A Hero for WondLa

by Tony DiTerlizzi

  A second airship rammed the first, sending it sideways into one of the docked warships. The battered Bijou swung around toward Eva, deflecting a flurry of SHOCdarts from below. The entry ramp lowered and Rovender Kitt stood there, holding out his hand. “Jump!” he cried.

  Eva hurled her body toward the ship. She flopped onto the ramp hard, knocking the wind out of herself.

  “Go! Go! GO!” Rovender yelled.

  The ship jolted forward at amazing speed, sending Eva tumbling backward over the edge of the ramp. She grasped the ramp’s edge tightly as her body dangled below. SHOCdarts fired up all around her from the authoritons down on the ground. Rovender flopped down next to the edge and seized Eva. He pulled her up and into the Bijou as the ship rocketed through the closing hangar doors.

  Bright sunlight beamed into the cockpit window as the airship zoomed upward toward the cloud cover.

  “Is she okay, Rovender?” Hailey turned from the controls, which included a diagnostic diagram of the ship, as the Bijou flew into billowy dense clouds.

  Eva rushed up and punched the pilot in the shoulder as hard as she could.

  “Agh! What the? Again with the hitting?” Hailey spun around and held his hands up in defense.

  “That’s for selling us off for parts. I could have died back there, you jerk! We all could have!” Eva spat. “Why didn’t you tell us the truth?”

  “I told you I was sorry.” Hailey grabbed the controls while the ship rumbled through some turbulence. “Look, they almost lobotomized me, too. I didn’t know what they were doing. You guys wanted to go to the city. I took you. It’s as simple as that.”

  “But you left me there, alone. I thought we were friends.”

  “Friends?” Hailey put the ship on automatic pilot and turned from the controls toward Eva. “What did you want me to do? Hold your hand through all of New Attica?”

  Eva clenched her fist, ready to strike again.

  “It is okay, Eva. You are safe now.” Rovender put his arm around her. “We all are.”

  “Look, I wanted to help Vanpa and his friends. They’re like family to me. I’d do anything for them. I wanted to change my life. Cadmus said he could help.” The pilot spoke softly. “It all happened so fast that I just didn’t think it all through. Especially how it would affect you or Rovender . . . I didn’t think at all.”

  Eva relaxed her fist, remaining quiet. The truth was she understood Hailey’s motivation. But Eva had been so eager to get into the city that she had disregarded the pilot’s odd behavior and the warning that Van Turner had given. Don’t let ’em rewire all your thinking.

  “Nine, I’m sorry you had to learn the truth the hard way, but I wouldn’t have found you if you hadn’t come.” Eva Eight stroked Eva’s hair.

  “And who would have rescued ol’ Huxie? Not blue here. He was bottled up like me,” Huxley added with a grin.

  “You’re . . . right,” Eva said. Her bright green eyes pierced Hailey.

  “Are we all good now, Eva? Just tell me where you guys need to go, and I’ll take you there,” the pilot said.

  “We need to get to Solas immediately and warn the queen,” said Huxley.

  “No,” Eva said. “We need to head to Lacus. That’s where they are planning to attack first.”

  “Lacus?” Rovender’s face was one of confusion. “Why?”

  “They need Arius, the soothsayer, for some reason,” said Eva. “There was another like her and Zin working with Cadmus.” Eva wondered if Arius could see her own future. Zin had said his other sister was dead. Was there another like them on Orbona?

  “Where is Lacus? What will we do when we get there?” Eva Eight asked.

  “Hostia . . . Fiscian . . . Zoozi,” Rovender whispered.

  “It’s a little fishing colony,” Huxley said. “They’ve no arsenal there, little bayrie. We’d be better off going to Solas to let the queen handle this.”

  “No. Lacus first,” Eva said. “We need to warn the Halcyonus and Arius.”

  “Okay. Lacus it is,” Hailey said. “Someone just tell me how to get there.”

  “Head toward the big lake east of the green spot, hero,” Huxley said. “And I’ll guide you from there.”

  CHAPTER 22: GIFT

  I’m still not sure why Cadmus would want to visit the soothsayer before he invades Solas,” Rovender said. He was helping Nadeau into a cot on the cabin deck of the ship.

