For Wreck and Remnant

by Kate Avery Ellison

  No one answered. The lock continued to rattle, as if it were being picked.

  I took a step back and looked around for a weapon. I snatched up the pitcher that sat on the chair and brandished it over my head.

  The door swung open, and a figure in a dark gray uniform slipped into the room. I couldn’t breathe. I threw the water at him and followed with the pitcher. They weren’t going to take me without a fight.

  With a startled cried, the figure yanked off the helmet that obscured his face.

  I froze mid-swing.

  “Tallyn?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  MY FULL-TIME BODYGUARD and sometimes tutor put a finger to his lips. “We have to move quickly.” Behind him, two more uniformed people stepped through the doorway.

  I dropped the pitcher, and it shattered at my feet.

  “Aemi,” came Tob’s relieved voice, muffled by his helmet.

  Lyssia had her helmet off, and her lock picks in one hand. She rushed forward and hugged me.

  “How?” I stammered, scanning their faces as shock rattled through me. “How did you find me? How did you get here?”

  Tallyn was at my side, checking me for injuries. “We’ll have time for a reunion later. Something triggered the alarm when we came in, and that allowed us to get into and through the city unseen, but we need to go now.”

  “So you didn’t set it off yourselves?” I paused. “It might be a drill. They watch constantly for Nautilus’s patrols since we’re so close to Volcanus.”

  “Or it might be attackers,” Tallyn said. “Either way, we aren’t waiting to find out. Let’s go.”

  Tob reached for my arm, helping me over the shattered remains of the pitcher, probably because I looked too shocked to function without assistance. The alarm screeched in the background, faded against the pounding of my pulse in my head. Tallyn touched my shoulder as I passed him, and his eyes gleamed with affection and relief. I was too stunned to give any response.

  We stepped onto the path outside the cell. The city below was empty of movement. Shutters covered the windows and doors of the buildings. Far away, at the bottom of the basin, movement flickered. Dron soldiers, moving away from us.

  “This way,” Tallyn murmured, leading us upward. I followed him, and Tob and Lyssia brought up the rear. The alarms muffled the sounds of our feet on the stones as we ascended at a run.

  “Hurry,” Tallyn muttered over his shoulder to me, and then we were moving left into a dark corridor that smelled like salt water. Lights flickered overhead, and the alarms grew fainter. Ahead, the slow chug of machinery growled. The walls were smooth and gray, and a rusted ladder clung to the far wall, throwing spidery shadows beneath the lights.

  Tallyn stopped and stripped off his uniform. Underneath, he wore a gleaming wetsuit. Tob and Lyssia were doing the same. When they’d discarded the uniforms, Tallyn motioned toward the ladder bolted to the wall.

  “Our ship is waiting above,” he whispered.

  I followed Lyssia. The rungs were crusted with green muck. I slipped once—my dazed state made me clumsy—and Tob caught my ankle from below.

  I reached the top of the ladder and crawled on my stomach over a lip of icy metal. Tallyn pulled me to my feet, and beyond him, I saw the maw of an exit port.

  “Here.” Tallyn placed a breathing apparatus, folded wetsuit, and pressure helmet into my hands. “Put these on.”

  I stripped out of my Dron uniform, down to my underclothes, and yanked on the wetsuit and equipment without embarrassment as Lyssia, Tob, and Tallyn did the same with their helmets and breathing devices. Once dressed, we moved into the water chamber, and the door descended behind us with a clatter. A tight feeling closed around me like a fist, and I sucked on my breathing tube to reassure. The sound of the air blasted in my ears, and I shivered.

  Tallyn crossed to the wall beside me and pressed a button.

  The floor split, revealing the water below, contained from rushing over us only by the pressure of the air in the room.

  I stared into the blackness, my heart pounding. There was no time to hesitate. Tallyn took my hand and jumped, and we plunged into the black.

  My hair rushed up around my face as I sank down in a chaos of bubbles. The water closed over my head, an icy cradle of darkness. Everything was silent except for the hiss of my breath and the thud of my pulse.

  For an eternity or a second, there was nothing but black.

