by JD MITCHELL
“Whoa,” Nash said taking a step back. “I meant nothing by it.”
“Yes, you did,” Ali accused. Her temper was getting the best of her, but she didn’t care to restrain herself.
He sighed. “Old habit, I guess. Our families-”
Ali cut him off. “You need to get over yourselves.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said.
Again, she was thankful for the darkness and decided not to indulge him further.
“No need to apologize,” Ali said to end the conversation.
Nash shrugged. “It seemed like the smart thing to do.”
She rolled her eyes. Even his apology had a self-serving purpose.
“I thought you said we were idiots to trust Aengus?” Ali asked glancing at Nash. “Wasn’t that what you told Leigh? He was a stook?”
Ali hadn’t told Leigh, but she Googled that word after the fight.
Nash pursed his lips. “They killed Bryan.” He cleared his throat, but his voice trembled. “If Aengus is after killing the Sons, then I’ll see to it he has a chance.”
At least they agreed on this topic.
“Aengus is reckless, but he’s who we’ve got,” Nash said finally.
She heard Grace reflected in his words and realized the source behind this half-hearted attempt to make nice.
“Forget about the other night. I’ve barely given it a thought,” Ali lied. They had bigger fish to fry and she couldn’t deal with him right now.
“Happy to oblige,” Nash said, the warmth returning to his voice.
She nodded toward the crowd. “You should talk to Leigh.”
“Yep.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and made that direction. “Wish me luck,” he called over his shoulder.
Ali didn’t bother. That mess was between them. She followed Nash’s every step as he meandered toward Leigh, his shoulders hunched. When he reached Leigh, the two of them glared at each other before Nash spoke. Leigh’s scowl melted as the conversation progressed. Eventually Nash extended his hand. Leigh hesitated, then shook it.
“What’s that about?” Jessica asked walking up behind her.
“I believe Nash and Leigh made up,” Ali said.
Nash trod back onto the bus. Grace stood near the door with her arms crossed. The two of them exchanged a few words, then boarded the bus together. Without a doubt Grace orchestrated the encounter, but it didn’t matter. They needed to work together today.
“Good,” Jessica said. “We don’t need any animosity.”
Leigh looked Ali’s direction again. He frowned, then shrugged. It appeared the feud had wound down. For the moment anyway. Behind Leigh, Red carried a drone to the middle of the field.
“Speaking of making amends,” Ali said. “Did you speak with Red?”
Jessica was silent for a time. “No.”
Ali figured. She debated urging Jessica to speak to Red once more, but that window had passed. Everyone’s emotions where high and their attention was elsewhere.
Once Aengus unpacked the final drone, the Fae removed the cauldron from the field and the crowd tightened around Aengus. Ali stood awkwardly next to Jessica and tried not to fidget. Her anxiety reared its head sending her heart racing.
“This is where we part,” Aengus said to the crowd. “Everyone with a radio, please turn it on.”
“Radios?” Ali asked Jessica. “Isn’t that antiquated?”
She shrugged. “Radios transmit less data, which means they have a greater range. We need to talk at a distance.”
“Cell phones would have been easier.”
Jessica raised a brow. “Do you see a lot of cell towers around?”
Ali glanced at the trees while crackles sounded as several radios clicked to life simultaneously.
Next to her, Red turned the dial of their radio to the ‘on’ position. Static came from their radio, followed by silence; a confirmation the day had begun.
Aengus’s voice grew louder. “You know who we are up against. To you I say, victory is in our grasp, we must take her! To the Sons I say, go ndeine an diabhal dréimire de cnámh do dhroma ag piocadh úll i ngairdín Ifrinn!”
A cheer raised among the Fae and a few Tuatha de Danann. Ali leaned toward Leigh who stood a few feet away.
“What’d he say?”
Leigh smiled. “It’s a curse. May the devil make a ladder of your backbone and pluck apples in the garden of hell.”
“Poetic,” Ali said.
“You don’t like it?” Leigh asked arching an eyebrow.
