The Sowing (16 page)

13 - VALE

Fall 89, Sector Annum 105, 03h47
Gregorian Calendar: December 18

Remy’s face is pale, and her head lolls back against Soren’s chest. He wipes her mouth with his sleeve and glares at me as if he wants nothing more in the whole wide world than to rip out my heart and eat it raw.

I ignore him. “Vitals,” I say, and my newly issued MC—Mission Control—contacts snap a photo and bring up: REMY ALEXANDER. BLEEDING FROM HEAD AND LEG WOUNDS. POSSIBLE CONCUSSION. BLOOD PRESSURE LIKELY DROPPING.

Shit
. I stand and shout into my earpiece, “I need a medic at the west side of the building. Fast. We have a hostage who needs urgent medical attention.” I turn my attention to Soren. “What happened to her?” I ask him.

Soren ignores me.

Next to me, Chan-Yu looks at me sidelong. He volunteered to accompany me on this mission, and I was curious enough about his motivations that I agreed. Unfortunately, he’s been more of a nuisance than anything. He’s been following me around, staying close to my side, watching me as though sizing me up or waiting for me to do something. He certainly hasn’t done anything useful, and it occurs to me that my Mom sent him along to babysit—or worse, that he’s been instructed to report every mistake I make directly to Aulion.

I turn back to Remy. Broken and crushed glass shimmers on her ripped, blood-soaked pants. I saw how she sliced open her leg, but how did she get that head wound? Did one of my men shoot her? The Bolts were supposed to be on low charge. No one was supposed to get hurt. The plan was to have the three cars provide a distraction as the rest of the team dropped in from the airships. We’d surprise them in the middle of their mission, grab Eli, and we’d pack up and let the rest of them go. Then one of our drones would track them back to their base. That’s all been scrambled now. Remy’s losing blood fast, and I have no idea what kind of medical equipment they have at the Resistance base—or even how far away their base is. I’m not willing to let her go back if I don’t know she’s going to make it.

Soren starts pulling off his jacket and everyone startles, holding their weapons a little tighter, but all he does is wrap the jacket around Remy’s leg, trying to staunch the bleeding. Blood trickles into my eye, but I don’t know when or how I got hit in the face. Maybe when Remy threw that sonic grenade? I wipe the blood away and Soren’s name immediately appears above his head: SOREN SKAARSGUARD. WANTED: TREASON.
Damn it, I know that!

“Clear!” I command, and the writing disappears. I wish I could use Demeter this far away from Okaria. She’s a hell of a lot more useful than these contacts.

I turn to three of the soldiers behind me. My contacts immediately pull up their names and ranks. “Report to Bradley and help the rest of the team retrieve the target. The rest of you, keep your weapons on these two.”

As they move to carry out my orders, I hear Bradley, my second in command, through my earpiece. “We’ve got the target surrounded, Vale. There’s no way for him to make it out of the building. We’ll meet you at the entrance.”

Only one injury so far—the driver of the hovercar Remy disabled, and she’s already been medevac’d to the Huron, our main transport waiting a kilometer away. There’ve been a few other injuries, but nothing serious. For a team of six, though, the Resistance put on a damn good show.

Soren says something—to Remy or into his earpiece? I can’t take the chance he’s talking to Eli or their pilot, so I bend down and pull out his earpiece and toss it aside. He ignores me completely and goes on bandaging Remy’s wound.

To the three remaining soldiers who are watching me and Soren warily, I say, “Disarm him, and bind his hands.”

One of the soldiers bends down to pull Soren away from Remy, but Soren spits at him and slaps his hands away. The man pulls back the butt of his weapon to strike Soren, but I stop him with a sharp, “Soldier!” He looks up, none too pleased with me.

“A regular humanitarian,” Soren sneers, and I’m tempted to hit him myself.

Reika, one of the other soldiers, hauls Soren to his feet as he reluctantly leaves Remy’s unconscious form in the dirt. I want nothing more than to bend down beside her, to take Soren’s place. Instead I watch as Reika cuffs Soren’s hands behind his back. Reika’s got short-cropped blonde hair and is at least my height. She’s not quite a match for Soren, but she can hold her own. Chan-Yu steps over and pats him down, pulling off two sonic grenades, a handheld Bolt, wire cutters, and a beautiful knife that looks like something out of a history book. He passes Soren’s equipment over to me, and I stash it in my pack, wondering where in the world he got the knife.

