Haven 6

by Aubrie Dionne

  Lasers pinged through the trees. They ducked, listen­ing to the dir­ec­tion of the fire. Eri whispered, “We’re close.”

  She moved, but Weaver caught her arm. “Don’t go in too fast. They’ll think you’re one of the Law­less.”

  Eri held up her arm, show­ing her loc­ator. “I have this.”

  “What if they don’t see it un­til they’ve shot you dead?”

  “I know my own people. I’ll be care­ful.”

  They inched closer to the laser fire. Weaver real­ized if he wanted to take re­spons­ib­il­ity for some­thing, he should start with Eri. He was the one who’d taken her out here, put­ting her in danger. “Wait. I know a bet­ter way.”

  She creased her eye­brows in sus­pi­cion. “We don’t have much time.”

  “You won’t have any time if you get your­self killed. Now come on.”

  They back­tracked into the forest. He led her up an in­cline to a ridge where the battle sprawled be­low them in all dir­ec­tions.

  The Her­it­age cut into the ground, leav­ing a path of de­struc­tion in its wake. All of the trees a mile around had col­lapsed or burned to ash. The earth steamed, smoke rising in strings to the twi­light sky. Bush fires il­lu­min­ated the clear­ing in a mol­ten red light. Bod­ies lay every­where, bent and curled up, some on their backs star­ing blankly at the sky. Law­less fired at the belly of the ship where mem­bers of the at­tack team pushed to­ward the jungle. To Weaver, it looked like pan­de­monium at the end of the world.

  Eri poin­ted to her people spread­ing in a semi­circle from a ramp con­nec­ted to the ship. “Look! Their uni­forms blend with the fo­liage much bet­ter than mine had, and they’re wear­ing hel­mets and vests that re­pel the ar­rows. Litus ad­vised them well.” Pride filled her voice.

  “Maybe they won’t have such a hard time fight­ing the Law­less?”

  A deeper buzz­ing sound came from the forest and a stream of golden light shot out, spread­ing in all dir­ec­tions as it spiraled through the air. The first row of men spun into particles of swirly light and dis­ap­peared.

  “Holy Refuge.”

  “Jolt.” Eri uttered his name as if the man were an in­ev­it­able evil. She wiped sweat from her fore­head, her jaw tense.

  Just as Jolt’s forces pushed ahead, Guard­i­ans dove through the sky, drop­ping nets to slow them. Weaver clenched his fists as anxi­ety crept up his spine. It wouldn’t be enough. Un­like the Law­less’s usual bows and spears, the lasers could fire through the net­ting, so even if they lay tangled, they could still cause dam­age.

  “We have to help them.” Eri tugged on his sleeve. “Or Jolt will make them all dis­ap­pear.”

  War cries rang out from the east. An­other force emerged from the forest. At first Weaver thought it was more Law­less, then his heart clenched in re­cog­ni­tion. Striver led oth­ers from his vil­lage into the thick of the battle. Carven and Ri­ley fol­lowed him, and be­hind them, Riptide ran with a spear.

  Not her. Any­one but her.

  Weaver leapt up, ad­ren­aline spiral­ing through his limbs. “Let’s go.”

  Eri nod­ded and scrambled to her feet. She whipped out her laser and in­put the code. Her eyes shone with fierce de­term­in­a­tion as the gun buzzed to life. “I’m ready.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Responsibility

  Striver bel­lowed a war cry as he led his team into the pan­de­monium of lasers, ar­rows, and death. Fires crackled around them, cast­ing faces in a hellish glow. The air stank of smoke, scorched leaves, and blood. The soles of his feet burned as he crossed the charred ground to am­bush the Law­less from the side. His heart coiled like a tight fist. This was the end-all to cen­tur­ies of war. Do or die.

  Ash sting­ing his tongue and throat, he turned to Carven and Ri­ley run­ning be­side him. “Take out the Law­less men with the lasers. One by one.”

  Ad­ren­aline surged through his body. He’d waited his en­tire life for this mo­ment, his chance to face the Law­less and en­sure the safety of his vil­lage. They’d had skir­mishes in the past, but this battle en­com­passed the brunt of both their forces. Without the at­tack­ers on the Her­it­age to even out the odds, their dwind­ling army could only hide be­hind their crum­bling wall.

  “Over there!” Riptide poin­ted to a man shoot­ing golden light from a high-tech gun. The front line of col­on­ists dis­ap­peared like dust in the wind. Striver slowed, stretch­ing his arms to hold his army back.

