“Check it out,” Diego said, pointing out on the water.
“Liopleurodons!” Gaston called from above. “A pod of ten at least!”
“Are they a danger to the ship?” Lucy asked.
“Not to this ship,” the captain said. “Now, you’ll each have a task, and a week to learn it. Prove you can handle it, and you stay. Show yourselves to be unfit for ship duty . . .” He nodded to the great beasts in the sea.
“And just to be clear,” the captain said, “until you prove otherwise, you’re barnacles, you understand me? No one should hear you except when you’re doing what you’re assigned to do. You will follow the officers’ orders at all times. You may go anywhere you need to go on the ship, but under no circumstances will you be allowed in the captain’s and officers’ personal quarters. Also, you are restricted from the weapons and munitions storage. Break any of these rules and . . .” He glanced out to sea again. “Understood?”
“Yes, Captain,” they all murmured.
“The bridge is this way.” The captain stalked off.
Diego and his friends fell into line. They entered the bridge, empty except for Gaston. Diego wondered where the rest of the crew might be. It seemed like there must be more people, given the size of the ship.
“We sail on the USS John Curtis, a one-of-a-kind vessel,” the captain said. “Powered by both steam and diesel. The man who built it was John Curtis himself, and he had a talent like few others to build impossible machines.”
“Is Mr. Curtis aboard the ship somewhere?” Diego asked.
The captain patted the wall. “No. John is with us in spirit only. He was an amazing builder. He combined ships and parts from a mysterious ship graveyard surrounding the island we found him on. The place that is the base of our operations now. And our home—”
“Why do you have a steam and diesel engine, and also paddle wheels?” Paige wondered.
“Do not interrupt when the captain speaks!” the captain roared.
Paige looked to the floor.
The captain breathed in deep, a sound like inflating bellows, before he continued. “Out here in the deep, the vibration of the propeller attracts the larger predators. They are drawn to it and have been known to swarm and attack ships. Mostly we travel by paddle wheel, but the propellers are necessary for combat and operations in secured harbors. The steam and diesel engines give us flexibility. People cannot always be persuaded to sell their fuel to pirates.”
“That’s why all the ships in Dusable Harbor are sail, paddle, or hybrid propulsion,” Petey said. “The early Vastlantic sailors learned the danger of propellers the hard way.”
The captain fumed, his gaze boring into Petey.
“Sorry, interrupting. My bad.”
“These levers control the ship’s speed and fuel source,” the captain continued, pointing to the controls surrounding the large ship’s wheel.
“Is it hard to pilot the ship?” Lucy asked.
“I hope not, for your sake,” the captain said. “You say you’re good at anything we put you to. Well, you’ll be replacing Calvin Roberts, the pilot that I lost at Navy Pier. We will see if
you are everything that you claim to be.”
Lucy didn’t miss a beat. “I claim to be nothing more than an Emerson. By this time next week, you’ll wonder how you ever sailed the Vastlantic without me.”
Paige exhaled slowly. Even she was shocked by Lucy’s boldness. Diego tensed, waiting for the captain to explode at her insolence.
The captain crossed his arms, his eyes narrowing, but then he kicked a small wooden box over to the wheel for Lucy to step on so she could see over it.
“Thank you,” Lucy said. She bent to position the box, saw the deep layer of grime on it, and removed a lacy handkerchief from her small black purse, which she used to maneuver it. Then she took her perch atop it and grabbed the wheel.
Petey leaned over to Diego. “It’s small wonder Her Majesty hasn’t gotten us all killed already.”
Paige sucked her teeth and glared at the boys. “Looks like she’s doing better than either of you two.”
“Yeah, well—” Petey began, but then darted over to a large table. “Whoa, now we’re talking. Get a look at these!”
“Is this our country?” Petey asked, studying the maps. “What the United Territories—I mean, States—looks like now?” He ran his finger over the faded map. Diego and Paige gathered around him. “Check it out,” Petey said. “Here’s the route Bartholomew Roosevelt took through the California Territories, across the Native American territory.”
