It did not come off the wall when he pulled and twisted. He patted all over it for buttons or latches, but all he found was a plaque screwed into the bottom. The runes etched in it were probably the equivalent of a serial number. He could investigate them later, if he succeeded in pulling out the box.
“Kalish, can I borrow your laser cutter?” Sedge glanced back, only to realize she had already climbed up the ladder.
A blueish field surrounded the cylinder, and it had tipped vertically, rising under the power of the tractor beam.
“Careful,” Striker said. “Don’t get too close to the energy field. I’ve heard those things scramble your balls.”
“It’s amazing you’ve lived this long with your balls still intact,” Tick said. “You find threats to them everywhere.”
“Kalish?” Sedge risked leaning close to the field to wave up to her. “Can I—”
The laser tool dropped down, landing in his hand.
“Striker, Tick, get the second one of those levered out of there,” Kalish said. “Two would be better than one.”
“Kind of a greedy treasure hunter, aren’t you?” Striker asked, but he and Tick turned to follow her orders.
“I’m going to ignore that question, since it’s coming from someone with a pocketful of pilfered gold.”
As soon as the cylinder cleared the tool room, the beam pulled it in the direction of the door. Sedge turned back to the box, hoping he would not sever any crucial components when he cut into the back of it. With luck, he could simply break the seal and pull it off.
“You almost out of there, Sedge?” Val asked.
Striker grunted, his legs quivering as he and Tick tugged out the other cylinder. “Define almost.”
“We found what we were looking for,” Sedge said. “Sort of. We have to get it out of here for Kalish.”
“For Kalish? Get the hell out of there. I’m not joking. Otherwise, this mission is about to cost us all our lives.”
“Confirmed,” came Thatcher’s voice, calm even though he must be flying around like a madman up there to avoid being struck down. “I order you to leave right now, Lieutenant Thomlin.”
“Yes, sir.” Sedge kept cutting. Disobeying orders was not in his nature, but since Mandrake Company did not have a ship down here, he had to rely on Kalish and her family. They were not going to leave before they had those cylinders aboard. He didn’t have to ask to know that.
“Some fighters are heading in,” Val said. “You’re about to have new friends. A dozen of them at least.”
Striker cursed. “That dirt-sucking little freighter couldn’t handle one fighter, much less twelve. LT, what’re we going to do?”
He and Tick had pushed the cylinder under the trapdoor, but they stopped to look at him, sweat dripping down their brows and concern in their eyes. Now they looked to him for leadership? For orders? Most of the time, they treated him as if they were all the same rank.
“Get to the ship,” Sedge said. What else could they do? “Kalish can get that with the tractor if she wants to risk her life for it. I’ll—” Be right up, he had meant to say, but the box tumbled free, and he fell to the ground, with it slamming into his lap.
“Fighters in here,” Tia’s voice came over someone’s comm. “I’m taking off, whether you all are here or not.”
“Stay there,” Kalish yelled, her voice coming from above the trapdoor. She activated the tractor beam again, before Striker and Tick could climb out. “Hail them. Tell them we’ve found good stuff, and if they shoot us, they’ll risk blowing it up.”
Sedge pushed himself to his feet, grunting under the weight of the box. He levered it on top of the cylinder, where it balanced precariously, right before the energy field activated. Both items raised toward the trapdoor. Sedge clenched and unclenched his fist, wanting to charge up the ladder, whether their purloined items were blocking the exit or not.
“Hurry, Kalish,” he urged, not trusting her sister to effectively negotiate with those fighters, or trusting the pilots inside to be high enough on the chain of command to do anything except follow orders, orders that probably instructed them to blow up the Divining Rod and anyone else in the vicinity.
The cylinder and his box disappeared from view. Striker and Tick charged up the ladder ahead of Sedge, clearly feeling the urgency of the situation as strongly as he did.
“Robots,” came a call from outside of the hangar. Kalish’s mother.
