by Lu, Marie
“DesCon’s on their way with some backup,” one soldier murmurs. As he says it, I move the second paper clip and hear the pin in the lock give a tiny, almost imperceptible click. Two soldiers and a nurse wheel the gurney into my room, stop for a moment inside the doorway, then roll it in my direction. The lock on my chains opens—I feel the cuffs coming off my hands with a soft clank. One soldier fixes milky blue eyes on me and pulls his thick lips into a frown. He notices the subtle change in my expression, and heard the clicking sound as well. His eyes flick to my arms.
If I’m going to make a break for it, now’s my only chance.
Suddenly I twist to the side of the bed and jump off. The chains fall back into the bed and my feet hit the floor. Dizziness hits me like a wall of water, but I manage to keep it at bay. The soldier with his gun pointed at me shouts out a warning, but he’s too slow. I kick out at the gurney as hard as I can—it topples over, taking down one soldier with it. Another soldier grabs at me, but I duck and manage to slip out of his grasp. My eyes focus on the balcony.
But there are still three soldiers standing over there. They rush at me. I avoid two of them, but the third catches me around my shoulders and wraps an arm across my neck. He throws me down, knocking the breath out of me. I struggle frantically to free myself.
“Stay down!” one exclaims, while another tries to snap a new set of cuffs on my wrists. He lets out a howl as I twist around and sink my teeth deep into his arm.
No good. I’m captured, I’m arrested.
Suddenly the balcony’s glass door shatters into a million pieces. The soldiers spin around, bewildered. Everything is whirling. In the midst of shouts and footsteps, I see two people breaking into the room from the balcony. One’s a girl I recognize. Kaede? I think incredulously.
The other is Day.
Kaede kicks one soldier in the neck—Day barrels into the soldier holding me down and knocks him to the floor. Before anyone can react, Day’s up again. He grabs my hands and yanks me to my feet.
Kaede’s already at the balcony ledge. “Don’t shoot them!” I hear a soldier call out behind us. “They’re valuable property!” Day rushes us onto the balcony, then leaps onto the railing’s ledge in one bound. He and Kaede try to pull me upright as two other guards run toward us.
But I start sinking to my knees. My sudden burst of energy is no match for my lingering illness—I’m too weak. Day jumps back down from the ledge and kneels beside me. Kaede lets out a whoop, tackling one of the soldiers to the ground. “See you there!” she yells back at us. Then she rushes inside the room amid all the confusion, throwing the guards off. I see her slip out of their grasp and vanish down the corridor.
Day takes my arms, then wraps them around his neck. “Don’t let go.” When he straightens, I tighten my legs around him and cling to his back as hard as I can. He climbs onto the balcony ledge, boots crunching through broken glass, and leaps onto the outcropping that wraps around the second floor. Immediately I understand where we’re going. We’re all heading for the roof, where fighter jets lie in wait. Kaede is taking the stairs. We’re traveling by a more direct route.
We edge out onto the second-floor ledge. I hang on for dear life. Strands of Day’s hair brush against my face as he pulls us up to the third floor’s outcropping. I feel his rapid breathing, his muscles hard against my skin. Two more floors to go. A soldier attempts to follow us, decides against it, then rushes back inside to take the stairs.
Day struggles with his footing as he pulls us up one more floor. We’re almost at the roof. The soldiers start spilling out onto the lawn below. I can see them pointing their guns up at us. Day grits his teeth and sets me down on the ledge. “Go first,” he whispers, then gives me a boost. I grab the top ledge, gather all my strength, and pull. When I finally make it over the edge, I whirl around and grab Day’s hand. He leaps onto the roof too. My eyes go to a streak of dark red staining his hand. He must’ve injured it in the climb.
I feel so light-headed. “Your hand,” I start to say, but he just shakes his head at me, wraps his arm around my waist, and guides us toward the nearest of the fighter jets lining the roof. Soldiers start flooding out of the roof’s entrance door—I get a good look at the one running fastest toward us. Kaede.
