Hotbloods 5: Traitors

Watching the devastation, I had no idea how we were going to find the others in all this mess and manage to get away without getting swatted out of the sky ourselves. Nessun was close by, and it looked as though the Titans had already made it there, as well.

I sprinted into the cockpit and took up the seat next to Navan, my eyes fixed on the windshield and the battle raging up ahead. As soon as we surged up and over the protective walls of Nessun, I knew this was where the Titans had begun their assault. The ones who had branched out into the neighboring towns and villages had simply gotten bored, by the looks of it, leaving five of their comrades to finish the job of crushing and destroying everything in the North’s capital.

A large fleet hovered over the center of the city while a smaller group lingered above the palace, protecting it. I knew Brisha would be down in the control room, instructing her aerial fleet and her infantry on what to do next. There was no way she would hide away in her palace, doing nothing, while the fighting raged on and her people were being mercilessly slaughtered. She just wasn’t that kind of queen.

“We should get to Brisha first,” I suggested, pointing to the palace. “She’ll be able to tell us where everyone is, so we won’t end up searching aimlessly for the next hour in the middle of a warzone.”

Navan nodded. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

“You realize she’s not just going to let us go, don’t you?” Ronad chimed in anxiously. “It’s not going to be a case of, ‘Here are all your friends, please feel free to run away.’”

I flashed him a look. “It’s better than us searching everywhere, with no idea where they might be.”

Mort plopped himself down in one of the cockpit chairs, his flesh oozing over the sides. “Well, if you want my opinion, I say we forget about your pals and vamoose before we end up as pretty little hair ribbons in a Titan’s war braid.”

“We’re not leaving without our friends, Mort,” I snapped.

“Well, I’m not coming with you. This is your funeral, not mine. I will not meet my end under the diseased toes of a Titan. Death by athlete’s foot? No thanks!” he retorted.

I rolled my eyes in exasperation. “You’re coming with us whether you like it or not, Mort. If we leave you here on the ship, you’ll just steal it, and there’s no way I’m letting that happen.”

“Am I that transparent?” he muttered. “I can make myself transparent if I pull my skin enough—do you want to see?”

I grimaced. “Please, for once, could you stay focused?”

“Hey, I’m just trying to have a little fun before you get me killed, princess.” He pouted, putting his feet up on the dashboard, his flesh pooling.

A transmission came through a moment later, as we reached the perimeter of the palace. I guessed we’d set off a sensor of some sort, leaving us open to detection, even through the ship’s cloak.

“State your business here,” a gruff voice said.

“We’re here to see the queen. Tell her it’s Navan Idrax, returning from his rescue mission. We’re not the enemy,” Navan replied.

“Yeah, that’s just what the enemy would say,” Mort muttered.

“Give me a minute,” the voice said, and a video stream came through on the ship’s monitors. A grizzled guard peered through the camera, observing each one of us. “You got any identification on you?”

Navan patted his pockets and pulled out the ID band that we’d used in the training center. I’d taken mine off a long time ago, but I presumed Navan had been forced to keep his, given his former position in Brisha’s infantry. He flashed it up at the monitor, where the guard scanned it.

“Okay, you’re clear to descend. Set your ship down in the gardens,” he said, and the video stream blinked off.

Even as we approached the palace walls, I felt a little nervous that the clustered group of ships might suddenly open fire on us. To my relief, they let us descend unhindered. Navan set us down in the palace gardens, a short distance from the spot where Bashrik had kissed Angie for the first time, and I’d tackled Yorrek to the floor. I wondered where the cantankerous old alchemist was now. No doubt he was tucked away in a bunker of his own design, waiting out the war.

“Mort, can you be a little more… coldblood?” I asked as the ship came to a standstill.

He pulled a face. “I’m tired of being coldbloods. They’re boring.”

“I don’t care if they’re boring. I need you to look like one!”

He grinned, before morphing into a warped version of me. “How about this instead? I could really get used to the way this feels. So young, so slinky, so—”

“Dead, if you don’t do as she says!” Navan warned.

With a reluctant sigh, he shifted into the body of a generic coldblood guard, his uniform matching the green and silver of Brisha’s army. “This doesn’t mean I won’t use the other one in private,” he taunted, before getting up out of his seat and moving toward the hatch.

“What you do in private is no concern of mine,” I shot back, following him out into the main space of the ship.

The four of us made our way into the palace. Several guards manned every door, each one armed to the teeth, but they seemed to be aware of who we were and let us through without much hassle. One even took us to a spiral stairwell that led down to the queen’s underground control room, where he said the queen was waiting for us.

“Riley!” a cry rang out as we emerged.

Two figures darted toward me, with another trailing behind. “Angie, Lauren!” I shrieked, wrapping them in my arms when they sprinted into my welcome embrace. They were still wearing their medical uniforms, while Bashrik was wearing the emblem of the aerial fleet. It was a relief not to see him in the air with the rest of the gunships, avoiding the grasp of the Titans.

“You’re safe!” Angie sobbed, holding me at arm’s length so she could get a good look at me. “Thank God you’re okay. We kept trying to get in touch, but the comms were down, and then the Titans came… It’s been crazy.”

“How did you get here?” Lauren asked. “When Navan didn’t come straight back, we got so worried about you!”

“It’s a long story,” I said, sighing. “We found out about the Titans a couple of hours ago and wanted to get here to tell Brisha before they struck. But we were too late.” I lowered my voice. “Anyway, we’re here to get you and get the hell off this planet.”

“Nice plan,” Bashrik interjected. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

He pulled me into an unexpected hug. “It’s good to see you, Bashrik,” I murmured. “I’m glad you’re not fighting up there with the others.”

“Yeah, Brisha called me down here to help on the control panels,” he said, wiping his brow dramatically. “I hope my family didn’t give you too much trouble in the South.”

I smiled. “Just enough to keep things entertaining.”

A happy reunion ensued as Navan and Ronad got involved. The warm feeling of being back together again was short-lived, however, as the walls shuddered, a tremor vibrating through the floor and up into my spine. With each Titan footstep, the room shook harder, a few cracks appearing in the ceiling. The intelligence officers, who were manning the desks, ducked each time a quake rippled through the structure, covering their heads with their hands. I wondered what good they thought it would do, if the roof really did cave in. We’d all be crushed, and there would be nowhere to run.

“So we’re getting out of here?” Angie whispered.

I nodded. “We’ve got a ship waiting in the gardens, but I was hoping we could see Brisha before we left.”

“She’s over there,” Lauren said, pointing to a group of people standing in a circle. There was someone in the middle, lying on the ground.

Tentatively, we approached. Commander Korbin was there, talking with several aides about what they should do next, looking just as stern and frightening as I remembered. He turned as we came closer, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. It took him a moment to recognize me, but once he did, his expression soured further.