Sea of Stars (11 page)

Ancil turns back around, handing him the other D-Cell. “I didn’t think you’d notice.”

“I notice everything,” he retorts with hubris.

Behind us, I hear a noise that makes the hair on my arms stand on end. I turn my head and, looking through the back window, I watch as an E-One approaches us on the empty side over the divided guideway. The wasplike heli-vehicle flies next to the line of hover vehicles behind us. The forced-air engines raise dust in its wake. The mean, predatory form makes my insides churn.

Unimpeded by the lack of traffic on the opposite side of the Beezway, the pilot of the E-One has no problem coming abreast of us. The craft lands with a decisive
thunk
on the guideway. The doors of the black beast open in a graceful sweep as floating steps descend from the interior of the craft.

With his back to me, Kesek Alez walks toward the E-One to greet them. He waves his arms over his head nonaggressively, signaling to the fugitive apprehension squadron. A lone figure steps out onto the stairs of the E-One, attired in black combat armor. He raises a long-barreled weapon. Pressing a button, several silver darts fly from the gun in rapid-fire succession.

The first dart embeds in Kesek Alez’s neck. When he pulls it out and looks at it, he drops it in horror. His body immediately swells up like puff pastry. He expands to three times his normal size before he explodes into a red vapor cloud while his blood and entrails paint the tunnel red.

The other Cavars who are hit by the darts suffer a similar fate. Ancil tries to fire his weapon, but his bloated fingers no longer have dexterity, and then it’s too late; he becomes a Jackson Pollock all over the side of our hovercar.

Kyon exits the craft, walking down the steps at an unhurried pace with several other Alameeda soldiers. While Kyon moves toward our hovercar, the Alameeda soldiers fan out to protect him, firing their weapons at anyone who looks their way.

With a strangled cry, Cyphon bursts out of the seat next to me, hitching up his gun as he goes. Kyon lifts his arms and fires one shot, hitting Cyphon in the forehead, exploding his brains out the back of his head.

I don’t move; I just remain where I am. When Kyon reaches the car, he bends down, extending his hand to me. “Take my hand before I throttle you,” he says. His blue eyes are as threatening as his words . . .

I blink several times. My breath curls out in icy waves from my mouth.
I didn’t leave my body . . . I just saw—

“You got an extra D-Cell? Mine’s nearly gone.” It’s Ancil; he’s at the window.

I blink again, tongue-tied.

“You’re supposed to keep your D-Cell charged, Ancil,” Cyphon replies.

With a sullen expression, Ancil replies, “Yeah, I know! I guess I didn’t expect to get ambushed by the Alameeda today.” He looks past Cyphon to me, glowering as if I’m responsible for the attack. When his eyes shift back to Cyphon, he asks, “You gonna help me out or not?”

Cyphon sighs heavily. He rummages around in a soldier’s gear pack at his feet. Locating a rectangular pronged case made of metal, he hands it out the window to the other soldier, who loads it into his gun. The gun makes a sound like its powering up.

Ancil begins to walk away, I reach out and grasp Cyphon’s wrist. “They’re coming!” My heart is in my throat; fear is a violent thing in my chest, tearing from inside me, desperately trying to get out. I have to gulp to hold down the bile that threatens to spew from my mouth. After a few deep breaths, I turn to Cyphon and say, “Get ready to go. It’s not your command; it’s the Alameeda. They intercepted your kesek’s transmission. They’re coming here and they’ll kill them—” I nod out the window at Kesek Alez and the other Cavars he’s with “—and then you. They’ll force me to go with them—we have to change that!”

Cyphon stares at me with a blank expression. “What are you talking about?” he asks.

With my chin I point to his unit. “We’re about to be attacked. They die, but you can live. Things are about to get insane,” I reply with an anxious plea in my voice. “I’m sorry.”

Cyphon lifts his eyes to his commanding officer, half in confusion and half in denial. The E-One lands across from us. Kesek Alez moves forward to greet them. A lone Alameeda soldier steps out onto the stairs of the E-One, attired in black combat armor. He raises a long-barreled weapon. Pressing a button, he shoots Kesek Alez and several other soldiers with darts. The mayhem that follows mirrors my glimpse of the future.

Cyphon makes a move to leave the hovercar. I jump on him, locking arms with him. “You can’t help them!” I scream. “They’re dead! You have to save us!”

“How did you know?”

