Rising Tide (14 page)

A hand fell on my arm, gripped tight, and yanked me. I brought up the revolver. And had to stop myself from shooting at that last moment. I caught sight of Claudia's face through the smoke. She pulled me to where Tess crouched.

“Can you get this thing working again?” I yelled. Shots were still going off.

“I think so,” Tess said.

“Then do it.”

I turned and fired, trying to give her cover as she climbed into the driver's seat. Claudia fired as well, using a gun she no doubt took from the stash. In the swirling smoke, I saw several dark figures. Muzzle flashes, from shotguns and worse. Automatic rifle fire peppered the area, and we had to duck down.

I was leaning against the Big Black Beast when it roared to life, the vibration shaking through my bones.

“In!” I yelled to Claudia.

She slid open the door and pushed inside, and I was right behind her.

“Drive!” I yelled to Tess.

“Where?”

“We're going to have to break through the door. Quickly!”

She pushed a few buttons, shifted a stick, and then we were moving. It took a moment for the engine to truly kick in, and then we were rushing straight at the door.

“Hold on!” Tess said, through gritted teeth.

I braced myself, trying to stay low, behind the front set of seats.

We hit hard. Despite my attempts to hold myself secure, I crumpled against the front seats, and Claudia crashed into me. Tess jerked in the driver's harness. Shaking my head clear, I saw that the door had buckled but was still in place.

“Again!” I roared.

Tess shifted again, pulling the thing into reverse. Gunfire raked across the back of the vehicle, and I hoped that its armor would hold. At least anyone behind us would have to move for fear of being run over.

Tess tried to give us as much room as possible to move, and we collided with something, some of the boxes or one of the tables. I fell against the back door, feeling the vibrations of the gunfire against it.

“I don't know how many times we can do this,” Tess said.

“Just do it.”

She shifted and pushed forward, trying to gain momentum. This time I wrapped myself into a harness and Claudia did the same. I braced for impact.

It was worse this time, jerking us forward, whip-like. My head felt like a stone on the end of a piece of rope. When my vision cleared, I could see that the door had come loose of the frame on one side, and daylight was peeking through.

“Almost there!” I screamed, trying to ignore the pain in my muscles and bones.

Tess didn't reverse this time. She just gunned the engine, pushing it as far as it would go. The big tires bit against the ground of the warehouse, and the door buckled further. Steam or smoke or both poured out of the front of the Beast, which I now could tell was buckled as well.

Gunfire still peppered us, and in the back I could see the where the bullets had stressed the metal. More bullets, and they could pierce it.

Turns out I didn't have to worry about bullets. One of the men must have gotten his hands on an explosive of some kind because the whole Beast shook as something hit it in the rear and ripped a hole in the back. Flame licked at its edges, and I could smell the fuel.

Whether that little bit of impact helped, or whether Tess's persistence worked, we finally pushed through the door and into sunlight.

I scrambled forward, pulling on my harness, grabbing the wheel and helping Tess to steer, remembering the layout of the cars.

We hit the one right in front of us, sending it spinning away, then another on the side. “Head straight for the
Cherub
!”

I slid to the back of the Beast, looking through the jagged hole there. Flames still licked at its edges, but I could see the warehouse. The men had come out through the ripped-open doors, firing at us. And there, for a moment, I saw him.

Mal.

He was stumbling forward, bloody and blackened. But alive. But just next to three of the men. Our eyes met there across the space. His were pleading. Mine were . . . well, I couldn't see them, could I?

I turned back to Tess and said, “Keep moving!”

The meters passed, and we were halfway to the ship when another explosion ripped into the back. The Beast jumped in the air but came down again, and Tess pushed it forward. I pulled Claudia to me as the flames spread throughout the back, the structure an open, flaming mess. I was pretty sure one of our tires was flat, based on the angle of the floor.

When I turned back, though, we were almost to the
Cherub
. In a last move of genius, Tess swerved, spinning the Beast so that its side would be between us and the warehouse, giving us better cover.

