Aether

Chapter 1

 

It’s him.

     I know it is, even through the heavy rain and the tangled undergrowth where we lie hidden. I know that face as well as my own, I’ve studied it in the collateral reports of that day, pored over them.

     The weight of the gun is familiar as I lean into its cold metal sight, my finger hovering on the trigger. The rain fades into the background as the red crosshairs rest on the profile of a tall, young man. He’s seated on an upturned crate under the shelter of a tarp, a deck of cards spread out between him and the man opposite. The image in my sight enhances so I can see the shadow of stubble on his jaw and a pale scar on the light-brown skin of his cheek. My breath catches in my throat at the sudden clarity of his profile.

     It really is him.

     Memories of a battlefield flash through me. The injustice that he still breathes when so many of my classmates didn’t is tinged with the sting of regret. I should’ve taken him out all those years ago, but the coward retreated before I had the chance.

     It would be so easy…

     There’s a soft click and my visor displays the target’s heartbeat, internal organs and heat signature. The red crosshairs focus on the side of his head, where a brown curl of dark hair rests against his ear. All it would take is pressure on my trigger. Painless. Instant. It’s a merciful kill.

     It is too merciful for him.

     I click my tongue and scan the rest of the area. The tangled undergrowth of snarled thorns and sprawling ferns hides us from the spotlights that stand sentry at the perimeter. Their harsh white light illuminates the grey tents and crates scattered around the camp – supplies that most likely hold weapons and ammunition to use against our own soldiers. We’ll destroy those too.

     Ethen lies next to me under the cover of a tree, his short blonde hair plastered to his forehead. The tree’s leaves splay out above him, like the opened spokes of an umbrella and I envy his shelter from the downpour. His breathing is slow and light like always in the limbo between calm and contact, but I’m close enough to see how hard he grips his gun.

     “Do you have eyes on the target?” Ethen asks me, his voice lower than the whisper of rain. The gold sheen of the General’s badge shines on his chest, the sun etched into it flecked with dirt.

     As I part some more of the foliage, a thorn pierces the skin of my exposed hands. We are protected in our seamless bulletproof plates from our neck to our boots, but the forest still finds a way to draw blood. I run the facial recognition through my sight. A formality, because I already know who he is – everyone knows who he is – but I unclench my teeth and read the information to Ethen.

     “General Luther Arch, son of King Latimer, the Interfector. Target priority level one.”

     A muscle in Ethen’s jaw jumps and he nods sharply.

     “We’re not prepared,” I remind him. “This was meant to be a training exercise. The recruits aren’t ready and we don’t have the right equipment. You know it’s a risk.”

     “We can’t pass up this opportunity. We will never have this chance again to capture the Interfector.” Ethen’s jaw clenches. “We’re doing this.”

     I hold my tongue as I recognise the words for what they really are – an order.

     On my left, Adria leans towards me, her dark blonde hair tied back and dripping. “When are we moving?” She whispers. Something slithers over her hand and she shudders. “We’ve been here for ages.”

     “Remind me to write you a sympathy note,” Calvin mutters from the other side of her, droplets of cold rain glimmering against the dark brown skin of his cheek and suspended in his tightly coiled hair. Though he doesn’t complain. He whips his head around to her. “Did you just wipe–”

     Ethen shoots them both warning glances and Calvin shuts his mouth, glaring at Adria. She grins at him.

     “Are you alright?” I ask her quietly. Her face is drawn tight as she looks down on the Salite encampment.

     She exhales. “It’s just been a while since we’ve been in active contact. Since…”

     She doesn’t have to say it. I remember all too well the bloodshed of our last battle, the one Luther Arch was responsible for. Because of him, our past haunts all of us. I nudge her gently so she looks at me. “It’s okay. I feel the same.” I show her my trembling hand. “Just keep close to me.”

     She shakes her head. “You should protect the recruits. I’ll be fine.” She smiles, but it doesn’t reach my best friend’s eyes. “Just ask our General to hurry up, won’t you? The waiting is the worst.”

