Hacking the Sun - The Re-Remake

Chapter 26 Demon of Dissent 3/3

"10:00! 2:00!" Beelz pinpointed tangos beyond the walls.

Meanwhile, Jessica kept hers and David's heads down. Bolts of light scattered the interior in an exchange of dense fire that carved a storm. Operatives and Azareans fired, fell, and fired again. During one keen instant, a grenade explosion interrupted the spray, and a holographic shield flew overhead with the arm still attached.

Then it stopped, and in the reprieve, Beelz scanned the floor for casualties. When the dust finally cleared and the wind once again howled, several operatives lay dead.

"Where am I?" David mumbled. Apparently, the chaos had revived his awareness... and fear. The same applied to the rest of the waking—now excited—prisoners.

Alert, Jessica trudged across the room, where she found Shannon and Valerie together. "You guys all right?"

"I am a little bit," Valerie coughed.

Shannon remained flat on the floor. "I need to go to the bathroom."

Breathing a dear sigh of relief, Jessica stood up and sauntered toward the smoke and decay. She found David sitting upright, looking sober and unscathed but dazed. 

"Are you alright?" she asked him.

"I don't know." His squinting eyes careened until they fixed on her face. "You're the Tacquizza girl," he slurred. "There are no deliveries here..."

"There's not going to be much of 'here' left."

Outside the gaping hole in the wall, a charred and battered airship rose into view. Quickly, every man and woman who could still lift a gun brought their weapons to bear, until Raptor poked his head outside the cabin. In the Lieutenant's worn expression, willpower remained, and he invited anyone who could see him. 

It was time to leave.

Valerie, Shannon, and the Sub Terra survivors escorted Goliath's prisoners to the edge of the tower's new exit. Raptor resided in the first of two airships off which he leaped to help others safely step aboard. The first ship would depart with a cabin full of wondrous and forlorn faces. The second took the place of the first, its pilot delicately balancing its hull over the tower's edge. During that interval in which grateful strangers rambled inward, Jessica watched David carefully.

"I think it's time you quit your job," she told him, offering a hand.

"Wait!" he remonstrated. "This is Goliath, right? Just—."

"We'll make room for you if we have to, David," Beelz said.

David grabbed Beelz by the shoulders. "You're here for something else," he panted. "Sixteen years, I've hung my cap in the enemy's locker. Whatever comes next, with my knowledge of Goliath's global network, I know we can make it count. And I can..." David flinched over his shoulder, saw Jessica, then returned his pallid expression to Beelz and whispered something in the woman's ear. 

Right then, Beelz closed her eyes and nodded somberly.

When David turned around, the express resolve in his eyes reminded Jessica of the last thing she needed to address. It started with Beelz, to whom she solemnly said, "I guess you'll be staying until the next airship comes?"

"If," Beelz emphasized. "You don't have to think about that anymore."

The tower ledge brought horizon beyond New Sumer, dark as it may have been. Against the peak breeze, past the capsules and to the airship, Jessica paused where Valerie and Shannon were waiting. Raptor waited beside them, and despite fatigue in his eyes and cuts on his stubbled face, determination still accompanied his parting words.

"There's room for a few more!" He nodded to the cabin, at the huddled group of scared individuals. Some were middle-aged, others were very young, and one... one was Azarean.

What's the common denominator?

Raptor continued half-heartedly, bending his brow. "In case you didn't realize, you've done more than enough today!"

"You and everyone else! I think we have what we need!" She turned to her friends, grinning ear to ear. "Tell me you're ready to leave this place!"

"We have to go!" the piloted rushed.

"I'm ready when you are!" said Shannon. "Whenever. Wherever."

"Of course, you are!" Jessica laughed.

"Jess, are you ready?" Val prodded. "This was your plan, remember?"

"I know!"

"Whoever's going, get going!" Raptor exclaimed.

Jessica stepped onto the airship, followed by Shannon then Valerie.

With everyone on board, Raptor punched the side of the cockpit. Jessica counted the seconds and, gravitating from the ledge, regret, sorrow, and a sense of failure punctured the peace in her heart. Like a virus, they infected her thoughts.

"Take off your boots before there's an accident," she told her friends, then kneeled. Valerie and Shannon carefully removed each pair of prototypes.

"I'm afraid of heights, anyway," said Shannon.

"Me too." Jessica grabbed their slippers... then leaped from the ship's cabin. To her friends' horror, she fell toward the cavity, back to the top levels of Goliath Headquarters. That last second left insurmountable distance between herself and the airship. Over her shoulder, she imagined Shannon and Valerie's distraught faces carried away from danger. "I'm not done yet."

Her friends' voices screamed through the comms.

"What are you doing?" cried Valerie.

"It was the only way to keep you alive."

Shannon's voice cleaved into her ear. "That's not fucken fair!"

"Probably not."

"You don't have to do this!"

"No, I don't."

"Jess..."

She removed the earbud. Beelz, Raptor, David, and the remaining rebels spoke to her with the white of their eyes, and she nearly swore she saw admiration. At that moment, another ship's beak rose over the ledge.

Turning with the wind, the metal bird revealed Monarch onboard. Milliseconds later, Jessica realized something was wrong. Because he stood on the edge, alone, with terror-stricken eyes.

"Complete the missio—" A blade impaled monarch's chest, bending his expression to anguish. The blade's edge then retracted, leaving the commander to fall, hand over his heart. 

Behind him stood Malvis, gnashing teeth with a devil's leer and facial scars. The mere sight of the alien choked Jessica's reaction, but Beelz reacted swiftly and accordingly.

"Blow it to hell!"

Every man or woman with a gun opened fire, Malvis' shield glaring from its repulsion. He stood upright in the face of the heavy barrage; red dead defiance smeared on his face.

"Eve!" Monarch screeched. He was still clutching the bottom of the airship. The man simply refused to die.

Malvis seemed none-the-wiser as he drew and rapidly fired his pistol, sniping multiple operatives in the blink of an eye.

Frantically, Beelz bit the safety pin off a grenade and lugged it at the cabin, but Malvis and his quick reflexes smacked it below. Monarch intercepted, clinging to the deck with one arm. He offered the grenade under a meek smile, letting Malvis grimace before the two sides of his face ignited. 

The blast demolished the airship and sent it into a seemingly endless spiral down to the city streets. From up so high, it was an abyss.