Falling Sky

by Rajan Khanna

  That changes as the shooter rolls me over with his boot. I can see the Cherub for a minute above me, and then I’m staring up at his face. Or rather her face, I correct. The woman wears a black military cap and has a large pistol aimed at me. She wants me to see her shooting me. A smile crosses her face.

  I look at the Cherub. If I’m going to die, I want to die looking at her.

  But I can’t help thinking about Miranda. I never . . .

  A gunshot echoes across the space, but it sounds so much smaller than I’m expecting. So much farther.

  The woman and her gun disappear. I look back to the Cherub and see Rosie on the rope ladder firing down at the woman.

  But Black Cap isn’t hit and she fires back up at the Cherub. At Rosie. Sending her scrambling for cover.

  I tell myself to grab the revolver. Shoot her now. But my hand doesn’t work.

  Black Cap is good. She snaps off a barrage of shots and then smoothly draws a second weapon, bringing it to bear.

  A shot catches Rosie, and I hear her scream and fall back.

  Grab your gun, I yell at myself. Shoot her.

  Black Cap smiles again and looks at me, and I know this time the bullet’s coming.

  I swear I see her arm tensing.

  Then something long and sharp punches through her throat. It takes me a moment to place the shape with it covered in blood.

  An arrow.

  A second thuds into her shoulder. A third punches right through her midsection.

  Claudia.

  Then she’s there, running, her hair streaming, the bow in her hand.

  “Get up,” she says, throwing her free arm around me and helping me to my feet.

  “Can you climb?” she asks.

  “I don’t think so,” I say. My arm still doesn’t want to obey and I definitely need both of those for the ladder.

  “Damn it.” I know that tone, I think. It’s the one she uses when she’s really worried. When was the last time I heard that? She slaps my face gently. “Ben. Stay with me. I’m going up to the Cherub. I’m going to bring her down. We’ll get you on that way.”

  “Good idea,” I mumble.

  She pulls my revolver from its holster and places it in the hand that I can actually feel. “If anyone else appears, try to shoot them.”

  Then she’s scrambling up the ladder, the bow now strapped to her back.

  The airfield starts spinning around me and I think it might be a good idea to lower myself to the ground.

  It feels like half of my body has been switched off. Everything’s off-kilter. Out of balance.

  Any moment now, I think, an alarm is going to go off. Or the guard is going to be found.

  I feel as good as done.

  I hear the Cherub’s engines above me and I look up to see her descending. Claudia bringing my baby to me.

  She touches down and I begin crawling toward her, dragging my body over the ground. It’s the first time I see the blood. On my arm and then on the ground. Rosie lowers the cargo bay door and comes to get me, helping me up to my feet. She’s bloody, too. The movement sends pain screaming through my body. I grunt and black out for a few seconds. But I fight my way back.

  “C’mon,” Rosie says. “Those gunshots probably roused someone. We need to get out of here before the whole place is on alert.”

  We move toward the ramp and I’m almost crushed beneath the pain. The world spins around me. I try to focus on Rosie, my arm around her shoulder, my weight leaning against her. Did I come so far, find my way to the Cherub only to die in her cargo bay? I can feel myself withering with every step.

  I close my eyes, and my fingers find the hard shape of the Star of David underneath my shirt. I think about saying something to God but then see that for the bullshit it is. I stopped believing in God a long time ago. I think of my father, though, and all he did for me. All he did to the Cherub. His ship.

  My ship, I think, as I grip the Star. My foot hits the ramp and I make my way into the cargo bay. The Cherub is mine again.

  The Cherub’s scent is all around me, the machine smell of the bay. Rosie practically drags me inside and closes the ramp behind us.

  She lowers me to the ground. She bends over me, checking the gunshot. I can’t even tell where it hurts. The pain is everywhere. Her face swims in my vision. My eyes roll and come to rest on my old inflatable yellow raft. The one I found and decided to keep for emergencies. Somehow that being there makes me feel better.

