follow close behind. Explosions and geysers of flame illuminate the heavens.
A-Bs turn their weapons on the diving dragon. It roaststhem. As the Red comes closer, I spot the rider atop it. He aims his rocket launcher at a unit of A-Bs and fires.
The dragon hovers a few feet overhead, its airplane wide wings flapping a slow beat. A rope ladder unrolls down its side and comes to a stop a few inches from our heads. James tightens his hold on me and loops his other arm around the ladder’s bottom rung. He yanks once. We spin about, and then we’re gliding from the fiery devastation that’s overtaken Mason-Kline.
I lift my head, close my eyes, and let the rushing wind carry me from this nightmare. It cascades over me, its soft touch tickling my skin. I unwrap my arms from the farmboy’s neck and arch back. I am a bird skimming across a lake. My wing tips skip along the water’s surface.
But the ride ends too soon, and when I open my eyes, the lake has become a cornfield, and I am nothing but a wingless girl in a bloody blue shirt. The Red lies a dozen yards away, munching on cornstalks.
The rider shimmies down the ladder, hurries over. Wearing a black trench coat, a fitted black cap with a chin strap, massive goggles, thick leather gloves, and a red bandana over an oxygen mask, he resembles a cross between a mad scientist and a stagecoach bandit.
He looks familiar—a sudden dizziness takes me, and a burst of agony ignites in my shoulder. My legs give out.
I start to fall, but James catches me. A black halo forms around his head, and soon there’s nothing but him and me. He says something. I try to tell him I can’t hear, but words won’t come. He presses a finger to my lips.
Then another set of arms is beneath me, and a new face hovers in my closing tunnel of sight. The goggles are on his cap now, greasy tufts of hair protruding everywhere. Preston Williams’s beady eyes gaze into mine.
“This day’s been totally Jedi, huh, Callahan?” he says, and then everything goes dark.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
9
I awaken to groans, growls, and the dull buzz of a generator. I’m on a cot in some sort of large crate. A low-power light hangs in the corner, a red glow seeps through the gaps between slats. I lurch up. Pain burns through my shoulder, and I scream.
I’m in a hospital gown; my gunshot wound’s bandaged. An IV in my hand connects to a bag of clear liquid. Maybe Preston dropped me off at the clinic, which must have lost power in the attack, hence the generator. Maybe I’m in a crate because there wasn’t enough room in the building. Maybe that red glow and those growls belong to downed dragons awaiting transport to the Fort Riley dragattoir.
I hold on to those maybes as long as I can, but any hope that I’m somewhere normal disintegrates when the wall infront of me swings back on a hinge. I’m in a stadium of a cave filled with reds and their riders.
A middle-aged woman steps inside, introduces herself as Gretchen. She takes my pulse, unwinds the bandage around my shoulder. I barely notice, my attention fixed on the surreal world beyond the crate.
Most of the dragons lie slumped on the right side of the cave. Several leak blood through gauze-wrapped injuries; a few nurse bullet-riddled wings; one licks the stump of a lost tail. Rows of cots occupied by bruised and bloodied humans form a square on the opposite side of the cave. One of the men checking on the wounded comes our way.
Keith.
I blink several times, sure that I’m mistaken.
“You’re an insurgent,” I mumble as he enters the crate.
He shuts the wall behind him. “How are you feeling?”
Confused. Betrayed.
“No signs of infection,” Gretchen says. I look at her as she redresses my wound. Wrinkles and scars adorn an already weathered face. A livid gash, recently stitched, runs the length of her forehead.
I chew at my lip.
A-Bs turn their weapons on the diving dragon. It roaststhem. As the Red comes closer, I spot the rider atop it. He aims his rocket launcher at a unit of A-Bs and fires.
The dragon hovers a few feet overhead, its airplane wide wings flapping a slow beat. A rope ladder unrolls down its side and comes to a stop a few inches from our heads. James tightens his hold on me and loops his other arm around the ladder’s bottom rung. He yanks once. We spin about, and then we’re gliding from the fiery devastation that’s overtaken Mason-Kline.
I lift my head, close my eyes, and let the rushing wind carry me from this nightmare. It cascades over me, its soft touch tickling my skin. I unwrap my arms from the farmboy’s neck and arch back. I am a bird skimming across a lake. My wing tips skip along the water’s surface.
But the ride ends too soon, and when I open my eyes, the lake has become a cornfield, and I am nothing but a wingless girl in a bloody blue shirt. The Red lies a dozen yards away, munching on cornstalks.
The rider shimmies down the ladder, hurries over. Wearing a black trench coat, a fitted black cap with a chin strap, massive goggles, thick leather gloves, and a red bandana over an oxygen mask, he resembles a cross between a mad scientist and a stagecoach bandit.
He looks familiar—a sudden dizziness takes me, and a burst of agony ignites in my shoulder. My legs give out.
I start to fall, but James catches me. A black halo forms around his head, and soon there’s nothing but him and me. He says something. I try to tell him I can’t hear, but words won’t come. He presses a finger to my lips.
Then another set of arms is beneath me, and a new face hovers in my closing tunnel of sight. The goggles are on his cap now, greasy tufts of hair protruding everywhere. Preston Williams’s beady eyes gaze into mine.
“This day’s been totally Jedi, huh, Callahan?” he says, and then everything goes dark.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
9
I awaken to groans, growls, and the dull buzz of a generator. I’m on a cot in some sort of large crate. A low-power light hangs in the corner, a red glow seeps through the gaps between slats. I lurch up. Pain burns through my shoulder, and I scream.
I’m in a hospital gown; my gunshot wound’s bandaged. An IV in my hand connects to a bag of clear liquid. Maybe Preston dropped me off at the clinic, which must have lost power in the attack, hence the generator. Maybe I’m in a crate because there wasn’t enough room in the building. Maybe that red glow and those growls belong to downed dragons awaiting transport to the Fort Riley dragattoir.
I hold on to those maybes as long as I can, but any hope that I’m somewhere normal disintegrates when the wall infront of me swings back on a hinge. I’m in a stadium of a cave filled with reds and their riders.
A middle-aged woman steps inside, introduces herself as Gretchen. She takes my pulse, unwinds the bandage around my shoulder. I barely notice, my attention fixed on the surreal world beyond the crate.
Most of the dragons lie slumped on the right side of the cave. Several leak blood through gauze-wrapped injuries; a few nurse bullet-riddled wings; one licks the stump of a lost tail. Rows of cots occupied by bruised and bloodied humans form a square on the opposite side of the cave. One of the men checking on the wounded comes our way.
Keith.
I blink several times, sure that I’m mistaken.
“You’re an insurgent,” I mumble as he enters the crate.
He shuts the wall behind him. “How are you feeling?”
Confused. Betrayed.
“No signs of infection,” Gretchen says. I look at her as she redresses my wound. Wrinkles and scars adorn an already weathered face. A livid gash, recently stitched, runs the length of her forehead.
I chew at my lip.
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