Diego and the Rangers of the Vastlantic

by Armand Baltazar

  “Yes, but he didn’t build these weapons for the Aeternum. It was to destroy them. The ones that attacked us were once Vanguard planes. But all this,” he said, gesturing to everything in the hangar, “was long before his life in New Chicago, before he was a husband and a father. It was part of a different time for all of us.” The captain turned and raised his voice. “Ajax, a little more light.”

  Gears began to grind, and steam pumps hissed. The hangar doors slid open and flooded the room with daylight.

  “Is this really it?” Lucy exclaimed, pulling herself up to the cockpit.

  “British Hawker Sea Fury,” Diego said in awe, “the kind my mother flew.”

  “It’s like the Skywolf she flew for the Silver Squadron of New Chicago’s air corps when they fought the Aeternum at Dusable Harbor,” Lucy said, climbing up onto the wing and slipping into the seat. “The girl who shot down nine enemy planes.”

  “A Steam Timer like you,” the captain said. “And not much older at the time.”

  “Watch out,” Lucy called down with a smile, and imitated opening fire on Diego with the plane’s twin guns.

  Diego pretended to grab his chest.

  “Oh.” Lucy ducked out of sight for a moment. “Oi, Ribera, look at this!”

  “Lucy . . . ,” Diego began.

  “Those are your parents’ initials, right?” she said.

  “Yeah but . . .” He was staring at her hair. “Where did you find that?”

  “It was stuck over here in the side of the panel. Why?”

  “It’s my mother’s missing chopstick. She carries the other one as a good luck charm,” Diego said. The sight of it caused a soft pain in his chest as he thought of his mom and home, both so far away. And yet here she was, and this plane that was nearly identical to her own.

  “Oh.” Lucy reached up to take out the chopstick. “Sorry, I had no idea.”

  “No.” Diego stopped her hand. “Keep it. She’d want us to have her with us. We’re going to need her luck.”

  “Thank you.”

  Diego smiled, and yet inside he was rocking back and forth like he was out at sea. He dropped to the floor and returned to the captain. Everyone had arrived, along with Gaston.

  “Yes, Diego,” the captain said before Diego could even ask what was on his mind. “Your mother flew in that plane. She was here, for training, along with your father and your uncle Arden.”

  Diego gazed around at the weaponry. “They were here. . . . You knew them. You fought together.”

  “Your parents were and always have been part of the Vanguard family. Though it has been many years since your father and I have walked the same path. But they are why we took this mission,” the captain said. “That and . . . other reasons.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before now?” Diego asked.

  “You needed to earn your place as a part of the crew first,” the captain said. “But now you’ve risked your life to bring your loved ones home, and you deserve to know the truth.”

  “I have a bad feeling about what you’re going to tell us,” Paige said.

  “As well you should. Diego, your father built this arsenal when he was full of a different purpose.”

  Diego remembered Magnus’s words back at the power plant. “What purpose?”

  “Long ago, your father believed as I once did—as Magnus and Balthus still do—that the Time Collision could be reversed. Unmade. That the old world could be brought back.”

  “How would that even be possible?” Lucy asked.

  “There are machines,” the captain said, “scattered across this world, called Quantum Reactors. They are twenty-third-century creations. Many cities from that time had these reactors, though it is not known how many came through the Collision. But what is known, what your father and I, along with Magnus and Balthus and the rest of our team, discovered, was that restarting four of these reactors would provide the power necessary to change the world back. To undo the Collision and restore time to its previous order.”

  “You all worked together,” Diego said. “You and the enemy.”

  “We weren’t enemies then,” the captain said. “We were men of the Dark Years, thrown into a world of chaos and violence. We fought together under the Union flag to end the Chronos War, but we were still men who remembered our old worlds, our old homes, and dreamed of nothing but getting home. We called ourselves the Time Crusaders.”

  “But my dad loves this world,” Diego said. “He always talks about how much hope he has for the future.”

