Gaston nodded tersely. “Yes, sir.”
“Sir,” Ajax said. They turned and headed for the armory.
“What else can we do?” Lucy asked the captain.
“Get inside and get down, until they return with the guns,” the captain said. “A prayer to your god of choice might also be helpful.”
“I don’t think rifles will pack enough punch to stop that plane,” Lucy said.
That’s what they needed, Diego thought. Stronger weapons. Maybe a weapon that had a stronger punch.
Diego pulled off his backpack and whipped out the computer tablet. He touched his hand to the screen, and the tablet turned on. He concentrated, but at first nothing came . . . then there was a flicker. He focused his thoughts on the octopus-shaped device inside the tablet. Show me what you’re capable of.
“What are you doing?” Lucy asked.
“I’m not even sure, just . . .” He turned back to the tablet. “Kavohn processor, are you programmed for self-preservation?”
“Yes,” the computer voice answered, “but accessing those protocols requires you to initiate my full systems, and as I stated before, Diego, only you can initiate this processor’s operations.”
“How do I do that?”
“You must give me a name,” the computer said.
“Your name is Redford.”
“Redford,” the computer paused. “Please stand by.”
Diego placed his hand on the pad.
“Recognizing . . . welcome, Diego Logan Ribera,” the computer said. “Administrator access granted.”
“Unlock AI functionality. I initialize you as Redford Ribera.”
“Authorization accepted. Please stand by. Full systems activation will be complete in five minutes.” The screen began to flash.
“What are you doing?” Petey asked as Diego stowed the tablet back in his bag.
“I might have found a way out of this mess. Petey, come with me.” He turned to the captain. “Sir, I need to go and—”
“Go, then, Ribera!” the captain shouted. “Apparently you follow orders when it pleases you.”
The Zero came around for another pass.
“Whatever we’re doing, let’s hurry up and do it!” Petey said.
Diego and Petey sprinted across the deck, heads down, as explosions rocked their eardrums and bullets singed the air, clipping the bridge and bow.
Gaston and Ajax reemerged and fired back.
“Are we heading to the barge?” Petey called as they ran, bullets stinging the deck around them. “Because there’s still no bridge!”
“I know!” Diego said. He grabbed the railing and threw his legs over, standing on the outer edge, the sea pounding below.
“Oh man oh man oh man,” Petey said, climbing out to join him.
The ship rocked and reeled. Diego gripped the railing. “When the barge gets close . . . ,” he said, measuring the gap of water.
The whirring of the plane got louder in their ears.
“We’re easy targets here!” Petey said.
“Get ready.” The barge rose up, drifting closer. “Now, Petey!” Diego jumped. Falling through space, circling his arms. The barge bucked, seemed like it might ebb away from them again—
But they landed hard on its deck, pitching onto their knees. Diego hit his sore shoulder against the side of a metal container, and it lit up in pain. He forced himself to his feet, sprinting for Redford.
“Undo the restraints!” Diego shouted to Petey. “Then fire up the boilers and get in the operator’s seat.”
“What are you gonna do?” Petey said.
“What I’m meant to do,” Diego said. “I think.”
“Okay . . . ,” Petey said.
The boys clambered up onto Redford’s shoulders, where Petey took the cockpit and started throwing ignition switches and twisting pressure dials. Diego dropped to his knees and ducked beneath the control panel behind Redford’s head. He searched among the different-colored wires, selecting two and connecting them to the back of tablet.
Redford shuddered as his boiler chugged to life. The tablet was still booting up.
Redford lurched forward, getting up onto his knees.
“Petey!” Diego called, barely slapping the interface panel closed.
“I thought I’d get him ready!” Petey called.
“No, that’s good! Just . . .” Diego glanced to the sky.
Redford bucked, and, all at once, the engine and the tablet sputtered and shut down.
“What happened?” Petey called down.
