Awake

Chapter Thirty-Nine - The Final Exam

Miriam stood in the testing range with her troops arrayed around her. She loved this room: a large, concrete box completely shut off from the rest of the world. It was mysteriously stained and pitted with the outfall of explosions. It was the safest place she had found.

"So, one last time," she raised a hand for quiet. "Run through of instructions. Team leaders! Go!"

"I'm taking the alpha team," Quinten recited, "through the high command centre by the quickest route possible with the least delay. We have to seal the exit into the sub-dwellings without any consideration for what might be happening around us."

"I'm taking the bravo team," a broad-shouldered girl named Lucy continued, "and we're sticking as close to John Sandor as we can. It is our responsibility to take out all the doors and obstacles between him and Field-Marshal Bone's office."

"Meanwhile, I'll have charlie team," Peter declared, "and we'll be headed down through the high command centre in order to block all available exits or hiding places, just in case there is a plan underway that would result in them obliterating all evidence before we have a chance to seize it."

"Perfect," Miriam beamed. "And meanwhile, delta team will be with me and we're going right into the fray."

She sounded more cheerful than she felt. In truth, she was terrified. But they needed somebody in the midst of the action who could handle a decent explosive and Miriam had been volunteered for the task.

"And I'm team echo," Puck said, gloomily. "We'll be waiting around here, ready if you need to be supplied with any materials."

Miriam winced. Team Echo was made up of the youngest and frailest of the soldiers at her disposal. She had put Puck in charge of them because she trusted his judgement implicitly but she knew he hated not being able to participate. She might as well have stolen his legs again.

"Good," she breathed out. "Good. We can do this. Are we ready?"

There was a chorus of good-natured cheers and jokes, a ragged assortment of battle-cries. Miriam wished she could make eye contact with Puck, just for the reassurance of it. But his unseeing eyes were facing away from her anyway.

"Then let's go!" she commanded. "Out! Out! Out! To your positions!"

Just before she left, Puck's hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. Miriam flinched in surprise. She had never understood how he was so unerringly accurate at identifying people and their location. He seemed to know where everyone was, regardless of the circumstances.

"Don't die, Marcia," he said, seriously.

"I won't," Miriam gently removed her hand from his grip. "Don't worry about me."

Puck sighed softly. "Be brave."

Nigs loaded ammunition into his gun, listening to the rhythmic clicking of others doing the same all around him. He ran a hand ruefully over his hair. It was growing out of the severe crewcut now, starting to straggle around the ends in a familiar way. It made him look more like himself.

"You alright?" Kaede stopped polishing her boots to watch him. "You look like you're going to throw up."

"I'm fine," Nigs forced himself to smile. "What are you doing that for, anyway?"

Kaede stopped polishing and slipped the boot on. "Got to have standards. Seriously, you've gone green."

"Well, let's just say open conflict isn't really my thing," Nigs fidgeted with the hem of his shirt. "I'm more of a tricks and shadows sort of person. Not guns blaring in my face and knives waving and stuff."