“Not again,” Striker groaned as he pounded for the door.
“Guess you’ll get to blow something up today after all,” Tick said, matching his pace.
“All I did was blow up the mountains under the robots last time. Then they got back up and kept firing.”
Sedge raced out the door right after them. Fighters streaked through the shaft of sunlight, heading straight for the Divining Rod. The craft had not taken off yet, but the shields were up. Orange and crimson laser beams lit up the cavern and bounced off the ship.
“Lower the shields, Tia,” Kalish barked. “We’re coming in.”
“Can’t. We’ll be blown to hell.”
An explosion came from the side, and Sedge glimpsed a black robot before the flames roared into a ball around it. The senior Ms. Blackwell ran toward the group, her rifle in one hand and a second grenade in the other.
“I’m starting to like that woman,” Striker said.
“There are more,” she called. “Go, go!”
“Mom,” Tia cried, even as more lasers blasted into the ship’s hull. “The shields won’t take this for long. We—”
“Open the hatch,” her mother ordered.
By now, the fighters had noticed Sedge and the others running down to the beach. They must be wondering about the cylinder and the tractor beam, but that did not keep them from shooting. Laser fire bit into the ground two feet to Kalish’s left, and Sedge’s heart nearly stopped. Rock blasted into the air, pelting her and everything around her. A huge piece slammed into her side, and she went down. A gray cloud of dust swallowed her and the cylinder, but not before he saw the tractor beam go out, its load tipping onto the ground.
Sedge urged his legs to greater speed, nearly tripping over his box in his haste to get to her.
“More robots from the left,” Tick ordered. “Striker, are you—”
A thunderous boom drowned out the rest of his words.
Sedge found Kalish on the ground and lifted her into his arms. “Are you—”
“Just hurt,” she gasped. “The hand tractor. Don’t leave the engine. That’s everything. Everything.”
Sedge disagreed, thinking that getting her to the ship mattered far more, but he draped her over his shoulder. His injury from the previous day, though mostly healed, ached under the assault. Ignoring it, he locked her legs to his chest with one arm and, hoping the awkward manhandling was not hurting her further, patted around until he found the hand tractor. He picked up the gun-shaped tool and aimed it at the cylinder, choosing it over the box, since he doubted he could grab both. He could barely see the box now. The smoke had thickened instead of dissipating.
Tick stepped into the cloud, along with Kalish’s mother.
“You have her?” he asked.
“Yes, get the box,” Sedge ordered.
Her mother looked like she wanted to tear Kalish out of his grip, but more laser fire slammed into the ground nearby. She gave Sedge a curt nod, then armed her grenade and hurled it into the air over the lake.
“Got one,” Striker cried from nearby. He seemed to be staying behind, putting his grenade launcher to work.
“A robot?” Tick asked as he staggered toward the ship with the box in his arms. “Let them be. They won’t follow us out. Get your ass—”
“Not the robot.” Striker laughed. “A fighter.”
Another boom sounded. The maniac was launching grenades as if they were pieces of candy to be flung to children on Founders’ Day. There wasn’t time to tell him that killing Fleet pilots should not be their
goal. Besides, Sedge had no idea how they were going to get out of there if they didn’t take down those fighters. Or what they would do even if they escaped the cavern. It sounded like ships were all over the place up there, ships that wanted the Divining Rod brought down, if not destroyed outright. All he could do was stagger toward the ramp with Kalish over his shoulder and the tractor tool clutched in his hand.
“Shields are down,” came Tia’s voice from Kalish’s comm. “You can come up, but hurry. We’ve already taken damage. They’re trying to—”
Something blasted into the rock a few feet away, and Sedge did not hear the rest. He had heard enough. With the shields down, he forced his weary legs into a sprint and ran up the ramp. Striker and Tick were right behind him, even though they faced backwards, Tick firing at the robots as he struggled to keep hold of the box and Striker launching grenades into the sky. One of them soared up and exploded right under the rock ceiling. Huge chunks of stone rained down on two fighters flying underneath. Their wings were hit, and they tilted precariously, one slamming into the cavern wall, and one spiraling down into the lake.
