“Hold on,” Lucy snapped. “I wasn’t finished.”
Diego paused. “What?”
“You are acting like a lunatic, but there is no way I’m letting my father and brother be rescued by a Ribera alone. . . .” Lucy glanced up at the sky. Her eyes looked glassy. “I’m coming with you.”
“What?” Diego said. “You? There is no way I’m letting some prim-and-proper girl come along on this mission.”
Suddenly everyone was shouting at once.
“How dare you!” Lucy shouted. “Of all the arrogant—”
“I told you!” Paige said to Lucy. “Let him go! Stupid fool’s gonna get himself killed.”
“You guys can’t just go!” Petey said. “Pirates are one thing. You’re forgetting that we’re talking about the Aeternum!”
“Well, I’m going,” Diego said. “And you can’t stop—”
“Watch out!” Paige lunged at Diego before he could even flinch, tackling him to the dock. Something singed the air overhead, and Diego heard splintering pops. He looked up to see bullet holes dug into the hangar wall behind them.
Now the sound of an approaching motor, and shouting: “Careful! We need that clock mongrel alive!”
Diego scrambled to his feet. “Run!”
He grabbed his pack and board. Petey grabbed the other board, and they all sprinted down the dock, Daphne right at their heels. Diego heard the engine revving behind them. He risked a glance over his shoulder. There was the enemy skiff emerging from the dark.
“So much for our clean getaway!” Petey said.
“Where do we go?” Lucy said over the pounding of their feet.
“This way!” Diego veered to the right. He’d been here many times with Santiago. The actual hangar he wanted to get to was in the other direction, but maybe they could throw their pursuers off their scent. As they ran, Diego noticed that the pier around them was oddly silent and still.
He led them into a cavernous, empty hangar but didn’t stop, sprinting straight through.
“What are we doing?” Paige shouted after him.
“Just keep going!” Diego said.
He turned hard out the back of the hangar, doubling back and running past several more, and then stopped at Hangar 9. He pushed open the door. “This way.” As the others filed through, he peered into the dark the way they’d come, watching for movement in the shadows . . . but the night was still.
Diego ducked in behind his friends and saw a familiar sight: Redford and Seahorse, standing in the dark, a stack of cargo containers now placed between them.
“I built the red one,” Diego said, pointing out the robots to Lucy.
Lucy shot him an impressed look. “Really?”
“Yeah, I—”
Gunfire cut him off, echoing from several hangars down. Diego scanned their surroundings. There were few places to hide.
Voices echoed from behind them.
“They’re getting closer,” Petey said.
“Follow me,” Diego said. He could only think of one place to hide. He ran to the scaffolding beside Redford, scooped Daphne up in his arm, and led the climb. Diego stopped at Redford’s equipment locker and threw open the door. “We can hide in here,” he said, pushing them all in.
“This is disgusting,” Lucy said, gathering her skirt as she surveyed the cramped, grimy interior.
Diego heard footsteps below. “Just deal,” he whispered. “They’re here.” He pushed Petey and the others inside and stepped half inside, still leaning out so he could hear.
The heavy boot steps thudded closer. Diego craned his neck and spied a team of eight thugs.
“Outside is clear, Mr. Thompson,” one of the guys reported to the skinny man in the lead.
Thompson nodded. “Mr. Barnaby,” he said to the man beside him, the largest of the group, “search every inch of this place.”
The men spread out. Diego watched for an opening, a chance for him to lead his friends back to the door, but the men had every angle covered.
They searched in the gloom, rifles tapping against crates, container doors creaking open.
Something clanged against the base of the scaffolding, and Lucy stifled a squeal.
“Anything?” Thompson called to his team. “That Ribera boy’s got to be here somewhere.”
“What about the rest of them?” Barnaby asked.
“Take the English girl if you can,” Thompson said. “Kill the rest.”
Diego’s insides froze. Paige made fists and held her breath. Petey stared at the ceiling like he was praying.
