Valley of Fires: A Conquered Earth Novel (The Conquered Earth Series) (33 page)

“I’m not blind, just do it!”

A flurry of gunfire snapped him to action. He raced for the Grounders.

Olive hurried to help the others get the second sail up. Casper was right to be worried. Most sails weren’t stitched strong enough to contain the blast from a Chinook at full power all by themselves, most would rip to shreds, and it took a full blast to move a Landship with just one sail. Olive prayed hers would hold.

The Chinook roared. The sail inflated in vibrant color. Olive saw it bow outward like it never had before, absorbing the wind. She could hear the sound of its seams stretching …

The huge ship began to roll, pulling away from the dock.

Cheers erupted from the ship. Yells of anger came from below.

Gunfire sparked all along its hull, but it was too late. The second sail unfurled and absorbed its fair share of wind, propelling the ship even faster.

“Watch the graveyard!” Olive yelled, and Casper spun the wheel in time to avoid the first of the rotting Landships beyond the dock. Olive breathed a sigh of relief, watching the Commerce Pinnacle fade away, the pirates on the decks firing futilely after them.

Then something occurred to her. “Wait! What about—”

Two figures leapt over the railing in a flash of yellow light and landed with heavy thuds: Masyn and Castor, the latter holding onto the girl. Both were injured, bleeding from new wounds, and exhausted, yet they stared at Olive with a look of rapture.

White Helix …

“Where to, Captain? North?” Casper asked hopefully at the wheel.

Olive shook her head. “Not yet. We got a bargain to honor.”

“
Another
bargain?” he asked.

“You’re alive, aren’t you?”

Casper shrugged, unable to argue the point.

*   *   *

AS COMPLICATED AS REFINING
crude oil was, the Refinery Pinnacle itself only contained the infrastructure for about a third of the process. The rest was outside the city, connected by huge pipes. The one Holt was sliding through came from the Vacuum Distiller, a giant heating system that produced heavy oils for things like diesel gas and other distillates that Faust really had no use for, and that side of its production had been shut down long ago.

Holt had worked in the Refinery, it’s how he knew of these pipes. The good news was, they led right to the system’s Coker and Hydrocracker tanks, deep inside the Refinery Pinnacle. They would be their back door. The bad news was that it was one long crawl through the darkest, most cramped environment you could imagine, and every second you could feel the walls closing in.

Two dozen rebels were behind him, and a second group was in another pipe, moving in the same direction. A headlamp lit the dark ahead, and he could see Ravan’s feet as she crawled forward. She was the head of the line, and he stared at her enviously. He would have much preferred the front, where it was less cramped.

Of course, that’s probably why Ravan had insisted she go first. She was still plenty mad at him, as evidenced by how her foot suddenly kicked him in the face.

“Ouch!” Holt shouted and pulled back.

“Oh,” Ravan’s irritated voice said ahead of him. “Forgot you were back there.”

“Why’d you stop?”

“Because we’re here, moron, why else would I stop?”

Holt rubbed his nose, but saw she was right. In the light ahead of them, the pipe dead-ended into the filter path that separated the oil to either the Coker or the Hydrocracker.

“I need you to unstrap the torch,” she said, lying flat.

Holt could just make out the portable cutting torch on her back. To use it, she had to roll over, but she couldn’t do that until it was off. He crawled toward her, could hear the line of rebels behind them grind to a halt. In the dark he couldn’t totally see where her straps secured the torch. His hands slid up her back, searching.

Ravan tensed. “Don’t touch me.”

“How else am I supposed to get it off you?”

“
Don’t
touch me.”

Holt did his best. He found the first strap, unfastened it, and pulled it loose. “You know, I was kind of expecting a warmer response to my proposal. At least, from you.” It was true, Ravan’s attitude, if anything, had gotten more hostile since he’d stated his desire to come back to the fold, and he didn’t really understand it.

“Shows how completely detached from reality you are.”

“Ravan…”

“Just get the torch off.”

“Fine,” he mumbled. The next strap had twisted around her side. His hands slid under her, reaching for the clip. “Hold on, I have to—”

She flinched unpleasantly. “Stop.”

