by S. S. Segran
Marshall leaned through a door in their compartment leading toward the front of the plane.. “Nadi, we can’t leave yet! Colback, hold them off!”
Answering yells came back. Marshall shared a conspiratorial look with the friends and indicated another door opposite the one he’d called through. “If you wanna see some real fun, use the observation dome in back.” With a salute, he leapt into the water.
Gunfire continued outside. Kody hustled toward the dome. “Dibs!”
Aari and Mariah chased after him. Tegan hung back, arranging Jag into a more comfortable position, then rubbed his head. “We’re almost home-free. Wake up soon, okay?”
Instead of following the others, she went in the opposite direction toward the cockpit, traversing several compartments. Nearly every inch of the aircraft was filled with panels of switches and circular gauges. Small pipes and equipment she could not begin to name jutted out and twisted from bulkheads. She turtled her head, avoiding anything she might ding herself on. Why does this plane feel more like a submarine than the actual sub we were in?
She found Victor atop a raised platform, half his body outside the hatch, and climbed up beside him. He had his elbows propped on the top of the fuselage, the stock of a rifle against his shoulder; the only acknowledgment he gave was a slanted eyebrow that hardly lasted a second. He took a breath and, on the exhale, fired.
The rifle spat round after round. The drivers of the hardy inflatables reacted with fast reflexes as they split apart, barely losing momentum. Tony stayed centered, drawing Victor’s attention and zigzagging the speedboat just enough to dodge most of the projectiles. Victor fired again, striking the windscreen and shattering the glass onto Tony. “There. Let’s see how long you can keep that smirk on your smug face, you insufferable son of a—” He clamped his mouth shut.
“Don’t censor yourself on my account!” Tegan laughed over the propellers.
The Sentry cracked a smirk of his own and slammed a fresh magazine into the rifle.
“I should probably mention, while you’re busy fending off the enemy and definitely have better things to do, that we don’t have access to our powers!”
“What?”
“Yeah! We can’t help. We were given a pill that suppresses our abilities for a few hours.”
Victor peered through his scope. “There’s a vial at the very bottom of my bag. Pass it around, two big gulps each. It might give you a jumpstart.”
Tegan dropped down without question. Locating his pack, she dug through it until she found a bottle as tall as her hand, filled to the brim with a deep violet liquid. She took two swigs, its silken texture sliding with uncomfortable ease down her throat, and rushed toward the observation dome. It was an absurdly confined space she found her friends pretzeled into. With no room to squeeze in, she stuck her arm through. “Drink! Two gulps only! Hopefully it’ll get us our abilities back!”
She left the bottle with them and rejoined Victor. More boats had appeared on the horizon, speeding out from behind the island.
“We need to get out of here,” the Sentry muttered.
“Not yet,” Tegan said. “Marshall’s still looking for the chest.”
“We’ll have to come back for it. I’ll reach out to Sawyer.”
“No! It’s important, we need it!”
“We can’t risk everyone here!” he snapped. “We’d just lost you. Better to live to fight another day than lose everything here.”
Tegan wanted to yell back, to argue, to insist they stay put until the chest was retrieved. Mokun had instructed them not to lose it, and whatever was inside had to be valuable to their plight.
But the prudent, sensible part of her knew the Sentry was right; they couldn’t risk dying here, not today. “I—fine, alright. Let’s get Marshall back and get out of here.”
The first three boats were now five hundred feet away and closing in rapidly. The inflatable vessels on each side had drawn apart. “Feels like they’re getting ready to flank!” she shouted to Victor.
“They’re absolutely going to try. I’ll need to—alright, seriously?”
Tegan saw it too. Tony and the men with him dove into the water, leaving the speedboat to charge toward the plane with less than three hundred feet between them. Victor flung his arm out and Tegan could have sworn she saw the air ripple around his hand. The vessel slammed upright as if it had hit a steep ramp before flipping backward. It somersaulted over the waves, each impact throwing off parts of the boat in a torrent of debris and fire.
