For a second, they scowled at each other.
But there was no time for that. The next second, they were off again, moving slowly at first through the diminishing storm, and then fast as the storm passed over them and they came into the clear.
Carly resumed top speed. They followed the route through the valley, climbed toward the mountain pass, and after some wrong turns and mistaken stops, they came to the dark mouth of a cave at the top of a long, boulder-strewn slope. It would have been a moment to celebrate except for one thing: the snowmobile from the Light Blade was already there.
Gabriel stood at the console of the Cloud Leopard’s navigation deck, watching a dot on a screen that showed the Cloud Cat’s progress toward Tundra. The dot moved down and down. A yellow starburst flared. That was the landing. The Cloud Cat was dropping off Dash and Carly. A few minutes later, another yellow burst signaled that the Cloud Cat was on its way back. Good. Time to go and have a talk with Chris.
He hopped into the nearest portal and sped through the maze. In seconds, he was at the other end of the ship, tumbling out onto the floor of the engine room. He waited, and soon he heard the outer door of the docking bay opening, the transport ship powering down and rolling in, and the outer door closing. For a moment, there was quiet, and then the inner door slid upward and in came the Cloud Cat. Chris climbed down from the cockpit.
Gabriel bounded toward him. “Did everything go okay?”
“Yeah,” said Chris. “No problems.”
“Pretty cold down there?”
“You can’t imagine. All okay here?”
“Fine. It’s only been about half an hour since you left.” Gabriel grinned. “Not a lot can go wrong in half an hour.”
“Well, actually it can,” said Chris. “But I’m glad it didn’t.”
They walked together out of the bay and up the central corridor. “I expect they’ll be able to get the element in five hours or so,” Chris said. “If all goes well. There’s the weather to contend with, of course, and there could be some trouble dealing with the ice crawlers. But this mission ought to be a fairly quick one.”
Gabriel checked the time on his MTB. “So it’s eight thirty right now. That means they should be calling in at about one thirty with the signal for one of us to pick them up.”
“That’s right,” said Chris. “And in the meantime, will you be okay on your own? A few hours of free time won’t be unwelcome, I’m sure.”
“I think I can suffer through them,” Gabriel said.
“See you later, then. I have to go and check on—” Chris paused awkwardly. “Various matters.”
“Before you go,” said Gabriel, putting a hand on Chris’s arm. “I have an idea. Can we talk for a second?”
“Sure. In here?” Chris led Gabriel into the rec room, and they sat down at one of the small tables. Someone had left a bagel there. “Want this?” Gabe asked, and when Chris shook his head, he picked it up and took a bite.
“So what’s the idea?” Chris asked.
“We have to get Piper back,” said Gabriel, chewing.
“Correct,” said Chris. “Dash and I have been negotiating about it with Anna, but we haven’t gotten anywhere so far.”
“We have to get it done,” said Gabe, “whether Anna agrees or not.”
“You’re right, of course. But how do we do that?”
“We go and get her,” Gabriel said with a mouthful of bagel. “We take the Cloud Cat. We fly it right up to the Light Blade, and we board the ship, kind of like pirates, only good pirates. We find Piper, and we rescue her. Now.”
“Ah,” said Chris. He gave Gabriel a serious look. “But I don’t see how that would work.”
Gabriel put the bagel down. “Why not?”
“For one thing, how would we get the Cloud Cat into the Light Blade? I doubt that the team is just going to open up the dock doors for us.”
“There must be a way.”
“There will be a way,” said Chris, “but I’m pretty sure that won’t be it.” He pushed back his chair and stood up.
“What will it be, then?”
“I don’t know yet,” said Chris. “But acting like pirates isn’t it. We need a diplomatic approach.” He turned and started for the door. “See you in a few hours.”
Okay, thought Gabriel. His conscience was clear. He’d run his idea (most of it) by Chris, but Chris didn’t like it. Chris was wrong on this one. They had a chance to rescue Piper right now, and they couldn’t let this chance go by. Gabriel would just have to do it himself.
