Evolution (6 page)

The hovercraft evens out again and I catch my breath. Though I can't forgive Skylar for betraying the Alliance, I can't deny she can fly the hell out of a ship.

“How are we looking?” she asks, out of breath.

“They're still on our tail,” Beechy says heavily. “And more are coming. They must've signaled the rest of the swarm.”

Skylar curses loudly.

I squeeze my eyes shut.
It's going to be okay.
We'll fight them if we have to. We'll find a way to take them down.

“Lieutenant Sam, what are your orders?” Beechy asks.

Sam has stopped pacing in the cockpit. He stands completely immobile, paralyzed with fear. I've never seen his face so pale.

“Sir?” Skylar says.

“They're going to catch us,” Sam murmurs. “We're all going to die.”

Dean makes a low grunt of annoyance and pushes past Sam to get closer to the control screens, swiftly taking over command. “How far is it to the Pipeline?”

“Thirty miles,” Skylar says.

“So all we need to do is outrun them a few more minutes. Can you make us go any faster?”

“I'm giving her all I've got,” Skylar says through clenched teeth. “I can't do anything more from the cockpit.”

“Fiona,” Beechy says. He swivels his head in our direction.

Fiona jerks her head up. “Yes?”

“I need you to go down to the engine room and boost our power to full velocity.” His jaw is hard, his voice breathless with worry.

“I'm on it.” Fiona gets to her feet. “Clementine, come with me.”

I glance back at Beechy, who nods. “Go.”

I unbuckle and hurry after her, glad I can finally do something to help. Hoping we haven't already run out of time.

*   *   *

We access the engine room through a door in the cargo bay, near the infirmary. Down a short set of steps, we move through another door and the loud hiss of the ventilation system fills my ears.

I've been in an engine room before, on the spaceship Beechy and I flew to the moon the day we destroyed the generator that used to bleed acid into Kiel's atmosphere. But this room is much bigger. A rail separates us from the fuel tanks and a huge cylindrical shape that must be the engine, surrounded by a mess of metal tubing and parts I can't identify. The wall to our right is covered in pressure gauges, buttons, and panels, while the left-hand side of the room has two passenger seats and a cabinet full of mechanical tools.

Fiona hurries over to the cabinet and rummages inside for the tools we need. A tremor runs through the floor, and I grab on to the engine rail. Hopefully that was just turbulence, not a blast hitting the hovercraft.

“How can I help?” I ask.

“We need to cut the hydraulics,” she says. “Open the red panel on the wall, beneath the fuel-pressure gauge.”

Finding the pressure gauge and the red panel is easy enough. But when I lift the panel cover, I'm faced with a tangle of wires—blacks and reds and yellows crisscrossing each other. Nothing I can make sense of, since I know hardly anything about engineering.

“What now?”

Fiona appears beside me and shoves a pair of wire cutters into my hand. “Cut the thickest black wire where it connects to a red one.”

She leaves me, slipping under the rail and disappearing around the far side of the engine. I bite my lip, leaning into the tangle of wires to find what she's referring to. There, a black wire that's definitely thicker than the rest, and it merges with a red one before it runs into the wall.

Before I can second-guess myself, I snip the end of the wire with the cutters. Nothing seems to happen. Only the hum of the vents grows louder.

“Good,” Fiona says, reappearing at my side. “Now we just need to—”

Another tremor runs through the ship, and a loud beeping sound comes from the wall next to me. One of the bigger screens flashes the bright red words:

HULL DAMAGE

Almost immediately, the walls shudder from another hit. Every inch of my body stiffens with terror. The raiders have caught up to us.

There's a crackle in my ear-comm. The static is getting worse again—something aboard the raiders must be causing more interference. Beechy's voice cuts in and out, sounding frantic: “Clem—we're taking fire—get out of there.”

“We're almost finished,” Fiona says, her voice shaky. “We need two more minutes.”

If Beechy heard us, his answer doesn't come through; there's too much static. I switch off the ear-comm so I won't go crazy.

