Allie's War Season One (53 page)

...15, 2, 1, 111, 99, 3326, 1, 42, 47, 15, 15, 12, 996, 651, 222, 231, 244, 4, 4, 4, 4, 6, 27, 13, 15, 15, 21, 66, 24, 89, 97...

At that exact moment, the sky caught on fire.

THE EXPLOSION FLARED out of darkness.

It blew back the nearest of the helicopters, causing it to careen into the one flying alongside it. The propeller clipped the vehicle’s hull, splintered like dry kindling.

Galaith watched in a kind of slow fascination as the bird in front of him fell in a nearly straight line, breaking apart as it slammed the dark water.

The booming from the ship continued.

Shock waves from the second explosion reached the part of sky where Galaith’s larger transport helicopter maintained a safe distance. It shook the metal under his legs, forcing the pilot of the craft to compensate. A third explosion rattled the glass. Galaith heard his own pilot curse through his microphone, forgetting himself momentarily as he leaned on the cyclic, moving them sideways below the cloud deck.

Frowning in disapproval, Galaith decided to let it pass, gazing down at the long, white cruise ship, which had unmistakably come to a halt on the dark water.

Plumes of fire rose to the low deck of clouds, staining them red and gold.

Galaith watched the flames mix with the early dawn’s light, reflecting against the falling rain. Another blast lit the nearby land mass, illuminating dark, featureless hills, and his eyes studied the scrub evergreens and broken boulders, blinking against the sudden brightness. People the size of ants jumped off the tall sides of the ship as he watched. Even under the steady pulse of the helicopter’s blades, Galaith heard screams, and impact sounds as they hit.

Feeling the other occupants of the helicopter looking at him expectantly, Galaith made the sign of the cross.

Then, fixing his brow and mouth in the proper display of anger and grief, he signaled to the pilot with his hand, pointing towards the shore.

It wouldn’t do to be caught gawking at the scene.

Anyway, for all intents and purposes, his work here was done.

Alyson’s last known location was the starboard end of the stern, where his team set and detonated the first set of explosives. Galaith would have his seers look for her in the aftermath, of course, and retrieve her body if at all possible, but it was over.

That was a decision he’d made before he arrived. Better to send her back to those beyond-the-Barrier shores of which she was so fond. Better that, than to let her go alive to Terian and whatever dark scheme he’d concocted.

It was a good thing Galaith had that second team in place, watching Terian.

Even so, he’d almost reacted too slowly.

Whatever had been set in motion on the ship a few hours previous, it had been less of a plan by Terian as it was a reaction to an unexpectedly opened window of opportunity. Perhaps Terian had even imagined it would be so. It was the only way he could have moved his team swiftly enough to avoid any ripples of warning through the network Pyramid.

As he watched smoke billow out the bottom decks, Galaith knew any hope of her survival had to be slim. He retained a glimmer of optimism that the temperature of the water might preserve some bio-samples, however.

Ironically, it was she who called him here.

It was a genuine pity he’d arrived too late to reason with her.

As for Terian and whatever he’d been up to...

“I’ll be back for you, old friend,” he muttered under his breath.

He didn’t let himself think too closely about the loss of Dehgoies. That would have to be contemplated on another day.

“Sir?” the pilot shouted.

Galaith met his questioning look, wiping his face with one hand. Luckily, the gesture fit the moment, and played all the more convincingly for its sincerity, whatever its true cause. One of his secretaries, Martha, touched his arm in sympathy, and he clasped her fingers, letting his face show a flicker of gratitude.

He told the pilot, “Take me to the airport, Gene. We’ll coordinate the rescue teams from there.”

“Aye, sir.” The man saluted, grinning with obvious pleasure that Galaith had used his first name. Popping the wad of gum jammed into one corner of his mouth, he let out a half-shout above the rotary blades, “Wow! What a day!” Seeing Galaith’s dark look, his smile faded. “Of course it’s terrible, sir...terrible. All those people. No one deserves to die like that.”

Galaith did not give him a reassuring smile.

Still, he found the man’s comments amusing in their blatant insincerity.

Pity there was no way he could let any of them live.

ABOVE ME, ROSETTES bloomed in a bland sky. Clouds shone red and gold in billowing tongues of reflected flame.

I was still pretty sure I was dead.

Then a wave rolled up, filling my mouth with salt water.

