Tevin's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Morning light came through the dome in blue panels. Tevin sat on a crate with his wrists in his lap. The shackles still glowed. He had slept two hours. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the gap in the rocks and the Vael pouring through it. Ambrose was in the yard behind the shack, kneeling by the war rig. The machine stood two stories tall. Desert flowers grew out of its shoulders. Stone plates covered its chest. Blue seams ran down its arms to the spiked pods on each fist. A glass cockpit sat in the center. Ambrose had spent all night bolting the last plate. "Bring it here," Ambrose said. He did not turn around. Tevin carried the second core across the yard. It was smaller than the one in the dome and heavier than it looked. Ambrose pried a panel off the rig's back. Wires spilled out like roots. He fitted the core into the slot and turned it a quarter clockwise. The seams along the arms brightened. The flowers on the shoulders opened. A low hum started in the chest. "It works," Ambrose said. He climbed down and pulled his goggles up. His hands were shaking. "It works." Elina landed beside them, wings folding. "Then we go." They met at the worn sand table inside the shack. Harlen brought a scrap of paper he had drawn on. He tapped the center. "Main site. Vessig's camp. Resource pods here, here, here. Forcefield around the whole thing." "The rig can't punch through the field," Ambrose said. "Not from outside." "Someone drops the field," Harlen said. "Then we go in." Emmy was already at the table. She had been listening the whole time. "I can do it." Tevin looked at her. "No." "I'm small," Emmy said. "I'm fast. They look past me. You know that." She met his eyes. "I drop it, I run back here. I don't fight." Julius stood at the door with his arms folded. "I'll walk her to the ridge. She goes in alone from there." Tevin's shackles pulsed once. He set his hands flat on the table. "Ambrose pilots the rig," Elina said. "He hits the pods. Riley, Harlen, me, we keep the Vael off him. Tevin stays close to the rig." "Two days," Ambrose said. "I need two days to test the joints and load the fists. Then we go." No one argued. Harlen folded the paper. Emmy did not leave the table. That night Tevin walked out to the rig. It stood in the yard like a mountain with flowers on it. He put his shackled hands on one stone leg. The metal was warm. The plan was set. Emmy would run alone at a wall of Vael. In two days he would stand beside a machine that could tear Vessig's camp apart, and he still could not take the shackles off his own wrists.