AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Garrett didn’t reply and just pressed his lips together. Maxwell knew it wasn’t in his nature to back down, but he’d do it for Maxwell, and Maxwell settled back into his seat, feeling comforted and confident in that. He watched the black smear of the town grow and coalesce into buildings and a skyline.
It was a small town like any other in this part of Tava. A few houses, a few commercial structures, and a single apartment building all lined up on the roads that spread out from the small sky port with its lines of silos like spokes on a wheel. Most of the residents would have lived farther afield and come in only to sell their harvest, pick up the essentials, see a doctor, or go to school.
Now the streets that would have often had only a smattering of people were completely empty, except for abandoned land cruisers and haulers. Some buildings had marks of fire or vandalism, and some stood as though people would come walking in and out of their doors at any moment.
Maxwell pointed to the lone apartment building as Garrett maneuvered them to the sky port. “Is that where we’re going?”
“Yup, we—”
Before Garrett could say more, the radio crackled to life with a man’s disbelieving voice. “Resistance, is that you?”
Garrett punched the reply button. “It’s me. I told you I’d be back.”
“Oh, thank the goddess.”
Some muffled sounds and then a woman’s voice. “Is Rhast alright?”
“Safe and sound, ma’am.” Garrett circled them around the sky port, and both he and Maxwell peered down at the mess of the tarmac. “He’s been given antivirals and is staying with the priest at the temple.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you.” The woman’s voice dissolved into emotion, and after a few more rustles, the man’s voice came back.
“What do you need from us? Do we…” Hesitation came through the radio static. “Do we come meet you at the port?”
“No.” Garrett shook his head even though the transmission was only audio. “No, you all stay put, and we’ll escort you out. I don’t want any surprises.”
They just needed to find a place to land first. While the rest of the town bore evidence that something had happened, the port had evidence of just how bad that something had been. Not a single ship sat in its place. All of them had, at some point, been rolled out onto the tarmac in an attempt to flee. Some must have made it, some still sat tangled together in a taxiway after having crashed, some were lodged into buildings they hadn’t managed to avoid, and here and there lay the sort of wreckage that could have only been left by a midair collision.
“There.” Maxwell pointed to a mostly empty strip of tarmac that crossed diagonally over two runways and a taxiway. Not exactly standard, but it looked long enough to give their ship the braking room it would need.
“That’ll work.” Garrett swooped around to give them the angle they needed. “Hold on.”
Maxwell checked his straps and then tried not to clench his muscles while Garrett brought them in low over the port’s walls. He killed the engines as soon as they cleared it, popped the wing flaps, and they dropped like a stone. Maxwell bit back his yell as they hit the ground so hard he could have sworn they bounced. As soon as their landing gear hit the pavement, Garrett pulled the brakes, and Maxwell slammed forward into the straps of his seat. Even so, they hurtled past the wreckage on the ground, bouncing across the runways, with the one command tower looming up in front of them.
Maxwell kept his fear locked behind his teeth while Garrett spoke in an even, confident voice as he flipped a switch and pulled another lever. “We’re fine, we’re fine.”
And they were fine.
They skidded to a stop in front of the concrete command tower with plenty of room to spare.
Maxwell stared at the last remnants of the space before him, then looked at Garrett’s self-satisfied smile and laughed as he unbuckled himself. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re just as good a pilot as Sebastian.”
“Ha, make sure you tell him that.” Garrett hopped out of his seat and grabbed his bag from under it.
He and Maxwell took a few moments to clear out whatever they knew they wouldn’t need from their packs to avoid carrying the extra weight, then strapped everything else to their backs.
“Damn, I wish we’d brought someone to watch the ship,” Garrett muttered as he messed around with the command console. Maxwell looked over to see him firing up every one of the very few security systems the ship had. “There could be more people out here just waiting to get their hands on a ship so they can escape.”
Maxwell eyed Garrett to see his reaction as he pointed out the obvious. “The Klah’Eel could have done that if they’d come down to the surface with us.”
As expected, Garrett scoffed as he turned from the console and led the way back into the main cabin and then down the gangway. “Right, and then brutally massacre any civilian just trying to find a way out of this hellscape. I’d rather we lose the ship, spend a night here while someone comes to rescue us, and have no one die.”
And no klah’eel or human traitors needed to be involved. Maxwell smiled to himself as he followed Garrett out onto the apocalyptic tarmac. Garrett really didn’t want to hurt anyone, Maxwell knew that, but he didn’t miss the gun that hung in the holster at Garrett’s hip, and he wasn’t sad to see it. Chaos and fear made people do crazy things. Anyone who had been trapped on Tava for the past few weeks had been exposed to more than their fair share of both.
Garrett found a hole in the fence on the side of the port facing the apartment building, held it open, and waved Maxwell through. “Stay close.”
Maxwell didn’t need to be told twice, and he stayed within arm’s reach of Garrett as they picked their way down the abandoned road. “What’s the plan?”
“Get to the building, take a roster of everyone there, treat anyone who needs it right away, get everyone out.” Garrett didn’t look at him as he spoke, his eyes scanning, scanning, scanning. Maxwell and Garrett had been on assignments together a time or two before, and every time, Maxwell couldn’t help but be fascinated by the flip between the gregarious and roguish man at the base and the serious, competent operator out on the field. It really was no wonder the men loved him.