  Lights built into our helmets and wetsuits flicked on, triggered by the darkness. Strips of green glowed along my arms and legs, making flashes in the inky water. Tallyn swam past me with confidence, and I followed him, controlling my breathing.

  A ship appeared out of the gloom, a gleam of silver illuminated by the light of our suits. Particles of seaweed and sand floated in the glow of my arm.

  As we drew closer to the ship, I could make out the word on its side. The Riptide.

  A lump formed in my throat, and I swam faster.

  ~ ~ ~

  Once aboard the ship, the others discarded their helmets and breathing packs and scattered to man the ship. I stood in the common room, dazed. The scent of old leather and dust closed over me, and I breathed it in with relief.

  I was on my ship.

  I was going home.

  As my muscles loosened with relief, I remembered Nol, and a twinge of pain swirled through my stomach. I ignored the feeling. He was the enemy. We both knew that. We were nothing to each other.

  Lyssia bounded to me and grabbed me in another hug. She was crying. “I thought we’d never see you again.” She buried her face in my neck and squeezed me tight. Tob joined her, patting my shoulder.

  “You’ll have to tell me about the Dron food you ate,” he said, and I saw the affection and relief in his eyes that he was hiding with talk of food.

  “How did you ever find me?”

  Tob and Lyssia looked at Tallyn. He looked at me. “Myo,” he said.

  “I... Myo? I don’t understand how he was able to trace me.”

  “It’s a long story. He has connections.”

  That man seemed to be everywhere. The surface, Nautilus’s ships., and now the Dron?

  Tallyn seemed reluctant to discuss it. I wondered what he’d had to do to gain Myo’s cooperation.

  “I can’t believe you came,” I said. “You sneaked into a Dron city. Are you all mad?”

  Tob laughed. “Maybe a little. It was Tallyn’s idea. We—”

  Footsteps rang out from the direction of the control room, and then a familiar figure with a tattooed neck appeared in the doorway. Tob fell silent, and Lyssia let go of me. I stared at the red hair laden with silver beads in dismay.

  “Keli?”

  She was the pilot who had taken us to the surface weeks before, the one in the hire of the senate. She wasn’t our friend. What was she doing here?

  Tallyn paused beside me. “We needed her navigation knowledge to find you. She grew up on Magmus, and knows these waters well.”

  “You’re welcome,” Keli said with a smirk. “I hate this place, but your family pays well.”

  “Why is she here?” I asked Tallyn.

  “Keli helped us find you.”

  “I thought she worked for the senate,” I said to Tallyn in a low voice so the pilot couldn’t hear.

  Tallyn’s lips thinned. “The senate is a flimsy concept these days. I think monitoring you is on the low end of their priorities, to say the least.”

  Primus’s capture. Nautilus’s attack. I wondered how many had made it out. How many had survived.

  “Where is everyone else now? Verdus? Arctus? Is Merelus...?” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

  Tallyn’s expression softened. “Later,” he said. “I’ll tell you everything later. First, we need to get out of here—”

  The whole ship shuddered, and everyone braced against the walls. I stumbled to a port and stared out into the black water.

  Lights lanced the darkness.

  “Tallyn,” I breathed. “Thos
e are Nautilus’s ships.”

  He rushed to stand beside me. “You’re right. They’re Volcanusean. Look at the crests.”

  “Is that what triggered the alarm? You said something set it off and you were able to enter the city without detection.”

  “We didn’t see...” Tallyn turned. “Keli, get us out of here.”

  “Wait!”

  They all looked at me.

  I pressed my face to the port again. The ships swept toward where I knew the city was hiding, like predatory sharks approaching a meal. My heart plummeted. “Nol is there, and lots of children, and a woman named Tilya who knows something about Perilous. We can’t just leave them. They’ll be killed.”

  “We don’t know what Nautilus wants with them,” Tallyn said. “And we have no means to fight an army.”

  “I don’t think they’ve seen the city yet. The Dron have alarms everywhere to alert them in the event of an approaching army.”