“I don’t know!” Diego said. It was as if the circuits had surged and fried, like all the complex electrical systems did in this world. “That fuse I installed should have allowed it to work for a little longer!” The special piece from Lucy . . . the Sight had showed him.
“Well, it worked for one thing!” Petey pointed to the sky.
The Zero was heading their way. Its guns opened fire on Redford.
Diego and Petey ducked as bullets and chunks of metal rained around them. The bullets tore at Redford’s arms, legs, and chest plating, but he was so massive that the damage was minimal.
The plane shot overhead, Gaston and Ajax chasing it with bullets to no avail.
There was a clanking, and Redford’s engines coughed back to life. His headlamps lit up.
“There we go!” Diego shouted. “Petey. Get out!”
Petey and Diego leaped down onto heaps of scrap metal, but as Petey rolled to the deck and took cover, Diego slid down the front side of the pile and ran to where he could address Redford directly. And also be seen by the Zero.
It banked, coming straight at them. . . .
“Redford!” he shouted. “Protect yourself and your friends!”
The robot’s lights flared, and he groaned to his feet.
Petey scrambled up the heap to Diego’s side. “You did it, D! You . . .” A shadow fell over them.
Redford spun and his head lowered, like he was looking down at the two boys.
Diego felt a tinge of fear as the giant machine loomed over them.
“Does he . . . know us? Know we’re friends?”
Diego nodded. “I think he does.”
He waved at Redford and gave him a thumbs-up. “Good job, buddy!”
Redford stared down at them . . . then blasted a puff of thick white steam in reply.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Volcambria
“This is unreal,” Paige said.
“That is what we thought when we discovered this place,” the captain said. “The island is the tip of a dormant volcano. It is surrounded by coral reefs, and in turn by this unnatural wall of wrecked ships, planes, vehicles, and machines reaped from across time.”
“But why is all this here?” Lucy wondered.
“One of the many unsolved mysteries of this strange island. It has been our home for many years, but we’ve only scratched the surface of its many secrets. That graveyard of ships and machines, as best we can tell, is some . . . strange consequence of the Time Collision.”
“He is a wonder,” the captain said, looking at Redford, joining Diego and his friends at the bow of the ship.
“Yeah,” Diego agreed.
“You must tell me how you accomplished it.”
“I, um . . . was fiddling around with that tablet, you know, to keep my mind off my dad.” Diego talked carefully, avoiding mention of the Maker’s Sight. “Then I realized that Lucy’s charm might be Elder technology. I had a hunch it was an advanced harmonic magnetic stabilizer. And I was right.”
“That is impressive,” the captain said with a sigh. “I am an Elder. That trinket Lucy wore looked like no piece of technology that I’ve seen. The smallest harmonic stabilizers I ever saw were the size of watermelons and could never have protected a computer, even an antique like your tablet.”
“Weird,” Diego said. The captain had confirmed what Diego sensed down deep—if that charm wasn’t Elder tech, it was something else. But what? And
who built it?
“It only makes your creation all the more astonishing,” the captain said. “That is why when we get to the base, I want you to remove the tablet.”
“What?” Diego said. “No way.”
“We do not know what that technology is,” the captain said. “It could be dangerous in ways we don’t even realize.”
Diego shook his head. “It would be like killing him.” Out of the corner of his eye, Diego noticed that he’d caught his friends’ attention, and they were turning toward the conversation.
“That may be,” the captain said. “But this is an order.”
Diego looked at Redford. He took a deep breath and turned to face the captain. “Redford saved your life, your ship, your whole crew. You’re asking me to kill one of my friends, and I won’t do it.”
The captain stiffened, getting ready to shout.
Paige joined Diego. “Sir, if it wasn’t for Redford, we’d be goners,” she said.
Petey stepped up next to her. “I saw Diego build that robot, sir. It’s always been special to him, and after today, it’s special to us. He’s like family.”
“Do you share this opinion, Ms. Emerson?”
“Aye,” Lucy said. “Redford’s part of the crew, sir.”