  She moves me some more. I think she might be talking, but the words are all slippery and I can’t hold on to them. But then we’re in the gondola and Claudia’s there.

  “How is he?”

  Words with shapes but no meaning.

  “I’m worried about him losing too much blood.”

  Blood, I think. It’s all about blood. Alpha’s blood. My blood.

  “Don’t give me Alpha’s blood,” I say.

  “What was that?”

  “He’s delirious. Help me find the medical supplies.”

  I’ve had enough of blood, I think. Fill me up with fuel and let me fly.

  Then something bites me. A moment later I gasp and the loose weave of reality shrinks and tightens around me. I’m on the Cherub. Claudia is standing over me with a syringe. I recognize it as my Juice, zep parlance for a potent mix of painkillers and stimulants. I sit up, coming back to myself.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “You got shot,” Claudia says. “I saved you. And then I gave you some Juice.”

  I turn to Rosie. “You got shot, too.”

  “I’m okay,” she says, but blood stains the sleeve of her jacket. “It just tagged me. Went right by me.”

  “Good,” I say.

  “Yours, however, is still in there,” Rosie says. “Bitch got you in the chest.”

  “It’ll keep,” I say. “Help me up.”

  “You shouldn’t move,” Claudia says.

  “I need to fly.”

  “I can fly the Cherub,” Claudia says.

  I give her a hard look. “No.”

  She steps back from the console.

  “Now help me up.”

  They both help me to the console. I see that the man on my ship, my Goldilocks, is still unconscious. Claudia and Rosie push me against the console much gentler than I did for him.

  Claudia’s already retracted the anchor. Only one of my arms is working, but I know the Cherub well enough to work her even like this. Still, I give the others some instructions. The engines warm up. My girl’s full of power; her solar panels have soaked up the sun while she’s been resting.

  I don’t even feel my wound as much and I run my hands over the Cherub’s controls like an old lover. I try to ignore the bloodstains my hands leave. I can hear her engines and I know that Sergei’s fuel is still inside of her. And that gives me even a little more strength.

  Then I push her, looking for nothing from her but speed. And I pull away from the airfield and up into the air.

  Back to the air. Back to freedom. Something, like the awe of God, washes over me.

  “Look for any pursuit,” I say to Rosie.

  But it’s not pursuit I need to be worried about. Because as we break through the cloud cover, I see it. The Gastown gunship.

  Coming straight for us.

  For a moment I think about making a break for it, trying to outrun the gunship, but that would certainly draw their attention and I’m not sure I can make it in the condition I’m in.

  Instead I shuffle over to the Gastown man on the floor and drag him up with my good arm. Pain streaks across my chest, but the Juice is already kicking in and I feel it like the pain is reaching me from underwater.

  I push him to the console and make sure he can see the gunship in front of us. “See that? That thing’s going to splatter us all over the sky unless you talk them out of it. If you don’t, we’re all going down. So, you have a choice. Talk to them, get us through, and I promise on my ship, on the one important thing that’s
left to me, that I will drop you somewhere, unharmed. But if I yank this rag from your mouth and you fuck me, I will cut your throat, just enough that you can watch us get shredded to pieces. Do you understand?”

  The man’s eyes are wide and he doesn’t look happy, but he nods.

  “Is this a good idea?” Rosie asks.

  “If he doesn’t do it, he’s as dead as we are. They’re not going to take prisoners. And I’m not letting them take this ship.”

  I pull the rag from the man’s mouth and he spits and coughs. “What frequency?” I ask.

  He tries to speak, but the words don’t come out. Then he swallows and rasps, “Seventy-two point five.” I dial the radio to the number.

  I hold the knife close to his throat. “You’re on,” I say.

  He moves to the radio. “Reaver, this is Hernandez. I’m returning to Gastown to pick up some supplies,” he says.

  “Passcode?” a voice crackles over the radio.

  “Leviathan,” Hernandez says.

  “Proceed,” comes the reply. And I exhale the breath I’ve been holding. I look at Hernandez.

