“Sorry to crash another Walker party,” Lopez said from the pilot’s seat, “but I’m pretty sure that blast damaged our power cell. And unless he can magic us a new one, we’ve got to decide where to point this thing. Now.”
9
OUR SMALL SHUTTLE sputtered away from Nix base as I lay sprawled out on the floor, staring up at the discolored edges of the shuttle’s low ceiling.
“Is Walker dead?” Kovac asked slowly.
“No,” I mumbled, forcing my eyes open a crack. “Just resting.”
“You can rest after we’ve landed, okay?” Lopez said loudly behind her. “I need a destination. Quick.”
I felt my face grow pale. I wanted to do heroic things, not make boring decisions for other people. Decisions aren’t heroic. Spontaneously blowing up enemy troopers is. And besides—I didn’t want to be responsible for things going terribly wrong if I made the wrong choice.
“How about we vote on it?” I asked, hoping that Kovac and Rand didn’t see how pale my face was as I lay sprawled out on the floor below them.
“Whatever,” Lopez said over her shoulder.
Rand nodded slowly. “I’m quite partial to a democratic solution.”
I looked up at Kovac, who just shrugged.
My stomach growled loudly. “I really can’t vote on an empty stomach. Is there anything to eat on this thing?”
“This is a shuttle, not a mess hall, genius,” Lopez said from the front. “What’s everyone’s vote?”
“Um . . . what are our options?” I answered from my back.
I clucked my tongue to get Kovac’s attention and pointed weakly at my stomach, then at my open mouth. He furrowed his eyebrows, but after I made the motions again, he nodded, turned, and started rummaging around the shuttle’s storage compartments.
“What’s going on back there?” Lopez asked.
“Nothing,” I said quickly.
“Whatever. We have enough power for either Pluto or Charon,” Lopez said. “And I already tried opening a channel to both, so don’t bother asking.”
“Dammit,” I said. “Rand—what do you think?”
Rand rubbed his mustache. “Well, I think I’ve figured out how their weapons are powered and networked. If we can get this intel to Peacekeeper Central on Earth—along with a report of the necessity of using their weaponry against them—it could prevent a system-wide conquest.”
I flopped my head to one side to find Kovac, who was busy dumping out compartments onto the floor.
Rand continued, “We could deliver our intel in person through the proper channels to Pluto, or I suppose we could transmit it directly to Earth from the comm relay station on Charon. However, there is no guarantee the comm station there will work. Just to be on the safe side, my vote’s for Pluto.”
Pluto would definitely not be on the safe side. Monstros had suggested that the hooded talking skeleton would be there, and if he was their fearless leader, he’d probably have a lot more than a few dozen troopers at his command.
Kovac stopped rummaging and turned around with a dusty emergency nutrition ration in hand. My eyes went wide and I shook my head weakly—those things tasted like chalky death. Kovac shrugged and tossed the ration onto my chest. It hit me like a brick and squeezed the air out of my lungs.
“And your vote, Kovac?” Rand asked.
Kovac itched his chin, then said, “I . . . like Charon.”
One vote for Pluto, one for Charon. Maybe Lopez’s vote could make this easy for me.
“Okay, Lopez—what’s your vote?” I asked hopefully.
“I don’t care,” she said sharply. “Just give me a destination.”
So much for that plan. Sometimes it seemed like Lopez woke up early every day just to find ways to make my life as difficult as possible. I let out a long breath. I guess I was going to have to cast the tie-breaking vote.
Realizing how long it was taking me to grasp the dense nutrition ration laying on my chest, I honestly didn’t know if I’d be able to stand up again, let alone fight my way through a massive army on Pluto. I mean, I had a hard time imagining an epic hero fighting from a gurney. But even on a bad day—a very bad day—a hero should be able to take over a single tower. Right?
“Hey, Rand,” I said. “If the comm station is down, could you fix it?”
I tore open the ration wrapper with my teeth.
“Perhaps. However, we would certainly need to bring that,” Rand nodded toward the wheeled crate and duffel bag.
“Okay, then. My vote’s for Charon.”
