Animalis (27 page)

A rocket shot out of the black Animalis plane. One of the mines moved and exploded in front of it, consuming the rocket in a second burst of light. The mines rippled from the radiating force of the explosions but the thrusters countered, and they flew back into formation.

Blue spilled into the reflection on Jax’s helmet. He pushed himself away from it, hanging onto the beam of the pyramid. The shock stick strike barely missed. Jax felt the pull of the centrifugal force once he was out of the center of the pyramid. Narasimha grabbed onto one of the beams and joined the spin. She held on with one powerful arm and thrust again at Jax with the stick. He hooked his feet between two adjoining beams and escaped the attack by drifting backward. Even with his suit on, the shock was designed to pass through thick Animalis hide, and could easily pass through the inch of insulation.

The black Animalis plane fired more rockets—five, ten rockets—streaming out and flying at the Atticus. The field of mines came to life, moving into the paths of the rockets. Tiny puffs of gas propelled the rockets into unpredictable spirals. The first rocket spun and ducked but exploded with a burst of particles when it collided with a mine at the front of the mine field. Debris bounced off the next two approaching rockets that were swimming through space in parabolic waves.

The mines moved like a horde of angry insects as the rockets began to break through the front lines. Another mine exploded with a burst of light and the surrounding mines were pushed outward from the perfectly spherical force. The next three rockets shifted and dodged and exploded. Mines began moving back to form a column of destruction with explosions erupting within it.

A rocket broke free of the column and spiraled away, coming for the Atticus.

“They’re getting through!” Hodge’s voice said.

“Detach the cockpit,” Grimshaw said. “Send the rest of the plane back at them.”

Jax saw a flash, and the front of the Atticus separated from the rest of the plane. Thrusters on the wings of the headless plane threw it backward at the oncoming missiles and enemy plane. Balls of light silently tore chunks away from it. Sparkling particles flew in every direction. The bulk of the plane remained, and the enemy was too slow to maneuver out of the way. The two planes crumpled into each other, sending the Animalis plane spinning in a new direction.

Jax moved to avoid another strike. The stick sent a vibration through his boots when it struck the pyramid near him. Jax had to keep the lioness on the outside of the pyramid, where she had the disadvantage of having to fight to hold on as well. Her hind legs wrapped around the beam she was on. Jax kicked down on her gloved hand. She let go and snarled. The sound was mixed with the rest of the voices crowding the frequency.

“Hank. I’m moving in beside you,” Maven said. Her pod spun and crept slowly up to Hank’s spinning body. The hatch on the side of the pod opened. “When you spin back around, you need to grab that handhold.” Hank did, and it stopped his spin. The pod readjusted to stop the pull of his momentum and they both straightened out. Hank climbed in with Maven.

“Why haven’t you used the pyramid to destroy me, Jax?” Narasimha asked. She reached into the pyramid but Jax kicked the hand away again. “It would end the fight swiftly and permanently. Would it not?”

Hank seemed to perk up at the mention of using the pyramid: “Jax, you’re inside it! You can do it—activate it!”

“Is it the same reason you spared the bear in the arena?” Narasimha asked.

Jax went to kick her hand away as it reached for his boot. Narasimha swung the shock stick. Jax couldn’t pull his leg back, but managed to avoid the attack by pushing his body into the centrifugal pull. The stick hit against a beam, leaving her vulnerable. Jax fought against the pull and pinched her hand against the beam with his foot. He had wanted to stomp on it to knock the weapon from her hand, but couldn’t pull his body in fast enough.

“I’m not you, Hank. I don’t know anything about DNA,” Jax said.

Narasimha reached to grab the extended leg with her other hand. He shoved his foot down, sliding the hand he had pinned along the beam, pushing the shock stick in a cutting motion at the reaching hand. She pulled her hand back.

Hank and Maven were flying back to the
Hornet
. They went in a wide arc to avoid the debris and mines that were left from the Atticus. Maven spoke before Hank could answer Jax.

