Silent Flyght – Chapter 24

“Level One?” Ken asks, throwing a look at me.

He’s pulling on his pants as I try to release myself from the tangle of sheets. I swish my legs around and only end up more tangled. He gets his pants and shirt on and pulls out pants and a shirt for me from my closet.

“Whatever it is, it’s bad,” I say, releasing myself and staggering to my feet.

“Here. Get dressed. I’ll figure out what’s going on.”

The room spins with flashing lights and piercing klaxons, and it stirs my stomach into a frenzy.

“Ai, Nanci, silence the alarms!”

The room falls into an ominous quiet, and my ears ring from the absence of noise. I shuck off my pajamas and pull on my clean shirt and pants. Socks seem like too much of a bother, so I stuff my bare feet into my walking shoes.

“Okay, what’s going on?” I call out, running from my room. Grabbing my hair into my fist, I pull it into a quick ponytail.

The rest of the ship is pulsing with warning lights and alarms. Lia stumbles from her room, half awake. From the bridge, I hear Gus and Ken’s loud voices, yelling at each other.

“How did they know we were here, huh? Jinzo has taken steps to keep us off the usual radars.”

I sprint into the bridge. Ken and Gus are in each other’s faces. Jinzo is at my spot, and Skylar is swinging the Amagi around. Out the front window, I catch sight of an enormous ship bearing down on us. It slides out of view as we turn.

Is that a military ship?

“I… I didn’t tell them!” Gus’s voice is raised. “We had dinner with my brothers, and that was it. I’ve seen no one else since Ossun. It wasn’t me.”

“What’s going on?” I hold up my hands to stop the two from yelling at each other even more.

Skylar huffs a few hurried breaths and swings the ship back. “We came out of the jump ring, and I have no idea where we are. Except there’s a military ship right on top of us —”

“Amagi Cruiser, this is Commander Montgomery of the BSMC Millennium. Stand down and prepare to be boarded.”

I jump back from the command console as the harsh voice echoes through the bridge.

“What the fuck is going on?”

I feel like I’m stuck in that dream I was having right before waking up. What was I doing? Running. That’s all I remember.

“Run.” I jolt forward and grasp Skylar’s chair. “Put some distance between us.”

She grits her teeth. “I’ve got her making the turn, but our compensators won’t hold out for a full-on burn. Everyone would need to strap in.”

“We just need an extra five or ten minutes.”

I push Jinzo out of the way at my station and answer the blinking call.

“This is Captain Vivian Kawabata of the Amagi. What is going on here?”

The man who pops onto the screen in front of me looks like he’s been through three wars. His face is pockmarked but clean-shaven, and his left eye droops from a paralyzed cheek. They always put the formidable ones public-facing. What was it that Gabriel Almas said about the military? That they spent every day tamping down mutinies? I swallow my apprehension. I don’t want to be anywhere near these people.

“This is Commander Montgomery. We have reason to believe you are harboring a fugitive. In accordance with the Duo Systems Military Laws, you are required to stand down and prepare to be boarded and searched. If we find you in violation of Military Law, we will commandeer your ship. Now, shut down your engines and await the arrival of my team.”

The screen blinks out.

“Fuck.” I can barely move. “They know about Tomu. And even if we hide him, they’ll still find him.”

“We don’t have any place to hide him,” Skylar says, gunning the engines. “This is a pleasure cruiser, not a smuggling ship.” She adjusts something and grips her console even harder. “I’ve put enough distance between us to give us an extra ten minutes, tops. But I have to kill the engines now, or they’ll shoot.”

I turn to everyone else on the bridge. “Options, let’s hear them.”

Gus, Jinzo, and Ken stare at me like I have two heads.

I raise my voice. “I’m burned out on making decisions! What should we do?”

“There’s only one thing to do,” Jinzo says, his voice quiet. “And you know it.”

I have no other options now. For days, I’ve debated about what to do with Tomu, but the military has made my decision for me. They want him, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Jinzo and Ken keep their eyes on me, but Gus’s are turned to the window.

“How did they find out?” I ask.

Gus turns his eyes to me. “I didn’t tell them.”

“My father found out somehow,” I point out.

“I think it was someone in Mayashu who spotted Tomu during the transfer from the Amagi to the shuttle,” Jinzo says. “Remember how unruly he was? Anyone could have seen him if they had been watching us.” He pointedly looks at Ken, trying to convince Ken it wasn’t Gus’s fault.

“We’re not flying under an alias or anything,” Skylar says, continuing to shut down systems. “If they knew where Tomu was, it was easy to corner us. They set us up so we’d come out of a military jump ring on the other side.”

“I didn’t know that was possible.” I glance out the window again, and the view is nothing but stars. That’s not good. Usually, the jump ring lands us outside the long-range orbit of a planet. “Where are we? Nanci, can you help?”

“I’ve been computing our location based on star charts and nearby beacons. We appear to be about a two-day journey from Palo Alto. Skylar is correct. We came through a military jump ring six-point-three minutes ago. Captain, we have been hailed again. Text only. Prepare to be boarded in twenty minutes.”

