Spark: A Sky Chasers Novel

by Amy Kathleen Ryan

Waverly squinted at the screen, and Arthur hit play again. The dot drifted up from the New Horizon and sped toward the shuttle. Quickly, the OneMan sank out of view below the border of the screen, but it was unmistakable.

  “He tethered to you. He reeled himself in. And then somehow he got on board and hid.”

  “How? When?”

  “He must’ve used the small air lock in the cargo hold.”

  Arthur got up from his seat, beckoning to her over his shoulder, and the two of them went down to the cargo hold. At the aft side there was a man-size hatch with a tiny porthole in the door. Arthur and Waverly peered through the scratched glass to see the face mask of an empty OneMan peering back. “You guys didn’t notice this here?”

  At first Waverly was too stunned to speak, but she regained her voice to say, “I think I looked in there once, just to see what was inside. The OneMan was facing the other way, so I could only see the back of it.” She shuddered. She’d looked right at the stowaway, hiding in that suit, and she hadn’t seen him. “I thought it was standard to keep a OneMan in there.”

  Arthur nodded. “I would probably have thought the same thing.”

  “He might have even slept in there, spent his time in there.”

  “Logical. It would get claustrophobic, but if he kept the air valves open, he could have stayed there almost the whole time.”

  “Yes,” Waverly said. “Oh God, Arthur!”

  He put a hand on her shoulder and waited for her to look at him. “Waverly, we should have thought of it, too. We should have searched the shuttle, quarantined it. Hell, we should have jettisoned it.”

  She nodded. She could see why Kieran liked Arthur so much. He was kind.

  The two walked down the shuttle ramp, and Arthur pressed the button to raise it up again. Waverly watched as the evidence of her frightening passage home disappeared behind the door.

  “I have something I need to tell you,” Arthur said as they crossed the empty shuttle bay. The OneMen hanging along the wall seemed to lean away from their hooks, heads bent, as though trying to eavesdrop. Waverly didn’t like looking at them. It reminded her of how many people weren’t on the ship. “You’re going to get upset.”

  He had her attention now. “What? What are you talking about?”

  “First I want your promise—that you won’t do anything right away. You and I will think about what to do, and we’ll come up with a plan, and we’ll execute it. We’re not going to let our emotions get the better of us, okay?”

  “What happened? Did he capture Seth?” Suddenly the rest of Kieran’s announcement came home to her. “There’s no way Seth would work with the stowaway, Arthur! No way! Kieran was wrong to make that announcement.”

  The panic in her voice seemed to give Arthur pause, and he looked at her, his brow furrowed.

  She bowed her head. Arthur might be kind, but he was loyal to Kieran. She must remember that.

  The two walked through the doorway and into the corridor. Arthur closed the shuttle-bay door behind them. “Waverly, Sarah was mouthing off to Kieran earlier.”

  “Oh God.”

  “You need to understand, though. Sarah was really goading Kieran on, implying that she knew something about Seth’s escape. She said she knew why our surveillance system isn’t working, but she refused to tell us. So Kieran—”

  “He threw her in the brig.”

  Arthur nodded.

  Waverly shook her head. Her anger made her fingers tremble. Every heartbeat was painful. “God, Kieran.”

  “Here’s the problem as I see it,” Arthur said. “If Kieran was really Captain, he’d have every right to arrest her for insubordination.”

  “But he’s not really Captain.”

  Arthur nodded.

  “And you want to hold an election to give him that power?”

  “It might help with the crew’s attitude. If he were really Captain, Sarah might have been more cooperative.”

  “Or Kieran might have been even more of an uncontrollable bastard.”

  To this, Arthur said nothing.

  “So what do you want to do about it?”

  Arthur didn’t pretend to think about it; he’d clearly already considered what he wanted Waverly to do. “I want you to talk Sarah into telling you what is wrong with the surveillance system, so then I can talk Kieran into letting Sarah go. That way they can both back down and still save face.”

  Waverly sighed heavily. “Have we all lost our minds?”

