Chapter 26 #2
“I know what you mean. But seriously, Cal. When you left and then when I heard that headquarters blew, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. Listen, about how we left things earlier… I want to tell you that?—”
“It’s okay,” I cut her off. “I’m sorry, too.”
“I wasn’t going to say I was sorry.”
“You weren’t?”
“No, why would I say I’m sorry? I didn’t do anything wrong.”
I raised a brow.
She huffed. “I was going to explain myself, okay?”
“And you don’t have to. I get it. The resistance has to come first. With what’s happened to your family, I get it, I do.”
She shook her head. “No, you don’t. I mean, yes, the resistance is important, but it doesn’t mean squat if we have to compromise our values to succeed. I would never, ever let Kynan take your amp without your permission, and I would never try to coerce you. I swear it, Cal. That’s not who I am.”
“I know,” I said.
“And Kynan’s the same. We’ve been talking. He believes we can figure out some way to leverage your amp by working together,” she said. “He has a lot of resources—he can help you. And hopefully you and that amp of yours can help us like in Solace Station.”
“I’m going to help,” I began. “But don’t ever keep things from me again, okay? If you do, I’m out of here and I’m never coming back. Do you understand?”
She watched me for a moment and then nodded, stress seeming to flow out of her shoulders.
She smiled, and I remembered how much I loved that smile.
I also remembered that I wasn’t completely sure I could ever trust her again.
But I believed that she was being honest with me now, and that was what mattered.
“We’d better get you to Kynan. He’s been worried about you,” she said.
He’s been worried about me .
“I messaged him when I didn’t hear back from you right away,” I said.
“Oh. He destroyed his armlet when the enforcers got close. Too much information on it for the enforcers to get a hold of. But we should be safe here.”
Her fingers brushed over mine as she turned to go, and I took her hand.
She didn’t pull away. We strolled down the tunnel, hand in hand, as if hell wasn’t still breaking loose on the opposite side of the wall.
The tunnel was lined with doors, with many open.
Through those, I saw dozens of people, some bloodied and others with blaster shots.
“We grabbed as many as we could,” Lyra said.
“These are from the first raid. We barely got here in time to save anyone. And we weren’t expecting the second round; otherwise, we would’ve gotten a lot more out than we did.
But we’ll get the others. Right now, they’re all being put in holding cells, but we both know Softbiotics will relocate them.
Kynan’s tech team is focused on finding where they’re going from here.
It sounds like the first group is going to the labs and the second group is going into forced labor at the silica mines, but they don’t have enough details for us to make a move.
Not to mention that we lost half our army in those raids. ”
Her fingers trembled, and I rubbed my thumb over her skin.
“We knew the squads were preparing for a raid, but we were short on details on the overall operation. We never imagined two raids back-to-back,” she said.
“I think there’s going to be a third raid,” I said.
She stopped cold. “Why do you think that?”
“Because one enforcer I talked to said that this raid was phase two and that there was still a phase three coming.”
She frowned. “Kynan needs to hear that.”
We found Kade in a large cafeteria where he was eating in a group of twenty or so armed resistance members. Around them were another thirty or more refugees. Upon seeing us approach, he smiled, relief filling his tired features. “Cal Bennett, finally something good to come out of this day.”
I took an open seat across from him, and I began without preamble. “Count me in. I’ll help out on whatever you need on two conditions.”
His brow shot up. “And what are those two conditions?”
“First…” I held up my forefinger. “We hit the lab where they’re holding my buddy, and we’re getting him out of there.
We’ll clear the other labs, too, as soon as we can.
And second, don’t even think of trying to remove Byte from my head.
You can’t remove this amp without destroying it”—not to mention killing me—“so it wouldn’t do you any good, anyway.
And there’s no testing or whatever other shit you might be thinking without my sign-on.
So, I’m in, but only as a team member and not some test subject or prisoner, got it?
” I left off the third condition: that I didn’t trust Kynan and if he showed even a hint of betrayal, I was out of there.
Kynan eyed me for a brief second before holding out his hand. “You drive a hard bargain, but it’s fair. I look forward to working with you and seeing what your amp can do.”
We shook. Lyra smiled again, and I realized I’d probably do anything to see more of those.
I spent the next few minutes filling him in on everything Byte and I had learned.
When I finished, Kade leaned back, interlacing his fingers behind his head.
“These raids are clearly planned to take out the resistance, but they also need bodies. They don’t have enough labs here for everyone they’ve taken, so we’re trying to figure out where they’re going.
A lot of my people were grabbed in the first raid, and I’m not leaving them to rot in some mad scientist’s lab. ”
“We need to shut down every last one of those labs,” I said.
Kynan chuckled mirthlessly. “That will be impossible, since there are labs in multiple systems, but we’ll at least shut down the labs on this planet once and for all.”
Cal, there’s something wrong with the refugees.
I looked up to see the refugees meandering around the room, slowly surrounding us.
I recognized the one woman from the hallway.
She had the same blank stare, but it was focused on us now.
I noticed the others bore the same stares—men, women, and children all had the same dead stare.
The resistance members were still eating and talking, not noticing anything was off.
“Kade,” I said in a low voice while simultaneously grabbing and squeezing Lyra’s hand hard enough that she stiffened immediately.
He read my expression and looked up, instantly figuring out something was off. He glanced at the man to his right. “Trouble, Miko.”
The man didn’t waste more than a second taking in the threat. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a second. The refugees surrounding us pulled out concealed blasters and started firing before the first resistance member could raise his weapon.
Without even thinking, I grabbed Lyra and yanked her under the table with me.
Someone had shoved Kade down next to us.
Crouching below the table and behind chairs, blasters fired nonstop around us.