If Sedge had not been so winded, he would have congratulated Striker, but it was all he could do to make it to the top of the ramp. He tossed the hand tractor to Striker, took a few steps to make sure he was out of the way, then dropped to his knees in the cargo hold. With more care, he lay Kalish down in front of him. Her eyes were open, but full of pain. She rolled to her knees, gasping and clutching her side.
“Mom? Is she—”
“Right here.” Ms. Blackwell jumped through the hatch and slammed the control panel beside it. “Tia, get us out of here.”
The cylinder floated in the air, next to the first one that had been loaded, and Sedge’s box had made it as well. He hoped they hadn’t given their lives in exchange for those items.
Ms. Blackwell collapsed beside the hatch, blood saturating her shirt. She glowered at the cylinders, perhaps thinking the same thing.
An unsteady hum vibrated through the ship’s deck. The engines were fired up, and Tia was taking off, or trying. How many fighters were left? Sedge didn’t know. He might have laid there on the deck, waiting to see if they lived or died, but Kalish climbed to her feet, so he forced himself to do the same. If she was injured and could make it to the bridge, so could he.
“Did they stop firing?” Striker asked, leaning his hand against the hull. “We’re not getting hit, are we?”
“Not sure,” Tick said. “Shields are back up.”
Sedge followed Kalish into the corridor, steadying her when the ship lurched and she wobbled. She stumbled onto the bridge and tumbled into the seat next to Tia. On the view screen, fighters swooped and dove, lasers blasting. But oddly, they did not seem to be targeting the Divining Rod any longer. A bolt of crackling blue lightning streaked through their view, and Sedge grimaced, all too familiar with that attack.
“What’s happening?” he asked, as Tia turned the ship toward the ceiling, toward the slash of sunlight beaming into the cavern.
“It’s those robots,” Tia said. “They’re shooting at the fighters.”
Sedge blinked a few times. “How did we manage that?”
“The fighters were shooting at us—at the ground around the hangars,” Kalish said. “Someone must have hit one of the robots. And now it’s hitting them back.”
“So long as we get out of here before they smarten up,” Sedge said. He had not missed the fact that the robots had not shown up until their team had started stealing cylinders and cutting boxes off walls. They were probably programmed to keep out thieves.
The ship glided into the freshly opened tunnel, the walls perfectly smooth, cut from the mountain long ago. They angled upward at a diagonal, the sunlight growing more intense.
“Kalish,” Tia said, “you’re going to have to talk. Nobody listened when I tried to tell them what we had.”
“I know. I will.” Kalish was still gripping her side, but she lifted her head, her chin firm.
Knowing there would be little he could do to help their cause, Sedge jogged toward the cabin where his pack had been for the last couple of days. He dug out his first-aid kit and returned to the bridge. As he knelt beside Kalish’s seat, the ship rose out of the tunnel, and the mountainside Val had promised opened up all around them. A couple hundred feet below, the desert stretched out from the base. The Fleet ships that had supposedly been landed down there were in the air now, hovering over the mining compound, which was just visible a few miles away.
Sedge might have felt relieved that the big ships weren’t right overhead, but plenty of fighters were lined up in the air. They had been waiting for the Divining Rod to appear.
“They’re locking weapons onto us,” Tia warned.
Kalish’s fingers were already dancing over the controls, opening up a wide-angle broadcast rather than trying to message any particular ship. “This is Kalish Blackwell, captain and owner of the Divining Rod. We are a peaceful treasure-hunting ship. And we carry alien artifacts of incalculable worth, thanks to our recent explorations. If you destroy us, you may be robbing the system of the one technology which has eluded us for all of the centuries we have lived here. Also, I must point out that you have no right to destroy us, treasures notwithstanding. We are GalCon citizens and have a right to a trial before you condemn us of any crimes.”
