Into the Still Blue (12 page)

W
ith Soren piloting the Dragonwing, they sped through the lashing rain toward the Komodo, their breaths loud and ragged in the quiet of the cockpit. They were a quartet of pure stress, each of them fighting to regain focus.

Aria pressed her back into the seat. The ride was jarring, almost violent compared to the Belswan, as though this craft had to fight to reach its greater speeds. She felt every small jostle in her throbbing arm.

Soren and Roar sat in the two anterior seats, commander and pilot. She and Perry sat in the seats behind them.

Half an hour ago, four men had been in these same spots. Her seat still held the warmth one of them had left behind. It seeped through her clothes to her legs and her back. She was cold, trembling and soaked, but that warmth—the final echo of a man’s life—made her want to crawl out of her skin.

Was it her fault? She hadn’t pulled the trigger, but did that matter? Her eyes moved to Soren’s back. She had brought him to the Tides. She had trusted him.

Beside her, Perry sat rigidly. He was muddied, bloodied, and intent, his stillness contrasted by the rainwater dripping steadily from his hair. He’d been against Soren from the beginning, Aria thought. Should she have listened to him?

She turned her focus back to the windshield. Trees blurred past, the hills where the Komodo was stationed drawing closer at an astonishing rate.

“Five minutes out,” Soren said.

Five minutes until they reached the Komodo. They were heading right into the dragon’s lair—and there were two dragons.

She pictured Hess, who was so quick to disregard human life.
Travel safely, Aria
, he’d said, before he dumped her out to die. He’d done the same to the thousands of people he left in Reverie. He’d told them he was going to fix everything; then he’d abandoned them in a collapsing Pod.

If Hess was a killer, then Sable was a murderer. The act was personal with him; he’d looked into Liv’s eyes when he’d fired the crossbow at her.

Aria bit her lip, an ache building in her throat for Perry. For Roar and Talon and Brooke. She was stupid to think this way right now, but grief was like the mud that covered them. Messy. Quickly spreading everywhere, once it found a way in.

“I’m going to learn how to fly these too,” Perry said, his voice low and deep. “So I can race you.”

His green eyes held a smile, a trace of good-natured competitiveness. Maybe he really did want to fly Hovers. Or maybe he knew exactly what to say to calm her down.

“You’re going to lose to her,” Roar said from the front seat.

He was teasing, Aria thought, but Perry said nothing back, and every second that passed in silence made Roar’s comment seem less friendly.

To her relief, Soren broke the silence. “I pulled up the last five flight plans and I don’t see any deviation. I’ll extract voice samples from those missions, change them up and graft everything together. That will get us through the protocols and make everything seem routine. They won’t notice a thing.”

They had planned this part earlier, knowing that even alive, the Guardians could jeopardize the mission over a live comm. Soren would splice the recordings of the now-deceased Guardians and reuse them in order to continue their façade. The Realms—their entire life once—had become a weapon, helping them uphold the image of a normal patrol.

Was Soren telling them all of this again, waving his contributions in the air, as a way of apologizing?

Aria cleared her throat. She played along, asking for more information that they already knew. They needed to band together. Now.

“And when we get there?” she asked.

“All covered,” Soren said. “I’ve got it right here.”

He pushed a few buttons. A diagram of the Komodo appeared on a transparent screen, just as it had in the Belswan. The Komodo looked like a spiral made of individual units that could link and unlink, like old-fashioned train cars. Each segment was capable of breaking off and becoming individual, or self-determining, as Soren said during their run-through. Each unit could travel or fight in its own right.

In its stationary state, the Komodo coiled like a snake, following the same principle that had been utilized in Reverie’s design. The outer units were defensive and supportive. The inner three, at the center of the coil, were highest security, highest priority. They housed the most important figures.

“My father and Sable will be in these central units,” Soren said, highlighting them. “My guess is Cinder’s in there too.”

They were risking their lives on that guess.

“The landing port is on the south end of the compound right here,” Soren said, illuminating that portion on the diagram. “The central-corridor access is on the opposite side, the north end. That’s where we want to go. It’ll take us right to the inner units of the Komodo without having to move through the entire thing.”

“You’ll get us into that corridor?” she asked.

“It’s secured, no question, but I’ll try to hack the codes when we get there. I tried earlier, but there’s no way to do it unless I’m on-site.”

“What if you can’t hack them?”

“Then we go to the loud plan. Explosives.”

Soren spoke without his usual bragging tone. He had made a mistake, and he knew it.

She glanced at Perry, hoping he sensed it too. But he seemed deep in his own thoughts.

“Three minutes,” Soren said as they crested hills that had seemed far away just moments ago.

A jolt of adrenaline shot through her. There, sitting at the heart of a plateau, was the Komodo.

Aria sensed the gradual descent of the Dragonwing as Soren counted down the last two minutes. Her pulse sped up as they approached the rows of Hovers lined across the plateau. She saw ten Belswans. Twice as many of the smaller Dragonwings. Just eight days ago, these same craft had been inside a hangar in Reverie.

Soren flew the Dragonwing toward a runway—a stretch of dirt that cut through the center of the fleet. At the far end, through curtains of thick rain, the south side of the Komodo hulked, dark and imposing.

The Dragonwing gave a gentle lurch as it touched down. A few Guardians exited the Komodo and jogged toward them on the runway.

