The Covert Academy (12 page)

Joshua looked lost.

‘Suffice to say,’ Dr. Prewett continued, ‘to access and analyse the bio-ID’s data... I need the man who created the interface.’

Joshua shrugged, giving up. ‘Well who is that?’

The doctor swivelled a computer monitor around so Joshua could see. It was an image of a flustered looking scientist with grey hair and deep wrinkles marking his face. The title under the picture said, “Dr. P. Brock”.

‘Find h
im, and I can access the bio-ID,’ said Dr. Prewett.

Hours later, Joshua had a plan set firmly in mind as he trotted through the Academy’s student housing district. It wouldn’t be long until the reflector panels in the rock formations above his head allowed the morning sun in. Joshua constantly had the feeling that something would fall on his head out here, but no one ever wore a hard hat. It made him restless.

He turned a corner between two buildings and ran headlong into
Ryan, who was crouched behind a dumpster.

Reminds me of myself from not long ago
, thought Joshua. Maybe he had got the wrong impression of Ryan after all.

A gang of teenage groupies swarmed past, calling out
Ryan’s name, shattering any similarities between them Joshua had imagined. He would have loved the attention of all those young ladies. He decided it was best to avoid the subject, since Ryan had gone white as a ghost.

‘Hey dude, thanks for having my back out there this morning... Are you
okay?’

Ryan
emerged from the dumpster, brushing himself off. ‘Sure thing mate, you’re one of us now right? Whenever you’re ready to go after those Confederate drongos, you let me know yeah?’

They parted, and
Ryan walked back out in to the street, checking left and right before heading away from the screaming girls.

Taking off at a jog through the Academy alleys, Joshua finally found the building he was looking for. The fire escape was too tempting, so he leaped and hauled himself up to it.

Old habits die hard
, he thought.

On the top floor he reached Sarah’s window and paused for a minute to look in. Then he realised how creepy that would be if he was caught, and tapped on the glass. Sarah opened the window to look out, half dressed.

Joshua crouched so he was level with her face, but also to hide his sudden embarrassment. Sarah probably noticed anyway. She must have been used to men acting weirdly around her.

‘Can I come in?’ Joshua asked, trying to be casual. He wasn’t actually here for a social call
anyway; he just couldn’t help his imagination get the better of him while Sarah stood there in her underwear.

‘Do you have any idea what time it is? I haven’t slept in 24 hours,’ she sighed. ‘Well give me a minute, weirdo,’ she pulled her head back inside and went to make herself decent.

Joshua waited, impatiently hopping from one foot to the other until she called out that he could enter.

‘So? What do you want?’ she demanded, arms folded under her chest. Joshua took a moment to appreciate the sight of her in the familiar jumpsuit.

‘I, um, uh...’ His voice locked up, and broke in the way young men’s voices do. Sarah moved closer to him, making him feel worse. He could smell her freshly washed hair. It was intoxicating. He took a sharp breath. ‘I... I’m leaving.’

Sarah narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Leaving? Where? You can’t just abandon your studies here. It takes years to become-’

‘What?’ Joshua cut in. ‘A spy? A ninja? An assassin? What are you? What would you do if the Confederacy didn’t run things out there?’ Sarah was taken aback; she had never even considered that possibility. The only world she had ever known was the one under the Confederacy’s control. Joshua didn’t notice her falter, and continued. ‘Look, never mind. I just want my sister back, I’m no puppet of this clan or the other.’

‘No you’re no puppet,’ Sarah agreed, ‘
but you’re more puppet-master than you realise. Hundreds of the others here would already follow you if you just pulled their strings. They know a talent for trouble when they see it.’ She smiled, and Joshua almost faltered.

‘I’m trying to pull
your string now,’ he said. ‘Once I have the information from the bio-ID, I might learn where my sister was taken...’ He stumbled on his next words, but the admission burst out before he could help it. ‘I need to steal a ship. I need your help.’

Sarah nodded, and strapped on her short sword. ‘I can’t fly one of those things, but I
’ll bet I can persuade the guy who can.’

His last stop was the aircraft hangar, where Richard would surely be bunking in his ship. Joshua envied him in a way, his only care in the world just to keep flying.

Still, he mused, each trip in the Nyctalopia was over in a flash, no matter the destination. There was no time to appreciate the journey. It must be hard on Richard. No time-

‘So what is this grand plan of yours?’ Sarah interrupted his daydream.

They were jogging to the East side of the Academy complex where the hangar lay, through the faculty buildings. Joshua hoped Casey couldn’t see where they were going. He would chew him out for an unauthorised departure at the very least. More likely he’d just say Joshua wasn’t ready for a real mission. He wondered what the person that Casey had spoken to under his breath during his lecture tried to convince him to do
, before he revealed the bio-ID. He put that train of thought aside for now.

‘The doc said he needs a man called Brock to access the bio-ID
’s data. We are going to get him.’

‘You know where he is?’ Sarah sounded doubtful.

‘Yeah. He’s in the Colonnade.’

Sarah stopped asking questions after that. She probably thought Joshua was out of his mind.

They reached the hangar and quickly found “
Nicky
”. She was one of only three of the orbital ships the Academy kept running. The other two had mechanics swarming all over them, even at this hour. They had seen some action in Europe, after running into a swarm of drones last week while investigating a possible Confederate leader sighting. It might be weeks before they were refitted for flight in sub-orbit. With only one active ship, the Academy would be hard pressed to chase after Joshua. Assuming he could convince Richard to help.

They passed under a catwalk the mechanics could use to quickly reach the top of the ships, and found Richard under
Nicky
’s port wing. He was adjusting a heat panel with the exact precision of an expert, when he saw them and immediately perked up.

