Not that he was about to admit it to the others, but he felt embarrassed about not knowing the ship could divide. He had examined every aspect of Liber8tor’s schematics and not realized. He’d learned a lot in his time on the ship, but still had a long way to go.
‘We might have bigger problems,’ Ebony said, staring at her console. ‘I’m seeing overheating in the auxiliary engines.’
‘What does that mean?’ Quinn asked, her voice high. ‘Are we about to blow up?’
‘No, not at all. Well, not yet.’
‘What?’
Mister Okada was scanning his console. ‘This is an issue,’ he confirmed. ‘It looks like one of the cooling system valves isn’t working properly.’
‘Can’t we just drop out of FTL?’
‘Normally we could, but the build-up in the condenser might cause an explosion. It must be cleared.’
Chad stood. ‘I suppose The Chad needs to save the day,’ he said.
‘I admire your enthusiasm, Chad,’ Mister Okada said, raising an eyebrow, ‘but that system is difficult to reach.’ He frowned in concentration. ‘Someone needs to crawl down the airshaft, but they would need to be small.’
Four pairs of eyes turned to Dan.
‘What is it with you people?’ Dan said. ‘I’m not a garden gnome!’
Minutes later, he, Mister Okada, and Chad were assembled on one of the lower decks. Like much of the ship, this area had a reptilian look to it. Dan had been to this part of the ship before, but the corridor had been cool, and the air fresh. Now steam was leaking from the grill of a ventilation duct, and the air tasted of hot metal.
‘That’s the leak from the cooling system,’ Mister Okada explained, removing a grill from a ventilation duct. ‘You’ll have to climb to the far end of the duct, turn left, then right about twenty feet. From there, you should be able to use your powers to break through the vent.’
‘And then what?’
‘You’ll see a circuit board directly ahead. It will look like this.’ Mister Okada pulled one from his pocket and handed it to Dan. ‘You just need to swap this over.’
Dan repeated the directions before climbing into the duct.
‘Hey, Dan,’ Chad said, grasping his shoulder. ‘Be careful.’
‘And don’t take very long,’ Mister Okada warned. ‘The radiation level is very high. If you stay very long, you’ll fry.’
Great, Dan thought. Fried Dan.
He started down the tube. It was tight. There was enough room for him to crawl down it, but not enough to turn around. The steam was so thick he could barely see a foot ahead. He started coughing and waited until the spasm passed. Continuing on, he struggled around the first bend.
‘Hey Dan,’ Chad’s voice came over his comm bracelet. ‘What’s taking so long?’
What’s taking so—
‘I’ve stopped for lunch!’ Dan snapped. ‘It’s not easy to get around in here.’
‘Hurry up, or you’ll get cooked.’
‘Thanks for reminding me! I’d completely forgotten!’
Dan shuffled down the duct. It was now impossible to see, and he had to feel his way. Water streamed down his face, and the metallic smell was making his eyes sting. He started choking again.
I must be almost there, he thought, struggling around the second turn.
‘You need to speed up, Dan,’ Ebony’s voice came over the comm. ‘The auxiliary engines are at sixty percent.’
‘Okay,’ he wheezed.
His head hit metal. Using his powers, he formed a crack in the wall and widened it. At first, he saw only more steam, but then a circuit board became visible. It was blue and covered in silver lines.
‘I’m here,’ he said.
‘Can you see the board?’ Mister Okada asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Pull it out and replace it.’
Dan reached out to do this, but the circuit board had begun to fall away from him. He made another grab for it, but it was too far away. What was wrong with him? It was as if he were drugged.
‘Trying...’ Dan slurred. He saw double. What was it Mister Okada had said about the radiation? He tried speaking again. ‘Can’t find...’
‘Dan?’ Chad’s voice came over the communicator bracelet. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Can’t...’
‘Listen to me, buddy. You’ve got to swap that board over. Got it?’
Ebony’s voice cut in. ‘The engines are at eighty percent,’ she said. ‘We’re in big trouble.’
‘I knew we shouldn’t have sent you,’ Chad said.
‘What?’ Dan’s attention focused on his words. ‘What...did you say?’