“Guess I should thank Tony for trying to convert his boat into a torpedo. Just made it easier for me.” Victor turned his rifle toward one of the inflatables. He fired once, paused, then continued. “Sawyer’s back. Time to leave.”
Tegan didn’t hear what he said next. Her heartbeat pulsed in her head, its thrum plugging her ears. All she could smell was blood. She leaned back, nausea stirring in her stomach and climbing up her esophagus. She wanted to ask what was in the vial she’d consumed but feared she would be sick if she parted her lips.
The plane started to move, gaining momentum. Twice it slapped the surface of the sea before lifting off. Tegan clapped her hands over her mouth, gagging, and barely noticed Victor lowering her into the compartment. Shots from below pelted the underside of the aircraft.
Slowly the plane climbed, heading back in the direction it had come from. Tegan woozily followed Victor toward the compartment where Jag still rested. The rest of her friends squatted there, looking quite green themselves. Marshall, his clothes drenched and his hair slicked back, looked over as Tegan wobbled in. “Sorry I couldn’t get to the box in time, I—did you all get seasick while I was gone? I tried asking Aari what the box is all about but he can’t even speak.”
Tegan jerked her thumb at Victor. “Ask him.”
Victor looked out of the cabin door as the plane banked, allowing them a full view of the island, and others farther away. “It’s a pick-me-up Gareth and I worked on when we were still in Dema-Ki.”
“Like rytèrni?” Marshall provided.
“No. If you want an idea, it uses a pinprick of sap from the Tree of Life.”
“. . . That’s potent. Why exactly did you have it made?”
Tegan was astounded to see shame color Victor’s face. “It was for me. I needed something to . . . it was in case I—” He cut himself off, staring over the water. “Smoke trails. Two of them.”
Marshall was by the door in an instant. “They’ve got SAMs!”
Whoever was piloting must have seen the missiles launch from the island as well; the plane dove and made a sharp turn. The friends groaned, clutching their stomachs.
“I don’t know if this old thing can handle aggressive maneuvers,” Marshall said. “Even if it could, it’s hard to shake off heat-seekers without flares.”
Victor raised his arms. A wave of concussive energy sent the nearer missile hurtling back into the one behind it. The explosion was brilliant and mesmerizing, if disappointingly short-lived.
“Two more!” Marshall shouted.
Victor waited until they were within his range before deflecting them. It seemed the Sanctuary had been well-stocked to fend off unwanted company. On the water, the men had the escaping aircraft in their sights. Projectiles cut through the fuselage, one puncturing next to Kody’s foot before shooting out the side of the plane.
“This is bad!” Kody bellowed. “They’re definitely trying to kill us now!”
Aari kept close to Jag, ineptly using his body in what he must have thought was the most effective way to protect the other boy from the salvo. “We know where Reyor’s hideout is now, so she has to get rid of us! It’s her parting gift!”
“There will be more,” Marshall said, “and we’re too slow and too low to avoid them by jinking or with Victor’s abilities alone.”
Victor pressed his back against the bulkhead, rubbing his temples as sweat dripped down the sides of his face. “Seconded.”
“Kody,” Marshall instruct
ed. “Look for emergency flares. They should be in a red box near the cockpit.”
As Kody scurried off, the queasiness that held Tegan hostage receded without warning, so fast it nearly caused her to gag again. Without dithering she extended her consciousness into the novasphere. There was resistance, as if she were pushing against a pliable barrier. Just . . . a bit . . . more!
With a savage thrust, she burst through to the other side. The reassuring familiarity of her abilities resurfaced, blossoming out from her core. Immediately she widened her mental peripherals, seeking out the closest creature she could find, but it seemed every animal had cleared the vicinity, frightened off by the battle. She pressed further and as soon as she brushed up against the first consciousness she felt, she dove into it. She was plunged into the cold darkness of the deep and had to tamp down the impulse to return to her body.