She forced a smile. “A fancy way of saying, go to hell? It’s so… Aengus.”
“Ha,” Leigh said.
The cheers died and Aengus resumed speaking. “Those of you not on drone duty, head to point Alpha on your maps.”
Ali watched as the Fae army and several Tuatha de Danann disappeared into the trees. Their departure felt abrupt. Within minutes, only Aengus and a handful of his personal guards remained.
Aengus turned his attention to the drone teams. “If we fail, our survival falls to you.”
The weight of his words settled on her. Acting as backup was the plan on paper, but it was a whole other thing said aloud.
“I will send word when to launch the drones. Sunrise is just before 7:00.” Aengus said.
“Good luck.” Red held out his hand.
Aengus grasped it, pulling him in for a hug. They quickly embraced, then parted ways. With a flick of his fingers, Aengus motioned for the remaining Fae to head into the trees.
Red walked toward their vehicle, command unit two. “Team two, let’s go.”
Jessica and Sawyer entered the unit first. Ali loitered in the field, summoning the courage to board. The cool morning air calmed her nerves as she tried not to think about the task before them. She watched as Nash hugged Grace, uttering an emotional goodbye before he climbed the few stairs. Grace trotted after Aengus, fading into the darkness.
Ali watched her go. One son dead, another piloting a drone on the battlefield, and her granddaughter stuck in a palace under siege. Grace had a lot to lose, and still she was fighting.
“You ready?” Leigh asked.
Swallowing, she nodded. “Too late to back out now.”
“We’ll win,” Leigh said. His brow drew together.
Blonde hair poked from the open doorway as Red stuck his head outside. “Let’s go. We need to move our unit.”
Ali ascended the stairs as Red slid into the driver’ cock-pit. The driver’s wheel was oddly on the left side like American vehicles. The cauldron was indeed a wishing well.
“Wait,” Leigh said stopping her on the top step.
She glanced over her shoulder, their eyes almost level for once.
Leigh crossed his arms. “Promise me something?”
“What?” Ali asked.
“No matter what, we have each other’s backs.”
Cocking her head to the side, she considered him. “I thought we already did.”
He smiled. “If something happens, I’ll find you.”
She paused, then extended her right pinky toward him. “I’ll come for you too.”
“Are you pinky promising?” Leigh asked, a small grin playing at his lips. He gripped her pinky with his. “If my childhood taught me anything, it’s that pinky swears are a solemn oath upheld by the highest of courts.”
“I promise,” Ali said.
“Good.” He exhaled.
Climbing inside, she suppressed a smile as the new reality hit her hard. They’d move the unit, then the battle would begin.
Twenty Four
An orange ray of sunlight penetrated the window of the mobile command unit door. In the distance, birds chirped announcing dawn. Ali envisioned ominous clouds and rain for a battle, not a sunny morning. While the weather wasn’t indicative of her mood, was it too much to ask for dreary and overcast?
Situated between Leigh and Sawyer, Ali sat at the back of the command vehicle. The interior was a series of monitors, control panels, and chai
rs bolted to the floor. At the front was the driver’s cockpit which reminded Ali of the cab of a semi. Their vehicle came to a gentle stop as Red parked under a canopy of trees near the open field.
“Closer to the trees won’t do any harm,” Jessica said.
“We have to stay put,” Red said.
“The trees will hide us,” Jessica countered.
Ali didn’t see why it mattered. The Sons were a mile away and the invading Fae army was between them.
“Aengus needs to rely on us to follow orders,” Red said with a frown.
Jessica grunted in response, then turned her back on Red to fiddle with her drone controls.
In the field outside the unit, twenty drones assembled like white rocks in the lush grass. Except for Red, each of them were assigned two drones. The unit across the field piloted the other ten.
Ali’s fingers trembled as she clutched her joystick like a lifeline. It connected to a small monitor on the wall before her; which controlled a drone a few hundred feet away. There were nine other screens, making two rows of five. Each of them had control of two screens, a bottom and a top. The primary drone, and a back-up drone.
