“Kieran.” Mather stood from her desk, exasperated. “Weeks of planning have gone into this meeting.”
“You want me to do the negotiating because you think I’m a stupid kid, and that I’ll sign anything to get our parents back.”
“You’ve shown you’re not stupid,” Mather cajoled. “You should trust yourself.”
“I do trust myself. And my judgment is that these talks can’t go on.” He was about to help his mother stand up when a flash of light blinded him, knocked him off balance, and forced him back into his chair.
FLASH
The skin of Waverly’s scalp crawled as she watched the man screw the muzzle of his gun into Randy’s head. Don’t kill him, were the tiny words in her mind, but she knew pleading wouldn’t work.
She pushed her gun into her hostage’s neck, and he whimpered.
“Let Randy go,” Waverly said through her teeth. Her finger tensed against the trigger of her gun. “I’ll kill your precious doctor.”
“If you kill him,” the man said with a cool smile, “you’ll never get off this ship alive. If I have to kill this young man here, all that’ll happen is more of you die. See how it ain’t much of a trade?”
“You shoot him, and I’ll kill you,” Sarah said bitterly.
“Wait,” the man said to someone around the bend in the corridor. He found Waverly again with his eyes and spoke slowly. “There’s a force of eight sharpshooters behind me, but I’m holding them back because I don’t want a shoot-out this close to the outer hull. Make sense to you?”
Waverly didn’t answer; she could only watch him distantly. He was cloaked in unreality. She was supposed to be standing next to her mom right now, not some piteous, terrified doctor. She was supposed to be walking to the shuttle to take her mom home.
“Waverly,” the man said. This time his voice was gentle. How does he know my name? she thought distantly, but of course he knew it. She was famous on this ship. “We already have your shuttle crew at gunpoint.”
“If you hurt them—” Waverly began.
“We’re under orders from Pastor Mather not to kill a single one of you if we don’t have to. She’s in peace talks, and this could put a crimp in them, don’t you think?”
Waverly watched him, her fingers twitching against the trigger of her gun.
“So each of you is going to drop your weapons, okay?” the man said, eyebrows raised.
“Where are the prisoners?” Debora asked from behind Waverly. Her voice sounded smooth and steady, and Waverly wondered how she could be so calm.
“From the Empyrean?” the man said, and shrugged. “Not here.”
“When were they moved?” Waverly asked him.
“You drop your gun, honey, and I’ll tell you.”
Her hands felt cemented to the metal handle of her rifle, and her joints were immovably stiff, as though she’d been standing in this position for millennia. If Arthur was captured, they’d already lost. She could terrify this doctor, who stood trembling so hard his knees buckled; she could even shoot him, get revenge on him for all the girls he violated. But then what? Surely she would die. And so would her friends. There was only one choice.
She let go of the doctor, who collapsed against the wall. She crouched down, eyes on the man who had Randy, and placed her gun on the floor.
“Kick it away,” the man said, and pushed his gun harder into Randy’s head.
She did as she was told.
She could hear the exasperated gasps of her team behind her, but she saw the look of gratitude in Randy’s eyes. He knelt in front of the man, his trembling hands reaching toward the ceiling. How foolish this was, Waverly thought. How stupid to think we could pull this off.
“The hostages were never anywhere near here,” the man finally said to Waverly. “Is that what you wanted to know?”
So Jacob had lied. She’d tortured him until he’d screamed, and still he’d lied to her.
“Now, kiddies. My orders are to escort you to the shuttle bay and send you back to your ship. I think this can be done without bloodshed, don’t you?”
Waverly saw Harvey nod like a humble young boy being taught a lesson.
“So, very slowly, I want each of you to put your weapons on the ground and back away from them five steps.”
“And if we don’t?” Debora said.
“Then you’ll learn what it’s like to get someone killed,” the man said, and took hold of Randy’s shoulder to give him a rough shake. Randy whimpered and closed his eyes.
