The Armor of God (39 page)

“But Jena is closer to him,” Ezra argued.

“
I can’t do this
!” Erin said, feeling time bleeding away, like every second wasted was something precious and not to be wasted. Akiva was moving farther and farther away from Zenith, and they didn’t know where he was headed. “Ezra, you know them better than I do. I’m delegating this duty to you. Make a choice, let whomever you choose know, and be ready in the docking chambers. If you’re not there when we’re ready to leave, we’re leaving you behind, and Nandi will probably be destroyed. For real this time. Garros?”

He nodded. “I’ll get the suits ready.”

“I’ll see you all when it’s time to go,” she said.

Ю

Someone had purposefully sabotaged the escape plan.

Tara Blanchard damned herself for not thinking of a better contingency plan, but she never expected sabotage from the inside. She had been sure everyone inside Zenith was loyal.

She had just hung up the phone when Erin Perry ran into her office, covered in blood. “So it’s true,” she said.

“Ma’am, Dr. Logan is dead. I think Akiva shot him before escaping,” she said.

Tara felt dizzy. She fell on her chair and looked at the picture of Ezra, so handsome in his Zenith uniform. She felt her armpits wet with sweat. “And Milos Ravana?”

“It’s gone,” Erin confirmed. “Akiva left with it.”

“Erin, someone in Zenith is behind this,” she said. “There’s a saboteur in here. He or she killed Dr. Logan and helped Davenport. He couldn’t have left by himself; he needed someone to help him activate his Creux—someone to open the gates of the docking bay for him. The same someone who just blew the whistle on everything.”

“Ma’am?”

“I just got a call from Governor Heath,” she said. “He’s been told about the escapee. About Dr. Logan’s murder. He’s coming to Zenith—he’ll be here soon, and it’s not beneath him to bring the press along.”

“Ma’am, what do you want me to do?”

Tara looked at the picture of Ezra, and felt her heart burn. “I’ll do what I can to buy you time, but I need you to go right now. I’ll say there was an emergency—that I had to send all of you,
including
Milos Ravana, in an operation.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Erin said, and saluted. “That’s the best course of action.”

“Remember what’s at stake,” Tara said. “Find Davenport, find the other pieces of The Armor of God. There will be a lot of work here, but Dr. Mizrahi and I will do our parts. I trust in you just like I trusted in Alice. I’m sure you will return.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she said. “Of course we will, ma’am.”

“And please . . . please take care of Ezra,” she said.

When Erin left, Tara did something she hadn’t done for many years: She cried until she could cry no more. Hope has to be the last thing to die, she tried to remind herself, knowing that she might never see her son again.

Ю

Ezra ran through the wooden hallways of the administration wing. The team was entirely disassembled, and it was probably time to go. This was not a way to begin the most delicate mission in Zenith’s history, and what might be its last.

As he ran, the faces of Jena and Poole flashed before his eyes like visions. Why had Erin delegated the choice to him? He didn’t want to have the burden of someone’s life on his back. If he made the wrong choice, and whomever he chose didn’t make it back, her death would be an imprint on the back of his mind forever.

There was chaos in Zenith. Even during times of crisis, the facility had always appeared to be unyielding, never losing the reassuring impression of always being in control. Now, people came and went through its hallways, very few among them keeping any semblance of calm.

The noise of a hundred terrified voices echoed throughout the entire complex, never giving silence a moment. They spoke of fear.

Passing by the dining hall, he caught sight of a covered gurney being extracted from the Compatibility labs, surrounded by the medical team. He should have known that Dr. Yuri had been in trouble, either from himself or someone else. There was no reason why a man like him would lose his mind thus unless he was terribly scared of something or someone.

It hadn’t been Akiva—that much he knew. Akiva had personal problems, and some of them ran deep, but he was not a murderer. Though he couldn’t argue with Erin when she said that nothing in the scene suggested the man had actually gone ahead and killed himself, the alternative was terrifying.

Someone else in Zenith had pulled the trigger, and it had triggered much more than a bullet.

