“I know.” I walked another step closer. “My grandfather filled me in. Only the First Ruler was on board that Squid, and he’s dead.” This made her lose the smile. “The Velibar have rejected your little bargain. And we’ve already dealt with the beings at Refuge, if you were planning on using them as a backup alliance.” That was a bit of a lie, but she didn’t need to know that.
“You can’t begin to fathom what you’ve done. Things were going to be different,” she said. “You think you understand the Primaries and what they’re all about, but you know nothing. Did Octavia tell you about the thousands of people that go missing each week? That each Primary has landfills of these bodies brimming full of workers that were pushed to their limits? Doing experimental trials on them for the purpose of Big Pharma income, or—”
“I’ve heard enough. I don’t care what you’re fighting for. We will make a difference, but not like this,” I told her.
“There is no other choice, Arlo. They’ll return to the way things were, unless we change it.”
“Then that’s the price we’ll have to pay,” I said. My finger was next to the trigger. This woman had too much power and too many followers. She couldn’t be allowed to leave here alive.
“You can’t do it, can you?” she asked, coming toward me. “You’re not a monster like the others.” She reached for me, but I wasn’t her target. Her finger pressed a button on her PersaTab, and air hissed from an overhead vent. One second I saw Eclipse; the next I was blinded by the steam. I wiped at my helmet’s visor and heard the beating of the door behind us. The infected Liberty soldiers had arrived.
Jade nervously glanced around. “Arlo, what do we do?”
“Look!” Eclipse had escaped through a small open hatch. I sped down the rungs and found a hidden access panel was open on the underside of the ship. Eclipse was running over the parking lot, hunting her target.
“Jade, go to Holland and Octavia.”
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m going after her.” I took off, watching as Eclipse hopped into a Pod Sprinter at the edge of the parking lot. An identical machine sat beside its partner, and Eclipse departed with a flash of the thrusters.
The skies were ablaze in battle as Liberty faced Killer and whoever else they’d managed to convince to join the fight. One of the enemy transports choked out, and smoke billowed from the tail end as it descended. It was about to crash!
Eclipse was already a kilometer away in her Sprinter, and I needed to catch her. The incoming ship screamed above me, and the noise was cut in half as I climbed into the empty Pod. Before I could survey the cockpit, I fired her up, rushing from the lot. The Liberty vessel struck the ground directly in front of me, and I raced through the explosion of flames and debris. Pieces of hull battered my Pod, but I burst past, arcing higher into the air.
Another Liberty vessel sped nearby, firing pulses in my direction. I cranked the controls, narrowly avoiding impact. With a shout of joy, I kept going. This was my comfort zone. The Pod model had a basic interior, with none of the bells and whistles I was used to, but the thrusters were responsive, and it flew steadily as I tracked behind Eclipse. Soon we were both outside the Primary City borders, flying over the nearby gulf. The weather was idyllic from this vantage point.
You’d hardly realize a battle for the future of Earth was transpiring a few kilometers away. With the robots reprogrammed and the Liberty fleet almost dealt with, the rogue group had all but lost the day. Now I needed to handle Eclipse before she went into hiding.
She was good with the Pod, and it made me wonder what kind of training she’d pursued. I tried to guess her destination, and when she began to descend toward the ocean, I guessed it. There was an old-world base in the city once known as Athens.
The place was mostly intact, left to the wilds as new cities had been erected instead over the centuries, but one building that was always stocked and maintained was that base. It was run by the Board, and of course Eclipse would know about it.
I dropped low, angling toward the city. I’d managed to gain on her, and she was only a couple hundred meters ahead when she cut to the side. She raced over the Parthenon and continued on, flying close to the ground as she approached the base.
“Varn, Eclipse is coming to the Athens facility,” I told him, using our comm link.
“Roger that. Octavia noticed some explosives lining the base of the Board HQ. They’re evacuating now.”
That was it. The sun was lowering in the horizon, almost blinding me as I activated the viewscreen tint feature. Everything around was overgrown and crumbling stone, but this structure was a black rectangle covering two city blocks.
She was on the ground, sprinting from the Pod. I landed abruptly, and almost fell from the Pod as I opened the door.
“Enough! They know what you’re doing!” I called, but she kept running. I went after her, knowing I’d likely have to shoot the woman.
The ground was uneven, with rocks and tree roots snaking through the grass. I did my best to avoid them, but Eclipse wasn’t as lucky. She went sprawling and landed in a heap.
I slowed and loomed above her as she turned around. “Arlo, do it quickly.”
The roar of a ship’s engines carried over the city, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Capricious sped toward us, and a blast rocked the ground a short distance away. It was a warning shot. Another ship landed behind us, but I couldn’t tear my gaze from my old hauler to check who else was arriving.
“So we’re having a party,” I mumbled.
Eclipse climbed to her feet, and she distanced herself from
