by L. E. Thomas
"Hang on, Lieutenant."
Austin gripped his seat and the door handle, preparing for the worst. Sharkey yanked the wheel left, the car fishtailing into the turn. Austin kept his mouth shut, ignoring the desire to scream. Sweat ran down his face as Sharkey sped into the last straight away.
"Number?"
"It's three-eighteen on the right."
Sharkey nodded. "When I slow, I want you to hop out and run the rest of the way. Her house is probably under surveillance, so I wouldn't use the front door. I'll give you ten minutes to get her out and in the car.
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“Knock on her window, Romeo.”
Austin frowned. “Her room is on the second floor.”
“You’ll figure it out.”
“What about her parents?”
Sharkey shook his head. “Just get her out. We know she’s one of your contacts. If they try to destroy the house, her family would just be collateral damage. Whoever is targeting Star Runners is trying to disrupt operations.” He slowed the car. “You got your sidearm?"
Austin shook his head. “They took it at Base Prime.”
Sharkey yanked a pistol with a silencer attached from inside his jacket and handed it to Austin. "Alright, get ready."
The gun felt heavy in his hands. “This a real gun?”
“You think I handed you a toy?”
“No, I mean a gun firing bullets? What about the laser pistol I trained on?”
Sharkey shrugged. “Same principal, just louder with smoke. It’s prohibited. Off world tech. You ever shot a man?”
Austin swallowed. “No.”
“Whoever these guys are, they are hardened mercs, hired guns. They will kill you. You have to kill them first.”
“Okay.”
Sharkey eased off the gas, allowing the car to coast toward the house. “Stay ready.”
Austin controlled his breathing as he watched the familiar houses pass. A hundred times before, he’d visited this neighborhood. He remembered children playing in the yards, jumping through sprinklers and shooting each other with water pistols. The houses appeared different in the darkness, looming on each side of the street. Nothing moved.
His fingers rested on the pistol in his jacket. He felt perspiration icing down his back. He hadn't seen Kadyn since before college. What would she say? He glanced at Sharkey, wanted to ask him what would happen next, but decided it had to wait. Would they take her to a secure location? Where would that be?
"Ready?" Sharkey asked.
He wanted to say he wasn't. He wished he were somewhere else. His Mom moaned in the backseat, still suffering the effects of the gas. Whoever had done this to Mom, now targeted Kadyn.
Concentrate.
"Go!" Sharkey barked.
Austin cracked open the door and hesitated.
"Go! Now!"
He leaped out the door. He turned his head to look back at the vehicle, but only saw the remnants of the car's tires splitting the damp street. The sound of the engine faded, then disappeared. Searching nearby houses for any sign of disturbance, he found nothing. His heart thudded in his ears as he slowly moved to a crouching position inside the flowerbed.
Ignoring a stray thought of a sniper zeroing in on his head, Austin sprinted across the lawn. He slowed at the side of Kadyn's house and leaned against the brick wall, feeling the coolness on his back. He held his breath and listened.
With his hand on the gun resting in his jacket pocket, Austin crept toward the back yard. He walked carefully to the edge of the home and risked a glance into the back yard.
A sole light illuminated the back porch, sending far-reaching shadows like dark fingers stretching across the grass. He squinted, surveying the woods behind Kadyn's house. He didn't know how deep these woods stretched into the night.
Turning back to the house, he craned his neck for a view of her bedroom window on the second floor. Dark, of course.
He bent down, searching for a pebble to toss at the window. Instead, he found a heavy pinecone. He hesitated. A pinecone thrown hard enough could break through the window, and that wasn't exactly the result he was shooting for in this situation. The bark of a pine tree a dozen feet from the edge of the house looked promising. Perhaps that could work.
He eased over to the tree and stripped off a piece of the loose bark. Looking up at Kadyn's window, he tossed the bark. The piece hit the brick of the house and shattered without much more than a sound. In fact, the lumbering air conditioning units made more noise in the night. After trying unsuccessfully three more times, he looked back to the pinecone. If he didn't do something soon, Sharkey would assume the worst and come after him.