“Felix? Why is the plane moving away?” Maven sounded concerned.

There was a click of static before Felix spoke: “Maven? Get back here as soon as you can. That rocket explosion must have hit one of the thrusters; we can’t maneuver to pursue. We are going to have to return to normal airspace as soon as we can.”

“Jax?” Grimshaw spoke.

Jax reached for the shock stick. When he pulled it from the lioness’s hand, it shut off.

“We don’t have very much fuel in this pod,” Grimshaw said, “and when we open the hatch, our oxygen is gone. We’ll only have whatever is left in our suits.”

It wasn’t the best news Jax had ever heard. His own suit only had forty minutes left before his own carbon monoxide asphyxiated himself.

The black Animalis plane with rockets had recovered. It began gaining altitude again.

“Hodge, are any of the mines still active? Send it over to one of their wing tips,” Grimshaw said.

A tiny speck sat motionless while the plane moved over it. With a sparkle of thrust, it shot to the right wing and exploded. The tip shattered and the plane started to swerve to the right. The plane began to drop down, doomed to an explosive re-entry in the atmosphere.

“Felix, we’ve docked with the
Hornet,
” Maven said.

A new voice came into the frequency: “This is Captain Hernandez. Hurley, are you alright? Who all is out there with you still?”

“Good to hear you again,” Grimshaw responded quickly. “There are five of us in total. I have three with me in my plane’s cockpit, Hodge and I, and Little Hank here. Jax is holding off one of the leaders of the Animalis militants. They're in the pyramid, and their trajectory isn't good.”

“We’ll send another plane now. I’m sorry we can’t get you ourselves. Can you two hold on?” Hernandez asked.

“This is Jax. I can, sir,” Jax said.

Narasimha had managed to pull her upper half inside the pyramid. If she made it in just a little farther … Jax waited.

“Hang in there, Jax,” Hank said. “I’ll see you when you make it down safe.”

Narasimha was finally in a position to come after him, and she thrust herself toward Jax in the middle of the pyramid. In a quick motion, Jax lit the stick and shoved it into her. She shook, and began to drift with the pyramid rotating around her. The corner opposite Jax was swinging in line with the rotation of the pyramid. He pushed her gently, and the force of the spin pinned her into the converging point of the pyramid. It would be cruel, but he would have to shock her again every few minutes to keep her from gaining control of her body and attacking him.

The captain’s plane descended slowly out of view, leaving the five to wait for rescue. Although, the cockpit of Grimshaw’s plane should have been designed to re-enter atmosphere. Jax suspected, or maybe just wanted to believe, that she was staying to be close to him.

Jax tried to calm his nerves now that Narasimha was unconscious. The adrenaline had tunneled his focus again. Clouds of crimson and gold nebulae swung by with an infinitude of gem-like stars overwhelming the spaces in between. A mist of white hung in the view beside him.

The mist wasn’t stars, or a nebula. Jax twisted his waist to get a better view of it, but the mist continued to spray just beyond his helmet. It was flowing out of something on him. Right at his neck, where the helmet should have sealed to keep his oxygen in.

Jax pushed his head against one of the beams of the pyramid and felt the last of the seal click together. The lights of his heads-up display sprung up on the glass of the helmet, giving him an altitude readout, guidance lines to objects in view, and, amidst the rest of the information, his oxygen supply and an estimation of how long he could expect to keep breathing:

12:04

“Can your cockpit re-enter the atmosphere?” Jax asked Grimshaw. They were drifting farther and farther away from the pyramid, but he could still see her and Hodge through the cockpit window. Both of them had their suits on. Grimshaw smiled when she saw him looking at her, then his rotation spun them out of view.

“It can,” she said. “But we aren’t going to leave you.”

“Good.” Jax tried to sound positive. “It feels like I’m already back on Earth, with you so close.”

“Hodge?” Grimshaw said, but her voice was distant, talking to Hodge in the cockpit. “How long can we last?”

