by Karen Bao
Her words cause my home base to virtually explode. Disorder isn’t confined to Shelter, the Atrium, and the hallways; it has spread to those departments most controlled by the Committee. In Biology and Medical, workers stand with palms facing outward, fingers pointed to the sides, and thumbs intertwined; their hands form a flock of birds whose feathers span the spectrum of human skin color. In InfoTech, workers seem to be highlighting and deleting gigabytes of data mined over the years from base residents; entire HeRP screens go red. In the middle of their dome, Journalism workers have knocked over shelves containing blue memory chips, which hold records of years and years of news. Then they ignite the towering pile. As the fire spreads, sparks jump between flames.
“Andromeda, all of that”—Nebulus points upward—“only proves that you’re as much of a threat as Phaet Theta, if not more.” He turns to the soldiers lining the walls. “Deposit her in the tank with the other traitors.”
Callisto and seven or eight soldiers from the various bases—other bodyguards, I’m assuming—move forward. But Yinha, Nash, Eri, and two other members of the Base IV entourage rush to stop them. Four more soldiers remain where they are, conflicting emotions on their faces. One, from Base VI, toggles the power switch on his Lazy with a trembling hand—on, off, on, off—and sends a violet laser streaking toward the top of the tank. The glass begins to glow red, but before it can melt, a loyalist soldier takes down our would-be helper.
The water reaches the top of my thighs, and desperation sets in. Even if I have no idea how to get out, the Committee and their guards are distracted enough for me to try. I reach into my left boot with both hands and take out the diamond-bit drill. Bent down, with my eyes just above the waterline, I see the flash of an Electrostun. I study my handcuffs—specifically the bulge between my wrists, which contains the strong electromagnet.
That’s it! Distilled water, electricity, and a long conducting wire. We have everything required to get out of here. My next steps materialize in my mind like mountains appearing through a thinning fog.
I press the drill into Umbriel’s hands.
He frowns. “Phaet, the glass is four centimeters thick! We can’t cut a hole through it in time—”
“Drill through the center of my handcuffs. Right there.”
Without further protest, he gets to work. The drill tunnels through a thin layer of carbon fiber, exposing insulated copper wire coiled around an iron solenoid core.
“Free up one end of the wire. . . . Great. Hand it to me.”
With my teeth, I slough the plastic insulating cover off the wire, and plunge under the water, which almost reaches my chest. Though my handcuffs cause me to fumble, I manage to tie the wire around a metal hook on the floor. I stand at the bottom, take a gulp of air, and bend down toward the metal chair, uncoiling the electromagnet. I slough off more plastic and tie the wire around one of the legs. Under the water pressure, my lungs seem to be sinking lower and lower in my chest, and a lump of pain is assembling in the back of my skull.
My legs flail as I try to gain traction on the tank floor, but my feet slip once, twice.
Big, bony hands grab my waist and boost me up.
I suck in air to the tune of “What the fuse are you doing? Wiring the tank?”
Nodding and gasping from me.
“Did your brain get squashed down there?” Umbriel continues. “If an electrical current hits any of this thing’s metal parts, it’s going to pass through the water and zap us to death! Look, Wolf thinks we’re hilarious!”
The Committee member’s face is all but pressed up against the glass. His prickly eyebrows vibrate with every chuckle; his mouth is open in an eerie expression of amusement. He’d rather watch us struggle than participate in the brawl happening behind him; he’s that confident in the Committee’s power.
When one soldier cocks an Electrostun in Andromeda’s direction, a Base IV soldier I don’t know wallops him in the gut and wrenches the weapon from his hand. Eri and Nash stand back-to-back, picking off their adversaries. Yinha darts in circles around Lazarus, a knife in one hand and a truncheon in the other. “You’re sick! You lying, murdering . . .” He evades her every move with ease, but doesn’t try to hit back. What if someone other than Lazarus attacks her? She’s not paying attention. I have to help—
Worry about yourself first. “Give me a boost, Umbriel.”
He bends down so I can sit on his shoulders, but says, “You’re still trying to wire the tank.”
The water is now a meter and a half deep, but he straightens without much effort.
