Flame: A Sky Chasers Novel

  Waverly had recovered enough to see Seth throw the device, and she bolted to her feet and screamed over the tops of the cornstalks, “Kieran! Run! Get out of range!”

  Seth heard a thud and looked just in time to see Jacob grab Waverly by the shoulder and push her down. She fell to the ground, dazed, her face right next to Seth’s. Jacob began crawling toward the device, one bloody hand held against his middle.

  Seth opened his mouth to speak to Waverly, but she rolled away from him, pawing at her pocket with both hands. From it she pulled a small rectangular object. What is that? he wanted to ask, but suddenly he was choking on fluid that bubbled up from his throat. He turned his head to spit it out, then watched as Waverly disappeared into the corn, craning her neck, searching for Jacob. Seth wished he could help her, protect her, do anything at all.

  Once again his body took over his mind, and he found his thoughts dissipating into his tingling fingertips, his shaking legs, his numbing face. A little more time! He reached again for that overhead light. He thought somehow if he could close his ghost hand around that light that it would give him enough time to say good-bye.

  He was still reaching for the light, just starting to feel its warmth, when it winked out.

  RUN

  “I was…,” Kieran said into the microphone, which was cold and unyielding against his lip. Doctor Carver had just announced him as the first witness; somehow he’d stood and found his voice. “I was in the shuttle bay. I saw the whole thing.”

  And he closed his eyes. Ginny was going to kill him now.

  He waited, pressing his stomach into the podium, hoping the feeble wood might shield some of the audience, knowing it would only splinter into shrapnel. His every muscle braced for violent death … and nothing happened.

  “Uh…” Kieran searched the crowd for Felicity and found her gleaming hair right in the middle. Unlike the other women, she wore no hat or kerchief on her head, letting the beauty of her hair shine without shame. He silently thanked God she was far enough away that the blast probably wouldn’t reach her. Her fiancé held her hand possessively, glowering at Kieran.

  They were waiting for him to speak. They all were.

  My last words, he realized.

  “I haven’t known what to say today,” Kieran finally said, focusing on Felicity. He wanted her kind, sweet face to be the last thing he saw. “Until recently, I’ve thought of this crew as the enemy. But I don’t really think that’s the case.”

  An infant cried out, and he saw a woman in the middle of the audience lift it to her shoulder, patting its little back until it settled down.

  “You attacked the Empyrean because you thought we’d done you harm, and maybe some of us did. Horrible things happened that day,” he said, remembering hundreds of Empyrean crew members spiraling into space. Had Mather meant for that to happen? Did it matter what she meant? “My father died that day,” Kieran said, as though he were remembering again after a long time forgetting. “I watched it happen.”

  No one in the audience seemed to be breathing. Felicity’s smile had changed, and she watched Kieran searchingly. They were all looking at him, totally rapt, and something his father once said rang in his ears: The truth is powerful. People usually listen to the truth.

  “I loved my dad,” Kieran said through a closing throat. “I miss him every day. After losing him, I wanted revenge for what happened to him. But looking at you, all I see are regular people. Families. You love your babies. You’ve opened your hearts and homes to our orphans. You’re not the bad guys. I can’t blame you for what happened.”

  Kieran turned around to look at the church elders sitting behind him, up on a dais, old men and women who had been charged with caring for these people. And Mather. She sat with her fists on her knees, watching him warily, unsure what he was doing.

  Kieran stared right into her cold gray eyes and said, “I blame your leaders for what happened that day. I blame the church elders. I blame Anne Mather, and you should, too.”

  Kieran braced himself for the end, but what happened next was wonderful.

  Felicity stood up. Her fiancé tried to hold her down, but she jerked her elbow out of his grasp and pulled an object from under her tunic to hold over her head—a sign written with bold black letters: ANNE MATHER MUST STEP DOWN.

  No, Kieran wanted to say, but he was too stunned to speak. What was she doing?