“A robot on my crew . . . ,” the captain grumbled, but then he turned and shouted up to Redford. “And what say you, my big friend? Will you sail under my command?”
Redford slowly turned his head back toward the bow and blew out a plume of white steam.
“That’s how he says yes, sir,” Diego said.
The captain exhaled slowly. “Fine, then.”
“Woo-hoo!” Petey shouted, slapping a high five with Diego and then with the girls.
“You’ve proven yourself today,” the captain said to Diego. “And earned a reprieve from punishment for your past transgressions. We will discuss Redford later.”
Redford led the vessels around a bend, and the captain pointed ahead. “Welcome to Arkhipov Castle, stronghold of the Vanguard.”
“Blimey,” Lucy said. “This place is wicked.”
“It is good to be home,” the captain said. “Now we can—”
The captain stopped, staring hard at the empty piers. He stormed inside.
“What’s with him?” Petey wondered.
“The docks are empty,” Ajax said, bowing his head. “We had three other ships in our fleet: a tugboat called the Intrepid; a gunboat, the Valiant; and the Dauntless, a World War II destroyer. All were badly damaged in a battle with the Aeternum off the coast of Newfoundland. Most of the crew of the John Curtis transferred to those boats to help with repairs, but then a flash storm separated us. We hadn’t heard from them, but they knew to sail to our base. The captain expected to find them waiting for us.”
“We hoped for the best,” Gaston said, “but . . . it seems our people are gone.”
“Do the Aeternum have them?” Lucy said.
“We cannot know,” Ajax said. He sighed and headed inside.
“I think they were also supposed to be part of our rescue mission,” Petey said. “Not sure how we’re going to pull this off with just these three pirates and us.”
“We don’t know the captain’s plan yet,” Diego said, trying to keep up a thread of hope. “I’m sure he had a backup plan in case his other ships hadn’t returned.”
Still, he couldn’t escape the sinking feeling at seeing those empty docks, and the worry that even after coming all this way, finding his father was only more impossible than before.
Diego spent the next hour helping to unload and secure the cargo. Redford did most of the lifting, transferring storage containers onto the flatbed cars of a narrow-gauge train that ran the length of the main dock. When they were finished, Diego drove Seahorse and led Redford to the hangar near the castle where the robots would stay.
“You’ll be okay here,” Diego said.
Redford looked around but didn’t reply.
“I’ll come visit you. Okay?”
Redford puffed steam. Fine.
Diego caught up with everyone and boarded an old-fashioned trolley that would take them up to the castle. Ajax and the captain went the other way with the train of cargo.
“Why is the castle called Arge-pop?” Paige asked, looking up at the looming structure.
“Arkhipov,” Petey corrected. “I’m betting it was a Russian king, or a general.”
“That’s pretty good, Monsieur Petey,” Gaston said. “Vasili Arkhipov was actually a lesser-known Russian commander, but he saved the old world from nuclear destruction in the year 1962. Back then, there was this standoff between . . . I think it was Cubahna and—”
“The Cuban Missile Crisis,” Petey said.
“Cuba? You mean the Spanish colony?” Lucy asked.
“Yeah,” Petey said, “but after that. The old United States of America and Russia, which was called the Soviet Union, were enemies and nearly went to war.”
The trolley entered a cave, plunging them into darkness.
“Commander Arkhipov refused to launch a nuclear torpedo against the Americans,” Gaston said. “The captain says he saved the world from war and yet no one really knew of him, so he is honored here.”
“The captain built this castle, right?” Diego said, studying the walls. “But then why does part of it look ancient?”
“You have sharp eyes, Ribera. The stone base and rear sections of the castle are different from the rest. They were here when our captain discovered this place. He built Arkhipov on the old ruins.”
A loud grinding of gears prevented the conversation from continuing. The trolley had reached the castle. As everyone gazed around in awe, Lucy leaned against Diego’s shoulder.