‘I said you’re a squirt. I knew it was a mistake sending a kid like you off to do a man’s job.’
Dan wanted to punch Chad in the face. ‘You...shut up...’
‘A kid,’ Chad said. ‘And a short kid, at that.’
Enraged, Dan reached out for the circuit board but instead hit the wall next to it. He slid his hand across and found the board. Gripped it. Tore it loose. Pulling the new one from his pocket, he struggled to clip it into place.
‘I don’t know why we keep you around,’ Chad said. ‘Everyone pulls their weight except you.’
‘Shut up,’ Dan growled. ‘Shut...up!’
‘Engines at ninety-two percent,’ Ebony’s voice was tight. ‘They can’t take much more.’
Dan put in one final effort to snap the board into place.
Click!
The intense heat immediately began to dissipate. Dan started coughing and couldn’t stop. It was impossible to turn around, so he retreated backward along the ventilation duct. By the time he reached the other end, the coughing had stopped, but he felt strangely at ease. Hands grasped his feet, and he was dragged from the shaft.
‘Dan!’ Chad said. ‘Buddy, are you all right?’
Dan tried to speak, but couldn’t form words. Mister Okada and Chad carried him through the ship. His mind began to wander as the ceiling streaked past. Flashes of memory came to him. He was in a small village somewhere in China. An old woman with tears in her eyes was saying goodbye to him. Then Dan was in the back seat of a car and looking back.
He lifted a hand in farewell as the car took him away.
‘Waipo,’ he said.
Grandmother.
Then he was in the infirmary surrounded by Chad, Ebony, Quinn, and Mister Okada.
‘Chad...’ Dan wheezed. ‘You...said those things...’
‘I didn’t mean it,’ Chad said, his eyes wet with tears. ‘I had to push you; otherwise, you might not have made it.’
‘I...know...’
‘Hold on,’ Chad said.
Dan tried to focus on his voice, on their faces, on the memory of his grandmother, but he couldn’t. Darkness closed in at the edges of his vision and gave way to night.
Chapter Six
‘He’s received a lethal dose of radiation,’ Mister Okada said. ‘He won’t survive the day.’
Ebony felt herself go light-headed as she looked down at Dan. His face was pale, but apart from that, he looked fine. An hour had passed since they had taken Dan to the infirmary. Liber8tor had dropped out of FTL and was now orbiting a moon. At any other time, Ebony would have been thrilled, but now she was consumed by dread.
‘But there must be something we can do,’ she heard herself saying.
‘There’d better be,’ Chad said. He was glaring at Mister Okada as if he wanted to kill him. ‘If he dies—’
‘Don’t threaten my father!’ Quinn said, taking a step towards him.
‘It’s because of you that—’
‘Quiet!’ Ebony yelled.
She couldn’t stand this fighting—and it wasn’t getting them anywhere. Her eyes swept from one person to the next. Saving the day as a superhero was one thing, but being the center of attention was something else. Ebony hated it.
‘Mister Okada,’ she said. ‘Is there a cure for radiation poisoning?’
Mister Oka
da looked down. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Dealing with this type of radiation sickness is common to the Tagaar. They’ve long had a history of accidents onboard their vessels.’
‘But they’re not going to give us any medicine.’
‘They will not, but we can go straight to the source,’ he said. ‘The plant that will cure Dan is called murdle flower. It grows on Printara, a world not far from here.’
‘Then we’ve got to go,’ Chad said. ‘There’s just one problem.’
‘What’s that?’ Quinn asked.
Chad nodded to the helm. ‘Who’s flying the ship?’ he asked.
‘Mister Okada?’ Ebony asked, swallowing.
The Bakari alien shook his head. ‘I can,’ he said. ‘But there is someone better suited.’ His eyes fixed on Ebony.
She sighed. Dan was clearly the best pilot, but he had insisted on teaching everyone how to steer the ship. Of everyone in the team, Ebony had shown a particular gift for it.
‘Sis?’ Chad said. ‘Can you do it?’
‘I don’t understand the FTL drive,’ she said.
