You just don't want to accept what you've done. You killed more small boys and girls than Onero.
The thought invaded her head, and once it was there it refused to leave. It had only been a few days since the Academy bombing. If those students were here, now, they'd sing their words of praise for Saria as well. But they would never have a chance because Katy killed them all.
In that moment of clarity Katy's brain knew it, but not her heart, still wrapped protectively from the unfolding action.
Instead of moving to the next student, Onero walked farther down the line. He passed the tall woman, stopping in front of the old man. The two redheads tensed as Onero pointed the rifle. "If you won't speak the truth when children die, what about a decrepit elder? Is that where your soft spot lies?"
Brynn still lay sideways on the ground, eyes shut tight to the carnage.
Onero cocked his head at the old man. "You've been mumbling a lot about the Emperor." The barrel of the rifle pushed him back a step, against the waist-high wall with open air beyond. "Denounce your false god. Let pilot Brynn hear how futile her stubbornness is, that even the aged sing Saria's praise."
Flashing green light illuminated the old man's features as he laughed in Onero's face, a high-pitched cackle that sent spittle flying.
Katy saw everything unfold as in slow motion. Onero stood too close to them. The tall woman clenched her fists, about to strike, and from the other side the redheads began to turn. Katy aimed her rifle.
From behind, a hairy arm wrapped around her neck and a body pressed against her.
A small pistol-laser appeared next to her head, pointing at the others. It fired, the sound piercing her ear and blinding her with light.
Katy wasn't sure what happened next. The man's pistol fired, again and again. Her own weapon clattered to the ground, and she was too stunned to move, although his grip wouldn't have allowed it. With sight and sound numbed by the pistol her other senses strained: the taste of bile in her mouth, the feel of arm hair against her throat, the musky masculine smell.
Slowly, when the pistol stopped firing, her sight returned.
Two more students lay motionless on the ground, with Milana's dead body nearby. The old man's group still stood in place along with the remaining students and the male Instructor, confused and unharmed. Onero had dove back to the middle of the roof, crouching behind Brynn with his rifle against her back. Farther away Spider hid behind a chair, still aiming at the prisoners, head whipping back and forth between them and Onero.
The man holding Katy spoke with a voice low and rough. "Throw down your weapons. This girl doesn't need to die." Katy realized the pistol was pressed against her temple.
"If you shoot her," Onero called, "you'll be dead before her body hits the ground."
"I've twenty more men coming up the stairs as we speak," the man replied. "I'm giving you a chance before they arrive. Surrender, let these prisoners go free, and you will be treated fairly."
Across the roof the Instructor was weeping. So many of her students are dead, Katy thought, although her sobs seemed to hold more emotion than just grief. She took one hesitant step forward until Onero shouted. She froze in place.
"Don't harm her," Katy's captor shouted, voice cracking. He pressed the barrel of the gun harder against Katy's temple, burning her skin. She didn't dare move or moan.
"You're too far into our territory," Onero said slowly. "I don't think anyone else is coming. I think you're all alone here, without a plan."
"Believe whatever you want," the man replied, "Just let them go free."
Let them go free, Katy wanted to yell. The city is nearly ours, Onero, they will be retaken soon enough.
Onero considered a moment. "No."
Silence. Everyone on the roof stared, waiting. Katy could feel the arm around her neck begin to shake.
"Karrana," the man finally said, "walk toward me. Slowly. They will not harm you."
The Instructor looked at her remaining students before turning back. "I... I can't."
"Karrana, we're almost out of time." The man failed to keep his voice steady. "My ship is in the street below. Please, come with me. We need to leave now."
"Ohh," Onero said, stretching the word out with realization. "You don't care about the other prisoners, do you? You're only here for her."
The man said nothing.
"You should have said so in the first place!" Onero called from behind Brynn. His voice held a dangerously playful tone. "We don't care about one Academy Instructor. Take her, and leave us."
Karrana looked at Onero, then the man holding Katy, then the other prisoners. "I can't leave without my students."
