by Jessica Gunn
“Teleport him here and I’ll send Sophia back with you,” General Holt ordered. “We’ll send reinforcements.”
“Not sure we have time for that.” I glanced over my shoulder at Freddy. “They’re after anyone with a heritage that links them to this war, whether they’re standing against them or not.”
“Don’t act, Chelsea,” a third voice said, joining the call. General Holt must have been talking to him at the time and pushed the speaker option. Major Pike continued, “Do not move in. I can hear it in your voice.”
I didn’t respond. No point in lying to Pike. “We’re running out of time. Grab Sophia and get here now.” I hung up the call without further conversation.
Freddy stared me down. “You shouldn’t go in alone.”
“You know that won’t stop me.” It couldn’t go any worse than when I’d stormed the Bridge the first go-around. No, I’d be fine. And moreover, I didn’t care if I made it out alive because I knew I would. I just didn’t know who’d be lost on the other side in the process.
He left you. They all did.
I checked over the emergency pistol and cocked it, ready to go. Then I reached up and grabbed another for Freddy and handed it to him. “Stay here,” I said to Freddy. “Holt will get you out of here. Just focus on not bleeding out.”
His face took on a serious, dark mask. “Be safe, Chelsea.”
I nodded and walked past him toward the door. “I will.”
I dropped down from the panic room to the tunnel and stepped out of the doorway. If I could get into a vent shaft above the Bridge, I could snipe the captors with or without the pistol. Maybe use my water-control power. Either way, there was no way in hell I was going to let this end the same way as the first time.
No way in hell.
I stormed down the hall, my boots beating against the metal grating. Cold hands wrapped around my shoulders from behind before I reached the intersection. I snapped my head backward into my attacker’s as fresh adrenaline flowed through my veins. Feeding my power. Growing it. I dug my heel into their shin and threw their body over mine with a loud grunt. They landed on the floor with a thud. I straddled my attacker, using my knees to pin their hands to their sides. I stared into her dark green eyes, bringing my gun between them.
“Chels! You don’t need to attack me,” she said, laughing.
My breath hitched as my adrenaline-filled vision cleared. Mara. TruGates. The recognition I had meant nothing. Their presence here, the General’s orders, it all meant nothing but betrayal and danger.
I shoved the pistol into Mara’s ribcage. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t shoot.”
Her eyes widened like she was suddenly unsure of her plan to get my attention. “Uh, because I’m here to save you,” she said. “Pretend to help take the station, then rescue you all in the end.”
I thrusted the mouth of the pistol harder against her chest. “Try again.”
“Chelsea, it’s me,” she pleaded. Her voice became high-pitched with worry. Did she really think I wasn’t going to attack her if she grabbed me? If she showed up here to take the station?
Footsteps echo down the hallway. My heartbeat thundered in my ears. I couldn’t keep Mara pinned and hope to outrun whoever was coming. Bile slicked my throat again as my indecision reigned, my finger twitching around the pistol’s trigger. I turned my head for one second, a single moment to see who was coming, and met Eric’s gaze.
Of course.
“I don’t think so,” I managed to get out, right before the man walking alongside him aimed his taser at me and shot. My muscles tensed, ready to jump out of the way, but Mara held me down. The tasers clung to my clothes and shocked me.
Knocked me out cold.
When I woke up, my wrists were bound with zip-ties and an unfortunately familiar face stared back at me. Josh. The other man who’d been with Eric, the guy I’d seen on the camera attacking Trevor, hovered above me.
But if that other man had already made it down here moments after the incident with Weyland, if he and Josh both had… He must have powers. But the Lemurians were on our side, and I didn’t get that Atlantean-to-Atlantean vibe from him.
The White City.
The real question was: how long had I actually been out?
“We lost you for a while there,” the guy in charge said, not amused by my disappearing act.
I smiled. “I do that. You should ask the Captain. It happens all the time.”