Diego breathed deep and slid the gun from his belt. He flipped the safety off. He found his friends gaping at him, and he dismissed them with a nod.
He placed the gun on one of the storage shelves and felt around the compartment, looking for something to brace the door shut. He tried to see if the boards or maybe something on the steam packs might work, but they were no use.
His foot landed on Daphne’s tail and she yipped.
“What was that?” The voice was right below them.
Diego watched as Thompson approached Redford and began to climb the scaffolding.
Diego slid back into the locker. He heard grunts as Thompson climbed and then the clangs of his footsteps on their level. Diego leaned back, squishing himself in. Petey grunted and tried to move out of the way, but he fell over.
His knee bumped Diego’s gun, and it clattered off the shelf.
“No—” Diego lunged for it, but the gun slipped just past his fingers, down through one of the wide ventilation gaps in the locker floor. A moment of silence . . . then the gun clanged against the next floor down, a bright explosion of sound that reverberated throughout the entire hangar.
“Over here!” Footsteps pounded toward the locker.
“Hold the door!” Diego shouted.
They all grabbed it and had just started to pull when Thompson slammed into it. The girls screamed.
“Come on, you brats!” Thompson shouted, yanking on the door. “Barnaby! Get up here.”
Diego heard the heavy thumping, the scaffolding swaying, as Barnaby came closer. They held the door with all their strength, but it wasn’t going to be enough. Diego looked around the dark container uselessly.
The door wrenched partially open for a moment. Through the crack, Diego saw Barnaby joining Thompson, his thick arms flexing.
“We’ll never hold it!” Petey shouted through gritted teeth.
“Wait!” Diego let go of the door. “Keep holding it!”
“What are you doing, you idiot?” Paige said as the door swung outward again.
“Just give me one second. . . .” Diego put his hand against the wall of the locker and closed his eyes. He shut out the yelling, the clanging, the panicky breaths of his friends and concentrated only on the container, on the metal and where it welded to Redford, on the spaces between the walls . . . focused. Images flashed in his mind, and the Maker’s Sight revealed a panel behind him, in the corner of the locker, and the mechanism inside. Diego spun and tore it open, revealing a power junction coupler.
“Whatever you’re doing, hurry!” Petey shouted.
The door flew open wider this time and slammed closed again.
“There’s no use fighting it!” Barnaby growled.
Diego’s fingers flicked through the circuitry, finally settling on two wires. He tapped them together, and an enormous surge of electricity coursed through the walls and his body all at once. It tossed Diego across the locker. He slammed against the wall, his head smacking the metal, and he crumpled to the floor.
His vision filled with pinpricks of light. He heard voices around him:
“What’s happening?”
“We’re moving!”
And also the grinding hum of pistons firing and boilers coming to life . . .
But it all grew distant, like he was sinking into darkness.
And then silence.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Pirates and Stowaways
Diego’s eyes fluttered open. For a moment, he thought he recognized his bed at home. Maybe the fight in the hangar had been a dream, the chase, even his dad. . . .
“Oi, Ribera’s awake.”
Diego blinked. Above him was another bed. He was lying on a bottom bunk. He rolled over and found Lucy sitting on the floor next to him, and Paige eyeing him from the doorway.
Daphne jumped up and licked his face.
“Where are we?” Diego asked groggily. His first thought was that they were in the air corps infirmary, but then he felt a rhythmic rocking, back and forth.
“I’m not sure,” Lucy said, glancing toward a porthole window. “But I’d imagine we’re far from New Chicago by now.”
“The pirates?” Diego asked.
“Right. Not a friendly bunch.” Petey leaned over from the bunk above. “Course, you slept through the part where they found us in the robot’s storage and threw us in these cabins and haven’t come back for hours, no food or water or nothing.”
Diego rubbed his head. “Yeah, I wasn’t exactly sleeping.”
“Someone’s coming!” Paige said. She was sitting on the floor, leaning against the door.
