The Soldiers of Halla

by D. J. MacHale

  I think he sensed my confidence and didn’t question me again. The klee pounced up the stairs on all fours. Though he moved quietly, the stairs rattled under his weight. The klee in the control room would know pretty quickly that somebody was coming up. Hopefully, when he saw another klee, he wouldn’t think anything bad was about to happen to him…because something bad was about to happen to him. The stairs twisted and turned as we climbed. I kept one section of stairs between us, thinking that if the klee came out to see who was coming up, he’d see Boon and not me.

  When Boon was almost to the top, he gave me a quick look. I waved as if to say, “Go for it.” He continued on up to the balcony, where a closed door led into the room. He didn’t open it. Instead, he walked around on the balcony to the front of the room, where there were two large windows that looked out from the control room onto the hangar floor. I could lean out, look up, and see Boon as he rapped on the glass. I couldn’t see the klee inside, but I saw Boon gesture for him to come outside.

  This was it. I crouched low on the stairs. Directly above me was the door into the room. As soon as the klee came out and turned to round toward Boon, I’d have my chance to spring from behind and knock him into next week.

  The door opened. The klee came storming out, looking angry. I guess he didn’t like having surprise visitors knocking on his window. I was close enough to see that he wore a red Ravinian guard uniform. I stayed low, hoping he wouldn’t see me on the stairs. He walked around the balcony to the front, where Boon waited for him.

  “Who are you?” the klee demanded to know. “This is a restricted area. You are not authorized to be—”

  Before he could finish the sentence, I jumped up onto the balcony and clocked him on the side of the head. Hard. My plan had worked. Everything went perfectly, except that the klee barely reacted, other than to stop talking. Uh-oh. The klee slowly turned around to see what had hit him, so I hit him again. Whack. Right on the side of his cat head. The klee’s head snapped to the side, but he wasn’t hurt. My first thought was that it was impossible. I had nailed the guy with two blows that should have crushed him. The truth hit back a second later.

  “Dado,” I gasped.

  The cat jumped at me, paws up, claws out. I was so stunned that I barely moved. By all rights the thing should have torn me apart, but Boon jumped at the klee and tackled him from behind. The dado klee hit the floor of the balcony with Boon on top of him.

  “The hangar door!” Boon yelled.

  Right. The reason we were there. I backed away and went for the control room. Inside I saw that besides the door that led to the balcony, there was another door in the back wall of the room that must have led inside the tree. I feared there might be klees beyond that door, so I jammed Kasha’s weapon against it, hoping it might give us an extra few seconds.

  On the balcony, Boon and the klee were wrestling. I didn’t know what kind of fighter Boon was, but there was no way he’d be able to battle a dado for long. I had to get the hangar doors open so that Kasha could power up a gig, then get back out to help my friend.

  There was a long control panel with dozens of toggle switches. I really wished there was one that read: HANGAR DOORS. There wasn’t. Luckily, most of the switches were the same size, which meant they must have more or less done the same thing. Whatever that was. To the far right of the panel was a large toggle switch. It looked just as good as any, so I threw it.

  The overhead lights went on, bringing the hangar to life. The hangar doors didn’t budge though. On the far left of the panel was another large toggle. I quickly went for it and threw it. Two things happened. With a jolt and a screech, the giant doors at the front of the hangar began to slide open. They separated in the middle and slowly moved to either side, like a curtain on a stage, opening up our escape route. Sunlight streamed in, which meant Kasha would have power. That was all great except for the second thing that happened.

  Alarms blared. There must have been a special security process required to properly open those doors. Unfortunately, I didn’t know it. I had no doubt that we would soon be flooded with Ravinian guards, because you didn’t need to have the acute hearing of a cat to hear the harsh, jangling horn that honked incessantly. I ran for the door to help Boon as the back door into the control room blew open. The bad guys had arrived sooner than expected. Kasha’s weapon did nothing to keep the door closed. A Ravinian klee burst into the room, picked me up, and threw me against the far wall of the control room, opposite the door to the balcony. I was trapped. A Ravinian klee was between me and the way out. There was nothing good that could come of this scenario. I figured I could battle the klee for a while, but his claws would make for a short fight. I was all set to step out of there and go back to Solara when I saw something leaning against the control panel that made perfect sense. These were dados. Dados that were built on Third Earth. There was no more pretense about not mixing territories. Saint Dane had seen to that. So it made perfect sense that if dados were on Eelong, they would also have dado weapons. Leaning against the control panel was a long, silver wand exactly like the Ravinian dados used on Third Earth.

