Diego and the Rangers of the Vastlantic

by Armand Baltazar

  “That sounds like a lot of bull to me,” Paige said.

  “Thanks,” Diego said.

  “Do your parents know about this?” Petey asked.

  “Yeah . . . they do.”

  “So that’s what had you acting like you was all that to Balsamic, like you can fix anything?” Paige said.

  “Except now it’s stopped working.”

  “So, what, you want us to feel sorry for you ’cause your high-and-mighty imagination disappeared?”

  “Maybe you should just explain this to the captain,” Petey said.

  “I don’t think so,” Diego said. “I don’t trust the captain. Plus, Dad said I should never tell anyone.”

  “So you’re saying we’re less than anyone,” Lucy said.

  “I didn’t—”

  “Settle down, Diego. I’m giving you a go is all.”

  “Sorry,” Diego said. He noticed that she’d called him by his first name for once.

  “So why are you telling us this?” Petey asked. “How can we help?”

  “If I’m going to hold up my end of this and not get us all thrown overboard, I need your help carrying that generator back over from the barge so I can study it in my room.”

  “Who says we’d all get thrown over?” Lucy said. “We’ve all excelled at our tasks. I’m fairly certain it would just be you.”

  “Jeez Louise, Lucy!” Petey groaned.

  Lucy smiled. “In all seriousness, we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you, Ribera. I’m glad to help.” Lucy elbowed Paige gently.

  “Yeah, I’ll help. But don’t try and sell me on all that voodoo magic images crap. Be straight up. If you need help, ask for it.”

  “Okay,” Diego said. “Let’s go now so I can get to work. Thanks, you guys. And please . . . it has to stay a secret, okay?”

  “Definitely,” Petey said.

  Lucy made a face like she was thinking it over. Then she cracked up. “Oh, you are too easy to torment.”

  Three days later, Diego felt more alone than he ever had. He’d barely seen his friends at all. They’d been working hard in their corners of the ship. Other than the occasional gruff check-in from Boleslavich, Diego was alone with his generator parts and Ajax. Occasionally, Beauregard joined them, trudging around the engine room, biting various shiny levers and valves in the hopes that they were fish.

  Diego had studied the generator they’d smuggled back to his room, but it hadn’t helped nearly as much as he’d hoped. And so he’d worked down in the boiler room, forgetting to break for lunch or even for a breath of fresh air. His hands were grimy and blistered, greasy black under his fingernails, smears across his face. He often returned to the bunk room after the others were asleep and then couldn’t sleep himself.

  In the midafternoon of the sixth day, the loudspeaker crackled to life. “Fortuna lyubit gotov,” the captain announced in Russian. “The stowaways Peter and Lucy have passed their tests. You have all tasted Paige’s success. These three will be henceforth considered part of the crew.”

  Diego’s hand slipped on his generator parts. “Ow,” he yelped, finding a slice along his index finger welling with blood.

  “You okay?” Ajax asked, half hidden inside a nearby gear works.

  “Fine,” Diego said, wrapping his finger in his filthy shirt. “What did that Russian mean?”

  Ajax stood, putting a large wrench under his arm and wiping both hands on a rag. “‘Fortune favors the prepared,’ I believe.”

  “Oh.” Well, of course Petey and Lucy had been prepared. It seemed to Diego like Gaston had been helping them every step of the way, especially Lucy. They’d find books left at their stations about reading charts and wave patterns, or notes about the winds of the day.

  Of course, they’d both worked hard, too. The captain had announced last night that they would be tested today: Petey would have to chart the course to some secret location where Boleslavich was meeting with another ship to get vital information, and Lucy would have to pilot the ship through the treacherous waters, full of submerged reefs and all manner of armored fish and giant orthocones.

  “Good luck, you guys,” Diego had said to them both as they’d left early this morning.

  “Thanks,” Petey had replied quietly, looking greener than the seaweed floating near the ship.

  “I don’t believe in luck,” Lucy had said.

  And now they’d passed.

  “How come you’re not happy for your friends?” Ajax asked.

