by J. L. Lyon
“Kneel, Sawyer!” Derek yelled, ignoring him. “Put your hands behind your head!”
Grace did not move, but her gaze shifted from 301 to Derek, and as it did so her mood shifted as well. The sadness and pity were gone, and the fire returned in full force. She stared at Derek Blaine with merciless eyes, “Do not speak to me, murderer.”
“Your father died in battle. It wasn’t personal.”
“It was personal to me.”
301 watched them, amazed that though Grace was the only one unarmed she still managed to be the most fearsome one on the roof. He would not have wanted to be the recipient of that glare. Derek, however, seemed to take it in stride.
“I have been hated by more powerful foes than you. But—even though he currently has a gun trained on me—the Specter Captain is my friend. I won’t allow you to continue dragging him down with your lies. So kneel…or die.”
“I tried to change him, it is true,” Grace said, and glanced briefly at 301. “But he is still so full of pride. Perhaps he is not the man I thought he was.”
He could hear the disappointment in her voice—as though part of her world had been shattered. Her words were like a punch to the gut. He opened his mouth to object, to explain that he had been about to abandon everything for her, but cut off as a rapid beeping sounded from the Master Dish control panel.
And then the device began to turn.
-X-
“Grand Admiral! The Master Dish is realigning!”
Donalson cursed under his breath, “Destroy it now! Fire!”
-X-
“What did you do?” 301 demanded, lowering his weapon at the momentary distraction.
“I’m sorry, 301,” Grace replied. “But you were not the only reason I came here tonight.”
He heard a familiar noise nearby, but by the time he realized what it was the rockets were shooting over his head. They struck the Master Dish and blew the entire roof apart.
14
THE SHOCKWAVE THREW GRACE farther than she intended to go, and she slid hard into the ledge. She covered her head with her hands as debris from the explosion rained down on the roof, and then all was quiet.
She raised her head to peer through the clearing smoke and saw the ruins of the Master Dish scattered all over the roof. But it was not debris she sought. It was bodies. She had been closest to the blast and seemed unhurt, which was probably good news for the other two.
She got up slowly, limbs still shaky from the shock of being thrown across the roof, and began to search for any signs of life. She unclipped Novus Vita from her belt as a precaution, in case it was Blaine she found instead of 301.
301. She still thought of him that way, despite knowing he was Elijah Charity. What did that say about how he must view it? He had seemed so lost, so confused…so angry. Not at all the man she had fallen in love with while in captivity. But then, love was not based on conditions. This might be one of the greatest challenges of 301’s life, and if she wasn’t there for him who would be?
The smoke shifted, and she caught sight of a lump on the ground. She approached cautiously, until she made out the familiar lines of 301’s face. Then she rushed to where he lay and hit her knees beside him, drawing in a sharp gasp. Blood covered his face and his eyes were closed. She reached out and pressed two fingers to his neck, and sighed in relief. He was alive.
Grace leaned in closer to examine his wound. Something had delivered a glancing blow to the right side of his head, likely a piece of flying debris. It would need stitches, but he would survive.
Sudden movement caught her eye, and she looked up to see Derek Blaine emerge from the mists, the charred ruin that was once the Master Dish rising up like a sinister herald behind him. The white light of his Spectral Gladius gleamed brightly at his side, and he growled at her like a feral animal, “Step away from him, Sawyer.”
Grace rose and gripped her Gladius tightly. Her anger flared at the sight of him, her father’s killer, standing there so arrogantly while her father lay buried beneath the rubble of the Weapons Manufacturing Facility. That wasn’t how things were supposed to go. Jacob Sawyer had rebuilt the rebellion from the ground up. He was supposed to have been here, seeing through his plan until the moment of victory. But instead it was her, shouldered with responsibilities she had never prepared for, trying to hold together an old tapestry fraying at the seams.
