Eko (NINE Series, #1)

by Loren Walker

  * * *

 

  Using a plasma grenade dialed down to its lowest setting, and Phaira kicking at the rubble with the steel heel of her boot, she was able to extend the rocky opening by another two feet. Phaira would climb out first to assess the situation, while Cohen created a makeshift sling so Sydel could hold onto his back. Of course, Phaira would be vulnerable, so exposed on the cliff-face. But with the stairwell gone, every drop and shudder of the ceiling demanded that they get outside as soon as possible.

  So Phaira removed the black body armor and borrowed clothes, exposing the white stealth suit beneath. Phaira pushed her Calises into the girl’s arms. “Don’t lose those,” she instructed. “I mean it.”

  Then she pulled the hooded mask over her face. The suit stiffened with electrical charge, and her body disappeared. Sydel and Cohen simultaneously gasped. Phaira ignored them as she crawled into the tunnel.

  On the other side, it was a dead drop one hundred feet down. The rush of fresh oxygen made her dizzy, even a little delirious. Or maybe it was the aftermath of Sydel’s blast.

  Even farther away were the mercenaries, clustered around the bend of the canyon, two hundred feet away. Some loaded their weapons; some drew a strategy of attack in the sand. No one looked back in the direction of the base.

  There were visible footholds on the cliff-face, so Phaira held onto the whole’s edge and slid her legs out, searching for a shelf that could support her weight. Again and again, her foot slipped, dust crumbling down. Finally, she found a ledge, tested it, and shifted her body to stand on it, clinging onto rocky crevices. Had the men on the ground noticed? She could smell their pent-up energy, their hands ready to tear something, anything apart. But in their restlessness, it didn’t seem that they realized the base was on the brink of collapse.

  The solar tracker was by her right hand, still jammed into a crack, still blinking. Renzo should be here. Shouldn’t he be here by now?

  “Phaira?” she heard Cohen whisper through the tunnel.

  What if something happened to Renzo while we were inside?

  Phaira looked up to the sky, listening for any sign of an approach. But there was nothing: no sound of engines, no sonic boom. Another one hundred feet to the top of the canyon. She might be able to climb it, but she doubted that Sydel could.

  A scenario popped into her mind: Cohen losing his grip while trying to carry Sydel, falling back as his mouth made the same O shape as Nican Macatia and Saka…

  And what about Nox and Emir? Were they trapped inside? Was Nox able to get everyone out?

  Phaira shook her head to clear it of the awful imagery. “Send her out,” she called into the tunnel. “There’s a decent ledge to the right. Sydel can step onto that one.”

  Sydel’s profile came through the opening. The sun highlighted the dried blood and purple bruises on the girl’s face. Then her pupils dilated as she searched for Phaira.

  Phaira knocked twice on the cliff-face. “Over here,” she whispered. “I’m going to help you over to the ledge, okay?”

  Sydel nodded nervously. As she wiggled her body halfway out, Phaira noted that she’d strapped the bundle with the Calises to her back. Satisfied, Phaira grasped the girl’s wrist. Then Sydel let one leg drop down, feeling for the narrow ledge, grasping a bunch of roots to her chest for balance. Tufts of sand floated down. Phaira held her breath, but the mercenaries gave no sign of noticing. “Okay, Sydel?”

  Sydel nodded, her body pressed against the cliff-face. She’s thin enough to flatten herself to nothing, Phaira thought. But Co won’t be so easy.

  Cohen’s head emerged next. Just as she feared, he grunted and struggled to push his wide shoulders through the opening. Phaira bit her lip as Cohen swore under his breath. Come on, she prodded in her mind, her eyes flicking over to the crowd below, again and again.

  A loud screech sailed through the tunnel, followed by a muffled explosion from within. The cliff shook, and stones tumbled to the canyon floor.

  Then the tension in the stealth suit’s fabric softened. The charge is gone, Phaira realized with horror, just as her body reappeared, brilliant white and obvious against the red rock wall. In her panic, Phaira lost her grip. Swearing, she scrambled to find another foothold and grip something with her desperate fingers.

  “Phair!” Cohen cried. He angled his body to get one burly arm out of the hole and snatch her forearm. Something pushed against the sole of her foot; it was Sydel, holding onto Phaira’s heel and guiding it to a new crevice. Phaira jammed her toes into the space. Then she yanked the hood off of her head, gulping for air.

  Ren, she yelled inwardly, where are you?

  “Hey!” A voice echoed. Clicking sounds echoed through the canyon: weapons being primed. There was laughter too.

  They don’t care that we are escaping, she realized, her stomach sinking. They just want target practice.

  “Give me the guns!” she commanded Sydel, straining to reach the girl. As her fingers brushed the top of the bundle, a gunshot rang out.

