by F. T. Lukens
The door heaved inward; the wood cracked and splintered under the assault, and the group leapt into action. They picked up bags and weapons and ran from the entrance to gather behind Ren, Asher and Sorcha.
“Well,” she said wryly, “we’re not going out that way.”
The door bulged against another loud push and clatter. Ren heard the charge of weapons and smelled the burning wood.
Asher pulled his pulse gun.
Ren reached for his power and let it warm him from his core to his toes and fingertips. He succumbed to it; his vision washed blue.
“As much as I want to play ‘last stand’ with you all right now, I think it might be better if we run,” Jakob said, prod in one hand, comm in the other.
The door splintered, and there were shouts from the other side from several voices.
Ren swallowed and poked with his star, and the ping back from the weapons almost overwhelmed him. “There’s too many. We won’t stand a chance in this open area.”
“Into the passageway,” Asher commanded. “Go. Now. Run!”
The door fell in.
They ran. Ren shoved the younger kids in first, through the partial doorway, and then he ducked in, clambering through the small space. As they moved, Ren smacked into Beatrice returning from down the corridor. He skidded and almost lost his balance before righting his body. Asher was the last in, ducking behind a piece of the door. He held onto the iron ring of the knocker and pulled it shut as a stunner blast rocketed into the wood. Splinters rained on the floor.
“What is going on?” she shouted.
“Where have you been?” Ren grabbed her and turned her around, pushing her away from the half-open door and out of the line of fire toward the wall. “I thought you were on watch.”
“I was, but then I saw Ezzy was gone and went to look for her.”
“She’s in the high tower,” Jakob said.
“What the hell is she doing up there?”
“Trying to prove herself.”
There was another blast, this time closer.
Ren readied to send a burst of power, his fingers outstretched, but Asher grabbed his hand and shook his head.
“Not yet. We may be able to talk our way out of this, and we don’t want to give you away if we don’t have to.”
“Talk our way out of this? They’re shooting at us, Ash. In case you didn’t notice.” Jakob clenched the comm in his hand. “And my sister is out there.”
“All the more reason for me to try and talk.”
“Asher will stall,” Sorcha said, tucking a wayward strand of her short hair behind her ear, then hefting her weapon. “Jakob and I will find Ezzy’s route and lead the others out of the citadel. Bea, you stay here and be Ash’s back up in case this strategy doesn’t work.”
“I don’t take orders from—” Another blast into the wood cut her off and everyone ducked away.
“I’m staying with Ash,” Ren said. He took the comm Sorcha slapped into his hand.
“That was never a question. We’ll keep in touch.”
They didn’t have time for a touching goodbye. Jakob’s punch to his arm and Sorcha’s quick kiss to his cheek would have to do. And then they were gone, disappearing down the corridor, leading the rest of Sorcha’s small group to find Ezzy and escape.
Beatrice pulled her weapon from the holster on her back. “Okay, what’s your plan?”
Asher pulled out the shiny metal tags he always wore. He slipped the chain over his head, and, with a quick breath, he kissed the twin pendants. He stood from a crouch from behind the half-closed door and tossed the tags into the main room.
“Wish me luck,” he said.
“No! Ash! What? What are you doing?” Ren whispered harshly, but Asher had already stepped into the line of fire, hands raised.
“Don’t shoot. I am Corporal Asher Morgan with the Phoenix Corps, stationed on Mykonos Drift, under the command of General VanMeerten.”
Ren scooted closer to the door and closer to Asher. He couldn’t see into the room. He didn’t know what weapons were leveled at Asher. He didn’t know how many of the Corps had entered and were facing Asher down. All he could see was the profile of Asher’s face, and it wasn’t enough to gauge what was happening. His military mask had fallen into place.
Beatrice huddled next to Ren.
“Be ready,” Ren said, voice low.
“To run?”
“To save him.”
“You didn’t tell me he’s Corps.”
“Shut up.”
Asher took a step forward. There was no verbal response, but Ren heard the scrape of boots on stone, and then the jangle of medal.
