Julius's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Ambrose finished the stitches on Tevin's leg and stood. He wiped his hands on a rag and looked at Julius. "Come see what I've been building. All of you." He led them through a low door at the back of the dome. The next room was bigger. Cold. A single floodlight hung from a chain. Under the light stood a machine two stories tall. Stone and metal plates, welded and bolted. Flowering desert plants grew up through its joints, thick as arms, ending in spiked pods that leaked something wet. Glowing blue lines ran along the armor. A glass cockpit sat in its chest. Cannons hung from each fist. Emmy stopped walking. Riley whistled once. "I was an engineer before," Ambrose said. "Bridges, mostly. Turbines. When the Vael came down I picked this mountain because I could see their landing site from the ridge. They strip the valley every day. Ore. Water. People." He put a hand on the machine's leg. "This is how we hit them back." "It's beautiful," Elina said. Flat. "Does it work." "No." He walked them around it. He showed the cannons, the armor grown through with thorns that eat heat, the cockpit wired to respond to a single operator. "One problem," he said. "Power. Nothing we make will run this. It needs a Vael core. I have one." He pointed up at the ceiling, at the hum they had stopped hearing. "It's what runs the dome. Pull it and the jammer dies. We light up on their scopes inside a minute." Julius looked at the machine. Then at the ceiling. "So we need another one." "I know where." Ambrose crossed to a bench covered in tools and cleared a space with his forearm. He unrolled a hand-drawn map and weighted the corners with a wrench and a pair of pliers. "Landing site. Four miles down the back slope. They keep cores in a supply shed on the west edge. I've watched it for months. Two guards at night. One inside." "Four miles out from your jammer," Riley said. "Yes." "So we're blind the whole way." "Yes." Harlen leaned on the bench. "How long to install it once we're back?" "An hour if nothing's cracked. Two if it is." Julius put his dead dish on the map next to the wrench. He thought about Thomas. About Mendez. About the fortress with fewer people in it every week. "We go tonight," he said. "Small team. In and out before they know a core's missing." Ambrose nodded. "I go with you. You won't know which one to grab." "Then we make a plan," Julius said. "A real one. Every step. Before anyone leaves this room." Elina folded her wings tight against her back and pulled a stool to the bench. Riley set her gun down. Emmy climbed up beside the map. Ambrose picked up a pencil. They started drawing.