Rebellion (32 page)

I’m going to have a hard time screwing up this mission, even if I can regain complete control of my actions.

“Skylar, lead Cameron and Landers to the northern entrance,” Sam says. “Mitchell and Dallas, follow me to the entrance on the other side of the mountain. Let’s get this done.”

“Taking the bird out, sir,” Skylar says.

I grip the arms of my seat as she pulls the control yoke back. We lift into the air, rising steadily until we’re above the dark, twisted trees. Their branches and leaves blow everywhere in the wind, thrashing even more as the other X-wings rise to follow us. Two of them trail behind us, speeding toward the entrance ahead at the base of the mountain, where the river weaves into a tunnel. Sam’s ship and the other two accompanying his veer away from us, to make for the entrance on the other side of the mountain.

I need to practice. I need to fight the serum. But I’m in an enclosed space and Lieutenant Dean is right behind me. There isn’t much I can do that won’t give me away.

Something simple is best. My knuckles are turning white from my hands clutching the arms of my chair so hard. I focus all my will on loosening my grip. Sweat beads on the back of my neck from concentration.

It takes a good ten seconds. But I manage to peel my fingers away.

I relax. But that wasn’t fast enough. In battle, I won’t have ten seconds to force my fingers to let go of a trigger or make them pull it. I’ll have less than one.

“Attempting to contact the rebels,” Beechy says into my ear-comm.

Straight ahead is the hole at the base of the mountain. Skylar dips us lower as we fly into the tunnel.

If we’re in range of the comm system, we’ve also popped up on the KIMO facility’s radar screen. Six unidentified fighter jets.

If they’re smart, the rebels won’t wait to see if one of our pilots will make contact—they’ll board their ships, as they’ve been trained to do. There are more of us than them; they’ll have better luck shooting us down from their ships. And they have the facility’s defenses on their side. As long as Beechy isn’t able to contact them, as long as they don’t open the security doors for us even if he does, they’ll have time to prepare before we break in. They’ll have a chance at holding us off.

We’ll have a chance at beating Sam.

“The comm codes aren’t working,” Beechy says. “They must’ve been changed since we left.”

One good thing so far.

“Sandy wasn’t supposed to change them until she heard from us,” Skylar says.

“Mal could’ve made contact with her and told her we were captured.”

“It doesn’t matter—Plan B is go,” Sam says. “You two, get us through the security barriers. The rebels know we’re here now. We need to get inside as soon as possible, before they take to their ships.”

“They’re grounded,” Beechy says. “Their ships have hardly any fuel left. We lost most of it before we left on the mission.”

Vrux.
That’s going to be a problem.

Skylar turns her head a little, enough for me to glimpse the smug smile on her face. “Yeah, you’re welcome,” she says.

She leaked our fuel supply, I remember. She blamed it on Buck, but it was her all along. Now Sandy and the others in the Alliance can’t defend themselves with their ships. They can’t even escape this place—at least, they won’t get far.

All Skylar does is smile.

I push my hand toward the gun in my holster. My fingers fight me with every inch, until I give up.

I shouldn’t shoot her, anyway. Lieutenant Dean has his eyes on my back. And she’s our pilot; our ship would crash.

But I will not let her get away with being a traitor.

“The first security barrier is in sight,” she says, easing off our thrusters. “Cameron, Landers, slow down. There’s a trigger console in the wall. We’re going to have to blast it to get the doors open.”

“Sounds easy enough,” Cameron or Landers says. “I’m an excellent shot.”

“We need to find the console first. It’s not exactly easy to spot.”

The security door is just ahead. The cracked letters painted on the surface form the same words as they did the last time I saw them:

KIMO CORPORATION

EST. 30 RC

WE FIGHT TO JOURNEY HOME

The people who used to work in this facility believed Marden was our true home. They believed it was right for us to steal the planet back, even though we’d abandoned it for a new one. So, they helped the old leaders of Kiel build warships and send them off to the stars, to slaughter Marden’s people or enslave them.

Our leaders are always enslaving others and making war. Why can’t they be satisfied?

Why can’t all of it
stop
?

“Harry, take the controls for a second,” Skylar says.

