Monster, Enemy, Friend, Fire, Death, Murder, War, Guns, Blood, Sweat, Powers, Love, Hate, Friend, Brother, Rebel, Soldier, Enforcer, Friend, Mother, Father, Sister, Brother, Stranger, Ark, Friend, Normal, Traitor, Coward, Idiot, Savior, Destroyer, Corrosion, Shrapnel, Ace, Blink, Twitch, Friend, Save, Save, Save, Save, Save… Save my brother.

  Evan drained his anxieties with an exhale. Evan cycled through the plan over and over in his head. Any number of things could go wrong, but he refused to let it be because of him. He thought of the other members of Phoenix One and their allies.

  Rowic and Daniel would stay on Ad Astra to provide support and a quick getaway. The rest of the members would split into two groups: the forward team with Cranston, Luna, Jeck, and Nyla, and the infiltration team with Vihn, Blink, Twitch, and Evan.

  Cranston and Luna would draw the focus of any guards to them since they had accurate Federation identification. Jeck and Nyla would go with them since their faces were less know than some of the others. Vihn, Blink, Twitch, and Evan would sneak behind them and find a way into the base without being detected.

  Rowic and Daniel in Ad Astra.

  Cranston, Luna, Jeck, and Nyla in the forward team.

  Vihn, Blink, Twitch, and Evan in the infiltration team.

  There were too many people to keep track of. Too many people who could get hurt.

  While they waited, the twins played a game against each other. One would put out his or her hands both as fists, and the other would guess which one was holding a bullet. Blink guessed wrong every time, and Twitch guessed right every time. Blink cursed as she lost again, and Twitch celebrated to an imaginary audience.

  Around the center projection table was Cranston, Vihn, and Jeck poring over a schematic, while Luna would either redirect their attention to conflicting information or clarify any questions they presented.

  Nyla sat by herself at the other end of the room. Her feet jittered and sweat beaded on her brow. She snapped occasionally, creating tiny pops in the air.

  “Could you stop?” Vihn begged her.

  She blew him a spiteful kiss and snapped with all her fingers in a single expression. POP!

  Rowic’s voice came over the ship’s intercom. “This is your pilot speaking, and I’d like to request for anyone not wanting to be detected by a Fed scan, to please refrain from creating any more energy signatures than we already are. Thank you, no names named, you know who you are.”

  Nyla bit back whatever comment she was about to make in response, perhaps realizing they were right.

  Evan whispered to Blink, “Maybe she shouldn’t have come on the mission. If her powers need to be constantly released and all. Won’t she give us away since we’re trying to be stealthy?”

  Blink answered. “Nyla’s powers take a couple of days to really build up past her control. Besides, if things go bad, a little more firepower couldn’t hurt. I think she’s just anxious.”

  Evan supposed he wouldn’t be the only one nervous about the mission.

  Blink gave Evan a soft, reassuring look. “You still have my music on you?” she asked. Perhaps anxiety lurked in all their minds.

  He handed her an ear pod from his pack. She took it in a gloved hand, the hand that had been burned by her powers. Evan averted his eyes, trying not to show her he was conscious of it. Another notch in his streak of getting people he cared about hurt. Another person to avenge.

  *****

  “Evan,” Blink said his name in that way that lets on to darker news.

  He realized he had fallen asleep. He was thankful he’d found some rest when he had, because what Blink told him stoked his nerves again.

  “We’re not flying to an airfield to hijack a Fed airship, there’s not enough time, and too many risks; we’re going to do it in the air.”

  He realized the only way that would be possible. “You’re going to try and jump into the enemy’s ship midair?”

  She nodded.

  “That’s insane.”

  She feigned a gasp. “What? You don’t believe in me?”

  He felt his cheeks heat up.

  She smiled. “Wanna tag along?”

  “Woosh. First you want to jump out of one plane into another one, and now you want to get me killed too?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He didn’t know what suicidal instinct drove him to say, “Count me in,” but there he had said it. Now, he might regret it.

