Rebellion in the Shadows
Chapter Fifteen

Tomma stayed with Arwago in the lab, much to his displeasure. It was too late to take him to my room before I needed to be at my drone. When I got to the keypad, I hesitated. Only a Privy Mate or above could gain access to the hangar bay. My worry disappeared when the alarm panel blinked green and the door unlocked with a click. I smiled. After all the emotion of the night, I was glad to be doing something. Anything to help Arwago and his rebellion.

It was dim in the hangar bay. Most of the lights were off, only the section overhead of the me was on. Kirtis stood next to a drone that was already warming up, my drone. His arm was out of the sling, but his face was just as sour.

“You here for night ops?” he asked.

“Night ops? Is that the thing?” I asked.

“Can we just get this over with?” he asked. We climbed into the drone, neither of us had flight suits, but there were helmets on the pilot and co-pilots seat. We both headed towards the pilot’s seat.

“Really?” he asked.

“What? I’m higher ranked.” He shuffled over to the co-pilots chair, grumbling the whole way.

“Igniting engines for pre-flight warm up,” I said. He let out a long groan. “What? Is it your arm?”

“No, and thanks for that by the way. Don’t announce the stuff like that,” he said.

“That’s how it’s done. Something happens and you relay it.” He was being intentionally difficult.

“I can see what’s happening. I’m sitting right here. You are relaying it for the people listening in over comms,” he said. My face flushed, embarrassed at the discovery. It seemed so obvious.

I let the engines warm up without another word. When it was time to go, I didn’t announce that we were preparing for takeoff, even though the words were right on my lips. Kirtis used the on-board tablet to set the coordinates for Da’Fergo and the green arrow displayed on the windshield.

“How long until we get there?”

“42 minutes at 620 miles per hour,” he said without looking up.

“I thought max was 580 for these things?” I asked.

“If you don’t know how to fly maybe,” he said. I didn’t retort. The silence was heavy over the headset.

“Any plans for the weekend?” I finally asked, after it went on too long.

“Try not to die,” he answered. It sounded like a joke, but his face stayed serious. I eased the throttle up, gently and headed out the hangar bay door. No one came over comms to ask what we were doing. It was nothing but green lights all the way. Not another person in sight. When we left the hangar bay, I pushed the throttle as far forward as it would go. The excess speed warning flashed on the airspeed indicator; 550 miles per hour in 120 seconds. The torque of these electric engines was amazing. I smiled and dipped the nose, we shot forward faster. When the drone hit 590 I couldn’t push past it.

“Huh,” I said aloud.

“What now?” Kirtis asked.

“Can’t get it over 600, maybe someone was lying about doing 620?” I said. Without saying anything he reached over and flipped the co-pilot switch. The first thing he did was adjust the rear rotors to go slower. Then reallocated power to the front rotors. The airspeed indicator flew up to 617.

“Holy shit.” I couldn’t help it, never in all my time in the Flying Force had I ever flown this fast before. Even the 4-5-2 with its rocket assisted take off we only went 600 miles an hour and that was only for 45 seconds.

“I hate to admit when I’m impressed,” I said.

“Then don’t,” he said, but I saw his scars twitch into an unmistakable smirk. The first one of his that didn’t make me want to smack him.

The hills turned into mountains and the air in the drone got cold. Kirtis reached in the back and pulled up a blanket. He tossed it at me and it smacked into my face.

“Thanks,” I said, heavy with sarcasm. The blanket was a nice touch, even if the drone’s heater could do the same thing in an instant. I gave a yawn.

“I can pilot for a while if you want to sleep. I will wake you when we get there,” Kirtis said.

“Sure, why not? Guess I will have to beat 617 on the way back,” I said.

“618.” He pointed to the dash. Another smirk that didn’t make me want to hit him. I leaned back and closed my eyes, but had a hard time falling asleep. There was too much unknown going on. I hadn’t been to Da’Fergo since I was a kid. From what I recalled, it was a real nightmare. Drones zooming everywhere, people out at all hours of the night. Lights flashing advertisements, and loud music blaring from every other building.

Trying to picture it lulled me into a light sleep. Before I knew it, Kirtis shook me awake.