  I whirled away from the window. In my head, I saw Myla, Tack, and even stupid Garren. How many people—Dron or Itlantean, it didn’t matter to me—were going to fall victim to this onslaught? “Can’t we do anything?”

  “We can run,” Keli said from the door. Her face was pale and her lips a grayish color.

  “How fast is this ship?”

  “Aemi,” Tallyn said. He could tell what I was thinking, and he clearly didn’t like it.

  Keli tipped her head. “Well, it’s small. You’re wanting to play chase the minnow with them?”

  “I want to keep them away from that city,” I said. “They need time to evacuate.”

  A slow smile spread across her face. “I know a place,” she said. “We can lose them. If they follow us...”

  “Do it.”

  She turned and disappeared toward the control room.

  “Aemi,” Tallyn said again. “What are you doing?”

  “Listen. If we can demonstrate to the Dron that we aren’t their enemies...”

  Tallyn shook his head. “These are the Dron we’re talking about.”

  “They’re desperate, and so is Itlantis.”

  And they know things, I wanted to say. Things about Perilous. It was important, but I didn’t know why.

  The Riptide lurched and then hummed as Keli powered up the engines. The ship dipped, and I staggered as I headed for the control room.

  Keli sat in the pilot’s seat, hunched over the controls, one hand laced through her hair.

  “Ready to play?” she asked me, flipping a grimace of a smile over her shoulder. “Let’s see if these sharks are hungry.”

  She maneuvered the ship forward, and the lights from the Riptide swept through the dark like feelers. I sank into the seat beside her. My mouth dried with fear; my tongue felt swollen. I clenched my hands in my lap as the ship turned.

  Ahead, the Volcanusean warship moved, pricks of light gleaming on the sides. As we rushed over the bow of the ship, it slowed.

  “Will they follow us?” I asked Keli in a low voice.

  Keli gave me a wink. “They will if I do this,” she said, and activated the communications link.

  “What are you—?”

  “This is the Riptide,” she said. “Don’t shoot. We have Aemi Graywater on board.”

  I went rigid. My voice came out in a controlled whisper. “Don’t you think you should have ASKED before doing that?”

  She shrugged. “You probably would have said no.”

  For a moment, the sea was dark, and the ship continued on its course. I held my breath, every muscle tight, nerves screaming.

  Then, lights swept toward us.

  “Oh, look,” Keli said. “They’re turning.”

  “You’d better be able to outrun them,” I snapped. “Otherwise, you’ve just ensured that we’re all going to be dead or in some form of bodily harm very soon.”

  Keli snorted cheerfully. “Have faith, Promised One. I can outrun them.”

  Promised One. The name some of the New Dawner cult members from Magmus had for me. Her use of it barbed me, and I knew she spoke the term with derision. Still, it shut me up like she wanted.

  I dug my fingernails into my palms as she whipped around a column of rock. Piles of stone and wreckage appeared without warning from the darkness, ghostly in the ship’s lights, but Keli smoothly avoided every obstacle.

  Tallyn appeared in the doorway, bracing himself as the ship pitched. “Am I hearing things, or did you just contact the Volcanuseans and announce that we had Aemi on board?”

  “They’re looking for her, aren’t they?”

  “How do you know that?” I snapped.

  “I overhear you people talking. I’m not stupid. Besides, it isn’t fun if it isn’t dangerous,” Keli said, flipping her hair over her shoulder with a jingle of beads. “Trust me, this is going to work.”

  Tallyn and I exchanged a glance. The Riptide clipped a rock, and we all lurched forward.

  “Where are Tob and Lyssia?” I asked Tallyn breathlessly.

  “Tob took refuge in the galley. Says he prefers to die among the food. Lyssia is in the sleeping quarters.”

  Tallyn slid into the seat behind me as Keli yanked the ship in a tight turn. My stomach somersaulted as we dove again.

  “You’re heading straight for that wall of rock!” Tallyn ground out.

  “Hmm,” Keli said. “Appears so, doesn’t it? Trust me.”

  Tallyn and I exchanged a panicked glance.