  “Perhaps to find out the future? To see if he will successfully take over?” Eva said. She handed a bottle of water to her sister sitting next to her on the opposite bunk.

  “But why? What have any of the ‘newcomers’ done to his people?” Rovender said. “Look at what he does to us. What he does to his own kind.”

  “I don’t know why, Rovee.” Eva put her head in her hands. “But even his fortune-telling machine showed me a vision—”

  “Of a human city set next to a large lake.” Eva Eight finished the thought. “Every citizen of New Attica has seen that vision since they were children. That’s how he’s preparing his people to support his actions. They are accustomed to it already and don’t even know it.”

  “But a city by a lake,” Huxley said. “It could be anywhere. We’ve encountered a number of lovely lakes while charting the terrain as the Royal Beamguide crew. There are many that look just like Lake Concors.”

  “No.” Eva looked up at Huxley. “It was Solas. I know that lake . . . and Queen Ojo’s castle was sitting at the bottom of it.”

  “Well, he could certainly expand his little kingdom if he had plenty of fresh water and fertile land. The desert he’s in now has him confined for sure,” Eight said.

  “Agreed,” Rovender said. “I don’t know how Hailey’s people have survived so long on the outside.”

  Eva remembered Cadmus’s words. It pains me to see my people be forced to remain in this small space unable to enjoy our Earth’s many splendors. But all of this will soon be remedied.

  “That’s it!” Eva sat up as she put the pieces together. “Huxley, you said there was a machine that created the green spot.”

  “That’s right, the Vitae Virus generator,” Huxley said.

  “If Cadmus were to get his hands on that . . . ,” Eva said.

  “Then he’d control the natural resources,” said Rovender.

  “Well, he isn’t going to find it in Solas, I’ll tell you that much!” Huxley rose to his full height. “And why would Queenie hand it over to him anyway?”

  “She won’t,” Eva said. “He’ll just take it.”

  “And enslave us,” Nadeau whispered.

  “And us, too,” Eva Eight added.

  Everyone was quiet for a moment. Eva listened to Nadeau’s shallow breathing in the cot opposite her. How could Cadmus do this? She looked at the Cærulean. The Cadmus that created the Tech that brought me into the world can’t be the same Cadmus who’s in charge now. Do people change when they get older? Will I change when I am older? I don’t want to. The more Eva thought about it, the more confused she became. She felt dizzy.

  “I’ve got to get some more water.” She went down to the galley. Eva was filling her bottle from the ship’s dispenser when the cockpit door slid open. Hailey walked into the galley.

  “Eva—,” he started.

  “Don’t.” She cut him off. “The only reason you are even here is because you are the only one who can fly this ship.”

  “I know you’re upset, but . . . well . . . It’s hard to explain.” Hailey let out a frustrated sigh. “Have you ever felt trapped? Like you couldn’t escape your reality no matter how hard you tried?”

  Eva snorted. “Try growing up in an underground bunker for twelve years. That’s all I thought about.”

  Rovender entered the galley. “Nadeau needs more water.”

  “Wait, Rovee . . . Rovender,” Hailey said, pulling something from his pocket. “I wanted to give you guys these.” He handed him the blue painted decal from the nose of the ship. To Eva he gave the unpainted cutout
of the human. “I wanted to be a retriever, just like my dad. But you both are more than stickers, and I know my dad would never have delivered his passengers to a dangerous place.”

  Rovender gave his decal to Eva and took the water bottle from her. Without a word he returned to the cabin.

  “I trusted you.” Eva looked Hailey in the eyes. “I will never trust you again.” She placed the decals on the table.

  Hailey looked more struck by Eva’s words than by the punches she had given him. “Fair enough,” he whispered, and returned to the cockpit.

  Eva tried to rest in her bunk, but her mind could not stop replaying the events from the past couple of days. She could not stop thinking about the possible outbreak of war between the humans and the aliens.

  Suddenly the Bijou pitched sharply. Everyone tumbled to one side of the cabin.

  “What was that?” Eva asked. A look of alarm drew over her face.

