by Joel Ross
I opened to the marked page, and found the scraps about “Skywalker Trek.” I knew the whole thing was just a story . . . but sometimes, late at night, I still prayed that a fleet of spaceships would rescue us. They’d send the X-Wing Enterprise to gather everyone who’d survived the Fog and bring us to a lush, green world where clear land stretched to the horizon.
I’d told Mrs. E about that once, as we’d sat outside the shack. We’d watched the starry sky for a long time, and then she’d said, “What if the X-Wing Enterprise already landed? What if the rescue party is already here?”
“Swedish is totally a Klingon,” I said, “and nobody’s more Princess Solo than Hazel.”
She’d ruffled my hair. “And you’re my young Fogwalker.”
Smiling to myself, I tucked the scrapbook away. I missed Mrs. E. And now that we were just a few hours away from Port Oro, the fogheads would heal her, and we’d be a family again.
A sharp cry cut into my reverie: “Ship on the horizon! The Predator’s closing fast, Captain!”
My smile died. Not now. Not when we were so close. My skin prickled and I felt Kodoc across the miles. His hot, hungry breath touched my neck like a jaguar about to sink its teeth into a jackrabbit.
I spun in my harness, my breath ragged. Without a spyglass, I couldn’t see anything except Fog and storm clouds, so I just slumped there, limp and shivering.
“Tetherboy?” the rigging master called down. “I’m bringing you topside!”
My mouth was too dry to answer.
“Tetherboy?” she shouted again.
I licked my lips. “R-ready!”
“Lose the harness,” she said after winching me up. “Captain Nisha’s looking for you.”
“What does she want?”
“Whatever she wants, you say ‘yes, ma’am.’”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, trying to cover my fear with humor.
“You’re not bad, for a bottom-feeder. Now get moving.”
Numb and frightened, I trotted along the gangway. I stumbled down the steps from the spar deck and found the crew clustered around the captain.
I slunk into place beside Bea, my shoulders hunched.
“Have a look,” Captain Nisha was saying, handing her spyglass to Hazel. “Do you see him?”
Hazel scanned the distance. “No.”
“Neither did I. Look higher.”
Hazel tilted the spyglass upward. “Where?”
“Higher.”
Hazel gasped. “Oh, no.”
“That’s why we haven’t spotted him,” Nisha told us. “Kodoc camouflaged the underside of his ship, then spent the last few days climbing. Higher and higher, into the air that’s almost too thin to breathe. Then all through last night . . .”
“He dove like a bird of prey.” The spyglass trembled in Hazel’s hand. “Like a peregrine falcon.”
My breath caught. That was a fact from the scrapbook. A peregrine falcon normally flies at fifty miles per hour, but when it dives for the kill? It reaches two hundred miles per hour.
Hazel didn’t say anything for a few terrible seconds. “He’ll hit us in an hour. Two hours if you overcrank the props. But your engine’s still weak. . . .”
Nisha tapped the hilt of her dagger. “You’re a born airsailor, Hazel. I’d offer to make you a lieutenant when we reach the Port—”
“If we reach it,” Swedish muttered.
“—but you’d say no, wouldn’t you?” Nisha finished.
Hazel nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Because you already have a crew.” Nisha glanced at the rest of us.
“Born to bottom-feed,” Loretta said.
Swedish nudged her. “Doomed to dive.”
The captain ignored them. “I am overcranking the props, Hazel. I’m pouring everything into speed and hoping we don’t melt down. He’ll still hit us in two hours.”
“How far are we from the Port?”
“Three hours.” Nisha jerked her thumb toward the opposite railing. “Maybe a little less. You see that smoke on the horizon? That’s the Port.”
My heart started racing. Three hours from Port Oro! We’d come so close. . . .
“Um,” Bea said in a little voice. “So we’re three hours from the Port, and Kodoc is only two hours from us?”
Captain Nisha nodded. “He’ll catch us an hour from home.”
“Will your friends help?” Bea asked.
“She means the mutineer navy,” Hazel said. “Can’t they fly out to stop Kodoc?”
“They’re too far away,” Captain Nisha said, her blond hair half covering her face. “By the time they realize what’s happening, Kodoc will be on us.”