  The rocks loomed closer, filling our view, bone-white in the sweeping light of the Riptide. Keli yanked the controls at the last possible second, and we spun into a crack in the stone, an underwater cave that closed around us. She whooped in delight as the walls of stone spooled past.

  “That big warship won’t fit,” she cackled. “Only little ships like ours. We’ve lost ‘em.”

  I gasped out a breath. “How’d you know that was there?”

  “Used to do this all the time as a kid,” she said. “Only I knew about the tunnel. Stumbled upon it one day while operating a harvester. I used to get bored and explore. Told you I knew these waters.”

  “Where does this lead?” Tallyn’s voice was weary now, mixed with choked rage.

  Keli gently steered the ship downward as the tunnel of rock dipped. “There’re miles of tunnels down here, and a big cave with lots of room to swim around.”

  “And we just wait for them to leave?”

  “Nah,” she said. “There’re other tunnels that will take us out in a different place. Then we just trek back to Verdus. See? Easy as catching trout.”

  Lights flooded the darkness in front of us, and two ships rose into view, bristling with armaments aimed straight at us.

  We were caught.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “THOSE AREN’T VOLCANUSEAN ships.” The words tumbled out of me from pure shock as Keli swore and Tallyn reached involuntarily for a weapon at his side, as if that would do anything. “They’re Dron.”

  “I can’t run,” Keli muttered. “They’ll shoot us.”

  “Stay where you are,” Tallyn said. “No sudden movements. If we sink in this cave, we’re never going to find our way out before we run out of air, even if we did survive the explosions.”

  My stomach roiled.

  “Should I contact them?” Keli reached for the panel.

  “Allow me,” Tallyn said tightly. He leaned across her and activated the switch, and a burst of static filled the cabin.

  I stared at the ships beyond us, my heart slamming against my ribs. Had Nol survived? Were these ships a patrol, unaware of the warship approaching their city? Were they refugees?

  If they knew of the warship, would they shoot us without explanation? We were clearly Itlantean.

  Tallyn was speaking, but his words ran together in my ears. I rubbed a sweaty hand over my eyes.

  “Fleeing from Nautilus,” I heard him say.

  Keli nudged the controls, and the Riptide moved. A flash of light came from one of the Dron ships, and a torpedo swept pa
st us in a rush of bubbles.

  “Wait!” Tallyn shouted, and I didn’t even know who he was addressing. “There is no need to kill each other as we run from them!”

  I heard them demanding that we come aboard or be shot, and I heard him agreeing. My whole body was stiffening with exhaustion, but I managed to stand and follow him as he headed for the common area and the wetsuits.

  If he was going to speak to the Dron, I was coming along.

  ~ ~ ~

  They surrounded us as soon as we were on board, still dripping wet from the journey. Battalia soldiers, all of them, in various stages of dress. Some were fully uniformed; others lacked jackets or even shirts, their undershirts a shock of white against the rest.

  “Who’s in charge here?” Tallyn asked as soon as he had his helmet off. “We need to speak with your leader at once. There isn’t much time.”

  The soldiers parted to admit Garren. His eyebrows flicked up at the sight of me.

  “Ha,” he snapped. “It’s you. You got away, I see. Slippery as an eel. Perhaps helped by Nautilus? Are you working for him?”

  “Don’t be absurd,” I said. “We’re running from him, the same as you. We led him away from your city to give your people more time to escape before we ran into you. Let us go.”

  The Dron soldiers seemed to move closer. Tallyn glared at them. Garren flicked his hand, and they raised their weapons.

  “Don’t be stupid, Garren,” I said. “I’m more useful alive. Whoever is in charge here is going to want to see me.”

  I was gambling on the fact that it wasn’t him.

  He considered my words while pretending not to.

  “Bring them,” he said to the soldiers, who closed around us and prodded us forward. Garren turned and strode into the corridor.

  We were marched in silence through hallways crammed with refugees. Children, women with fussing babies, bleary-eyed old men. They gazed at us, wide-eyed, some in shock. I wondered what was going to happen to them. Had our efforts to lead Nautilus’s ships away worked? Had Basin been destroyed anyway? If so, where were they going to go? Nol had said that there wasn’t a place for refugees.