  The forward team donned enforcer helmets – they had already changed into the rest of their enforcer armor. Evan’s infiltration team had slipped on black jumpsuits and buckled their packs securely. His wrist computer strapped smoothly to his left wrist, and the commlink dug snuggly into his right ear.

  He tried to let the music settle him, and it started to, until he saw another flying craft outside the window, a Federation airship below them. Ad Astra was like a hawk stalking an unsuspecting finch.

  It was time.

  He made sure to leave his brown jacket and Blink’s music behind, but he felt his heart tug as he tried to stowaway Ken and his IDs. He decided to keep them secured within one of his shirt pouches. The IDs were going to see this to the end.

  Vihn gathered everyone in the center of the ship. “Can you hear us, Rowic?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Good.” Vihn looked at the crew around him. “We’ve been able to keep our ship undetected thanks to Rowic, but that won’t matter once we get close enough for someone to stare out a window. There’s an enforcer ship below us. According to its navigation pattern and broadcasts, they’re headed for the same coordinates Luna says is the Monolith base. Rowic’s going to fly us close enough to the ship so Blink can board them with a small group. Once the ship is ours, Rowic and Daniel can take Ad Astra somewhere safe while the rest of us fly the Fed ship to the facility.” Vihn cleared his throat. “Who’s your team, Blink?”

  She pointed at Evan and Twitch.

  “You sure?” asked Vihn.

  Blink and Twitch confirmed, but Vihn had been looking at Evan when he asked.

  “Yes,” Evan answered.

  Rowic called over the speaker, “Our window’s about to be open.”

  “Alright,” Vihn waved his hands. “Luna, do you know how to fly?”

  The soldier cleared her throat. “Yes. The basics.”

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  “Then you’re going with them.”

  Blink looked repulsed. “Why her?”

  Luna sucked her teeth. “Fun,” She remarked. “But yeah, why me?”

  Vihn pressed a button than lowered the back ramp of the airship. Everyone in the room grabbed hold of something to steady themselves.

  “Someone has to fly that thing,” he said.

  “That’s too many,” Evan said, not wanting to see something happen to Blink again.

  “Vihn,” Rowic said again, as the gap between Ad Astra and the Fed ship shrunk.

  “Times running out, this is it. If you’re too weak to do it, fine, we’ll try something else.”

  Blink squashed her glower with a deep breath. “I can do it.”

  Evan stepped between her and the ramp. “You don’t have to do this.”

  Her eyes stabbed his. “I can do it.”

  He faded back. Was he in the wrong? She was far more capable with her powers than he was and had been doing stuff like this before him. He didn’t know why he felt the need to protect her. He needed to protect everyone he cared about. He decided to trust her instead.

  Twitch, and Evan joined hands with Blink, while Luna placed her hand on Blink’s shoulder (Blink rolled her shoulders at this), and the four of them approached the end of the ramp. Jumping out of planes without parachutes had become almost normal for Evan.

  Blink trained her eyes on the Federation airship.

  Please make this work. Evan prayed. He whispered in Blink’s ear. “I’m sorry. You got this, I believe in you.”

  She smiled, still looking at the closing airship. “Thanks, Evan. I believe in me too.”

  She pulled the group back and ran forward – the other three of them stumbling to follow her lead. They leapt off the ramp.

  Radiance flickered around them. Then they were in the ship – collapsing from the roof to a floor of hard metal. The four of them were prone, and Blink writhed with her hand clutched to her chest, steading herself with deep breathes. Evan pushed his aching body up but stopped halfway when he witnessed a dozen stunned Federation soldiers surrounding him and his companions.

  Reality froze, a breath of fear sucked in by the collective mouths of rebel and Federation soldiers, the realization of what needed to be done gripping them. The soldiers, in various states of dress, sat around a table that had been set with coffee and bowls of steaming food. They stared at Evan and his friends.