‘Ferdy and I can work that out,’ Mister Okada said.
Ebony swallowed. ‘Just call me Captain,’ she said.
Chad saluted. ‘Aye, aye,’ he said. ‘Captain.’
Leaving Quinn to keep an eye on Dan, Ebony and the others returned to the bridge. She settled into Dan’s normal position and restarted the engines. Their gentle hum vibrated through the ship. Her eyes settled on the gray moon below and the dark curve of space beyond.
‘Ferdy,’ she said. ‘What’s the status of the engines?’
‘Operating normally.’
She pulled Liber8tor out of orbit. ‘Ferdy,’ she said. ‘Set a course for Printara.’
It only took a minute to calculate the course required. ‘Course set,’ Ferdy finally said.
‘Mister Okada?’ Ebony said.
‘FTL systems are fully operational. We’ll be there in six minutes.’
Ebony inputted the coordinates from Ferdy. Her forefinger hovered over the console. Pushing this button could splatter them across the cosmos.
It’s a risk, she thought. But isn’t everything?
She touched the console, and the FTL drive initiated. A second later, the engines rose a notch, and stars slid past the window. They were in wormhole space.
‘Systems are operational, friend Ebony,’ Ferdy reported. ‘And the Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo da Vinci.’
‘Thanks. I needed to know that.’
Chad sidled up to her as she focused on the readings on the helm.
‘Nice work,’ he said.
‘Thanks.’
He glanced back at Mister Okada. ‘We need to keep our guard up,’ he said in a low voice.
‘How do you mean?’
He leaned close. ‘Maybe that accident wasn’t an accident,’ he said.
‘Huh?’
‘For all we know, Quinn and her father are responsible for the engine problem.’
‘That’s crazy,’ Ebony said, trying to focus on her console. ‘Why would they do such a thing?’
‘Maybe they’re trying to sell us out.’
‘They could have done that at any time.’ She glanced back at Mister Okada. ‘We need to operate as a team, now more than ever.’
Ebony spent the next few minutes running through the flight procedures in her mind. After what seemed like an eternity, Mister Okada looked up from his console.
‘We’re coming out of wormhole space in thirty seconds,’ he said.
Ebony nodded. As she counted down the seconds, the engine changed pitch as Liber8tor dropped out of FTL, and the stars were once again reduced to cold pinpoints of light. At the bottom of the viewscreen was the gentle curve of a rusty colored planet.
‘That’s Printara,’ Mister Okada said. ‘It’s sparsely populated by a native people who use the plant.’
‘Sure,’ Ebony said. ‘But let’s land the ship first.’
She increased acceleration and brought Liber8tor into a shallow arc across the planet. Within seconds, the ship began to vibrate as it encountered the edge of the atmosphere. The vibration increased as Liber8tor descended. Ebony gazed at the planet through the viewscreen. It appeared to be mostly desert, but there were long, thin rivers and lakes dotting the world.
Another planet, she thought. And we’ll be the first humans to set foot on it.
It was a surreal thought. Like the others, there was a lot she regretted; the loss of her memory, the people she’d seen die, the pain she’d witnessed—and now Dan was deathly ill. There were so many things that had gone wrong, but as the ship descended through high clouds, she couldn’t help but be grateful for what had happened to her.
They say every cloud has a silver lining. Maybe this is it.
Their ship cut through thick clouds, and soon Ebony could make out more details on the planet’s surface: patches of forests, mountains, and dust storms sweeping across red deserts.
‘Ferdy,’ she said. ‘How are the engines?’
‘Performing normally.’
‘Chad? The other systems?’
He peered at his console. ‘As far as I can tell,’ he said. ‘Everything looks fine.’
‘I need a landing spot.’
Mister Okada scanned his console. ‘Ahead of us lies a plain between two rivers,’ he said. ‘I suggest we land there.’
Ebony gripped the control stick more tightly. She realized her hands were sweaty and her heart thudding. Flying through space was one thing. Landing the ship was something completely different.
Chad crossed to her. ‘Are you okay?’ he murmured.
‘Fine,’ she said, her voice thick with tension.
