by Nick James
Crimson rising
( Skyship academy - 2 )
Nick James
Nick James
Crimson rising
1
A sideways hailstorm of bullets sliced through the air. Cassius Stevenson had only a split second to jump from the rooftop before being hit.
No time for hesitation.
Bounding onto the outside ledge, he pushed forward and leapt.
Mid-air, one of the bullets ripped through the shoulder of his jacket, nicking his skin and forcing his left side forward at an awkward diagonal. A sharp pain tensed his arm. It wasn’t enough to fracture his concentration.
The second rooftop approached quickly, nine yards below the first. He tucked his legs and prepared for impact.
The moment he hit the ground, the entire surface caved in.
Planks of rotten, damp wood cracked and exploded, sending a cascade of splinters into the air. Slum rooftops. Some were reinforced, some were as thin as cardboard. He should have known.
The building’s top floor was sturdier. His thigh smashed into the ground first, followed by the rest of him. A jolt of unfettered pain spread through his body, meeting the sharp throb of his shoulder. It was all he could do to keep from shouting.
There was no telling how many of them were outside. Even if they hadn’t seen him jump, they’d notice the massive skylight he’d carved out.
He shouldn’t have upset the Locusts. Slum Lords were nasty individuals at the best of times. Tick one off and you’re as good as dead. Cassius wasn’t here to tussle with the locals. But the tussle seemed to find him, regardless of his intent.
Fight to stay conscious. That was the trick now. Black out and it was all over. He couldn’t defend himself if he couldn’t move.
He clenched a fist, mostly to see if he could still do it, and allowed his legs to spread onto the ground as he rolled onto his back.
A hoarse cough soon became a heave. Chunks of wood and insulation rained from the decimated ceiling, lowering the visibility to a thin haze.
Beating his chest to knock the breath in, he pushed himself back against the floor.
Too late.
The rest of the rooftop came down. Large slats of wood cut into the floor like guillotines, crashing around him. Random intervals. Random landing spots.
Cassius flipped over, making himself as small as he could, keeping his head low and covered as the clatter of wood became a deafening wall of noise. Small pieces hit his back. Nothing big.
Please, he thought. Nothing big. Broken skin was fine. Bruises were better. Punctures? A full-on plank through the body? There was no recovering from that.
He felt his fist warm, skin sweating. He had fire inside him. He could burn the entire building down if he wanted, but what would that accomplish? He’d come up to Canada’s Polar Cities to escape, to blend in. After what he’d done back in America-destroying a government building, betraying his commander-he knew the Unified Party wouldn’t let him get away unscathed. Setting a city block ablaze would likely result in the kind of news item that could make him findable.
He forced himself to dismiss the past and focus on the present. He didn’t know exactly where the Unified Party was looking for him-hopefully south of the border, far away-but the Slum Lords? They were here, and they were just as serious.
Shadows descended on the walls of the room, followed by heavy thumps as feet hit the floorboards. Then came the clicks of artillery. When Cassius pulled himself to a sitting position, he was greeted by a firing squad.
They stood in a semicircle around him, faces obscured by the dust in the air. They’d landed on their feet, decreasing pain and recovery time. Cassius cursed under his breath. How must he look, cowered on the floor, presenting himself willingly to these men? The thought of it sickened him. It couldn’t end like this. It wouldn’t.
The slum lands, even this far north, were a dangerous place-the Slum Lords even more so. They lived for this kind of thing, employing plenty of paid assassins, happy to carry out the dirty work.
All it had taken was a wrong turn that morning. Fate could have steered him toward any alley in the city, but Cassius had to stumble right into a local gang skirmish. Locusts versus Hoods, brawling over a deal gone bad. There were children involved, forced to the ground. Bargaining tools. Cassius had no choice but to get involved. It was none of his business, but he could hardly stand by and watch innocent kids be murdered.
