by Page Morgan
“Locker room,” I correct, yet again.
Rowan’s mouth thins out into a smile. He shouldn’t be smiling, not with his hands behind his head and a deadly weapon about to laser through his brain. Maybe that’s what makes the smile so charming. I see it through tears.
The commandant snaps his fingers. “Warden.”
It’s an order for the warden to proceed.
Only, the warden doesn’t. He keeps the lambent trained on Rowan’s head. I stop breathing and wait, my chest deflating like a balloon.
The warden pivots, swinging his weapon from Rowan’s head to the commandant—and fires. The commandant ducks and the guard standing closest to him leaps into the laser’s shot of light, protecting the commandant and sacrificing himself. A baseball-sized hole burns through his chest, and the guard collapses.
Rowan jumps to his feet, and as the warden passes him the lambent, at least a dozen white-suited Volkranians move out from behind their holographic monitoring stations.
They all have weapons.
Without a moment’s hesitation, they open fire on the commandant and his guards.
Chapter Seventeen
I cover my head and drop to the floor.
A mutiny.
The warden has organized an honest-to-goodness mutiny.
I crawl to a small alcove in the metal wall behind me where I can hopefully huddle and wait for the laser storm to play itself out. The warden’s mutinous guards have been hiding and waiting in plain sight, but there are still twice as many guards loyal to the commandant—or at least, ignorant of the commandant’s wrongdoings—in the control room. They’re fending off the surprise attack, pushing back against the rebels. A few go down, one of them right in front of me, a gaping laser hole smack between his eyebrows.
A dry heave wracks my stomach as I crawl farther away. A hand grasps my arm and jerks me to my feet. I jab my other elbow back, trying to connect with whoever it is. I get a set of knuckles in my kidneys for the effort, along with a fast glance at my assailant—the fleet commandant. He tugs me against his chest and stomach like a shield, one arm crossed over my middle. He holds a lambent in his other hand, raised and aimed at Rowan, who’s just put a steaming black hole through one Volkranian’s neck. I scream a warning, thrash my shoulders, and rake my nails along the commandant’s bare hand at my waist.
The shot goes astray, and with a grunt of frustration, the commandant drags me toward the port door, still using my body as a shield. Rowan takes aim but doesn’t fire. The warden sees what’s happening and raises his weapon arm.
Rowan shouts something in his own language, and the room falls silent.
Unchallenged, the commandant drags me through the portal, several Volkranians surrounding him like a wall. The transport is back in place now, and the second we’re through, the door slides shut, cutting off my view of Rowan and his furious expression.
With a shove, the commandant tosses me aside. My shoulder rams into a wall. He garbles an order to the pilot, and the transport darts away from the side of the ship. My knees give way, and I slam onto the floor. But we’re not crashing. This pilot knows what he’s doing. Or she. A long brown braid hangs down her back, out from underneath her helmet. The braid is woven through with a few strands of pure white.
It takes a second for me to grip the wall and stand, but the commandant is already locked onto the podium. He and the other Volkranians in the transport are having a panicked, rapid-fire conversation. The last fifteen minutes are a shaky blur of pain and fear and laser fire, and I’m afraid if I open my mouth, all I’m going to do is cry. Do not cry, Pen. The Volkranians would probably get annoyed and laser me.
Within a minute, the pilot closes in on midtown Manhattan. Clouds of smoke blot out the skyline almost completely. The only recognizable structure, the huge Times Square billboard, is half-shattered. Flames roll from building windows. Whole city blocks have been obliterated into rubble, leaving gaping holes in the earth.
A handful of people crawl like ants over the debris of one block, and the closer we get, the better I can see them. They don’t look up as we zoom overhead; the transport must be cloaked.
“Where are we going?” I ask as the pilot drops the transport straight down. It comes to a nimble rest on the top of a building.
“That is not your concern,” the commandant answers as the podium releases him. “Your only task is to lead me to the vessels of chloromagnate. The rebellion aboard the cityship will be snuffed out within minutes, and my warden and commanding sentinel will be put to death.”