“What's left to do?” I ask.

Fiona tosses me a wrench. “Unscrew the panel on the engine cover and press the red button underneath.”

I spin around, find the panel on the engine, and work the wrench on the screws as quickly as I can.
Come on, come on.
We have to finish this, or we're dead.

The hovercraft shakes again as I lift open the panel and press the red button. “Done.”

“Okay,” Fiona says, frantically tapping something into one of the wall screens. “One last thing.”

Before she can give me any more instructions, there's a horrible grinding sound like a huge chunk of metal is splitting in two. I barely have time to inhale before the wall behind the engine blasts apart.

The force of the explosion sends me crashing back into the opposite wall. Smoke and bits of tubing and metal parts fly in the same direction. Shards catch in the fabric of my safety suit, and something hard slams into my helmet.

I don't black out, not all the way. But it takes several moments for everything to come back into focus.

My ears are ringing, and I can feel blood trickling out of my left one. A trail of smoke rises from the engine cover. Hail swirls into the room through the small hole in the wall behind the engine, where the hovercraft was hit. Beyond the icy rain, trees on the side of a mountain below us rush past in a blur. We're losing altitude fast and picking up speed when we should be decelerating. Skylar must've lost control of the ship. We were hit too hard.

The hovercraft is going to crash.

A few feet away from me, Fiona staggers to her feet, wind whipping at her safety suit. She's steadying herself on the rail with one hand, while using her other to turn a lever on the wall. There's another set of words flashing on the beeping screen above her head:

ENGINE DAMAGE

As if we couldn't already tell.

“We need to strap ourselves in,” I say.

“Hold on,” Fiona says.

I don't know what she's doing, but I don't have time to argue with her. I need to get to one of the passenger seats on the other side of the room.

I push myself off the floor, wincing from the tendrils of pain shooting through my body. I lose my balance and stumble into the engine rail. The floor is shaking, and the wind blowing through the hole in the wall threatens to drag me outside.

Somehow, I make it across the room. I heave myself onto one of the passenger seats and click the safety strap into place. Through the hole in the wall, I can see a forest-covered hillside growing bigger ahead of the ship. And we aren't veering out of its way.

“Fiona!” I cry.

She turns and looks at me, across the room. “I was trying to slow us down. I couldn't. I'm sorry.”

The hillside is straight ahead of us. Fiona doesn't have time to strap in.

I open my mouth to scream at her to hold on to something. But it's too late.

The hillside rises toward us through the blur of rain and darkness. There's a vicious bump as we slam into the ground, and my head jerks back against my seat. I'd be flying if not for my seat belt.

There's a shrieking sound of metal, of more machinery being ripped apart. My scream is lost amid the noise. It feels like we're still moving, skidding across the hilltop. I don't know how long it goes on—could be seconds or hours. I'm bracing myself in my seat as hard as I can and begging it all to be over.

At last, the quaking stops and the engine room goes dark.

 

6

I cling to the one thing I know: the mad thumping of my heart, a sign I'm still alive even if the ship is broken.

When I try to move, a bolt of pain shoots from my neck down my spine. It's almost too much to bear.

You have to get up.
I have to get off the hovercraft. The Mardenites who shot us down are still out there, and they could bomb us again. I have to make sure Fiona and the other rebels are alive and help them off the ship.

I take deep, steadying breaths and fumble to unbuckle my seat belt. The pain is worse when I stand up. But as long as I keep moving, keep focusing on what I have to do—save my friends—I can ignore it.

The air is thick with dust and smoke. Coughing, I step carefully, feeling my way through the darkness to make sure I won't trip over anything on the floor. There's a faint glow of light on the other side of the engine, a soft crackle of flames. Some of the electrical lines must've caught fire.

As I move closer to the light, I make out the shape of Fiona's body slumped on the floor, amid the debris of the wrecked engine parts. She's lying on her back, unmoving. When I call her name, she doesn't respond.

