A Hero Rising (10 page)

Chapter Sixteen

Rescue

Skye awoke to the droning hum of the
Destiny
’s engines. Red light bathed the city skyline in an ominous sunrise. Rising smoke stacks were scattered on the horizon. Her heart sped into her throat.

“Are we too late?”

James turned from his miniscreen. “No. It’s gone to hell in three days.”

“Do you think the moonshiners got out of control?”

“Could be.” He pointed at a silver speck rising in the sky, trailing orange and gray. “Look, there’s a colony ship. I hope it’s not the last one.”

“If they saw our ship, they’d wait to nuke the city, right?”

James shook his head. “I doubt we’re on their list.” He gave her a serious look. “We’re taking a risk, Skye. If we can’t leave before the bomb goes off…”

“We’ll be fine.” Skye straightened in her seat. She had full faith in James’s abilities and she’d never be able to live with herself if she asked to take off and leave all those people behind. His dream had become her own. She finally understood why he couldn’t have gone with Mestasis, even if he had passed the genetic test. “Just keep driving. There are a lot of people waiting for us to save them.”

“Thank you for waiting.” James gave her an apprehensive smile.

“Only a jerk like Thadious Legacy would leave those people behind.”

James looked down at the scene. “Dal just sent me a message. He says they’ve collected a bunch of survivors from the city. The hard part will be getting them up here to the
Destiny
.”

Skye checked on Carly, making sure she still slept. “Can you park this whale on the rooftops?”

“No. It’s too heavy. It would crush the buildings and I may never get it off the ground again. We’ll have to hover.”

“Can they meet us on the roof?”

“Maybe. Dal says moonshiners are swarming the city. We’ll have to fight them back as survivors board.” James shook his head. “It won’t be easy.”

“Makes me wish I still had my scythe.” Skye laughed.

“Oh, I’ve got something better than that.” James flicked the miniscreen on autopilot and dug underneath his seat. Skye unbelted herself as he pulled out a laser gun twice as long as his with two pumping chambers on either side.

“It’s what they call a high emission beamer. I found it on the deck while you were sleeping.” He handed it to her and her arms sagged under the weight.

“You don’t want it?”

“Although it fires with more power, it takes longer to shoot. I prefer my trusty old laser pistol. She’s gotten me through quite a few pinches.”

“What does it do?” Skye looked through the target, focusing on a building on the horizon. Her arms molded to the length and her right finger wrapped around the trigger.

“Blows things up.”

“Nice.” She met his gaze and smiled.

“It’s not the most romantic present anyone’s ever given.”

“For me, it’s just right.”

The miniscreen beeped, signaling their approach to the building above the Radioactive Hand of Justice headquarters. An older man’s face, haloed in wispy white hair, flicked onto the video feed. “James, we’re ready.”

“I’ll be above the roof in seconds, Dal.” James saluted the screen. “As promised.”

“We’ll start working our way up. These buildings are infested with moonshiners, so it may take us a while to break through the lines.”

“We don’t have time.” James’s jaw was set in a grim line. “I just saw a colony ship leave. And if that’s the last one…”

“We’ll hustle.” Dal disappeared and the screen blinked out.

James nodded to Skye. “We’re going down.”

Skye placed the weapon beside her seat and belted herself in. James slowed the
Destiny
to a halt above the building and incrementally decreased the air pressure on the hover drives. The skyscrapers came up so quickly, Skye worried one of them might poke a hole through the hull. The ship cast a gigantic shadow across the city. Debris sprayed up as the engines gushed air.

“How are they ever going to get past the wave of hot air?”

“Directly underneath us is totally calm, like the eye of a storm.” James squinted at the miniscreen. “I’ll try to get as close as I can. Looks like there’s a ramp I can lower about ten meters.”

Skye held on to the hand rests, feeling her stomach flip as James navigated the air currents.

“Here. Let me set the electromagnetic field anchor.” He pressed a button and the controls froze. The
Destiny
hovered in place over the city like a sleeping giant. Pulling out his laser, James gave Skye a meaningful look. “I’m going down.”