He grasps my arm on his way by, once again yanking me along. I’ve had it with all this handling. I don’t care if touching him earns me an immediate execution—I wrench free, and when he tries to retake my arm, I slap at his hand.
“Enough! I’m coming with you, all right? Just keep your hands to yourself.”
The commandant looks like he’d like to laser my tongue out, but he steps back, and then exits onto the roof.
I follow, and as soon as I step outside, glance up at the belly of the black cityship. It looks the same as before, and as quiet as before. From this perspective, Volkron Six appears dormant. Not one person down here would even know a rebellion was going on up there.
Except for me.
“It was a lie,” I say to the commandant’s back.
He stops and turns as a roof door opens behind him. I expect an angry mob of humans to pour out and unload on us with their handguns. Instead, three Volkranians, identifiable only by the collars around their necks, appear. They’re dressed in jeans and button-down shirts, one of them in a waffle-knit Henley and one female in a black pencil skirt and white business blouse.
What the ever-living hell?
The commandant ignores them. “What was a lie?”
“What the commanding sentinel said about the chloromagnate,” I answer. Rowan had only bluffed to keep me alive. I suppose I could keep letting the commandant believe it. I could lead him to the hotel on Broadway and take him inside the pool’s locker room. But that would just mean I’d have to spend more time with him. I’m finished.
“The chloromagnate is not in the room of lockers?” he asks.
It’s not adorable at all when he says it.
“I don’t know where it is,” I admit. “He lied so you wouldn’t kill me.”
I still can’t believe he’d been so ready to kill his own son. What kind of messed up family values do the Volkranians have, anyway?
The ones who have joined us on the roof, dressed as humans, touch their collars. They all have the kind where the metal is woven through their skin, so they’re higher-ranking Volkranians.
The pencil-skirted alien allows her unnaturally bright green eyes to linger on me before she settles them back on the commandant. “We have heard reports of a rebellion on Volkron Six.”
They must have heard their commandant speaking English and switched over. I don’t know why they’d bother, but I like knowing what they’re saying.
“Half of the ship’s sector wardens are not responding to our transmissions,” a Volkranian in a mint green button down says. The shirt even looks like it’s been ironed. They’ve been here, on the ground, this whole time? Since when? I don’t think they’ll answer me, so I stay quiet.
The fleet commandant switches back to Volkranian on his collar and growls at them as he continues toward the roof access door. They quickly follow, and their snapping conversation becomes a jumble of sounds my ears want to mute out.
A light hand slides against the back of my arm and grips my elbow, guiding me along the roof to follow the group. It’s the pilot. She’s almost a full head taller than me, and her form-fitting suit—which appears to be half exosuit and half sec-suit—displays a slim, but muscular, frame. She doesn’t speak, just guides me through the door and down a set of rickety wooden steps, into an enormous, open loft. It’s musty and cobwebby, with furniture and boxes stuffed into the corners. The loft encompasses the entire top floor of the buildi
ng, with exposed brick walls and old windows, most of them boarded up.
From there, I follow the others down another flight of stairs, and then a second flight, before entering a hallway. All the doors along the hallway are open, and at least a dozen or more Volkranians stand within the thresholds, watching their commandant approach. They’re mostly dressed in street clothes, many of them wearing scarves. To hide the collars, I presume. The pilot leads me past the first couple doors, and then directs me into an apartment space. It’s fully furnished and outfitted with some of the same alien tech I saw on the cityship.
Everyone is speaking, and then, in a sudden drop of silence, none of them are. With a stuttering heartbeat, I realize all eyes have turned toward me. I’m still standing in the doorway, though the pilot’s hand isn’t on my arm anymore.
Rowan’s father keeps his frosty eyes on me as he says something in Volkranian. Pencil Skirt rips her attention away from me and glares at the commandant instead. She says something. The commandant nods once. Pencil Skirt returns her attention to me, and this time, her green eyes are wider. Honestly, she looks like she’d like to rip my head off.
