Battle Born Read online

  The health pack was shoved into the back of the cupboard, and she had to pull out an entire pile of towels to get to it. She swiped her hand over the sensor and the lid popped open. A small holo-panel inside asked to contact emergency services. Some good that’d do, she thought. Luckily this health pack was military-grade: Her dad brought them in from work, and they were scattered around the house in various hiding places. Like the security system, another stand-in for actual parenting.

  Saskia stood up just as something boomed outside, a thunderous rumble that went on too long to be actual thunder. She froze, listening to its roar and tumult, her fingers pressing against the health pack’s metal box. Purple light flooded in through the single square window next to the toilet, casting everything into twilight shadows.

  At least the alarms weren’t going off.

  Saskia bolted out of the bathroom and raced back downstairs. The purple light was starting to fade, but the roar was still there, a trembling in the air. She burst into the living room and found Evie and Victor huddled next to the window.

  “What is it?” she gasped, jogging up beside them.

  “I think it’s a ship,” Evie said numbly.

  Saskia pressed herself in between the two of them and peered out the window. The trees slammed back and forth on the other side of the wall, their leaves swinging like hair. The clouds were low and churning and too bright.

  Saskia’s knees buckled; she pressed her elbow against the window to steady herself.

  “You okay?” Victor asked, although he didn’t move to help her.

  “What are they doing here?” Evie was still staring out the window. “Why are they here?”

  Saskia was seized with a violent, grasping fear. The weapons. Her parents’ weapons, the prototypes for their company, tucked away in the storage facility down in the underground safe room. She staggered away from the window and slumped down on the couch.

  The rumbling grew fainter.

  “It’s going away,” Evie said.

  “That low in the atmosphere, it’s going to park somewhere close by,” Victor said. “Are you sure that wall is going to hold?”

  It took Saskia a moment to realize he was talking to her. “It’s a prototype,” she said, staring at the black viewing monitor set into the wall opposite the couch. “The house has a safe room, though. If we need it.”

  “A safe room!” Evie hobbled away from the window and sank back down on the couch. “Is it connected to the town shelter? We can check on—”

  “It’s not.” Saskia looked down at the health kit. “Sorry.”

  Evie slumped back down, pressed her hands to her face. “My dad probably thinks I’m dead. I never should have snuck out without telling him.”

  “That ship looks like it’s headed right for town,” Victor said, his voice rough. “Maybe it’s better we stayed out here.”

  Evie looked at him in horror. “I was attacked by the Covenant! That thing was going to eat me!”

  “But it didn’t.” Saskia hated the sound of fighting. It set off discordant bells clanging inside her head. “Evie, let me look at your ankle, okay? And then we can decide what to do. We can try the comm channels again. My dad has a big setup down in the basement. We might have a better chance there than on the comm pads.” She flipped open the health kit and pulled out a pack of MediGel. “Here, this should help.”

  “Yeah, the comm pads aren’t doing crap.” Victor paced behind the couch. “This is crazy! Why are they landing in Brume-sur-Mer?”

  Brume-sur-Mer. Not Saskia’s house, not her parents’ stash of high-tech weapons. Would the Covenant even care about human weapons? In hindsight, it did seem unlikely.

  “Are you sure they’re landing there?” Evie said. “They could be headed for Port Moyne.”

  “They were landing,” Victor said. “Listen.”

  Saskia lifted her head. It took her a moment—the ghost of that engine roar was still echoing inside her head.

  “It’s quiet,” she said.

  “It stopped,” Victor said. “After it passed over us. It’s in Brume-sur-Mer.”

  A chill came into the room. None of them spoke. Saskia pulled out a disinfectant pad and pressed it to Evie’s ankle. Evie hissed in protest, jerked her leg away.

  “I need to clean it,” Saskia said. “If we don’t take care of it, you aren’t going to be able to walk.”

  “How are you so calm? Our entire town is going to die!” Evie shouted. “Doesn’t that matter to you?”

  Saskia flinched. “Of course it matters.”

  “Evie, calm down. The shelter is there for a reason.” Victor stopped pacing and leaned against the back of the sofa. “Saskia’s right. Let her fix your leg. Then we can try her comm setup. Okay?”