And even if victory lay at the end of this journey, the vision of her father’s smiling face leading them into a new era of freedom was gone forever. Derek Blaine had shattered it with one stroke of his blade. He had taken one of her dearest dreams.
Now she would take something from him.
“Forgive me,” she whispered.
She lunged forward, Novus Vita igniting in a flash of white fire, and struck at Derek Blaine with so much anger that her skin itself felt aflame. She swung straight at his head, and for a moment she thought it was already over, that she had caught him off guard.
But Derek’s Gladius stopped Novus Vita just inches from his neck, and the lost momentum reverberated up her arm as if she had punched a brick wall. The late block threw off her center of balance, and she had to widen her stance to keep from tumbling past him. Then Blaine spun to deliver his counterstroke, a quick and precise cut aimed at her back. She turned and caught the blade with her own just before it sliced into her, and the dance began.
Derek Blaine was good—much better than she would have imagined knowing how long he had trained with the Gladius. He fought with a perfect balance of strength and speed, which she might have found admirable had she not been trying her hardest to kill him. Regardless, she still had the upper hand. She had been training with the Gladius while he had still been learning to load a sidearm, not to mention that he was not quite as refined in his movement.
“What did you do to him?” he demanded, pushing off of her. “What lies did you feed him to make him trust you?”
“Why use lies, when the truth is so much more powerful?”
“I know what you do, rebel—how you twist the truth to manipulate people into helping you,” Derek spoke through gritted teeth. “You Elect are all the same. And when you are done with your target, you abandon them to the fate your manipulations have brought.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Blaine. How dare you talk to me about the ethics of war, when my father’s blood stains your hands.”
“I defeated him.”
“You stabbed him in the back when he stepped in to save your partner,” she said. “You think you actually achieved something? You took the coward’s way out. But I suppose I should have known better than to expect anything resembling honor from a man like you.”
Derek struck at her again, and she blocked the angry stab before countering with one of her own. The two circled one another, blades clashing several times within the span of seconds. With each high-pitched ring of blade upon blade, Grace weighed Crenshaw’s warnings in her mind. You might end up only a shadow of what you once were, he had said, and the cause for which you fight will no longer be what it was when you first began.
But Blaine deserved it, she reasoned. She had not come to this Tower with the intent to kill him, but now that the opportunity presented itself why would she pass it up?
They neared the side of the roof, and Grace caught a glimpse of the ground below. At first it made her panic, for the entire Ninth Army was there, formed up in a perimeter around the Tower. But they did not advance. They weren’t assisting in the defense of the Tower at all.
“It seems your friends are content to let you die in this Tower,” she taunted as she deflected more of Derek’s blows. “All the power in the world is not enough to make me serve such a System.”
“The Tower was to have been destroyed if you made it this far,” Derek replied. “They wait because that reality is imminent. At any moment you and I could both be dead.”
Grace smiled, “Then I suppose we shouldn’t waste any more time.” She saw her openin
g and spun, slamming Novus Vita sideways into Derek’s blade. The Specter was unprepared for such a massive show of force, and lost his grip. The Spectral Gladius flew from his hand and slid far out of reach as the lost momentum forced him to his knees.
She stood over her opponent, the point of her Gladius aimed straight at his neck, and paused. Derek Blaine stared up at her with wide eyes, surprised to find himself in a position of defeat. But he was also ready, wearing the resigned look of a warrior who knows fate has caught up to him at last. If anything, her hesitation confused him more than his defeat.
“Well met, Commander,” he smiled. “I underestimated you.”
She locked eyes with him, still the very picture of arrogance despite his impending death, and her blade wavered. He was unarmed and at her mercy. To kill him in the heat of battle was one thing, but now, like this…it was something else entirely.
But he killed my father. He deserves to die.
The well of hatred she had tried to lock away suddenly sprung forth, and her muscles tensed in preparation to strike. Blaine must have seen it in her eyes, for he closed his. But something held her back, as surely as if another hand kept hers from plunging Novus Vita straight through Derek Blaine’s neck.