  “Kids aren’t meant to deal with this kind of stuff.”

  “Adults are no better,” Waverly said ruefully, thinking of the way Captain Jones and Anne Mather had both seemed to have their adult crews hoodwinked completely.

  “So you’ll do it?”

  Waverly nodded.

  “And you won’t run at Kieran?”

  “I think it’s best if we avoid each other for a while.”

  “I’m thinking tomorrow morning would be a good time to visit Sarah,” Arthur said.

  “No, I’m going now.” She started toward the elevator, but Arthur stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. She turned to see him biting his lip anxiously.

  “I just wanted you to know, it wasn’t my idea for Kieran to phrase it that way. In the announcement.”

  “What way?”

  “When he said the stowaway was on the shuttle piloted by Waverly Marshall.”

  She stared at Arthur as his meaning sank in. Of course. By mentioning Waverly in the same sentence as the stowaway, Kieran was pinning responsibility for the stowaway’s presence on her. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “It was kind of a dirty trick, I thought,” Arthur said, embarrassed.

  “Yeah.” Her voice sounded disaffected and cold.

  “He’s under a lot of pressure…,” Arthur began.

  “Don’t even tell me,” Waverly said, shaking her head, and strode off to the starboard elevator bank, leaving Arthur behind. When the doors opened, she marched in and punched at the control panel. It was a long ride down to the brig, and the more she thought about everything Kieran had done, the angrier she got.

  The elevator opened to the deepest level of the ship, and Waverly headed toward the brig. The noise of the engines was especially loud down here, and she wondered how Seth had been able to stand it night after night. But then, she supposed, you could get used to just about anything if you had to.

  She heard voices when she turned onto the corridor to the brig. Boys’ voices, mostly, and then a shriek that sounded like Sarah.

  Waverly broke into a run, all Arthur’s admonitions forgotten. When she got to the brig, she stopped to listen for Sarah. There were over a dozen cells here in a long line of steel bars that stretched ahead on either side of her. She heard voices on her left and took off running. In the third cell down she found Kieran standing over Sarah, who was sitting on the metal cot in the middle of the cell, surrounded by boys, looking enraged.

  “Sarah, I’ve got a ship full of kids to protect, and I don’t have time to play games with you.”

  “I’ll tell you if you let me out of here!” Sarah growled through her teeth.

  Kieran reared back, hand raised, shaking from anger. He looked like he wanted to slap her.

  “Stop it!” Waverly screamed. She barreled past two guards who were standing in the doorway. “What are you doing?”

  Kieran looked at her as though replaying the scene in his mind and considering how it would look. But he recovered quickly. “Get out of here, Waverly.”

  “No! I won’t let you do this!” Her voice sounded hoarse and panicked.

  Kieran grabbed Waverly by the elbow, but she jerked away from him. “You’re a monster! I don’t know you!”

  “Waverly,” Kieran said softly, and dragged her out of Sarah’s cell by the arm. She pulled against him, but his grip tightened painfully and he jerked her out of the brig, her feet skidding as she tried to claw at him with her free hand until he caught her wrist. Once they were in the corridor he backed
her into a corner and pressed against her with his weight, his eyes on hers. His face was swollen with the edema caused by the increased gravity, and she could see the tiny capillaries under the surface of his skin. Once he’d been so handsome, but now he looked hideous to her.

  “Waverly,” he said softly. “I wasn’t going to hurt her. I was just angry.”

  “Yeah, right!” she spat.

  “It’s true. Come on, you know me. I’m not a bully.”

  “You weren’t a bully before you made yourself Captain.”

  “Look.” He shoved a finger in her face. “I’ve got a terrorist on this ship killing my crew. I don’t have time for Sarah’s stubbornness. She knows what’s wrong with our surveillance system, and she won’t say what it is.”

  “The more you treat her this way, the less she’ll want to help you!”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Reason with her, for God’s sake!”

  “You want to try it?” he said. It sounded like a rhetorical question, but he raised his eyebrows hopefully.