Onero turned his rifle toward her. "Go on, don't pretend to be a hero. Leave this roof now, or I'll shoot you myself."
When she remained in place Spider rose from his cover. He stepped behind Karrana and pushed her forward, one resisting step at a time toward Katy and the man. "Please no," she said, pleading. "I can't leave without them, they have no one else. Please Jayce..."
Onero gave a start. "Jayce?" He squinted, examining the man more closely.
Jayce, Commander of the Gold Wing. Was that who held Katy just then? He'd be dead if I hadn't told Charlie to abort his mission at the Academy, she thought idly. It almost made her laugh.
Everyone looked over with surprise: Onero, the prisoners, the tall woman. Even Brynn laying on the ground tied to her chair managed to look up, her eyes filled with surprise and something close to anger. "Well then," Onero said. "the famous Jayce, on our very roof. Brynn here told us you'd taken the city for yourself, but we knew that for the lie it was."
Jayce jerked in that direction, and softly muttered, "Brynn?" but only Katy could hear it.
Brynn raised her head. "Traitor," she muttered. "He's a traitor. Kill him. Kill him!"
"Shut up!" yelled Onero, kicking her in the back.
Katy heard a distant roaring sound, like a rail car approaching its station. It was different than the aircraft still fighting above. Deeper. Larger.
"Please Karrana," Jayce begged, gesturing with his gun. "You don't know what I've done to be here." She continued forward, head slumped. She was almost there.
"Oh Jayce," Onero shook his head, "we can't simply let you go."
The pistol returned to Katy's temple. "Then she dies."
Onero laughed, a carefree nonchalance that chilled Katy's soul. "We will gladly trade her life for yours. And she would too."
In one smooth motion Onero rose from behind his cover, raised his rifle, and shot Karrana in the back.
Jayce threw Katy aside and ran forward, firing his pistol. Onero tried to duck back to cover but it was too late: a beam disappeared into his chest with a sizzle. Rabid with anger, Spider turned sideways and screamed as he fired randomly at the prisoners. The students ducked and jumped away, but the old man remained standing. The laser that struck him knocked him back, tumbling him over the edge.
The tall woman gave a wordless, feral cry. Inexplicably, she leaped into the air after him, plummeting out of sight.
The two redheads sprinted forward. Spider shot the man, but the woman closed the distance too fast. She threw herself to the ground, sweeping out with her leg, knocking Spider onto his back. She kicked his rifle away. Spider reached for his knife but she already had it in her bound hands. With a wordless cry she stabbed, the knife disappearing into his belly again and again.
Spider began to scream.
Still dazed, Katy pushed herself up, retrieving her rifle. The roaring sound in the air was somehow louder. The redhead breathed heavy as she worked on Spider, grunting with rage, blood and viscera all around. One shot from Katy's rifle ended the butchery.
Katy looked across the roof. Onero. The hole in his chest poured blood. One of his legs twitched.
Jayce was sitting on the ground, his pistol discarded a few feet away. He'd pulled Karrana's head into his lap, and he stroked her hair, whispering. Cautiously, Katy stepped up behind him.
Katy realized he was speaking to her. Was she truly the only one of the Children left? She wasn't sure what to say.
"End it," he repeated. "Do it now, then flee while you can. It won't be long, now."
Katy looked to the sky, and it was immediately obvious from where the roaring noise came. The Chain hung over them, stretching to the west, nearly horizontal. Its movement was visible now, the lights along its length drifting from the sky like a meteor shower. She followed its shape deeper into the city, to where its base disappeared inside the Terminal building. Light flashed there, bright orange balls as the base prickled with explosions, rumbling across the city moments later like thunder. Jayce was right: it would not be long, now.
Let your rifle speak.
She pressed the barrel against his head, as he'd done to her only moments before. His black hair hung to his shoulders, something she'd not seen on other steadfasts. Steadfast, the word echoed in Katy's head. A loyal servant of the Empire, sent to kill innocents, protecting those who blaspheme against Saria. Mother, this man was famous for it. She should be shaking with joy at the opportunity.