  Phaira whipped her head around to find the source, but the closest mercenary recoiled, his blaster flying from his grip, his trigger hand awash with blood.

  Another shot. Another mercenary fell back into the sand, a bullet torn through his throat. The rest of the group shouted and scrambled to take cover.

  Speechless, Phaira followed the sound of a chamber being reloaded. To her left, the barrel of the Vacarro sniper rifle was visible through the hole in the cliff, Cohen’s thick finger around the trigger.

  Then the sun was gone. Clouds of sand and debris billowed up the cliff face.

  As Phaira looked up, her hair whipping around her face, the Arazura loomed above the canyon. Through the dusty fog, Phaira saw the mercenaries assemble into rows and take aim.

  The Arazura cleared the cliff edge, and began to rotate and descend, its nose facing the three on the rock wall. The engines angled to the men and women below. The backdraft blew them off their feet.

  Grasping the cliff-face, Phaira looked over her shoulder to see Renzo and Anandi’s faces through the ship’s windshield. Renzo caught her eye and mouthed angrily: “What are you doing on the cliff?”

  Phaira scowled and waved her hand, first at Renzo, then signaling to Cohen, who was now halfway out of the opening, the sniper rifle abandoned. “You’ll have to jump,” she shouted. “Then get cables and secure yourself. Fast as you can! You can do it!”

  Cohen nodded. With some twisting and wriggling, he repositioned his body to sit on the hole’s edge. Phaira watched as her little brother visibly gulped, bracing his feet against the rock. Then he pushed off and soared.

  Phaira’s breath caught as Cohen hit the nose with a slam, causing the ship to bow slightly. But Cohen found his grip and heaved himself onto the surface. Anandi was already leaning out, cables in hand, her black hair crusted with red dust.

  Over the din of the wind, Phaira heard the sound of metal on metal; sparks bounced off the bottom of the Arazura, pounded by gunfire from below. Renzo was able to hold the Arazura steady as Cohen buckled himself to the ship. Then he reached out for Sydel.

  “I can’t,” Phaira read Sydel’s lips. “I can’t.”

  Phaira’s palms were growing damper every second. “Do it!” she yelled, kicking at the wall near Sydel’s hand. “Stop complaining and do it already!”

  Shaking, Sydel turned to face outwards, her feet sliding on the tiny ledge. Cohen’s arms were out, beckoning. Frozen, the girl stared ahead for several seconds.

  Then, suddenly, she jumped.

  But it wasn’t far enough. Her outstretched hands barely grazed Cohen’s fingers before her body dropped.

  In a flash, as if he had done it a thousand times, Cohen slid down the nose of the ship, swung across, grabbed Sydel’s wrists in mid-fall and hauled her to the safety of the cable line.

  Gunfire ricocheted off the rock wall. Renzo brought the Arazura closer to Phaira, trying to shield her from the bullets
, but the winds blinded her. She could smell smoke and fire, pouring through the hole just above her, but her eyes were scratched with sand. Through the blur, she saw Cohen leaning off of the Arazura’s nose, his hand outstretched. No time left.

  In one swift motion, Phaira twisted away from the cliff and leapt.

  “Go!” she yelled as soon as her body hit the Arazura’s nose. “Ren, go!”

  Renzo wrenched the throttle. Gusts of scalding wind blew into the canyon; Phaira could hear the mercenaries screaming. The Arazura lifted away from the smoking hole in the cliff. Cohen gripped Phaira’s forearms in his huge hands, but her legs still dangled over the edge.

  A burst of white-hot pain exploded in her side.

  Phaira gasped, her body coiling into itself.

  The Arazura rose and cleared the canyon. Phaira could see Cohen yelling at her, but she couldn’t hear him. But she could see the great desert horizon and the spread of the massive canyon. It looked beautiful.

  Suddenly, the cliff buckled and folded into itself, black and red clouds billowing into the sky. And just before she blacked out, Phaira saw the mercenaries turn on each other: flashes of metal, bursts of light, red splashes of blood hitting the sand.

  VIII.

  First, there was slow, spreading heat. Then a prickling kind of pain. Finally a cool wave washed over, turning the red into purple, and then white again. The blaze behind her eyes turned to azure blue: a clear sky without a cloud to be seen. The smell of saltwater, the briny mix of fish and seaweed. Whitewashed walls, a thatched roof.

  Where was she?

  Phaira slid her hand under her body. She wore a soft white cotton dress, open at the back. Her fingers brushed the spot that itched, just above her kidney. The skin was rough and scabbed over.

  Her mind clicked with the memory. She’d been shot.

  “Yes,” came Sydel’s voice. “But I healed you.”

