Chapter 69: Forty Two

Bekka brought her heel down across the gunship canopy, shattering the upper viewport until violent wind pressure caved the cockpit inward.

The aircraft banked away from the roof wound, spraying wild tracer fire into the sky as its stabilizer thrusters sheared away.

"Get down!" Rhodes shouted from the threshold, shoving three coughing healers behind his uninjured shoulder while debris rained across the alley floor.

Leo guided four stumbling patients through the ruined doorway, keeping his body positioned between the shivering civilians and the falling glass.

The twin auto-cannons ripped through the building facade above them, showering the narrow extraction route in dust and fractured stone.

Rhodes threw his weight against a falling beam, deflecting the obstruction with his armored shoulder to clear a path toward the stairs.

Waking healers shrieked in terror as the concussive blasts rattled the walls, scattering in panic until Rhodes herded them into the doorway.

Above the roof, the gunship engines shrieked as the craft tumbled toward the lower industrial basin and struck the canal edge.

Bekka dropped through the open air with both gauntlets smoking, their cooling fans screaming while thermal alarms flashed across her wrists.

The internal coils scorched against her skin, filling her nostrils with burnt insulation as the licensed thrusters died in midair.

Tempest wheeled through the storm too far to catch her descent, yet she refused to let gravity drop her into the street.

She willed the wind upward beneath her feet, feeling the air seize her weight and hold her aloft without mechanical assistance.

[ Reciprocal Bloom ]

[ Partner: Bekka ]

[ Want: High | Get Them Out ]

[ Partner Surge: Unaided Flight Ceiling Open ]

[ Bloom Ladder: 50% ]

She dropped onto an emergency stair rail with a sharp clang, her knees absorbing the shock while her gauntlets hissed with heat.

"Damn those broadcast towers," she cursed, glaring at the surveillance drones recording her flight from across the wide avenue. "Every council bureaucrat in District One just watched me fly without an Association flight license."

"We need to move before their ground units seal the lower perimeter," Sierra called, slicing an automated camera conduit with her daggers.

"Take the service stairs," Rhodes grunted, supporting a trembling young man who struggled to keep his footing on the slick steps.

They moved into the stairwell in an awkward rush, dragging forty-two weakened bodies through the narrow flights beneath the damaged roof.

Leo carried an unconscious man across his left shoulder, gritting his teeth as the burden strained his fractured ribs at every step.

A small freight elevator held only eight survivors at a time, forcing them to shuttle the weakest patients through the dark shaft.

The elevator cables groaned under the sudden weight, vibrating through the dark shaft as the winch lowered the first group.

Stasis fluid dripped from soaked garments onto the steps, mixing with the sour smell of sickness and recycled emergency air around them.

The weight of forty-two exhausted bodies turned the descent into an agonizing crawl, testing their endurance against the ticking clock.

Sierra moved alongside the descent line, severing surveillance junctions at every floor to prevent corporate security from locking the elevator gates.

"My sight is starting to blur around the edges," she admitted in a low whisper, blinking against the strain of their lingering Communion.

"Conserve your strength until we reach the train," he replied, adjusting his grip as the unconscious man groaned against his shoulder.

A conscious healer with a split lip recoiled from his outstretched hand, backing away in terror from the dark mask and drawn blade.

"Do not touch me," the young man stammered, shivering as his eyes darted toward the shadows writhing around his feet. "You look like the butchers who put us in those tubes."

"Then walk with Rhodes," Leo answered, turning away without argument to lift an elderly woman who could not support her own weight.

"I am not here to make you like me," he added quietly, guiding the shivering woman past the narrow landing. "I am here to get you out alive."

Sierra took the terrified young man by the elbow, speaking in a low, calming murmur while guiding him down the final flight.

"He broke the cylinders that held you," she whispered gently, keeping her daggers sheathed as they reached the lower loading bay. "Keep your feet moving and stay close to the group."

Kage limped beside them through the lower tunnel, leaving dark drops along the floor, the slash still open and refusing to close.

They emerged onto the industrial siding where an uncoupled freight train waited with its diesel engine idling in the dark.

Cole stood near the open cargo doors, waving the survivors into the interior while Andre operated the overhead loading winch above.

"Bekka’s liaison clearance bought us twenty minutes on this rail line," Cole said, helping three shivering women into the boxcar. "Where are we taking them?"

"We are heading toward District Nine," Rhodes grunted, collapsing onto a shipping crate inside the car with his ruined arm strapped tight. "Gruber released a secondary toxin into the public shelters before he fled the council floor."

"What kind of toxin?" Sierra asked, checking the pulse of the elderly woman resting on the straw-covered floor.

"A mutated Vorn strain," Rhodes answered, coughing into his hand while the train cars lurched against the coupling pins. "Richter’s clinic is already overwhelmed with dying civilians, and the command chair still has a secondary firing path aimed at the district."

"The airborne poison attacks the respiratory ether pathways," Rhodes added, leaning his head back against the wall. "Normal filtration cannot stop it, and untrained healers are burning out their cores trying to purge the infected wards."

"Luna is holding the quarantine ward together with Healer’s Devotion," Sierra noted, looking up from her pad. "Her core cannot sustain that strain indefinitely."

"We cut its spine cable on our way out," Leo said, his hand resting on the warm scabbard at his hip. "The signal is damaged, but not destroyed."

"It is enough to buy District Nine some time," Rhodes replied, closing his eyes against the thrumming vibrations of the train wheels.

"Forty-two accounted for," Sierra reported, marking the final name on her pad as the cargo sliding doors rolled shut.

Andre slammed the locking bars into place from the outer platform, signaling the engineer with two sharp whistle blasts.

A sharp burst of static crackled over Leo’s personal comm line, followed by the familiar, stubborn voice of his younger sister.

"Leo, do not tell me to evacuate," Tessa said, her voice trembling slightly over the noisy background of medical monitors. "Luna and Richter came down from the mountain ward when the shelters went wrong. I am already at the clinic with them, and we are not leaving these people behind."

"Stay inside the sealed ward," he commanded, feeling the cold weight of the train lurching forward onto the main line.

"The air filters are beginning to fail," Tessa warned, her tone tightening with defiance. "If you are bringing more wounded, hurry."

The freight cars rattled as the train picked up speed, carrying forty-two rescued souls toward a home already burning with alien poison.

Leo leaned his head back against the rumbling bulkhead, watching the dark silhouettes of his companions as the wheels hammered against the rails.

Outside the train, Bekka crouched on the shaking roof of the forward car, keeping watch over the darkening rails ahead.