Allie's War Season Four (38 page)

Jon realized Revik was talking to all of them, not just him, despite how close he stood.

He was addressing the whole team, some thirty-five infiltrators.

That number seemed pitifully small to Jon suddenly, remembering the hundreds he’d just watched massing on the meadow below.

A sharper ping hit his light, forcing Jon’s gaze up again.

Revik wasn’t looking at him, though. His clear eyes continued to scan the group, holding an unnerving focus, just as Wreg had said.

“You know your roles,” the Elaerian said, looking around at each of them once more. “As for the welcoming party, we expected this. Don’t fucking panic. I’ll get us out of it... just make sure you shield me, or this will be over in a hurry.”

He gave Jon a sharper look, as if assessing his mental state. Those clear eyes flickered away then, gazing around at the others.

“Two minutes,” Revik said, as he straightened. “Get in position.” He glanced at Jon again, clicking his fingers. “Jon and Maygar. You’re with me.”

Before Jon could wrap his head around his words, every seer in the cabin began unbuckling seat belts and regaining their feet.

Jon did the same mechanically, holding the back of the seat in front of him as he stood up, checking his guns in rote, as well as the magazines he’d shoved into the pockets of his vest. He wouldn’t be carrying a rifle, unlike most of the others.

He glanced up in time to see Revik fitting an armored helmet around his head, right before he tossed one to Jon, who caught it as much in reflex as intention. Feeling another urging ping from Revik’s light, Jon moved faster, entering the aisle right behind where the seer stood, facing the back of the helicopter, where the hatch door would open once they landed.

Once he stood there, helmet in place and panting, Jon glanced behind him once more.

His eyes tracked through the cabin until he found Maygar’s. Revik’s son stood just behind him, with only Neela standing between the two of them.

Maygar met Jon’s gaze, his face absent its usual scowl. His dark chocolate eyes shone grimly determined instead; he gave Jon an acknowledging nod without changing expression. Something about that nod reminded Jon of everything they’d been training for in the past week, ever since Revik made the decision to come here after Cass.

Reassured by the look he saw on Maygar’s face, Jon nodded back.

As he did, his head finally began to clear. Maybe it was his connection to Maygar, or maybe it had something to do with both of their connections to Revik, but Jon found himself remembering what he was doing here, why he’d come. His eyes scoured through faces again, that time looking for Allie. She stood near where she’d been sitting before, in the very front of the Chinook, sandwiched between Balidor and Yumi. She met Jon’s gaze, too.

Just like he’d done with Maygar, Jon found himself nodding.

She didn’t nod back.

Even so, Jon found himself somewhat reassured by what he saw there, too.

Deliberately, for the first time since the four of them had been linked together, Jon reached his light more deeply into hers. He realized even as he did, that, apart from when the four of them practiced the operational side of those links, Jon had been avoiding her entirely, even more than he had Maygar and Revik. Once he let that avoidance go, Jon felt a sense of purpose that he hadn’t felt since all of this first started.

He ran over the bare bones of the matrix they created as a unit, then, once he had all of the major connections down, he reached for the individual structures in Allie’s light. Only after he had a hold of hers, and knew his way between them and the light source that would be channeled to him via Balidor, did Jon focus on building the shield.

That part happened so easily, Jon doubted his perceptions at first.

He sent the impulse to Allie, and almost before he’d finished imparting it into her light, he felt an egg-shaped oval of light erupt like a dense but transparent blanket around Revik.

That light swiftly strengthened, filling every angle and structure Revik carried around his aleimic form with hot-white particles. The shield expanded seconds later, still focusing mainly on Revik, but enveloping Maygar, Jon and the rest of them in gently flowing waves. It hid Revik, Jon and Maygar from view of the surrounding construct, as well, which Jon realized now that he could feel all around them like a suffocating fog.

Jon waited, unmoving until he saw that light cover every inch of Revik’s structure, especially those pieces he used to operate the telekinesis.

Only then, when he felt reasonably sure the shield was as strong as it would get, did Jon ping Balidor, asking him to test what he could feel.

What seemed like only an instant later, both Balidor and Wreg gave him satisfied pings in return. Jon waited for them to check it a second time, and a third, which they did, pinging him the same affirmative notes with even shorter gaps than before.

Only then did Jon search for those same connecting points between himself and Maygar and Revik, structures he now knew better than his own. The four of them, with help from Wreg, Yumi and Balidor, had determined the exact route for the strongest means of piggybacking those links after hours of mapping and remapping the different threads.

Now Jon retraced those steps with a sureness he hoped had a basis in reality and didn’t stem from some kind of deluded overconfidence, overcompensating for his panic of before.

Within a few more seconds, he felt like he’d done as much as he could.

Revik glanced back as Jon thought it, giving him a slight nod.

So he felt it, too. Good.

Still, Jon wouldn’t have said he relaxed exactly.

