Winter 2, Sector Annum 106 07h31
Gregorian Calendar: December 22
I’m listening to Jeremiah snore quietly as I load up the map again. I didn’t sleep well, so I’ve found myself in need of a distraction. My stomach growls, but I resist the temptation to open another Mealpak. The food will only last so long—I can’t go stuffing my face at every opportunity. I start tracing a path from our current location to the nearest sighted Outsider camp, due west about a hundred kilometers. If we go there, will we find anyone? Will Chan-Yu be with them? Will Remy? I realize that the odds of finding the Outsiders with just a rumor and a few photos to go off of are pretty slim. We’d have to do a lot of flying, checking back and forth, crosshatching over the land. And even then, there’s no guarantee. Our drones haven’t had much luck photographing them, so we know they’re evasive. What’s to say we’ll succeed where the drones haven’t?
It’s a dismal, grey day outside, but it doesn’t look like it’s raining. The light is bright enough to illuminate the interior of the airship, but not much more than that. I wish I’d thought to dim the panels again so we could sleep longer, but now I’m awake. Nothing will change that.
I can’t stop reliving my conversation with my parents last night. I still don’t understand—none of it makes sense. I’m sorry, Vale, she said, but it had to be done. Why? What did Remy and Soren do that made my mother believe they were such a threat and a danger that she had to have them killed?
I check the distance to the Resistance base I pointed out to Miah last night. It’s farther away, at least two hundred kilometers. Only an hour by airship, though. Apprehension sets in as soon as I begin virtually navigating to the abandoned town on the blurry, pixilated map. Who will be there, and what will they do to me?
I turn back to find Jeremiah stirring, stretching his arms and rubbing his eyes.
“Morning,” I call casually. I toss a canister of water at him, which, much to my surprise, he reaches out and catches instinctively. “Nice reactions,” I add.
“Thanks,” he says groggily. He pops the top on the canister and starts drinking as he sits up.
“Sleep well?”
“About as well as I could have in these chairs. I half wish we’d set up the tent outside for a little more space.”
“As if,” I laugh. “We’d have been sleeping on top of each other. I like you, Miah, but not that much.”
“What’s the point of a tent if you can’t sleep in it?” he grumbles.
“Miah,” I say, cutting to the chase, “I think we should go find the Outsiders.” I wait for his inevitable argument, but none comes. I search for his eyes with my own, but he’s stretching, checking the controls on the Sarus, pulling his boots back on over his pants. When it becomes clear he’s not going to respond, I fill the silence. “I think Chan-Yu will have found a way to get back to them. Even if Remy and Soren aren’t with him, we can find out from him whether or not they’re safe and decide what to do from there.”
Jeremiah just nods.
“No argument?” I ask, prodding him. His silence is unnerving. Usually so comic and quick to respond, his dull, quiet manner is peculiar. Maybe he’s just groggy, I tell myself. He swivels slowly in his chair and looks, not at me, but past me.
“I just think you’re postponing the inevitable because you’re afraid.” His eyes finally settle on me.
“Well,” I admit, “I am. I’m terrified. I saw what happened to Remy and Soren, and to be perfectly honest, I’m afraid of being treated the same way my parents treated them. I don’t feel like walking into a death trap.” I take a breath.
“Okay.” He shrugs, conceding. “I get it. I don’t think they’re going to kill you, but you know more about them than I do. If you think that’s a possibility, let’s steer clear. Let’s go find the Outsiders.” A twinge of the classic Jeremiah Sayyid grin crosses his face, and he turns back to the controls. “I bet the horse riders are surprised when we show up in this swank ride.”
“Yeah, they definitely don’t have the same kind of flight capabilities we do. I don’t even know if they have any airships. None have ever been sighted.”
“As usual, you’re taking everything I say too seriously. I meant we should buzz the treetops when we find them.”
“Oh, right, because that’s definitely the easiest way to win their hearts and convince them to let us band together with them,” I say. “Great plan, Miah.”
“Thank you,” he says with a grin.
****
We fly due south across the lake, and Jeremiah and I spend the next few hours flying aimlessly between the sites on the map that look like Outsider camps. The terrain is beautiful but rugged with mountains in the distance and bare rock outcroppings sticking up from the wide expanses of green and brown like fierce, grey sentinels. Most of the area is covered by tall grasses, shrubs, or, at the higher elevations, pine and fir trees, but occasionally we come across blackened open spaces where even the skeletons of trees that have obviously been burned recently—maybe forest fires?—are few and far between. Once we see a spot that looks like it might have been recently occupied, where the shrub has been beaten back slightly and the wild grass trampled underfoot. But there’s nothing else, and no signs indicating where they might have gone.