“Weapons still locked,” Tia whispered. “Should I slow down?”
Kalish muted the comm. “No. If they believe anything I’m saying, they’ll lock us in a tractor beam, board our ship, and take everything we have. We have to get out of here. Plot a course for the nebula.”
“Captain of the Divining Rod,” an extremely dry voice said. An instant later, a Fleet officer with short graying hair appeared in the air above the control panel. The expression on his strong, lean face appeared every bit as dry—and unimpressed—as his voice. He wore red commodore’s tabs at the collar of his neat, pressed uniform. “This is Commodore Parsons of the Gordian Knot. You attacked the Ferago Enterprises mining complex several days ago, killed innocent men, stole files, and have been illegally trespassing on their claim since then. You will receive no kinder a sentence from a magistrate than being blown out of space by our ships.”
Sedge did not want to distract Kalish, but she was bleeding all over the seat. He tapped her leg to let her know he was going to attend to her wound, then lifted her shirt and pressed a bandage to her side.
Her eyes remained locked on the commodore. “We did not steal physical items, nor did we trespass, as a mining claim only grants the rights to extract gems and minerals from the land; it does not convey ownership of the property. As you must know, Karzelek is considered a galactic resource and is owned by the parks and exploration department.”
“Seven men are dead, Captain Blackwell,” the commodore said.
Kalish looked like she wanted to deny this accusation as she had the others, but she took a deep breath. “I do not claim that no harm has been done, Commodore. I merely offer up to you the chance to be a hero.”
“Really.” His brows rose slightly, though he appeared more sarcastic than interested.
“The commodore is already a hero,” someone said off-screen.
“One can never have too much glory,” Kalish said. “What if you could be the first to bring an alien spaceship engine back to high command?” She muted the comm again. “Tia, are they following us?”
“Oh, yes. We have a very large escort. I really doubt they’re going to let us leave the atmosphere.”
“Are the Mandrake Company shuttles out there?” Sedge asked.
“Not if they’re smart.” Kalish sighed.
It did not sound like she would condemn Thatcher and Val for staying out of trouble, but Sedge would feel disappointed if his comrades had abandoned them. It wasn’t fair, since there was nothing they could do, and Val had given them all of the warning she could, but he found himself hoping they could come up with something to save the day. What th
at might be, he had no idea, since a ridiculous number of ships were surrounding the Divining Rod.
“Perhaps the commodore would like to see the cargo we retrieved from the ruins?” Kalish suggested.
“We’ll see it soon enough,” Parsons said. “Prepare to be held and boarded.”
“They’re interested enough not to blow us out of the sky.” Kalish tapped her fingers on the console. “Tia, push the engines to maximum. Try to get us out of the atmosphere and over to that nebula. That’s the only place we might have a chance to hide.”
“There’s no chance we’ll be able to outrun them,” Tia said.
“We have to try. Unless anyone has any ideas, that’s all we can do.” Kalish looked down at Sedge. “I don’t suppose you have a program that would convince all those Fleet ships to return home?” She smiled sadly.
“I’m sorry. Their computers are a little more sophisticated.”
“I’m pushing us to max,” Tia said, “but four of their ships are after us, closing to within tractor beam range.”
Sedge wished he could come up with the brilliant plan Kalish needed. All he could hope was that there might be a chance for some cleverness when the troops boarded the ship, but he could not imagine what they could do with so much of the Fleet around them. Even if Mandrake Company had an armada of ships, it would not be enough to—
A thought lurched into his mind, an image of alien ships showing up in the sky. Even one alien ship showing up would surely sidetrack the Fleet. Humans had been alone in the system for fifteen hundred years. The suggestion that they might not be—surely that would throw off a commodore’s boarding plans.
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