Departure Read online

  The whir of robotic joints haunted her every step. No matter how many steps of her own she took, the steady sound got closer. Her lungs burned and her muscles screamed. She thought of a million ways to escape her pursuer and rejected them all. There was no way to escape a K9.

  Kari jumped down a ledge without checking what lay below; she didn’t have time to think of anything as trivial as ensuring her safety. She landed hard, rolled, got up, and ran. Her body armor took most of the blow.

  Six seconds passed before she heard the thud produced by the mechbot’s landing. Its pistons hissed as they relegated the impact force.

  Panic set her veins ablaze. There was nothing she could do, nothing but run. She had a goal and she’d make it to it. After that, the K9 could kill her. All that mattered was blowing up the damn docking clamp.

  Whir, tap. Whir, tap. Whir, tap. Whir, tap. One full movement.

  She glanced behind her in search of the tell-tale glowing green of her mechanical hunter’s eyes, but for now, she had reprieve of its gaze.

  Her foot caught behind something and she went down. Pain seared up her chin and jaw. Her fingers came away bloody.

  Up!

  She scrambled like a newborn lamb.

  Run!

  Whir, tap. Whir, tap. Whir, tap. Whir, tap.

  Three seconds.

  The search lights on top of the Wall swept the street as she squeezed through a crack in the building’s shell. Her skin flared wherever she’d scraped it past the organic “concrete” and metal reinforcement bars the Auent used to build their houses.

  She knew the K9 wouldn’t fit through the crack, but the thought offered no reprieve, because it would find a way around. K9’s were equipped with military grade scent modules. It would track her without pause.

  She ran as fast as her desperate desire to stick to the darkest shadows allowed her to.

  “Sergeant McCaine, come in.”

  Mara—“Colonel Anderson” now; not that she had time to be bitter—came in through the bone implant behind her ear. Her voice was distorted by interference. This close to the Wall, it was a miracle the signal had gotten through the jammers at all.

  It was just her luck that Mara was her team’s direct commander for this mission—but of course, if she hadn’t been, they’d never have crossed all the boundaries they’d crossed together.

  Kari pressed the indentation at the base of her skull to open the channel from her end. “H-Here, Colonel.” Talking threw off her breathing even more. She flattened herself against another former office building as a searchlight went past.

  “Where are you?”

  “Getting closer to the strut, but we ran into trouble. I have a K9 on my tail; the others are dead.” Just saying the words out loud caused her chest to compress.

  “For the cause.” Mara’s voice was void of emotion, but Kari thought she knew her well enough to know that she was hurting. The five of them had spent months together, planning and drilling. They’d all gotten to know each other well—although none as well as she and Mara had.

  Kari didn’t have it in her to reply; she had a K9 on her heels, her friends were dead, and the woman she’d confessed to loving just a day ago had flat-out told her not to, because in one Radan-day, they’d be separated for life.

  In the distance, alarms went off. Was that because of another squad, or had one of the others run into similar resistance? How could things have gone so wrong? Had the Auent figured out they’d been getting the Aurora space-worthy again after all? Had the bots caught on and called for reinforcements?

  Would Mara know?

  Kari scanned the gaping holes in the buildings across the street. The husks looked different this close to the Wall; no tarps had been done up to keep the wind out, no clothes hung from improvised laundry lines. No one sat on curbs or on the street to play dice or huff plastic vapors in order to forget about life in the Zone.

  “Are the other teams still on mission?” She waited for another searchlight to pass, then dashed across the street, and vaulted over a windowsill. Glass crunched underfoot when she landed.

  “B-Team just arrived at their strut, but resistance is heavy. They’re doing what they can, but you need to hurry.”

  Kari’s eyes adjusted to the dark after a few blinks. Not much was left of the Auent house. It had been picked clean—probably long before Kari had been born—and whatever was left of the interior was in shambles. “I’m hurrying, Colonel.” She pushed on, over ceiling slates and through doorways.

  “Do you have a plan? Can I help?”

