Evolution (7 page)

I squeeze my eyes shut, clinging to him and his warmth. Pretending he can make all the bad go away.

But he can't. This war is far from over, and things are sure to get worse before the end. Somehow, we have to find a way to keep surviving.

I pull away from him just as a soldier runs into the hovercraft from outside. “Lieutenant, sir, the raiders are in sight,” he says in a rush.

There are gasps and panicked movements around the room.

I swallow hard. I knew the Mardenites would come looking for survivors, but part of me hoped they'd take longer to target us again. That we'd have more time to work out a way to escape them.

“How many?” Sam asks over by the air-lock doors. His dark figure is silhouetted by faint moonlight.

“At least ten ships.”

Ten raiders swarming us on the hillside, and they've already broken our hovercraft, our first line of defense. We could hole up here in the cargo bay and shut the air-lock doors, but the Mardenites would blast the ship apart and find a way inside.

“Skylar, you're sure you can't get us in the air again?” Dean asks.

“We've had major damage to the hull and the engine,” Skylar says. “I don't think I can fix her.”

“What about the X-wings?”

“We've lost all contact with them. There's a good chance they were also shot down.”

We have no working ships, no means of escaping the Mardenites. We have two choices: try to escape on foot, or fight them. And even if we do manage to escape or fight them off, how are we going to fly off the Surface?

“What are your orders, Lieutenant Sam?” Dean asks. There's something spiteful in his tone. I'm sure he wishes he were the one in charge. I'm starting to wish that too—anyone would be better than Sam.

“We're going to try to bring them down,” Sam says. “Everyone, move the missile guns outside and form defensive lines.” He looks around at all the soldiers frozen in terror. “
Now.
”

There's a flurry of movement as everyone races to carry out his orders.

“But, sir,” Skylar says, “half our crew was aboard the X-wings. We're completely outnumbered—”

“Our missiles are strong enough to bring down far bigger ships,” Sam says. “Now, get into formation outside. That's an order, soldier.”

Skylar clenches her fists, but she doesn't argue anymore. She hurries to help the other soldiers haul the missile guns out of the weapons locker.

This can't be the smartest plan. The Mardenite raiders will have all the advantage from the sky. Even if we're able to shoot some of them down, surely their firepower will be stronger.

“Listen,” Beechy says, grabbing my arm and pulling me away from the soldiers. “I want you to go with Dean.”

“Excuse me?”

“Go outside and pretend you're following Sam's orders, forming rank with everyone else. But as soon as you're able, break away from them and take cover in the forest. Get as far from the hovercraft as you can until the battle's over. Dean will help you get away.”

I glance over at Dean, who's ushering the soldiers out the air-lock doors with their missile guns. “You really think he's on our side?” I ask.

“I do,” Beechy says without hesitation.

My mind wanders back to the conversation I overheard him and Dean having in the infirmary earlier. Maybe they weren't talking about Sandy. Maybe they were talking about me.

Whatever they think they're doing, I'm grateful they're trying to protect me. But that doesn't mean I'm going to abandon any more of my friends. Especially not Beechy. “You're coming with me,” I say.

“I'll be right behind you, after I get Sandy out of the infirmary. She's still in surgery, but Uma and the ship doctor are closing her up right now so we can move her.”

“I'll stay here so I can help you.”

“No.” Beechy's jaw is firmly set. “You need to get outside now and take cover before we're under fire, if you can. Get to the trees and wait for me there.”

I shake my head. “I can't.” I won't leave him.

“You have to,” he says. “Then, if something goes wrong, at least you'll be out of danger. Dean can help you get to the Pipeline. It's only a few miles away, and there's a transmission station there that should have an emergency transport. You can use it to get back to the Core, so you can rescue Logan.”

There's a lurch of guilt in my stomach. Logan is depending on me to make it back to him. He would tell me I'm crazy for not immediately doing what Beechy wants and getting myself out of danger. I need to survive this, for him.

