Sea of Stars (12 page)

We twist on the lines like caught fish. Trey looks around the cabin of the vehicle. “What do you want to risk to get away?” he asks.

I swallow past the bile corrupting my throat. “Everything,” I reply. “I’ll risk everything to stay with you.”

“I was hoping you were going to say that,” he breathes. He unhooks his seat belt. Holding the seat back, he leans over and kisses me. My heart contracts painfully in my chest. He grasps my hair, and rests his forehead to mine for just a moment. I want to wrap my arms around him, but he pulls away from me. Reaching behind his seat, he opens a console in the back. He extracts a canister from it the size and shape of a fire extinguisher and hands it to me. When he reaches back again, he retrieves another one from the console behind my seat. “Use that to break your window!” he orders me. I turn the canister around, butting it against the glass until the window shatters. He does the same with his. “Brace your snuffout between the arrowing and the bender,” he says.

“What?” I ask, giving him a beseeching look. “I don’t know what any of that is!”

“Here! Do this!” He demonstrates, lodging his canister between two car parts that look like a gill of a fish on the outside of the hovercar where I’d normally find an auxiliary mirror. “Make sure the nozzle is pointed out!” The urgency in his tone prompts me to turn my canister around as fast as I can.

The hooks holding our hovercar suspended above the ground retract, pulling us upward. The belly of the E-One opens, ready to swallow us up. Trey glances back through the rear window. “They’re pulling us in. We have to go now! When I tell you to, open the nozzle of the snuffout.” He indicates the control jet on the spout of the fire-extinguisher-like thing lodged on the side of the car. “Light the gas with this!” He digs in his pocket, coming out with something that looks like a lighter. He reaches back behind his seat again, finding someone’s gear. Rummaging around in the bag, he locates another lighterlike tool.

As he straightens in his seat, the lines suspending us in the air continue to retract, drawing us closer to the E-One. A bead of sweat rolls from Trey’s hairline and over the sharp angles of his cheek and jaw. He narrows his eyes in concentration. “On the count of two,” he says, his hand moves to the canister by its nozzle.

“Wait!” I gasp. “How do you light this?”

Trey moves his thumb away from the grip on his lighter, revealing a small groove in the side. “Press here,” he says.

I nod. “Got it,” I exhale, lighting mine for a moment before I let it extinguish. His hand moves to the canister outside his window once more. He waits for me to do the same with the one on my side of the hovercar. “On the count of two,” he says again, and I nod. “One . . .” The hovercar lurches upward closer to our enemy as we swing lazily in midair. “Two!” Trey shouts. I open the control jet; noxious gas spews out of the canisters in a steady stream. Lighting the gas, it erupts into flames that blast us sideways. He grabs my head and pulls me to him, covering me in the center of the hovercar.

Our hovercar rockets laterally; its roof crashes into the side of a building. The glass of the skyscape’s window rains around us. The hovercar lands on top of its roof, suspending us upside down in our seats. As the fireballs on either side of the hovercar continue to burn, it spins us around as if we’re on a flaming teacup ride in a traveling carnival.

The canisters finally run out of gas and the hovercar comes to a reluctant halt. Dizzily, I grasp the belts holding me in place upside down. From somewhere outside the vehicle, a fem-bot voice announces, “All active-duty personnel are ordered to report to assigned combat stations. Code Amber. Enemy infiltration is detected. All noncombat personnel are ordered to seek shelter in your designated areas—follow protocol Code Amber.”

C
HAPTER 7

O
VER THE EDGE

T
rey is already out of his seat, reaching over to hit the release button on my seat belts. He catches me before I fall against the roof, and then he releases me to rest on it. Crawling out the side window, he pulls me with him just as the hovercar lurches backward, scraping across the shattered glass on the floor. The tension of the lines attached to the hovercar slacken for a moment, causing the car to pause. It sits idly, rocking back and forth before the lines attached to it lift upward once more, forcing them taut. Abruptly, the hovercar makes a horrific screeching sound; the metal rooftop drags over the floor as sparks fly everywhere. The vehicle lifts up, careening backward through the smashed window by the twisted lines from the E-One. It dangles outside for a moment before it floats upward and out of our line of sight.

