“That’s two you owe me,” he said.
Kira fired in his direction, and Cade nearly leapt out of his skin. He might have even squealed, but the battle was too loud for Kira to tell. Cade looked at Kira, stunned, and Kira gestured to the ground behind him; there, a soldier who was about to slice Cade with her triblade lay facedown.
“Okay, one,” Cade said, swallowing hard.
The fighting continued with Kira and her squad staying alive but not making a dent in the opposition. Not only that, but fatigue was setting in. Kobe had a wound on his bicep from where, best as Kira could guess, a pike had gotten him; the circle of enemies around Kay was drawing closer; and Mig undoubtedly would have been done for were it not for 4-Qel—and even 4-Qel seemed to be struggling to keep up. They were losing, and Kira knew it wouldn’t be long before, one by one, they all fell.
Kira mowed down another two soldiers, then she searched the battlefield for Cade. Left, right—he was nowhere to be seen. Kira pushed forward against the horde, blasting and blasting until her trigger fingers got sore, but there was no Cade. She kicked out a nearby soldier’s knee and fired down on him; she dodged a pike and shot out her attacker’s legs, and her eyes continued to scan. But she couldn’t find Cade.
“Kira!” she heard a voice scream to her side. She looked, and Mig was frantically pointing to an area across from Kira. “Four-Qel sees Cade! He’s in trouble!”
After removing three guards from her path by way of incessant blaster fire, Kira got a clearer look at Cade’s position. It wasn’t good. He was practically swarmed by Praxian soldiers and guards, and he was losing ground fast. It made sense that they’d dedicate so much manpower to capturing him, or worse; even with Ga Halle’s theft of the Rokura, Cade was a loose end that needed to be tied. Kira regretted not having taken that into account.
Blasting, dodging, punching, and kicking, she was closing in on him. And Cade was putting up nothing short of a heroic fight against impossible odds. He had changed. He was using his outpost pistol only as a backup, and Kira found herself marveling at his focus and skill. The latter was always there—he’d trained with the Masters the same as everyone else at the Well; he’d spent years of his life being molded into a Rai. But he had never become one. Not until now.
Cade ducked around a pike’s swipe, slicing out the legs of his would-be attacker; he grabbed a guard as he went back up, spinning him to deflect incoming blaster fire, then he pushed that guard into the firing soldier, turned, and thrust his shido’s blade across the chest of a soldier who was trying to get him from behind. He was fast and attentive; his attacks were economical, not wasting a single movement.
But there were too many enemies for Cade—or anyone—to fight forever. And when a soldier on Cade’s blind side trained her A-10 on him, all Kira could do was scream. There were too many other soldiers and guards in her path, and Cade had no idea he was a trigger pull away from dying.
“CADE!” Kira yelled, but her voice was inaudible, completely drowned out.
Drowned out by an explosion coming from overhead.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Smoldering detritus descended from above, furious bits and chunks of erupted masonry that tore through the air on their way to the ground. The once impenetrable Crucible stood well above all of Olanus, and in its time it had withstood the moon’s harsh elements. It had withstood prisoners’ riots and their outright attempts to tear the fortress to the ground. But never had it been wounded until now.
Reflexively, Cade covered his head and backpedaled away at the roar of the eruption in the sky. As debris rained down, Cade looked up and saw that a chunk of the Crucible’s south-facing wall had been chewed from its side; while the damage wasn’t nearly enough to bring the fortress down—it was more cosmetic than anything—it stood as proof of its vulnerability. Whoever had the moxie to lead this attack—Cade was dying to know as he searched the dark, cloudy night sky but saw nothing—had shattered the myth of the Crucible’s indestructibility, and Cade hoped they’d be back for more.