“Please,” Lucy said from over at the wheel. “If you want to talk about real explorers, Roosevelt has nothing on Sir Francis Drake. Not only did he discover your California and claim it for the queen, but he established the northern route from Britain to New Chicago. Far more impressive, I’d say.”
Petey rolled his eyes. “You would.” He lowered his voice and said to Diego, “Drake may have found the way to New Chicago, but the Portuguese got to California before Drake ever did in the old world anyway.”
“You know your history,” the captain said to Petey. “Perhaps you will live up to half-Ribera’s claims.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The captain snatched up the map that they’d been studying. “You will show me.” He laid a fresh piece of blank paper on the map table. “Draw me exactly the map you were just looking at, as best you can remember. Do it now. I have need of a new cartographer and assistant navigator. By the end of this week, you will need to be able to plot our way through treacherous waters. Any mistakes in your calculations could kill us all.”
Petey nodded, his face pale.
“Gaston,” the captain said, “take this one to the kitchen to learn her trade. Her first test will be to make the crew dinner. Tonight.”
“It would be my honor.” Gaston stepped beside Paige and held out his elbow. “Right this way, mademoiselle.”
Paige grabbed Gaston just below the elbow, twisted his arm right around his back, and pushed, doubling him over. “How about we walk like this instead?”
“Ow, okay, okay.”
Paige released him, and he stumbled away. “That’s what I thought,” Paige said. “I’m not some decoration you get to wear on your arm.” She turned to the captain and saluted. “Thank you for the orders, sir!”
To everyone’s surprise, the captain saluted back.
“These will be the tools of your trade,” the captain said to Petey, holding out a sextant and an astrolabe. “Compasses can no longer be relied on in this world. These and the other things you’ll need are kept here.” He opened a cabinet on the wall and showed Petey the array of rulers, protractors, and other tools. Then he stepped to the door. “When Gaston returns,” he said to Lucy, “he will begin your pilot training. Half-Ribera, you come with me to the engine room.”
They stepped outside, Diego a few feet behind the captain’s giant form. Daphne followed close at his heels.
“At least your dog has worth. She is loyal,” the captain said.
Diego was happy to hear Daphne wouldn’t become shark food, just as he spotted the large barge being towed behind the ship. It looked at first like piles of scrap metal, but something about the shapes made Diego look closer, and he began to make out the outlines of Redford and Seahorse. The scrap metal had been carefully arranged to camouflage them. Beside them were the three cargo containers from the hangar as well.
“Why all the scrap?” Diego asked.
“We trade it for supplies and like to give the impression that we are simple merchants rather than pirates.”
Diego was barely listening, though, as they’d reached the rear third of the ship and he saw what at first seemed an impossible sight.
“You’re like a group of Steam Pirates,” Diego said.
“Bah,” the captain said.
As they passed the great locomotive, awash in the whirring and chugging of its workings, Diego was struck by how few people he saw around
. “What happened to your crew?”
The captain exhaled heavily. “Magnus Vorenus happened.” He motioned to the locomotive.
Diego noticed a strafing line of bullet holes.
“After Navy Pier,” the captain continued, “we can’t afford any more losses.”
They passed massive antiaircraft guns at the back of the ship and then descended a metal staircase into the dark, greasy bowels of the ship. Pipe work crowded around them. Joints steamed, gears ground and creaked, and beneath everything, a persistent rhythmic sound—ka-chung, ka-chung—vibrated up Diego’s legs and into his chest. It reminded him of the workshop and gave him a sense of comfort, even so far from home.
They wove their way through the maze of pipes. The smell of gas and grease grew stronger. There was a brown sheen of oil on every surface, and Diego’s feet skidded with each step.
They emerged in the labyrinthine engine room. The twisting pipes and gear works all knotted around two massive diesel engines. The pipes steamed, and condensation dripped in the red light.
