Jace nodded firmly.
“I have to agree with that sentiment. I’m all for taking shelter in a convenient copse of trees if the situation calls for it, but I’m not positive that this is the best idea. Do you know what you’re doing?”
Alexy snorted.
“Oh my God, do you guys ever shut up?” she asked. “I mean really, all this time we’ve spent together, and you still don’t have any faith in me?”
At that moment we hit the first tree and went crashing through it. I ducked, sure that we were going to explode, but the ship somehow flew right through the branches. We ducked and weaved, finding spaces that I could have sworn weren’t there before, brushing the belly of the ship occasionally against the ground. Then we were flying up through the foliage, twigs and leaves whipping across the nose of the ship as if someone was pelting us with olives.
“What the hell are you doing?” Marco yelled. “This ship can’t take this sort of abuse! You’re going to crash us, for sure!”
Alexy tilted her head as if she was thinking, and then nodded once.
“I guess you’re right,” she allowed. “I mean, it couldn’t have taken this sort of punishment when you were flying it. Of course, that was because you didn’t know how to pull the armor up for the nose. Luckily for us, I do.”
I paused and tried to unpack what she’d just said. Armor on the nose? Fair enough, we’d never needed anything like that, but was she saying…
Was she saying that she actually knew the ship’s full range of capabilities, whereas Nelson had never been told everything that the ship could do?
And if that was true, how? Who was this girl?
“Who are you?” I asked, finally voicing the question which had been burning in me since the moment I’d seen past her mousy persona. “And how do you know so much about the ship?”
Alexy cast a sly look over her shoulder and then turned back toward the front just in time to guide the ship around a tree. I was dying to see what was behind us, to see whether those Ministry airships were following us, but there were no windows in the back of the plane. Those at the sides didn’t give a view of anything but what was directly outside.
“You’re right,” she finally said. “I am more than I told you I was. The truth is, I used to be a fighter pilot for the Navy. Used to fly one of these very ships for the government itself, to prepare for the highly unlikely event of a war.”
I clamped my mouth shut, momentarily stunned, but then forced my brain forward.
Okay.
So that was weird, but not completely unheard of. Our government did keep a full military at its disposal, both Navy and Army, though I always thought it was unnecessary. The world had been at peace for longer than I’d been alive—by several decades, in fact. I liked to think that our world had matured in that respect.
All governments lived more or less in one web of survival, dealing with each other via carefully negotiated trade deals, and leaving both allies and one-time enemies alone. Each country focused on its own problems. Our nation certainly didn’t have any need for war, at least not that I could see. It was successful all on its own.
Of course, as mere citizens, we’d never been given a reason for the military’s existence, and most people hadn’t bothered to ask. Why complain when that was a whole range of jobs that the government actually paid you for?
I’d never really known a military soldier, but that didn’t make them sinister.
I also didn’t see how Alexy had gone from serving in the Navy to being aboard an OH+ vessel that had just accidentally broken into a site where the Ministry was taking payments for kids.
“I’m sure you’re asking yourself how, and there’s a pretty simple reason,” Alexy said, answering what I’d guessed would be the obvious next question. “I asked too many questions and told my superiors that I thought it was crazy to spend all that money maintaining such a large military when the world was at peace, and there hadn’t been any threats against our country in decades. All those people who could be doing something more productive, just rotting on the bases, learning to fly ships that we’d probably never have to use…”
She jerked the steering column up to avoid an especially large tree, then shot back down so that we were flying right along the canopy again, and I wondered if we were somehow using it for cover. Was there a camouflage function on this thing as well? It wouldn’t surprise me.
“I guess you guys probably know that our government doesn’t like people who ask questions. I was kicked out of the Navy. Sent packing, right into the ranks of the lower class. Within a couple months I was working at a factory, just like I guess most of you do. Then my husband and I found out we were pregnant. He had a pretty decent job in an actual office, and we thought we’d be safe. Out of the danger zone, so to speak.”
There was a long, awkward pause, during which she seemed to decide that she’d told us enough. When she started talking again, her voice had lost the wistful note it’d had and became all business again.
“The Ministry took the baby three days after I had it, and my husband was killed trying to defend it. Defend her. I was left all alone, with nothing but heartbreak for my trouble. Started searching for a way to change things immediately after that, and here I am.”
When one of us found words again, it was Marco.
“You… you used to fly this ship for the military?” he asked in disbelief.
Alexy let out a humorless laugh and pulled on the steering column. The ship shot up into the sky.
“Sure did. Let’s just say I know a whole lot more about this thing than you do.”
I gulped, thinking that she was undoubtedly right. She’d shown up just in time to save our butts during what I thought was probably the worst situation any of us had ever found ourselves in.
We sat there gaping at her for a moment. Then Ant, who seemed to know exactly what he thought of the whole thing, and her, barked out the question that must have been burning through his mind.