  “Holy Refuge!” Carven wiped his fore­head. “The men. They’re gone.”

  Eri had warned them. Still, see­ing men re­duced to thin air stole his breath away. Striver turned to Carven. “Can we beat this?”

  “We have to.” Carven tightened his fin­gers around his bow.

  Striver scanned the bat­tle­field. “Not from a dir­ect as­sault. We’ll have to break into teams and dis­tract them.”

  Carven nod­ded. “Ri­ley and I will sneak up from the back and clear you a path. We’ll meet in the cen­ter.”

  Striver put a hand on Carven’s shoulder. “Be care­ful.”

  “It’s not me you need to worry about.” Carven winked and took off into the forest.

  Ri­ley nod­ded at Striver. At least they were civil enough to fight to­gether. “Look after my sis­ter.”

  “I will.” Striver checked the rest of his team. Litus and Mars ran down by the ramp, re­join­ing their team. Hope­fully they could merge their forces in the middle. Fight­ers from his vil­lage waited on his com­mand. They’d fol­low him to the end of Refuge, if they weren’t already there.

  “I’m go­ing to take him down.” Riptide tightened her grip on her spear.

  “Wait for the group,” Striver shouted, but Riptide had already run out of earshot. Dam­mit!

  He circled past a clump of Law­less re­leas­ing ar­rows at the ship’s hull. The Law­less on the edge of the fight turned in their dir­ec­tion and shouted warn­ing cries to their friends.

  That’s it. We’ve been spot­ted.

  Was it enough of a head start to get close to the men with lasers? It has to be.

  Ar­rows whizzed by Striver’s head, and he ducked as he ran. He had to reach Riptide in time to cover her as­sault. Carven and Ri­ley had dis­ap­peared in the chaos.

  A man with a green-painted face and leaves threaded through his hair jumped in Riptide’s path. He bran­dished his flint blade and grinned, ex­pos­ing yel­low teeth. As he ran at her, Riptide brought her arm back and threw her spear. The weapon sailed in an arc and landed in the man’s chest. He crumpled to the ground face-first. More Law­less sur­roun­ded her, block­ing her path from the tar­geted gun.

  Striver raised his bow and sent twin sail­ing ar­rows in two dif­fer­ent dir­ec­tions. Two at­tack­ers fell be­fore reach­ing Riptide, giv­ing her time to re­claim her spear. A third man threw a blade at her throat. She ducked and lunged with her spear as Striver reached for an­other ar­row.

  Riptide was too close to the Law­less man, giv­ing Striver no choice but to put his bow down. He sprin­ted for­ward, hop­ing to reach her be­fore more Law­less crowded around them. Heart pump­ing on over­drive, he watched the man grip her spear and try to yank it from her hands. Riptide screamed, pulling the spear to­ward her chest. Still grip­ping the spear, the man pushed her back.

  “Riptide!” Striver threw him­self for­ward through ash and em­bers. “I’m com­ing!”

  The at­tacker tossed Riptide into a stand of ferns that had some­how sur­vived the crash. He jumped in after her. All Striver could see was the palms shak­ing as they moved.

  Striver leapt over a dead col­on­ist’s body and slid down an in­cline. Weaver would never for­give me. Some­how, even though his brother had be­trayed him and stolen his own love, he still couldn’t bear to fail him.

  When he reached them, the man lay on top of Riptide, life­less. Shock stung Striver’s gut. Had they killed each other? />
  He pulled the body off her. Riptide opened her eyes and grinned. She held her cook­ing knife, the end blood­ied.

  “I don’t think he’ll go with your fam­ous boar roast stew.” Striver offered his hand and she gripped it. He pulled her up.

  She smiled, and her white teeth shone wild in the fire­light. “I guess I’ll have to keep look­ing, then.”

  Carven and Ri­ley had cleared a path to one of the Law­less men equipped with a laser gun. Striver re­trieved his bow and nod­ded at Riptide and they ran to­ward the gun be­fore the Law­less man turned the bar­rel on them.

  A wo­man clothed in leaves turned, eyes widen­ing. “Techno hoarders! Take them out!”

  The man with the laser gun quirked his head and whirled in their dir­ec­tion, vines fly­ing around him as his dis­guise came apart.

  “We’re not go­ing to make it!” Riptide shrieked as she ran.

  “Oh, yes we are.” Striver still had the ar­row he’d drawn be­fore. He slid to a halt and brought up his bow. As the bar­rel of the laser zer­oed in, he fo­cused on the hand at­tached to the trig­ger.