A form moved up on a catwalk, and at first Diego found himself trying to identify a . . . another robot? No, instead this was a goliath of a man fused to a machine.
“Ajax!” the captain called. The dark-skinned man turned and slid down a staircase by the railings. When he landed, he only seemed bigger, more than seven feet tall. His one arm was like a tree trunk, while the other resembled a small locomotive grafted to a man’s shoulder.
“This is my engineer . . . Abraham Jackson, but he is known simply as Ajax. This is Diego, son of Santiago Ribera . . . a half-Ribera,” the captain said, gripping Diego’s arm in a way that didn’t feel friendly. “He will build a backup generator for the diesel and steam engines. He has one week to do this, and you will oversee him, but do not help him in any way. Understood?”
“Yes,” Ajax said, his voice like a deep foghorn. “But what is the point of asking the boy to do the impossible?”
“To find out if he is merely a braggart or a liar,” the captain said, turning his back on the boy. “I do not suffer liars aboard my ship. And braggarts will be made to suffer.”
The captain gave Diego a light but unfriendly push forward, then turned and stalked up the stairs.
Diego’s gaze fell. His head still ached from the night before, and the din around him wasn’t helping.
“He does not like you,” Ajax said.
Diego looked up at him. “Guess not. And I don’t like being called half-Ribera.”
“But he did not throw you overboard.” Ajax clapped him on the shoulder. “That is something.”
“Does Captain Bowlsa . . . Baleslamich . . . Balsamic like anyone?”
Ajax exploded in a single burst of heavy laughter. The sound was shocking: loud and curt. Diego didn’t realize what he’d said.
“Balsamic, like vinegar. That’s pretty brave, kid.”
“Oh,” Diego said, allowing a smile, “I was just trying to pronounce his name right. I . . .”
“I think that is much better,” Ajax said. “Come on, let me show you the workings of the engines.”
When Diego finally emerged from the engine room many hours later, he felt like his brain had been run through the steam boiler. Ajax had explained every facet of the diesel and steam engines, and while Diego managed to grasp most of it, he had no idea how he was going to build this backup generator the captain was talking about. He felt ready for a long nap.
Petey and Lucy were in similar states of exhaustion and frustration. Diego sat down beside them in the galley for dinner. They glanced up at him but didn’t say a word.
The galley door slapped open, and Paige and Gaston carried out two trays each of food.
“Man, I’m so hungry, I’d eat anything,” Petey said. Then the trays landed on the table. “Well, except maybe that.”
Diego sniffed apprehensively at the food before them. There was a tray of meat, charred black beyond recognition and lying on a bed of wilted leaves that could no longer be called greens. Another tray held two bowls of something mashed—they seemed too brown and gray to be potatoes—covered in what appeared to be purple gravy. The next tray was a mystery. There were things like vegetables in shape but covered in some mealy coating, and then what seemed to be fried fish heads.
“One week to live and this is what we’re going to spend it eating?” Diego said quietly to Petey.
“Speak for yourself,” Petey said. “I’d rather starve.”
“Petey!” Lucy scolded.
“You try to do better with what’s in that fridge.” Paige’s voice wavered beneath the anger.
“Sorry,” Diego said.
The captain cleared his throat. He spooned some of each dish onto his plate, then stabbed one of the fish heads and paused with it dripping over his plate. “Everyone will eat what your cook has prepared. That is an order.”
He waited, the fish head dangling there, as the rest of them slowly spooned out their own portions. Then he slid the entire head into his mouth and bit down on it with a sickening crunch. Diego chose a scoop of the maybe-potatoes. The purple gravy might taste sweet.
Wrong. It somehow managed to taste both sour and too salty at the same time. The potatoes had the consistency of starch and paste. He puckered, barely able to get a bite down. He chugged his water.
The captain was still chewing. Then he pulled the hat off Ajax’s head and held it before him as if he were going to be sick. His face seemed to turn three distinct shades of green. Finally he picked up his water glass and forced the mouthful down with a gigantic gulp. Then he stood and gazed at Paige, who sat with her head down.