“Watch that blade of mine carefully, old buddy,” Soren says, suddenly flashing me a lunatic’s smile. “I’ll need it back soon. In the meantime, try not to stab anybody in the back with it, okay?”

On the ground, Remy opens her eyes and struggles to sit up. Soren wrenches away from Reika and drops to his knees beside her, and that act alone is as painful as if he’d plunged that beautiful knife between my ribs. He can’t hold her—his hands are tied—but the lunatic smile is gone, and in its place is an expression of such pain and worry that I can’t help but wonder what on earth is going on between the two of them. Luckily, before I can do something stupid, our other hovercar pulls up and a medic, dressed in the healer’s blue uniform, hops out and drops down next to Remy.

“Get him up,” I order, and Reika drags Soren to his feet again and pulls him away from Remy.

“Status?” the medic asks, looking back and forth between me and Soren.

“Head wound, glass cuts in her leg, she’s losing a lot of blood,” I say quickly. Remy’s eyes roll back in her head, and she slumps to the ground again. The medic checks her head and her leg and then quickly cuts off her pant leg and applies a tourniquet. She starts pulling glass shards from Remy’s leg, cleaning the wounds as she goes.

“The result of spending too much time with an Orleán,” Soren spits.

I whirl and find myself toe-to-toe with him. We used to be about the same height, but he’s got at least three inches on me now. I’m sure I’ve had better training, but he looks lean, hungry, and dangerous. His blond hair is dirty, his face is streaked with sweat, and I wonder who would be left standing at the end if we went at it once and for all. I hold back the fist that is balling itself up, ready to strike. He seems to know my thoughts.

“Hit me. I dare you.” He laughs. I feel Chan-Yu’s firm touch on my arm for just a moment, restraining me. Then I have a better idea.

“You three,” I point to the remaining soldiers, “take this one around to the front of the building. We’re going to give Elijah Tawfiq an incentive to cooperate.” The smile slides off Soren’s face. Reika shoves Soren off towards the entrance to the seed bank, where most of my team is waiting. The other two soldiers train their Bolts on him and follow Reika cautiously. Into my earpiece: “Team: I’m sending you Soren Skaarsgard. If you have any trouble with Elijah, tell him we’ll shoot Soren. Do not, I repeat, do not, under any circumstances, actually shoot him. He’s far more valuable alive.”

At my feet, the medic is now checking Remy’s vitals, recording her information on a miniature plasma. We need to get Eli and get the fuck out of here. I can take Remy back for treatment, but I need to get as far away from Soren as possible.
Where is their airship, anyway?

“Vale to Seahawks,” I say into my earpiece. “Do you have a read on the Resistance craft?”  The Seahawks are our precision craft, built for maneuverability and short-range strikes.

“Seahawk 2 to Vale: No location. It seems to have disappeared.”

Damn. They must have some sort of cloaking ability. I can’t help but be impressed with their technology, given what little they have to work with.

 “Sir, we lost him.” It’s Bradley.

“Soren?” I sputter.

“Elijah. He’s gone. Slipped into a side hallway and disappeared.”

“What? How? You had him surrounded!” The medic gets out a bottle and squeezes Remy’s mouth open, tilting her head up and squirting some of the liquid down her throat.

“I pulled up the building’s schematics, and I’ve got people on every floor. I think he’s in the ventilation system. I’m heading toward the boiler room in case he makes it all the way down there.”

The medic looks up at me. “I stopped the bleeding, sir, but she needs a blood transfusion. We need to get her on the Huron.”

I nod. “Is she okay to move?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. We’ll put her in the back of the hovercar.” I bend down to Remy’s side and pick up her limp form. Her head lolls against mine and her eyes flutter, I can’t help but think of the first time—the only time—I was this close to her. I admire the smooth curves in her cheekbones, the fullness of her lips, the sharp curves in her long eyelashes, and I think how much she’s grown up and how impossibly beautiful she is. 

She tried to kill me, I remind myself.
Did she?
“Come closer. Please,” she said, before she threw the grenade. It dawns on me:
She was trying to protect me. She didn’t want to hurt me.
I carry her as carefully as possible to the car, and Chan-Yu opens the door for me. I lay her down gently in the back seat, and the medic rushes to stabilize her head and neck.