According to Red, the skills needed to operate a drone were similar to playing an aviator video game. Whereas the boys had taken to this duty with enthusiasm, Ali wasn’t an avid gamer. To start, she couldn’t keep the damn thing level during practice this morning.
The display before Ali flicked to life. Tall grass tickled the bottom of the screen, the green stalks blocking most of her monitor. Adrenaline surged through her as she attempted to steady her shaking hands.
Leigh’s clammy fingers squeezed hers. “You’ve got this.”
Ali stared at the screen, unable to shake her nervousness. “I can’t focus.”
“Once you get moving, you’ll be fine,” Leigh said releasing her hand. “Everything else will be white noise.”
She gripped the joystick tighter. “I almost hit a tree during practice.”
“Keep higher than the rest of us. No need to fly though tight corners. Our goal is to keep the dragon busy.” He grinned broadly. “All you need to do is annoy the dragon.”
Ali smirked. “I’m ignoring the underlying implications of that statement.”
His suggestion made her feel better. During practice Red focused on tactical skills; turning sharp corners, firing the missiles, staying level. But if she stayed in wide-open spaces, she might pull this off.
Through the radio speaker, Aengus’s voice crackled. “Drone teams, the primary and secondary waves are in position. Ready when you are.”
Her heart fluttered and her vision speckled.
It was time.
Red leaned over her chair, flipping switches and pressing buttons on the control panel.
Outside, the drones hummed to life as the controls inside the unit lit the interior.
She guided her drone forward, watching the speed increase on the left-hand side of her monitor. It was in metric, and she wished she remembered the conversion to American imperial. The dashboard before her also showed various aspects of the drone’s operations. Of the array, the information she could accurately read were battery life, GPS strength, elevation changes, and distance from their unit to the drone’s location. The full capability of the drone was more than she could learn in a twenty-minute lesson, so she focused on keeping it airborne and not much beyond that.
Careful to stay behind the others, she watched as the drones took flight. Nash took off like a rocket, followed by Sawyer, Jessica, and Leigh.
Pulling back on the joystick, she held her breath. On her screen, the grass disappeared, replaced by the blue of the sky. A warning light lit showing her trajectory was too steep. She dipped her joystick forward until the light disappeared and she discovered a comfortable balance. Once level, she steered her drone to ascend above the others.
Below her drone, the treetops were on the verge of a color change. The emerald leaves faded, soon to be leeched by yellows, oranges, and reds. From this vantage point she could see the rolling hills of Ireland. The patchwork of greens gave way to rocky hills, crops, and grazing livestock. In the distance, she saw part of Castle Seastán Deiridh peaking from behind a pile of rocks invading the tranquility like a dark cloud.
The trees disappeared and the vast sea of grass stretched below them as they flew over fields. She looked for their next landmark.
“I see it,” Nash said.
The dark blue horizon of the ocean appeared on Nash’s screen. White caps raced along its surface, resembling sound waves as they rushed the rocky shore. A small sandy beach resembling a crescent moon was visible. On the cliff above the beach was the forest which separated the beach from the castle. This was their cue to change course.
Nash’s drone took a sharp right. The forest was in full view now, including the rows of ATV’s which lined the tall grass along the tree line. The ATVs idled in a fifteen-foot gap between the cliff's edge and the forest, appearing devoid of riders. However, Ali knew the pixies were there.
She tore her eyes from Nash’s screen, her own monitor now more blue than green. Guiding her drone in sweeping right turn, she leveled her craft and followed the tiny dots of her teammate’s drones ahead of her.
A hand settled on her shoulder. She jumped.
“Sorry,” Red said. He tapped her monitor. “Can you pull a U-turn? Aengus wants me to watch the ATVs.”
Relaxing, she decided this task might be easier than fighting the dragon.
She circled back. Below her was the gentle rumble of engines, the sound amplified by the quantity. There must have been fifty, the collective beehive in harmony. As Ali’s drone passed, the tiny riders revved the gas in greeting.