Heavy footsteps thudded up to the door. A key rattled. Paige jumped as the door swung open. She recoiled as a huge grizzled man squeezed through the narrow doorway.
The man stood silent at first, but his glare felt like molten steel. He filled the door, his breaths short and hard, more like a bull than a man. When he spoke, the words shot out like nails.
“Before I feed you to the beasts of the Vastlantic,” he said, his thick Russian accent like a wool blanket over his words, “I will have your names. Now.”
He stank of smoke and gasoline. Diego felt certain that this was a man who meant what he said, and only said it once, including the part about making them a sea reptile’s lunch. Still, he summoned all the courage he could find. “Tell us who you are first. How do we know you’re not an Aeternum soldier?”
“Bah!” The man scowled and spit on the floor. “How dare you! I am Captain Aleksandr Anatoli Boleslavich. Leader of the Vanguard. Sworn enemy of the Aeternum. Now, tovarich.” He stepped closer, and his voice lowered to an engine-like growl. “Your names.”
“I—I’m Diego, Diego Ribera.” He tried to keep his nerves out of his voice. “This is Lucy, Paige, and Petey. My father, Santiago, and Lucy’s father and brother are among the kidnapped men you’re searching for. We want to help rescue them.”
The captain narrowed his eyes at Diego. “I see.” He spun on his heels and stalked out of the cabin without another word, slamming the door behind him. There was a clicking sound as the door locked from the outside.
“Is it just me,” Petey said, “or did that not go so well?”
“At least it was him instead of that big cyborg who dragged us out of the storage locker,” Paige said.
“There was a cyborg?” Diego said.
“Yeah,” Petey said, “big fella, bigger than that Russian captain. Part of his crew, I figure.”
Diego rubbed his head. “What happened back at the hangar?”
“After you were out cold?” Petey said. “Whatever you did got Redford moving, and he knocked down the scaffolding, but he only went a few steps before he shut down again and fell over. We all got walloped from that, though not as bad as you. They found us after Redford was already loaded on their barge and they’d set sail.”
“Those Aeternum bastards almost had us,” Paige said. “Whatever you pulled back at the pier actually worked, except for electrocuting yourself.”
“I’m just glad it worked,” Diego said.
“Yeah, in one way,” Paige said. “But, shoot, look where we are now! You went and dragged Petey and me onto this godforsaken pirate ship in the middle of the ocean!”
“Which is better than being dead,” Petey said. “I guess.”
“You mean not dead yet,” Paige said.
Diego didn’t bother to respond. He dragged himself out of bed and made his way to the bathroom. He was woozy on his feet, and the swaying of the ship didn’t help. He splashed water on his face, then glanced out the window at the open sea. He hoped this had been the right move, because there was no turning back now.
He stepped out of the bathroom to see Paige rubbing Lucy’s back.
“What is it?” Diego said.
“My mother has no idea what’s become of me,” Lucy said, sniffling. “We don’t even know if they escaped.”
Diego thought of Siobhan and felt a cold stab of worry. “If they were captured,” he said, “then that’s all the more reason why we should be here.”
There was another rattle of keys at the door, and a new pirate appeared, this one maybe just a year older than Paige. He removed his strange-shaped hat as he stepped in.
“Here they are, the young rapscallions.” He moved to Lucy and took her hand. “Forgive our treatment, mademoiselles; we are not used to guests.” He kissed Lucy’s hand, then took Paige’s and did the same.
“Oh please,” Paige said, yanking her hand away.
The pirate stepped back. “Ah, my apologies, mademoiselle. It is a custom where I—”
“It’s a custom you can drop or next time I’ll drop you,” Paige said, raising her arms into a fighting stance.
“Oh, very feisty, I see.” He smiled. “It makes meeting you even more of a pleasure.”
“Who are you?” Diego asked.
The man stood straight and put his hat back on. “I am Gaston Le Baptiste, second pilot, navigator’s apprentice, and deck officer, at your service,” he said, still focused on Paige and Lucy.