“Out!” I yelled and we pushed out of the near side and ran for the
Cherub
. Behind us there was more gunfire. I moved as quickly as I could to open the ramp.

Turns out I didn't need to. The ramp was open. As I stumbled up it, my head ringing, my bones aching, I saw why. A man, probably one of the same crew, writhed on the ground inside the cargo bay. He'd stepped on one of my traps, a bear trap that I had hidden under some old ballonet skin. The trap had bitten deep into his legs.

I ignored him for the moment as he moaned. I needed to get us up into the air. “Claudia, deal with him! And guide Tess in.” Wouldn't do to have her get her leg bitten off, too.

Claudia did what she did, even managing to dump the man out of the
Cherub
as I warmed up the engines. Then I was taking us up, pushing the engines to full before one of the strangers could fire an explosive at my baby.

As we pulled away from the ground, Claudia came up to me. “What about Malik?” she asked.

I couldn't meet her eyes. “He's probably dead,” I said. Then, as if trying to convince myself. “We can't go back for him. It's not worth the risk.”

I remember her face in that moment, concerned, sympathetic, maybe even a little disappointed. But she nodded in the end.

I pulled away into the sky, pushing thoughts of Mal behind, grateful that we had escaped with our lives. The score was a bust. We had been played. We came away with nothing. But at least we were alive. At the time, that was more important than anything else, any haul, any agreement, anybody. Or at least that's what I kept telling myself.

But it's no wonder Mal hates me.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I
only realize I've fallen into something resembling sleep when I start awake as the door opens. As my eyes search the darkness for a face, I hear Sarah say, “Quick, get up.”

I do and she pulls out a knife. “Turn around,” she says.

I hesitate for a moment, but then I realize that they could have and still could kill me anytime that they want. So I turn around, and she slips a knife into my restraints. She saws at them a bit and then they pull away. I immediately start massaging my wrists where the bindings bit into them. So far I'm buying that she really wants out of this place.

I stand and try to ignore the protests in my body. The wave of lightheadedness that washes through me. “Let's get the fuck out of here.”

Sarah opens the door to make sure the hall is clear then, before I can push my way out the door, she pulls a bundle out of a backpack and tosses it at me.

“What's this?”

“It's a uniform,” she says. “Put it on.”

“Why?”

She sighs. “Because in the clothes you're wearing right now, you stand out. Put that on, and a cap, and you won't raise suspicion right away.”

“Good idea,” I say. The uniform is carefully folded. I quickly strip off my clothes and put on the uniform, handing my clothes to Sarah. She stuffs them into her backpack. The uniform's a little tight in the shoulders and loose around the waist, but it mostly fits. My boots aren't exactly the same as theirs, but they're dark enough that they should pass a quick look. I return to the hallway when I'm done, fitting the cap down on my head.

She grabs me by the shoulders, and for a moment I almost hit her. But I control myself when I see her face. “You have to promise me,” she says. “No killing.”

I frown. “Your friends have guns,” I say. “I don't. I'm not going to promise if it comes down to them or me.”

“Guns, yes. Ammo, no.”

“What?”

She sighs again. “We're low on ammunition.”

“This place? A Navy base? I assumed you'd have ammo coming out of your ears.”

She shakes her head. “A lot of it was taken when the outbreak hit. We've been forced to trade away some of what remained for food and other supplies. There's a small cache left, but it's rarely used. We're all trained in unarmed fighting. Just seeing the number of guns scares a lot of people away.”

I nod. I have to admit that I fell for it, too. It's a risky but smart gamble.

“Captain Danning and Commander Marcus carry loaded weapons, though.”

Of course
, I think.
Can't risk a mutiny.

She's still looking at me. Expectantly. “Okay,” I say. “No killing.” It feels like the truth, but I can't be sure.

“We get Whistler and Chase and then get out of here,” I say. We start moving down the hallway. “Wait,” I say. “Our weapons. They were stored in the guard station. We need to go there, too.”

