Burn (22 page)

“Duly noted,” he says quietly. “You know, Tate, I've—”

BOOM.

I stare down at my control panel in time to see an entire squad of scout ships zoom over the crater wall, their spiraling hatches opening to reveal the devastating glow within. The defense stations are firing their cannons, but every single shot misses, exploding on the grassy expanse of the crater floor or in the lake. My earpiece erupts with frantic cries that must be coming from Race's communications console in the cockpit, everyone screaming to get the Archers moving, to protect the main compound. From outside, I hear Angus shouting at people to get below. The Archer jolts as Race stomps on the gas. We lurch forward and fly across the lot to engage the enemy.

We're not ready. We're so not ready.

But we're all there is.

I slide my arms into the cuffs and take hold of the control sticks. Closing my eyes and trying to breathe slowly, I remind myself not to force it. To let my father's brilliant design do its work while I do mine. “How many are there?” I call out.

“I've counted twelve—no, thirteen,” Race barks. “They'll try to take out the remaining perimeter defense stations.” He's somehow switched the radio to a two-way channel, because I hear nothing but him, nothing from the outside, and that's good. “Hang on.”

I do, watching my screen for any chance to lock onto the Sicarii ships. But they move so fast, and they seem to know that the five vehicles streaking in different directions beneath them are an actual threat. The Ellie-Sicarii must have warned them. The ships don't hover or slow down, just streak overhead and fire. Explosions turn my screen white, and there are so many that it feels like a strobe to my eyes and brain, this hypnotic, dizzying horror. But I don't look away, because I remember that Sung said the eye-tracking feature of the screen was the way to achieve target lock. As Race careens toward one of the defense stations on the south lawn, my persistence pays off, because one of the ships swoops low and glides toward the station, which fires frantically at the approaching ship with little effect—it merely spins out of the way.

Until I fire my autocannon at it. The ship tilts on its side to avoid the impact, but the Fred Archer–designed artillery shell curves around and follows the movement, slamming into the underside of the obelisk and making it falter in the air.

The next shot brings it down, and Race makes an abrupt, victorious shout before swerving around the flaming husk of the ship. About a quarter mile away, another Archer lets loose a barrage of artillery as it races toward another defense station, which is taking fire from above. The Archer swerves as the scout ship above it fires, leaving a small crater in the soft earth near the vehicle. Whoever's driving that Archer takes evasive action again, making a sharp U-turn and heading back for the flaming wreckage of the scout ship I just downed.

Whether it's looking for cover in the smoke, or for the light from the flaming wreckage to interfere with the Sicarii targeting systems, I never get to find out. Because the ship above it fires again, landing a solid hit to the Archer's armored left side, and the vehicle flies into the air, pirouetting under the night sky before landing brutally hard.

“Are they okay?” calls Race as he brings our Archer around, headed for a spot between the two defense stations. “They're not responding to radio calls.”

I peer at the monitors. No one's getting out of the vehicle. “The Archer seems okay, but I don't know about the people inside. We need to go get them.”

Race doesn't argue. He makes the turn that sets us on a rescue mission in the middle of the battle. I'm firing on another Sicarii ship descending to take advantage of the unmoving Archer when movement on the ground catches my eye. But it's not coming from the wrecked combat vehicle. “There's a Sicarii survivor!” I shout.

It's a woman. She sprints away from the spaceship I shot down, seemingly unhurt. She's wearing a slick sort of flight suit, the material glinting in the flames of her destroyed ship, and she's headed straight for the damaged Archer, only a hundred yards away.

“Can you shoot that thing from here?” Race asks.

“Not unless we want to risk killing the people inside the Archer. Let me out.” I grab the scanner, my only sidearm. At least, that's what I hope it is.

Race makes a frustrated noise over the radio. “I can't give the scout ships another stationary target.”

“Then let me out and swing back for me.” Because even as I watch, the Sicarii has reached the Archer and pulled some sort of wand device from its belt, which it's using to cut a hole in the back of the stalled vehicle. I have no idea what it plans to do if it gets through, but memories of what happened the last time a Sicarii commandeered an Archer pour adrenaline through me as Race lurches to a stop about twenty yards from where it's all going down. The Sicarii finishes cutting through the door, having created a foot-wide hole. It shoves at the metal, which falls inward.

Christina might be inside. She might be unconscious over her console, helpless and unaware.

I hurl open the Archer's rear door. The thunder of the battle is so loud that it vibrates inside my chest. As soon as I jump clear of the vehicle, Race roars away—just as another scout ship glides toward us. Without slowing, he fires at it with his hood cannon, insanely aggressive and ballsy, considering his big guns are lying still and quiet on the roof of his ride. Knowing that he's holding the ship's attention, I turn my focus to the Sicarii, who's reaching through the hole in the rear door, trying to open it from the inside.

