Revolution(Legend)

DANIEL

"FIVE MINUTES." TESS DILLED THIS INTO OUR HEADS BEFORE WE LEFT,

"Five minutes before they will notice and track us."

I run through our practiced little "routine": Find our ships, break into the shuttles, reset the data and tracking enables. Done? Try to get out of there alive.
Of course, during this, June and her co-hacker will cut the cam lines and get us out. But I'm still weary from a repeating fear. What if we get caught? And I haven't got the heart to imagine what they would do to Eden then.
I feel a surge of guilt now. An hour ago I had told my brother I was out for lunch with Tess, which isn't exactly a lie. But what would he think of me if he knows I'm a Patriot? I might as well have betrayed him, and after all these years I tried to protect him...

"Stop." I tell myself, "Eden's not a kid anymore, he can take care of himself."

" You're not scared, are you?" Pascao claps his arm to my back.
"No!" I reply on instinct, wondering how he must have seen my hidden anxiety.
The idiot chuckles, and I curse under my breath, to notice I'm fiddling with the old ring again.
"Chill, old man." Pascao didn't seem to take the hint, "You were the most noxious criminal of all time, I was a fabulous, bright runner. I'm sure we make a great team!"

I turn away, trying to ignore his calls as the asshole continues to belt out his hogwash.

***

I keep up with Pascao and the two other runners: Skiiner and Boey. We march on without stopping in our fake demeanours, me glancing unnoticeably towards the control room door that had just clicked shut behind Iparis and Bougbury. Across the landing, a set of regular concrete steps lead down onto the floor below, the ship storage.

The runners pause as we reach the bottom of the stairwell, then we see a set of guards, blocking the entrance of what seems like a huge basement.
One guard salutes at Pascao, he returns the gesture, before addressing the guard in a low voice, "We're here to check the ships. Engineering, you know." he shrugs jokingly.
The other man doesn't laugh, "You got a pass sir?"
"A- of course." He fumbles within his jacket, "Oops. Oh, here it is!" He flashes a card ID looking object.
"The African jet?" the guard squints in suspicion.
"Uh, yes." Our hopeless leader stammers.
After a moment of uneasy silence, the guard gave in. "Off you go then." he mutters gruffly, motioning us to the airship basement.

"What now?" Pascao whispers to me as we venture into the large room.
I scowl at him, " What, you're in charge!"
"Ok, jeez." He replies in defence, "I just don't like listening to Tess' little lectures."

I stop in my tracks suddenly,"This is it."
"What is? Where?"
I sigh, "The ship, Pascao, use your eyes cousin."
But I couldn't help but gape at the machine before me. The airship is huge, but it has an elegant curve to it. Its smooth camouflage body embedded with sensors and completely tinted glass screens that must resemble windows.

Pascao looks like if christmas came early.
"Damn, let's kick some ass."

Inside the ship turns out to be even better than the exterior, though smaller than I expected. A walkway leads into scatters of dense compartments, storage, firing deck, a fridge- which Pascao took no time to empty. But the most astounding part is probably the cockpit, a medium sized room with enough buttons and switches of the Los Angeles power house. With two co-pilot seats positioned by the walls. Technology similar to New Antarctica, far beyond even the Colonies.

"Kaede would go crazy if she ever had the chance to see this." Lynn Skiiner appears soundlessly at my side.
"Kaede?"
The girl grins awkwardly at my question, as if she knows something I don't.
"One of the original Patriots, best pilot they've ever seen. Rumor says she used go to Pilot school in the Colonies."
Skiiner still refuses to meet my eye.
"What happened? To her I mean."
"Died. Some crash. In a mission 'bit more than ten years ago."
She replies vaguely, her tone tells me that the matter is closed.

"Hey!" A distant banging sends me alert again. "Dammit, it's still not working."
I make my way to the control room just to find a red faced Boey. Even Pascao looks mildly concerned.
"Maybe the connection's not working?"
"Urgh. No, you bastard." Boey looks back to see us, "The tracker, we don't have access to disable it."

My eyes dart to the flashing server that he's bending over at, "Is Hawkeye and Coder supposed to reset the data?"
"There- supposed- to!" The dark haired guy grunts in frustration, yanking the tracker from its place. "Well they'd better hurry...?"

Skiiner sighs, looking over to Pascao in disgust, who is now on his second chocolate bar, "Can you help? Call them!"

"Can't." he makes a sour face, mouth still full of food, "No signal down here."
Skiiner makes a quick glance at her watch, She turns to meet my eye, "Two minutes left, you think we'll make it?"
Hurry June, hurry.
"We'll make it." I nod, half-heartedly.
The fellow runner opens her mouth, then decides against it, leaving a slightly awkward silence between us. She would be quite pretty actually, if she didn't look angry, which she constantly does. Deep set, murky green eyes, behind her jet black bangs.
My eyes flinch away, and look at Boey instead, and the buzzing monitor.

'Click. Beeeeep!"
All four of us freeze, searching where the sound has admitted from, my eyes waver towards the door. We are all fearing one thing. "Yes!" It's Boey to first realise. The flashing red tracker has gone dim, a tiny, metal plate slides from the computer itself.
He whoops again, and the realisation falls upon us too.

I let out a sigh of relief, "Let's get out of here." I nod to Skiiner. And, refusing to make eye contact, she follows, leading Pascao, and a flustered Boey.

Look who just updated? I'm so sorry for being so inactive on this book. But here's a Long chapter for ya, hope you like it.