I drop to my knees beside her. There's a crack in her helmet and a dark stain of blood seeping from her forehead. A broken piece of machinery must've hit her head hard.
Please, don't be dead.

I feel for a pulse in her wrist. It's faint, but still there.

The loud crackle of flames draws my attention back to the fire. It's spreading along the broken electrical lines, moving steadily in the direction of the fuel tanks. I need to get both of us out of here before there's another explosion.

There's a chunk of rubble trapping the lower half of Fiona's legs. I try to push it off her, but it doesn't move an inch; it's a lot heavier than I realized. I push and shove, gritting my teeth against the pain spreading through my body. But the machinery won't budge.

The engine room's growing hotter and thicker with smoke, and the flames are climbing higher, inching ever closer to the fuel tanks.

Fear sets adrenaline pumping through my body. I grab one of Fiona's arms and heave it over my right shoulder. Then I slide my other arm under her torso and try to heave her out from beneath the debris. But it's no use; her legs are completely stuck. I'm not strong enough to pull her out on my own.

I twist the dial at the base of my helmet, turning on my ear-comm. “Help! I'm in the engine room and I need help!”

There's nothing but static in answer. There's too much interference. I doubt anyone can hear me on the other end, and even if they could they wouldn't get here fast enough. The flames are mere centimeters from the fuel tanks. Any second now, the whole room is going to explode.

Dean's warning from earlier echoes through my head:
Don't worry about anyone else. Just save yourself.

There's nothing more I can do for Fiona. I have to get out of here.

With one final, broken look at her, I turn and push through the exit door. I take the stairs two steps at a time, coughing from the smoke and choking back sobs because I can't believe what I just did. I feel numb all over. But I can't go back.

Five more steps.

Three more.

One more.

I reach the top of the stairs just in time—there's a booming sound as the fuel tanks explode behind me. The floor lurches beneath my feet, and I trip forward, landing on my hands and knees. Dust and hard bits of rubble strike me from behind, from the door blasted open at the bottom of the staircase. Thankfully the engine room seems to have contained most of the damage.

I pause there on my knees, giving in to the weakness for a moment. Letting the reality of what just happened sink in.

Fiona is dead. I left her behind.

The sorrow consumes me, tearing me apart inside. Once again, I wasn't strong enough. No matter what I do, I keep losing people who don't deserve to be lost.

But there's no time to dwell on my guilt over her death, or anyone's. There's an army of aliens outside and I still have to escape. There's only time to keep moving.

On your feet, Clementine.

I push off the ground and pull myself through the door at the top of the staircase. The cargo bay is filled with the sounds of voices and boots pounding and people breathing heavily. The ship lights are out, but there's some moonlight coming in through the open air-lock doors. People are making their way across the room, some of them leaning or limping on each other as if they're hurt. Someone's helping tend to those who were injured, while another person is passing out water canteens. The sky must be clear of raiders for the moment.

“Everyone, stay alert,” Dean says, somewhere on the other side of the bay. “Be ready to move when you're given the order.”

I head toward the group, wiping away the blood still trickling from my left ear. It's throbbing like crazy and I can't hear much of anything out of it, which is lovely. But not my biggest concern at the moment. I need to make sure Beechy and the rest of my friends are all right. There are too many bodies and not enough light for me to make out faces.

“Clementine!” Beechy calls my name from somewhere behind me. I spin around and see him rushing out of the infirmary doors. He must've gone to check on Sandy first, as he should have.

When he reaches me, he grips my shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“I'm alive.”

“Where's Fiona?”

There's a suspended moment of silence, and then I force out the sentence: “She's dead.” The words feel like rubber in my mouth. “The fuel tanks exploded and I couldn't get her out.”

Pain bleeds through Beechy's eyes.

“I had to leave her,” I say, my voice cracking. “I didn't have a choice.”

He exhales a shaky breath and pulls me into his arms. “I'm sure you did everything you could. I'm just glad you're okay.”