  The words had Kari set her jaw and shake her head. She could have helped by not shattering her heart into a million pieces. She couldn’t tell her that, so Kari chose to ignore Mara’s offer like Mara had ignored her jab. She yanked at the handle of the backdoor to no avail.

  “Shit.” Kari scanned the area around her. It was a garage of sorts; empty, except for some unidentified flotsam in the corners and on the shelves. What was in here didn’t matter; what mattered was that she was trapped.

  “Sergeant McCaine?”

  Kari turned on her heel and sucked in air before she pulled herself into a jog, back toward the hallway that led to the kitchen. Maybe there was a staircase somewhere that she could use. She could jump out of a window if she had to.

  “Sergeant McCaine!”

  Two green lights awaited her in the narrow passage between the loading dock and the store. The lights narrowed into a line, then trailed down her body.

  Whir, tap.

  An ID scan!

  Kari’s heart arrested. Fear threatened to buckle her knees.

  She was dead.

  The K9 unit was one of the older, bulkier units, modeled after an oversized Pitbull but with armor plating and mechanical jaws that could bite through bone. The Auent had built them in the months after the Aurora had crash-landed into the middle of one of their cities, and they’d modeled them after the dogs the humans had brought. Kari considered the K9’s the ultimate cruel taunt—and the most deadly.

  The certainty of her demise inspired a crazy kind of calm in her. Her panic settled, her heartrate stabilized. Dizziness kicked in.

  The K9 opened its jaws and electricity arched between the tips of his fangs: an inbuilt stun gun.

  Whir, tap.

  “REFUGEE 265273, YOU ARE TRESPASSING. STAND BY FOR SENTENCING.”

  A flash of a search light passing by outside trailed along the left side of its head. There was a way to reach that light, wasn’t there?

  She didn’t have time to think. The killing machine that hunted her was in contact with Command now. Any second now, they would give the order to kill. She sent a prayer to any God or Goddess in the universe willing to listen that she was right in concluding there was a way to escape—if she could outsmart a K9.

  Kari flung herself toward the spot where the light must have come from. Steps came into view. She jumped on them and scrambled.

  Clack!

  Jaws snapped shut just behind her heel.

  “REFUGEE 265273, STAND BY FOR SENTENCING.”

  She ran up the steps with every ounce of power left in her legs, blind to the dangers above or underfoot. If the stairs were compromised in any way, she’d fall to her death, most likely, but that was a preferred end to being ripped to shreds by a K9. She’d watched it happen thrice today and the memories spurned her on to greater speed.

  She flung herself to the left, in the direction of where the garage sat, one flight below. Three gloriously blown-out windows awaited her, and she considered skidding to a halt before she threw herself out. It was only a fleeting thought, because razor sharp claws tore into the cement of the staircase just a few feet behind her.

  She jumped and flailed her arms in an instinctive desire to take off and avoid
the inevitable.

  Gravity ended her dream of flight in a ruthless display of prowess. She smashed onto the stone below and agony filled her entire being. Even with her body armor, the impact was shattering. For a second—or maybe much longer—her world went dark.

  Whir, tap above her.

  A small search light passed over her, then settled on her head. “REFUGEE 265273, STAND BY FOR SENTENCING.”

  She fought for breath and control over her limbs. Was anything broken? Was anything smashed beyond repair?

  Whir, tap. Whir, tap. Whir, tap. Whir, tap. The sounds that heralded her grim angel of death became fainter. The K9’s robot brain must have calculated the risks of a first story fall and deemed them too great for the rewards.

  She had bought herself seconds with her pain—seconds she was wasting.

  Up!

  Pain flared through her left leg when she put weight on it. She hissed, which caused her chest to sear with an equal yet entirely different agony.

  “Sergeant McCaine!”

  “S-Stand by.” Where the hell was she? She scanned the skyline for the familiar blinking red light of the docking clamp atop the strut in her quadrant. It should be in front of her, shouldn’t it? She’d been running toward the Wall—or she’d tried to.