  She was only the first. Others stood up, first a few, then many, and they lifted posters and banners and signs above their heads. Some of them held images of Waverly’s face with the word TRUTH written underneath in bold black letters. Some of the signs said MATHER = MURDER. Others said DEPOSE MATHER or DEPOSE THE CHURCH ELDERS.

  The old doctor’s mouth popped open, and he stared in disbelief at the crowd. Mather had turned ashen, and her head wobbled on her neck.

  Felicity smiled at Kieran and started singing, all by herself. She had a light soprano voice, but it was true and simple, and resolved from a fearful tremor into an ancient, beautiful melody. Soon other voices rose with hers, and their song filled the immense room.

  Dona nobis pacem, they sang, over and over and over again. Kieran knew the simple meaning of the Latin words: God give us peace.

  Kieran looked around him. Anne Mather sat perfectly still, staring at the crowd in disbelief. The armed guards behind her looked amazed. One of them, a stocky man with a kind face, placed his gun at his feet, looking as though he’d been wanting to do that for a long time.

  “Thank you,” Kieran whispered into the microphone, and he lifted his hands to the ceiling and called to the heavens, “Thank you!” Then he backed away from the podium, backed toward Mather and the elders. Let them be the ones to die.

  Suddenly the song was pierced through with a loud popping sound. Some people in the back cried out with alarm. It took Kieran a moment to realize he’d just heard the sound of gunfire. The song died down. Husbands shielded wives, women folded their bodies over babies. They were quiet as they waited and watched, fearful, and then …

  “Kieran!” A frantic voice broke through the quiet, and Kieran looked up, startled. “Kieran, run!” someone was screaming. He searched the audience. People were turning their heads, half standing. Way in the back, Kieran saw Waverly’s brown head pop up above the cornstalks. “Get out of range!” she screamed, then ducked back under cover.

  He stared blankly at the space where Waverly had been. One heartbeat … two … then Kieran turned on his heels and sprinted for the nearest door. He was in the hallway, running blindly, not even sure where he was going when he heard someone fall in behind him. “Stop or I’ll shoot!” a man called.

  Kieran knew that booming voice. It was the big guard, the one with the dove insignia, and he could hear his footsteps gaining on him.

  Kieran knew he ought to be able to outrun a man of that age, but his heart was already laboring, and he couldn’t master his breath. He took in huge gulps of air and pushed them out again, filling his lungs, but it wasn’t enough. Already his legs ached and his arms felt floppy. The heavy footsteps of the guard were right on his heels. Somehow Kieran found another ounce of speed, and he pushed himself on, headed for the central stairwell.

  Suddenly the lights blinked out, and the hallway was impenetrable darkness.

  Kieran heard the man behind him cry out with surprise as he fell with a thud. Kieran ran alongside the wall, feeling with the fingertips of his right hand. He passed by one door, two doors, three … When his fingers touched air, Kieran knew he’d reached the corner of the corridor. He rounded it, still jogging, ignoring the wheezing of his lungs.

  His eyes ached with the effort to see in absolute darkness. He heard more voices behind him, and he sped up, but he didn’t dare break into a full run for fear of falling. Instead he concentrated on silence, his feet padding along the hallway, forcing himself to picture where he was.

  When he felt the pebbled metal of the stairwell door, he jerked it open and padded up the stairs, regretting every
audible scuff of his shoes. When he reached the shuttle bay level, he bolted into the corridor and turned left, running as quickly as he dared.

  Now he walked with his hands extended in front of him, feeling through the darkness until he finally touched the cold glass of the shuttle bay doors. They opened with a whoosh of hydraulics, and Kieran stepped into the vast shuttle bay, feeling the air, trying his hardest to walk a straight line. His steps were halting now that he had no wall to feel along, and he squinted instinctively. His footsteps echoed against faraway metal walls. The room sounded big.

  He stopped in his tracks and tapped his foot. The echo expanded off to his left, but to his right, the sound was muffled. He must be standing right next to a shuttle.

