━━━━━━━━━━━
SIGNAL FIRE
━━━━━━━━━━━
DAWN CAME EARLY as Jinny sat next to Octavia on a log, sharpening their knives with excruciating deliberateness, with Raulf standing guard over them like a silent sentry. He'd heard all about the assassination attempt on their lives after Jinny had stormed out of the Commander's tent, and now took it upon himself to keep a lookout for them. Though as they were in the middle of the entire Grounder encampment, with a group of the Ark's Guard nearby holding guns and explosives, safety certainly came in numbers.
Just as Jinny looked up to the sky, she saw a red flare shoot up high into the clouds from the direction of Camp Jaha. She stood up excitedly just as a few Grounders started clamouring for their Commander. Octavia got up and sheathed her sword with sheer exhilaration painted on her face. "Bellamy did it!" she exclaimed breathlessly.
"He did," Jinny replied, looking towards her with the tips of her lips curved upwards triumphantly. "The time is now."
"I will rally the soldiers," Raulf informed before dashing away to the overhang of the hill they had set up camp on. His voice turned harsh and feral as he addressed the warriors awaiting on the lower ground. "Teik yo ogud na brol!"
Jinny watched with fascination as the Grounders moved as one singular unit to strike their weapons in acknowledgement to his order. "Lieutenant Commander!" David called, coming up to Jinny with his guard detail. "Orders, ma'am?"
"Pack your gear, Sergeant," she ordered with a nod. "We move out with the army."
"Yes, ma'am!" they shouted before darting back to gather their things.
Jinny looked to the side where Lexa had ran up towards the edge of the hillside to join Raulf overlooking the army below with Clarke by her side. She pointed towards the side with a bark of Trigedasleng and her bodyguards sounded the war horn. "Kom wor!" she declared loudly and raucous battle cries filled the cool morning air. Jinny smiled with a renewed sense of invigoration flowing through her bloodstream, the heady rush of adrenaline causing her heart to thump in accordance to the sound of war drums.
Once the army was ready, they marched out of the encampment towards Mount Weather with the beat of their heavy footsteps against the hardened ground. Jinny walked alongside David and Octavia in the midst of the large force, lugging her rifle between her hands. Octavia had refused a firearm, choosing to stay true to her choice as Indra's Second. That didn't stop Jinny from keeping a close eye on her though. She was eager, excited at the prospect that they were finally going to lay waste to the mountain.
Bellamy and their friends were waiting.
Jinny felt anxious as they neared the border that led to the mountain, as if expecting some new danger from the Mountain Men to be thrown at them. But their excursion continued unhindered and when they had passed the boundary leading to Mount Weather, Clarke fell back from her position at the front lines with Lexa to walk alongside them. "Hey," she greeted.
Jinny ignored her but Octavia replied, "What do you want?"
"I'm changing your mission," the blonde instructed. "You're not going to the mines with Indra. I'm placing you in the rear guard, where you'll be safe."
"Like hell you are," Octavia retorted. "I don't take orders from you. I take orders from Indra."
"I'm trying to protect you, Octavia," Clarke told her gently, hazarding a glance towards Jinny who stared back impassively.
"Protect me," the Sky warrior scoffed.
"One day, hopefully, you'll understand what I did," Clarke said.
"Never." Octavia looked at her with hard eyes. "I'll fight this war with you now because I want our friends back. But after that, we're done."
Jinny smirked in satisfaction. Then Indra quickly walked over from the back, catching up to them. "The Commander's looking for you," she informed Clarke. When the blonde was gone, she turned to Octavia. "What was that about?" she asked lowly.
"Clarke's trying to reassign me to the rear guard," Octavia replied candidly.
"You're a warrior. You'll be in the mines with me," Indra asserted. "I know it bothers you. They knew about the missile."
"And you're okay with that?" Jinny questioned with an arched eyebrow.
"Indra, they almost killed you." Octavia looked back at the Chieftain with a frown. "How could you not hate them?"
"They didn't do anything. The enemy did," she responded. "Lexa's a great Commander because she's ruthless. That's why we'll win this battle."
"That's wrong," the girl insisted.
"That's war," Indra told her, then faced the front and threw her sword in the air with a loud battle cry falling from her lips. The other warriors surrounding them quickly took up the signal, and the trees soon reverberated with their combined voices that thundered in the wake of their march. Octavia glanced at Jinny before thrusting her sword in the air and following after her mentor.
Jinny turned towards her guards. "If you wanna scream too, I'm not stopping you," she said with an amused smile that Monroe returned.
"I'll pass, ma'am," Banks quipped, but Minho suddenly let out a drawn out yell from the back of the group.
Everyone turned to him with incredulous expressions. "What?" he asked with a shrug when he was finished. They shook their heads and continued on their way.
━━━━━━━━━━━
"Welcome, Skaikru. Join us," Lexa greeted as they entered her tent. Jinny quirked an eyebrow, noticing that Clarke was getting more and more attached to the Commander. They hadn't left each other's sides ever since the missile attack.
Jinny strode inside with the rest of her guard detail trailing along and Clarke gave her a small nod that the Lieutenant Commander refused to reciprocate. Instead, she merely stood in front of Lexa and held her hand up to David. The Chief Guard placed a metal cylinder in her hand which she carefully brought up in front of her. "Hydrazine, to blow the lock," she informed. "Compliments from Raven."
Clarke smiled, then David leaned forwards to add, "And, uh, your mother wanted to be here."
"I know," she replied quietly. "But the wounded in Tondc need her more."