“Oh, damn.” Leigh muttered catching her attention.
Ali peeled her eyes off her monitor and observed the others. A stream of fire targeted Nash’s drone.
Dragon!
Nash dodged the flames, the blue sky filling his screen before he flipped around and dove toward the dragon. Ali caught various glimpses of its head or tail as the other four drones circled it. They resembled tiny vultures circling dinner.
“Where did it come from?” Red asked, shifting behind Leigh.
“From the right,” Leigh grit. His drone passed over the dragon’s tail and banked hard to avoid hitting a wing. “That’s not the problem!”
Leigh’s screen told the rest of the story.
Two dragons.
The castle was visible from Leigh’s monitor. A second dragon soared into flight from a battlement, sending several large stones crashing to the earth. Fire spit from its jaws in sweeping circles, catching the overgrown grass ablaze.
Red pointed toward the ocean. “Draw them from the castle toward that beach!”
As if on cue, Red’s radio crackled to life.
“Are we ready to engage the ATVs?” Aengus asked, his voice laced with impatience.
Red lifted the radio to his lips. “The drone pilots need time to lead the dragons toward the water.”
Five drones from the other unit arrived and circled the second dragon. Like tiny annoying flies, they buzzed its head. One of them would sting with a small rocket, then fly ahead of the dragon’s line of sight, drawing it toward the ocean.
Sawyer dove on the second dragon. He launched two missiles but wasn’t successful in escaping the path of fire. Flames engulfed his screen. White heat flashed across his monitor, blinding the cameras vision. A spiral of blue and green landscape replaced the heat before static claimed the screen.
“Ugh!” Sawyer flipped on his second monitor. Outside their unit a drone whirred to life.
Fire lit a corner in the distance of Ali’s monitor. The fireball looked larger than a few minutes ago. Ali stole a glance at Leigh’s screen again, then back to her own. They were leading the dragon toward the ATVs.
“Red!” Ali yelled.
She pointed at the flames on her monitor. Without skipping a beat, Red lifted his radio and spoke. “Aeng
us, the ATVs need to move. Keep inland off the grass.”
Below her drone, fifty ATV’s took off in unison toward the tree line.
“Stay with them,” Red said pointing at her screen with the radio.
Her orders sounded simple until Ali realized what it entailed. Tight turns and avoiding tree branches. She took a deep breath and plunged into the heart of the forest attempting to stay low.
To her good fortune, the moss-covered trees were spread out, but the deeper she piloted into the woods, the thicker the foliage became. She was a clumsy, oversized bird, fumbling through a never-ending maze of limbs.
Around her the ATV’s rumbled along narrow dirt paths; she noticed a wider walking trail and did her best to keep centered above it. Confident in her new plan, something startled her when the drone shook.
Was that a branch?
The drone wobbled again as though something tapped it.
She scrutinized her screen, searching for a stuck twig. To her surprise, a tiny hand with long slender fingers covered a fourth of her monitor.
“What the…?” Ali leaned closer.
Wispy white hair blew into the screen.
In a blink, the hand disappeared. A second later, a pixie hovered in front of the screen, matching the drone’s speed.
Its wings fluttered so quickly; Ali barely saw them. What she saw was a tiny person wearing a green jumper with leather boots. Long white hair tied into a braid whipped around the pixies face. The pixie was youthful, similar to a child with tiny fangs and large black eyes.
Ali forgot she was flying a drone and almost wrecked into an ATV. Noticing the impending crash, the pixie placed its fingers under the drone’s right wing and adjusted its course. As soon as it leveled, the pixie cupped the drone’s nose. Its long fingers glowed white with electricity as the currents slipped between the drone’s seams.
“Uh, Red?” Ali gestured to her screen.
Red leaned over her; his eyes wide with surprise. “I think the Pixie is taking control of your drone.”
“Why?”
Red shrugged. “I’m not certain.”