  “No, I am. I . . .” I’m going to be shark food. “I’ve only got a day and a half more, and I’m only halfway there with this generator.”

  “It sounds to me like you need to show some grit,” Ajax said. “You don’t fool this old cyborg. Think of your father, boy, and get it done. You are better company than Beauregard and easier to clean up after.”

  Diego smiled for the first time in what felt like a week. “Thanks, Ajax.”

  He mustered his courage, his focus. He tuned out the burning from the blisters and cuts on his hands to think of Dad, of his smile, of his strong arms wrapping Diego in a tight hug.

  But it was slow, painstaking work, and every hour or so he would try to use the Maker’s Sight again . . . only to find a blurry blankness in his head. Diego took off his watch and shoved it into his pocket. Time was not his friend.

  And so he kept working, on and on.

  Ajax disappeared for a while. Later he walked by, and shortly after that, he appeared beside Diego and handed him a muffin. “You should eat,” he said.

  “Thanks. I forgot I was hungry.” Diego took a huge bite of the muffin. “This is a strange thing for Paige to make for dinner, isn’t it?”

  “Ha!” Ajax’s laugh caught Diego off guard again.

  “What?” Diego asked.

  “It’s breakfast. You’ve been at it all night.”

  Diego rubbed his head. “I lost track of time.” His body did feel tingly and loose. And once he took a single bite, he convulsed with hunger. The muffin was gone in seconds.

  Diego yawned and looked back at the generator. Nearly finished. For the third time. He’d completed it twice during the night, only to find that it hadn’t worked.

  “The captain told me to inform you that he wants to inspect your work at noon.”

  “Noon?” Diego glanced at the clock on the wall. 6:15 a.m. He’d never make it.

  “Still having trouble?” Ajax asked as he climbed up to work on some piping.

  “I don’t know what it is,” Diego said. “Maybe a pressure regulator, maybe one of the steam valves. I’m never going to get it to work!”

  Diego lurched to his feet and picked up the softball-sized valve regulator. This stupid thing! He raised it up over his head. Smash it—that was all he could do at this point. His arms trembled with exhaustion. The regulator begged him to hurl it against the steel side of the diesel works.

  “Oi, what on earth are you doing?”

  Diego spun, but he slipped on a patch of grease. He stumbled, slammed into a pipe, and went down in a heap. The valve clanged to the floor, one of the gauges popping off. Diego rolled over on his back, his ribs and butt aching. He leaned back on his elbows—

  And then started to laugh. Hysterically.

  It was probably the lack of sleep, maybe she was even a hallucination, but Lucy was standing there dressed in the most ridiculous getup he’d ever seen. She wore a fuzzy lime-green bathrobe, navy-and-red plaid pajama pants, and pink duck slippers with bright yellow beaks.

  “What’s your problem?” Lucy said, but then she looked down at herself and laughed, too. “Oh, this. I was so tired from yesterday’s test that I forgot to get dressed before I came down.” She rolled her eyes and ran a hand through her bed head. Then she frowned. “You should know, a gentleman would stop laughing now.”

  Diego did his best, but he felt delirious, the laughter like a spell.

  “I mean it, Ribera. Ugh, now I wish I hadn’t even come down here.”

  Diego
managed to swallow his laughter. “Sorry, you just look . . .” The word cute nearly popped out of his mouth, along with another bout of giggles, but he held it back in time. “Funny.”

  “This is all I had to work with,” Lucy said. “The captain had crewman clothes for us, but he said the sleeping attire was not fit for a proper girl. Now, be decent.”

  “It’s just that usually you’re so put together and—” Diego nearly slapped a hand over his mouth.

  Lucy rolled her eyes, but she also smiled, and for a moment, she let that smile fall right over Diego, like it was meant for him. Their eyes met . . . but then she glanced away. “Anyway, I came down to see how it was going with the generator. And”—she smiled confidently—“to give you a chance to congratulate me on yesterday.”

  Diego shook his head. “Right. I meant to come up and say how excited I was for you guys, but I lost track of time.”

  “For the whole night?”

  Diego shrugged. “Congratulations.”