“Hey!” I shout.

Despite the roar of cannons all around us, she spins around at the sound of my voice. My stomach tightens. It's the lunch lady from my school, the one who was on TV. Helen Kuipers, who disappeared a few days ago. Or, it looks like her, because it's stolen her appearance. The Sicarii holds the tiny, lethal, laser cutting tool at its side as it strides toward me, calm and steady.

The driver of the stalled Archer may have been knocked silly by the blast, but as the Sicarii comes for me, he or she must regain control, because the Archer's engine roars, and it races back into the fight, leaving me and the Sicarii alone on the grass.

I look down at the scanner, with the Sicarii-specific chip glinting in its designated port. I switch it on, and its light turns my legs blue. The Sicarii's eyes narrow when it sees what I have in my hand. It halts abruptly, and its gaze meets mine, full of the same ancient, cold curiosity I saw in the Ellie-Sicarii's eyes. Then it turns on its heel and runs.

My heart jolts as I take off after it.

The lunch lady–Sicarii should probably have chosen a more athletic body before this fight started. It's heading for the elevator of the nearest defense station, but I'm eating up the ground between us with longer, faster strides. Triumph beating through my veins, I lift the scanner high and bathe the Sicarii's back in orange light, hoping it'll burst into flames or melt or vaporize.

I stop, waiting for vindication. The scanner is important. It has to be. It's the weapon the Sicarii don't want us to have. My dad said it was the key to our survival. He said . . .

The Sicarii pauses abruptly in its flight toward the elevator. It looks down at itself and turns to stare at me and the scanner.

“We thought you had figured it out,” it says, lifting the laser cutting tool and aiming it at me. I tense, my muscles coiling to run, the horrible realization dawning:
It didn't work.
The scanner didn't—

A huge blast of white fire slams into the Sicarii from above, lighting the sky and turning it to ash where it stands.

I'M THROWN INTO THE AIR BY THE EXPLOSION AND
land in the grass, gasping, my ears ringing, blinking as bits of dirt rain down. I rub my eyes and squint—there's a small crater where the Sicarii was standing. I look at the sky. That didn't come from a defense station. Or a scout ship.

It came from higher than that. Much higher.

The scanner
did
work.

Inserting that chip weaponized the device, all right. Now it doesn't just scan—it
burns.
That bolt of hell came from one of my dad's satellites. I'm sure of it. I nailed the Sicarii with its beam, and less than ten seconds later, it was vaporized. If I can use the scanner to paint a target on each of the Sicarii scout ships, maybe the same will happen to them. I know the scanner penetrates solid barriers and detects what's behind them, so this could actually work.

My head throbbing with each deep, devastating explosion on the field, the roar of Archer engines, and the low hum of the Sicarii ships, I grope for the scanner, praying it wasn't damaged when I went flying. I freeze when I see a blue flash on the lawn. The device is still on, lying several feet from me. I scramble over to it and clutch it to my chest. And then I look over my head, where the Sicarii ships are zooming and shooting. I turn the scanner's light toward the sky, but its beam is too weak to span the distance.

Seething with frustration, I look around the battlefield. One Archer is just a flaming tangle of parts in the middle of the clearing, one a smoking wreck near the crater wall, and three others are still rolling around the field, including the one with the hole in its door. Two are shooting, the dual guns on the top tracking and firing viciously, and the third's guns lie silent, though it seems to be playing decoy while the others fire away.

I watch them speeding and turning, and then I count the ships in the sky. There are eight still in the air, five on the ground. Two look like they made controlled landings but were destroyed by cannon fire from the defense stations. Unfortunately, those defense stations are aflame now, as one of the scout ships has focused its fire on the perimeter. We're still outnumbered, and the three remaining Archers won't be rolling much longer with those kinds of odds. The one with the hole in its rear door streaks by, the lens rattling in its carriage as the vehicle rumbles past.

“The lens,” I whisper, watching the Archer with silent guns pull an incredible turn and race toward one of its sister vehicles, then break off at a startling angle, drawing one of the scout ships away. That has to be Race. He's vulnerable out there because he doesn't have anyone sitting beneath that giant lens, controlling the guns. The lens . . . I look at the scanner in my hand, bathing my legs in blue light, and every single loose puzzle piece in my mind locks into place at once.

“The lens!” I shout, running flat out toward Race's Archer. “The lens!” I wave my arms.

Race slows his vehicle. He must have seen me. But so does a scout ship. Shimmering and spinning, it descends from the sky. Its round hatch of death begins to open.