“This water is just runoff from the air-cooling unit. It evaporated and condensed, which should’ve gotten rid of ions and made it a poor conductor of electricity.” I loop the wire through the rings attached to the steel ceiling. “In normal water, the current passes through dissolved ions, which this water mostly lacks.”
“So what if this leftover water’s a crummy conductor?” Umbriel says. “It’s still a conductor!”
“Everything is, to some degree. If this works, we will be electrocuted. But not so badly that we’ll die.”
“I’ll trust you on this.” He still sounds skeptical. “But only because I’d rather not drown.”
I jump off Umbriel’s shoulders, into the water. It’s up to my neck. Time to complete the circuit. There’s just enough wire left in my handcuffs’ electromagnet to tie around the first metal loop on the floor. Umbriel pulls a dagger from my boot and saws through the wire attached to the electromagnet in my handcuffs.
When I surface and stand on the tank’s floor, the water reaches my eyes. All we need is an electrical current. I jump up, trying to tread water the way Wes showed me, but I stay afloat for only three seconds. On my way back down, I take in a mouthful of water—and swallow it before it goes down my windpipe.
“Up you go, Captain.” Umbriel squats down and boosts me to his shoulders again. He’s twenty centimeters taller than me, so he’ll last longer as the water continues to rise.
I take deep, gasping breaths and survey the scene from my perch. Several bodies lie on the floor. Callisto cowers underneath the Committee table; she looks paralyzed, frozen the way she was on Earth, unable to decide on her next move. Although Lazarus has Yinha in a headlock, she pummels him with her elbows and the soles of her feet, trying to shake him off. Andromeda’s bodyguards are picking at the bonds around Cygnus’s ankles; they’ve already freed his arms. As Nash and Eri maneuver Andromeda toward the doors, which loyalist soldiers have barricaded, Eri fires currents from her Electrostun at the enemy. Did she lose her Lazy? How? The jagged electricity uselessly tickles their ballistic shields and armor.
“Eri!” I scream, forcing as much precious air through my voice box as I can. I make a gun shape with my right hand, pointing upward with my left at the tank’s metal lid.
A horrified look crosses her face. Still, she nods.
I jump back into the water and give her the thumbs-up. Before anyone can knock the Electrostun out of her hand, she takes aim and fires a pellet, crackling with electricity, at the top of the tank.
Just before it hits, Umbriel and I jump.
39
ELECTROCUTION FEELS LIKE A MOONQUAKE ON fast-forward—and then some. Every muscle contracts, causing my body to shake like a leaf in a storm. The water’s too hot, as is the pain, but there’s no escape. Time itself stretches, expanding with the fluid, so I’m able to make infinite wishes for agony to release me before—
The tank explodes. The superheated air below the lid has expanded, blowing it off and cracking the glass walls. Shards fly outward; water gushes into the Committee’s conference room, taking Umbriel and me with it.
I land, belly down. Glass knives slice into my legs. Nothing hurts too badly—yet. My nerves are still recovering their ability to send and receive action potentials.
Decibel by decibel, my hearing returns. Nearby,
Umbriel cradles his crooked left arm and howls in pain. It takes me a minute to register that screams are also coming from the Committee members.
“It’s Wolf!” croaks Janus. “I’m not feeling a pulse. Call a Medic!”
“Not worth our time,” says Hydrus. “He’s dead.”
“Wolf? Dead? No!”
Wolf’s body looks even more angular and twisted in its stillness. Shrapnel from the explosion has mangled the top half of his face but has left his smiling mouth intact. He must have stood by the tank, wearing that grin, until the moment it blew.
Someone pulls me up and drags me toward the exit. My head lolls back; I watch the ceiling screens, the riots and explosions on Bases IV and VI—VI has revolted too?—with an odd feeling of detachment. My legs dangle, limp and useless, unable to support my weight.
“Phaet,” a woman’s voice says in my ear. “It’s Yinha. Now’s our chance to move.”
“Ya . . . ha.” It’s all my numb tongue can manage.
