CHAPTER 18
Come Rescue Me
Maija gave the captain no time to talk. She brought her bow up and fired, the arrow soaring with pin point accuracy towards the man's head. He made no effort to move, or dodge and as the arrow made contact, a bright blue light shimmered in an oval around the man's face. The arrow, its head split open and shattered, clattered to the ground, broken in two. The room had erupted in a sound like a recoiling spring which faded with the light around his head.
A snarling smile split across his face as he propped his arms behind his back, walking further into the room. Maija hadn't gotten a chance to actually see what was inside and now, she saw several rows of stone countertops, chairs still positioned in front of some, others broken on the stone ground. Black, glassy panels were embedded periodically along the surface of the desks, some even cracked, blue sparks emanating from its surface. The whole room sloped downwards, shallow stairways formed columns between the long, curved stone desks that moved down towards the center of the room which was shaped like a half ellipses.
In the center of the room was a podium made from a glistening, reflective metal that unlike most the metal Maija had come across often in her life, wasn't rusted. It reflected back the world like a mirror, contorted by its rounded shape and harsh, geometric angles. It was large and its center was empty, a hole leading down into the ground. The podium was lit with a now bright, vibrating light and sitting atop it- floating a mere foot from its surface- was a rough sphere of white rock. The stone glowed green and even from this distance, Maija could feel energy emanating from it. Pure atlas.
Maija couldn't call it luck, but by some means, they had found it. They had found pure atlas strong enough to lift cities forever, powerful enough to destroy every shard that remained of Foundation. She couldn't let it fall into Kaius' hand and even worse, the Academy's captain's.
She took a step down, towards the man, letting her bow drop effortlessly out of her hand. The man's smile grew wider. He laughed. Maija let his voice fade into the distance, focusing deeply on the position of her body, the connection between every moving joint, tensing tendon, and flexing muscle. In correlation with the spear still attached to her back.
"Did you really think you could fool me?" the man said, raising his hands out and letting them clap back against his sides. "Every one of my people have been tested for loyalty. I know every one of my brothers and sisters by name. I can make you insignificant again, Maija Rae, but your suffering, I regret to tell you, will only get wor-"
Maija was now only a few feet from the man. In an instant, she grabbed her spear from her back with her right hand, rounding it around her body, positioned her left at the bottom of the spear's head and drove it home, deep into the man's stomach. The blue shield of light sparked and skittered, instantly lighting the wood of the spear of fire but its metal head still penetrated, cutting deep into the captain's flesh.
He stumbled back, missing his step against the stair below him and fell, the life instantly draining from his eyes. Maija stood still, breathing heavy with her spear at her side, her face twisted to an ugly look of anger. She spit at him, returning both her spear and bow to her back, and stepped over, heading towards the nearest black glassy panel.
"We found it Erik, I can't believe it. We found it." Maija knew she should feel relieved, but her voice had never felt so defeated. The anger that had pushed her to murder that man had faded, leaving her broken, cracked and fighting hard to move on from it. Erik agreed with her in silence.
These panels were electrical, the sparks and broken glass proved it, but they were unlike anything Maija had ever seen, much like several of things they had run into recently. Giant, monster-like frogs, a shield made from light- able to deflect arrows, a black electrical panel that lit up a bright blue as Maija pressed her palm against its cold surface, wiping away a layer of dust and rubble.
She stepped back, cautiously bringing her hand back as shapes of light and unreadable text jumped across its glossy screen. Maija gently pushed her hand back over it, resting a finger against the glass. The screen moved, bars of blue and text of white quickly slid off screen like they frantically had somewhere else to be that wasn't under Maija's fingertip. Replaced by whatever had once occupied the panel's surface was now a rotating, three-dimensional image of the podium sitting at the center of the room, a picture of the pure atlas hovering above it.
"Erik, come down here, now," Maija said, her voice raising in pitch at each word. Finally, the realization gripped at her vocal cords, an excitement bubbling up inside her. They were so close. At last. All they needed to do now was deliver it to Kaius and she would finally get some answers. After all these years of sitting in darkness, Kaius could light her world with understanding.