“Are you crazy?” she hisses. “That's the most heavily guarded part of the base. We can't go back there.”

“I need that revolver,” I say.

She meets my eyes. “No.”

We're standing in the middle of the hallway, and any minute now someone could walk down it and spoil our plan. She doesn't seem like she's going to budge. Not now.
Fine, I'll deal with it later. But I'm not leaving without my father's revolver.

“Okay. Let's go.”

Now that we're out in the light, I can see what Sarah looks like. She's young, less than twenty, I would guess. Brownish skin, short, black hair. Slight. Yet there's something in the way she stands, her posture, her movements. Evidence of some kind of training.

We walk down a few corridors, take a left then a right, then another left. The hallways are empty. I bring that up to Sarah.

“We're spread pretty thin here. There aren't as many of us as there used to be.”

“Were all of you born here?” I ask. “You don't recruit from the outside?”

“We used to,” Sarah says. “When I was a child. But not anymore. Captain Danning stopped trusting anyone who wasn't Navy. She was afraid that letting outsiders in would distract us from our purpose. Pretty much all of us left have Navy in our blood.”

I think about that. Are they really just the descendants of the base personnel? It would make sense—here they had security, safety. So they just . . . stayed.

“And they'll just stay here, guarding the base, until what?”

She sighs. “The captain believes that a call will come. That after all of this time, what's left of the United States government will reestablish itself and take control of the country. There have been rumors for years that they're regaining ground back east.”

“Then why not try to join them there?”

Sarah stops walking for a moment to look at me. Like my question was crazy. “Because this is our charge. This base, and everything it contains. The captain sees it as a sacred duty. If this base were to fall . . . she believes that can never happen. That's why she's interrogating you. She believes you're here for other reasons. She thinks you're after our secrets.” She starts walking again.

“I don't give a Feral's ass about your secrets,” I say.
They can die with them
, I think.
Waiting for a call that will never come.
“You keep saying she believes. What do you believe?”

She's silent for a long moment. “I don't . . . I'm not sure.” She halts me for a second, her palm out. She looks around the next turn. “I used to believe what the captain believes.”

“And now?”

She looks back at me, her face a map of conflicting emotions. “I think that it's a big world out there. And I think I haven't seen any of it. And I think if I stay here, I never will.” She moves on.

“But you said that you left the base a few times. Supply runs?”

“Yes,” she says. “When I made ensign, I was allowed to go on supply runs.”

“Foraging?”

She shakes her head. “Mostly just trading. We have gardens, but we're always a bit low on food.”

She holds up a hand again at the next hallway. This time I poke my head around after she does. A guard stands there. He looks bored. “Let me deal with this,” she whispers.

Sarah turns the corner and walks up to the guard and starts talking to him. The guard looks to her, and I see a tenseness in his posture. His voice raises, and she starts trying to talk over him. One hand reflexively goes to the butt of the gun around his shoulder. It's going bad already.

Without really thinking, I round the corner and shout at the guard to attract his attention, then start running toward him.

His alarm grows and he turns full on to face me, and I hope that Sarah was right about him not having ammunition.

Then she grabs him from behind. One arm goes against his neck, and the other arm grabs the first. The guard's own hands rise to try to grab Sarah's arm, but she holds firm, even when her feet come up off the ground as the taller guard bucks.

Just as I'm reaching them both, the guard goes down, Sarah dropping to the ground with him, keeping her grip secure.

I stare down at her. “That was great,” I say.

“I told you I would deal with this.”

“It didn't look like it was going well.”

Her face screws up. “Hurry up and open the door.”

The guard's keys are clipped to his belt, so I grab them and open the door.

Chase is inside, a bag over her head. I pull it off, then pull her out of the cell. Sarah is already pushing the guard in in her place. He's starting to stir, so I bunch up the dark cloth bag and stuff as much of it as I can into his mouth. His eyes flicker open and look at me in alarm, but then I'm pushing him down and shutting the door, locking it with the keys.