Psion Omega (Psion series Book 5) (31 page)

Ten kilometers out
of Saint Marie, he and Natalia lay on the grass wrapped in thick blankets. Li
and Kawai were with them. They passed Li’s binocoscope around to view the moon,
stars, and constellations.

“Where are Sammy
and Jeffie?” Li asked.

“They didn’t feel
like coming,” Brickert answered. “We left them back at the airport tower. I had
to beg Sammy to let us borrow Lemon.”

“They never want to
do anything anymore,” Natalia added.

“Go easy on them,”
Kawai said. “Can you imagine what they’re going through?”

“I can’t,” Brickert
said.

“But why do they
want to be alone all the time?” Natalia wondered.

“I think being
around other people,” Kawai suggested, “reminds them of … what’s coming. I
don’t even want to try to wrap my head around what it’s like, preparing for a
mission you know is going to kill you.”

“It’s not right,”
Natalia said. “Someone else should have to do it. Someone older.”

“Who?” Kawai asked.

Natalia frowned.
“Jeffie’s sixteen. So is Sammy.”

“All we’ve known is
training and now war,” Li said. “This is no way to live. Certainly no way to
die.”

Kawai pulled away
from Li, who had his arm around her shoulders. “Didn’t you listen to Thomas’s
speech? It
is
a way to die. And a way
to live. It’s something noble. It’s—it’s …
something
. People live and die doing nothing, they look back and
wonder what meaning their lives had. If I have a chance to make a difference,
I’ll die for that. When we swore our oaths, I didn’t think hard enough about
the meaning. But it’s been almost three years since. The words have had time to
sink in deep. With Sammy … I think they sunk in right away. He was ready for
this from day one. What else did he have at that time? His mind—he
grasped it. All of it. And he accepted it.”

“And Jeffie?”
Brickert asked Kawai.

“Sammy’s closer to
her than her family has ever been. She doesn’t want to live without him.”

“That’s horrible,”
Li said.

“It’s romantic,”
Natalia countered.

Brickert could see
Li wanted to disagree but chose not to pursue it. Not wanting to dwell on his
best friend’s death, Brickert turned his attention back to the night sky.
Through the binocoscope he saw a tiny flash of orange, perhaps a shooting star.
He tried to zoom in, but it moved too fast. When he finally caught it, he realized
it was no meteor. His fingertips went numb and he dropped the binocoscope.

“You know what
I—” Li started to say until he saw Brickert’s face, ashen white and
frozen.

“A missile. Headed
this way.”

“You’re not
serious,” Kawai said, but Brickert was already running back to the tunnel
entrance as coms were not allowed to be worn outside the safety of the
compound. His friends sprinted after him. Diving down the steps, he reached the
car, ripped the door open, and ordered his com to call the resistance switchboard.

“Incoming missile!”
Brickert ordered. “Code red-three-red-three. Order an immediate evacuation!”

“Who is this?” the
switchboard operator asked.

“DOES IT MATTER?
EVACUATE NOW!”

Even though they
were too far away to hear them, Brickert knew that sirens filled the compound.
Ever since the bio-bomb had struck Wichita, the resistance had practiced
evacuation once or twice every three months.
Is that what the missile is?
Brickert wondered.
A biobomb?

His friends reached
the car seconds after he did. Brickert started Lemon up on the first try and
flipped it around.

“Where are you
going?” Li asked.

“Sammy and Jeffie
are back at the tower. They don’t have a car.”

“Step on it!” Li
urged.

They tore through
the tunnel, heading back toward Saint Marie. “Can’t you go any faster?” Kawai
yelled.

Brickert ignored
them, gritting his teeth as he smashed the accelerator to the floor. The car’s
headlights shined bright in the tunnel, bouncing off the glossy walls. Brickert
kept his eyes trained for the pull-off. About a kilometer away from the tower
where they’d left Sammy and Jeffie, Brickert saw two dark shapes running toward
the car. He jerked at the wheel and braked at the same time, but the force
caused the bumper to clip the wall, and the car flipped over. Brickert swore
just as his head smashed into the windshield and everything went black.

