by Joel Ross
Back to the battle? I gulped. That meant back to Kodoc.
Loretta groaned and Bea’s eyes widened, but Swedish just tilted the thopper into a curve and started climbing toward the noise and smoke and danger.
“His fancy lordship wants Chess,” Loretta told Hazel. “What are you going to do, hand him over?”
“You can’t!” Bea said.
“It’s okay,” I said, despite the lump in my throat. “We don’t have a choice. We’re running out of fuel.”
“We’re not flying to Kodoc.” Hazel nudged Swedish. “Head higher, toward the Anvil Rose.”
For a moment, nobody spoke. Then Loretta asked, her voice faint, “You want to start chatting with mutineers in the middle of a sky battle?”
“No,” I said, suddenly awed. “She wants to sell them a diamond.”
“It’s worth a try,” Hazel said. “We’re not letting that creep get his hands on Chess.”
I looked away from the fiery combat to stare at Hazel, because she was even more impressive than a flying death match.
She never panicked. When I got scared, my mind blanked and I froze. Not Hazel. Instead, she accepted every new problem and immediately calculated the best response. Maybe we’d only have a 50 percent chance of success, maybe only 10. Heck, if we only had a 1 percent chance of survival, she’d just grit her teeth and grab at that tiny sliver of hope.
I’d dived into uncharted Fog for three years and seen things nobody else had even imagined, but I’d never seen anything like Hazel.
37
AN UGLY RIPPING SOUND yanked my attention back to the battle. Mutineers and roof-troopers fought hand to hand on the Teardrop’s ribbed balloon, and through the smoke I glimpsed figures tossing buckets of sand on the flames. As Vidious blasted the big warship, Nisha poured fire at the escorting gunships. War chains whirled, harpoons spiderwebbed the sky . . . and the Teardrop spun and retreated.
A cheer rang out from the mutineer ships.
“Kodoc’s running!” Loretta said. “The muties must’ve hit something important.”
“But they didn’t,” Bea said, a worried note in her voice.
“Then why’s he taking off?”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Bea told Loretta. “What’s he doing, Cap’n?”
“I don’t know.” Hazel wiped her braids away from her face. “But there’s no way he’s giving up. You heard how much he wants Chess.”
“Yeah, I’ve got a few questions about that,” Loretta said.
“I’ll tell you all about it,” Swedish said, “if we’re still alive in five minutes.”
The thopper engine sputtered as we sped higher, watching the Rooftop ships retreat toward the cloud bank. Repair crews swarmed the mutineer warships, and everything ran so smoothly that I couldn’t help feeling a spark of admiration. But mostly I was afraid that our five minutes of fuel were already down to a few seconds.
As we approached the Anvil Rose, a few mutineers glanced at the thopper, but nobody said anything until Vidious noticed us.
“Oy, Nisha!” he called to his sister’s airship. “Look what washed up on our shore!”
“Who are they?” she yelled back.
“That salvage crew from yesterday. They’re flying a thopper now, clinging to the hull like fleas on a dog.”
“We’re in our thopper,” Hazel told Vidious as we hovered beside his airship, “because we had a spot of trouble with one of our balloons.”
“Did you hear, Nisha? ‘A spot of trouble’ with that junky raft.” Vidious laughed. “Now, my poppets, you find me on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand—” He stopped abruptly, and told his sister, “The little one is staring at my forehead, looking for horns.”
“Sorry,” Bea mumbled.
“The ‘horns of a dilemma’ means having two bad choices, poppet. On the one hand—”
The thopper jerked as a piston misfired, and Swedish muttered, “We’re running out of time. . . .”
“On the one hand,” Vidious repeated, “I’m in a generous mood, as we just repaid Kodoc for attacking my sister. And we needed to chase him off, in any case. To keep him from getting in the way while we take care of our . . . real task.”
Nisha swung onto the railing of the Anvil Rose, her blond hair wild in the wind. “Those slumkids helped us win, Vid,” she called. “With their well-timed distraction.”
“On the other hand,” Vidious said, ignoring his sister, “I recall saying that if I saw you again, I’d send you crashing into the Fog.”