  The klee went for me.

  I went for the weapon.

  I snagged it just as the klee swiped at me with its claws out. I ducked, feeling the whistle as he barely missed my head. My hands were on the weapon, but I didn’t have time to turn it on. Instead, I jammed the handle back into the dado’s gut. Or whatever it is that area is called on a standing-up cat. The dado didn’t flinch. Its instinct was to take another swipe at me. I didn’t bother trying to block it. I just pushed away from the klee and fell down on my butt. It swiped nothing but air, then set its eyes on me and pounced.

  I fumbled with the red power button. I didn’t know if I’d have the chance to power it up and defend myself at the same time. It was more important to use it to ward off the attack than to damage the dado. I stopped worrying about the power and held up the silver wand. The cat did the rest. It leaped with all four paws in the air. Its eyes were locked on mine. It landed square on the point of the wand and seemingly perched there for a second, though I know that was impossible. I pushed, and the cat fell on the floor right next to me. Its lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling.

  Dead cat.

  I guess I’d gotten the power on.

  There wasn’t time to celebrate. Where there was one klee, there would be more. I jumped to my feet and ran for the door to the balcony. Outside, Boon was struggling with the first klee. He was holding his own, too. I think if Boon had known it was a robot, he wouldn’t have been so bold. The klee kept swiping at Boon. Boon kept warding off the blows. He didn’t bother to go in to attack the Ravinian, and I knew why. He wanted to keep it occupied long enough so that I could get the hangar doors open.

  “Back here!” I shouted.

  The klee stopped swinging at Boon and whipped around toward me. It was the last move he made. I nailed him in the chest with the electric wand and pushed him to the side. It hit the rail of the balcony and toppled over, falling to the floor far below, where it landed on the overhead rotor of a gig. It flipped like a rag doll, and settled on the ground with a sickening thud.

  Two dead cats.

  Boon was exhausted, but he was okay.

  “What is that thing?” he asked through gasps of air, pointing at the weapon.

  “Not a toy. Don’t touch it.”

  “Don’t worry!”

  The two of us scrambled for the stairs and quickly ran down. As we got closer to the floor, I glanced out over the hangar. The doors were continuing to open, but slowly. Too slowly. I wondered where Kasha was. Hopefully, she had picked a gig that would be hit with light, to give it power sooner rather than later. But none of the gigs were powering up.

  I also saw that the gigs themselves had changed. When I was there before, they had been small vehicles that reminded me of bumper cars in an amusement park. They had two seats with an overhead rotor for lift and smaller side rotors for maneuverability. These gigs lo
oked more or less the same, except that they were much bigger than the old two-seater jobs. Most of them were ten times that size, which said only one thing to me: troop transports. They were lined up near the hangar doors, ready to lift off. I had the sinking feeling that Kasha didn’t know how to fly one of those big boys, and that’s why none of the rotors were turning.

  The alarm horn continued to shriek. Flashing red lights painted the room. There was no question that we would soon be flooded with cats, and there was nothing that a single electric wand could do against them.

  We hit the floor and both sprinted toward the opening doors, because that’s where we both hoped that Kasha would be. We got to the front line of gigs, but there was no Kasha in sight.

  “There!” Boon called out.

  To the far side of the first line was one small red gig. It was still larger than the two-seater gig we had flown before, but it was a fraction of the size of the troop carriers. At the controls behind the clear windscreen was Kasha. The light from the opening doorway hadn’t hit that gig yet. A quick look around told me that this gig was the only small one, which I figured was the only one she could fly. That was okay, so long as the sunlight hit it before other klees showed up to start hitting us!