They exchanged nods before he took the bomb from Jinny and went back to the guards. She stood next to Raulf, smiling briefly with one another as they gathered around the war table.
"Field Commanders," Lexa addressed. "Today's the day we get our people back. The enemy thinks it's safe behind its doors, but it's not. When it realises that, it will fight back... hard. We need to be ready."
"This is a rescue mission. We are not here to wipe them out," Clarke said towards both the Ark Guard and Grounders. "There are people inside that mountain that have helped us, children who have nothing to do with this war. We kill their soldiers, their leadership if we have to, but we are there to rescue our people. Is that clear?"
There were murmurs of agreement around the tent and Jinny stepped forwards once Clarke glanced in her direction. She raised her voice to instruct them on their plan. "Listen up. There are four teams." She pointed towards the war table where miniature constructs of the mountain and its surroundings areas had been built. "Two of them are already moving into position. Indra and her team will be in the mines, while Raven's team will take the dam."
Jinny moved around the table. "The third led by Bellamy inside the mountain will be freeing all the prisoners. Now, it's our job as the fourth team to keep the eyes of our enemy off of all the others. We've destroyed the cameras outside the perimeter except for the dam which we've partially poisoned. The Reapers too are no longer a threat." She stood in front of the main doors of the mountain and tapped her fingers in front of it. "We'll be positioned at the entrance. The Mountain Men think that we can't open it from the outside but they're idiots to believe that."
"According to Maya, the electromagnetic locking system has one flaw," Clarke explained. "When the power goes out, it disengages. That's where Raven's team comes in. The mountain's electricity is generated at Philpott Dam. By now, they've taken the turbine room."
Jinny nodded. "When they blow the power, we blow the lock to hell. And then..." She paused with a smirk on her lips as she looked around the room. "We take the damn mountain."
"There is a catch," Clarke interjected. "A backup generator inside the mountain. If the lock is still functioning when that backup power kicks in, we'll never get that door open, we'll never get our people back."
"How much time do we have until the backup power kicks in?" David asked.
"One minute," Jinny answered.
"Small window," he responded. "Why don't we just take out the backup generator, too? Bellamy's inside. Have him do it."
She bit her bottom lip before replying, "We've lost contact with Bellamy. Besides if we do that, we'll kill the people inside the mountain."
"What? We did? When?" Monroe asked.
"After he took out the acid fog," Jinny said, leaning against the war table. "But that wasn't too long ago, so..."
"Bellamy's a warrior," Lexa affirmed in assurance. "He'll be fine."
"Anyway, when we blow that hatch, they'll come at us guns blazing," Jinny continued. "It'll be a mess and we'll have lots of fun kicking their asses while Indra's team escorts the prisoners out the back, through the Reaper tunnels we cleared. Once our people are out, they'll sound the retreat and Mount Weather can kiss us goodbye."
Lexa walked forwards once she was done with her briefing. "The mountain has cast a shadow over these woods for too long," she started. "They've hunted us, controlled us, turned us into monsters. That ends today. Thanks to our alliance with the Sky People, the mountain will fall. As Clarke said, we spare the innocent. As for the guilty... Jus drein just daun."
"Jus drein jus daun," Raulf recited in agreement and Jinny followed him. The Field Commanders and members of the Ark Guard started to chant with them, their voices carrying out of the tent to spur the warriors awaiting on the battlefield. Clarke looked towards her with quiet resolve as the words fell from her lips too. The land trembled once more with their war cries, echoing into the open champaign of the sky and resonating deep into the rocks under their feet. They would break the very foundations of the earth to retrieve their people.
━━━━━━━━━━━
Jinny stood with her arms crossed along with the others as Monroe drilled a hole into the large metal hatch of the main entrance. The bit bored through the iron with a shrill mechanical whir until it reached the hilt of the tool. Monroe turned around and nodded towards her. "That should do it."
"Thanks, Monroe," Jinny said before nodding towards the other guards to bring the machine away. She started forwards with David by her side, the hydrazine bomb held carefully between her fingers. Lincoln strode up behind them, turning around to keep a careful lookout on their backs.
"Archers, watch the trees," Lexa commanded.
"Be careful," Clarke called.
"I was born for this, Clarke," Jinny told her casually as she stopped in front of the door. She slid the glass container of hydrazine out of its metal protection with steady hands, the crimson liquid sloshing slightly inside. David took a nervous breath next to her as he took the empty sleeve with trembling hands. "You okay there, Chief?" she asked as she balanced the hydrazine horizontally in front of the hole.
"Just thinking, ma'am," he replied. "What if we're too late?"
Lincoln peered over his shoulder to him. "What if we're not? Draw strength from your son."
David frowned as he looked back. "This mountain has taken too much from both of us, hasn't it?"
"Nathan's gonna be fine," Jinny said, as she slowly pushed the glass canister snugly inside the metal door. She paused before activating the switch on its bottom and took a step back. "Everyone's gonna be fine."
They carefully backed away from the door until they were standing beside Clarke, Raulf and Lexa again, staring at the giant metal hatch. Now all they needed to do was to wait for the lights to go out.
━━━━━━━━━━━
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © KAYE CEE
DO NOT STEAL, COPY OR TAKE ANY PART OF THIS WORK.
Translations:
"Teik yo ogud na brol!" - Prepare for battle!
"Kom wor!" - To war!
"Jus drein jus daun." - Blood must have blood.
[ author's note ]
i'm really excited for tHE END.
wrote up the intro for the sequel and i really want to publish it already oml it's gonna be lit i am doth shooketh