“Ezra!” he heard Erin’s voice behind him when he finally found himself in the pilots’ lounge. Ezra stopped to catch his breath. “Ezra, have you talked to Poole and Jena?”

“No, I just got here.” He took a deep breath.

“Erin!” Tessa suddenly appeared behind them. “Erin, what’s happening? I heard something happened to Dr. Yuri but I couldn’t find any of the other pilots. Are you leaving now?”

“Yes, Tessa!” Erin said. “Ezra, make your choice and go to the docking bay immediately. Someone alerted Governor Heath of what happened and he’s on his way. We only have the few minutes it takes him to get here to go; if he gets here before we leave, we might not leave at all.”

Ezra saw Tessa’s face; it changed with the news.

“Jena and Poole should be waiting in their dormitories, Ezra,” Erin said. “I’m going to make sure everything is ready in the docking bay, and remember: if you’re not there when we are ready, you’re staying. I’ll leave alone with Garros if I have to, but remember Nandi is going with or without you. This is our one chance.”

“Erin, what can I do?” Tessa asked.

“Go with Director Blanchard. She’ll know what you’re good for.” Tessa nodded and Erin wrapped her in a hug. “Thank you for everything, Tessa. I hope to see you again, but if I don’t . . . please make sure Zenith is saved. Make sure that if Roue falls, some of us died protecting it.”

Erin ran away towards the compatibility lab, and before Ezra could go on the opposite direction, Tessa took his hand and hugged him. “Are you really going?” she asked, and appeared to be crying.

Ezra didn’t know when it was that this link between them had been created, but suddenly she felt closer to him than even Jena or Poole. “It’s not too late to come with us,” he told her, still believing Tessa’s experience would make her a more valuable asset in the days ahead. “You’re a much better pilot than Jena or Poole. Certainly better than me.”

She shook her head. “I didn’t want to say this, Ezra, but now I feel like I have to. If you leave Zenith tonight, you’re not coming back. None of you. What you’re looking for—it doesn’t exist.”

“Don’t say that,” he said, almost angry by her declaration. “You don’t know that.”

“Please, don’t go,” she pressed, and tightened her grip on his hand.

“I don’t have a choice,” he replied, and yanked his hand away. “Please take care of yourself, Tessa.”

He had lost too much time already, and he still didn’t know whom he would choose; a part of him hoped they had made a choice by themselves, but knowing them, the chances of an agreement, affable or not, were slim.

When Ezra ran up the stairs, he could feel Tessa’s eyes on him. It was his first good-bye of the night, and the suddenness of their flight began to feel heavy on him. He stopped when he reached the first landing.

He was going to leave Zenith in a matter of minutes, and he didn’t know when he would return, or if he would return at all. No, he told himself; he couldn’t leave without saying good-bye to his mother.

Ю

It was a bad time for Lucius Barnes’ phone to fail. It was a rare occurrence; it only happened when the network was overloaded back in Roue, and he could imagine that it was. Working through the stress, fighting away his most pessimistic thoughts, all he wanted to do was talk to his husband. Luke was trying to call him, but every attempt at making the connection failed.

The chaos had caught him napping in the Besoe Nandi crewmembers’ dormitory, where he had only slept a handful of nights since being relocated to Zenith. Dr. Mustang was not there, and he wondered why. More importantly, he wondered if the man knew that Besoe Nandi had not been truly destroyed, as the images of its public death had already been seen by every pair of eyes in Roue.

Nothing seemed to be working in their favor. As a military man, he agreed with Kat: he was not happy with the sloppy planning, but the sheer unpredictability of the entire situation gave little space for anything else.

Lucius had heard Jena knocking on the door, had heard Ezra leave with her. It wasn’t until about ten minutes after that he realized that something grim had happened. When Erin found him and told him about Dr. Logan’s death. Lucius barely had time to process the situation; he was tasked with finding Kat and prepare for an immediate launch.