The trolley slipped through a tunnel into a massive cave. The walls glistened with seawater, and the ceiling was covered in stalactites. The trolley lurched to a stop on a metal platform. With a hiss and a grinding of gears, the platform began to rise toward a high ledge. The platform clanged to a stop at the ledge, and the trolley proceeded toward daylight, and the front doors of the castle.
As the light fell on them, Lucy shifted away. She stared straight ahead, almost like she was intentionally not looking at Diego.
The trolley pulled to a stop before the great stone building.
“This way,” Gaston said.
They entered through enormous oak doors and into a great main hall. Huge wooden pillars towered around them, made of bound-together, full-grown tree trunks that were collared at the top, bottom, and center by black iron braces. The floor was made of large planks of worn, scarred wood and covered with a vast Oriental rug. At the back of the hall beyond a bonsai tree, a grand wooden staircase split left and right up to three floors.
“Over there is the common room and the library,” Gaston said, pointing to ornately carved entryways to their left. “To the right are the dining hall and the kitchen. And past that is a hallway that leads to operations, the telegraph room, maintenance, and the darkroom.”
Petey paused in the center of the echoing hall. “Hey, what’s this?”
Diego saw him pointing to an inscription on the wall by the library.
“Is that Latin?” Lucy asked, joining him. “Let’s see . . . remember . . . the, um . . .”
“‘Remember, upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all.’” The captain had joined them.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Diego asked.
“That we shall live and die by each other’s actions,” the captain said. “This is more important than ever for you, my newest crewmembers, with the Intrepid, Valiant, and Dauntless lost.” He slapped Diego and Lucy on the backs and spoke to everyone. “Gaston will show you to your rooms. Then I expect you to meet me in the map room in one hour.”
They walked up the grand wooden stairs, their steps echoing into the dark recesses of the cavernous room. To either side, brass and black metal latticework housed Victorian-era elevators. Paige whispered something to Lucy, while D
iego and Petey craned their necks this way and that to see the elaborate stonework and the many hallways leading in countless directions.
“Boys’ rooms are that way,” Gaston said when they reached the top of the stairs. “Take any one you want. You will find assorted clothes in the drawers and closets from past crewmembers. Please use them. The girls, too.” He motioned Diego and Petey off in one direction while he continued with Lucy and Paige in the other.
But they hadn’t taken two steps before Paige stopped and looked at Gaston, hands on her hips. “Excuse me?”
Gaston laughed. “Oh, I wanted to see you safely through this gloomy castle and—”
“I’m sure we can manage,” Paige said. She pushed him gently. “You’d best be heading in that direction.”
Petey and Diego started down the hall on their own. The corridor was empty, dimly lit. The doors were identical, and so were the rooms inside. Eventually the boys picked one, collapsing onto twin beds. Beside each bed was a military-style footlocker, a set of drawers, a desk and chair, a bookcase, and a gas lamp on the wall. There was a single closet in which hung two naval uniforms similar to the ones on the John Curtis.
Diego flopped down on the bed. Petey did the same. He stared at the ceiling, his body still feeling like it was swaying on the waves.
“Who do you think this is?” Petey asked. Diego found him with a picture of a young man holding hands with a pretty girl. An older couple stood behind them, looking on.
“One of the lost soldiers, I bet,” Diego said.
Petey nodded. “I never thought I’d say this, but I miss my parents.”
“Me too,” Diego said.
“You know . . . I didn’t want to be here,” Petey said.
“Yeah, and I’m sorry—”
“But now, I’m glad I am.”
Diego looked at his friend. “Me too, Petey.” He stared at the ceiling and smiled, but it didn’t last very long.
“How is your room?” Petey asked as Paige served up sandwiches.
“Sterile,” Lucy said, “but quiet, and it doesn’t smell like gunpowder and gasoline.”
“Ours feels like barracks,” Diego said.
Diego and the Rangers of the Vastlantic Page 18