  There was a rumble from somewhere deep within the ship, and the craft rolled steeply in the opposite direction. A sharp pelting sound pummeled at the roof of the cabin. The door console exploded in a spray of sparks, sending everyone for cover.

  “Are we under fire?” Huxley asked, crawling out from under a cot.

  “Eva! Rovender! Get down here!” Hailey’s voice crackled over the intercom. “We’ve got trouble.”

  The group scrambled into the cockpit. Eva held on to the doorway as the ship shuddered and swayed. A dark ominous cloud filled the cockpit windshield, giving the impression of night.

  “A storm?” Eight asked.

  “No,” Hailey replied. “Worse.”

  From within the cloud a spray of bullets fired toward the cockpit.

  “Hold on!” Hailey said, and pushed the ship into a steep dive. Eva could feel her stomach rise into her throat as the gray landscape below drew closer and closer. Hailey leveled the ship and then veered it sharply to the starboard side.

  “Look!” Eight pointed above them.

  The dark cloud was not a storm at all but a monstrous airship. An airship outfitted for war.

  “Cadmus,” Eva whispered.

  “Yeah,” Hailey replied. “I didn’t think any of those ships back at the hangar could catch us, but he may have had a few deployed already.”

  “A few?” Huxley asked in a surprised tone.

  “Yup.” Hailey pointed to a radar image on his instrument panel. Several large dots pulsed in a cluster closing in on the Bijou. Bullets rained down on the hull of the ship, cracking the windshield. “This is not good,” said the pilot.

  Eva felt numb. Cold. Useless. From the window of a ship that she couldn’t fly, she watched her pursuers close in. At least with Besteel she’d been on the ground. “Can’t you get us out of here?” she asked.

  “I’m trying!” Hailey gritted his teeth and sent the Bijou into an impossible climb straight for the clouds.

  “They’re gaining on us!” Eight said, clutching the back of the pilot’s chair.

  “This is a compact transcarrier.” Hailey rolled the ship to avoid more fire. “It’s not designed for this sort of flying.”

  “We have to get onto the ground!” Eva fought to stand while gravity tugged at her.

  “We’re flying over the Northern Wastelands, by the looks of it,” Huxley said, grabbing on to the cockpit walls as the ship banked hard. “If we land here, we’ll be sitting turnfins for sure.”

  A loud BOOM erupted from the side of the ship, and alarms pinged on the cockpit dash. The Bijou began to spin madly, out of control, and the passengers tumbled to the floor of the cockpit. Eva’s head swam as the spinning became faster and faster. Eva Eight’s hand clutched Eva’s tightly.

  This is it, Eva thought. We are going to crash and I am going to die.

  Muthr.

  The ship came out of the spin and hit the ground, then blasted over a valley of sand and rock before returning to the sky. Eva wiped her face, but her clammy shaking hands did little to dry the perspiration that coated her. Nausea crept up her throat and tried to squirm its way out.

  “They foam-bombed the topside hover-thrusters near the stern,” Hailey said.

  “You’ve lost thirty percent maneuverability,” the dashboard reported in a calm tone.

  “Can we clear the thrusters somehow?” Huxley asked.

  “Not without docking, no,” Hailey replied, looking up. The shadow of a warship engulfed them. “They are trying to force us to land. Grab on to something!”

  The Bijou tore away from its current course and came up the side from under the gigantic warship. Bullets battered its hull as Hailey pushed the ship to its limits. Once more he steered it upward toward the clouds.

  Eva glimpsed a large bay door opening on the warship. “What is that?” She pointed at a trio of cones rising out of the hatch.

  “I don’t know,” Hailey said, struggling with the controls. “Missiles of some kind.”

  “My guess is they’re trackers that home in on our heat signature,” said Huxley, grim. “They’re done messing around.”

  “They will take out our engines,” added Hailey.

  “Not if I can help it.” Huxley jumped to the ladder that led down into the cargo hold. “Come on, little bayrie,” he called up. “I’ll need a hand.”

  “What are we doing?” Eva asked as she climbed down.

  Huxley unstrapped Besteel’s glider from its mount in the hold. With ease he lifted the glider and set it on the entry ramp.

  “Get that ramp open. And quick!” Huxley hopped onto the glider and fired up the engines.

