Compete (32 page)

He is ripping the ship apart to do this, to create a barricade!

In principle it’s exactly what I’d done during the Qualification Finals, in the flooding tunnels underneath the Atlantic Ocean, using hoverboards to barricade us against flooding waters.

Only here, it’s a barricade against firepower.

Command Pilot Kassiopei concludes the sequence with the panels lining up four feet tall and three feet wide on both sides of the corridor, and a similar structure behind us, leaving a narrow opening in the middle. The result is four new barrier walls behind which we can hide from enemy fire. . . . Will it hold?

I stare in stunned wonder at the exposed metal hull interior of the corridor walls stretching all around us, showing wiring in places, and small air vents where the panels used to be.

Aeson goes silent, then signals for the security guards with a nod of his head.

It all happens in a matter of seconds, as the two groups of rebel terrorists converge on us from the two opposite sides of the corridor.

And then comes the firefight.

Aeson Kassiopei takes aim around the barricade walls, and his handgun fires precise calculated zing volleys. There are yells of pain on the other side, and the fire is returned. The guards take turns firing and pulling back around the barricade panels.

Meanwhile, a similar thing is happening behind us. The two guards in the rear start firing at the other group attacking us. With a single intense glance at me, Logan joins them, firing with practiced accuracy.

I cringe against the wall, holding the gun uselessly in my hand, wanting instinctively to put my head down and my hands over my eyes. Instead I freeze in place. My marksmanship is barely functional, beginner level at best. Usually I need both hands held steady on the gun just to hit the easy target at a firing range. Here, with moving real live targets, I’m useless.

Meanwhile, there is only
zing, zing, zing
, coming from all directions. . . .

My pulse pounds and seconds tick.

With my peripheral vision, I watch Command Pilot Kassiopei fire relentlessly. His profile is impassive, and he reloads periodically, hands moving impossibly fast to replace charge cartridges. At one point he glances behind at all of us, including
me
—hard blue eyes meeting mine in a searing gaze. He barks commands in Atlantean to the guards, and then resumes firing.

Moments later, a few of the terrorists attempt to storm the barricades.

A tall bulky teen rushes past the levitating panel barrier behind me, throws himself with a roar at one of the Atlantean guards, grappling with him, even though he’s been scorched in the leg by someone on our side.

Logan and the remaining guard turn to deal with him, while two more terrorists come through.

In the crazy seconds while all of this is happening, it occurs to me to wonder if these are Earth Union or Terra Patria. No, they look out of control, disorderly, so must be Terra Patria. . . .

I raise my gun and press the trigger, firing in the general direction of the oncoming enemy. My hand shakes badly, and I only manage to scorch the opposite wall. A big girl with guns in both hands rushes through the opening, sees me, turns directly at me. . . .

I squeeze my eyes shut . . . this is it,
I am about to die
.

But the girl goes down immediately, her face scorched with a blast of lightning. She crumples in a pile at my feet, and I glance to my left, only to see Command Pilot Kassiopei at my side.

With one strong hand Aeson Kassiopei pushes me back against the wall and down. I can feel his hard painful grip against my arm, then the shoulder, as he leans in, covering me with his torso. Strands of his long pale metallic hair sweep against my face, as he immediately turns and fires again, his back to me, so that I am wedged between him and the wall.

I suck in my breath in terror, as the hum and whine and
zing, zing
sounds increase and multiply all around us, accompanied by the scorching hiss of metal, as more terrorists storm the barricade.

Aeson’s powerful back is before me, and he is the only living barrier between me and the fire hell. . . .

In those instants I have no idea who else is out there, who’s alive—Logan, the other Atlantean guards—no clue. I think I hear their voices, but I can’t be sure, because the zing and screech of lasers is overwhelming.

“Lark! Gun!” Aeson cries to me without turning, reaching behind him with one hand. I relinquish my handgun to him, and he takes it to replace one of the two he’s been using that must’ve run out of ammunition. Great, now he’s out of cartridges. . . .

I continue to cower behind him, uselessly, as he resumes firing with my gun.

And then it’s over.

A sudden silence comes. I can only hear his elevated breathing as Aeson straightens slowly and stands, breathing heavily. Before him is a pile of fallen bodies, and pools of blood. Levitating wall panels bob in the air lightly from the various hard impacts. . . . Two Atlanteans and Logan crouch with weapons bared, in various corners of the barricade.

Everyone else is dead.

Kassiopei puts out one hand with the gun up to signal “wait,” then slowly walks to look around the corridor. He stands in the space between barricades, looking in both directions, then announces, “All clear—for now.”

We all rise from our spots. I find that I can barely stand, and my knees feel like putty from squatting tensely in a bad position.

Logan immediately comes up to me. His face is grim, and he has a few scorch marks on his sleeves where the lasers barely missed him. The other Atlanteans are similarly marked.

When Aeson Kassiopei turns again, I can see the front of his uniform. He also has burn marks on him, and his one shoulder has scorched fabric and a small red stain that appears to be his own blood. . . .

“Gwen! Are you okay?” Logan holds me with his both hands on my shoulders, examines my face gently.

“Yeah. . . . What about you?” I mutter, blinking with tension. And I continue glancing at the Command Pilot and the other two Atlanteans.

Aeson Kassiopei goes to examine the bodies of the fallen Atlantean guards. He touches a few of them gently, then straightens back up. . . . For one fleeting instant the look on his face is
different
. Then it goes blank.