Trey hurriedly lifts me to my feet. His fierce hug causes my ribs to ache, but I don’t care. I never want him to let go. He kisses my temple, murmuring, “They’re going to realize you aren’t in the vehicle soon and come looking for us. We need to make a decision, Kricket.” He loosens his arms around me. His hand moves to my chin, tipping it up so our eyes meet. His wary look speaks volumes. “We’re both wanted for treason. If we plan to survive, we’ll need to leave the Ship of Skye.”

“If we do that, what happens to Jax and Wayra?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “They die,” he answers in no uncertain terms. “They’ll never let them out of their cells. If this ship goes down, they go with it. If it doesn’t, they’ll be executed for treason.”

“I won’t leave without them! I won’t let them die unable to defend themselves!”

It’s in his eyes: Trey can’t leave them here, either. “I agree. It’s up to us to get them out.” He bends down and kisses me. I’m overwhelmed by the potency of his nearness. My knees weaken.

He must feel it because he lifts me up in his arms, allowing my head to rest on his shoulder. Carrying me over the shattered glass and debris that litter the floor, he moves in the direction of a bank of overups that lie open not far away. The fem-bot warning continues to sound, “All active-duty personnel . . .”

Behind us, wind stirs the glass on the floor, causing me to glance over Trey’s shoulder. In the gap in the window, the outline of the E-One throws a long shadow upon us. I stiffen in Trey’s arms, causing him to pause and look behind him as well.

The static snap of high-intensity electricity sizzles the air near the E-One. Trey turns away from the heli-vehicle and dives with me in his arms. We land behind a concrete pillar; Trey flattens us against it. The crackle of a lightning strike branches out from the E-One with bright, webbed fingers; it glows golden, raising the hair on my neck as it misses our entwined bodies by mere inches. Closing my eyes, my hair whips up around me while the fem-bot voice short-circuits.

After the shock dissipates, Trey’s mouth brushes my ear as he asks, “Can you run?” I nod. He puts me on my feet. “When I tell you to, run toward the overups.” I nod again. Trey peeks around the pillar for a moment, his strong hand gripping my forearm. “Now, Kricket! Go, go!” He urges me to move toward a grouping of elevatorlike doors ahead of us. Behind us, more windows crash in, shattering as Alameeda troops rappel in with jet packs attached to their backs.

We near an overup and Trey practically throws me into it. I hit the back of the lift, holding out my hands against the jarring force. It knocks me to my knees. I shift to fall on my hip in a heap, staring back at the overup doors, willing them to close. Through the small opening, I recognize Kyon. Attired in full black combat armor and a dark helmet, his visor hides his blue eyes. I know it’s him though by the shape of his strong jaw—the cut of his elegant cheekbones. When he turns his head toward me, fear makes my legs weak.

“Kricket!” Kyon yells, coming right at us. One of Kyon’s fellow soldiers accompanies him. They fly forward; smoky trails of white vapor expel behind their jet packs, forming waving kite tails of exhaust. Kyon has his weapon trained on me; he can kill me anytime he likes. Instead, he shifts the barrel of it at the soldier flying in front of him who also has a weapon trained upon me.

A blue laser dots my chest. My hands come up as I flinch. “Don’t!” I yell at the soldier, his finger squeezing the trigger of his weapon.

Kyon fires first. A blue laser blast hits the Alameeda soldier in the arm; it shatters his armor, taking a huge chunk out of his bicep. He spirals forward, cutting Kyon off, propelled by his jet pack. His blood paints the cage of the overup as he crashes into the compartment with us. The doors roll closed right before Kyon can enter.

The overup drops. Trey growls and grasps the Alameeda soldier’s laser weapon, turning it on him. Trey fires before his enemy can lift his other weapon from the holster on his hip. The impact of the blast to his chest sends the soldier crashing into the wall of the overup. With his breastplate and skin melted away, his heart lies open to me before he falls forward facedown onto the floor.

My arms are dead weights; I stare at his unmoving corpse. Panting and staggering to the panel on the wall, Trey swipes holographic buttons. The overup goes sideways, and then slantways before it falls again in a rapid descent.