“But what about you, Beechy? I can't lose you.”

“You won't.” Beechy takes my hand and squeezes it. “I promise I'll be right behind you.”

A tremor runs through the hovercraft, another explosive hitting the hull. There are shouts from outside, where most of the soldiers have gone. The Mardenites are firing at us again. If I'm going to make it to the forest before it's too late, I have to leave now, with or without Beechy.

I gulp down the worry in my throat. “Hurry. Please.”

Beechy's hard expression cracks a little, enough for me to know he's even more scared he won't make it than I am. “I will. I'll see you soon.”

He drops my hand. I turn and race for the air-lock doors.

 

7

There's another fierce shudder through the ship as I stumble down the boarding ramp. The night is a blur of rain and fire streaming from the heavens. The shapes of Mardenite raiders weave through the clouds above the hillside, moonlight glinting off their dark, rugged bodies.

They're so much closer than when I saw them before. They're not small, harmless buzzards anymore—the raiders are bigger than our X-wings and look far more formidable. Real alien warships come to destroy Kiel. Lasers shoot from the tips of their curved, V-shaped wings.

There's fire all over the hillside in front of me, too much for the rain to put out. A burst of blue flames erupts in the grass at the foot of the boarding ramp. I barely scramble away from it in time. Sam's soldiers are running all over the place, ducking under pieces of debris to avoid the lasers. Only a few ranks are still standing with their missile guns. I don't know how long they're going to be able to stay in one place.

“Now!” Sam yells, somewhere in the chaos.

Missiles fly from the huge guns. Most of them miss their targets—the soldiers underestimated how fast the ships were moving—but one missile hits the wing of a raider, causing it to swerve violently to the left. It falls beyond the hillside, its wing smoking from the explosion.

One raider shot down, but there are at least ten others left. Sam and his troops are far too few to stand a chance against so many ships. They should be running to take cover.

I draw the pulse gun Dean gave me earlier and click off the safety. I shouldn't care what happens to Sam and his men. All I need to worry about is getting to the forest.

The trees are about twenty yards away, just visible beyond the slope of the wide hillside. Huge pieces of hovercraft debris and an open stretch of sky under which I'll have no cover from raider fire stand in my way. But there's nothing else for it—I have to reach the trees.

Go. Now.

I scurry off the boarding ramp. Flames in the grass lick at my boots, and I have to swerve to the left to avoid another laser from the sky. There's smoke everywhere. Beechy told me to find Dean, but I have no idea where he is. All the soldiers look the same in their armor.

Sam's soldiers launch another missile and take down a raider. If they had more visibility and better protection from the raider fire—if they'd had time to dig trenches—they might actually have a chance of bringing down most of the swarm. But I don't see how they're going to survive for long the way things are. Soon there won't be any part of the ground not covered in flames.

Already, some of the soldiers are giving up, trying to escape to the trees for cover. A man not far ahead of me stumbles into the path of a Mardenite laser, and he doesn't have time to scramble out of the way. He lets out a horrible shriek and falls to his knees as the fire sears through his armor.

Bile rises in my throat. I tear my eyes away and race around him.

I'm almost to the forest, but many of the trees on the edge of it are alight with flame. I search frantically for the safest path in—there, on my right-hand side. There's a massive piece of ship junk in my way, a chunk of the hovercraft hull that tore off during the crash. I duck my head from another laser and scurry around the debris.

That's when I see Dean running toward me through the smoke. He has an arm over his head to block his helmet from the rain, and his other hand clutches his pulse rifle. He yells at me, “Clementine, get to the trees!”

“I'm trying!”

He reaches me and grabs my sleeve, wrenching me out of the way of another laser. The two of us keep running toward the clear spot between the trees.

Twenty more feet.

Fifteen.

Ten.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a flash of light. The lights on the wings of a raider soaring overhead. I look up just in time to see an object drop from a hatch in the warship's underside—something that looks like a grenade. Aiming right for the trees ahead of us.

