Embers of Destruction

by J. Scott Savage

  “You think this is because of us?” Trenton asked, turning the quad to avoid a pair of guards at the end of the street. The monarch would be angry that someone had broken into the lab. He’d be furious that one of tanks containing a white dragon had been damaged.

  “I don’t know,” Kallista said. “Probably.”

  A quad loaded with boxes and crates raced by in the other direction without slowing down. “What’s that all about?” Trenton asked.

  They had barely parked when Simoni ran out of the house. “Where have you two been?”

  “We have to talk,” Trenton said.

  They ran into the house. Simoni led them to the living room where the other kids were gathered and pulled the door shut behind them.

  Angus leaned against the windowsill. “When the alarms went off, I figured you guys were the reason.”

  Clyde sat cross-legged on the floor. His eyes were bloodshot, and his cheeks looked flushed. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

  “This is bad, you guys,” Trenton said. He and Kallista sat on a flowered sofa and told the others everything that had happened. By the time they were finished, silence filled the room.

  “Do you think you killed the white dragon in the tank?” Simoni asked.

  “I don’t know,” Trenton admitted. “And even if we did, there were four others.”

  Plucky sat in a high-backed armchair, her braces lying on the floor and her feet tucked under her. She clutched Allie to her chest. “Them white dragons were itty-bitties, but how close do you think them other dragons is to coming outta the tanks?”

  “Some of them looked pretty close,” Kallista said. “They might be ready now for all we know.”

  Angus jumped up from the sill. “I told you we should have left as soon as the submarine was ready.”

  “We don’t even know if the submarine is ready,” Trenton said. “We haven’t tested it.”

  Angus held up his fists. “Then we fight. We get our dragons, and we kill every dragon we can find.”

  “We can’t get to our dragons without the submarine—” Trenton started.

  “So we’re just going to wait around and do nothing?” Angus interrupted.

  Trenton leaped from the couch and squared off against Angus. “I didn’t say that. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Simoni pushed between them. “This isn’t helping anything.”

  “Attacking random dragons isn’t going to help,” Trenton said. “We need to stop the white dragon—the monarch. And we need to find a way to destroy the lab.” He dropped back onto the couch. Outside, rain splattered against the windowpanes. “But I don’t have any idea how to do that. Unless . . . what if we could overload the generator?”

  Kallista nodded. “Those tanks under the grate generate electricity to run the lab. If we modified the wiring going up through the grid and increased the resistance to overload the circuits, then opened that waterwheel—”

  “It would explode,” Trenton said.

  Simoni smiled. “So what if we destroyed the lab and killed the white dragon at the same time? Where did you say the lab was located?”

  Trenton blinked. “Underneath the white tower.”

  Everyone began talking at the same time.

  “If the explosion is big enough . . .”

  “ . . . it could take out the whole cliff . . .”

  “And the tower with it.”

  Trenton tried to see it in his head. “We overload the generator, blow up the lab, destroy the cliff, and take down the white tower. But we’d have to make sure the monarch is in the tower when the lab explodes. We couldn’t risk having him fly out before the tower falls.”

  “Couldn’t fly if the shutters was nailed closed now, could he?” Plucky said. “If I was to crawl into the power conduit, I could shut the windows and keep ’em shut when everything goes boom.”

  “You could do that?” Clyde asked, obviously impressed.

  Plucky tilted her head and ran a hand down her cat’s tail. “Done harder when I was thievin’ with Cochrane, yeah, yeah.”

  “This could work,” Trenton said, feeling a thread of hope for the first time that night.

  “Except how are you going to get back in the lab?” Angus said. “I bet that place is crawling with guards now.”

  Simoni tugged at her hair. “Couldn’t you go back in the way you came out? Through the waterway in the cave?”

  “The current’s too strong,” Kallista said. “We’d never make it through.”

  Trenton grinned. “We could if we were in a submarine.”

  They spent the next half hour hammering out the details. Trenton would operate the submarine since he was the most familiar with it. Simoni would go with him because her job gave her access to a cargo quad with a trailer big enough to get the submarine down to the water.

  Kallista and Plucky would find the power conduit closest to the white tower and locate the circuits that opened and closed the windows. Clyde would act as a lookout, and Angus would handle any guards they ran into.

  “What about them twisted piston Ninki Nankas?” Plucky asked.

  “Do you have enough eucalyptus oil for four more cloths?” Kallista asked Trenton.

  He checked the bottle. It would be close, but he thought there was enough. He handed her the vial and cloths, then fished the last of his smoke bombs out of his pocket. “You think you’ll have time to use them?”

  “We’ll be fast,” Kallista said.

  Simoni checked her pocket watch. “We have to coordinate this just right. If you close the windows too early, the dragons will realize something is wrong. It will be light at six. Can everyone be in place by, say, five a.m.?”

  Kallista looked at Trenton. “With this storm, the waves are going to be bad. Are you sure you want to take the submarine?”

  “It will be fine,” he said. It had to be. “You lock the tower down at five, and we’ll blow up the lab.”

  “What then?” Clyde asked. “Where do we meet after the explosion?”