  Be the first to act. He focused on the few guns he could see – pistol, submachine gun, pistol, shotgun, pistol. Evan swiped the air with his hand. The weapons crumpled in the grips and holsters of those who had them. His head dizzied but he managed control.

  Evan had hit the “fight” play button.

  The soldiers erupted in a frenzy, half of them scattering out of the room, while the other half rushed at the rebels.

  “We’re surrounded!” Evan yelled, hoping Vihn would help. He shuffled to his feet alongside the others.

  Two Feds, one wielding a toothbrush, lunged for Evan.

  He could throw out his hands, he could stop them before they ever touched him, but that’d kill them.

  Bang! Bang!

  The two dropped to the ground. They squirmed but weren’t dead.

  Evan spun around to see that Twitch had drawn two pistols. Had he spared them intentionally?

  The rest of the Feds were on them now. Twitch let off another couple of shots, taking one more down before being grappled by another. Several of the soldiers knocked Blink and Luna to the floor.

  A wounded soldier by Evan had a baton strapped to his thigh. Evan unsheathed it and swung wildly at the Feds. The metal shaft cracked against a head, sending that soldier stumbling back. Crack! Another collapsed.

  Twitch kneed the man in front of him. The enforcer doubled over. Twitch whipped him with his pistols, dropping the enforcer to the floor. The twin flashed Evan a thumbs-up.

  Evan nodded and returned the gesture. He hadn’t anticipated any of the others to adopt his non-lethal approach, though the potential ramifications of leaving enemies alive wasn’t lost on Evan. Still, he appreciated the support.

  The final two soldiers that were holding Luna threw her to the ground and charged at Evan with raised batons. Evan reached out his hands to disable the weapons with his powers, but the soldiers were too fast. The metal rods stung his arm, sending a ripple of pain up his shoulder. Another connected with his stomach. Evan stumbled back against a wall.

  A soldier came at him again. Evan grabbed his wrist mid-swing and diverted the momentum into the wall behind him, pinning his baton.

  Crack!

  Another baton bit the back of Evan’s thigh, buckling him. He focused on the baton he’d pinned. Cold, black metal, sleek, reinforced.

  Crack!

  Evan grabbed the back of his head, stars rippling through his vision. He lost his grip and both enemies wailed on him from either side. He curled into himself and covered his head from the blows. Crack, crack, crack!

  “Help!” Evan cried out.

  Enforcers armed with guns rushed into the room.

  Crap. Evan thought. He rolled into the man on his right and toppled him the ground.

  The ship shuddered with a great impact. The other soldiers tried to maintain their footing, pulling down Blink, Twitch, and Luna in their grasps.

  Evan and the man he had tackled exchanged a baffled look.

  A rupture of fire and metal shook the ship as a door sized chunk of the hull blew open in a frenzy of howling wind that sucked Evan and the soldier toward it. The ship rocked, creating a moment long enough for Evan to slide himself out of the gaping hole. The soldier flailed his arms as his body continued toward the exit. Evan reached out but missed. The man flung into the cloudy sky.

  Ad Astra glided alongside the breached wall.

  “You guys alright?” Rowic asked over the comm.

  “Doing great,” Evan said.

  The soldiers regained their balance and readied to shoot the Evan’s team, who lay bashed and bloodied. Evan thrust out his hands, erasing the guns the enforcers held from existence. They pressed their fingers against the air before fully acknowledging that their weapons had turned to dust.

  Everything spun in Evan’s vision as that abyss of his drawback tugged at him.

  An enforcer thwacked Evan with a baton, sobering him up. Evan deflected a second strike and forced the arm against the ship’s hull. The baton bent inwards and wrapped around the soldier’s hand like a slap bracelet, through Evan’s will. Evan kicked him in the groin, then forced the hand into the wall again, this time infusing the crooked baton with the metal of the ship. The man pulled back, but his hand was now trapped by a makeshift cuff.