"Erik-," Maija said, a slight frustration lacing her tone. She spun around, seeing him at the rooms entrance, propped back on his elbows, his injured leg stuck out in front of him.
"I can't," he said, his face red and his leg bloody through the drenched layer of Maija's torn clothing. "I can't move my leg, Maija."
She was moving, instantly. Jumping up the stairs to Erik, skipping every other step. Maija dropped down in front of him, quickly unwrapping the pathetic excuse for a bandage, wet and completely soaked in thick red blood that covered her hands. Her eyes watered from concentration, blurring her vision of a ravaged leg in far worse condition than she had originally thought. It looked almost as if the wound had grown.
Maija jumped up, almost tripped, moving towards the nearest desk, flipping over chairs, searching along the edges for some sort of compartment, scanning the ground for cracks, some sort of break in the stone for plants to grow. Nothing. Nothing nothing nothing. The bleeding was so bad, and Erik's lack of feeling had likely been caused by severed nerves.
"There's nothing!" Maija shouted, turning back and running towards Erik. She lifted him up quickly but carefully. "Up. We need to go. We'll find something later."
"You're not going anywhere." Luke appeared from the darkness behind Erik, who had by now given up trying to sit upright and lay flat on his back, shallowly breathing. Luke walked slow, favoring the leg that Maija had put an arrow in. Beneath a tattered hole in his pant leg was bloody white bandage.
Maija jumped back, standing behind one of the stone desks and Luke stepped over Erik, seemingly uninterested in him. "You're not going anywhere Maija. I told you, I will do anything to protect this world, even if it means going through you. I'm sorry, but you've made yourself just as dangerous as Kaius and I cannot let you continue."
He rose a gun up to her, a pistol with a wooden stock attached to its back that tucked underneath Luke's elbow. Maija didn't move. He spoke again, his voice softer now, more pleading. "You were supposed to be Foundation's protector, Maija. You were supposed to save us."
Maija sensed his next move before he took them. Letting all strength leave her legs, Maija dropped to the floor, hearing the loud crack of his gun burst through the tight, echoey chamber as her lower back hit the ground. She was already reaching for her bow and as she peeked just barely above the top of the desk's top, she launched an arrow towards Luke. He ducked forwards as her arrow slammed into something behind Erik, a loud spark ripping from a control circuit build into the corridor's wall.
The blue light inside the chamber switched to a deep, color blinding red as a loud alarm blared through invisible horns, a cold harsh voice repeating the same lines in a dead, synthesized tone.
"Violence detected outside atlas test chamber 4, sealing compartment."
One by one, thick metal doors closed off from the walls through the corridor leading up to the chamber. Made from a metal just as polished as the metal below the floating chunk of pure atlas, each door closed smoothly and powerfully within moments.
"Erik move!" Maija screamed but he already was, pain splitting across his face as he forced himself out from the middle of the doorway just before the last metal door slammed shut, sealing the only exit off.
Luke appeared to her right. Maija nocked an arrow and fired it. Too fast, the arrow flew past his shoulder and hit the ground somewhere behind him. He lunged towards her, managing to grab a limb of her bow. She pulled back, only for a second before letting his own strength pull the bow far back, its upper limb connected hard against his nose. Maija grabbed the barrel of his gun and tried to yank it from his grip, pointing it up to the ceiling as three bullets rocketed from it, connecting with the stone, sprinkling dust down on them.
Luke was strong, far stronger than Maija. His strength quickly overpowered her already weak and fatigued body. Blood trailing from his nose, Luke pushed back at her, forcing her down on one knee below him. The limb of Maija's bow she had been gripping snapped off and Luke threw the broken half down, grabbing Maija by the hem of her collar, lifting her up to her feet. Maija could do nothing to stop him, weak and hurting from head to toe. Starved, breathless. She had worked herself too hard and had gone too long without rest.
"I'm sorry Maija," he said as he brought his gun up, pushing its cold, metal barrel against the angle of her jaw. "I never wanted it to be this way, but you'll never stop."
