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“She
designed these?” Emma asked, leafing through the physical blueprints the mayor
had the guard in a suit spread out on the table.
Emma
was trying to imagine her mother’s hand tracing along the pages. Her mother could
have very well touched the exact same corners Emma was touching now. It was
perhaps the closest to touching her mother that Emma would ever get for the
rest of her life.
It
was a weird thought. Hard for her to imagine her mother doing anything since
the Suits came and took her away. The mayor was watching Emma, almost too
curious.
“They’re
amazing aren’t they?” Maggie May urged Emma on, the squirrely Kat reading the
blueprints over Emma’s shoulder. Someone else had come into the room, a stern
looking narrow eyed man with small glasses.
“The
dimensions on this thing are unimaginable,” Emma agreed with everyone else in
the room. Even Kat was nodding her agreement though she said nothing. “It’s larger
than life. And the way my mother solved anti-gravity with electric current and
magnetism is ingenious. But all in all it’s a little sloppy,” she looked over
the designs quickly to affirm her first instincts, “and it’ll never work.”
The
stern looking man over Councilwoman Maggie May’s shoulder crossed his arms.
“What
would you do different?” the world leader asked Emma with a bemused smirk on
her face.
“I
would start from scratch for one,” Emma said, pouring over the schematics
again. “The power requirements are astronomical. I don’t care how much energy
you’re generating, that’s going to put too much strain on your single
generator.” She took a pen from Kat’s things and began scribbling on the schematics.
This was her first time ever working on real paper. It was expensive and most
work was done electronically these days. “I would need to reconfigure the
entire internals of the ship, make room for multiple generators. Three
preferably. Four if we have the money.”
“What
if starting over isn’t an option,” the mayor of Hymalious City asked Emma, the
older woman’s gray hair already sliding untidily from its bun.
Emma
looked down at the schematics, and then back to the woman who had approached
her. “You’re saying you already built this?” She couldn’t believe what she was
being told. “The resources alone...” Emma trailed off as she flipped through
the pages again, going over the floor plans of every floor. “Can I see it?”
Councilwoman
May smiled. “I think that can be arranged,” she told Emma. “It was a lifetime’s
worth of work. Your mother’s life’s work.” This project had been the very
reason Emma’s mother hadn’t been there to help raise her. This very project had
ruined Emma’s life.
Suddenly,
looking down at the blueprints spread out before her only filled her stomach
with nausea.
“Your power concern is very real,” Maggie May
warned Emma. “Our engineers have been having increasing issues balancing energy
distribution across the various systems.” The man behind Mrs. May shifted his
weight uncomfortably and Emma wondered if he was in fact one of those
engineers, if not even the acting chief.
“What
other options do we have?” Mayor May asked. “Ones that don’t involve starting
over from scratch.” Her smile turned into a frown. “We’ve spent quite a lot of
money on our first attempt.”
Emma
looked sheepishly down on the mess she’d already made of her mother’s
schematics.
“Oh
we have copies,” Maggie May assured her. “Both hard copies and digital mock
ups.” Emma breathed a little relief.
“I
can th-think of a c-couple options,” Kat stuttered, examining what was still
legible.
“Only
one practical fix jumps out at me,” Emma said, often making a habit of
following her gut. “If I were in charge I’d install capacitors throughout the
ship. Here, here, here,” Emma turned the page and pointed to a couple more
spots, turning the page and pointing again, then turning the page one more
time. “Here. Here. And here too. Probably a whole bunch of other places.”
“The
capacitors,” Emma explained to the room, “would draw from the main generator
during slow times, storing up to twenty-four hours worth of energy. The ship’s
systems would then drain from the capacitors, keeping the strain off the main
generator.”
“It
has the added bonus,” Emma concluded as she put down Kats’ pen, “of allowing
for reserve power across the ship even if something happens to the main
generator.”
“It’s
a s-sound plan,” Kat said to her friend, patting the other woman reassuringly
on the back.
Maggie
May shared a glance with her engineer. “Like mother, like daughter,” Maggie May
said to her man who snarled back.
“With
all due respect,” the engineer said to Maggie May. “This sort of show boat
science is exactly what got us in trouble to begin with,” he insisted of the
woman. “Gut instincts have no place in engineering.”
“Come
Eggie,” Maggie May said to the man harshly, and Emma didn’t particularly like
the way the man was talking about her mother. “None of this is Penman’s fault.
She did the best she could designing something greater and more ambitious than
any endeavor the human race has ever attempted.”
Emma
noticed her mother’s signature at the bottom of one of the pages, and rubbed
her thumb over it. “Did she leave me anything?” Emma asked the mayor. “A
message or something?”
“I
don’t think she saw the end coming,” Maggie May said with a shake of her head.
“But we have cameras in nearly every facility that your mother worked in. I
could have my people compile a string of clips of your mother at work. Maybe it
will bring you some peace.”
Emma
nodded. “Did she ever even think of me again?”
Mayor
May grabbed at Emma’s hand. “She talked about you all the time,” Maggie assured
Emma, and Emma didn’t know what to believe anymore. “Told everyone who would
listen how smart you were. How you were going to surpass her someday. After
everything she built for us, there was never any doubt that her best creation
was always you. And it would always be you.”
“Then
why didn’t you ever let her contact me?” Emma begged. Having not thought of her
mom in years, it was like all the buried emotions were flooding back. Emma was
doing everything she could not to cry again. She hadn’t cried since her twelfth
birthday and she wasn’t about to start now. “Or even see me again?” she
continued, closing her eyes to center herself.
“She
didn’t want this for you,” Maggie said, leaning back in her chair. This was the
first time, since meeting the woman that Emma noticed how old she looked. She
had seemed, at first, filled with so much energy. “It’s why we didn’t come for
you sooner. Why you weren’t informed of your mother’s death. She wanted to keep
you free from us, far away where you wouldn’t get involved in all this. And
after everything she’d done for this planet – and for me – I felt like I owed
her that one favour.”
“Please
forgive me,” Maggie May mumbled and Emma could tell the woman was being
genuine. “I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now.”
“How
did she die?” Emma asked slowly, her voice cracking. She wasn’t even sure she
wanted to know.
“It
was cancer. It spread fast.” The council leader let her words hang in the air,
and Emma felt her heart sink in her chest. She didn’t know why she’d always
assumed her mother would have died a hero, in some grand explosion or
something. She didn’t know why she thought that would have been better.
Councilwoman
May opened her mouth to talk again, “I bel—“ but there was a knock at the door
and it opened, the man in a suit on the other side not waiting for Maggie May’s
response.