  “He feels that way now, as do we all,” the captain said. “But as I said, this was before. The loss of our homes and our families was still fresh in our minds and hearts, and the world around us was chaos. We were determined to regain control of these reactors, which meant taking back the cities and rescuing the technology from those who were busy destroying one another.” He pointed to the fighter planes and tanks. “Your father restored weapons like these for that purpose.”

  “But how come you didn’t succeed,” Paige said, looking around, “even with all these weapons?”

  “That’s just it—we did,” the captain said. “The first city we took back was Rome. We secured the Quantum Reactor, restarted it, and only then did we learn the terrible price to be paid for our arrogance.”

  Diego suddenly felt like he knew what the captain was going to say next. Like he’d known it for years, a cold, hollow fear that had been freezing deep inside him.

  “I suppose it should have been obvious,” the captain said. “But to change the world back meant returning to a timeline before any of you were ever born or existed. We turned on the reactor, only to watch a child who was among our group disintegrate before our eyes. And that was just the beginning.” The captain’s voice lowered. “All throughout the city. Every child . . .”

  He snapped his fingers. The sound echoed in the hollow silence.

  “That’s horrible,” Lucy said. “How could you not have known that would happen?”

  “We were deceived,” the captain said. “An Elder scientist had convinced us that by recalibrating the reactor’s energy field in a certain way, we could restore the old world and still maintain the current timeline without causing a paradoxical collapse.”

  “A para-what?” Paige said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Ajax said. “That bastard lied to us. And now he and his general are out to finish the job.”

  “Balthus was the scientist,” Diego said, remembering the man from the power plant. “Wasn’t he?”

  “A traitor,” Ajax said.

  “How could you have worked with them?” Diego asked. “Why did you trust them?”

  “At the time, we had no reason not to. We thought we were all searching for the same thing. After the Time Collision, it was Balthus who found us, united us. Magnus Vorenus was already with him. He was a great warrior and general, and very convincing. Balthus’s science seemed to back it up. And you have to understand. We wanted it to be true. All of us had lost so much. We wanted so badly to believe.”

  “You became enemies after that,” Diego said.

  The captain nodded. “Once we knew the cost—what returning to our old world would do—we could not in good conscience put our own suffering before that of millions of innocent children and their families. So we decided: what was made would stay made. But Magnus didn’t agree. He wanted his family back, his world. Those who fight with him dismiss all this as an abomination.”

  “Does that go for this world’s children?” Lucy asked.

  “To him, you are an irrelevant mistake, nothing more. And so we fought. Soon after the reactor in Rome was destroyed, the Chronos War ended, and the Dark Years drew to a close. Magnus was defeated, but it was only a matter of time before he reemerged stronger and more determined. We retreated to this place and built our army to defeat him, to stop him before he could find other reactors. Sure enough, he returned, leading a band of raiders he named the Aeternum. He plagued New Chicago, but then, afte
r a crushing defeat in Dusable Harbor, he disappeared. We’d won, or so we thought. As the Dark Times receded and the world found order, we heard rumors of his activities, but for years it was as if he’d vanished. Your father and mother had fallen in love and wanted to get on actually living in this world.”

  The captain took out his pocket watch and wound it. “The Aeternum returned, of course, with vast armies and a navy. Now they’ve taken cities in the European territories and have their eyes set on the Americas. To the rest of the world, the Aeternum seem no different from any other force bent on conquest.”

  “But Magnus is still only after the reactors,” Diego said.

  “And if he succeeds,” Petey said, “every child in this world will die.”

  “I don’t get it,” Paige said. “Why keep this a secret? Why not tell everyone? If the world were united against Magnus, there’s no way he’d win.”

  “Perhaps,” the captain said. “And yet, we cannot be sure how many new followers would join Magnus’s ranks. There are still many in this world who might want what Magnus could offer: a way back.