His results? Two unconscious Locusts and a horde of new enemies. Fast, resourceful ones. Cassius had trained with the best Unified Party soldiers back home, yet here he was. On the floor. Disarmed.
The semicircle of slum assassins advanced as one unit. Cassius swallowed. His fingers scratched at the dirty floor. A trickle of blood dripped from the wound on his shoulder. The room was abandoned. That was at least some consolation. No one to get hurt. No one to watch.
“Anything to say for yourself?” The nearest man spoke. Cassius coughed. “If your crappy roof would’ve held-” A gunshot interrupted him. He flinched, only to realize that the bullet had slammed into the wall several feet from his right shoulder. The assassins laughed, enjoying the show.
“We don’t actually want to hear you voice.” The man sneered.
Cassius grit his teeth. This was it. He didn’t have a choice.
It was fire. Fire or die.
He closed his eyes, just for a second. He’d have to fight through the pain to summon it. The flames were buried inside him, constantly held at bay ever since his power had been triggered four months ago. It had been nothing but trouble so far. It was time to project that trouble onto someone else.
The assassin moved forward, close enough for Cassius to see his pleased expression. Long, scraggly hair framed a pockmarked, sweat-dampened face. A pair of beady black eyes appraised him like he was a hunk of meat. An animal waiting to be put out of its misery. A trophy.
“You don’t stick your nose in Locust business and live to brag about it.”
“The kids,” Cassius started, fire generating inside him. “They were going to be killed.”
“That’s slum life for you. No reason for an outsider such as yourself to get involved. You don’t belong here.”
He grit his teeth. “Hell no.”
The barrel of the gun rose, aimed directly at his forehead. “Then I’m doing you a favor.”
With a grunt of pain, Cassius pushed his fist out in front of his face and unclenched his fingers. Sparks danced along his skin, igniting into small flames. The assassin’s eyes widened.
He hadn’t seen anything yet.
The flames snaked into the air, twisting and winding until they formed an impressive torrent. Cassius winced. It took energy to control it like this, and he had precious little.
The rest of the guns cocked. Cassius’s fingers spread.
A flurry of gunfire erupted. The fame extinguished as Cassius was forced to pull back, shielding his face.
The deafening ring of gunshots blocked out any other senses. For the first few seconds, he was convinced he was a goner. He’d taken shots before, but never more than one at a time. Was this what it felt like to be the victim of a firing squad? So thoroughly gutted that he couldn’t feel a thing?
Bodies fell in front of him, hitting the floor with a dull thud. Cassius watched in horror as the men fell still. They’d never had a chance to fire. The gunshots had come from outside, somewhere on the roof. Somebody else had attacked them.
Another Slum Lord? A local police squad? It didn’t matter. It gave him a chance. He could still escape this.
He tried to stand, and fell. A second pained effort brought him to his feet. He staggered back, hitting the wall. He needed to rest.
Everything was silent. Th
e air began to clear.
Maybe he’d take one of the assassin’s guns. He wasn’t confident that he could conjure anymore fire.
Before he could move, something caught his eye. He watched as a metal sphere, small enough to hold in his hand, dropped from the hole in the ceiling and hit the ground. It rolled toward him a few feet before stopping.
His stomach lurched. Panic flooded his heart. He recognized the weapon instantly. He’d used then dozens of times in training. Every Pearlhound knew what a Unified Party-issue gas bomb looked like.
Unified Party. This couldn’t be a coincidence.
“Not now,” he muttered to himself. “This isn’t happening.”
A tiny red light began to blink on the surface of the bomb. It would only pulse faster until the thing exploded and knocked him out for good. Seconds. Less than.
Pushing against the wall, he moved sideways until he found the closest door. He pulled on the handle in a blind panic, moments before the bomb exploded.
Expecting to enter another room, the sudden drop took Cassius by surprise. The planks beyond the door had been removed, leaving nothing to support his body. He fell to the next lowest level of the building, a narrow landing attached to a rotting staircase.