“Mrs.
Mayor,” he began to say.
The
old council leader turned around, and she didn’t seem happy. “I told you not to
disturb me unless there was another situation at the very least as extreme as
the last one.”
The
man seemed to pale before the council leader’s scrutiny. But he held his
ground.
“There’s
been another situation.”
*
*
CAUTION Slow Ascent! CAUTION
Slow Ascent!
The
same warning kept flashing on Nick’s dashboard, warning him that he hadn’t
given the engines time to warm up. The engines had been cooled so long that it
would have been preferable to wait and let them work themselves in with a bit
of time, but time was something Nick didn’t have.
The
lights in his cockpit flashed red and everything shook like the very gunship
was going to tear apart. Alarms were sounding, blaring louder than the clanging
of debris and rock outside his ship as the building he had been hiding his
craft inside fell apart around him. All that extra weight on the hull wasn’t
helping his ascent.
Engines at 13% and
critical
“Come
on,” he said, swearing at his controls. “Hold it togetha’.” The engines were
overheating. They weren’t taking in enough charge and being pushed past their
maximum.
CAUTION Slow Ascent!
“I
KNOW!”
*
The
gunship rose from the rubble slowly, like a demon rising from hell itself. The
very ground beneath Alec’s feet rumbled and he grabbed at his new waitress
friend to steady himself. She brushed him off her.
“What’s
happening?” Steph yelled, her hair whipping in the wind. It occurred to Alec
that she was watching her very livelihood fall apart before her eyes.
The
large bartender, Steph’s boss, pushed past the two of them to approach the
general. General Gilber seemed to have pulled out a radio from somewhere, and
was using it to contact someone.
“We
need immediate air support,” he grunted into his handheld device. “I have the
highest military clearance and I’m order’n a reallocation of forces to my
location.”
“I
‘ad no idea that was down there,” Lankey insisted to the general. “Ye have ta
believe me.”
“Yeh
didn’t know about the first generation Mark I Blazkor gunship hiding in your
basement?” the general repeated, and Alec had the strange sense like the man
didn’t believe him.
David
stepped forward to join the men, yelling over the howling winds and blowing
sands that only matched the roar of the gunships overheating engines and the
loud collapse of Lankey’s bar.
“Why
would someone knowingly build their bar on top of a working gunship?” David
seemed to be trying to reason with the older general. Lankey pointed to the
doctor in agreement.
“Is
this what people used to do before someone invented a garage?” Alec asked
rhetorically.
Colonel
John Adams, standing in silent defiance of the gunship, pulled out his pistol
and began shooting loudly at the right engine. The bullets clanged off the
metal but he kept shooting undeterred until his gun was out of ammo.
He
then reloaded.
“What
are you doing?” Gilber yelled at his man. “Pistol ammo won’t penetrate that
hull.”
“He’s
burning his engines too hot,” John said, and Alec could swear he saw a light
bulb go off over the man’s head. “I have another idea.”
The
military colonel sprinted towards the nearest tall building, bashing through
the front door.
“Where’s
he heading?” Alec asked, watching John go.
“Don’t
worry,” General Gilber said off-hand, returning to his radio. “He’s my best
man. He knows what he’s doing.” Something was said in the radio that Alec
didn’t hear, and Gilber started to yell. “I know most of our forces are at the
border of the deep desert. Launch air support from Rebirth for all I care, they
can be anywhere on the planet in ten minutes.”
*
Nicholas
noticed the man shooting at him had stopped, and seemed to be making for a
building.
CAUTION Slow Ascent
There
was nothing more Nick could do from the pilot’s seat, the engine very much
acting with a mind of its own. Sliding out of his seat, Nick stumbled over to
the gunner station, and spun up the machine gun turrets. He tried to turn on
the targeting computer, but the device didn’t immediately respond to the on
switch. Hitting the monitor with his fist, the move blinked the screen to life.
Like everything else on this rust bucket, the guns hadn't been spun in a very
long time.
He
opened fire with the lower gun, sweeping the lower floor of the building. While
that gun fired, he spun up the upper gun as well. He’d only be able to aim one
at a time, but he could point one and have it fire while he used the other.
*
“Shit,”
John swore, bullets following him into the stairwell as he made it to the
second floor. He tried to continue up but was cut off by another hailstorm of
bullets from above. Getting off at the second floor, and into a brown run down
apartment hallway, John broke into someone’s apartment. It was thankfully empty,
TV screen left on, and towels over the windows to act as shade. John made for
the longest hanging towel, and behind it he found a balcony.
It
wasn’t high enough for what he needed, in fact, it put him almost eye to eye
with the pilot. John pulled out his gun again and fired a couple shots directly
between the pilot’s eyes. The glass was strong enough to hold, but the second
shot made a little mark.
John
would have kept shooting, but the pilot moved to a different station and the
lower turret swiveled to aim up at John. As it fired, John booked it across the
balcony and jumped onto the neighbouring balcony. Where he had just been
standing exploded with bullet fire and collapsed behind him, the bullets
tracing along after John as he ran.
The
balcony he was on tore apart as the bullets wrecked everything around him. John
barely avoided getting hurt by rolling over the railing onto the next balcony.
Debris tore at his skin as he went and he was covered in a sticky mixture of
dirt and sweat.
This
new balcony was already creaking under his weight, and when the gunfire hit it,
the thing immediately began to collapse. John spotted a boy no older than five
inside the apartment complex, and the kid seemed about to cry. John barely
jumped into the room with the boy in time, and realized the boy would most
definitely get in the way of the gunfire. Grabbing the kid John smashed his
shoulder through the front door into the hallway as the gunfire behind him tore
up the boy’s dark shabby apartment.
Seeing
the elevator at the end of the hall, John ran for it, passing dim lights in a
drab run down the hallway full of graffiti. The boy struggled under his grasp,
scrambling to get away, but John knew the area still wasn’t safe, and the guns
were right behind him. They were tearing through the entire building. Suddenly
fire above must have snapped a cable because the elevator dropped right before
John’s eyes. Another cable was rushing up, clearly weighed down on the other
end. Behind him bullets were closing in as outside the gunship continued to
climb.
John
had one chance.
He
leapt into the elevator shaft, the kid still under his arm, and he grabbed the
cable with everything he could muster. It yanked on his shoulder hard enough to
nearly yank it out of its socket, and they began their fast acceleration
towards the roof.
Too
fast. He’d have to get off, have to let go. It was going to hurt.
