Strange Skies (21 page)

“But Sonya implied that the guns were somewhere romantic, or that Kale took her somewhere romantic at least,” I said. “The only place I can think of that fits that description is the beach, but it’s not like he’d bury the guns in the sand.”

“Wait, Sonya said the guns were somewhere romantic?” James asked.

“Yeah, I told you that. Oh no, wait, I heard that at the command center meeting … Why?”

James looked sheepish. “She mentioned a few times that she’d love for me to give her a private tour of Kale’s ship when he got back. Something about the Resistance leader’s ship being a turn-on or something.”

“Shame she’s on the wrong side,” said Markus. “She is so my kind of girl.”

“Knock it off. She’s a total burner. Also, she obviously likes men in power. Your drunk-and-falling-down routine probably didn’t impress her much.”

“I’m a changed man,” said Markus. “Maybe we can convert her.”

The image of Sonya walking her fingers up James’ arm was seared forever in my brain. But what sealed her fate was her role in Dad’s murder. “We’re not converting her. We’re killing her.”

“Fine,” said Markus, “but I get to kill Kale for what he did to Britta.”

It was the first time I’d heard him acknowledge what had happened. Either James had told him the truth or he’d
figured it out on his own.

“Back to the point,” James said. “The guns have to be on his ship. Wherever that is.”

“Can you find his com channel?” I asked.

“He’s always used a protected channel. We’ll have to find the actual ship.”

Trent sighed. “If he saw the Consulate ships, he wouldn’t come anywhere near here. Wouldn’t he just wait for them to blow us all up?”

The answer had just hit me. “He thinks his only chance to take out the Consulate once and for all is with those guns. He needs us.”

James nodded. “His entire mission is revenge. He won’t be afraid of them.”

“So if he’s looking for you two, where would he look?” Ian asked.

“He didn’t know where our camp was,” James said. “Best guess would be the bar or command center.”

“Which are probably blown to smithereens,” noted Markus.

“It’s worth a shot,” I said. “Kale and company might be in that area at least.”

James surveyed the lot of us. “The injured stay here—Max, Alec, and Becca. Trent and Bez, you guys watch over them in case something goes wrong. Keep in touch through the com.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to have more able-bodied persons helping out?” Reed asked. She shot a glance at Alec.
“I mean, I could stay too.”

Her reluctance to come with us was about more than wanting to be with Alec. I’d seen the fear in her eyes before when she realized she’d actually have to use her gun.

“Sorry,” said James. “We need all the help we can get in case there are Consulate forces on the ground.”

Alec smiled at her. “I’d go if I could walk on my own. At least I’ve got Lucy. She’s a pretty tough soldier herself.” Lucy licked his hand in agreement.

Max was a little more steady on his legs than before. “I want to help. I’m feeling better.”

I shook my head. “I appreciate that, but after all the work James did to bring you back, you’re going to sit here and you’re going to like it.”

James raised an eyebrow as he double-checked his weapon. “Listen to the lady, Max. You’re no good to us dead.”

Fresh sobs erupted from Becca. “I don’t want to die.”

Web looked grateful that he wasn’t the one assigned to stay behind. Like he’d rather face Consulate soldiers than comfort Becca for another minute. How she ever got to be a member of the Resistance was beyond me. Ian just looked angry, like he wanted revenge.

“We ready?” James asked.

Web and Ian snapped to attention. “Ready, sir.”

“Sure,” said Markus, twirling his gun in his hand. “Let’s get this over with.”

Reed came and stood by my side. “I hate this part.”

I nodded. “Me too.” But I was grateful that we didn’t have to put on sunsuits and worry about our oxygen supply on top of everything else.

Markus opened the hatch and we filed out into the daylight. Another bomb dropped in the distance and the ground shook so much that I fell to my knees.

“You okay?” asked Reed.

I dusted myself off as I stood up. “Never better.” All I wanted was to lie in the soft, pink sand again with James at my side. Instead, I was traipsing through the woods after Kale and the Consulate. A girl couldn’t catch a break.

Markus put a finger to his lips. We were supposed to be silent in case of ground troops.

“Look at you being all rule-abiding,” I whispered in annoyance.