KAEDE WASTES NO TIME. SHE GESTURES TOWARD the fighter jet closest to us and sprints up the ramp to its cockpit. Shots ring out. June leans heavily against me. I can feel her strength fading, so I pick her up and carry her close to my chest. The soldiers who have reached the roof move faster once they see what Kaede’s up to. But she’s too far ahead of them. I rush us toward the ramp.
The jet’s engine roars to life as we reach the ramp’s first step, and right below the aircraft, two large exhausts slowly tilt downward to face the ground. We’re gearing up for a straight shoot into the sky. “Hurry the hell up!” Kaede screams from the cockpit. Then she ducks back out of view and spits out a string of curses.
“Let me down,” June says. She hops back onto her own feet, stumbles, and then straightens to take the first two steps. I stay behind her, my eyes fixed on the soldiers. They’re almost here. June manages to reach the top of the ramp and climb into the cockpit. I hurry halfway up the ramp before a soldier grabs my pant leg and yanks me back down. Remember balance. Stay on the balls of your feet. Catch him at the right spots. June’s fighting lesson rushes through my head all at once. When the soldier swings at me, I duck down, move to his side, and hit him as hard as I can right below his rib cage. He collapses onto one knee. Liver blow.
Another two soldiers reach me and I brace myself. But then one of them shrieks, falling backward off the ramp with a bullet wound to his shoulder. I glance up at the cockpit. June has Kaede’s gun and is taking aim at the soldiers. I turn back to the steps and hop up to the top, where June’s already buckled in the middle seat right behind Kaede. “Get in, already!” Kaede snaps. The engines let out another high-pitched roar. Behind me, several guards have started climbing up the first few steps.
I leap onto the metal railing lining the edge of the ramp, grab the side of the cockpit, and push with all my strength. The ramp teeters for a second—then starts toppling over. Soldiers shout warnings and fling themselves out of the way. By the time it smashes onto the roof, I’m already in the jet and buckling myself into the last seat. Kaede slides the cockpit shut. I feel my stomach drop as we shoot straight up off the roof and above the buildings. Through the cockpit’s glass, I can see pilots rushing into the jets on nearby buildings as well as the second one sitting on the hospital’s roof.
“Damn it all,” Kaede spits out from the front. “I’m gonna kill them—they got me in my side.” I feel the jet’s exhausts shift. “Hang on. This is gonna be a wild ride.”
We stop rising. The engines grow to a deafening roar. Then we shoot forward. The world rushes at us and pressure in my head builds as Kaede pushes the jet faster and faster. She lets out a whoop. Almost immediately I hear a voice crackling through the cockpit.
“Pilot, you are ordered to land your aircraft immediately.” The speaker sounds nervous. Must be a jet following us. “We will open fire. I repeat, land immediately, or we will open fire.”
“Only one jet in the air after us. Let’s fix that. Suck in your breath, guys.” Kaede turns violently, and I almost black out from the pressure change.
“All you all right?” I call out to June. She says something back, but I can’t hear her over the roar of the engines.
Suddenly Kaede yanks a knob back and pushes a lever all the way forward. My head slams into the side of the cockpit. We spin a full hundred-eighty degrees in less than a second. I see a jet flying straight for us at a terrifying speed. Instinctively I throw my hands up.
Even June yells out, “Kaede, that—”
Kaede opens fire. A shower of bright light streaks from our jet to the one in front of us. The engines yank us forward and up. An explosion sounds behin
d us—the other jet must’ve gotten hit in the fuel tank or taken a shot straight through its cockpit.
“They’ll be hard-pressed to tail us now,” she shouts. “We’re too far ahead and they won’t want to cross the warfront. I’m gonna push this baby to its max—we’ll be in the Republic in a couple of minutes.” I don’t ask how she’s planning to pass through the warfront without getting shot down.
When I look through the cockpit at the Colonies’ towering buildings, I let out a breath and slump in my seat. Glittering lights, shining skyscrapers, everything my father had described to me on the few nights a year that we were able to see him. It’s so lovely from a distance.
“So,” Kaede says, “I’m not just burning up fuel for nothing, am I? Day—we’re still heading for Denver?”
“Yes,” I reply.