In the relative hush that’d descended over the battle since the moment the Crucible had what amounted to a diamond-shaped chasm scored out of its exterior, Cade heard his name, faint and muffled. He turned to his right and saw Kira charging at him as she screamed, “Look out!” Kira pointed to Cade’s three o’clock; he turned back around quickly and saw a soldier aiming her attention—and her A-10—back on him. Cade didn’t think, nor did he hesitate; he reacted. With a quick sidearm motion, he flung his shido. The weapon whistled through the air, and in a moment’s time, it found its home; its three blades buried into the soldier’s chest, hitting her just as she pulled the trigger. The shot went wide, screaming past Cade’s head.
“We’re even,” Kira said as she reached his side, nearly out of breath. She shoved a fresh charge into each of her sidewinders. The soldiers and guards were turning their attention away from the Crucible’s wound and shifting it back to Cade and his friends. The impossible battle was about to start all over again. Cade was thrilled. He blasted the two nearest soldiers directly in their chests, the force of the outpost pistol knocking them clear off their feet. The soldiers continued to swarm, more and more standing between Cade and his shido was closing. Cade needed that weapon if he wanted to live; things were looking grim for him and his friends, and they were sure to only get worse.
“I’ll be right back,” Cade told Kira, and he felt she wanted to say something in return but he couldn’t wait. Cade took off, racing toward his shido as his enemies absorbed it into their ranks. The first guard that stood in his way, a middle-aged man with a mangled face, turned his A-10 on Cade, but Cade was too fast. One shot from his outpost pistol, and the guard was down. Cade blasted one soldier in his knee, then sent another one spinning with a perfectly placed shot to his arm. As he continued to run, Cade spotted a towering, muscular man with a scar running over his eye, and a crazed smile spread across his face as he waited for Cade. He was a beast of a man who squeezed a power pike in his hands and looked eager to take Cade’s head off. The shido sticking out of the downed guard was right behind him, and that left Cade no choice but to keep running.
Cade dug his feet into the hard ground, one after another, and just as he was within striking range of the beast, Cade broke into a slide. Perfectly timed, Cade skidded directly beneath the massive swing of the beast’s pike and arrived right in front of his shido. He gripped the weapon and yanked it out of the soldier’s chest; he turned to swipe it at the beast but was stopped by a roaring sound bursting from the sky. Cade looked up, and through the black clouds he saw what might have been the sweetest thing he’d ever laid his eyes on: Kira’s Omega Squadron charging toward the Crucible. And they weren’t alone, either. Trailing the rear was a trio of armored transport vessels. He didn’t know their specific model, but Cade knew a troop jumper when he saw one.
The cavalry had arrived.
The Omega Squadron, eight in total, spread out into attack formation. Six of the Echoes unleashed a barrage of offensive strikes on the Crucible, their streaks of orange proton blasts looking like fire against the night sky. Strike after strike pounded into the Crucible, obliterating more and more of its surface. Repulsion cannons were stationed up and down its walls, but either Ebik hadn’t gotten them back online after Mig cut out the power, or he didn’t have anyone left to man the bulbous stations. Stone and brick crumbled to the ground, showering the courtyard with the Crucible’s wreckage. The offensive pass would be the only clean one the Echoes would get, though; just as they finished their strike, a squad of Praxian Intruders, launching from the Crucible’s interior, took to the sky and went after the Echoes.
Meanwhile, the two remaining Echoes swooped low to the ground and screamed right at the battlefield. Cade knew they wouldn’t open fire. Everyone he was with knew that. But the Praxian guards and soldiers didn’t share that knowledge, and as the starfighters zeroed in on their position, the Praxian troops either ran for cover behind the courtyard’s mo
numents or dropped to the ground, terrified for their lives. They wouldn’t stay down forever, but the flyby served its purpose; following on the Echoes’ tails were the transport vessels, and with the Praxian forces running for cover, the transports had a pristine window to hit the ground and unload their troops. At least three dozen soldiers, all armed, stormed the battlefield.
Just like that, they had a fair fight on their hands.
As if magnetically drawn together, Cade realized that he had been reunited with Kira, Mig, 4-Qel, Kobe, and Kay. They were once again joined in a tight circle, protected by a monument’s base. All around them, Praxis’s forces were on the run. They tried to regroup, tried to assert defensive barriers to keep the incoming forces back, but they had no chance. Soon enough, Cade wagered, they’d be retreating back inside the Crucible.
