Champion: A Legend Novel (13 page)

I smile a little at the jab. “Yes, sir.”

Our outfits blend us into the shadows. We creep forward without a sound, until we’re past the short distance where the Armor’s guns could protect us from the ground. Now we’re out of range, and the Colonies’ makeshift airfield looks within reach. Their soldiers stand guard along the edges of the field. Not far away are a couple rows of tanks. Their airships might not be here, but there sure as hell are enough war machines to start up another battle.

Pascao and I crouch behind a pile of rubble near the airfield. All I can see in this light is his silhouette. He nods his head once before whispering something into his mike.

We wait for a few tense seconds. Then the JumboTrons that line the outer edges of the Armor light up in unison. Displayed across the screens is a Republic flag, and over the city’s loudspeakers, the pledge blares out across the night. The whole thing looks exactly like one of the Republic’s typical propaganda reels—the JumboTrons start displaying generic videos of patriotic soldiers and civilians, war victories and prosperous streets. At the airfield, the soldiers’ attention shifts to the JumboTrons’ feed. At first they look alert and wary, but as the reel continues for a few seconds longer, the Colonies soldiers relax.

Good. They think the Republic’s just broadcasting morale-boosting video. Nothing weird enough to put the Colonies on high alert, but something entertaining enough to hold their interest. I pick out an area where the soldiers are all watching the JumboTrons, then nod at Pascao. He motions at me. My turn to head out.

I squint harder to see where I can squeeze onto the airfield. There are four Colonies soldiers here, all of them focused on the broadcast; a soldier dressed like a pilot is the farthest away and has his back to me, and from here it looks like he’s making fun of the broadcast with a pal of his. I wait until all of the guards are looking away from where I am. Then I scamper over the edge without a sound and hide behind the closest jet’s back landing wheel. I tuck myself into a tight ball, letting my black outfit blend me in with the shadows.

One of the guards looks casually over his shoulder toward the jet. When he doesn’t see anything interesting, though, he returns to surveying the Armor.

I wait for a few more seconds. Then I adjust my backpack and climb up inside the jet’s exhaust nozzle. My heart pounds with anticipation at the déjà vu this gives me. I waste no time now—I pull a small metal cube out of my pack and attach it firmly to the inside of the nozzle. Its display panel gives off a very faint red glow, so dim I can barely see it. I make sure it’s secure, and then shift to the edge of the nozzle. We won’t have much longer before the guards lose interest in our little propaganda distraction. When the coast’s clear, I hop out of the nozzle. My cushioned boots land without a sound. I melt back into the shadows cast by the jet’s landing gear, watch for guards, and move to the next row of jets. Pascao should be doing the exact same work on the other side of the field. If this all goes down as planned, then one explosive per row should do plenty of damage.

By the time I make my way to the third row of jets and finish my work there, I’m soaked in sweat. Off in the distance, the JumboTrons’ propaganda keeps running, but I can tell that some of the guards have already lost interest. Time to get out of here. I lower myself silently toward the ground again, dangle there in the shadows, and then pick the right moment to drop and rush toward the darkness.

Except it wasn’t really the right moment. One of my hands slips and the metal edge of the exhaust nozzle slices my palm open. My weakened body doesn’t land perfectly—I let out a grunt of pain and move too slowly into the landing gear’s shadows. A guard spots me. Before I can stop him, his eyes widen and he lifts his gun at me.

He hasn’t even had a chance to shout out when a shining knife comes flying out of the darkness and sinks itself in the soldier’s neck. I watch for an instant, horrified. Pascao. I know it was him, saving my ass while drawing attention to himself. Already a couple of shouts have gone up on the other side of the airfield. He’s pulling their focus away from me. I seize the opportunity, racing into the relative safety of the land outside the airfield.

I click my mike on and call Pascao. “Are you safe?” I whisper urgently.

“Safe as you, pretty boy,” he hisses back, the sounds of heavy breathing and footsteps loud in my earpiece. “Just got out of the airfield’s range. Give Frankie the okay—I gotta shake two more off my tail.” He hangs up.

I contact Frankie. “We’re ready,” I tell her. “Let ’em go.”