Waverly heard the thunk of metal landing on the floor behind her, and turned to see Sarah backing away from her gun, a murderous glint in her eyes. She met Waverly’s gaze, communicating only rage. They were beaten, and both girls knew it. But did everyone else?
Another sound of a gun hitting the floor, and another and another, until Waverly’s whole team stood unarmed, looking at the man, helpless.
The man nodded, and suddenly the corridor was filled with armed men, each of them moving with frightening efficiency. They darted around Waverly and her team and stood several paces behind them, guns pointed at the small of their backs. Waverly’s spine felt like liquid as the man in charge helped Randy to his feet.
“Let’s go,” the man said. “No sudden movements. My guys are awfully twitchy.”
Slowly, the men led Waverly and her friends down the corridor to the shuttle bay. The doors were open, and Waverly saw Melissa and Arthur standing outside the shuttle, their hands behind their heads, looking grim. Waverly recognized a woman who had participated in the original raid on the Empyrean; her ruddy cheeks and strange, puffy features were burned in Waverly’s brain. The woman refused to look at her as she approached.
“I’m sorry,” Arthur said to Waverly when she was close enough to hear. “They were hiding in another shuttle all along. They stormed us as soon as you left. We never even got a shot off.”
“Don’t worry,” Waverly told him.
“Keep it quiet,” the man behind her said.
The men stood aside to let the assault team onto the shuttle, keeping guns pointed at them as each team member slowly walked into the cargo hold and then up the stairs to the passenger area. Sarah looked angry and disappointed, but she held Randy’s hand as he shook his head. Debora savaged the fingernails on one hand with her teeth, her eyes fixed on the floor. Alia was quiet and distant, her face blank. Sealy looked somehow very young, like a ten-year-old boy who had been punished. Harvey’s cheeks burned fiery red under his freckles, and his lips trembled as he took a seat.
The man in charge ascended the steps into the passenger area. “I don’t expect you’d like one of us to pilot you back to the Empyrean?” he said.
“No,” Waverly said.
“Okay, then,” the man said. “Now you’re not going to try anything else like this, are you?”
Waverly shook her head, her eyes on his shoes. She felt chastened and small. She felt stupid. She should have listened to Kieran. She should have known this couldn’t work. The plan they’d thought was so masterful had turned out to be a childish exercise in futility.
“And I probably don’t have to remind you, if you try anything fancy once you’re off the ship, like trying to damage our hull, you’ll only get your parents killed. Right?”
He waited expectantly until Arthur said, “We’ll go straight back to the Empyrean.”
“All right then. Now maybe we can put this behind us one day and be friends.”
“Go to hell,” Sarah said to him. Randy stiffened and looked at the man fearfully. Gone was that steady look in his eye, that determination. Waverly could see how Randy had changed from having a gun held to his head. It was the kind of terror that makes you into a different person. She’d done that to the doctor when she shot at the wall over his head, she realized. The memory gave her no satisfaction. It was all so ugly, what they were doing, what had been done to them. All of it, just ugly and sick and wrong.
“Just for insurance,” the man said, “I’l
l be piloting a shuttle right behind you. If you make a wrong move, we’ll ram you.”
“That would kill you, too,” Sarah said.
“Nope. Our nose cone can take it,” the man said. “We’ll choose a nice soft spot in your hull. Be over before you know it.”
Waverly looked at his wry expression. He’d never been afraid of them once. In his eyes, we’re a bunch of little kids playing with guns. We’re no threat to him at all.
Arthur went to the cockpit and Waverly followed, taking the copilot’s seat.
“Did you see them?” Arthur asked eagerly. “Were my parents there?”
Waverly shook her head.
“They weren’t even in the sewage plant, were they?” Arthur said.
“He lied to us. Even with how much I was hurting him.”
Arthur switched the engines on. “Or maybe he told us the truth.”
Waverly looked at him, surprised. His cheeks were pale, and his hair was greased with sweat, but he had a grimness about him that seemed somehow dignified. She thought she could glimpse the man he would become, just barely, hovering around him like an aura—a brave, intelligent man.