“How’d your squad know to come here?” Kira asked Kay, her voice unable to disguise her delighted incredulity. “And how did you get Omega here?”
“Give me some credit, Sen,” Kay replied. “You didn’t think I’d send us into the galaxy’s darkest corner without a backup plan, did you?”
“So, what do we do now?” Mig anxiously asked. “We’ve got about sixteen minutes to go, and a whole lot of Crucible to make our way throu—”
Across the battlefield, Cade heard a voice calling out; when he looked over, he saw a clumsy Poqlin heading toward them. “Guys! Hey, guys!” the Poqlin yelled, waving toward Cade and his friends.
“Who is this guy?” Cade asked.
“Your replacement,” 4-Qel dryly responded. “The swap was hardly noticeable.”
“Hilarious, Qel,” Cade groused. “Really glad you’re developing a sense of humor.”
“Hey, everybody!” the Poqlin said as he joined the group. Winded, he put his hands on his knees and drew a deep breath before continuing. “Who’s the new guy? Oh, is this Cade? Are you Cade, the all-powerful ninja sorcerer?”
“Um … yes?” Cade replied.
“Well, it’s a pleasure to mee—”
“Gunk, enough,” Kay commanded. “Go lead the troops.”
“Oh,” Gunk said with a chuckle as he assessed the battle around him, “right.”
“We need to get to that chamber, but damn it,” Kira said as she surveyed the battle still waging just ahead. “We’d still have to fight our way through all of that,” she said, gesturing. “We don’t have time.”
Cade surveyed the scene, desperate to find something that Kira wasn’t seeing. They needed an idea, and they needed it five minutes ago. Kira, he knew, thought linearly; Cade, on the other hand, thought in loops and circles and dead ends. It’s why they made a good team. But Cade understood that if he was going to seek out a solution that Kira hadn’t already seen, it would have to be something unconventional.
Then it hit him, and he went running.
“Wait!” Cade yelled at the top of his lungs. He was sprinting as fast as his legs would take him, flashing his arms above his head as he tried to stop the last remaining transport vehicle from leaving. “Don’t go! We need you! STOP!”
Just as the pilot was taking off, just as the ship was raising off the ground, the pilot turned in Cade’s direction and saw the madman waving him down. He shot Cade a look that said, “Yeah, right,” and he was about to hightail it off Olanus. And he would have, had he not spotted Kay trailing behind Cade.
Cade reached the ship and jumped into it through its exposed side.
“Listen, we need you,” Cade huffed. “I mean, we need your ship. Get out.”
“What? No,” the pilot said. “I take orders from—”
“You heard him,” Kay said, entering the cockpit. “Get off the ship.”
The pilot grumbled and did what he was told. The second he was gone, Cade hopped into the pilot’s seat and took the stick.
“What are we doing?” Kira asked, a touch of impatience in her voice.
“Getting us to the chamber,” Cade replied. “We don’t have time to push our way through the battle and into that fortress. Who knows what we’ll even find in there? This is our shortcut, so strap yourself in, all of you, and hold on tight.”
“Wait a second. Are you going to crash us into the chamber?” Mig asked from the rear of the ship. “Why do your plans always involve crashing things?!”
“Hey, this time it’s justified!” Cade snapped. “Now strap in and be quiet. This is gonna be bumpy.”
Cade lifted the transport ship off the ground. It was heavy and slow, and its maneuverability stank. “This should be interesting,” he said to himself.
As it chugged skyward, Cade messed with switches and buttons, trying to find a weapons array. It would be nice if they could defend themselves.
“Hey, Kay,” Cade called. “Where are the weapons on this thing?”
“Doesn’t have one,” Kay called. “This thing’s slow enough without cannons strapped to it.”
