by E L Strife
Most of the Linoans stood on guard on or around the open ramp. Two paced the hedges. Rio got to his hands and knees and crawled through the bushes toward the head of the craft. The belly—he surveyed between roots and wooden trunks—provided enough room to crouch beneath. Rio paused. For sneaking out in the dark. He grinned. Or in.
Rio peeked out to scan the area. He waited for the patrolling Linoans to round the tail before inching out. The bushes rustled softly from his movement, and he froze. Two pilots shifted behind the windows of the forked nosecone. The moment they looked away, Rio scampered out and across the cut grass to the underside of the ship.
The slice in his leg seared with pain that crawled up his kneecap, making it difficult to climb up into the drop tube. But Rio gritted his teeth and pulled his feet inside, bracing his boots on two of the interior hatch rings. Easing his head up through the opening of the floor, Rio found the two pilots still in the cockpit. No one was inside the fuselage. Rio counted eight rows of twelve slots, which meant a lot more than fifty Linoans had exited the ship.
He silently prayed he hadn’t left a blood trail outside. Then he noticed the pilots’ dash blinking. A schematic displayed a red dot in one of the chutes.
Rio’s heart lurched into a sprint. Shit, shit, shit. Pushing himself through with speed, Rio stood up in a side aisle. The light disappeared.
Padding along the passageway between personnel chutes, Rio’s pulse slowly dropping, he crept up behind the chatting pilots. Before they could process his appearance, he grabbed the one to his right by the head, giving it a quick twist. At a snap of bone, the creature slumped in its seat. Rio rammed an elbow back into the other’s head. Crack.
He didn’t like killing, but he was good at it. He had to today, for Kios.
Rio snuck back down the rows to a slot close to the gate. Silent methods were preferable to him, but they didn’t always mean numbers. The Linoans outside hadn’t moved. He’d expected someone to jump him long before now. But Azure had mentioned their conceited nature made them disregard the importance of individual dissidents.
Kiatna have risen against them and fallen for millennia. Time to change the paradigm.
Straddling a portal, Rio leaned against the inside of a chute’s glass wall and eyed the combatants outside. Drawing in a breath to steady his body, Rio leveled his e-rifle at the enemy. He was a Field Sergeant first, a biochemical engineer second. Command tried to take what he loved away from him every chance they had. But he still racked up more hours at the shooting ranges than most shepherds.
He fired with instinct. Six of those spread on the right collapsed from hits before the confusion had the other Linoans turning around. The one holding Kios pulled the boy from his shoulder and held him against his chest like a shield, drawing a gun to shoot.
Adjusting his aim, Rio took out one of its legs before shooting four more Linoans to his left.
A red-orange flare swelled as it neared his position. Rio reared back behind the drop chute wall. The bullet melted a hole in five panes before embedding in the hull. Glass and metal dripped to the floor. He now had a visual for the burn scars they’d seen in medical after the mutiny.
Lifting his e-rifle again, Rio took the Linoan down before refocusing on the one holding Kios. It stumbled to its feet, looking for a way out. All the others fled.
Rio calmed his racing heart with a slow exhale and retrained his eye through the green sights. If he missed, he could hit the boy. But the clouds were thickening and time was slim.
Squeezing the trigger, Rio sent a flaming green bullet tearing across the courtyard. The Linoan’s head pitched forward, and the creature fell to a lifeless tangle of limbs. Kios tumbled to the dirt.
Faces appeared in the haze. Linoans emerged in three times the numbers with ArcBows and guns in their hands.
Rio slid to the ramp’s edge and took a knee. From behind the frame of the ship, he fired, taking out another five. Under the cover of his smoke trails, he bolted down the ramp to Kios, snatched him up, and ran. “Are you hurt?”
The boy rubbed tears from his eyes before clinging to Rio’s vest.
“I’m sorry we got separated. But you have to trust me. I cannot protect you if you don’t do what I need you to when I ask. Okay?” Rio asked.
The boy hummed through his whimpers. Rio braced Kios against his chest with an arm and gave the area a scan. Three more Linoan fighters set down two blocks away. Rio couldn’t figure on why they were landing in such concentration around this H.Co. Reports from others had indicated two or three, not ten.