His smug expression made me want to punch him. I hoped he wasn’t trying to impress Reed, because it was pretty clear she had a thing for Alec.

It was warm outside but the clouds remained despite the light break. The sun peeked through once or twice. A gray pall enveloped everything and a heavy mist hung in the air. We decided to head straight for the bar since it was the closest building.

James and Web walked in front of Reed and me. Markus and Ian hung back behind us. The burned-out hull of Max’s ship smoked ahead. It had taken a direct hit.

“Maybe it’s not a bad thing,” said Reed in a low voice. “With all of them dead on there.”

“Yeah, just a shame for Max to lose his ship.” I know how Markus felt about his ship, and assumed it was probably the same for Max. It was an even stronger bond than I’d felt about my first gun, Trigger.

No birds chirped and those pretty winged insects were nowhere in sight. They’d probably fled from the destruction. Those Consulate burners were already destroying a whole new planet. They’d never stop. Unless someone stopped them.

Reed leaned over and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “So, I was just wondering about Alec—”

Another bomb hit not far away and reverberations rippled through the trees. I steadied my legs to keep from falling again.

“What else is there left to hit?” I asked. They must have taken out the bar and command center by now.

“The camps,” said James.

I hoped the Resistance was smart enough to avoid the camps and that the Consulate was bombing nothing but empty huts.

I realized that now that the Consulate had Dad’s trigger formulas, they wouldn’t need me alive. Killing everyone related to the Resistance would be their goal.

Soon enough we reached what once was the bar. It had burned to the ground. Guess there were downsides to building with wood instead of thermoplastic.

“No sign of Kale. Should we move on to what’s left of the command center?” I asked.

“Yeah,” said James. “Steer clear of open areas so we’re not seen from above.”

We kept to the densest cover. We’d made it halfway to the command center when Kale and Sonya stepped out from behind a group of trees.

“About time you showed up,” Kale said, casually examining his weapon. “I’ve got some guns I was hoping you could use.”

James and I exchanged glances. From Kale’s matter-of-fact tone, you’d never know that he’d just murdered my father. I’d play along for now. Act like I had no idea my dad was dead. Act like Kale hadn’t gone to great lengths to have me killed a few short months before.

I’d do anything to get my hands on one of my weapons and take him down for good. I’m sure he wished the same about me. The fact that I was thinking more like Kale bothered me, but I couldn’t help that I hated him so much.

Markus clenched his fists. I reached out and patted his arm. It wasn’t time yet.

“Nice to see you again too,” I said.

Kale’s smile was forced and his cheerful tone couldn’t have been more fake. But you had to give him credit for having ginormous balls. “Tora, let’s let bygones be bygones, water under the bridge, as people used to say on Earth. We’ve got Consulate burners after us and I think we have a chance if we all work together. What do you say?”

“Why should we trust you?” I asked. “You and I have had a bit of a rocky relationship—”

That was the understatement of the year. Like saying Earth had been water-challenged
.

Kale held out in hands in a gesture of goodwill. “—but I think we can get past it. We both want the Consulate off our backs, once and for all, and I have guns that can make that happen … if you’re willing to use them. Then we can go our separate ways and pretend this never happened.”

I loved how he called the stolen guns
his
. Whatever. He wasn’t going to live long enough to go anywhere once I was done with him. I forced a smile. “Well, Kale, that sounds like a deal that benefits all of us. It’s so nice to be on the same side again. I hope these weapons of yours are nearby.”

Sonya looked briefly at James, confusion and hurt in her face. Even a hint of guilt. I bet she hadn’t fully realized what she was getting into with Kale. She must have felt my gaze because she turned and fixed her eyes on me. Her demeanor changed and she looked as though she could impale me with a stare.

Kale turned. “No time to waste. Follow us.”

Ian shot James a questioning look.

“Let’s go with them,” said James. “We’ll all stick together for now.”

I glanced at James and he nodded slightly. We understood each other. As soon as we had the guns, we’d take them down. We hurried after Kale and didn’t have to go far before we arrived at his ship, which had been buried under several large branches. His men stood guard. Kale opened
the hatch and motioned to James and me. “Just you two.”

Web walked up next to us. “Bad idea,” he said to James under his breath.

“It’s fine,” James said. “We’ll be right back.”