He rushed a punch to my jaw that connected with a crack. Pain stuttered behind my eyes as my head swung to the side with the blow.
The super soldier inside of me reared up but I shoved her back down again. Now wasn’t the time. I turned my head and spat blood onto the floor.
The man smiled cruelly. “I will teach you the hard way to listen to me.”
The room was too small to hope to escape, tight with cabinets and shelves and only one doorway out of here. Fighting would be the only way out, if I managed to wriggle free from this guy’s immediate grasp.
“I can handle that,” Josh said before I screamed my threats and acted on them. “You’ve got things to take care of on the Bridge.”
The terrorist looked to him, almost sad about it, but shrugged. “Have fun, then.”
As bright green lights filled the room and the man teleported away, I broke free of the zip ties around my wrists, then laid back down so Josh couldn’t see. He approached me quickly, dropping the cold-hearted terrorist act immediately.
I wasn’t buying it. “Stay away from me,” I warned. My chest heaved, lungs working double-time to keep me any sort of calm.
“Chelsea, it’s me,” he pleaded, eyes wide and rounded.
“I said back the hell off! I don’t know what’s going on or what the truth is, but stay out of my way or I’ll take you out of the picture altogether.”
He held a hand out to me and I smacked it away before punching him square in the nose. He fell backward, landing on the floor with a thud, out cold. It was the least he and the others deserved for what they’d done. Besides, Josh wasn’t in charge here, and the man who was, currently stood on the Bridge continuing to threaten people and search for Atlantean super soldiers.
I bent over to retrieve Josh’s gun holstered at his hip and strutted out the door without checking on him; showing up here broke any remaining allegiance I’d had to him or TruGates.
I made my way to the Bridge, passing deck after empty deck. Where was everyone being held? Did they evac somehow? As soon as I hit the Bridge, I swiped my keycard through the reader by the door and opened it. Before the doors had swung open halfway, I charged onto the Bridge and took aim at the terrorist that had given Josh orders. Around me, gasps from the SeaSat5 crew filled the air. Sobbing echoed. Still, I charged forward, hand raised. Screw covertness and cunning. I didn’t care anymore. I stood, feet apart, with my arms holding position. “Call off your men.”
The terrorist laughed at me. Laughed.
“Do you know who I am?” I asked him.
“Chelsea don’t,” Trevor said. He can’t know what you are.
He stood cornered off to my right along with most of the Bridge and senior staff. Three other Atlanteans and White City soldiers surrounded them, pistols drawn where their hands didn’t hold water or flame.
Not good.
I ignored Trevor, continuing with, “I mean really. You waltz in here like you own the place and you fail to capture me? Mistake number one. The second was assuming you could hold SeaSat5 for any length of time.”
“And mistake number three was assuming your TruGates friends wouldn’t take aim on you,” the terrorist said, pointing to somewhere behind me.
I didn’t look. That was probably the terrorist’s play and if there really was someone behind me pointing a gun at my back, I didn’t want to know who it was. I’d snap worse than I already had. All I knew in that moment, all I understood, was that this was my station to protect; not because it was a Link Piece, not because we’d found cou
ntless remnants of the City of Atlantis while I, an Atlantean, had been aboard, but because these people were my family—and I had to do everything, anything, in my power to protect it.
And I would.
I aimed my weapon at the terrorist when a flash of burning pain shot through my bicep, a bullet tearing through my flesh. I gripped my gun despite the agony rippling through my limb, and spun on my attacker.
Eric stood, gun still trained on me. His eyes were narrowed, hard, as he stared down the barrel of his weapon.
All bets were off now.
I lifted my gun, taking aim at Eric, when a crack to my wrist sent the weapon clattering against the metal-grated floor. The terrorist shoved his shoulder into me, knocking me against the console. The metal corner dug into my back, sending pain shooting down my spine. Dammit, he was strong. Much stronger than a normal human. Did every soldier of these ancient civilizations have super strength? I fought against him, leaning on the console and kicking out, throwing Eric’s partner back with a kick to his chest.