  One shot, that’s all I need.

  Tak­ing a deep breath, Striver re­leased the ar­row, and it soared across the bat­tle­field, sever­ing the man’s fin­ger when it reached its tar­get. He screamed, drop­ping the laser. Golden light shot into the sky, dis­sip­at­ing as the laser hit the ground.

  Riptide had reached throw­ing dis­tance of her spear. Not wast­ing a second, she pulled her arm back, muscles bunch­ing, and let the weapon sail. The shaft pierced through the Law­less man’s neck, and he went down, hold­ing his own blood in his hands.

  Carven and Ri­ley reached the gun and dis­abled it, pulling the en­ergy cell from the back and empty­ing the golden li­quid un­til it seeped into the earth. Striver breathed a sigh of re­lief, but his re­prise was short lived.

  One down, nine­teen more to go.

  …

  Eri fol­lowed Weaver, scru­tin­iz­ing every step he took with a skep­tical eye. Deep down in the secret re­cesses of his heart, he had some amount of good, yet she still doubted his shifty in­ten­tions. Why would he help her after throw­ing her to the Law­less like he didn’t care whether she lived or died?

  Un­less she had some­thing he wanted.

  The ship. Of course. He wants ac­cess to the ship.

  The sick­en­ing truth soured her stom­ach. If it came down to it, she’d be forced to fight him. No way could he gain con­trol of the Her­it­age. She bit her lip, hop­ing that time would never come. For now, he was the only ally she had by her side.

  They emerged on the south­ern side of the battle, just un­der­neath the Her­it­age’s right wing. Eri and Weaver snuck un­der­neath the metal­lic frame, hid­ing in its shadow. Eri ran her fin­gers over the metal. She’d lived her whole life in­side that frame. Al­though the ship took up a large patch of what had been dense jungle, it looked in­sig­ni­fic­ant com­pared to the wild world of Haven 6.

  Laser fire pinged around them and they ducked in­stinct­ively, al­though no one fired at them. Yet. The one thing the col­on­ists had in their fa­vor was the Law­less’s in­ex­per­i­ence with lasers. Their aim was as good as their man­ners.

  “Over there.” Eri poin­ted to the ramp. “I need to enter the ship through that hatch.” She had to slip through the guards and con­front the com­mander—alone.

  “All right, all right. I’m think­ing.” Weaver rubbed his chin, eyes skit­ter­ing across the bat­tle­field.

  Eri tried to fol­low his gaze, but the chaos was thick and ever chan­ging. What’s he look­ing for?

  Jolt and his team of laser-wield­ing Law­less had pushed ahead, meters from the ramp. Eri coun­ted el­even lasers be­sides Jolt’s. Pride swelled in her chest. Striver and his group must have taken some of them down.

  Col­on­ists fired lasers from in­side the ship. If Jolt reached the ramp, they wouldn’t be safe for long.

  “We have to dis­tract Jolt.” Eri shook her head. “If he sees me run for the ship, he’ll fire.”

  “Look! There’s Striver.” Weaver poin­ted to the far side of the battle, where Striver and a team from his vil­lage picked off the laser-wield­ing men from the back.

  Re­lief coursed through her. Striver was still alive and fight­ing, but he had no chance against the com­mander’s blind rage. She had to reach her, stop her from giv­ing the Delta Slip or­der. “We can’t wait for them. We won’t make it in time. Once Jolt gets to the ship, he’ll be un­stop­pable.” Eri sud­denly felt pro­tect­ive. Aquaria is in there.

  “What do you want me to do? I have no weapons be­sides my bow.”

  Eri shrugged. She wasn’t about to hand over her only laser. “If we don’t do some­thing now, the battle is lost.”

  “Doesn’t your ship have more fire­power?”

  “Like I said be­fore, it’s a colony ship, not a galactic battle cruiser. We didn’t come to fight a war.”

  Weaver spread his hands out over the bat­tle­field. “Could have fooled me.”

  Eri pulled on her hair. They were wast­ing time bick­er­ing like chil­dren. She moved out of the shad­ows. “I’m go­ing by my­self. You don’t have to help me.” She checked her laser, mak­ing sure the weapon buzzed with a charge.

  “Yes, I do,” Weaver stated coolly, ad­just­ing the bow on his back and pulling out a hand­ful of ar­rows.

  “What?” Eri choked like she’d swal­lowed a bug. That was the last thing she ex­pec­ted form his mouth. “Why?”