“That was before the whole ‘well-timed distraction’ thing!” I reminded him.
“True,” he said. “But I hate to go back on my word.”
“If you drop us,” Hazel told him, lifting her left hand, “you drop this, too.”
She twirled her wrist, and the ring glinted on her finger.
I held my breath as the captains exchanged a glance, and felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe we would actually pull this off. Then the thopper engine gasped, and my hope was replaced by anxiety. Hurry up!
“So that’s what the tetherboy was hiding yesterday,” Nisha said, raking me with her gaze.
“Give me the diamond,” Vidious told Hazel, “and I’ll refrain from sinking you.”
“The diamond is yours,” Hazel said, “if you’ll take us to Port Oro.”
Nisha laughed, a silvery sound. “You want to switch sides? Join the mutineers?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Hazel told her.
The thopper trembled again, and I saw Swedish wince. We were running on fumes.
“I’ll bring you to the Port, poppet, when we’re done here,” Vidious called to Hazel, rubbing the scar on his cheek. “But if the diamond’s fake, I’ll toss you overboard. Is that a deal?”
“No,” Hazel told him. “If the diamond’s fake, Captain Nisha will throw us overboard. I’m not bringing my crew onto the Night Tide.”
“Your engine is gasping,” Vidious said. “You’re not in a position to—”
“Permission to come aboard?” Hazel asked Nisha.
“You seem to have a talent for infuriating my brother,” Nisha told her. “I like that in a girl. Of course you’re welcome aboard.”
Hazel immediately said, “Go, Swede, now!”
When Swedish tapped the keyboard, the thopper sputtered forward.
Then, just twenty feet from the Anvil Rose, the wings twitched.
Vapor spat from the vents.
The clockwork engine squealed.
Our fuel ran out, and we fell from the sky.
38
THE THOPPER PLUMMETED. I gasped, and Bea grabbed my hand. I wanted to tell everyone that I was sorry. Sorry for finding the diamond too late, sorry for not curing Mrs. E. Sorry for the Fog in my eye. I wanted to tell them that they weren’t just my crew, they were my family.
And . . . WHAM!
A silver bolt slammed into the hull.
The thopper bucked, and I squeezed Bea’s hand. Loretta screamed and flew overboard—and kept screaming as she dangled from her inner-tube-knotted wrist.
Swedish yelled, “’Retta!” and we stopped falling. The silver bolt was a harpoon. The Anvil Rose had speared us from above.
After the mutineers heaved the thopper onto the warship’s deck, Hazel hopped down from her perch as I untied Loretta with trembling fingers. Swedish checked Mrs. E—still somehow asleep in the cockpit—and Bea stared around the Anvil Rose in awe.
I guess I did the same, once my heart stopped pounding. I’d never been on a warship before. Everything slotted smoothly together, the gyroscopes and gunwales, the sky sails and the airsailors swarming the ship.
“This,” Bea whispered, “is the purplest.”
“Doesn’t get any purpler,” I agreed.
She giggled. “That’s not a word!”
“Oh, but everyone says ‘purplest.’”
She stuck her tongue out at me. “Listen to that engine, Chess! She’s ticking as strong as a metal monkey.”
We were s
o busy gaping at the rigging and wheelhouse that I almost missed Hazel curtsying to Captain Nisha, then thanking her for such a well-timed—and accurate—harpoon shot.
Hazel looked overwhelmed, so I lowered my head and crossed the deck to stand beside her. She tugged the ring from her finger and eyed the diamond for a minute, like she didn’t want to say good-bye. Then she took a breath and handed it to the captain.
“I’ve never seen one so big,” Nisha purred, holding the diamond to the light. “But I’ll give you a choice.”
“What’s that, ma’am?” Hazel asked.
“You can pay for the trip with the ring, or you can work for your passage and keep it. A diamond will come in handy when we reach the Port.”
“We can keep it?” Hazel’s smile looked like sunshine. “Wow. Yes, please. Yes. Thanks!”
“I warn you, I’m a demanding boss,” the captain said, returning the diamond.
“We’re a working crew, ma’am. In the slum, if you don’t work, you don’t eat. Oh, except for Mrs. E. She’s fogsick, so one of us needs to stay with her.”