“What’s the plan?” June still sounds weak, but there’s a burning purpose behind it, the sense that we’re about to do something pivotal. She can tell that something has changed inside me.
I feel strangely calm. “We’re headed for the Capitol Tower,” I reply. “I’m going to announce my support of Anden to the Republic.”
A COUPLE OF MINUTES TO GET INTO THE REPUBLIC’S border. That means, at the speed we’re going (easily more than eight hundred miles per hour; we all felt a sudden pressure change as we broke the sound barrier, like being dragged out of deep mud), we’re only two dozen or so miles from the warfront and several hundred from Denver. Day tells me everything that Kaede shared with him, about the Patriots and the true colors of Razor, about Eden, then Congress’s determination to oust the Elector. Everything I’d discovered and then some. My head was in a fog when we’d bolted from the room and made our way up to the hospital roof. Now, after the cold outside air and the speed of Kaede’s air maneuver, I can calculate details a little more clearly.
“We’re closing in on the warfront,” Kaede says. The instant those words come out of her mouth, I hear the distant sound of explosions. They’re muffled, but we must be thousands of feet in the air and I can still feel the shock each time they go off. There’s a sudden lift and I press into my seat. She’s trying to push the jet as high as it can go so we don’t get shot out of the sky by ground missiles. I force myself to take deep, calming breaths as we continue to climb. My ears pop endlessly. I watch as Kaede falls into formation with a squadron of Colonies jets. “We’re gonna need to break from them soon,” she mutters. There’s pain in her voice, probably from her gunshot wound. “Hang tight.”
“Day?” I manage to call out.
I don’t hear anything, and for a second I think he blacked out. Then he replies, “Still here.” He sounds detached, like he’s fighting to stay conscious.
“Denver’s a few minutes away,” Kaede says.
We stabilize again. When I peer out of the cockpit down at the pockets of clouds far below us, I catch my breath. Airships (easily more than a hundred and fifty, as far as the eye can see) dot the sky like miniature daggers soaring through the air, stretching in lines off into the horizon. The Colonies’ ships all have a distinct gold stripe down the middle of their runways that we can see even from way up here. Not far in front of them is a wide strip of empty airspace where sparks of light and smoke fly back and forth, and on the other side are rows of airships I can recognize: Republic ships, marked with a bloodred star on the side of each hull. Jets are raging in dogfights all over the place. We must be a good five hundred feet above them—but I’m not sure if that’s a safe enough distance.
An alarm on Kaede’s control board beeps. A voice rings out in the cockpit. “Pilot, you are not cleared for this area,” it says. (Male, Colonies accent.) “This is not your squadron. You’re ordered to land on DesCon Nine immediately.”
“Negative,” Kaede replies. She pulls our jet up and keeps climbing.
“Pilot, you are ordered to land on DesCon Nine immediately.”
Kaede turns off her mike for an instant and looks back at us. She seems a little too happy about our situation. “Goddy talker’s following us,” she says in a mock authoritative tone. “We got two hot on our tail.” Then she flips the mike on again and replies brightly, “Negative, DesCon. I’m gonna shoot you out of the sky.”
The person in the other plane sounds shocked and angry this time. “Change course and get this one—”
Kaede lets out an ear-piercing shout. “Split the sky, boys!” She rockets us forward and up at blinding speed, then goes into a spin. Streaks of light shoot past the cockpit window—the two jets tailing us must’ve gotten close enough to open fire. I feel my stomach drop as Kaede goes into a sudden nosedive, killing our engine in the process. We drop at a pace that turns my vision black and white. I feel myself fading away.
An instant later I jolt awake. I must’ve blacked out.
We’re falling. We’re plummeting to the earth. The airships below us grow in size—it looks like we’re heading straight at the deck of one of them. No, we’re going way too fast; we’ll be smashed into pieces. More streaks of light rush past us. The jets following are diving after us.
Then, without warning, Kaede fires the engines again. They roar to life. She pulls back hard on a lever and the whole jet spins in a half circle so the nose is facing up again. I’m almost sucked into my chair at the sudden change. My vision blacks out again, and this time I have no idea how much time has passed. A few seconds? Minutes? I realize we’re charging back up into the sky.
