Fire and Ice

Chapter 37 † Kayleigh

Ender and I reach the platform and take our seats.

"We're in," Alai whispers into the comms link.

"Good. Start disrupting the ansible signal so that our screens get all staticy."

"Yes ma'am." I pull up a screen on my arm brace and start shutting down all of the power to our simulator room, covering my steps as I go. I see Anderson and Rackham look around confused in the reflection of my glasses. Graff seems to play in, also looking confused, but with slightly less alarm.

I turn my attention forward as every single desk shuts down in the pilot rows, launching them into near darkness. On screen, the formics pull away, launching back toward their home planet.

I quickly send a short email to Val containing vids of what Ender and I said to the squadrons moments earlier. I might not get another chance to.

The screens begin to flicker, becoming barred with static. Perfect.

"Get it back online!" Rackham yells.

"What's going on?" Anderson yells louder.

The screen turns black and we become enveloped in darkness.

∞∞

I sit in calculus class, bored. My teacher drones on about derivatives and I try not to fall asleep. I open my desk and notice an email from Kayleigh. I sit immediately upright and open it. There is a video attached. I hurriedly turn the volume off and the subtitles on to watch.

It's her and Ender. They're in a dark room, speaking to other soldiers. About the war. I close out of the video and glimpse the short message she wrote.

To match the IF's propaganda. Use it wisely.

††

Soldiers stream in and forcibly escort us back to our rooms. As soon as they shut my door I'm up the wall and into the air vents. I crawl through them until I reach Ender's room. I watch carefully until they throw him in, and then kick down the grate.

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As soon as the soldiers lock me in my room a loud bang echoes and I see metal crumple against the wall to my left. I turn completely around to see Kayleigh sticking her head out of the vent. She pulls herself through and drops down.

"Hey," she breathes.

"How'd you get here so fast?"

"That's a secret."

"How secret?"

"Not very. It's called crawling really fast. Heard of it?"

"Yeah, maybe once or twice," I chuckle. "Got a reason for dropping by?"

"Remember the last time we went into shut down and you were taken into your room?"

"Oh.."

"Yeah. I just wanted to make sure you were safe. Can you contact Petra and the others?" As soon as she says it a notification pops up from Petra. Kayleigh raises her eyebrows at me.

"Psychic," she whispers. I break down laughing at the very notion that Petra Arkanian is anything such.

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"Colonel Rackham, may I speak with you for a moment?"

"Of course Anderson."

"What the hell happened back there?"

"I was just about to ask you the same thing."