CHAPTER 40 LEE
JED WAS gone by the time he and Kat returned to her dorm. A small mercy. They had a lot to discuss between the two of them, plenty of which he’d rather not have to cover up and make excuses for just yet—that part would come later.
Stripping down to logistics, they were up into the wee hours of the night debating exactly what affairs they would need to have in order, and which ones they needn’t bother with when they made their quiet getaway.
The problem was, the deeper they delved and discussed, the more it became very clear this would not be a two-cadet job.
Not if they wanted to slip away undetected.
Which meant they were going to need some help.
“So who do we need?” Kat asked, toying with one of the long strands of hair that had since fallen from her ponytail to hang over her cheek. A sliver of silver in the starlight.
“I vote we constrain it to a need-to-know basis,” Lee offered, apologetically.
There were quite a few they’d grown very close to over the years who wouldn’t be receiving any such goodbyes or explanations.
Flyn and Ness. Marco. Demi. Dax, Lee begrudgingly allowed himself to admit within the quiet confines of his mind.
Then there were those with whom they’d want to say goodbye; the faces of a former squadron flickered in his memories, along with one round lavender face who was already gone.
“Whistler and Zane,” Kat whispered, quietly, yet firmly, her mind made up.
“We’ll clue them in just enough. This isn’t like breaking into the Commander’s office.
Everything we need to have happen they are more than capable of handling.
They’ve likely already guessed as much from our machinations, anyway. ”
“Whistler and Zane,” Lee agreed, their conclusion unanimous. Even if the knowledge of the restriction was already grating on him.
While Kat caught up with Whistler and Demi the next day during lunch, Lee dodged the traffic, slipping back down to the training levels.
The majority of cadets would be lounging about the Hideaway enjoying a break for the weekend.
All except for one, who would have taken advantage of a lax day to work out his own stresses.
Lee had known he would find Zane down here. It’s exactly where he would have been, had things gone a different way.
Zane stood at the base of the mats guzzling a bottle of water when Lee crossed into the room. He didn’t say anything as Lee stopped a meter away, observing the airflow from the vents. It blew stronger in this particular gym, making it a degree or two cooler.
“If you came to ask about it, I haven’t found anything,” Zane said, when he finally set down his water bottle.
Lee nodded slowly. “I appreciate the update, as well as your discretion.”
Zane turned fully to face him. “You’re going after them.” Not a question. And Lee was grateful for it.
“We are.”
“You and Kat,” Zane clarified.
Lee tipped his chin up, a silent confirmation.
Zane blew out a breath, running a golden-brown hand through the dark-edged divide where his long hair met the buzzed side, the Academy’s broken triangle-prism barely recognizable with the growth.
“Your secrets are safe. But I’d advise you to take caution.
Things are never quite as simple as they appear when the AMG gets involved.
” Fleeting memories passed between them, ones where they’d stood in very different sorts of rooms, learning exactly how complicated things could get.
Lee rolled his lip under his teeth, deciding how to word his next thought. “Which is why I am coming to you now. We aren’t asking you to join us. Just help get us away from the Academy.”
Zane’s eyes narrowed like he might protest, but Lee wasn’t done yet.
“Look, I know things don’t look great. We don’t have any real assurances that we’ll find anything, or evidence at this point to prove that what Gaia claimed was any more viable than that of General Narron.
But you were there. We were all there. We saw what that ship meant to them that day.
What their research and knowledge could mean for all of us if they are right.
They know something—something he’s trying to cover up—and something he won’t hesitate to destroy over to keep covered up.
And if there is even a chance that it can help us, Kat and I are going to take it.
It’s their only shot, and it may be ours, as well. ”
As he spoke, Zane’s eyes drifted outwards, tracing the slanted windows there in the far wall. Lee followed them, gathering his thoughts.
“You and I have both deduced that the General is going after them, and that it is only a matter of time until they are found. We have to warn them. We have to help—we both know they won’t get away a second time.”