“Copy that,” Harry, her copilot, says.

Our ship sways to the left as he takes over flight control, and I tilt with it, banging into my armrest. A hand touches my shoulder to steady me, as Harry readjusts our position before the security doors.

Lieutenant Dean’s hand. He lets go so fast, I might’ve imagined he touched me.

A target monitor slides down from the ceiling in front of Skylar as she preps the weapons system. She must not trust the other pilots to do the shooting.

“What does the console look like?” Cameron or Landers asks.

“It blends into the wall, that’s the problem,” Skylar says. “But it should be somewhere to the left of the doors. We need to hit it right on target. Blasting anywhere else could lead to the shots backfiring, or the whole tunnel collapsing, depending on what we hit.”

“Look for an inscription of a moon on the wall,” Beechy says. “It’s small, but it’s not invisible.”

Skylar zooms in on the tunnel wall with the targeting system, skimming the smooth metal to the left of us, close to the security doors. I can’t see details well from where I’m sitting, but Skylar must be able to.

“There it is,” she says, and moves her thumbs over the firing controls. She locks the guns on their target.

I hope she’ll miss. I hope she’ll blow up this part of the tunnel by accident.

Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep—

Skylar presses the buttons three times in concession. Thin streams of blue laser fire exit our guns, blasting the hidden trigger. By the third hit, the console cover has blown away, and there’s nothing left but smoke.

The security doors zip open, revealing the passageway beyond. Usually the inner tunnels are brighter, but all the lights are off.

Either the power cut out, or the rebels are trying to slow us down. I hope it’s the latter; that would mean they’re preparing for the attack.

“Lieutenant Sam, we’re through the first door,” Skylar says. “There’s still one more before we reach the flight hangar.”

“We’ve just reached the first barrier on this side,” Sam says. “Go on ahead. We’ll meet you there.”

“Copy that.”

We speed ahead through the tunnel, the other two X-wings alongside us and a few feet behind. The lights on our ship’s wings help us see the way. Skylar knows these tunnels by heart, anyway; she and I flew through them multiple times on practice runs.

We used to be on the same side.

“Make sure your weapons are prepped,” she says, off-comm. Harry and Dean also hear her, but it seems like she’s primarily talking to me. She’s giving me a direct order, thinking I won’t be able to refuse.

My hand moves automatically to the copper in my holster. My palm wraps around the cool metal.

More sweat gathers on my neck as I struggle to keep from pulling the gun out. It feels like I’m stuck in an iron mold, slamming my fists against the walls until my knuckles bleed and bruise. But I barely dent the wall.

My palm wraps around the cool metal and slides my gun out of the holster.

No, no, no.

If I can’t even refuse one simple order, how can I beat this? How can I ever be free again?

We’re almost to the flight port. Skylar will break through the final barrier without much trouble. We will enter the port and engage with the rebels. If Sam or Skylar gives me the order to shoot any of them, I might not be able to stop myself.

But I have to be able to. I have to be able to defend myself, if Sam tries to shoot me, or leaves me behind to go down with the facility.

Maybe I should try something different; I should stop fighting. When I regained some of my control after I shot Logan, it was because I had relinquished all of it. The guilt was ripping me apart; I was at my weakest.

And when I first showed signs of fighting my submission to Charlie, we were in the cell with Skylar. I made the decision to shoot her and then managed to stop, but not because I was struggling, either. Because I’d stopped fighting, and my true emotions were leaking out into my actions.

I don’t want to let my hands do as they please. I might end up hurting someone as badly as I hurt Logan, and the guilt will be a hundred times worse if I don’t even try to stop myself.

But maybe it will be enough to set me free.

31

We reach the final set of security doors. Skylar finds the hidden trigger faster this time. She shoots twice and blasts the console apart.

When the doors zip open to reveal the flight port a short ways ahead, I’m not sure what I expect. I hope we’ll find silence. I hope we’ll find the place deserted, and realize the rebels moved somewhere else. Somewhere safer, where we won’t be able to find them.

Instead, lasers come flying at our ship—streaks of red and blue and green that zap against our hull. They don’t come from handheld guns; they come from Davara jets. There are three in the air with rebel pilots inside, shooting at us, blocking the entrance to the flight port. It seems they have enough fuel left for this, thank the stars.