He gripped the pinecone and stared at the window. If he threw it too hard, he might wake the entire house.
Please don't break, he thought.
Stepping away from the house, he hurled the pinecone into the air and hurried back to the wall. The pinecone bounced below the window and rolled up the side of the house, skipping across the glass as it did so.
Man, that was loud.
He pressed himself against the side of the house. He focused on the window. The bedroom light came on, and a shadow loomed in the room. Kadyn must be awake; the pinecone had done its job. Another noise would attract her to the window. Austin bent down, grabbed another piece of bark and threw it at the glass. The lock slid back on the window and the pane slid up.
A bearded face poked against the screen.
Mr. Joyce.
Austin fell into the grass. He swore silently, pressing into the damp ground at the base of the house in hopes Kadyn's dad wouldn't see him.
"Hello?" the deep voice called into the night.
Austin flinched. Had the man called at him? Did he throw the pinecone at the wrong window?
"Listen, my daughter is asleep," Mr. Joyce said with a sigh. "If you don't leave, I'll have to call the cops."
The windowpane closed, and the light went off. Austin exhaled and leaned against the house. What now?
He looked back at the window and sighed. So Kadyn was home, but her father guarded her every move. Nothing new there. He remembered for the prom when Kadyn had been chased by Jason Pruitt, the dorky defensive lineman on the football team. Austin had thought about asking Kadyn to go as friends, but that was right about the time Jason had been lurking beside Kadyn’s locker after every class. He followed her around, asking after school every day. Kadyn finally relented, and Austin went to prom with his cousin Holly.
Kadyn told him about the story when the parents gathered at her house for photos before they left. Kadyn said Mr. Joyce hovered around her like a helicopter, watching Jason’s hands as they posed for the photos. Austin knew Sharkey was waiting in the car. Think.
As he looked around for inspiration, he heard the window open again. Great, he thought. Mr. Joyce was coming out with his hunting rifle.
“Jeremy?” Kadyn whispered. “Is that you?”
Austin stepped back from the house. “Kadyn!”
“Who is that?” she asked. “I told you not to come here.”
“It’s me, Austin!”
She paused. “Austin? Are you serious?”
“I need to talk with you,” he said. He glanced at the pistol and shoved it into his jacket. “Can you?”
Austin couldn’t see her face, but her head peered out of the cracked window. If there were agents watching the house, they could see her. He needed to get her out of here.
“My dad’s going to kill me! I’ll be right down,” she said with a sigh. “This had better be good.”
He looked around the back yard as he waited. He hadn’t spoken to Kadyn in a live conversation of any kind in weeks. Now, he woke her up in the middle of the night. He had no idea what he would say to her. The forest seemed to have eyes. He had to get her out of here.
A minute passed.
Austin gripped the pistol, his fingers resting lightly on the side. The gun felt heavier than his laser pistol. The grass
rustled from the other side of the house. Somebody was coming. He knelt down, raising the gun slightly.
“Hey!”
He spun around, the sharp whisper blasting through the silence like thunder. “What the—I’m sorry,” he said.
Kadyn, dressed in pink pajamas and tennis shoes, ran the last steps and threw her arms around him. Her hair band fell off, releasing her brown hair from the ponytail and falling around her shoulders. She smelled of honey and flowers.
“Oh my, God,” she breathed in his ear. “What are you doing here?”
“Be quiet,” he whispered, pulling her into the bushes. He placed a finger over her lips and listened.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Austin pulled her down to the ground and put his free hand on her shoulder. “You need to listen to me. I don’t have time to explain this, but I’ve got to take you away from here right now, okay?”
Kadyn’s face grew rigid. “What are you talking about?”
“I can’t explain it right now.” He gripped her hand. “We have to leave.”
“Leave for where?” Her face, once filled with excitement, faded to terror. “You’re scaring me.”
