The Covert Academy

by Peter Laurent

  Joshua wanted to call out to warn them, but they were too far away. They had done exactly as he had back in the Colonnade. The drudge’s death throes flung them to the ground. With the motor controls for its legs severed, it buckled under its own weight and collapsed on top of the two brave students, crushing them instantly.

  Joshua winced. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. It was surreal. Similar stories played out everywhere around him. For every drudge taken down by a team of students, or a drone that soaked up ammo from the AA guns, the Academy lost twice their number.

  They would be destroyed no matter what they did.

  Joshua’s ragged teammates lay on the beach next to the crashed dropship. They were exhausted and panting hard.

  Will watched the dropship slowly sink further into the water. He slapped his forehead. ‘The bio-ID computer!’ he realised. Without waiting for orders, he clambered back up the dropship to the open entrance.

  With cries of alarm, Elayne and Kayla scrambled after him.

  ‘Hey!’ Joshua called. ‘You’ll need this!’ He lobbed his knife up to Will, who snatched it out of the air and dived into the dropship.

  Joshua was about to join them, but when he turned to Sarah he saw a faraway look on her face. She was scanning for something with her iPC zoomed out to maximum. She snapped back to the present in a flash.

  ‘Casey is being overrun. He’s in the middle of the lagoon,’ she said.

  ‘He’s got the General’s iPC!’ Joshua yelped in alarm. ‘It’s our only chance to find the High Council members.’

  Joshua dashed across the same beach he had arrived at all those months ago. He reached the small hill where Casey had first introduced him to the Academy. The lagoon was almost full. Tiny islands of coral peeked over the surface of the water.

  Casey stood on a tight cluster of coral at the foot of the crashed plane that represented the Tower. He guarded the entrance of the Academy alone while his beloved students fought and died around the island.

  But Casey wasn’t entirely alone. From the hill, Joshua caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye. The orange light of the setting sun bounced erratically off an actively camouflaged suit as it brushed aside the foliage from one side of the lagoon. Then another from a different side. And another. They kept coming until Joshua could see seven ghostly predators advancing on Casey’s position.

  No Academy student would sneak up on him like that.

  They were Fletchers.

  Sarah made it to Joshua’s side on the hill just as the fight began. Joshua couldn’t keep track of where all the Fletchers were without an iPC, but Sarah had the advantage of seeing faint thermal images, even though the Fletchers did their best to mask the signature.

  Casey had the same advantage, but Joshua suspected he didn’t need it. If he thought Sarah was a blur of lethal motion when her blood was pumping, Casey was in a league of his own. He had nothing but his own two fists with a pair of wrist-guards, but he wielded them as gracefully as a master swordsman, and as brutally powerful as an elephant. An elephant on steroids, with a battle-rage flowing through its veins.

  Casey unleashed his talent in a whirlwind of destruction. Four of the Fletchers had leap frogged across the tops of the coral, approaching cautiously with the deadly Stunner-sword hybrids Lucia had fashioned for her troops.

  While the four lead Fletchers advanced, the three remaining attackers hung back on the bank of the lagoon. They hefted crossbows and peppered Casey with arrow fire. Their jumpsuits’ strength enabled them to reload the deadly crossbows in seconds.

  Casey deflected the shots that came close with his wrist-guards, in a flurry of motion. None of them struck home, but every arrow erupted in a searing flame around him on the coral, or else splashed harmlessly into the water.

  The three crossbowmen never relented, even when their comrades came within striking range. Arrows soared all around and fire erupted over the coral.

  Casey thrust an arm in an abrupt uppercut, connecting with the closest Fletcher’s chin. His head snapped sickeningly.

  Casey then spun around on his heel and swung his other arm into the next Fletcher. This one had an extra millisecond to react, and managed to bring his hybrid-sword up in time, parrying Casey’s blow. The force still knocked the Fletcher off his feet, and he sprawled onto a neighbouring coral platform, dazed.

  The other two hung slightly back from their fallen comrades and tried to aim their short-range weapons at Casey. He was moving too fast for them.