But I’m on board one of the ships they’re trying to shoot down.

A fierce tremor runs through our ship as another laser hits our wing, and a small cry escapes my mouth. Skylar veers us to the right, but there isn’t far to go. The tunnel is barely wide enough for all three X-wings to hover side by side. And we can’t stay in one place if we’re going to avoid the gunfire.

Harry sends our own stream of fire at the closest jet, but the jet is smaller and manages to jump aside.

“Sam, we’re inside,” Skylar says. “The rebels are shooting from the air. What are your orders?”

“Open fire,” Sam says in my ear. “Get their ships down, but be careful. Commander Charlie doesn’t care if we lose some of the rebels in the fight, but he wants his daughter alive.”

Skylar drops us down to avoid another laser. “I don’t think she’s on any of these ships. But copy that. Cameron, Landers, let’s push them back.”

We send a barrage of fire at the ships, no longer trying to evade their attack. Our laser power is much stronger than what the rebels have, I can tell as soon as we begin. The Davara jets are powerful, but they’re older models, and they won’t hold up as well as ours.

No, no, no, stop shooting,
I beg the pilots. The rebels are going to lose.

If they lose, I’m dead, and so is Logan.

A direct hit to one of the hulls sends the whole jet spinning out of control. The other two jump far back to get out of the way, leaving an opening for Skylar to fly our X-wing into the hangar.

We hit the spinning one twice more, and it crashes into a grounded flight pod. My hand hurts from clutching the barrel of my gun in panic.

Where are the other rebels? I counted three pilots in the Davaras. I know we left more than three people in the compound.

Cameron and Landers are still blasting the other two jets. Both hulls are smoking from the damage. They won’t be in the air much longer.

Skylar sets us down in a clear space in the hangar, near the crashed Davara. Flames leap up from the rubble.

I hope whoever’s inside is still alive. I don’t know who it is—I couldn’t identify the faces of any of the pilots.

“We’ve landed,” Skylar says over comm.

Cameron and Landers are setting their ships down beside the rebel jets.

“Good,” Sam says. “We’re almost there.”

The cover of our X-wing lifts open. Skylar, Harry, and Lieutenant Dean climb out with their guns in hand. I don’t want to follow them, but I do.

I’m still gripping my copper. I might have to use it. I don’t know if I should fight my orders, or if I should stick with my decision not to. I don’t know which one will help me beat Sam.

I have to beat him. Everything I’ve fought for will be for nothing, otherwise.

The
pew pew
of laser fire reaches my ears from where Cameron and Landers put their ships down. They must be shooting the Davara pilots, or the pilots must be shooting them.

To our right, the cover of the crashed jet opens. The pilot inside staggers out, coughing and slapping the flames away.

Skylar notices and turns to him with her gun raised.

He reaches the ground, struggling to keep his footing, and removes his helmet. His shirt has a hole in his shoulder, exposing burned red skin. When he lifts his head, his eyes shoot daggers at Skylar.

She smiles at him. “Hello, Buck.”

“You traitor,” he yells in a hoarse voice. “I should’ve known you’d run straight back to Charlie, soon as you got outta this place. Soon as you realized we were gonna lose.”

“How many more of you are in the facility?” she asks, ignoring him.

“More than you think. We knew you lot would show up here soon enough. We were ready for you.”

I have a strong feeling he’s lying.

“We were told to capture you all,” Skylar says, “and bring you back to Commander Charlie for him to determine if you could be of any use to him. But he also said if you struggle too much, there’s no point in bringing you back.”

“Shoot me, go ahead,” Buck says.

She takes two steps forward and steadies her aim at his head. Her jaw is firm; her lips are pressed together. But there’s slight hesitance in her eyes.

BOOM!

Buck’s jet explodes—the engine must’ve caught fire. I duck with a cry, covering my head to avoid the shrapnel.

When the dust clears, I look up. Skylar’s on the ground, knocked back by the force of the explosion. Harry’s helping her up. She’s covered with dust, but I don’t think she’s badly hurt.