I felt torn. I’d successfully gotten out of making a serious decision for my crew, but is that what a hero would have done? But it was too late now to change things.
“Two votes to one,” I said. “Charon is your answer, Lopez.”
“Fine,” she answered. “But you cast the deciding vote, so if we die there, I swear I’m going to come back from the dead and kill you again.”
I just couldn’t win with her.
She tapped sharply on the console a few times. The shuttle lurched to one side and I felt a halting pull as it accelerated.
Now was the moment I’d been dreading. I held the dull pink rectangular ration in my hand and stared at it. Something Lopez had said about coming back from the dead made me imagine I was looking at a compressed brain. I took a deep breath and bit into it.
I’ve never eaten brains before, but that’s what this felt like—mushy and bland and a little like copper. It took everything in me to keep from gagging. But as gross as it tasted, I could feel energy rushing back into my limbs.
I pushed myself up to a sitting position, suppressed a shudder, and took another bite. With each one, I felt stronger and stronger until I had finished the entire ration—something I’d never managed to do before without vomiting.
I looked beside me and saw Hiller splayed out on the floor, eyes closed, and taking shallow breaths.
“Is he going to be okay?” I asked Kovac, who had crouched to gently check his pulse.
“He’s just unconscious. He’ll wake soon.”
It had better be real soon. I didn’t want to fail our little mission and end up with a reanimated Lopez corpse chasing me across the frozen landscape of Pluto.
I looked down at my yellow testing rod, which had rolled against the shuttle wall. I realized I’d been clenching my fist the entire time I’d been on the ground and opened it to look at the shining orange crystal. I had so many questions. What were these stones? How many of them were there? Could I turn it on whenever I wanted? And what did my imagination have to do with it?
“Guys?” Lopez’s panicked voice brought me out of my thoughts and I slipped the stone back into my pocket.
“You’ll probably want to see this.” Lopez said.
The three of us rushed up front and our jaws dropped. We were quickly approaching Charon, but it wasn’t the jungle of antennas sticking out of the tower ahead of us that was shocking. It was the swarms of cream-colored soldiers with red capes pouring through not just one, but two giant circles of swirling rainbow colors, suspended in the air directly before us. And besides the soldiers’ now-familiar crossbows and swords, several teams of four strained to carry boxes with something glowing inside, while several others held large cylinders with both hands.
One of the troopers looked up and pointed at us. Another hoisted his long, thick metal cylinder onto his shoulder and aimed squarely in our direction.
“Move!” I yelled.
Lopez twisted the steering column hard to the right and the shuttle tilted. But it was too late. There was a bright flash, and an ominous black sphere encased in crackling white light shot out. It was coming straight for us.
10
“HOLD ON,” LOPEZ growled through gritted teeth as she twisted the steering column. But it was too late—the dark projectile sped along its collision course toward our shuttle.
A loud boom shook the ship and all of us in the back lost our balance, tumbling to the floor. Lopez leveled ou
t the shuttle, but the ride was still bumpy and we struggled to get back onto our feet.
“No way we’ll make the main landing strip,” Lopez said. “I’ll have to put us down on the other side of the station.”
The shuttle made a hard left. “There!” Lopez said. Then, turning her head slightly, she added, “Everyone but Walker should get settled in for this landing.”
Kovac rushed to Hiller’s side and cradled him, like a giant yeti cradling a rabbit. Rand, of course, threw himself against his equipment crate and pulled his duffel bag to his chest. And me? I scrambled along the floor to my yellow testing rod. Who am I kidding? It was a sword now. So I scooped up my rod-sword and held it in my lap as I curled into the fetal position.
“Get ready,” Lopez yelled from the front, but I could barely hear her over the shaking of the shuttle.
After a couple of agonizing seconds waiting for impact, the shuttle slammed into the ground and skidded for another few beats before we finally slowed to a stop.
We’d lost power, so the only light came from the shuttle’s front window, which wasn’t much.
“Is everyone okay?” I asked.
I heard a few different groans and took them as a sign that we’d all survived. Then I heard the sound of jumbling metal objects nearby, something clicked, and suddenly, Rand’s face appeared.