* * * * *

Sammy watched the car flip as though
it happened in a blur. His blasts weren’t much use against such a large mass,
but with Jeffie’s help they managed to stop it from colliding into them. The
car landed on its side and skidded to a stop only a meter away. Using hand
blasts, he and Jeffie righted it again.

Sammy wrenched open
the door. Li was still conscious, but groggy. Brickert looked the worst with
blood covering his face, but Kawai and Natalia were also out cold.

“We’ve got about
two minutes.” Sammy said as he pulled Brickert from the driver’s seat. “Help me
move him!” Jeffie and Li rushed to help, but as soon as Li got out of the car,
he stumbled and fell, his eyes dazed, rolling in their sockets.

Jeffie moved
Brickert into the back while Sammy got Li back to his feet. He was much heavier
than Brickert, but he dragged him to the back of the car. Once everyone was
inside, Sammy tried to start the car, but it wouldn’t come to life. He swore
and slammed a fist into the steering wheel.

“Not now, Lemon.
Please not now.” Sammy tried one more time, but the car still wouldn’t go.

Sammy and Jeffie
knew what that meant. Someone was going to have to get out and push the car
with blasts. A rumbling came from somewhere far away, and the ground trembled
as through an enormous hammer had smashed it. Sammy’s calculation had been off.
Just as Sammy opened his door, Li scrambled out of the car shouting, “Stay in!
Let me do it!”

There was no time
to argue. Sammy closed his door just as Li reached the rear, and felt the car
jolt as Li’s blasts hit it. Jamming the accelerator, Sammy looked in the
rearview mirror to see Li running as hard as he could, a faint wall of
white-blue energy approaching from behind. Sammy started to tap on the brakes,
but Li waved him on. “No! Get out of here!” he screamed. “GO!”

Sammy floored it
again and sped away. In the dimming light, he saw the wall of energy catch up
with Li, who ran only a few more steps after it reached him, and his corpse
fell to the floor of the tunnel. The crackling light continued to gain on the
car even though Sammy drove as fast as Lemon would allow. Eventually the tunnel
ramped upward and he swerved onto the highway headed east. Seconds later, the
blast of the bomb fizzled out.

Sammy was glad
Kawai, Natalia, and Brickert were still out. Jeffie sat in the front passenger
seat, her eyes fixed on the mirror, tears dripping down reddened cheeks.

“That could have
been us,” she said hoarsely. “Should have been us.”

Sammy wiped his
eyes and kept driving. Several minutes passed in silence until Jeffie spoke
again.

“It’s like the
universe saved us. Like we’re fated to do what we plan to do.” Jeffie shivered.
“Am I crazy for saying that?”

“No,” Sammy
whispered. They never spoke about what was coming. Not with each other, not
with anyone. Sammy didn’t want to start now. Fortunately, his com rang.

It was Commander
Byron. Relief washed over him at the knowledge that the commander was still
alive. “Sir,” he said when he answered it.

“Samuel …” the
commander sighed. “Thank goodness. Who else is with you?”

Sammy listed the
names of those with him. “We—we lost Li, sir.” His voice was small and
weak when he confessed it. “He saved us. What about your family?”

“We lost many
people today, Samuel.” The commander’s voice sounded strained, almost to the
point of breaking. “There will be a time for mourning. Do you remember your
instructions for this scenario?”

“Yes sir.” Sammy
knew better than to repeat them over the com line, but procedures were in place
for this type of event. With the eyes of CAG drones, satellites, and search
parties looking for any sign of vehicles fleeing, the group had to act quickly.
Many people would be caught, hopefully none would give up vital information. It
was for reasons like this that Sammy was glad the leadership committee existed,
with so much information kept between relatively few people. “And Vivi?”

“Alive. It was a
miracle, but she is alive. We will get her to you. Along with the equipment.”

“What do I need
to—”

“Let us worry about
those things. You be safe. My father will be in touch soon.”

