Fire and Ice

Chapter 14 † Kayleigh

I try not to focus on the insignia patch in my pocket, curiosity burrowing and burning its way through my mind. I want to know who it belongs to so I can help Graff catch them, but I need to focus right now. I reel my thoughts back in from their drifting, and turn right at the next corner like my map instructs.

Left. Left. Right. Straight. I walk and walk, but I don't detect any signs of trouble. Surely they wouldn't be so dumb as to leave their retrieval team unguarded. I slow as I approach the next turn, carefully peering around the corner of my next turn. I switch my glasses into a heat sensor viewer, thinking that it might be more useful to me. I see a path flowing down towards Ender's room, but no traces of body heat anywhere else. I follow the trail down the series of turns my maps also indicate, until I'm about a hundred meters from his room.

The heat trail splits in half.

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Petra and the other form up around me, holding their phasers in a ready position. We walk down the hallway to our left, stopping and inspecting every intersection for traps or Kayleigh.

†††

I rapidly pull up maps of the second hallway. Houston, we have a problem. I click my comms link on to talk to Graff.

"The offending soldiers split up," I rush out quietly, putting my back to the wall and scanning my maps. Left, right, straight, right... No. Left, straight, straight... No. Left, Left... No!

"What do you mean?" Alai's voice chirps back at me.

"How can you be so sure?" an unknown voice practically yells at me. It sounds like an adult male, and I hear Graff snarling at the unknown person to give him the comms link back.

"I used a heat tracker. It shows that their path split in two at my current location," I pant out. Left, straight, right, straight, right, right again...

"Oh no," I breathe. "The second group is going to circle behind them."

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"Oh no," Kayleigh breathes softly into the comms link. "The second group is going to circle behind them."

"What do you want us to do?" I ask quickly, trying to hide the panic in my voice. I hear her suck in a breath and sigh.

"Continue on your path toward central command. I'll intercept you," she states decidedly.

"What?" Anderson screams indignantly. "You're just going to let these people get them?"

"Of course not,"she scoffs. The sound of steel-reinforced boots on metal echoes into the link.

"And what, pray tell, Ms. Bright, do you intend to do about it?" Anderson yells at her.

"Give the damn headset back Anderson," Graff yells in the background.

"They're not four years old, they're fifteen. They have phasers. It'll be okay, Anderson," she ground out, as whatever she was kicking gave in. Petra and the others laugh gently in the dimly lit hallway, their features having been grave since Kayleigh mentioned the other group of enemy soldiers.

"You heard the woman then," says Tom, "keep movin'." We nod and continue our careful walk down the hall, Dink and Tom taking up a sharper guard at the back of the formation.

†††

Red wire... Or blue wire? I search for the controls in the panel I busted open high on the wall. The wire on top. Red it is. I snip the red wire and strip about an inch of casing off of my right hand side. I check my tracker in the lense of my glasses and see that Ender and his jeesh have picked up the pace.

I really hope they move fast enough.

I twist my stripped red wire to a piece of exposed yellow wire, and connect a long wire with alligator clips at both ends to the connection and to my arm screen. Slipping back down the wall carefully so as not to break the wire, I flick my arm screen awake, its bright blue light shining in the dimly lit intersection. I glance at Ender's progress. Two more turns and I've got them.

I pull up as much security footage as I can. It's hard to see, so I turn the lights brighter in all corridors. I tap into my new connection to the mainframe and pull up the Formic-defense firing system. Ender clears the first turn. I pull up all cannons in the hall he just exited. A screen in the corner flashes with dark motion, so I pull it and its neighboring cameras toward my full attention.

Five... Four... Three... Two... Clear.

I fire all phasers as Ender clears the second turn. Their group picks up to what I can assume is a sprint, hurtling themselves down the hallway and towards me. I close all airlock doors in the sector they just left and double check for any other IF call signs in that area. None to be found. I stand up swiftly, dusting my pants free of dirt as I disconnect my arm from the wall panel. I hear heavy breaths, and Bean's sweaty face is the first to greet me upon rounding the bend.

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We all hurtle past Kayleigh one by one, still acting on instinct after the phasers started firing. Probably Kayleigh's doing. She grins wickedly at us as we stand and pant, as though this is just a walk in the park for her and not a serious situation at all. A small holoscreen projects from her forearm, flashing images and words and numbers.

"Having fun?" I pant, a little upset that she doesn't even seem ruffled at the fact that we almost died.

"Not yet," she smirks, raising her arm to tap at the screen. "But I am now." She taps a button. I hear the sound of very heavy metal doors heaving themselves open as though they haven't moved since this place was modified. A few seconds pass and her cool smirk drops. She taps two more buttons. Explosions follow immediately, accompanied be screams, grunts, and smaller explosions. Well, maybe they were just further away. She nods firmly to herself and flicks her arm down, causing the screen to dissipate.

"Can we take a walking break? I'm tired of running for my life for tonight," Petra groans, nearly sliding to the ground. Kayleigh shrugs her shoulders in response.

"If you'd like," she says quietly, leaning against the nearby wall. "We're in no rush."

"Thank God," Petra declares, slumping fully against the wall opposite me.

"And how, pray tell, are we in no rush. I thought we were being chased?" Dink asks incredulously.

"You said it yourself," Kayleigh responds neutrally. "You were being chased. I took care of it." That must have been the phasers and explosions.

"You WHAT?!" Anderson's voice screams over the comms link.