She reached up and grabbed his shoulder just as a bang deafened her. Maija jolted back as someone shouted. She found her opportunity and threw her elbow forwards, connecting hard against the side of Luke's head. He groaned once before falling flat against the ground, his gun clattering to the side. Erik stood behind him, now in full view, pointing his pistol where Luke had been standing.
"Why did you shoot him?" Maija shouted, still getting over the burst of burning adrenaline flowing through her.
Erik stumbled over, putting his hand on the gun to a desk for support. "I didn't shoot him, Maija. Look."
Erik was right, Luke was still alive, but Maija's attack had knocked him out cold given she had used the same arm that bore her grappling hook. Most of her elbow had been covered in steel and reinforced wood. A small amount of regret threatened to make itself known to her. She hadn't intended to hurt him but at the same time, he had been trying to kill her and that was enough for her to push the feeling away and never come back to it.
"Come on, we've wasted enough time already." Maija said, jumping over the desks and towards the piece of atlas. She couldn't imagine how they were going to transport it or find even find a way out this labyrinth, but there wasn't time to think and consider. They needed to move. The rest of the Academy had, by now, already found two of their people dead, and it won't be long until they realize their captain was missing. It would be so clear to them and her and Erik's ship was parked right on the island edge. Their only way of escape, completely vulnerable.
There was a panel along the front of the podium keeping the atlas in place. Maija tapped it rapidly with her fingertip and it flickered to life, displaying a bright blue light with scrolling moving white text written in a language Maija couldn't understand. Her heart was pounding, banging against the inside of her rib cage and for the first time since all of this started, Maija felt completely overwhelmed in the face of absolutely no danger.
And the voice, that annoying, putrid little nuisance wouldn't leave her alone. Pushing her forwards, forwards, forwards, forwards, forwards, even though there was nowhere to go. No forwards in sight. Maija backed away, raising up her hands and pushing her palms in to her temples. Her mind erupted into a frenzy of emotions and questions and what ifs.
What if I fail?
What if Makhai died for nothing?
Erik said something behind her. She didn't hear it. Maija closed her eyes suddenly and dropped her hands to her sides. She forced a calm to fall over her and the worries and useless, distracting thoughts to drain from her brain. Then it came to her.
It was almost like she had known what these words meant from before the beginning of her life, even before she woke up in the Badlands, alone and with no sense of belonging. A time before she was Maija. A time when she was a different woman, doing different things, before some unknown force came and took it from her. A time when she could look at these words, this text in bright white and could understand.
Maija navigated the screen, running on instinct. Before she could question what she was doing, she was already doing it. She located the emergency lockouts on all Rebus technologies and engaged them. Then, preformed a trick in the systems settings that allowed her to reroute all incoming and outgoing signals and transmission to this panel. It turned out that a lot of data was being expelled from this Vault including the remaining locations of five other parts of Rebus, scattered somewhere in Foundation ruins. Maija downloaded them, a small piece of silver metal sliding out from a compartment along the side of the panel, an illuminated blue screen along its widest surface. She took it and pocketed it quickly.
And before Maija was even knowing it, her fingers dancing along the surface of the screen, she had disengaged lockouts, returned transmission settings to normal, and ejected the chuck of pure atlas down through a slot in its pedestal that looked down into open sky.
Something popped in Maija's mind as the atlas disappeared from view, almost audible in her imagination. Everything vanished instantly from her, and she stumbled to the floor, grasping for anything to hold her up but failing. Erik was there in a second, grabbing her from under her shoulders and gently setting her down, limping the entire way.
"What did you just do?" He asked, his voice soft but his eyes filled with urgency.
Maija's mind was numb, she couldn't physically feel her head and memories left and returned to her without warning, some didn't even feel like her own. She stared up into Erik's eyes but could recognize any of it.
It was only Erik's voice, his touch, which brought everything back to her. The red light that had once illuminated the room had switched back to blue and Erik's face filled Maija's vision. She couldn't remember anything, the snippets of someone else's memories had faded only leaving a reminder that they had once been there. Maija couldn't even remember what she had just done, only that they now had a way out, and the atlas.