A hit to Rio’s left shoulder sent him staggering forward. Getting his bearing, Rio placed himself between the direction of gunfire and the boy. He frantically inspected Kios. Finding the boy safe, he set Kios on his feet then fired blind shots into the smoke.
The boy stood still, eyes wide with fear as they darted from Rio’s injured shoulder to his blood-soaked leg.
Rio curled forward from a surge of agony. His leg was numb. His arm felt a rush of heat that cooled fast as blood dripped onto the grass. He looked to Kios, opening his mouth to tell the boy to run. Another hit landed against his sternum, launching him back and onto the dirt. Wisps of red-orange fire curled up from the hit. Ribs cracked. The world spun. Inundating pangs screamed out from his lungs. His breath was gone.
All he wanted was to lie there and not move again. But duty was life. And Kios was just a child. Forcing himself to roll onto his side, Rio lifted his good arm, waving to the boy, who hadn’t moved.
“Get behind me.” Rio tasted blood in his words. “Now!”
The boy’s face darkened. His expression switched from fear to a glimmer of anger. Then back to fear.
“Remember what I told you!” Rio begged, straining for Kios. He couldn’t protect him much longer, but his body could shield Kios, hopefully saving the boy long enough for someone to rescue him. Inside, Rio knew it was a delusion created from his exhaustion. He was out of energy and ideas. All he had left to give in his breathless, bleeding state was his life. “Kios, please come to me! Think of what your family would want you to do!”
Kios’s small fingers curled up. His gray skin lit a shimmering midnight blue. The boy slowly turned to the faces appearing in the smoke around them, his eyes narrowing.
Hundreds of Linoans converged on their location from every direction. Their attention locked on Kios. Rio pushed himself up on an elbow, scanning the growing crowd. There was no escape.
A Linoan with a black trident emblem embedded in its forehead shouted as it stepped forward. “Bnama sukashi huum, Kiosan!”
Kios growled. His dark brows furrowed hard. “My name,” he screeched, “is Kios!”
Rio struggled for his breath. “Kios, please get—”
The ground trembled.
Kios’s skin brightened as Bennett’s had only a few nights ago. The light in his little body writhed, blue as a glittering bruise. Winds picked up bits of trash and grass cuttings as they coiled around the boy in a funnel reaching the sky. The boy’s shoulders lifted as he drew in a breath.
A piercing scream left his lungs with such fierceness that Rio had to cover his ears.
Luminous pulses rippled outward from Kios with atomic force. Panels peeled off of the ships. Crags of cobalt lightning arced out across the land like frenzied electric spiders. Linoans incinerated, falling to ash carried on the shockwaves. Kios’s inhuman voice melted glass. Beams and whole chunks of the fighters’ frames groaned and crumpled under the heat.
Squinting through the blaze, Rio studied Kios. The boy was focused, eyes intently darting among the Linoans just before they disintegrated. Rio couldn’t understand how he was still alive and wondered if he’d died or slipped into a coma.
The storm calmed with Kios’s silence. When everything grew still, the boy looked back and smiled the way he did when Rio took him to the tidepools to look at the starfish.
Rio followed Kios’s eyes to his body and a fading blue cocoon of light.
B
ennett’s voice crackled through Rio’s wristband. “Rio, Bennett. Do you copy?”
It was a struggle to get onto his back and lug his throbbing, bleeding arm up so he could respond. “A-firm.”
“What in the hell just happened there? Hope just registered a large explosion it couldn’t categorize.”
Rio coughed and lifted his flak vest. There was no blood, but the contusion would be a nasty one. “Kios happened. And we’re fine.”
The boy ran over and hugged him. Rio grunted through the pain, not willing to tell the boy to stop. “All right, kiddo. Let’s get you somewhere safe. Not that you need it.”
Kios took his hand. “I need you.”
Rio studied the boy in admiration. Red sparkles lit in Kios’s eyes, and Rio looked closer, concerned the boy had injured himself with such expenditure.
“Ooh, pretty!” Kios pointed up.
