If Hess was a killer, then Sable was a murderer. The act was personal with him; he’d looked into Liv’s eyes when he’d fired the crossbow at her.
Aria bit her lip, an ache building in her throat for Perry. For Roar and Talon and Brooke. She was stupid to think this way right now, but grief was like the mud that covered them. Messy. Quickly spreading everywhere, once it found a way in.
“I’m going to learn how to fly these too,” Perry said, his voice low and deep. “So I can race you.”
His green eyes held a smile, a trace of good-natured competitiveness. Maybe he really did want to fly Hovers. Or maybe he knew exactly what to say to calm her down.
“You’re going to lose to her,” Roar said from the front seat.
He was teasing, Aria thought, but Perry said nothing back, and every second that passed in silence made Roar’s comment seem less friendly.
To her relief, Soren broke the silence. “I pulled up the last five flight plans and I don’t see any deviation. I’ll extract voice samples from those missions, change them up and graft everything together. That will get us through the protocols and make everything seem routine. They won’t notice a thing.”
They had planned this part earlier, knowing that even alive, the Guardians could jeopardize the mission over a live comm. Soren would splice the recordings of the now-deceased Guardians and reuse them in order to continue their façade. The Realms—their entire life once—had become a weapon, helping them uphold the image of a normal patrol.
Was Soren telling them all of this again, waving his contributions in the air, as a way of apologizing?
Aria cleared her throat. She played along, asking for more information that they already knew. They needed to band together. Now.
“And when we get there?” she asked.
“All covered,” Soren said. “I’ve got it right here.”
He pushed a few buttons. A diagram of the Komodo appeared on a transparent screen, just as it had in the Belswan. The Komodo looked like a spiral made of individual units that could link and unlink, like old-fashioned train cars. Each segment was capable of breaking off and becoming individual, or self-determining, as Soren said during their run-through. Each unit could travel or fight in its own right.
In its stationary state, the Komodo coiled like a snake, following the same principle that had been utilized in Reverie’s design. The outer units were defensive and supportive. The inner three, at the center of the coil, were highest security, highest priority. They housed the most important figures.
“My father and Sable will be in these central units,” Soren said, highlighting them. “My guess is Cinder’s in there too.”
They were risking their lives on that guess.
“The landing port is on the south end of the compound right here,” Soren said, illuminating that portion on the diagram. “The central-corridor access is on the opposite side, the north end. That’s where we want to go. It’ll take us right to the inner units of the Komodo without having to move through the entire thing.”
“You’ll get us into that corridor?” she asked.
“It’s secured, no question, but I’ll try to hack the codes when we get there. I tried earlier, but there’s no way to do it unless I’m on-site.”
“What if you can’t hack them?”
“Then we go to the loud plan. Explosives.”
Soren spoke without his usual bragging tone. He had made a mistake, and he knew it.
She glanced at Perry, hoping he sensed it too. But he seemed deep in his own thoughts.
“Three minutes,” Soren said as they crested hills that had seemed far away just moments ago.
A jolt of adrenaline shot through her. There, sitting at the heart of a plateau, was the Komodo.
Aria sensed the gradual descent of the Dragonwing as Soren counted down the last two minutes. Her pulse sped up as they approached the rows of Hovers lined across the plateau. She saw ten Belswans. Twice as many of the smaller Dragonwings. Just eight days ago, these same craft had been inside a hangar in Reverie.
Soren flew the Dragonwing toward a runway—a stretch of dirt that cut through the center of the fleet. At the far end, through curtains of thick rain, the south side of the Komodo hulked, dark and imposing.
The Dragonwing gave a gentle lurch as it touched down. A few Guardians exited the Komodo and jogged toward them on the runway.
“They’re just coming to check the Hover,” Soren said, answering the question on all their minds. “Don’t worry. Standard postflight procedure. Get your flight helmets on. When the doors open, go straight to the Komodo. I’ll handle the ground crew and catch up to you. Oh, and try to act like you’ve been here before.”
Aria glanced at Soren. As difficult as he was, they couldn’t have done this without him.
She pulled a helmet on. It was too big and smelled faintly of vomit and rancid sweat.
She left the cockpit, forcing herself to straighten her arm despite the pain that bloomed in her bicep. She needed it to look normal.
“Here we go,” Soren called, just before the bay doors opened.
A gust sent rain spraying into her visor.
Aria jumped down, followed by Roar and Perry. Her legs felt heavy as she hit the mud, the drop bigger than she’d expected. She flew forward, lurching a few steps before finding her footing again. Both Perry and Roar reached out, but she straightened and ignored them. She doubted Guardians went around catching each other’s stumbles.
Behind her, Soren talked to the ground operators, his voice loud and confident, like he knew everything about everything.