“And they’re too timid, poppet,” Vidious called to Hazel. “You might as well ask a turtle to leave his shell.”
“They’ll try to help,” Nisha insisted. “I’ll signal them. But there’s no way they’ll reach us in time.”
“So what are we gonna do?” Loretta asked.
“There’s only one thing to do,” Vidious told his sister.
Nisha went completely motionless. Her stillness and silence made me nervous. What was Vidious talking about? Fighting? Surrendering? Handing me over?
“We could split up,” she said.
“He’s fast enough to catch us both,” Vidious said. “And you’ve got the package.”
“Don’t do anything stupid, Vid.”
“Stupid is our only choice.” Vidious raised a hand to his pilot, and his airship swerved away from the Anvil Rose. “Take care, little sister!”
“We’re twins, you idiot!” Nisha shouted after Vidious. “You’re older by ten minutes!”
Vidious’s laugh reached us faintly as he stalked to the prow of his ship, his cloak billowing behind him.
“What are they talking about?” Swedish asked Hazel. “What’s going on?”
“He’s going to attack the Predator,” she said.
“The Night Tide can’t beat Kodoc,” Bea said, her green eyes wide. “Not even close.”
“He’s not trying to beat him,” Hazel explained. “He’s trying to buy us time.”
45
“MY BROTHER’S TOUGH,” CAPTAIN Nisha said, her worried gaze on the Night Tide. “He’ll come through.”
Hazel rubbed her face with her hand. “But Kodoc won’t waste his time on the Night Tide. He’ll stop her, then come for us.”
“Well, that’s comforting,” Loretta muttered.
Captain Nisha eyed Hazel. “I hope you’re worth all this trouble.” She glanced at me. “I hope he is.”
“I—we’ll try to be.” Hazel offered the spyglass back. “Thank you. For everything.”
“Keep the spyglass,” Nisha said, crossing toward the prow. “And keep your crew out of my way . . . Captain Hazel.”
Despite the danger, a spark of pleasure glowed in Hazel’s eyes. She seemed to stand straighter as the wind tugged at her braids. She tightened her lips, trying not to smile, but I knew her too well: being called “Captain” by Nisha made her want to spin and shout.
“C’mon,” Hazel said, heading toward the stern.
“Captain Nisha’s awesome,” Bea announced as she followed.
“Yeah,” Swedish said. “But scary.”
“Like a snake,” Loretta agreed. “With claws.”
“Snakes don’t have claws,” Bea told Loretta, starting down a ladder.
“Some do,” Loretta said. “The kind they don’t want you to know about.”
Swedish gave her a look like he wanted to kiss her—then the deck started trembling as the airship accelerated.
When we reached the sweep deck, Bea frowned. “We’re on the wrong side of the ship—we can’t see the Predator from here.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Hazel lifted her new spyglass to her eye. “We can’t do anything about Kodoc anyway.”
While she scanned the Fog, Bea and Swedish and I looked at one another. What did that mean? Hazel could always do something.
“Shoul
dn’t we, y’know . . .” I gestured feebly. “Spring into action?”
“What action?” Hazel said. “Vidious is already trying to stop Kodoc, and Nisha is already flying at top speed.”
“But Kodoc’s ship is faster.” Bea cocked her head, listening to the engine. “He’ll win.”
Hazel nodded curtly. “I know.”
Bea’s lower lip started trembling, so I grabbed her hand. Loretta sidled beside Swede and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. When Bea started shivering, I looked down at her sweet face, usually so bright and hopeful, and saw nothing but dismay.
I glanced at Hazel over Bea’s tousled head, and she met my gaze. I saw that she felt just as dismayed as Bea, just as hopeless. She also felt responsible, like she’d failed us. I looked back at her and tried to tell her with my eyes that whatever happened next, I was proud of her. We were all proud of her.
She bowed her head and scanned the distance with her spyglass. Nobody spoke for a long time. Twenty minutes, thirty, forty. . . . The Anvil Rose trembled beneath us. Foggium hissed through hoses, and the props strained for speed.
Finally Hazel said, “There she is. Port Oro.”
