” He ran for the cube and slammed his rifle into it. He was looking around desperately. The doors weren’t opening. He slammed the rifle down again, again. Which side had the other soldier used?
Fingers closed around his sides and firmly ushered him out of the way. The girl crouched down and stared at the featureless white cube. She craned her head to look at each part of it in front of her, searching for something. Her hands came up, palms flat on the white material.
Pike swallowed hard. He hadn’t noticed in the cage room where she’d been kept, but a thin web of ugly scars traced over the backs of her hands and disappeared up into the sleeves of her beige shirt.
Static burst into his earpiece again, but this time, he could not make out a single word. He winced as the voice repeated whatever it had been saying, and gave an anguished look at the featureless walls around them. The doors had disappeared entirely. He fumbled at the earpiece to find a volume dial, but it was smooth.
Had this been the Telestine plan? Lure attackers in and trap them in the building? He strained for the sound of screams or a cry for help, and heard nothing at all. Had there been traps waiting over the doors, or—worse? Did the rest of the soldiers not realize yet that they were trapped? Would they only realize when they tried to return to the shuttles?
A hand wrapped around his and tugged. The girl was apparently done looking at the cube.
“My friends are in there,” Pike said, pointing at the walls.
She shook her head.
“Are they dead?”
She hesitated, then she tugged on his hand again and looked toward the shuttle bay.
“We should go?”
She gave him a look, jerked her head at the tilted floor.
“Right. Come on.” He paused. “You wouldn’t know where the Telestines are, would you?”
The hollow boom of an explosion sounded outside and she gestured toward it.
“They’re all out there? Their scientists fly fighter jets? Really?”
She shrugged.
Static roared in his earpiece again, making him wince. This time it didn’t stop. Useless. He ripped it out and took off for the shuttle bay; quick steps behind told him that the girl was following.
He swallowed hard when he saw the bay. Smoke was beginning to drift across the floor, and flames were licking at one wall. Both shuttles were still there.
“I should get the rest of my team,” he told her. It was a useless sentiment; he had no idea where they’d gone, and he’d barely seen the tiniest piece of two floors. The station must have ten at least.
Her eyes met his, and there was no judgment there. She looked sad.
“They got me here,” Pike told her. “They....” He swore silently and stared down at the floor, indulging in a quick moment of regret. Eva had been right.
The Rebellion had sent him, and he had failed—and her crew was going to die for it.
A hiss of machinery caught his ears, and he picked his face up in time to see the girl climbing into the shuttle. As if to validate her decision, the whole station dropped several feet, taking his stomach with it.
Instinct got him into the shuttle and he found her at the copilot’s chair, hands pressed on the control panel, brow furrowed. She looked up at him in mute appeal.
“Don’t worry, I got this.” Rychenkov was going to make himself sick laughing when Pike told him that he’d flown a shuttle.
Pike could hear him now: You? How are you still alive?
Well, he supposed he might still kill them. He took one last look out the windshield of the shuttle and brought up the screens. The code was still there and he entered it again. Behind them, the doors slid open. He waited, foolishly, hands on the controls, and the girl watched his hands.
At last, seeing his hesitation, she reached out and placed her hand over his, dragging back firmly. The shuttle skidded awkwardly across the floor toward the empty sky, and Pike nodded.
Time to go. He looked down at the controls and backed them away, out into the battle. Better to take his chances there than be on the lowest floor of a crashing ship.
He was about to get his apprenticeship in flying.
Chapter Eighteen
Venus, 49 kilometers above surface
Tang Estate, New Zurich
“Pike—Pike!” Nhean tore out the earpiece and threw it. “Dammit.”
“What’s going on?” The admiral’s voice crackled over another line. “I can’t get the feeds from any of them. Do you know what’s happening down there?”
Her voice was breaking, and he closed his eyes.
“There’s a shuttle leaving. Protect it at all costs.” He opened his eyes and tracked her position. Good—nearly to Earth after a week of burning halfway across the solar system from Jupiter. But after the disaster at New Beginnings Station he wondered where she’d set up headquarters next. It was clear the Rebellion was going to be needing more help in the very near future. Help only he could provide.
“The team got out?” Relief was obvious in her voice.
He hesitated. “Just—your mission specialist.”
There was a long pause, and he could see her looking at the names and pictures of the soldiers who had gone on the mission. The ones who wouldn’t come back. Quietly, she asked the only thing that mattered: “Did he find it?”
He stared out the window at the billowing golden clouds, not wanting to say anything at all.
“No, but he found us someone who might be able to find it. Or possibly recreate it. Protect the shuttle.” Nhean swallowed. “If we let them shoot it out of the sky, we are all lost. We need to get to them as soon as possible.”
A pause. “Acknowledged. Given the Telestine response during Pike’s insertion, this is going to be one hell of a fight. A fight I was hoping to have with the Telestine defense grid down because of the Dawning
, not still fully functioning.”
A good point. It was decided then. He’d have to reveal part of his hand to Walker, and the Telestines. “I’ll take care of it. I can temporarily disable one of their satellites. The one in geosynchronous orbit roughly over Denver. You’ll have a few minutes to get your fighters down there to protect Pike’s ascent, but only a few minutes.”
Another pause. “But won’t that tip your hand to the Telestines? Clue them in to how much you’ve infiltrated their systems?”
She was good. Perceptive. He supposed it was why she was the leader of the Rebellion, and no longer sharing the position with that buffoon, General Essa. “It will. But for the Dawning, it’s a risk we’ll have to take.”
He had to find a way to get in touch with Pike. The man had no idea what he’d found.
Nhean’s hands were white knuckled on the arms of his chair. Now that he knew there had been a human in the same room as the Dawning, he could track her through the data. And no matter how many times he looked, those data kept saying the same thing; this girl always came with the Dawning when it moved. She was its caretaker, bound to it in some way.
And if she was loyal to the Telestines, there was no telling what she might do next.
Chapter Nineteen
Earth, Low Orbit
Bridge, EFS Intrepid
“Protect the shuttle—all fighters, protect the shuttle.” Walker kept her voice steady through sheer force of will. Her eyes were fixed on the array that hovered over the desk, the bulk of the Telestine station tilting crazily and the fighters buzzing between it and the sharp spine of the mountains.
And hurry it up, we only have a few minutes before we have to get out of here.
She already knew they weren’t going to make it. The window was closing on the dead space in the Telestine array—courtesy of Nhean—and there was no way the fighters could make it out of the gravity well in time to get back to the Intrepid. They would have to go to ground with the Rebellion cells and wait until the ship came around again.