We’re halfway to the next site when the communication feed goes insane. It starts flashing blue and red, and even when I turn the volume down, the message keeps playing.
“Valerian Orleán, please report, Valerian Orleán, indicate location and status,” the feed says over and over again, crackling with static. There’s no visual, no hologram, just audio. Then the interface starts going crazy, and the ship banks steeply to the right and begins to pick up speed.
“Override the route!” Miah yells. “Somehow they’ve taken over the ship!”
I power down the guidance system, and the ship levels off. I breathe a sigh of relief—at least we’re not flying back towards Sector territory. Only problem is, now we don’t have a route programmed. “Looks like we’ve got to fly this thing the old-fashioned way.” I slide up the control panel and it disappears soundlessly into the nose of the ship, exposing an antique interface complete with dials, switches, and what they used to call “joysticks.” This will allow me to pilot the Sarus manually. Most airships don’t have a system like this because, if you get into trouble, Sector air traffic control just overrides your system and brings you down safely. But Dad taught himself to fly on an old plane he and some friends rebuilt back when they were at the Academy, and he always said that if you’re going to be a pilot, you need to know how to keep your bird aloft and land her safely even when all your systems fail. Trouble is, I never really saw the need, and I’ve only ever used the system on a simulator and only then because Dad insisted.
“We must have missed something in the code,” I say, as I fiddle with levers and dials, trying to remember how the old-fashioned system works.
“Yeah, but what?” he looks over at me, obviously worried. “We went through it line by line.”
“I don’t know, but—” We’re thrown sideways as the Sarus tips to the right again. I grab hold of the joystick and push it left to get us back on track, headed away from the Sector. Nothing happens. I push it harder. Still nothing.
“We’re going to have to power everything down.” Miah growls.
“What do you mean ‘everything’?”
“Everything except internal controls.” He starts scanning the old dials, pushing buttons and flipping switches. “I’m turning off all electrical systems so drones trying to track us can’t pick up any signals. All we’ve got now is our cloaking and your flying skills.”
“Great.” I’m gripping my joystick so hard my knuckles are white, but the Sarus keeps accelerating, keeps heading back east until suddenly I feel her start to respond. Miah must have pushed the right combination of buttons to regain control of the ship. I push the joystick left and her nose lifts and we tilt back and away.
“Valerian Orleán, please report, Valerian Orleán, indicate location and status,” continues to repeat, and I think of Aulion and what waits back home if the Sarus betrays us and flies us straight back to the Sector.
“What the fuck?” Miah yells and grips his seat as the ship banks right again.
“You’re gonna have to get into the electronics,” I say. “Pull the circuit breakers one at a time and find out what the hell is going on.”
Miah drops to the floor and pulls up the hatch, sticking his head down into the tight space that contains the humming boxes for all the ship’s systems. He reaches in and starts sliding the symbols on the touch screen to break the circuits. “Shit!”
“What?”
“How’d we miss this?”
“What? How’d we miss what?” I demand.
“An active beacon transmitter,” he cranes his neck to look up at me.
“But we scanned the ship for transmitters.”
“Apparently we missed it. But that’s not all.” He sticks his head back down in the hole. “You want the good news or the bad news?”
“Good news first.”
“I think we can regain partial control of the ship if we reactivate all but the autopilot systems and fly below the radar. As long as we stay low, they can’t see us even if something goes wrong with our cloaking.”
“Okay. What’s the bad news?”
“The auto-stabilization controls are on the same circuit breaker. As soon as I pull it, we’re going to be flying disabled, and every little move you make with that joystick of yours will be amplified.”
I think back to the simulation and the warnings about pilot-induced oscillation. “You don’t get motion sick, do you?” I ask, remembering the feeling of flying chaotically in the simulation module.
“I hope not,” he croaks out a laugh. “You ready? I’m going to pull it.”
“Ready,” I say and grip the joystick with both hands. I hold my body still, poised and wary of any sudden movement. The ship is still accelerating and heading back toward Sector airspace. I need to turn us back south and get us out of here, but I have to do it gently, delicately.
Miah struggles back into his seat and shows me the transmitter as if it’s a prize. I hold the joystick steady as sweat rolls down my back. Small moves, I think. Small moves. I nudge the joystick left and the ship responds. Okay. I can do this. I nudge it again and we begin to track back north and west. This isn’t so hard. I glance over at Miah and he’s smiling. I reach up with one hand to wipe my forehead and the joystick moves left and forward and this time the ship dives, sending us into a roll and lifting us out of our seats. “Fuck!” I yell and grab for the harness that I’ve never used before. I pull right, trying to ease us out of the roll, but my knee knocks into the joystick and we’re tumbling, and all I can hear is Jeremiah yelling: “Pull back, pull back. We’re going to hit the trees!”