  Saskia looked back and forth between Evie and Victor, the disinfectant stinging her fingertips. She was afraid if she said anything it would be the wrong thing.

  “Fine,” Evie said, pressing a hand over her eyes. “Fine.”

  Victor nodded, looking resolved. Saskia applied the disinfectant. This time, Evie didn’t react at all.

  Saskia tore open the gel next and pressed it into Evie’s skin with two fingers. Evie let out a sharp gasp of pain. “I know,” Saskia soothed. “I have to rub it in for a few seconds. But then you’ll be fine.”

  “Where did you even get this stuff?” Victor asked, picking up the pack of MediGel. “Isn’t this military-grade?”

  “My parents.” Saskia finished the gel application and looked up at Evie. “It usually takes a couple of minutes.”

  “It’s already starting to feel better.” Evie twisted her ankle around.

  “My sisters told me about this stuff.” Victor handed the pack back to Saskia, who set it into the medical kit. “Didn’t think a civilian could get their hands on it.”

  Saskia shrugged. “CDS contracts out with the UNSC.” She stood up, not wanting to explain any further, about how she was pretty sure the UNSC wasn’t the only organization her parents worked with. “Let’s get down to the safe room.”

  She held out a hand to Evie, who took it and then stood, tentatively pressing her weight against her ankle. “Wow,” she said. “Yeah, it’s totally fine.”

  “We can deal with those scratches and bruises later if you want,” Saskia said. “But I figured you would want to try to get ahold of your parents first.”

  “My dad, yeah.” Evie caught Saskia’s eyes and smiled thinly. “Thank you.”

  Saskia gathered up the medical kit. “It’s nothing.”

  “You saved her life!” Victor cried. “I’d hardly call that nothing.”

  Saskia blushed, turned away. She had saved Evie’s life, but the enormity of that reality was too much. She understood it intellectually. Trying to grasp on to the implications just made her dizzy.

  She led Victor and Evie into the kitchen, where she pressed her palm against the safe room sensor. Lines of light materialized around the door before it melted into the wall, revealing the safe room’s entrance.

  “Holy crap!” Victor said.

  “Yeah, that’s way more impressive than the town’s shelter,” Evie said.

  Saskia smiled. “The town shelter is a lot bigger. I couldn’t believe it when I went down there for the concert.”

  “You were at the Drowning Chromium show?” Victor asked as Saskia stepped into the dark stairwell. The lights blinked on with her movement.

  “Yeah,” Evie said. “I remember seeing you there.”

  “What’d you think of them?” Saskia asked, grateful to have something normal to talk about. “It’s Dorian Nguyen’s band, yeah? Who are the other guys in it?”

  “They graduated a few years ago,” Victor said, hopping down the steps so that he was right beside her. He talked quickly, his voice rising in excitement. “I actually filmed the concert for them. Dorian asked me to. I was going to put it on my channel, but …”

  His voice faded into echoes. But the Covenant attacked. She couldn’t blame him for n
ot wanting to say it out loud. It made it seem more real.

  “They were pretty good, I thought,” Saskia said, wanting to go back to the normalcy of music and underground concerts.

  “Too heavy for my tastes,” Evie said from behind them.

  “I thought they were great,” Victor enthused.

  They reached the end of the stairs. Saskia leaned forward so the scanner could pass over her eyes. A holo materialized in the darkness. The keypad. She pressed in her code, and the door hissed open.

  “Vacuum-sealed?” Victor asked.

  “My parents are pretty paranoid.”

  She led them into the safe room. As always, the door closed on its own, sealing off the air once Evie had come through. The safe room was small, really only one room, with an escape tunnel leading to the armory and then to the extraction point out in the middle of the forest. Saskia didn’t mention any of this to Evie and Victor, though, and they didn’t notice the door leading to the tunnel anyway, not with the comm station still lit up from when she’d checked the security cameras earlier.

  “Look at this setup!” Victor cried, darting across the room and sinking into the chair in front of the station. The monitors flickered with the images from the security cameras: the forest, the beach, the road leading up to the house. All empty save the one monitor that showed Victor’s abandoned car. The dead Covenant soldier was out of the frame, at least.