“I’m glad you know so much about everything, because I find myself with some very specific questions here. You had tracking devices on these suits, and it seems you have the software to use them. Will those help us find the rest of the people we left behind? Because one of them is my brother, and I’m really not willing to let him die today. So if you have a way to save him, I suggest you start talking.”
8
“No,” Alexy growled. “They don’t exactly work like that.”
Ant, who was sitting next to me, jerked as if he’d been shot. I could see his hands flexing on his knees, curling into claws, as if he was either going to hit Alexy or drag the answer right out of her.
“Don’t… Don’t… Don’t…” he stuttered, as if he’d lost his words for a moment.
Then Jackie, who was on the other side of him, put one hand firmly on his leg.
“What do you mean, they don’t work like that?” she asked bluntly. “If they don’t work like that, how do they work?”
Ant nodded, agreeing with what she asked. We all swiveled our heads back toward Alexy, waiting for an answer.
“They just… aren’t going to be that helpful from here on out,” she answered vaguely, working the controls on the dashboard. She leveled us higher and higher into the sky, headed, I assumed, for our plan B meeting spot. It was still relatively close, but also far enough from the compound that we thought it would be safer.
Just in case everything went right to hell.
“They aren’t going to be helpful?” I asked, frustrated. How could she be so casual when we were talking about our friends having been left behind? How could she act like it didn’t matter? I started yanking at my seatbelt, ready to get up and force her to give us something solid, but Jace, who was conveniently on my other side, put a hand out to stop me.
“Stay in your seat,” he said, his voice low. “We’re not in the clear yet, and I don’t want you to go flying around the ship when I’m strapped into this thing and can’t do anything ab
out it.”
He pointed out the window, and I followed the direction in which he was gesturing. We weren’t scot free, though we were close.
In the distance, I could still see the forest from where we’d come and five or so airships maneuvering around.
They zoomed in and out of the trees and up into the cloud cover, as if they were trying to cover all their bases. They likely hadn’t seen us leave the forest, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t spot us at any moment, flying over the countryside. Unless Alexy had another trick up her sleeve.
I huffed and let go of my seatbelt, frustrated, but it seemed Jace hadn’t let it go.
“What are you talking about, Alexy?” he asked firmly. “We’ve just been through something pretty awful, and a lot of us are missing friends. I think I speak for everyone when I say that we need to know exactly what you mean, and we need to know right now.”
She let out a theatrical groan, threw a couple levers forward in front of us, and whirled around in her seat. Her face was a mask of irritation. Though she’d told us all to get in seats and secure ourselves, she jumped out of her own and stalked toward us.
All five-foot-nothing of her.
When she was about three feet away from the first seats, she stopped and put her hands on her hips.
“My God. You guys need to stop whining! Do you really think you’re the only ones who are upset, here? Do you think you’re the only ones who left friends or family”—she added the latter with a quick glance at Ant—“back there, in the hands of those monsters? Do you really think you’re the only ones who are freaking out about what just happened? I lost people too, you know. If those tracking devices worked the way you want them to work, don’t you think I’d be flying back there as quickly as this heap could take us, screaming out that we needed a plan for exactly how to rescue our people? Did it ever occur to you that maybe I’d want that too? Huh?”
She paused and glared at us while I wondered vaguely how exactly the ship was flying itself, and where exactly any of this had come from. Emotion and drama certainly hadn’t been on the list of things I’d thought I knew to expect from Alexy. Of course, it was becoming more and more clear that I knew very little about her.
After a moment, she narrowed her eyes and blew out a breath.
“I would go back there and rescue them in a heartbeat if I thought we had a chance at it. But the tracking devices don’t work like that, and even if they did, I don’t think we’d have much chance.”
She held up several fingers.
“One, they’re short-range devices, not meant for more than a mile, at the most. We’re going to be out of range very soon, and that’s only if the Ministry is for some reason holding our friends in the forest.”
One of her fingers bent back down to her palm, and then she continued.
“Two, I don’t think they are holding our friends in the forest because that wouldn’t make any sense whatsoever. Not when they have perfectly good prisons to take them to.”
Another finger down.
“Three, even if we got back there and found our friends, what exactly would we do about it? In case you haven’t noticed, we were outgunned and outmanned in that fight. I can do a lot with this ship, but even I have limits.”
Another finger dropped, and then the fifth finger followed.
“And finally, and most obviously, those tracking devices are located in the suits themselves, and I don’t know about you, but if I was a Ministry soldier, the first thing I’d do would be to get my new prisoners out of their shiny construction suits so that they were unarmed, less dangerous, and a whole lot more vulnerable. Which means those tracking devices are probably now lying on the side of the road somewhere. They’re not going to do us any good at all.”
I shut my mouth on all the arguments that had come to mind during her little speech and leaned back in my chair. She was right. I hadn’t thought of any of that. I was willing to bet that none of my friends had, either.
Alexy gave us one long look and then nodded when we remained quiet.