  “Our hope is that the more time goes by, the more people will find peace and prosperity here in the post-Collision world, and the better humanity will be,” the captain said. “People will look toward the future, not the past. You young ones are all the proof Santiago, myself, and the rest of our band ever needed in order to know that we are in the right.”

  “This is why my father and brother, and Santiago and the other engineers, were taken, isn’t it?” Lucy said, biting her lip.

  “Yes. They are needed to restart the Quantum Reactors,” the captain said. “We can only assume that Magnus has found a reactor in Yorktown. This fight has long been in your family, Diego, and now it continues.” He reached toward the tarp covering the nearby plane. “Your father might be the most talented engineer this world has ever seen, but he’s also likely the world’s deadliest weapons designer as well.”

  He pulled the tarp free.

  Diego knew the plane. “My uncle Arden’s fighter.” He thought of the picture on his wall, of his parents and uncle standing beside it looking young and fierce, and the one showing Uncle Arden next to his T-28. . . . But the plane was different now.

  “What did this?” Diego asked, running his hand over the strange shredding pattern in the armor.

  “A multiphase fragmentation gun. One of your father’s most sophisticated inventions, and well beyond the reach of any twenty-third-century science. But Magnus stole it while it was in transit to protect London, and then it was used by the Aeternum in the Battle of Dusable Harbor. It took all your mother’s and your uncle’s skill to defeat it, but it cost your uncle his life.”

  Diego turned and faced the captain. “This is why my father swore never to make weapons.”

  “He could never forgive himself for his role in Arden’s death, as well as those of many others.”

  A silence fell over the group. Diego didn’t know what to say.

  “The truth is hard,” the captain said, “and I’m sure you wish your father had told you before now.”

  “You know what?” Diego said. “I get it. Maybe I’m glad I didn’t know that until now.”

  “It sure would have made doing homework seem pointless,” Petey said.

  “I’m glad to have told you,” the captain said. “I will leave you now to decide how you feel about our mission. You have done well with your training and the tests of mettle so far. But this test is about your beliefs. If you choose to commit to the Vanguard, join us in the map room at sundown.”

  The captain left with Gaston and Ajax, shutting the hangar doors.

  “Let’s talk outside,” Diego said, looking around. “This place has ghosts.”

  He led the way down to the beach. They sat at the edge of the surf, Redford flicking logs down the beach for Daphne to run after.

  Diego thought of the octopus-shaped device that was inside Redford and how the captain had wondered at its potential danger before. He now understood the captain’s fear. If discovered and replicated, these devices could be used to reactivate the complex weapons and computer systems of middle and future times.

  “So,” Petey said, “what do you say, D?”

  But Diego couldn’t answer. “I need to walk for a minute,” he said, and left the group without another word.

  “Diego?” Lucy called.

  He saw her getting up to follow but held out his hand. “Just give me a sec.”

  He trudged off down the sand, his eyes hot, his throat tight. He wasn’t sure why this feeling washed over him now, of all times.

  Something splashed beside him. He looked up to see Redford trailing along in the surf. “Go back with the others,” he said.

  Redford blew a short puff of steam. Nope.

  “Okay, fine, then,” Diego said. He took a few more steps and stopped. His shoulders sagged, and he looked to the sky as tears came.

  Redford’s heavy finger gently touched his shoulder.

  Diego didn’t want to speak, but then the words tumbled out. “He was trying to tell me, Redford. He wanted me to understand why it was so important for him not to make weapons . . . and I didn’t understand. I didn’t want to. . . .” He buried his face in his hands.

  Redford bent over, dipping his shoulder. Seeing this, Diego climbed up and opened his interface panel. Words flashed on the tablet’s screen:

  You still love him.

  And he loves you.

  Diego wiped his eyes. “You make it sound so simple.”

  Redford puffed steam, as if to say: That’s because it is.

  Diego closed his panel and patted Redford on the back of the head. “Thanks, friend.” He hopped down to the sand. “Come on.”

  They headed back to the others.

