Authors: Stephanie Diaz
Rebellion
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For Mom and Dad,
for not kicking me out of the house yet
When I close my eyes, I see the explosion.
Fire consumes the acid generator on the moon, like a sun swallowing it whole. The escape pod that carried the bomb to the generator tower rips into a billion pieces. The burning bits of metal get sucked out into the vacuum of space.
Oliver dies.
The explosion happens over and over, like a CorpoBot broadcast on repeat. Every time, I try to stop it. I bang my fists on the window of the escape pod, begging Oliver to let me take his place.
He refuses to listen. He grabs the flight levers and turns the pod in the direction of the moon’s surface.
I scramble back to the main cockpit and turn the spaceship around as the bomb timer ticks down to zero. I try to save him.
But I am always too late.
* * *
I wake drenched in sweat in the darkness, choking back tears.
It takes me several moments to remember I am not on the spaceship anymore. I’m in a bed in a secret military base, buried deep in the mountains on the Surface. Beechy brought me here to join the others who were part of his undercover rebellion in the Core, after he and I escaped the explosion and returned from the moon without Oliver.
The only light in the room comes from the pale glow of the space heater above the door. It shows me the outline of the bunk bed across from mine, the storage lockers built into the wall, and the safety suits hanging on hooks in case the deadly acid in the world outside seeps into the KIMO facility. In case our safety is compromised.
I’ve woken up in this room almost every morning for the past seven days, but every day I still wake thinking I am somewhere else. On the spaceship with Oliver, in a cold prison cell, in a death simulation in the Core. Lost in one of my nightmares.
It doesn’t help that Logan sleeps in a different room. We were apart all those days I was in the Core, after I was picked for Extraction and had to leave him behind on the Surface. But I never really got used to sleeping without him. I still miss the warmth of his body near mine, the comfort of his strong arms bracing me against the world outside.
As it is, I have to handle the night terrors on my own. I untangle myself from my bedsheets and take in a slow, deep breath through my nose, counting to five, then exhale at the same rate. My muscles are tight, but the tension should ease if I keep breathing like this.
Oliver’s death is not your fault, I remind myself.
Commander Charlie put the bomb on that ship and forced Oliver to guard it. He took down the protective shield surrounding Kiel’s atmosphere, letting the deadly acid seep in, forcing us to fly to the moon to destroy the generator. He didn’t care how many innocent lives were lost that day, so long as he got what he wanted.
Oliver’s death is not your fault.
I try to believe it.
Wiping my watery eyes, I shove away my covers and slide off my top bunk. My bare feet thump as they hit the floor.
The bunk below mine is empty, thank the stars. My roommate, Skylar, caught me thrashing in my sleep during a nightmare I had two days ago. She didn’t say anything about it after I assured her I was all right, but I couldn’t stand the way she looked at me afterwards. Like I was a krail with a broken wing or something.
The other two bunks in our small, cramped sleeping quarters are also empty. The twins who are a few years older than me, Fiona and Paley, are probably busy in the flight port, refueling pods or refurbishing the old jets Beechy and the other rebel leaders found when they discovered the base.
They’d happened upon the compound on a mission to the Surface a little over a year ago. The facility proved useful when two of their friends needed somewhere to hide to escape imprisonment. When the rest of us showed up a week ago, after the Core rebels made their first real strike against Commander Charlie, there was still work to be done to make the base fully operational. The security systems were up and running, but many of the other systems needed repair.
According to the computer logs, the base was out of use for nearly three centuries before the Core rebels made it their headquarters. The last inhabitants were members of KIMO—Kiel’s Intelligence Military Operative—the special military corps that led the war strikes against the humanoids on the distant planet, Marden, when our leaders sought to reclaim the home Kiel’s people originated from. KIMO abandoned the facility, fleeing underground along with the rest of the Surface population, after Marden’s army placed a weapon on our moon powerful enough to pump acid into our sky and poison our cities. But the KIMO members left behind military equipment and nonperishable food in their old base, perhaps meaning to return.
Thus far, we’ve had no sighting of Core ships anywhere nearby. But that doesn’t mean Commander Charlie and the other four Developers—the scientists who rule Kiel—don’t know this place exists. All it means is they haven’t realized we found it, or they’re preoccupied with bigger things. Maybe Charlie is holed up in the Core, uncertain whether his plan to reignite the war with Marden is such a good idea after all. But I don’t believe we could be so lucky. He has probably already begun construction on a new bomb, or a stronger tool that will succeed in launching his Core battleship into space, abandoning the rest of us to die. Likely, he believes those of us who know what he’s doing and oppose him are too disorganized to threaten him any longer.
But he is wrong.
I switch on the ceiling light and grab my clothes from my locker: a crumpled tank top, a jacket, and a pair of old gray army pants.