  “I know a place by the docks,” Simoni said. “It’s far enough to the east that the guards don’t patrol it much. There’s a rock that looks like a bird’s head. We’ll land the submarine there. Then we can figure out what to do next.” She glanced toward Kallista, who was staring out the windows. “Is that all right?”

  “What?” Kallista shook her head, then nodded. “Yeah, the rock that looks like a dog east of the docks.”

  “Like a bird,” Trenton said. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. But her expression was strange.

  As they prepared to leave, Angus pulled Trenton aside. “Don’t let anything happen to Simoni. Except for my family, I care about her more than anything. If something happened to her . . .” He bunched his fists at his side.

  Trenton nodded. “I’ll take care of her. I promise.”

  Lightning slashed the sky again and again, a silver-blue blade looking for a target to strike. Kallista didn’t know if it was because of the storm or because of the alarm that had been triggered, but, for the moment at least, the sky was empty of dragons.

  As Angus drove the quad slowly up one street and down another in the vicinity of the white tower, Kallista leaned over the side of the vehicle. “There’s another one,” she said, waving her hand.

  Angus stopped the quad, grimacing up at the rain that was coming down so fast the streets looked like rivers. “You’d think that whoever invented a car on legs would have also considered putting a top on them.”

  “They probably have tops somewhere,” Kallista said. “We just don’t have time to look for them.”

  Plucky jumped out of the quad and hurried over to a metal plate set in the street. She studied the plate, then opened it and stuck her head into the dark hole. A few minutes later, she ran bac
k to the quad and shook her head. “Keep going!”

  Allie poked her head out of Plucky’s jacket, hissed at the rain, and disappeared from view.

  They didn’t have time for this. It had taken much longer than she’d expected to use the eucalyptus oil on the Ninki Nankas. If they didn’t find the right access port soon, Trenton and Simoni would blow the lab before Kallista and Plucky could seal the tower.

  Clyde pushed his sopping hair out of his face, looking as unhappy as the cat. A second later, his bangs flopped back over his eyes. “Aren’t all the access ports the same? They all have wires.”

  “Don’t work that way, yeah, yeah,” Plucky yelled over the storm. “Each dragon tower runs on its own circuit. That way if the power goes out, it don’t affect them all. Found that out when I was doing some repairs on the other side of the city. Trig thinking, whoever done the designs.”

  They reached the end of the street, turned left, and started down the next block. Kallista looked toward the white tower, which was surrounded by dozens of guards standing at attention around the walls. For a moment she allowed herself to study the faces of the people going through the gate, then forced her attention back to the street.

  “Stop,” she called. “There’s another one.”

  As Plucky hopped out to check the access port, Angus rubbed his hands together and blew on his fingers. “Not too late to call it off, you know.”

  “What are you taking about?” Kallista said without meeting his eyes.

  “I’ve seen the way you’ve been watching the people going in and out of the tower. If it was my dad, I couldn’t do it.”

  Kallista opened her mouth, shut it, and shook her head. Since when did Angus pay attention to anyone but Simoni—and himself, of course?

  Angus clutched the controls, seemingly oblivious to the rain dripping down his face. “I didn’t agree with what your dad did. Still don’t. My father never liked the guy, but he didn’t like most people. The thing is, you stuck up for him.” He nodded his head. “If you think your dad is in the lab—and I can tell you do—let’s leave this electronics stuff to Clyde and Plucky and figure out a way to get your old man out of there before it blows.”

  Kallista had never heard Angus talk like that before. Honestly, she didn’t think he was capable of understanding the emotions of anyone else. But looking at his dark eyes watching her from under his bunched brows, she was sure he meant every word he was saying. He would risk his life to find a way to save her father.

  She found it hard to speak for a moment, and she had to swallow to clear her throat of the ball that seemed lodged in it. “Thank you, but we can’t take the risk. If we tried to reach the lab and failed, it would put everyone else in danger.”

  “You’re just going to let him die?”

  She pressed a hand against her chest, forcing her chin not to tremble. “I don’t even know for sure if he is in the lab or the tower. Believe me, I want to make sure he is safe, but I also know I need to make sure everyone else in the city is safe, too. He’d want me to do whatever it takes to stop the monarch.”

  Plucky came running back to the quad and grabbed her tools. “I found it. Kallista, can you help me set everything up?”

  Angus got out of the quad without looking at Kallista. The moment was gone. “I’m going keep a lookout for guards. Clyde, keep that hair out of your face and be ready to drive out of here if there’s any trouble.”

  Clyde rubbed a hand over his face. “I’ve never driven a quad.”

  “It’s just like driving your dragon,” Angus said, starting down the street. “Only it doesn’t have wings.”

  The crawl space under the street was extremely tight, but mostly dry and a little warmer than out in the rain. Plucky pushed a lantern past her head to give them more room to maneuver before unscrewing a metal pipe, exposing a cluster of wires.

  “You’re sure these go to the white tower?” Kallista asked.