  “Copy,” he says. Then I flip off the radio and let my body relax. I put the knife on the console.

  “Where are you going to put me?” he says.

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ll honor my word. Just keep your mouth shut and you’ll be safely on your way soon.”

  Rosie raises her eyebrows at me, but I shrug and return to the controls.

  “That Juice isn’t going to last long,” Claudia says.

  “Long enough to get us back to Gastown.”

  “Are you sure it’s wise to go back there?” she says.

  “Diego and Miranda are there.” A streak of pain shoots through me. “And so is the Valkyrie.”

  Rosie looks pointedly at Hernandez. I just used names in front of him.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “We’re getting them and then getting out.”

  “Good,” Rosie says.

  I push the Cherub as fast as she’ll go back to Gastown. I send Rosie to see what she can find still left in the cargo bay, and Claudia helps out with the controls. Which is a gift because I’m working with only one arm.

  “You’re pushing yourself too much,” Claudia says.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Let me look at the wound again,” she says.

  She lifts my jacket away and pulls me into the light.

  It’s then that Hernandez makes his move. Claudia pushes me out of the way as he comes at us with the knife I left on the console.

  I fall to the ground but scramble back up to my feet to see her grappling with him. But he’s bigger and he’s stronger and the knife is moving closer to her.

  And for a moment, I think of Miranda and what happened back at the school.

  Then my hand is pulling out the revolver. I lift it and pull the trigger.

  The sound fills the space and I realize it’s the first time I’ve fired a weapon in the Cherub.

  The bullet punches a hole through his chest and out the gondola’s window, spraying blood against now spidered glass. Hernandez slumps to the ground.

  “I wasn’t lying,” I say. “I would have let you go.”

  Then his eyes go blank and he slides down to the floor.

  Claudia is breathing hard. “Thanks,” she says.

  “Likewise.”

  She helps me up, back to the controls, with Hernandez’s body still at my feet, and we push for Gastown.

  I’m already feeling the wound getting to me, the Juice wearing off, as Gastown comes into view. The multicolored balloons up in the rigging seem to blend together as I bring the Cherub in.

  “So that’s it?” Claudia asks. “Grab Miranda and Diego and go?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Why don’t you come with me?” Claudia says. “They can all go back to wherever they’re going and we can go . . . elsewhere. I could really use your help with this latest job.”

  I’m touched. And it’s a good offer. Working with Claudia again, falling back into that old lifestyle, would be so easy. And so comfortable. And she seems to be doing good work.

  I place my good hand on her face. “That sounds really great. It does. But . . .”

  “But you’re not going to.” She pulls away from me.

  “I can’t,” I say. “I know you’re working against Gastown in your own way, but . . . I need to stick with the boffins.”

  “Need to?”

  “Yes,” I say. “I’ve been fighting it, I know. But they are the one bit of hope I’ve discovered left on this earth and I need that. It’s not enough to just survive anymore. Not with Gastown. Not with everything going on. I need more.”

  She gives me a sad smile.

  “I’m sick of all the death,” I say. “I’m sick of not being able to save anyone. Claudia, I want to be able to save someone.”

  She grabs my hand and squeezes. “Then let’s go get your friends.”

  All three of us are tense as we pull in toward Gastown. To them this is now a Gastown ship—the Cherub is even now flying her colors—and they’ll be wondering what I’m doing back.

  I flip on the radio, still at the channel Hernandez had left it on, and I repeat the same passcode that he had given the gunship. If it doesn’t work, the considerable guns on Gastown, and its attendant gunships, will almost immediately begin to fire on us, so my hands are near the controls, ready to push off, hoping I can outrun them.

  But bluffs are based on confidence. So I push the Cherub in on a slow but steady course.

  The line crackles to life, and they direct me to one of the docking platforms. Again, I exhale, and Rosie looks at me and smiles. “So far, so good,” she says.

  I bring the Cherub into the appropriate docking platform and I am well aware that my condition is forcing her to wobble far more than she usually would. But then I bring her in smoothly and we’re back at Gastown.