The other jets zoom down. They’re trying to pull up, but it’s too late. Behind us, a huge explosion shakes us hard in our seats—the jets must’ve struck the deck of the airship with the force of a dozen bombs. Orange-and-yellow fire churns upward from one of the Colonies ships. We’re now zooming across the empty airspace between the two countries, and Kaede sends us into another spin that saves us from a barrage of fire. We cross the airspace and cut through the sky over the Republic’s airships. One lone Colonies jet, lost in the chaos. I gape at the scene outside, wondering if the Republic is confused that the Colonies attacked one of their own jets. If anything, that’s what bought us enough time to cross the warfront space.
“Best split-S you’ve ever seen, I bet,” Kaede says with a laugh. It sounds more strained than usual.
Not far from us now are the looming towers of Denver and its forbidding Armor, shrouded in a permanent sea of smog and haze. Behind us, I hear the first sounds of gunfire as Republic jets start tailing us in an attempt to shoot us down.
“How are we going to get inside?” Day shouts as Kaede spins the jet, sends a missile backward, and pushes us to go faster.
“I’ll get us in,” she shouts back.
“We can’t make it if we go overhead,” I reply. “The Armor has missiles lining every side of that wall. They’ll shoot us down before we ever get across into the city.”
“No city’s impenetrable.” Kaede sends the jet lower even as the Republic jets continue to pursue us. “I know what I’m doing.”
We’re closing in fast on Denver. I can see the looming gray walls of the Armor rising up before us, a barricade like nothing else in the Republic, and the heavy gray pillars (each a hundred feet apart from the next) lining its sides. I close my eyes. No way—no way—Kaede can get us over that. A squadron of jets could get over, maybe, and even then it’ll be a long shot. I picture a missile hitting us and our seats ejecting us out over the city’s skies, the shots they’ll fire up at our parachutes, our bodies plummeting to the ground. The Armor is close now. They must’ve seen us approaching for a while, and their weapons will be trained on us. I bet they’ve never seen a rogue Colonies jet before.
Then Kaede dives. Not just any dive—she’s headed down at almost ninety degrees, ready to send us smashing into the earth. Behind me, Day sucks in his breath. The buildings below rush up at us. She’s lost control of the jet. I know it. We’ve been hit.
At the last second, Kaede pulls up. We s
kim above the buildings at mach speed, so close that the roofs seem like they’re going to rip the bottom right off our jet. Immediately Kaede starts slowing down the jet, until we’re cruising at a speed barely fast enough to keep us airborne. Suddenly I realize what she’s going to do. It’s completely stupid. She’s not taking us over the Armor at all—she’s going to try to squeeze the jet through the opening that the trains use to pass in and out of Denver. The same tunnels I’d seen when I’d taken that train ride with the Elector. Of course. The surface-to-air missile systems mounted along the Armor’s wall aren’t designed to take down anything like us from the ground, because they can’t shoot at such a low angle. And machine guns on the wall aren’t powerful enough. But if Kaede doesn’t aim exactly right, we’ll explode against the wall and burst into flames. We’re close enough for me to see soldiers running back and forth on top of the wall of the Armor. Their communications must be flying fast.
But it doesn’t matter at this rate. One second the Armor’s several hundred feet in front of us, and the next, we’re hurtling toward the dark entrance of an open train tunnel.
“Hold on!” Kaede shouts. She pushes the jet lower, as if that were possible. The entrance yawns at us with its gaping mouth.
We’re not going to make it. The tunnel is way too small.
Then we’re inside, and for an instant the tunnel’s pitch-black. Bright sparks burst from each end of the jet as the wings tear through the entrance’s sides. A rumbling sound comes from above us. They’re rushing to shut the entrance, I realize, but they’re too late.
Another second. We zoom out of the entrance and into Denver. Kaede slams the jet’s lever the opposite way in an attempt to slow us down even more.
“Pull up, pull up!” Day yells. Buildings zip past us. We’re too low to the ground—and heading straight for the side of a tall barrack.