  “You’ll let her out if she cooperates?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll try,” Waverly said coldly. “If I have your promise you won’t threaten anyone on this ship again, no matter what.”

  She jerked away from him and marched back into the brig. The two guards, Harvey Markem and Vince Petrelli, looked over her shoulder at Kieran. Harvey wore a filthy bandage over his forehead, but otherwise he seemed as sturdy as he always had. Vince was just as big as Harvey, but their faces were still those of young boys. They must have received a nonverbal signal from Kieran, because they stepped aside for Waverly, and she went into Sarah’s cell.

  The girl looked shaken but strong. She stared at Kieran with pure hatred, but when Waverly knelt in front of her, she softened.

  “Sarah, if you know how to fix the surveillance system, you have to tell them.”

  “Why?” the girl spat.

  “You know why. Because there’s a stowaway from the New Horizon on board, and we need to find him.”

  “There’s a stowaway?” The girl’s eyes grew so wide her irises were ringed by a circle of white.

  Waverly turned to Kieran. “You didn’t tell her?”

  “I made the announcement an hour ago,” Kieran said, confused.

  “Well, I didn’t hear it,” Sarah said. “Because you didn’t turn the speakers on in the brig! Idiot!”

  Kieran bristled, but Waverly held up a hand in warning. The best thing for Sarah right now was to keep Kieran from losing his temper.

  “Sarah,” Waverly said. “If you have some insight—”

  “I’ll tell you what you need to know,” Sarah said, but not to Waverly. She was looking at Kieran, her eyes like marble. “If you let me out of here.”

  “I’ll let you out of here,” Kieran said, “after you tell me.”

  Sarah turned to Waverly again and sighed. “Can you untie my hands?”

  Waverly walked around the girl and saw that her hands were bluish red, the cord pulled so tightly that her fingers had contorted into claws. Waverly shook her head, even angrier, but said nothing as she picked apart the knot, pulling on it until it loosened and Sarah could lift her hands to rub the raw skin.

  “They reprogrammed the software controlling the motion detectors,” Sarah said with a sneer.

  “That’s not it,” Kieran said. “We checked the code. It’s untouched.”

  “It would be easy to miss. All they did was reverse the software commands. Now the cameras stop recording when there’s motion, and start recording when there isn’t any. The opposite of what they’re supposed to do. They probably just had to change around a few characters. Check it again. That’s got to be it.”

  Waverly could see Kieran felt foolish. This was so simple, he should have been able to figure it out immediately. He certainly shouldn’t have needed to threaten someone.

  “Now I’m going home,” Sarah said, and stood up from the cot.

  Kieran shook his head. “When I say you can.”

  “What!” Waverly shrieked.

  “You still need to spend some time in the brig for the way you delayed the investigation,” Kieran said to Sarah.

  The girl shook her head, her mouth set in a grim line across her hard face. “Kieran Alden, you’re nothing but a liar.”

  “I didn’t lie. I said I’d let you out of here. Just not right away.”

  Waverly was frozen with rage. She thought if she allowed her body to move, she would scratch Kieran’s face. Instead she sat next to Sarah and stared at this boy she’d loved for so long, the boy she’d thought she would marry. Now she despised him.

  “Let’s go,” Kieran said, and motioned to the guards to follow him out of the brig. He turned to look back at Waverly, who remained in the cell, still staring, unbelieving.

  “Waverly,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  She shook her head. “As long as Sarah stays in here, I’m staying, too.”

  “I can have you removed by force.”

  “If you want to prove me right about you.” Though anger was churning inside, her voice was steady and low. “You’re just like Anne Mather. You’ve turned into a petty little version of her, and you’re only going to get worse until you see the light.”

  “Fine,” Kieran said. He nodded at Harvey, who briskly stepped forward and locked the cage. Sarah took Waverly’s hand, and the two girls sat close.

  “Three square meals,” Kieran said to the guards, and left the brig.

  UNOFFICIAL INVESTIGATION

  Seth sat on the floor of the conifer bay, dismantling pinecones, munching on the nuts that were nestled between the spines. He felt like a damn squirrel, but he knew he needed protein more than anything, and at least the nuts provided that.

