Into the Still Blue (10 page)

Though the Aether wasn’t visible, Perry could sense it prickling on his skin. He wondered if the currents were coiling into funnels behind those clouds, and if the red flares had appeared. Would they see a rainstorm
and
an Aether storm in the morning?

Brooke and Aria returned, and they all took their positions. Soren and Jupiter stayed by the Belswan with Aria. Brooke, Perry, and Roar waited in the woods, ready to surround the Dragonwing as it came to the rescue. When Perry signaled, they moved in and rehearsed how they would overpower the Guardians, down to who would speak and what they’d say.

They spent time coordinating how to take down the Guardians unharmed. A regular Dragonwing crew consisted of four men, trained pilots all, and they’d need every one of them in order to steal Hovers from Sable and Hess.

Four pilots meant four Dragonwings. Added to the one already in their possession, they would have enough capacity to carry all the Tides to the Still Blue.

“No bloodshed,” Perry said, after they’d run through every detail a few times. “We do this just as planned.”

Agreement all around. Nods from everyone.

They’d done all they could do.

They were ready.

11

S
o . . .” Soren waved a shaky hand at the pilot seat. In his other hand, he gripped the Smarteye tightly. “I’m going to sit so we can get started and everything.”

“Go ahead,” Aria said.

“Thanks.” Soren dropped into the chair, and his leg began to bounce.

Last night during rehearsal, he’d been calm.
Everything
had been calm. But now, rain pelted the windshield of the cockpit. Outside, in the gray early morning, the trees tossed back and forth and the wind howled through the bay doors.

It wasn’t an Aether storm, but it was enough to make Aria’s stomach buzz with nerves.

“Let’s get this going,” Perry said.

Roar and Brooke had taken their positions outside, waiting for the mission to begin.

They weren’t altering their plan because of the storm. Aria had really never understood rain until she’d come to the outside. In the Realms, it was poetic. Ambience for a night with friends in a mountain cabin. For a day studying in a café. But in the real, it streamed into your eyes and chilled your muscles to the bone. It had a biting side, and they hoped the Guardians who came in the Dragonwing would be thrown off because of it.

“I’m ready,” Soren said. “It’s all set. I did this in Reverie once. Remember, Jup?”

In the other pilot seat, Jupiter sat up, almost straightening out of his usual slouch. “Yeah, I remember. You got us out of history exams that one time.”

Soren’s lip curled. “Right . . . exams.”

Aria wondered if he was thinking what she was: how terribly
far
they had come from school. From hours in the lounges of Reverie, studying and fractioning in the Realms.

“Once I hack into their system,” Soren said, “I’ll be traceable. I’ll throw every obstacle I can at them, but that’s when the clock starts running.”

He had already told them this. There were three components to the mission. First, a breach of the Komodo’s security system, which he’d handle alone. This would bring the patrol to them, setting up the takeover of the Dragonwing—the second step. Last, disguised as Guardians, they would enter the Komodo itself.

In the worst-case scenario, the security system breach would be discovered while they were inside extracting Cinder, but Soren predicted they would have two hours before that happened. If they followed the plan, they’d have plenty of time.

“We know, Soren,” Aria said. “If we’re going to intercept this patrol, we have to start now.”

He nodded, the color leaving his face. Aria watched his grip on the Smarteye ease. He brought the device to his face with visible effort and placed the clear patch over his left eye.

One second passed. Two. Three.

Soren tensed, his fingers digging into the armrests. “I’m in.” He sat up, his shoulders rolling with a small shudder, his knee still bouncing up and down. “Here we go. Where are you? Where am I? Where are you? Where am I?”

Soren’s chant stopped when an image appeared, floating in the air before the front windshield.

It was an avatar of him from the waist up, the image three-dimensional but translucent, the likeness complete down to the thin scar on his chin. Down, even, to an almost exact replica of the clothes he wore—the clothes they all wore: a pale gray Guardian flight suit with blue reflective stripes along the sleeves.

There was no context to the image. No room or cockpit. Soren’s avatar floated in midair like a ghost.

“Oh, come on,” Soren said, running a hand over his head. “My hair looks better than that. The approximation algorithms the military uses are really substandard,” he muttered as he entered a series of commands into the Belswan control panel.

Aria had never seen anyone so focused and manic at the same time. Perry watched in silence, but she wondered what he scented in Soren’s temper.

“Sorry you can’t stay, Soren,” said Soren, “but I’ll see you later, handsome.”

The three-dimensional avatar blurred and flattened like it had been pressed between glass. Another figure expanded and sharpened before them: Hess, lifeless, staring straight ahead.

Hess was fuller in build than Soren, with a chiseled face and sleek, combed-back hair. Only his eyes, dull and sunken, revealed the decades between him and his son.

Soren sat motionless in the pilot’s seat, staring at his father’s avatar. Hess had left him behind in Reverie. He had to be thinking about that now.

Aria licked her lips. Her stomach was already in knots and they’d just gotten started.

Perry caught her eye and gave her a slight nod, like he knew the words on the tip of her tongue.

“Keep going, Soren,” Aria said quietly. “You’re doing fine.”

Soren seemed to collect himself. “I know I am,” he said, though his voice lacked its usual bravado.

Hess’s avatar came to life. His shoulders lifted—the same small shiver Soren had done moments ago. Soren controlled it now. He would use the avatar like a puppet, directing it through the Smarteye.