“Hold
on,” he said, the floors whipping past. Letting go of the rope and angling his body
for the nearest open floor, he closed his eyes and turned his body to roll on
impact. He was able to use his momentum to protect the child as he smacked
against the polished floors heavily and landed on what must have been floor seven
or eight.
It
hurt, exactly as much as he’d expected it to, almost enough to knock him
unconscious. He made a sound that almost sounded like an ow. The kid pulled
against him, pushing him to move.
“Do
it again!”
*
*
“I
can’t make heads or tails of any of this,” Tameka complained, throwing her
datapad of translations across the room. Jack watched her with what looked like
growing concern on his face. The fact was she couldn’t concentrate since
sending off that anonymous message. Had it gotten through? Were they able to
stop her mother’s plans?
“You
have to get me out of here,” she told Jack, aware that he was still watching
her. “You know this base better than I do.” She was going to say more, a
certain memory resurfacing from when they were kids and would play together and
he would rescue her from her mother’s evil fortresses at least in their
imagination.
Tameka
wasn’t able to start however as Dinah entered the room with another of her
mother’s soldiers. They were both in armoured military gear. The Blazkor combat
uniform was a mix of pressed beige military attire with armoured shoulders,
elbows, and knee pads. The uniform also had a bullet proof chest piece build
just under the thicker fabric.
“What
do you two want?” Tameka asked suspiciously.
“It’s
not me,” Dinah said. “Mother Davi’s wants to see you in the war room.”
Tameka
didn’t even know they had a war-room. She also continuously forgot the creepy
way everyone in this base referred to her by the same creepy nickname Meka did.
Mother.
“She
thought I needed an escort to get there?” Tameka asked, acutely aware that both
Dinah and the other soldier had their weapons drawn.
“Meka,”
Jack said quietly. “You think she knows?” Tameka gave him a look, hoping he
would be more careful as to not give anything away. They didn’t know what this
was about.
“Mother
Davi’s knows all things,” Dinah said, making room between her and the soldier
for Tameka to lead the way.
“Mother
Davi’s knows all,” the soldier repeated, as if it was some kind of twisted
mantra.
“Mother
Davi’s knows all,” Jack said from beside Tameka. She looked at him again, this
time with more than a little concern. Whose side was he on exactly? Would he
have her back if things got messy?
They
marched their way down bustling dirt corridors as rebel soldiers passed in a
hurry, arming themselves and all dressed in similar combat gear. Alarms were
blarting all over the station insisting that the situation was not a drill.
“I
know you guys have been here a long time,” Tameka muttered as they came to a
crossroads, “But I don’t actually have a clue where I’m going.” The soldiers
they’d already passed must have numbered over a hundred easy. How much of a
force had her mother been stashing away here in the deep desert?
Dinah
jabbed Tameka with the barrel of her gun, and pointed their sacred leader’s
rebellious daughter to the right. “It’s just in there,” she said.
“Thanks,”
Tameka muttered, rubbing the spot on her back where Dinah had jabbed her. She
stepped through a narrow doorway, ducking her head so as not to hit it on the
frame.
The
war room was a large operations center with a big 2D green wire map of the
planet against one wall, and that was where Tameka’s mother stood, scrutinizing
the map closely. Behind her were rows and rows of computer stations where a
large handful of people scrambled to control what must have been numerous arms
of their rebellion.
“Tammy!”
her mother yelled across the loud noise of the room. Her mother was the only
person to call her that, and she hated it. Every time she heard her mother’s
nickname for her, Meka felt a shiver run down her spine.
“Bring
her to me,” she said sternly to Dinah. Tameka’s rival grabbed her by the arm
and dragged her closer to her mother, Jack following dutifully behind her. Why
wasn’t he defending her? Didn’t he care about her at all? Didn’t he care how
she was being treated? She tried to turn to see him but Dinah jostled her to
keep her focused on her mother.
“I
wanted you to see this,” her mother gloated to her, looking back at the map. “Finally.
Blazkor’s moment of triumph.” It almost seemed like her mother was mumbling to
herself. “Three generations in the making.”
“Your
moment of triumph?” Tameka asked, not liking the sound of that.
“I
know about your transmission,” her mother warned her. “And as you’ll come to see,
it didn’t even do you any good.”
Tameka
looked around the room, Dinah too distracted now to jostle her. Everyone seemed
focused on her mother, or on the map. “I don’t know what it is you’ve done to
brainwash everyone here,” Meka accused her mother. “But I can see through
everything. I see you, and how all of this is just about you.”
“Tammy,”
Mother Davi’s said with a tut. “I’ve done nothing to brainwash anyone in this
base. From the moment they were born they have loved me, right down to every
Blazkor man woman and child.”
“Mother,”
a soldier at a station called for her attention. “Re-enforcements are two
minutes from the wall.”
“Oh
goodie,” Suma Davi’s said, rubbing her hands together as her attention returned
to the screen. “Watch as our reinforcements make short work of them.”
*
*
Sara
smacked into the door of the cafeteria hard, almost barreling over a
construction woman just getting off her shift. Laughing, Sara turned around
expecting to see Dennis behind her, but he was nowhere to be found.
“Oh
come on,” Sara complained, crossing her arms as Dennis rounded the corner. He
was both out of breath and sweating. “And I was in a flight suit. You’ve really
let yourself go.”
It
was really easy to let yourself go out there in space. All the men had gained weight
up there, and some of the women too. They didn’t need to be fit to fly a plane,
but Sara liked being able to hold her own outside the cockpit. If the need ever
arose.
“What
you even wearing that thing for?” Dennis asked her, eyeing her flight suit.
“I
like to be prepared,” Sara said. It was rare that she ever took it off while on
board the Rebirth. She glanced at herself in the reflection on a window out
into the stars, and she thought she looked good in the thing. It was a little clunky,
but it made her look like she could really kick someone’s ass.
John
didn’t need a flight suit to look like he could kick ass. Sara often liked to
imagine she could keep up with him, be his equal. But then he’d always do
something extraordinary and remind her he was forever in another league. His
was a world of supermodels, and porn sex. He wouldn’t be interested in her
world of beer, old movies, and maybe a sloppy BJ before she passed out drunk.
“What
are you wearing?” she asked him, turning the focus on his tight t-shirt and
ill-fitting short shorts that weren’t able to meet in the middle over his large
gut. “No one wants to see all that.”
“I’ll
have you know this is official military brand fitness attire,” Dennis said with
misplaced pride. “You should have received a pair too.”
‘I
thought that was our laundry day uniform,” Sara admitted, remembering the
folded t-shirt in her locker.
“Whatchoo
even wanna be prepared for?” Dennis asked, still a little out of breath. “This
is deep space. Nothing ever happens out here.”