Every part of me seizes in terror. I try to scramble away from the grenade, but there are too many pieces of debris in my way, and I can't get anywhere quickly enough.

Dean pushes me to his right, so hard I fall to the ground. I feel his weight press on top of me as he crouches over me, shielding me from the explosion.

There's a thump as the grenade hits the ground. I brace myself for a
BOOM!

But the explosion doesn't come.

There's a hissing sound. I lift my head and see the object that fell a few feet away from us. It's a round object made of some sort of metal, almost like a cam-bot but bigger. Whitish vapor streams from openings in the metal ball, seeping in every direction.

The gas engulfs my body and I feel a burning sensation all over, like someone's stabbing me in a thousand points with needles.

The vapor is poison.

 

8

Dean climbs off me, sputtering and coughing. “Go!”

I'm on my feet before he can help me up. Soldiers are shrieking and yelling behind us. More poison bombs drop from the raiders, all over the hillside. Soon the whole place will be drenched in burning vapor.

I run as fast as I can into the forest, stumbling in pain, trying to escape. I'm blinking back tears, and I can hardly see. I trip over a rock and fall to my knees, then pick myself back up, gasping for air. The whitish gas is seeping through the trees ahead of me. The raiders must've dropped bombs everywhere.

My safety suit was designed to protect me from a particular kind of toxin—the moon's acid. Whatever this poison is, its particles are able to seep through the fabric. I bet it's some new chemical the aliens devised, a weapon meant to destroy us.

I pump my legs even faster. The trees are growing closer together, and the slope of the hill is steepening. I don't know how much farther I can make it. I'm losing energy with every step. How much more vapor can there be?

I don't see the fallen branch in my path, not until my ankle catches on it and I fall, tumbling over sticks and rocks down the side of the hill. After only a few feet, I ram into a tree trunk and stop, groaning.

The vapor still surrounds me, but I'm too exhausted to move. So I lie there. Rain patters on my helmet and on the forest floor all around me.

I slowly become aware that my skin isn't burning anymore, though vapor still clings to my clothes. I frown. When did the burning stop? While I was running, maybe. I feel sweaty under my clothes, a little feverish, but I'm wide awake.

The forest seems quieter than before. There's still the soft sound of the rain and the wind rustling the branches, but I don't hear anyone screaming anymore, not even far away. I don't hear anyone running behind me, either.

Wincing, I push myself off the ground. My legs are unsteady; I grab on to the tree to hold myself upright.

“Dean!” I call, not too loudly, but loud enough that he should be able to hear me if he's close by.

When he doesn't answer, worry settles in the pit of my stomach. He should've been right behind me. The poison must've slowed him down. I have to go back and find him.

I take a few tentative steps forward, moving into the vapor that's slowly clearing up, bracing myself for pain. But there's still no burn. The poison seems to have suddenly stopped working. I have no idea why, but I'll take it.

Gritting my teeth, I start back up the hill in the direction I came. I don't know how far away I am from the hovercraft. The silence doesn't comfort me. It makes me think the battle must be over. What will I find if I go back to the crash site?

I can't help picturing the worst: Everyone else is dead. The Mardenites poisoned all the soldiers and set their bodies on fire.

I shake the thought from my head. There's still a chance Beechy made it off the hovercraft, and others could've escaped into the trees. First I'll find Dean and then I'll look for survivors.

I pick up my pace, trying to stick to the same path I took to get here. It's difficult, since I could hardly see where I was going. At least I know I'll eventually reach the top of the hill.

“Dean!” I call again.

The low hum of a sky engine reaches my ears. I press back against a tree trunk as a raider passes by overhead. It's moving a lot slower than I'd expect, hovering over the treetops and beaming a light down into the forest. Looking for something—probably bodies of the people the poison knocked out.

I hold my breath as the light skims past me, waiting for the Mardenites to spot me. But the light doesn't reach me in my hiding spot, and soon the hum of the engine grows fainter.