“We have already begun our settlement,” the fleet commandant says, gesturing to the open loft-like apartment. “This is only one of my auxiliary bases.”
They haven’t just been sitting up there in the sky, killing us from afar. They’ve been down here, with humans. Pencil Skirt takes a few steps toward a desk, her poison ivy glare locked on me.
“This settlement will be unchallenged,” the commandant says, drawing my attention away from her. “The Sovereign is a fool to believe we can live alongside your people without conflict. The Inoori taught us that.”
Rowan had mentioned the Inoori, too. They’d been the enemy species that had pushed the Volkranians from their planet. Destroyed it.
“Why are you telling me any of this? I’ve already admitted that I don’t know where the vessels of chloromagnate are.”
“Then I will use the commanding sentinel’s weakness for you in order to find out,” he replied.
Great. I’ll just be bait again.
“We will restore partial human communications tomorrow,” he continued, “and the world will see the destruction here. Whatever attempts the Sovereign and other fleet commandants have been making to talk peace with your human leaders elsewhere will be rendered worthless.”
I can just imagine what will happen when people see what New York City has suffered. My throat closes off. How many have been killed? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? For the past two days people in every country must have been certain that the world was coming to an end. Even if the other cityships haven’t been attacking, the humans must still be afraid that the aliens will eventually destroy them. When they learn of the death and destruction here, their fears will be realized. Peaceful talks between Volkranians and humans will end.
The commandant paces in front of the wall of windows, all shuttered by blinds. There is still a lot of light in the room, though. Blue, white, and red lights come from strange lamps set up on desks and hang from a ceiling fan. The EMP that knocked out the power grid hasn’t affected these.
“Soon, there will be no choice but to settle the other cities the same way we have settled here. When that happens, Tokyo will no longer be the new Volkron capital. New York City will be. And the Sovereign will no longer be their leader.” The commandant stops pacing and faces me.
It’s all just as the warden said it would be.
“You don’t have a ship,” I tell him. “You might have stockpiled your alien weapons and maybe some of those transports down here, but the ship is a much bigger weapon.”
He laughs, the sound derisive and harsh. “I control the ship. Down here, up there. It does not matter. I can land it. I can send it out of Earth’s atmosphere. I can even destroy it. My options are numerous, should the vessels of chloromagnate not be returned to me.” He holds up a finger as if to add something. “And you are still a valuable bargaining chip, Penelope.”
I hate the way he says my name. He drags out the syllables like a song.
Pencil Skirt stares at me, her hip leaning against a table with a few bladed weapons lain out. The blades are curved; they shine, and lights blink from small chips set into the metal. She runs her index finger along the handle of one. I keep a wary eye on her. With the way she’s glaring at me, as if I’ve just killed a puppy, she could very well pick up one of those blades and chuck it at me.
I start to shake my head, but the commandant reaches out and stills my cheeks with the palms of his hands. “I am not disappointed the commanding sentinel has tarnished himself. This will play heavily in my favor.”
I wriggle my head until he gives up and releases me. “You’re wrong. Rowan cares about his people more than anything else.”
“Rowan.” The commandant frowns. “Such a strange thing, that name you have given him.”
Pencil Skirt makes a grating noise in her throat, and her glare jumps to a new level of intensity. “The commanding sentinel has a proper Volkranian name.”
She says something—presumably his name—but the sound is a rolling pile of word vomit.
She cocks her head, a small blue light flashing in her ear. Mint-green shirt guy stops what he’s doing at the table and watches her, waiting. She looks up and meets the commandant’s eyes. “They are here.”
She pushes off the table. Picks up one of the strange blades.
And drives it into mint-green shirt guy’s throat.
Chapter Eighteen
Everything stops.
And then everything explodes into chaos.
Another well-dressed alien unsheathes a lambent and fires on the alien next to him. The commandant is tackled by a Volkranian guard. Pencil Skirt shouts orders in Volkranian as hand-to-hand combat sends the apartment into a whirlwind of destruction.