The smell of bullets fired, of sharp metal and burnt powder, filled the air and mixed with the copper scent of blood as a roar of gunfire erupted across the Bridge. The group of senior staff members lashed out at their captors, taking advantage of my momentary distraction. They dodged retaliating gunfire as best they could, tackling their guards down one by one. TAO hadn’t made it in time to help this go-around. It was up to us, and us alone.
Both the Captain and Trevor shouted wordless warnings, but I couldn’t respond as a metal pipe soared into my peripheral vision. The smack of steel to skull echoed across the Bridge. My knees gave out as blackness danced along the edges of my vision, my ears ringing. The room swam out of focus. I blinked rapidly, fog creeping in. What the hell just happened?
The terrorist’s heavy body fell onto mine and pinned me to the ground. He chuckled darkly. The cool metal of the pipe slid across my throat. My awareness skipped back to me in heady waves, along with his body odor and sweat, which assaulted my nostrils.
He pushed the metal cylinder against my windpipe. Instinct brought my hands to the bar and I gripped it with all I had, trying to push back. I forced my mind to focus, to calm. My teleportation power called to me across the divide in my head, but it stood on the other side of the abyss, unreachable. Fog settled over the canyon and I knew it’d be no use trying anymore. It was like the ability had simply vanished from existence. But why? How?
The shield.
My gaze found the terrorist’s and instinct told me he knew the truth in that moment. I was powerless.
He snickered. “Found a super soldier after all, didn’t I?”
I grunted in response, unable to get words past my lips. Unwilling to sacrifice the precious air needed to do so. My fingers scrambled over the cool tilted floor, searching for the gun I’d lost. I stretched my arm until it felt like it’d dislocate. The weight of my attacker pinned me down, and I fought to keep the air in my lungs, resisting the darkness that wanted to swallow me hold as I searched the ground.
“Funny,” he said as he pushed down on the pipe, completely missing me reaching for a weapon. His eyes narrowed in, all focus on me. “For all your supposed power, my presence alone is enough to snuff it out.”
Because that made sense. But even as I thought it, I felt my power, my strength, being zapped from me. I wouldn’t be able to hold him off for much longer. Not like this. Not without air.
My hand caught against cold metal. Finally. I wrapped my fingers around the familiar shape of a nine-millimeter and summoned the super soldier part of me. She answered immediately.
I lifted my arm and brought the mouth of the pistol to the side of the terrorist’s head, and pulled the trigger. Blood spattered over my face as the deadweight of his body fell onto me.
The Bridge went deadly silent. Someone shouted my name, but I was too far gone to care. All I saw was myself about to shoot the Captain. Myself shooting Thompson. Truman dying. Michael dying.
Blood seeped out from the gunshot wound on my arm. My head rang. Spun. Hurt. I pushed my hands against the terrorist’s dead body until he was off of me. The action covered my hands in a mixture of his blood and mine.
Fights broke out all over the Bridge, lost in a cacophony of screams and gunfire that echoed off the metal walls. I blinked through the reality shifting around me, trying to push down my super soldier half until she drowned in the real me, in any sort of anchoring emotion I was capable of gathering. Sound blurred together as sanity slipped between my fingers.
“Everything but the Dining Decks is secure.”
“A team is headed there now.”
“Ten causalities,” Sophia said. “Not including the combatants.”
I frowned. Ten was too many. Someone rushed to my side, a fear-filled expression swimming into view.
Eric. That asshole. I swiped my hand through the air, knocking him away from me with my telekinesis. He flew across the Bridge into a bulkhead.
My stomach churned, so I rolled sideways in case I puked, and met the gaze of the terrorist’s dead body. Ferocious shakes overtook my body, from fear and shock and disgust.
Weyland also tried to come to my side. He’d been there when this happened the first time. He knew. He had to know. He offered hushed words of understanding, of his own soldier snapping to attention inside of him like mine had.