Once again, Skye was torn. Stay with Carly? Or help the man she loved? A wave of nausea came over her as she thought of the day Grease left. “Won’t they come to the ship?”

“I have to clear the roof. We don’t want straggling moonshiners sneaking up the ramp.”

As if he saw the fear in her eyes, James came over and placed his hand on top of hers. “Everything will be all right.”

She’d heard that before. But the unwavering determination in James’s eyes made her believe it. Skye blinked and nodded her approval. James put a gentle hand on Carly’s head and smoothed back her hair.

“I promise.” He took off down the corridor before Skye could summon the courage to stand up and kiss him good-bye.

Carly shifted in her seat and started snoring. Skye tapped her fingers on the hand rests, watching the city turn from dark red to orange in the glowing sunrise. She kept picturing missiles falling from the sky. The high emission beamer lay at her feet like an unused toy still wrapped in the box. She itched to go help James.

Skye no longer felt like the useless couch potato she’d turned into. Now she had a mission, a dream. She’d fought those aliens and won. She could exert her will to control her own destiny. She’d always been able to, but fear had held her back for too long. Choosing her path had brought her here: aboard a starship she thought she’d never set foot on, enacting the epic rescue mission of the century. And she wasn’t about to stop toying with fate now.

Reaching across her seat, she jiggled Carly’s arm. “Wake up. I need you to watch the screens while I help James.”

…

James sprinted down the corridor feeling like every second ate a hole in his chest. Time would run out, and he didn’t want the ship to leave without everyone on board. But that’s exactly what would happen if the government decided to rain on his parade. He’d set his miniscreen to maneuver the ship away from the city if it picked up any missile movement from the surrounding area.

At least Skye and Carly were on board. At least they were safe. He hadn’t told Skye about the miniscreen setting because he knew she’d override it and wait for him. That was one thing that differentiated Mestasis from Skye. Mestasis was practical enough to leave, and Skye was loyal enough to stay. He loved that quality about her, but he didn’t want to be the reason she and Carly didn’t make it out alive. If they had to, they would be forced to leave without him.

James squeezed the laser in his hand. He didn’t want to face watching a colony ship sail away all over again. At least this time, if he didn’t make it back, he wouldn’t live long enough for it to torture him.

Stepping down unfinished stairs, he found the panel controlling the exit and he pressed the button to activate the ramp. Gears turned as the ramp lowered outside. His fingers paused over the panel to the hatch. The roof could be teeming with moonshiners, or it could be abandoned. There was only one way to find out, and he didn’t want Dal opening the stairway to the wrong welcome party.

Taking a deep breath, James pressed the panel and the hatch lifted, revealing a silver walkway, built with rubber ridges like the bottom of a sneaker. James raised his laser and took the first steps down, ducking his head as he cleared the hatch.

Greenhouses filled with brown foliage lined a walkway to a building housing the elevator and emergency stairwell to the levels below. The atmosphere was still, as if the moment were frozen in time.

That’s right. Eye of the storm.

James closed the hatch behind him just to be sure.
The energy in the air prickled goose bumps on his neck. Office equipment, painted in red, was spread out on the cement in crude words that read
Survivors inside
.
James knew Dal would never give away the coordinates of the hideout, so others had taken refuge in the building, seeking help. He wondered how long ago they’d set out their message.

If they are still alive, Dal has found them.

James stepped around a piece of a desk and tiptoed down the walkway, checking every angle. As he approached the door, the handle jiggled, and then stopped.

Is it Dal? Could he have made it to the roof this quickly?

James increased his pace, still wary of the spaces in between the greenhouses. Shadows flickered in the narrow glass window behind the door. The handle jiggled again and the door clicked, swinging open.

Moonshiners poured out onto the roof in a steady stream, each one at a different level in the transformation process. The more alien ones moved even faster than the ones that still looked human. James started to fire, and he downed the first three before more pushed through, darting between the greenhouses. They moved so quickly, he couldn’t keep track of them.

Dammit!