By the manner in which it maneuvered and its buoyancy, she guessed the creature she found was a fish—an underwhelmingly teensy one at that, and it would bring nothing to the table. She growled. Come on. I’m not putting myself back into the water just to come up emptyhanded. Give me something good. She guided the fish deeper without a clue to its actual depth. Huh, no wonder they call it a fisheye lens. But your long-distance vision really sucks, dude.
A stingray glided above her, fins folding and releasing as it moved through the brine. From tip to tip, it was at least fifteen feet across. Tegan jumped into it, wrestling for control until it submitted. Hm. You’re pretty cool, but I don’t think you can do much either.
She sailed around, growing ever more exasperated when creatures smaller than her swam into her line of sight. Where’s a shark when you need one?
A solitary shape appeared far ahead, small. She ignored it, but as it swam toward her, its size doubled, tripled, quadrupled until she was on a collision course with the squarish head of a heavyset beast.
Is that . . . She gawked up at it. Better than a shark. So much better.
Once she’d leapt into the creature, she returned fully to her physical self. Without realizing, she’d made her way back to the upper hatch she had shared with Victor earlier. From there, she had an impeccable view. A lone missile was deflected, and the second group of hard-hulled inflatable boats arrived just in time to join the first, giving chase as the plane tried to flee the combat.
Four more smoke trails spiraled toward the aircraft, but this time another volley followed immediately. Tegan saw her death coming to meet her in those eight missiles. He won’t be able to handle all that at the same time.
Kody popped up beside her, arms full of bright orange flares. “Not today, suckers!”
He lit a couple and cast them as far as he could toward the rear of the plane. One missile arced away and gave chase but the rest remained glued to their prey. Kody let loose two more flares, straight into the path of the rockets as the plane banked sharply to the right. The combination worked perfectly—the white trails twisted in the opposite direction as their pursuers switched targets, racing toward the flares before exploding in a combined fireball.
Of the five heat-seekers left, one went into a spin, likely struck by shrapnel from its demolished comrades, and flew into the sea. Kody tossed out his final two flares, but the remaining missiles were undeterred as they bore down on the aircraft.
“I’m out!” he yelled as he dropped back through the hatch.
A powerful blast shot out from the side of the plane where the cabin door was. The short reprieve Kody’s flares granted had apparently been enough to allow Victor to recharge a little. The first pair of warheads were pushed off course and veered into a tail-to-tail collision, flung out of control with no explosion.
As Victor took a moment to recover, the last two rockets raced closer than the other ones ever had, their path directing them to an imminent collision with the aircraft. The plane made a sudden dive and Tegan’s body started to lift off the platform. In a moment of sheer panic like she’d never before felt, her hands scrambled to grab onto the hatch frame and stop herself from toppling out.
The aggressive maneuver had brought the plane close to the water. It skimmed over the sea with the additional speed it gained from trading off altitude, but the missiles had not been shaken loose. They closed in, ten feet above the waves.
A voice entered Tegan’s mind. We’ll be going into a steep climb at any moment! Marshall yelled. Hang on!
The last words had barely made it through when the plane initiated its ascent. A second later, a formidable acoustic blast struck the remaining rockets. The shockwave forced the missiles downward and they careened toward the sea, splashing into the depths. The water erupted like twin volcanoes, startling the drivers of the boats.
Kody reappeared beside Tegan, blowing a raspberry. “I can’t believe we made it. Victor is an absolute tank.”
“He’s gotta be spent by now,” she said, sagging against him in relief.
“Yup. Man’s down there heaving for breath. Looked like he was having trouble seeing straight by the end.”
The plane leveled off from its climb, and for a moment, everything was peaceful. Then Kody yowled. “Four more incoming! And I ain’t got any flares left!”
They watched in terror as the warheads approached. The instant the projectiles got into Victor’s usual range, they stuttered as though the Sentry had struck them. A cheer bubbled up inside Tegan but quickly fizzled out when she saw the rockets merely ride the sonic blast and right themselves within seconds.