  “What are you going to do?” Eva asked. Anxiety trembled through her.

  “I’m gonna draw those missiles away from the ship.”

  “No!”

  “Aw, don’t you worry about ol’ Huxie.” He smiled at her. “I’ve gotten out of worse scrapes.”

  “We’ve got trackers!” Hailey called over the intercom. “Whatever you’re gonna do, do it quick!”

  “Open it!” Huxley said.

  Eva activated the ramp. Her ears popped as the air was sucked from the hold. Outside, three fiery stars approached from below.

  “I wonder,” said Huxley, “do you think ol’ Queenie will have songs written about my bravery?”

  Eva didn’t know what to say. She rushed up and hugged the alien.

  “Don’t change,” Huxley said with a smile, and rocketed out of the Bijou toward the missiles. As he neared them, he twirled the glider and dropped down. The missiles changed their course and followed him.

  As the ramp closed, Eva could see the glider heading straight toward the warship.

  Straight toward its engines.

  Eva wiped her eyes with her sleeve as the warship exploded.

  Good-bye, Huxley.

  A blue hand patted Eva’s shoulder. “Come on,” Rovender said in a soft voice. “We’ve got to go.”

  As they climbed up to the cockpit, Eva could see that they were once more in the cover of the clouds. In the cockpit Hailey tapped a few buttons on the dash and took Eva by the hand. “Okay. Let’s move!”

  “Where is everyone?” Eva asked, following the pilot up to the cabin level. More bullets peppered the ship below them.

  Hailey led Eva and Rovender to the back of the crew’s quarters to where a portal was now open. Inside a cramped life capsule sat Eva Eight and Nadeau. Rovender climbed in and joined them. “Get in. Hurry!” Hailey pushed Eva inside. “There is a week’s worth of water and enough pills to last a month.”

  Eva sat down and strapped herself in. She realized there was no more room inside the tiny capsule. “Wait!” Eva said. “Hailey, where are you going to sit?” The Bijou trembled, and an alarm rang throughout the cabin.

  Hailey remained on his ship and punched a code on a keypad. A timer in the capsule began to count down.

  “Get in, Hailey!” Eva said. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m giving you your birthday present,” he said with a forced smile. The airlock slid shut, and the life caps
ule jettisoned away from the Bijou.

  Eva Nine pressed against the small portal as the capsule plummeted toward the ground below. Far above, the Bijou, now smoking from its sides, emerged from the clouds and flew away in the opposite direction. Behind it two massive warships gave chase.

  Small hover-thrusters on the capsule fired, slowing the descent.

  “I can’t believe he did that,” Eva Eight whispered.

  Eva watched as the airship and its pilot disappeared on the horizon. “I will still never trust you, Hailey Turner,” she said.

  “I think we can from now on,” Rovender replied. In a cloud of dust the life capsule touched down on the sandy plain below.

  End of

  PART II

  PART III

  CHAPTER 23: CLAN

  Eva Nine kicked open the hatch of the life capsule. She stepped out onto a vast dusty plain and helped everyone debark.

  “Are you okay?” Rovender asked, supporting Nadeau.

  Eva stared up at the hazy sky. Where the Bijou had once been, there was now only smoke and vapor trails crisscrossing the low clouds. “Yeah,” she said. “I’ll be okay.”

  “Good. Now we must hurry,” Rovender said. Eva could hear Nadeau’s shallow rasping breath as he clutched Rovender tightly. Together the two Cæruleans staggered away from the capsule. “We are out in the open, and you know what that means, Eva Nine,” Rovender said over his shoulder.

  “Sand-snipers,” said Eva, pulling out a bag of supplies.

  “Sand-snipe? What’s a sand-snipe?” Eight asked, grabbing a first aid kit.

  “You don’t want to find out,” replied Eva. “So the sooner we get out of here, the better.” She rummaged through loose supplies that had spilled out onto the floor of the life capsule. She threw everything she could grab into the supply bag.

  “There are no Omnipods. That’s just great!” Eight exclaimed.

  “We don’t need one,” Eva said as she strapped the supply bag onto her shoulders. “Come on. Let’s go.”