“You made the right choice,” he told her.
With his gun, he motioned her to board the ship.
The Repurposers seized her roughly, forcing her up the ramp. Fear flooded through every vein, leaving a bitter taste in her mouth. She remembered the feel of them as they pinned her down in that alley in New Atlantic, their cold hands on her, shoving her down, the whirring of the glistening tool.
One of their suit jackets flapped open, and she could see the gleaming silver handle of his repurposing device tucked in an inside pocket. She tried to glance back at Willoughby, but the hand was too rough on her neck. Had he really betrayed her?
They shoved her up the ramp into the main section of the ship. While the outside of the machine was all metal and utilitarian, the inside looked like a plush PPC office. Posh chairs, a bar, and media consoles lined the room. Gordon lay on the floor, still lashed to the stretcher. Their eyes met, and she saw tears trickling down his cheeks. His leg wound had opened again, seeping a pool of blood onto the floor.
A pilot sat at the far end of the room, operating a vast console. “Take us up,” Willoughby told him.
H124 heard the engines fire up. The floor tilted slightly as the ship lifted off, and the ramp closed, sealing with a clang.
The Repurposers shoved her down into one of the chairs. “Want to do it now?” one asked.
“I don’t see why not,” said the other. “We have some time to kill.”
They looked to Willoughby for confirmation. To her horror, he nodded.
She stood up abruptly, kicking one in the knee, but the other held her fast, shoving her back into the chair. He brought out his tool and fired up the motor. She heard the familiar whirring sound as it came closer to her head. She twisted away her neck, wrenching her hand loose. Then a third Repurposer emerged from a back room. “Looks like you could use a hand,” he hissed.
Gordon thrashed in the stretcher on the floor. “Leave her alone! I’ll kill you!” He started to struggle up, crying in pain. Then he freed himself from the stretcher and flipped onto his stomach.
The third Repurposer clamped down on her hands, and they forced her onto her stomach as well. Now she heard the whine of the bone saw as the tool moved past her ear.
“I’ll kill you!” Gordon shouted from the floor. Her eyes locked on his as he crawled closer, his face a mask of agony.
Then an ear-piercing sound split the air. She felt a racking pain in her eardrums. A Repurposer fell to her side, sprawling on the floor. His eyes bulged out of his head, while blood trickled from his nose and ears. He gasped a final breath, then lay still.
Another blast filled the ship, and another Repurposer crumpled half into the chair, blood flowing from his face. As another whine filled the room, the tool clattered to the floor. The third went down, landing across her body. Willoughby’s foot lashed out, kicking the Repurposer off her.
Disoriented from the blast, she looked up. Willoughby stood over her, lowering his sonic weapon. Gordon reached her and clasped her hand.
“What’s going on?” she heard the pilot shout from across the room. As she struggled to a sitting position, she saw him rise from his seat, a sonic weapon in his hand. Willoughby spun and fired, knocking the man to the floor.
He knelt down next to her and helped her up. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want to shoot them while they were so close to you, but in the end I had no choice.”
“Thank you,” she said, rising on trembling legs, ears ringing. She reached up, feeling blood trickling from her nose.
“They’re pretty exact when you aim straight at someone, but there’s a little spillover if you’re too close.”
She nodded dizzily, wiping the blood away.
“Where’s the information for the Rovers?” he asked her.
“It’s safe.” She helped Gordon roll over onto his back, and again he cried out in pain. “Thank you,” she whispered to him, kneeling beside him.
Gordon looked up at her with leaking eyes. “Thank you for coming. But you shouldn’t have done that. I’m an old man.”
“What does that matter?” she asked him.
He smiled.
The ship started to list, so Willoughby rushed over to the flight controls and steadied it. “I hope you don’t mean you gave it to that Badlander.”
She jumped up. “What?” Hurrying over to Willoughby, she took in the pilot’s heads-up display.
Below them, Rowan ran through the snow. Apparently the cliff trick hadn’t worked, and he’d been forced to run. She didn’t see the helicopter in sight, but she hoped it was still out there to pick him up. A blast erupted from the other airship, blowing a crater in the dirt beside him. He dove to one side, barely escaping. The ship prepared to fire again. He wasn’t going to make it.
Willoughby wheeled the ship toward his location.
The second airship fired on Rowan again, striking a dead tree beside him. It erupted in flames, leveling a whole section of the slope. The snow slid downward, sweeping up Rowan with it. She saw him struggling to stay on top of the snow, his arms and legs flailing and kicking.
He neared a steep escarpment on the mountain, a sheer cliff face. The snow carried him hopelessly toward it.
“We have to help him!” H124 cried just as Rowan went over the edge, sailing out into the open air. He vanished from sight, plummeting downward.
Chapter 29
As the airship hovered over the cliff, she ran to the window, pressing her face against it. Relief flooded through her. The helicopter hovered just below the edge of the escarpment. She could see Rowan clinging to one of the landing skids. He swung his body up, into the cabin of the helicopter.
“He made it!” she shouted.
“The asteroid info is on him?” Willoughby asked.
She