She
waved for him to follow her into the cafeteria. “Well I won,” she said, “fair
and square. Means I gotta pick out the grossest thing on the menu, and you
gotta eat it.”
“Don’t
know why I agreed to this,” Dennis muttered, though Sara had come to find she
could get him to agree to anything with nothing but a smile and a flutter of
her eyelids.
“Maybe
I’ll do your body a favour and choose a salad,” Sara mused to her friend, who
slapped her shoulder hard.
“Nicole
from sanitation was jiggling this gut the other day,” Dennis said in his
defence, “and she insisted it added to my character.”Hi
“Oh
honey,” Sara said with pity. “We really need to get you into some kind of
routine.”
“She
says she’s been promoted,” Dennis said, and Sara was sure he was about to go
on, when suddenly he was interrupted by a chime on the intercom.
“Any
available pilots report to the launch bay,” a female voice said over the
intercom. “Available pilots, please report to the launch bay.”
“Race
you there,” Sara joked to Dennis who didn’t seem at all amused at the prospect.
“You
go on ahead,” Dennis muttered to Sara. “I still have to get changed. I’ll be
right behind you.” Sara nodded to him and took off down the narrow ship
corridor, passing by two nurses carrying an expensive looking microscope to
their lab. She was careful not to jostle them too much as she passed.
“Excuse
me,” she said to them, sprinting off again, hopping over three steps like they
were nothing and coming to a civilian elevator. Most the civilian districts
were closed, but they had begun to move in rich business owners and it seemed
some of them had been having a dinner party. Sara got in the elevator with
about seven well dressed civilians all with quarters on different floors.
“Flight
deck,” Sara said to a young boy nearest the panel. The kid searched for the
number, but military floors didn’t have numbers like civilian decks. His mother
reached over and hit the correct button.
“Priority
military one,” Sara said, the elevator recognizing her priority command and
erasing all other selections on the panel. Everyone in the elevator groaned.
“Sorry
about that,” Sara said to the other people in the elevator. “You heard the lady
over the intercom. It’s an emergency.”
“We
understand,” one woman in an elegant dress said. She seemed to be in her
forties, and her husband looked at her like he hadn’t expected her to talk. “I
have nothing but respect for women in your line of duty,” she said to Sara with
a smile. “In fact there was once a time I had planned to join the air force
myself. Leave everything behind.”
“You
can’t be serious,” her husband said in protest.
Another
woman pulled on Sara’s sleeve. “I have a brother who was always saying he was
destined to be a pilot,” she explained to Sara. This woman was young, looked
like maybe one of the other civilian’s daughters. Maybe just turned sixteen.
“That’s
nice.” Sara said.
The
girl shook her head. “Ye don’t understand. When he enlisted, they wouldn’t let
him in the air force. Instead they assigned him to the front lines. As a
rifleman.”
Sara
had heard such stories before. No one ever wanted to be a grunt, but some
people just didn’t have the aptitude for anything else.
“He’s
never even fired a gun before,” the girl said, her eyes wide. “He’s only going to
trip over his shoelace and get shot in the arse or some dumb thing.” The girl
started to weep. “He should be here. With his family.”
“Write
up a recommendation letter,” Sara told the young woman. “Place it directly into
my mailbox and I’ll make sure it gets where it needs to go.” The elevator
chimed, and Sara pushed passed everyone to get off. “Excuse me,” she said.
“Pardon.”
“Good
luck out there,” one man said, and Sara couldn’t help but notice the man’s
short shorts were far better fitting than Dennis could ever hope to pull off.
“We depend on you soldier.” He saluted her.
Sara
returned his salute, giving him a big wide smile. “It’s Ensign,” she corrected
him under her breath, “might wanna ask someone their rank next time before you
salute them.” The door began to close. “You’re all so pleasant, have a good day
now!” The door finished closing and Sara turned away, her smile gone.
“Fakking
civilians.”
She
sprinted off down the corridor to the fighter launch bay. The launch bay was
huge, with the capacity to hold many times more squadrons than they had been
equipped, along with room for larger ships.
“Ready
my bird,” Sara yelled to a number of engineers who spotted her and sprang into
action cutting her G32 Enderman loose from its mag-locks. Everyone could tell
which one was hers because she painted it navy blue with red tips.
“Dennis
said he was right behind me,” Sara told one engineer who handed her a helmet.
“Prepare his fighter. Trust me. He’ll be here.” The engineer nodded her cute
little head, and scurried off waving for others to help her set up a second
ship. Sara seemed to remember that engineer had been Nicole, though she had
only heard people talk about her, and they’d never actually been introduced.
She had gotten quite the promotion indeed.
Another
engineer ran over to her, pushing a ladder along with him. She hopped onto the
ladder and climbed it even as the man continued to push it into place against
her fighter. Engineers were scrambling all over her bird, fueling it up,
filling the oxygen, and reloading its guns with ammo.
Sara
stepped gracefully off the ladder and dropped gleefully into her cockpit.
Feeling the familiar warm leather seat against her butt, she fastened her
helmet into place. Grabbing at the yoke, it felt good in her hands. She shook
it around a little and couldn’t help but let a smile creep along her face.
“How
long do I have before launch?” Sara asked the engineer leaning in to help
fasten her straps.
“We’re
to launch as soon as possible,” the man told her, but she knew that could still
be more time than you’d expect. He looked at the oldest man who seemed to be
running a test on the engines. Sara flipped on her main computer and pulled up
the rear camera on her main display. The cockpit consisted of a large canopy
she could see through with a limited projected HUD. For most her functionality
she had the main display over her flight yoke, a flat screen with a full
computer operating system, and access to all her systems in one place.
On
the screen she could see the senior engineer give the thumbs up.
“Thirty
seconds,” the man fastening her in said with a smile to her. Her heart skipped
a beat. That wasn’t a lot of time to prepare at all.
“I
can do thirty seconds,” she said, more to assure herself than anyone else
around.
“You’d
better do your pre-flight checklist,” The engineer said before closing her
canopy and stepping down off his ladder. Dennis’ light pink fighter was being
set up right beside hers, and the engineer she had just been talking to looked
at it with concern.
Sara
leaned forward and flicked the switch for the external speaker. “He’ll be
here,” she assured the engineer. “Trust me.” The engineer gave her a thumb’s up
even though her external speakers also had a mic.
Sure
enough, Dennis stumbled into the launch bay and collapsed to his knees in a
huff and a puff. “I’m here,” he said between heavy breaths.