James fired at the torrent of bodies as they poured out the door. Some had hairless heads with skulls that extended in an oval shape and others still had braids of golden silk, their eyes and speed the only telling factor of their transformation. He fired at the moonshiners running directly at him, but his senses screamed as the others circled, closing in. The situation had gone from him having complete control to chaos, and he swore at himself for not being more careful.

Now he’d pay the price.

Moonshiners leaped on top of the greenhouses, lunging down at him with fingers turning into claws. James fired once more at the stairway, and then turned his aim at the alien bodies flinging through the air. He hit a brown-haired man wearing a tailored suit and swayed out of his direction as the man plummeted to the concrete with a
splat
.

Looking the other way, James darted between the greenhouses and kicked at the lock system. He couldn’t make it back to the ship; his only chance at survival would be hiding inside. Wiry hands grabbed his arm and pulled him backward.

This is it. I’ve failed.

James fell and rolled, but the moonshiner scrambled on top of him. He looked into the bleak, almond-shaped eyes. It reminded him of a giant ant: drone-like and unemotional. The slit of a mouth opened, exposing crooked, pin-shaped teeth. He kicked at its body as the wiry hands wrapped around his upper arms.

The greenhouse beside him exploded into flames, shattering glass everywhere. James winced from the blast, and the hands holding him weakened. He looked up through the smoke to see a neck without a head. Another laser blast blew four moonshiners off the side of the roof. James threw the body off him and scanned the direction of the fire.

Skye stood on the platform wielding her new high emission beamer. She fired three more times before he pulled himself up and found his laser. One shot from her beamer took out five moonshiners.

She stopped firing when she saw him and shouted, “James, are you okay?”

“Thanks to you, I am.” He scrambled along the side of a greenhouse, trying to get closer to the ramp. He’d have half a chance if he reached Skye.

Skye’s voice cut through the din of the engines, working hard to keep the ship stable above them. “Come on, I’ve got you covered.”

James rolled and leaped into a sprint. He felt the moonshiners gaining on his heels as Skye blasted them away again and again. Each shot took a second to power up, and that second felt like the longest moment of his life. He expected long fingers to trip him, but Skye’s aim was precise.

He reached the ramp panting, his lungs raw. After her breakdown on the ship, he hadn’t thought she’d ever be able to face them again, much less pick them off with a beamer. “You saved my life.”

Skye shot another clump of bodies and smiled. “Now we’re even.”

James stood beside her, each of them firing at the oncoming horde. They backed up the ramp as the attackers closed the distance.

“There’s too many of them.” James didn’t need a calculator to figure out the moonshiners’ velocity and sheer numbers compared to the strength of their weapons.

Skye gritted her teeth. “We have to keep trying.”

If they opened the hatch, they’d risk flooding the ship with the horde, leaving Carly to fend for herself and ruining everyone’s transport. But if they stayed outside, they would both die within minutes. Looking at the hard set of Skye’s chin, James knew she wouldn’t open the hatch. They’d have to blast the devils until they overwhelmed them and hope Dal could reach Carly and the ship.

James gritted his teeth. “This might be it for us.”

Skye’s face was set in determination. “So be it. I’m not afraid anymore.”

James squeezed the trigger, firing harder. Skye’s bravery gave him courage, and he was proud to fight at the end of the world by her side.

Just as they thought the tide of bodies would never stop, gunfire erupted from the stairwell. Men poured through in the moonshiners’ tracks and fired at the back of the horde.

“It’s Dal.” James had never been so happy to see the man in his life. “He made it up.”

Members of the Radioactive Hand of Justice filed out of the door, creating a line across the roof. Half of the moonshiners broke away from the pack. They hurled themselves into the laser fire, some of them reaching the first few men in line. Every time a man went down, another took his place.

Dal shouted orders from behind the front line and the men pushed ahead.

James nudged Skye in the arm. “We’re going to make it. Push the devils back into the gang members’ fire.”

“You got it.” Skye blasted, inching forward. James’s laser gun took out the stragglers, shooting them down before they got too close. A steaming pile of alien limbs mixed with semihuman parts gathered in the middle of the roof between the greenhouses. Dal crossed the distance to meet them. He pulled off a helmet and nodded to Skye. When he reached James, Dal clapped his shoulder.