“I almost have it.”

“No…” She struggled against him, trying to squirm away from his hands, but they slid along the length of her waist and the bare skin there.

Ravan froze. Holt’s hands stopped. Each focused on the feel of the other.

It was funny how unique her skin was, how it brought back memories, feelings too, and they surprised him. He could hear her breathing under him.

“Hey!” the rebels shouted behind them in annoyance. “Hurry the hell up!”

It broke the spell.

“Get it
off
me,” Ravan hissed. Holt found the last buckle, unclipped it, and pulled the torch off. She rolled over and yanked it out of his hands, and slid away from him.

Holt watched her move in the dark as she primed the blowtorch, the slimness of her, the curves. The feel of her skin was still in his head, and the emotions that came with it. Judging by how tense Ravan seemed, the way she kept her eyes locked on the blowtorch, it was the same for her.

Holt looked away from her and checked his watch. They were early, they still had two minutes to go. “Anything you want to discuss?”

She finally craned her neck up to look at him. “Jesus, you just want to add insult on top of insult, don’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do I
mean
? Taking the tattoo?
Now?
You don’t
get
it at all.”

Holt certainly didn’t, as usual. He would have thought the gesture would make her happy, or at least not want to snap his neck. Women were more difficult to figure out than Assembly.

“You are
not
taking that tattoo,” she told him firmly.

“What am I supposed to do? Rogan—”

“Can go to hell.” She cut him off. “You
both
can. You’re not taking it, not now.”

Holt started to say something else, but Ravan pulled the welder’s goggles over her eyes and lit the torch. He flinched when it touched the top of the pipe, spraying sparks in a violent burst that lit up the dark. Holt guessed that was that.

*   *   *

RAVAN BARE-KNUCKLE PUNCHED THE
cap she’d just cut off, and heard it clang to the floor on the other side. The pain was sharp but it did little to blunt the anger she felt.

Holt’s touch had been electric. She’d forgotten what it felt like, and it was funny how distinctive the way someone’s hand could be, how you could recognize it blindfolded.

God, she was pathetic. After everything he’d done, all he had to do was run his fingers over her back …

She climbed out of the pipe, forcing herself to focus. She dropped the torch and yanked her Beretta free, scanning the underworks of the Refinery Pinnacle.

It was empty.

Holt climbed out behind her and exhaled a long breath of relief. He hated being cramped up almost as much as he hated heights, and she had enjoyed making him go second.

She pulled the welding goggles off her face, while the other rebels started scampering out of the pipe behind them. Ravan began brushing all the grime and dust off. She could feel it in her hair, all over her—

Holt smiled in that way he did when he was trying not to laugh.

She looked up at him.
“What?”

Holt motioned to her face. She figured it out, it was probably covered in soot from the welding torch, and the goggles had left two clean circles around her eyes.

“Screw you,” she said, rubbing her face furiously, but finding it hard not to smile herself. It only made her angrier. Why did she always soften for him? Why did she always let him do these things and just come back?

Nearby, she saw the sparks from where the second team was cutting through their pipe.

“Go help them out,” Ravan told some of the rebels. They moved for the other pipe, and not one seemed resentful about her being put in charge. Rogan’s sway appeared to be strong, which was good. It would make it easier later. If she couldn’t ascend to the top of the Menagerie under Tiberius, then she definitely would under Rogan West.

In a few minutes, the rest of the rebels were free. The last three from each group dragged the larger weapons in bags behind them.

Everyone moved to those bags and started gearing up. They had only four dozen rebels to fight several hundred pirates above. There was no way they could win by themselves, but they weren’t the only part of the plan. She just hoped the other groups didn’t screw it up.

“Listen up,” Ravan said, and the rebels looked at her. “This is the heavy oils distillation room, it’s unused, which means no guards, but it’s not going to be that way from here on. Two floors to the top, and there will definitely be kids working the refinery. We have to get there without setting off any alarms, so move low and quiet and
only
when Holt or I say.”