“Gah! Shine that light somewhere else,” I shouted. “Over at Kovac.”
Kovac was still huddling on the ground and holding the unconscious colonel. The light revealed a slightly stained rag laying nearby. Kovac gently tied it around Hiller’s head. The colonel stirred a bit, but once again went limp.
“Come on,” I said. “The Dominion troopers are probably already on their way.”
“Oh, no,” Lopez groaned as she tilted her data pad. “My screen shattered.”
“So, no more trashy magazines?” I said. I didn’t need Rand to shine the light up front to know that Lopez was glaring at me.
Rand opened a cabinet and pulled out a stack of thick rectangular packages and tossed them at each of us.
“Emergency surface suits. Incredibly minimal, but they should be enough to sustain us until we gain entrance to the station.”
Then, looking at me, Rand said, “These are terribly thin, so do your best not to provoke the enemy.”
“No promises,” I said as I wiggled into the suit.
I took the orange stone out of my pocket and tucked it inside my left glove, just in case I needed to use it in a pinch. And, sending soothing thoughts to my gag reflex, I shoved the two remaining nutrient rations from the shuttle’s emergency kit into a side pocket. Along with the others, I pulled on my face mask, sealed my suit, and activated my anti-grav boots.
Rand tried opening the sliding door, but it wouldn’t budge. Kovac held out a massive hand, palm up. Rand dug into his equipment crate and, with two hands, hauled out the dark metal vibro-hammer. Kovac gently laid down Hiller, who he’d already dressed in an emergency suit, and grabbed the heavy tool in a single hand.
Kovac clicked a button on the handle and a loud humming noise activated. As soon as the edges of the hammer’s head grew blurry, Kovac reared back and brought the hammer crashing into the door, which burst open. With another click, the vibro-hammer died, and Kovac dropped it back into Rand’s crate. He threw Hiller onto his shoulder, grabbed the colonel’s plasma pistol, and stepped out onto the dusty surface of Charon.
Rand was close behind with his crate and duffel bag. I grabbed my rod-sword and was just about to step out of the shuttle when I felt a tug at my waist. Lopez had been empty-handed without her data pad, so she had snatched the plasma gun from my holster. She shrugged, then hopped out of the shuttle’s opening ahead of me. If these emergency suits had comm units installed, I would’ve given her a talking to. Instead, I gritted my teeth and stepped silently out of the shuttle, hurrying after my crew toward Charon station.
We hadn’t gone a dozen meters before we started taking fire. A pair of armored troopers had appeared around the far corner of the station. They were only about thirty meters away from the single airlock door, which stuck out from the station’s outer containment wall. Kovac and Lopez fired back as my crew found a rocky outcropping to use as cover, but the troopers easily deflected our plasma slugs with their bejeweled shields.
I felt the stone I’d tucked into my glove and, almost by instinct, summoned the up-tempo drums and electric guitars. I imagined up another golden lasso, stood up to face the troopers, and threw it toward them.
It missed. Or, in my mind, it missed. It fell short by a few meters and lay there on the imaginary ground. Were they too far away? Or was I not trying hard enough?
I dropped behind the outcropping as more glowing red arrows rained down on us.
I shook my head to clear the image and tried again. This time, I kept swinging the golden lasso for a few more seconds and pulled it way back. I leapt up and threw the imaginary lasso as far as I could. It sailed through the air and landed around the two troopers. I tugged at the lasso in my mind and felt it tighten.
Then, with a heave, I pulled my arm back. The two troopers suddenly launched through the air in our direction.
I quickly closed my eyes and summoned the low, booming first note of the symphony to transform my testing rod into a deadly weapon.
I waited. And waited.
Nothing came.
When I opened my eyes, the troopers were still sailing toward me, so, panicking, I flicked my wrist upward and let the imaginary lasso disappear. The music in my mind faded, and the troopers’ path through the air suddenly veered up and away from our position. Their flight slowed, and now they were just drifting, their limbs flailing helplessly as they floated away from us and out into space.