A
couple male engineers grabbed him under his armpits. “I’m alright, really,”
Sara could hear Dennis say as they lifted him to his feet. “I could really use
a moment here, boys, yeah?”
“Twenty
seconds to launch,” one of the engineers said angrily to Dennis. They shoved a
helmet on his head and tried to get him to climb the ladder.
“By
the moonstar,” Dennis complained, as the automatic process was beginning to
take over. Dennis scrambled into his fighter just in time as the track clasped
onto their landing gear and began to taxi their two birds towards the launch
tunnels.
“Fifteen
seconds till launch,” a voice said in their helmets.
Sara
watched Dennis try to get settled and couldn’t help but laugh. “Better get
comfortable quick,” she warned him over the radio. Like a roller coaster, the
launch tunnel was straight down from there.
“Shit,”
Dennis swore into the radio, finally seeming to get his straps in place and
hitting his canopy to shut. The launch tunnels were tight fits and his canopy
was not closing fast enough. Reaching up, Dennis grabbed the canopy and pulled
on it with all his weight, bringing it down just in time as they passed into
the tunnel.
Sara
could hear Dennis breathe a sigh of relief, and then that breath was whisked
away again as they dropped into the tunnel that led them around and between the
floors of the ship before launching them with all that momentum out into deep
space.
“Five,”
a countdown voiced in her head as she was pressed heavily against her seat, and
her fighter twisted and turned along the track.
“Four,”
she was jerked another way and could barely hold onto her yoke. This was her
favourite part.
“Three.
Two.” Sara laughed into the radio and she could hear Dennis groan as if he was
going to throw up.
“One.”
The voice in their helmet said, signaling that she’d hit the final straightway.
Sara powered her engines to full.
“Afterburners
to max,” she said to Dennis on the headset as she was pressed only more
violently against her seat. Her fighter passed the cold metal confines of the
large ship Rebirth, and shot itself like a bullet from a gun into the deep void
of space.
“We
have launch,” Sara said into the radio to inform control. She checked her three
o’clock to see that Dennis had joined her in the two man formation. He
confirmed his launch through the radio.
“Your
objective,” a voice said into their helmets, “is to fly air support over
Hymalious City and provide cover for General Ed Gilber and Lieutenant John
Adams.” Sara wasn’t sure she’d heard that right, but thankfully Dennis quickly
clarified.
“What
sort of trouble has Lieutenant Adams gotten himself into this time?” Dennis
asked over the comms. Sara didn’t know what it was, but she knew John could
rely on her to save his ass.
“I’m
plotting a risky entry vector into Rommerian atmosphere,” Sara told Dennis,
working out her calculations on the main computer and sending her conclusions
to Dennis’ display. “It’ll be a little rough but should shave a couple minutes
off our ETA.”
“I’m
trusting you not to get us killed,” Dennis told her, in what she supposed had
been his best attempt at support.
“Thanks,”
Sara said half-heartedly. “Just stay close and try not to deviate more than,”
she quickly checked her math, “a couple degrees.”
Hold
on John. She was coming.
*
*
Nick
scoured the views from both his upper and lower guns, but couldn’t find the
soldier anywhere in the building.
CAUTION Slow Ascent
His
gunship had almost reached a height high enough to fly over the rooftops. Nicholas
supposed it didn’t matter what the soldier was up to anymore. Sitting back down
in the pilots seat, Nick began to give the engines a bit of forward thrust.
*
John
reached the roof of the building as the Blazkor gunship passed by just
underneath. It was now or never. Taking a step back John began to run along the
edge of the roof, matching speed with the gunship and jumping off. As he
jumped, the turret snapped into place and began to spin. It fired just over his
shoulder while he was in midair, and he landed onto the top of the gunship with
a heavy thud. He rolled along the top of the gunship and almost flew off the
other side but he was able to grab onto a pipe and hold on tight.
The
turret was too slow to track him, but it was steadily turning around. Quickly
drawing his pistol, John fired off four shots at the turret, his last shot
clipping a hydraulic hose that spurted hydraulic fluid across the top of the gunship.
The turret, without its needed hydraulics, drooped and powered down just as it
had turned to bare on John’s position. John sighed in relief, then held on
tight as the gunship began to twist and turn.
The
pilot was trying to shake him.
*
*
“Your
gunships are coming up to the city walls now,” a soldier called to Tameka’s
mother who squeeled with joy.
“This
is my favourite part,” she said, and Tameka was starting to wonder if this whole
thing had been her favourite part, from catching her daughter’s betrayal to
each and every win she was gaining for her cause. Her mother enjoyed any chance
to gloat.
“Before you came along, my resistance wasn’t
capable of getting past the Hymalious defense cannons.” Suma said, crossing her
arms. “But now your railguns on the Mark IIs should have no problem hitting the
defense cannons beyond their effective range.”
*
*
“How
far down does this go?” Emma asked Maggie May, who had led them to a private
wing of Prime Central. An elevator there was taking them to somewhere beneath
the station. Emma hadn’t even been aware there was anything beneath the
station.
The
council leader only smiled to Emma as they reached their destination and the
doors opened to a large command center. Maggie May stepped off and immediately
made for a large hologram of the entire city of Hymalious in the center of the
room.
“Please
tell me the jamming is holding,” Councillor May begged her people as she took a
place amongst them.
“The
jamming bubble is in place,” a young cadet said from his station near the large
map. “They shouldn’t have had any opportunity to broadcast the plans that we
know of.”
“Well
at least that’s a bit of good news,” Maggie muttered, waving for Emma and Kat
to join her. “Come come. You can see better from here.” The two girls
approached the center of the room, and Kat seemed to be mesmerized by the large
hologram.
“It’s
so expensive,” Emma said, unimpressed.
“We’re
saving the world from here,” an irritated looking little twerp in glasses said
from a console nearest to the map. “We need the best everything.”
A
woman from the corner of the room made a yell. “We have two gunships coming at
the wall from the south east.”
“Are
the automated turrets online?” Maggie May asked her people. Emma could see the
two red blips on the holographic display, and she could see the turrets closest
to those blips rise and move into position.
“This
must be g-getting real time telemetry from a satellite in orbit,” Kat
suggested, seeming more interested in the technology in the room than what was
actually going on.
“They’re
still outside our range,” someone complained in the room.
“We’re
not outside theirs,” Maggie May said as the red blips slowed their approach.
Suddenly there was a flash of light and three of the turrets disappeared.
“So
much for having the best everything,” Emma commented to the scrawny guy with
glasses. “Now they have a door,” she said to the mayor who nodded her
agreement.
“Wh-what
does that mean?” Kat asked confused.