  “I can’t stand see­ing Riptide and Striver out there, sac­ri­fi­cing their lives. This is all my fault. I figured out the code to those weapons, I un­leashed the golden pool’s power. I owe it to you, to Striver, and to every damned per­son in that vil­lage I be­trayed.”

  He pulled out the longest ar­row from the bunch and smoothed the feath­ers in the back. Eri could only stare. She’d never seen his eyes like this, deep and full of emo­tion, re­morse.

  He gave her a soul­ful glance. “Tell Striver I’m sorry.”

  A blast hit the hull above them and sparks rained down. Eri covered her head to keep her hair from light­ing on fire. When she looked up again, she stood alone.

  Weaver ran into the thick of battle, head­ing straight for Jolt.

  She covered her mouth with her hand, fin­gers dig­ging into her cheek. It’s a death mis­sion.

  Law­less swarmed him like flies on a piece of meat. He de­flec­ted the first couple with ar­rows, but as he ran closer, he had to bludgeon them with his bow. The bow­strings snapped as he whipped the weapon into a man’s neck. An­other ran at him from the other side hold­ing an ob­sidian blade. Weaver raised his bow against the man’s arm and the wood cracked in two.

  Eri snapped out of her trance. Weaver was do­ing this for her. This was her di­ver­sion.

  Get mov­ing!

  She sprin­ted around the main con­flict and ran to­ward the ramp. Col­on­ists raised their lasers as she ap­proached. “Erid­ani Smith: Lifer 39723. Don’t shoot.” She held up her arm with the loc­ator, shin­ing the fluor­es­cent green light. Per­sonal body en­er­gies and heart rhythms con­trolled each loc­ator. If her loc­ator shined, then she was the real deal.

  The col­on­ists held their fire. A man Eri had seen be­fore at Aquaria’s pair­ing ce­re­mony stepped for­ward. “We have or­ders to take you back to the ship.”

  “I know. I can go by my­self.” Eri pushed through the front line be­fore he could ar­gue. The last thing she needed was an es­cort to keep her from vis­it­ing the com­mander.

  She climbed the ramp, but a gut-twist­ing feel­ing turned her around be­fore she reached the hatch.

  Weaver brought up his ruined bow and hit Jolt’s arm as the man fired at an­other bunch of col­on­ists. The golden light sprawled into the night sky, but Jolt didn’t lose hold of the gun. He re­covered quickly, turn­ing in Weaver’s dir­ec­tion.

&nb
sp; “Weaver, no!” Eri screamed her lungs raw, but no one could hear her over the din of shouts and lasers.

  Jolt’s face twis­ted into rage as he mouthed Weaver’s name, spittle fly­ing. He brought his laser up, spray­ing golden light in an arc. The trail took out every­one around him, in­clud­ing Crusty and oth­ers in his Law­less army. Weaver ducked and rolled, and the light skimmed the hairs on his head be­fore swirl­ing away. Bare land sur­roun­ded him as every­one within a meter of Jolt dis­ap­peared. Weaver scrambled up and launched him­self in Jolt’s dir­ec­tion.

  Eri froze, para­lyzed. I wish I’d given him my gun.

  With Weaver’s bow broken, run­ning at Jolt was his only chance, but he’d rolled farther away to avoid the golden light. Jolt glanced in Weaver’s dir­ec­tion as his arm moved to fire the gun again.

  No one could run that fast. Her whole body shook with the truth.

  He’s not go­ing to make it.

  Chapter Thirty

  Vengeance

  Jolt squeezed the trig­ger. Striver had to shoot now. He brought the ar­row back so far some of the reeds broke, aimed the tip up, and re­leased it within half a second. The shaft glided through the air. The speed was fast, and the arc was high, but not high enough. The ar­row landed half a meter from Jolt’s feet.

  “Noooooo!” Striver bel­lowed as the light en­com­passed Weaver. His brother’s face glowed like some golden god be­fore he blurred into swirl­ing particles and dis­ap­peared.

  Striver’s world shattered.

  He col­lapsed to the ground with the battle still ra­ging on all sides. His heart fol­ded in on it­self, so tightly he couldn’t breathe. He’d failed his brother for the last time.

  Shock in­ca­pa­cit­ated him as ash rained from the sky, blur­ring his eyes. In a world of heat and flame, Striver thought of the river’s icy touch when he’d found his brother’s hand. He’d pulled him up through the cur­rent. He’d saved him. This time he was too late.

  Weaver’s words rushed back at him like knives in his throat: You can’t make the world per­fect.