  “Why, thank you, kind sir.” Lucy curtsied, holding her plaid pants as if they were skirts.

  They shared a second smile. Diego felt sweaty and lightheaded at once.

  “So, is it finished?” Lucy asked.

  “Nope. There’s something wrong with it, and I can’t figure it out.”

  Lucy checked to see where Ajax was and then lowered her voice. “No imaginary pictures?”

  Diego shook his head. He knew she meant well, but she made it sound silly.

  Lucy sighed. “I wish my father were here. He’d know how to fix it. Or Georgie.”

  “Georgie seemed nice,” Diego offered.

  “My sweet Georgie,” Lucy said, and her eyes welled with tears.

  “I wish my dad were here about fifty times a day,” Diego said. “Then again, if our dads were here, I guess we wouldn’t be.”

  Lucy nodded. “I’m sorry about what I said, before all this, about my father being better than yours. I was not raised to concede excellence to anyone, and I’m realizing that’s not the best trait to have when life gets difficult. You should know, I actually once heard my father tell Georgie that he thought your father’s work was awe inspiring. I’m not sure why he behaves like he does.”

  “It’s okay,” Diego said. “We both look up to them, but no one is perfect, I guess.”

  “I guess.”

  “I always thought of my dad as a hero, that he could do anything. I mean, I still do. . . .” Diego bit his lip, unable to finish.

  “What is it?” Lucy asked.

  “Before my dad was taken, we had a big fight. I yelled at him and told him I didn’t want to be like him. I thought I meant it. Well, I mean, I’m still not sure I want to be an engineer, but I felt like, I’m only thirteen, why should I figure this all out now? But now I get that he wasn’t asking me to decide my entire life. He was trying to guide me. I could have listened to him more. I wish I could take that back.”

  “You can,” Lucy said, “when we find him. You’ll tell him.” She pulled up a stool in front of the generator. “Now, let’s get to work. I’m going to be an Emerson and declare that we have this generator working by noon. No excuses!”

  “Aye, aye.”

  By 11:55, Diego could barely feel his fingers or keep his head up straight.

  “Do you think that’s it?” Lucy asked with a yawn.

  “I don’t know,” Diego said.

  “Well, time to be sure,” Paige said. She and Petey had come down a couple hours earlier, bringing Diego and Lucy much-needed cups of coffee.

  Diego sipped the last bit of his now, but it had gotten cold and bitter. His hands were shaking, his head was pounding, and his butt had fallen asleep. His armpits were clammy with sweat. He held three timing pins in his hand, shaking them like a handful of dice. One of the valves was still on the fritz, but he didn’t know which.

  There was a clanging from above. The bulkhead door. And now footsteps and low voices. The captain and Ajax. On their way down.

  “Come on, D,” Petey said. “You got this.”

  “I don’t know which one it is.”

  “You have to,” Lucy said. “We are here to rescue our families, so you need to get this right. Do it for them.”

  Diego shut his eyes tight and tried to think. He pictured his dad, in the workshop, his mom, defending the boat. He tried to see their faces, to see them like they were right there. Like he’d found Dad, and they were back home and finally together again.

  All at once, his hand shook. He felt a surge of electricity in his mind. . . .

  There.

  It was only for a second. But when Diego opened his palm, one of the pins seemed like the obvious one.

  The footsteps reached the engine room floor. “Time to show us your worth, half-Ribera,” the captain said, looming over them.

  Diego’s hands flew. He replaced the timing pin from the valve with the new one, then sat back. This was it. It would work or it wouldn’t. He’d be part of the crew or . . . food for the sea reptiles.

  “Is it ready?” the captain asked.

  “Ready.”

  The captain nodded to Ajax. “Throw the switch.”

  Ajax moved to the wall and pushed the power lever. There was a click.

  The generator hummed to life.

  Lucy gasped with relief. “You did it!”

  Diego realized he wasn’t breathing and exhaled so hard he felt like he might deflate down to nothing.

  “Report?” the captain said to Ajax, his face still stoic.

  Ajax tapped the dials on the diesel turbine and nodded. “Full power.”