The line went dead.
Sammy drove onward, eyes on the eastern horizon. Grand Forks was the
destination. A place he’d never visited. A place he had never wanted to go.
Along the way, other resistance members called to confirm Sammy’s safety, most
of them leaders. All of them said the same thing. “Sit tight. Let us get your
equipment to you. Don’t pass on any intel over the com.”

It was a long time
before the sounds of the sirens disappeared. Jeffie crawled into the back of
the car to treat her friends’ wounds. Kawai awoke first, moaning groggily as
Jeffie dabbed her head with clean gauze from the car’s first aid kit.

“Where’s Li?” she
asked.

Jeffie and Sammy
exchanged a nervous glance in the rearview mirror. Kawai pushed Jeffie’s hands
away and turned her head in every direction.

“Where is Li?”

“He died in the
bomb,” Sammy explained. “He saved us.”

Kawai covered her
face with her hand. “Stop the car.”

“Kawai—”

Her stomach lurched
and her hands flew over her mouth.

“Stop the car,
Sammy,” Jeffie said, “she’s going to be sick.”

Sammy pulled the
car to the side of the road, and Kawai made it two steps before vomiting. She
sobbed and retched and sobbed more. Fresh tears rolled down Jeffie’s cheeks as
she listened to the sounds.

Sammy got out of
the car and put an arm around his friend. “It’s going to be okay.”

“No, it’s not!” she
cried. “It’s never going to be okay. It’s never going to end!”

“Kawai, there is a
time for this, but not now. We have to get back in that car and drive or else
Li’s death will mean nothing.”

That got her moving
a little. Sammy encouraged her into the car, and Jeffie hugged her while Sammy
hustled around and jumped back in. They had a long drive ahead of
them—nearly eight hundred kilometers. Sammy hoped he could stay awake
through the night. The paranoia settling into his bones helped. Every few
seconds he checked his mirrors for signs of drones or cruisers following.

Jeffie tried to
stay awake by plaguing Sammy with questions that he couldn’t answer. All he
knew to say was that they had to wait for communication from the rest of the
leadership council—or what was left of it.

Jeffie fell asleep
after about three hours. Sammy didn’t mind. If he ended up needing to switch
places with her, it would help that she had gotten some rest. He thought Kawai
had gone back to sleep too, but then saw the moonlight reflected in her dark
eyes.

“I took him for
granted,” she finally whispered. “I thought—believed that tragedy was for
other people. You … the commander … I don’t know why I saw myself as
untouchable. It hurts.”

“It gets better,”
Sammy answered softly. “At first you experience it again every day the second
you wake up. They die again and again in your heart. But in time the pain is
not so fresh and not so horrible. And then one day you realize you’ve moved on.
That brings its own kind of pain, a guilty kind, but it’s easier to deal with.
And you find people to fill in the holes in your heart.”

Tears fell down
Kawai’s face, and continued to fall for hours.

The rendezvous
point in Grand Forks was a motel called The Bitter Winds. It was owned and
operated by a resistance member named Andrew “Red” Benton, a bear of a man in
every way: huge, hairy, and gruff. When Sammy and his friends entered a little
after 0800, he nodded to them and said, “How many rooms?”

Sammy stopped
paying attention to Red, his eyes were glued to the holo-vision where aerial
footage showed Glasgow with the footer headline in all caps: “
PRESIDENT TO ADDRESS NATION AFTER TERRORIST
COMPOUND DISCOVERED AND DESTROYED
.” And in small letters: “Thomas Byron
among deceased.”

Liars
, Sammy thought. Thomas was alive and well.
Sammy had spoken to him only an hour ago. The footage cut away from Glasgow and
focused on President Newberry somberly walking up to a podium on the steps of
the White House.

“My fellow
Americans, we live in perilous times. Yesterday evening in Los Angeles a
pro-NWG terrorist organization calling themselves only ‘the resistance’ seized
control of the CBN world headquarters in Los Angeles for the purpose of
persuading people to their cause with lies and misinformation. Last night, at
2300 hours, we responded with a statement that terrorists will not soon forget.