Rebellion (10 page)

Mal is surrendering.

The patrol ships hover lower. I don’t take my eyes off them.

One by one, the ships land, surrounding ours. They are sleek silver hovercrafts, but they’re not very big. My guess is they hold only two or three passengers each. I hope I’m right.

A door slides open at the back of each hovercraft, and officials in armor climb out. Seven of them. They all carry guns the size of my arm, and I glimpse smaller weapons in their holsters. I could shoot them from here, but there’s a good chance I’d miss and give my position away. And I’m not supposed to yet. I’m supposed to wait for Beechy’s signal.

The patrolmen march up to Mal. The leader says something, and Mal replies, but I can’t make out his words.

The leader signals two of the men to check out the flight pods. A second pair heads up the ramp into the passenger hovercraft.Skylar and Jensen are still inside.

The minutes pass like days while I wait. I keep expecting to hear something—a shout, maybe. Or a gunshot. But except for the sound of thunder in the distance, there’s only silence.

The patrols who were checking the flight pods come back out first. “No one’s on board, sir,” one of them says.

The other two patrols appear at the top of the hovercraft ramp. “This ship’s empty too.”

Their leader steps closer to Mal and grabs his arm, the injured one. I wince in his behalf.

“Where did they go?” the leader asks.

“I told you, I came here alone,” says Mal. “I found these pods abandoned.”

I don’t hear how the patrol leader responds, because I’m staring at the two men who went into the hovercraft. Maybe I’m only imagining it, but one of them seems shorter than he was before. He’s holding his weapon differently too, letting it dangle from his hand instead of cradling it to his chest.

“Sweep the area,” the leader says.

“Yes, sir.” The patrols move off into the trees, all heading in different directions.

One of them heads straight for me and Logan.
Vrux.

I don’t want to leave him alone on the ground, but there’s no way I can get down without the patrol seeing me. I position my gun to fire from where I am. I won’t wait for any signal if he gets too close to Logan; I will simply shoot. My hands might refuse, but I will force them to squeeze the trigger.

I’m half-distracted, though. The shorter patrol and his companion are heading into the trees more slowly than the rest, like they’re waiting for something.

It happens in a split second: The shorter patrol lifts his gun and spins, shouting, “Now!” Mal twists away from the patrol leader. A shot rings out.

The leader falls, blood spilling from the hole in his shoulder. He lets out a strangled cry.

I recognized the shorter patrol’s voice, even through the warping mechanics of his helmet. It’s not a he; it’s a she. It’s Skylar.

The other patrols realize what’s happening. But the rebels have already opened fire.

The roar of gunshots fills my ears, blasting again and again. People yell, and bodies stagger through the trees. I can’t tell if anyone’s down. The rain makes it hard to see.

The patrol below me was distracted by someone, but now he moves toward Logan again, firing as he runs. Logan fires back, but misses. I watch him turn and limp farther into the forest. The patrolman chases after him.

I have to bring him down. He is going to kill Logan.

Don’t think. Just do it.

I wait for the first clear shot between the branches and squeeze the trigger hard. But my sweaty hand slips. I don’t know where I hit, but I’m sure I missed the patrolman.

The recoil is worse than I expected; I nearly lose my balance. I hang on to the branch above me with everything I have.

Two more shots ring out. There’s a thump as the patrol hits the ground. I can see blood pooling in the mud and grass even from a distance. Logan must’ve hit him.

But I can’t see Logan. I don’t know if the patrolman hit him too.

Panic makes my heart race.

“Logan!” I scream.

He doesn’t answer.

I climb down as quickly as I can. I have to find him. He has to be okay.

I’m moving so fast, I don’t get the proper footing on the lowest branch, slick from the rain. My foot slips and I fall with a cry. I throw myself into the jump as best I can, but my knees don’t bend all the way.

I hit the ground hard. The pain in my legs is immediate and crippling, but I have to keep going. I need to find Logan.

“Logan!” I yell again.

There’s a rustle in the trees ahead, and I lift my weapon, ready to shoot if it’s one of the patrolmen.

“Don’t shoot! It’s me—it’s Logan.” He shoves aside the branches.