  “Get on board!” I shouted.

  Boon ran toward Kasha. I ran for the opening door and sprinted outside, where the launch platform continued on for another forty feet out over Leeandra. I ran to the edge and looked around to see if we were causing a disturbance. We were. On the ground, dozens of Ravinian guards sprinted for the tree. Above us on the sky bridges, I saw more Ravinians headed our way. It would only be a matter of minutes before we were swarmed.

  I ran back to the gig, where Kasha was nervously waiting for the light.

  “It was the only choice I had,” she complained.

  “Don’t worry. Boon, push.”

  Boon and I got behind the red gig and pushed. We needed to get it out of line and into the light from the sunbelt, so the crystal in the nose could be hit and give us power. The door was not yet open wide enough for us to get the gig through to outside, and the light was still several yards away. Boon and I grunted and pushed and cajoled the little chopper forward until we finally joined sunbelt light with gig.

  “Clear away!” Kasha shouted.

  Boon and I backed off as Kasha toggled the engine switches. The whining sound of the crystal-driven rotors coming to life was like music.

  “Get in!” I shouted to Boon.

  As he jumped in, I sprinted back out through the opening doors. I ran to the platform edge to see that the klees below had reached our tree. How much time did we have? Seconds? It was then that I heard another sound. Actually, what I heard was a sound that had stopped. I spun around to see that the hangar doors weren’t moving anymore. A second later, with a grinding of gears, they began to close! I sprinted back inside and looked up at the control room to see two more klees at the panel. They didn’t need to hurry after us. They knew what we were trying to do. So long as they got those doors closed, we wouldn’t be able to get the gig out, and they’d have us.

  I ran for the open-cockpit gig and jumped in. There were four seats. Two in front, two in back. Boon was already in back. Kasha was in the left-hand pilot’s seat.

  “This is going to be close,” I said as I buckled in.

  “We are going to have to lift off inside the hangar,” she said. “Very dangerous.”

  “It’s going to be a lot more dangerous if those doors close much more,” I pointed out.

  The overhead rotor was now humming. I saw Kasha glance ahead to the closing doors.

  “We won’t have time to get the side rotors up to speed,” she said soberly.

  “Can we still fly?” I asked.

  “Yes, but only straight ahead. I will not be able to maneuver much. Either we are lined up properly in the opening, or not.”

  I looked back up to the control room to see that more klees had arrived. Many more. Dozens of red-shirted Ravinian guards had come through the back door to the control room and were flooding down the stairs.

  “The longer we wait the smaller that opening gets,” I said.

  Kasha’s response was to pull back on the control stick. With a lurch the gig lifted off the deck. I winced, as if that would have done anything if we crashed into another gig. Or flew too high. Or slammed into the hangar door. I winced anyway.

  The ground-floor door burst open at the rear of the hangar. More klees were on the way in.

  “Now, Kasha,” Boon said calmly.

  Kasha pushed the joystick forward. The nose of the gig dipped a few degrees, and we floated forward. Without lateral control, the gig felt like a puppet on a string. We swayed left, then right. Kasha couldn’t compensate. We spun a few degrees clockwise and found ourselves moving sideways toward the rapidly diminishing opening.

  “We gonna make this?” I asked skeptically.

  “We’ll know soon” was her obvious answer.

  I felt the gig lurch. A klee had jumped up and was hanging from the skid below.

  “Take him for a ride,” I ordered.

  Kasha coaxed the gig forward. We got closer to the opening. I tried to gauge how much time we had and if the space was big enough, as if my calculations had any impact whatsoever on what was happening. We were in Kasha’s hands. Or her paws. The gig slid to the right. It was no longer a case of whether or not we could make it through the opening, because we weren’t headed for the opening anymore. It must have been the weight of the klee hanger-on that threw us off.

  “Uh, Kasha,” I said, as if she didn’t see the exact same thing.

  We were seconds from slamming into the door when Kasha said, “I have lateral control.”