  “Are you all right?” Lucy asked.

  “Yeah,” Diego said. “So . . . are we in?”

  “We’re in,” Petey said. Lucy and Paige nodded.

  “Then let’s go.”

  “We’re ready,” Diego said, standing tall across the table from the captain, Gaston, and Ajax, “to do what must be done.”

  The captain nodded. With a deep breath, he reached beneath the table and produced an old map. It showed the world as it had been known a few years after the Time Collision, with many islands, continents, and stretches of ocean still unexplored. Across the top, scrawled in thick black letters, were the words:

  What is made stays made.

  There was more text on the side, a series of lines, and then beneath that, a long list of names, each signature made by a different hand. Diego saw many names he didn’t know, but some he did: Santiago, Siobhan, Arthur Huston, the captain and his men, the Mapmakers.

  “Look there,” Lucy said, pointing halfway down: Her Majesty Queen Victoria.

  “And there,” Petey said, pointing to Bartholomew Roosevelt.

  The captain pointed to the text above the names. “This is the oath of the Vanguard. Speak it out loud, and join our cause in full.”

  They spoke the oath together:

  “What is made stays made.

  We fight together and for each other till the very end.

  To the very last.

  We’ve come far and will go farther still.

  I pledge my life, my blood, and my bones to this end.

  To keep this world—until it turns no more, this is my oath.”

  As they finished, Diego felt an electric surge inside, a power joining them together. He felt stronger and bolder. Ready.

  “Who are you to have come so far?” he called, a gleam in his eyes. “To go farther still! Name yourselves as Vanguard!”

  “Not just as the Vanguard,” Lucy said, drawing all eyes. “We are our own family within yours. We name ourselves . . . Rangers. The Rangers of the Vastlantic!”

  The captain looked at her blankly.

  “Sir, you and your men founded the Vanguard. But we four . . . we had to venture across the untamed sea, face certain death,
to earn our place in your family. We deserve our own name beneath yours.”

  The captain held her gaze for a moment longer, seemingly holding back traces of a smile.

  “Rangers,” he said finally.

  “Yes.” Lucy stood tall, head up. Diego had to hand it to her. She had the most guts of them all.

  “Very well, Rangers,” the captain said, “Name yourselves!”

  Diego felt goose bumps break out on his arms. “Diego Ribera!”

  “Petey Kowalski!”

  “Paige Jordan!”

  “Lucy Emerson! We are of London and New Chicago, and we pledge our loyalty to the Vanguard, defenders of this world!”

  “Are the Rangers of the Vastlantic prepared to do what must be done?” the captain asked. He raised his sword.

  “We are!” they answered in unison.

  “Do the Rangers understand the responsibility before them and all that comes with it?”

  “We do!”

  “Do the Rangers swear by their blood and by their bones to hold these words true?”

  “We do!” The four friends clasped hands.

  “Rangers, welcome to the fight.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  What the World Can Be

  In the weeks that followed, the Rangers of the Vanguard trained long and hard. They grew stronger, sharper, and more disciplined. In the hot sun on the beaches of Volcambria, they practiced fighting. One day, Petey even bested Paige, who was by far the most experienced, nearly a blue belt in jujitsu back home. Around the grounds, the jungle, and the castle, they played a combat game called Catch, Escape, or Disable, each of them taking a turn as the enemy and stalking one another in the shadows. They learned to read their environment for advantage and escape, to utilize what was around them for attack and defense.

  Out on the runway, Ajax taught them about weaponry from the twentieth, twenty-first, and even twenty-third centuries. The concussive hand cannons were Diego’s favorite. Designed by his dad, they used antigravity technology similar to his gravity board.

  He found that he was skilled at boxing and good at hiding, yet not quite up to Lucy’s skill at tactics or Petey’s resourcefulness when needing to make do with their surroundings. Unless of course they were near any weaponry, which Diego handled the best, even modifying a couple of pieces of machinery.