  He lifted his hands up over his head and walked until his fingertips grazed a shuttle’s cold underbelly. He smelled the cruddy scent of hydraulic lubricant. I’m right under the hinge for the cargo door.

  With his fingertips, he traced the seam of the door, covering every inch with his palms until his thumb grazed the casing for the release button. He pulled away the protective shell, pushed the button, and suddenly the room was flooded with light as the ramp lowered to the floor.

  If they didn’t know where I was before…, he thought as he ran up the shuttle ramp and punched the button to close it under him.

  Now if Ginny detonated him, at least the blast would be contained within the hull of the shuttle and no other lives would be lost.

  Kieran blinked in the pale blue light as he ran up the spiral staircase to the cockpit, where he flipped on the control panel. Immediately a woman’s voice called, “Shuttle B-11, identify yourself.”

  He put on the headset as he settled into the pilot’s chair. “This is Kieran Alden. You need to evacuate the nursery school room. The Pauleys planted a bomb there.”

  “What?”

  “Get the kids out of the schoolroom before the Pauleys blow them up!” Kieran screamed.

  “Wait,” the person said, sounding like she didn’t believe him.

  There was a long pause. Kieran fired up the engines and released the tethers that held him to the floor. His seat rose up beneath him. What was taking them so long?

  “Kieran?” It was Anne Mather’s voice. She must have been patched in remotely because he could hear the murmur of the audience in the background. “What’s the situation?”

  “There’s a bomb in the nursery school. You’ve got to get the kids out of there now!”

  “Hold on, Kieran,” Mather said, and in the background he could hear her barking orders to evacuate the schoolroom immediately, then she came back on the com link. “How do you know this?”

  Kieran tried to explain as quickly as he could, but he had to repeat himself several times before she believed him. Finally he screamed, “You need to let me take this shuttle off ship so I’m out of range!”

  “Kieran, I can’t just let you take one of our shuttles.”

  “Well, then you’ve killed me.” He laughed hysterically. He could feel the hard lump of the explosives in his stomach. The skin on his arms and legs felt as though it were trying to ooze away from his middle to take cover.

  There was a long silence, then Mather’s voice came back on.

  “Okay,” she said, sounding defeated. “Let him go.”

  “What?” the man said. “He could ram us!”

  “He’s not going to ram us,” Mather droned. “Are you, Kieran?”

  “No!”

  “Let him go.”

  Kieran eased the shuttle into the air lock and held his breath as the huge doors closed behind him, then waited for what seemed an eternity before the outer doors opened. He pushed the joystick forward and the shuttle drifted out of the New Horizon. When he was safely out of the air lock, he sped up and watched in the rearview vid screen as the New Horizon shrank away.

  He took in one deep breath … two … and suddenly he was sobbing into his hands, hysterically gulping air and shaking, his legs and arms and fingers alive with the electricity of his infinite relief.

  “Kieran?” It was Mather calling him. “I’ve just spoken with our doctors. Can you … expel the explosives?”

  He nodded. “I’ll try.”

  He engaged the automatic navigation system, strapped himself into his seat, fitted a grav bag around his mouth, and stuck his finger down his throat. He heaved and heaved, bringing up his breakfast, and then fluids, until finally the balloons started coming up, one by one. He ignored the growing pain in his stomach, ignored the horrible burn in his throat, until every last balloon had come up, all twelve of them.

  The detonator was still there; he could feel it wedged inside him, tearing at his insides. It was too jagged and large to pass back through his esophagus. When he had no strength to keep trying, he pulled himself back to the cabin where he took up the headset. “Hello?”

  “Go ahead, Kieran,” Mather said.

  “I threw up all the explosives,” he said. His heart felt weak, and his head swam from the effort. “Not the detonator. It’s too big.”

  “That’s progress, Kieran.”

  “Should I come back?”

  “Not until we find the Pauleys. They can’t blow you up, but if they activate that detonator, it might rupture your organs. One of our doctors is here with me, and she says to drink plenty of water. It might help move that detonator through.”

  “Okay.” His voice sounded little to his ears.