“You are far away from home, Corporal Morgan.”
“I’m on a special assignment. These people are under my protection.”
“Scan these,” the voice said.
Ren swallowed, throat tight. He hated not being able to see the soldiers, hated relying only on what he could hear and the nuances of Asher’s flat expression. He was difficult to read, and Ren didn’t want to miss a tell or hesitate a second too long and have Asher injured.
“I’d like to know whom I am talking to,” Asher said.
The leader scoffed. “I’m Corporal Chase Zag.”
“How did you know we were here?”
“My scouts have been tracking a small group of potential revolutionaries for days. We lost them for a day or so, but thank you for turning off the beacon. That was a sure sign they’d made their way into the citadel.”
“They are not revolutionaries. They are citizens of this planet.”
“Anyone caught scavenging tech is considered dangerous. Not that I have to explain anything to you, Asher Morgan, since I’ll be taking you into custody now.”
“Into custody? On what charge?”
“A quick scan of your identifications shows you’ve gone AWOL.”
“That’s a mistake,” Asher protested. His brow furrowed, and he changed the grip on his pulse gun slightly. “I’m on a special assignment ordered by General VanMeerten.”
“Huh. I guess it’s pretty funny that her signature is on this order of capture.”
“It’s an error.”
“Then you can take it up with her. Now, the question is, are you going to come quietly, or is this going to get messy?”
Ren coiled his legs beneath him and called his power to his fingertips. He closed his eyes and sent out a wave to pinpoint the weapons. Five. Only five. Where had the others gone? He looked up at Asher and saw the slight shift in his posture.
“I don’t want to cause any trouble,” Asher said evenly.
“Shame,” the voice said, closer than before. “I like it when they fight.”
Asher slid his foot slowly back. “I have no intention of fighting.”
Corporal Zag made a disappointed noise.
“But you’ll be happy to know,” Asher continued, inching gradually backward, his body clearing the plane of the door. “I do plan to run.”
Ren sprang. He jumped in front of Asher and pushed a blast of power outward, disabling the weapons in the immediate area. He grabbed the other leaf of the double door and slammed it shut. Beatrice jammed her weapon into the brackets on the back, effectively locking the door from the inside.
A loud thud echoed as a body hit the door, and the wood rattled in the frame.
“That’s not going to hold them long.”
“No. Let’s go.”
They ran to Vos’s office and through the exit at the back of the rounded room, firmly shutting the door behind them.
They were in another passageway, this one long and arched, with doors down either side.
“Oh, cogs,” Asher breathed. “How do we get out of here?”
“Ezzy found a way; so can we.”
Ren lifte
d the comm to his mouth. “Sorcha? Report. Um… over.”
“We’re outside,” she said, tone hushed. “Safe for the moment. Hidden. But they’re everywhere. Ren, we need help, your help, or we’re not getting out of here. Over.”
Ren shuddered. “Okay. Tell us how to get to you and we’ll be there in a flash. Over.”
“Fourth door on the right.”
They didn’t hesitate.
With Sorcha giving them directions, they found their way through the labyrinth of the keep. Ren kept his hand on the comm, leading Beatrice, with Asher bringing up the rear. After one final turn, Ren stopped and recognized the corridor.
“You should be close,” Sorcha said. “Over.”
“Yeah, I recognize this place. I know the way from here. Over.” Ren had spent most of his captivity memorizing the way from the dungeon to the courtyard, and now it was coming to good use.
“Good, because…” She trailed off, and there was the sound of a scuffle before the transmission cut off.
Asher crowded next to Ren’s shoulder, staring into Ren’s palm where the device glowed. Ren willed Sorcha to speak, to come back, and when she did, her voice was hushed.
“Hurry. We’re about to be—” She stopped, breathless, and then yelled. “Jakob! No!”
Ren didn’t wait to hear any more. He ran.