  The three Fletchers on the bank of the lagoon kept up their fire on the ruckus. One of their napalm-tipped arrows caught Casey in the knee, burning through the jumpsuit and into his flesh. Casey merely grunted in disapproval. He dived into the water to snuff out the volatile fire, dragging the two closest Fletchers under the surface with him.

  Whoa, Joshua thought, dropping his jaw. He just doesn’t quit.

  ‘Whoa,’ Sarah marvelled aloud. ‘Come on, let’s take those archers out.’

  Joshua nodded. The Fletchers were all concentrating on Casey. They hadn’t noticed him and Sarah standing on the hill. ‘Together this time,’ Joshua said.

  As one, he and Sarah engaged their active camo and ran down the hill while the battle raged all around them.

  They crept swiftly through the undergrowth. They were barely twenty metres from the crossbow-wielding Fletchers’ location. Joshua crouched next to Sarah, and could see flashes of her flesh through the tears in her battered jumpsuit.

  ‘Crap. Hold up, I can see you,’ he said.

  Sarah turned back to him. ‘Yeah, you too.’

  Joshua looked through the brush to the Fletchers. They had their backs to each other to avoid blind spots while they scanned the lagoon for any sign of Casey.

  How long could that man hold his breath? ‘We’ll have to rush them,’ he said.

  Sarah took a deep breath and held it. She looked like she needed to say something, but didn’t quite know the words.

  ‘That’s your plan?’ she managed.

  Joshua stared. He opened his mouth. He thought about what to say. He wanted to thank Sarah for rescuing him, giving him a home to fight for. He wanted to break down into tears over Lucia’s betrayal. He wanted to curl up in Sarah’s arms and forget about how much everyone had come to rely on him.

  Sarah stared back, understanding in her eyes.

  ‘My plan is to live. With you by my side,’ he said.

  Sarah smiled widely. ‘Always.’

  Joshua suddenly wanted to kick some Fletcher ass.

  They stood up together. Sarah drew her sword. Joshua looked about, he had lost his weapon back on the dropship and Will had his knife. ‘Okay,’ he said with a cheeky grin, as he positioned himself behind Sarah. ‘You go first.’

  They ran at the Fletchers with a roar.

  The crossbowmen looked up in alarm. But not at Joshua and Sarah.

  An almighty rumble reverberated throughout the island. Simeon’s behemoth of a ship broke down through the atmosphere at a speed that eclipsed even the Academy’s transports.

  He was headed straight for the lagoon.

  Chapter 38

  Simeon stood at the bridge of his transport, hands behind his back.

  His minions ran to and fro in the background, rushing to keep the ship under control after the extended overdrive burn to get to Wake Island so fast. They did their best to avoid his gaze. Their master had made a mistake in controlling his invasion by remote, and they bore the brunt of his displeasure.

  Once they were through the Academy’s blackout barrier, the view of the battle came back on Simeon’s screen.

  He smiled. Time to send out his precious drones.

  Simeon pulled his hands up like a puppeteer or an orchestra conductor beginning a show, as he assumed direct control of the drones on his ship. No Fletcher had tampered with these, they were fully loaded for destruction. Simeon had levelled cities with these drones, one tiny island would be a day at the beach.


  When he spread his arms, the motion sent electrical impulses to his brain and from there to his iPC, which broadcast the signal to his drones. They copied the formation his arms made, spreading out on either side of the gigantic ship in a wave-like curve. It was as if a thousand drones were trying to bear-hug the island itself as they descended on the lagoon.

  Lucia had betrayed him by trying to beat him to General Withers’ iPC. He would make sure she paid dearly for turning traitor. The Fletchers could never lead the people of the world without the Confederacy. For now though, he’d settle for wiping the Academy off the face of the Earth.

  He prepared to rain death upon them with his wonderful drones, and nothing could wipe the smile from his face.

  Joshua thrust an open palm at the crossbow, shoving it violently aside. He followed up with a sharp jab to the throat of the Fletcher that held it. The man’s larynx collapsed, as did the man.

  Sarah had already sliced open the thigh of another Fletcher and chopped off his hand at the wrist. She caught the last crossbowman by following through the previous motion, catching him in his inner thigh and ripping it apart. Both men fell to the ground, permanently disabled and screaming in pain.