“It
means we now know how they plan to leave,” Maggie said to the two girls. She
turned to her men. “Get all available ground units to plug that hole with as
many anti-aircraft weapons as they can find.”
“All
available units have been moved on deployment to the edge of the deep desert,”
the twerpy short man in glasses said with a grimace.
“Who
are you?” Emma asked, already not liking the man.
“Billy,”
the man said offering Emma his hand. “I’m head of IT and Communications.” She
ignored his hand.
“By
the Moonstar,” the council woman muttered in frustration. “We can’t let them
get away with the plans. God knows what Suma Davi’s would do with them.”
*
*
David
couldn’t believe his eyes.
“What
is your man doing?” David asked as he could see John jump over the roof onto
the top of the gunship flying over their heads.
“His
job,” Gilber said, raising his radio to speak into it again.
“Looks
like they brought an escort,” Alec said, joining David to point to two more
gunships swooping in on their position.
“What
are you still doing here?” David asked angrily, pulling away from Alec and
looking behind him to see that the barmaid Steph had taken cover behind a
street lamp. “Get out of here. Run!” Alec stepped away from David and made for
Steph.
“I
don’t think they’re here for an escort,” General Gilber said gruffly, his
attention on the new gunships to join the battle. They pointed their guns down
at the street and fired their loud single shot cannons into groups of people
running for their lives.
“Find
cover!” Gilber yelled, grabbing David roughly by the shirt and dragging him
behind a jeep. One of the cannons on the hovering gunships fired at them, and
only barely missed.
“They’re
not an escort,” Gilber muttered to David. “Suma Davi’s sent them as a
distraction.”
“Who’s
Suma Davi’s?” David asked, horrified at the events around him. “What the hell
is going on here?”
The
cannons from the gunships above rained molten death down upon them, blowing out
a nearby building and shooting down on the street where people were running to
clear the area.
“There
are families in those buildings!” David screamed, reaching out and grabbing a
woman with a stroller and pulling them behind the cover just as cannons fired
down on their position. The jeep rocked from the hit, and David was ready to
move again if it seemed about to explode. Gilber, however, stood his ground.
“Incoming
Air support,” Gilber said into the radio. “This is mission leader. Focus on the
Mark I. I repeat, follow Lieutenant Adam’s location beacon. Ignore the other
gunships.”
“Are
you insane,” David said, starting to piece together what Gilber had just done.
“You’re leaving these people to die!”
“These
people aren’t my mission!” Gilber yelled at David who tried to reach for the
radio. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m one of these people.”
“Give
me that,” David said, struggling against the general. He managed to get his
fingers on the talk button and pressed it down. “Belay that order,” David
yelled at the walkie. “Target the other ships!”
“Would
you stop,” Gilber insisted with frustration, raising the radio over his head.
Now David just plain wouldn’t be able to reach.
“Repeat
orders,” a woman’s voice came in through the radio.
David
punched Gilber across the jaw, possibly breaking every bone in his knuckle
while doing it. “As an officer of the Hymalious City military you have a
responsibility and a duty to protect the innocent people you serve,” David
yelled at Gilber, straightening his posture and praying to god the General
didn’t decide to punch back.
Gilber
rubbed his jaw. “You surprise me doctor,” the general said roughly. He pulled a
fresh cigar from his pocket and lit it.
“What
are you even here for,” David asked Gilber, “if not to protect the men women
and children of this city.”
“Alright,”
Gilber said to David, hitting the talk on his radio. “Yeh convinced me. Flight
leader, this is mission leader. Change in orders. Ignore mission critical. Aim
for the Mark IIs. I repeat, protect the civilians.”
*
“Roger
that,” Sara said into her radio. “New orders received and confirmed.” She
switched on her targeting computer and armed two warheads. “We’re thirty
seconds out and counting,” she said both as reassurance to the mission leader,
and a warning to Dennis.
“Warheads
armed,” Dennis said back through the radio.
“We’ll
criss cross,” Sara told him. “I’ll get the gunship on the right, you get the
one on the left.”
“Over,”
Dennis said, and Sara sure hoped he understood. This was only going to work if
they each pulled off their moves just right. The building below them soared
past at a blur as they sped across Hymalious City trying to stay as low as they
could. Sara saw the Mark I gunship making a break for it, but ignored it like
she was ordered to do.
“Hold
on John,” Sara muttered, swearing to herself that she’d be going after him on
her return vector. Her targeting computer got a target lock on one of the Mark
IIs.
“Target
is lock,” she told Dennis, waiting for him to say the same. The distance to
target was closing fast, and they were going to blow right past.
“Payload
away,” Sara said, launching her missiles, able to wait no longer. Her missiles
connected directly with her target ship and it exploded spectacularly, raining
flaming debris onto the street below.
“Payload
away,” Dennis said far too late. His missiles went wide and exploded into the
side of a building. Then, when he crossed to pass her, he almost collided with
her and Sara had to spin her bird almost into the side of a building.
She
gave her Enderman some thrust and flipped her ship over the roof of the
building and out above the city.
“Dammit
Dennis,” she swore at him, making a lazy U to rejoin him for another pass.
“I’m
sorry,” Dennis said, and she could tell he meant it. “It’s really hard to
control these things in an atmosphere at those speeds.” She had been really
pushing her bird, and knew she’d been asking a lot of him as well.
“I’m
gonna strafe the remaining target with machine gun fire,” Sara said, acutely
aware that she only had two missiles left. “Then I’m heading after John. You
have two missiles left. You think you can take this thing out on your own
without me?”
“I
got it,” Dennis muttered into the radio.
“You
can go as slow as you want this time,” Sara promised him. “I’m making my run,”
she pushed her thrusters to max, and came at the gunship at full speed. Hitting
a switch on her dashboard to switch to machine guns, she pulled the trigger and
open fired straight down the hull of the remaining Mark II Blazkor
Gunship. She was careful to release the
trigger as she got to the engines, so as not to hit any civilians on the street
below
The
gunship’s upper railgun turned on her ship and fired as she passed, just
missing her cockpit. Her machine guns weren’t going to do nearly as much to a
gunship in atmosphere as it would in space, where the pressure of the vacuum
would happily do the rest. She had two warheads left, but she had to save them.
She still had to deal with mission critical.
*
Dennis
had a clear lock on the Blazkor gunship as Sara finished her strafing run, but
he didn’t expect the railgun shot that just missed her to also be on a clear
trajectory for him. It clipped his right wing and immediately his yoke started
to pull against his grip.
“I’ve
been hit,” he reported into the radio, and he could hear Sara swear.