“You got it,” Frankie answers. The JumboTrons suddenly stop their reel and go dark—the sound blasting across the city cuts short, plunging us all into an eerie silence. Colonies soldiers who’d probably been pursuing Pascao now look up at the blank JumboTrons in bewilderment, along with the others.

A few seconds of silence pass.

Then a bright, blinding explosion rips apart the center of the airfield. I steady myself. When I look back at the first line of soldiers on the street, I see them knocked off their feet and picking themselves slowly up in a daze. Sparks of electricity fill the air, jumping frantically back and forth between the jets. Soldiers farther down the street point their guns up at the buildings, firing randomly—but the ones along the front line discover that their guns no longer work. I keep running back toward the Armor.

Another explosion rocks the same area and an enormous golden haze engulfs everything in sight. Shouts of panic rise from the Colonies troops. They can’t see what’s happening, but I know that right now each bomb we’d planted is destroying the rows of jets, both crippling them and temporarily disabling the magnets in their guns. Some of them pull out their guns and fire randomly into the darkness, as if Republic soldiers are lying in wait. I guess they’re not entirely wrong. Right on cue, the Republic jets along the Armor take off into the sky. Their roars deafen me.

I switch my mike back to Frankie. “How are the evacuations going?”

“As smoothly as possible,” she replies. “Probably two more waves of people left. Ready for your big moment?”

“Go for it,” I whisper back.

The JumboTrons flare to life. This time, though, they’re displaying my painted face on all of their screens. A prerecorded video we made. I smile widely for the Colonies, even as they scramble to what jets they still have, and in this instant, I feel like I’m looking into the face of a stranger, a face that’s unfamiliar and terrifying behind its wide black stripe. For a moment, I can’t even remember recording this video in the first place. The thought makes me scramble for the memory in a panic, until I finally recall it and breathe a sigh of relief. “My name is Day,” my JumboTron video self says, “and I’m fighting for the Republic’s people. If I were you, I’d be a little more careful.”

Frankie cuts my feed again. Overhead, the Republic’s jets scream across the sky—I see orange fireballs light up the airfield. With our stunt and half their jets gone, and the advantage of surprise, the Colonies soldiers scramble for a retreat. I bet the calls going back to their command are flying fast and furious now.

Frankie comes back online. She sounds elated. “The Republic’s troops have gotten wind of our success,” she says. In the background, I hear—to my relief—Pascao’s line click on too. “Nice job, Runners. Gioro and Baxter are already on their way.” She sounds distracted. “We’re heading back in now. Gimme a few seconds, and we’ll be—”

She cuts off. I blink, surprised. “Frankie?” I say, reconnecting to her. Nothing. All I hear is static.

“Where’d she go?” Pascao says through the white noise. “Did she go offline for you too?”

“Yeah.” I scramble onward, trying not to think the worst. The safety of the Armor isn’t far away—I can make out the tiny side entrance we’re supposed to return through—and here, in the midst of all the chaos, I see several Republic soldiers rushing through the dust to face off against any Colonies troops that might have followed us. Just a few yards from the door now.

A bullet sparks past me, narrowly missing my ear. Then I hear a scream that makes my blood run cold. When I whirl around, I see Tess and Frankie running behind me. They’re leaning on each other. Behind them must be five or six Colonies soldiers. I freeze, then quickly change course. I yank a knife from my belt and throw it at the soldiers as hard as I can. It catches one of them clean in the side—he drops to his knees. The others notice me. Tess and Frankie barely make it to the door. I dash toward them. Behind me, the soldiers hoist their guns.

Just as Tess pushes Frankie through the entrance, a soldier steps out of the shadows near the door. I recognize him instantly. It’s
Thomas,
a gun dangling from one hand.

His eyes are fixed on Tess and me, and his expression is dark, deadly, and furious. For an instant, the world seems to go silent. I glance at his gun. He hoists it.
No.
Instinctively, I move toward Tess, shielding her with my body.
He’s going to kill us.

But even as this thought races through my mind, Thomas turns his back on us, facing the oncoming Colonies soldiers instead. His hand quivers with rage and tightens on the gun. Shock pulses through me, but there’s no time to think about that now. “
Go,
” I urge Tess. We stumble through the side door.

In that same moment, Thomas raises his gun—he fires one shot, then another, then another. He lets out a bloodcurdling yell as each bullet hurtles toward the enemy troops. It takes me a second to make out what he’s screaming.