Beatrice and Asher yelled after him, but he didn’t stop, skidding along the stone of the floor. He took a sharp turn and spied the arch that led to the courtyard. It glowed with sunlight, and Ren didn’t slow down, though a Corps soldier stood in silhouette in front of him.
Ren lowered his shoulder, fully prepared to barrel into him and take him down as he had with the troops who’d wanted to take his brother. A shot from behind him rendered his foolhardy idea moot, and the Corps member crumpled forward with a smoking hole in the back of his shoulder from a pulse gun.
Asher.
Ren rushed past the body, which was knocked out, not dead, not dead, not dead, because Ren couldn’t think about the consequences of that. He was too busy. His body worked, heart pounding, blood pumping, adrenaline rushing, joints and muscles and tendons stretching and contracting. His mind ran through scenarios, bleak and terrifying, and his star swelled, infusing him wholly. When he broke into the blindingly bright courtyard, he shouldn’t have been able to see, but his vision was blue, and his eyes blazed. As frightening as was the ring of Corps troops surrounding his friends, he was more so.
Every piece of tech in the courtyard sang to him—the weapons, the comms, the wires in the stone, the pirated pieces in their packs—everything was a part of him. The power tangled within him, and he pushed out. The feedback loops flowed through his body, then outward, and back. He was a nexus of blue threads, of star, of machine, of electricity.
The Corps had his friends. Ezzy, Jakob, Sorcha, and the rest of the group. Ezzy sat in the snow and clutched the beacon; her arms were wrapped around it, and its base sat between her knees. A trickle of red dripped from the corner of her mouth and splattered on her chin, and Ren’s gaze zeroed in on the line of blood, on the offense.
He burned.
“Let them go.” His voice reverberated through the comms and boomed from the beacon, and the captives clapped their hands over their ears. The Corpsmen visibly flinched, and Ren smiled, a grim manic pull of his mouth.
“Or what?” Corporal Zag stepped forward, unafraid, his pulse gun trained on Sorcha. Then he moved it to Jakob, then Ezzy. “Think you can stop a shot, star host? Are you willing to risk it? What about her?” He lifted it to point over Ren’s shoulder, where Beatrice stood behind him. “Or him?” He swung his arm, pointing the weapon at Asher.
As the Corporal taunted, Ren slowly tilted his head. With tactical clarity, he assessed and catalogued. Scattered along the ground were the remains of the tech from the packs the soldiers had upended, and lined in a haphazard row were the force-field points he and Jakob had removed from the stone. Each of the corpsmen held a weapon or had a comm on their uniform. His group of friends huddled together, and Jakob eyed Ren knowingly. Ren smirked. Jakob smiled in return.
Zag changed tactics and leveled his weapon at Ren. “Or maybe I’ll kill you. I might even get a medal for it.” He narrowed his eyes. “All I would need is one shot to wipe that smile off your face.”
Plan firmly in place, Ren gritted his teeth. “You’ll regret threatening my friends.”
Zag chuckled, his gun arm steady. “I don’t think so.” His finger twitched on the trigger.
Ren blinked.
Several things happened at once. The force fields engaged. All the weapons shorted. The comms blasted static. Zag shot. And the group of captives scattered.
Chaos reigned.
Ren poured his power outward. The force field created a partial wall between the captives and the Corps. The comms shrieked. The pulse guns spat electricity, came alive in the hands of those who wielded them, and sparked and sputtered, shocking the Corpsmen with forks and tangles of electricity. They fell, writhing on the ground, even Zag. Ren vibrated with their screams, tasted the burn of skin and hair, but it wasn’t enough.
They had destroyed his home. They had made it so Ren could never return to what he was before. They had scared Ezzy, who was only a girl with a crush, who wanted to prove herself capable in a war zone when she should’ve been learning at school, playing in the woods, swimming in the lake, or blushing around boys. They had threatened them, frightened them, and they would burn, as Ren did, blaze in misery and despair, and thrash in pain until their veins blackened and peeled like wires, until their bones glowed like circuits.