Austin lifted his head over the bushes. “You need to trust me. Okay?”
Now that he made contact, Sharkey would be waiting at the street. If the enemy was not currently watching the house, they would be able to simply walk up to the shrouded vehicle and leave.
Austin looked back at Kadyn. “Grab my hand and everything will be alright. I promise. No matter what else happens, just trust me and I’ll get you out of here.”
She reached out her hand before recoiling back. “Oh my, God! Is that a gun?”
Austin sighed. “We have to go!”
“Oh, Austin. You’re not going to rob a store or something, are you? I know you need money, but this isn’t the way.”
His face contorted. “What? No. You need to come now. It’ll be okay.”
She took his hand carefully as if he would tear it off. He squeezed it, but she didn’t return the favor. With Kadyn falling in behind him, they made their way along the side of the house to the front yard. Two houses down, the wet pavement split as Sharkey’s shrouded car crept down the street. Austin paused at the corner of the house.
“We need to cut across the neighbor’s yard and head for the street. If anything happens, I need you to keep running for the street. You got it?”
She nodded, her chin trembling. “Austin, are you a drug dealer?”
He closed his eyes, his pulse pounding in his ears. His throat constricted, his muscles tightening. “Right now, I wish I was. You ready?”
“Okay,” she said, squeezing his hand back for the first time. “I trust you.”
He nodded at her, trying to fake a smile. When he turned back, he lowered his gaze. The light shifted in the street in front of the house, just beneath the neighbor’s tree. Although it was difficult to make out any details, it looked to be the shape of the sedan he drove to Atlanta from the Tizona Campus.
“Now!” he whispered.
They broke for the neighbor’s yard, his feet slipping on the wet grass. Kadyn clasped his hand hard enough to make his fingers numb. She gasped for breath as they sprinted. If they could make it to Sharkey’s shrouded car, the terror of the night could end.
A faint light flashed across the front yard from across the street. Sparks exploded from the largest tree in Kadyn’s front yard, showering speckles of light down into the grass. Austin ducked, his heart pounding in his ears. He didn’t see the laser bolt, but knew from the sparks a laser gun targeted them. That meant off-world technology, which meant the mercenary force had found them.
“What was that?” Kadyn yelled.
Another shot blasted into the tree, the lasers still invisible. Small fires sparkled into the bark. He thrust Kadyn to the ground, gently pressing his knee into her back as he searched the woods. Staying low to the ground, Austin gripped his pistol and searched the dense forest across the street. He saw nothing.
An engine rumbled close.
“Come on,” he said, gripping Kadyn’s shoulder, “we have to crawl.”
“Crawl to where?” she asked, her face wet with the morning dew from the grass. Behind her, small flames flickered from the burning bark littering the front yard.
Lights flickered on from the houses lining the street. If they were going to leave unnoticed, they had better do it soon.
Sharkey appeared from behind the shrouded car carrying an assault rifle. He focused on the other side of the street. He kept the car between him and the woods as he turned around.
“Come on, Lieutenant!”
Austin heard two more invisible shots sizzle overhead, smashing into Kadyn’s house. Sharkey returned fire, his silenced machine gun thumping through the early morning suburban world. The spent shells hit the ground.
An invisible laser bolt smashed into Sharkey’s shoulder. A flurry of sparks showered down as he grunted. He rose over the shrouded car and fired.
Austin gripped Kadyn’s hand. “Can you run?”
“What the hell is going on?” she asked.
“You have to trust me!” Austin yelled. “Come on!”
She stared at him, her eyes wide and brimming with tears. She nodded quickly. He gripped her sweaty hand and yanked her to her feet.
The woods across the street erupted in faint flashes of light as if even the trees opened fire. Sparks flashed like lightning. Most of the invisible bolts crashed into the front of Kadyn’s house, breaking glass and igniting the roof. Sharkey fired until the gun ran out. He ducked behind the car, reloaded, and rose in one fluid motion.