‘Rig
ht lads, where are we off to?’ he said, putting away his tools.

Joshua glanced at Sarah. ‘Got him on our side easier than I expected.’

Dr. Prewett appeared at the foot of the ship’s boarding ramp. He stumbled forward a few steps as if shoved from behind, letting out a small whimper. Ryan appeared out of the shadows, a strange looking Stunner rifle trained on the doctor.

‘But I won’t be,’ he said, and shifted his aim over to Joshua.

He fired.

Sarah leaped at
Ryan, but she was tired, and her reactions were slow. She collided with the beam of energy that arced towards Joshua, and collapsed in a heap. Ryan’s gun fired a second shot almost instantly, singeing the ground at Joshua’s feet.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Richard stood rooted to the
spot; unable to believe Ryan was capable of such an act.

Sarah had her full jumpsuit on, but the Stunner had cut her down like butter. The weapon looked different, not simply a re-tuned one for their exercises on the island. Sarah let out an intense groan of pain. Joshua thought fast. Normal Stunners merely locked up the target’s muscles, it was supposed to feel relatively pain-free, like a particularly bad shock of static electricity.

This was something new. Something not used by the Academy. In fact he hadn’t seen the Confederacy use anything like this either-

Ryan
fired again. His gun spat out another double burst.

Joshua dived low, into the shadow of the catwalk behind them. Once concealed, he sprang back up and clung to the underside of the walkway, the sudden change in direction an attempt to confuse
and distract.

Richard considered drawing his pistol, but
Ryan was swinging his aim over him. He opted to antagonise Ryan instead.

‘Come off it mate, you’re no match for Joshua,’ he said.
Ryan flicked his weapon towards him in warning. Before Richard could draw his six-shooter, Ryan reached an arm to Richard’s waist and disarmed him. Then he stomped off, Dr. Prewett in tow, searching for Joshua with the strange Stunner and Richard’s revolver.

‘M
ove a muscle and you’re dead,’ Ryan growled.

Joshua scuttled along the catwalk, putting some distance between himself and the last place
Ryan had seen him.

He wants Richard to fly him out of here
, Joshua thought. That’s why he’s not dead yet. But why kidnap the doctor? He tried to push aside the thought of what would have happened to Sarah if she hadn’t been wearing her suit.

He considered crawling all the way to the other end of the
hangar; the mechanics on the far side would help. Ryan must have thought of the same thing. He aimed his gun up and shot at the rocks above the mechanics. Hundreds of tonnes of rock poured down onto them as they scrambled out of the way. Joshua saw a couple of them catch a few furniture-sized chunks with their skulls. At least it was over quick.

One gigantic rock landed on the catwalk, far away from Joshua. The impact sent the catwalk collapsing to the floor, his hiding place crashing down with it. At the last second he remembered the anti-gravity of his jumpsuit and switched it on with a swipe of his finger. He landed with a quiet thud on the ground away from the catwalk and rolled under the Nyctalopia moments before
Ryan stormed around the corner.

Joshua waited, watching
Ryan’s feet pace back and forth. It was only a matter of time before he thought to look under the ship; it was too obvious a hiding spot. When Ryan turned his back a second time, Joshua rolled out. He still had the anti-gravity activated on his suit, so without a moment to lose he put all his newly built strength into jumping straight up to the top of the ship’s hull. He seemed to float for a moment at the top of his leap, but he safely touched down as soft as a feather on all fours.

Ryan
kept his gun trained on Richard as he snapped his head around, searching for any sign of Joshua. He flicked a hand at the ship.

‘Get on board and get her ready to move,’ he said. Richard just stood there, arms held up.
Ryan walked over and hit him in the gut with the butt of his rifle. ‘I said get moving!’

He smacked Richard over the head, nearly knocking him unconscious. Richard finally complied, and staggered up the boarding ramp.
Ryan pushed the doctor up too.

‘Don’t fret doc, you’re going right back where I found you. You’re more valuable than I gave you credit for,’ he said with a smirk.

Joshua crawled on his belly to the edge of the ship’s roof. Sarah still lay in a heap a few metres from Ryan.

‘Don’t even think about following me!’
Ryan called out. ‘One shot to the head will finish her off.’  He fired his weapon on the ground in a pattern around Sarah’s exposed face, making a point of how easy it would be. Joshua gritted his teeth. He couldn’t reach her.

Ryan
punched a fist into the boarding ramp’s control switch and the ramp closed up after him.

The floor around the Nyctalopia shuddered. The take off sequence had begun. Joshua’s mind raced as he lay on top of the ship. The launch sequence couldn’t be activated from the ship itself, which meant Ryan had an accomplice over in air traffic control.

How many people in this place could he really trust? It was a terrifying thought.

The walls around him began to drop away as the platform the ship rested on surged upward. Joshua jumped down off the ship and ran over to Sarah. At this range she’d be sucked into the jets the ship used for take off. Joshua picked her up, and frantically searched for somewhere to keep her safe. The vertical tunnel to the island surface the ships used had no connecting passages anywhere. As soon as they reached the top, Ryan was sure to have Richard take off immediately. Too risky to run for it on the surface.

Joshua looked down at Sarah in his arms. She was still breathing, just barely. He shifted her weight, freeing his arm to take hold of her hand. He bent her middle finger down to her palm then slid it upwards, activating her suit’s micro hooks for surface adhesion.

The platform reached the surface and they burst out into daylight on the tropical island. The light was blinding and the ship’s jets were deafening.
Joshua dashed for the ship and heaved Sarah up on to the hull. Her suit stuck her body on the side like a magnet. The Nyctalopia left the ground, tearing away Joshua’s hold on Sarah. But then it stopped and hovered for several seconds a few metres above the ground.