“I see the trees!” I shout as we careen towards them while I try to sort out the controls. I flick my eyes back and forth between the fast-approaching treetops and the joystick, which I grab with both hands, pulling it ever so slightly back to lift the nose. That works—enough to pull us out of the rolling dive and bring us around and level, away from sudden death via impalement by fir tree.
“WATCH OUT!” Miah screams, just as I see the massive cliff face looming ahead of us.
“Okay, okay!” I pull steadily back and to the right, and instead of crashing into the cliff, we arc gracefully along its face like a hawk in the wind. I exhale and scan the distance for anything else I need to avoid.
“Well that was fun,” I say finally.
“Valerian Orleán, please report, Valerian Orleán, indicate location and status.”
“We need to get out of here,” Jeremiah says.
“You think?”
“But we may not have to rely on your expert flying skills anymore—which turned out to be a massive disappointment, by the way—because I might be able to re-activate our guidance system. Now that I’ve taken out the transmitter beacon, we should be able to set the system up again so you don’t have to fly with that damn joystick.” I breathe an enormous sigh of relief.
“What do you need?”
“Well, I have no idea if it will work, and I’m going to have to power up just to find out. If we’re lucky, I’ll just have to drop in some code. They’ll be able to see us for as long as that takes and then we’ll go dark again. You want to fly with that stick or chance it that I can pull this programming trick off?”
“Do your magic, my friend.” He taps away on the control screen and the lights flash back on as I reach up and slide the main interface panel back down. He pulls up a hologram of the ship and zooms in on the areas that are flashing red, indicating disruptions in normal functionality.
I pull up the ship’s wave sensors, trying to see what they’re pinging us with. A list of recent incoming signals with frequencies and wavelengths appears. K-Band microwave – 15 GHz. Standard drone network communication frequency. So there are drones on our tail.
“Valerian Orleán, please report, Valeri—” Jeremiah slams his fist down on the comm feed and, miraculously, it shuts off. We both stare at the glass pane for a moment in astonishment.
“I didn’t know you could do that.”
“Me either,” he responds.
“Look,” I call his attention back to the wave sensors. “Drones. Anywhere from fifty to a hundred kilometers away. That’s how they’re getting a signal through to screw with the interfaces.”
He shakes his head. “We can go dark for long enough to get out of here, but they’re going to find us eventually.”
“There’s no way to block the incoming signals? Even if we fly with the old interface, with that damned joystick?”
“Not since they’ve already homed in on our general location. A military grade Sarus might have more cloaking features on her, but this model wasn’t designed to hide.” He pulls up the shield monitor. “See, there’s radar deflection and visual camouflage but nothing to block sensors operating on other wavelengths.”
My heart sinks. “We have to abandon ship, then.”
“Yes. If they’ve already got a reading on us, we’re dead. They’ll trace us anywhere we go.”
“I guess we’ll get to use that tent after all,” I respond drily. He looks over at me and starts laughing.
“Looking forward to snuggling later?” He reaches over and rubs my cheek with the back of his hand, grinning. I slap his hand away.
“In your dreams, Jeremiah Sayyid.”
“More like nightmares.”
****
Searching for a place to land, we spot crumbling smokestacks in the distance. Drawing nearer, I recognize an old, wasted coal plant from the history books, a remnant of a time when burning fossil fuels was an acceptable thing to do. Decorated with rundown buildings and an overgrown forest, it’s a perfect place to hide the Sarus. Not to mention that if we ever want to find it again, it’ll be easy enough. Jeremiah follows a bend in the river that runs alongside the old plant and brings the ship in for a landing among the ruins. We’re eager to get off, now that we know we’re being tracked. Before we go, I put in a pair of my mission-ready contacts, just in case. We grab our bags, stuff them with our Mealpaks, and head out with barely a backwards, mournful glance at the Sarus. I feel like she betrayed me somehow, and I have no regrets about leaving her behind. We head south, in the same direction we were originally headed. It’s raining here, small light drops bursting with aplomb on our waterproof jackets. The world is brown, rough, and craggy; leafless trees and dull green shrubs litter the horizon. Within minutes, both Jeremiah and I are shivering, and we quickly realize we’re going to have to layer up on clothing to stay warm.
After we’ve taken a few minutes to strip and add more layers of sweaters, gloves, and hats, we continue on. I wonder how far we’ll get, if we’re on a fool’s errand, and if it might just be safer to head towards the Resistance. At least we have a confirmed location on them. The Outsiders are nebulous and invisible. If our drones can’t find them, how will two inexperienced woodsmen? I think back to my training in emergency situations, survival in the wilderness, when we learned the basics of hunting, building fires, tracking and trapping. I hope I won’t have to use those skills; our instructions were rudimentary at best. No one’s ever gotten stuck in the Wilds before—at least, no one who wanted to return.