I lower my weapon, relief flooding my body. “Are you okay?” he asks.

“I’m fine,” I say, walking toward him to prove it. My legs ache from the jump, but not so much I can’t move. Nothing is broken.

My eyes fall on the reddish-black stain on Logan’s crippled leg, above his knee. “You were shot.” My voice sounds far away.

“Barely skimmed me. I’ll be all right,” Logan says, shifting his weight to his other foot. “Come on, let’s go help the others.”

He moves past me toward the clearing. I can see his pain in the way he holds his shoulders rigid with every limping step. I hurry forward and stop him, grabbing his arm and pulling it around my neck.

“Here, lean on me,” I say.

“I’m fine,” he says gruffly. But when I start to help him along, he doesn’t pull away.

The gunshots have stopped, I realize. Still, I grip my weapon with my free hand as we step out of the trees, into the rain again.

There are three bodies on the ground. Three patrolmen. I can’t tell if they’re dead or unconscious, but all of them look wounded. Skylar is directing Paley and the other rebels to lug the bodies up the ramp into the hovercraft, probably to strip them of their armor so we can use it to disguise ourselves.

A fourth patrolman kneels, stony-faced, before Beechy, who has a gun raised to his head. Mal pulls the weapons out of the patrolman’s holsters.

Four patrolmen, plus the one Logan and I shot down in the forest. There were seven who stepped outside, and two of them were knocked out by Skylar and Jensen in the hovercraft. But they must’ve had at least one pilot with them.

My blood runs cold as the rain patters on my helmet and I realize what’s missing from this picture: One of the patrol ships is gone.

Beechy lowers his gun and turns away from the kneeling patrolman. He spots me and Logan and stomps toward us through the mud, a hand over his head to shield his face, even though he’s wearing a helmet.

“Are you two okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Logan says, lifting his weight off me and pulling away. “What’s going on?”

“I need you both to go with Skylar, Mal, and Jensen,” Beechy says. “If the patrolman’s telling the truth, most of the transports have already left for the work camps. The one headed for Crust is about to leave. We need to get you on it.”

“What about everyone else?” I ask.

“There will still be a couple more transports headed to the lower sectors—they’re just not going to the camps. So getting you two to the station is our first priority.”

Skylar’s already boarding one of the patrol ships left behind, and Mal’s passing off the weapons he collected from the patrolman to someone else. With their armor, they certainly pass as officials. But it won’t matter if the patrol ship that got away warns everyone we’re here.

“Who’s going to stop the patrol ship?” I ask.

“I’m going after it myself,” Beechy says. “Mal blasted its transmitter before it got away, so whoever’s on board can’t tell anyone what happened until he reaches the security hub. Don’t worry, I’ll catch up to him.”

And if you don’t?
I want to ask. He could run into more patrols. He could end up in real trouble. But the look in his eyes tells me there’s no use arguing with him. He’d tell me not to worry. He’d tell me this is the only way.

“We’d better go,” Logan says.

I hesitate. I don’t know when I’ll see Beechy again. If all goes well, we’ll both be in Crust tomorrow, alive and ready to fight Charlie. But if everything goes wrong …

Beechy must be thinking the same thing. He steps forward and pulls me into a tight hug, as tight as he can make it with our helmets interfering.

“I’ll see you soon,” he says, releasing me.

“You’d better,” I say.

He turns and hurries to one of the flight pods, grabbing a bigger gun from Paley on his way.

A bad taste seeps into my mouth, a bad feeling that he is wrong and I won’t see him again. But I do my best to force it down. He’ll be fine. He can take care of himself.

I turn and follow Logan. We climb through the open door at the side of the patrol ship. It zips shut behind us as soon as we’re inside.

“Buckle in,” Skylar says from the pilot seat. “We need to hurry.”

Mal sits in the copilot chair, fiddling with the comm dial. Jensen is in one of the passenger seats. There are three in a single row, with cargo space behind them.

Logan and I slip into the empty seats. The ship lifts into the air as I buckle in. Through the cockpit window, I watch the forest glide past below us. Above us, lightning flashes across the sky. It leaves a thin streak in the clouds, a hole that lets me glimpse the stars.