No one dissented, they only seemed eager. Everyone crept past the huge pipes that ran from the big Coker and Hydrocracker tanks. Ravan and Holt reached the heavy steel door out of the room. Both gripped their Berettas, their rifles slung over their backs. It was too cramped in here for large caliber right now, but that would change fast.

Holt winced as he leaned against the wall, and she studied him carefully. He’d gone through a lot of punishment, and clearly wasn’t 100 percent.

“I’m fine,” he told her, sensing her stare. Ravan just nodded. She trusted him to know his abilities, but he would no doubt be slower than usual. Still, she’d take a slow Holt Hawkins over pretty much anyone else.

Ravan gripped the door. It groaned open, and the sounds of machinery burst in. Pumps shuffling, steel stretching on heating tanks, the clanking of gears against gears, all of it loud and jarring. All the better. The sound would help conceal them as they moved.

Ravan and Holt pushed into the room, ducking down behind more pipes. Inside stood the huge hydrotreater tanks, filling the room with their girth. Something didn’t seem right, though.

“Not as hot as I remember,” Holt observed, voicing her thoughts.

“Maybe they’ve got it running low yield,” Ravan said. “Take left, I’ll do right.”

Holt moved off, disappearing around a bend in the pipes. Ravan did the same and saw three kids standing near the tanks. They weren’t guards, they were workers, clothes stained with soot and oil, but they were armed and could alert other pirates inside the Pinnacle.

Ravan moved in, keeping out of sight by a batch of pressure valves. She couldn’t see Holt, but it didn’t matter. He’d know what to do, they’d always worked well together.

She gave it another second … then twisted one of the valves above her head.

Steam erupted in a hissing geyser, and she had a glimpse of the three workers jump in surprise before they were obscured by the cloud of super-heated vapor.

One. Two. Three,
Ravan counted.

Then she covered her face and rolled right through the steam. It stung, but was over fast. When she emerged, the workers hesitated. It was their mistake.

She chopped one in the throat, sent him to the ground. The second lunged for her, but she whirled out of the way, then shoved him headfirst into the metal pipes. He fell too.

Holt appeared and grabbed the third worker around the neck, squeezing, choking off the kid’s air as his arms fumbled. In a few seconds he ran out, and Holt let him fall to the floor, out cold.

He looked at Ravan, smiling. “Always wanted to try that.”

Ravan spun the pressure valve closed and sealed off the steam. “Works better when you
don’t
squeeze the windpipe.” She felt the anger soften again at his voice, at the casual way he had of disarming tension. She wanted to stay mad at him, to remember he couldn’t be trusted with her feelings, but the walls were crumbling again. She would hold out as long as she could.

Ravan motioned for the rest of the rebels, and they poured into the room. Everyone moved around the hydrotreater tanks toward a stairwell that climbed up the far wall, then poured into the refinery’s central chamber, where the huge blending tanks sat, each a hundred feet in diameter and made of thick steel. It was here the various oils and naphtha produced by the refinery were blended into gasoline, Faust’s greatest treasure, and what had kept Tiberius in power all these years.

They rounded the sides of the tanks, spreading out … and came face-to-face with the room’s occupants.

About twenty of them, a dozen guards and the rest workers, but all of them armed.

Ravan’s rebels outnumbered them, but the problem was, the second the shooting started, the hundred or so guards outside would come running in, and that would be that.

Everyone drew their guns on everyone else and froze. Ravan searched the crowd of Tiberius loyalists one at a time, until she found the one she was looking for. They locked eyes … and Ravan shrugged. “Well?”

The kid stared back … then he and the dozen guards spun and slammed the ends of their rifles into the workers, dropping them to the ground in a heap, and just like that the standoff was over.

Ravan smiled, staring at her old crew warmly. They were all here, not one of them had stayed on Tiberius’s side once she’d called. It meant a lot, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t mess with them a little. “You hesitated, Marcus, having second thoughts?”

“Hell no, boss,” the kid said, and the others nodded. “It’s no fun without you.”

“Three days on your own, and you go all soft on me,” she said and started moving again. “Line up, we got work to do.”

Ravan’s men joined the rest, shaking hands, nodding. Holt kept quiet and apart, followed along as they flanked the big double doors that led outside onto the Pinnacle platform.