  “We’ll find them, Kieran,” Mather said reassuringly before signing off.

  He turned off his headset before replying, “Go to hell.”

  A red light on the control panel by the copilot’s seat caught his eye, the com screen flashing, Closed signal.

  He pressed the option for more information and couldn’t believe his eyes. Someone was hailing him from the Empyrean on an encrypted channel. He pulled himself to the copilot chair and enabled the signal.

  “Hello?” he asked.

  “Kieran?”

  He knew that voice.

  “Arthur?” he whispered. The lights on the control panel took on an otherworldly quality, and he dropped his head to his hand. “I thought you were…”

  “Can you get to the Empyrean?”

  “The Empyrean is dead,” he said stupidly.

  “Sarek and I are on it, Kieran. It’s not dead.”

  Kieran couldn’t move or speak. They were both alive? His dearest, truest friends were alive!

  “Hello? Kieran? Can you find your way to us?”

  Kieran shook his head to clear it, enabled the long-range sensors, and found the shadowy form of the Empyrean moving in a parallel course to the New Horizon. “I think I can.”

  “Get to the port shuttle bay. I’m signing out so they don’t hear us.”

  “Okay,” Kieran said, dumbfounded.

  Kieran sat in the copilot’s seat, staring in disbelief at the blue and red lights in front of him. Twenty minutes ago he’d been sure of his impending death, but he was alive, sitting on a shuttle, about to go home to see his dearest friends.

  Arthur and Sarek were alive!

  Kieran disabled the com system so he wouldn’t be bothered by Anne Mather again, took hold of the joystick, and turned the shuttle toward home.

  THE END

  “Seth!” Waverly hissed into the darkness. She had, only moments ago, turned off all the lights with Jared’s com unit. She could hear Jacob swearing as he pawed over the ground, looking for the detonator.

  “Seth?” she called back through the darkness. Her hand grazed a foot, and she groped in the dark until she could feel his lips.

  She waited … waited … holding her breath … please please please …

  A tiny puff of exhaled air warmed her fingers.

  “You little bitch!” she heard from behind. Jacob was still back where Seth had thrown the device. Waverly pulled at Seth’s arm, trying to lift him, but he was too heavy.

  “I’ll get you,” Jacob snarled. She could hear him stumbling through the co
rnstalks, wheezing and gurgling. His gut had exploded into ribbons of blood when she’d shot him. She’d expected him to crumple right then, but he hadn’t, and she had no idea where the gun was.

  “Run,” she heard whispered from below.

  “Seth!”

  “He thinks I’m his buddy,” Seth whispered. She kissed his cheek, his eye, his ear. “He won’t hurt me.”

  “I can’t leave you!”

  “He won’t hurt me,” Seth insisted. “Go!”

  “No!”

  “Get help,” he wheezed.

  She felt Jacob’s hand close around her ankle. “I’ll kill you,” the man said.

  She kicked his hand away, got to her feet, and ran back through the corn, blindly, no idea of where she was going or what she should do.

  Save Seth. Help Seth.

  By some miracle, she still held the com unit in her hand and decided to risk using the screen as a light source. Its meager glow revealed only her immediate vicinity, but it was enough to keep her from falling. She pointed it at the ground as she followed a row of corn.

  After long, terrifying moments, she found the wall, then she turned to her left and followed it until she reached the doorway she and Serafina had entered. She nearly tripped over the body of the dead guard, and she crouched over him to pick up the walkie-talkie that hung on his belt.

  “Hello?” she said into it. “Is anyone there?”

  “Who is this?” asked a harsh voice.

  “This is Waverly Marshall. I need help. Seth … he’s sick and hurt and Jacob Pauley has him. Please.”

  She sounded like a little girl, and for the first time in a long time that’s what she felt like: a child who needed a grown-up.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m at a doorway on the port side of the granary. The guard is dead. I think Jacob killed him. Please. Seth needs help.”

  “There’s a security force on the way,” the voice said.

  “Okay.” Waverly buried her face in her hands.