“She slept through the air battle?” Nisha toyed with her string of beads. “That’s not a good sign.”
I felt a flash of worry, but Hazel said more mildly than ever, “Yes, Captain.”
Nisha cocked an eyebrow at her. “I’m starting to suspect that there’s more to you than a bunch of junkyard bottom-feeders.”
“Of course, ma’am,” Hazel said. “We’re mutineer bottom-feeders now.”
The captain laughed softly. “In that case, the old lady can have a cot in the surgery. You must bring her to the healers on the Port as soon as we land.”
“Whoa!” Loretta called, stepping toward a harpoon. “Check it out, Swedish! This is one serious pig-sticker.”
Swedish looked up from Mrs. E. “That’ll come in handy . . . when pigs fly.”
“What are you talking about?” Loretta asked, patting the gleaming brass.
“It’s a saying from Chess’s old scrapbook,” Swedish told her. “It means something impossible, like ‘a bunch of slumkids will escape from Lord Kodoc when pigs fly.’”
“But pigs don’t fly.”
“That’s the point!”
“Your point is that pigs don’t fly?” Loretta shot him a look. “How about gerbils? Do they dance?”
“Gerbils will dance when pigs fly.”
“Now you’re just messing with me.”
“Um, Captain?” I said as they happily bickered.
Nisha looked at me with her too-blue eyes. “Yes?”
“Uh, well . . .” I wanted to ask if Kodoc was really beaten. I wanted to ask if she knew he was hunting me. But all I said was “Um, about that diving platform on the bottom of Kodoc’s airship . . .”
Hazel came to my rescue. “We’re wondering what Lord Kodoc is looking for with all those tetherkids.”
Captain Nisha’s lips thinned. “A fairy tale.”
“You mean like ‘Hairy Otter’?” Loretta asked, looking up from the harpoon. “Or ‘Little Red Gliding Hood’?”
“I mean a story about an impossible machine, hidden in the Fog, that Kodoc calls the Compass.”
I ducked my head. Did everyone know about that? Well, of course the mutineers knew—the fogheads must’ve told them. But what else did they know?
“Kodoc is obsessed with finding it,” Nisha continued. “And terrified that the Subassembly will get there first. Whoever finds the Compass controls the Fog . . . and whoever controls the Fog rules the world. Kodoc thinks he’s close. He just needs divers.”
I didn’t want Nisha thinking about Fog divers, so I jumped in, “He sounds as cracked as a trampoline.”
“Huh?” she asked.
“Wait, that’s not right. Um . . . glass! Cracked as a glass trampoline.”
“What’s a trampoline?” Captain Nisha asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “But Kodoc is a cracked one.”
She looked at me oddly, then turned back to Hazel. “I’ll have one of the sailors show you around.”
“Sheesh,” I muttered. “It was funny when Loretta said it.”
“Cap’n?” Bea called from the railing, her voice squeaking.
“Yes?” Hazel and Nisha said at the same time.
“Over there.” Bea pointed over the Fog. “Look at Kodoc’s airship.”
I followed them to the railing and squinted toward the Teardrop, which was hovering just inside the cloud bank. She didn’t seem any different. Airtroopers bustled around repairing damage from the fight, the propellers twirled, and the sails billowed.
“Looks like they’re securing the deck.” Hazel frowned. “Bolting everything down.”
“That’s not all they’re doing,” Bea said.
Captain Nisha peered at Kodoc’s ship through her spyglass. “Hm. They’re engaging some kind of mechanism. . . . What is that? He’s diverting the power of the engine into . . .” She gasped. “The—the hull is cracking in half.”
Hazel shaded her eyes. “The propellers are separating.”
“Vidious!” Nisha shouted, still watching through her glass. “Look to the Teardrop!”
“Maybe he’s sinking,” I said hopefully. “Maybe you damaged him worse than you thought.”
“The ship’s not sinking,” Bea told me with a hint of awe in her voice. “She’s changing.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The props are unfolding, the hull’s getting sleeker and longer. The balloon’s the same, but the rigging is moving. Kodoc’s bringing armor to bear and the guns—are those guns? I can’t see.”