     I glance at Ethen, who’s still frowning. His gold eyes are flickering with the speed of his thoughts, calculating angles, odds, numbers.

     “The net,” I murmur, just for Ethen’s ears, knowing he’d understand which strategy I meant. If we came in from the front, they’d be trapped against the high walls of the clearing.

     Ethen stills, the line on his forehead clearing, the plan forming, and relays the strategies to the group. The recruits silently spread themselves along the circumference of the camp. I settle next to a recruit no older than seventeen. His hand trembles as he switches the ammo to lethal, a thin red line appearing on the side of his barrel.

     I’ll have to protect the recruits as best as I can. Despite all their training, this was real. I remember when it became real for me too.

      Luther Arch throws his head back and laughs with some of his soldiers, oblivious to the incoming chaos only moments away.

      Ethen lifts his hand, pale in the morning light, and I press my eye to my sight. I inhale and my lungs fill with the sharp smell of the wet leaves beneath me. Every fibre of me hangs onto Ethen’s signal. Exhale; my heartbeat slows.

I can hear the quick breathing of the recruit next to me, feel the damp of the earth digging into my bare wrists, taste the metallic tang of the rain when I bite my lip.

      My crosshairs settle on the forehead of a target who leans against a crate, a red-haired woman with a pistol hanging from her hip.

      In my peripheral, Ethen brings his hand down.

      Now.

      I take the first shot and the gun shudders in my hands when the bullet leaves. The woman falls instantly, sprawling across the crate. A shout of pain rings out across the clearing and the recruit next to me swears when another Salite falls, clutching his shoulder. A bad hit. Luther Arch grabs the screaming target and starts pulling him to cover. Careful not to hit the Interfector, I breathe in and aim, press the trigger and feel the catch of the gun recoil into my shoulder.             The bullet meets its mark, the cries of pain stop and Luther Arch jumps back. Anticipation unfurls across the back of my skull and connects to my training.

      I breathe out.

      Here we go.

      On the other side of the camp, another target pulls out his gun and frantically tries to find us in the treeline. I take him out, not giving him a chance. A woman runs into a tent, I track her trajectory and fire through the material. There’s a crash and she doesn’t re-emerge. I aim momentarily, my reaction time reduced to the space of a second, and they fall with the rain.

      They are running now, panicked and cursing, unable to see us through the trees – until one of the soldiers spots us and shouts out our location just as I have him in my sights. He falls, but the last of the targets swing their guns around to face us in the undergrowth. Adrenaline surges through me.

      “Phase two!” Ethen shouts and we lock our weapons into close-range semi-automatics. The scope on my gun disappears and I’m already standing when the gun shifts against my shoulder, the barrel shortening into a semi-automatic. We run down the slope and my boots slide in the mud, but I keep my footing and keep firing.

      The net has been thrown. We simply have to close in.

      Half-blind from the rain, I crash into one of the food crates for cover and bullets shatter the wood, spitting out splinters. Something soft inside the crate explodes and the heavy smell of oranges hits the air.

      One of the fallen targets, the red-haired Salite soldier, lies nearby, her arm outstretched and the ceremonial Aetherian kill-marks visible on her wrist. Disgust twists my stomach at the Salite ritual, each line is a life. This one has lines that disappear into her sleeve. How many Aetherian soldiers has she killed to have so many?

      Wood spits. I press myself harder against the crate while they fire. These soldiers are bolder than usual. Something explodes and white fluff falls around me. What’s left of a stuffed bear lies in the mud next to me. I frown at it. What is–

      There’s a cry of pain. One I recognise. Across the clearing, Adria writhes in the mud, gripping her leg, face contorted with agony. Red is blooming across her trousers at her thigh. She’s never hit. Why has she…

      My fingers grip my gun tighter, nerves screaming at me that I should be with her, helping her, but I hold my training.