“Let’s hope your skills improve over the next few days,” the captain said. “I’ll be on the bridge.” On his way, he grabbed an apple from the counter.
Everyone else finished a bite or two and then put down their forks.
“It is not that bad, mademoiselle,” Gaston said, “especially for a first try.”
“Thanks,” Paige muttered.
Gaston left with Ajax, who offered her a strained smile before leaving.
“It was a good try,” Lucy said once the four of them were alone.
Paige bit her lip. For a second, Diego thought that she might cry, but then she looked up and exploded. “What else was I supposed to do? I know a thing or two, but all that cranky Russian bear had in the kitchen was fish heads and those gray turnips, beets, and some weird meat! How am I supposed to make anything good with this?”
“It’s okay,” Lucy said, putting her arm around Paige. “I had a tough day, too. I could barely figure out where we were going the whole time.”
Paige nodded. She tried a bite of her turnips and threw down her fork in frustration.
Diego and Petey each suffered another bite or two in silence and then began clearing the dishes.
Diego ended up beside Paige in the kitchen. “I’m sorry Captain Balsamic had such bad ingredients for you to work with,” he said.
A grin slipped across her face. “Balsamic,” she said.
“That’s a good one, Diego,” Petey said, passing by.
“We’ll figure this out,” Diego said. “And no one’s going to get fed to sea monsters. I promise.”
“You better,” Paige said. “It’s your fault I’m here.”
“It was a pretty tough day,” Petey said when they were back in the dining room getting more plates. “How’d it go down in the engine room?”
“Good . . . actually,” Diego said. “I should have no problem.”
Petey just shrugged. “Well, I guess one of us will survive, then.”
“Come on, Petey,” Diego said. “Pep up. We’ve got time.”
But the truth was, things hadn’t gone great at all in the engine room. Sure, he’d liked Ajax, but when it had come time to get to work on the generator . . .
Nothing had happened. Diego hadn’t been able to find the Sight, no matter how hard he focused. There was darkness, but no flashes. He tried for hours, but it neve
r came, and he was starting to worry that the power had left him forever.
CHAPTER NINE
Those Who Help Themselves
That night, Diego lay awake long after lights-out. His stomach burbled, whether from the rolling seas, the strange food, or his worried thoughts, he didn’t know.
“You awake?” he said when he heard Petey roll over on the bunk above his.
“Yup.”
“I’m sorry for bringing you out here,” Diego said. “For getting us in this mess.”
Diego heard Petey sigh. “I know you didn’t mean to, D . . . but you were crazy for wanting to run off with these pirates. And now we’re all in deep.”
Diego laced his fingers behind his head. “I couldn’t just wait around doing nothing. It was like, every day we waited, the Aeternum and my dad were getting farther and farther away. I . . . I couldn’t live with what I did.”
“What are you talking about?” Petey asked.
Diego almost told Petey about the fight with his dad back at the power station. “That I didn’t do enough when it mattered, and I had to fix it.”
“Yeah, well, we all have to fix it now,” Petey said under his breath.
“What?” Diego asked.
“Nothing.” Petey rolled over. “Get some sleep.”
Diego shut his eyes and ran his hand gently over Daphne, curled up beside him . . . but sleep was a long way off.
On the third morning at sea, Diego woke before his friends and skipped breakfast, heading straight to the engine room. He gathered the supplies that Ajax had set aside for him as well as every other component that he thought might be useful for building the generator. When everything was laid out, he placed his hands over the pieces and closed his eyes. . . .
Nothing.
Again . . .
Nothing.
Diego pushed back from the table and kicked a nearby metal bucket. It clattered across the floor and clanged off a series of pipes. What had happened to the Maker’s Sight? And, he couldn’t help wondering, did losing the Sight mean that something had happened to his dad? He had no idea why that would be true, except that he feared it deep in his bones.
Diego and the Rangers of the Vastlantic Page 10