The friends stood frozen, unable to do anything but brace for the inevitable explosion that would rip their plane apart. The missiles whistled through the air, four hundred feet away, then three hundred, two hundred, one—
At the last moment, they stalled. Battling an invisible hand, the noses of all four missiles rotated up, turning all the way back until they faced the island, before being freed. A euphoric hoot sounded from the right. Across the plane, the top of half of Mariah’s body protruded from the observation dome.
’Riah! Tegan shouted telepathically.
Teegs! Did you see that?!
You turned a bunch of live rockets around at the same time! You’re amazing!
“I need to give that woman a giant hug,” Kody exclaimed. He disappeared from Tegan’s side once again, leaving the girls to beam at one another.
More missiles launched from the island to intercept those careening back. The detonations created enormous fireworks, and the dense screen of smoke that burst forth bought the group time to get more distance. Tegan extended her hand toward Mariah. The other girl howled with laughter, slapping the air to complete their long-range high-five.
Tegan didn’t even feel the bullet strike her. She blinked rapidly, unable to comprehend why the panel around her had turned red. She heard Mariah shrieking her name but she was locked in place. In a hazy, faraway pocket of her mind, her rational self carried on even as her hands started to shake, evaluating the overall state of affairs and pulling together bits of ordnance insight she had learned from her father over the years. We’re over three thousand feet up. They’re still shooting. Maximum effective range of the best rifle is over seven thousand feet, and Phoenix only has the best stuff. If they can keep it up, they can still hit us.
“Hey, Tegan.”
She was too frozen to react to the presence that had suddenly appeared beside her. “Marshall. I think I got hurt.”
“Yeah, you did.” He took her by the arm. “Come on down so I can take a look.”
“Whale.”
“Whale?”
“I need my whale.”
“Kiddo, you’re in shock. You don’t have a—”
A thought seemed to strike him. Marshall looked down, a disbelieving laugh spluttering out of him. “Ah. Of course. Whale.”
Tegan’s vision flickered between her own and the massive creature she’d mindlinked with. It took ages to get it to the fight, but now that it had arrived, the sea was no longer safe for the men and their weapons. The sperm whale r
aised its hefty tail and brought it down, completely drenching the occupants of one boat.
Not enough, Tegan thought.
The whale dove, and for a few long seconds there was no movement. The men on the boats searched around them, guns ready. Then, from beneath one vessel, the whale burst through the surface, tossing it without mercy and launching the men into the sea. It turned to the remaining boats. They slalomed before turning around, heading back to the island at top speed. The whale disappeared beneath the blue once more.
Marshall shook his head. “Those boats are RIBs, and they’re supposed to be unsinkable.” He lightly pulled at Tegan’s arm. “Let’s go.”
“I need to get them.”
“I think a RIB can outrun a sperm whale by about ten knots. It probably won’t be able to catch up, but you can let it continue the chase to make sure those guys don’t try to come back.”
Tegan reluctantly released her mindlink and Marshall guided her back to the crew compartment. Victor was seated beside Jag, head in his hands, wearing a strained scowl. When he saw the blood on her, his back straightened. “How bad is she?”
Marshall sat her down. “We’re about to find out. Where does it hurt, Tegan?”
She tried to concentrate, taking stock of the sensations in her body. Her hand went to the side of her head. Her hair was sticky with blood. She flinched, then traced a line from the wound to her jaw, and down to the front of her shoulder and the side of her ribs. “All of that.”
Marshall’s shoulders loosened. “You were only grazed. Thank goodness.”
“It hurts.”
“Yeah. You’ve never been hit by a bullet before, I don’t think. It’s not a normal situation for most people. Aari, can you get me one of the bags near the cockpit?”
Once Aari returned, Marshall got to work treating Tegan’s injury. Tegan looked at Victor. “How did you find us?”
He rubbed his chin, then pulled out something gold and white from his backpack. “It was you, wasn’t it? You left the compass behind.”