The ground appeared to be only a dozen feet away now. Jon could see small cyclones of dust under the fuselage, growing larger as they got kicked up higher from the propellers’ whirring blades. Jon could now see actual expressions on the faces of some of the soldiers looking up. They watched the Chinook descend, automatic rifles aimed skyward and tracking them down as they approached. Most of those men and women stood and crouched next to much larger-looking armored jeeps and Humvees, parked in a ragged circle around their landing spot in the southwest corner of the meadow. Swallowing, Jon jerked his attention off them, too.

That part wasn’t his job, either.

Buckling the last few catches in the front of his vest, Jon checked all of his pockets again once he felt his light settle into the routes and connections he knew. He pulled out the Glock from his right-hand holster, checking the chamber of the gun in rote before he shoved it back into place, keeping his fingers near to the handle for when the hatch door opened.

He reminded himself it was a double-tap, organic safety, one he’d already disengaged, so he’d be able to fire it coming out of the gate.

It was more of a reassurance thing, though, remembering that. Jon honestly didn’t know yet if he’d be using it or not. He’d been told his guns existed mainly for emergencies, that he’d be covered in that regard by the other infiltrators.

If all went according to plan, he wouldn’t have to fire it at all.

Really, they had no hope of winning a 1:1 shooting match with these people. That had never been any true part of the plan, and why would it be?

They had Syrimne.

“Fifteen seconds,” Revik said, his voice sharp.

They all stood in a line that aimed at the back entrance.

Revik stood more or less at the head of that line, with six infiltrators in front of him for cover. Allie, Balidor and Yumi stood at the back of it, with only the pilots, Jorag and Illeg, behind them. Jon had seers on all sides of him now, since some still crouched in the areas of their seats, waiting for the back hatch to open and let them all out.

Despite the cramped and close quarters, Jon grew conscious of the silence.

He reached for Balidor, knowing the senior infiltrator would be responsible for keeping enough light on the four of them for Revik to work. Jon didn’t ask where that light came from, but he had his suspicions. After all, it likely wouldn’t be coming from the other infiltrators. Telekinesis or not, Revik needed them all operating at full capacity.

“Five seconds,” Revik said.

A bump told Jon that the Chinook had touched down on the dirt ground.

Gripping the seats on either side as he swayed on his feet, Jon felt his pulse pounding sideways in his throat and chest, making his entire body vibrate.

He gripped the threads holding him to the other three, glancing one more time at Allie even as he heard the gears fire up for the back door. He couldn’t see her face anymore, but he felt her, stronger than the other two, a sharp, white light wrapped in his.

“Two seconds,” Revik said.

The hatch door at the back of the Chinook was already halfway to the ground. Sunlight poured through the opening.

Then gunfire erupted from the two seers who mysteriously stationed themselves on either side of the lowering door in front of Revik. The other six fanned out, covering every inch of where Revik and Jon stood. Jon knew they were laying covering fire, so barely tracked them as he clung more tightly to Allie’s light, tightening the shield around Revik through her with every ounce of his concentration.

Then a bolt of electricity exploded out of the seer standing in front of him.

It nearly knocked Jon down.

He gasped in shock, gripping the seats on either side of where he stood.

He hadn’t been hit. The bolt didn’t drain him, didn’t touch his own light at all––unlike the way the telekinesis had done in the past. This time, the power source came from elsewhere, from whatever pool of light Balidor channeled to Revik to keep him operating at full capacity. Even so, the sheer power behind that very first bolt nearly brought Jon to his knees.

He felt an exhilarated charge off Revik, along with a focus that put Jon in open awe.

He had an irrational urge to yell, “Fuck, yeah!” but he didn’t do that either.

Even so, adrenaline shot through his limbs, bringing an odd grin to his face.

This was it.

This was finally it.

For the first time in over one hundred years, Syrimne was fighting a war.

12

FIRST STRIKE

A FAN OF infiltrators shielded them, in front and behind.

All but a few of them stood with rifles raised, firing with a kind of synchronized precision that Jon found strangely reassuring, if only for the depth of concentration on their faces. Even so, Jon knew their jobs were mainly defensive, as odd as that seemed.

Revik crouched behind them, and behind a mobile organic shield, in addition to the segment of wall they’d taken from the ground offensive for cover.

He was the offensive team.

Revik had already personally disabled a good chunk of the SCARB and federal military’s first wave of defense. Jon didn’t even know if they were facing Shadow’s people, per se.

Revik didn’t seem to care.

Either that, or he figured that hitting them hard, and head-on, would make an effective message, no matter who bore the brunt of it. It didn’t occur to Jon until later to think about the lives involved. He was too jacked up on adrenaline and too wrapped up in Revik’s light to think about much of anything but the targets in front of them as they walked down that ramp and onto the packed-dirt landing pad.

Anyway, this was war. He’d known it would be different.