  ‘They’ll live,’ Sarah said to Joshua’s admonishing glare. His look turned to horror when the shadow of Simeon’s drones blocked out the setting sun over the entire island.

  Sarah turned to stare as well. There were thousands of them, perhaps even hundreds of thousands. They were forming a wave shape coming out from either side of the transport, like a pair of giant wings.

  ‘Get to Casey, now! GO!’ Joshua jumped onto the first coral outcropping in the lagoon. He nearly lost his balance and would have fallen over onto the sharp surface, but Sarah jumped and caught his arm. ‘Thanks,’ he breathed in relief.

  ‘Forget it, let’s move!’ Sarah barked. Together they hopped as fast as they could over the sharp coral islands. It was a delicate balancing act with the immeasurable drone-wave bearing down on them. They ran faster.

  Casey broke the surface of the water and gasped. Unable to move his mangled legs, he paddled doggedly to the nearest coral reef and dragged himself up. The sharp edges tore through the remains of his suit. He bore a stab from a dead Fletchers’ sword through his shoulder. His arm failed and he fell repeatedly off the coral. He stubbornly repeated the process.

  By the time he made it up on top he was more cut and torn than ever, and bleeding profusely out into the water.

  He lay there, looking up at the sky. The growing shadow of the drones cast a pall over his face. He blinked sleepily, and rolled over. He saw his students falling to the deadly drudges all over the island, fighting and dying to defend the Academy, brave men and women all, to the last.

  He was so proud of them.

  Joshua jumped to the last coral island and crouched down beside Casey’s dying form.

  Sarah followed right behind. She put a hand over her mouth and turned around, unable to watch her mentor’s last moments.

  ‘No, no, no! Casey, we need the iPC!’ Joshua wailed. ‘The General’s iPC. Where is it?!’

  The shadow of Simeon’s drones enveloped them now. They were within firing range.

  ‘We don’t have time,’ Sarah whispered to herself, despairing.

  Joshua rolled Casey over onto his back. His breathing was short and shallow. He looked over at Joshua without turning his head.

  ‘Look after them,’ he rasped. ‘Don’t lose what’s inside.’

  He pushed his sword into Joshua’s hands.

  ‘No, the iPC, Casey!’ Joshua pleaded, as he tearfully accepted the sword. ‘We can hunt down the Confederacy, and finish this. We just need...’

  Casey slowly pointed at the ancient crashed aircraft lodged in the lagoon. The same aircraft that served as the faux-Tower for their map of the Colonnade, as well as the hidden entrance to the Academy. Casey suddenly smiled like a little kid and made an explosion sound with his mouth. ‘Boomshhkk-’

  He choked on the bile in his throat and lifted his arm to his head.

  ‘Where is it? Please,’ Joshua begged.

  Casey dropped his hand to his face, a finger outstretched and pointing at his eye. He let out his last breath.

  Joshua’s jaw dropped. Sarah knelt next to him.

  ‘He couldn’t have meant...’ Joshua began.

  Sarah put an arm on his shoulder. Then she plunged her sword into Casey’s eye socket and yanked out General Withers’ iPC.

  The swarm of drones unleashed their barrage of miniature missiles. Hundreds of thousands of the explosives screamed for the centre of the lagoon.

  Joshua stood and hugged Sarah. He faced her away from the missiles and shut his own eyes tight. It had all been for nothing. They Confederacy had won. The missiles closed in on them.

  Sarah eyes widened, and she gasped.

  Chapter 39

  The Nyctalopia broke through the evening clouds.

  ‘Yeehaw!’ Richard whooped, in a spot on imitation of Casey’s Texan drawl. Ichiro chuckled from the copilot’s seat. The sunset rays flared off the shiny hull as it soared down to the Academy.

  Richard had decided to only repair the ship’s outer hull in order to fly in the upper atmosphere and get back as fast as possible. He knew that the ship would never fly again without the cooling plates of the inner hull, so he fashioned a makeshift cocoon with spare jumpsuit material around the cockpit to keep from frying alive.

  It meant this was the Nyctalopia’s final voyage.