Hodge’s voice echoed into her microphone, inaudible to Jax.

“We’ve got forty minutes,” she said to Jax. “What’s your oxygen at?”

“I …” Jax debated lying to her, telling her that he could wait for the rescue plane. “I’ve got twelve minutes left.”

“Say again?” The fear in her voice cut into Jax’s heart.

I should have lied.

“You can still make it back to Earth, Hurley,” Jax said. “With Hodge, and Little Hank, while you’ve got oxygen.”

“No, Jax. Not without you.” Her voice switched to Hodge: “Put Jax’s location in.”

Jax already knew what she was going to find: it would take five minutes to get to him, and once they opened their hatch, they’d have to rely on their suit’s own oxygen, then it would be another fifteen minutes to hit the surface of an ocean and get open air. Jax would still die halfway through the trip, and the rest of them would be at risk.

Her breathing grew panicked.

“Thank you for being my friend, Hurley,” Jax said.

“What if we do it manually?” she was saying to Hodge. “Burn full throttle the whole way?” And Hodge gave an inaudible response.

It could be almost an hour before someone came to rescue them. Even their tiny reserve of cockpit oxygen would run out by them. If they left now, they might be able to make it back to the Earth without suffocating. She couldn’t let herself die for some crazy kid who thought he loved her after just a few months of knowing her. He couldn’t let her.

The ocean of stars swept past him, streaming though his vision in brilliant clusters of color and depth. The crest of the Earth came into view, the rim glowing hot-yellow, red, and orange, refracting the light from the sun and dividing the colors in the clouds. Lights from a thousand cities gave life to the dark and separated the land from the sea. It was all so pretty.

“Jax? What are you doing? Why are you breathing like that?” she asked.

Jax’s oxygen was coming out in a slow trickle, and he had begun breathing slow, shallow breaths. “I cut off my oxygen supply,” he said. It hadn’t taken long for his head to start getting light. “You’re always so happy.”

“Turn your air back up!” she shouted, obviously not happy.

“I …” He had to talk slower. He couldn’t catch his breath. “I thought maybe I could … be one of the reasons … you were … are so happy.”

“Not if you’re dead, Jax! Come on, we can’t stop fighting,” she pleaded. “Give me a chance to save you.”

“Please, Hurley,” Jax tried again. “I’m the one … trying to save you.”

The speaker was quiet for a minute. Jax listened to the sound of his lungs filling and deflating. The glass of the helmet catching the noise and reflecting in, as a steady hiss, into his own ears.

Jax thought of Hank, that he had let him go. If he had held onto his hand, and let himself be pulled away from the pyramid, he could have gone back to normal life.

“You saved us,” she finally said. “Even if no one else on Earth knows it. I love you, Jax.”

Jax could see her looking at him through the window. It was the one time he had ever seen true helplessness in her expression. It was painful to see. He could feel his own heart breaking with what he was forcing her to do. Hodge said something to her.

“Yes, get a return trajectory ready,” she said, then she spoke to Jax again: “Don’t give up, Jax. Please don’t give up.”

Hodge hit the thrusters, and their pod shot away.

——

I’ve let the one person go that might have loved me.
Hurley’s eyes held onto Jax’s small figure spinning farther and farther away into the certain death of space. His back rotated past, and for what might have been the last time, she saw his face.
He’s still trying to smile
.

Her cockpit, the last remaining piece of her beautiful space plane, continued to descend past the wreckage of the battle. As the distance between her and Jax grew, the space was left empty. A void, deprived of heat, energy, life, and breath. And she hated herself for the choice she had made.
You foolish old woman,
Hurley scolded herself.
You stop thinking for one second and ruin the rest of your life. You …

“… fool,” she whispered aloud.

But it was done. Nothing she could do now would save Jax—or herself.

“Hodge?” she asked, voice trembling. “When did I become an aimless people pleaser?”

Hodge, though, said nothing, leaving Hurley alone with her thoughts.