  Light as bright as the sun’s glare filled the street behind her. Fear seized her heart again. She risked a glance back through slit eyelids and watched in horror as the metal of the garage door dissolved under the onslaught of a bright magnesium fire. As bright as it was, she knew the glare had already started to die down. It wouldn’t be long before the hole was large enough for the K9 to escape through.

  Kari turned her head away. There was no use in watching any longer. She couldn’t slow the K9 down, she could only speed herself up. That was the theory, anyway. In reality, she had a sprained or broken ankle. Step, drag, step, drag. How very different from the K9.

  “Kari, report!”

  Mara’s use of her first name shook Kari out of her terror enough to hurry. She pulled herself along agonizing step by agonizing step. Her fingers struggled to find perch; either her hand was bloody or her neck was. “I’m hurt but breathing.”

  In her mind, Mara was relieved to hear her voice. That was why there was a pause before she replied. Pretending Mara still cared made everything easier.

  “Good. Are you getting close?”

  “REFUGEE 265273, YOUR SENTENCE IS: TERMINATION. POSSIBILITY TO APPEAL: NONE. SENTENCING WILL COMMENCE IMMEDIATELY.” The K9 stepped through the hole in the grate and jumped the final few feet down to the street.

  Whir, tap. Whir, tap. Whir, tap. Whir, tap—every sequence sounded closer than the last.

  “Stand-by.”

  She needed a plan to buy herself enough time to locate the strut. If she didn’t reach it, climb it, and set off the bomb to destroy the clamp before the Aurora tried to launch, it would be torn apart. Seven hundred and thirty people would die in one big bang—all because of her. She wasn’t going to let that happen.

  Kari ducked into another skeleton of a building and yanked her backpack off her shoulders. The safety clips slipped through her blood-coated fingers. “Come on, come on, come on.”

  Whir, tap. Whir, tap. Whir, tap. Whir, tap. Quicker and quicker.

  She managed to undo one of the clips and wrestled her hand inside. Once her fingers closed around the cylinder, a weight slid off her shoulders. She hurried to get it through the narrow opening and wiped her hands on her pants to get the slick off enough to twist the cap.

  “Come on, come on, come on!”

  Whir, tap. Whir, tap.

  Silence.

  She sucked in a breath and held it. Her fingers trembled as they searched for a perch on the cap, then found it. She glanced behind her in the hope of spotting a way out. There was a door opening, at least. Indirect light from the searchlights threw shadows across bare and cracked walls.

  “REFUGEE 265273, YOU ARE IN VIOLATION. TERMINATION—”

  She yelped, swung her head back, and pressed the button all at the same time.

  Radiant green met her gaze. “—WILL COMMENCE. PREPARE.” It stood in the door opening and stepped on the spot. All joint cylinders whirred. The pistons hissed as it sagged down to steady itself.

  She’d studied these monsters for months, but never this close. Not while she was looking into its supercharged nuzzle. Mechbots were infinitely more terrifying when they were about to tear you to shreds.

  “Fuck you!” She tossed the EMP grenade at it and lingered long enough to watch the K9 take a few steps back to bring the grenade into view again, most likely for analysis.

  She grabbed at her bag, got hold of a strap, and yanked while she stumbled backward. She threw herself and her precious cargo through the door opening just as the grenade went off.

  EMP grenades didn’t bang; their explosions were silent affairs. The pulse traversed through her bones and made her teeth ache.

  She wrapped herself around her backpack in the hopes of protecting her precious cargo. She knew it was hopeless, Electromagnetic Pulse devices blew through circuit boards no matter how much soft tissue was between them and the source.

  The bomb was fried, and she had only one option left to blow this damn docking clamp to hell: manually sparking it.

  Her ankle joint screamed when she put her weight on it, but she persevered. There was no alternative to finishing her mission. She stumbled over the debris, and out of the building on the other side.

  The K9 would be fried. There was no way it had survived a direct EMP blast, but there could always be others. There would be others. The fact that she had been chased by just one so far when the original pack had consisted of three units was a small miracle.

  She hoisted her backpack onto her shoulders while she walked. Once she secured all its straps, she pressed the transmitter button on the back of her neck. “Command, come in.”