“Long live the Elector! Long live the Republic!”

He manages six shots before the Colonies soldiers return fire. I hug Tess to my chest, then cover her eyes. She lets out a cry of protest. “Don’t look,” I whisper in her ear. At that very moment, I see Thomas’s head snap violently back and his entire body go limp. An image of my mother flashes before my eyes.

Shot through the head. He’s been shot through the head.
Death by firing squad.

The blast makes Tess jump—she utters a strangled sob behind my shielding hands. The door swings shut.

Pascao greets us the instant we’re safely through. He’s covered head to toe in dust, but he still has a half grin on his face. “The final evacuation wave is waiting for us,” he says, nodding toward two parked jeeps ready to take us back to the bunker. Republic soldiers have already started toward us, but before any of us can feel relieved, I notice that Frankie has collapsed to the ground and Tess is hovering over her. Pascao’s half grin vanishes. As soldiers seal off the side entrance, we gather around Frankie. Tess pulls out a kit of supplies. Frankie has started to convulse.

Her coat’s stripped completely off, revealing a blood-soaked shirt beneath. Her eyes are open wide in shock, and she’s struggling to breathe.

“She was shot as we were getting away,” Tess says as she tears away the cloth of Frankie’s shirt. Sweat beads along her brow. “Three or four times.” Her trembling hands fly across Frankie’s body, scattering powder and pressing ointment into the wounds. When she’s done, she yanks out a thick wad of bandages.

“She’s not gonna make it,” Pascao mutters to Tess as she pushes him out of the way and pushes firmly down on one of Frankie’s gushing wounds. “We have to move. Now.”

Tess wipes her brow. “Just give me another minute,” she insists through gritted teeth. “We have to control the bleeding.”

Pascao starts to protest, but I silence him with a dangerous look. “Let her do it.” Then I kneel beside Tess, my eyes helplessly drawn to Frankie’s pitiful figure. I can tell that she’s not going to make it. “I’ll do whatever you say,” I murmur to Tess. “Let us help.”

“Keep pressure on her wounds,” Tess replies, waving a hand at the bandages that are already more red than white. She rushes to make a poultice.

Frankie’s eyelids flutter. She chokes out a strangled cry, then manages to look up at us. “You’ve—got—to go. The Colonies—they’re—coming—”

It takes a whole minute for her to die. Tess keeps applying meds for a while longer, until I finally put a hand over hers to stop her. I look up at Pascao. One of the Republic soldiers approaches us again and gives us a stern frown. “This is your final warning,” he says, gesturing toward the open doors of two jeeps. “We’re heading out.”

“Go,” I tell Pascao. “We’ll take the jeep right behind you.”

Pascao hesitates for a second, stricken at the sight of Frankie, but then hops to his feet and disappears into the first jeep. It tears away, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake.

“Come on,” I urge Tess, who stays hunched over Frankie’s lifeless body. On the other side of the Armor, the sounds of battle rage. “We have to go.”

Tess wrenches free of my grasp and flings her roll of bandages hard at the wall. Then she turns to look back at Frankie’s ashen face. I stand up, forcing Tess to do the same. My bloody hand leaves prints on her arm. Soldiers grab both of us and lead us toward the remaining jeep. As we finally make our way inside, Tess turns her eyes up to mine. They’re brimming with tears, and the sight of her anguish breaks my heart. We pull away from the Armor as soldiers load Frankie onto a truck. Then we turn a corner and speed toward the bunker.

By the time we arrive, Pascao’s jeep has already unloaded and they’ve headed down to the train. The soldiers are tense. As they clear us past the bunker entrance’s chain-link fence, another explosion from the Armor sends tremors through the ground. As if in a dream, we rush down the metal staircase and through the corridors flooded with dim red lights, the sound of pounding boots echoing dully from outside. Farther and farther down we go, until we finally reach the bunker and make our way onto the waiting train. Soldiers pull us on board.

As the subway flares to life and we pull away from the bunker, a series of explosions reverberate through the space, nearly knocking us off our feet. Tess clings to me. As I hold her close, the tunnel behind us collapses, encasing us in darkness. We speed along. Echoes of the explosions ring through the earth.

My headache flares up.