“Take her up to the Huron,” I say, addressing the medic. “Get her that transfusion and whatever else she needs, and then radio headquarters and let them know we’re bringing a wounded hostage back.” The medic nods stoically and hops in the car, zooming off in the direction of our cargo ship waiting in the distance.

I head towards the building where soldiers are guarding each exit on the ground floor. Soren’s standing at the main entrance with a grim smile on his face. One of the soldiers has a gun to his head.

Suddenly, in the distance, but coming toward us at speed, I hear the whirring of an airship engine. I can’t see it, but just the sound is enough to confirm it’s not ours. It’s too loud, too messy—it’s obviously the Resistance ship. My earpiece erupts.

“What the hell?”

“Seahawk 1 to Vale: Reading on the Resistance ship, approaching fast, hull doors open ready to fire.”

The airship swoops in toward the main entrance, barreling through the air directly for us. Their pilot must be a madman. Blue light erupts from the base of the airship, and several of my soldiers on the roof go down, one toppling over the edge and hitting the ground with a heavy thud.

“Man down, man down!”

From thirty meters away I see a flash of red hair as the airship buzzes fifteen meters above the ground.

“Take cover!”

Someone grabs me and drags me to the side of the building for cover.

“Bradley!” I shout. “Tell me you have Eli.” I peer around the edge of the building, where our soldiers have formed up defensively and are firing back on the Resistance craft.

“Permission to increase Bolt charge, sir,” someone yells.

“Permission denied,” I yell back, even as I hear some grumble in response.

“No sign of him,” Bradley says. “I’ve got people on every floor.”

“Well, find him! They’re here. Their airship’s back, and they’re mounting a rescue.” I pull back, away from the building, running sideways to see what the hell is going on. Within seconds, I hear the hum of a second airship—ours, this time—whooshing around the building, tearing off after the Resistance ship.

And then I see him. Eli. On the roof.
Shit!
He’s standing on the wall—waving. As though daring us to shoot him.

“Target is on the roof! Do not shoot to kill! Repeat. Do not shoot to kill!” I shout into my headpiece for every soldier to hear. I pull out my Bolt and make sure it’s on low charge, just enough power to send a paralytic shock through him, disabling him long enough for us to take him down. I stop, steady my arm, and fire. Eli disappears behind the wall, but I know I didn’t hit him. Their airship comes rocketing out of nowhere, and Eli stands up again, raising his hands high above him. He must already have his gloves on. Though it’s too dark to see the dangling magnetic line, I know it’s there. As the airship drops down over the roof and then takes off again at an impossible angle, Eli is like a fish on a hook as he’s reeled up. From the ground, it looks like he’s flying, swinging from the invisible line trailing below the airship.

I switch the setting on my Bolt to maximum charge but quickly realize I can’t risk bringing the whole thing down and killing all of them, including some of my men on the ground. Even disabling the craft and causing it to crash is too dangerous. As Eli is lifted into the hold, he grabs a gun from whoever is next to him and starts firing down at me. His aim is nowhere near on target because the airship is angling up and away too fast for him to get a good shot.

“Zoom,” I say, and my contacts zoom in on him as he stops firing and stuffs the gun in his belt. By Eli’s side: KENZIE OBAN. WANTED: TREASON. I focus on Eli, and he looks down at me as if he knows I can see him clearly. He pounds his fist on his chest and then jabs his finger in the air, pointing down, directly at me. I can only imagine what he’s saying.

“Seahawk 1 to Command: I’m locked on and ready to fire.”

“Stand down. Do you hear me? Do not fire,” I command. “We’re not going to kill them all.”

“Are you sure, sir?”

“I said stand down!”

“Yes, sir. Standing down,” the pilot says, his voice tinged with disappointment.

“Fuck.” I turn back towards the main entrance to the seed bank. “Okay, everyone, hook on or load up! We’re heading back to the Huron.” I shout: “Seahawks, grab your men and let’s go!”

Two of our small Raven class transports have landed near the entrance, and I see the body of a soldier being loaded up. I grab one of the men nearby and spin him around. “How many casualties?”

“Three, sir,” he reports.

“Status?”

“One dead—the one who fell off the roof—and two wounded. Oh, and your driver. But she’s already on the Huron.”

“Carry on,” I say.

“Yes, sir.”

Reika is hauling Soren’s unconscious body into the other Raven, and Chan-Yu drops to help her. Reika nods at him gratefully.