I frowned. Splitting up in the past hadn’t worked out so well for Britta, but James raised an eyebrow at me. He seemed confident in what was about to happen. We approached the ship and Kale waved James and me on board. “After you.”

Sonya and Kale’s pilot tried to follow us but Kale stopped them. “No need, soldiers, you can wait out here with the others.”

I’m not sure whether it was the fact that he relegated her to standing with his other men or the fact that he called her “soldier,” but the look on Sonya’s face was murderous.

As I stepped through the hatch door, panic gripped me. The last time I’d been here, I’d run for my life back out this hatch—away from James—and onto a strange, shifting planet. My heart thudded as I tried to calm myself. I wasn’t much safer this time around, but I’d take anything over James pointing a gun at me again.

Kale took us to the same small room where Britta had once forced me inside a human transport container. I actually missed that scrappy girl, though I’m sure not as much as Markus.

The containers of guns were stacked against the wall. Dad’s guns. I walked over and dug through them. James came up to my side but remained silent.

My eyes fell on Trigger and memories flooded back. All the times I practiced with Dad as he showed me how to aim with precision and, later, after my family was gone, sitting with Trigger, my sole companion, and yearning for a way off Earth. How pathetic that memories of fighting for survival were the “good ole days.” As much as I loved Trigger, I needed something powerful, something like my favorite boulder-killing gun, B.K. I’d blown so many rocks to bits with that gun, and then James had turned it against me.

“Hey?” I asked James. “Whatever happened to B.K. after you shot me with it?”

James looked at me like I was a petulant child. “Haven’t we been over this? I never shot you with B.K. I only shot you with
my
gun.”

I crossed my arms. “It never sounds good when you start a sentence with ‘I only shot you with …’ ”

“Wait, you didn’t shoot her with the super-gun?” Kale asked.

Oh, crap. Kale stood in the entrance watching James carefully. By now, Sonya would have told him about James being named the new Resistance leader.

“No,” said James. It was the first time I’d ever heard him speak to Kale without calling him “sir.” “I shouldn’t have even shot her with my gun. It was stupid.”

Wow. He wasn’t even pretending to be on Kale’s team anymore. That was terrifying and awesome all at once.

“Interesting,” Kale said. He must hate the fact that he
couldn’t kill us both right then and there.

James turned back to me. “The bomb you used on that crazy planet, what was it called again?”

“The Obliterator. T.O. Why?” How could I forget the weapon that blew up everyone around us except for James and me? I rifled through another container in my search of the most lethal gun I could find.

“I must have dropped B.K. in the seconds between the Consulate shooting me and you using T.O. The bomb didn’t just take out all the Consulate soldiers and their ship—it took out everything in a several-mile radius. When that other ship landed and picked us up, the only gun in my hands—which they quickly confiscated—was my own. B.K. was nothing but a pile of dust.”

I remembered how my satchel had survived the bomb because I’d been wearing it at the time, so it made sense that James’ gun remained unscathed. What I hadn’t realized was that T.O. would destroy the super guns too. Dad had truly designed the bomb as a last resort weapon. All along, I’d been trying to find a way to get rid of the weapons, when I could have just brought the lot of them to a location miles away from the nearest person and then detonated T.O. But T.O. was gone now, and there was nothing else like it in existence. Nothing else that could vaporize everything all at once.

Several of the guns looked similar to B.K., and I lifted a few of them from the box. Since Dad hadn’t thought I’d need to keep using the guns, most of our training sessions
had just been with Trigger and B.K. He’d only shown me how to use T.O. once, right before he left for his meeting with the Consulate and never came back.

“These should do,” I said. I took two of the B.K.-like guns for myself. It would end now. We’d kill Kale, take the guns, and get out of here. The plan could still work. But Kale had to think we were working with him. I handed two other über-weapons to James, and said loudly, “Here, we need all the help we can get against the Consulate.”

My eyes caught Trigger again and I set my two super-guns on the floor. I took the standard-issue gun out of my waistband and replaced it with Trigger. Between Kale and the Consulate, I didn’t feel like I could ever have enough guns. There was something comforting about having Trigger at my side. It was like a reunion with a beloved childhood friend. I picked up the super-guns and faced James.