Not that he was so sorry about that.
Time was critical. He sprang up from his chair, tossed the bagel in the garbage, and headed back to the docking bay. There he climbed into the cockpit of the Cloud Cat and adjusted its controls to his setting. Lift. Forward power. Stabilizer. Fuel gauge. Navigation panels. Hello, friends, he thought.
As for the problem of getting into the Light Blade: Piper would take care of that. He didn’t have it all lined up yet. But he would. First he had to communicate with her.
He zipped over to the training room and called to STEAM. “Come on, STEAM. We have work to do.” Together, they went up the corridor to the navigation deck. The immense window showed the great curve of Tundra’s surface and the black sky beyond. Not far away, standing still in space just like the Cloud Leopard, was the Light Blade. Inside it, somewhere, maybe locked in a closet or chained to a post, was Piper.
Gabriel sat down at the console and STEAM came up beside him. “We’re going to do something new,” Gabe said. “It’s called hacking. We’re going to hack into SUMI.”
STEAM flashed a green light. “Something new,” he said. “New is good. But why?”
“Great question,” said Gabriel. “It’s because we want to communicate with Piper, and that’s the only way I can think of to do it. Tech-wise, you and that SUMI robot they mentioned are probably a lot the same. So it should be possible. All we have to do is get a communications channel open between us and the Light Blade, and from there, we can get into their network. That shouldn’t be hard.”
“Yes sir,” said STEAM. “Ready.”
“Good.” Gabriel put on a headset, and he flipped a couple of switches. A series of hums sounded, like a dotted line: um…um…um…Through the speaker, a voice said, “Light Blade here.” Gabriel recognized the voice as Siena’s.
He spoke into the headset, using a low, rumbling voice that didn’t sound like his own at all, and he left pauses between words, and he threw in some odd little squeaks and scratchy noises. “Clow Lep eer,” he said. “Can’t…skreek…bad connex…ip, ip, ip…connection…rrrrrooww. Plz tune yer…”
Siena shouted back. “What? Can’t hear you!”
Gabriel made a few more strange noises, and at the same time, his fingers were flying over the buttons and switches built into STEAM’s controls.
Siena was clearly annoyed. “Who is this? Is there some kind of emergency? I can’t hear what you’re saying!”
A bright yellow light lit up on STEAM’s console. It flashed slowly and steadily. Gabriel grinned. Got it! he thought. He was having fun with the weird noises, so he made a few more. “Ooob-wahg,” he growled in a low groaning sort of voice, like a motor running down. “Oooom. Losing…loo-o-o-zing you…” And he disconnected.
He jumped up from the pilot’s seat. He fiddled again with the buttons on the control, and then he typed in a command and peered at the display. “Right now,” he said, “SUMI is in recharge mode. Perfect. We’ll do a test run.” He pressed the final button.
—
Piper, bored out of her mind, was playing a video game. She knew that Anna and Ravi had taken off for Tundra by now, with Colin at the helm of the transport ship. That meant that only Niko and Siena were on board. SUMI had returned from the team meeting and was recharging, which meant no hide-and-seek, nothing happening. The recharging happened several times a day and took twenty minutes or so, during which SUMI was asleep—that is, nonoperational. Piper ha
d at first used these times to explore the training room, looking for a way out, but by now, she’d covered every inch—many times. So there was nothing to do while SUMI recharged but play games. Or take a nap.
The video game was way too simple for her, so she was actually beginning to nod off when she heard a strange voice. It said one word, which sounded like correction. She whipped around. SUMI was still plugged in, looking lifeless. So it wasn’t SUMI talking. Was someone hiding in here? Piper’s heart began to pound. She guided her air chair very slowly toward where she thought she’d heard the voice.
It came again. “Connection,” it said, low and robotic. It was coming from SUMI! But it wasn’t SUMI’s voice. Piper approached the little robot warily. “What?”
“Confirm your name,” the voice said.
“SUMI, are you okay?” asked Piper.