Once again, I sink down and cover my head, and the timing is perfect—a blade swivels through the air, just past my shoulder. This is my chance, I realize, and I bolt from the room. They are here, Pencil Skirt had said. Had she meant Rowan? The warden? Or maybe humans who have found this auxiliary base?
I dodge another firestorm of lasers and blade wielding Volkranians in the long hallway and make it to the stairwell in one piece. A searing pain in my leg sends me wheeling down the first few steps. I slam my shoulder into the wall and swear, clapping a hand over my thigh. A rip in my jeans is still hot, the material singed, and on my skin is an instantly cauterized streak of black and crimson. Grazed by a laser beam. Another slams into the wall beside my head. I jump the last few steps and land on surprisingly steady knees.
I take one more flight down, turn to continue the next flight, and smack into—something. I’m bounced back, onto my butt. When my vision stops spinning, there’s nothing at all in front of me. The stairs are right there, but… I get up and reach out. My hand connects with something invisible and hard. A transparent wall? I run my palms over it, the press of my fingers indenting and disappearing wherever I touch. It isn’t glass, but a strange, thick liquid. Maybe plasma. It’s not man-made, that’s for sure. The Volkranians must have erected it to keep humans off the upper floors. Now, it’s sealing me in.
On the floor above, a volley of laser fire precedes a gargled scream. The ceiling trembles under stomping feet, shaking down plaster. They’re getting closer.
There’s nothing but closed apartment doors in the hallway behind me. I could break into one and hide—but for how long? And if the fleet commandant and his supporters win this fight...I’ll be stuck right here with them.
I eye the stairwell, dread settling deep inside. I can’t fight. I don’t have a weapon. But I also can’t sit here and do nothing. The commandant has to be stopped, and Rowan might be on the upper floors risking his life in order to see it done. Once I’m up there...maybe there will be something I can do, too.
Gathering a deep breath, I take the stairs two steps at a time, lunging until my thighs burn and the seared
flesh of my laser wound screams. I pass the floor where the Volkranians have been hiding out and with a quick glance, see some of them still battling. I keep going, up into the open loft of the top floor. If I can’t go down, I’ll go up, to the roof, and from there…I have no idea. There’s a voice hollering in the back of my mind that this is stupid, that I’m going to get myself killed. But I refuse to huddle in a corner and wait for a Volkranian to decide when and where and how.
Shouting voices—Volkranian voices—travel up the stairs behind me. I sprint to the roof access steps. The door to the roof is open, and the moment I lunge outside, I see him.
Rowan.
He and the warden and Pencil Skirt, and a number of other rebels are battling the other Volkranians. Rowan’s face is beat up worse than before, and his leg looks like it’s been slashed into, but he’s here, swinging a long staff through the air, the bottom and top of which are tipped with scores of little spikes. He slams it into the side of a Volkranian wearing an exosuit, and electrical sparks shudder over the alien’s body.
Almost directly in front of me, the fleet commandant pushes his pilot, still wearing a helmet, but recognizable by her long braid, into a raised skylight. He swings a blade like the one Pencil Skirt had wielded downstairs. The pilot rolls to the side, and the blade cracks the skylight glass. The warden hammers a long, sparking staff like Rowan’s down onto the commandant’s arm, and the blade clatters to the roof gravel.
It lands right in front of me.
It’s a bad idea—I know it the moment I dive for the blade. But I wrap my hand around the black metal handle anyway. I gasp as the metal bonds to the center of my hand like a magnet. I open my fingers to drop the weapon, but the short sword stays nestled firmly in my palm.
The commandant spins away from the warden’s next strike, and I re-grip the blade, then swing it from my low position—but just a hair too late. The blade slices into the commandant’s calf.
The warden shouts something in Volkranian at me—most likely an order to get out of the way, and stop being a nuisance. I stand up, the blade a part of my hand now, whether I like it or not.