I trotted to the railing and shaded my eyes. A million peaks of whiteness caught the light of the sun and the wide blue sky. In the distance, a tumble of puffy clouds mixed with the mist of the Fog . . . and I spotted a dot on the horizon, a jagged green-and-gold crown rising through the vapor.
“We did it!” I said, feeling a dumb grin spread across my face. “We actually did it.”
“Except for the whole Kodoc-blowing-us-from-the-sky thing,” Swedish grumbled.
Bea fidgeted beside me. “I’m scared.”
After a moment, Hazel said, “We’re all scared, but . . . do you know what they’re calling us, back in the slum?”
“Dead meat?” Swedish asked.
“Legends,” Hazel told him with a sudden, wolfish smile. “We snatched a diamond and got away. Who does that? Nobody. Who beats the bosses? Nobody. Who outruns the troopers?”
“Nobody?” Bea said.
“Nobody,” Hazel agreed.
Hearing the strength in Hazel’s voice, I felt something expanding in my chest, something fierce and happy. Something like hope.
“Who snuck onto the Rooftop?” Hazel asked.
“We did,” Bea said.
“Who escaped Kodoc? Who haggled with mutineers?”
“We did! We did!”
“Yeah,” Hazel said. “And next, we’re going to cure Mrs. E.”
“How?” Bea chewed her lower lip. “There’s no way we’ll reach the Port now.”
Hazel turned to look at the growing speck of Port Oro. “I don’t know how.”
“Neither do I,” Swedish said. “But only an idiot would bet against legends.”
In the silence that followed, I gaped at him, shocked by this sudden burst of optimism.
“Are there fishing ships?” Bea asked, a minute later. “Can you see them?”
“The lake’s on the other side of the mountain,” Hazel told her.
We’d heard that a fleet of airships lowered nets into a massive Fog-shrouded lake every day, trawling for fish hundreds of yards below. We’d heard that farms and mines dotted outlying mountaintop “islands,” and even that a few bits of Port Oro were built on the tops of ancient skyscrapers that rose from the white. Which was completely loco. How could super-tall buildings still rise above the white?
“What about skyscratchers?” Loretta asked.
“Scrapers,” Hazel corrected. “I don’t see them. Not yet.”
“You don’t actually believe in those,” Swedish said. “Do you?”
“In the old days,” Hazel told him, “there were hundreds of them.”
“There were big bens, too,” I said. At least, according to my dad’s scrapbook. “And wall streets.”
Loretta squinted at me. “What’s a big ben?”
“A huge clock,” I said. “Named after Big Ben Franklin.”
“The guy whose face is on fancy toilet paper?” she asked.
“That’s the one.”
“There!” Hazel pointed. “Warships. Nine mutie warships, coming toward us.”
“How far away are they?” I asked, my grip tightening on the rail.
“Too far,” she said. “Unless Vidious slows Kodoc down.”
As if in answer, a sudden BOOM echoed across the sky.
Airsailors shouted, and I spun toward the noise. The gun deck blocked my view, so I climbed the mizzen rigging until I spotted the Night Tide.
High above and far behind us, Vidious’s airship seemed tiny in the shadow of the Predator. Kodoc’s steel-ribbed balloon cut through the air as his warship swooped in for the attack, her big guns thundering again.
The crackle of Vidious’s cannons answered—too softly, like a cricket’s chirp after a lion’s roar.
Hazel climbed beside me, and we watched the one-sided air battle. Three times in ten minutes the Predator blasted the Night Tide with a terrible volley, then swiveled to chase the Anvil Rose. To chase me. But every time, Vidious managed to fire one more harpoon or war chain at Kodoc’s ship. Just enough to make him turn back again.
Just enough to slow him down.
In the end, Vidious didn’t have a chance. The Predator was too fast, too armored, too powerful. Flames spat from Kodoc’s guns, and cannonballs tore into the Night Tide. Even from miles away, I almost felt the damage, almost heard the hiss of foggium and smelled the bitter stench of smoke.
Vidious’s cigar-shaped zeppelin buckled, then sagged in the middle. The Night Tide tilted, and for one heart-clenching moment, I thought the entire airship was going to flip over, hurling everyone into the Fog. Instead, the hull cracked. The elegant stretch of railings splintered and the rigging twisted into a gnarled knot. Broken rudders and charred fans tumbled into the white.