Boom.
It's hit with a blast from another Archer. The alien ship falters in the air, then silently moves after its attacker. The rear hatch of Race's vehicle pops open, and Race peers out. “Get in here now,” he barks before lunging for the driver's compartment again.

I vault into the Archer as it starts to move. I stare up through the lens and see the pinpoint moon and stars. I hold the scanner up to it, with the lit side pressed to the convex surface. The curved glass focuses the light, turning it into a single, sharp beam that reaches high in the sky. “Race! I know how to take them down.”

“Start shooting, Tate. That's the only way to take them down!” he roars as he guns the engine, and we race into the battle again.

“Then get us underneath every single one of those things before they can do any more damage!” I hold the scanner to the lens, but it's awkward—until I notice the hooks again. Of course. I swing them under the scanner, and they create a sort of harness so it hangs perfectly beneath the glass, easy for me to control and turn so the beam moves around.

Race has no idea what I'm doing back here, of course, but it doesn't matter. I watch the gunner's screen as the other two Archers fire and dodge, fire and dodge. Race probably knows exactly who they are, but I don't ask. The eight remaining ships close in and create two formations, preparing to take them out. I'm glad I don't know which Archer is which, or whether Christina and my mom are still rolling. I aim the scanner's beam at one of the ships, one at the end of the formation targeting an Archer that's zooming along the edge of the clearing, near where the lunch lady–Sicarii was cut down a few minutes ago. It's hard to keep the beam on the chosen scout ship. It stays yellow for several seconds, but then it flashes orange.

“I don't hear you shooting back there, Tate!” Race shouts.

“Trust me; you will.” I start to count down from ten, praying that the satellite is reliable—

Boom.
The sky lights up, and there's a tremendous explosion. Debris pelts our Archer, and Race makes a sudden turn to get out of the way as what remains of the scout ship comes down.

“What the hell was that?” calls Race. “Was that us?”

“It was the scanner and the satellite system!” I reply. “They're connected now. Get us close to another scout ship before they realize what we're doing!”

He doesn't waste time with more questions. He rolls us right beneath the four that are firing at one of the remaining Archers—the one with the hole in its door. The wicked blasts take huge chunks out of the ground as they land within feet of the vehicle, and I know it's only a matter of time before the thing takes a direct hit. I grit my teeth and aim, forcing the beam to linger on the hulls of first one, then the second, then the third. I know I've made a hit when the scanner beam turns from bland yellow to lurid orange, and I can't draw the light away until that happens, no matter how close the ships get to that Archer . . .

The Archer takes a hit square on its front. It bounces into the air like it weighs nothing and pirouettes, landing upside down. Race shouts a curse. “Can you make that . . .
whatever-that-was
happen again?” he yells.

“Give it a few seconds.”

Race steers us toward the overturned Archer as its rear hatch opens and Manuel stumbles out, coughing and bleeding from a head wound. I unlatch our rear door, and Race lurches to a stop. Manuel claws his way into the back as a scout ship turns in the air and zooms toward us.

“Kellan?” I ask, offering my hand and yanking him deeper into the vehicle.

He shakes his head, his face contorting with sadness. “Gone.”

With a pit in my stomach, I slam our rear door shut as Manuel collapses next to the gunner's pit. “That other ship is coming right for us! Why aren't you shooting?” he shouts.

“I am.” I go back to aiming the beam at the scout ship, but there's a bright flash of light as an Archer shell hits it broadside. It wobbles in the air and veers out of sight.

Boom. Boom. Boom.
Manuel squeezes his eyes shut as the explosions flash bright through the lens and turn his face orange-white-yellow-red. Three more scout ships down. “Was that you?” he yelps.

I nod. “That was me.”

“Do they know it was you?”

“Not yet.” There are a few seconds of delay as the scanner communicates to the satellite and as it latches onto its target and fires, and I think that's saved us—along with the fact that they thought the scanner
itself
was the weapon—they didn't expect the fire to come from above.

“Manuel! Can you take control of the guns?” calls Race.

Manuel blinks at the sound of Race's voice crackling over the radio. “Can I . . . yes! Sorry.” He climbs awkwardly into the gunner's pit and straps in while I stand over him, my feet braced on either side of his console. “Dude, this is closer to your
huevos
than I ever wanted to be,” he mutters as he opens the controls and peers at the viewing screen.

“Fire the damn guns!” Race's voice is full of enraged desperation as he lurches us into motion. “Tate, we need to take out the remaining four before they get the other Archer. They're closing in.”

Manuel shakes his head as he watches our sister vehicle race ahead of us. “Your mom's a scary driver,” he says as he slides his forearms into the cuffs and grasps the stick controls.