"I don't know," Maija said as she stood, shaky on her feet but regained her balance quickly. She felt as if she could cry but it never came to her, confusion and even wonder clouding out all else. "I don't..."
"What was that thing?"
Maija felt her pocket and pulled out the slab of metal, its front side displayed what looked like a map in blue light, distinguishable plots of land and thick lines marked islands and wall locations. It's structure resembled Kaius's hand drawn map but Maija couldn't recognize any part of it. Five red blips, each one at a different part of the map that seemed to cover hundreds of distinct zones, gave off weak pulses.
"A map," Maija said, her voice weak and her throat feeling raw. It felt as if she had been screaming for hours even though she hadn't. "To the rest of Rebus."
"How do you know?"
"A feeling. It makes sense. If I- or whoever I was- was to download anything from that thing, it would be that. We're going to need more from Rebus, and I don't know what."
Maija walked over to the podium, quickly. Peaking over again, she saw open sky- or just the bottom of this bubble of sandwall they had managed to get themselves caught in. She almost had expected it to have disappeared, a figment of some imagination, a glimpse into someone else's memory. But it had been real and after helping Erik up, they jumped through it.
The passage leading to the bottom of the island widen until it was several feet across. Maija rested the urge to scream as her stomach shot up to her throat as she forced herself to free fall. Then, as soon as natural light hit her eyes, she twisted, pulling her arm up and over her head. She fired her grappling hook which contacted the underside of the stone island and her momentum dissipated immediately.
Hanging on her rope, Maija twisted, located Erik- hanging not far from her from his own line- and the piece of atlas, which had come to a standstill right below its original position only a few feet under the hole in the islands bottom. Nothing moved it, not even the blow of the wind. It remained perfectly still.
She grabbed it, somehow working the length of her freehand around a corner of the chunk and pulled it. It was light, completely weightless and almost felt like it was sticking to her hand. It didn't take long for Maija to adjust to its presence as she and Erik swung along the underside of the island, reaching their ship within a few minutes.
Maija climbed up along the side of the island, peeking just barely over its top to see her ship. She held the chunk of atlas cautiously behind her even though it was far too large to be completely hidden. Three people stood on top, four below, a massive ship hovered above. The Academy. Standing in their ranks, her hands bound in rope, was Roa. A massive gash was cut through her forehead which didn't look nearly as ugly as the ferocious look of anger scribbled all over her face.
Some part of Maija was relieved that she hadn't killed her, but another, far wiser part, knew that her job would be a whole lot easier if she had been successful. The Academy had found her either way and they were not happy with either of them. And now, they had her ship.
Maija let go of the atlas, letting it hang in midair right where she left it, and drew Luke's gun which she had collected from him before her disorientating attack. Erik had climbed up next to her. Although she had wanted a virtually silent approach, Erik's leg was far too damaged to allow him to climb without his grappling hook. He crept up beside her, as quietly as he could.
"You aren't planning on fighting them, are you?" Erik whispered. He was completely incapacitated. Even if he had both his hands free, he was a sitting duck and would be killed without much fight. It was all up to Maija, and she was starting to get used to it.
"I have to," she whispered back. Maija looked over at him, taking in the look of his eyes as they stared into her own. He was worried. "I'll be fine. Don't- don't worry about me. Just stay low, don't make any sound, and in no circumstance make yourself known."
"What, you get to worry about me, but I can't worry about you?"
"Yeah, exactly. You got it." Without giving him much choice, Maija threw herself silently up to the island's top, its sandy surface covering her feet, and darted behind a nearby rock. Three people stood on top of their ship, four below it. Seven total. That is, if more didn't flood in from the ship above them.
The more Maija analyzed the situation, the more she found Erik had been right. Even with her trained, adept skills, she would only be able to take out two, maybe three, people before she was discovered. After that she would be overwhelmed, killed or worse, taken captive. Every urge she had pushed her to fight with all she had, but logic and even common sense told her that it wouldn't work.