  The rotors to the sides had finally gotten up to speed. Kasha jammed the stick to her left. The gig swung back, maybe a little too far. I held my breath. It was like we were going around a speedway race track, making banked turns. We hung up to the left for a second, then shot down to our right and forward. I was still holding my breath when we slipped through the opening.

  “Woooohhhhh!” Boon shouted with joy.

  We cleared the platform and were high in the air over Leeandra. Kasha took us up very high, very fast. So fast that the g-force slammed me down into the hard seat. That was okay. I wanted to be out of range of anything the Ravinians might throw at us. I also feared that they might come after us again with the other gigs. The slow-moving hangar doors had suddenly become our friends, because by the time they opened them again, we’d be long gone. I relaxed. We had made it.

  Suddenly the gig lurched and bounced.

  “What was that?” I asked nervously. “Are we losing power?”

  “No,” Kasha answered calmly. “I believe that was the klee falling off from below.”

  Oh. Yeah. Right. That guy. I hoped it was a dado.

  “You remember where we’re going?” I asked.

  “Like it was yesterday,” she replied.

  Kasha took us up high over Leeandra into the beautiful blue skies of Eelong. Looking out of the open cockpit gave us a three-sixty view of the territory. It was just as stunning as I’d remembered it. The jungle canopy that was now below us looked like a sea of green clouds. I let myself enjoy the view. There wasn’t anything I could do just then, except to catch my breath and wonder what we would find when we hit Black Water.

  Seeing the familiar jungles of Eelong made me think back to something Nevva had said. When she heard that Saint Dane was going to launch a dado attack on the exiles, she was genuinely upset. Besides not wanting to harm the exiles, she said something to the effect of “that territory was to remain untouched.” I didn’t know what she meant at the time, but thinking about it and seeing that Eelong was pretty much the same Eelong as before, I wondered if Saint Dane had told Nevva that Eelong would evolve without much interference. Earth had been devastated. The other territories were in different stages of decay and destruction. But not Eelong. I could tell that by looking over
the side of the gig as we sailed overhead. Leeandra had become more modernized, but the jungles below were unspoiled. Was it possible that Nevva held on to the hope that not all of Halla would be crushed by Saint Dane in order to fulfill his vision?

  Nevva bought into Saint Dane’s philosophy. That much was for sure. But I don’t believe she was evil. Misguided, maybe. A little too willing to achieve her goals at the expense of others, definitely. But she wasn’t an evil person. If Saint Dane promised not to harm Eelong, then he had broken his promise to her. Who knows? Was that one act enough to make Nevva realize that Saint Dane’s way of thinking was wrong? She was fiercely loyal, but how loyal can you be to someone who betrays you? In the end, Nevva chose to help us. To help her mother. Her natural mother. For that, she paid with her life. I still didn’t know if her help would make a difference, but if there’s some small ray of light that came from this whole mess, it’s that Nevva Winter became the person her mother always wanted her to be. She became a Traveler who tried to defend Halla. Wherever she is, assuming she is anywhere, I hope she knows that she made the right choice.

  “Look there!” Boon called out.

  We had been flying for a few hours. I was daydreaming, lost in my thoughts. Or maybe I was dreaming for real. Whatever. While I was out, we had left the jungle and reached the miles of wasteland that separated the vegetated regions and the majestic, rocky mountains where Black Water was hidden. Looking over the side of the gig, I was met with a frightening sight.

  We had caught up with the Ravinian army. They marched below us, moving toward the mountains. It was a formidable force. There had to be thousands of klees, all marching in formation. Half the force wore the uniforms of the Ravinians guards. Many carried the red flags of Ravinia. I wondered if they were all dados. The other half wore dark green, lightweight armor. These were soldiers from Leeandra. On their backs they carried their weapons. They had staves, lassos, and bolas.

  Most walked, but there were many, probably officers, who rode on zenzens. The large horses with the multijointed legs bucked and bridled as they were coaxed along the rocky path toward their meeting with the gars. There were also small, mechanized vehicles that carried equipment of some kind, but I couldn’t tell what it might be. Were they weapons? Provisions? From that high up in the air, I couldn’t tell.