Earth Flight (37 page)

I waited until he was less than thirty paces away, then whirled round and started hurling rocks at the windows of the nearest building. Fian was throwing rocks too. For a couple of seconds there was no reaction, and I was panicking because the beam of the laser cutter was too close and we’d nowhere left to run, then a dark shape suddenly plummeted down at us, followed by another, and then a whole flock of smaller birds.

The first bird went for me, hitting me far harder than I’d expected, gouging the side of my head painfully with its claws. I staggered, used my hands to protect my face, and peered through my fingers to watch our attacker. He could have reached me and killed me then, but he made the mistake of stopping. Perhaps he wasn’t sure whether to go for me, or for where Fian was battling with the second large bird.

Whatever the reason, he hesitated, and the smaller birds started mobbing him. He lashed out blindly with the laser cutter, and I risked a brief glance upwards. At least a dozen large birds had been circling high above in the thermals, and were now joining the attack, their height translating into speed as they dived at us.

I saw the leading bird hit Fian, knocking him to the ground, and took a desperate gamble, dropping to the ground myself and curling into a defensive ball. My hope was most of the birds would go for the only remaining upright figure, conspicuously holding the dazzlingly bright line of the active laser cutter.

I was lucky, most of them did, and I saw the right arm of our attacker’s impact suit lock up. It was the moment I’d hoped for, our chance to grab his weapon, but Fian and I each had three or four birds attacking us. I tried to get back to my feet, but the weight of the birds and the stabbing beaks kept me down. Blood was running down my face into my eyes.

Fian had somehow got to his feet, but our attacker had worked out what we were trying to do now. His right arm was still frozen, but he could move his legs, and he backed away from Fian, getting dangerously close to the buildings. If he was fool enough to use the treacherous buildings to shelter from the birds, then falling rubble might solve our problem by burying both him and his laser cutter.

I finally managed to stand up. The figure in the Military blue impact suit was flailing the white laser beam at the birds, and gradually getting closer to the buildings. My hopes were growing, but then a block of concraz fell from above. The figure glanced at it and moved further away from the buildings. Nuke it, he’d realized their dangers. We’d have to go for the laser cutter after all.

Claws suddenly dug deep into my right arm, and huge wings beat against my head. I had to fight off the bird before I could see or move again. Our attacker was heading towards Fian now, brandishing the laser cutter. I tried to run towards them, but the ground shook under my feet and I fell. Chaos take the idiots who’d built San Angeles across an earthquake fault line!

When I got up again, I saw the earth tremor had sent the birds flying upwards. Fian was cornered now, trapped against the edge of the island, caught between lethal laser and lethal drop. I couldn’t possibly reach him in time to help, and I’d run out of rocks. I grabbed my useless gun to try throwing it, and was shocked to see its green light glowing.

‘Tell Morrath confirmed,’ said the gun. ‘Active power 3. Single …’

I didn’t pause to wonder how or why it was working now, just turned off the safety and fired. I saw the figure in the impact suit topple forwards, the active laser still in his hand. Its glowing beam was heading straight for Fian!

I screamed a warning, but Fian was already diving to one side. The laser beam skimmed terrifyingly close to his blond hair, cutting through the wall behind him instead of his head.

The wall had already been crumbling before the laser cut through it. Now a whole section of it broke away, falling over the sheer drop at the edge of the island, and an impact suit clad figure tumbled after it.

I ran towards the edge, terrified Fian had fallen too, but he was scrabbling his way clear on hands and knees. I thrust my gun back in its holster, pulled him to his feet, and hugged him. We were safe!

Then the ground shook, reminding me we weren’t safe at all. There was still the minor problem of the earthquake. We had to reach the dig site domes and portal out of here.

Fian and I turned to run back towards the centre of the island, but there was a sudden huge jolt that sent us tumbling sideways, grabbing at the ground with our hands to stop us rolling into the buildings that were shedding concraz blocks.

I waited for the ground to steady and right itself, but it didn’t. ‘Nuke it!’ I yelled at Fian above the screaming sound of metal reinforcement wires snapping. ‘The island’s legs are giving way.’