  He kept going over that announcement again and again. Kieran had sunk lower than he’d thought possible, saying Seth was working with the stowaway. He’d known Kieran might try something like this, but it still stung to know the entire shipful of people now suspected him of treason. “Well played, Kieran,” Seth muttered.

  He picked up another pinecone and pulled off the dry spines, picking at the small nuts. The only way Seth could redeem himself now would be to catch the bastard himself. As he nibbled on one of the small, sweet nuts, he tried to think like a saboteur. What would be his next move?

  It seemed likely he’d try to hobble the ship, but without access to the engine room, that would be difficult. He might use a OneMan to disable the engines from the outside, but that would be impossible to do without some kind of explosive device. If the saboteur had been a stowaway on Waverly’s shuttle from the New Horizon, it was doubtful that he’d been able to bring along any weapons. That meant he’d have to make a bomb from scratch.

  Where would he find the materials for an explosive?

  Seth leaned back, letting the carpet of pine needles crackle against him. He didn’t know anything about making a bomb. The only thing he could think of was to check the labs, where there were all kinds of chemicals.

  He brushed himself off and jogged out of the conifer bay, welcoming the warm air that enveloped him in the corridor. He went to the outer stairwell and opened the door to go through, and was shocked to hear voices a few levels above him. Quickly he backed out of the stairwell and crouched just outside the door to listen.

  As the voices got closer, he could hear two boys talking boisterously about what they’d do to the “terrorist” if they ever caught him. Their footsteps came louder and louder, until they were just on the other side of the door.

  Then they stopped.

  “Do you smell that?” This sounded like Troy Halderson, a strapping thirteen-year-old.

  “Smell what?”

  “Like the world’s worst BO.”

  “Dude, I was going to say something, but—”

  “I showered this morning.”

  “Well, you smell like a chicken coop.”

  They rounded the bend in th
e stairwell and went down to the next level. Seth smelled his own shirt and made a face. He couldn’t stay hidden for long smelling like this. Fortunately there were showers at the back of the labs in case of chemical spills. They’d be no-frills but they’d work.

  Seth waited until the voices of the sentries faded away. Without making a sound, he inched open the door and slipped into the stairwell. He slinked up the metal staircase quickly, hugging the wall, and crept to the chemistry lab. He kept his eyes and ears open, but the entire level seemed to be completely empty.

  He slipped inside the lab and locked the door behind him.

  He was shocked by the first thing he saw—a counter heaped with dozens of empty boxes. The surface was covered with tracings of a white powder that Seth didn’t recognize, along with empty liquid-nitrogen cartridges. Seth looked in the sink, where he found several empty beakers, the insides coated with a corrosive brown muck. He sniffed at them and coughed.

  This stuff might have been left by the saboteur! He had to get a message to Kieran, but he couldn’t without his father’s portable com station, which he’d left in the conifer bay. And he still needed that shower. A very quick one.

  He jogged for the shower stalls at the back of the room. God love scientists, there was even shampoo. Seth wanted to lose himself in the feeling of the hot water on his skin, but he made himself count off the seconds until he reached one hundred, scrubbing furiously, and then he turned off the water.

  Seth dried himself off with a lab coat, then riffled through the lockers until he found a clean shirt and pair of pants hanging from a hook. He almost ran out of the room, but on second thought, he went back and gathered up all the clothes from the lockers. He even found a hand-knit sweater. It was too small, but it would help keep him warm in those frigid stairwells and in the conifer bay. With the small pile of clothes tucked under his arm, he walked toward the door, his mind on his message to Kieran.

  “Dear Saint Kieran, deliver us from evil,” he muttered under his breath, and chuckled.

  He was reaching for the doorknob when he was hit from behind.

  His head slapped the metal door in front of him. For a second he forgot how to breathe, but he kept his feet and turned to face his attacker. He only saw a metal chair swinging toward his head. He ducked, but not in time, and a sharp edge of the chair cut his scalp.