“At first, remember, Jacob said he didn’t know where the hostages were being kept.” Arthur said. “That was probably the truth.”
“But I kept hurting him.”
“Then he lied, told you what he thought you wanted to hear.”
She closed her eyes as the air-lock doors opened in front of them and Arthur lifted the heavy bird off the ground with a gentle pull on the controls. She felt her weight shift in her seat as the shuttle moved forward, and then she heard the hissing of the air lock as it expelled the air inside it. When she opened her eyes, the outer doors were opening to the spangled black curtain that had folded itself around her home since she could remember. Looking at all those stars was the same as looking at nothing.
“And now here we are,” Waverly said grimly.
A sudden wave of emotion overcame her, and she cried, fat tears sliding out of her eyes and clinging to her cheeks. She wiped at them with her palm, and they floated away, perfect spheres hovering in the air. Arthur pretended not to notice. I’m a failure, she thought. Everything I try to do, I fail at it.
“There they are,” Arthur said, nodding to the video screen. Waverly saw the shuttle from the New Horizon directly to their starboard side. She could even make out the shape of that scrawny, smug little man in the pilot’s seat.
“I hate him,” she said under her breath.
Arthur was silent as he guided the shuttle over the curve of the Empyrean toward the port-side shuttle bay.
Suddenly the shuttle rocked forward violently, throwing Waverly into the windows in front of her. She knocked her head on the cold glass and rubbed her bruise as she struggled to find her seat.
“Watch what you’re doing!” she yelled at Arthur. “Jesus!”
“I didn’t do anything!”
“Did they ram us?” she cried, looking at the rearview video screen.
She didn’t recognize what she saw. Thousands of shapes—triangular, square, jagged and twisted—twirling and flying through space. It looked like confetti, floating away from the Empyrean, silvery, glowing yellow.
“What is all that stuff?” Waverly asked. As she watched, a blinding flash engulfed the screen, and even more shapes flew away from the Empyrean. A spattering of metallic pings pattered across the hull of the shuttle, and she heard the passengers in the back cry out.
“No! No!” someone was screaming over and over. “No! No! No!”
She unhooked from her seat and propelled herself to the passenger area to find everyone looking out the port-side portholes. Sarah was hysterical, her body trembling violently, tears streaming from her eyes.
“They’ve done it! They’ve done it!” Sarah screamed as another flash whitened the room.
Waverly blinked, her eyes searing. When she opened them, the shuttle was dark. Or had she been blinded? “What’s happening?” she cried, reaching for Sarah, holding on to her friend’s shoulder.
“I can’t see! I can’t see!” she heard someone screaming. Harvey? Sealy?
“Don’t look at it!” Debora Mombasa screamed. “Turn away!”
“What is it!” Waverly yelled into the din. “What’s happening?”
“They’re killing us!” She heard Sarah, her stoic, stalwart friend, sobbing. “They’re blowing it up! The Empyrean!”
BLIND
Kieran shielded his eyes from the light that flooded through the porthole into Mather’s office, but it made little difference. When he looked around the room, it seemed filled with shifting shadows, like Plato’s cave, which he once read about in philosophy class. His eyes stung and watered. I’m blind, he thought with detachment. The slight shape of his mother walked toward the porthole.
“Mom, look away!” he screamed as another flash came, and another, searing the room with a hot white light. He buried his face in his hands.
Mather was calling out to her guards, “Donald! Merin! What’s happening?”
“I don’t know, Pastor,” came a woman’s voice from the corridor.
Kieran heard Mather groping on her desk for something, then the buzz of an intercom. “Command, report!” Mather called.
“It’s the Empyrean, ma’am,” came a frantic man’s voice over the signal. “There’s been an explosion!”
“Oh God! They’ll never forgive us!” Mather’s composure was completely gone, replaced with a frantic shrieking. “Is it their engines? Move away from them!”