His reply was drowned out by a sound like a clap of thunder. Drop portal! It was followed by a roaring sound growing deafeningly loud, and I lifted my head to see an aircraft flying insanely low and fast between the tilting buildings, heading straight for me.

I instinctively covered my head as it went over, and then skidded round to look after it. The pilot must have engaged maximum reverse thrusters in a stomach-churning manoeuvre, because it came to a standstill for a moment, hovering just above the ground. Two figures in Military blue impact suits jumped from it, and the aircraft soared off into the air again.

The two figures staggered as they landed, then started running towards Fian and me. For a moment, I stayed there on my hands and knees like a nardle, just watching them come, then I came to my senses, grabbed my gun, and aimed it at them.

‘Jarra, it’s me, Drago,’ said one of the figures.

‘You’re lying,’ I said. ‘Drago would be flying the aircraft.’

He unsealed the front of his impact suit hood and tugged it down, showing tangled black hair and an outrageously handsome face. ‘Marlise is flying the aircraft.’

I’d hardly noticed my wounds from the attacking birds before, but now they suddenly started hurting like chaos, and I couldn’t seem to think properly. ‘Marlise wouldn’t fly like a lunatic.’

‘Of course she would, and she does.’ Drago laughed. ‘Why do you think I fell in love with her? If it helps convince you I’m me, I could take my clothes off, but we really need to get out of here before this crazy place falls apart.’

It really was him. Only Drago Tell Dramis would joke about stripping in the middle of an earthquake. I put my gun in its holster. ‘Sorry, Drago.’

‘You naturally weren’t sure who to trust,’ said Drago. ‘Let me put this harness on you.’

He put straps round my waist and over my shoulders. I glanced across at Fian, and saw he was wearing a harness too.

‘What’s this for?’ I asked.

‘You don’t have suits, so we’re getting tagged out in tandem.’ He grinned at me. ‘Hug me, cousin!’

The ground picked this moment to start shaking again, so I didn’t argue, just hugged him. Drago clipped my harness onto his suit, put one arm round me, and spoke to thin air. ‘Marlise, we’re ready to leave.’

‘Coming in,’ Marlise’s voice responded.

I stood there, hugging Drago and feeling embarrassed, then the island gave another huge lurch and I quit being embarrassed in favour of being scared stiff. A moment later, there was the roar of an aircraft overhead, and a beam locked on to the tag point of Drago’s suit and yanked him upwards, taking me along with him. I twisted my head round, urgently looking for Fian, and saw another aircraft with a beam that dangled two more figures. I gave a small sobbing sound of relief.

‘Is Lorin still down there?’ Drago shouted over the wind and aircraft noise. ‘He’s disabled his impact suit telemetry so we can’t use it to track him.’

‘What?’ I screamed back. ‘Who’s Lorin?’

‘The man attacking you. Captain Lorin.’

‘He’s probably dead. I shot him and he fell off the edge of the island. My gun had been disabled, so I don’t know why it started working again.’

‘Your guns started working again because Military Security turned them back on.’

‘Oh I see.’ I remembered where I’d heard the name Lorin. ‘Captain Lorin was Rayne Tar Cameron’s deputy, wasn’t he? I thought it was Qwin Marston in the suit. Stupid of me.’

‘Qwin Marston was involved as well. The Marius clan paid him and Lorin to try and stop you joining our clan. Marston’s under arrest for murdering Rayne Tar Cameron. He’d somehow found out her command codes. We think she caught Marston using them to authorize Lorin to portal here, so he killed her.’

‘Oh.’ My numb brain tried to take that in. The flawless Rayne Tar Cameron had finally made a mistake. She’d believed Qwin Marston loved her, when he only wanted a transfer to Zulu base and access to her command codes. ‘But what was the point in killing me and Fian now? I’ve already joined my clan.’

‘Marston and Lorin were also militant Isolationists,’ shouted Drago. ‘They knew only you and Fian could shut down the alien defences and give us access to Fortuna, and they wanted to stop human culture being polluted by alien influences.’

I bit my lip. When I decided to gatecrash a class of norms at the start of this year, I’d had no idea it would end like this. I’d just killed a man, and Major Rayne Tar Cameron and His Excellency Captain Draven Fedorov Seti Raven, Knight of Adonis had sacrificed their lives for me. For chaos sake, Rayne hadn’t even liked me!

