Rebels (30 page)

“And pass it along?”

“Yes. And then—”

“I kissed you instead,” I say firmly, my eyes opening. Kane nods.

“I couldn't have hurt you, Livia. I couldn't hurt anyone, really. But especially not you, not with how I feel about—”

No.
He won't escape so easily. This is not another Courting Dance. “Who sent you after me?”

“I have no idea,” he says softly. “I wish I knew. I'd go after them myself.”

We stare at each other. I sense his pain and confusion. Unfortunately, he's telling the truth.

“I was taking orders,” he says.

“For that reason alone, I might never forgive you.”

“Hey! C'mon already!” booms Lex, glaring at us. I drop Kane's hand.

“What are you guys doing? Do you
want
them to get us? They're getting closer.”

I hear nothing, but she's telling the truth. In that instant, I sense them nearby. They are close enough for me to feel them. There are many of them, and all are burning to punish us.

Yet even more powerful than the approaching danger? Lex right next to me. Her emotion washes over me with powerful intensity.

Kane belongs to her, not me. That is what she is feeling.

Focus, Lex. You can deal with this later. Right now, they are coming.

I try to help Kane up, but he ignores my outstretched hand.

“Stubborn scrubber,” I say, watching him fight to his feet. “Rather get us killed than have me help you.” He's standing now, and smiling. He takes a few unsteady steps, but at least he can walk.

“Well?” he says to Livia. “Will you? Let me prove it to you?”

“I might consider the possibility,” she says.

Now they're looking at each other and grinning. They already have secrets? What kind of core-low stupidity is going on here? Livia hands him the blaster we swiped from the PCF craft. She pulls out the sword, which is singing like crazy. “That,” says Kane, looking at it, “is the most strato thing I have ever seen.”

Footsteps bang down the hallway.

“Too late,” says Lex.

“There are too many of them,” says Livia. “Six, at the very least.”

I don't ask how she knows this. At this point, why ask questions? She's a freak, but at least a helpful one.

“We cannot possibly take them all,” she adds.

“I don't like this,” I say, the air boiling around us. My silitex regulates the heat, but only so much.

Two PCF burst in, weapons at the ready. Livia leaps and slashes the first one before he can even comprehend what he's facing. I blast the other quickly.

I've still got it
, I think. There's no time to be proud. More will be coming. We must survive this first.

I hate to be right, but I still have the cadet in me. Another PCF follows through the door, blasting.

I drop to the floor and take aim. As soon as he falls, another is waiting.

So is Livia's blade. She cuts him two times, rating high in efficiency. That's all it takes.

In that time, a wave of four storm us and they've got us dead, if that's what they want. I don't know. I can hope not.

One has his blaster to the back of Livia's head, and he's smirking. Her sword is still raised, and she's thinking about making a move.

“Watch it!” I scream, just as the blast rings out.

The PCF slumps to the floor next to her, and for a second the other goons are just as confused as I am.

One of their own is blasting them from behind. Shooting each one of them in the back. The trooper's blasts sizzle with ferocity. It's only when they've opened their visor that it becomes clear why they've done this.

“Vippy?” Sure enough it's Vippy underneath the helmet. She looks way more threatening than I'd ever imagine she could be. “How'd you get so big?”

“There's lifts in my boots.”

I'm not sure if a hug is appropriate.

“Hey, Vip!” Kane says.

She nods at him. “At central command they're monitoring our biorhythms and will see that these three are stunned. Take my access chip, then take my blaster and stun me and go.”

“But why would you do this?”

“I'm a rebel,” she says. She would be right in assuming my confusion is also disgust. I can't help the way I feel. “Always have been. A team's been dispatched to get you out of here and take you in. Evac point is by the transporter tube on this level. They can help you.”

“I'm not going with any rebels.”

My saying this hurts her. I almost can't imagine that what she says is true.

“Come with us,” Kane says.

“I can't,” Vipsinia says. “A placement here is worth too much to our people. I can help them more here than anywhere else.”

“I'm not going with a bunch of rebels,” I say.

Livia looks at me strangely. Like I'm doing something wrong. “Just what do you think
you are
then?”

Kane looks like he agrees. “After this, you're not going to be welcomed back with some sort of award.”

But a
rebel
? I just came to save my friend. I just . . .

I take Vippy's offered blaster and access chip. This girl I showed a kindness to once . . . only once . . . and now she's repaid it more
than in full. If she's a rebel, then perhaps I don't know everything there is to know.

“This is going to hurt,” I say.

“Of course it—”

I stun her in midsentence and drop the sizzling blaster next to her body. Central command will have questions for her, probably put this entire squad on leave to suss out what exactly happened, but this will help sell the narrative that she's not to blame.

Only I am. Somehow everything I touch goes to hell.

We race toward the transporter tube in the now-lit hallway.

“Who was that girl?” I ask.

“A cadet who graduated with me and Kane. I like her, but we weren't friends. I don't understand why she would do that for us.”

I don't tell Lex that I could sense how much this Vippy admired her and loved her. It would not ease her guilt to know why people do good things for her.

Kane grins as he catches up to us. “We got about five minutes till backup comes.”

“And the guys back there?” asks Lex.

“Don't worry about them. They'll have to thaw first.”

“Thaw?” I say. Lex is already smiling, as though they speak a language all their own.

“He activated the climate control,” she says. “They'll be frozen solid.”

“Maybe not solid, but real icy,” he says. “Not that they'll be able to open the door with anything less than an arc welder.”

We look at each other, all three of us, and smile for just a moment. Even small victories have their rewards.

“Okay,” I say. “This is the evac point, right? This is where we meet them.”

“But how can we trust them?” Lex asks.

“The rebels didn't do this to us,” Kane says.

Lex nods. She's confused. We all are.