After about an hour’s worth of walking, we’re both starving, so we decide to take a break to eat and check that we’re headed the right way. We’re halfway through a meal when I suddenly realize I have no idea what time it is.
“Jeremiah,” I blurt, “did you bring a watch?” He pulls up short.
“No, I don’t think I did.” He starts rummaging through a side pocket in his enormous bag. After a few seconds of browsing, he zips the pocket back up. “Nothing.”
“Shit.”
“Not like it really matters out here, does it?”
“No,” I respond, realizing he’s right. “I guess it doesn’t. Just wondering how much more daylight we’ve got.”
“We left the Sarus around eleven. I think we’ve got at least four or five more hours.”
We finish our meals in silence, check the map, and shoulder our packs. The sound of rain hitting the damp, decaying leaves beneath our feet mingles occasionally with bird calls, though those are few and far between. Mostly it’s quiet. Every out-of-place noise sets me on edge as I listen intently for drones, passing airships, or followers on foot. Do the Outsiders know we’re here? Have the drones found us yet? What will happen if—or when—they do?
Sometime in the afternoon, we come across a clearing that has obviously seen recent use. There’s a fire pit with blackened, ashy logs, and Jeremiah points out faded boot prints in the grass and mud. I hold my hand over the ashes, checking the temperature, but it’s cold.
“I wonder who was here?” he asks, poking around in the grass.
“Looks like no more than one or two people. It’s a small site.” An idea flashes in front of me. “I wonder if it was Chan-Yu.”
Jeremiah rolls his eyes dramatically. “The odds of that are astronomical, Vale.”
“Are they? How many other people are running around in the Wilds in small groups? We’re looking for the Outsiders; they’re looking for the Outsiders.”
“Probably a fair few. You’re the one who admitted that we know next to nothing about the Outsiders or anyone else who lives in the Wilds. What’s to say these woods aren’t crawling with people? Or that the reason the Sector has a hard time tracking the Outsiders is that they split up and travel in groups of two or three? You’re letting your hopes of finding Remy and Soren cloud your judgment.”
I have no response to that. Instead, I start examining the footprints, checking out the exterior of the camp. “Zoom,” I say and my contacts zero in on bent blades of grass and crushed leaves as I try to remember what they taught us in our day-long seminar on tracking last year when I first started my military training. Look for any sign of disturbance, they said. A snapped twig or a bent branch can give your quarry away. I stop when I notice a scraggly bush. A few winter berries have been plucked off; I see the stem that’s left where the fruit was plucked. “Identify,” I say, and HUCKLEBERRY – EDIBLE appears by the bush. Someone knows what they’re doing. At least more than I do. I look ahead, out of the clearing and into the forest. I take a few steps forward, bent over, staring at the ground. A few crushed leaves indicate a striking heel. A stick crushed into the ground here. I follow the path, looking up from the ground every few minutes. It seems well-worn; the underbrush is clearer here than along the rest of the forest floor. Every few feet there’s another broken twig or crushed leaf pile, so I’m confident I’m following someone’s—or something’s—tracks. It’s natural and easy to follow. So natural I don’t notice the silence around me, and when I turn around to call Jeremiah, I realize he’s nowhere to be seen.
“Miah?”
No response.
I look around. I didn’t realize how far I’d come. I can’t even see the clearing behind me.
“Jeremiah?” I call again, being careful not to raise my voice. I look around, to either side of me, wondering if he wandered off in some other direction. I squint into the distance.
Suddenly a chill runs up my spine, and I feel a cold cylindrical object pressed to the base of my skull. I freeze.
“Put your hands on top of your head, Valerian.” The voice is low but dangerous, and somehow familiar. How did the Sector catch up to us that quickly? Every muscle in my body is tense, coiled. I raise my hands slowly and place them on my head. Who is that? Someone pulls my hands roughly behind my back and binds them together.
“Do not speak,” the voice says. I know him, I think, but who is it? I decide to follow his advice and keep my mouth shut. Hands shove me forward, and I stumble, walking back towards the clearing where I last saw Jeremiah. “Walk.” I obey, treading gingerly. I keep my eyes peeled, not daring to turn around. I can hear the crunch of dead leaves underfoot behind me, the noises of people who don’t care if they’re being followed or not. They can’t be Outsiders, I think. I know that voice. My heart plummets to my boots as I imagine facing my parents again, this time as a traitor and a fugitive. I stumble back into the clearing and find Jeremiah standing, facing me, his hands similarly bound, and a Bolt similarly aimed at his head. Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.
What does surprise me is that the hand holding the Bolt belongs to Elijah Tawfiq.