The power flowed from him in a torrent, and he pushed it, and pushed it. He ensured those responsible were filled until they burst, until their souls were scorched out of them, until their humanity had crumbled to dust as his had.
“Ren!”
“Don’t touch him, Sorcha!”
“But he’s—”
“Ash, what do we do?”
“I can’t touch him. My shoulder—”
Ren heard a desperate sob. It broke into his concentration, traveled through the din of the static and the crackle of the air. He turned a bit, and it came again, harder, sharper.
Ezzy. She cried, and Ren pulled back. Why was she crying? He had saved her. He had saved the group. She didn’t need to be afraid.
He lowered his arms from out in front of him; his joints ached. He turned fully and took in the scene through clouded eyes, and the tendrils of power receded, fled back into his chest. Ren blinked, and the haze retreated.
Around him the soldiers lay in heaps—not dead, not dead, not dead—their weapons smoked, bodies twitched. The force field hummed, but the comms were silent. The air smelled like ozone and smoke.
And Ezzy cried.
Zag’s shot, the one meant for Ren, had gone wide. Beatrice lay in the snow, eyes open and unseeing, and Ezzy clutched at her coat with hands twisted in the fabric and sobbed.
“Ren?” Sorcha asked softly.
“We need to leave,” he croaked. “We need to run.”
“No!” Ezzy yelled. “We’re not leaving her. We’re not leaving her.”
A soldier stirred.
“Jakob,” Ren said.
Jakob nodded, his face pale, his mouth flattened in a grim line. He hauled Ezzy to her feet and pulled her away from Beatrice’s body. She fought him, but not hard; her sharp cries gave way to low, shuddering sobs. She covered her face with her hands and allowed Jakob to guide her away.
Someone groaned. Another soldier rolled to his back.
“Run,” Asher said, grabbing a shocked Sorcha by her shoulders. “Through the siege tunnel. Go!”
She moved, slowly at first, with her eyes wide and locked on Ren, but after another shove from Asher, she shook her head. The key to the heavy lock already in her hand, she beckoned her
group, and they sprinted across the courtyard.
Ren followed on unsteady legs. His chest heaved. His hands shook. Asher covered them with his weapon out. It was an unnecessary precaution. With the entire regiment on the ground, their weapons sizzling and smoke curling in the crisp winter air, they were not a threat. Yet.
Ren had guaranteed that.
“But what about the stuff? The whole reason we came?” Matt asked. He stuck close to Sorcha’s side and stared at Ren in awe, and fear, and admiration.
Sorcha pushed him into the siege tunnel. “Don’t worry about it.”
Ren licked his lips. “It’s garbage anyway. I destroyed it all.”
He waited for Beatrice’s groan, her snappy comeback, her cutting remark, her fire. There was only silence, a void where her voice should’ve been. Ren looked back and saw her body in the snow; her red hair was stark against the white. For a second, he agreed with Ezzy. They couldn’t leave her. They shouldn’t leave her. Why were they leaving her?
“Ren,” Asher said, his hand gentle on Ren’s shoulder. “We need to go.”
Ren nodded.
The sound of the metal grate closing behind them echoed in the small stone space, the same tunnel that he had escaped through forever ago. But this time, as he fled with Asher and Sorcha, he couldn’t pinpoint exactly whom he ran from, or whom he needed to run to.
If this was a fairytale, or a nightmare, or one of the old myths his mother used to tell him, he didn’t know who the villain was. But it wasn’t a story, it was his life. And replaying the last several minutes in his head like a vid, he couldn’t help but think, perhaps, the villain was him.
10
When the group reached the floater, they piled in, and it took a moment for Ren to realize that Beatrice had driven them there and they would need a new driver.
Sorcha took over. Ezzy continued sobbing. When Sorcha tried to power the engine, it did nothing, and Ren realized he’d have to fix the block he’d put on it. The thought of using his star made him sick. He pressed his lips together and accessed his power, tasting bile in his throat as he did. The engine roared to life.