Now he was walking down the hallway to the docking chambers. The commotion in Zenith had allowed him and Kat to go in almost undetected, and it was a blessing; they didn’t need more things in their way.

It wasn’t until they finished preparing Phoenix Atlas and Quantum Ares for launch that his phone finally made the connection to Roue. Luke’s voice at the other end of the line had never sounded sweeter to him, even if it was distorted by very obvious anxiety. “Lucius, what’s happening over there? I’m worried.”

“I can’t talk in detail, but there was an incident,” he replied, holding the phone between his shoulder and ear as he helped program the launch protocols into the Quantum Ares workstation. “But don’t worry, I’m fine.”

Kat stepped away from the console. “Finish up here. I’m going to the Nandi chamber. Parks and Perry are on their way.” She left the room.

“No, don’t give me that crap,” Luke protested from the other end of the line. “It’s all over the tellies here; they say someone was shot in Zenith—someone important!”

Lucius had to stop working. “What do you mean on the tellies? How the hell did they find out?”

“I don’t know! They haven’t said much, but they’re making a big deal over here. Please tell me it wasn’t that little guy’s mother—the director.”

“No!” Lucius said and looked out the chamber window at the chest of the enormous Quantum Ares. A sudden ring in the computer told him there was someone in the bay below. “Hold on.” He put his phone down on the console and picked up the handset connecting him to the bay.

“Barnes?” Garros was at the other end. “I don’t know if they told you but Governor Heath is on his way to Zenith. Someone told him about Dr. Logan and he wants to blow us open.”

“Who the hell did that?”

“Lucius?” Luke’s voice bled from his phone. “Lucius!”

“I don’t know. We’re launching this very instant. Erin’s down here but we can’t find Ezra. He was supposed to—”

“Garros, we are ready to launch. Is Ezra down there with you? Who else is coming?”

“Blanchard is not here!” Garros said. “Go to the Atlas’ chamber, unlock the Creux and open the gates. Erin is climbing into the Egg as we speak. We’re launching right now.”

“What about Ezra, and the other one?”

“If Ezra isn’t there when Erin and I are outside, he’s not coming,” Garros said, and Lucius could tell it was hard for him to say those words. “Here’s what I need you to do: I don’t know if Jena or Poole are coming with us, so prepare both of them for launch right now.”

“Dammit, Jade and Rose aren’t fully programmed yet—neither of them have an aural link set up!”

“I don’t give a damn, Barnes, just make sure the blasted things can be piloted! Same thing with Nandi; even if Ezra doesn’t make it, I’ll drag Nandi out of here and hide it somewhere outside—it’s extremely important that Governor Heath doesn’t see that it’s still here. Tell Kat to go look for Ezra. He has five minutes. I’m out. Thank you, Barnes, and take care.”

Garros hung up. The blood had rushed to his head, making it ache. He felt acid bubbling in his stomach, and sweat beading on his bald head. He was so dizzied by frustration, he didn’t hear Luke say “Lucius, just talk to me when you can. I love you,” before hanging up.

Ю

Ezra no longer cared whom to choose. Not being able to say good-bye to his mother had drained him in unexpected ways. Taking the arguably unnecessary detour back to Administration only to find his mother’s office locked again had been a huge mistake, and it wasn’t until he found Tessa back in the pilots’ lounge that he finally understood how much it would cost him.

“Ezra, where were you?” Ignoring her, he ran up the stairs. “Ezra! Erin and Garros are already gone! You’re too late!”

He stopped so suddenly he almost slipped. “What do you mean?”

Tessa caught up with him halfway up the first flight of stairs. “Kat came looking for you five minutes ago—she said Erin and Garros had just taken off. Where were you!”

His throat tightened to choke him. The skin around his nose ring began to itch again. “What do you mean—?”

“You were supposed to be in your Creux ten minutes ago!”

He shook his head and ran back down the stairs. Ezra no longer cared about the choice, or about being accompanied by Jena or Poole; all he wanted was to not be left behind. He had been given a chance to save Zenith, to save humanity; he wouldn’t let it slip away like this.