Cade looked up and saw the dogfight raging in the exact space he was heading. Echoes and Intruders vied for domination, igniting the sky with one blast after another as they twirled and spun, avoiding enemy fire. Cade’s ship, in comparison, couldn’t blast, spin, or twirl, so how he was going to make it through the melee, even for the brief window of time he had to be in it, was anyone’s guess. But this was the only option they had, and if anyone was going to be reckless enough to try, Cade knew it had to be him.
Cade rose the transport ship to the necessary altitude; he needed to be just above the chamber on top of the Crucible, but not by much, for what he was going to do. Once in position, he jammed the stick as hard as he could and sent the ship rocketing—sort of—toward the chamber. And that’s when an Intruder caught the ship in its sights.
The first volley buzzed directly past the ship’s narrow viewport; Cade knew they were in trouble even before the second blast caught the ship’s closed starboard side—the side opposite the one troops disembarked from—and rocked it so hard that it was nearly sent spinning out of control. A klaxon screeched in the cockpit, its shrill alarm pretty much capturing how Cade felt on the inside. The shields were already toast, so one more strike like that would make crashing seem like shore leave on a luxury cruise.
Cade was closing in on the chamber, but the Intruder was coming around for another pass. At its velocity, there was no way he’d reach the chamber before that Intruder had them in its sights again.
Which gave Cade an idea.
“Four-Qel, the side door,” Cade yelled, “throw it off!”
Everyone was silent.
“You want me to destroy our own ship?” 4-Qel finally said.
“Time’s a factor here. Now do it!” Cade commanded.
Cade heard 4-Qel lumber to the starboard side; he heard the door slide open, fast, and the sound of it rolling on its wheels was followed by the sound of shredding metal as 4-Qel tore it from the ship.
“Happy?” 4-Qel asked.
Cade glanced to his left; the Intruder was nearly on them.
“Not yet,” he said. “Now strap back in and, everyone, hug the wall!”
“Cade,” Kira warned, “you are not going to do what I think you’re going to do, are you?”
“I can’t read minds, so I’m just going to act like I have no idea what you mean,” Cade said, keeping his eyes on the Intruder the entire time. It was angling behind the ship, trying to catch it from behind for a clear shot. “Now, wait for it, everyone … wait for it …
“HOLD ON!”
Just as the Intruder came into range, Cade threw the stick to the side and spun the ship at a forty-five-degree angle so the hole 4-Qel had created was facing their enemy. Right at that moment, the Intruder fired, and its powerful blast passed right through the transport ship and into Ebik’s chamber. The glass there was reinforced, and it was durable, but not enough to withstand a direct hit from an Intruder. The panel shattered, utterly ruined.
Cade grabbed the stick and angled the ship back toward the hole in the chamber created by the Intruder. He locke
d its trajectory and stood up from his seat.
“Come on, let’s move,” Cade said. “If you don’t want to crash into the chamber, then we need to jump.”
The group hesitated, but then Kira stepped in. She got up from her seat and clapped her hands. When she spoke, she had the voice of total authority.
“You heard him! Move!” she ordered, and everyone obeyed.
The hole was fast approaching, and while Cade knew jumping from a moving ship wasn’t ideal, it was better than crashing it into the chamber and hoping he could bring it to a stop.
With Kira at his side, Cade stood on the lip of the transport ship as it zeroed in on its flyby pattern, which would take them right where they needed to be. Mere seconds separated them from their destination, and Cade was compelled to use them the best he could. He knew what they were about to encounter, and he knew what it meant.
“You okay?” he turned to Kira and asked.
“Ready for this to be over,” she said, taking his hand in hers. “Ready for all of this to be over.”
Cade looked at Kira and smiled; he knew exactly what she meant. She smiled in return.
And then they jumped.
Cade came down hard on the chamber’s floor, and his hand separated from Kira’s in the process. He rolled with the fall, and while he didn’t expect to get a break when he landed, he also didn’t anticipate looking up and being greeted with a shido.
Cade rolled just as the shido came down, and he barely avoided having its blade buried in his skull. As the Fatebreaker that’d attacked him pulled the weapon from the floor, Cade swept out her leg, then rolled back; he joined his team, pulled out his shido, and assessed the situation.
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