Fire and Ice

Chapter 13 ≈ Petra

VOOM.

Screams erupt from behind the door. Phaser blasts can be heard faintly over the deaths of this outside. Bodies fall into the door as the photon shots rip through flesh and eventually the door. The shots don't stop for three full minutes.

†††

I exhale deeply as I tap the button to stop the phaser from firing. I tap the other comms units, bringing them to life and open the handheld phaser compartment outside the door.

"Did you kill them, Admiral?" a voice quavers gruffly from my left.

"Depends on which 'them' you're referring to," I snap curtly, placing the headset back on to listen for anyone on the other lines.

"Like hell. Don't play stupid, Admiral," Graff scoffs from my right. I turn to glare at him. "The kids. Are they dead?"

"No. Why would they be, Colonel?" The words cut out of my mouth.

"I... Ahh.. I..." He stammers. I huff and turn around.

≈≈≈≈

I'm ready to get the hell out from behind the mattress but Dink grabs my arm. I whirl to look at him and he shakes his head at me. Bean pokes his head out from Dink's other side and also shakes his head at me. I sigh and pull myself back in. Bean holds up five fingers and I sigh again. He's right, though. We have to wait to see if anyone lived through the barrage of photon blasts from the phasers and comes after us. We won't have much protection now that the door is, presumably, shredded. I hear a small beep from the communicator in my hand and pull it up to hook in my ear.

"I hope y'all still have your wits about you," Kayleigh's voice chimes cheerily, as though we weren't in a life-or-death situation, "because your jobs aren't over yet. You need to get to the handheld phasers outside the door before anyone else shows up. I'm on my way to the comms unit's location. Head toward the central command center. I'll see you guys..." she trails off. Several grunts sound through the unit, each preceded by a faint whizzing of metal flying through the air. "Sometime. Over and out." she finishes decidedly. A blade gently whooshes from wherever she was keeping it, and a man screams as the metal whirs through the air, followed by the thunk of blade on flesh and a large crack as something hits the floor. The communicator shuts off immediately after that and my eyes go wide.

I push out from behind the mattress, not looking at the others as I hurtle myself toward the phasers.

†††

I click off the comms unit and step over the body of the soldier I beheaded. I click my blades back into their holders and turn around. I roll the body over and glance quickly over him, letting my glasses scan the weapons tucked away in his uniform before ripping his insignia off of his sleeve. Loosening one of my blasters from its holster, I turn around and saunter off toward Ender's room, following the map I pulled up on my glasses lenses.

≈≈≈≈

"Wait, Petra!" Dink whisper-yells as I stop in the threshold and peer around the doorframe. I whirl around glare toward the mattress. I see Ender slide out from the other side of the mattress as hands reach out to try and pull him back in. He slides to the other side of the doorway and glances at me. I shrug at him and he taps his ear then points at me. I touch the comms unit in my ear and point to the rack of them still protruding from the wall behind me. He darts across the doorway and goes behind me to get a comms link. I peer around the doorway again and look right and left. Upon finding no one, I walk out the door to the rack of handheld phasers. I pick one up and weigh it in my hands, flipping it over to find a small switch with two labels, Stun and Photon. I flip it to the Photon setting and lower it to my side. I do the same to another one that I pick up, turning around to give it to Ender. I find Dink staring me down instead.

"What. Are. You. Doing?" he hisses, as I hand him the phaser.

"I'm doing what Kayleigh asked us to," I respond simply, turning back and picking up another phaser, flipping it to the Photon setting also.

"Kayleigh?" Bean asks from behind him. I gently toss him the phaser and pick up another one. "Is that who activated the phasers?" I nod slightly, slipping past them and handing the phaser to Ender. I see several comms links in his hand and turn around to grab more phasers for Fly, Tom, Hot Soup, and Alai.

"What did she say?" Bean asks as I slide around him to hand out the other phasers.

"She asked us to get the phasers and head toward central command."

"That's it!" Dink exclaims. "That's all she told you and you're going with it? Didn't she hack into the security systems?"

"She might've," Tom says calmly, "but we can't worry about that now. Our first priority is keeping Ender and each other safe. The adult staff is probably hiding out in the central command center after Kayleigh put the whole place on a security alert. Whether she comes for us or not it's the safest place to be. And she gave us phaser blasters! We should be okay."

"I agree," says Bean. Alai and Hot Soup nod.

"I stay with Ender," Fly declares, taking a blaster from me and a comms unit from Ender.

"I trust Kayleigh and Petra," Ender says, taking a blaster from me also.

"Then it's settled," I say firmly.

"We're going."