Even more so when a team of shock troopers rushes us from behind. PCF. We should've been ready for this.

Around every corner there's always more PCF.

We're surrounded by PCF. Five of them. I reach for my blaster, Livia her sword.

“Don't even think about it,” says the one in front.

I draw anyway.

The blaster jumps from my hand. I didn't even see him move, it was that quick.

“I told you not to, Lex.”

He knows my name? Now he's really got my attention.

The PCF uniform fits properly, but it's a bit ragged, especially for Hickie patrol. His long-barreled blaster, while it could still kill us all dead, doesn't look like it's been cleaned or maintained in months.

Rebels.

“Good to see Vipsinia came through. We would've been here quicker, but someone destroyed the garden, which has become a bit of a thing.” He lifts his helmet, and he's younger and shaggier than the fine men of rarefied air. His troops follow his lead, and I've never seen anything like them. One has a drawing on his cheek. Another smiles, only to reveal that his top row of teeth is all blistered metal.

“Long way from where you're supposed to be,” Kane says.

“Don't appreciate us breathing your air, Islander?” asks the shaggy-haired one.

“I'd rather you weren't breathing any of it,” I say.

Him and me, we've come to an impasse. I meant what I said. I don't do overly friendly strangers.

Livia retrieves my blaster for me. “If these . . . rebels are willing to show us the way out,” she says, “let's do the logical thing and follow them, for now. A kindness was paid, so now a kindness is done.”

Shaggy nods. “It's good to see someone carries the intelligence gene.”

I jam my blaster hard in his guts and his men crowd me. “If you're so interested in genetics, I could give you a real good look at your insides.”

“Zavier.”

The rebels step back, even this unshaven Zavier, all showing deference to the man who spoke. A real man.

That
, I think,
is the real leader
.

“Excuse Zavier's disposition. He's not worked on his social graces as much as his soldiering.”

This man's old enough to be any of the rebels' father, but his manner suggests he was born in a different strata than any of them. I suspect he could hold his own in Waslo's presence.

He holds his wiry frame tall, hands clasped in front of him, with not a hint of aggression. He looks relieved to see us. “My ladies and gentleman, I am Roscoe.” He bows, as would any Proper Gentleman.

He smiles and his skin crinkles at the corners of his eyes and lips. Wrinkles, I know, though I have never seen them, our science having eliminated all signs of aging long ago in Upper Indra. Yet this man wears his age well, dignified, far from deterioration, his warm eyes glowing as though witnessing something rare and extraordinary.

He catches himself.

“You must forgive my own rudeness. It has been a very long time, Livia,” he says, bowing again. Lex scoffs, showing her displeasure with his etiquette, and even her disinterest grants him a gracious
chuckle. A true high-born gentleman, masquerading as a scavenger. “And you are Lex, of course,” he says to her.

He turns to Kane, his hand extended, when Lex shouts, “Enough with the introductions!”

Roscoe drops the smile, but not his disposition.

“I don't care who you are right now,” she continues. “We gotta get out of here. And if you don't plan on shooting your way out, you can join the rest of the bodies that way.”

Roscoe draws his blaster. “Well, of course. We're here to escort you, Lexie.”

Her eyes go wide and if she isn't about to punch him, then I will cohabitate with a dirty scavenger. Kane must sense the same thing because he grabs her arm.

“He's trying to help us. Let him.”

Lex would rather die, I can tell, but Kane she listens to. What they have isn't easy to build between two people. It can't be studied or taught, only forged over the bitterness of time.

Lex picks up the buzzing sound before everyone else and she looks sharply at the rebel from which it comes. He stares back at her, confused, until he hears it too and is embarrassed. He lifts an outdated handheld earfeed up and listens. He goes to tell the older man, but she already knows what he'll say.

“The PCF have locked down our location,” Lex says. “We have two minutes in which to leave.”

Roscoe isn't surprised at her hearing. Either he is utterly unflappable—quite possible—or he knows more about her than she's comfortable with him knowing. “That is undoubtedly correct. Now, either of these routes you take will lead to a quick capture or fates far worse.”

“Your only choice is to come with us,” Zavier says. He does it to goad Lex. We must keep our eye on him. He wants to incite people to be as unhappy as he is.

“Why should we trust you?” I say to Roscoe.

Something crosses his face: he doesn't want to hurt us, of this I'm aware. We're terribly important to him, yet I'm unsure as to why.

“Because,” he says. “I was a friend to your mother, Livia. And I made her a promise long ago that I would keep you safe. And it has taken me far too long to keep my word.”

I'm too shocked to offer a rebuttal.

“Words!” Lex yells. “That's all he has! All you want to do is control us, just like everybody else!”

“He's not lying,” I say, taking Lex's hand before she loses control. That she lets me . . . I cannot reason why. The shell has broken. “And yet,” I say to him, “you do not tell the full story.”

“Our time grows short,” he says. “But I know that you must sense the truth I speak.”

“You'll keep us safe, on that I'm clear.”

Again he nods.

“But if at any time that should change . . .”

“Your meaning is clear.”

Lex and Kane wait expectantly. That I've gained their trust is immeasurable. “We have no other choice,” I tell them.

“And you
feel
they don't want to hurt us?” asks Lex.

“Yes,” I say.

Kane looks at us both as though we're crazy and shrugs. “I'm glad we all agree.”

Lex signals our new allies. “Let's get moving, rebel scum.”

“You'll come with me,” Zavier says. The one who disarmed me. Who could use some Academy discipline and grooming. His hair almost covers his narrowed blue eyes. If I keep him close, I can take him down if the time comes.

When the time comes.

The rebels become a shield around Livia and me. If it's their intent to disorient us, it's working. They move as we move. They look like PCF, but their disguises won't hold up to much scrutiny. The real ones can't be far behind.