I held my breath, waiting for the ruined ship to plummet. It slumped under the limp zeppelin, drifted helplessly in the air . . . but stayed aloft. Hanging broken in the sky, under a cloud of smoke.
The Predator pivoted toward us. She hovered for two heartbeats, then rocketed forward, propellers blurring.
“How long before Kodoc reaches us?” I asked Hazel.
“Thirty minutes,” she said. “Maybe forty.”
“And the mutie ships from the Port?”
She looked through her spyglass. “An hour. At least.”
“So he’ll catch us.”
“Yeah,” she said. “He’ll catch us.”
46
I FLOPPED ONTO THE sweep deck and stared toward Port Oro. So close—yet we’d never reach it. The nine mutineer warships still looked like toys, while the Predator loomed ever larger.
Minutes slipped past, way too fast. I wasn’t ready to lose, not yet. I wasn’t ready to say good-bye to my dreams, I wasn’t ready to say good-bye to my crew.
If only I’d done things differently. If only I’d been born normal. If only the X-Wing Enterprise would fall from the stars to save us all. I touched the scrapbook in my jacket and remembered Mrs. E’s words. What if the X-Wing Enterprise already landed? What if the rescue party is already here?
“Oh,” I said under my breath.
Maybe Mrs. E meant that nobody would save us . . . so we needed to save ourselves. But how? I didn’t know. It wasn’t possible. I closed my eyes and lay back in defeat. The deck shuddered beneath me. The shouts of the airsailors sounded far away. The glow of sunlight on my eyelids reminded me of the Fog, and I daydreamed about diving—about the freedom and the speed.
Then a terrifying thought rose in my mind, like a jaguar’s growl rumbling through the Fog. No. No, it was a dumb idea. A deadly idea.
I swallowed a few times. “Uh, Hazel? We can’t outrun Kodoc, right?”
“Right,” she said.
“So either he pounds Nisha’s ship and then grabs me . . . or he just grabs me. We have to sneak off the ship and hand me over.”
Her eyes narrowed. �
��Give you to Kodoc?”
“Yeah. To keep the Rose out of it.”
“No.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
She didn’t answer.
“It’s our only choice,” I told her. “Either I surrender, or I dive without a tether.”
Hazel cocked her head and gazed past me, like she was reading our future in the fields of Fog.
“I’m no expert,” Loretta said, “but isn’t ‘diving without a tether’ the same as ‘jumping overboard’?”
“That’s what Chess is saying.” Swedish glared at me. “Even though he knows I’ll stuff him in a chest before I let that happen.”
“Wait,” Hazel murmured, her eyes dark with thought. “Maybe that’s it.”
“Maybe what’s it?” Loretta asked.
“Diving without a tether.”
Swedish squinted at Hazel. “What’re you talking about?”
“I think,” she said slowly, “I have a plan.”
“Is it better than Chess jumping overboard?”
“No,” Hazel said. “It’s not.”
“Captain Nisha is going to kill us,” Swedish grunted twenty minutes later.
“She’ll thank us,” Loretta said. “Are you done with those bolts yet?”
Swedish raised his head from the harpoon. “She’s going to thank us for stealing her lifeboat?”
“You’re not a pokey little lifeboat, are you?” Bea crooned, fiddling with the cargo raft’s engine. “No, you’re my smuggle-buggy!”
I was too scared to smile at Bea, too numb and nervous. My mind kept snagging on Hazel’s plan, especially the part where I surrendered to Kodoc. It had seemed like a better idea before we’d started trying to make it happen.
I spun on my tether to look at Hazel, but she didn’t notice. She was perched in the access hatch that opened beside the lifeboats, her eyes half closed. Plotting and planning as Swedish bolted a stolen harpoon—which I’d lowered alongside the Anvil Rose—onto the cargo raft deck.
“That’s right,” Bea murmured to the pistons. “You’re fast as a greasy cheetah.”
Swinging beside Hazel, I unlatched from the tether and closed my jacket around the harness we’d lifted, along with a pair of goggles. My hands shook too much to work the buttons—because pretty soon I’d be alone on the Predator, face-to-face with Kodoc.