“Okay,” I say, holding up my hands. “This is what we do. We get Tomu, and we offer him up right away. Right at the airlock. Ken and Jin, you head to my room. I harvested the plants recently, and they’re in my private fridge there. Then go barricade everyone in the auxiliary cargo bay.”

Jinzo’s eyes widen. “What do you want us to do with the plants?”

“I want us to be prepared. We can let them take Tomu, but we cannot let them take the ship. If they come in any farther than the airlock, we’re fucked. Everyone will take a plant and use that plant’s ability to fight for the ship. Do I make myself clear?”

I make eye contact with everyone, including Skylar. This is it. This is our chance to use the plants to our advantage. No more guessing or experimenting. Everyone gets involved, and we see what the plants can really do.

“We need to convince them to take Tomu and not take the ship,” I repeat. “Understood?”

Everyone nods.

Okay, this won’t be too bad. I’m sure that with Gus’s mother’s military connection and pleading innocence, we’ll be fine.

I go over the new story in my head. We had just found Tomu right before we left Ossun. It was our intention to hand him over to the authorities once we reached Palo Alto, but we got sidetracked by business on Sonoma.

Yes, officer, we had always planned on handing him over. No, we weren’t skirting the law. We just got a little lost along the way. Sorry. I’ve never had to hand over a fugitive before!

I’ll bat my eyelashes and play dumb. As long as they get Tomu, they’ll leave us alone.

Fuck. This wasn’t supposed to happen! Now I won’t be able to convince Athens Industries to leave me alone. They’ll most likely see this as an affront to their plans, like I’m thumbing my nose at them. They’ll go after my farm just to spite me. Handing Tomu over to Athens was my only way out of the mess that Tomu got me into in the first place.

And it’s not like I’ll be able to hide this from Athens. I have a giant, fucking military ship descending on me. It won’t take much time for the news of this to hit the gossip channels. Everyone will find out the truth sooner or later — that I held my own brother captive.

I fly through the ship, running for each of the stairs like my life depends on it, which it does. My dreams told me to run. Run, Vivian. Time is not on my side.

My legs and body ache, but I push my discomforts to the back of my head. I need to work fast.

Gus follows me, right on my heels. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to follow through on my plan and get Tomu.”

“I’m…” Gus grabs my arm and pulls me to a stop right outside Tomu’s door. “I’m conflicted about this. If the military takes him, he’ll sell us out. We’re all going to prison if they get him.”

“There’s no choice anymore, Gus. This is it. Finally, all of my choices have been taken away from me. There is only this and nothing more.”

He hesitates, and I try to read his intentions behind his dark eyes.

“What if…?” He starts but stops. “Never mind. You’re right. We can’t hide him. We don’t have enough time.”

I grasp both of his upper arms. “When the time comes, I need you to use any influence you may have to keep us out of jail.”

“Oh, Vivi.” He deflates. “I don’t have any influence. You saw my mom at the wedding? She’s been cold and distant. She didn’t even show up for the contract signing!”

“Still, try.”

I authorize myself at Tomu’s door and wait for the locks to click open. When the door slides aside, I don’t believe my eyes.

“Oh, fuck.”

Tomu’s gone.

His handcuffs lay on the floor, and the room is empty. I cautiously enter and kneel down beside the bed, where I find a destroyed slipper. I pick it up and see that the side of it has been torn open to reveal a channel along the outer rim. The other slipper is right next to it. I press my fingers into the channel space and groan. Well, there had been a metal or plastic piece that helped the slipper keep its shape. He tore it out and used it to pick his locks.

“Gus, where —?”

The closet door bursts open, and Tomu rushes out in a fury of arms and fists.

He lunges for Gus first. Gus jerks back as Tomu throws a right hook at Gus’s jaw and misses.

I don’t have time to warn Gus that Tomu took mixed martial arts all the way through his youth. The only reason we caught him in the first place was because he was so sick he couldn’t fight. He had wasted away to where he couldn’t stand upright. Now, he’s back in better health because we fed him, and Gus attended to his medical needs.

Ugh, why did we do that?

I jump onto the bed. Tomu’s left fist connects with Gus’s head, whipping Gus back into the wall. He staggers and blinks his eyes, dazed.

I launch from the bed and land on Tomu’s back. He bucks once, twice, trying to dislodge me, but I wrap my legs around him tight.

“Get off!” Tomu grabs my left arm and sinks his teeth into my flesh. The pain is blinding, and I scream. He spins around and throws me into the closet. The door breaks, cracking loud enough for it to reverberate through my chest.

I fall to the floor in a heap, groaning and wishing for death.

Just kill me now. I raise my arm, and a bloody bite mark is blooming below my elbow.

Gus comes after Tomu, but Tomu whips around with a kick to Gus’s chest that lands him on the floor. Tomu’s leg cranks up, and he slams it down like a sledgehammer on Gus’s arm. I gasp at the sickening crack and Gus’s scream of agony. My stomach turns over.

“Fuck you both!” he yells at us. “I’m not going to a military prison!”

I look up just in time to see Tomu’s determined expression, his heaving chest, and his bared teeth. He stalks up to me, brings up his fist, and slams it down into my temple.

I slump into darkness.