“We have to go!” I yell instead. “Drive!” I urge as we both lie across the backseat of the vehicle where I’ve pulled us down.

Lifting my head up, I peek through the window just in time to see Kyon alight from the interior of the E-One. Turning to Cyphon, I say in a desperate voice, “If you get out, they’ll kill you and take me! You don’t have any options but to drive.”

Cyphon’s jaw clenches as he scans my face. I nod once, letting him know he has only one choice now. He doesn’t listen to me, though. He yanks his arm from my hands, opening the door to the hovercar. He throws himself out of the vehicle, lifting his riflelike weapon and firing at the Alameeda scattered around the Beezway. In seconds, he’s cut down, falling into the roadway, turning it crimson with his blood.

I sit frozen in the backseat of the vehicle, unable to move. Shouts and the deafening report of automatic weapon fire coming from the Alameeda soldiers echo from outside the hovercar. My head doesn’t duck. I don’t cringe in fear. I know they’re not shooting at me; they’re massacring everyone in the tunnel.

There’s a pause in the noise. I turn my head and glance out the door. Kyon is still by the E-One, his handsome blue eyes are on me, watching my reaction to what’s happening. He looks proud of me—proud of the fact that I’m not screaming, or covering my ears, or crying for them to stop. I’m not doing any of those things because I know that they won’t help. No one here will help. No one here will stop him. He’s probably also proud that I don’t look at all surprised by what’s happening—I knew it would happen—I saw it happen. He knows I saw it.

Kyon takes a step in my direction, but then he stiffens. The door to my right opens and I startle, expecting to see a blond-haired goon looming over me. Instead, the exquisite face that greets my eyes melts my icy heart in an instant. I feel myself go limp against the seat. “Trey!” His name tumbles from my lips. “How did you find me?”

Trey ducks into the backseat; his long arm reaches past me to close the door, blocking Kyon from me. I inhale Trey’s sultry scent and it’s like a drug running through my veins, creating a poignant ache inside me. The door locks as Trey takes me in his arms for a bone-crushing hug. I endure it, unable to breathe. His deep voice is hushed as he says, “I’ve been monitoring communications. They’ve been airing footage of the Alameeda shootout in the commissary. It showed you slipping into the dishery chute. I escaped and have been hiding out—trying to find where you were being held since they took you from my cell. When I saw the footage, I figured you had to be around the dishery somewhere, so I started this way, hoping I’d find you.”

Lifting me up, he shoves me over the barrier that divides the hovercar; I fall into the front seat. He climbs over the barrier between us to the front seat next to mine. He doesn’t look at me, concentrating on the vehicle instead, and then he adds, “I overheard the transmission the Cavars issued, reporting that you’d been detained.”

He presses a few buttons. Seat belts twist up and secure both of us to the vehicle. I look around the compartment. There’s no steering wheel on either side; it’s just a dashboard of lights with readouts on the windscreen.

“Engine on—engage manual transmission,” Trey orders. The hovercar immediately hums to life and lifts off the ground. The panel on his side of the vehicle opens up, emitting a joystick controller from the interior of the dashboard. Atop the joystick is a round, floating ball. As Trey grips the joystick, his thumb rubs over the top of the roller ball; the vehicle swings in a ninety-degree turn, facing the heli-vehicle and Kyon. “Secure compartment,” he orders the cabin of the vehicle. All the open doors slide closed and lock.

Kyon has gathered his Alameeda soldiers to him. He holds up his hand, signaling to the pilot behind him to hold his position. Slowly, Kyon raises his weapon at arm’s length, aiming it at Trey. He pulls the trigger, firing a round at Trey’s side of the hovercar. Projectiles pelt the hood and the windscreen of the military-grade vehicle, leaving dents, but they fail to penetrate the interior.

I grimace. “Why aren’t they firing on us with the E-One?” I ask as he revs the engine and we stare down the missiles and other scary weapons mounted on the outside of the lethal E-One.

“Kyon doesn’t want to risk killing you. He needs you alive,” Trey replies.

I know he’s right. Trey squeezes the trigger on the front of the joystick; our hovering vehicle charges forward, accelerating so quickly that I’m plastered to the seat back. Kyon scrambles to get out of our way, as do the other soldiers with him, leaving just the E-One in front of us as we race straight ahead. I cringe, holding my breath. We rumble over the road divider. Right before we hit the E-One, it lifts up from the ground, allowing us to pass beneath it.