  Evan crawled deeper into the ship as the rest of the enforcers charged after him.

  Great vine tendrils ripped through the compromised hull and wrapped around the soldiers like the tentacles of a giant squid. Dread filled their eyes just before they were all yanked out of the ship into the open sky.

  Evan steadied himself to see Vihn standing in the side doorway of Ad Astra, tethered to his ship by vines. His eyes shimmered that murky white.

  “You guys done in there?” Vihn asked.

  The rest of the group made careful progress over to where Evan was.

  “Almost,” he replied.

  Vihn’s smirk was dashed as machine gunfire battered his ship. He dropped back inside and closed the door.

  Ad Astra peeled away, pursued by two slimmer Federation jets.

  Vihn cursed. “We’ll try to shake these. Get to the controls.”

  A voice spoke from the ship’s sound system. “Setting to autopilot.”

  Two more Feds rushed down the hallway, wearing sleeker pilot’s gear and holding handguns.

  Evan braced himself.

  Gunfire crackled, crumpling the two Feds, curtesy of Twitch’s own guns smoking. These, however, lay dead.

  Evan’s heart rocked. It seemed he’d been too optimistic about a successful non-lethal operation.

  Luna ran her hands through her hair, looking out through the hole in the ship’s hull. “Your group just killed everyone.”

  “I’m sorry,” Blink started.

  Luna’s eyes were red. “I didn’t join your side so I could help kill soldiers. I just… wanted to put an end to this all. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “You didn’t kill them,” Evan said. “Vihn did.” He didn’t mention Twitch, even though he’d also killed. Bias? Perhaps. Should morality ignore bias? He didn’t want to say.

  Luna stepped back from them. “What’s the difference? It’s because of me that we’re here anyway. No one would have died if I hadn’t helped you.”

  Blink said, “There’s nothing we can do for them. It’s the Federation that put them here. Their regime is what drives us to fight each other.”

  Twitch holstered his pistols sheepishly.

  “Sometimes you can’t help it. Sometimes it’s us, or them.” She offered Luna a hand, but the enforcer looked past it.

  “Murderers,” someone else said.

  The group turned to the soldier Evan had trapped to the wall. The man, thick jawed with a carefully trimmed head of hair, seethed.

  “You’re monsters, especially you, traitor.” He spit at Luna, some of it flickering outside with the winds.

  Luna hung her head.

  Blink and Twitch looked to each other and continued down the hall.

  Evan stood there uncertain. How was he supposed to fight these battles? He knew how Luna must be feeling, or at least had a sense. His whole life he had to deal with the fact that his powers were dangerous, and now he had the chance to prove his enemies wrong, yet people still died all the same. This mission was falling apart, and they needed Luna to be on their side if they were going to get into the facility and rescue Ken. So, Evan made a vow, a foolish promise.

  “We’ll do the mission on our own. No more Fed deaths,” he said hoarsely.

  The twins doubled back, and Luna gave Evan a scowl.

  “I mean it,” he said. “We don’t need the rest of the group to get to the base. We can pose as the pilots of this ship and pretend we were the only survivors of the attack. We’ll land at the base and get in wearing enforcer armor as disguises.”

  There was a glint of hope in Luna’s eyes, before she said, “That’s the problem. There’s still that guy. How are we going to pretend we’re the soul survivors if he’s around?”

  Blink said, “I can take care of that. I’ll teleport them somewhere that we can leave him tied up. Then, we can scout through the facility unnoticed.”

  Twitch signed hesitantly to her, and she replied with a calming gesture.

  “I can recover fast enough. It’s just the one guy.”

  The plan had to work, it had to convince Luna to help.

  Evan straightened himself out. “No more killing. We’re going to do this our way, and the only way to stop this genocide is if we work together.”

  She nodded. “Let’s try it.”

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