  Plucky tapped a code etched into the pipe. “It’s this one, no doubt about it. Most buildings only have a central power connection. Lights and such aren’t separated out until they reaches the fuse box, yeah, yeah? Only the dragon towers run individual lines to each device.” She tapped a red wire. “This is for them stairs. Takes a lot of juice, don’t it? White tower is the only one like it. This blue one here is for the windows.”

  Kallista ran a fingertip along the blue wire. “If we cut the power flow for a second, the windows either open or close. Cut it again and they reverse. But if we cut the power completely, the windows stay open or shut.”

  “Rum straight,” Plucky said. “Figure they can force them open manually. Them dragons is strong, yeah, yeah.”

  “But by then it will be too late.”

  Allie squeezed out of Plucky’s jacket, looked around, and meowed as if agreeing with the plan.

  Plucky pulled a roll of wire from her tool belt. Working carefully, she stripped the insulation back from the blue wire. “This here’s the tricky part.”

  Kallista held her breath as Plucky connected her wire to the circuit and added a cut switch. They couldn’t turn off the power without alerting the dragons. One mistake with that much live voltage would fry them both. Allie watched intently, whiskers twitching.

  When Plucky finally made the last connection and cut the main wire, they both froze, listening for any sign that things had gone wrong.

  “How do things look at the tower?” she called up through the opening.

  “Wet,” Clyde called back.

  “You’re a regular dry boots, you is,” Plucky said, wiping sweat from her forehead. “Makes me laugh so hard, me braces twist.”

  Clyde popped his head into the shaft, dripping water all over everything. “That’s why you like me.”

  Kallista looked from Clyde to Plucky. Did she like him? How had she missed that?

  Plucky blushed. “Is there any hubbub at the tower or ain’t there?”

  “Nothing more than usual.”

  Kallista checked her pocket watch: 4:45. Fifteen minutes to go. Trenton and Simoni should be under the lab by now. They reeled extra wire out and ducked under the quad where it wasn’t as wet. From there they’d be able to keep an eye on the tower when they pushed the button.

  A Ninki Nanka waddled out of the rain, moving down the street. It raised its dark-green nose to the air before heading in their direction.

  Clyde backed away, holding his arm in front of Plucky. “You’re sure that tree oil worked?”

  “Of course,” Kallista said, hoping it was true.

  The Ninki Nanka stopped a few feet away, then tilted its head to the side. The dragon shouldn’t smell anything it would have a problem with. Unless . . .

  She turned to Plucky. “Where’s Allie?”

  Plucky touched her jacket, then looked from the Ninki Nanka to the electrical shaft. She pulled out from under Clyde’s arm, crawled to the shaft opening, and slammed the cover shut.

  The dragon studied the three of them, flicked the air with its tongue, and continued on its way.

  That was too close.

  A shout came from down the street, followed by a clang and a thud.

  Kallista dashed out from under the quad as Angus jogged toward her. One of his jacket sleeves was torn, and a cut dripped blood above one eye.

  “What was that?”

  “Ran into one of the guards. He’ll be fine in a couple of hours.”

  “Did he recognize you?” Kallista asked.

  Angus wiped the cut with the back of his hand, rubbing it off on his pants. “Probably.”

  That was it, then. There was no turning back now. No matter what happened, they would be on the run.

  “It’s time,” Plucky said.

  Kallista checked the clock on the tower down the street. One minute until five.

  She looked toward the white tower. S
he could just make out the white dragon staring through the upper level’s open windows. Part of her wanted to push the button now, but there was no way to know exactly when the lab would blow, and she didn’t want to take a chance on the dragon escaping.

  She shut her eyes, trying to see her father’s face. “If you are in there,” she whispered quietly, “get out now.”

  Clock towers all over the city began to chime the hour, and Kallista opened her eyes.

  “Push it.”

  Plucky pressed the button, and they all dropped to the street, waiting for the explosion that would rock the city.

  Trenton didn’t think they were going to make it.

  Things had gone wrong from the beginning. The cargo quads Simoni had hoped to use were under lock and key, so they had to improvise and hook up a heavy-duty trailer to a normal quad. But the quad wasn’t built to pull a trailer, so they also had to rig a connection. Even then, the vehicle handled like a one-winged dragon, constantly pulling to the left.

  In the warehouse, one of the jacks failed when they were moving the submarine onto the trailer, bending a fin. It took them thirty minutes to get the sub onto the trailer and another forty-five minutes to reach the water without being spotted by any guards. By the time they managed to get the sub into the ocean, and themselves into the sub, the rain and seawater that had come through the hatch was two-inches deep.

  Then they launched the sub, and the real problems started.

  Waves tossed them about like a giant playing with a toy. Compared to the power of the ocean, the submarine’s propellers were about as useful as a pair of oars in a typhoon. Trenton had hoped to escape the turbulence by going deep underwater, but the current version of his periscope only extended six feet, so they couldn’t dive much deeper than that.

  This close to the surface, they were rocked about so hard that their heads slammed against the vessel’s metal walls. It was impossible to keep a steady course, and Simoni was green with seasickness.

  With no other choice, Trenton had to take them farther and deeper out to sea than he’d wanted. In the murky depths, the sub’s headlamps did little to illuminate the occasional fish or strand of seaweed that floated past.