“Dennis,”
she said his name over the radio with disappointment. “You’re just full of suck
today.”
“I
got this,” Dennis said, trying to compensate for the rotation with his
thrusters. “The fire is causing the engine to overheat. If I could just take
this thing into orbit—“ he trailed off, but they both knew that without oxygen
the fire would be snuffed right out. He’d then be able to limp back to the
Rebirth.
“You
need me to come back around and clean up after you?” Sara asked. Even without
seeing her, Dennis could tell from the tone of her voice that it wasn’t something
she wanted to do.
“I
got this,” Dennis insisted. He had a job to do.
The
Mark II gunship fired on him with its railgun, and he allowed himself to give
into the spin of his ship, dodging the shot as it exploded into a residential
building. Dennis then had to pull up with his yoke, and use all the energy in
the thrusters he had left to barely avoid crashing into the very same building.
The
side of the building was crumbling down on him, and he had to swing his fighter
to avoid getting pegged with debris. Hitting his afterburners he launched his
fighter over the building, but with his bad engine it spun out hard and almost
crashed into the roof.
Hitting
the engines for another burst, he gained some altitude over the city in a
maneuver that must have looked most peculiar to anyone watching. At this point
his fighter was spinning like a Frisbee through the air, and with no other
choice Dennis cut all power to the engines and let his fighter stall out.
Soaring along on momentum, his G32 Enderman continued to spin until he was
facing directly down on the Mark II gunship.
His
engines may have been off, but his targeting computer was still on. Hitting the
thrusters, he tried to hold his ship steady against the force of gravity as
long as he could, and just as he thought he was about to lose it the targeting
computer chimed.
“Payload
away,” Dennis said into the radio, squeezing the trigger and watching his last
two rockets streak the short distance to explode with the Mark II.
“Direct
hit,” Dennis said, breathing a sigh of relief, and pulling up on his stick,
setting his thrusters to max to try to right his trajectory. After all, he was
pointed directly at the ground with almost no altitude.
“Come
on,” he begged his bird, pulling on the yoke so hard he was worried he might
snap it right off. The fire on his wing had gone out, but he still couldn’t
activate the busted engine until he had just the right trajectory. And his
thrusters were still running on empty, not having time to recharge after his
last maneuver.
For
a second he almost wondered if he’d have better luck lowering the landing gear
and trying to make an emergency landing, but he banished the thought from his
head.
He
could see the rooftops of buildings as his fighter passed between two, and he
finally got the nose of his craft in the right position. He powered on the
engine and fired all thrusters and afterburners, shooting his craft up into the
sky.
“I’ve
regained control,” Dennis announced to anyone who might be paying attention over
the radio. “I’m still limping though. Gonna head back to the Rebirth.”
“Roger
that,” Sara’s voice came in through the helmet. “Well done Dennis. I knew you
had it in you. I’ve got it from here.”
*
John
could feel the gunship speeding up. It was too bad there was no way inside from
above. At least none that he knew of.
“John,”
a familiar voice said in his head. He had an earpiece in his ear that connected
to his radio. “John can you hear me?”
John
pressed his hand against his ear. “I can see the wall from here,” he told her,
spotting the edge of Hymalious City rapidly approaching from the horizon.
“I’m
right behind you,” Sara said, and John looked back. Sure enough there was a
speck dodging and weaving through the buildings, quickly closing the distance
between them. Not quickly enough.
“I’m
not going to make it in time.”
John
looked at where Sara’s fighter was, and how far he was from the edge of the
city. “You can get a missile hit from there,” he told her with his hand to his
ear. “It’ll be more likely to miss, but the computer will allow it.”
There
was silence on the other end.
“Did
you read me?” John asked into the radio. “Sara?”
“If
I hit it from here I won’t be able to catch you in time,” she said at last.
“Forget
about me,” John said back at her, the wind buffeting him against the metal of
the gunship. “Your duty is to the mission.”
*
“Nicholas,”
Mother’s voice came through the radio on Nick’s dashboard. “You should be far
enough through the jamming to receive radio transmissions.”
“I’m
reading you Mother Davi’s,” Nick said into the radio, his heart jumping with
joy. Their sacred mother was talking to him! Directly!
“Prepare
the files for wireless transfer,” the sacred mother said through the radio. “Be
ready to send as soon as you cross the threshold.”
“Yes
Mother,” Nicholas said clearly into the radio, finding the plans in his robes
and plugging them directly into the console. He was eager to do her bidding.
He
passed over the city walls.
“I’m
engaging the transfer now,” he told the sacred mother over the radio. He
spotted a nearby canyon and steered his ship towards it. “Transfer will be
complete in thirty seconds.”
*
The
pilot of the gunship soared down into the nearby canyon, turning sideways to
scrape against the wall of the canyon. John squeezed himself against the top of
the gunship, but could barely hold on as sparks exploded around him, and rocks
ripped at his flesh.
“Argh,”
he groaned in pain, the gunship leveling out, only to spin again. “He’s trying
to lose me,” John said into his radio.
”It’s
okay,” John heard Sara’s voice, and looked behind him to see Sara’s fighter
dodging and weaving right on the gunship’s tail. “I’ve got you.”
“Let
go,” Sara said to John, and he dutifully did as he was told.
“Payload
away,” Sara said into the radio as John whipped away from the gunship and
missiles soared past him to collide with the Mark II and explode in a
spectacular fireball. What was left of the gunship spiraled off into the canyon
wall.
John
was in free fall now, the ground of the canyon rapidly approaching. Wind was
blowing past his face as his limbs splayed out in a lame attempt to slow his
descent.
“Sara,”
he begged her through the radio, really wishing he’d thought to do this with a
parachute.
Suddenly
there was a roar of engines, and Sara swooped in from parts unknown and smacked
John against the nose of her fighter.
“I
told you I’ve got you,” Sara said into her headset, cheering as she leveled off
her fighter and pulled them out of the canyon.
John
groaned and Sara made a face. “That might have been a little harder than I’d
intended,” she admitted to him. “It looked like that hurt. Did that hurt?”
She
opened her canopy and helped him inside, though he had to practically peel
himself off her hull. His entire body felt like a bruise.
“You
saved my life,” John said, as he took a position precariously on her lap and
the canopy closed over their heads. There wasn’t exactly much room in her
cockpit. “I owe you one.”
Sara
pulled off her helmet and sat it down beside her. “I can think of one way you
can pay me back,” she told him, leaning in and kissing him.
John
pulled away, or tried to in their tight quarters. “I’ve told you before,” he
said, careful not to hurt her feelings, “I don’t want to sleep with a co-worker.”