Rio looked to see an angry sun swell to life in the sky. Despite the consuming ache in his body, Rio got himself to his feet and hauled the boy into his arms. “Not pretty, Kios! That’s a plasma drive!”
Chapter 47
IT WAS ALL ATANA COULD SALVAGE in parts from collectors and the mechanics’ depot. The ship’s exterior intentionally looked like junk. But Atana had made certain the vessel beneath was all power and grit and guns. A modified stealth model 501 from Hope.
Atana and her crew had been floating in orbit with the others for the last two hours, waiting. Listening to the frantic conversations over the radio. Watching the fleets destroy each other. Disappear in fireworks of parts. Fall to Earth. Die.
It wasn’t time. The opportunity had to appear. The moment had to be perfect.
When Kyra Two’s core illuminated red, Atana roused the ship’s navigation system. “Plasma coming online,” she told the seven members strapped in behind her. Agutra’s shield opened just enough to permit plasma discharge, and it appeared Atana had been right in assuming Kyra shields did the same. A pinhole appeared in the Kyra’s shimmering red barrier and continued to grow.
Bold blue screens and buttons burst alight in front of her and her co-pilot Yari. The girl, though inexperienced compared to most, was a prodigal pilot. Atana watched status reports of their five engines signal ignition on her main screen.
Yari stuttered, her fingers flying over the controls. “Engine three’s reburner isn’t sparking.”
Ripping her harness free, Atana hustled between the occupied seats to the back of the craft. The reburner was critical for the maneuver she had in mind. She needed to get them moving before the Suanoa caught on to their growing heat signature.
The ship’s temperaure had fallen drastically in those hours of sitting. She wouldn’t risk the mission for comfort. Of the crew, Yari, Imara, Klézia, and herself were Xahu’ré and had thermo-stripes to keep them warm—even if concealed. Rimsan had Kilavi energy always boiling inside of him. Nephma’s skin was a coat of red quills. And Terson was a large man, leaving Lavrion the smallest and most defenseless against the chill. But her brother never complained.
Atana ignored the questioning murmurs behind her. Tugging the access panel up from the middle of the floor, she reached into the engine compartment and felt in the dark for the plug. Disconnecting it, she found greasy fingerprints on the probes. Wiping them clean, she plugged it back in silently scolding herself. They’d wasted precious seconds. “Try it now.”
A soft snap and whir resonated up from the motor.
“We’re good,” Yari called back.
Throwing the panel back over the hole in the floor, Atana returned to her seat and latched in.
“Do we need to be concerned?” Yari asked.
“No.” Atana set her fingertips on the glowing controls before her and launched them hard for the underside of the Kyra. She wasn’t picky with which warship; it was always going to be a crime of opportunity based on who planned to fire first.
“Sim diete. Give us a warning next time?” Imara whined behind her, clutching the harness strapped over her body. “I hate flying.”
“Sorry. We’ll set down soon,” Atana muttered, focused on steering the ship.
Before them, a large iris opened in the Kyra’s center, exposing the undulating plasma burning within. It flickered and flashed through the spinning blades that channeled its output. Red light poured in through their windows, drenching the team in bloody hues.
Staring at the orb of the plasma drive head-on reminded Atana of Zephyr Station—of the Suanoan computer core she’d breeched trying to escape Testing. Visions of Suanoan schematics, personnel and ships flooded her mind. Stumbling to her feet in the dark. Blinding red flares of light. Spinning barrier rings. Burning flesh.
Freedom always came with a price, and she feared the cost of it today. “Yari, on my command, vent the keel ports R4 through R7 and ignite the landing thrusters. We’re going to make a sharp turn inside the shield. You’re our momentum break. At this velocity, you hesitate, we crash. Understood?”
The girl’s hands didn’t falter over the controls, but her words trembled through her lips. “Yes, ma’am.”
A warning beacon flashed beside Atana. Someone had locked onto their position. Through Yari’s window, Atana glimpsed a fleet of Linoan fighters breaking course from Agutra. “Nephma, Terson, we have a tail,” Atana called to the two gunners in the back.
Nephma hummed her disappointment, but the Kriit was a hellion with a weapon in her hands. Pops from her gun barreled through the cabin as she laid down cover fire. Terson swiveled in his seat beside her. The targets disappeared from Atana’s screen.
