The Covert Academy (22 page)

It was amazing how quickly he had become used to showering every day. The Joshua from the streets of Chicago would have called him a dainty flower. But that Joshua had only ever seen flowers in a photo before he had come to the island. Joshua realised he would fight to the death to defend the Academy.

He was still half
dressed and daydreaming about the old days skulking around the borders of the Colonnade, when Sarah walked into his room.

‘Inspecting your handiwork?’ he asked, meaning his ankle.

‘That was a fine speech,’ Sarah said, not hearing his question. She looked almost sad.

‘What? Oh thanks I guess.’

‘Do you think they really have a chance to get out in time?’

Joshua hesitated, which told her more than she wanted to know. ‘We don’t know what the Confederates will hit us with, or when. I’m just playing the odds.’

Sarah nodded, as if that were enough. ‘And your sister is with the Fletchers,’ she added. ‘If you believe Meyrick.’

‘That too.’

Sarah walked over and sat on the bed, while Joshua tugged at the jumpsuit stuck at his ankle.

‘
Ryan came to me that day, you know,’ she began. ‘Just before you jumped up the fire escape to my apartment. Said he wanted to “go out” with me. Can you believe that?’ Sarah shook her head. ‘He just told me, simple as that. He didn’t ask whether I wanted to or not. Then after I said no, he tried to kill us and kidnapped the doctor.’ She choked back a sob. ‘I was so angry! How could he do that?’

Joshua hopped over next to her and sat down. ‘He was a Fletcher. Probably just wanted to get you out of the way before he made his escape. He knew you would try to stop him, that you were the best of us.’

Sarah looked up at Joshua, her eyes red and puffy. ‘No. I’m not. I killed him. You would have spared him. You were going to, I saw it.’

He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t.

‘I lost control,’ Sarah continued, the floodgates open now. ‘I lost control of myself and you were there to reel me back in. You’ve always-’

Joshua didn’t need any more encouragement. He reached out and pulled her into his embrace, the jumpsuit forgotten at his feet. The effect of the pose was not lost on either of them. Sarah kissed back fiercely, and he felt his heart lurch in his chest from the incredible sensation, but it could have been the ship skipping off the atmosphere, as it sped towards the coming assault.

It was going to be a bumpy ride.

Sarah hopped out of the tiny shower and put on a towel. For someone with her kind of lifestyle, running around the world antagonising the Confederacy, she had very few visible wounds. A couple of
minor bruises were a clear indication of her skill.

She walked back into the bedroom and looked at Joshua's inert body
, half covered by the soaked sheets. His skin was torn and bruised all over, but other than his swollen ankle, most of the marks of his newfound profession were finally fading. Sarah had to admit he was improving with astonishing speed. She congratulated herself again with her decision to recruit him. But she couldn't afford to get too attached to him. His wide-eyed optimism and talent at espionage weren't the only reasons she had endorsed him.

Sarah quickly dressed and made her way up to the cockpit.

Richard was there as ever. When he heard her coming he quickly began flipping switches and pushing random buttons.

Sarah chuckled.
‘Playing with the windscreen wipers?’

She plopped down into the copilot’s chair, tucked her legs under her chin and grinned over at Richard.

‘I’ll have you know this baby would fall right out of the sky without me at the helm,’ Richard said, playing along. ‘You’re lucky to have me.’

‘Oh I feel blessed.’

‘Is that what you kids call it these days?’ Richard said.

Sarah’s smile dropp
ed into a horrified expression. ‘You didn’t... could you hear-?’

‘She’s a small ship, not much goes on without me knowing it,’ Richard clarified.

‘Crap.’

‘Hey don’t sweat it. I won’t tell anyone. You never know which mission will be your last eh?’

Sarah huffed at that and got up to leave. ‘We must be almost there. Send all the data you’ve got on the Fletchers down to the galley. Might as well brief the troops.’

Within minutes everyone aboard the Nyctalopia except Richard was crammed around the table in the ship’s galley. It made a decent mobile briefing room with the help of an overhead 3D projector that beamed down a holographic map of Hawaii from the ceiling.

The younger kids milled together like a flock of lost sheep. Joshua and Ichiro were pacing around the map like caged animals, eager to strike a blow against
Ryan’s comrades.

Joshua caught Sarah’s eye while she fiddled with the hologram controls and winked at her. Sarah didn’t return the gesture
and instead focussed on zooming the map in to their landing zone on O’ahu.

Hopefully being with him wasn’t a huge mistake
, thought Sarah, groaning inwardly. Joshua could act so childish sometimes, and right now he looked about seconds away from shouting his feelings from a mountaintop.
Well
, she thought,
I’ve got just the thing for him
.

Sarah swept the projected view around so that the image soared up a mountain and along a plateau.

‘Our one and only piece of intel on this mission are the co-ordinates given to us under duress from Mr. Meyrick. So at best we can assume that the Fletchers’ base, situated here...’ Sarah indicated the centre of the plateau, ‘...is a well-fortified position.’

A grumble went around the room at that – it wasn’t very encouraging.

‘At worst,’ Sarah continued, ‘it could be ringed with traps, and have an army of assassins waiting to blow us out of the sky. We can’t get a scan of their defences through the thick foliage, so we’ll be dropped off above the beach at the treeline and running up the mountain on foot.’

The knot of young kids fell silent and shrank back into the wall at those words. Sarah could see Joshua looking between her and them with a look of annoyance. He shook his head at her.

Well I’ll be damned if I’ll sugar-coat it for these kids
, Sarah thought. They had to grow up fast. She looked over them, seeing as much potential in there as she had in Joshua.