“They’re just coming to check the Hover,” Soren said, answering the question on all their minds. “Don’t worry. Standard postflight procedure. Get your flight helmets on. When the doors open, go straight to the Komodo. I’ll handle the ground crew and catch up to you. Oh, and try to act like you’ve been here before.”

Aria glanced at Soren. As difficult as he was, they couldn’t have done this without him.

She pulled a helmet on. It was too big and smelled faintly of vomit and rancid sweat.

She left the cockpit, forcing herself to straighten her arm despite the pain that bloomed in her bicep. She needed it to look normal.

“Here we go,” Soren called, just before the bay doors opened.

A gust sent rain spraying into her visor.

Aria jumped down, followed by Roar and Perry. Her legs felt heavy as she hit the mud, the drop bigger than she’d expected. She flew forward, lurching a few steps before finding her footing again. Both Perry and Roar reached out, but she straightened and ignored them. She doubted Guardians went around catching each other’s stumbles.

Behind her, Soren talked to the ground operators, his voice loud and confident, like he knew everything about everything.

Through her rain-pelted visor, she saw Hovercraft looming all around her, sleek and silent. Even with Roar and Perry at her sides, she felt exposed. Like the huge ships were an audience, watching her as she walked by.

The Guardian suit was water-repellent, but sweat rolled down her spine and over her stomach, causing the uniform to cling to her anyway.

With every step, the Komodo seemed to grow larger. So large that she questioned how it could ever be mobile. As she neared, she glimpsed massive, spiked wheels—each one several feet high. She’d been thinking of it as a snake because of its coiled structure, but now she thought
centipede
.

Two Guardians stood beneath a small overhang, manning the entrance. They wore weapons like the ones that had put a hole in her arm and in Jupiter’s leg. To either side of the entrance, she saw black-tinted windows.

Was anyone watching them? Hess? Sable? How well could they see through the pouring rain?

Soren brushed past her and jogged up the ramp, past the Guardians, and into the Komodo without breaking his stride. The men at the door barely nodded in acknowledgment as Aria, Perry, and Roar followed.

Inside, a steel corridor stretched to the left and right, hardly wide enough for two people to stand shoulder to shoulder. Aria’s breath came in gasps as they jogged right, Soren leading the way.

Ten minutes ago he’d almost compromised the entire mission; now he was in charge, following a schematic of the layout on his Smarteye.

Aria grabbed Perry’s arm, slowing him. Slowing them all. They were too noisy. Too obvious. Perry, Roar, and Soren had substantial builds. She was probably running with five hundred pounds at her sides at least, and the Komodo felt it. They were creating a small earthquake in the corridor, the floor shaking, reminding her this wasn’t a fixed structure.

They passed two doors. Three. Five.

Soren led them into the next one—an equipment room. Rows of flight suits like theirs lined the far end. Helmets. Weapons in narrow storage lockers.

Soren ran to a locker and rifled through it. He came up with a small, stubby black gun with a thick barrel. “Grenade launcher,” he said. “For the loud plan.”

They left their flight helmets, taking fresh weapons. Perry pulled a length of rope across his shoulder, and they filed back out to the corridor, Soren leading the way once again. He set a quick pace, just short of breaking into a run as he navigated through the twisting corridors.

Aria worried that every turn they made now was a turn they’d have to make
again
in order to get out of there.

Voices carried to her ears, coming from somewhere behind her. Aria locked eyes with Roar, who’d also heard. Someone was approaching. They’d avoided other people so far, but their luck had run out.

Roar whistled softly. Up ahead, Perry spun, reacting instantly. Together they moved toward the voices, so swift and close that Aria felt a rush of air as they passed her; then they turned the corner and disappeared.

Aria forced herself to keep going with Soren—to reach the central corridor—despite the desperate pull to go after them.

She picked up the pace, glancing back once more, and ran right into Soren’s chest. Aria bounced away, stunned.

Soren stood with his arms crossed, a smile on his face. “Intense, isn’t it?”

“Why are you stopping?” she asked, dread knotting inside her. He was
enjoying
this.

“We’re here.” Soren tipped his head toward a heavy door with a darkened access panel at its side. “This is it.”

The door itself was unmarked and not at all like what she’d expected of the gateway to the most secure areas of the Komodo.

Then it hit her. Behind that door, she’d find Cinder.

And Hess.

And Sable.

Soren knelt in front of the panel. He cracked his knuckles and coaxed it to life with a tap, then expertly moved through screen after screen of security interfaces.

Watching him, she was reminded of Ag 6. Of the night he’d done this months ago. In a flash she remembered Soren’s hand, crushing her throat. Aria shook away the memory and listened for footsteps in the corridor—or for Roar and Perry. She heard only the soft buzz of the overhead lights.

“Hurry, Soren,” she whispered.

“Do I need to explain why that’s not helpful?” he said, without looking up from the panel.

Her eyes went to the grenade launcher at his belt.
Quiet plan
, she prayed.
Break the codes. Please let the quiet plan work
.

The security panel flashed green. Relief flooded through her, but it was short-lived. She glanced down the corridor. Where were Perry and Roar?

Soren peered up at her. “Not that I’m trying to rush you,” he said, “but we have sixty seconds before this door closes. What do you want to do?”

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