“Now, if you all don’t mind, I’m going to go back to flying the ship and getting us to our next meeting point. With luck, our team will have found their way there as well, and this will all be a moot point. But we’ll never find out unless I’m flying the ship, okay?”
With that she turned abruptly on her heel and made her way back to the captain’s seat, leaving the rest of us silent and more than somewhat subdued.
Except, of course, for Ant.
“So, what exactly are we going to do, then?” he asked sharply. “Just go home and pretend like nothing happened? Simply act like we didn’t just lose half our team? That’s not good enough!”
“Agreed,” Jace ground out, and though I assumed he was talking about Kory more than anyone else, I nodded too.
I didn’t like that we’d left team members back there—of course I didn’t—but this also wasn’t only about them.
“It’s also about Nelson,” I said quickly. “Do they have her? Did they find her? Because if they did…”
Her last words to us had been about being tracked via the snare protocol. And then there had been a loud bang, then silence.
If she was gone, she had to be on our list as well. I wasn’t willing to let her go, not without a fight.
“And what exactly would you have us do? You think it’s even safe for us to fight?” Cloyd asked gruffly, suddenly adding to the conversation—and saying more words than I thought I’d heard him say in our entire acquaintance. “Like Alexy said, we were outclassed back there. Outmanned. You think that’s ever going to change? J—I mean Hux, you know how careful we have to be here. OH+ doesn’t have the resources necessary for that sort of fight, even if they had the manpower. Which they don’t.”
I stared at him, wondering whose side he was on. And why he was referring to OH+ as if it was something other than his own group.
“We left Jack too, you know,” I said quietly, referring to Kory by his nickname in an attempt to keep his identity private, even now. “You’re willing to just let him go to the Ministry prison, so they can do whatever they’re going to do to him?”
It wasn’t a fair thing to say, but at this point I didn’t care. I was scared that the Ministry had caught us, scared that they’d defeated us so easily, and terrified that they had some of our friends.
Beyond that, my mind was flying through questions about what had gone on.
What could we do? Was it safe to fight at all? Or had we all been somehow marked in the events of the night? We’d all had masks on—doubled up, if you counted the visors on our suits—and even Austin had had his face covered. So surely the Ministry wouldn’t know exactly who we were. We’d also been sure that we’d be walking in on a virtually deserted warehouse, free to hack into the system, which we had assessed as unprotected. We’d definitely been wrong about that.
What if we were wrong about the masks as well? What if they somehow already knew who we all were, and it was only a matter of time until they came for us?
Would the answer still be the same—that there was nothing we could do?
I felt the adrenaline that had been keeping my body running at top speed ebb from my blood. Suddenly it felt like there was an enormous hole right where my stomach should have been, a pit sucking all my energy from me.
This was my fault.
I’d come up with this idea in the first place. Well, Gabby had mentioned it first, but I’d been the one to take it to the group. I’d only suggested it because I’d thought it would be safe, or at least relatively so. We’d been talking about taking down a small, independent group of people who were doing something horrible. It had been outside of the Ministry’s sphere and far from any government operations. I’d been certain that we could get in, get what we needed, and get back out again, garnering ourselves enough evidence to make a good impression on the public and maybe even impressing the government. That hadn’t been our prime goal, but it would have been a pleasant
bonus.
Instead, we’d gone in there and lost so many people, antagonizing the very government we were trying to charm. Now we were talking about whether or not we could even get our friends back.
Cloyd, meanwhile, was staring at me from a seat on the other side of the ship like I’d just punched him in the gut.
“Of course I know they took Jack,” he said quietly. “I’m simply saying that we can’t go running up against the government, unprepared, just because you think we should. And that goes for all of you.”
He spared a pointed glance for Ant, who must have looked the most worked up of all of us, and I felt my friend sag back against the seat.
Alexy snorted.
“Don’t be such a sob story, Boyd. Of course they can go up against the government. They’ll just need our help and a plan.”
That stopped everyone short again, and we stared at her for a moment, confused by the code in which she seemed to be speaking.
When someone broke the silence again, it was Ant.
“Maybe it won’t matter,” he said softly. “Maybe they’ll be at the meeting spot and this is all pointless. Maybe they got away before we were ever in the air, and that’s why we couldn’t find them.”
I gulped, my mind supplying me with at least ten reasons why he was wrong about that—starting with the fact that we’d seen the soldiers take Winter down. I believed we’d simply missed them capturing the others.
Everyone else had probably already been taken prisoner by the time Julia, Marco, and Alexy found us. It was the most reasonable answer for Marco not having been able to find any other blue dots in the forest below us. The soldiers had probably already stripped our friends of their suits and destroyed them, along with the tracking devices.
The hope in Ant’s voice made me shut my mouth on the arguments, my heart breaking at what we were about to find in the plan B meeting spot. If we found anything at all.
It only took us about ten minutes to get there, and that was because we’d taken a roundabout way, going up into the cloud cover and dropping back down several times to see whether we were being followed.