Austin reached Sharkey and felt for the rear door. His fingers fell on the handle, and he pulled back. A bolt buzzed by his ear. With his eyes wide and his ears ringing, he blindly fired his pistol twice in the direction of his attacker. The bullets hit a tree, bark flying off the trunk.
“What is this?” Kadyn shrieked.
“It’s just a car. Quick—get in!”
He grabbed her shoulder and guided her into the shrouded vehicle. As she climbed into the car, a shadow appeared behind a tree across the street. He emptied the clip. Bullets smashed into the tree. It was too dark to see if he’d hit anything. He knelt down.
“I’m out. You okay?” Austin asked Sharkey, keeping low behind the car.
“Just a scratch. Get in!”
Austin slipped into the back of the car with Kadyn and his Mom. Sharkey, still gripping his blackened and burned shoulder as he crouched over the steering wheel, closed the door and sped away from the scene.
With his pistol still in hand, Austin turned around to look out the back window. The front of Kadyn’s house burned in the darkness, illuminating the rest of the street in an orange light. Neighbors opened their front doors and stood in the grass, all of them looking at Kadyn’s burning house.
No one followed the car. Well, no one he could see.
“Can they track a shroud?” Austin asked, still focused on their rear.
“It’s possible,” Sharkey grumbled. “We need to get as far away from here as we can.”
“What was that?” he asked. “I’ve never seen a gun like that before.”
“A masker,” Sharkey said through clenched teeth. “It’s like a silencer for a projectile weapon, but it fires the laser without the tracer. Very professional.”
Austin turned around and leaned into his seat. “Oh, that’s just great.”
Kadyn shivered, her pink pajamas wet from the crawl through the grass. She folded her arms in front of her chest.
“Here.” Austin pulled off his Tizona jacket and draped it around her. “This should help. You are in shock.”
She glared at him.
“Ma’am,” Sharkey said with a nod. “The authorities are on their way. We made such a scene back there that our attackers won’t bother your family any more tonight.”
“My attackers?” she breathed before turning to Austin
. “Please, I beg you, tell me what is going on.”
Austin sighed. “It’s a long story.”
“Please.”
He paused. After countless hours in classrooms learning how to never speak about his life on Tarton’s Junction or the Legion, they never prepared him for this. The lessons only covered how to deceive, how to cover it up.
“I would like to know, too,” Mom said.
Austin looked at his Mom. “Thank, God. Are you okay?”
“I have a pounding migraine, but it’s getting better. Your friend’s driving certainly hasn’t helped.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Sharkey said, whipping the car around a corner as he drove into the darkness.
Mom’s jaw dropped. “Wait a minute. I know you. You’re from Austin’s school, aren’t you?”
“Lieutenant,” Sharkey said, his voice grim, “it’s time to invoke Revelation Protocol.”
“Yes, sir.” Austin took a deep breath. “I don’t know how to say this to you both, but my school, well, uh, this is harder than I thought it would be.”
“Say what, honey?” Mom leaned forward slightly. “Please, tell us what’s going on. Are you in danger?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding. “We all are.”
“What?” Kadyn said, her face crumpling as she tried to repress sobbing. She put her hands in front of her mouth.
Mom draped her arm around Kadyn’s shoulder. “It’s okay, honey.”
Austin stared at his friend, seeing the pain in her face. She shouldn’t have had to see this tonight. She shouldn’t have had to see her house burning, feel the worry for her parents. He thought back to Jonathan Nubern in the swamp shack before they took the tube transport to California. Nubern said nothing would ever be the same once they passed through the doors. Austin had heard the words, but the statement fell hollow on his ears until now. After tonight, Mom and Kadyn could never go back.
A shiver shot through his body as a droplet of sweat trickled down his back.
“Okay, look. This is not going to be easy to hear. My school is an academy for the Galactic Legion. Earth is a part of it. I was recruited to pilot fighters for the Legion. I have been trained and have become a Star Runner.”