Rand grabbed me by the shoulder and turned me around. He pointed repeatedly at the troopers, and then at the ground. So I took a deep breath, summoned the music again, lassoed the troopers, and pulled them toward us as hard as I could.
I could see the crew yelling through their transparent face masks and violently shaking their heads as the troopers shot toward us. I hadn’t quite thought about how they’d stop, so now I needed a way to keep them from crushing us.
I raised my blunt rod-sword and swung it in a wide arc at the falling troopers. I could feel a crunch as they connected, but I kept pushing against them until the troopers landed on the ground beside us.
The troopers lay in a motionless heap on the ground, but as soon as the shock wore off, Lopez fired a staggering amount of point-blank shots at them.
She has issues.
I felt tired, but not as tired as I had been after the first time I used the orange jewel. That was the good news. The bad news was, I could feel the solid chunk of nutrient ration bar growing smaller in my stomach. If I had to guess how much energy I had left in my tank, I’d say I was at about half.
But for some reason, I wasn’t able to make my rod-sword glow when I was using the orange gem. I looked down at the fallen troopers who were definitely dead and noticed a twisted and singed cape sticking out from beneath the pile. I grabbed a corner and tore off a long strip of cloth—red on one side, black on the other—and used it to secure the rod-sword to my back.
One of the troopers had held onto his crossbow until the bitter end. Rand pried it out of his hand, pointed it at a nearby dark gray clump of rocks, and fired.
“No!” I yelled inside my helmet, but only a thin metal arrow came out. Rand frowned.
I plucked the crossbow from his hands and turned it over. Like the others, this one had a small scarlet jewel in its handle, but only one cross beneath it.
I could hear faint, ominous marching music—I guess it was the red stone’s theme song—swell as I wrapped my finger around the trigger. I aimed for the same clump of rocks and fired.
A glowing red arrow shot out and lodged itself in the ground. I shielded my helmet with my other hand, waiting for an explosion.
It never happened. I guess the crosses bene
ath the jewel signaled something about how the weapon fired. I probably needed to figure that out, but right now, we had to get inside the station before any more Eggheads found us exposed outside.
We hurried to the airlock, desperate to get inside the base. Lopez started tapping at the control panel. Nothing. She tapped a different pattern on the panel, but nothing. Then another. And another.
Lopez dropped her hands to her hips. After a moment, her head shot up. She looked back at us quickly, then entered one last code. The control panel suddenly glowed yellow, which I figured meant we were making progress. But when Lopez punched in another code, the panel quickly changed to red and began flashing.
She turned around to face the rest of us, wide-eyed. I leaned forward and read the display: “UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS CODES — EMERGENCY DEFENSE MEASURES ACTIVATED.”
Suddenly, a blast door slid down over the airlock door so hard that I could feel its impact. Then, a large panel opened up just above the double-locked door and something cylinder-shaped extended from its compartment, pivoted from side to size, then tipped its end downward.
It was a plasma cannon.
I looked back down at the control panel. It was still flashing, but now it read: “ADMIN. ACCESS REQUIRED — ENGAGING DEFENSES IN 5 SEC.”
11
I STARED AT the display with my mouth gaping inside my surface suit, then looked back up at the wall-mounted plasma cannon pointed toward us. Its barrel extended forward a few millimeters, rotated in a complete circle, then locked into place.
My eyes darted around to my crew members, each of them were frozen in place.
“ENGAGING DEFENSES IN 4 SEC.”
There was nowhere for us to run, especially when we were hauling an unconscious colonel and a mechanic’s damn toys. This was going to be it—we’d escaped one and a half enemy armies, only to be blasted to bits by our own security system. Definitely not the way I thought I’d die.
“ENGAGING DEFENSES IN 3 SEC.”
Then I thought of Hiller’s old glove. I quickly reached behind Kovac, grabbed Hiller’s limp arm, and pulled it toward the control panel. Lopez leapt out of the way, eyes bulging. Kovac turned in response to my tugging and took a long step backward, bringing Hiller up to the control panel.
Rebel Sword Page 6