“N’êtes-vous pas un peu jeune pour un pirate?” Lucy asked.
“Ha, young for a pirate.” Gaston laughed. “Je compte mon âge en milles parcourus. Ma belle, vous me semblez être quelqu’un qui a voyagé loin.”
“What the heck are you two saying?” Petey asked.
Lucy giggled. “Peut-être.”
Gaston took Lucy’s hand. “Quelle dommage pour tous les hommes que vous ayez voyagé si loin toute seule.”
“Okay, okay, break it up,” Paige said, knocking Gaston’s hand off of Lucy’s. “You served up enough of that bull for now.”
Gaston laughed heartily. “By all means, mademoiselle.”
“Don’t push me, kid,” Paige said. “You don’t know who you’re talking to.”
“Can we help you?” Diego said.
Gaston turned, and his smile faded. “Ah, so you are the young Ribera boy, I take it.”
“What of it?”
Gaston glanced at Lucy. “Très courageux pour un de onze ans.”
Lucy smiled.
“What did you say?” Diego asked.
“He said you were very brave for an eleven-year-old,” Lucy said.
Paige cracked up at this. Petey just shook his head.
“I’m thirteen,” Diego said, standing up straighter.
“My apologies,” Gaston said. “I meant no disrespect. . . . You are short for your age, are you not? But who’s to say that you will not grow up to do great things someday. A future-world Napoléon, perhaps!”
Lucy laughed again.
“All right,” Diego said.
“Steady on,” Lucy said, still smiling. “He’s just giving you a go is all.”
“Yes,” Gaston said. “I didn’t come here to start a fight.”
“Then why exactly are you here?” Petey asked.
“I am to bring you to the galley to meet with the captain. So, if you’d please follow me.” Gaston walked out without waiting for a reply.
“This kitchen is amazing,” Paige said, gazing around like she was making an inventory of the supplies and devices. “I could do my momma proud in this place.”
“Good,” a voice boomed from the doorway. Captain Boleslavich trudged in. “At least one of you may get to live.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lucy said.
The captain stopped before them and crossed his arms. He stu
died them, the engine-like sounds of his breath filling the room.
“We have a right to be here,” Diego said. “It’s our parents who are in danger out there and—”
“You have no rights here—half-Ribera!” the captain said as he took a seat on a bench behind a long galley table. “And . . . danger? What of the danger you’ve already put my crew in? I lost several men back at the pier, all because you led Aeternum agents there. We arrived to find our payment buried beneath ruined scaffolding and surrounded by armed killers. We dispatched those wretched dogs, but not before taking losses of our own.”
“I’m sorry,” Diego said. “I didn’t—”
“My men have value and purpose on this ship, boy. And so far you do not.”
“We can have a purpose,” Diego said. “You just give us a try. Paige can cook. Petey is smart, especially with history and numbers, and—”
“And I can master any duty on this ship,” Lucy said, cutting him off. “Just tell me what’s needing done, and in a week I’ll do it better than your crewmen.”
“And Lucy’s good at being superior,” Diego said.
The captain spoke before she could respond.
“And you, half-Ribera,” the captain said. “What worth do you possess besides wearing your father’s good name?”
“I can . . .” Diego hesitated for a second. “I can fix anything,” he said. “I can make anything like new, and sometimes even better.”
The captain was silent again, arms still folded. Finally, he said, “My deal with Arthur Huston is to return the men and women taken from New Chicago. This does not include taking care of their worthless, undisciplined runaways. I would’ve taken you back and thrown you out in the harbor if there had been time, but every moment counts on our mission. So, show me you are worth keeping, and live. Fail me . . . and you can test your mettle against the sea.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Trials at Sea
Captain Boleslavich led Diego and his friends out to the top deck. Diego wasn’t prepared for how big the ship was.
“We must be at least four stories up,” Petey said, leaning against the railing.
Diego and the Rangers of the Vastlantic Page 9