  Standing in the doorway, Sydel wore a long white sundress. Her facial wounds were healed, her hair wound into braids again. But the girl didn’t look young and scared anymore. Just still, and watchful.

  Phaira coughed. “How long have I been out? And stop reading my mind,” she added fretfully.

  “I’m sorry,” Sydel said, flushing a little. “Only a few hours.”

  Phaira sat up. Her body was stiff, but there were no jolts of pain. She ran her fingers over the small of her back again, feeling that scaly, tender skin. When Sydel first healed her in the Communia, it quickly scarred, but it still took several days for the wound to stop aching. Inside that base, Sydel had eased the pain of bruised ribs with a touch. Now this girl could heal over a gunshot wound?

  “Where are my brothers?” Phaira asked faintly. “Where am I?”

  “They went back for Anandi’s father and the others,” Sydel continued in that calm voice.

  “So the hackers got out of there before the collapse? Nox got them out?”

  “He did,” Sydel said, a little too carefully.

  Phaira’s senses prickled.

  Then Sydel’s expression shifted from serene to sympathetic. “I’m sorry, Phaira. But I was told that your friend was inside, and they didn’t find any survivors.”

  Phaira dropped her eyes to the floor. The wind picked up granules of sand and swirled them around the intricate tile. She focused on their patterns, trying to breathe. Nox. Aeden. Her chest grew tight. She was suffocating.

  “You need time alone,” she heard Sydel say quietly. “I’m very sorry about your friend. But thank you for coming after me, Phaira. And bringing me back into the world.”

  When Sydel left, Phaira slumped over. She ran her hands through her hair, again and again, trying to take in a full breath. All those people, dead. Nox crushed under rock. And what about Sydel? There were no witnesses to that brutal blast inside the base, save for her and Cohen. Who was to say that Sydel wouldn’t explode again and kill them all? As much as it pained Phaira to realize, there was a valid reason for the girl’s banishment from Jala Communia.

  But Sydel had healed her injuries three times now. She’d done the same for Cohen, too, when he was caught in the Vendor Mill explosion. And Yann’s confession lingered in Phaira’s mind: how Sydel had been mind-wiped several times, how the girl was not really a girl, but several years older. Did Sydel know any of that?

  “Phair.”

  She lifted her head. One of Renzo’s lenses had cracked. Cohen bore a gash on his arm and sand burns across his face. They were dirty and exhausted, but they were alive.

  “You good?” Cohen asked, leaning over to peer at Phaira’s back.

  Phaira swatted him away. “Fine.”

  “Don’t be obnoxious. You need to be more careful,” Cohen grumbled. “You’re getting shot all the time.”

  Renzo glanced at Phaira, his blond eyebrows showing over his glasses.

  Despite her grief, Phaira allowed a tiny smile on her lips. “You know, that is true, Co,” she managed. “Far too many bullets.” She looked past her brothers. “Where’s Anandi and Emir?

  Silence. Cohen rubbed the back of his neck, while Renzo rolled his eyes.

  “They need some space,” Renzo said finally. “Going back into hiding, I guess.”

  “I thought you’d be going with them,” Phaira remarked.

  Renzo shook his head. “Nope.” The way his jaw set made it clear that he had nothing further to say on the matter.

  Nox’s face swam in front of her vision again. Maybe Sydel was wrong. “What about Nox?”

  Renzo and Cohen glanced at each other. Phaira’s chest constricted again. “Did Emir see what happened?”

  “Nox burst into the first floor,” Renzo said. “Told Emir, Lander and the other hackers to get ready to move. One of the Savas followed him, Xanto, I think, the one with the white hair. They fought, and Nox choked him into unconsciousness. Then Nox led the hackers outside, through that cellar with the trapdoor. Then he went back inside.”

  “He went back in?” Phaira gasped. “He was out and he went back? Why?”

  But they all knew the answer. He’d gone back for her and Cohen. He was in that rubble. Buried in the collapsed base. Maybe even in the stairwell. She had to go back. He could still be alive, somewhere in the debris.

  “Phair,” Renzo interrupted her desperate thoughts. “We can’t.”

  She shouldn’t have been so cross with Nox. She should have listened to him. He was her friend, one of the few she ever had, and she’d trampled all over him…

  “Word’s already gotten out,” Cohen told Phaira. “We caught patrol coming in on radar. We kept out of sight until they passed. They’re there now. Cleaning up.”

  All three of them were silent. Renzo was the first to turn away, heading back the way he came. Cohen followed. Phaira searched the open bedroom for any trace left of their presence. Then she joined the line headed for the Arazura.

  Ahead of her, Sydel appeared next to Cohen, taking his arm and stretching up to whisper something into his ear.

  Phaira stared at the back of the girl’s head, debating with every step.