After I strip off my sweaty nightshirt, I pull on the clothes. I hate this outfit—the gray pants, especially. They remind me of the suit Lieutenant Sam used to wear, when he wasn’t dressed in his uniform to impress Commander Charlie. They remind me of him slamming me into a wall and trapping me with his hands all over me in a Core elevator.
His lips molding against mine, his tongue in my mouth.
I slam my locker shut, shoving down the memory. I will not think of Sam. He is far away, and I won’t let him scare me any longer.
Someone raps twice on my door.
I check the small mirror beside my locker, hoping I don’t look like I’ve been crying. My cheeks are slightly flushed, but there’s nothing I can do about that.
“Come in,” I say.
The door opens, and Logan walks in. The sight of him sends a flood of warmth and relief into my body.
His hair is slick and wet from the showers. His pants hang a bit low on his waist, made for someone who wasn’t starving in a work camp a little over a week ago. He’s been showering every day, but there are still remnants of field grime on his face and under his fingernails.
“Good, you’re awake,” he says with a smile. “You ready? Skylar wants to take us out for a flight drill in a couple minutes. We should hurry and get breakfast.”
For the past few days, my roommate has been training us and a couple other newbies how to fly. Everyone part of the Alliance is supposed to have experience in both ground and flight combat. We’re preparing not only for the possibility of enemy ships finding our headquarters, but also for the attack we plan to launch against the Core as soon as we know what’s happening out there—as soon as the scouts we sent outside the compound return with news.
“Almost ready,” I say, closing the door behind us. I’m glad Skylar’s taking us out for a flight drill. I could use the distraction. “Did you just wake up?”
“No, about an hour ago. Went in the training room for a while. I thought you were going to meet me there.”
“Sorry, I slept later than usual.” I grab my boots from the floor and sit on Skylar’s bunk to pull them on. There’s a dull pounding in my temple, an undercurrent that remains of the panic I woke up with. But Logan’s presence soothes me.
“You missed me hitting all the targets with those old blasters we found in the storage room,” he says, leaning against the bunk post.
“Oh, really?”
He mimes firing a gun in the air. “Hit the bull’s eye, four in twenty.”
I snort. “That’s terrible.”
“True. But I hit the target almost every time, so I’m getting better. I might actually have a chance of hitting an official when we infiltrate the Core.”
An image flashes through my head of Logan in the Core under attack, facing men who’ve been turned into mindless soldiers by their monthly injections. I picture them firing at him again and again until he falls limp with blood spilling from his chest.
A knot of panic twists in my stomach. I can’t lose him; I won’t let that happen. I’ll make sure he isn’t on the front lines when we start the invasion. I’ll make sure he is safe, no matter what.
“You all right?” Logan asks. A crease of concern forms between his eyes. The bluish glow of the wall heater brings out the color in their stormy gray.
“I’m fine,” I say.
I haven’t told him about my recurring nightmares. He doesn’t need to know I’ve been waking up in terror, afraid I haven’t escaped the danger yet. I don’t want him to worry any more than he already does.
I finish knotting the laces of my boots and push off the bed. Logan shifts toward me, reaching for the small of my back. I slide my arms into their familiar hold around his waist, pulling him close until I can feel all of him against me. The hard outline of his hip bones; the warmth of his skin through his shirt.
He is comfort and quiet and everything I need. I’d give anything for the world outside to pause and let us be happy here, instead of dragging us apart again.
“You’re safe here,” Logan says softly. “You know that, right? You’re safe with me.”
I want to believe him. I want him to be right.
But every time I’ve been sure I was out of danger, I was wrong. I thought I’d won freedom when the Developers picked me for Extraction, but they only wanted to control me. They picked me for my intelligence, but they wanted to turn me into a soldier who would kill for them without question. And they would’ve succeeded if I hadn’t been allergic to their serum that turns strong citizens into mindless bots—if I hadn’t found the will to fight.
If I’m lucky, Commander Charlie thinks I died in the explosion. Once he finds out I’m alive, he will want to punish me for how I screwed up his plans. He will make me watch as he destroys everyone I care about—Logan and the rebels in the compound and the thousands of innocents in the work camps—to save his precious, elite followers in the Core.
I don’t know if I can kill him before he succeeds. But I have to try.
“Forget everything else,” Logan says. “You don’t have to worry right now.”
He pulls away a little, moving his hand to caress my cheekbone. His thumb trails in a slow line along the curve of my jaw, drawing close to the tender spot where Charlie slammed a gun into my face a week ago. The scar hurts like vrux every time I accidentally bump it.
Leaning in, Logan brushes his lips against the sore spot. I brace myself to flinch away, but the pain doesn’t come. There’s only a light flutter of nerves in my stomach.
Logan’s hands trail back to my waist, drawing me closer. “I won’t let anyone hurt you again,” he whispers against my skin. “I promise.”