Then why did she hesitate?
This was what she'd wanted. A chance to make her actions matter. An enemy worth fighting, a way to prove her dedication.
But prove to whom?
He never looked up, keeping his eyes on the dead woman in his arms. His wide shoulders shook with silent sobs. Steadfast. He's evil, he's done terrible things against your people, she thought, trying to resummon her hate. This is your chance! This isn't for Onero or Spider or anyone else. This is for you. Prove it to yourself! Let your rifle speak! Do it!
She lowered the rifle.
"What are you doing?" he asked quietly.
"I don't know," she said. "I don't know."
Another explosion echoed deeper within the city. Jayce gently laid Karrana on the ground and rose to his feet, looking toward the falling Chain. Katy couldn't be sure, but it appeared that the Chain would crash several blocks north of them.
Jayce took a deep breath and looked at the students, still huddled against the short wall, too scared to move. He looked more like a pub brawler than a pilot, thick with muscle at the shoulders and chest. He smiled through his tears at the children. "The shockwave will be devastating here," Jayce said, "but if we get to the lower floors we might be okay. Now, it's going to be scary, but I need you all to be brave for me. Can you do that?"
Some of them nodded.
"Okay. Follow me, everyone stay close and--"
"FOR HIS LUMINANCE."
Chair still bound to her back, Brynn picked up someone's rifle and fired three blasts. Two hit Jayce, in the gut and neck. He dropped to his knees, clutching at his throat. A soft bubbling noise was the only sound he made.
Brynn fell to the ground, laying on her side. She laughed in triumph, a crazed, animal sound, as Jayce's gargling ceased.
Katy stared. She was still numb, but a trickle of emotion invaded her mind, a deep sadness she couldn't understand. Not a sadness for her comrades, Milana and Spider, dead and mutilated. Not even for Onero, though a deeper part of her did feel a sort of sorrow for him. No. It made no sense, but her heart ached for the man who'd just stopped breathing.
A burning hate returned as well. Katy's rifle spoke, ending Brynn's frenzied laugh.
The roar of the Chain was deafening now, coming from all directions. It hung over the city, a horizontal, falling blade. Katy ordered the remaining students to flee downstairs. They did so without qualm, stepping over the dead bodies on the roof as if they were rain puddles.
Katy's rifle clattered to the ground. She went to Onero, a charred hole in his chest still leaking tendrils of smoke. He stared at the sky without seeing.
She sat cross-legged before him, pulling his head into her lap the way Jayce had done for Karrana.
The Chain base exploded in earnest, debris flying in all directions as the tension finally released. Everything seemed to move slowly, such was the size of the structure. The fireball concealed the lowest section of the Chain crashing to the city, but the unseen puffs of air suddenly pushing the fire outward gave it away. The next section smashed through the taller buildings of the inner city like a child destroying a toy, debris and destruction without fire. She could see no aircraft now; they'd given up their fights, fleeing the death of the greatest structure ever built.
Through the city the Chain crashed, a thick tree felled by the Children. The shockwave from the first explosion reached Katy, blowing her hair back and buffeting her face with heat. The building quaked. The very air around Katy seemed alive with vibrations, shaking her teeth and bones.
Soon it was falling to the north of her rooftop, several blocks away as Jayce had said. Another heavy laser group disappeared in a flash, their building blown apart.
The farther west it stretched the faster it fell. Instead of crashing into tall buildings it annihilated them, passing through them as if they held no strength at all. Many were flattened like nails under a hammer. The crashing Chain reached the Wall.
It ripped through the top of the barrier, a knife to taught paper. The terrible sound of metal scraping metal reached her ears as it descended, unnatural screeches and screams, and then smaller explosions flaring within the Wall itself. Then a flash of electric blue cut through the rest, that section's power core breached. The exposed energy rippled through the air and across the Wall like lightning, igniting smaller explosions.