  “Do you know how to use it?” Saskia asked.

  “Sort of?” Victor frowned at the control panel.

  “I do.” Evie knelt beside Victor’s chair and hit a key on the panel. A holo-panel shone up into the air. She glanced over at Saskia. “My dad has one like this at the university where he teaches. He lets me use it to talk to my mom sometimes.”

  “Where’s your mom?” Saskia asked without thinking.

  “Fighting. In the war.” Evie turned away.

  Saskia looked down at the floor. She should have known. Almost all the kids at school knew someone who had enlisted to fight the Covenant.

  Evie’s fingers flew across the holo-panel. A hiss of static burst out of the speakers.

  “Hello,” Evie said into the microphone, her voice tremulous. “Hello, is anyone there?”

  Static. The whine and crackle of feedback.

  “Hello?” Evie said. “We are looking for survivors in Brume-sur-Mer. Hello?”

  The feedback intensified, transforming into a metallic screeching and then the babble of an unfamiliar language. Evie yelped and swiped her hand across the holo, switching to a different channel. Saskia’s chest tightened with a pang of fear.

  “What the hell was that?” Victor asked.

  Evie didn’t say anything. Saskia took a deep breath. “It was the Covenant, right? It sounded like them.”

  “The Covenant?” Victor jumped up and pushed his fingers into his hair. “Will they be able to track us here?”

  “Probably not,” Evie said. “They aren’t using the same communications systems as us. It was just a weird fluke.” She leaned into the microphone. “Hello? Anyone?”

  The static that answered sounded like the ocean. Evie swiped the holo again, moved to a different channel. This time, a monotone voice blasted out of the speakers:

  “This is an emergency broadcast,” the voice droned in its mechanical timbre. “Seek shelter immediately. This is an emergency broadcast. Seek shelter immediately.”

  “Hello?” Evie shouted into the microphone. “Hello, can anyone hear us? Please, we’re trying to get in contact with Brume-sur-Mer—with the AI Salome—”

  “—emergency broadcast. Seek shelter immediately.”

  Evie cursed and tossed the microphone aside. She stood up and stalked across the room. Saskia reached over and turned down the volume on the broadcast.

  “Let’s leave this channel open,” she said softly. “At least we know it’s working.”

  “They could all be dead,” Evie said, staring at the wall. “The whole town.”

  The air seemed to suck out of Saskia’s lungs. “Maybe the comm station in the old shelter doesn’t work,” she said. “That seems more likely, don’t you think?”

  Victor looked over at her and nodded. His eyes were big and dark and frightened, and she wished she knew him well enough to give him a hug. To give both of them a hug. No one ever hugged Saskia, but she always thought it would be the best form of comfort.

  “What are we going to do?” Evie turned around. Her cheeks glimmered with dampness, but she wiped at her eyes furiously.

  “Look,” Victor said. “We’re safe here. Right, Saskia?”

  She nodded.

  “So we stay here.” Victor strode across the room and threw his arm around Evie’s shoulders and squeezed her. Saskia felt a twinge of jealousy that she cast aside. There was no space for it now.

  “But what about our families?” Evie cried. “What about my dad? I need to know if he’s all right! I need to tell him I’m all right!”

  “We should do something,” Saskia said. “Go into town. Something. But we should do it in the morning. All of us need to rest.”

  The emergency broadcast whispered in the silence. Seek shelter immediately.

  “She’s right,” Victor said. “Especially you.”

  Evie shook her head. “I’m fine.”

  “You almost died,” Victor said. “You need to sleep before we go marching into town.”

  Evie sighed. “Where are we going to sleep down here?”

  Saskia walked over to the comm station, let her hand hover over the panel. What was the code again? Her father had pounded every code into her head since she was a little girl, but in that moment, the numbers swirled around her thoughts. She couldn’t quite grasp onto them.

  “Saskia?” Victor asked. “What are you doing?”

  Three-seven-nine-four-one. It came to her with Victor’s voice. She punched it in and immediately two hideaway beds snapped out of the ceiling.