“Adria!” Calvin shouts and he leaves his cover to run. Enemy soldiers turn to him and panic constricts my chest.

      There’s a whisper of disturbed air, a sliver of metal, and my bullets reach three targets before they’ve even registered my movement. My breath comes out as a hiss.

      There’s a cold metallic gleam of a gun to my right and I duck back behind the crate when someone emerges from what I’d thought had just been a shadow, but is actually a cave in the high walls of the clearing. The Salite silently makes their way towards Adria along the darkness, unseen. Protectiveness rears its head and I raise my gun, only for a bar of light to fall against his rain-soaked face.

      It’s Luther Arch. Our target.

      My whole body locks up. For a second, I see him standing as he had before on raised ground in red armour, commanding an army to slaughter us, the sound of those traps–

      Focus.

      I can’t kill him, we need to capture him alive, but I have no stuns, only the magnetic cuffs; we weren’t prepared for this level of active combat. I could injure him with lethal, but we have to walk back and infection could kill him before we get back. He will face justice.

      I break into a run, shoving my gun into its holster and unclipping the strips of magnetic cuffs from my belt. Luther adjusts his grip on the pistol, still unseen in the tangled vines hanging from the walls.

      No.

      I speed up until I am sprinting towards him, my feet slapping in the mud.

      He turns, gun raised, but I’m already there.

      I slam the first cuff over his outstretched arm and use my weight to pull him to the ground, keeping a hold of his armed hand as we both go down. The gun goes off and all I see is a streak of cold rain and light before my shoulder slams into the ground. Luther Arch gasps at the impact, but I’m already swinging around, using the mud and his disorientation to wrench his gun away.

      I spin around him and twist his cuffed arm against his back. The still-free elbow he swings misses my jaw by a few centimetres before I catch it and close the other cuff down over his other wrist and they activate. The metal glows green and the electromagnets switch on, wrenching his arms back. His shoulders are forced into a painful position and he cries out. His gun lies at his feet and I grab it, slick with rain.

      Kneeling in the mud, I pull him upright and bury the muzzle into Luther Arch’s neck.

      “Don’t move,” I hiss at him.

      He snaps his head up and being this close, we are suddenly eye to eye.

      You. My heartbeat thunders in my ears. The one responsible for so much death. So much pain. But I don’t find any flicker of recognition in his eyes, no realisation, just a fury that burns blue. He doesn’t even… I clench the gun tighter. It would be so easy to pull the trigger one last time.

      Luther’s gaze flicks to someone over my shoulder.

      “Good work, Lieutenant,” Ethen says behind me. Over my heavy breathing, it’s quiet behind me. The fight is over. “Eyes on the prisoner.”

      As if I’d let my guard down for one second.

      There’s a bitter laugh from Luther. “Prisoner? That’s a bold assumption.”

      Blood trickles down his forehead, stemming from a cut above his hairline. There’s a stone half-buried in the earth next to us; he must’ve hit his head. Rain is mixing with the blood and Luther blinks a couple of times from under the dark, ragged strands of hair, his eyes looking glazed.

      I take a step back and Ethen stands by my side, raising his own gun at Luther. The rest of the team joins us and Luther leans back on his knees, glaring at the barrels trained on him. The whole right side of his face is smeared in dirt and some part of me recognises the almost unnatural clarity of colour in his eyes. Like the pictures of deep-blue skies in the history books before the Smoke.

      Ethen steps forward, his shoulders back and his spine rigid. All around him, Aetherian soldiers point their guns at the enemy. “General Luther Arch, you are now a prisoner of Aether. We will transport you back to the Supreme Court for Judgement, where your crimes will be weighed by the High Council and, in this case, Our Leader himself.”

      The scripted words fall on deaf ears. Luther looks around in shock at his now-destroyed camp. Ethen turns to give an order to one of the recruits to replenish supplies and Luther steals a glance towards to the cave at the edge of the clearing. Unchecked desperation flashes across his face; he’s going to run.