“But
the only people you ever deal with is the people you work with,” Sara tried to
reason with him, having heard all his arguments before.
“Well
that’s why I’ve never had a real relationship,” John admitted to her with a
sheepish grin.
Sara
reached passed John for what he could assume was the radio. “I’ve got
Lieutenant Adams safe, and can confirm direct hit on mission critical. We’re
going to take the long way home and expect a royal red carpet celebrating our
return to the Rebirth.” She shut off her radio.
“Now
it’s just you and me in here,” she told him. “No cameras. No strings. No one has
to know what happens in here but you and me.”
She
grinned at him, “So with at least an hour stuck in here, what are you going to
do with me?”
John
didn’t take long to decide. “I suppose this,” he said, leaning in and kissing
her. She was right. What had he been fighting so hard for. They were two
consenting adults.
“That’s
what I thought,” Sara said, happy to be finally getting her way. “Now take off
your pants.”
*
*
Gilber
lowered the radio. “They did it,” he said with relief. “They stopped the
threat.”
“Good,”
David said, passing the general to assist people on the street. “But there’s
people who still need us.” He crouched down with one woman who had a painful
looking burn on her arm. Ripping off a piece of his shirt, he tried to wrap it
best he could.
“I
didn’t bring any of my supplies with me,” he said to the general who was
following him around without actually bothering to help.
“There
are paramedics on the way,” the general told David.
“Well
then where are they,” David asked impatiently. “We’re here now. We’ll do what
we can.”
“Help!”
someone yelled, and David ran to a collapsed restaurant where a man had been
impaled by a wooden beam from the ceiling above.
“Don’t
move,” David said, trying to keep pressure on the bleeding gash.
“I’m
trying to make you an offer,” Gilber insisted of David.
“Well
I don’t want to hear it,” David insisted. “Hold here,” he told the general as
he tried to find something to cut the beam with. “Now’s not the time for
talking.”
“I
want to know what’s going to happen now my bar is all gone,” Lankey yelled out
at them from the street.
“Seriously?”
David muttered. “If you’re not going to help couldn’t you all just go home.”
“I
have business opportunities for the both of you,” Gilber insisted. This seemed
to catch Lankey’s attention, and he stepped into the burned out restaurant to
join them. He even leaned down to touch a man on the shoulder, almost as if he
was helping but without actually doing anything.
“We
have a ship,” Gilber explained, “high in orbit. Behind the moon.” He looked to
Lankey. “We could use an establishment up there that serves alcohol. And
someone to run it.”
He
then looked to David, who was proceeding to saw his way through the wooden
plank in the man’s side. It splintered and gave way, allowing the man to lie
down without removing the plank which would only open himself up to more
bleeding.
“Let
me guess,” David said. “You need doctors up there too.”
“Yes,”
Ed Gilber admitted to David. “But what I see in you is a lot more than just a
doctor.”
David
straightened from where he had been trying to bandage the man. “I’m not
interested,” David said, refusing to let himself be enticed by any military
offer. It would go against every principal he stood for.
“At
least take a look at what I’m offering you before you refuse,” Gilber insisted
of the doctor.
“Ah,”
David said. “But I’ve already refused.”
“Just
take a look,” the general insisted. “Please.” He crouched down with David over
the wounded man, and placed his hand on the bandage to make it easier for David
to tie off a knot. “If you still don’t want to accept my offer, I’ll put
military spending towards your health clinic.”
David
wanted to refuse the general again, but he had to stop himself. His mind was
spinning with what he could do with unlimited pockets like that. The people he
could help.
This
time the offer was too sweet.
*
*
“Your
ships all went boom,” Tameka taunted her mother, watching her parent’s face not
change nearly as much as she’d hoped.
“The
transfer hit a hundred percent just before the final gunship disappeared off
our radar,” one of her mother’s soldiers told her with a nod. “We’re decrypting
it now. Everything seems to be in order.”
Tameka’s
mother laughed and danced around the war room. “Oh what happy day,” Suma said,
laughing again and grabbing one of her soldiers to tango with.
“She’s
insane,” Tameka muttered to Jack, who didn’t seem to agree. His face was stern,
unthinking.
“Don’t
any of you see it?” Tameka shouted across the war room. “My mother’s off her
rocker!” Tameka started to tear up. “How can you all be okay with this.”
“They’re
all under my control,” her mother said. “I already told you, Tammy, they were
born to love me.”
“What
does that mean,” Tameka asked between sobs. Dinah grabbed Tameka to hold her
steady.
“Exactly
what I’m saying,” Suma told her daughter. “You heard about your grandfather’s
war crimes didn’t you? His experiments into genetic modification?”
“Well
my father took that research and implemented it in what he called the final
stage of Blazkor evolution,” she explained. Suma stepped up onto a soldier’s
console, and he slid back in his chair, watching her respectfully and
dutifully. “Every person in this base has been genetically engineered to be
loyal to the woman they love. And that’s me!”
“That’s
impossible,” Tameka said, yanking her arm away from Dinah. She rushed to Jack’s
side. “Help me Jack,” she yelled at him. “Snap out of it.” She slapped him across
the face, but still he seemed emotionless. Unwavering. “Come on Jack, I need
you to get me out of here. I depend on you. I need you.”
“Come
on Jack,” Tameka’s mother said, mocking her daughter as she slowly made her way
around the room. “Help me Jack.”
“Beat
her to within an inch of her life, Jack.”
Suddenly
Jack was a flurry of motion, backhanding her across the war room into the large
map against the wall. Before she could even get up he was on top of her,
Kneeing her in the ribs until they cracked, and punching her repeatedly in the
face.
She
couldn’t defend against him, ruthless as his attack was. Even if she’d had time
to get her arms up, she could never raise a fist against her best friend.
“I’m
sorry,” Jack said, as his fists continued to rain down on her face. She could
feel a tooth loosen. Feel her Jaw dislocate. Her nose break, and then break
again. Through the blur of blood as her vision faded to black, she thought she
saw him shed a tear.
“You’re
not sorry,” her mother’s voice could be heard somewhere far away. “Put your
back into it!” It felt like Tameka was underwater. And then the hits came
harder and she passed out.
David and Emma finally meet up again, and Kat gets to share
her theory on instantaneous travel through space. Meanwhile, Tameka continues
to suffer at the ruthless hands of her mother.
Aldonn, Frankie, Edward, and (separately) Penelope learn more
about the Thieves guild and their presence in the city of Capsin, as well as
the other powers all vying for influence.
