Giffen moves his grip to my upper arm again, pulling me into the cargo bay. It’s automated with supply-bots, but at the far end a handful of Brigadets mill around behind the security glass.
We edge toward the monstrous ellipse-shaped Cargo Goers on the launching pad that are waiting to jettison to the surface of the planet. They all resemble the Bean sculpture from Chicago’s Millennium Park; each one is a massive, chromelike ellipse, weighing several tons. The skins of the vehicles can alter to blend in with the environment, but right now the one we’re heading toward is shiny and new-looking, reflecting everything around it. Supply-bots cruise around the deck, loading them with pallets of medical supplies that need to be transported to the surface of the planet. Giffen pulls me to duck behind a moving bot, skirting between several more so that we avoid detection by the patrolling soldiers near the other end of the hangar. Choosing the Cargo Goer in the center, he drags me over to it. He lifts me up like I weigh nothing and stuffs me into its yawning mouth. Swinging himself up next to me among the crowded pallets and hovering skids, he slumps against a shiny metal crate.
In a matter of a few minutes, the rumbling of the Cargo Goer’s doors shake the floor. A look of smug relief crosses Giffen’s lips as he stares at me. He breathes out a sigh that makes my heart bleed in fear as he relaxes. I send him a fake smile, and then I bolt to my feet and slide to the right, fitting through the closing doors right before they crush me. I fall hard on the grated floor outside the transport. The doors thump close behind me. Getting to my knees, I cringe, looking down at my shredded palms. The engines of the Cargo Goer fire up; the wind from the forced air that propels the craft to hover blows my hair around, whipping me in the face. Scrambling away from the craft, a loud bang sounds behind me.
Looking over my shoulder, the chrome doors fling wide open once more. Giffen’s eyes hunt for me, and the moment they find me, my feet leave the ground. Caught in his telepathic gaze, I fly backward toward him. A supply-bot, in route to another junction, gets between Giffen and me. The crab-shaped metal bot cuts off his connection, causing it to careen toward him as I drop to the ground again. On my hands and knees, I crawl behind a stack of metal crates. The crates shake and fly off the stack one by one. Taking a deep breath, I get to my feet and run full out toward the sliding doors where I’d entered with Giffen. Before I reach them, a metal crate skidding into my path broadsides me. It knocks me sideways, pushing me into a wall. The jolt bashes my ribs, but it stops short of crushing me entirely.
Winded, I cough and gasp for air. Realizing I’m not dead, I glance toward Giffen. He has jumped down from the Cargo Goer and is making his way toward me. My heartbeat pounds painfully in my chest as I wait for him to crush me like he threatened to earlier.
Shouting abruptly draws my attention from Giffen’s furious face. A soldier barks out an order to him, “Cease! Drop to your knees!” Brigadets call from different points around the loading area, swarming in with weapons drawn. Giffen ignores their orders. Instead, he waves his hand, lifting them into the air and throwing them in the opposite direction. A few Brigadets by the door fire on him, but their projectiles get only halfway to Giffen before the shiny metal ammo stops and rains useless onto the floor, making a twinkling sound that sets my teeth on edge.
The next shots that come at him are in the form of electricity from the tricked-out black riflelike frestons. He puts up his hand to ward them off; some of the surging, yellow lightning deflects away from him, but not all of it. Energy slips into him in a singeing stream. He stumbles, clutching his sides for a moment as the sizzling current causes him to stiffen. Gasping for breath, he manages to keep on his feet, but he stumbles as he moves closer to me.
His handsome face is transformed by rage into that of an avenging god. “We would’ve made it!” he grits between his teeth to me. “You’ve just killed us.”
“You were stupid to come after me!” I retort as I wiggle from between the crate and the wall, holding up my bloody hands so no one shoots me.
“You just pulled off our mutually assured destruction!”
“Nothing about the future is assured!” I counter.
He gets to within a few feet of me when he’s hit with another surge of electricity. Bright yellow current infiltrates him, running over his flesh and dropping him to his knees once more.
When he raises his hands in the direction of the soldiers, I interject, “Don’t fight them, Giffen!” Rafe soldiers dot me with their blue laser scopes. I kneel, putting my hands to the back of my head.
“I should’ve killed you,” he pants as he struggles to put his hands behind his head.
“I know the feeling,” I murmur, as soldiers approach us.
CHAPTER 4
BLEEDING OUR COLORS
Our hands are shackled with cuffs and then sprayed with foam. When the foam hardens, a soldier approaches Giffen with a black pillowcase-like bag in his hand, preparing to toss it over Giffen’s head. They want him blind. Giffen’s intelligent eyes stare at the soldier for a long moment. The black bag is torn from the soldier’s grasp and thrown over the soldier’s face. A malicious smile touches Giffen’s lips. “Hit him again!” says one of the soldiers. Giffen is struck with another long jolt of electricity that makes him drop to the ground face-first in an unconscious heap.
“Hold still!” The order comes from behind me. I don’t move. My face is covered with the same type of blackout fabric, rendering me blind.
Pulled to my feet, I’m stuffed into a hover vehicle, pressed between the broad shoulders of the soldiers assigned to guard me. One of them thrusts something hard against my ribs, making my teeth clench in pain. He says near my ear, “Give me a reason to kill you.” I don’t make a sound, pretending not to have heard him.
I breathe in shallow breaths as we begin to move. The bag is soft on my face, pulling against my nose and mouth every time I breathe in too deeply. It’s hot too and it smells like the mouthwash I used this morning. As we move, I’m grateful for the smoothness of the air propelling this vehicle, because every little breath I take now is a stab of pain to my ribs. I have no sense of where we’re going, other than that it feels like we’re moving downward at several points in all the twists and turns that we make.
Finally, the transport comes to a stop. I’m ushered out of the vehicle; a large hand seizes my elbow, and I’m pulled almost off my feet. I try not to make a sound. I’m made to walk at a clipped pace until we reach some sort of checkpoint. A male voice says, “This is her, Rutledge?”
“It is,” replies the one holding me.
“She’s so little! How did she overpower an overup full of Brigadets?” he asks.
“She’s a priestess, Coda. She can probably melt you with her hideous face.”
“I’ve seen her face on the holovision. It’s not hideous.”