      I shove the gun in front of him. “Don’t you dare.”

      Luther freezes, growling in frustration. “Why, princess?” he whips his head around to glare. “Are you going to shoot me? You need me alive.”

      I return his stare, unflinching. My finger flutters on my trigger.

      “Lyra Stone is the best marksman in Aether,” Ethen says, distractedly. He glances at one of the recruits who nods in confirmation that all the targets had been dealt with. Luther’s eyes widen and satisfaction fires through me at the recognition. Finally. “She could immobilise you from a hundred metres if you try to run, not enough to kill you but just enough to make it a painful walk to Aether.” Ethen steps back and lifts his arms. “So, by all means, go ahead.”

      Luther glares, but doesn’t move.

      “Smart.” Ethen signals for two of our recruits to detain him.

      “As if your forces could ever stop us,” Luther growls at Ethen when they haul him up.

      “No need to worry about us.” There’s a twitch in his eye. Ethen is losing his patience.

      “You don’t get it.” Luther shakes his head, his tone changing and his eyes seeming to regain their sharpness. “Look, you can torture me all you want–” he laughs dryly “– and I’m sure you will. But there’s nothing you can do to me to make me help you. Unless you listen to me.”

      “And we will listen to you,” Ethen says, unfazed. “In fact, when you’re at the Supreme Court, everyone will listen to you.”

      Luther scoffs. “You mean Darius and the council? We don’t have time for your rules and traditions, no-”

      “Well, for you they’re about to become the difference between life and death.” Ethen’s voice has risen ever so slightly. Rivulets of rain run down his cheeks and he looks hard into the other General. “So, if I were you, I’d make time.”

      They glare at each other, hazel against blue. The sons of two nations, Aetherian against Salite. The hatred is physical space between them.

      Calvin clears his throat and slowly, both Generals turn to look at him, like they don’t quite want to look away first. Calvin is unhurt save for a purple bruise flowering just above his brow.

      “We should go,” he says to Ethen.

      Adria is leaning on Calvin, thankfully looking a little less in pain. They must have given her some meds. She sees me and gives me a bloody thumbs-up, but the red stain high on her trouser leg makes me nervous for how she’ll deal with the walk back. We were on our own this far into the wilds with nothing but dense jungles for miles.

      Ethen nods and then does a quick headcount. “Let’s move out.”

      Luther laughs when the others start to move, incredulous and a little delirious. “You idiots don’t know what you’re doing. I’m actually on your side.” He’s looking at me while he says this. I scowl at him.

      Ethen scoffs. “As if we’d let your lies poison our mission. Move!”

      As the others drag him to his feet, I walk right up to Adria and demand, “What happened?”

      “One of the recruits was in trouble,” she says, lifting her chin. “I acted accordingly.”

      I shake my head and lower my voice. “I thought he was going to kill you, Ri.”

      Her face softens and she squeezes my hand. “I’m okay.”

      But she was nearly not okay. Luther Arch nearly killed her.

      “Next time, don’t leave my sight,” I whisper, tightening my grip on her hand. “Please. I can’t keep you safe when you do.”

      She smiles, like she knows exactly what day is running through my head. “I know.”

      I look at Calvin and he nods. “I’ll look after her.”

      She rolls her eyes, but I let go, slipping back into my role as Lieutenant. “Let’s move.”

      I clench my shaking fist and follow behind Ethen out of the camp.

      Too close. It had been too close, today.

      All are silent as we walk past the other fallen targets, all but Luther as I shove him forward.

      Luther’s muttering to himself – he really did hit his head hard when he went down – and I pretend I don’t notice, but       I still catch some of his feverish words.

      “I’m not the one swimming in poison,” he says. “And nothing I say can cure you.”

      My skin crawls, but I shake it off. It’s time we brought him to justice for everything he did to my comrades, my friends, to me.

      Finally.