Bodies in various states of consciousness litter the floor. Eri leans against a wall, still gawking at the smoking Electrostun in her hand. Nash is hunkered down in front of her; she picks off the Committee loyalists rushing at them. Wincing, Umbriel tests his left leg to see if it can support his weight—I’m amazed that he’s standing at all. Near me, Cygnus has crawled under the Committee’s table, and Yinha stands vigil over both of us. None of the blurry outlines in my field of vision resembles Lazarus’s lithe form—has he fled the bloodbath?
A few meters to my right, Andromeda is clutching her left leg with one hand. Blood leaks copiously from a recent wound. Still, she hasn’t given up fighting; she drives her other fist downward, into the skull of the soldier who must’ve cut her.
But even as she fends him off, Nebulus’s left hand reaches for her head. His right clutches a Lazy.
“Mom!” Callisto shouts. “Mom!”
As Nebulus’s fingers close around Andromeda’s neck, Callisto emerges from underneath the table and smashes her truncheon against Nebulus’s rib cage. There’s a sickening crunch, and Nebulus collapses; the Lazy slips from his gnarled fingers and clatters to the floor.
Callisto takes advantage of her former comrades’ shock by sprinting to the doors, firing Lazy shots into the face of the soldier standing guard. She holds the doors open and shouts, “Come on! All of you, get over here!”
Nash and Eri shield Andromeda; they lift her off the cluttered ground and half carry, half push her through the exit. Yinha follows, all but carrying me. Andromeda’s two loyal bodyguards, whom I’ve never met, follow us, holding up Umbriel and Cygnus. Callisto fires more shots into the Committee’s boardroom, and then punches the controls to shut the doors.
A shadow about Lazarus’s size and shape has made it to the end of the hallway. Of course he escaped before the real fight started. My legs itch to chase him down; my hands long to throttle him. But before I can get a clearer view, he turns a corner and disappears. I stumble, cursing under my breath.
Alarms are blaring throughout Governance; I hear Militia boots clacking behind us. Where next? Defense’s hangar is across Base I, and the hallways are a congealed mess of people. Our party of ten will never make it.
“Emergency shuttle. Elevator . . . Take two rights and a left.” Andromeda chokes out the words. Nash and Eri tug her forward. A trail of blood from the gash on Andromeda’s shin follows them. So do we.
But after the second right turn, we collide head-on with a five-man Militia squad.
“Injured and non-Militia in the middle!” Yinha shouts. In one motion, she pushes me to safety and back-kicks a private in the belly. Through her visor, I see her grimacing.
I’m an awful soldier, she once said to me. Too soft to kill people.
Our small group clusters around Andromeda, Cygnus, and Umbriel, forming a circle with our backs to the middle. Beside me, Andromeda’s bodyguard stows the Lazy he’s been firing at the oncoming soldiers and feints left to slip behind a soldier’s ballistic shield. He clubs her head with the back of his fist and grabs the shield.
Now that I’m able to move my fingers, I wrap them around my dagger. I make a minor contribution by sticking the blade into the unarmored space between a corporal’s neck and shoulder—just hard enough to bring him to his knees.
“Move out!” Yinha hollers.
Eri moves in beside me, supporting my body weight. She’s even smaller than I am, so our progress is excruciatingly slow. Still, our group manages to advance, abandoning one of Andromeda’s bodyguards. When I look back, he’s a crumpled heap on the ground.
Andromeda presses her fingertip to a sensor, and two pieces of marble wall slide apart to reveal an elevator, obviously intended for the Committee’s emergency use. The footsteps behind us get louder. Yinha, Nash, Callisto, and Andromeda’s remaining bodyguard help Andromeda, Umbriel, and Cygnus into the elevator. They’re packed so close, I doubt both Eri and I will fit. I push Eri in front of me, intending to board last, but she shoves me inside the cylinder ahead of her.
“Dovetail can’t lose you, Phaet!” She squeezes in. We’ve packed the elevator well past its weight limit. “Hurry! Shut the doors!”
The lift begins to close, but the doors pop open again when they meet the resistance of Eri’s left shoulder.
“Fuse!” Nash pushes the button with her fingertips and then punches it with her fist. “Why doesn’t this thing . . .”