“Always wanted to be just like you, Dad,” he said under his breath. “I’m linking into the Komodo’s system.”

His fingers glided over the Belswan’s controls, effortlessly controlling the avatar and the Hover’s instrumentation. This was his language, Aria thought, as surely as singing was hers.

In front of the windshield, a transparent screen flickered up, divided into three segments. Hess occupied the center. The screen on the right contained a combination of maps, coordinates, and scrolling flight plans, all lit in neon blue. The left-hand screen showed a cockpit like the Belswan’s, but smaller. It was the inside of the patrolling Dragonwing—the ship they intended to commandeer.

Four Guardians in flight suits and helmets sat in two rows.

Hess—or rather, Soren as Hess—spoke right away, the avatar suddenly brimming with an authoritativeness Aria knew well. “Patrol Alpha One Nine, this is Commander One, over.”

He paused, waiting for the information to make an impact.

And it did.

The Dragonwing crew exchanged worried looks. Commander One was Consul Hess. They were receiving a direct message from the very top.

The Guardian at the comm responded. “Alpha One Nine, copy. Over.”

They’d bought it. Aria let out her breath and sensed Perry relax beside her.

“Alpha One Nine,” said the Hess avatar, “we picked up a distress message from a downed Hover, three—no, make that
four
—minutes ago on your incoming. Does anyone want to tell me why you’re not responding?”

Soren played his father perfectly, uttering the words with simmering condescension and barely contained hostility.

“Negative on the message, sir. We didn’t receive it. Over.”

“Stand by, One Nine,” Hess said. Soren kept the transmission running, letting the Guardians observe Hess as he turned, bellowing to a control room that wasn’t there, that would be nothing more than a figment of everyone’s imagination. “Somebody get him the coordinates. Now, people. My son is on that ship!”

“Your son, sir?” said the Dragonwing pilot. Surely he knew that Soren had stayed behind in Reverie as it crumbled, but that didn’t mean Soren hadn’t survived—or that Hess wouldn’t welcome him back.

Hess turned to an imaginary underling and said, “Have his hearing checked when he gets back. And if those coordinates aren’t up in—”

The screen with the flight plans blinked. New information trickled down—maps, diagrams of the Belswan, coordinates—all running like fluorescent raindrops from top to bottom.

Hess leaned forward, looking into the camera eye. “Listen closely. I want everyone on that ship here in one hour. If you fail me, don’t bother coming back. Acknowledge, Alpha One Nine. Over.”

Aria barely heard “Affirm, sir” before the image of Hess disappeared.

Soren had cut off the comm. He rocked back against the pilot seat, breathing fast, his chest rising and falling. “My father is an orangutan’s ass,” he said after a moment.

No one disagreed. That seemed to deflate him, though the words had been his own. He pressed his eyes closed, wincing, before he returned to the controls, powering the Belswan down completely.

The darkness in the cockpit startled Aria, even though she had expected it. Small rivers of rainwater flowed down the windshield.

Aria clicked on a flashlight, the beam illuminating Soren’s face.

“See?” he said, through clenched teeth. “Easy.”

So far
, Aria thought. It would only get more dangerous.

They left the cockpit and hurried to the bay doors. As she jogged outside, the rain slapped her shoulders and face and pounded against the ramp, raising a riotous clatter.

Beneath the back end of the Belswan, Brooke and Roar fed green branches to a fire partially covered by a field tent and hidden beneath the tail end of the Hover. The effect was convincing: billows of smoke curled around the tail of the Hover, obscuring it and giving the appearance of wreckage.

A thick waft drifted past, and Aria turned away, stifling a cough into her wet sleeve.

“I should be in front,” Soren said, jogging up beside her. One minute outside, and she was already soaked. “I should be the first contact point.”

Perry shook his head. “No. We stick to the plan.”

Soren wheeled around, facing Perry. “You saw how nervous the Guardians were. It’ll make it worse if they don’t see me right away.

“Wrong, Dweller. You’re the asset. They’ll expect your position to be protected, which is by the ramp
like we planned
.”

“He’s right, Soren,” Aria said.

They each had parts to play in the mission, based on their strengths. Perry, Roar, and Brooke knew how to stay calm in life-and-death standoffs, and their Senses would bring obvious advantages. They were best suited to engage the Guardians first.

“It’s a rescue,” Soren pressed. “They’re not going to expect—”

“Stay here!” Perry snapped, fury sparking in his eyes. “Don’t move from this spot, or I swear I’ll break your face again.”

He glanced at Aria, a quick flash of green, and then he jogged away, small eruptions of water punctuating every step. He was so tall—so noticeable—but in seconds he melted into the woods along the edge of the clearing. Brooke and Roar followed. All three disappeared into the rain-blurred shadows beneath the tree cover.

“Who does he think he is?” Soren said.

“He’s the blood ruler person,” Jupiter said.

“Quiet!
” Aria said, scanning the hills in the distance. Her ears tuned to a sound through the hissing rain. A drone like bees. Through a scrim of smoke and rain, she spotted a luminous dot moving across the hills. A point, like a blue flare, streaked toward them.

The Dragonwing.

It cut through the air like a blade, the sound of its engine growing louder as it neared. Louder and louder, until she wanted to clamp her hands over her ears.

Wind and rain whipped into her face. Aria flinched and turned to the side to shield herself. She blinked, clearing her eyes, and the ship was suddenly there, floating in place just a hundred paces away.