I pushed him back, too.
The only person I let through was Trevor, who knelt down in front of me while I backed up against a console, holding my knees to my chest. “Chelsea, look at me.”
I couldn’t pry my eyes away from the body.
“He’s not Thompson,” Trevor tried again.
Of course he wasn’t, but that didn’t mean anything.
Stay with me, Trevor thought. His hands were on my head, my arm. Checking me over. Trying to figure out what blood was mine and what wasn’t. He had a gash on his own forehead, deep and bleeding. I reached a hand toward the wound. He winced at my touch.
“Sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay.” He looked over his shoulder and said to someone, “She’s okay. Needs stitches for sure.” As if he were some medical doctor. Don’t think so.
Everyone’s eyes seemed to find me. And what I’d done to end things. Of what we’d all done to take the station back.
I swallowed down all the panic. The fear and the remorse. All of the past memories and every person who’d died because of me. I swallowed it all down and pushed it deep.
Then I stood up, Trevor’s hands on my elbow and my side, helping me. I took in the scene on the Bridge; some hurt, some dead. Major Pike appeared at the door and gave the all-clear.
War was still on the horizon, but we’d survived this fight.
Barely.
20
Trevor
I sat with Chelsea while they’d treated her for the wounds she’d sustained on the Bridge. She had lacerations and a gunshot wound to the arm, along with a concussion and a few bruised ribs. Most of them would heal by morning or later the next day. Unless, of course, Captain Marks okayed Weyland to heal Chelsea.
“I’m fine, Dr. Gordon,” Chelsea growled. “Stop pricking me with needles and go check on Freddy next door. He’s the one who almost bled to death.”
Chelsea held an icepack to the sizeable bump on her head, thanks to the hit she’d taken from the White City Soldier. I held a bandage against her arm, trying not to let the nauseating scent of antiseptic churn my stomach. The gunshot wound on Chelsea’s arm had started closing up almost immediately, but Dr. Gordon wasn’t taking any chances regarding infection.
“I’m trying to help you,” Dr. Gordon said. “I want to make sure they didn’t do anything to you, like inject you with poison after drawing your blood.”
Chelsea gestured to Dr. Gordon’s arm. “Did they poison you?” she asked, head tilted, waiting for an answer.
Dr. Gordon had the patience of a freaking saint. She stood there, not amused by Chelsea’s exasperation. “
I cleared all the tests I’m giving you, yes. I, at least, took them.”
Chelsea’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t like doctors or talking about her feelings or really anything having to do with medicine and medical practices. I couldn’t blame her. She’d once told me the horrific story of when she’d gotten her wisdom teeth out, and the fight between the pain and the not-going-under because the anesthesia hadn’t affected her at all.
“Then why do we have to do this?” Chelsea asked. “According to everything you’ve all told me, they needed super soldiers. They would have used me first then killed me, and they didn’t get that far.”
“I’m still confused as to how they didn’t know who the super soldiers were,” Dr. Gordon said.
“If General Allen never told them, the White City won’t know.” Chelsea shifted her weight away from Dr. Gordon’s needle as she withdrew it from her arm. “I mean, you can’t tell by looking at someone, and none of us use our powers freely in our everyday lives.”
“They had Atlanteans working with them,” I pointed out. “Everything we’ve heard says they definitely didn’t know anything except there are multiple super soldiers aboard. They really didn’t know who they were.”
“Which is sort of ridiculous if you think about it,” Chelsea said. “We may not use our powers every day but for me, at least, my face is out there. General Allen could have easily pointed his finger my way… but he didn’t.” She shook her head, a dark look crossing her features. “I don’t like it. I don’t like that he’s got some unknown agenda that involves keeping me at arm’s reach from danger.”
“I think it means there might be more going on here,” I said. “Like earlier. I don’t think Josh wanted to shoot Weyland, or me. I think he was forced to keep up the act.”