A dot of light shoots across the sky—a meteor blazing to bits as it hits the protective shield at the outer rim of our atmosphere.

It fades away a second later. The clouds roll back over the stars again.

I’m left with a hollow feeling in my chest and a strong worry that Beechy won’t intercept the patrol ship in time. And we will reach the transport too late.

10

I’ve been in the main departure station in the Surface city only once before, on the day I was picked for Extraction. That day, I entered on foot through the front entrance. This time, we enter through a tunnel in the side of the building.

The tunnel is almost as dark as the city outside, but white lights dot the walls, reminding me of the Pipeline. Skylar eases off our thrusters. We don’t want to crash, and we need to figure out which way to go. The tunnel branches off in four directions a few hundred feet in, and giant letters painted on the ground tell us which way each branch leads. The first leads to Terminal A, the second to Terminal B, and so on.

“Do we know where the transports are loading?” Jensen asks. He has his helmet visor open, so I can glimpse the fierce green shade of his eyes, which look unusual against his dark skin.

“The patrolman said they’re loading in dock ten,” Mal says, reloading the thick gun in his lap with bullets from a cartridge he stole from the patrolman. “That’s in Terminal A.”

“If he was telling the truth,” Skylar says. Her new helmet gives her voice an odd, deep resonance. From behind, I can trick my mind into thinking it isn’t really her, except she says things Skylar would say.

“We had him at gunpoint,” Mal says.

“Guns don’t stop people from lying,” Skylar says. “It just makes them do a better job of it.”

Still, she heads left, down the first tunnel branch. We don’t have time to check the others first, and this is the only lead we have.

Skylar dims the lights in the cockpit until I can see only the faint outline of her and Mal. She looks over her shoulder, at me and Logan. “You two should change out of your safety suits,” she says. “I doubt the kids from the work camp will be wearing those.”

I have to agree with her, though I don’t know how they’ve been surviving if they’ve had no protection from the moonshine. They would’ve been exposed to it in the camp.

But maybe Charlie’s been letting them stay here in the city. Usually I wouldn’t believe that, but he clearly has some motive for keeping them alive, if he’s transferring them all belowground. He’s going to use them for something bad—I’m sure of it.

Swallowing hard, I unbuckle and stand. I slip through the small space between my seat and Jensen’s, into the cargo space at the back of the ship. Logan follows, ducking his head because the ceiling is almost too low for him.

There are a few empty compartments on both sides of the walls, as well as a storage space below our feet. I take off my helmet and shove it into one of the compartments. Logan helps me unzip the back of my suit. His fingers brush my skin through my shirt, and I shiver involuntarily.

When he’s finished, I work the sleeves over my arms to my torso, and push the suit down so I can step out of it. I remove my boots too. They would look out of place in a work camp; I will have to go barefoot. I lean against the wall to steady myself as the ship rumbles.

Logan pulled his boots and helmet off already, and he’s removing his suit. His undershirt has worked its way up his body, exposing his stomach and a hint of muscle that wasn’t there before. It must be from all the time he spent in the training rooms back at headquarters. The sight makes my breath hitch, which makes my face warm. We aren’t alone, after all.

He notices me watching him pull his shirt back down, and I shift my eyes away. But not before I see the amusement in his eyes. He leans down to tie a strip of fabric around the bloody cut above his knee.

“I’m putting us down in dock fourteen,” Skylar says up in the cockpit. “We’ll enter dock ten on foot. Seems like it’ll make people ask fewer questions.”

“Just follow my lead,” Mal says. “We look like officials, so they won’t question us unless we give ourselves away.”

Through the cockpit window, I watch us turn into another tunnel branch, the one leading to docks eleven through fourteen.

Mal, Skylar, and Jensen look like officials, but Logan and I look like ourselves. Blending in will be a lot harder for us. I reach up and touch the short strands of hair on my head, wishing I could dye my skin a different color too, or grow taller. Anything to keep me from looking so much like the girl who screwed up Charlie’s plans and escaped him one too many times. I feel like a walking target.

But I
have
escaped him. Every time he’s tried to break me, I’ve fought and I’ve won. I have to remember that.

Logan takes a step closer to me and touches my hand. “You okay?” he asks.