“We need to get his Riker Pak off,” Trey says, indicating the corpse on the floor. I stoop down with him. He lifts a panel to a compartment; inside, several buttons blink and glow. He presses a button on the jet pack, and the harness unlatches and retracts off the dead Alameeda soldier. The pack weighs a ton; we both have to lift it together. Helping him position the heavy pack near his back, he reaches around, pressing a button. Automatically, a harness winds out of the jet pack and secures itself to Trey’s back. He flips a switch in the pack, and it emits a low hum, propelling itself upward so that he no longer has to hold it up.

“Check and see if he has a pinpointer.” Trey gestures over his shoulder with his thumb.

“I don’t know what that is,” I say in an apologetic tone.

“A pinpointer is a homing beacon. The Alameeda can use it to track us. Here, tell me if you see anything blinking.”

The jet pack has two fuselagelike projections that make up its oblong shape. Two separate video screens with digital readouts flank the sides of the propulsion system. Everywhere lights blink and flash with different colors and shapes.

All of my fingers spread wide as I jerk my hands. “The whole thing is blinking!” I respond.

“It’s okay; I found it.” His deep, rumbling voice answers as he turns around to face me, yanking a glowing yellow disk from one of the harness straps. He drops it on the floor, crushing it beneath his black-booted foot.

The overup shakes as something lands on the ceiling of it. Both our heads snap upward. A red-glowing outline mars the ceiling, turning it aflame. Melting metal drips down to dot the floor, causing me to press to the side of the lift. Kyon’s voice sounds through the ceiling, “Allairis, leave her in this transport now and I’ll let you live.”

“I need the navigation system,” Trey says calmly, his eyes on the ceiling as he points his weapon in the same direction. “Can you get it for me, Kitten?” He gestures to the helmet on the dead guy’s head. Grimacing, I reach down and pull the black shell off our enemy’s blond hair. Examining the helmet, I notice blue-font readouts on the interior of the visor.

Trey plucks the helmet from my hands, squashing it onto his head; it automatically takes the shape of his cranium, negating the need for a chinstrap. He moves to the wall panel once more, waving his fingers over several holographic buttons. The overup comes to an immediate stop. The doors roll open to a parking garage of sorts. Row upon row of hoverbikes, like the ones that Trey used to extract me from the palace, are stored here.

Kyon’s roar from above has my eyes on the ceiling once more. He’s having a hard time cutting through the thick metal. His frustration is clear as he shouts, “Kricket! If you make me chase you again, I
will
kill him!”

The blood drains from my face. My eyes look to Trey.

“Please come here,” Trey asks, holding his hand out to me.

I take it and he tugs me to him. Turning me around to face away from him, a blue glowing belt of the jet pack wraps around my waist and shoulders, securing me in front of him.

In my ear, Trey murmurs, “According to my guidance systems, the detention center is fifty stories below us in the arc of the ship. Are you ready?” He powers up the jet pack on his back. My feet leave the ground as we hover for a moment in the air. “Do you still want to do this?”

“Yes,” I state without a hint of doubt.

His whispering voice is soft upon the shell of my ear, “If this doesn’t work out for us, Kricket, know that I’ve loved you from the moment I held you in my arms on Ethar, and every moment in between. I will love you even after my final breath.”

Warmth travels through my veins until I realize he’s making sure to say good-bye to me. My heart recoils with a savage ache. Lifting my hand, I cup Trey’s cheek, feeling the light stubble on it. As I turn my lips to his ear, I murmur, “Know that if this doesn’t work out, your job is to stay alive until I can bend time and manipulate the future to bring you back to me.”

My fingers feel his smile as he murmurs, “And just when I thought I couldn’t love you more . . .” Taking my fingers from his cheek, he kisses them before wrapping his arm around my waist.

We rocket from between the doors of the lift, entering into an open area several stories high. There are tiers of every type of hover vehicle here, waiting to be claimed. Trey takes a winding tunnel supported by concrete columns; my hair flies behind me and I lose my stomach. Every sound is muted except the beat of my heart. Terrified that we’ll crash into something—that we won’t make it—I soon forget my nervousness about jet-pack travel when the greater threat, in the form of another bomb, hits the Ship of Skye. Around me, the walls tremble; pieces of the ceiling crumble away, covering my hair with a fine powder as the hovercars shift.