I saw my hatred, Crenshaw’s voice echoed in her memory, saw the monster it threatened to turn me into, and nearly fell to the darkness in my own soul. It was then that I understood we are all capable of murder, all susceptible to become the very enemies we shed so much blood and tears to fight…
Grace took a deep breath, and then exhaled slowly. Her hesitation extended to several seconds, until at last she made her choice: she couldn’t do it. If she did, that would make her just like them.
Derek opened his eyes, “What are you waiting for? Do it!”
“I am not like you, Blaine,” she replied. “I am not a murderer.”
She reared back with her free hand and punched him square in the face. He toppled over backward, unconscious.
-X-
301 woke to the stillness of the night. Smoke rose in haphazard curls around the roof of the Tower, remnants of both the explosion and of the battle below. His head throbbed with pain, and he lifted his hand to inspect the source. But there was already a hand there waiting, and he shifted his gaze to see Grace kneeling over him, inspecting his wound.
“Try not to make any sudden movements,” she said softly. “You were hit in the explosion.”
He attempted to sit up, and groaned. He could barely move. The blow to his head had brought on a partial paralysis. Instinctively, he went through his checks to make sure it was only temporary. Thankfully, his extremities still responded. He would recover in a few minutes. Unfortunately, that was too long for him to go with her.
“Go, Grace,” he urged. “Get out of here while you still can.”
“I can’t leave you.”
“You have to. I meant what I said. Whether by fate or some ridiculous chance, this is my life. This is who I am. So please, go!”
“I will go,” she said. “If you can look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t love me.”
301 felt like a pane of glass under pressure, cracks slowly spreading from his core, ready to shatter at any moment. His desire to be with Grace, to abandon his old life and apologize for his callous dismissal of her offer, made war against his need to see her safely away. But the only way to save her was to break her heart…to lie and lose her forever. At least she will live. She will have a chance.
He raised his eyes to hers and did his best to keep is features flat. “I do not love you.”
A Halo descended from the night sky, seeming to materialize out of the blackness, and hovered next to the ledge closest to them. Its blue lights cast Grace in their glow, but even that could not distract him from the dismay he saw on her face. She had not expected him to actually say it. That’s the difference between us, he thought. I am cold enough to hurt her, if necessary. But none of that mattered. The only thing he cared about was seeing her safely away.
And also, that she have some sort of closure.
“There’s something I think you should have,” he said. “It’s in the pouch on the right side of my belt.”
Grace, still at a loss for words, found the pouch and reached inside. She pulled Glorificus, her father’s Spectral Gladius, out from within. “If anyone has a right to it, it’s you,” 301 said. “Now please, go!”
She looked down at the Gladius for a moment, still a picture of confusion and hurt. But then, as if a switch was thrown, her expression became firm again, filled with that same fire she had worn while facing Derek Blaine.
Grace stood and backed away from him toward the ledge, eyes still watching. What was she feeling now? Sadness? Revulsion? She climbed up onto the ledge, and spoke, “You could have been the hero of this story, Eli—a man we could all have believed in. Perhaps the boy I knew is truly dead.”
301 started to respond, but a movement to the left caught his eye. Derek was up, and as 301 watched he drew his sidearm and took careful aim.
301 managed to lift himself enough to hold out a hand in desperation, “Wait!”
Derek fired, and 301’s head snapped back to Grace. She had been ready, the white blade of Glorificus alive in her hands, and the bullet disintegrated against it with a high-pitched clang. But either from the quick movement or the force of the bullet, Grace lost her balance and fell backward.
Off the roof.
301’s heart plummeted straight to the ground. No, his dazed mind reasoned. It can’t end this way. She was supposed to survive! He struggled to his feet and made for the ledge, but before he had even gone a step the Halo rose high enough for him to see her hanging from it by a rope. She smiled at him, and then the craft dipped below the ledge.