She quietly and carefully slid down the side of the island, joining Erik again. They needed to get up to their ship but there was no way Erik was getting up there without making both of them known. He was barely able to hold to the side of the island, let alone perform the running and jumping required to silently climb to their ship.
"Do we have anything on the ship that could help your leg?" Maija whispered. She was getting restless, practically doing the equivalent of hopping back and forth on her feet while holding to the rocky side of a chunk of rock floating hundreds of miles in the air.
"Maybe," Erik replied through clenched teeth. He was clearly in excruciating pain. Maija had to give him credit for holding on so well. It made her feel even a little bit bad if the circumstances had allowed it. "That's if they hadn't taken everything of value off that ship."
Maija huffed and climbed back up the island. The three people at the base of the ship stood on top of its shipyard, collecting around its center console. She snuck around to the same rock she had hid behind before, positioned behind the group of pirates. The four aboard her ship was out of view and the ship hovering above seemed uninterested, none of its passengers visible.
She took the opportunity, darting out from behind her hiding place. Maija ran, full speed towards the shipyard, her bare feet silent against the soft sand below. She leaped up, bouncing up from the base of the shipyard and latched her fingers against the hull of her ship. Maija found a foothold and pulled her legs up flat against the bottom of the ship, now only a few feet above the Academy's heads.
"What the hell was that?" One man commented. Maija's heart froze but the man was ignored.
"This isn't even one of our own ships, it's not even registered under New Unity," another said, peering down at the shipyards console which displayed information about the docked ship in a sickly green light.
"Whose is it then?"
"It's got an organizational registration under something called 'Cliffside.'"
Maija slowly, carefully let out a breath and pulled in another one. Her entire body was being pulled down by gravity and just the strength required to resist it was enough to make her breathless. She extended her legs, reaching up the side of the ship's hull, feeling the cool metal with one hand for handholds. Her hand found the separation between two panels and grabbed onto it.
She let her feet fall away from the bottom of the ship, keeping her knees pulled up to her chest, already breaking into a sweat. All her body weight was hanging from her arms and the effort alone to keep her legs from hanging down into the view of the three men was almost impossible to bare.
Taking one quick reach up, expending almost all of her energy, Maija grabbed a lip just below the edge of the ship's top deck and put her feet against the ship's hull finally regaining some stabilization. She closed her eyes, taking in a huge breath of air as silently as she could before inching closer to the back of the ship.
The muscles through her arms, legs, and especially her stomach, burned from exhaustion. But she finally peaked up from below the top deck. She acted quickly, not seeing any one at this side of the ship, and pulled herself aboard, to her feet, and stepped across to the opening to the bottom deck.
She jumped down the stairs and twisted around to the back of the deck, to the metal cabinets along the back wall, no longer caring to be quiet. Maija pulled each one open, peering in before moving the next. Empty. Empty. Empty. Her whole ship had been stripped of anything of value, fuel, food, resources, everything.
Footsteps. Voices came from nowhere. Someone was stepping down the stairs above her. She swore to herself and slipped behind the gap between the cabinets and the fuel canister. The two people that had come down the stairs turned to the main area, talking amongst themselves, moving closer to the cabinets. Bending her back to curve to the shape of the ship's outer hull, Maija pushed herself back behind the fuel canister.
"I know I heard something," a man said as two set of booted footsteps came barreling down the metal stairs.
"You always do this man," a woman said this time. "Give it a few minutes and you'll chalk it up to your imagination."
"I swear to both our Aetherials, I heard something."
Maija held her breath, resisting the urge to squeeze her eyes closed by kept them wide open. Her heart pounded in her chest harder than it had when she climbed up here, remaining completely still but consuming even more energy. The man and woman searched through the bottom deck. Maija tucked herself into a ball, arching her back against the ship's hull, standing up on the tips of her toes.
The woman was the first to go, the man following. She muttered something about him owing her something for wasting time, but her voice was whisked away as they both stepped up on the top deck. Maija blew out her breath slowly and still virtually silent. She uncurled herself and carefully stepped out from behind the fuel canister. There were footsteps on metal above her, the sounds of several grappling hooks and then silence, the wind from the sandwall blowing up against the ship's hull.