  “Two of us will have to share,” Saskia said. “But we can sleep here. And there’s food here too.”

  Evie stared warily at the beds. Saskia hoped she wouldn’t protest, wouldn’t demand to go back outside and march into town and find her father. She didn’t know if she would be able to stop her.

  But she didn’t. She just tottered over to the larger of the two beds and flopped down across the mattress.

  “Tomorrow,” she said, her voice soft and slurred. “We’ll figure out what to do tomorrow.”

  Dorian blinked, his eyes stinging. Something prickled against his cheek. He groped with one hand, his fingers sinking into damp sand.

  Sand. The beach. He’d made it.

  He rolled over onto his back and stared up at the gray sky. His mouth tasted like copper and salt, and his body seemed to move on its own, the ghost of the rhythm of the ocean rocking him here on the beach. And he ached. Every part of him ached, a dull throbbing tenderness that screamed every time he tried to move.

  A few smudgy shadows of birds flew overhead. One of them cawed to the others. The air smelled like rain and salt and smoke.

  How long had he swam last night? He had lost his sense of time when he plunged into the cold black water. He remembered the first shock of adrenaline propelling him forward; he remembered the glimmer of lights on the horizon. He remembered how eventually his arms and legs seemed to move on their own, how his mind had wandered far away from the roil of ocean water. At one point, he thought he was swimming through the universe itself, star systems clinging to his body like sea foam. He had even seen a starship, bathed in purple light, slicing the sky in half.

  Dorian groaned, covered his face with his hands. Sand flaked off his palms and rubbed against his skin. He rolled, aching, to his side, and pushed himself up to sitting. He watched the ocean rolling in. There was no sign of Tomas’s boat. No sign of Hugo or Xavier or Alex. But they wouldn’t have washed up on some random stretch of beach. Not if they’d made it out on a lifeboat.

  Thinking about them left a que
asiness in Dorian’s stomach. And Uncle Max and Remy—had that ship been heading toward Brume-sur-Mer? He couldn’t imagine it. Probably it had gone toward Port Moyne, heading to Aagen. To Meridian’s population centers.

  That thought made him even queasier. At least Uncle Max and Remy were probably okay.

  Dorian forced himself up to standing and swayed for a moment on unsure legs. His muscles felt as if they had been stretched out and tanned in the sun, tight and aching and wrong. He hobbled around, blinking at the lush thicket of forest behind him. He squinted down the beach. Spotted a communications tower. Close to town, then. And he had swum in the right direction after all.

  Dorian hobbled toward the communications tower, a way station leading him into town. Once he was in town, he could borrow Uncle Max’s comm pad and try to get in contact with the others. Report them as missing. The UNSC would have to go out there and search for survivors, right? They wouldn’t let civilians just shrivel up and die on the ocean.

  It took Dorian a long time to make his way down the beach. He couldn’t walk very fast, not with the pain in his legs—although it did seem to get better, not worse. The sun limned the horizon with a pinkish-gold glow, but storm clouds crowded their way into the sky.

  His feet thudded in the sand. Dorian passed another comm tower and one of the automated beach security stations before he came to the first of the seaside motels, its ornate walls faded from decades of salt and wind. Something hissed rhythmically, over and over, and it took Dorian a moment to realize that it was a door to one of the motel’s rooms, sliding back and forth in its frame.

  “Hello?” he shouted. “Anybody there?” He hobbled up to the building. Didn’t see anyone. The door slid open, slid closed, revealing the room in flashes: an unmade bed, a single shoe.

  He moved on, past the motel, and on to a cluster of old beach houses sitting precariously on their stilts. The rain started, a chilly gray drizzle. Dorian considered ducking beneath one of the houses and waiting it out, but he wanted to get home. Wanted to check on Remy and Uncle Max. Wanted to find out that the band was all okay, that they’d made it back. He kept picturing it in his head as he walked head down through the rain, his hair sticking to his cheeks. All three of them, Hugo and Xavier and Alex, lounging on his couch, music blasting out of their comm pads, annoying Uncle Max while they waited for Dorian to show up. Just like usual.