  Now that they had broken safely through the atmosphere, Ichiro raced out of the cockpit to the boarding ramp. Every room of the ship was on fire, but the ramp was sturdy enough to take the damage before they eventually splashed down to dowse the flames.

  He attached a safety cable to his jumpsuit, not planning to fall out of the ship a second time. He grabbed a ninja-rope from a spare jumpsuit and fired it down into the centre of the lagoon.

  The claw on the end of the rope punched down into the block of coral where Joshua and Sarah stood in their embrace.

  Ichiro wound his end of the rope, jumpsuit and all, around a handhold on the boarding ramp. He tied it off then stopped it from letting out more cable. The Nyctalopia soared past the lagoon and the rope snapped taut. The claw yanked the coral block completely clear of the lagoon. Joshua and Sarah hung on to the end of the rope, but Casey’s lifeless body slid off and disappeared beneath the calm waters of the lagoon.

  Richard hauled back on the controls of the Nyctalopia, pulling up just in time so their cargo, dangling out the rear, didn’t smash into the ocean waves. With the slick outer hull still engaged from the outer-atmosphere journey, their momentum sped the ship through the air at an incredible speed, putting distance between them and the Academy.

  The missiles struck home in the lagoon. Explosions rocketed all around. Chunks of land and coral were projected skyward.

  Suddenly Casey’s failsafe bomb, in the ancient wrecked aircraft, exploded as well. Just the sort of fireworks show to send Casey off. The closest drones evaporated in the extremely high temperatures, which also washed down through the secret passages to the Academy itself under the ocean floor. Everything inside incinerated causing large secondary explosions, which bubbled up out of the ocean.

  The supersonic shockwave of the bomb sent a wave of destruction much further than the blast radius, catching Simeon’s luxury cruiser among the remaining drones, ripping everything to shreds and falling as nothing more than debris into the ocean.

  Casey’s little secret stashed at the Academy entrance was a Russian “thermobaric” bomb, with a blast radius of over 200 metres. A relic from a forgotten age, when nations vied for power through conventional explosives.

  Richard outpaced the shockwave until he felt it was safe to slow their airspeed enough to touch down in the ocean. He pitched the ship back to drop off Joshua and Sarah as gently as possible.

  Ichiro cut them loose from the ship when they brushed the waves, then dived into the ocean
with life preservers.

  ‘I thought you were dead!’ Joshua couldn’t contain his happiness. He hugged Ichiro over the life-preserver, and slipped down a little into the deep ocean.

  Ichiro pulled him back up with a laugh. ‘You will not believe where I landed back on O’ahu... But I will tell you all about it later, I need to get the others.’

  ‘Others?’ Joshua asked, confused.

  Ichiro nodded and grinned. He pointed back towards the island from where a strange boat was drawing near. Joshua squinted at it. It couldn’t be.

  Sarah zoomed in with her iPC and smiled.

  It was Will, Elayne, Kayla, Alara and Marcas. They were drifting toward them in a boat fashioned out of their dropship’s two engines. One was underneath a layer of planks where they sat, the other pointing out the rear at a right angle, like a hovercraft.

  Joshua laughed. It was ridiculous. How had they managed this?

  Then he saw they had also saved the bio-ID computer. Not only that, Marcas was conscious and he wasn’t attacking anyone. His eyes were back to the same keen brown they should be. He was smiling along with the rest of them.

  Once everyone was bundled aboard the gutted remains of the Nyctalopia, Will explained their story.

  By the time Elayne and Kayla had plugged the hole in the dropship, he had been able to save the super-computer and use it to isolate and cleanse Marcas’ iPC from Simeon’s bio-ID virus. Then they gathered a huge bunch of the drone flares and burned through the dropship engines. The computer already controlled the two engines, so it was just a matter of lashing together a raft. They had only just got out in time. They were caught by the tail end of the shockwave and it had damaged the engines beyond repair, but the computer’s data survived intact.

  ‘We’re the only ones who made it out, aren’t we?’ Will asked.

  ‘We can’t be sure of that,’ Sarah said.

  ‘I wouldn’t count out Jayson and Val so easily,’ Richard countered. Everyone was silent for a moment as they thought of their lost friends.