Plasma churned brighter and fiercer with every passing second. Atana thrust them at maximum velocity toward the widening hold in the Kyra’s shield. The engines rumbled, low and heavy—a sleeping giant awoken in the night. If she didn’t slip them inside at the perfect time they’d be scorched in a blink.
“Holy shit, did you see that?” A shepherd yelled over the coms.
Bennett’s communication code appeared on Atana’s screen. “No. Describe it.”
“It’s black as the void,” replied another voice. “It is shooting Linoans out of the sky like us.”
“Then they’re on our side.” Bennett’s voice was calm but nearly buried by static, crashes, and frantic shouts.
Atana shoved back the urge to turn around. A pang of worry for Bennett struck her heart. But changing course now would only make them another easy target for Linoan fighters. And Black Knight had no exterior shield but the junk she’d welded to its hull.
“I knew it.” Evami’s gentle voice sung over the radio. “Klézia, if you can hear me, I know you’re working for her!
“Squadron Romeo-beta has sight of Linoan fleet approaching your three-o’clock. We’ll hold them off as long as we can!”
Klézia lurched forward in her seat behind Yari, her restraints snapping tight. She writhed against them to get a clearer look out the window. “No; no. You’re outnumbered! That’s suicide!”
Nephma and Terson sprayed fire in the direction of the fighters—blue flashes lighting up their faces.
Atana took one last peek at the conflict as they neared the opening shield beneath Kyra Two. Romeo Beta was half the size of their enemy. The blazing blur of orange and red and parts made Atana look away. “Fifteen seconds,” she warned Yari.
The girl whined, trying to steal glances at the fight outside.
“Focus, Yari. Right now, flying is our job,” Atana said quietly.
“Yes, ma’am.”
The edges of the Kyra’s shield jumped and arced as they stretched.
A programmed warning system beeped furiously onscreen.
Plasma core reaching pique in ten, nine—
“Sim verons ahna, iveron, Klézia. Kill the bastards for m—” Evami’s transmission went dead.
Klézia cried out.
“We’re not going to make it—” Imara rasped.
The writhing orb of plasma, now visibly several kilometers in breadth, sent palpable heat through the
windows.
Five, four, three—
Atana revved up the reburners, kicking Black Knight and its crew forward, under the blanket of Kyra Two’s shield. A stream of plasma exploded like an angry sun at their backs.
“Yari, now!” Atana commanded, kicking the reburners off and pulling the nose of the ship up as they careened toward the Kyra.
The girl’s fingers flew over the controls, and a groaning vibration wove through the cabin. Atana sank heavily in her seat.
“Thrusters active!” Yari confirmed.
A second passed that felt like an eternity—the massive side of the Kyra ship rushing at them. A white cloud engulfed the ship, coupled with the whispers of venting hexarhizocetylene. Atana puffed out a breath from the pressure. Imara whimpered discordantly as Lavrion softly consoled her behind the others.
They missed the mothership by meters.
Guiding them in the narrow cavity between the radiant shield and the cragged warship, Atana searched for a place to dock. Agutra had ports everywhere. There had to be something.
“Why aren’t they following us or just coming inside?” Lavrion asked. “We know they can.”
Beyond Kyra’s shield, Gruégon’s Romeo Charlie squadron had joined the fight. It looked more like a slaughter to Atana.
She refocused on a potential dock site just outside of a plasma regulator—a column five stories tall, one of many which illuminated prior to beam discharge. “Haven’t seen them fire any weapons inside one.”
“Guns stopped when we submerged into hell,” Nephma grumbled. “Bastards. I wanted to use up my ammo.”
Indigo light cast across the ceiling as two flumes crept forward like curious snakes from Rimsan’s position. “You think the shield interferes?”
Atana glanced at his reflection in the glass and saw his flumes curl back inside the experimental case she and Krett had designed at the last minute.
Hovering the ship beside the door, Atana extended the magnetic stabilizers to pull the ship in close to the hull. At a fiery flash of light, her heart skipped a beat. She turned to see Kyra Three’s shield flicker.