“You snore by the way,” he said. I looked out the windshield at the city. We were hundreds of feet in the air. On top of a giant skyscraper. One of thousands of similar buildings around us. It was wide enough that there were four different drone landing pads. Each one more decrepit than the other, peeling paint on the walls, and cracks in the concrete. Above us, lines of drones flew through the sky. Our entire planet only had 5 million people on it, and 2 million of them were within Da’Fergo’s city limits.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Da’Fergo,” he said.

“Duh, I mean what building is this? I haven’t been here in ages,” I stretched out. Without the drone on, the inside was too quiet.

“I don’t know, I just went to the coordinates.” He said.

“So what now?”

“Now we wait.” He said. When I stared at him he huffed, “We watch for anyone or anything leaving the building.” I yawned long and loud.

“Here.” He pulled another item from the back. A thermos.

“Please tell me that’s what I think it is.” He opened the top and I smelled the most beautiful smell. Not just because the rest of the drone smelled like the city, a disgusting linger of mold and grime, but because coffee always smelled heavenly to me. He held out a small cup and I took it. The warmth spread through my fingers and I took a tiny sip, letting it flow down my throat and into my stomach.

We both stared out the window. The lights from all the other towering buildings made me feel small. It reminded me of looking out into space on the simulator. Noises scattered through the city. People shouting down on the street, and faded music came from somewhere. There was no movement on the roof top. Only three other empty landing pads along with an empty attendants’ station. I looked over at Kirtis. He was sipping at his cup of coffee. He peeked at me.

“What?” he asked. I didn’t want to tell him I was staring at his scars.

“What are we supposed to be looking for?” I asked.

“I think packages, Arwago said something about an ‘it,’ and not a ‘them.’ Is this your first recon mission?” he asked. It was the first time he had tried to have a real conversation with me.

“Is that what this is? If so, then yes. How do they cover it up?”

“I have no clue. I know they call it night ops in the flight log. I think Tesser goes back and erases the digi-record of us being gone the next day.”

“But if someone goes to my room and sees me gone?”

“Guess that’s a risk,” he said. We both stopped talking. Someone had just come onto the roof. Behind them hovered two dozen large boxes. It was at exactly zero-zero. The person waited on a landing pad, thirty feet from ours. I looked at Kirtis. This had to be the guy.

“Should I go?” I asked. He shook his head.

“We are supposed to observe that’s all. Just note the time and…” his voice trailed off as I jumped out of the drone. It was dark in our corner, black long shadows made for cover as I walked, in a half couched over position. Outside the drone, it was much louder. My head tilted to the sky, so many drones, the hum of their rotors was like the roar of waterfall. Silent steps led me over to where the guy was. Just like the Flying Force Space headquarters, it was a circle. Most of the buildings were, it was better in wind that was sometimes an issue here at 117W. I slunk near the outside, far from the light of their landing pad. The man was standing near the attendant’s station scrolling through holograms on his calcumat. It looked like some sort of time waster. Games designed to distract a person when they were waiting for something. On the side was a Property of WFF stamp. One box on the end had a flap half open. Just a little bit closer and I would be able to see inside.

“Who the hell are you?” The man turned to me. I looked every direction.

“Me?” I asked.

“What are you doing up here? And why is your uniform so disheieveled?” He moved towards me.

“There you are.” Kirtis had appeared at my side. “You are needed back down below.” He looked over to the man. “They sent her to help with the boxes, but we can see you have it from here. Let’s go Reconist!” he said. His voice was loud in my ear. I had frozen, so he grabbed me by the bicep to lead me away. The man wasn’t convinced.

“You were sent here? Who sent you? Is that your drone?” he asked.

“The Privy Master, the same one that sent you. Don’t worry we won’t tell him about the game on your calcumat. We are going back now though. Anything you want us to relay?” Kirtis was eager to get us away from this man before he figured out all the holes in our story.

“I better give him a call just to make sure,” the man said. He went to press the video-comm app on his calcumat and I panicked. My feet sprang me forward and I tackled him. It took one roll of my hips and he was in a leg lock. Before I could do any permanent damage, Kirtis punched him in the face and the man went limp.

“What the hell was that?” Kirtis yelled at me, shaking his fist. I let go of the man and walked to the boxes to rip the top one open.

“We need to see what’s in these boxes and everything turned out fine. Get over it.” Inside the box was forty or fifty long black tubes connected to a sort of thick triangular base.

“Rifles,” Kirtis said. He opened another box and another. All were full of the same thing.

“Like guns? I didn’t know the Flying Force had any of those,” I said. I picked one up and looked over it. It was heavier than I expected.