Zane swallowed, at last turning to face his gaze once more.
Resolution warred from his dark eyes to the planes of his face and down into his shoulders.
Out of honor alone for one who had unknowingly become his brother-in-arms, he wished he wasn’t about to add to this burden and confusion any more than he already had.
But Lee wasn’t done yet, he had one more truth to drop.
“What if we were to tell you that the Commander believed we were in the right, that we were onto something?” Lee asked, quietly.
He knew this would rock Zane. It was still rocking him from the minute he’d absorbed this last truth.
Just speaking it aloud, the room seemed to go still around them; those cooling vents, too, as if even the walls wanted in on their secrets.
“How do you—”
“How do we know this? Doesn’t matter. Kat doesn’t think this means anything.
She’s still—” Lee volleyed the words “hurt” and “betrayed” around his head, debating what he could respectfully share with Zane now.
He finally settled on “—processing. Commander Blanche’s agreement with the General forbids her from taking any actions with regards to Segura and the materials we collected on that raid.
But she still holds a seat on the Council.
Were new evidence to surface—were there ever to be a way to lay out the facts in such a manner as would alter the landscape and prove they were not as dangerous as he made them out to be, the General could be overruled. ”
And void, he knew it was a long shot. It was a disk that should never have been in his arena to begin with. But now that he’d made the interception, now that he’d claimed the island, he was going to make that throw and take that shot. Or he’d jump down into the steamtraps trying.
Their Commander may have felt herself backed into a corner.
She may not have been able to find the solution on her own.
And she may have let them down on multiple fronts.
But the knowledge that she had trusted them and believed in them?
That she had known they were on the right track?
That meant something to him. She had instilled in them the spirit to fight back, to keep going and complete the mission.
Even when the stakes seemed hopeless and they were facing the impossible.
Even when the mission itself had shifted over the course of these last three months.
To him this changed everything.
There had to be tangible evidence out there somewhere. And he was going to find it.
“We’ll be up there at 23:00 hours,” Lee called over a shoulder as he started for the door.
“Do I even get a choice?” Zane asked a couple of seconds later.
Lee stopped, turning back briefly to face Zane, the bleakness evident over his entire face.
“Of course you do,” Lee said. And then he crossed back through the doors, heading back the way he’d come, knowing with full certainty that Zane would be there later, on-time and waiting for them.
At exactly 23:01, Zane, Whistler, Kat, and Lee picked their way down through the vacant benches of the Blackout Galaxy; the empty arena was but shadows and starlight tonight.
Zane had, of course, arrived early, with Whistler also sidling over right as Lee’s hyperband switched over to the new hour.
And with each step into the Spectrum, Lee hoped, against the void, that their former squadron-mates would still agree to help them when they learned the full extent of their plans.
“This feels like old times,” Whistler joked only somewhat tersely as they neared the base of the stands. Zane was quiet as he tagged along behind them.
But they didn’t stop when they reached the base. No, tonight Kat led them past the deck and right into the hollow arena. The stale echoes of energy from weeks past lingered around the grounded turf islands littering the space, awaiting their calls to snap into the air tens of meters above them.
Finally deeming them deep enough, Kat slowed to a screeching halt, vanilla-blonde ponytail whipping behind her as she whirled to face them all.
“I’m not in the mood for games,” Zane warned, crossing his arms over his chest.
“I didn’t say it was playtime,” Kat fired back, entirely unapologetically as she made herself comfortable, perching loosely on the edge of the nearest turf island.
“Let’s not waste the minutes, time’s not on our side,” Lee reminded her.
“Because of Placement deadlines?” Zane demanded.
“And in light of recent events…” Lee said, his voice tapering off.
“We may have recently broken into the Commander’s office, and are presently waiting to get reamed, or at the very least called out for it,” Kat cut in, beaming too brightly with the edge he knew cut just below the surface.
Zane cursed, spitting on the floor, as Whistler’s eyes bugged, a sparkfly in the daylight.