  “Now the steam engine.”

  Ajax cut the diesel line and threw a different series of switches. The steam chamber hissed to life. The giant piston arms dropped from the ceiling and began to swing like wrought iron pendulums. The generator didn’t respond.

  But then it roared to life again.

  “Yes!” Petey called.

  The captain grunted, consulting his pocket watch.

  “Half-Ribera did not succeed in this test today,” the captain said coldly.

  Diego’s heart nearly stopped.

  “But Diego Ribera, son of Santiago . . . he did. Pozdravleniya, Diego,” the captain said. “Continue to work . . . and you may remain on my ship.”

  Diego fell back on his elbows. Relief washed over him.

  Lucy and Paige yanked him up off the ground and gave him a hug.

  “How do you feel?” Petey said, slapping him on the back.

  “Like I need to sleep the rest of the day.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  There Be Dragons

  Diego’s eyes flashed open to a shrill, ringing sound.

  The ship’s alarm.

  He flicked on the lamp by his bed and found the clock: three a.m.

  “What’s going on?” Petey asked, sitting up. “Did we hit an iceberg? There was this movie I saw, and that would be bad, trust me.”

  “We’d better go find out,” Diego said, sliding out of bed and grabbing his boots.

  “The captain ordered us in for the rest of the night,” Petey said.

  “Technically, it’s morning,” Diego said. “Come on.”

  “The floor’s strange,” Petey said as they made their way out the door.

  Diego felt it, too. “We’re listing,” he said. “Something’s wrong with the ship.”

  They hurried to the bridge. Gaston struggled with the wheel, while Paige stood next to Lucy, who seemed clearly shaken. “Come on, you dame têtue!” Gaston called, slamming his hands against the wheel before struggling to turn it again.

  The ship was lurching about, but when Diego looked out the window into the lights off the bow, he saw that the sea was calm.

  “We struck something, and now we’re taking on water,” Gaston said when he saw them.

  “I didn’t see a thing, I swear!” Lucy said.

  Petey grabbed his charts from a pile on the floor. “There was nothing on the charts. I checked the
m three times!”

  “You can never be completely sure in these waters,” Gaston said. “Even the best charts can’t account for all the shallow reefs.”

  “Then why did we even come to this spot?” Petey said. “I heard you worrying about this, Gaston, when we were plotting the course yesterday. You should have said something!”

  “Worry? Yes,” Gaston said. “Speak up against the captain’s orders? Not on your life.” He flung the wheel in the other direction and cursed when it made no difference. “We needed a place that was remote enough to ensure a safe meeting with our contacts.”

  “I think you gone and found it,” Paige said.

  “Where’s the captain?” Diego asked.

  “He and Ajax are down in the foredeck trying to patch the leak.”

  “Should we go help?” Paige said.

  “Get on the charts,” Gaston said to Petey. “I plotted our location a couple hours ago. See if you can find us a port to make repairs. The currents will need to be favorable. We won’t have the power otherwise.”

  “What about the rest of us?” Lucy asked.

  Just then the captain staggered through the doorway, soaked and grease stained. “Get belowdecks and man the pumps. Now!”

  Diego, Paige, and Lucy rushed down to the engine room and wove their way forward on a narrow catwalk between pipes and gear works. They found Ajax standing in the triangular front of the ship, nearly waist deep in water.

  “You three go to the machine room and bring more manual pumps!” he shouted. He manned a large pump attached to a thick hose that led up and out of a porthole.

  The three hurried back and gathered the gear, then returned to the bow, ran the hose lines out the portholes, and slipped down into the water.

  “It’s frigid!” Lucy said.

  “It will feel much colder if we sink,” Ajax said. He threw his pump aside and pulled a blowtorch from his shoulder. His cyborg arm puffed as he raised a giant sheet of metal to the leaking area. The blowtorch fired, streaming sparks.

  They worked until their arms were sore and their fingers numb and waterlogged, and then long past that. Slowly, the water lowered. By the time it had receded to their numb ankles, gray dawn light shone through the portholes.

  “That should do,” Ajax said, banging the patch.