“They didn’t, but I guess they do now.” Kirtis didn’t look impressed. In the dim light of the roof, he looked more irritated than anything else.

“What does this mean?” I asked.

“It means Sidarc knows more about the rebellion than we thought.” He set the gun back in the box and closed the lid. We both looked to the sky. A drone was making its way down from the line of them speeding overhead.

“Grab a box, and let’s get the hell out of here!” Kirtis said, he was sprinting back to the T550 with one of the large boxes in his strong arms. The box was too heavy for me to carry like that, so I pushed the hovercart forward. All my weight against it, and it barely moved. A light shined on me from overhead.

“Stop right there! WFF, do not move!” The voice blared from the drone. I could tell from here it was an old T150. I smiled. they didn’t stand a chance against our drone. I shoved the hovercart again, this time it lurched forward a few feet. The drone was closing in on me, but we needed those rifles. Another shove, and it scooched four feet. I did this until it was next to the drone. Kirtis already had the rotors spinning. I threw open the back door and rammed my shoulder into the top box. It spilled inside, guns scattered everywhere. I jumped in after.

“Just go!” I said to Kirtis with a shout. He started the engine. I wasn’t even buckled, and the door wasn’t closed. We shot into the sky. My stomach dropped into my toes as we rose three or four hundred feet in a matter of seconds. The T150 was right behind us. Kirtis zoomed into the traffic overhead.

“Shit Kirtis, you are going to kill us!” I was trying to get the buckles done on my seat.

“Sit tight, its going to get worse before it gets better,” he throttled forward more, and I was thrown back. At least my harness was secured now. With all the drones in front of and behind us, I couldn’t see the T150 anymore. Kirtis was swerving in and out of traffic as swiftly as he had the trees in the forest.

“Check the tablet, is anyone else going in and out like we are?” he asked. With one hand on the cyclic steering column, he handed me the tablet. I pulled up the radar and searched.

“No, no one is following us. Do you think they knew who we were?” The excitement had me panting. I had never hurt someone like that, other than Kirtis and not outside of training.

“There’s no ID on this drone yet, unless they scanned us or our faces. I don’t think he recognized you and no one would recognize me. We better make sure Tesser scrubs the record right away,” He looked at his calcumat, “Take the controls for a minute.” He flipped the switch and I took over the controls. We slowed almost to a crawl. I kept us right behind a small personal drone, there was no pilot. It was one of those expensive automated ones. Looking around, most of them were. The drone shuddered with my unsure hands at the wheel. All these drones and it was zero-one. I didn’t want to imagine what it was like during the day. How did he manage the traffic like that?

“Holy gods! Just hold it steady!” he said. “Tesser, we need the flight log scrubbed.” He said over a video comm. Tesser wasn’t looking at him.

“Yeah sure. I will get on it in the morning.” She was bent over a bench in the lab working on the same circular object as last time.

“It needs to be done now. We had company tonight. We’ll be back in 38 minutes,” he said. Her head shot up to the camera and she leaned in close.

“Company?” Her eyes were wide.

“Yes.”

“Ok, fine.” Tesser hung up the video comm.

“Do we call back?” I asked.

“Forget it, she’ll do it. Trust me.” He grabbed the tablet from my side of the dash and looked at the radar screen. “Still no one trying to catch up to us, I think we’re good.” Then lost his temper and threw the tablet at the ground, “What the hell was that?” His yell blasted over my headset.

“What?”

“We fly here, and we wait. That was the plan! Not knock someone out and get chased through the sky!”

“You were the one that knocked him out if I remember correctly,” I said.

“Talaya, this isn’t a joke!” He said glaring at me. I mumbled under my breath. “What was that?” he asked.

“I said, ‘What’s the harm?’ We got away and now we have rifles.”

“You know what? You fly us back, I am going to take a nap.” He closed his eyes.

“Hey Kirtis.” I asked softly.

“What?” he said through clenched teeth.

“Where did you learn to fly like that?”

“Not that it’s any of your business but I lived here for ten years with my family,” he said.

“It was good,” I said. After watching him do it, I was careful to swerve in and out of traffic in the same way.

“Yeah? Ask me if I care tomorrow. I am going to sleep.” He closed his eyes again. I left him alone but grabbed the thermos of coffee from the back with a smile.

I was going to break 620 on the way home.