From behind us, a laser shot obliterates a support column in front of us. Rock dust spews out at us, choking our air. Avoiding a falling pillar shattered by the pursuing Alameeda, we swipe the wall flanking us. We ricochet. Twisting, Trey maneuvers us so that the jet pack skims the ground. As we fly upside down on our backs, Kyon is able to fly above us. He dives down, trying to release the belt of my harness. I kick up at him to make it harder for him to get me, but my bare feet don’t make much of an impression on him.

Trey waits until the last possible moment to make a sharp turn, leaving Kyon raging in the wrong direction. We branch off into a different corridor. The severe angle of our turn causes us to bounce against the wall. Ricocheting, he fights to keeps us from crashing into the adjacent wall. We flip around once more so that I’m again beneath him. When we pass the next rows of columns in the tunnel, Trey aims his stolen Alameeda weapon, shooting at the stone supports. The ceiling above us begins to collapse, bringing down debris and mortar, blocking the path behind us—cutting off the Alameeda Strikers following us. We take several more turns in an attempt to lose Kyon and the Alameeda soldiers for good, angling toward an enormous pillar in the parking garage that’s wreathed by guardrails.

“Clutch yourself,” Trey growls in my ear.

While I try to figure out what he means by that, I look for something to hang on to, but there’s nothing but air between my fingers. We swoop over the guardrail so fast it seems inevitable that we’ll hit the vertical support column rapidly approaching. I put up my hands to shield my face, even though I know it’ll do no good.

At the last possible second, a warning signal on the jet pack beeps loudly:
dee dee dee, dee dee dee
. It activates some sort of preservation protocol in the engine, cutting the power to the forward thruster. The jet-pack engine flips the thruster from forward to reverse. We slow up. Trey kills the power completely and we drop, abruptly changing direction. Falling headfirst through the open-air gap between where the floor ends and the support column begins, I do, indeed, clutch myself; my arms crisscross in front of me, circling my waist. The power to the pack is reengaged, and we plummet toward the belly of the ship at a breakneck pace.

We plunge several stories, and the light dims the farther down we fly. When we reach a junction illuminated by white fluorescent lights, we turn like gulls in the wind, soaring through a long tunnel. We travel until our shadows settle on large chamber doors ahead of us; thick and steel, they scream all of the reasons to stay away.

Touching down on a platform in front of the dull-hued doors, the jet-pack engine ceases firing. The whine of sirens is muffled here, several stories below the surface of the ship. The flashing of amber lights is all too apparent, though, turning our pale faces from ghostly to sickly in intermittent intervals. A fem-bot voice advises, “All nonessential Detention Center personnel are ordered to Code Amber stations at the surface of Skye. Defensive protocol: Vector Six. All nonessential Detention Center personnel—”

Trey releases me from the harness; it disappears into the jet pack along with his restraint. He shrugs off the jet pack, and it clatters to the deck with a loud noise. “Most of the Detention Center personnel are being ordered to battle stations,” he whispers as he clutches my upper arms to steady me. “They’ll be operating with a skeleton crew.”

“That’s good for us,” I murmur.

A wary scowl crosses his lips. “You’re my prisoner. Do you think you can sell it?” He subtly nods his head in the direction of the imposing doors, and then he shakes me roughly. It’s not painful, only disorienting, as I lose my feet and stumble while he holds me up.

When he pulls me almost nose to nose to him with his hand balled in the front of my jacket, I glare at him in mock anger and murmur, “We don’t even need a pencil to draw them in, honey.”

“I love you,” he says under his breath.

He yanks me into the pools of spotlights in front of the edifice. The light becomes brighter, causing me to shield my eyes. The portal in front of us becomes translucent, revealing a checkpoint with mounted guns and an admissions area manned by only two worried-looking Brigadets. “State your business,” a voice pipes through the communicator located above the trigger of the doors. A heavily armed Brigadet approaches the barrier between us. Trey lets go of the front of my jacket. He straightens his Brigadet uniform shirt.