Next, he speaks into his wrist comm in Atlantean. When he is done, he glances around and then quickly sings another note sequence.

The hovering orichalcum panels come crashing to the floor, suddenly inert.

We all stare at them for a few seconds.

But Kassiopei ignores them and turns to Logan and me.

His expression is guarded, cold, and yet it manages to affect me in a strange wordless way, so that I feel my throat closing up and an impossible tension building inside me . . . and suddenly I just want to weep.

I don’t even know why.

Maybe because of all the
dead
.

Or maybe it’s just the way he looks at me, as he stands there,
seemingly
cold as ice.

Because I realize suddenly,
it is only the surface
.

Inside, he is all fire.

“Sangre,” he says in the meantime, glancing at Logan. “I want you to take her down this way, turn right and try any of the doors in that hallway. Use security code 58927 to override the locks. Make sure she gets inside and secures the door. . . . Then, return here.”

“What—” I start to say.

But Command Pilot Kassiopei returns his gaze to me, and it scalds me with raw force. “Go with him.
Right now
.”

I nod wordlessly, and start walking, with Logan holding me by the arm, so as not to trip over bodies . . . and all that slippery blood.

We turn the corner, try several doors, until one reacts to the security code and opens.

I pause, staring stupidly at it.

Logan looks at me gently. “Okay, you just saw how bad it is. . . . So you need to get
inside
and stay down. Don’t open the door to anyone until we come back for you, okay? Not until this is over.”

“Okay.” I breathe faintly. “And yeah, I know. . . . I’m pretty useless, just a stupid burden. I’ll get out of your way. And you—all of you—please don’t get killed.
Please
.”

Dazed, I watch Logan’s grave face as the cabin door slides closed, separating me from him—from all of them—and shutting me inside a very small enclosed space, similar to my own cabin.

I tremble and take several deep breaths, like a stunned idiot. And then a sudden overflow of emotion builds up in the back of my throat.

It breaks inside me.

And I start to cry.

I
stand crying silently, for I don’t know how long, until my sobs turn into dry heaving shudders. At some point I end up seated on the bed bunk of a stranger, some unknown officer whose cabin I’ve taken over.

The motion activated cabin lights slowly dim, because I’ve stopped moving. They come back on gently when I raise my hands to wipe my face and rub the back of my nose.

There’s no sound outside, only the soft steady hiss of circulating air through the cabin vents. I hear nothing through the door. Once again I wonder if the sealed doors on the ship are truly soundproof or if there’s just no action out there. Are all of them—Logan, the CP, the two remaining guards—just being very quiet? Or are they even still in the corridor around the corner? They must have gone. . . .

Minutes tick. . . . I get up slowly and go to the tiny lavatory sink and rinse my face under running water, patting the bruised and concussed side of my head gently. My head feels puffy, swollen.

Suddenly there’s a huge
explosion
outside.

Rather, it’s the combined hiss and zing and whine of multiple Atlantean weapons being fired simultaneously at
very
close proximity, the pounding of many feet, people running, the shouts of voices, Earth and Atlantean, orders being issued, human cries. . . .

I freeze, my insides grown cold in horror, plunged into an overwhelming despair. Sounds like another gun battle is taking place in the corridor right outside.

Oh, God. . . .

I feel useless. I need to go out there and
do
something.

I need to help them!

But they told me to stay inside and wait. After all, what can I do?

I am not a soldier.

I listen, my breath suspended . . .
slowly exhale, slowly inhale
. My heartbeat is hammering.

A lull in the action and noise level. . . . Then the sounds redouble. More pounding feet, shouts, mixed voices. They move past the door and recede, going further down the corridor. Until it all fades.

Dead silence.

I stand, breathing.

Then I return to sit down on the cot. My fingers touch the fuzzy plain surface of the serviceable beige blanket.

And time blurs.

F
or the next two hours at least, I sit and listen to periods of silence followed by periods of activity outside. There are no more shots fired in the hallway, at least not like that one big flurry of explosive violence in the very beginning. . . . I hear groups of people moving past, mostly speaking Atlantean, so I’m assuming they’re ship’s crew and security forces.

My God, what is happening out there?

And what about my sister and brother? What’s happening on Gracie and Gordie’s ship? Is it being taken over too?
Are they okay?

Terrible chaotic thoughts plague me. . . . I figure out how to call up a clock app on the small wall display, and it shows me 9:43 PM.

Stupidly it occurs to me that now I’m late to my 8:00 PM voice training with Command Pilot Kassiopei.

Holy lord
 . . . is Aeson Kassiopei even
alive?
And what about Logan, and the security guards? And for that matter, where’s Gennio Rukkat and Anu Vei, the two other CCO Aides, I wonder in a sudden burst of panic. Did they get hurt when the CCO was being occupied?

I sit on the cot, and breathe, and see in my mind’s eye the dead bodies lying around the meal hall. All those dead kids. . . . Even that awful a-hole Trey, dead and highly deserving of what he had coming—but he’s only a stupid, evil, messed up boy.

He
was
. He’s dead now.

All of them.

T
he wall clock shows 10:45 PM when the walls come alive with the sound of an amplified male voice on the PA system, steady, confident, wonderfully
familiar
. It startles me—pulls me out of a daze and makes me almost jump out of my skin—so that my heart starts hammering as I listen.

“This is Command Pilot Aeson Kassiopei. The situation on Imperial Command Ship Two has been contained. I am pleased to confirm that the rest of the Fleet is also back under control of Atlantean forces.”