“Those are guns,” Captain Nisha said tightly. “Big guns. The geargirl’s right, he’s changing that ship into a . . .”
“A warship,” Bea said.
“I’ve never seen one so big,” Hazel breathed.
“Even the name is changing,” Nisha said. “The letters are shifting around.”
“The letters of Teardrop?” I asked.
“Yes,” Nisha said. “Now they spell Predator.”
39
HAZEL TURNED TO BEA. “How long before the ship is done changing?”
“Five or six hours,” Bea said.
Nisha cocked an eyebrow. “How would you know?”
“I—um.” Bea blushed a bright pink. “I can sort of tell.”
“How fast is she?” Hazel asked. “Can Kodoc catch us?”
Bea wrinkled her nose. “These mutie ships—” She flushed again, glancing to the captain. “I mean, these mutineer ships are pretty fast, but with those props and that hull? The Predator is faster.”
“We’ll see about that.” Nisha turned to her brother and called, “Looks like we’re racing that warship back to the Port!”
“Not until we get the package!” Vidious replied from the deck of his ship.
“We can’t beat that.” She gestured at the Predator with her spyglass. “Check out those guns!”
Vidious shook his head. “We need the package.”
“The package?” Hazel asked, her brow furrowing. “You’re not smuggling anything to the Rooftop, you’re smuggling a package from the Rooftop?”
“We’re trying to,” Nisha said. “Why?”
A crazy thought occurred to me. “No way!” I blurted, turning to Hazel. “It can’t be.”
“Ten strips of kangaroo jerky says I’m right.” Hazel looked at the captain. “Um, does the name Cog Turning mean anything to you?”
Nisha narrowed her eyes. “You know Turning? If you know Turning . . .” She fell silent for a moment, then slowly turned to me, a smile curling at her mouth. “Wait. You always keep your eye hidden. . . .”
I ducked my head.
“Are you the kid?” she asked, a hint of wonder in her voice. “You are! You’re the package!”
“Um,” I said, caught between my fear of admitting anything and my relief that the mutineers actually wanted to help us.
“But you’re a boy,” she said, sounding disappoi
nted.
“Ye-es,” I said. “Um. Sorry?”
She reached into her vest and tossed a pouch to Hazel. “A message came, ripped into shreds, mostly unreadable. Something about a girl with a . . . special eye. On the highest slopes. Cog Turning asked for a ship to bring her to the Port.”
“You’re the ship!” Bea said, clapping her hands. “You’re the ship coming to smuggle us!”
Hazel nodded. “That’s why they’ve been hanging around. I don’t understand about this ‘girl,’ though.”
“Cog Turning must’ve meant Mrs. E.” I turned to the captain. “He helped us because he wants to cure her.”
“She might be one reason,” Nisha said. “But you’re the other. We must keep you out of Kodoc’s hands . . . if you truly are the child.”
I hunched a shoulder. “I guess.”
“May I see it?” she asked. “The mark?”
A flush of humiliation rose in my chest and I looked at my scuffed boots. I hated showing strangers my freak-eye.
“Chess.” Hazel put a hand on my arm. “Just this once.”
I kept my head down. My stomach soured at the thought of letting Nisha see my darkest secret, my deepest shame.
“Pretend she’s me,” Hazel said softly.
Neither of them spoke for a few seconds, and I took a deep breath. Just this once. No big deal. Maybe I was a coward, but I could do this.
I took a breath, then raised my head and brushed my hair from my face.
When Captain Nisha saw the mark, surprise flashed on her face, mixed with disgust and maybe fascination. The Fog that had killed billions, the Fog that blanketed the earth, the Fog that swirled in an ocean of whiteness also glimmered inside my eye.
“You’re him,” she said, a strange hitch in her voice. “Born in the Fog.”
The shame thickened in my throat as I tugged my hair back into place.
“Yes, ma’am.” Hazel stepped closer to me. “And we appreciate everything you’re doing but, um, could you ask that sailor to show us around now? And could you not tell anyone about Chess?”
“Only my brother,” Nisha promised. “He needs to know that we got the package.”