“Not the engines! I think the explosions are along their starboard hull, around the shuttle bay and laboratory levels!”
“Hail them!” Mather screamed.
Kieran blinked. He could just make out her outline, and he lunged for it. By pure luck his hands found her throat. He felt the pliant flesh of her neck beneath his fingers, and he squeezed. Her fingernails clawed at his hands, and he felt blood dribble down his wrists, but he held on until an iron grip pulled him off her and threw him to the floor.
“No!” Mather screamed. Kieran looked up to see two shadowy forms struggling over what looked like a gun. “Don’t shoot him, Donald. He’s in a panic!”
“He was choking you!”
“Tie him up and put him on my divan.”
Kieran felt his arms being bound behind his back, and then he was lifted by two strong pairs of hands and set down on a firm bit of furniture. He felt gentle fingers, his mother’s, on his face.
“Why did you attack the Pastor like that?” his mother asked him.
He blinked his eyes open and saw his mother’s outline leaning over him. “Mom? Can you see?”
“Not too well.”
“What did you see out the porthole?”
“I saw the New Horizon being blown up.”
“The New Horizon? Mom, this is the New Horizon.”
“No, honey, we’re on the Empyrean,” she cajoled.
“No. Mom. We’re on the New Horizon. The Empyrean is—” His voice broke. The reality finally hit him, and he felt as though the cushions under him dropped ten feet. For a minute, all he could do was try to catch his breath. He felt a slick of oily sweat coating his skin, and a strange heat entered his face, burning his ears. He thought he might pass out, but he bit his lip until the iron taste of blood settled on his tongue. When he thought he could speak, he opened his mouth and found himself howling. “You bitch! You crazy bitch! You killed them!”
Someone slapped him across the face, and Kieran saw the shape of the male guard standing over him.
His mother said nothing. She did nothing.
“Leave him be, Donald!” Mather said. “The boy’s traumatized!” He felt a hand on his knee and heard Pastor Mather’s voice right in front of him. “Kieran, I swear to you. I did not know Jacob was planning this!”
Kieran’s entire body was taken over by a shapeless rage. Without thought, he threw himself at the sound of Mather’s voice and rammed his forehead
into her. The impact numbed his forehead and jarred the bones at the back of his neck. The room filled with the panicked voices of Mather’s guards. “Pastor! Pastor Mather!”
“Kieran,” came his mother’s horrified voice. “My God, what have you done?”
He heard the pastor groaning on the floor and tried to kick at her. The guard’s shape loomed over him, and a powerful fist rammed into the side of his head. A burst of light exploded behind his eyes, and the room went completely dark.
“Stand down, Donald,” came Pastor Mather’s breathless voice. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine!’
“He just knocked the wind out of me.”
“He’s dangerous.”
“Leave this room, Donald.”
“But why are you coddling him?” the man asked, sounding dumbfounded.
“He’s the only hope we have left, you fool.”
“Pastor Mather,” came a voice over the intercom. “I have Central Command of the Empyrean for you.”
He heard Mather’s breathless voice. “What’s going on over there? Are you all right?”
“I want to talk to Kieran! Where’s Kieran!” Sarek sounded hysterical.
Kieran sat up. “Let me talk to him.”
He heard Mather’s footsteps and felt her presence as she bent down, or knelt, in front of him. “I’m going to put a remote headset on you, okay?”
“Okay,” he said through his teeth.
“Are you going to attack me again?”
“No,” he said, though he wasn’t sure he could control himself.
He endured the feeling of her fingertips gentling the curve of his ear. She fitted the listening device into it. It was repulsive to be touched by her; he’d have preferred she slap him. When she was finished, he spat at her, but he felt the spittle hit his knee.
“Kieran?” came Sarek’s frantic voice.
“What’s happening?”
“Decompression all along the starboard side!”
Kieran nodded while he tried to think, but his mind was paralyzed.
“Kieran?! What do I do?” Sarek shrieked.
Spark: A Sky Chasers Novel Page 27