Their new recruits were a regular melting pot of various cultures. Elayne, the Scottish girl, was clinging to William, an English lad. They were both young and tiny but had a grim determination in their faces. Eddie, a gigantic farm-boy from Kansas, leaned on a bulkhead with his eyes closed, as if he was in prayer.

Sarah knew he wasn’t despairing, only getting himself mentally prepared.

The last three were Marcas from Brazil, Kayla from South Africa and Alara from Turkey. They all knew the stakes. They glanced at each other, remembering who an
d what they were fighting for: to give their friends back at the Academy time to escape the coming Confederate assault.

Sarah cleared her throat as she walked around the hologram to address them more directly.

‘So,’ she nodded, ‘this is what you’ve been training for. Pack your gear, but we travel light. Leave all that can be spared behind. Our goal is simple... we wipe them all out.’

The
Nicky
skimmed across the waves, coming in low to the beach of western O’ahu. The ship reached the shore and continued inland, keeping low to the ground.

No sign of any defensive weaponry so far
, Sarah thought, as they flew over a derelict highway. They must have no idea we’re coming.

She hung out the open cargo bay ramp, one arm wrapped around a hydraulic beam for support. She hefted a small oddly
shaped pistol in her other hand with a hologram projecting out from the barrel, scanning for enemy gun emplacements. The results came up empty.

Sarah looked over at Ichiro
, on the other side of the ramp, doing the same as her.

‘Anything over there?’ she yelled over to him.

Ichiro shook his head in a negative.

Sarah yelled over her shoulder at
the crowd waiting up the ramp. ‘We’re all clear, let’s-’

The projection from the pistol suddenly flashed red and made a long low beeping sound. Sarah snapped back to it and fiddled with the controls.

The Nyctalopia was flying over a long abandoned holiday resort, the buildings collapsed and the walls crumbling into dirty fountains and ponds. A golf course just beyond the resort raced toward them. The rolling hills seemed to make the ship act like a surfer as it skimmed over the contour of the landscape.

Joshua had tethered himself to the ship and walked down the ramp to stand at Sarah’s shoulder.

‘Are you okay? What was that?’ he asked, a strong note of concern tingeing his voice.

Sarah rolled her eyes without letting him see it.
Typical male
.
Was he going to get over-protective of her now that they had been intimate
?

She sure hoped not. As far as she was concerned, it had been a moment of weakness while she had been conflicted about her own morality, and Joshua happened to be there when she needed him. She scolded herself for not realising he would treat it more seriously than that.
Though now was not the time for that discussion in a committee.

Sarah pointed at the
clubhouse of the golf course as it sped towards them. The roof had been replaced with a satellite array.

‘That’s what this peashooter picked up.’ Sarah pointed at the dishes and antennae poking out of the house. They looked as run-down as the rest of the island they had seen so far, with cables running haphazardly in every direction. The golf course itself was far from playable, it was almost as overgrown as the jungle that climbed up Mt. Ka’ala in the distance. It was incredible anything here still operated.

As Sarah and Joshua watched, the nearest antenna swivelled and pointed straight at them like a homing beacon. Then the rest of the antennae turned as they came into range. The dishes revolved more slowly than the antennae, but there was no doubt they had been spotted now.

‘Fire an EMP burst,’ Joshua ordered.

Sarah hesitated. She didn’t see the point in firing at the scanning equipment now that they had already been detected.

I should be giving the orders here
, she thought.
I have the most experience... but no
, she corrected herself,
Joshua is here to keep me from losing my marbles and killing everyone I see
.

She shrugged off the implications of losing her command. It was Joshua’s call. Sarah fired an electromagnetic pulse burst from the brick shaped pistol. The blue ball of energy drove across the rolling hills of the golf course.

‘Fore!’ Joshua yelled. Ichiro chuckled but Sarah threw him a dirty look. This wasn’t the time for jokes.

The energy pulse smacked into the
clubhouse and dissipated around the surface area. The satellite dishes stopped rotating to follow them.

Joshu
a gave Sarah a pat on the back. ‘Nice one, babe. But they probably know we’re here now anyway,’ he said.

Sarah rolled her eyes
again.
No kidding
. The chauvinistic remark didn’t help either.

Overloaded sparks of electricity from the EMP burst flared on the exposed wires recklessly strewn about the
clubhouse. One caught on a nearby patch of hot dry grass, which blossomed into flame. Within seconds, a tongue of fire licked the walls of a barn. There must have been something volatile in there because in the next instant, a massive explosion ripped through the building and a fireball arced into the sky.

Barrels from within the barn soared through the air, causing major secondary explosions, then the
clubhouse itself exploded along with it.

Sarah couldn’t help but let out a cheer along with the kids waiting up the Nyctalopia’s ramp. Ichiro grinned as more buildings around the resort blew up in a daisy chain reaction below. The entire area had to be some kind of explosives manufacturing plant hidden within the resort.

Gigantic fireballs arced up into the sky. One sprang up too close to the ship. The wash of heat pushed the Nyctalopia’s
jets off balance, throwing the ship into a spin. The cheers and smiles turned to cries of alarm as the horizon spun around them. Red and orange warning lights and a siren blared throughout the cargo hold.

Sarah activated her suit’s strength mode and clamped her hand down like a vice on to the ramp’s hydraulic arm. She swung out into the open air as the Nyctalopia spiralled out of control. On the opposite side, Ichiro wasn’t quite as fast. He was flicked out of the ship mid air and disappeared.

Joshua was bounced violently on the end of his cable that tethered him to the ship. He was flung around the ramp onto the outside of the ship. All that Sarah could see of him was the cable tightly wrapped around the open ramp door.