I glance down at his viewing screen to see the last remaining Archer apart from our own. Four scout ships pursue it across the clearing as it swerves around enormous potholes made by previous shots from the Sicarii weapons and past the hulking carcasses of destroyed Archers. “That's my mom?” I whisper. I watch as its two guns swirl in different directions, firing simultaneously at two ships.

That's my mom and Christina. With four ships descending on them. “Get us between them and those ships!”

“No, we can't risk losing the scanner,” Race replies. “They're presenting a more immediate threat to the scout ships, and that's why they're being targeted. Let them do their part, and we'll follow behind.”

Manuel curses as a Sicarii shot hits within a few feet of Mom's Archer. “I'll cover them,” he says, getting to work.

The crater is littered with debris now, chunks of the scout ships and the Archers, gaping holes in the turf from the impact of the Sicarii guns. Race weaves through it, bouncing us this way and that as I try to get a bead on each of the remaining ships. Every time the beam turns orange, I call it out.
One. Two.
But one of the remaining pair comes straight for us, like it's finally realized we're the cause of the destruction. The others, including the two I just hit with the beam, abandon their pursuit of my mom and come for us as well.

“Hang on!” shouts Race. The Archer accelerates, crashing through a deep hole and—
crack.
I'm thrown on top of Manuel as we roar out of it. I look above me. The lens is split down the middle, spiderweb cracks fissuring off each side. I press the scanner to it. All we have is weak shards of yellow light.
Fuck.

Boom. Boom.
The flash is blinding as two more Sicarii ships are blasted out of the sky. “We lost our lens!” I yell. “I need an intact lens. There are two more scout ships that haven't been targeted!”

“Our lens shattered when we crashed,” says Manuel. “And Graham and Sung were taken out with a direct hit to theirs.”

I can't think about that now. I wish I didn't know it at all.

“Stay where you are, Tate!” orders Race. “We still have our guns!”

“Then use them! And radio my mom and tell her to come get me.” I roll off poor Manuel and shove the rear hatch open again. The two Sicarii ships glide smoothly toward us across the field. “Go, as quick as you can,” I say to Race, then glance at Manuel. “Shoot straight.”

“Done,” he says, giving me a worried look. And then he slams the rear hatch, and I'm out in the open. Race loops the Archer in front of me as Manuel fires both guns at the oncoming aliens.

Then Race veers away suddenly—but there's an Archer coming straight at me. It swerves around me and keeps going, but slower. She can't risk stopping completely, not when a scout ship is still pursuing us. The rear hatch is open already, and Christina's blond hair catches the firelight as she holds out her hand to me. I sprint for my life as the ground-shaking
whomp-whomp
of the Sicarii guns hits close enough for me to feel the searing heat on my legs and back. I stretch my hand out and skim Christina's. The desperate, terrified look on her face hurts me, so I focus on her hand, her fingers. Mine tangle with hers, and she yanks, giving me enough leverage to leap onto the back of the Archer. I bang my shins on the hatch opening as I heave myself inside.

Christina's already turned back to her guns. She shoves her arms through the cuffs and bows her head over the view screen. “Race said you needed the lens,” my mom calls out over the radio.

“I do, and I need you to get close to both ships.” I press the scanner to the lens and secure it with the hooks.

“No!” Christina screams.

I look down to see that Race's Archer has taken a direct hit. Helplessness tears through me. “How bad?”

Christina leans forward, trying to decipher the scramble of images on the screen. With all the fiery debris, it's hard to make out exactly what's happening, so I look up through the lens at the starry sky. “It's on its side. They could have survived,” she says.

She fires up at the two Sicarii ships, which spin and dart toward us. “Here they come, Mitra!”

“I see them,” Mom shouts, veering toward the clearest section of the field, heading straight for the lake as Christina fires and I aim the beam of the scanner.

It flares orange.

Whomp.
The Archer squeals and shakes as the Sicarii blast hits close by. Christina's arms jerk, and her hands and fingers move in a blur. She mumbles under her breath as she works, trying to aim as we move.

“Yes!” she cries as there's a huge explosion outside. “One left!”

“Do you know if it was the one I hit with the scanner's—”

Boom.
Her cheer turns to a scream as we're tossed into the air, rolling end over end. I hit the lens and land on Christina, then grasp for the nearest harness as we take another hit and I feel the Archer take flight. We crash down hard, and I collide with the door that leads to the driver's compartment. Pain nearly making me black out, I blink furiously and try to focus. Christina's above me, arms dangling sideways toward me. She's strapped into her harness in the gunner's pit. Her head lolls, and her fingers twitch. The Archer must be on its nose, its rear pointing at the sky.

Aching, barely able to breathe, I turn onto my side and pull the door to the driver's compartment open.