Trey moves his thumb, spinning us onto the open lanes of the wide tunnel. “Project rear trajectory,” he barks. An area of the windscreen darkens to show a watermark image of the area behind our hovercar—a rearview image. Pressing the accelerator, we move faster than I have ever traveled in any type of vehicle on Ethar. I lose my stomach when he spins up onto the wall as we bank into a turn. Light ahead of us shocks me because it also means we’ve run out of road.

I give a cry of alarm, “No road!” drawing up my legs and bracing one hand against the ceiling and the other against the window, preparing to plunge off the edge.

“It’s a guide—we don’t need a road,” Trey explains while concentrating on driving. I sag in relief for a second when I realize we’re not going to plunge to our deaths. He glances at me. “This is a troupedo; it drives on air, Kitten. The Beezway makes it faster, it propels at the same time, allowing a vehicle to go twice as fast as normal, but it’s not necessary as a road.”

Around us in the sky, fighter aircraft of all types are engaging in fierce dogfights. Brilliant sprays of colorful light erupt as the Rafe Dragon ships spew fire into the air, looking for chinks in the Alameeda’s swarm of attackers. The Alameeda have supersonic aircraft, each with a pointed-shaped fuselage in front of a huge, round turbinelike forced-air engine in the back. These ships are able to outrun the Rafe ships with both speed and agility. The Rafe ships, however, have more precise weaponry. By locking onto targets, they’re able to predict where the Alameeda will be.

“How did you escape?” I ask, before a startled scream rips from me as we’re rammed from behind by the pursuing E-One.

Trey veers to the left, using the agility of the troupedo to counteract the immense speed of the E-One, keeping it off us. His jaw clenches tight as he whips us around the bend of a cylindrical building. When he puts some space between the E-One and us, he gives me a sidelong look. “I have the Comantre Syndic in the cell next to yours to thank for my escape.”

“Giffen?” I ask in a high-pitched voice. I’m holding on to the seat with both hands, and I still feel like I’m about to hit the windscreen in front of me.

He nods, watching the watermark image of the E-One on the windscreen. He points us directly at the fiery blaze billowing up from the base of the Ship of Skye, the result of one of their megaton bombs. Choking smoke pours around us as we fly through the destroyed and smoldering buildings. The E-One is on top of us again, ramming us from behind, making my teeth rattle. Trey slips between two buildings just before one topples into the other. The E-One has to veer up to avoid being crushed.

Trey’s jaw loosens its rigid line. “Giffen broke through to your cell when he awoke, pulling me through the shattered wall.”

“With his telekinesis?” I ask.

He nods in answer. “He demanded to know where you were.”

“What did you tell him?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

“What did he do when you refused to talk?” I look him over; he’s full of scrapes and bruises. He’s wearing a Brigadet’s uniform shirt. I don’t want to know where he got it.

“I’m not sure. But when I regained consciousness, he was gone and there was a trail of dead Brigadets leading out of the detention center. I tried to free the other Cavars, but I was almost apprehended—I had to escape instead. I’ll have to go back for them.”

We’re rammed once more by the E-One behind us. The entire vehicle shakes, and it takes a Herculean effort by Trey with both his hands on the joystick to steady the troupedo once more.

“They’re going to kill us,” I whisper in fear.

Trey shakes his head. “They can blow us out of the sky whenever they want to, Kricket, but they won’t. Kyon’s obsessed with you. He can’t give you up.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better.”

From behind us, an electro-pulse slams into our hovercar. All the readouts on the windscreen disappear along with the lights and everything else that was propelling the vehicle forward. We begin to free-fall because the vehicle is no longer operational.

“What just happened?” I whimper at Trey as the hovercar goes into a dive. I brace my hand against the door and ceiling, fear suffocating me.

“They just killed our power!” He scowls, pressing buttons and trying to get the engine to turn back on. The Ship of Skye’s landscape grows bigger and bigger with every second we plummet. I realize I’m in a coffin looking out as we sink toward the deck.

The back window of our hovercar explodes. Glass falls around me to the windscreen. Hooks lodge in the backseat, cutting the upholstery and embedding deep in the frame. Our descent is halted; we spin in a dizzying swing, dangling from the bottom of the E-One by grappling cables. As the hovercar pendulums, our image reflects in the glass of one of the buildings. If it were not for the harnesses holding me to the seat back, I’d be kissing the windshield as we face the ground below us.