She moved fast, the plan developing further in her mind with each footstep. And it fully relied on Erik cooperating with her without any communication. Maija spun around the opening to the top deck, climbing up the stairs in seconds, skipping steps. She wound the corner to see a woman standing towards her, grappling hook held out in the air, pointed towards the bottom of the ship above them.
"Shit!" Maija swore but didn't falter, darted closer towards the woman.
The woman drew her weapon, but Maija focused on her right arm, grabbing the grappling hook and pinning it to the corner of the cabin's wall. The woman's gun flashed in her peripheral vision. She grabbed the barrel and easily yanked it free from her grip, tossing it off the side of the ship. The woman didn't miss a beat, wrapping her arms around Maija's shoulders, trying to yank her away from the ship's cabin. Maija wouldn't let her, gripping her feet against the deck, she slammed the woman's right forearm against the cabin's metal corner. One slam, something cracked, the woman screamed trying to get Maija away. The second burst one of the hook's air canisters, pressurized air leaking from its cracked bronze casing with each second.
The woman yelled, telling Maija to stop. They both knew full well that the grappling hook would no longer function. But Maija never let up. She took her spear from her back and it twisted around the back of the woman, swinging the grip of the spear around her neck and bringing it firmly back. With one quick twist, a movement the woman was unable to resist, Maija hurled her off the side of the ship, she landed hard against the sandy ground but alive.
Maija was at the helm immediately. She grabbed onto the controls and pulled the ship up and around, pushing the engines to full blast. They sputtered on, picking up speed almost instantaneously, pouring black exhaust into the air. A grappling hook activated. Maija flinched, ducking away from the helm as the ship above just only began to notice what was going on below it. Hands grabbed the side of the deck and Maija reacted, adrenaline fueling irrational and instinctual actions.
But one hand let go, waving above the edge of the ship, a panicky and very in pain voice yelled up at her. "It's me! It's me. Erik! Stop!"
Maija still moved, reaching down and grabbing Erik's wrist. She pulled him aboard, he tried to help but ended up collapsing to the metal deck, grabbing his leg in pain. It looked horrible, blood spilled over the deck and the length of his shin down to his tattered, almost nonexistent boot was purple. She needed to get him medicine and she needed to fast.
But a loud and ear piercing boom tore Maija's eardrums to shreds. She screamed and ducked as something impacted the side of her ship, pushing it hard through the air. Erik rolled and slammed against the side of the cabin, shouting in pain. Maija managed to catch herself and bolted towards the back facing cannon. She was managing this ship herself, she was all alone.
She grabbed the controls and angled the cannon up towards the ship that followed after her, its sharp angled bow cutting through the air faster than her ship. Maija squeezed down on the controls and a cannon shell burst from the cannon's barrel lit with orange light and deafeningly loud sound. The recoil pushed her back. She screamed again, falling to the deck as the cannon shell exploded against the bow of the ship behind them. The ship buckled and fell back as Maija's ship moved faster forwards.
The world was engulfed in dust instantly as the ship passed into the sandwall. Maija was caught off guard, struggling to get to her feet and sand beat down on her from every direction. She had used her only mask to bandage Erik's wound- which now felt like a mistake she regretted with every fiber of her being as she struggled to pull in a full breath of air and get back to the helm.
The ship was dipping downward, and it was being pushed down towards the void fast. Dust collected around the edges the deck and cabin and one of the top engines were already sputtering off, dust and dirt clogging up its internals. Maija ignored it, fighting against the wind and the now unbalanced propulsion, trying to keep the ship moving forwards in sandstorm that raged around her. Fortunately for her, she only had half a wall to traverse, and it was already trying to push her out.
The wind picked up behind the ship, propelling it forwards as sunlight shown in a clearing in front of Maija. Then it all vanished as the sand slowly cleared. A mass of ships waited from the other side, their black and red paint marking them as Kaius's. Maija felt it odd to feel the relief she did but as she pulled the throttle back and the engines slowly turned off, falling back and waiting for Kaius to come rescue her was the only thing she wanted to do.