“Uh…yes. Rebooting. Please provide proof of identity,” the voice said. Piper thought she knew that voice, and it wasn’t SUMI. “Answer this question: What is the name of the Alpha slogger?”
Now she was sure—it was someone from her team!
Piper knew the answer, of course. “TULIP,” she said eagerly.
“Excellent,” said the voice. “Petunia is now your code name. Speed Devil Supreme here, also known as Gabe. Press enter if you copy.”
Gabe! Gabriel was calling! Amazement flooded through her. And joy. She floated next to SUMI, pressed her enter button, and listened.
“Piper, I have a plan! I’m gonna get you out! I need to know SUMI’s down times and when she’s alone with you.”
With shaky fingers, Piper entered the times when SUMI routinely recharged.
“Be ready for messages at those times!” Gabriel said. “Sign on with your code name if you’re alone and it’s safe to connect.”
Piper laughed. “Will do. Just one thing—why do you get to be Speed Devil Supreme and I have to be a flower?”
“Signing off now,” said Gabe with a goofy laugh.
There was a quiet beep, and his voice was gone.
Piper let out a whoop and sailed her air chair up to the ceiling and all around the room. There was hope. She was going home! Gabriel had a plan.
Carly brought the Streak to a halt beside a drift of snow. Up a slope several yards away was a dark opening in the mountainside. The Omega team’s snowmobile was parked in front of it. There was no sign of anyone.
“They can’t have been here long,” Carly said. “If we’d gotten here just five minutes ago…” She trailed off, but Dash knew what she was thinking. If he hadn’t wasted precious minutes adjusting settings, which he could have done perfectly well while they were moving…He frowned and pushed the thought away. He couldn’t help it if she was mad at him. It was better than telling her the truth.
They scrambled out of the Streak and made their way to the cave. Snow had blown into a deep bank at the cave entrance, and boot prints in the snow showed that two Omegas must be inside. Dash and Carly clambered up and over.
Dash turned for a moment to look out at the view from this high place. Vast stretches of snow, dark stone ridges and cliffs, and, far away, some things he couldn’t identify. To the northeast, there was a long glint of rippling silver, almost like water, only of course it couldn’t be water. And off to the northwest, what looked like a field of gray, like…like…all he could think of was a parking lot full of gray cars, but that was impossible. Probably it was a field of boulders. And farther away still, the air seemed to shimmer with what looked like vertical clouds.
They came to the mouth of the cave a few steps farther on. Inside, they found themselves in a high, dim space, its walls black and complicated by shadows. Here and there, light gleamed on ice crystals like diamonds embedded in the walls.
They changed frequencies to try to hear the Omega team. They stood still and listened.
Distant voices.
Sounds of footsteps.
The connection wasn’t great, but it was clear the Omegas were in the cave.
“Lights,” said Dash, and they took their flashlights from the hooks at their sides, because even though sunlight slanted in through the cave door, they’d soon be beyond its reach.
Chris had told them where to find the Talons—as well as he remembered. It had been a long time since he’d left them here. They would have to go to the back of the first room of the cave, and there they’d find a low passage—so low that they’d have to go through it on their hands and knees. At the end of that passage, they’d find a much larger cavern with a ceiling so high Chris’s flashlight hadn’t been able to illuminate all of it. This was where the Talons were hidden.
Carly and Dash set out to locate the passage. Voices still sounded faintly in their ears and made them impatient to find the Omegas, but the going was slow. The cave floor was slippery and uneven; luckily, the rubber treads on their boots gripped fairly well. Dash led the way, and they moved farther in, sliding their hands along the wall, running their light beams up and down ahead of them.
Then Carly called out excitedly. “Here, Dash, I think this might be it.”
Dash came up beside her. He and Carly shone their flashlight beams forward and saw a hole in the wall about the size of a small fireplace, a rough half circle of darkness. “Yes, that must be it,” Dash said. He lowered his light to the gritty floor. “Look—footsteps.”
“Omegas,” said Carly. “Unless those are Chris’s footsteps from a hundred years ago. Probably not.”