I brushed mingled tears and blood from my eyes, and watched the teetering, crippled wreck of the Land Raft island recede into the distance, as the lift beam carried Drago and me to safety.

34

When we arrived back at Zulu base, Fian and I went to our apartment to endure the agonizing wait before I had my surgery. I was scared to death, not just of this cure failing, but also of it succeeding. If it worked, I’d have to live the rest of my life with an artificial web controlling my immune system.

All my life, I’d hated what fate had done to me, and desperately wanted two things. To be able to travel to the stars, and to prove I was as human as the norms. Society was finally accepting the Handicapped as being truly human rather than throwbacks, but after this operation I wouldn’t be either norm or Handicapped. I’d have the stars I always wanted, but would I really be human?

I didn’t want to go through with this operation, but I had to. There was too much at stake for me to refuse, and anyway I quite literally had no choice. If I changed my mind, said I wouldn’t go through with this …

General Torrek would be back in command of the Alien Contact programme soon. He’d cared deeply for my grandmother. I was her Honour Child, born to carry her name, and he cared about me too. He’d never use Alien Contact emergency powers to order the doctors to do the operation without my consent, he’d resign from his post as commanding officer instead, but then Colonel Stone would have to do it and find it hard to live with herself afterwards.

I didn’t want to put either of them through that, so I had to survive the torture of the waiting hours and go through this voluntarily. Fian wasn’t saying anything about how he felt, but I could see by the look in his eyes that this was even harder for him than for me. I tried to fill the time with practical things that would help him if events went badly.

Military officers are supposed to record a farewell message to be sent to friends and family in the event of their death in action. This seemed a good time to record mine. I’m not sure how much sense it made, there was so much I couldn’t explain because of security restrictions, but at least it meant Fian wouldn’t have to contact everyone and tell them himself.

I sent the recording off to the section of Military Support that’s officially called Life Events, and unofficially Death Events, because that’s what they really deal with. Then I sent Fian off into another room for a few minutes, while I made another recording that was just for him.

‘This is for Major Fian Andrej Eklund, so anyone else should stop watching right now.’ I waited a few seconds before speaking again. ‘Fian, I’m really bad at emotional stuff, so there are things I’ve never really said. I can’t say them even now, because I don’t know how to put them into words. I’m better at showing I care with physical actions, so … Remember every hug. Remember every night. Remember the way we’d watch our favourite nardle vid series and have fun acting out the scenes. I love you, and we may not have had long together, but every minute was totally, totally zan!’

I hesitated. If I was a truly good person like Candace, or Dalmora, I’d say something else now. Something about how I hoped Fian would find someone else one day, and be happy with them. I’m not a good person though. I didn’t want Fian to be happy with someone else, even my own clone. I wanted him to be happy with me.

I wasn’t giving up on us yet. I was going to fight for my life, and if I did live … Fian had been stubborn enough to still care about me when he found out I was Handicapped. Maybe he’d be stubborn enough to still care about me when I was … whatever I ended up being.

So I just ended the message, tagged it as being private for Fian, and sent that off to Life Events as well. Then I called Fian back into the room. ‘You remember I had one call from my parents before they were killed?’

He nodded. ‘Back on New York Dig Site.’

‘All I remember of it is a huge emotional blur, but I recorded the call. I think I’m finally ready to watch that recording.’

‘You want me to see this too?’

I nodded. ‘We’re past the stage where I shut you out of things.’

We sat on the couch, Fian put his arm round me, and I played the recording on our wall vid in split screen. One side showed a man and woman in Military uniform. The other showed a girl in a black impact suit, her hood tugged down, her hair tangled round a tear-stained face, her expression flickering between passionate anger and delight.

‘It was a difficult situation when you were born,’ said the woman with the hair that was like mine but longer. ‘You were portalled to a Hospital Earth Infant Crash unit. I was still having medical treatment on a Military base in Kappa sector. Your father …’

‘I was on assignment as an emergency replacement commanding officer for a Planet First team,’ said the man with the face that was a darker skinned, male version of my own. ‘They were in deep trouble, they’d already lost one commanding officer, and I couldn’t walk out on them.’