The Chain finally came to a rest near the ground, the tear in the Wall a hundred feet wide. Katy watched until the rest of the Chain, a shadowy cylinder against a black sky, disappeared behind the Wall in the distance. Only the sound hinted at the carnage beyond, like thunder rumbling across a field. She vaguely wondered how long it would take for the rest of it to fall, how far it would stretch across the planet in its entirety.
She looked to the east, where for the first time in her life the sky stood empty. Only the spreading smoke and ash proved the Chain had ever existed at all. Soon the Riverhawks returned to the air, all of them belonging to the Children, landing on rooftops to assist the surviving laser batteries. The Empire may still have peacekeepers throughout the city, but their air forces were eliminated. The Children had won that battle.
Katy was stroking Onero's bald head, whispering sweet words into his unhearing ear, when the leaders of the ground forces reached her rooftop. They stopped at the edge of the garden, three men and one woman, staring at Katy and the body of the man she cradled. One of them examined the bodies, calling out when he identified Jayce.
For a long moment they said nothing, the only sound the distant Chain crashing through the crop domes and mountains beyond. With hushed awe they glanced between Katy and Jayce's body. Their eyes held questions, but Katy had no words.
Finally one man spoke. "The lake."
Katy didn't know why he addressed her, but he did. Gently, she lowered Onero to the ground and stood. "What?"
"The western lake," he continued, "created by the dam. The Chain destroyed the levees, and the water is pouring through the streets. The inner city floods!"
She walked to the edge of the roof, where she could turn her head and look up the street to the west. The ripped section of Wall gushed water, dark and rapid, pouring through the streets toward them. She looked to the east, where twilight spread, their Mother so close to waking.
Katy fell to her knees. "Mother," she said, "bathe us in your light. Drown us with your fire."
The others fell to their knees and joined her in prayer.
Epilogue
The water rushed over the old city, in between the buildings, blowing out windows and smashing open doors. It rubbed away dirt and grime, rust and stain, washing the old city clean.
Through the broken Wall it came, once the symbol of the Empire's might, now the frame of its grave. The barrier did nothing to stop the cold water's invasion, trapping the pe
ople inside, dooming those on the ground.
Over dead Children and steadfasts alike the river poured, sloshing across the remains of air battles, the debris of Riverhawks and Seahawks and Goshawks. Soon they were submerged and forgotten.
It swept over the bodies of two boys, Jon and Cairne, the sons of a Sentinel pilot imprisoned on a planet far away.
The water submerged a dying a god, a shriveled man, only twenty beats remaining in his heart. Across the street a Shieldwarden pulled her broken body across the ground, exhausting her last strength, desperate to reach him. She fell short by three feet, the waves muffling her final anguished cry.
East the cleansing torrent flowed, crumpling the smaller walls of the palace compound, washing away the servants who looted and fled. Through the ground floor it moved, pushing antique furniture ahead of it, a wave of decadence and debris. It wound its way through the decorated corridors and into the palace kitchen, gently surrounding a woman crying, alone. She crouched there without moving, arms hugging her knees, as the water rose over her face.
Up stairs Saria's Children climbed, fleeing to higher ground as the weight of the water exploded windows and smashed doors beneath them, adding urgency to their step. Soon every rooftop in the west-section of the city was crowded with soldiers watching the waves below. The water rose to a height of sixty feet before stopping, leveling out with the lake from which it flowed. It stopped the invasion short of its goal, halting them all in place. Just as one desperate, dead steadfast Commander had hoped.
It was not enough.
After Saria rose, their God of fusion and fire, her praise sung high across the rooftops and Wall, the Children advanced. Aircraft moved soldiers, continuing forward building-by-building. Ladders and bridges were later erected, connecting rooftops together like a child's tree fort. The remaining resistance, handfuls of peacekeepers trapped in whichever buildings they'd found themselves during the flood, quickly fell. Some fought. More surrendered.
Drowned by Fire (Tales of a Dying Star Book 4) Page 20