Half running, half rolling, he tumbled down the stairs. Gas seeped through the open doorway above him, slowing as it dissipated into the large open space.
When he finally reached the bottom, he dragged his bruised and battered body toward the nearest exit and slipped outside, desperate for fresh air. He took a deep breath and stumbled forward, all the while repeating the words in his head.
Unified Party.
There was no way a Slum Lord would’ve gained access to a gas bomb like that. Not this far north. It was government-issue, no doubt. Even in his weakened state, he couldn’t forget something as obvious as that.
The skyline beckoned in the distance. It was his only chance. Laws were scarce in the slum lands. In the city, he’d have the protection of a more dignified crowd. Maybe.
He ducked into the nearest alleyway. He’d run until he passed out, if necessary. Anything to lengthen his distance from them. He’d let the city swallow him. It was his only hope.
2
They’re going to find me. I have minutes, maybe. And when they do, I’ll get the needle again.
Jesse Fisher. He doesn’t look like much, but he’s dangerous.
Jesse Fisher. We don’t understand him anymore. He’s not one of us. Not really. We’ll pretend he is, but not really.
It’s a foregone conclusion. Once the secondary lights cut off throughout the Academy, they’ll know what happened. Kids who should be sleeping will look up from blank screens. Yank at silent headphones. The ship’s control deck will flicker to emergency backup. This-right here in the reactor chamber-is the first place they’ll look. And they’ll find me. I won’t have time to escape.
But if I can just do this one thing, maybe it’ll be worth it.
The thought pins my fingers to the railing. It keeps me traveling up the ladder, rung by rung, each move another treacherous act. By the time I’ve pulled my body onto the warm metal of the platform, it’s too late to talk myself out of it.
I stand in the center of Skyship’s main reactor chamber, the heart of our little operation. But instead of pumping blood, this heart runs on Pearl Power. Without it, the Academy shuts down. The Bridge’ll trigger crisis mode and try to eke out as much power from our struggling solar panels as they can.
It’s okay. We’ll survive. It’s not like there’s a danger of plummeting to the ground. We haven’t been airborne in weeks.
I shield my eyes from the green glow that overtakes the room. A bulky turbine spins several yards from where I stand, stretching from floor to ceiling like an enormous hourglass-an ancient beast of a machine. Each revolution is a struggle. Loud thomp, thomp noises reverberate across the walls as the flaps scoop the air. Beyond that I see the source of the green light. Placed inside the bowels of the tube, sitting there like a treasure ripe for the picking, is a Pearl.
It pulses in my gut. It’s so strong, it’s internal. The energy crackles along the narrow walls of the spherical room. My heart flutters. The Pearl speaks to me. Maybe not the way normal people do, but it’s calling me all the same. Telling me to break it.
I stand at the far end of the thin platform that surrounds the reactor chamber-metal scaffolding that’s been in place long enough to be considered permanent. I step closer to the reactor and look over my shoulder in case I’m not alone. The room is empty, but full of spirit. This is a tomb. Hundreds have died here, sucked dry by the reactor. Thousands more have been killed these past decades.
Back when I was a simple Skyship trainee, we didn’t know what was inside Pearls-that they carried living, sentient beings. It took a chance meeting with Cassius Stevenson, my brother, to trigger my power to break Pearls. And that changed everything. Now every flip of a light switch or click of a button is a kind of murder. Small things. They add up.
Pearl Power runs everything onboard, from the central thrusters to the tiny overhead light on the desk in my room. Every Skyship’s like this. Every Chosen City, too.
After discovering what was really inside Pearls, our technicians upped consumption of solar, biomass, and alternative fuels. We now burn twenty-eight percent less Pearl Power, extending each orb’s lifespan from sixty-eight days to ninety-three. Captain Alkine’s gone through the numbers, but it doesn’t make any difference to me.
Pearls are people. My people. Cassius and I were sent to Earth to break Pearls, freeing allies that would help us fight the invasion that’s to come. But instead of following my parents’ wishes, I’ve been standing by, oblivious, while my own people are snuffed out.