‘Doesn’t Dan use a cheat card.’
Of course, Ebony thought.
It was a handwritten card that Dan used. He kept it positioned next to the console as a reminder to follow all the procedures. Ebony speed read the steps as Chad sat down again.
‘I’m reducing our speed,’ she said. ‘Mister Okada. Give me altitude readings.’
‘Ten thousand feet,’ he read. ‘Nine thousand.’
She leveled the ship out.
‘Eight thousand...seven thousand...’
The landscape grew more evident as the ship descended. Ebony stared at the landing site. From a distance, it had looked flat and open. Now it was uneven and rocky. She slowed the ship.
‘...three thousand...two thousand...’
‘Firing landing thrusters,’ Ebony said.
‘Ebony,’ Ferdy said. ‘There is a fault in the rear thrusters.’
‘Define fault,’ Ebony snapped, a trickle of sweat dancing down her cheek.
‘They are operating at thirty percent. Damage must have occurred when the ship was attacked.’
Ebony tilted the ship forward so that the bow thrusters would cushion the vehicle on landing. She spotted an area ahead that was clear enough to accommodate the ship.
‘...three hundred feet...two hundred...one hundred...’
Gently decreasing the power to the thrusters, Ebony allowed the ship to level out. Swallowing hard, she let out a long breath as the ship gently landed.
‘Touchdown,’ she said.
Chapter Seven
I watched the stars as they slid past the window. We were on our way to Tagaar. I wasn’t sure if I should feel relieved or panicked. We had avoided being blown to pieces by Agency Flex ships, but now we were heading straight into enemy territory.
Glancing over at Brodie, I was grateful that she’d taken on the job of flying the ship. She was skim reading the instructions to refresh her memory. While none of us could pilot as well as Dan, we all understood the basics. Now that it was just Brodie, Ferdy, and me out here in the unknown, we would have to control the ship as best we could.
Brodie looked up at me. ‘What?’ she said.
‘What...what?’
‘You’re staring at me.’
‘Not at all.’
Although I
had been. I’d thought we’d have our differences sorted out by now, but something was still keeping us apart. What was the old saying? Once bitten, twice shy? Was that why our relationship had never gone back to what it once was? Our trip to the future had shown us what might lay ahead—and it wasn’t like anything we imagined. Maybe we’d never get back what we had.
I sighed.
Love was hard. And painful. No wonder there were so many songs written about it.
‘Ferdy,’ Brodie said, averting her gaze from mine. ‘How is that diagnostic going?’
‘It should be completed in three minutes.’
‘So, the engines are running properly?’
‘They are. We are due to reach the Tagaar system in a little over four hours.’
Four hours. A chill went down my spine. This was an impossible mission. We had to rendezvous with the others, find the tomb of Shogarth and make his body rise into the sky without the Tagaar realizing they were being conned.
I had no idea how we were going to make that happen.
A sense of panic seized me so thoroughly that I felt faint. We should have contacted The Agency and explained the situation to them. Surely they had the resources to fight off the Tagaar?
Didn’t they?
‘Worried?’
I looked up. Now it was Brodie who was staring at me.
‘Kind of,’ I said.
‘You look like your grandmother just died.’
‘I don’t know if I have a grandmother.’
She laid her hand on mine. ‘I know you’re worried,’ she said. ‘So am I. This is the craziest thing we’ve ever done. But I’m sure we can—’
Bang!
Liber8tor jolted sideways, throwing Brodie and me to the floor. The lighting dimmed, and the vessel groaned ominously. For one terrifying moment, I thought the ship was about to rip apart at the seams.
‘Ferdy!’ I yelled. ‘What’s happening?’
‘A vessel has intercepted Liber8tor,’ Ferdy said, entirely too calmly. ‘We are being drawn towards it.’
Picking ourselves up, Brodie activated the viewscreen, and we stared out at another vessel. Shaped like an enormous wedge, it was silver in color without any signs of exterior windows. The only break in its design was from where I could see a pulse emanating from the forward section of the wedge. It looked like a vast shimmering net had been cast over Liber8tor.
Teen Superheroes Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 82