I choked, only to be fully submerged. Physical pain brought my world sharply into focus as my head and mouth once more broke the surface. Salt sank into cuts in my skin. My knee felt like it had been pulverized. I forced my limbs forward through the blue liquid ice. I gazed at the fire and a dense wave of pain hit me again, not all of it physical.

Water filled my mouth and I spit it out.

Then, it hit me. It really hit me. For a moment, I disappeared.

Shouts overhead and nearer screams snapped me out. Another wave submerged my head as I groped around for something to hold on to, something to support me. I grabbed at something as it floated by. It turned out to be a soaked life jacket.

I let it go, paddling like a wounded dog with one leg.

Trying to follow the others, I gasped out steam, glimpsed the burning white hulk behind me as I pumped my arms harder. The ship continued to belch smoke, but it no longer produced a churning wake. Instead it sat lower in the water, like a child squatting in a stream.

I had to find Jon.

The thought repeated, irrational.

Rain had begun to fall, along with soot, white ash, pieces of fabric and paper. I heard screams all around me...I closed my eyes, still trying to get my limbs all working in the same direction, when someone grabbed my arm.

When I turned, Chandre’s reddish eyes met mine.

She looked afraid. I gazed up at black-tinted clouds, a white tower rising from the middle of the ship where a blue, tail-like fin rose to meet the sky. A burning figure stood on the fourth deck, fighting to climb the railing. The wind flared the fire on his body.

Chandre yanked harder on my arm. “Come. This will get ugly, and fast! The Rooks are exterminating witnesses...”

She began to drag me through the water, and I let her. A plane skimmed overhead, lights ablaze. No one paid any attention to us.

Revik’s face rose in my mind. My sight flared, bringing even more pain. More death. Images of falling bodies ripped apart by ice-cold water. Mom’s face. Dad’s. I missed Jon so badly it hurt.
 
I needed him, had to find him. I floated, fighting to push past it, dragged through the current. Chandre didn’t stop pulling on my arm. It felt like she’d pull it out of the socket.

“There’s some chance,” I managed, talking to her, or maybe myself. “I saw him alive. Terian could have him. He could still have him...”

Chandre looked at me. She struggled words out between breaths as she stroked hard with her free arm, pulling me with her.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No. Bridge...you must face facts. I am sorry. Dehgoies is dead...different light signature. We tracked it...we saw him die...”

I shook my head back at her, trying to free my arm, but she only pulled harder.

“You must feel it.” She looked at me. “...Separation sickness...it will get worse. You have to stay out of the Barrier. Do whatever you have to, only don’t go in. He will have died for nothing. Don’t let them see you...”

I didn’t answer, remembering Eliah saying the same thing.

When I didn’t fight after a few seconds, her expression softened.

“I am sorry, Bridge,” she said.

I didn’t look at her again.

We remained a few hundred yards from shore when a sudden, sharp boom jerked both sets of our eyes back towards the ship. Like something from a dream in the rising light, yellow and orange plumes billowed upward. The ship sank fast after that. I saw glass blow out as windows exploded, pouring water, flames...more smoke. The wind changed, bringing us more screams, the smell of charred flesh and burning plastic.

Chandre resumed swimming.

Between strokes I heard her speak through clenched teeth.

“Hopefully they will believe we are dead, as well...”

A wolf runs on the tundra, tongue lolling past its blood-stained grin—

When I came to, I was aware of hands on me, people pulling me out of the water. Rough gravel and dirt met my bare skin, and nothing ever hurt so much. My legs dragged like dead weight. I couldn’t move my knee and my thigh felt like it was bitten to the bone by some kind of sea monster or shark. Someone wrapped a coarse blanket around my back, talking over my shoulder to Chandre.

I felt grief on the man holding me and realized I didn’t know him, or the woman standing next to him, watching me with pity in her dark eyes.

Only Chandre’s voice remained.

The rest stood silent, emotional despite their weapons and training, unable to tally what they’d lost.

...and the wolf still runs, his feet sending up puffs of white snow.

I want to tell them it’s all right, I know I’m safe.

For now, at least, my body at least. The wolf is no longer looking at me, but runs at a single dark form marring the white plain. Again it is dawn, and a black shape burns in the distance on a flat horizon that sparkles like diamonds...and my chest feels as if someone has taken an ice pick to it, hitting it again and again, digging out a pale light at its core.

It is a feeling worse than death.

22

INDIA