Not anymore.
I wipe the sweat from my forehead and breathe in dank air. My balance wobbles on the platform. I make the mistake of looking down, right through the hexagonal holes between grids of metal underfoot. I’m not entirely sure this scaffolding is strong enough to support anyone for more than a few minutes, even a scrawny 15-year-old like me.
It was a long climb up here, which means an equally long drop if I were to fall. Below me are the docking bays, followed by the engine works, though the chute from the base of the reactor chamber would likely wind past everything until I landed unceremoniously at the very bottom of the Skyship. Pow. Splat. Dead.
I stumble forward, my fear a constant motivation to get this done quickly.
My hands tremble at my sides. I was able to bring a Pearl toward me back in Seattle last spring. I shouldn’t have to reach far. All I’ve gotta do is focus.
I crouch and close my eyes, extending my hands in front of my chest like I’m ready to catch a baseball. I let the energy speak to me, connect to the whispers inside. Suddenly I feel heat, like I’m standing in the Fringes. Back in America. It’s the Pearl.
The tips of my fingers twitch, shoved around by the force of the energy. Glass shatters in the distance. So much for the reactor’s containment shield. I open my eyes and watch the Pearl fly at me-a stringless yo-yo heading straight for my waiting fingers.
The moment it connects with my hands, I feel complete again. There’s no downplaying the sensation. It’s as if a missing limb has reformed itself. Nobody in the world knows this feeling. Nobody in any world. There’s only one Pearlbreaker.
Me.
I hug the swirling sphere of green closer to my tingling body. The hairs on my arms stand on end. My skin warms, coursing up from my hands and into my chest. I stare into the Pearl’s seemingly endless abyss of energy and listen to the whispers. A language. One I can’t even begin to comprehend, but mine all the same. The language of my ancestors. My history.
We huddle on the scaffolding for a moment like this, me and the Pearl. Connected.
The clicks and pops of broken transformers echo through the room as the ship’s power begins to fail. I watch the reactor’s turbines slow as lights shut down. Soon the glow of the Pearl
is the only color I see.
I should break it as fast as I can. They may not be able to see me, but every waking soul onboard our ship knows what’s happened. The night guards might assume it’s an attack. Families will be alarmed. Blackout. No power. No light except for the stars and moon. There will be punishment. The only question is, how long do I have?
I stand, clutching the Pearl tight to my chest. This could be the one that holds my mother or father. Of all of the thousands of Pearls that have fallen on Earth since the Scarlet Bombings, this could be it. And there’s only one way to find out.
The clatter of boots on metal breaks me from my thoughts. I spin around to watch a bulky figure pull itself onto the darkness of the scaffolding.
Too soon. No way they’re this early.
I stagger back, forgetting the flimsiness of the ground. The metal shudders underfoot. I pull the Pearl tighter, like it’s a child I’m trying to protect it. Hell, it could be a child.
“Fisher.” Captain Alkine spits my name. I recognize his gravelly voice from the shadows, even before his weathered face moves into the green light. He’s taller than me by a foot, and still carries the frame of a soldier. Of course it would be him. “Put it down.”
I take another step back. “No.”
He scowls. “Listen to me. You’re sabotaging us. You’re hurting your friends… your family.”
This is where it gets tricky. He thinks this is going to sound rational. But there’s no way it will, not when I’ve got two families and one is dependent on snuffing out the other.
I shake my head. Alkine knows his argument doesn’t affect me. In another second, his words will give way to brute force. It’s the only advantage he’s got over me. He grits his teeth and stares me right in the eyes. His voice becomes a whisper. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
I extend my right arm to my side. With it the Pearl hovers in the air, held aloft by the force of the invisible energy coursing from my hands. Alkine watches its trajectory with slit eyes before focusing on me again. “Jesse, I understand how difficult this is for you, but you have to think.”