Dash stooped down and peered into the hole. “The ceiling’s low,” he said. “We really are going to have to crawl to go through.”
Neither one hesitated. They tucked their flashlights partway into their pockets so they’d aim forward and light the way, and then they dropped to their hands and knees and entered the passage. Carly led this time. Dash raised a hand and felt the cold stone inches above his head.
The passage was several yards long. When it ended, they could feel space opening around them again, and now the voices were coming through more clearly on the radio—it was Anna and Ravi.
“There you are!” called Anna. “It took you long enough. We’ve been here for ages.”
Dash looked up and saw a spot of light—the beam of Anna’s flashlight. She was halfway up the side of the cave, high above where he and Carly were. He swept the beam of his own flashlight farther upward and saw that this part of the cave was immense, its ceiling lost in darkness. The walls were wrinkled and cracked, as if made of old leather crushed down by the mountain above. Anna was standing on a ledge that ran at a steep slant from nearly floor level up along the wall. She was holding something under her arm.
Ravi appeared beside Anna. Dash realized there must be an alcove in the wall behind them. Ravi was holding something too.
Dash started toward the ledge.
“No!” shouted Anna. “We’re coming down, and the ledge isn’t wide enough for us to pass each other. Wait for us where you are.”
As they made their way down, Dash followed them with his flashlight beam. He could see how narrow the ledge was, especially for people wearing bulky snowsuits. They inched along slowly, sometimes going sideways, with their backs to the wall.
Anna was the first one down. She came over to them. “We got what we came for,” she said. “There were two of them. We’ll take both, since we got here first.”
“You will not,” said Dash. He took a step toward Anna. He was trying to stay calm. “If you take both of them and something happens to you—you get lost, or you’re buried in an avalanche, or you fall down a crevasse—then they’re both gone and the mission has failed.”
“That won’t happen,” Anna said. As she spoke, Ravi jumped down from the ledge behind her, and as he landed next to Anna, he dropped the object he’d been carrying.
Carly darted forward and picked it up as Anna sighed in annoyance. “Really, Ravi?” she said. “Having a clumsy day?”
“Sorry,” said Ravi.
Dash turned his flashlight on the object.
>
“I thought it would be more like a knife,” said Carly.
“I didn’t think it would be so strange-looking,” said Ravi.
“It’s an alien instrument,” said Dash. “I guess we should expect it to be strange.” He held his hands out. “Let me see.”
Carly handed it to him.
Dash could see right away why Chris called it the Talon. It was nearly a foot long, a spike of silver-gray steel, and as thin and scaly as a hawk’s leg. At one end was a double claw—a talon—whose points were so sharp that Dash was sure that if you touched one even lightly it would draw blood.
At the other end was a sort of handle. He looked more closely at it and saw that it was actually a small oval container, about the size of a box for a piece of jewelry or a retainer. It was made of gleaming metal, a coppery color. On either side of it was a handle of the same reddish-gold metal, and on the top was a symbol inlaid in silver—a spiral with a tiny star at the center. It was a beautiful thing, and frightening too.
Dash understood how it would be. We’ll have to stand very close to the ice crawler, he thought. We’ll grip the box by its handles and run that claw down the crawler’s skin, with just the right pressure to draw the crystals into the box. If it doesn’t work, we’ll have to start over and do it again. And the ice crawler will be—doing what?
No one spoke for a moment.
Then Anna lunged toward Dash. “Give it back,” she said, but her voice wasn’t as firm as before.
“No,” said Dash. “You have one; we have one. We have a better chance of getting some of those crystals if we’ve got two teams going after them.”
“You still seem to think we’re all in this together,” Anna said.
“Of course I do.”
Anna shrugged. “The strongest team will finish the mission first,” she said. “It makes a difference which team that is. I know it’s us.”
Carly couldn’t contain her anger. “If you’re so strong, why did you need to kidnap Piper? That’s not a strong move—that’s weak and underhanded!”
Escape the Vortex Page 4