  For a few seconds, only static filled her ear. Her stomach dropped. Since EMP was their only weapon against bots, all their hardwired tech had been shielded, but she’d taken a lot of bangs today. What if she’d left an opening for the pulse to seep into the wiring?

  Then, still weaving in and out as it chewed through the scrambler signal, came Mara’s voice. “Kari?” Mara sounded so relieved Kari’s heart ached. Mara was a commander, Kari a mere soldier. Mara lead, Kari followed orders, that’s how it was, especially in the Zone. Mara had thrown that in her face yesterday, and she’d been right. Mara had no right to be relieved now—not when Kari had to tell her she was about to commit suicide.

  “I’m here. I had to use the EMP in order to get the K9 off me. The bomb is fried. I’m going to blow it manually—heading to the strut now.”

  More static.

  “M-Manually?”

  The pain and shock on Mara’s voice was like a balm to Kari’s broken heart. She looked up. This time, the blinking red light of the docking clamp that kept the Aurora tethered was dead ahead of her. “Affirmative, heading toward the target now.”

  She had expected a reaction, but none came. Perhaps that was for the better, there wasn’t much to say to that.

  Kari dragged her aching body along with as much speed as she could muster. It wasn’t a blistering top speed, but it would do.

  Without her mechanical pursuer hounding her, she had some leeway. Not a lot, but enough to take a few deep inhales of air, and to take in as much of her destroyed surroundings as she could.

  It wasn’t pretty. It was nothing like home, but for all the misery they had suffered here, there had been good times too.

  With Mara, for example. Stolen moments, of course. There was no fraternization. At least not as far as upper command went.

  But they hadn’t meant to fraternize, it had just happened. Through all the nights planning raids, through all the nights executing schemes that should have gotten them killed, and through all the nights relishing the fact that they’d gotten away with them.

  They’d bonded in
a way that would never have been approved of, that would never have been accepted. Not because they were both women, but because Mara was six steps up the command ladder from her. After all these years as prisoners, the only thing keeping their civilization from going under was that damn ladder.

  “Kari, come in.”

  The fact that Mara used her first name again was not lost on Kari. “I’m here.” Maybe it was because she was closer to the ship now, but Mara’s voice was a lot clearer; it didn’t drift in and out quite so much.

  “Get ready to run, reinforcements are on their way.”

  Kari frowned. “Reinfor—?”

  “No time to argue, get ready.”

  “Yes Ma’am, I’m ready.” She pulled herself into a wobbly sprint and allowed herself a few seconds to get used to the pain.

  Bright, but silent explosions lit up the Zone in all quadrants. Kari’s heart flew up into her throat. Was that the plan? To start the attack on three pillars, and pray the ancient Aurora had enough thrust to tear the other?

  It wasn’t going to work—it couldn’t work. The Aurora was running on scavenged engine parts and cobbled-together rocket fuel. The odds were high that she would explode upon ignition even if she were free to fly, but with a clamp attached? No, the mission would fail.

  Another bright light turned night into day, but only for a second. Her bones buzzed under the rolling force of energy. Another blast followed a second after, then a third, and even a fourth.

  How had the other teams gotten their hands on so many EMP grenades? Scraping enough material together to build sixteen for the demolition teams she’d been a part of had been a month’s long process. They’d only built four others, to be used in case their captors caught on to the plan and stormed the ship. They were under the control of Command and there was no way Mara would sign off on—

  Her heart arrested, then her heartrate burst into a gallop. She started to run, ankle be damned. She dug her nails into the skin at the base of her skull. “Where are you? Tell me you’re on the ship!”

  Mara was silent. Too silent.

  Again.

  “Mara!” Protocol be damned, chain of command be damned. “Tell me you didn’t. Mara, go back! Go back!” She rounded the corner and her pounding heart dropped into the pit of her belly where acid dissolved it. She would recognize the red armor plates of Mara’s protective gear anywhere, and she only needed a glimpse of Mara’s strong profile and flaming red hair to confirm her identity.