Jake Morrison's Arc

Chapter 52 of 54

The Skyborne Carrier crossed the last miles to Emery Heights near dusk. Jake stood at the flight deck rail and watched the dome rise from the land ahead. It glowed gold under the fading light, ringed by high stone walls and colored banners. But Jake could see only the outside. He had no map of the inside. If he sent his pilots straight in, they would fly blind into guns he could not see. Marisol crouched over her tablet near the loading ramp. She had built the scout machines herself. "I can launch two cameras ahead of us," she said. "Send them low over the walls. We watch the feed before we commit anyone." She looked up, dark eyes steady. "We learn the layout first, or we lose people for nothing." Jake gave the order. Marcus wheeled two of the smaller machines to the edge and cracked their rotors to full spin. "Light and fast," Marcus said, wiping grease on his jeans. "No guns on these. Just eyes." He shoved them off the deck one at a time. They dove, leveled, and streaked toward the dome. The feed filled Marisol's screen. Jake and Darrell leaned in beside her. The cameras crossed the outer wall and swept the corridors below. Jake saw creatures penned along the inner ring, packed and snarling behind fences. He saw guards on the walkways. But he also saw people. Thin figures in ragged clothes, chained in a yard beside the dome. Not fighters. Prisoners. "Friendlies," Darrell said. His jaw tightened. "He's holding his own people down there." Jake studied the layout. The creatures and guards held the outer corridors. The prisoners sat in the open yard under the dome. Now he knew the difference. "We split the attack," Jake said. "The machines hit the outer corridors and the walls. They only have ground forces down there. We caught them by surprise. A team goes down on foot into the yard to free the prisoners. Know who we can save. Know who is against us." He turned to his two hundred crew. "We send everything into the dome. We blow a hole and split it wide open. We end this tonight." The machines lifted from the deck in waves. They swept the outer corridors with fifty-caliber fire, tearing through guards who had no answer for an attack from the sky. Jake led the ground team down on ropes into the smoke. They reached the dome wall. Marcus set the charge and they fell back. The blast punched a hole clean through the stone. Survivors poured out through the gap, blinking and coughing, freed from their chains. Jake counted dozens. But the noise carried. Beyond the broken wall, deep inside the fortress, something answered. A gate ground open on its own. From the dark tunnels below the dome came a sound Jake had not heard on any camera feed. The tyrant's bred creatures, loosed all at once, rushing up toward the open breach.