The soldiers behind us have caught up. One launches himself at Eri; he jams his dagger between her shoulder and chest armor and drags the blade downward, through skin and ribs and lungs.
Nash screams, her voice the incarnation of anguish. With explosive momentum, she swings her truncheon at the attacker’s helmet. His comrades catch his limp body, pulling him back. His head hangs at the wrong angle from his neck.
We squeeze more tightly to make room for Eri. The doors finally seal shut. I want to look away from Eri before someone confirms what I know—and refuse to believe—but I can’t disrespect my comrade, my friend, in that way.
Nash flips up Eri’s visor. Her tears fall on Eri’s cheeks.
“Nash . . . I couldn’t have asked for a better friend. I love you so much,” Eri whispers. “Tell my parents that . . . that I’m sorry.”
Her eyes find mine; I hold her hand, squeezing it as if I can anchor her to life by willing her to stay.
“Phaet, you were great up there. Save the whole . . . fizzing . . . Moon for me. Okay? And don’t forget . . . Wes—”
She leaves us. All we see are two empty eyes and a smile that’s dying on her mouth.
40
THE ELEVATOR DESCENDS, FILLED WITH SCREAMS and sobs. I watch Eri’s blood pool around my boots. How could someone who was so alive be so dead? And all because a stupid elevator was too small.
Why did Eri even come to Base I? Yinha and Nash and I were more than adequate to defend Andromeda. . . .
Eri came for Dovetail, for a cause she believed in, despite the comfortable life she led under Committee rule. She loved Wes—and she died for what he believed in too: justice, and defending the defenseless.
When we reach the tiny emergency Governance hangar, we leave Eri’s body behind.
It’s a sacrilege. But we are burdened enough without her dead weight.
The eight of us board the Destroyer, which has a seating capacity of five. Callisto and Nash, who don’t even glance at each other, man the wing weaponry. Yinha helps Cygnus into the rear of the cabin, and then she takes the pilot position, her hands trembling. Andromeda pulls a first-aid kit off the wall. Blood loss has blanched her skin. With sluggish hands, she disinfects and binds her leg wound, and then uses tweezers to pull glass shards out of my right calf and thigh, while her remaining bodyguard sees to Umbriel’s broken arm and Cygnus’s old wounds.
The first gate to the air lock begins to close. Other ships sputter
to life around us.
We’re not alone.
“C’mon,” Yinha says, her teeth clenched.
She pushes us toward the exit. The Destroyer clips the ground twice; our right wing collides with another ship’s, and we lose a small cannon. But we make it into the air lock. The second gate is about to shut when the left wing tip operator—Callisto—looses two large grenades. One flies forward in an arc, landing just under the gate’s edge. The other flies backward. As the pilot of our first pursuant ship swerves to avoid it, the ship behind it rams into the right wing.
The grenade explodes. When the gate closes on Callisto’s first grenade, it blows as well. Shrapnel, fire, and smoke fill the air lock. We fly straight through. As the Destroyer is knocked about, Yinha releases the controls, shielding her eyes with her hands.
Several seconds later, the ship hurtles into space and the sun’s vicious radiation. The light seems to prick the back of my eye sockets.
Five two-person Pygmette speeders follow us, their interior compartments sheathed for spaceflight.
“Fuse,” says Yinha. “We’re being swarmed.”
Mouth set grimly, she pushes the Destroyer to its top speed, making narrow turns to shake off our pursuers. But their Pygmettes are a quarter of our size and several times more agile. As we zigzag across the highlands surrounding the Peary Crater, she narrowly avoids clipping the Destroyer’s wings on mountains and rills.
Andromeda’s finger jerks as she applies disinfecting cream to my wounds. “I’m so sorry you found out about your father that way, Phaet. I swear to whatever gods there might be in this universe, I did everything I could to save him—Mira too. But you . . .”
The ship’s belly scrapes the ground, accompanied by the sound of shearing metal.
“Watch it, Yinha!” Nash yells.
“Someone take copilot,” Yinha says. I’ve seen her skillfully steer a Pygmette on a joyride through a clear sky—but this is different. “Or pilot. It’s a grit-storm out here.”
