I don’t know how I can face them.
“Don’t go all wild-eyed on me, flyboy,” Wen says, popping to her feet with the assistance of her umbrella. “Gonna need you to appear calm, cool, and collected. You, too, prettyboy.” She cuffs Gal on the shoulder, and his eyes narrow at her.
I bite back a snort.
As the monorail’s speed fades, we make our way to the sliding doors, swinging from handhold to handhold until the train comes to rest. I peer out the narrow window by the door, fidgeting with the straps on my bag. We’ve arrived at the base’s support town, a strip of small businesses flanked by suburbs that house the personnel not cleared for lodging on base proper. In the gaps between buildings, I spy the fence that marks Henrietta Base’s perimeter.
The sight of the town ratchets my anxiety up another tick. It’s so developed, so large. Wen knows nothing about the resistance’s actual numbers, but from the size of its support, it’s already far more established than I anticipated. I thought there would be a ragtag army, pop-up tents, stolen shuttles.
Gal peers over my shoulder and says exactly what I’m thinking. “It looks like the academy.”
Wen leads the way off the train, through the station, and onto streets that are prickling with familiarity, lined with supply shops, groceries, and even a little cantina with its shutters down. She keeps her hood drawn, which isn’t helping my nerves. Why would she still hide her face? There’s no way Dago Korsa’s presence extends to a small town a hundred miles from Isla. But something has her on edge. Or she’s planning something.
Either way, I don’t like it. We’re drawing attention with all our attempts at not drawing attention. Gal and I are haggard and stubbly, dressed in day-old clothes, and Wen’s ragged pants and hooded face aren’t doing us any favors. None of us look like we fit in here, and as a passing man dressed in fatigues tracks me with a suspicious eye, my spine gets stiffer. “Wen?” I growl through my teeth.
She drops back, slotting herself between me and Gal. “Problem?”
“Several. How exactly do you plan to get us on the base?”
“The same way everyone gets on the base,” she mutters, leaning up so I can catch the words. “We go in a shuttle.”
Wen tips one finger toward our destination, a distant lot where rows of simple transporters are parked end-to-end—Corinthian in manufacture, judging by their iron trimmings. The ships are dusty and roughened from use, but they’re well made. Intimidatingly so. The resistance has resources. The support of the Corinthian emprex themselves. And if this is what they use for jaunts into town, I’m not sure I’m ready to face what they keep on the base.
Gal catches my eye over the top of Wen’s head. His eyebrows lift, his eyes bugging out as if to say, Seriously?
I agree. “Wen, are you saying they’ll let us hitch a ride on one of the shuttles when it goes back to the base?”
In the shadow of her hood, I catch the flash of teeth. I know exactly what it means.
“You’re kidding.”
“Give me a better plan, flyboy. The soldiers in town can’t transport anyone without ID. Base policy.”
“Hold on, are you saying you’ve tried to join up with the resistance already?”
Wen shrugs.
“And I’m guessing this was after the whole…” I motion vaguely at the left side of her face.
“Who better to shelter me from Dago Korsa than an army, right? Except, turns out this army needs a goddamn ID card just like any other potentially useful thing in this empire. But with you two in hand, if we can get onto the base…”
“Tell me we’re doing something else,” Gal groans.
Wen’s face lights up when I shake my head. “Sorry, Gal,” I say, eyes fixed on a shuttle that looks like it will handle like a god-given dream. I let my hunger devour my nervousness. Let myself dip into the mentality that makes Wen a living nightmare. “We’re jacking a ship.”
* * *
—
Five minutes later, Gal and I are in a full-blown argument on the edge of the shipyard. “It’s reckless,” he says. “Irresponsible. We’re better than this, Ettian.”
I cast a nervous glance at the sole pilot on the lot. He sits on the folded-out steps of his shuttle, a joint dangling from his fingers, and his eyes are fixed intently on us. “Keep it down,” I warn. “We’re drawing attention.”
“I could punch you in the face right now—how’s that for drawing attention?” he spits through his teeth.
“You like my face too much to do that.”
Gal lets out a bark of laughter, still pacing back and forth. “You asshole. I thought you were on my side.”
“First of all, I can’t be on your side for everything. Just because we’re best friends doesn’t mean we’re the same person. I think this is our best option. You disagree.”
“And you should listen to me,” Gal snarls, turning on me with so much fervor that I take a step back. He collapses the distance between us, going up on his toes to get right in my face.
“Why should I listen to you?” I give him my smuggest smile.
“Because I’m the—”
“Careful,” I warn. Gal’s eyes flick to the smoking pilot, who’s watching with even more intensity now.
“Because I’m the brains of this outfit, how about that?”
“The brains, really?”
“Someone has to be!” he shouts.
The shriek of boltfire from across the lot cuts off my retort, punctuated by a soft thud. We both glance over to where the shuttle pilot slumps in the dirt with Wen standing over him, my stolen blaster smoking in her hands. “All clear,” she says, waving us over and holstering her gun.
“How’d we do?” I ask as we jog up.
Wen grapples with the pilot’s unconscious body, dragging him up the steps by the shoulders of his fatigues. “Gal, you overact. Try to tone it down next time—you push it past the realm of the believable. Ettian, your dialogue is so generic—you’re just throwing out questions that egg him on. Not super engaging.”
I grab the pilot’s legs and help her hoist him up into the cockpit. “But we gave you the time you needed?”
“That and more. I wanted to see how far you guys would take it.”
“Can we focus?” Gal hisses, clambering up after us as he glances back across the lot. “All clear, but the noise is going to draw attention. We gotta move.”