Refugees shot at resistance members, not caring that they sometimes hit other refugees across from them.
The resistance members got in a few shots, but they were getting slaughtered.
Lyra, Kynan, and I pulled out blasters, but when I lined up a shot, I pulled back abruptly.
My target was just a young girl, no more than seven or eight.
The girl didn’t hesitate. I flinched, expecting the shot, only to hear Lyra gasp next to me.
She’d been hit squarely in the chest.
“ No .” I dropped my blaster and pulled her to me, trying to cover her from any more gunfire. Not that it mattered. She raised her hand toward my face, only for it to drop. Her body went lax, and she stared off into nothingness. “Lyra,” I pleaded, but she was gone.
There’s something that happens at the time of death where you just know that, in the deepest part of your soul, that person is gone and all that’s left is an empty husk.
Lyra was gone.
It was a gut punch. If I wasn’t already on the floor, my knees would’ve given out. My body felt numb except for the ice shard through my chest.
But I didn’t have the time to grieve, at least not right now.
It damn near killed me to set her body on the floor. I reached for my blaster only to realize that the shooting had stopped. Kynan looked down at Lyra and then gave me a knowing look before he crawled out from under the table. I had to force myself to do the same.
The room was straight out of a horror scene.
Bodies lay everywhere. The refugees were all down, including the young girl, but all the resistance members were also down.
One more resistance member had entered the room, and he carried a blaster with a battery backpack—I’d never seen a fully automatic blaster before, but this one cleared the room pretty dang fast.
Kynan was checking on his fallen friends, but there were no survivors. “The bastards had their blasters set to kill,” he muttered, coming to his feet. “They wiped out the resistance in one fell swoop.”
“Not all of us,” the other resistance member said. “As long as we got you, the resistance survives.”
Spots in the metal door began to glow where blaster fire was hitting.
“You gotta get out of here, Kynan,” the man said.
“There are more refugees like these ones outside. They’re killing everyone .
It was a miracle I got away from them when I did, but the door won’t hold them for long.
There’s something wrong with them. It’s like they’re possessed.
I’ll hold them off as long as I can, but you gotta go; get somewhere safe. ”
A blaster shot perforated the door, and we all ducked.
“Go,” the man said.
“Catch up as soon as you can, Miko,” Kynan said.
“You bet.” He flipped over a table and knelt behind it, leveling his large rifle at the door.
Kynan looked at me. “Let’s go.”
I gave one more look at Lyra as if miracles were real and she’d be alive again.
I clenched my jaw and followed Kynan through the cafeteria’s back door into the kitchen.
Behind us, the door must’ve given way because the automatic blaster fire started up.
In the back of the kitchen, two large freezers stood side by side.
Kynan opened the one to his left, and we stepped inside what looked like an elevator.
The air was warm. The automatic blaster fire stopped, and Kynan cursed under his breath.
He closed the door and tapped in a code on a PIN pad on the wall. The word LOCKED displayed on the screen. He then operated the elevator, which began lifting at an interminably slow speed.
“This brings us topside, which means we’re probably going to come across some enforcers,” Kynan said.
“Good thing I still look like one of them,” I said dully, trying to stay focused on staying alive rather than on the dead we were leaving behind.
Kynan tucked his blaster under his shirt. He blew out a puckered breath. “That’s still warm.” He held out his hands. “You got any restraints on you?”
I fished out an extra plasticuff from my pocket and loosely secured his wrists behind him. “You should be able to still get free if things go south.”
He checked. “They work.”
The elevator dinged and the door opened inside what looked like one of the abandoned warehouses several blocks from the docks.
“I figured we’d come out on the other side of Dreswick,” I said.
“The tunnels go on forever, but they’re always curving and wrapping back around more than anything. It’s basically a big old labyrinth,” he said.
The warehouse was empty, but when he opened the door to outside, we noticed enforcers loading prisoners into vans.
“Showtime, enforcer,” Kynan said, lowering his head and instantly taking on the slumped shoulders of a prisoner.
I looked at the line of buses. Just beyond them were patrol vehicles. “I got an idea.”
I led Kynan toward the buses. Both of us kept our heads tucked down to avoid the horde of drones buzzing twenty feet above.
“Uh, I hope it’s a good idea,” Kynan said when we were still out of earshot of the others.
“It’s an idea,” I said. It was probably for the best that I didn’t get his hopes up.
When we got close to a group, I veered Kade away.
“There’s room for one more in this bus,” an enforcer called out.
I shook my head. “This one’s going into interrogation.”
“Ah, you might want to take him underground then. That’s where they’re, uh, interrogating the feisty ones,” he said.
“Trust me, that’s where he’s going after I’m done,” I said.
Realization dawned on his features, though I didn’t get what assumption he’d come to until he winked and said, “To each his own. You found yourself a pretty one. Go have your fun. Lord knows, we’ve earned it.”
I was able to lead Kynan in between the buses without anyone else noticing, and I brought him to an empty vehicle—since all the patrol vehicles were empty, it wasn’t hard.
“Byte, can you take this?” I asked quietly.
Yes, these are automated in much the same way as taxis are.
“Good.” I opened the back door and helped Kynan duck to get inside. Then I hustled to the front driver’s side and entered.
I have control and have deactivated all surveillance and tracking systems in this vehicle. It will remain in their system as unoccupied and parked. Where should we go?
I glanced back at Kynan. “Where to?”
He considered, then said, “Council Street.”
I raised a brow but didn’t say anything. Byte drove the car, and I leaned back as we headed toward Dreswick’s slums. Yes, I knew all of Dreswick was a slum, but even slums had worse slums.
They were supposedly the most dangerous place on TerraSoft-11, but I didn’t care. My mind was somewhere else.