  The body of the man is still on the deck, and Rosie and Claudia both help me drag him to the storage room and cram him into a utility box. But not before I strip him of a few of his outer items of clothing. I take his hat, his mask, his scarf, and his jacket.

  I try not to worry about the hole in the back of the jacket. The one caused by my bullet blowing through Hernandez’s back. It’s not uncommon to have torn, beat-up clothing, I tell myself. But will that escape people’s notice?

  I turn to Rosie, who looks more with it than I must do. “How do I look?” I say.

  “Like shit.”

  I put the mask and cap on. “Now?”

  She shrugs. “Can you move without showing off your wound?”

  “I’ll do my best,” I say. She’s scraped together some bottled water and a half-bottle of hooch to help rinse off her jacket. Neither of us will stand up to scrutiny, but hopefully we won’t have to. Claudia’s hair is bound up and a scarf wrapped around most of her head. Rosie is similarly covered.

  We all makes sure our weapons are accessible.

  Together we move down to the exit.

  Gastown guards greet us as the door opens. “Hernandez,” one says. “We weren’t expecting you to get back so soon.”

  “Need to replace the forward glass in the gondola,” I say in my best imitation of Hernandez’s voice. The mask helps muffle the sound. They will have seen the glass missing.

  “What happened?” the other guard says. He has greasy hair sticking out from under a cowboy hat.

  “Let’s just say I was a little too vigorous.” I mime jerking off with my good hand and they laugh. “We’ll catch up with you later. Gotta get this taken care of, then get back.”

  Then I walk, with Rosie, out into Gastown.

  I exhale as soon as we turn down one of the alleys, out of sight of the guards.

  “I can’t believe that actually worked,” I say.

  Rosie shakes her head. “Me neither. Let’s get to the Osprey and get the others.”

  “You’d better hurry,” Claudia says
. “Pretty soon what happened on the ground is going to get back to the folks up here, and Ben, you’re going to want to be gone with the Cherub by then.”

  “You go out with Diego,” I tell Rosie. “I’ll take Miranda out.”

  Claudia stops me. “Are you going to be okay? That bullet is still inside of you.”

  “It will keep until we get out of here.”

  She shakes her head.

  “Besides,” I say. “Rosie has my back.”

  Rosie doesn’t respond.

  “Then I’m going to head back to the Valkyrie for a moment. I was able to recover some documents from the plant. I want to make sure they’re secured.” She kisses my cheek. “I’ll try to catch you before you leave.”

  I nod.

  Then, staying close to Rosie for support, we head off to the Osprey.

  The ship’s where we left it, thankfully. But when we knock on the gondola door, no one answers. We try again and again, but nothing. I try not to be aware of our time ticking away.

  “Goddamnit!” I slam the door in frustration, then look around to see if I attracted any attention. “Where are they?”

  Rosie removes a key from a pocket and uses it to open the door. I should’ve thought of that. I barrel past her, looking in the Osprey’s gondola, trying to find any sign of Miranda or Diego.

  “They’re not here,” Rosie says.

  “Then where are they?”

  “They could be anywhere in the city,” Rosie says. “We need to find them.” What she doesn’t say is that they might not be okay. That things could have gone terribly wrong.

  “We need to find them,” I say, “but I don’t know how long I can keep this up.” Already I feel the Juice wearing off. The pain is coming back, as well as the weakness. My legs are shaking. And I’m starting to feel nauseated. Not to mention I think I’m bleeding through the bandages Claudia put on me.

  “Then what do you want to do?” Rosie asks.

  “The Valkyrie’s not far from here,” I say. “Maybe Claudia can help us look. She might have more Juice, too.”

  Rosie doesn’t look too happy with this, but she knows that three pairs of eyes are better than two. And that I’m not going to last very long.

  The dock where the Valkyrie is moored seems to be clear of guards or watchers, so I walk over to the door to her gondola and knock on it.