“Admiral,” Derek spoke into his phone, “the rebel escaped in a Halo, but there’s no longer any threat to the security of the Tower.” Then he rounded on 301, sidearm still drawn, with an anger that chilled 301 to the bone. “What the hell, Captain? You promised me you were ready…you said you could do what was necessary! What were you thinking?”
“I don’t know,” 301 said quietly. “When I said it I believed it…but when I actually saw her I…just couldn’t do it.”
“You’re a fool,” he shook his head. “A pitiful, selfish fool. Your failure to act nearly got us all killed. McCall had his finger on the trigger of that bomb ready to blow us all to hell, and you were what—chatting with the rebel commander? Catching up on old times?”
301 avoided his partner’s accusing eyes, “It wasn’t like that.”
“You’ll answer for this, Captain,” Derek said. “I was willing to protect you when it was a matter of the MWR’s childish anger, but I won’t be a party to treason.”
301 nodded. It was no more than he expected. “What happened below?”
Derek clenched his jaw and finally holstered his sidearm. He had more to say, 301 could see it written all over him, but the battle was not yet over. “The rebels are fleeing. We don’t know what happened. We fought them to a standstill on the stairwells, and then they just retreated.”
301 turned his gaze to the charred remains of the Master Dish, and released a frustrated breath. The rebels were not fleeing, no—they were withdrawing. Their mission had been completed.
“What should we do?” Derek asked expectantly.
301 focused on his partner with surprise, “You’re asking me?”
“Of course. You still have the command.”
He might have been grateful, if not for the undercurrent of sarcasm that laced Derek’s words. It had been a while since he’d heard the voice of his rival and not that of his friend. He hadn’t missed it.
“There’s nothing to do,” 301 replied. “The Ninth Army will deal with them.” He stepped up to the ledge where Grace had fallen and looked down upon the open field. Rebels began pouring out of the Tower en masse, returning the chaos of battle to the otherwise quiet night. But the Ninth was ready. 301 watched as they pr
epared their weapons and began to converge.
The Halo shot over their heads, nearly knocking them off their feet with the force of the flyby, and turned its nose toward the ground. Derek’s eyes went wide and he shouted into his earphone, “Shoot that Halo out of the sky! Shoot it down now!”
Two rockets thrust toward the vessel, but shot wide and missed. Derek—having been relieved of his own Gladius by Grace a few moments before—reached out and seized Calumnior from 301’s weapons belt. He activated the Gladius and then pulled back on the hilt, realigning the magnetic field so that the blade widened into a shotgun-esque shape. He took careful aim at the craft, and 301 held his breath.
Calumnior hummed loudly as Derek pulled the trigger, the Solithium churning within the hilt, and then a ball of pure electricity hurtled from the Gladius straight toward the Halo. 301 watched helplessly as the supercharged photon neared its target. If it hit the Halo, it would render the vessel inoperable, and at the rate of its descent that would mean death for all on board.
But the vessel pulled out of its dive just before it would have been struck, and the photon passed harmlessly by its tail. It impacted the ground with a sizzle, and then the Halo opened up on the Ninth Army with machine gun fire.
Soldiers dove out of the way, clearing a pathway for the rebels as they continued to pour out from the Tower. They fought through the scattered lines with ease, separating into different groups that then disappeared into the night.
“Admiral,” Derek said. “We need to get a lock on that Halo!”
301 heard McCall’s reply through his own earphone, “It’s too late, Blaine. Without another Halo, there’s no way we can track it. There’s not another in the air for miles.”
Derek cursed and slammed his fist on the ledge. They had lost her.
But 301 couldn’t hold back a sigh of relief. Grace would live to see another day.
15
A BLACK HALO-4 CAME to rest in the center of the colonnade, an odd companion to the ancient obelisk that stood just a few yards away. After a moment the blue fire of the engines died and the side hatch slid open to reveal the lithe form of Elizabeth Aurora.
